Yeah, no kidding Clint. According to the thing I saw posted at the doctor's office, we're both obese.
The Health Care Industry: Protectionism the Free Traders Love
- Thread starter Chadman
- Start date
Yeah, no kidding Clint. According to the thing I saw posted at the doctor's office, we're both obese.
Some Insurance Companies Like Smokers
Some Insurance Companies Like Smokers
Excerpts:
Health and life insurance companies in the U.S. and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.
Why is it a big deal? ?If you own a billion dollars [of tobacco stock], then you don?t want to see it go down,? says Himmelstein, ?You are less likely to join anti-tobacco coalitions, endorse anti-tobacco legislation, basically, anything most health companies would want to participate in.?
But with $4.5 billion still invested in Big Tobacco, many insurers are reaping profits from a cancer-causing industry. As Himmelstein puts it, "Is this who we want running our health care system?"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/b...ealth-insurers-want-you-to-keep-sm-2009-06-03
Some Insurance Companies Like Smokers
Excerpts:
Health and life insurance companies in the U.S. and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.
Why is it a big deal? ?If you own a billion dollars [of tobacco stock], then you don?t want to see it go down,? says Himmelstein, ?You are less likely to join anti-tobacco coalitions, endorse anti-tobacco legislation, basically, anything most health companies would want to participate in.?
But with $4.5 billion still invested in Big Tobacco, many insurers are reaping profits from a cancer-causing industry. As Himmelstein puts it, "Is this who we want running our health care system?"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/b...ealth-insurers-want-you-to-keep-sm-2009-06-03
What is funny about this whole health care fiasco is that if u want to keep ur plan u keep it. If u want to get in the gov't plan u have the option to take that one. But al they do is talk about socialize medicine and all that other garbage they are conned into thinking. What these assholes need to do is keep the plans they have and stay the hell out of the debate. Quit sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. They do enuf crap to screw up this country with their naive votes. Seems simple to me. If you want the gov't plan join in. If u want to keep the plan u have now keep it, shut up, and go sit in the corner somewhere cause ur nothing but a cancer to the guys who might want the Gov't plan.
and legal liability...not sure about dentists,but i know doctor`s pay ridiculous malpractice insurance....it breaks some of them...
the mother of protectionist lobbyists is ithe law lobby......they are at the root of so many fundamental problems with this society...
take our ridiculously complicated tax system...it`ll never be addressed.....never....because the law lobyists have the democrats in their pockets...
you guys really want a single payer system with the government as the payer?....cause once the government gets involved,they`ll regulate private insurers out of existence...by it`s very nature, government healthcare will need everyone on the hook for it to even be remotely viable...
even if private insurance were allowed to co-exist,how can it work with everyone standing in the same line with those on public healthcare?... doesn`t that defeat the purpose of having a private plan?...
can you imagine the screaming from the n`er do wells if those with private insurance get better ,more timely care?...
do you know what you`re asking for?....seriously?...
you think you`re going to get a plan resembling the one that congress has?.....
keep dreaming...
Last edited:
Can we stop for a moment and think back to the presidential campaign. John McCain proposed the idea of taxing employee health benefits. At the time I disagreed with the idea because it makes you more dependent on the government. (Some kind of conservative he was.)
Now Barack Obama is president, and just guess what he wants to do? Why, he wants to tax employee health benefits! And I still disagree with the idea. During the campaign, Obama called this idea "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." But now he is supporting it? More change you can believe in.
Another way to get more money to pay for this scheme is to do it the Hillary Clinton way: require that every US citizen has medical insurance. Or to put it another way ... make it illegal to be without health insurance. If health insurance was taxed as regular income, the government could potentially collect another $250 billion each year.
If Obama really wants this to work he can insert a wealth-envy angle here. Maybe only nail the benefits of high-income earners.
We know that Obama will propose $60 billion in new tax increases over 10 years on wealthy estates, businesses and others. So the evil rich, the corporations and business owners will shoulder the burden of payment in order to fund the dreams and schemes of great government expansion and dependency.
I hope I never get sick.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124183390482402969.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29703278/
Now Barack Obama is president, and just guess what he wants to do? Why, he wants to tax employee health benefits! And I still disagree with the idea. During the campaign, Obama called this idea "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." But now he is supporting it? More change you can believe in.
