Health care debate (moved from "Clinton or Obama")

[steveyo]

I think health care should be accessible to all who need it. Catastrophic coverage should be available to, say, a child with cancer.

I have, however, the following problem with straight-up national one-payer health care:

What about a life-long smoker who develops (as it says on the pack) horrible, lingering, expensive health problems. That person was doing something, by choice, which led them to use more than their share of the pie, so to speak. I don't really want to pay for their millions in health care.

For that matter, what about someone engaging in a dangerous activity which lands them in bed as a quadraplegic? This includes behavior which I myself have and do engage in. Examples from my own experiences are high-speed and/or back-country skiing, rock-climbing, and, yes, even riding a unicycle. And I guess I might differentiate between getting hit by a car (an accident which I believe should be covered) and skiing out of control into a tree (which I don't believe should be covered).

If I'm risking life and limb, and cause myself to incur huge medical bills, I don't feel I have the right to rely on others to foot the bill for my recovery and/or lifelong disabilities.

What do people think?

[Gilby]

Originally Posted by steveyo

What do people think?

Great concern. The logical outcome and my concern is that this means that the government will regulate all risky activities and ban those they deem would make it cost the taxpayer too much. I wouldn't doubt that extreme unicycling would somehow find it high on the list of risky activities that will eventually be banned.

Even if risky activities are not banned or heavily restricted, it will cause resentment towards those that do risky activities, and further divide us as a community. Politicians love it when the people are divided, such as in class warfare.

People should have the right to do with their body as they please and they should be the ones that face the consequences of their choices.

[Divebomber]

Well, to divide everyone up in the US based on lifestyle is unrealistic considering how big the US is. With universal healthcare or "free" healthcare, the money has to come from somewhere. In Canada and the UK, they're taxed to death. Which could happen here. People still would pay out the ying yang for things and the money would go to healthcare and some people would still have to choose between rent and food.

The problem isn't who's being covered for what, but that not everyone who needs it is being covered. Not everyone is able to afford it and not everyone is "disabled" enough to get it from the government. I think there needs to be a medium. Universal healthcare seems silly and just as expensive. It might work in the UK, but America is 20x bigger.

I think people should pay based on their income. I mean, people can't afford what they don't have. Some might get angry that some guy can pay $100 a month and another guy would pay $1,000 a month, but it should be taken into consideration the number of people in the home, the age and whatnot and also the yearly income.

I don't have the answers....

[Daytripper63]

Many may think it may not be right now but just let the Government get involved, they cant run anything right!
Just for the record if someone has no health insurance in the U.S. all you need to do is go to the Emergency room and they will not refuse svc. BUT guess who ultimately pays for this.
Yes it would be nice if everyone had health insurance, but you know what, it would also be nice if everyone did their part and worked, payed taxes, did not milk our welfare system, expect everyone to help them because they are owed this.
We are becoming a society with a mindset of "Never assume responsibility for your actions if it is easier to blame on someone else"

IBD’s 10 Secrets To Success
Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that, when combined, can turn dreams into reality. Each day, we highlight one.

1 HOW YOU THINK IS EVERYTHING: Always be positive. Think success, not failure. Beware of a negative environment.
2 DECIDE UPON YOUR TRUE DREAMS AND GOALS: Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them.
3 TAKE ACTION: Goals are nothing without action. Don’t be afraid to get started. Just do it.
4 NEVER STOP LEARNING: Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills.
5 BE PERSISTENT AND WORK HARD: Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up.
6 LEARN TO ANALYZE DETAILS: Get all the facts, all the input. Learn from your mistakes.
7 FOCUS YOUR TIME AND MONEY: Don’t let other people or things distract you.
8 DON’T BE AFRAID TO INNOVATE; BE DIFFERENT: Following the herd is a sure way to mediocrity.
9 DEAL AND COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY: No person is an island. Learn to understand and motivate others.
10 BE HONEST AND DEPENDABLE; TAKE RESPONSIBILITY: otherwise, Nos. 1-9 won’t matter.

[Divebomber]

Originally Posted by Daytripper63

Many may think it may not be right now but just let the Government get involved, they cant run anything right!
Just for the record if someone has no health insurance in the U.S. all you need to do is go to the Emergency room and they will not refuse svc. BUT guess who ultimately pays for this.
Yes it would be nice if everyone had health insurance, but you know what, it would also be nice if everyone did their part and worked, payed taxes, did not milk our welfare system, expect everyone to help them because they are owed this.
We are becoming a society with a mindset of "Never assume responsibility for your actions if it is easier to blame on someone else"

IBD’s 10 Secrets To Success
Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that, when combined, can turn dreams into reality. Each day, we highlight one.

