Health care reform

The democrats/liberals have lost their chance at their version of health care reform. The republicans trounced them in Mass. Soon, they are going to do something desperate. And by that I mean something more desperate than backing Barak Hussein Osama for president.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/157994/

 

Lol, no one's gonna touch this one, huh?

How about this? We bring all the Haitian earthquake survivors over here to america and give them free healthcare for life as well as a welfare check every month, section 8 housing and more food stamps every month that can be eaten in 2 months!

 

Being a brit, I persionally can't see anything wrong with free healthcare.
Now it's health insurance I can't understand!

 

Hi
Being a Canadian I'll take it one step further: Necro, please justify spending billions on the war in Afganistan over an attack that killed 2,000 , when you are willing to let 20,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance oke:
The Royal Canadian

 

Well, they both achieve the same result which I am all for...population control. I don't want to see america become another China where we all have to friggin sleep on top of one another and the only thing people can eat is rice that is rationed out per day because it's the only product that can sustain 50 squillion people per 100 cubic miles.

 

I thought that was what genocide was for?

 

Genocidists are usually nulls themselves.

 

I guess I will lob a bomb into this. First some background. I was born in Sweden, but left at the age of 3 and have lived 25 yrs, most of my life, in America. I feel like am an American, if not legally.

I would also consider myself a liberal. Though I tend to endorse social programs for the less fortunate, I have a bit of fiscal conservative in me to recognize the need to be rational about it. I do believe that social programs, like welfare and un-employement, are good for the country if people use them in an appropriate way. Programs like this encourage risk taking, such as starting a business and innovating, because you have something to fall back on if your risk taking does not work out.

Now when it comes to health care, I think a lot about Sweden. Sweden is socialist, which means people are taxed a lot, but they get free healthcare, higher education, and retirement. Despite the high taxes, people in Sweden are generally happier than Americans. On my visits there, I am frankly bored. Going out to eat at a restaurant or seeing a movie, something commonplace in the US, is a treat to Swedes. While not poor (it is a decently wealthy country), they budget accordingly and don't take a vacation every year. It's a country of moderation. The people generally eat at home, because it is cheaper as well as healthier, and spend a lot of time with their families. It is boring to someone from America that constantly needs to be entertained.

What does this have to do with health care? My viewpoint on free/guaranteed health care in the USA is that we need it desperately. However, I don't think the Swedish model will work. People in Sweden generally have healthy eating habits. We in America, sadly, do not. Our homeless people tend to be overweight in this country, which is a little strange.

While I am a liberal, my fear is that if free health-care comes to the USA, people will be even more lazy and unhealthy in their habits, because the government will take care of them when they have diabetes. This means huge costs for the government.

I honestly think that we need free health care in this country, but we need to pay for it by taxing all the crap foods we eat. I love soda, but I think there should be a tax on it because it hurts my health in the long run. Same with fast food. I love Taco Bell, but I know this fast, cheap, and crappy food is hurting me. Also, how is it that the tacos at Taco Bell have been 89 cents for the last 10 years? It was my first job, and I guess the company is immune from inflation or it puts worse and worse food in the tacos. Anyway,we should tax the things that are making us unhealthy so that we have the funds to take care of the health problems they cause in the long run.

I know I sound like a typical liberal suggesting more taxes, but when you think about it, it kind of makes sense right? No one would be forcing these taxes on you or I if we decide not to eat crap. However, if we decide to eat crap, then we should pay for our future costs to the future tax payers.

In summary, I think we need healthcare reform in this country. Our current system is way too expense for a variety of reasons. We have the most expensive healthcare in the world, and its bankrupting Americans, ruining families, left and right. But, we need to be smart about paying for it.

On another note, I also think we may need to start taxing internet transactions. I worked in a call center over the summer helping people with their internet orders and the government is losing billions because internet orders are not taxed unless you buy something from a company that has a warehouse in your state. This is sales tax money that the government would have collected pre-internet, but does not now. No wonder we have a huge deficit.

Granted, the metrics of determining tax rates for this is harder to determine. Such as, which state's tax rate do you use? The one the corporate office is located in? The state the warehouse is located in? The state the purchaser is located in? If you choose either corporate office or warehouse, then you might see corporations moving to low tax states just to compete better. This would cause many states to compete for businesses by lowering their tax rates. If you choose the tax rate in the purchaser's state, then the business needs to file 50 state tax forms each year. Also, what happens if they ship internationally? It becomes a big mess.

Ok, I am done. Flame away :yes:

 

Another thing I thought about. If we had free health care in America, would car insurance rates go down? It would make sense since the health care system would fix a lot of the health issues. Car insurance would only need to pay property damages, as well as loss of income damages when it is a serious disabling/fatal crash.

 

That's a well thought out and articulate post. I liked it and you do make some good points that I totally agree with.

However, I am also disappointed. You overlooked the one thing that has the capability to save not only the U.S. but every country in the world. You know what I'm talkin' bout.

