NYT: Public overwhelmingly supports public option for healthcare.

[shabba4detroit]

Originally Posted by Blue Square Thing

Food. Wine.

Hmmmm....

Is there anything else that matters awfully?

The French matter awfully.

[TheCouga]

Originally Posted by Ingefanclub

Do you really believe if the government starts to run the entire US health care system that it will become cheaper? Call me a skeptic.

That's what happens everywhere else. Why would the US be any different?

[holygoat]

I don't care if it will be cheaper, as it will certainly provide less coverage and force rationing on to people against their will. There's no other way to cut costs.

[sinister porpoise]

Of course there are other ways to reduce cost. Administrative costs for Medicare are far, far lower than private insurance; another massive reduction would be in reducing catastrophes (which are hugely disproportionate in cost) by increased access to preventative care.

Costs are keeping patients from care - The Boston Globe

“Probably once a week, there will be a patient deciding to discontinue allergy injections or not pursue that as a therapy because they have high copays,’’ Kenealy said. [...] “Oftentimes, these people end up using their credit cards to pay their copays and end up with medical debt,’’ said Kate Bicego, help line manager at Health Care for All, one of the state’s largest consumer groups.

Or this, from a blog comment

I always roll my eyes when it comes to the threat of "wait times."

Right now I have been avoiding going to the doctor for the past three years because I'm afraid of having another "pre-existing condition" added to the list and I can't guarantee I'll be in this state a year from now. When you are self- insured, your insurance ends when you move out of state, and you have to start over again from scratch. Keeping your slate as "clean" as you can makes a huge difference in the premiums. (And yes, I know this is f*ed up. As someone who strongly believes in regular, preventative checkups, I find the situation appalling if inevitable.)

So, right now, my "wait time" is going on four years. If I knew I had stable insurance, I'd be signing up for a doctor's checkup right now!

This sounds nice..

Here's a prime example of the American health care system. Last week I mentioned that my co-pay for a prescription drug had doubled in January. I called to ask about it, and the person I reached suggested I should enroll in one of Kaiser's cheaper plans which still offered the lower co-pay. That sounded sensible to me, so I applied online for a plan that would cost me $300/month (down from $343) and $30 for my blood pressure drug rather than $60.

Yesterday I got an e-mail saying my application had been denied. Why? Because my medical history (in their own medical system!) showed that I'd been treated for high blood pressure within the past five years.

So I can continue paying the higher monthly premiums and co-pays to Kaiser, or I can complain further and risk them telling me that I'm too big a risk and they don't want me as a member at all.

Is that a Catch-22 or what?

[sinister porpoise]

This is how the free market in health care works:

Health insurers refuse to limit rescission of coverage - Los Angeles Times

Executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive. [...]

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses. [...]

A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.

The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him. [...]

Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said that a public insurance plan should be a part of any overhaul because it would force private companies to treat consumers fairly or risk losing them.

"This is precisely why we need a public option," Dingell said.

[sinister porpoise]

Here we go. The free market.

Arkansas Times

Here is a clue to the Arkansas problem — and the national one, too. From 2000 to 2007, the median earnings of Arkansas workers rose only 12 percent, from $20,328 to $22,692. Health insurance premiums for the average working Arkansas family rose over the same period by 66 percent. Senator Lincoln cannot fashion a tax incentive that will induce those people to buy a policy. If you aren't paying much in the way of income taxes anyway — your burden is excise, sales and payroll taxes — what good is another deduction?

But the Republican leaders of both the Senate and House of Representatives oppose any significant effort to extend coverage to the 46 million because it would entail competition to the near monopoly in the health insurance industry. [...]

Competition? For most of the country it doesn't exist. The Justice Department considers an industry to be “highly concentrated” if one company has 42 percent of the market. In Arkansas — Senator Lincoln should take note — Blue Cross Blue Shield has 75 percent of the market. If you take government self-insurance plans out of the equation, it's higher. The state ranks as the ninth most concentrated in the country. Is it any wonder that insurance premiums have risen five times as fast as wages?

That is not a system that will be fixed with a dozen or a hundred tax breaks.