1 HOW YOU THINK IS EVERYTHING: Always be positive. Think success, not failure. Beware of a negative environment.
2 DECIDE UPON YOUR TRUE DREAMS AND GOALS: Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them.
3 TAKE ACTION: Goals are nothing without action. Don’t be afraid to get started. Just do it.
4 NEVER STOP LEARNING: Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills.
5 BE PERSISTENT AND WORK HARD: Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up.
6 LEARN TO ANALYZE DETAILS: Get all the facts, all the input. Learn from your mistakes.
7 FOCUS YOUR TIME AND MONEY: Don’t let other people or things distract you.
8 DON’T BE AFRAID TO INNOVATE; BE DIFFERENT: Following the herd is a sure way to mediocrity.
9 DEAL AND COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY: No person is an island. Learn to understand and motivate others.
10 BE HONEST AND DEPENDABLE; TAKE RESPONSIBILITY: otherwise, Nos. 1-9 won’t matter.

Yeah, but there are hardworking folk who can't afford healthcare. What about them?

[john_childs]

Food to chew on:

Clinton, Obama, Insurance

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 4, 2008
The principal policy division between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama involves health care. It’s a division that can seem technical and obscure — and I’ve read many assertions that only the most wonkish care about the fine print of their proposals.

But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.

Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost.

Let’s talk about how the plans compare.

Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone, regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into government-offered insurance instead.

And both plans seek to make insurance affordable to lower-income Americans. The Clinton plan is, however, more explicit about affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies.

But the big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.

Mr. Obama claims that people will buy insurance if it becomes affordable. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.

After all, we already have programs that make health insurance free or very cheap to many low-income Americans, without requiring that they sign up. And many of those eligible fail, for whatever reason, to enroll.

An Obama-type plan would also face the problem of healthy people who decide to take their chances or don’t sign up until they develop medical problems, thereby raising premiums for everyone else. Mr. Obama, contradicting his earlier assertions that affordability is the only bar to coverage, is now talking about penalizing those who delay signing up — but it’s not clear how this would work.

So the Obama plan would leave more people uninsured than the Clinton plan. How big is the difference?

To answer this question you need to make a detailed analysis of health care decisions. That’s what Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T., one of America’s leading health care economists, does in a new paper.

Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

That doesn’t look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured.

... [continued at source]

[kington99]

Originally Posted by steveyo

What about a life-long smoker who develops (as it says on the pack) horrible, lingering, expensive health problems. That person was doing something, by choice, which led them to use more than their share of the pie, so to speak. I don't really want to pay for their millions in health care.

In the Uk the additional tax on tobacco more than pays for the cost of their load on the NHS, which more or less solves this problem at a stroke.

And as for risky activities, I know what you mean, but what if you're a bad driver? or you gorge yourself to a heart attack? at one point the NHS was paying £400 a month for my acne treatment, healthcare requirements are so random I don't feel engaging in so-called dangerous activity claiming on the NHS is an issue.

[tumblebug rollin]

The end result of any socialized medicin system is rationing of the product. Either time delays are built into the system so that a percentage of patients are allowed to die before they can be treated or rationing is effected by other means. For example, I am told that in UK, if you are above a certain age, you will not be eligible to start on dialysis if you develope renal failure. I was told that this is 45 years of age. I would be interested if any of the UK'ers would verify whether this is true or not.
I "know" that in Canada if a person notices blood in the stool it takes considerable time to get from the initial doctor to diagnostic testing, and another delay between confirmation of diagnosis and the surgeon.
A friend's grandmother in Canada took almost two years to get through the process and ultimately died of Ca. of the colon. This saved the expense of chemo therapy.
At this point, in the US, if you showed up at your doctor with history of rectal bleeding the time delay from first visit to diagnostic testing to the OR would be on the order of a couple of weeks. But don't worry if Socialized Medicine becomes a reality they are going to fix all that.
I am not aware of anything the government does well. Some things are just too important to let your government get control of. Do you really thind that interposing nine layers of beaurocracy between you and your doctor is going to save you money or immprove quality of service.
In the US there are many services which are reimbursed by Medicare at less than the cost of provision---covert rationing. If you have the money and choose to purchase the service from a private phsician you can"'t do so because it is illegal for the physician to go outside the system. He can go to jail.
I am told that the two humped camel originally started out when the congress decided to design a race horse.