Taxed marijuana. It's an absolute good and no down side. Just the tax alone from sales would make america flush with cash and the ability to give everyone in the world free health care. Hell, the tax from my sales alone would make Minnesota the healthiest state in the country. This is the only feasible way for real health care reform. As a matter of fact, because pot sales would pay for everyone's healthcare for life, it would also rid life of some illnesses that we have now. Lumbago would be a thing of the past, as well as cataracts. Old age rest homes would become a place where people would want to visit. With all the old age infirmities, why not let the senior citizens puff? It's absolutely criminal that we don't do this already. And the best part about it? It's all natural. Nothing needs to be done to it really, except maybe maintenance on the plants themselves. Clipping and trimming to make best medicine possible. PLUS, do you realize how many government jobs it would create?! There are so many people out there now doing it already that the government wouldn't even need to train any of their employees.

What the law now calls criminals, I call hopefully soon-to-be highly trained professionals!

And I guess it doesn't really need to be said but I want to anyways. The amount of drug crimes would decrease exponentially.

It's all win.

 

Nope. Bodily Injury coverages, which are the mainstay of any automobile liability insurance policy do indeed pay for injuries, medical bills, lost wages, etc., but not directly to the actual medical providers. A person who's injured in a car accident can submit their medical bills (whether paid or not) as part of an injury claim. If said injury claim results in a lawsuit being filed, more money would eventually be paid out. However if a suit is filed, depending on the state the loss occurred in, you may not be able to submit unpaid bills as evidence,

Many insurers offer what's called Medical Payment coverages (PIP in some states). This coverage only applies to the driver and passengers of an insured vehicle, not a third party whom may have injured as a result of a loss. Depending on the coverage wording, some Med Pay coverages pay the medical providers directly, others just the injured party who still has to pay the providers themselves. In a lot of cases, Med Pay is secondary and excess if you have your own health insurance. The exception being Medicare and Public Aid which, by law, are "last-resort" coverages.

In general universal health care would not significantly lower insurance rates. You may see a very slight reduction as Medical Payment coverage claims would decrease, but third-party Bodily Inury claims would remain unaffected.

Many of the injury claims I deal with are what's called the "soft-tissue" variety. Muscle pain, strains, etc. Nothing real or permanent, like herniated discs, lacerations, fractures, etc. These people who claim these injuries usually run up huge chiropractic bills that are not paid. Rarely do you see these injured parties going to a hospital ER for a check up or even to their own doctor.

The chiropractors (and many other medical providers) usually file liens against any settlement, so they can recoup some (usually never all) of their monies due.The huge bills still severely impact our health care system as uncollectible bad debts, driving up the prices.

 

EMIRKOL,

I think my point with car insurance is that there would be no bills for the person to submit to the car insurer. With free health care, there are no bills to the person (other than co-pays possibly). The hospital fixes you up as best as possible, and charges your health insurance, or the government if your on the govt plan.

But maybe I am wrong and free health care wont cover auto accidents. Which to me is strange because it will probably cover every other type of accident, such as falling off a roof, riding a bike, burns, ect.

 

Regardless if the bills are paid or not, they can still be submitted as part of a Bodily Injury claim. Now in the case of Med Pay, then you'd be correct. Keep in mind that a hospital visit is usually just the first bill, never the last in most cases.

There's always been a dividing line between what insurances will cover given a particular situation.

 

I was just reading a Harvard Business School case on technological advances in the medical industry, particularly in insulin, over the last 100 yrs. I read a comment that I found interesting.

From an executive at a major drug company talking about preventative treatments: " Why should a HMO (insurance company) spend money trying to prevent the complications of diabetes today when the odds are that the patient will belong to some other plan when the complications finally occur right now? In fact, most people's really expensive complications occur when they are on Medicare. You would think that the governments in the U.S. and Europe would willing to invest in programs to change the behavior of those with diabetes, but they are short term focused too"

For those of you not in the US, Medicare is a government run health insurance plan for elderly people. We also have Medicaid for poor people. Both plans are not great, and I think Medicare is planning on running out of money soon as the baby boomers get older.

Back to the quote, the fact that insurance companies don't invest in preventative medicine makes sense from a bottom line/profit perspective, so it is up to people to change their habits on their own. If not, the government is left footing the bill in the end with Medicare.

All Swedish citizens are on the same health care system, so Sweden knows it needs to look out for the long term care of its citizens, and this may prove to have drastic savings in long term care.

I don't think we could convince Americans to get on the same health care system to avoid these long term problems. We are all too afraid the government will run our lives. But I ask you, would you rather have free health care so the government can take care of your problems early on? Or would you rather not have Medicare as a safety net when your older. Getting rid of Medicare will save $, and free health care could save $ in the long run.

 

How about this for health care reform? Everyone just stops going to the doctor's office? Since I was born in 1969, I've been to the emergency room once and only because I was on the very edge of death. Preventative medicine my @$$!