OT Portland hotel calls cops on black guest in lobby

I think that's an honorable perspective and in general in life I ascribe to the same. However I think that healthcare is different. It's not just one person paying for you or visa versa, it's such a substantial piece of the pie and so astronomical in some cases that it becomes an impossibility. When my niece passed, her bills if she didn't have stellar insurance would have been over 2 million. It's bills like that which cause people in one group or another to require assistance. A friend of mine had cancer and his monthly medications for the rest of his life have just been reduced to $15,000. In order to get the government to pay for those meds he has to work as a handyman making a third of what he used to make as a general contractor.

Anyways, if there are to be pools for some people to get assistance, that has to come from you, me and society at large. So, given that we don't want to remove all restrictions from insurance companies, allowing them to charge expecting moms, people with pre-existing illnesses or life threatening diseases 10 or 20 times what you pay, perhaps it's unrealistic for you to say you want to pay yours and have others pay theirs.

If we do switch to universal healthcare and actually get rid of insurance companies, we would reduce a gigantic portion of why healthcare costs so much. And if we change the laws so we can actually use the bargaining power of our nation of get medications at cheaper rate then we could remove another large part of the bill. Then there's the issue that healthcare is so much more expensive when dealing with emergencies instead of preventative care. If the system were truly universal, so many of the people don't have healthcare or have shitty healthcare, or who can't afford the copays or medications would now be covered to actually be more proactive with their health and in the long run reduce the bill society has to pay.

It's not like you wouldn't pay for you healthcare since you are a taxpayer. You would pay for yours, I would pay for mine, but we might also be paying for that expecting mom, the elderly, the pre-existing condition person... But, in the end we as a society would pay less and you as an individual would also likely pay less. Of course you might have insurance through your work, but that would simply change. My employer pays almost 11K per employee for our healthcare. That 11K would either go towards taxes to pay for healthcare or it would go towards a larger salary. Most likely it would actually be split.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on this issue.

 

I'm sorry about your niece. That single 2 million dollar bill makes me wonder why anyone would be surprised at insurance balking at paying claims.

11k per employee would need a large pool of employees with no other claims to be profitable for insurance.

If we're covering everyone at 100 percent of the cost insurance has to go. There's no other way.

Then when we see the astronomical costs we have to pay how are we going to determine what gets cut?

The only option is to try it and see how it goes. Until we do that nobody will be able to prove the results one way or another.

 

Sorry sir, but this is just inaccurate.



Before Obama Care, 60% of Americans healthcare was covered by Self Insured employers.
About 10% on medicare.
About 9% on military plans,, Tri Care and VA.
They tell us about 10 to 20% of the populations was un insured.
As you can gather, a very small percentage of the populations was covered by private Healthcare insurance.

Well the fix was to reduce the retired population in the Self insured Employers group and load those covered by
Insurance companies with the cost of covering the un insured. A very small segment of the general population..

I can't say for all companies but I do know the stats for one, where is cost 52% of the cost of Private insurance to cover their employees under their self insured program.

Since then perhaps 20 million people have been forced out of the Employer based system to bolster the private insurance business, But I sure doubt it is half the population yet. So there is no gigantic pot to save.

It seems to me the more the government gets involved the more it gets fucked up.
It sure has had that track during my life time, starting when Medicare was first introduced.
The least costly healthcare ever was in my memory was when I first was hired where I received coverage through an employer, that provided the coverage. We paid the Providers directly, they were not involved or even aware of insurance. No giant office staff to handle. Same at the hospital and the outpatient service. A person could actual
afford to pay the bills without bothering with insurance which did not kick in until the out of pocket costs were exceeded.

Of course Cost shifting to cover the huge mass of uncovered immigrants had not been invented yet.

 

I don’t see why things would need to be cut. We already as a society pay for everyone, we just also pay for the insurance companies, more expensive meds and more costly emergency care instead of preventative medication.

 

That's why I used 'inference', meaning that it was strongly implied. I even explained that it would mean going back to what we had, which was health care for the wealthy or those lucky enough to have an employer that provided it.
Other than the parent plan for Obama Care which was designed by a Republican think tank and first implemented by a Republican governor in Massachusetts. But because the plan was proposed nationally by a Democrat President it was continuously ridiculed by Republicans. Kind of irrational, I'd say.
No, Obama Care would not be my first choice but it's all we could get through Congress which is a whole lot better than what we had.

 

I remember back in the 50/60's if a person or family didn't have health care they went to the County hospital and got treated.
My daughter works at legacy and says they treat many patience that don't have coverage.

 

Someone has to decide what gets covered.

Experimental stuff?

Sex reassignment?

There is a TON of things we will have to figure out to do this.

I'm not saying it won't work.

 

Who pays for the county hospital and who pays at private hospitals who wave their fees? We do, that's who.

 

Yeah, I know someone has to pay for it.

 

Well back in the 40's and 50's it was much cheaper, duh. Costs rise and it's not because of the ACA, but greed of the insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

 

Healthcare insurance offered by Private Insurance companies was fine when they were left to provide a product to customers that were free to buy the product that served their needs. Not a thing wrong with this.
When government wanted them to offer a different product and cover people not cover-able in the product business model, it goes to hell. Not usable for most people.

Then the cost shifting screws the Self Insured covered as well as the Private Insured, as they pay the load. The uninsured do not pay, most of which are immigrants. Some cost shifting goes to the government covered. like medicare and medicaid which do not reimburse the providers at the cost level.

 

good point. There will have to be something along those lines. Im guessing anything that is considered "elective" would not be covered, nor experimental. Experimental stuff is almost always covered by the research grants studying the topic, never insurance anyways.

 

How in the hell does a thread about an altercation in a local hotel lobby turn into a healthcare discussion? I swear not a single thread ever stays on topic in this forum.

 

Its a complicated world

 

What did comprehensive health insurance cost? If memory serves me, it was somewhere between $6k and $10k. High salaried executives got insurance that was worth between $20k and $50k.
Of course, if you had cancer, a heart ailment or some other serious health problem previously, you couldn't get health insurance unless your employer provided it.
I knew a technician at Tektronix who had to declare bankruptcy because his new born son needed heart surgery to survive. At the time, he was working as a TV repairman.
I just don't see how we can go through life depending on our insurance rates to be high so we can help cover the costs lost at hospitals with many patients who have no insurance. Some people without health insurance suck it up and don't see a doctor or choose rent and food over prescription meds.
Japan does it, Europe does it, Korea does it. I can't think of an advanced country that doesn't provide free or very reduced price health care except us. That just isn't right.

 

Vermont state government tried and abandoned it just a few years later.

This is an interesting read if you have time:
Six Reasons Why Vermont's Single-Payer Health Plan Was Doomed From The Start

 

Yikes.

 

Im not on here often enough these days to keep up with everything. I should probably just shut my mouth. Lol

 

Oh, I'm just now finding out he's quit.

I just skipped past the first stage of grief and went right to anger.

 

Gotcha. Yeah, sorry for my part in whatever