[Ingefanclub]

Originally Posted by sinister porpoise

Here we go. The free market.
From 2000 to 2007, the median earnings of Arkansas workers rose only 12 percent, from $20,328 to $22,692. Health insurance premiums for the average working Arkansas family rose over the same period by 66 percent.

So now you want the US government to pick up the healthcare bill along with the 66% increases in the budget every 7 years?

[TheCouga]

Originally Posted by holygoat

I don't care if it will be cheaper, as it will certainly provide less coverage and force rationing on to people against their will. There's no other way to cut costs.

We have rationing right now. Why aren't you complaining about that?

[holygoat]

Originally Posted by TheCouga

We have rationing right now. Why aren't you complaining about that?

I think the only good rationing is that which is decided by the end consumer. How's that for ya?

[Buddha]

Originally Posted by holygoat

I think the only good rationing is that which is decided by the end consumer. How's that for ya?

What about the US system of raitioning by corporate profit motive?

[TheCouga]

Originally Posted by Buddha

What about the US system of raitioning by corporate profit motive?

Exactly.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by shabba4detroit

The French matter awfully.

Maybe to you.

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by Buddha

What about the US system of raitioning by corporate profit motive?

Then choose another corporation.

I'll trust an HMO before I trust Barack Obama or any politician for that matter.

[sinister porpoise]

What does that mean? Government doesn't have the motive that private insurers do to try and screw you out of coverage.

And if the government plan is bad you can always keep your HMO.

[baseballbruce30]

Originally Posted by sinister porpoise

What does that mean? Government doesn't have the motive that private insurers do to try and screw you out of coverage.

which government program actually works

[sinister porpoise]

Is this good for our economy and country? Just wonderin'

Medical bills underlie 60 percent of U.S. bankrupts: study | U.S. | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.

"For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection," he added.

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by sinister porpoise

What does that mean? Government doesn't have the motive that private insurers do to try and screw you out of coverage.

And if the government plan is bad you can always keep your HMO.

They have the motive to play favorites to those who pay for their campaigns and who they buy votes from. They don't have your best interests in mind. THey have their own interests. I'd rather a corporation play games and win than the government play games and win. The payout reaches more people.

Private insurers will no longer be around with a public option. The government will structure things in such a way that private insurers will figure out that it's just not worth it and investors will go elsewhere. The law of unintended consequences. They Obama can act dumb and say "Well I didn't make them do that."

[chasfh]

Originally Posted by Oblong

Then choose another corporation.

I'll trust an HMO before I trust Barack Obama or any politician for that matter.

Does your employer offer you a choice of multiple insurers to select from?

[JohnJMS]

Originally Posted by JohnJMS

If I'm a small businessman, or even the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, if there is Universal Health Care - I'm far more likely to make my employees shoulder an even larger burden of their health benefits, provided I continue to offer them at all. Why? Because there will be an insurance option available that allows me to look my employees in the eye and say "Use the Government plan". And I'll tell you what - they won't share this new found wealth with their employees - they'll pocket it as additional profit. The quickest way to grow the "uninsured" in this country would be to provide a government alternative. Every action has a ton of counteractions - and this needs to be a well thought out plan if it's going to work and not cause more problems than it solves. UHC could turn into a bottomless pit for our tax dollars.

Originally Posted by TheCouga

This post makes absolutely no sense. None. You don't understand how a public option works.

Originally Posted by Oblong

Private insurers will no longer be around with a public option. The government will structure things in such a way that private insurers will figure out that it's just not worth it and investors will go elsewhere. The law of unintended consequences. They Obama can act dumb and say "Well I didn't make them do that."

Oblong, just wanted to get this out here so Couga doesn't have to repeat himself. You, I, George Will, (anyone who disagrees with Couga) just don't understand................

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by chasfh

Does your employer offer you a choice of multiple insurers to select from?

I work for a very small company so we're unique. We do not have a choice but that's because there is no other current preferable choice. It's pretty much the best plan you can get.

But if we, as a company, were unhappy we can switch. We've switched 3 times in the 11 years I've been with them.

This is worth repeating

According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?

