How's this idea for healthcare?
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Here's an idea for solving the healthcare problem. Make healthcare completely run by the government.. sort of like the police and fire rescue and sort of like the postal service. Make it like the veterans hospitals.
The healthcare industry is a total disaster. I'm afraid the only way to reign it in is to have it completely regulated. -
Here's an idea for solving the healthcare problem. Make healthcare completely run by the government.. sort of like the police and fire rescue and sort of like the postal service. Make it like the veterans hospitals.
The healthcare industry is a total disaster. I'm afraid the only way to reign it in is to have it completely regulated.I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
Healthcare could be run as a utility. Were it either run by the government or as a utility the major argument comes from the big-pharma: Without the possibility of high profits, we won't innovate. That kind of blackmail is one of the reasons healthcare sucks in the US.
BTW, that pesky ol' TPP that Trump shot down had a clause in it that would have eliminated the Japanese from fixing the prices of pharmaceuticals and was the principle reason the Japanese people were against it (although the Abe government was for it).
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Here's an idea for solving the healthcare problem. Make healthcare completely run by the government.. sort of like the police and fire rescue and sort of like the postal service. Make it like the veterans hospitals.
The healthcare industry is a total disaster. I'm afraid the only way to reign it in is to have it completely regulated.I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
Healthcare could be run as a utility. Were it either run by the government or as a utility the major argument comes from the big-pharma: Without the possibility of high profits, we won't innovate. That kind of blackmail is one of the reasons healthcare sucks in the US.
BTW, that pesky ol' TPP that Trump shot down had a clause in it that would have eliminated the Japanese from fixing the prices of pharmaceuticals and was the principle reason the Japanese people were against it (although the Abe government was for it).
I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm not sure that is a good idea, but the current healthcare system is so screwed up that something massive needs to be done. I know that in England, they have socialized medicine.. but that results in things like this happening.. a person has cancer, they can't get an appointment for 6 months.. by the time they get the appointment the cancer is no longer treatable and is terminal.
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I wonder if the situation in the UK is common or an exception that made it to the top of Google. I don't know. I do know that such a problem doesn't happen over here.
My US friend has cerebral palsy, not extreme, yet. She's since moved back to the US. In Japan she hurt her knee, she had surgery, yada, yada, yada. When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her. She contrasted that to her experience in Japan saying that their first concern was my health they looked at the best options for her without regard to cost and insurance.
I've never been sick in my adult life but when I crashed my mountain bike I went to the doctor for stitches. Xrays, bandages, painkillers and the total for the bill that my Japanse health care paid for was about 100USD.
Something is foul in the US system and possibly the UK.
Have you ever needed your healthcare?
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When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her.
This is pretty standard and it has nothing to do with ObamaCare. They likely would have still seen her even if she didn't have insurance or if the insurance wasn't active. Providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and money) trying to get their money from insurance companies.
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When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her.
This is pretty standard and it has nothing to do with ObamaCare. They likely would have still seen her even if she didn't have insurance or if the insurance wasn't active. Providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and money) trying to get their money from insurance companies.
Try getting any attention in an emergency room without first filling out insurance forms or having cash or credit on hand. Providers are extremely greedy.. they have full time staff which account for 30% of healthcare costs that do nothing but make up (fake) bills and shake everyone down for money. I used to work on many doctor's office computers. One doctor made headlines when he got caught billing for procedures that were never done, and in other cases having his nursing assistant do procedures (illegally) instead of the doctor. The nursing assistant eventually set the doctor up to escape being prosecuted himself. He planted cameras around the office which showed that the doctor would go from patient to patient without changing gloves.
If the insurance company rejected a claim.. the provider would just submit the same claim again.. and again.. and again. until it was paid. There is no rule against doing that. -
When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her.
This is pretty standard and it has nothing to do with ObamaCare. They likely would have still seen her even if she didn't have insurance or if the insurance wasn't active. Providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and money) trying to get their money from insurance companies.
So then, what's your fix for healthcare? (And say it in a Boston accent
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When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her.
This is pretty standard and it has nothing to do with ObamaCare. They likely would have still seen her even if she didn't have insurance or if the insurance wasn't active. Providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and money) trying to get their money from insurance companies.
So then, what's your fix for healthcare? (And say it in a Boston accent
)Moonbats don't have any solutions to anything other than to throw money at it.
