As an accountant who has dealt with health care programs often in my career, I tend to side with the actuaries. The insurance industry, doctors and other health care organizations are raising their estimates on the cost and questioning the effectiveness of the program. There are still issues with coverage of family members that is unresolved and would exclude spouses and children from coverage. It is just one of several issues that need to be defined and reworked within the context of the law. I’m sure there will be lots more.
It is usually a fantasy to expect government programs to actually save money or operate on their proposed budget.
Which is why “single-payer” won’t work either. If anything, it’d be worse than this hybrid monster.
From Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2011/12/19/the-ugly-realities-of-socialized-medicine-are-not-going-away-3/2/):
A report by Britain’s health regulator found that 20 percent of hospitals were failing to provide the minimum standard of care legally required for elderly patients. As part of the study, inspectors dropped by dozens of hospitals unannounced. They found patients shouting or banging on bedrails trying to get the attention of a nurse. At one hospital, inspectors identified bed-ridden patients that hadn’t been given water for over 10 hours.
The Health Council of Canada conducted a study that found, among other things, about a quarter of chronically ill respondents skipped their medications or neglected to fill a prescription because it was too expensive. Further, many Canadians travel to the United States and pay out of pocket for treatments and procedures to avoid the overly-long wait times.
(My personal favorite was an anecdotal account of a pregnant woman who was told she could see an OB in 10 months.)
And from this account (http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html):
More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months.
More than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province’s population) can’t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who’d get a doctor’s appointment.
For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.
M. D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than the entire nation of Canada.
And people really want that kind of system here? I don’t think so.
In reality, the biggest driver for out-of-control costs in this country isn’t the cost of insurance. It’s the lack of market forces. Basic economics: People will shop around to get a better deal, so the place that manages to find the best corner of quality and price tends to get the business. That puts pressure on other establishments to follow suit or wither and die. But because insurance is so ubiquitous these days, we don’t pay attention to what it costs. We just go to whatever location is most convenient regardless of the costs involved.
This is also part of the reason insurance has gotten so expensive. When medical insurance was first “invented,” it was almost entirely catastrophic coverage. Over time, we have demanded insurance cover more and more. Guess what? That makes it more expensive. Now we demand that it cover everything. An attempt was made at insurance programs that would control costs. It worked, but people said the HMOs were evil.
We need to get the market back into the medical game. Open insurance markets more (rather than leaving them confined to individual states). You have the government in control of this, you’re going to have the same thing that happens in every other single country: Long wait times, stagnant medical technology and byzantine bureaucracies making the decisions about what kind of treatment you get — if you get it at all.
no one thinks this republican / mitt – romney / obamacare is ideal. and no one claims it is except the people who use it as a straw horse argument to take it apart.a single-payer system NOT hooked up to employers would be ideal, but the republicans never would have passed it. So this solution is the intersection of what is possible politically with what is needed nationally.Unfortunately a small but necessary group who are needed to pass healthcare are far more concerned about the money that goes into the pockets of teh chief officers of the health insurance companies. The chief officers of the health insurnace companes increase their own personal wealth by squeezing doctors, squeezing patients and putting that “squeeze” money into their own pockets and into the pockets of their ‘bought and paid for’ congressmen.clearly sub-optimal all the way around. but so long as american employers are hobbled with the cost of healthcare, while our competitors abroad either provide slave labor with disposable people (like china), or provide healthcare from the country (like europe), it makes our inefficient system unable to compete.
Fun fact, UHC works in other countries, however it does involve essentially taking over healthcare. The Obama administration was in favor of the companies and instead pinned bets that health care providers would pass the savings on vs pad their stock value, and ceo wages. Suffice to say we know what happened
quipss fun fact uhc does NOT work in other countries example uk [ see hamsterbane] canada med assoc head said it is imploding ,see va as an attempt at gov h c
The simple fact is the “privates”, as in mandated insurance providers, started talking their increased premiums and deductibles, and salivating over their increased profits (actually payments to staff and CEOs to keep “profits” lower) the minute the Act passed with the Republican mandated “private” mandate, just as pharmaceutical companies did when REPUBLICANS banned “bargaining” for drugs for Medicare!
Overly done tests mandated by insurance company protections (profits) are a huge part of high medical costs in the U.S. compared to any other “industrialized nation” that has “public health care”, not necessarily “socialized” medicine.
