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So what you're saying is that you believe that agencies with no motive to economize will be cheaper than competition.
Can you provide me with any evidence to suggest such a preposterous idea has even the slightest merit?
Sorry, but having $1000 dollars a stitch reduced down to, let's say for example, $500 (a 50% reduction in cost) because of "free market solutions" and paying in cash is still $500 that not everyone can afford. Your idea works in principle, but it is not practical for most people. Most of us don't have $500 just laying around
I see. People with pre-existing conditions just aren't objective enough.
Perhaps if you were objective, you'd realize that forcing insurance rates through the roof by making them accept insanely stupid risks is objectively... STUPID.
If you want to help people who are not insurable... then find a way to do that.
I'd suggest you start a "fund for the uninsureable" and donate your several hundred a month to it. Maybe you could get your fellow liberals to donate. Heck, I might even give you a buck now and then. But, see, you're not a civilized person. Your only reaction is to rob OTHER people for what YOU want.
So what you're saying is that you believe that agencies with no motive to economize will be cheaper than competition.
Can you provide me with any evidence to suggest such a preposterous idea has even the slightest merit?
You might want to compare the administration costs in US health care vs. those of other Western countries. The US bureaucracy is private, it's huge, and it's colossally wasteful. Out of every dollar you pay for healthcare you get less, not more, actual care than other countries.
Somebody has to pay those specialists who'll work through your paperowrk and argue that a dermatologist visit for acne should count as a pre-existing condition for breast cancer. (Yes, this happened. Out of a "motive to economize".)
Sorry, but having $1000 dollars a stitch reduced down to, let's say for example, $500 (a 50% reduction in cost) because of "free market solutions" and paying in cash is still $500 that not everyone can afford. Your idea works in principle, but it is not practical for most people. Most of us don't have $500 just laying around
How do you pay a $870 insurance premium if you can't pay for a 500 dollar medical procedure?
Before the ACA, we had a system set up where people could walk into an ER with the flu, and get treated, at obscene cost for no good reason. All because they had no insurance to see a family doctor, that runs 25% the cost of the ER visit.
We had medicaid, but it has holes. We have medicare, but thats for the elderly.
So you either
a) continue the ER visits, which costs tax payers more money through tax write offs
or
b) pay for them someway.
We went with B. We now mandated that everyone buy some form of insurance for themselves, so they can visit the family doctor.
I don't like a government mandate on buying anything, so I have long said that we need a limited single payer system. Meaning we define what is "essential" medical care. That single payer system takes care of that essential care. Even throw in a waiting list. IF you don't like waiting lists, or only receiving essential care, then you can buy supplemental insurance for whatever you want, and that will speed up your waits.
The other option is to let people go without care, at all. Deal with your broken arm, your flu, your cancer by yourself.
That is an option that some would agree with, except they fail to realize unless hospitals or clinics are given the right to turn people away that can not pay, the costs are passed on to those that can. I can not count how many times I have heard someone with no insurance that had to get treated at the ER say, "I am notgoing to pay that bill, they are not going to put me in jail if I do not pay". Heck unpaid medical bills has very little effect on one's credit report. Now I am by no means supporting hospitals turning away the sick, but at the same time something has to be done.
Perhaps if you were objective, you'd realize that forcing insurance rates through the roof by making them accept insanely stupid risks is objectively... STUPID.
If you want to help people who are not insurable... then find a way to do that.
I'd suggest you start a "fund for the uninsureable" and donate your several hundred a month to it. Maybe you could get your fellow liberals to donate. Heck, I might even give you a buck now and then. But, see, you're not a civilized person. Your only reaction is to rob OTHER people for what YOU want.
That was the reason for the individual mandate. However, that mandate appears to be unenforceable. The SCOTUS, in determining the constitutionality of the law, cited the mandate and its penalty as constitutional on the basis that it constituted a "tax." This paves the way for single payer, in which case health care will be paid for by a tax that is more enforceable than the individual mandate.
Which is why healthcare should never be designed around a for-profit financial industry. Homes and cars are one thing, your body is different. You can't go out and pick any body you'd like to inhabit or get a new one, can you?
So should the food industry, from farm to grocery store, be taken over by gov't? After all food is really just to health care as roots are to trees. Should the shoe industry be taken over by gov't? You can't go out and pick your feet. It seems to me that the shoe industry has done quite well under the capitalist model. Compared to the Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars that I had as a kid, today's shoes are light years ahead. Shoes are a basic human need are they not. Shouldn't they be controlled and designed out of Washington DC?
That is an option that some would agree with, except they fail to realize unless hospitals or clinics are given the right to turn people away that can not pay, the costs are passed on to those that can. I can not count how many times I have heard someone with no insurance that had to get treated at the ER say, "I am notgoing to pay that bill, they are not going to put me in jail if I do not pay". Heck unpaid medical bills has very little effect on one's credit report. Now I am by no means supporting hospitals turning away the sick, but at the same time something has to be done.
Yes, if that route is taken, then we should repeal the emergency care act that Reagan signed into law.
Release hospitals from the liability of caring for those who can not pay.
You might want to compare the administration costs in US health care vs. those of other Western countries. The US bureaucracy is private, it's huge, and it's colossally wasteful. Out of every dollar you pay for healthcare you get less, not more, actual care than other countries.
So why are you backing Obamacare, which dramatically increases said administration costs and decreases efficiency?
Quote:
Somebody has to pay those specialists who'll work through your paperowrk and argue that a dermatologist visit for acne should count as a pre-existing condition for breast cancer. (Yes, this happened. Out of a "motive to economize".)
And you think it'll be more productive and less costly when they're hired at federal wages to tell you "no"?
Perhaps if you were objective, you'd realize that forcing insurance rates through the roof by making them accept insanely stupid risks is objectively... STUPID.
Or we could, I dunno, add everybody to the risk pool. What a concept.
Quote:
If you want to help people who are not insurable... then find a way to do that.
Yep, I'll work for single payer. And in the meantime, of course, keep paying my insurance premiums while thanking my lucky stars that somebody is getting treatment on my dime and not the other way around.
Throw in participation in a couple of hospital fundraisers annually. On a good week, we sometimes raise as much as Kaiser spends on marketing in 24 hours. But they of course do so from a desire to economize, I'm sure.
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