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My fix for healthcare is to prohibit employers from offering insurance. The employers are an unnecessary middle man who only drive up costs. Let everyone buy their insurance individually. This will force insurers to actually compete for customers and drive costs down.
This would hurt me personally as I work for a large hospital system and pay almost nothing for healthcare.
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My fix for healthcare is to prohibit employers from offering insurance. The employers are an unnecessary middle man who only drive up costs. Let everyone buy their insurance individually. This will force insurers to actually compete for customers and drive costs down.
This would hurt me personally as I work for a large hospital system and pay almost nothing for healthcare.
That actually makes sense, but I don't think it is possible to make that happen.
One thing that comes to mind is that government jobs include insurance as part of a perk in lieu of a better salary. They are able to offer insurance to their employees at a group rate, which would cost the employees a fortune to buy on their own. That same situation occurs when an employee of a large corporation, or even to an extent with a large company. One company I worked for was spread across 2 states and 3 divisions. The total company was probably about 100 employees. They gave us some insurance that was virtually worthless. The benefits were almost insignificant, and the deductibles were extremely high. As I recall, I only used it once. I had a root canal done for roughly $400 about 20 years ago. The insurance plan covered about $5!Anyway, when insurance is being doled out in "group plans" then those benefiting from it are the those that have the medical issues, those that bitch the most about medical issues that are of their own invention, greedy and fraudulent providers, etc. Basically, the group coverage evolves into disconnecting the people from caring about the abuses… as long as they get their personal piece of the pie. For instance, my dad's 2 day hospital stay with just a 1 hour procedure was billed to medicare for $78,000. Even though my dad paid almost no part of that $78,000, he still bitched about the $30 co-pays to visit specialists, and the $15 / month cost for one of the medications. Imagine if he got stuck with the tab for $78,000!!!
Governments and corporations won't stop meddling in the insurance game.. however.. I have an idea that is along those lines...
When we go to pick up medications for my dad, we pick them up even though he no longer takes most of them. The pharmacy keeps doling out the pills even though the doctor discontinued them. We pick them up anyway since it costs us nothing. So do a bazillion other people. What they should do is make it illegal to give things away 100% free. At the bare minimum, the recipient should have to pay at least 5% of everything they get in healthcare. That would put an end to quite a bit of the abuses. Even at 5%, patients would bitch to their providers about having been billed for procedures that were unnecessary or not even done, or over priced.If someone said to you: "would you like to have your surgery done by Doctor A for $100,000 or Doctor B for $5000??" you would probably pick Doctor B if you had to pay some or all of that money. If your insurance was covering all or almost all the tab.. then you would probably pick Doctor A.
It gets to be a sick joke. At many Optician places, they have a selection of frames to choose from which are about $60. They have a separate selection of frames which are virtually identical to the $60 frames, only they are for people with insurance coverage and they cost $350 and up! I call that fraud and gouging, but since the consumer doesn't feel the hit directly, nobody does anything about it.
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The worst part about eyeglasses is that one company has a near monopoly. Luxotica makes 90% of the glasses in the US and they own both LenCrafters and Pearl Vision. Only the consumer gets screwed.
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My fix for healthcare is to prohibit employers from offering insurance. The employers are an unnecessary middle man who only drive up costs. Let everyone buy their insurance individually. This will force insurers to actually compete for customers and drive costs down.
This would hurt me personally as I work for a large hospital system and pay almost nothing for healthcare.
Now that you mention it, that's how Japanese healthcare works. It's paid automatically from my employer to the government (like Social Security in the states).
Do you think that will ever happen, the perk of health care given up for a government system?
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My fix for healthcare is to prohibit employers from offering insurance. The employers are an unnecessary middle man who only drive up costs. Let everyone buy their insurance individually. This will force insurers to actually compete for customers and drive costs down.
This would hurt me personally as I work for a large hospital system and pay almost nothing for healthcare.
For instance, my dad's 2 day hospital stay with just a 1 hour procedure was billed to medicare for $78,000. Even though my dad paid almost no part of that $78,000, he still bitched about the $30 co-pays to visit specialists, and the $15 / month cost for one of the medications. Imagine if he got stuck with the tab for $78,000!!!
