Then, by all means, let's vote them out. Representatives' votes should not be for sale.
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90% of all health care cost in US due to preventable illnesses
- Thread starter Dr.Who
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thats the process but its a day late and a dollar short
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
I know some of this has been said but some things bear repeating.
Statist solutions are not the rights ones here. Not only does the const not allow for a statist solution in this case on the federal level but private charity is just better. Americans are by no means cold and the number of people who can afford the kind of insurance you describe but cannot afford to pay for a doctors appt is small enough that it would not even make a dent in the amount of money that the anti-cruelty society collects. In fact, in general Americans are actively looking for worthwhile charities to give to and the only reason they are giving less is they just don't care about homeless cats.
P.s the insurance that is really insurance is discouraged by obamacare which seems to have been influence heavily by insurance companies who get most of the benefit in my opinion. Do any of the reasons we were told to pass obamacare still hold any validity?
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
The sliding scale with some tweaks might help. That way a simple doctors visit is paid out of pocket while a cancer treatment is covered. We still have the problem that cancer used to be rare, then it was 1 in 35 people got cancer, and now 1 in 2 people get cancer at some point in their life. Just maybe we will benefit by no longer eating Twinkies and the dose of polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow No. 5, red #40. that they provide. (I didn't mean to provide those links they just got pasted in)
Only people who have paid their premiums can be eligible for medicare and since it takes so long to pay in enough that kind of limits it to older people. Survivors benefits that were never a part of the system to begin with maybe could be eliminated or reduced to be replaced by something else.
It needs to be treated like a for profit company that actually is expected to be sustainable for the benefit of everyone who pays premiums, that does not collect premiums by force, and is not operated by a gov that has an unfair competitive advantage.
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
Congressmen who accept payments that are correlated with passing legislation should not just be voted out of office they should be prosecuted.
amen to that
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
First they should only be imposed when the constitution authorizes it, then the cost to the individual must be outweighed by the compelling interest of the state, then all other avenues must have been exhausted, then voluntary taxes should be the first step, avoidable taxes should be next, (for example a tax on a product that a person can choose not to purchase is better than a tax that one cannot avoid at all - like payroll).
We should not be evicting little old ladies from their homes because they cannot afford their taxes any more, that does not mean giving them a pass on their taxes while everyone else pays, it means keeping taxes as low as possible. We should be locking up people who refuse to pay their taxes but since we are locking them up it is so so important that the thing being funded by the tax warrants that kind of force. The person who refuses to fund the constitutionally authorized defensive war might deserve prison but the person who does not want to pay for the subsidy to the green company does not.
A sliding scale with some tweaks would beyond doubt bring that 8 grand per person cost of medical care down, which is what must be done as the current system is not affordable.
Medicare is not free, nor is it compulsory. The Medicare patient pays a monthly fee in order to be included. It is highly subsidized, but is not free.
A major medical sort of Medicare that is available to everyone, as a replacement for employer provided health care, would bring down costs, but it would put an end to a profitable business that has a powerful lobby in Congress, so talk of such a plan is strictly academic: It will never happen.
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
I agree that the portion of the plan that you buy is not free. And that when one joins a plan and agrees to pay more that that is no compulsory.
But the 2.9 % medicare tax that is taken from your wages (1.45% directly) in roundabout ways (1.45% from you employer) for your whole life is certainly compulsory. Everyone becomes eligible for some form of medicare that is free and funded by the taxes paid previously. People should be able to opt in to the medicare system if they choose but also free not to participate if they choose. That is a basic concept of freedom that all liberals should embrace if they have any understanding of the roots of the word liberal. I would add that another basic concept is that anyone who pays in should get the benefit that was promised to them with no exceptions - agreed?
Absolutely.
The problem when it comes to medical care is that we aren't willing to say to the patient who hasn't paid in to the insurance plan, "Sorry, but no treatment for you. Go to your church, and maybe they'll give you charity, but we have to make a profit."
Were we willing to do that, then it would not make sense to require anyone to have coverage. Part of individual choice is, after all, accepting the consequences of those choices.
Sometimes, ideology and philosophy clash with reality. When that happens, reality prevails.
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
Medicare can and should make that statement.
Medicaid and the hospitals themselves probably would not make that statement. Both are usually created specifically to offer charity and therefor would offer it. hence no need for medicare to offer charity.
Medicaid is also a program whose need has not been established. If most hospitals are not going to turn people away and Ronald McDonald, and Shriners, and a mltitude of other charites already exist to offer aid then certainly even more could exist and there is no cause to think that the need would not be covered.
So, given that the need for care will be covered for those who do not buy medicare of some other insurance there is no need to force people to buy it. In fact, the existence of any other insurance program at all to compete with medicare would be enough of a reason for people not to be forced into buying it. Are other policies that would do the same as medicare banned in the same way that the post offices bans others from offering first class mail?
The problem with that is people who opt out of Medicare would still get the benefits as if they had paid in to the system.
If Medicare were available to everyone, there would be no need to have Medicaid.
And it wouldn't have to be exclusive, no need to ban first class mail. A little competition is a good thing.
Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
They would not be getting medicare benefits. They would have to go elsewhere to get different benefits. Automatically, those with assets would not qualify until they used up their assets. So again those who opt out do have to pay unless they are poor. No one could opt out with resources and still get benefits.
They also would be getting benefits that were given to them voluntarilly not by coercing others.
Since alternatives are available to medicare there is no need for it. And since it is the one that is coercive it is the one that should be eliminated.
The post office would cease to exist if it did not ban competition. A gov program simply cannot compete since it is almost always inferior. In the same way if an alternative were offered to medicare then medicare would cease to exist after some time.
If the charity cases had to go elsewhere, then there would be an incentive to sign on to Medicare, yes.
It's hard to see how a private, for profit company could compete with Medicare, either in the current form or in the form we're suggesting.
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Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
Yes, if medicare were less unsustainable more people would be willing to buy into it. Of course since it is still a part of a huge ponzi scheme and still unsustainable it is still doomed to either failure or an endless need for an infusion of funds which is still failure.
It's hard to see how a private, for profit company could compete with Medicare, either in the current form or in the form we're suggesting.[/quote]
The same way any other insurance company operates. People voluntarily sign up, pay premiums, then get an agreed upon portion of their future health care paid for by the insurance company. Smart people pay for the mundane and expected costs and only use insurance for the catastrophic. Others get the policies that pay out more in benefits but also costs more in premiums. Since insurance costs an average of 4% of health care costs everyone can expect to pay 4% more than they otherwise would if they paid for everything themselves (thats why the smart people save 4% by paying cash) . In exchange they get coverage if they are one of the unlucky few who experiences some unforeseen and catastrophic event. They also invested their own money along the way or just saved it so that they have a way to pay for the everyday costs. now is about the time that you are saying that the elderly experience huge health care costs compared to the rest of us. Yes and the elderly are the only ones who had a lifetime to pay premiums and save up for that time. Statistically most rich people are (wait for it) old.
So what about the poor? We were not talking about the poor. We were talking about those who could pay into either medicare or some other insurance. The poor should look to a different source of help than medicare because it was never intended to be anything other than a program for people who paid premiums.
Can a private company compete with medicare? Well lets see, medicare is going to go broke because it is an unsustainable system. Medicare is costing all of america one of the largest items in the entire budget. We cannot afford to keep it as it is killing the whole economy. We really have no choice but to get rid of it so it really does not even matter that YES a private company could do better. All that money that went into medicare in the first place could have gone into private premiums. And since social security has an average rate of return that is so far below the average rate of return for just about any other investment those private companies could have invested the money in stocks picked by throwing darts at a board and done better.