There’s more. According the U.S. Census Bureau, we don’t have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who chose not to sign up, that removes roughly 20 million people. Then take out about 10 million more who are not U.S. citizens, and 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason.

So that really leaves only 10 million to 15 million people who are truly long-term uninsured.

Yes, they need help. And yes, I would like to give it to them. But not with mandatory coverage, or new government-backed insurance plans, or massive tax increases. And certainly not with the Canadian-European-style nationalization that has always been the true goal of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.

Instead, we can give the truly uninsured vouchers or debit cards that will allow for choice and coverage, and even health savings accounts for retirement wealth. According to expert Betsy McCaughey, instead of several trillion dollars and socialized medicine, this voucher approach would cost only about $25 billion a year.

But the Democratic agenda has never really been about just the uninsured. And it certainly hasn’t been about real cost-cutting or true market choice and competition. Nor has it been about tort/trial-lawyer reform. Instead, the Democratic agenda has always been a class-warfare, anti-business attack on private-sector doctors, hospitals, insurance firms, and drug companies. It’s all about control, knocking down their profits, and telling them what to do.

Because government planners know best, right? Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

[chasfh]

I've never worked for a company that would give you a choice of health insurance providers. They would give a choice of types of plans -- HMO, PPO and the like -- but all from a single company. So in such cases, the choices are: accept the one choice given to you, usually partially paying for it, and gamble that you're not going to have a problem with rescission or non-payment on benefits later on; or pay substantially more to go with any other company you might deem to provide better insurance services. That's not a real choice for the consumer, which is what those opposed to improved health insurance choice are warning we would lose.

I fail to see what providing the choice for an alternative health care insurance option, even if it is administered by the government and untethered to your actual state of employment, would be a failure for the American consumer. To my way of thinking, any situation in which consumer choice is increased is a win, not a loss.

As for the three-year-old study you're citing, the writer is conveniently misrepresenting a single result from the study as being representative of the feelings and experiences of "250 million people". It is true that one result of the study was that 89% of people polled were satisfied by the health care they received -- but that was among people who actually received health care, and those who responded "I don't know" to the question were excised from the universe of respondents. The writer wants to make it seem for the convenience of his position that everything in American health care is simply hunky-dory due to the profit-based system we have here. What he's leaving out from the same study includes the following. I've bolded what i think are some interesting findings from the very same study he cites that seem to undermine his argument that the overwhelming majority of Americans think our current healthcare system is peachy keen:

Most Americans are not satisfied with the nation’s health care system. At the root of this dissatisfaction: its price tag.

•An overwhelming 80 percent of the public is dissatisfied with the total cost of care in the nation, including six in ten (58 percent) who are very dissatisfied with costs.
•Slightly more than half --54 percent --are dissatisfied with the quality of care in the nation.

At the same time, most people are satisfied with their own health insurance coverage (88 percent of the insured rate their coverage as excellent or good) and with various aspects of their medical care (for example, 89 percent are satisfied with the quality of care they receive.) Even in the personal realm, costs are the area of least satisfaction, with four in ten saying they are very (19 percent) or somewhat (22 percent) dissatisfied with their own health care costs.

•There’s a precariousness to Americans’ contentment with their own health insurance coverage. Among the insured, six in ten are at least somewhat worried about being able to afford the cost of their health insurance over the next few years, and nearly as many (56 percent) say they worry that by losing a job, they or their family might be left without coverage. Among the uninsured, more than eight in ten (85 percent) say they are worried about affording the cost of their health care over the next few years, including 63 percent who are very worried.

•Furthermore, problems paying for care are on the rise. The new ABC/KFF/USA Today survey found that the percentage of people who have had difficulty paying for health care in the last year, or had to put off needed care because of its price, are at new highs.

•One in four Americans say their family has had a problem paying for care sometime during the past year, up 7 percentage points over the past nine years.

•This rises to 40 percent among young people (aged 18 to 29), and 42 percent among households making less than $35,000 a year. Among the uninsured, a significant majority (59 percent) report having struggled to pay for health care.

•Slightly more, 28 percent, say someone in their family has delayed care in the past year, a new high in the ABC and Gallup trend (compared with between 14 and 25 percent from 1991 through2003). Most in this group said the condition they were hoping to treat was at least somewhat serious

•Among the uninsured, 68 percent had delayed care in the same period.

