Health Care Reform

[Lazarus1140]

Please do not mistake this as a political thread. I think most Americans agree that some sort of health care reform is necessary. We needn't look outside this community to see evidence of that need. The challenge to responsible Americans is to become better educated concerning the provisions and propriety of the proposed legislation. Good luck.


http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf


Edit: I truly wonder how many elected representatives of the people will ever read or understand this document.

[newking70]

[Reload in 5]

Yeah, whoever reads it all first let me know.
I will not make my political stance on this known, but the first line reads
"To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes"

And for other purposes?

[idsnowdog]

It would be nice if I could get coverage through it. Currently I don't have any insurance and a simple office visit to renew prescriptions often costs $500 for a 10 minute visit.

[Reload in 5]

Originally Posted by idsnowdog

It would be nice if I could get coverage through it. Currently I don't have any insurance and a simple office visit to renew prescriptions often costs $500 for a 10 minute visit.

Have you talked to your doc about this? If he wont do anything for you then get another doctor. Are there tests that have to be run or just a "has anything changed?" "nope" kinda thing?

[idsnowdog]

Originally Posted by Reload in 5

Have you talked to your doc about this? If he wont do anything for you then get another doctor. Are there tests that have to be run or just a "has anything changed?" "nope" kinda thing?

I rarely have any tests and he doesn't do any examination, it is strictly a walk in sit down and tell him I need prescriptions renewed.

I have complained, but unless I declare myself to be disabled there is no price adjustment. So basically its an all or nothing proposition. There is nothing wrong with me, I can work and I do plan on working after I am done with school, but since I am a student I don't have insurance. I also have no guarantee that when I start working again that I will get insurance since I was without it for five years. I am sure the crooks that run the system will find a way to climb inside my colon and setup house for having lapsed insurance.

[Zerberus]

Anybody else notice that the document has been verifiably modified since being digitally signed by the Superintendent of Documents?? That means that quite literally the entire Document and it´s contents could be fake. The signing authority is valid but the certificate of the document isn´t.

Not saying it´s the case, but details of this magnitude are the difference between guilty and innocent in murder trials, and as such people should know about them...

[Reload in 5]

Originally Posted by idsnowdog

I rarely have any tests and he doesn't do any examination, it is strictly a walk in sit down and tell him I need prescriptions renewed.

I have complained, but unless I declare myself to be disabled there is no price adjustment. So basically its an all or nothing proposition. There is nothing wrong with me, I can work and I do plan on working after I am done with school, but since I am a student I don't have insurance. I also have no guarantee that when I start working again that I will get insurance since I was without it for five years. I am sure the crooks that run the system will find a way to climb inside my colon and setup house for having lapsed insurance.

What meds are they? (if you dont mind me asking) if you do mind, then just let me know and I will stop poking. My doctor used to refill my prescriptions (insulin) without so much charge when I was without insurance.

[idsnowdog]

Originally Posted by Reload in 5

What meds are they? (if you dont mind me asking) if you do mind, then just let me know and I will stop poking. My doctor used to refill my prescriptions (insulin) without so much charge when I was without insurance.

Blood pressure, cholesterol and diuretics. They do need to keep informed, but the frequency of visits and cost of visits are excessive.

[Lazarus1140]

Originally Posted by Zerberus

Anybody else notice that the document has been verifiably modified since being digitally signed by the Superintendent of Documents??

No, I did not notice that ......... crap ...... why can't anything just be straight up legit?

[Lewguitar]

This is all I'm going to say:

It is the insurance industry (which is making a fortune and wants to continue making a fortune) that is 100% behind the campaign to squelch health care reform.

They are spending millions on agitators and lobbyists and paying off politicians to put fear into us by spreading out and out lies.

They make up lies about elderly people being put on a death list while at the same time being the one's who are working overtime to put the elderly on their own death list by figuring out ways to not pay for the health care that the elderly have been paying insurance premiums for all of their lives.

The insurance industry in the USA is made up of some of the most mercenary, greedy and ruthless billionaires on the planet and they do not want to pay for the health care you have been paying your insurance premiums for, because that's money they cannot put in their own pockets.

They want you to pay and pay and pay - and then they do NOT want to give you what you have been paying for when you one day need it.

And that's the truth. Don't listen to the talk show hosts, columnists and paid off politicians.

What they are telling you is all BS.

Don't be a sucker for their lies.

[lpmarshall]

How many times to these threads need to be yanked before everyone realizes you need to stop posting them?

[Lewguitar]

Originally Posted by lpmarshall

How many times to these threads need to be yanked before everyone realizes you need to stop posting them?

I deleted the last thread on health care reform myself. It went many pages. It was not yanked by the admins.

[misterwhizzy]

My problem with the whole debate is the abstract notion of reducing costs. I have yet to see any concrete proposals saying, "Here's the waste, here's where we're losing money, here's why it costs so much."

The whole point of insurance as a cost-reduction mechanism is ridiculous. Insurance is designed to spread risk out over a period of time in order to minimize the economic impact of a catastrophic event. In fact, at least in Texas, car insurance is legally optional if you can prove you have enough money to cover the basic liability requirements.

So the health care reform everyone keeps talking about is missing the point. It's artificially spreading the risk to people who should be able to opt out of it. Insurance should be entirely optional. (This ignores cases like home insurance, where the property is collateral for a loan, of course, but your health doesn't belong to anyone else.) What happened with Lew, as I understand it, is he spread out his risk, then his insurance company decided they didn't want to handle it, even though they were being paid to do so. That should absolutely be illegal.

