It starts off like this……”We need National Healthcare!” Then it goes to….. “We need every American to be covered with affordable Healthcare!” Once those two things have been established it goes to…….”Government supplied Healthcare must include everyone!” With those parameters established comes the dreaded details: “No pre-existing conditions will be considered….but every person in the United States must be covered and it is the individual’s total and complete responsibility to maintain their health coverage from birth to death. If you can’t pay for your Healthcare…”the Government will assist you”….in finding a provider. This system must have “interoperability” and your healthcare must be “portable” and moveable from one city to another as well as one state to another!
Remember back in the bad old days before “State Mandatory Car Insurance” in California. You could put up a bond in the amount of the minumum coverage required. You could put $10 or $20 thousand dollars in an escrow account in the event you were in a car accident. What happened when you didn’t have that money and because of your bad driving record….no one would insure you or your car? “Assigned Risk!”. It was a lottery deal where some car insurance provider had to take a certain number of bad risk clients at a set fee. National Healthcare is headed this direction! It quickly can turn into a “Forest Gump” box of chocolates, if we are not careful!
During the last 20 years, we have gone from a society with great doctors with great bedside manners…..to HMO’s and Disco Doctors that know nothing and only look good on TV! They can’t make a reasonable decision on your healthcare procedures without approvals from both higher up Administrators and autocratic Insurance Carriers…who sit in final judgment with a chart of acceptable prices and procedures. The Doctor has to see 60 patients a day or they are fired. They have to proscribe Nationally Advertised drugs just to make the kick-back money either in cash, junkets or rebates…in order to make a living. Doctor Ben Casey…they are not. Doctor Kildare they are not! We knew the real life doctors. We have now all been relegated to patients for either the TV series “ER” or “Scrubs”. “House” is a dream….that only happens on TV! Something happens and we are stuck either going to an Urgent Care facility or the Emergency Room of overcrowded and dangerously bug infested Hospitals.
Choosing your own doctor was the major criteria for all healthcare in the bad old days. Now, many Doctors are “Out of Network”..at least “Your Provider” that is. Whether it is Blue Cross, Metlife or any other…..major provider…..after you do your “due diligence”, go through the process….maybe even see your own doctor to start, they may send you to a “specialist” who is “Out of Network”. In the meantime, you are trying to get well. How do you do that when you spend your entire stressed experience finding out who is “In or Out of Network”. People talk about how complex the IRS Forms are. The total pages of the IRS Regulations may be 8 foot tall, but they pale in comparison to our total paper work-make work Healthcare System for Bureaucrats. Now they want to make it all Electronic and place all your health records at the whim and fancy of hackers, insurance companies and government bureaucrats. That should be as big a joke as trying to keep tabs on the many ups and downs of your FICO Score!
So, lets get back to the movement ahead to take people out of their company or government provided Healthcare Progams. When companies provide healthcare to their employees….there are some very good “unintended consequences”. The various plans are vetted by both management for price and labor for benefits. As the annual prices rise…..greater co-pays may be added, some benefits can be restricted or done away with, but with the various programs and additional costs to the employee, in most cases there is less diminution in the benefit package provided. These annual reviews provide a constant appraisal…of what benefits are provided and in many cases….Insurance Companies are dropped or changed generally to the benefit of the employees.
Those individuals who have to go out “into the market” by themselves are severely disadvantaged. They don’t have several thousand others that create “risk assessment tables” that can easily be judged. The Coal Miner vs. Stock Brokers for example. When you get older those “risk assessment tables” shoot those annual enrollment fees “off the charts”. Say you happened to have a small prostate or breast Cancer problem three years ago. How much do you think you will have to pay per month in the open market? The price will be astronomic.
So, back to National Healthcare. What can help? How about setting a few reasonable goals. (1) Encourage Individual Companies to supply Healthcare to their employees. Let the Government approve “totally writing off” these cost by the companies with over 500 employees – as long as reasonable limits are included. No botox or penal implants please. No sex change operations or no reconstructive toe surgery! (2) Make Healthcare providers take everyone in the Regions they are assigned by the Government. (3) Make the Tri-Care program universal for all Government Employees – State, Local and Federal, all Military Services and all retired from those Public Services!
Let’s stop there for the moment. National Healthcare should not arrive like Santa Claus on a cold winter’s night. It should neither appear like the Easter Bunny bouncing into our lives while we try to find all the eggs. National Healthcare requires that Big Pharma reign in their costs. It also requires that we bring back the old time medicine that created “a relationship” between the doctor and the patient – that might last many years. We need to pay our doctors enough to keep them, but not enough to pay for four ex-wives! We need some basic REFORMS…before we attempt to implement National Healthcare!
Amen!
The current employer tax right-off incentives to provide health insurance should be stopped or if continued the benefits should be taxed as income to the employee. Employers don’t care about your health – only about minimizing costs so employees need to take control of their health care. Plus why should the self-employed, small employers, retirees, etc. subsidize corporate employees.
Why should we subsidize large companies with over 500 employees, these folks SHOULD be able to negotiate a better rate due to their large numbers, it’s SMALLER businesses that are struggling to provide healthcare to their employees at a reasonable cost. You also FAIL to mention the 40- 50 MILLION americans who have NO HEALTH INSURANCE,what’s your solution to that?