•Though the uninsured are the most vulnerable to problems financing care, the majority of Americans who reported having a problem paying for their care actually have health insurance (69 percent of those with problems had insurance coverage.)

•And the cost of purchasing insurance is the major barrier for those who don’t currently have coverage. Slightly more than half (54 percent) of the uninsured say the main reason they don’t have insurance is that they can’t afford it. Another 15 percent have been refused due to poor health or age. Only 4 percent said the reason they didn’t have insurance was that they didn’t need it. A general interest in change of any sort, dampened by real world tradeoffs.

•The uninsured remain a concern for many Americans. About half the country (52 percent) say that the fact that more than 46 million Americans have no health insurance is “a critical problem for the country”

•While a majority of Americans say the uninsured are a serious problem, and most seem interested in a number of proposals that would expand coverage, support for these proposals appears relatively fragile.

•In the abstract, most Americans (68 percent) say that providing coverage for everyone is more important than keeping taxes down. But if the tradeoff is phrased in a way that focuses on the country’s main concern – rising health care costs -- Americans are more divided: 50 percent say reducing costs is more important, while 42 percent say extending coverage should take precedence.

•Support for universal care is a prime example of Americans’ frustration with the current system, as well as the tenuousness of their support for change. Overall, 56 percent say they would prefer a universal care system to our current system. At the same time, this support is relatively easy to shake. If supporters are challenged with possible downsides of such a plan -- less choice of doctors, waiting lists, increased costs to individuals, or more limited coverage of medical treatments -- significant numbers change their minds about the program. In fact, after hearing any one of these arguments, support for universal coverage dropped to roughly a third of the public or less.

•About half of Americans think a universal care system would have little effect on their own personal health care in terms of quality, choice, availability, and cost. Among those who do anticipate a difference in quality, twice as many see a negative effect as a positive one. (CH edit: I think this is the "devil you know versus the devil you don't know" syndrome at work.) Even among those who support the concept, just a third (34 percent) say universal health care would improve their own health care costs.

•Even larger majorities of Americans say they would back a variety of other government efforts to expand health coverage: 86 percent say government should offer tax breaks to businesses that offer health insurance to their employees, eight in ten would offer tax credits for poorer Americans to buy health insurance, and just as many would expand programs for the poor like Medicaid or support government efforts to require business to cover all full-time employees.

•Looking just at “strong supporters”of each plan does a bit more to distinguish which proposals have the most backing. Here, the largest majorities favor requiring employers to cover all full-time employees (69 percent), and tax breaks for businesses that provide coverage (61 percent). Majorities also strongly favor expanding government programs like Medicare (55 percent) and Medicaid (54 percent). All of these are extensions of the existing health care system.

•The rest of the proposals receive strong backing from less than half the public: 49 percent strongly favor tax credits for low-income people to purchase insurance and 44 percent back mandates on business regarding coverage for part-time employees. Just a third (35 percent) strongly favor requiring individuals to have insurance, along with financial aid to low-income people to buy it.

•As with universal coverage, it is likely that the percent who support each plan would drop significantly if people were presented with some of the costs or tradeoffs associated with expanding coverage in any form.

•An actual state plan to expand insurance coverage – that of Massachusetts – is somewhat more divisive than many of the above proposals: 52 percent support and 44 percent oppose it.

Back to costs: Who’s at fault and what is effective?

•The public is dissatisfied with health care costs, but who do they hold responsible? Drug and insurance companies take the brunt of the blame. Fully half of Americans say that excessive profits are “one of the single biggest factors in rising health care costs.”

•In the next tier of culprits, more than a third (37 percent) say fraud and waste in the health care system is one of the biggest factors in rising costs, and similar shares name high profits by doctors and hospitals (36 percent) and too many medical malpractice lawsuits (37 percent).

•Fewer Americans seem to blame patients for the rising costs: 30 percent see unnecessary treatments as a problem, and about the same percentage (29 percent) see Americans’ unhealthy lifestyles as a contributing factor.

