Medicare for all question

I don't care if my taxes go up if I can stop paying for health insurance, doctors visits, er trips, medicine. Almost anyiwould come out ahead. Especially those of us who have kids. It's expensive when they get sick.

originally posted by: LordAhriman
Almost anyiwould come out ahead.

Not the roughly 180 million who work for companies who provide good coverage for thier employees.

Thus the fight. If it were seen as universally benificial, there wouldn't be an arguement.

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: rickymouse

I think the doctors are being told to increase testing to pay for the labs and services that are provided by the hospitals.

I used to work for a University med school. Doctors are told to invest in labs and services to enhance the bottom line once they have a practice established.

Capitalism, what's your problem...? Contracted Labs and medical services cost a lot of money to establish...they don't deserve a fair return for the stockholders investments....?

If we go to socialized medicine that will not need to be the case. A lot less tests will need to be run. Around here even little hospitals have cat scans even though a big hospital is ten to fifteen miles away and has everything. In fact the hospital ten miles away owns the little hospital we go to. Keeping someone at the hospital to take cat scans 24/7 is expensive. I can see having X-rays there, but not the Cat scan. The little hospital went nuts and built a new hospital and aquired all sorts of labs and x-ray equipment and was going to go bankrupt before the big hospital took over. People could go to the big hospital to have necessary testing done when needed, but people do not have the patients anymore, they want expensive tests if the insurance will pay.

We cannot afford all of this expensive healthcare that is not nearly as good as the socialized medicine is. They would send someone for a cat scan if they hurt their wrist before, they are expensive X-rays. I was sent to about five of them for stuff that an X-ray would have shown easily. When they discovered the dark side of all of these X'ray tests and they are not allowed to use them the price jumped up from a grand to seven grand. Still way too high for society to pay for even though they only have a quarter of the scans they used to have.

originally posted by: HalWesten

originally posted by: rickymouse
Patients need to stop paying for unnecessary procedures. I see people being prescribed treatments and tests all the time that in no way match the symptoms. They stay sick for a long time, eventually the right diagnosis is found, the diagnosis that should have been given right away. I do not know what the medical industry is doing, they are raising the price of insurances through the roof by having wrong diagnosis's originally. I do not think the Doctors are that dumb, if they are, then the medical colleges must be looked at for their teaching of doctors to scam the public instead of helping people. I think the doctors are being told to increase testing to pay for the labs and services that are provided by the hospitals.

I worked in health care for several years. The ACA changed how our system works. Doctors by the thousands had to give up their practices and become part of larger health systems or insurance companies wouldn't pay them. That is a VERY general statement without an explanation of how, but that was the end result. Now we have several different doctors for simple procedures and diagnostic processes where we used to only have a few, and costs have skyrocketed.

For example: When I sprained an ankle when I was a kid I went to my regular doctor, got in the same day, he fixed me up and I was on my way after mom paid cash for the office call. If I did that today my regular doctor would diagnose it, then set up an appointment with an orthopedic specialist who would have an xray done and possibly an MRI to make sure I didn't sustain any serious damage to tissues, tendons and so on. Now a radiologist is in the mix along with multiple nurses and technicians and a simple sprained ankle just jumped from a couple hundred dollar injury to several thousand dollars because insurance companies are afraid of being sued if every possible thing isn't checked. That is an extreme waste of resources, no matter what type of coverage one has. None, private or completely covered public care, it's still a waste of expensive treatment options.

Wait a minute. Isn't it good to check things out? Absolutely, but we use far more procedures than are necessary most of the time. My general doctor told me straight out if they don't follow the guidelines of the insurance company, they won't get paid. Period. So now people that don't know you and have never seen you are dictating your method of treatment. It's gotten ridiculous.

That is exactly what I am talking about. It has gotten crazy. People do not understand, with the raising of cost of healthcare employers cannot give better wages, the money goes into insurance premiums instead of the workers pocket. Workers figure that they need to use the insurance more to break even and go into doctors for any little reason which raises costs again. Schools require doctors notes if kids are out of school sick a lot, my daughter brought her daughter into the doctors three times in two weeks so there was proof that she was still sick. Their insurance sucks, but the kids have a medicare kicker that pays what the insurance does not cover. But still they have a twenty five dollar copay even with that.