Another way to get more money to pay for this scheme is to do it the Hillary Clinton way: require that every US citizen has medical insurance. Or to put it another way ... make it illegal to be without health insurance. If health insurance was taxed as regular income, the government could potentially collect another $250 billion each year.
If Obama really wants this to work he can insert a wealth-envy angle here. Maybe only nail the benefits of high-income earners.
We know that Obama will propose $60 billion in new tax increases over 10 years on wealthy estates, businesses and others. So the evil rich, the corporations and business owners will shoulder the burden of payment in order to fund the dreams and schemes of great government expansion and dependency.
I hope I never get sick.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124183390482402969.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29703278/
A different viewpoint here, less fear-related, with some common sense cost advantages:
Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
Posted on Jun 11, 2009
By Joe Conason
Within the coming weeks, Americans will begin to consider critical issues concerning the future of health care for themselves and their children, including universal coverage, taxation of benefits, computerized records and the controlling of costs. But before the debate commences in Congress and the media, big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying frantically (and spending millions of dollars) to foreclose the possibility of the most promising aspect of health care reform: a public insurance option.
After decades of denigrating government?and worshiping corporations?the idea that a public program might work as well or better than a corporate provider may well sound counterintuitive to many Americans. How can government, which is so widely believed to do nothing well while wasting enormous sums, possibly be expected to outperform the highly efficient, supremely managed and profitably motivated corporate sector? Wouldn?t we be better off if we simply entrust the provision of health care to the insurance industry? How can we trust those Washington bureaucrats with our health?
Actually, many consumers have learned by now that those questions are misleading at best. They know, for instance, that trusting a health insurance company is likely to be an expensive mistake. They know, too, that corporate bureaucrats can be even more ruthless in denying help to a beleaguered individual or family than those who work in government.
Studies have repeatedly shown that patient satisfaction with Medicare, the quintessential public insurance plan, is considerably higher than with private insurers among comparable age groups. And consumers understand that the drive for profits often conflicts with patient care, leading them to the conclusion that insurance and pharmaceutical corporations are excessively powerful and socially irresponsible.
According to Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the people who respond to his surveys despise ?insurer greed,? and are disturbed by their profitability, lack of accessibility, lack of accountability and excess of bureaucracy. There is ?no love lost? between Americans and the private health insurers, he warned Republican congressional leaders as they considered how to oppose reform.
But the same arguments that have distorted the debate over health care will emerge again?especially the claim that private insurance is somehow more efficient than a public program would be, or that we cannot ?afford? a public plan.
The opposite is true, as surprising as that may seem. During the decade that ended in 2006, to cite just one set of relevant statistics, the level of health spending per head (for similar benefits) grew 4.6 percent annually under Medicare, while spending under private health insurance rose by 7.3 percent. For many years, in fact, Medicare has performed better at controlling costs than private insurance companies.
One reason is simple and obvious: Eliminating profits for shareholders and management cuts out a major cost factor.
Another is less obvious: Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare. To anyone who shares the broad prejudice against government, the difference will be startling, although these numbers are very well known to health experts. The average overhead cost of Medicare is roughly 2 or 3 percent, far below the administrative costs of private insurers, which range between 27 and 40 percent.
These basic facts have broad implications for the nation?s capacity to ensure quality health coverage for all of its citizens. Private insurance has strengths as well as weaknesses, but there is no doubt that a new public plan, alongside Medicare, would become an essential yardstick?as the old New Dealers used to say?by which to measure the progress and efficiency of the private sector.
The private insurers will complain that this is ?unfair? competition, but if the private sector is truly the efficient solution to our costly, wasteful and unfair health care system, then why is it so frightened of a public plan?
Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
Posted on Jun 11, 2009
By Joe Conason
Within the coming weeks, Americans will begin to consider critical issues concerning the future of health care for themselves and their children, including universal coverage, taxation of benefits, computerized records and the controlling of costs. But before the debate commences in Congress and the media, big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying frantically (and spending millions of dollars) to foreclose the possibility of the most promising aspect of health care reform: a public insurance option.
After decades of denigrating government?and worshiping corporations?the idea that a public program might work as well or better than a corporate provider may well sound counterintuitive to many Americans. How can government, which is so widely believed to do nothing well while wasting enormous sums, possibly be expected to outperform the highly efficient, supremely managed and profitably motivated corporate sector? Wouldn?t we be better off if we simply entrust the provision of health care to the insurance industry? How can we trust those Washington bureaucrats with our health?
