Old fight, same scare tactics

[Tunnelcat]

Here's an interesting historical audio recording of Ronald Reagan made during the Medicare fight during the 1960's. Here's Reagan, as a private citizen, mouthing the same scare tactics that are being dredged up today.

[Spidey]

Well…I’m scared, that’s for sure.

And it’s not the “scare mongers” that are scaring me…I’ve been looking at the proposed reform, and quite frankly…its scary as hell! For example…

The 250k requirement cutoff. Those people in government just don’t get it, I can just imagine how many companies are going to cut payroll, to make that cutoff.

And that’s just the tip of the iceburg.

........................

And off the top of my head, here’s another…The requirement that people will have to buy insurance, whether they want or need it. Not only is that wrong on so many levels…but what is going to happen to the economy, when all that money is being spent on a GNPless service, instead of spending it on “things”. Will those insurance companies spend it wisely, and insure the economy doesn’t suffer?

Hell, it’s hard enuf now to have any expendable income.

And if they require buying insurance, will they also require you to use it…I sure as hell will!

.................

Yay!!! Now we too can live the typical European lifestyle…get up in the morning, get into your tiny little car, fill it with overpriced gas, drive to your government job, do nothing all day, drive home to your tiny little overpriced flat, get a beer out of the fridge, plop down on the couch, stick your fingers in your belt, and watch the telly.

Who cares if you pay 70% of your income in taxes…you have free health care! [/Sarcastic Hyperbole]

[Duper]

Who cares if you pay 70% of your income in taxes…you have free health care! [/Sarcastic Hyperbole]

Bingo!

(not sure about the belly part, but I'll go with it)

I've talked to a number of folks from all over the world where there is government supplied health care. Trust me, we do NOT want it. in part beacause of what Spidey said is quite true. How many here have ever dealt with VA hospitals? or were in the military? remember what getting medical care there is/was like?

[flip]

Yay!!! Now we too can live the typical European lifestyle…get up in the morning, get into your tiny little car, fill it with overpriced gas, drive to your government job, do nothing all day, drive home to your tiny little overpriced flat, get a beer out of the fridge, plop down on the couch, stick your fingers in your belt, and watch the telly.

You forgot about stopping and spending their money in the stores you pass

[flip]

I'm sure everybody here has been to the DMV, Duper. That is exactly what it will degrade to, after the thrill is gone. Damn dumb humans, always hoping against hope.

[woodchip]

Lets see, do we really want the same people who have handled our social security retirement accts. to handle our health care?

[Dedman]

Lets see, do we really want the same people who have handled our social security retirement accts. to handle our health care?

NO!

[Duper]

I'm sure everybody here has been to the DMV, Duper. That is exactly what it will degrade to, after the thrill is gone. Damn dumb humans, always hoping against hope.

the DMV...lmao.. hahahaha ... they'lll want to check emissions too er.. you're carbon foot print.

[Tunnelcat]

And off the top of my head, here’s another…The requirement that people will have to buy insurance, whether they want or need it. Not only is that wrong on so many levels…but what is going to happen to the economy, when all that money is being spent on a GNPless service, instead of spending it on “things”. Will those insurance companies spend it wisely, and insure the economy doesn’t suffer?

Hell, it’s hard enuf now to have any expendable income.

And if they require buying insurance, will they also require you to use it…I sure as hell will!

Spidey, I only posted this because of historical interest. I just found it funny that all the old arguments against Medicare are still being used today in a new fight against health care reform.

But I agree with your points. The way these idiots in Washington are setting things up, it's going to result in a massive EXPENSIVE clusterf**k for everyone! Whoever came up with the moronic idea that if everybody had to BUY some form of insurance and that would solve the problem HASN'T GOT A CLUE about what the problem really is. Oh, I forgot about Mitt Romney and his Massachusetts law along these lines!

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 459782.htm

The problem is NOT that everybody can't afford insurance, which is true in it's own right, it's that we can't afford the actual damned HEALTH CARE! Insurance is just PART OF THE PROBLEM! If my premiums keep going up at 20% a year, I'll have to drop it and hope that I don't go bankrupt with some medical treatment or emergency. Of course, there's always death to solve the problem, much cheaper. God this bums me out!

What I wonder is how long the status quo will go on? What percentage of the U.S. population not having health care will it take for a revolution to occur? When the poor, old and sick are dying on the streets? When more and more people lose their homes due to bankruptcy and THEN die homeless in the streets?

I know that there are a lot of people on this board that live in Europe, Canada and Australia. Speak up! I'd like to hear their stories about their health care systems, pro or con. All I keep hearing is how crappy it is.

[Drakona]

The problem is NOT that everybody can't afford insurance, which is true in it's own right, it's that we can't afford the actual damned HEALTH CARE! Insurance is just PART OF THE PROBLEM! If my premiums keep going up at 20% a year, I'll have to drop it and hope that I don't go bankrupt with some medical treatment or emergency.