Their are lots of opportunities to reduce costs, and make doctors medical practitioners with offices staffed by nurses, not accountants and bookkeepers, and “single payer” is a huge part of that solution, period.
swr says, “name me one country that you would live in where single payer has worked.” I’ve lived in the US and I’ve lived in Canada, and I prefer the Canadian single payer system.
Would you please listen? A friend of mine (here in Toronto) just two weeks ago was diagnosed with esophageal cancer — these are often diagnosed late, since they often don’t present any symptoms until they are well developed. She had surgery within two days (that’s two days) with a surgical team of ten doing the operation. She then had follow up chemotherapy, and now she’s waiting for the second set of treatments. The prognosis is guarded, because (as I said) these are often caught late, but the treatment has been first rate. There’s a lot to worry about, but the standard of treatment is not among her worries, nor, for that matter, is there any worry about paying for treatment. So, cora, if you have any regard for the the truth, you must add this case to your stock of anecdotes about health care in a single-payer system. I await your response.
Cause it was gonna be free. Obuma was going to pay that lady in Fla car note, give her gas and give her health care, course the rich will have to pay, but the low information voter doesn’t care. Obuma said we keep our doctor, nope, you lose your health care because you are working 30 hrs, so your boss doesn’t have to pay.
This is just anecdotal, but up here in Canada we hear that in the US when poor people come to the hospital the doctors take them out back and shoot them. That’s what my cousin’s nephew told me, or really, he told my old high school friend, and he wrote it to me in an email, but I deleted it, but it’s true, for sure. Would you want to live in a system like that?
Odon Premium Member about 11 years ago
Universal Healthcare would resolve all the “ills” listed above.
Chillbilly about 11 years ago
That’s our punishment for forcing consumers to use private medicine.
Mickey 13 about 11 years ago
As an accountant who has dealt with health care programs often in my career, I tend to side with the actuaries. The insurance industry, doctors and other health care organizations are raising their estimates on the cost and questioning the effectiveness of the program. There are still issues with coverage of family members that is unresolved and would exclude spouses and children from coverage. It is just one of several issues that need to be defined and reworked within the context of the law. I’m sure there will be lots more.
It is usually a fantasy to expect government programs to actually save money or operate on their proposed budget.
Hamstersbane about 11 years ago
Which is why “single-payer” won’t work either. If anything, it’d be worse than this hybrid monster.
From Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2011/12/19/the-ugly-realities-of-socialized-medicine-are-not-going-away-3/2/):
A report by Britain’s health regulator found that 20 percent of hospitals were failing to provide the minimum standard of care legally required for elderly patients. As part of the study, inspectors dropped by dozens of hospitals unannounced. They found patients shouting or banging on bedrails trying to get the attention of a nurse. At one hospital, inspectors identified bed-ridden patients that hadn’t been given water for over 10 hours.
The Health Council of Canada conducted a study that found, among other things, about a quarter of chronically ill respondents skipped their medications or neglected to fill a prescription because it was too expensive. Further, many Canadians travel to the United States and pay out of pocket for treatments and procedures to avoid the overly-long wait times.
(My personal favorite was an anecdotal account of a pregnant woman who was told she could see an OB in 10 months.)
And from this account (http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html):
More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months.
More than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province’s population) can’t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who’d get a doctor’s appointment.
For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.
M. D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than the entire nation of Canada.
And people really want that kind of system here? I don’t think so.
In reality, the biggest driver for out-of-control costs in this country isn’t the cost of insurance. It’s the lack of market forces. Basic economics: People will shop around to get a better deal, so the place that manages to find the best corner of quality and price tends to get the business. That puts pressure on other establishments to follow suit or wither and die. But because insurance is so ubiquitous these days, we don’t pay attention to what it costs. We just go to whatever location is most convenient regardless of the costs involved.
This is also part of the reason insurance has gotten so expensive. When medical insurance was first “invented,” it was almost entirely catastrophic coverage. Over time, we have demanded insurance cover more and more. Guess what? That makes it more expensive. Now we demand that it cover everything. An attempt was made at insurance programs that would control costs. It worked, but people said the HMOs were evil.
We need to get the market back into the medical game. Open insurance markets more (rather than leaving them confined to individual states). You have the government in control of this, you’re going to have the same thing that happens in every other single country: Long wait times, stagnant medical technology and byzantine bureaucracies making the decisions about what kind of treatment you get — if you get it at all.
