Ok, so the town-hall shouters are not helpful in any way, so I pose this question to you, my intelligent peers, friends and family. Grandma’s not going to be killed by a death panel, we’re not plotting the destruction of the private insurance sector, and medicare isn’t going to get killed off next year. What are the actual issues of this reform bill? I find it hard to believe that the bill is so perfect that the only arguments against it are imaginary ones. Surely there are actual points to debate and try to get changed before this bill gets passed?
Feel free to retweet this, I want to get as many opinions as I can. http://twitter.com/iotashan/status/3313014450
Shan, you forgot euthanasia for retarded children… I agree though, as a moderate Republican, I am appalled at the BS arguments conservatives are coming up with to combat this issue that I only see as a way to HELP Americans.
As you know, I had a minor cardiac episode not too long ago. As it turns out, the money I was shelling out to my insurance company in premiums for a private healthcare plan didn’t mean one iota (no pun intended
Instead, they saw it as a way to prove “preexisting condition” and not only will they not pay my bills, they dropped me.
Now, in their defense they gave me an opportunity to prove that it wasn’t a preexisting condition. They asked for me to provide any medical history for the past five years. I haven’t been to a doctor for as much as a cold in 7 years so I had no history. And that, my friend is where they got me! Since I can’t prove one way or the other that it was or wasn’t preexisting they assumed it was and denied my claim and dropped me as a customer.
So all of these idiots that get up and scream about healthcare reform being a bad thing at these town hall meetings and make up make believe scenarios to scare the Americans who don’t do any research and refuse to get the facts… can all go jump off of a bridge…and hope their insurance company doesn’t drop them as a customer.
I’ve got a few concrete issues, but let me address your “shouters” comment because I actually empathize with that crowd. They are frustrated because there is no opposition view point and this is the most effective way they’ve found to at least voice displeasure. The President can command 2 hours of prime time to pimp his plan and where in there is an opposition view? There is no debate at these town halls, so it’s not as if the shouters are interrupting a debate. The professional politician takes a question, spins it for 15 seconds to launch into a set of talking points. If it were a debate, there would be at least two people of opposing view points to answer questions. These town halls should be renamed “pep rallies”. At least that’s my opinion.
Ok…so onto the issues you asked for….
1 – Eliminate Certificates of Need in the 36 states that still have. You want to talk about rationing? There is no greater method of rationing than having the (state) government control supply. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Certificate%20of%20Need
2. Obama has said that $500-600 billion of the $1 trillion he needs for this reform can come from eliminating waste in the current government systems. That’s $50-60 billion a year. That’s over $136 million/day being wasted. Ignoring the fact that he did nothing to address this as a Senator (or that the other 534 congress critters have done nothing)…why doesn’t he ask for a law on his desk by the end of the month that eliminates this waste? I’d think it would have a good chance at passing with a near unanimous vote.
3. Require health providers charge the uninsured the same rates they charge insurance companies. That my insurance company reimburses $22 for a test but the uninsured has to pay $200? In many cases (especially with medicare) the provider runs at a loss or at cost to have to make up the difference with uninsured folks. Honestly, if I could pay the rates for services that my insurance company gets, I could pay out of pocket for everything but catastrophic care and get a high deductible plan.
4. Speaking of that, the biggest problem with costs today is that the patient and doctor don’t care about them. What reason does a patient have to try and reduce or price shop when someone else pays for it. Whether we keep things as is, move to an insurance exchange with or without public option or go with a single payer system, as long as the patient or doctor doesn’t care about costs, costs will never be controlled.
5. There has to be medical malpractice reform. Yes, I know insurance costs and tort awards are a small fraction of the money we spend, but the real damage is done in defensive medicine. These are usually expensive tests that are performed solely to prevent a lawsuit in case something was really wrong. I know, I’ve seen this happen to my family twice. Once with me and tension headaches. The doc wanted a CAT scan “just in case”. The other with my wife when she had a drug interaction that caused a trip to the ER thanks to hypoglycemia. A can of sprite later and she was fine, but the doc still wanted a CAT scan, “just in case”. These are expensive tests that weren’t medically necessary, but were legally necessary. Tort reform needs to be implemented to protect providers except in case of gross negligence and misconduct.
6. Last but not least, allow insurance companies to operate across state lines. Increase competition and see what the “not really that free” market can shake out.
Why aren’t they willing to do anything but try and blow up the entire system? I guess as Rahm Emanuel said, “You can’t let a good crisis go to waste”.
Is that enough?
@Jeff: I’ll agree with you about the town halls and the shouters. Addressing that is pretty much the purpose of this post, and you’ve done a wonderful job of bringing up valid topics worth discussion. Thanks for your comments, we’ll have to see where this goes
@Jeff: I think #2, 3 & 4 are intertwined. A lot of the waste comes from the overcharging for services to compensate for the uninsured and underinsured. Granted, some waste comes from inefficiency, and I’m sure that a separate bill could be passed more quickly, but it would delay addressing the bigger picture.
One other thought I left out… I heard on WBBM 780 Chicago the other day that this reform bill did not provide insurance to illegal aliens. Now, on the surface that makes sense, but it did provide a valid chink in the armor of this bill. A lot of the savings comes from eliminating the added costs of uninsured people, because with this bill “everyone is insured”. However, with over 13,000,000* illegal aliens in the US requiring care, this argument becomes difficult to defend.
* http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16859&security=1601&news_iv_ctrl=1007
@#4 – Obama was not talking about waste as a whole, but waste inside government run programs, namely medicare and medicaid. I’m a HUGE budget hawk…in fact that’s what led me to be an independent most of my political life. I got on board with Perot back in ’92. The fact that the government is wasting $136 million A DAY and no one in government is doing anything about it pisses me off to no end. Keep in mind that 56% of health care spending is currently government directed (Medicare/aid, VA Health, TriCARE, insurance for government employees, SCHIP, etc).
I guess part of my skepticism with regards to any government proposal is that I hear talking by Obama and other career politicians about saving money and eliminating waste and then hear them talk about how much waste could be eliminated only to have them use that waste that they are overseeing and enabling as a reason to grab more power.
Maybe I would have more faith if they’d say, ya there are problems we could fix today. Let’s fix ‘em. We are confident our plans for greater health care reform will stand on their own merits. Instead, they have to package waste and fraud elimination as part of the package. It’s almost like extortion.
Jeff,
Regarding number 3:
When I go to the Dentist (without Dental Insurance) I get a discount from what they would charge an insurance company. I believe it is in the range of 30%.
When I got my wisdom teeth removed, I was able to negotiate “cash discounts” with two different providers vs what they would would have charged the insurance company. A third would not consider giving any discount for that.
I had assumed this was pretty common; although if I understand your claim uninsured people pay more than the insurance company. In my case that just isn’t true.