Healthcare Reform Thread II

[Felch]

Not sure if this has been posted or not.

http://www.doublex.com/section/news-politics/health-insurance-woes-my-22000-bill-having-baby

Our six-month-old daughter cost over $22,000.

You’d think, with a number like that, we must have used fertility treatments—but she was conceived naturally. You’d think we went through an adoption agency—but she is a biological child. So surely, we were uninsured.

Nope. Birthing our daughter was so expensive precisely because we were insured, on the individual market. Our insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, sold us exactly the type of flawed policy—riddled with holes and exceptions—that the health care reform bills in Congress should try to do away with. The “maternity” coverage we purchased didn’t cover my labor, delivery, or hospital stay. It was a sham. And so we spent the first months of her life getting the kind of hospital bills and increasingly aggressive calls from hospital administrators that I once believed were only possible without insurance.

The article continues, but I am a misogynist, and I think that women's opinions are ****ing worthless.

I'm not really exited about the idea of national health insurance. I trust the free market to do a better job than bureaucrats. But instances of fraud like this piss me off. If maternity coverage doesn't cover labor or delivery, then it's not coverage at all.

I don't have access to the contract obviously, but if I had an insurance policy for my car, and it said in the heading "Flat tire coverage," and it turned out that it only paid for the car to be towed to a repair station, but wouldn't pay for a new tire, I'd be seriously upset. Small print is fine if it's meant to protect a company from frivolous claims, but when it's used as a shield to protect a company from legitimate claims, that is an abuse.

[Grandpa Troll]

I am trying to make sense of this all, one thing becomes crystal clear, Krazyhorse seems somewhat intelligent, but due to his going off on anyone who doesnt understand his babbling, or does not grasp his point of view immediately, he starts into a tirade of insults.

Scratch his opinions then, so who else can reasonably explain what health care reform will do to the working man?

Im older so insults dont mean a lot to me personally, they merely suggest the ignorance of those doing the insults, they have limited communication skills. Some of the comments from some Democrats I saw on Television last night, calling those who disagree with Obama's health care plan communists, liken us who dont currently agree to Brownshirts and also KKK

I just dont agree because of what I have seen and heard.

Plus I know that the government tags a lot of bills with fine print. This is what makes me uneasy.

I wish someone could explain it, heck, even Krazyhorse I would listen to if he was not trolling or insulting when someone disagrees with him.

I am concerned if I as a taxpayer will have to fork out yet more money of mmine to those that dont work, those that are bay making welfare families generation after generation.

To support foreign visitors in America, who do earn a living and dont pay taxes, am I suppoting them folks?

I heard lots from both sides on the television, Obama had a town hall meeting, complete with scripted responses.

I am more a republican at heart, not exclusively, just more so than a democrat.

I also saw much reporting that was skewed against the Healthcare plan, it was evident much was hyped up tripe, cause to bring the alarmists to front.

But beyond this passion of the party members, just curious, what exactly will this do to or for America?

How will it benefit me, I am 50, what is going to happen when I close in on retirement? These are things I am curious about, I would like those explained to me, -MINUS being insulted, i dont have all the answers, I am not as educated as many here, and with the intelligence many possess here, how much is fact and how much is trolling for fun while posting?

Hard to wade through the posts for clarity at times.

Gramps

[Drake Tungsten]

Things are looking bad for the public option.

White House appears ready to drop 'public option'

WASHINGTON – Bowing to Republican pressure, President Barack Obama's administration signaled on Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new U.S. health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession would likely enrage his liberal supporters but could deliver Obama a much-needed win on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had sought the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but he never made it a deal breaker in a broad set of ideas that has Republicans unified in opposition.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

"I think there will be a competitor to private insurers," Sebelius said. "That's really the essential part, is you don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090816/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_overhaul

Just have to kill off the co-ops now and the path will be clear for a sensible compromise on healthcare that might actually make things better.

[DinoDoc]

[Imran Siddiqui]

What is so wrong with having the government act as insurance pool broker for the poor and having insurance companies compete over that and then offer those for people instead of a government run insurance organization?

[Theben]

Other than the fact the insurance companies are still in charge?

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's better than the government being completely in charge.

[KrazyHorse]

Blaming insurance companies for cost increases experienced at a similar rate by both nonprofit insurers as well as single-payer systems in other countries is boring.