If I had a choice in the market, I certainly would not subscribe to that company's plan. (I haven't followed closely enough to know who it is.) But whether or not he is covered has no effect on the cost (to the provider) of the treatment. Forcing people into coverage is not the answer, and forcing the burden of outrageous costs onto taxpayers is not the answer. Look at associated Sound Room topics for the answer. A support system came to be because people want to help out their friend. It materialized without any government intervention whatsoever. That's how it should work. Meanwhile, these generous forum bros are still paying Medicare taxes that will probably never be given back to them.

I am not a real healthy person, but that's no one's fault. (Not even mine, because I was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when I was 2 years old. It's genetic.) And I think at least one problem can be explained with my medication. I switched from one brand name to another, and I saved 500%. FOR THE EXACT SAME STUFF. I can't tell the difference. The fact that we have no choice in the market, that it is dictated to us by our insurance company, that we have no choice in even choosing our insurance in most cases, is the real problem.

As soon as there is an incentive to compete for consumer's business, I think things will fix themselves. Imposing additional regulations on consumers is not the answer. Severely penalizing illegal behavior (like what happened to Lew) and really bringing down costs are things that really need to happen.

[Lazarus1140]

Originally Posted by lpmarshall

How many times to these threads need to be yanked before everyone realizes you need to stop posting them?

My intent was not to resurrect the debate. I merely posted the link so that anyone so inclined could read the document.

[glassman]

Originally Posted by misterwhizzy

As soon as there is an incentive to compete for consumer's business, I think things will fix themselves. Imposing additional regulations on consumers is not the answer. Severely penalizing illegal behavior (like what happened to Lew) and really bringing down costs are things that really need to happen.

That certainly would help those that currently enjoy health insurance coverage and those that almost can afford it. In my many business travels, I spent a lot of time in small town America…the kind of towns where you have a WalMart and a whole butt load of $7 an hour factories. The only other businesses you will find there are check into cash shops where people can ruin what little remains of their lives. These people can’t even fathom insurance…when they get very sick, they die…period. Most work 50 to 60 hours a week in sweatshops, contracted through temp agencies so insurance, when it is available, costs a majority of their meager incomes so they don’t get it. Unfortunately, the uninsured have been illustrated to us as people that don’t work, won’t work or just “prefer” to not have insurance. While this may be true in some instances, it’s not the case in “middle America”. A competitive marketplace won’t help these people, in fact, a competitive marketplace is what got them in this dilemma in the first place.

[misterwhizzy]

Glassman, I understand where you're coming from, and it makes sense. But what you're talking about is employers taking advantage of their employees. What I'm talking about is removing some of those barriers. Let the employee choose his or her insurance plan, or let that employee choose to go without insurance. The employee gets more money, and he can't blame his insurance company or his employer for his failure to purchase insurance.

Right now, you're right. Insurance costs too much money. Whether you make $10,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year, it still costs a lot of money. And in an ideal world, you would pay into the system what you get out of the system. Maybe even less, since you're allowing another firm the opportunity to manage your money in exchange for absorbing the risk and investing it for a potential profit. But cost is the biggest problem.

And I believe that's the rationale behind the pre-existing condition debacle. You shouldn't be able to buy insurance right before you run across the freeway. No sane person would think I should have been able to buy flood insurance when I saw coverage of Hurricane Ike on the news. Now don't get me wrong. I think insurance companies take advantage of this fact to deny coverage, but the opportunity for abuse exists on both sides of that argument.

The reason we have this debate is because of the cost of health care. Why is it so high? What can be done to lower that number? I don't think there should be any difference between a person who goes to the doctor with cash in hand and a person who has health insurance. But there is this idea of a "volume discount" where health insurers hold the providers hostage, forcing them to charge higher prices to cover the losses they're taking when they get strong-armed by insurers.

Open up competition between insurers, allow patients to choose plans, and lower costs throughout the healthcare industry.

[glassman]

Misterwizzy: I guess you would have to witness the situation for yourself to truely understand it; I spent weeks at a time at these locations...kind of an education by immersion. These people generally didn't make enough to feed and clothe themselves properly, so anything beyond free insurance would be too much. The market can't supply free insurance...no amount of competition will allow for that.

Competition in itself can be a bad thing when we are talking about something that everybody needs. Take petroleum for instance...the large companies have swallowed the smaller companies until there are only a few left. These remaining companies coordinate pricing in thier best interest. I forsee the same with insurance if the market opens up and the system remains otherwise the same. We will have 20 good years and then our children will be mortgaging thier homes to pay thier insurance premiums.

[Chas]

Originally Posted by glassman

Misterwizzy: I guess you would have to witness the situation for yourself to truely understand it; I spent weeks at a time at these locations...kind of an education by immersion. These people generally didn't make enough to feed and clothe themselves properly, so anything beyond free insurance would be too much. The market can't supply free insurance...no amount of competition will allow for that.

Competition in itself can be a bad thing when we are talking about something that everybody needs. Take petroleum for instance...the large companies have swallowed the smaller companies until there are only a few left. These remaining companies coordinate pricing in thier best interest. I forsee the same with insurance if the market opens up and the system remains otherwise the same. We will have 20 good years and then our children will be mortgaging thier homes to pay thier insurance premiums.

Medicaid= Free Insurance if they qualify

[glassman]

Originally Posted by Chas

Medicaid= Free Insurance if they qualify

True...for those under 18, over 65, pregnant or disabled. Most won't qualify for that.

It's really much easier to:
(a) pretend that these people don't exist
(b) believe that they deserve what lives they have
(c) assume that for some reason they have chosen to live this way