And who do you think will be able to pay for it out of pocket? The same people who buy it in countries with socialized medicine--the very wealthy. The rest of the populace will be left with no choice but to take what the government decides they should have. That's not America.
I don't know what that means. Here's what I've seen. You need a $100,000 operation to repair the XYZ using the ABC method, DEF permutation. Your policy covers XYZ and in some cases, ABC, but DEF is usually with the PQR permutation. Specific regulations must be interpreted. Auditors will check the decisions later, after you're either dead from them, or alive. My point is that no matter what contract you think you have in writing, I have managed the money for an HMO. Their human decision-makers follow budgets (that I made) to make sure that the insurance company or medical provider doesn't go under. Do you get a helicopter from the general hospital to the specialist hospital? Maybe, if your cost hasn't surpassed the normal range. Things like that can be excluded when necessary. Expedited appointments, verification checkups, a costlier experienced doctor for a more serious case, etc. A government committee might make life or death decisions? Private insurance companies and private hospitals have committees and auditors doing that, the same as government already does. And if you ask critically who made a certain decision, they draw together and say, we did it as a group. You can't find the hospital's decision process. (I tried, in my mother's case.) You don't have any choice to choose your insurance company after it's over. And it's only then that you have learned what you needed to know. The more a neutral party like the government (or a private regulator) forces out the information in advance, the more true choice of companies we will have. What I see some saying here is that only government decision-makers make life or death decisions. But the same decisions must be made by any managers, whether government or private. What that has to do with your right to do with your body whatever you want, I do not understand. Catchy slogan, though. Millions of people will be swayed by it.
The insurance companies are one of the largest institutional investors, if not the largest. I don't know for sure what % of their premiums collected (yearly) get paid out for claims, but I'd guess some smallish fraction. Their whole reason for being is to invest and use the returns on the investments to pay out annuity kinds of arrangements. Your figuring is fine except for discounting the aggregate of the premiums collected over years. They only have to invest that $6M one time, years ago... As far as who decides who lives or dies, that should be the patient's choice, or spouse/family in the case the patient is braindead or something.
Seems clear and concise to me. Maybe you're having a stroke. Smile in the mirror. Is your smile crooked?
Yes, she is. The feds pay for her Flolan. However, this could change when our health care is 100% under the control of the Feds. We hope not, but I think it is a distinct possibility. Also, is't not as if she is bed-ridden. Sometimes the side effects of the medication make her so for a couple of days, but other times she has enough energy to do some housework or get out and do a bit of shopping... so while it sustaines her life, it's not as if she lives in a coma.
So what is your position on people who are here illegally with that condition. More so, they are here illegally but have young kids who are here legally. Send them home to die or give them treatment here? BTW-I'm sorry for your daughter and am glad she lives in a country where the gov't will give her proper treatment. I support the gov't footing the bill for situations like your daughter.
I'm sorry too to hear about your daughter, BP. Sounds terrible. I can't help but wonder why it costs so much to treat this illness. Obviously, I know absolutely nothing about it. But it just seems to me there has to be some way to re-organize the health care system to more cost-effectively treat this. Anyway, if there isn't, I'd feel proud of my country if it were willing to cover the costs for treatment. I firmly believe that we can afford to pay for the things we truly choose to. If we can find the money to win WWII and defeat the Soviet Union and put a man on the moon, we can figure out a way to afford to keep people like your daughter alive.
I don't know about BP's daughters situation . . . but if you get a bill for 300K from a hospital, the insurance company pays a fraction of this to settle the bill. Funny, the people without insurance pay so much more than if you were insured and the insurance company pays.
Then you support Obama's vision of Healthcare for all Americans. Some people on this board think his daughter should be sentenced to die simply because she isn't part of the financially elite minority.
That's because the "costs" of healthcare are all smoke and mirrors. They are billed at an astronomical markup (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) then actually settled at different levels of cost depending solely on who is paying. It's a way to hide what is actually deliberate discrimination by economic class, something that could and should be prosecuted under our current laws if anyone had the balls. It's a major intended result of Reaganomics, and a big reason why our country is near financial and moral collapse.
Actually, if you pay in cash, you can get a better deal from the hospital. If you're middle class or below, the hospital will work out a payment plan with you and again you'll pay less. The key is that the prices are negotiable.
So let me get this straight. You oppose the government 'takeover' of health care because you are afraid it will take away your government funded health care? Hmm. barfo
This is contrary to what I've heard. I know a person who works at billing at a hospital here and she says insurance companies negotiate for cheaper rates and the hospital charges more for uninsured patients, especially if the billing people think they can't afford the bill. The hospital can then write off the unpaid bills. It may be a policy only practiced at that hospital or only in this region but it's what I've heard.
Insurance companies do negotiate. However, so do individuals without insurance. To quote Kramer, "Retail is for suckers". Hospitals like cash in their hand. You can often get 30-50% off what they're charging. I know this because my mother was a hosptial administrator at three Portland-area hospitals over the past 27 years (she's now retired).
This is why I never trust numbers thrown out about health care. Why make a system and that you increase the bill by 100% to people who can't afford the normal rate anyways? Why make these people learn (probably the hard way) that the dollar amount on a hospital bill is really a fictitious number? Doctors are held to ethic standards, but I question the ethics in hospital bills. And I never trust numbers being thrown around at congress when it talks about the cost for uninsured and for insurance companies. I can see a scenario that the hospitals inflate their billings (by an unconscionable amount) and then parade around how much they are losing in write offs . . . I hope they don't get some tax break for that.
