“if you are currently insured and you like your plan, you will be able to keep it”
Under the plan that is currently being pushed your current employer will either pay an 8% penalty (tax) or around $1000 dollars per person (annually) whichever is greater if they do not offer a plan. So to personalize this a bit, since my company is working under a profit motive and has a large department to manage the health insurance which I am sure costs them substantially more than 8% of EBIT they will make a business decision to quit offering a health plan. This means I will automatically be pushed into the public option.
“This will lower costs much like Medicare has lower costs annually than private health insurance pays”
Hello…McFly…The reason that private insurance plans pay MORE for procedures than Medicare, more than the average cost between Medicare and Private Cost is because MEDICARE IS SUBSIDIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT. How stupid or willfully ignorant do you have to be to believe that the Government will lower the cost of ANYTHING? The reason Medicare’s cost is lower is because the government can pay whatever they want. If the medical industry loses money on a Medicare patient then they are forced to make up the deficit on the EVIL insurance companies.
“we are going to cover more people, with less cost, and we are going to do it without having more doctors or hospitals”
…ummm… if you believe this, please call me, I have some ocean front property I want to sell you, and I want you to meet a Nigerian prince friend of mine.
“Paying doctors per procedure doesn’t work and we have to change to a results based model”
Well on the surface I agree, but what they mean when they say this is that they are going to pay a certain amount per head flat fee. This will incentivize doctors to speed up the process, and also give less incentive to take care of anything other than snotty noses. If you can imagine the concept that there will be longer lines, spend less time speaking to a Dr. and Dr.’s are going to just push more pills. Really, If i got paid the same for a prostate exam, a Pap smear or johnny’s runny nose, why would I do those other procedures? Under the flat rate plan a Dr will LOSE money when he prescribes tests, because the tests come out of his fee. [as the dr gets ready for your surgery….'uh, Doc, don’t you need an xray or something, and where are the nurses and the anathesiologist?” Doc: “nope, you will be fine.”]
The other side of this, is one reason people get MRI’s for ankle sprains, antibiotics(bacteria) for the flu (viral), and Narcotics for a boo boo has much more to do with the fear of malpractice lawsuits than it does with a doctor being greedy and piling on tests. What happened to take two aspirin and call me in the morning? It was not so much to do with greed as it did with 1) new fancy technology that has to be used in order to pay for itself and 2) Lawyers.
Which brings me to one of the biggest questions I have, “why if we are reform healthcare have we not heard one peep about tort reform?” and I can answer this one “because most politicians are lawyers and the largest lobbying group is the bar association.”
Bottom line, Govt. Healthcare is about power, moving more people to government jobs and government dependency to increase government control. They also know that our population is aging, our life expectancy is increasing, Medicare is broke, social security is broke, and this will be a legal way to get rid of all those retirees. It will absolutely create lines, waiting lists, rationing, corruption, waste, and a lower standard of care. There is no way around it no matter what way you look at it, if you really look at it. Step away from the KOOL-AID
If we really want to reform healthcare we would de-regulate insurance companies, we would reform tort law with some limits and maybe a loser pays system, and we would start putting a sunset on medicare and Social Security. I would give up my ability to collect it someday if I could pocket half the money they take from me.