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
no one thinks this republican / mitt – romney / obamacare is ideal. and no one claims it is except the people who use it as a straw horse argument to take it apart.a single-payer system NOT hooked up to employers would be ideal, but the republicans never would have passed it. So this solution is the intersection of what is possible politically with what is needed nationally.Unfortunately a small but necessary group who are needed to pass healthcare are far more concerned about the money that goes into the pockets of teh chief officers of the health insurance companies. The chief officers of the health insurnace companes increase their own personal wealth by squeezing doctors, squeezing patients and putting that “squeeze” money into their own pockets and into the pockets of their ‘bought and paid for’ congressmen.clearly sub-optimal all the way around. but so long as american employers are hobbled with the cost of healthcare, while our competitors abroad either provide slave labor with disposable people (like china), or provide healthcare from the country (like europe), it makes our inefficient system unable to compete.
Quipss about 11 years ago
Fun fact, UHC works in other countries, however it does involve essentially taking over healthcare. The Obama administration was in favor of the companies and instead pinned bets that health care providers would pass the savings on vs pad their stock value, and ceo wages. Suffice to say we know what happened
oneoldhat about 11 years ago
quipss fun fact uhc does NOT work in other countries example uk [ see hamsterbane] canada med assoc head said it is imploding ,see va as an attempt at gov h c
dannysixpack about 11 years ago
^unc in other countries works better for more people than our private system does here.
Dtroutma about 11 years ago
The simple fact is the “privates”, as in mandated insurance providers, started talking their increased premiums and deductibles, and salivating over their increased profits (actually payments to staff and CEOs to keep “profits” lower) the minute the Act passed with the Republican mandated “private” mandate, just as pharmaceutical companies did when REPUBLICANS banned “bargaining” for drugs for Medicare!
Overly done tests mandated by insurance company protections (profits) are a huge part of high medical costs in the U.S. compared to any other “industrialized nation” that has “public health care”, not necessarily “socialized” medicine.
Their are lots of opportunities to reduce costs, and make doctors medical practitioners with offices staffed by nurses, not accountants and bookkeepers, and “single payer” is a huge part of that solution, period.
Michael Peterson Premium Member about 11 years ago
Difference between premiums and cost, silly man. Do you know that and make the comparison to fool us, or are you the fool?
oneoldhat about 11 years ago
overly done test is the result of lawyers
make doctors medical practitioners with offices staffed by nurses, not accountants and bookkeepers, and make patients pay cash and file own claim
great idea an " imploding " single payment system like canada
lonecat about 11 years ago
swr says, “name me one country that you would live in where single payer has worked.” I’ve lived in the US and I’ve lived in Canada, and I prefer the Canadian single payer system.
lonecat about 11 years ago
Would you please listen? A friend of mine (here in Toronto) just two weeks ago was diagnosed with esophageal cancer — these are often diagnosed late, since they often don’t present any symptoms until they are well developed. She had surgery within two days (that’s two days) with a surgical team of ten doing the operation. She then had follow up chemotherapy, and now she’s waiting for the second set of treatments. The prognosis is guarded, because (as I said) these are often caught late, but the treatment has been first rate. There’s a lot to worry about, but the standard of treatment is not among her worries, nor, for that matter, is there any worry about paying for treatment. So, cora, if you have any regard for the the truth, you must add this case to your stock of anecdotes about health care in a single-payer system. I await your response.
PAULHARVEY about 11 years ago
Plus you will buy more than you want, a 55 yo has to buy a policy with pregnancy cause, and a young family has to buy one with hair plugs.
PAULHARVEY about 11 years ago
Cause it was gonna be free. Obuma was going to pay that lady in Fla car note, give her gas and give her health care, course the rich will have to pay, but the low information voter doesn’t care. Obuma said we keep our doctor, nope, you lose your health care because you are working 30 hrs, so your boss doesn’t have to pay.
lonecat about 11 years ago
This is just anecdotal, but up here in Canada we hear that in the US when poor people come to the hospital the doctors take them out back and shoot them. That’s what my cousin’s nephew told me, or really, he told my old high school friend, and he wrote it to me in an email, but I deleted it, but it’s true, for sure. Would you want to live in a system like that?