[Jon Miller]

I am interested on your perspective of the other major cause of cost to result differential between the US and some european countries other than that of Education.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

In both systems the consumer is insulated from the cost of his or her medical care decisions. In the US this insulation comes from private insurers (most working age individuals) and medicare (the retired). In other countries the insulation comes from the national health insurance plan.

In other countries, the decisions on care are made by the national health insurance plan. Either there is explicit rationing (as it appears the British sometimes practice) or there is a softer rationing by increasing the waiting time to receive certain treatments, increasing the number of hoops patients have to get through to receive said treatments, or similar means.

In the US decisions on care are made largely by the individual receiving care and his or her doctor. The consumer has little to no incentive to reduce costs, as insurance plans cover all but a small portion of the cost of care. Medicare could theoretically ration treatment, but has thus far proved completely ineffectual in this regard. Doctors face incentives to increase the care provided beyond necessity. Either they will be paid for providing those services, or at the very least will be covering themselves against future malpractice lawsuits at no cost to themselves, or EVEN THE PATIENT (who they might care about). The ones who bear the cost of overtreatment are the insurance companies or medicare. Insurance companies pass on these costs to consumers, though to a large extent consumers turn a blind eye to these costs because they are unseen and also to some extent subsidized by the taxpayer (in the case of employer based insurance). Medicare passes on the costs to future taxpayers.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that Americans will accept the rationing of their health care by a government agency when they never have before. Thus a rush to push more people into a public plan is not a credible means of cost control.

Without the ability of a government agency to ration care, the only credible means of cost containment is to increase the financial incentive of consumers to contain their own use of care (while of course maintaining a level of catastrophic insurance against high-cost low-likelihood illnesses). In order to encourage the move of the cost of health decisions onto the individual consumer the gov't should de-subsidize employer based health care.

[Drake Tungsten]

the gov't should de-subsidize employer based health care.

Moving away from employer-based healthcare would also be welcome.

[notyoueither]

It doesn't seem to me that extra tests could account for much of the large discrepency in expenditures between the US and others.

[Jaguar]

In both systems the consumer is insulated from the cost of his or her medical care decisions. In the US this insulation comes from private insurers (most working age individuals) and medicare (the retired). In other countries the insulation comes from the national health insurance plan.

In other countries, the decisions on care are made by the national health insurance plan. Either there is explicit rationing (as it appears the British sometimes practice) or there is a softer rationing by increasing the waiting time to receive certain treatments, increasing the number of hoops patients have to get through to receive said treatments, or similar means.

In the US decisions on care are made largely by the individual receiving care and his or her doctor. The consumer has little to no incentive to reduce costs, as insurance plans cover all but a small portion of the cost of care. Medicare could theoretically ration treatment, but has thus far proved completely ineffectual in this regard. Doctors face incentives to increase the care provided beyond necessity. Either they will be paid for providing those services, or at the very least will be covering themselves against future malpractice lawsuits at no cost to themselves, or EVEN THE PATIENT (who they might care about). The ones who bear the cost of overtreatment are the insurance companies or medicare. Insurance companies pass on these costs to consumers, though to a large extent consumers turn a blind eye to these costs because they are unseen and also to some extent subsidized by the taxpayer (in the case of employer based insurance). Medicare passes on the costs to future taxpayers.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that Americans will accept the rationing of their health care by a government agency when they never have before. Thus a rush to push more people into a public plan is not a credible means of cost control.

Without the ability of a government agency to ration care, the only credible means of cost containment is to increase the financial incentive of consumers to contain their own use of care (while of course maintaining a level of catastrophic insurance against high-cost low-likelihood illnesses). In order to encourage the move of the cost of health decisions onto the individual consumer the gov't should de-subsidize employer based health care.

It's been a really long time since I've seen an intelligent, non-partisan political point made on the internet. By all means, you think highly enough of yourself already, so normally I'd try not to complement you. But you earned it here.

[Jon Miller]

It doesn't seem to me that extra tests could account for much of the large discrepency in expenditures between the US and others.

it's a theory, we need to do the same for it as we did for medical malpractice insurance/etc and medical education (which we got ball parks that people generally agreed upon to a factor of 2).

JM

[notyoueither]

After I hit submit, I recalled the article posted by Ramo about differences in costs of care in two towns in Texas (?). I guess it is more than just tests in some cases.

Still, that's a helluva large difference in expenditures to account for,