•Importantly, the increased use of expensive new drugs, treatments, and medical technology, which is the factor most often named by experts as the biggest reason for rising health care costs, ranks fairly low on the list for the public, with 28 percent naming it as a top factor.

•Also ranking near the bottom of perceived reasons for rising health care costs is the aging of the population (23 percent). People are least likely to say one of the biggest reasons for rising health care costs is that more people are getting better medical care than ever before (12 percent).

Cost doesn’t necessarily equal quality

•What can money buy you? Not necessarily a good doctor according to the public. Most Americans (76 percent) do not agree that doctors who charge higher prices provide better medical care.

•But Americans are much more divided when it comes to drugs and treatments: 47 percent said that “expensive new drugs, treatments and medical technology produce better results than older, less expensive alternatives,”while 43 percent said the old tried and true were just as good.

•And a majority (62 percent) say that insurers shouldn’t have to pay for expensive new treatments unless they’ve been proven to be more effective then existing treatments, even if a doctor specifically recommends them.

Controlling health care costs

•More Americans say letting individuals shop around for health care would be effective at controlling costs (79 percent) than say the same about the current system of employer-based coverage (67 percent) or government regulation of health care costs (62 percent).

•However, most Americans are not currently interested in a broadly defined plan that would cover major medical problems but leave consumers to handle the rest of their medical needs out ofa pool of money over which they have charge. Two in three (66 percent) say they would oppose

[Buddha]

Originally Posted by Oblong

I work for a very small company so we're unique. We do not have a choice but that's because there is no other current preferable choice. It's pretty much the best plan you can get.

But if we, as a company, were unhappy we can switch. We've switched 3 times in the 11 years I've been with them.

This is worth repeating

1) In other words, "no", as an individual you do not have a choice as to which health care provider you want.

2) As I see it, there are two overarching reasons that society wants health care reform: 1) the current system is too expensive; and 2) not everyone is covered. Any health care reform will be to tackle these two subjects.

The Democrat's plan is not "anti-business." The Democrats get plenty of political support from the business community, just like the Republicans.

[JohnJMS]

Can we please stop with the generic "46 million people are uninsured" quotes?
From one of my previous posts...

GEORGE WILL: Donna [Brazile], you talk about the 46, 47 million uninsured. Fourteen million of them are already eligible for other government programs and haven’t signed up. Ten million are in households with household incomes of $75,000 a year and could afford it if they wanted to.

Furthermore, an enormous number in that 47 million are not American citizens. Sixty percent of the uninsured in San Francisco are not citizens.

Bingo. So, this 47 million uninsured number the media always throw around is totally disingenuous and largely irrelevant.

[Buddha]

Originally Posted by chasfh

I've never worked for a company that would give you a choice of health insurance providers. They would give a choice of types of plans -- HMO, PPO and the like -- but all from a single company. So in such cases, the choices are: accept the one choice given to you, usually partially paying for it, and gamble that you're not going to have a problem with rescission or non-payment on benefits later on; or pay substantially more to go with any other company you might deem to provide better insurance services. That's not a real choice for the consumer, which is what those opposed to improved health insurance choice are warning we would lose.

I fail to see what providing the choice for an alternative health care insurance option, even if it is administered by the government and untethered to your actual state of employment, would be a failure for the American consumer. To my way of thinking, any situation in which consumer choice is increased is a win, not a loss.

As for the three-year-old study you're citing, the writer is conveniently misrepresenting a single result from the study as being representative of the feelings and experiences of "250 million people". It is true that one result of the study was that 89% of people polled were satisfied by the health care they received -- but that was among people who actually received health care, and those who responded "I don't know" to the question were excised from the universe of respondents. The writer wants to make it seem for the convenience of his position that everything in American health care is simply hunky-dory due to the profit-based system we have here. What he's leaving out from the same study includes the following. I've bolded what i think are some interesting findings from the very same study he cites that seem to undermine his argument that the overwhelming majority of Americans think our current healthcare system is peachy keen:

What? I find it hard to believe that someone from the National Review would not present a full and complete picture of a poll he was citing. Shocked, I am. Shocked.

