I'm not certain what you're describing isn't (essentially) what we already have. Those that can afford it have insurance and get both their routine/preventative health care and major health care needs met -- unless they have a pre-existing condition that makes it cost prohibitive to insure.
Those that cannot afford insurance get their routine/preventative health care needs met at government-run free clinics, indigent hospitals, and every emergency room in the country.
The two issues that gum it up are pre-existing conditions and comprehensive care for indigents.
Since insurance is designed to work by leveraging the risk of expending money on on health care against the profit of premiums, it doesn't make sense -- to me -- to force an insurance company to provide coverage for anyone with a pre-existing condition.
Pre-existing conditions aren't a risk, they're a reality. So, if you force insurance companies to accept an insured they're certain will cost them money -- and a lot of it -- they're going to have to change the risk/reward ratio for the rest of us. My premiums go up.
In some respects we're addressing the health care of the indigent with free clinics, Medicare, Medicaid, laws requiring treatment in the emergency room, etc...
Worse off than the indigent or those who can barely afford insurance and get sick. Some don't qualify for the government-run care programs and they can't afford their portion of the health care costs a cut rate insurance policy leaves them to pay.
What Obamacare will result in is that, somehow, the wealthy and elite will continue to be able to receive the best health care money and position can buy while the rest of us will be subjected to whatever one-size-fits-all health care an under-funded and overly-bureaucratic federal government can provide.
I'm not encouraged.
No, it's not at all like what I proposed. We still have insurance companies functioning as HMO's, which they do very poorly. By design, HMO is the an hesis of Insurance. Conceptually, they are as far apart as they can be.
Pre-existing conditions are an easy fix, if this is a big of an issue as you think it might be. Cover them under the SP or credit the Insurance company accordingly.
Indigents are covered under SP via Medicade-Medicare guidelines.
WTF? Double Post. Man this bbs has been sloooow the last couple of days.
Here's some for-profit free-market health care rationing for Yoni
Many Doctors Not Accepting Medicaid Patients
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012...caid-patients/
Greedy insurance companies, docs, hospitals have priced themselves out of reach of 10Ms Americans, effectively denying them insurance and health care, just the way Yoni likes it.
Meh...we can import some more cheap doctors from India and Pakistan.
So, in the grand scheme of things, you really don't care all that much about life unless that life happens to be in a class that meets your approval.
Do you want control of what you can buy or do you want some authoritarian sitting at a deck deciding for you?
That already happens.
Personally, I agree with Mitt Romney.
Israel has a really nice heath care system.
We currently have about zero control of what we buy in the Healthcare market.
Quick. How much do the 5 hospitals nearest you charge for a tonsillectomy?
Not true.
I have paid as I went out of pocket for a few years, and in doing so paid less than my insurance deductions through my employer. Someone making decent money can s out the costs of periodic visits and pay less than paying for full insurance, also buy a policy that either has a high deductible, like $10k, a catastrophic type policy, etc.
We have choices, and such methods are cheaper, especially when you have to decode if your ailment is worth paying to see a doctor or not. Too many policies have too low of a copay or no copay. People don't care if they do see a doctor or something trivial, and the whole insurance costs are higher for such reasons.
If a person chooses not to buy insurance, then that's on them. They get treated and billed. If they cannot pay, they can be sued. Poor people don't care as they have nothing worth suing for anyway. People with assets or good income care, and will buy insurance or risk losing those assets.
Insurance need not be mandated, and I think those wanting to take my choices away ought to be sent to some other country.
For what treatments and procedures and medicines?
Paying for it does not equal control, WC. That's absurd. Did you shop for the services? Probably not.
BTW, you are making a stellar case for Single Payor.
Didn't read thread, but on the topic of healthcare, I spoke to a COO of a fairly large contractor and asked him what health care reform is doing to his company. He said, not much really. The percentage to insure employees has gone up slightly, but it's because we are just making employees pay more for the same benefits that they've always received.
AWESOME!!!
It's gone down -- at least where I'm at -- a couple of times over the past week.WTF? Double Post. Man this bbs has been sloooow the last couple of days.
Which pretty much sums up my feelings on health care reform.....if it costs me more, I don't like it.
Admittedly, I know very little about health care or it's reform.
You mean Federalizing health care will make Doctor's smarter. And stop mistakes, how is that the feds keeping letting all the fraud occur.
Oh, I keep forgetting that GS-5 in D.C. knows more than some dumbass doctor.
Except that's not the case.
Then you haven't spoken you to your doctor lately.
True, they'll be an M.D. with a much higher GS pay grade. But, they'll still be government bureaucrats.
I could go with a single payer system if it only covered the basics and procedures that control curtail costs. Emergency and preventative care, but not life extending procedures. This also goes along with not mandating insurance companies what they must provide, and leaving that as a free market.
I have. But I take him with a grain of salt. He thinks I'm a genius.
Now that's at least an honest proposal with merit. It's a shame we can't get anyone in DC to enter into an honest debate.
This is essentially what I favor. A national health insurance model (i.e. Medicare for all) to provide basic coverage to everyone and then private market insurance to provide higher levels of care for those that choose to purchase it. Defining what "basic coverage" is becomes the tricky part.
Of course the right would oppose it as a government takeover and the left would oppose it as unfair.
hardcore public insurance option taken out of all pay, including capital gains, like SS. Covers everybody for everything, no questions asked, no exclusions.
eg, in France, national health insurance doesn't cover vision, hearing, dental.
for-profit insurance would be available for people who want to cover deductibles, vision, hearing, dental, and 5-star luxury treatments.
the killer objection is that private insurance companies would block any such PO scheme, just like they extorted Barry out of PO in return for not blocking ACA.
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