I know I'm about to get politically incorrect here
but I have a few thoughts on health care. We do need reform but not reform in the way the government is going about it. I don't want the government involved in any larger part of my health care than they already are. I would like to see some tort reform though not strictly limited to health issues. The lawyers have gotten completely out of control and because they control the government (most in congress have law degrees) tort reform is far from likely.
With tort reform I think the doctor would be more likely to say things like "there are these tests available but I only see a need for this one" or "I don't see a need for any of them" or what ever the case may be and let you and your family make the decision.
I'd like to see portability. Your health insurance is paid for by yourself and where you go it goes, no longer tied to your employer. There would have to be some issues worked out here, if your company gave you the money in your check to pay for health care a lot of people wouldn't do it so a compromise would have to be struck here.
All insurers compete in the open market, if I can find the best insurance deal in the state of Hawaii then I am allowed to purchase from there and they have to insure me.
Public options are already in our system, Medicare and Medicaid are available to disabled, poor and elderly. The problem with all government entitlement plans are the lazy slackers that choose to live off the system. My bet is a good portion of Medicare and Medicaid participants are people who also are on Welfare and other government programs. I was raised in a place where people on Welfare drove Cadillacs so they could go look for jobs and had Welfare pay for fences to keep their 4 to 8 kids contained while they went looking for work. They couldn't buy cigarettes or beer on the food stamp program but they bought everything else with it and worked for little cash they needed to buy the other things they wanted.
There will always be people who game the system and because of them there is no possibility that the taxpayer can pay for a system to protect everyone. If we don't want to take personal responsibility for our own health and personal responsibility for our own lives then we are part of the problem of government.
I don't know how to fix this for the people who don't have health insurance but I do know if we didn't expect the government to fix our teeth or pop that zit on our backs then the health care system wouldn't be in such a state. If we viewed health care insurance like we view car insurance things would be a little different. We buy health insurance for those times when we have a 'wreck' and regular upkeep and maintenance is on our own dime. I'm thinking next time I need new tires I'll turn in a claim to my automobile insurance and see how that flies.
I've left a lot of openings here for debate, some purposely, some not but feel free to jump in and share an opinion.
prp
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What many people are missing is that there are lots of us middle class people who can not longer afford healthcare. A year ago I was forced to go from a PPO plan, because it was going to cost me $1,900 per month ( it started out at $800 per month 5 years ago), now that I am over 50... I switched to Kaiser, and the premiums went down to $650 per month for the past year. Now, it is renewal time and Kaiser has just raised my premium to $760 per month. I am self employed and earning 1/10th of what I did three years ago. My family and I NEED a public Insurance plan, and so do many of my friends. I am not looking for a free ride, but health care costs are just too high for me to bear any longer.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't believe that. You need work which translates into jobs and we need to reform the system we have. We need the ability to shop for the best deals in insurance, no matter what state they are located in. We need to enforce our price fixing and monopoly laws so the insurance companies can’t fix the prices or form a monopoly. We need to eliminate the pre-existing condition rules insurance providers have. We don’t need to tax fat people more or smokers, we need to allow the health insurance companies do the same thing the life insurance companies do…give discounts if you exercise and don’t smoke etc., this would effectively give better rates to people who has taken responsibility for their own health. The quick fix is to put a program into place for insurance supplied by the government, but the government has no money, the burden is on the taxpayers...the problem with the quick fix is that it is permanent and when the work comes back and the jobs come back, taxes will be 5, 10 or even 20% higher than they are now. There are numbers of years thrown around that it will take our kids and grand kids to pay off this massive debt but don’t even start to believe them. This debt will never get paid off. If health care goes through this year as it stands now, next year it will be cap and trade (maybe even this year) and by our President’s own words “electricity rates will go up as the utility companies pass it on to the consumer”. This is no longer a free country when the government can strap our as yet unborn with debt that they have no chance to question, if my kids are not already born into servitude then their kids will surely be. I’m not the brightest bulb in the box but this is the United States and we have the most innovative people on the planet but we have gotten lazy and we have figured out that in a democracy you can vote yourself a gift out of the government coffers…when we reach 51% of the population that is on the governments programs then we cease to be a democracy…we are then socialist.
ReplyDeleteprp