[Buddha]

Originally Posted by JohnJMS

Can we please stop with the generic "46 million people are uninsured" quotes?
From one of my previous posts...

How does that refute the notion that 46 million people are uninsured.

[sinister porpoise]

Originally Posted by Oblong, from the National Review

Instead, we can give the truly uninsured vouchers or debit cards that will allow for choice and coverage, and even health savings accounts for retirement wealth. According to expert Betsy McCaughey, instead of several trillion dollars and socialized medicine, this voucher approach would cost only about $25 billion a year.

Betsy McCaughey has been employed by the Manhattan Institute and the Hudson Institute, both being conservative think tanks. In 1994 she almost single-handedly killed Clinton's health care reform by writing a deeply misleading article for the New Republic which has since been rescinded by the magazine on account of its inaccuracy. (For example, she said his plan would make it illegal to purchase health care. It'd all be government run. The Bill actually specifically said that nothing in it would attach any penalty to private purchase of health care).

Do you remember when it was claimed that Obama's stimulus bill had a secret provision in it that would be a backdoor to controlling all health care? That was McCaughey, lying again. FactCheck.org: Doctor's Orders?

She has no expertise concerning health care.
She has a long history of lying/being wrong about health care.
She is a severe partisan.
She has multiple financial conflicts-of-interest.

Simply calling her an "expert" is purposely deceitful. Stop reading that propaganda rag

[Melody]

I don't see how a "public option" will be affordable even with substantial tax investment as long as it is "optional." I worked HR much too long and saw how penny wise and pound foolish people could be. It was shocking to me how many new hires with families would reject the insurance coverage (which was VERY affordable at that time and the company paid half). Then, almost without fail, they'd come back and yell at us because they had discovered somebody was sick or the wife was pregnant and we couldn't sign them up until the next open enrollment. "I didn't need it then!"

Many people just aren't clear on the concept of "insurance."

[Who is the Drizzle?]

Originally Posted by Buddha

How does that refute the notion that 46 million people are uninsured.

So your position is that the gov't should spend $1 trillion dollars on people who are either not citizens, are too lazy to fill out a form, or can afford hospital bills without insurance?

Sir, I disagree.

[JohnJMS]

Originally Posted by Buddha

How does that refute the notion that 46 million people are uninsured.

Read it. It's self evident. But here for you again, 14 million of the 46 million have no health care by their own choice. They qualify for existing govt care, and don't want it. We should create another whole system for THESE people?? Another 10 million CAN afford it and choose not to. But we should just give them another option? Why?

So that leaves us with 22 million uninsured who need it and can't get it. Hmmmm, let's just say 25% of those aren't legal Americans. Now we are down to about 16.5 million. We don't need to create a Universal system to help out 5% of the population that can't afford and aren't eligible for health insurance. And despite people like Couga insisting our hospitals are somehow over-run with the 5%, they are getting taken care of.

Also, I don't want ANYONE who's not a citizen getting health care. PERIOD. You do that and not deal with illegal immigration and you are opening up Pandora's Box.

That said, I think we should do something to make sure all CHILDREN are covered. But we don't need to launch this Universal nightmare on the country. Mainly? Because it's just not needed.

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by Buddha

What? I find it hard to believe that someone from the National Review would not present a full and complete picture of a poll he was citing. Shocked, I am. Shocked.

Ironic post in a thread based on a NYT/CBS poll.

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by chasfh

I've never worked for a company that would give you a choice of health insurance providers. They would give a choice of types of plans -- HMO, PPO and the like -- but all from a single company. So in such cases, the choices are: accept the one choice given to you, usually partially paying for it, and gamble that you're not going to have a problem with rescission or non-payment on benefits later on; or pay substantially more to go with any other company you might deem to provide better insurance services. That's not a real choice for the consumer, which is what those opposed to improved health insurance choice are warning we would lose.

I fail to see what providing the choice for an alternative health care insurance option, even if it is administered by the government and untethered to your actual state of employment, would be a failure for the American consumer. To my way of thinking, any situation in which consumer choice is increased is a win, not a loss.

