keeping healthcare expensive

Well, I think a government-run system would promote far more waste. Non-profit companies would compete for customers just as the health insurance companies do today. However, if they weren't taking a large portion of the premiums for profit, the service the customer would get would be greatly increased, IMO.

Any solution that does not address the amount of healthcare dollars that are taken as profit does very little to fix the problem.
 
The idea that non-profit companies would not have incentive to compete or provide a good service is simply false. There is no reason why a non-profit company cannot pay their employees well and have incentive programs.
 
non-profit's might pay their employees well. in fact, they might start paying too well and its unlikely there would ever be any correction on this issue since its unlikely govt would have layoffs or that the govt would downsize.

you'd end up with something like the post office, except with probably worse service and more beuracracy.


so if we make all the insurance companies not for profit, who will foot the bill to buy out their stockholders and employees? maybe we should go ahead and nationalize all the oil companies, too.
 
Ag - yeah, government is wasteful. it doesn't have to be that way, and maybe one day won't be. people make up the government just like people make up business. government does not HAVE to be wasteful...just like business does not HAVE to forsake the good of the customer for profits...

you ask who is going to foot the bill for all the procedures....no one. health care companies today make a LOT of money. meaning they bring in FAR more than they pay out. all i'm asking is that they pay out a much larger percentage than they currently do. i'm not asking for any of them to go in the red.

my solution is not perfect. it's not a magic bullet. however, the concept, i believe, is strong. a healthcare system where millions of dollars are skimmed off the top for profits is simply not beneficial to the consumers or the country. the same system, with a larger percentage of money paid out for healthcare, is better. the companies won't do this on their own because they don't have to.

and no, i'm not in favor of doing the same to every other industry. i don't believe that the right to cheap gas is nearly as important as the right to healthcare. so save your slippery slope arguments for something else.
 
don't you see a problem with mandating that people buy a product from an industry that is not only for-profit but is setup to treat you as poorly as they can possibly get away with?

and on top of that, you want the government to have a way to deny healthcare to people based on whether they have cell phones or cable TV? what if they work only one job, is that enough? should they have to work 2? maybe they should have to move into a smaller place....i mean really, they could use that extra money to buy insurance from a company who will take the majority of their money for profit. and you want to MANDATE that.

**** man, can you really be serious? this is as elitist as you can get.

health insurance for a family is FAR more f'ing expensive than t-mobile and directv combined. and many people are denied coverage under the current system.

wake the **** up. it's broke. let's fix it. i've offered a way. make the companies non-profit. take the incentive away from less care.

your only response to that is "who will pay"....well, the companies, who currently make millions every quarter in profit, will direct that money towards more care. how does that sound to you?

maybe my answer is not the best one...in fact i bet it's not the best one. yet no one can tell me why. i work with a sector filled with governmentally-mandated non-profits and guess what...they flourish. the people working there are happy. they provide a great service. there's no boogie-man here.
 
don't you see a problem with mandating that people buy healthcare from for-profit companies where the emphasis is on LESS care?

do you not realize that an extra $75/month isn't going to buy healthcare under the current system...and even if it did, the quality of care you get with that is not all that good?

and finally, please give me the list of luxuries, in order, that people should be "allowed" to have. i want to know if cell phones or cable TV come first. and to what extent are you willing to go to implement this? should we allow you to buy luxuries such as two-ply or should you stick to the one-ply?
 
thank you for completely ignoring my questions, your silence speaks volumes.

have i suggested the single-payer system that you are arguing against?
 
There are some lengthy posts on this thread, and I don't have time to read them thoroughly, but I do want to make a few comments. For those with access, there is no doubt we deliver the best healthcare in the world. The idea that our "rich" have less favorable outcomes re medical treatment compared to other industriallized nations is laughable. If a rich foreigner needs an organ transplant, cardiac ablation, complicated GI or GU surgery, hell even a dynamite set of tits, they are coming here. Same goes for complicated internal medicine or oncology cases. Often they will come even for routine procedures like knee and hip replacement due to the ridiculously long waiting lists in their own countries. If our rich are less healthy than their foreign counterparts, it's because of lifestyle choices, not the quality of their medical care.

Ours is a problem of distribution. Access to quality healthcare is more inequitable in our country than anywhere else, and this has got to change. We must define a basic level of healthcare which all our citizens have a right to access and then figure out a way to provide it. It probably won't be a single payer system, but the quicker we kill traditional insurance in this county the better. I know of no other business model where you actually make money by NOT providing the services your customer is paying you for.

Actually, people like you Ag w kids should be the most upset with the way things are set up. Odds are you and your employer together pay 10-12K per year in premiums, and what do you get? $300-$400 worth of office visits, maybe another $500 for misc prescriptions? Say you have a monthly rx for which there is no generic, that's maybe $1200 more. That's around 2k per year utilization, with 10K going to the house. That's per ******* year, mind you, times how many insured Americans? It's the biggest scam going. Oh yeah, but you're paying for peace of mind, right? in case someone gets really sick, right?

I can't understand how some of you people get upset at the idea of the government taking some of your money to make access to healthcare more equitable, yet you gladly fork over crazy amounts of money to insurance companies for services you'll never use, and who will, as soon as you do need them, do their damnedest to deny you, if not outright drop you.
 
Most preventative care is NOT medical. It is lifestyle. If you don't understand that then THAT is scary.

edit --

You are trying to show a disconnect between "preventative medicine" and "critical care and elective procedures" that simply does not exist from a healthcare delivery standpoint It is all a continuum. Preventative medicine = immunizations. Everything else we do in medicine is an intervention in a diseased or injured state. Diabetic screenings, cancer screenings, blood-pressure checks etc. are not preventative medicine, they are tools to identify patients who need treatment, even if it is as simple as eating less sugar or salt or losing some weight.

The vast majority of the disparity in preventative medicine,as you call it, delivered here as opposed to elsewhere can be directly attributed to the lifestyle choices of our population. Our lifestyle is much less healthy than those in other industrialized countries.

In other words, even if everybody had access to these screening tests we refer to as preventative medicine, the level of disease would remain high because of the lifestyle choices of those individuals.

edited to be less snippy
 
In many parts of the Country you will find your Walgreens and the liquor store next door in the same footprint.

Is Walmart trying to get a slice of the medical pie? Sure they are, but I would rather have the uninsured going to a Walmart or CVS clinic for their care. Now for the AMA such clinics will probably undercut the current pricing that most doctors charge. you know that little bit extra you get to pay after your insurance company has paid what they cover...

I don't think that sort of care is as good as a traditional physician relationahip with their patient, but hell I hardly ever go to the doctor. For an ear ache, food poisoning, or a host of other minor maladies I don't see much wrong with the setup.

It's about money not quality of care in this instance.
 
A lack of CVS clinics isn't why health care is expensive (and sub-par with the rest of the world).
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I don't know about that, all I know is that I am glad I live in the United States if I get really sick. Lets say you get a mole that looks like it could be cancerous. I can go to a dermatologist tomorrow and get it checked and the test results back in a few days. If you live in England, it will take you a few months to get an appointment and then a few more months to get your tests back. If it is a bad mole, you would already be toast. So our overall healthcare may suck, i really don't know, but I know I can get the problem addressed.
 
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