'we dont have a spending problem'

[Hobo1]

Yes that is the problem - the aging society, including me. Older or disabled people are contributing less taxes, and are requiring more health care. That's a double whammy. So, what do you do about it. Death panels? It's a real dilemma.

As I get older, and talk to people who are older than me, they are sick with incurable diseases, in constant pain, eat pills like candy, and live miserable lives.. waiting the endless years until they finally die. Many ask me, why won't they just help me die? Committing suicide is almost impossible when you are sick - you need to be assisted by a doctor. But doctor assisted suicide seems to be a big no-no. That seems incredibly cruel to me. Freedom to die should be a fundamental human right.

BTW, "no fault" medical insurance, modest limits on malpractice awards, and allowing patients to decide level of treatment would also help.

 

[Lagboltz]

As I get older, and talk to people who are older than me, they are sick with incurable diseases, in constant pain, eat pills like candy, and live miserable lives.. waiting the endless years until they finally die. Many ask me, why won't they just help me die? Committing suicide is almost impossible when you are sick - you need to be assisted by a doctor. But doctor assisted suicide seems to be a big no-no. That seems incredibly cruel to me. Freedom to die should be a fundamental human right.

BTW, "no fault" medical insurance, modest limits on malpractice awards, and allowing patients to decide level of treatment would also help.

I agree. As the average age increases and fewer workers to support them, and as the total population increases, some sort of triage will occur, or the population will become stabilized by war, disease, and starvation.

 

[Gipper]

I don't like Ryan's plan either but I was under the mistaken idea that most conservatives liked it because he was nominated for VP. My second perhaps mistaken understanding was that the graphs were not Ryan's plan but were his projection of how the current course of the D's would go if Ryan's plan was not adopted. The reason I thought that was because what kind of plan would have health care skyrocketing like that. That doesn't sound like a plan at all.

As far as Soc Sec, the gov has a separate tax for that which was originally a trust fund, but LBJ started raiding that, and putting IOU's in the supposed trust fund. When pundits say SS is running out of money, they forget the the feds owe it about $4 trillion. SS is not the problem, the feds raiding it and substituting IOUs is the problem.

You really have no idea what conservatives think. No doubt you think Rs generally, and specifically Ryan and Romney are conservatives....you probably STILL believe W was a conservative.....now that is too funny...., but many of you lefties think this only proving how uninformed you are. They are progressives like you...only they are not as radically progressive as you or your beloved Big Ears and D party.

And the raiding of SS is another deflection. It is meaningless. The program is an entitlement program that is underfunded and heading for bankruptcy just like the entire government.

But hey....lets allow the government to take our guns. That will make us safer....if you believe that, I should be able to fleece you of ALL your assets...but since I am an honest God fearing liberty loving American, I would never do that.

 

[Lagboltz]

You really have no idea what conservatives think. No doubt you think Rs generally, and specifically Ryan and Romney are conservatives....you probably STILL believe W was a conservative.....now that is too funny...., but many of you lefties think this only proving how uninformed you are. They are progressives like you...only they are not as radically progressive as you or your beloved Big Ears and D party.

And the raiding of SS is another deflection. It is meaningless. The program is an entitlement program that is underfunded and heading for bankruptcy just like the entire government.

But hey....lets allow the government to take our guns. That will make us safer....if you believe that, I should be able to fleece you of ALL your assets...but since I am an honest God fearing liberty loving American, I would never do that.

You are absolutely right. I have no idea what conservatives are like. I am continually surprised by the depth of conservatism I see here. There is the right, the far right, and now I see the ultra far right.

SS is not a deflection. I was saying what SS used to be and what it is now. I put a large amount of money into it in my lifetime and the baby boomers did too. Now we want our money back in retirement. Yes it is an ENTITLEMENT in capital letters, not the entitlement as people use in Medicaid or food stamps, which you would call gifts. Also I paid FICA taxes for my Medicare, and I deserve that as an ENTITLEMENT. The problem with that is that the govmt didn't foresee how expensive it would be especially in Medicaid where too many are living longer or near poverty level.

 

[cashmcall]

You are absolutely right. I have no idea what conservatives are like. I am continually surprised by the depth of conservatism I see here. There is the right, the far right, and now I see the ultra far right.

SS is not a deflection. I was saying what SS used to be and what it is now. I put a large amount of money into it in my lifetime and the baby boomers did too. Now we want our money back in retirement. Yes it is an ENTITLEMENT in capital letters, not the entitlement as people use in Medicaid or food stamps, which you would call gifts. Also I paid FICA taxes for my Medicare, and I deserve that as an ENTITLEMENT. The problem with that is that the govmt didn't foresee how expensive it would be especially in Medicaid where too many are living longer or near poverty level.

Lag you said..The problem with that is that the govmt didn't foresee how expensive it would be especially in Medicaid where too many are living longer or near poverty level. L9ooking back at history they were told and IMO they knew..What our Government did not do was care or save in good times..I look at financial statements and P&L's all day long..THERE IS NO WAY THEY DIDN"T KNOW...

 

[Lagboltz]

Lag you said..The problem with that is that the govmt didn't foresee how expensive it would be especially in Medicaid where too many are living longer or near poverty level. L9ooking back at history they were told and IMO they knew..What our Government did not do was care or save in good times..I look at financial statements and P&L's all day long..THERE IS NO WAY THEY DIDN"T KNOW...

I would suppose the FICA for Medicare was adequate for the medical care and average life-span at the time it was started, but they should have had a cost-of-living and life-span adjustment built in. No president or worker wants the FICA tax raised, for different reasons of course. Now the problem could be the oft used philosophy of: let the next president worry about it.

