John McCain is quoted this morning as saying that he thinks Obama should start over with Health Care, and actually make an attempt at bipartisan authorship of such a bill. Presumably, Republicans would want tort reform to be included in any health care reform. What say you, forum members? Who on this board would participate in health care reform efforts, and what would you want included and excluded?
I, for one, believe that there is a need for Health Care reform, but I also think that this bill is awful, and that the dems have given up WAY to much to their own members to pass something. I would want a new bill to include:
Some measure of tort reform (not doing away with all possilbities of suits, but some limitations), and
A requirement that Insurance companies not be allowed to turn people down for coverage if they have 'a pre-existing condition'.
What else would anybody say we HAD to have, and if you don't like one of these, would you agree to allow it in for the purpose of having some sort of reform? For example, what about universal coverage (and if you feel it has to be part of it, how would you pay for it?)?
Gentlemen, start your keyboards!
Pricing transparency and a uniform standard for transactions. If we really knew how much our doctor visits cost and those trips to the hospital, we could conceivably make a decision based on value delivered. But, until we break the opacity of the co-pay system, true costs are never known to the consumer until after the service is rendered.
Transparency is a biggie.
It should include "Get a ing job and pay for your own "
Knew I could count on you, Jack!!
That's a killer because it'd necessarily lead to mandates. Unless there's no kind of price control mechanism (so insurers can ask for a price nobody would be willing to pay) and in that case, what's exactly the point?A requirement that Insurance companies not be allowed to turn people down for coverage if they have 'a pre-existing condition'.
To me:
1. Tort reform
2. Free trade on drugs (re-importation)
3. Allow individuals and employers to purchase insurance across state lines
4. Allow individuals and small businesses to band together increasing their bargaining power with insurance providers
5. Cut the government waste in bureocracies like the U.S. Department of Health and give that money saved to citizens who can use it to purchase health-care if they want to.
Doctors and doctors' groups are already threatening to refuse even more Medicare/Medicaid patients and universal coverage patients because the govt doesn't pay as much as the private insurers. The spoiled, avaricious, patient-flipping doctors are a huge component of the most-expensive-health-care-in-the-world.
Don't touch their cheese, or they'll really you over.
A lot of doctors won't deal even with private insurance. You pay cash up front, and you fight with the insurer.
Tort reform is a red-herring, as TX tort reform proved. Anybody talking about tort reform is a lying bas .
The across-state-lines is bull because there is a cartel of private insurers that don't compete on price anyway. Do you really think a LA or KS insurer is cheaper/better than a TX insurer? you silly fart
"increasing their bargaining power" the private insurers don't need your $$, would say " you, pay your own medical bills. We have captured the medium/large business which pays us much better per contract than you little wimps"
There is no doubt waste in any huge bureaucracy, private or govt. Medicare (and SocSec) overheads are a small percentage, 5%, vs private insurers' overheads, 20% - 30%.
There's too many competing political interests in play here to expect the government to be able to come up with any kind of a plan that could actually make things better. Everybody wants something they're not getting now and nobody is willing to give up more than they already are. Basically, this is a problem that the government is absolutely incapable of fixing. In the mean time, we're still standing directly underneath a giant free-falling anvil known as medicare insolvency. Unfortunately for us, we're a bunch of chicken s who don't want to look up because that might require acknowledging that we're about to get splattered. Instead of trying to figure out how we can spend a bunch of money to put even more people on the government teet we should be trying to figure out who and how we're going to stick it to in order to keep that $60 trillion dollar debacle known as medicare from bankrupting us all.
Asinine rant aside, do you have anything to contribute to this discussion?
kthxbye.
Nice and very well thought out....
! Should that be in blue?
I contribute facts, not teabagger/Repug wet dreams
"Towers Perrin, medical malpractice tort costs were $30.4 billion in 2007, the last year for which data are available. We have a more than a $2 trillion health care system. That puts litigation costs and malpractice insurance at 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs. That’s a rounding error. Liability isn’t even the tail on the cost dog. It’s the hair on the end of the tail."
