I've seen enough about this thinly veiled attempt to entrust the government with even broader excuses to decide FOR us where our money will go.
Accept the facts: one SINGLE new medical procedure can carry a price tag equivalent to a years' GDP of a mid-sized national economy.
Treatment for AIDS is astronomical. Illegal Aliens have babies on our soil with no Constitutional grounds that those kids be granted anything more than a ticket home!
Think otherwise? see the Congressional Globe of the 39th Congress who ratified the 14th Amendment. And the cost to our elderly that is nothing less than heinous.
Now, IF health care is given reasonable limits on cost, then there'd be something to talk about. Particularly if it came with ZERO cost to tax-payers and citizens. How?
U.S. citizenship is still coveted, despite our government's heII-bent determination to cr@p on LEGAL immigrants while offering free hiney-massages to ILLEGALS, in addition to in-state tuition, free medicine, etc... As such, then, why not enforce the laws regarding citizenship but toss in a new, well-needed loop-hole granting DOCTORS, Pharmaceutical engineers, Nurses, etc, a shot at citizenship in exchange for a decade or so of public service in the "government provided health-care field"?
... We can reduce the cost of health care if we cap the amount someone can sue doctors who pay higher insurance rates thus doctors and hospitals raise the cost. I believe that any American should give our country at least two years of service. If doctors do that it would also cut cost. You could do your service where you want. You want to be a soldier or a mentor for children. Look at socialized medicine in other countries. It doesn't work! Look at how the government handles things...do you really want them involved in your healthcare. I think that people should work and pay for their own health insurance. If they are disabled, elderly or have extensive medical expenses...then they should get assistance.If someone is in this country illegally, they should not expect healthcare, they should get here legally and then work for healthcare coverage. Australia has had a comprehensive public health care system for a long time and is doing really well, thanks. We don't implicitly want to kill off our poor people. We'd rather them alive so they can contribute...which judging by the way we're going, seems to be working out fine...and people are STILL getting their plasma TVs! SPOT-ON!!!
Nope! Not a right or a privilege unless we manage to word it right. This nation is so different from others. At the very least the government needs to enforce our border laws and protections. That's some crazy stuff. I read in the news that the drug cartels are training little kids in camps along the border to become assassins for them .
Sick.
And people spend every dime they can get. If the government gives them an inch, they'll take a miles worth of dollars.
Healthcare is more that way than anything because people are so protective of their selves and family members. They'll spend money they would never spend if it was their own.
Mercy! I personally think it should be a choice and not something forced upon us. I agree with your statements on costs for major illnesses and what has happened to the elderly, that is horrendous! Then there is the illegal population....
If there were a government mandated health program, it will be taxed in a large way. I consider this socialized medicine, like Canada's. It will cover all people, regardless if they are employed, unemployed, legal, illegal...It is ludicrous to think this fiscally responsible, let alone possible. The tax payers can not afford to subsidize such a thing, not with the lack of jobs and rising costs on other things as well...There aren't enough people working at this point to subsidize such a thing, and seniors can not afford the tax hikes and the Government surely can not afford such a program...while providing "top care" to all people. It's very, very costly for quality health care. I don't think people have really investigated this option completely. It sounds great, but logic and reality dictate something else.
A universal health plan, I think will have more choices as to coverages, if a person wanted them at all, but the insurance companies would also be required to subsidize this as well, not just citizens, so it's more feasible that such a program can be done on an accounting basis that makes more logical sense at the government level, although somehow I sense taxes would be involved there too. For people who choose not to purchase into it, well they would pay up front like they do now.
Leaving things just as they are, only leaves the majority out of the loop all together with continued rising costs to make up the short falls and that doesn't seem an answer....it's not working now....
For those now with no health insurance, one is expected to pay or not be seen at doctor's offices. At the hospital, they see everyone, but if you can't pay the bill, while they will charge less, if one can't do that, it gets sent to collection agencies (for citizens). The free care for illegal immigrants is made up in the rising fees charged by doctors, medicines, hospital fees etc.
To me that seems a slap in the face to citizens to have to pick up those tabs....this includes education along with everything else....sooner or later it creeps in via raised taxes, right now it's in rising costs all across the board....
It makes little sense that people aren't realizing this, and also how this has affected the elderly in a huge way as well. How can they afford their medical needs, let alone living expenses with costs rising so much medically, food, gas, heating, etc. I haven't heard of any offer to assist them outside of Medicare, and some heating assistance, but they too have to foot the bill in all the other rising costs....
I'd prefer a universal plan myself....since the insurance companies aren't going anywhere....That too is a falacy to think they would be abolished, they won't be. This proposal makes much more sense, plus it allows choice and is more do-able. I think that Doctor's should also have a cap on their pay, and also be trained in more than one specialty to help with those costs. I think the care quality would be much better as well with more qualified doctor's and under such a program it does allow for everyone to have insurance, even the unemployed citizen via insurance company and government subsidizing. That is my understanding of it, in talking with some long time business friends whom are insurance/finance executives about this subject.
Handling the illegal immigration issue all across the board needs to be addressed. My children are citizens, and for them while we felt it their right to go to college, it was also a privilige because we were able to pay for it, they got grants, scholarships and worked to also help pay for the costs. In no way was any of that process a free ride....
I think all people should have access to health care, but there has to be restrictions....free rides will only cost the tax payers....
So in actuality there are two issues presented....the health programs....and the illegal immigrant issue....
But there is no such thing as a Zero cost to tax payers and citizens health care program....Such a thing does not exist...
Edit: Very recent article on illegal immigrants having babies in this country, cost to one hospital alone in Texas....no wonder hospitals are having to close from New England to California, there's no funding....and our government doesn't see the problem with this?????....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/0...
I'm a huge children's advocate, so I don't fault these babies born....I just have to wonder on this whole situation....it's unreal. I question if it has anything to do with the SSP...which is directly connected to Nafta from my understanding of it....???....
http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/nor...
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/articl... Actual problems with health care are not addressed by any of the pols.
Illegals ARE a major factor, but once we put our foot down and stop GIVING them things, they'll self-deport in most cases and with proper border enforcement, we'll get rid of 90% of them fairly quickly.
ONLY plan I've seen that addresses ALL the problems--violations of contract and antitrust law, lack of price transparency, shortage of doctors and nurses, etc. is this one:
QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all.
That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare "donut holes" the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low "caps" on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan's Save America, Save the World
Hitting a few high points of the actual problems so folks can see no pols are addressing them at all:
When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.
"Aldrich鈥檚 situation is "asinine" but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.
...
Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. "
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/
Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe...
Furthermore:
"the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of 鈥渟hedding lives鈥?as some term it when 鈥渦ndesirable鈥?customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, 鈥淗ealth insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,鈥?15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.
A 2006 article, 鈥淯.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation鈥?br>
(hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer 鈥渃ontrols more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting." In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. 鈥溾€橳he results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004鈥攑eaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003鈥攕oaring well above inflation and wages increases.鈥?quot; Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion."
--Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128
"Insurance Companies Robbing Patients
Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.
Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM
By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men"
http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medi... |
