Discussion: Health And Healthcare III

[Thundercrack85]

Having once had health care through that company, and having once not had healthcare at all, I don't think the people of Tennessee lost much.

I mean look at their consumer affairs ratings.

 

[Thundercrack85]

To respond to your rant though, healthcare should not be a business. We need to get profit out of the equation.

 

[Handsome Rob]

To respond to your rant though, healthcare should not be a business. We need to get profit out of the equation.

So, is it your contention then that anyone who works in the healthcare field be required to submit documentation of the expenses they incurred during the year so that the excess of their salary/wages (revenue) they may have over the expenses they incurred (rent, food, vacations, etc.) for that year be taken from them? Because, those people are profiting from healthcare, too.

There are more than 12 million people working in health care. I mean, think of all the money we could put into treating people if we could make sure health care employees weren't profiting from healthcare. We could call it a "shared responsibility payment" or something like that. I work in the healthcare field as an analyst. It pays pretty well, but I also live pretty conservatively as far as spending goes, so I have a personal profit almost every year. Should I surrender that excess to the federal government so that they can plow it back into Medicare or some other healthcare-related program run by the government? Or maybe my salary could be forced down via gov't regulation to something more in line with what I spend?

Or, is it just businesses that shouldn't profit from healthcare?

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Haha Wow. Things like charging somebody $600 for aspirin and $800 strips of gauze are what I'm fairly certain he's referring to. The problem for so long was that the insurance companies have always negotiated a price so every year they just jacked the prices up to cover their losses for those without insurance that never paid. So when you're average Joe went to the hospital he was being billed outrageous amounts because he has no negotiating power.

Has the ACA solved this? Nope, but prices are starting to normalize. It's going to take several years before this can hopefully be balanced out and we can get on the same level as other countries without gouging people. Again, that's predicated on a large majority of folks getting insurance to avoid the penalties.

We are also going to needs lots of tweeking to the ACA which is exactly what we'll get under Hillary. Would have also been a big help if a lot of the idiot GOP governors didn't decline the medicare expansion provision that was in the ACA, literally causing deaths among their constituents but they don't care because they can put down they didn't agree with the other party.

 

[chaseter]

Prices are not normalizing. ACA did nothing to attack costs. All it did was change how taxpayers are paying for the uninsured.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Prices are not normalizing. ACA did nothing to attack costs. All it did was change how taxpayers are paying for the uninsured.

Altman said these direct effects on system-wide costs “may be limited so far,” but he believes the ACA may also be having “a significant indirect effect, although cause and effect and the magnitude are hard to prove.” Altman attributes the indirect effect to the fact that “[h]istorically, we have always seen the health-care marketplace respond by lowering costs when there is the threat of impending health reform legislation or government action on costs.” Now, he wrote, “we have not only the threat but the reality.”

http://www.factcheck.org/2014/02/aca-impact-on-per-capita-cost-of-health-care/

Wrong as usual Chasey McChaserton. We are still in the early stages of the ACA and I am in no way saying healthcare cost are in any way under control right now but it's better than just letting them do whatever the hell they want which is the system we've had forever now.

Things def need to be added and expanded upon. But as log as the insurance lobby has a say in things prices will always be a bit crazy I'm guessing. Once again, though, the more that folks are able to get access to and use healthcare things will normalize.

 

[chaseter]

Your facts are a hypothetical what could happen according to someone...

Healthcare costs go up every year. Premiums and out of pocket costs have gone up because of ACA. Costs have only slowed recently to do the economy. Here is my source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-will-your-health-care-costs-rise-in-2016/

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Your facts are a hypothetical what could happen according to someone...

Healthcare costs go up every year. Premiums and out of pocket costs have gone up because of ACA. Costs have only slowed recently to do the economy. Here is my source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-will-your-health-care-costs-rise-in-2016/

I'll preface this again by saying the ACA is nowhere near perfect and I get that. But I'm trying to understand your argument here Chasely. Are you trying to imply that we would somehow be better off letting the insurance companies and healthcare providers continue to do what they've done basically their entire existence? You think the wild wild west of healthcare was just going to magically fix itself overnight and all of us poor folks would've benefited from it in some way?

Please fill me in on the point you're trying to make here since I fail to see the connections you're attempting to lead me to.

 

[SV Fan]

Let this be a warning to you, first they smoke the pot, then they want a single payer health care system.

[YT]yV-u7QFVmIw[/YT]

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/b...health-care-amendment-qualifies-for-2016.html

Coloradans officially will vote next year on whether to establish the first statewide universal health-care system in the country.

Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams announced Monday that the “ColoradoCare” campaign had submitted more than enough signatures to qualify for the 2016 ballot, according to a random sampling done by his office. While 98,492 signatures were needed to qualify for the ballot, the sampling determined that 109,134 of the 158,831 submitted signatures were valid.

Thankfully big business has the people of Colorado's best interest and are fighting these hippies

https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/colorad-single-payer/

Health Care Industry Moves Swiftly to Stop Colorado’s “Single Payer” Ballot Measure

The campaign in Colorado to create the nation’s first state-based “single payer” health insurance system, providing universal coverage and replacing insurance premiums with higher taxes, has barely begun.

But business interests in Colorado are not taking anything for granted, and many of the largest lobbying groups around the country and in the state are raising funds to defeat Amendment 69, the single-payer ballot question going before voters this November.

The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, a national trade group, is mobilizing its member companies to defeat single payer in Colorado. “The council urges Coloradans to protect employer-provided insurance and oppose Proposition 69,” the CIAB warns. The group dispatched Steptoe & Johnson, a lobbying firm it retains, to analyze the bill.

