Yeah I've had horrible VA stories with my Dad. Even though my Dad is still pretty young he took a horrible fall and broke his hip. They never operated on him until 4 or 5 days later. At the time the surgeons never had the right type of screw to put into his hip when it came time to do the surgery that they went ahead and put any kind of screw that was around they could put into the hip socket. After the surgery he never got better at all and instead the screw was tearing his hip up more and even into the femur bone of his leg. It took them months for them to admit their mistakes even though they were forced to admit it . It took them at least a year to redo the surgery and it's still not right and now he's never going to be the same again. He's going to be crippled for the rest of his life. I hope this is not what it's going to come down to.My experiences with both; 10 years of emergency medical experience where I routinely witnessed miracles performed in the emergency room and watching the V.A. system kill two of my relatives through misdiagnosis, delay, and neglect.
It is nice to see Obama put in his place but more importantly the non Obama dems take some steps back and not this country up giving away more free . On a side note please write ur local politicians about kicking out illegals. It will help our country a great deal.
Pretty much socialized medicine in a nuts ; rationed, inferior care.
I find it interesting that someone is touting ER docs when many of them get paid a salary- as opposed to being paid by insurance reimbursement or by the work they actually do.
I am really sorry about you Dad.
Why? The Emergency Room Doctors voluntarily seek employment at the hospital. Many of them cut their teeth there before entering private practice. Under the government plan, there would be no option to go into private practice.
It seems to be the way of the conservatives around here to post an article without quoting it and then making blanket statements that really have nothing to do with the article.
its wonderful bait and switch but its worthless fearmongering at its core.
It seems this lady doesn't understand how insurance works. The entire principle of insurance is that you pool risk and spread the cost around. All insurance companies do it. If someone pays $2000 a year for full coverage on their BMW M5 and you wreck it costing $40k to replace it then is that person going to be ever paying for the benefits he received?5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform
If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.
A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.
If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
Of course he is not but that is how insurance works. The only issue that the author has is when its government that supposedly does this and not some profit motivated private insurer.
Let'sLet's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:
This is fearmongering at its finest. Of course there needs to be a limit on what is actually covered. While I like women with large breasts that does not mean that that augmentation should be covered. Instead of pointing to any place in the bill where these supposed ills are she throws out fear of what can happen. Its bull . She can point to oregan all she wants but I can point you to every other wesern nation wheres it not an issue.1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan
The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to offer.
Today, many states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and they're a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group, from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.
This is funny she first lists things that we know will be covered and then says we won't know whats covered until after its done. Its bull . Whats going on here is that they have a list of things that they will initially require like prescription drug coverage and then they will allow a committee to cover other things in the future.The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure "children" until the age of 26. That's just the starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore, wouldn't even know what's in their plans and what they're required to pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.
I mean really WTF do you expect? Obviously new treatments will come down the pipe and some will be more beneficial and/or inexpensive. Of course new treatments will have to be approved.
Oh and again its not as if private insurers do not do this already. They have a list of items that they insure that they have a board review and adjust ahs time goes by. If any plan passes of course it has to have long term adjustibility but this idea that our current insurance has this great wealth of options as to what they will cover and what they wont is bull .
Now this is hilarious. She talks about gouging the young where just before she is talking about how coverage for existing policies would extend to age 26 instead of 18. Now she is saying that young people get ed. Can't have it both ways .2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating. Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of their age or medical condition.
Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.
And lets get one thing clear the one age demographic that has the highest rate of insured is 18-28. Half of all adults under the age of 28 do not have insurance. If we can get coverage I for one would be a happy mother er. As it stands now I cannot afford good coverage that doesn't have a large deductible and if I were to get sick the deductible would just kill me. Its pointless for me to get the coverage that I could afford. This idea that I am going to get gouged from a percentage of my paycheck is laughable.
Do not use me and my contemporaries to pimp your cause . Call it what it is which is the wealthier americans who are worried about their pocketbooks. The status quo s me as it is.
You know that HC industry can suck my . I know that capitalists have nightmares about price controls but this is about the American people not some rich AETNA exec.Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more than $5,000.
1) HC is a vertical demand slope market. What I mean by that is that consumers will pay whatever price put in front of them. Think of it this way. If youre dying on a gurney or better yet you infant child is dying on a gurney what price will you not pay to save their life? I myself would pay whatever I had to. Any market like that where to suppliers can dictate price at whim cannot self regulate. Price controls are necessary.