You know, this completely confounds me.

I've been to the hospital a lot recently, and the bills just confuse me. I have a pretty good idea of what things should cost -- what technical labor costs, what certain types of technology cost, what facilities cost. The times I've been in, I'd have believed costs of $100, $200, once even $500, for services received. And that's typically about what insurance pays for it. But the bills! They're typically three, five, ten times that!

At the same time, the cost of insurance is just silly. I remember back when I was working a minimum wage job. After I quit, I got a letter stating that they were required to allow me to continue my existing health care plan (which was crap) for $500 a month. I was dumbfounded. I hadn't been to the doctor in years. I was young, fit, healthy. The most I might ever use the plan for would be an annual physical, something they'd only cover half of anyway. I could not imagine any reasonable circumstance under which I constituted a $500 a month risk.

What is wrong with this industry?

I bought glasses a couple years ago. The examination involved some technology and a technician's time; it cost $50, which was the right order of magnitude. The glasses were about $100, which was similarly reasonable given the technology and resources involved. I left with my vision repaired and my budget intact.

Dentists, same deal. They list their prices on signs or in ads, and they're always ballpark reasonable.

But medicine! Holy cow! I went in for some advice, a quick physical, and some samples to be taken and sent off to a lab, and they wanted over $700! Insurance paid something like $115, which was reasonable given the time and expertise I'd made use of. (I, of course, paid nothing.)

This is the part that completely confounds me. What's up with medicine (as opposed to dental or vision) that they have these fake prices? If I want someone to work on my house or car, I can call several contractors and compare quotes and reputations. But medical prices are, by all I can determine, complete fiction. And then they won't even tell me the fictional price. It's either, "We'll treat you and then work out payment" or "You're not well insured? Why don't you try this other place . . ."

The funny thing to me is, I bet if most folks were charged the "insured person" price, they could pay for the routine and preventative stuff out of pocket. If we carried insurance for catastrophic events, like we do with cars, the premiums would be comparably low. I can't see how this would affect the hospital any differently--I could still go anywhere I chose, and they'd still get the same amount of money. The only difference would be that my insurance company wouldn't (presumably) get a cut. And I suspect under a system like this, most folks wouldn't need financial help, and we'd all be better off.

How we get health insurance bothers me anyway. I can shop around for auto insurance based on my finances and risk tolerence. Home insurance, same deal. But medical insurance comes through my employer. Buying more of it is so expensive it's silly, and I cannot simply opt out of my employer's policy. The result is that I have no control over it whatsoever. I cannot shop for more, and I cannot save money by consuming less. So my employer has fairly complete control over my health. Who thought that was a good idea?

Net effect, I pay for an insurance policy my employer chose, at a price I can't control, which offers a range of services I didn't choose, at prices that don't affect me, which I cannot possibly supplement on my own because the prices are fictional anyway (and outrageous).

I don't understand it. It'd be in poor taste to complain, since it's not hurting me nearly as much as it hurts some other people, but it certainly confuses me and offends my sense of liberty.

I don't understand why it is the way it is. But if this is a free market, then I am Mickey Mouse!

[Dedman]

I cannot simply opt out of my employer's policy.

Is that a Washington State thing? I can opt out if I want to. In fact Mrs Dedman does opt out of hers because my health insurance is slightly better.

[Will Robinson]

I've often wondered if the fictional price isn't serving the doctors and hospitals two purposes.
One, it's like car dealers, mark it up so when you mark it back down for the insurance company who can demand the markdown due to its buying power you still receive your full price.
Two, the difference between the fictional price and the amount paid is a discount on their balance sheet which may find itself recorded as a loss on the tax form. Say a doctor charges 2 million in one year but only gets paid 1.5 million so the .5 million he \"lost\" provides him some kind of offset to his taxes?

I'd love to be able to interview an accountant who is responsible for designing the system...but traveling to the bowels of Hell to speak to one of Satan's henchmen is not on my list of things to do....

[Spidey]

Another thing that comes to mind about mandatory insurance…enforcement.

Are they going to create another class of criminals…the uninsured? Throw you in jail? I guess the uninsured will make great scapegoats.

My guess, the enforcement will have to be done at the provider end…no insurance…no service. Hey that sounds familiar.

[Will Robinson]

A big percentage of their often touted number of \"uninsured\" are single people under 35 years old who don't want insurance. they could have it but would rather go clubbing and buy nice cars etc. instead of ride the bus to work and stay home on Fri. and Sat. nights.
So now will they have to buy insurance or pay the stiff fines that Obama's plan calls for if you don't buy insurance? I can't wait to see how many of the young voters who proudly but ignorantly chanted \"Change we can believe in\" all the way to the voting booth 6 months ago don't show up or donate for his reelection campaign if he pushes that part of his plan through!