 

[cashmcall]

I would suppose the FICA for Medicare was adequate for the medical care and average life-span at the time it was started, but they should have had a cost-of-living and life-span adjustment built in. No president or worker wants the FICA tax raised, for different reasons of course. Now the problem could be the oft used philosophy of: let the next president worry about it.

You posted a while back how you depend on Medicare/Medicade...You know my wife does medical billing and has to go for classes twice a year for 4 day's just to keep up with the new regulation to stay certified

 

[cashmcall]

I would suppose the FICA for Medicare was adequate for the medical care and average life-span at the time it was started, but they should have had a cost-of-living and life-span adjustment built in. No president or worker wants the FICA tax raised, for different reasons of course. Now the problem could be the oft used philosophy of: let the next president worry about it.

Within the past year, there were several proposed reductions of Medicare ’s physician reimbursements. One was nearly 30%. Since many private companies base their reimbursements on the Medicare rates, the effect would have had huge ramifications on physicians’ incomes and their abilities to even pay their staffs. Physician payments are often targeted for cost control but I have never seen the regulations and their costs of administration targeted or even discussed by the politicians and government.AND THEY NEED TO BE!

 

[cashmcall]

One of the most worrisome aspects of practice is medical records. Just twenty years ago, a few lines used to suffice. Today, it’s unlikely that any visit generates less than half a page and two or three pages are possible. As you can imagine, this has meant an explosion in the size of records, not to mention an explosion in the consumption of paper. Records of twenty visits used to be able to fit into a thin manila folder. Now they can be the size of a small telephone book.

Often, the job of being a physician includes small talk with a patient. It rarely adds much to the overall impression but it often helps the patient which is, after all,their primary function. In the past, such comments would hardly merit more than a brief blurb in the record but, with a little imagination, that off the cuff comment can be parlayed into three paragraphs to snow any reviewer. It takes a while to adjust to this mentality. A maxim of college English is to say the most with the least number of words. Generations of college freshmen have had their papers savaged by an English teacher for verbosity but when you deal with a bureaucrat, the reverse is the operative rule. No one likes verbiage more than a bureaucrat. If you can say the same thing three different ways, you have a leg up.

When you add up all of the salaries of the ancillary personnel and lost income, it is a staggering percentage and contributes to physician discouragement. It is rampant in the various health care professions. It is only going to get worse under Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. You can expect overhead to soar with little of it contributing to medical care.

 

[Lagboltz]

One of the most worrisome aspects of practice is medical records. Just twenty years ago, a few lines used to suffice. Today, it’s unlikely that any visit generates less than half a page and two or three pages are possible. As you can imagine, this has meant an explosion in the size of records, not to mention an explosion in the consumption of paper. Records of twenty visits used to be able to fit into a thin manila folder. Now they can be the size of a small telephone book.

Often, the job of being a physician includes small talk with a patient. It rarely adds much to the overall impression but it often helps the patient which is, after all,their primary function. In the past, such comments would hardly merit more than a brief blurb in the record but, with a little imagination, that off the cuff comment can be parlayed into three paragraphs to snow any reviewer. It takes a while to adjust to this mentality. A maxim of college English is to say the most with the least number of words. Generations of college freshmen have had their papers savaged by an English teacher for verbosity but when you deal with a bureaucrat, the reverse is the operative rule. No one likes verbiage more than a bureaucrat. If you can say the same thing three different ways, you have a leg up.

When you add up all of the salaries of the ancillary personnel and lost income, it is a staggering percentage and contributes to physician discouragement. It is rampant in the various health care professions. It is only going to get worse under Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. You can expect overhead to soar with little of it contributing to medical care.

My doctor is now using electronic storage of records. I go for a blood test once a month. The drawing and labeling is less than a minute, but the paper work and phone calls are over 10 minutes.

Obamacare is burdened with too many compromises and historical baggage. The options involved in choosing a plan are baffling. The way there are insurance companies as a financial liaison between patients and doctors is a royal pain in the butt for both of them. We would save a lot of money if we eliminated the insurance company as a go between, but then it would become Socialized Medicine - the scary word.

 

[cashmcall]

There is not one thing the Government can do better than the private sector(well maybe a few things).....Another problem is, when the last round of those inflated demands becomes the norm, and physicians have adjusted to them, they up the ante. The monster just grows and grows and grows and adds to the need for more office personnel by both physicians, hospitals, insurance companies and the government, etc., again all at a cost.

 

[cashmcall]

Texas budget Problem..

It’s a good one to have.
I’d suggest returning it to the taxpayers with a reduction in sales or property tax rates. Show the rest of the country what a virtuous, and opposed to vicious cycle looks like.

 

[Lagboltz]

There is not one thing the Government can do better than the private sector(well maybe a few things).....Another problem is, when the last round of those inflated demands becomes the norm, and physicians have adjusted to them, they up the ante. The monster just grows and grows and grows and adds to the need for more office personnel by both physicians, hospitals, insurance companies and the government, etc., again all at a cost.

France has the best health care so I hear -- much better than the US. We can't emulate them because we are too entrenched in what we have. Taxes are higher in France (esp. for the wealthy), but ultimate costs to the consumer are lower. But of course France is feeling the problem of an aging population too.

The dilemma in health care financing in the US is the government is too stupid, and the insurance companies are too greedy.

 

[Lagboltz]

Texas budget Problem..

It’s a good one to have.
I’d suggest returning it to the taxpayers with a reduction in sales or property tax rates. Show the rest of the country what a virtuous, and opposed to vicious cycle looks like.

I wish my state had oil like TX. All we have is a huge swamp of alligators in the southernmost spot in the US.

 

[cashmcall]

I wish my state had oil like TX. All we have is a huge swamp of alligators in the southernmost spot in the US.

Are you in Florida?..I was born in APOPKA..stands for Big potato..in Seminole indian Language