Actually, many consumers have learned by now that those questions are misleading at best. They know, for instance, that trusting a health insurance company is likely to be an expensive mistake. They know, too, that corporate bureaucrats can be even more ruthless in denying help to a beleaguered individual or family than those who work in government.
Studies have repeatedly shown that patient satisfaction with Medicare, the quintessential public insurance plan, is considerably higher than with private insurers among comparable age groups. And consumers understand that the drive for profits often conflicts with patient care, leading them to the conclusion that insurance and pharmaceutical corporations are excessively powerful and socially irresponsible.
According to Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the people who respond to his surveys despise ?insurer greed,? and are disturbed by their profitability, lack of accessibility, lack of accountability and excess of bureaucracy. There is ?no love lost? between Americans and the private health insurers, he warned Republican congressional leaders as they considered how to oppose reform.
But the same arguments that have distorted the debate over health care will emerge again?especially the claim that private insurance is somehow more efficient than a public program would be, or that we cannot ?afford? a public plan.
The opposite is true, as surprising as that may seem. During the decade that ended in 2006, to cite just one set of relevant statistics, the level of health spending per head (for similar benefits) grew 4.6 percent annually under Medicare, while spending under private health insurance rose by 7.3 percent. For many years, in fact, Medicare has performed better at controlling costs than private insurance companies.
One reason is simple and obvious: Eliminating profits for shareholders and management cuts out a major cost factor.
Another is less obvious: Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare. To anyone who shares the broad prejudice against government, the difference will be startling, although these numbers are very well known to health experts. The average overhead cost of Medicare is roughly 2 or 3 percent, far below the administrative costs of private insurers, which range between 27 and 40 percent.
These basic facts have broad implications for the nation?s capacity to ensure quality health coverage for all of its citizens. Private insurance has strengths as well as weaknesses, but there is no doubt that a new public plan, alongside Medicare, would become an essential yardstick?as the old New Dealers used to say?by which to measure the progress and efficiency of the private sector.
The private insurers will complain that this is ?unfair? competition, but if the private sector is truly the efficient solution to our costly, wasteful and unfair health care system, then why is it so frightened of a public plan?
I have a question for anyone that knows because I haven't looked into it and even if I did I don't know if it's been answered yet.
If we do have universal coverage, does a doc have to see patients with that insurance? As of now, docs choose if they will see patients that are covered by certain insurance companies and it's usually based on reimbursement. I know a lot of groups I work with stopped seeing medicaid patients because the reimbursement got so low and it took way too long to get their money. It's not just Medicaid either, some insurance companies are just as bad and groups have cut them from their accepted insurance.
If we do have universal coverage, does a doc have to see patients with that insurance? As of now, docs choose if they will see patients that are covered by certain insurance companies and it's usually based on reimbursement. I know a lot of groups I work with stopped seeing medicaid patients because the reimbursement got so low and it took way too long to get their money. It's not just Medicaid either, some insurance companies are just as bad and groups have cut them from their accepted insurance.
Things were going along smoothly and rather intelligently in this thread until the weasel attacked the republicans scapegoat - lawyers. Good discussion otherwise.
Certain states economy's are very dependent upon the tobacco industry. Not surprising that citizens of those states look to blame everyone else for the health problems caused by that product.
If its not lawyers, its fat people. Eventually, as a society, hopefully, we will get to the real cause of many of the health care industry's problems - big tobacco and the insurance company's.
Eddie
Certain states economy's are very dependent upon the tobacco industry. Not surprising that citizens of those states look to blame everyone else for the health problems caused by that product.
If its not lawyers, its fat people. Eventually, as a society, hopefully, we will get to the real cause of many of the health care industry's problems - big tobacco and the insurance company's.
Eddie
Last year I went to Milwaukee and was having stomach pain. It got so damn bad that I had to go to the ER. Two weeks later I get the bill for $1000.. I have insurance but I only have it for catastrophic event.. 4 k deductable, but anyway I only had a lab draw and 2 shots of maalox with lidocaine in it. That was it, no x rays, no nothing. They charged like $250 for the labs and $19 per shot of maalox with lidocain. I could of went to walgreens and bought 8 bottles for $38.