[woodchip]

[Krom]

:words and:
But if this is a free market, then I am Mickey Mouse!

One other thing that should be noted for the comparison to the optometrist or the dentist or the mechanic. When you need to visit a clinic, odds are you are going to be visiting either a fairly large building that could easily employ hundreds of workers, or a smaller branch office who's headquarters is a large building that could easily employ hundreds. Where as the dentist, optometrist, or mechanic are all likely in single level buildings with only a few rooms.

Just recently I found myself in the University of Wisconsin clinic in Madison, and what an enormous building it is. There was a 6 level parking garage that was nearly FULL, the inside of the building was so large and complicated that hallways and rooms had street/plaza names, and there were concourses like airports have labeled A through G. The whole scale of it was ridiculous, is such a gigantic centralized system necessary or even a good idea?

When something major breaks on your car, you are out anywhere from $300 to $1500 to get it fixed.

When something major happens to your teeth, it will cost $400 to $2000 to get it fixed.

When something major happens to your health, its going to exceed $20,000 easily, and there aren't even any guarantees it will be fixed at that.

The fact that clinics are able to set up such gigantic structures is probably the most visible sigh that the industry is anti-competitive. Just by driving past it you can tell there are hundreds of millions of dollars sunk into it just to build it, let alone administrative/operational costs virtually all of which likely have next to nothing to do with health care other than providing a building. The whole thing looks entirely too comfortable for big business.

The healthcare system is disgustingly obese.

[Duper]

Krom, here in Portland, most professional medical types \"contract\" through various insurance agencies. My wife visits doctors regularly and many of them are in complexs where they are a separate financial enity and pay the hospital or whoever owns the building room and board. The local hospitals here treat each of their own departments as separate entities and are bill as such.

There are many private practices in the area but they are growning fewer each year and many of those are outside convensional medicine. (not that that is really a BAD thing.)

And X2 to your last statement. We have \"Providence Good Health Plan\" which is own which conglomerate I forget. We have to jumpo through a number of hoops within the HMO (aslo set up by Democrates) ...I take that back .. \"encouraged\".. just to have an MRI done on her neck. Now, we could go outside the whole racket and go to an independant but it would cost us somewhere in the relm of 3k. o_0

incidentally, I had my car worked on this year ... 3k = tranny.

[Tunnelcat]

There are several problems I see with this mess, having to have insurance for every little medical treatment, cost obfuscation to hide the true cost of a particular procedure to a patient and lack of good old competition to keep prices down because of inelastic demand. All you guys have hit the nail on the head.

Health insurance should only be for major hospitalization, just like house insurance is bought for fire, natural disasters, etc. You don't buy insurance for regular maintenance like painting or roof repairs do you? Ditto with your car. It just doesn't make sense to me the way our system has evolved. If people could see the price of everyday medical procedures, then they could make informed decisions about what they want to pay for and shop around if they wanted. Prices would be kept controlled under consumer pressure, just like in a true free market system! Big insurance and Wall Street need to GET OUT of every little facet of our health care.

Cost obfuscation makes no sense to me as to why it's done. Why can't you find out what something costs BEFORE you have it done! Profit pressure maybe? All you have to do is look at the myriad influx of bills that tickle in for MONTHS after any doctor or clinic or hospital visit and you can see the vast numbers of people involved in the whole scheme. You see nothing but incomprehensible rows of numbers and codes with big dollar signs behind them and you immediately get burnout, frustration and angry resignation that you've been robbed, but your not sure how. I had surgery to get a broken wrist pinned. What pisses me off is that they NEVER told me that a simple, safer and CHEAPER nerve block would have sufficed to install the pins (I found this out from one of my neighbors who is a retired anesthesiologist). Instead they insisted upon using anesthesia and charged me wads of cash for the privilege of being knocked out for the FIFTEEN MINUTE procedure, which then took 2 and a half hours to complete, from beginning to end! That's not efficiency, it's milking the customer for money to pay for their nice little surgery center!

Will and Drakona, getting an INDIVIDUAL insurance policy is a nightmare, you're lucky if you get it through the employer! If you work for a company that doesn't have an in house policy or sponsored coverage, YOU WILL GET RAKED THROUGH THE COALS AND HUNG OUT TO DRY TO GET IT! Many insurance companies aren't even bothering to offer it to individuals. So all those 35 or younger slobs who probably work for minimum wage in a service job and need health insurance CAN'T EVEN FIND INSURANCE unless they're persistent and flush with money! Those of us over 50 and retired with health issues are in the same boat. You're damned either way if you buy insurance or not. You can choose to pay through the nose for said insurance premiums at this age or you go broke paying for the medical treatment out of pocket. NICE!