I was in an auto accident and went through hell with tests and procedures that were not really necessary, my meds ran twenty five hundred a month for the acquired epilepsy from the TBI. I was intolerant to the meds, couldn't detox them, so I now control my epilepsy with diet and it works because I need about a tenth of the chemistry as others do and I can use soup or other common chemistries to control it. Kind of sucks, can't eat a lot of certain foods I used to eat all the time, but I am way better off than if I was on the meds. The insurance and car insurance paid for the meds, but nothing at all for the cabbage, soups, potatoes, and asparagus or cheap supplements I use to control it. I suppose, I have to eat anyway, and all the foods that control it are cheap. so twenty five bucks a month is better than the twenty five hundred bucks a month I was using and at least by shuffling the chemistries I do not get side effects...other than maybe a little gas from the high cabbage in the soup.

originally posted by: LordAhriman
I don't care if my taxes go up if I can stop paying for health insurance, doctors visits, er trips, medicine. Almost anyiwould come out ahead. Especially those of us who have kids. It's expensive when they get sick.

When healthcare costs increase $1.5 trillion overnight, who do you think is paying for that?

Know how your kids are expensive, add another $1k a year to that. You happy now?

a reply to: olaru12

The insurance companies won't be eliminated. Healthcare isn't about healthcare, it's about profit. All the way from $15 aspirin tablets to $100,000 bogus cancer cures. treatments

Fixed that for you.

All of the issues with healthcare are a result of government interference at the state and federal levels that have led to this fustercluck of a system.

Insurance Portability:
The reason your insurance is tied to your employer is because that is how companies got around wage controls during World War II. Insurance should be portable and all tax laws should favor the employee paying all the cost of insurance directly, not the employer. So any tax benefit for having insurance is received by the employee, not employer.

State Competition:

Another issue with insurance is that each state has their own insurance regulations that have strangled competition. So if you live in Illinois, you can't get insurance from a provider in Kentucky, etc. As a result, some states literally only have one or two major insurance providers.

Insurance is not healthcare:

Another big problem is that people don't understand that insurance is supposed to be for catastrophic care, not covering every little sniffle and cough. You carry insurance because you might break an arm or need surgery. Your insurance is not supposed to be paying for your annual physical, massages, etc. Imagine how much your car insurance would cost if it had to cover oil changes and car washes.

We know free markets work because costs are cheap in the medical space where insurance is not typically used like plastic surgery, infertility treatments, etc. You can literally buy yourself a new ass for like $5k. Put it on a credit card. When insurance isn't involved, doctors start competing on price. Another example is LASIK surgery. Dental care is also cheap as well.

The solution is not more government, but less of it.

Anytime you have a THIRD PAYOR involved you will get high costs. The consumer (you) is not paying so you don't worry about the cost. The company charging knows insurance is paying, so they jack up the cost.

Put another way, think about how you act on an expense account versus paying out of pocket. If you travel for business and you have an expense account, you are like screw it... room service, steak medium rare. However, when you travel on your own dime, you are asking the front desk where the nearest McDonald's is...

The solutions are simple. It doesn't take a trillion dollar takeover of an industry by government. Government screwed up the industry, so we can't expect government to fix it.

originally posted by: Edumakated
The solutions are simple. It doesn't take a trillion dollar takeover of an industry by government. Government screwed up the industry, so we can't expect government to fix it.

$5 trillion.

a reply to: xuenchen

The money for all the building worker pay CEO bonuses in the millions as well as board members

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: LordAhriman
I don't care if my taxes go up if I can stop paying for health insurance, doctors visits, er trips, medicine. Almost anyiwould come out ahead. Especially those of us who have kids. It's expensive when they get sick.

When healthcare costs increase $1.5 trillion overnight, who do you think is paying for that?

Know how your kids are expensive, add another $1k a year to that. You happy now?

I pay about $1k every 2 months for my family's coverage, so bring it on. Then I still have to pay to see a doctor, get medicine, etc...

Im a Brit.
Just had a knee op on our NHS.
Wonderful.
You yanks need to get your priorities sorted.

Combined with my employer contribution the health insurance company gets about $2000/month. Then, on top of that, I still have to cover up to $2000/year before the insurance kicks in, where I finally get a break and pay 25% of the total cost. Recently had a two night stay at the hospital, for over $12,000. Now I'm out another couple thousand from that. Then the exciting prescription drug costs start to kick in, opioids for pain and antibiotics that kill everything in your body, not to mention the continuing prescriptions just to keep the issues at bay.

I would gladly, GLADLY put that $2000/month towards taxes to the federal government just so I don't face death by a thousand cuts in additional healthcare spending. Hell, if we could just raise the tax limit on millionaires and billionaires I probably wouldn't even have to pay that much.

Or, hear me out, we could just keep letting large private health care companies buy smaller health care companies and then jack up the price 1000% and tell you that you have to pay or go bankrupt!