[wobbling bear]

Originally Posted by Divebomber

In Canada and the UK, they're taxed to death.

numbers please so we can compare ....

It baffles me to see such defiance to "socialized medicine" : there is a very interesting challenge which is not to waste money and make end meets ...but I am living in such a system and I see none of your dire predictions coming true (for sure in any health system you can pinpoint defects -and some are terrible-).

I suspect much "bravado" ("I can fight for myself") but the ills you are denouncing both exist but are widely overblown. In a previous post I was stupefied to read that global insurance was ok for cars but not for health!
For me this position that "shit happens" and real men do rely only on god and themselves is almost of religious nature... that is I feel there is no way to discuss about it.

[Daytripper63]

Originally Posted by Divebomber

Yeah, but there are hardworking folk who can't afford healthcare. What about them?

Exactly, there are also hard working homeless people that work but dont earn enough to get a place to live. (But thats another story)
If there was a way to give care to the truly needy that would be great but I feel that there is far more abuse than good.

P.S. One thing I am sure most people here do not realize is what health insurance really cost in the U.S. the average family can pay between $800.00 and $1200.00 per MONTH for health ins.
Our Business which tries to give Health ins. to all the employees and only ask for a 25.00 employee contribution every other week. Meanwhile we have been getting hit with price increases for the past five years of 40% / 25% / 18% / 12% and now 25% for 2008
at what point does it stop or at what point do we no longer provide health ins.
Do not be dissappointed with the company that stops offering health ins. we all should be very dissappointed with the rip-off insurance companies that keep screwing everyone to meet their Wall street goals at our expense to satisfy their stockholders.

[wobbling bear]

Originally Posted by Daytripper63

P.S. One thing I am sure most people here do not realize is what health insurance really cost in the U.S. the average family can pay between $800.00 and $1200.00 per MONTH for health ins.

Terrible : it's common wisdom to say that government are inefficient .... but everyday I see private entreprises that are vastly more inefficient than governements! (btw my health coverage is a mix of both and it does work fine with an acceptable burden on me and my company).

[Gilby]

Originally Posted by Daytripper63

Our Business which tries to give Health ins. to all the employees and only ask for a 25.00 employee contribution every other week. Meanwhile we have been getting hit with price increases for the past five years of 40% / 25% / 18% / 12% and now 25% for 2008
at what point does it stop or at what point do we no longer provide health ins.
Do not be dissappointed with the company that stops offering health ins. we all should be very dissappointed with the rip-off insurance companies that keep screwing everyone to meet their Wall street goals at our expense to satisfy their stockholders.

You seem to blame it on being profitable, whereas the real problem is the result of the government imposed regulations and the inflation of the money supply, which both jack up the cost of healthcare.

[Daytripper63]

Originally Posted by Gilby

You seem to blame it on being profitable, whereas the real problem is the result of the government imposed regulations and the inflation of the money supply, which both jack up the cost of healthcare.

No, but after re-reading my post it does come accross that way... If I had a problem with being in business for profit I would not own three.
I dont believe there is any one issue to blame, but many. I do believe Lawyers and the mindset today of "Never assume responsibility for your own actions if a Lawyer can pin it on someone else" way of thinking IS a major part of the problem.
Read #10 in my previous post of IBD's Secrets To Success

[BillyTheMountain]

Originally Posted by Daytripper63

Just for the record if someone has no health insurance in the U.S. all you need to do is go to the Emergency room and they will not refuse svc.

Really? Poor people can get a physical at the ER?

How about a little outpatient mental health counseling?

[Gilby]

Originally Posted by BillyTheMountain

Really? Poor people can get a physical at the ER?

Such are the laws. The ER is the wrong place for people to go to get routine care, but the federal laws require them to take care of them. It'd be much better for GP clinics to be available for these individuals. Yesterday, I was waiting with someone to be admitted to the ER for 5 hours before they got in, though I think there should've been a different entrance for the kind of case we were there for, we were told that it was the only route we had to go.

Originally Posted by BillyTheMountain

How about a little outpatient mental health counseling?

Outpatient or inpatient, another entrance is needed for mental health patients. Mental health patients don't need the same setup as other ER patients.