[Will Robinson]

....
Will and Drakona, getting an INDIVIDUAL insurance policy is a nightmare, you're lucky if you get it through the employer!...

I buy my own insurance, the policy was initially a $5000 deductible for a family of four. Once we spent $5000 total in any one year the insurance kicks in and covers 100% of everything after that. It was around $4000 per year around four years ago. Now it is around $6000 per year and the deductible has moved up to near $6000 total before the insurance kicks in...
Keep in mind we have no preexisting conditions and are all healthy as can be (thanks to God or any other entity that might be responsible for that!)
So I'm well aware of the outrageous costs.

My problem is Obama's plan Doesn't look like it will save me any money and soon I'll be forced to buy into the Obama plan because he will force private insurers to go under, not that I wouldn't love to see all the money grubbing evil insurance companies go under in a big way, but by getting rid of them he'll be forcing me to depend on the same guys who have been taking my Social Security payments every year since I started working 36 years ago and now tell me that they will be broke right before I'm eligible to start collecting on it!! He's offering me a chance to jump from the frying pan into the fire!

Obama offered urgent help to the economy if we would let him spend a trillion dollars....almost none of that went to stimulating the economy and none of it helped...but it was URGENT that we spent it right now. So now he says it is urgent that we let him take over the health insurance in america and dictate to doctors how to administer heath care.

The guy is shameless and dangerous. His whole background, as limited as it is, is a belief he represents the victims of progress and so he's out for revenge against the system. He's going to crush the status quo without a single clue as to what he's going to do with the pieces once he's done busting things up.
Kind of like Iraq after Bush sent the Iraqi army into hiding and stood around and wondered 'now what the hell do we do?

The difference is we actually live here and can't just leave when we've had enough like we will do in Iraq!!

[Grendel]

Better get used to this sight..

[Duper]

b]YOU WILL GET RAKED THROUGH THE COALS AND HUNG OUT TO DRY TO GET IT[/b]! Many insurance companies aren't even bothering to offer it to individuals.

Actually TC, I went looking at this several years ago and Providence, Kiaser, and Blue Cross offered private policies. Granted, they were about $450 /month on the lower end, but they were there. I was paying that at a job I was working at and actually had to QUIT my job because the insurance cost. It was eating me alive. Right now, our insurance policy cost a little over 600/mo. Fortunately, my employer picks up a large chunk of that. Nearly half.

Saying the health care system is "broken" is a horrible catch phrase and it incites a mob mentality.

The "health care system" isn't really a formalwhich rather invaildates that statement to begin with. What we have is a number of very large back ground corperations that own HMO's which from what I understand was an idea propogated by some legislation in the 70's that the Dems put forth? (I haven't taken the time to read up on that) So now we've allowed the creation of these financial monoliths (along with the apothocary industry) that about 85% run the medical show. (my own guestimation) So, as things go, that opened the door for them to charge whatever they want without repercussion.

and what's the only way to fix this "delema"? Kill them all and start over! (that's a paraphrase) and what's worse? The government has now assigned themselves as the execusioners. What's wrong with this picture?! (that's retorical)

I think it's utter FOOLISH for anyone group, person or country to think they can Swoop in and "save the day" in the span of 8 months. (or so) It would/should/will take at least several YEARS to sort this out properly.

For God's Sake! Washington can't even manage Social Security and people feel that Government sponsered health care would work?? Perhaps we deserver to get this and violently choke on the pill we've decided to take.
Sorry for the bad spelling, I'm in a bit of a hurry.

[Tunnelcat]

Duper, finding a policy with someone OTHER than one of the big mega corporations is difficult and trying at best. To find a policy you can afford is downright impossible. You have to make a sacrifice somewhere. I went with a high deductible just to protect my assets in case of a major medical problem. I end up paying out of pocket for anything under $7500 a year. In fact, more and more insurance companies are raising deductibles just to save on their costs and make more profit for Wall Street.

I guess you can't say our system is 'broken', because it works just fine for people with money. Where it doesn't work is for those who can't afford it, somewhere between 40 to 50 million in the U.S. That's a large number of people not able to use our health care system.

You're point about the government not being able to manage a health care system must be bogus, because I see our Congress seems VERY happy with the way the government manages THEIR health care. In fact, Senator Kennedy is getting EXPERIMENTAL treatment for his brain cancer. I can tell you that most private-for-profit insurance companies would say to the average policyholder, 'THAT'S NOT COVERED'!

In fact, I heard something even more asinine on the radio the other day. Insurance companies now consider an 'adverse drug reaction' to be 'substance abuse' and will not cover treatment for complications from said drug reaction.

[Spidey]

The system is not broken…it works exactly the way it’s designed to.

They get rich…you go broke…

That’s not going to change!