$30B ing TOTAL! how much of that was fraud or frivolous?
Probably under 10%, so 10% of 1.5% is trivial, aka, a Repug/insurance company RED HERRING.
OP = So what would a bipartisan health care reform bill include?
Try to stay on topic. Get a grown up to help you.
mogrovejo did put tort reform first. Costwise, it's of marginal impact.
So, are you saying that tort reform would make you reject health care reform?
Buttons will eventually blame Bush.
Another issue to address is the byzantine world of pharmaceutical pricing and purchasing....and the endless, quasi-tier based pricing structures.
While I think the OP is worthwhile, a corollary could very easily be:
So how could a bipartisan health care reform be created?
Ostensibly, no one in congress has any particular expertise in healthcare, or it's various machinations. Do you recruit industry guys? Do you go to the Universities?
So,do we give up on health care reform? I honestly believe that right now we have a system that is the most expensive in the world, but is not the best in the world. To me, that means that reform is possible and desirable.
I don't challenge your medicare cost estimates. The realistic assessment though, is that it is not going away, so the only real question is how to pay for it. Medicare seems to me to 'universal coverage if you live long enough to qualify for it age-wise'. I wouldn't mind seeing a means-test for it, but that is not politically palatable so there is little point in pursuing it.
You are right about the corollary. I wondered what the positions would be of the extremes on the board, and so far Jack and Boutons have followed expectations, i.e., screaming. That said, your corollary could become the question I asked of CG, 'do we then give up?'.
Directly to your corollary though, it seems possible that a bipartisan group could bring in their experts, and then the experts could come up with a plan that the bipartisan group could then bring to the congress. Maybe the White House should initiate the bi-partisan group, although without congressional buy-in I don't think there would be any point. It couldn't hurt, though, could it?
1.) Public Option/Co-Op: A governement non profit that would be required to be self sustaining after the initial start up costs.
2.) Allow private insurers to sell policies across states lines.
3.) Meaningful TORT Reform
Passes easily. Bipartisanship isn't that difficult.
The order is more or less arbitrary.
So, to make sure I understand your position, take the following example:
Say a high-paid executive in some corporation is diagnosed with a brain tumor that is not cancerous but cannot be completely removed because of its location. Said person goes through surgery, rehabilitation, etc., and is still unable to work 6 months later. So, the company fires the person, and of course their insurance coverage goes with it. COBRA payments allow them to continue insurance coverage for however long it lasts, but at some point COBRA runs out and the person loses all insurance coverage. Moreover, even if they were ever able to get a job again, (even part time because of disabilites, etc), they will never get insurance coverage because of the 'pre-existing' condition.
Your position at that point regarding this individual who was a high-tax paying member of society until a brain tumor was diagnosed is: you, you no-account lay-about?
Hey, works for me. Are you serious that you think it would pass easily?
That may well be true, but Health Care Reform seems to be a non-starter for Republicans without it, so I wouldn't be opposed to including it in some fashion. I don't believe that people should have no recourse to bad medical mistakes, but I think some reform could certainly be in order, e.g., some threshhold showing before a suit can be brought to limit frivolity, and some limits on payouts.
jack never really thinks things thru..he's a black and white world kind of person..
We should certainly give up on any kind of health care reform that doesn't involve dealing with medicare. The longer we ignore it, the more painful it will be to deal with it. At some point we're going to have to acknowledge that every American needs to be told that the system has been out of balance for far too long and as a result everyone will have to pay more and get less.
One idea I do support though is the "junk food tax". A large portion of our healthcare expenses are related to our large waistlines. Tax junk food like we do with cigarettes. At the end of the year divvy up the revenues equally to all Americans by depositing that money into HSA accounts that they can use to fund their own personal health care.
Last edited by coyotes_geek; 01-25-2010 at 01:31 PM.
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