As for the three-year-old study you're citing, the writer is conveniently misrepresenting a single result from the study as being representative of the feelings and experiences of "250 million people". It is true that one result of the study was that 89% of people polled were satisfied by the health care they received -- but that was among people who actually received health care, and those who responded "I don't know" to the question were excised from the universe of respondents. The writer wants to make it seem for the convenience of his position that everything in American health care is simply hunky-dory due to the profit-based system we have here. What he's leaving out from the same study includes the following. I've bolded what i think are some interesting findings from the very same study he cites that seem to undermine his argument that the overwhelming majority of Americans think our current healthcare system is peachy keen:

How hard is it to undertstand that there is a choice involved? The company makes a choice. That's still better than the government.

The end result of Obamacare is that consumers will have fewer options. Obviously it won't be presented that way and you can trust him all you want but it would be a sucker bet.

[Deleterious]

Not to hijack this discussion. But I am someone who does not get offered an employer insurance plan. So I go out and purchase a plan out of my own pocket, with my own money.

If this nationalized health care got passed. Could I stop paying for this and jump on the government plan?

[holygoat]

Originally Posted by Buddha

What about the US system of raitioning by corporate profit motive?

That's rationing based on market forces, which I have no problem with,. It's what this country is built upon. This comes down to the philosophical question of whether health care is a right or not. It's not -- it's a commodity just like anything else. Cars are rationed by corporate profit motive, houses are rationed by corporate profit motive (well, not so much since Barney Frank and his pals got their hands on the market, but I digress), even food is rationed according to corporate profit motive. People buy that which they can afford, yet for some reason everyone is supposed to be able to just HAVE access to the latest and greatest health care technology?

This will sound just horrible to about half the people here, which is sad, but the corporate profit motive is a good thing. Remove it and see how quickly your standard of living declines and how soon the advancement of technology grinds to a halt. The problem with health care costs is not one of corporate greed, but of an architecture where the end user has no clue how much is being paid for what he's buying. You guys are arguing about what health plan is "allowed" at certain companies -- that's part of the problem. People should be able to buy ANY of the thousands of plans offered in America, but we're content to just let our employer make that decision for us? THAT'S part of the problem.

I'd rather put my health in the hands of actual market forces than faceless bureaucrats who can pick and choose whom to help based on prejudice and whim. The market picks based on ability to pay, period, and everyone knows the rules. It's BY FAR the most fair way to ration health care or any other thing that money can buy.

[holygoat]

Originally Posted by Deleterious

Not to hijack this discussion. But I am someone who does not get offered an employer insurance plan. So I go out and purchase a plan out of my own pocket, with my own money.

If this nationalized health care got passed. Could I stop paying for this and jump on the government plan?

That's pretty much what Obama is counting on.

[sinister porpoise]

Originally Posted by Oblong

They have the motive to play favorites to those who pay for their campaigns and who they buy votes from. They don't have your best interests in mind. THey have their own interests. I'd rather a corporation play games and win than the government play games and win. The payout reaches more people.

But insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. don't give money to politicians? I don't see any real way that a public option would be tilted to one group or the other, but I can certainly see how maintaining the status quo benefits some current large-scale contributors to campaigns.

Private insurers will no longer be around with a public option. The government will structure things in such a way that private insurers will figure out that it's just not worth it and investors will go elsewhere. The law of unintended consequences. They Obama can act dumb and say "Well I didn't make them do that."

The House Bill says that the public option would have to be completely funded by premiums.

[sinister porpoise]

Originally Posted by holygoat

People should be able to buy ANY of the thousands of plans offered in America, but we're content to just let our employer make that decision for us? THAT'S part of the problem.

I'd rather put my health in the hands of actual market forces than faceless bureaucrats who can pick and choose whom to help based on prejudice and whim. The market picks based on ability to pay, period, and everyone knows the rules. It's BY FAR the most fair way to ration health care or any other thing that money can buy.

I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think the GOP agrees with you.

The alternative to the public option that has been put forward by Senator Kent Conrad of South Dakota (Democrat)..

Intended to be a compromise between Dems and Repubs

Ezra Klein - Has Kent Conrad Solved the Public Plan Problem? An Interview.

Who would charter these? What is the process? Do I go over to my local health insurance exchange and put in an application?