Its pretty apparent with the way prices have escalated that the industry is taking full advantage of the way this market operates.
2) All other insurance has price controls anyway as it is. In Texas, all auto and home insurance rates have to be approved by the DoI and if they come back with dramatic increases its sent right back. All states have this.
Furthermore, and this goes to a previous point. All the coverages available like a 50/100 bodily injury limit or a $1m renters liability policy are all mandated by the state. The coverage options that you can get on all other insurance are mandated by the state.
The way this would have us believe, USAA or AllState cannot make money on car insurance.
Its necessary becasue if you don't do this then you are going to have people that are excluded. There is one thing I would like to point out on this.Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs. It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.
One of the huge myth is all of this good behavior rewardance. Its bull . Auto insurers for example will forgive an accident after 8 years of not having one. The thing is though your record clears at least in terms of insurance every 3 years so you have gone over twice that period and supposedly they are doing you a favor.
What they are doing is saying, aren't we great were giving back when thye arent giving as much back on the back end as they are ing you on the front end. All of the other perks like car alarm or whatnot have no actuarial significance. Its window dressing.
So basically what they are doing here is getting rid of that does no real benefit to overall costs yet masks them and forcing the issue.
I love this. High deductible coverages are like toxic variable rate loans. Sure they cost very little up front but they end oup ing you in the end. High deductible coverages target those with lower incomes. The only issue is that 20% still leaves you in the cold when you are poor and rack up a $50k hospital bill. Thats about 3 days in the hospital BTW.3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a market, and health care needs more of it, not less.
Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5 million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan -- say for major medical costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.
The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. "The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. "And they could do it after the bills are passed."
But no that 20% deductible not only gets a you a $10k bill but it drives costs across the board. The medical industry wants you to pay as an individual and the more via deductibles copays etc that they can push out to individual negotiators the higher overall costs.
The reason for this is simple. The insurance company is liable for $40k of the bill but the thing is they have the backing of the other millions upon millions of dollars they have and will be paying the hospital to negotiate the price down at the end of the day. Make no mistake they do that.
You OTOH are stuck with your bill and no leverage so you eat the proverbial . The hospital likes this because they get full price and the insurer loves this because they can justify higher premiums the next year without having to pay the tab.
those companies and their ty policies.
See again with the fearmongering. I will put it this way: I would rather have medicare through SSID than what most of these companies offer. I love this assumption that government coverage will suck when quite frankly the current government coverages from the civil service version through the SSI stuff are pretty damn good. Oh and they pay out less reducing costs for everyone.4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the bills appear to say otherwise. It's worth diving into the weeds -- the territory where most pundits and politicians don't seem to have ventured.
The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX, Fortune 500) and most other big companies.
The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are "grandfathered." Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they want -- they're exempt from standard packages and community rating and can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive states.
But read on.
The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified" policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we've already discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, "keeping your own plan" has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you'll get dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it could happen a lot earlier.
The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges.
The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch. If the plan changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every year, it's likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.
So in other words keep it as it is because its just so wonderful.5. Freedom to choose your doctors
The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges -- and as we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get their care through something called "medical home." Medical home is similar to an HMO. You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.
Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America's health-care cost explosion.
The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans -- if they exist -- would be barred from charging sick or elderly patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they're healthy and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. "That would kill fee-for-service in a hurry," says Goodman.
In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year "grace period" that's barely being discussed.
Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their employers. It won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it's likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially since they'll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.
The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's strictly taboo in the bills). I'll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms.
What kind of shill is this ? First of all she said it was LIKE an HMO. The issue with HMO's is that the primary care doctors are beholden to profit motivated insurance execs. Doctors in HMO's are encouraged to NOT refer and try to keep costs to an arbitrary bottom line. That is not the case here and as such it is NOT like an HMO in the most fundamental way: the decision calculus of how care is administered.
Now even after all of the further fearmongering she kind of glossed over the fact that other types of plans will be available that you are not locked into them. Since its not a product that the public option will offer then it will have no direct compe ion. From the way it would seem after all her bull you wouldnt have a chance.
Thats a baldfaced ing lie.
Cosmetic surgery will be covered under no health insurer. Are you going to say that fake s are a thing of the past?
You pose an interesting question. I'm not sure what the legislation says about elective cosmetic procedures.
But, seriously, I think we're talking about the treatment of illnesses and injuries; non-elective medical care.