Lobby groups that represent major for-profit health care interests in Colorado, including hospitals and insurance brokers, are similarly mobilizing against Amendment 69. The Colorado Association of Commerce & Industry — a trade group led in part by HCA HealthOne, a subsidiary of HCA, one of the largest private hospital chains in the country — is soliciting funds to defeat single payer. The business coalition to defeat the measure also includes the state’s largest association of health insurance brokers.

 

[I Am The 99%]

Thankfully big business has the people of Colorado's best interest and are fighting these hippies

LOL. t:

 

[Handsome Rob]

UK Junior Doctors Go on Strike

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34775980

Junior doctors' leaders are objecting to the prospect of a new contract in England.
The government has described the current arrangements as "outdated" and "unfair", pointing out they were introduced in the 1990s.

Basic pay is to be increased by 13.5% on average.
But that comes at a price: other elements of the pay package are to be curbed, including what constitutes unsociable hours.
Day hours on a Saturday will be paid at a normal rate, while extra premiums that are being offered for night and the rest of the weekend are lower than what is currently paid.
Guaranteed pay increases linked to time in the job are also to be scrapped and replaced with a system linked to progression through set training stages.

According to another BBC article, about 13,000 routine operations and 100,000 appointments have been postponed in order to make sure staff can be freed up for emergency care.

 

[chaseter]

Doctors on strike = a win for everyone!

 

[Handsome Rob]

Obamacare Rate Hikes Rattle Consumers, Could Threaten Enrollment

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...consumers-could-threaten-enrollment/89664628/

Many of next year's premium rate increases on the Affordable Care Act exchanges threaten to surpass the high and wildly fluctuating rates that characterized the individual insurance market before the health law took effect, interviews with insurance regulators and records show.

Issues with the exchanges consumed a "disproportionate amount of attention" at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' summer meeting, which ended Monday, said John Huff, the group's president.
The individual health insurance market is typically one of the smallest parts of commissioners' focus even with health insurance and they also have to deal with far more sweeping issues including property and casualty insurance and medical liability.

And my favorite part:

Insurers need enough healthy people in the "pool" of consumers enrolled in their plans to offset the financial risks in covering the sick ones who need costly care. A shortage of healthy consumers on the exchanges to date is often attributed to the high premiums and relatively low tax penalties so far for remaining uninsured.

So, the morons who wrote and passed Obamacare into law made regulations that:

1) did away with pre-existing conditions, thus incentivizing normally-healthy people to wait until they got sick to purchase health insurance. These same people could then cancel their health insurance after recovering, knowing they can pick it up again in the future.

2) made the "penalty" for not having insurance lower than their premiums would likely be, thus incentivizing people to pay the penalty rather than continually carry health insurance, especially since they know they can go buy it whenever they need it.

And, then these mouth-breathing Democrats will blame the health insurance companies for greed for pulling out of markets where they can't even break even, due largely to situations that the idiot Democrats created in the first place--their devotees will follow suit, because they really only have talking-points knowledge of the issue in the first place.

It would be hilarious, if it weren't so damaging.

 

[chaseter]

Obamacare is donezo. It will fall apart within the next 4 years.

 

[Victarion]

You're taught to write prescriptions based on what works best and what the client can afford. Each drug has little $$$$ next to it indicating cost.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Trump does have an Obamacare replacement plan — and it would cause 21 million to lose coverage

I'm gonna give these people the benefit of the doubt for now and just assume that when they start hashing out the actual details of their new healthcare they aren't going to allow millions of Americans to die from not being able to get coverage.

 

[samsnee]

You're more hopeful than me.

 

[Steyin]

I look forward to healthcare reform. My rates have been going up over the last 6 years while my coverage declines or remains the same depending on the year.

 

[SV Fan]

I look forward to healthcare reform. My rates have been going up over the last 6 years while my coverage declines or remains the same depending on the year.

Obamacare only started in 2014 so you can't blame him for 4 of those 6 years. Given that only 20M people are registered of Obamacare, that is like 300M who are complaining for no reason

Personally I don't get the Republicans suggestion that we should be able to sell insurance across state border. What insurance company would want to do that? It's nothing more then a talking point that has 0 basis in reality

 

[mclay18]

I look forward to healthcare reform. My rates have been going up over the last 6 years while my coverage declines or remains the same depending on the year.

If Trump has his way, we ALL will pay more.

ACA needs adjustments, not a complete overhaul. One key thing to blame is that most of these healthcare companies like Cigna and United Health are for-profit entities (hence the high prices), and they're pulling out of states they can't make money from.

More healthcare companies need to be like credit unions. Serve the customers, not the bottom line. BTW, credit unions do make money, but they don't bilk customers for basic services just so that the CEO gets a quarterly bonus.

Hell, if that were the case, ACA prices would be much lower due to the subsidies.

 

[Lighthouse]

Great. Us people with chronic illness are going to get screwed again with Republicans in charge.

 

[SV Fan]

It should be noted the biggest thing Government can do to bring down the price of healthcare is REGULATE the price of drugs

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

It should be noted the biggest thing Government can do to bring down the price of healthcare is REGULATE the price of drugs

This. ALL F***ING DAY. This is the biggest problem and it's not just the prices on drugs that need regulation it's everything in healthcare. Nobody should pay $200 for gauze. Healthcare is not something the free market needs to be involved in nor should it be something companies make record profits from (and that's exactly what has happened since the ACA yet they still raise premiums every year).

 

[Trader]

Thanks to the Monsanta-Bayer merge the US and EU will cede (or have already?) unprecedented control over the world food supply. “The attempted takeover of Monsanto by Bayer is a threat to all Americans. These mergers boost the profits of huge corporations and leave Americans paying even higher prices.”

 

[Trader]

No healthcare program will help you cope with all the poison they provide you with