The way co-ops typically are formed, people who feel they're not appropriately served, or not served at all, band together. They form an organization, elect a board, hire people to do the work, pool their money, and the organization goes forward.

These cooperative entities would provide their contracts through the exchange just like everyone else, be subject to the same rules as everyone else, in terms of reserve requirements, in terms of what kind of contracts they could offer. People would go to their exchange, they'd see the option, and if they liked it, they'd sign up, and then they become one of the members, because every member is an owner. And they would have elections and that elected board would choose the leadership. [...]

I offered the G-11 group three models. One is state-based, so every state has one. I don't think that works frankly. In states like mine, the pool wouldn't be big enough. The second would be a national entity. That's probably too limiting as well. What you probably need is a national entity with state affiliates, and the further flexibility so those states can have regional pools. So in our part of the country, you might have North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming go together. Out east you might have Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire together.

Let me ask you one last question on that. I understand why this proposal wouldn't satisfy liberals who want single-payer. But why does it arouse Republican opposition? It seems, in a way, to be very small-r republican.

Because they don't...ah, you know, you'd have to ask them. It would just be my surmise on why some of them don't like it. They really don't want a competitive model, at least some of them.

[chasfh]

Health care is not cars. No one is claiming Americans have a right to free cars. It's a false analogy.

Health care is a social issue. As an interdependent society, we all benefit from having a healthy citizenry who have access to preventive health maintenance and affordable health care. We're the only western nation in the world who don't have this today as a right of our citizenship, at the very least. Not only is that an embarrassment in itself, but it's embarrassing that so many people are not embarrassed by that.

Corporate profit motive is good, but only to the point that it does not harm society, in which case the people, represented by the government, have to step in regulate it to prevent excesses that hurt society.

I don't disagree with your scenario of having "thousands" of plans to choose from (although in reality it's probably way, way closer to a dozen). But how would you untether that from your employment and make it as affordable to end users -- around $200 per month for full family coverage -- as it is to end users of the plans currently subsidized by employers? Where's the difference in cost going to come from?

[Ingefanclub]

I don't think anybody is against all Americans getting health care. I think the argument is the government should not be running any of it.

If the government wants to put in some money to help pay the way for the Americans who cannot afford it thats fine but then get out of the way.

[Blue Square Thing]

Originally Posted by Ingefanclub

I don't think anybody is against all Americans getting health care. I think the argument is the government should not be running any of it.

If the government wants to put in some money to help pay the way for the Americans who cannot afford it thats fine but then get out of the way.

The problem is that, in terms of adminstration costs for example, your government run health care systems are shed loads more efficient than the private stuff.

If the government were to give people money to spend on private schemes they'd literally be printing money for insurance companies. It is probably the absolutely least efficient way of providing health care - and your government run systems are nowhere near as efficient as they could be.

[Buddha]

Originally Posted by JohnJMS

Read it. It's self evident. But here for you again, 14 million of the 46 million have no health care by their own choice. They qualify for existing govt care, and don't want it. We should create another whole system for THESE people?? Another 10 million CAN afford it and choose not to. But we should just give them another option? Why?

So that leaves us with 22 million uninsured who need it and can't get it. Hmmmm, let's just say 25% of those aren't legal Americans. Now we are down to about 16.5 million. We don't need to create a Universal system to help out 5% of the population that can't afford and aren't eligible for health insurance. And despite people like Couga insisting our hospitals are somehow over-run with the 5%, they are getting taken care of.

Also, I don't want ANYONE who's not a citizen getting health care. PERIOD. You do that and not deal with illegal immigration and you are opening up Pandora's Box.

That said, I think we should do something to make sure all CHILDREN are covered. But we don't need to launch this Universal nightmare on the country. Mainly? Because it's just not needed.

My statement isn't an argument over whether we should insure them, it's simply saying that the statement "there are 46 million uninsured" is not refuted by the quote you presented from George Will, rather, he simply attempts to qualify it by stating WHY they are uninsured, not that they AREN'T uninsured.

However, I agree with many of your points and that when people cite that figure, it is more often than not misleading. It is certainly an incomplete analysis of what being insured or uninsured means in this country.