No, the VA is definitely ed up. Thats because they set up an infrastructure about 30 years ago and instead of scaling funding for inflation to maintain and keep up care standards the DoD systemcially slashed funding so that vets were left ouyt to dry. After all we need funding for F-22's and to prepare for a European land war that will never happen.
No, were talking about medical procedures. Plastic surgery has to be approved by the FDA and is beholden to the same oversight as plastic splints for broken arms.
Basically what you're saying is that boob jobs will be available but not noncovered chemotherapies that are also approved by the FDA. Its bull .
So, I say prove you can run a single-payer system by fixing the VA first before you up health care for the rest of us.
Okay, maybe your talking about elective procedures, I'm not. I have no idea what the legislation will mean for Dr. 90210.
Understanding the Kennedy Healthcare bill
http://keithhennessey.com/2009/06/08...y-health-bill/
I believe the health care reform bill is house bill 320, but I will try to find what I can of the bill and the most updated version, so we can read it ourselves.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/pr...2009/0724.html
I can't seem to find the actual draft of the bill. Maybe it's not posted yet. I'm trying to find just the bill itself, so we can decide for ourselves how good or bad it is. Sorry, I can't find it yet.
Last edited by Spursmania; 07-25-2009 at 11:35 PM.
Sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. There is this en y its called the department of defense. Perhaps you've heard of them? Yeah, well the DoD has been slashing VA funding for years. The senate appropriates the DoD less money and they in turn cut VA benefits in favor of F-22's and B-1's. See its not the people that fought for this country that matter its the defense contractors.
They are tow seperate issues.
This is not accurate at all.
It's government health care. The only difference will be that Robert Byrd will funnel money to a Robert Byrd Memorial Bridge when he funnels money away.
All medical procedures are elected. Dear god your obtuse. In the eyes of the FDA there are no 'covered' or 'noncovered.' There are just medical treatments and procedures.
You said noncovered care would not existoutside of what was covered by the public plan. All I have to show is one medical procedure that would be and it shows you to be wrong. I did that.
Whatever if you want to be one of the 'everything the government does is bad crowd' and be intentionally obtuse go right ahead.
There's breast augmentation and then, there's triple, coronary bypass. With or without one, and you continue living. Without the other, you die. That's the difference between elective and non-elective surgery.
I never said that. I admit to not know what will become of "Plastic" Surgeons, under this plan. I was merely talking about physicians that offer curative, life-extending, medical care. Things we need to live...not look better.
The fight wars real good and they now how to build a road, although, they've farmed much of that out.
Name an industry, other than the two above, where the government out performs and is more efficient than the private sector.
Lol I can show you reams and reams of doctors that offer noncovered care in every other western nation. What you are purporting is the bald faced lie that is being thrown out which is just not true.
What youa re saying is for example the board approves to cover one type of chemo therapy but not another for cost considerations and that means the more expensive option would not be available. They would both be available. Its just that the national plan wouldn't cover it. That doesn't mean you cannot get it.
I use the breast augmentation as an extreme to prove a point. Look up 'breast augmentation london' and you will see reams and reams of them. I find it absurd that youw ould give any credibility to the idea that they would not allow an alternative FDA approved chemo but they will allow you to get a job. Prima facia its stupid.
In fact if you look at other countries like England they have all kinds of insurances and facilities that cover treatments and procedures that handle things that the NHS does not cover.
medical bills etc are tax deductible arent they in america? if not then it really sucks
As AETNA is fond of pointing out, Medicare and Medicaid provide treatments, procedures and medications for less than what the private insurers do. There is a whole slew of water and power companies that are owned form the municipal level up that are successful. The US postal service is self sufficient. They offer quite a few delivery options that are cheaper than UPS, FedEx, etc.
About the only thing you can point to is that AMTrack doesn't fare well compared to the airlines and thats about it.
But really the one that is most important is that Medicare and Medicaid are more efficient than AETNA and the big 7.
Last edited by FuzzyLumpkins; 07-26-2009 at 01:05 AM.
For-profit health industry is SO EFFICIENT that dubya had to subsidize it with locked-in $50B/year so it could compete with Medicare/Medicaid, in addition to making it illegal for the govt to negotiate drug prices with BigPharma.
The inefficiencies of for-profit health-insurance suck $200B-$300B out of Americans' pockets every year.
($200B + $50B) x 10 years = $2.5T
Why did Americans decisively reject dubya's snake oil of privatizing Social Security which would have subsidized the criminal, rigged fraudulent, wealth-destroying financial sector?
"Under the government plan, there would be no option to go into private practice."
which page of the reform bill is that on?
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