Single-payer nationalized healthcare is our BEST option.
Cancel are types and forms of health care insurance. Then the health care industry can compete in a free and open market.
This an example of corporate socialism. When talk happens of economic restructuring for the benefit of the tax payer Republicans go nuts and claim socialism. Yet defend socialism for corporate America.
Tax payers need to wake up and smell the coffee.
My dental office overhead to deal with insurance companies is roughly %40 of my income.
Insurance companies in general pay maybe %60 of the doctor’s fees.
Doctors and patients are better off dealing with each other and not have the Insurance involvedand doctors reduced their fees by %50. The big winners with the current set up are the Ins. companies. Look up their profits. They are obsene.They will lobby against any changes like crazy. They will look to the Republican party as their saviors.
*Great comments all. A couple of issues which we could take exception to: (1) Companies with over 500 employees…hire people….lots of people. In the world economy…we need to offer those companies the same perks that the German, French and EURO Countries offer their businesses. We need to keep bigger companies growing and hiring and expanding. A sliding scale might be a good way around a complete TAX Credit for supplying workers Healthcare. If you take away the perks for companies….they will cease to offer to negotiate…and inspite of most doctors saying they would rather negotiate with patients…..it is the companies that with leverage can keep those monthly payments low. Otherwise, you would have to join a major work group…like janitors or Teachers to negotiate for you. Ask teachers if they want to negotiate their own healthcare premiums? Not likely! Smaller businesses need to join consortiums…organized for small business that negotiates for their employees. Sadly, most of the existing consortiums are just fly by nighters….trying to poach and take their 25% Brokerage fees. This is an area which we believe requires serious State and Federal Regulation. You need Licensing, Annual Renewal Qualifications and full disclosure of all formal complaints lodged against their company.
The 40 million without Health Insurance need to join into the existing system of companies. Even European and Asian Insurance Companies can offer
Health Insurance….with Government support. For all intent purposes….it should be a “means tested” program. Make under a certain amount per year…..and get Federal Health assistance. The difference would be that you would have no options for coverage. Whatever, was considered minimum would apply.
At any way…good dialogue and much appreciated.
The Republican mind set on this issue is to marry the Insurance industry to corporate America and big business. The objective is to keep the Insurance industry intact to continue damaging the public and the delivery of health care.
The argument above is to give insurance entitlements to big business in order to increase the size and hiring capacity big business.The fact is that small businesses are the back bone of the economy and are responsible for the bulk of employment. Small business then should be the ones given the insurance entitlements in order to cover their empoloyees.
Health reform should be in the form of a negotiator for health Insurance with the best interest of the tax payer. As pointed out before big business has no interest in the employee’s health care. They are interested in their economic well being, the employee is collateral damage.
With pressure by the Insurance industry law makers have passed laws that prohibit doctors to offer patients health at no cost provided through a monthly fee.
Doctors are the providers yet can not negotiate with their patients. But someone with no ability to provide health care can start an insurance company and make all the decisions of providing health care. How crazy is this. Big business with help from politicians are always figuring out ways to screw the tax payers.
Health care as depicted on the TV series Marcus Welby M.D. forty years ago was possible because then there was not health insurance industry. The industry destroyed the ability to provide personal quality health care.
In the case of the Insurance industry The Republican party will protect it not because they offer significant benefit to the public but rather will protect the industry because it is a big financial supporter of the Republican Party.
I am not a liberal nut. I am a registered Republican. My priority is my fellow man not a political party or a business not having the best interest of the public.
Examples like this created by partisan politics is what is driving tax payers away from supporting political parties blindly and making decisions on voting based on the candidates message.
This is what got Obama elected and why he continues to have high public approval.
“Health reform should be in the form of a negotiator for health Insurance with the best interest of the tax payer. As pointed out before big business has no interest in the employee’s health care. They are interested in their economic well being, the employee is collateral damage.”
Art,
Exactly the reason why TAX Breaks for big companies is so important. Without a dog in the fight…..they have “absolutely” NO interest in providing Healthcare to their employees. They would love to say: “Here is your $2500 Savings account for Health Benefits! When you use it up tough luck!”
We fully support Small Business but that requires a structure that is not just affordable but responsible and logically doable. That means joining “a consortium” of small business owners as we suggested.
Finally, we supported George and Laura and now support Barack and Michelle…..not exactly your nodding doggies in the window….when it comes to perpetual partisans!
Ron and Anna,
The dog in the fight is the tax payer. That is the benefit interest not the employer.
a structure of healthcare indifferent to the employer is the objective. Even better to eliminate the middle man – Insurance company- to decrease the cost. The cost can be decreased because the Doctor’s overhead in dealing with the Insurance company would be gone. The savings to the Doctor can be passed on to the patient.
The mechanism can be worked out. Ponzi schemes implemented causing the world’s economic troubles, I am sure were no easier to accomplish.
The tax payer is the boss. We are the government. We need to take ownership of this responsibilty and get rid of the fruad.