Health care for all saves money for all

[Duff Miver]

Our local hospital just made public it's 2008 financial results.

This is a non-profit hospital:

Results, rounded to 10 million:

Expenses $900 million

Receipts $900 million.

Charity care provided $200 million

Non-charity, non collectible $150 million

So, how did they make up the missing $350 million? By charging paying patients more, and that includes both medicare and private insurance.

Yes, they do make a profit on medicare.

If everyone were insured, they would charge everyone less, private and medicare. About 1/3 less.

So why do neocons say universal insurance would cost more?

Do they not understand that treating the flu in an ER costs far more than in a physician's office?

Do they not understand that every ER is obliged to treat anyone who comes in the door, regardless of ability to pay?

Do they not understand that ERs are overloaded with charity care patients?

Oh Yeah, I remember, Dumbyuh explained it all

I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.

-George W. Bush

 

[Trench]

Hey Duff...

Hey Duff...

What do Republicans Really Want?

By Scott Blakeman, Fox News Blogs

If the Republicans actually had a platform on healthcare reform, here's my version of what it might look like.

"As Republicans, we ask 'Who says our healthcare system doesn't work?' The CEO of AETNA made $24 million last year.It certainly works for him. Sure there's 47 million Americans who don't have health insurance, but we're more concerned about making sure those CEO's don't get a salary cut.

That's why we hate the idea of a public option. By increasing competition and lowering costs, the CEO of AETNA might have to settle for only $12 million a year. Who can live on that? And if the insurance companies make less money, that means they'll contribute less money to our reelection campaigns. And by the way, although we hate to say anything nice about Democrats, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus feels the same way as we do on this. He should. He's received $3.9 million from those insurance guys.

We hate the idea of a nameless, faceless government bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor. Of course we've never met a nameless, faceless government bureaucrat. They're pretty hard to find, being nameless and faceless and all. But we love the idea of a nameless, faceless insurance company bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor. Because they're just looking out for you. They're not in it for the money.

Those liberals ask why we're the only industrialized nation without national healthcare. And we tell them, because we're better than everyone else! Do you really think we're going to support a government run public option just because a bunch of French people like the idea? We'd rather eat a bucket of Freedom Fries than spend a minute in that left-wing foreign-speaking country.

And so, you might ask, what kind of healthcare reform do we support? Well, to be perfectly honest, we actually agree with about 70% of what's in all of those bills floating around. But we're not interested in seeing any healthcare reform bill passed. Even one we agree with. Why let Obama get all the credit for living up to his campaign promise, when we can defeat healthcare reform, make him look weak, and be sitting pretty in 2010? And with all the money we'll get from the insurance companies, we should win then too.

Just between you and me, we don't know why Obama seems willing to give in on the public option. Whether it's in there or not, we're still not going to vote for the bill. So he might as well fight to keep it in there. But don't tell him we said that.

So what kind of healthcare reform do we Republicans really want? The kind that keeps the Republican party healthy. None.