Governments and corporations won't stop meddling in the insurance game.. however.. I have an idea that is along those lines…
It gets to be a sick joke. At many Optician places, they have a selection of frames to choose from which are about $60. They have a separate selection of frames which are virtually identical to the $60 frames, only they are for people with insurance coverage and they cost $350 and up! I call that fraud and gouging, but since the consumer doesn't feel the hit directly, nobody does anything about it.
Trivia: Did you know John Lennon's iconic glasses were standard issue from the British healthcare plan? :cool2:
@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
@Fred, governments NEED to get lobbyists out of Washington. That's the first step in the right direction to unwed the two.
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My fix for healthcare is to prohibit employers from offering insurance. The employers are an unnecessary middle man who only drive up costs. Let everyone buy their insurance individually. This will force insurers to actually compete for customers and drive costs down.
This would hurt me personally as I work for a large hospital system and pay almost nothing for healthcare.
Now that you mention it, that's how Japanese healthcare works. It's paid automatically from my employer to the government (like Social Security in the states).
Do you think that will ever happen, the perk of health care given up for a government system?
It's already starting in MA. Under RomneyCare the rule was that if you had insurance AVAILABLE to you then you had to take it and you were not eligible to buy from the exchange. That changed under ObamaCare and a lot of low wage workers just went on Medicaid instead of paying for the insurance via the employer. Medicaid is MUCH better insurance in most cases so it was a huge benefit to both the employee and employer. As a result, the Medicaid rolls have increased astronomically.
The Governor has now imposed a fee on businesses for every employee they have that is on Medicaid. In most cases, the fee is still less than what it would cost to cover the employee via private insurance.
I believe this is a first step at separating employers from health insurance. I think most business owners would gladly just pay a fee to cover their employees instead of having to buy private health insurance for them.
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
Almost nobody pays the cash price. Insurers reimburse at MUCH lower rates. I wouldn't have paid the money. They would have treated the students anyway.
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
Almost nobody pays the cash price. Insurers reimburse at MUCH lower rates. I wouldn't have paid the money. They would have treated the students anyway.
Wait, are you saying the insurance companys don't actually pay that large amount?
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
Almost nobody pays the cash price. Insurers reimburse at MUCH lower rates. I wouldn't have paid the money. They would have treated the students anyway.
Wait, are you saying the insurance companys don't actually pay that large amount?
Insurers pay MUCH less than the bill you receive in the mail. A $5000 charge to you would probably be paid at around $400 by an insurance company.
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
udents anyway.
Wait, are you saying the insurance companys don't actually pay that large amount?
Insurers pay MUCH less than the bill you receive in the mail. A $5000 charge to you would probably be paid at around $400 by an insurance company.
What? :blink:
Then why do hospitals make a big show of putting those super high costs on our bills, well, your bills. One step in making the healthcare industry seem less evil would be to show them charging less.
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
udents anyway.
Wait, are you saying the insurance companys don't actually pay that large amount?
Insurers pay MUCH less than the bill you receive in the mail. A $5000 charge to you would probably be paid at around $400 by an insurance company.
What? :blink:
Then why do hospitals make a big show of putting those super high costs on our bills, well, your bills. One step in making the healthcare industry seem less evil would be to show them charging less.
The industry does it to force people to buy health insurance. It's either that or go bankrupt (or die).
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@Adam, when a hospital charges 78,000 dollars (or 5000 in my school's case), where does that money go? Doctors aren't that rich. Seems like someone's getting a larger piece of the pay than they deserve.
udents anyway.
Wait, are you saying the insurance companys don't actually pay that large amount?
Insurers pay MUCH less than the bill you receive in the mail. A $5000 charge to you would probably be paid at around $400 by an insurance company.
What? :blink:
Then why do hospitals make a big show of putting those super high costs on our bills, well, your bills. One step in making the healthcare industry seem less evil would be to show them charging less.
The industry does it to force people to buy health insurance. It's either that or go bankrupt (or die).
Let them go bankrupt. In capitalism.. failures go bankrupt.. and should. The moonbats like to prop up failures by throwing money at doomed disasters. Everytime the republicans try to change healthcare at all, the moonbats start whining that people will die. People do die. All people will eventually die except for me. It's just a matter of when. The moonbats don't even wait to evaluate the changes or even read the proposed legislation.
