Geez, you do a lot of jumping to conclusions today. No way, I am completely ready to wait for the screwing to start.
Insurance is the grandest scam of the 20th century. And it continues. The root problem that nobody seems to address is the astronomical cost of healthcare. I dont mean health insurance either, that is not healthcare (obamacare conveniently muddled the two terms). I mean the fact that you walk into a hospital, get a bandaid, then get sent a $4500 hospital bill. That is whats wrong with healthcare. Rather than addressing this problem, Obamacare forced people to pay these gouged prices through insurance and then told them "You're covered!" to make them feel better about being forced to pay markups in the thousand-percentile range.
Hey.... I never shot anyone..... I ALLEGEDLY posted a picture of me holding a REPLICA. I was never convicted of anything!
(As I have probably said a bazillion times) I grew up in the UK with the National Health Service. People in England would not exchange that for any alternative. Even Margaret Thatcher, who would be to the right of Paul Ryan in economic matters knew better than to touch the NHS. When I was a kid and you went to the Doctor's, there wasn't even a place to pay, because you didn't (except through your taxes, of course, but mostly rich people's). I will never understand how people in the Tea Party managed to get angry at the idea that poor people might get free health care. When many of them WERE poor people. I used to think that I could convince people by saying: look - you believe in public education, right? You believe that there should be free school for poor people, right? Well, why shouldn't health care be the same way? But now, of course, Betsy DeVos is going to take care of that. And the US continues to have the highest cost, least effective health care in the world, with the worst child mortality rates of any developed nation. Insane.
Part of the problem with medicine is that there are some treatments that are just inherently expensive and if you're doing "socialized" medicine, you have to make "rationing" decisions. Do we pay for this one middle-aged person's heart transplant or spend the money on free birth control for 100 people, or inoculations for 200 people? You are forced to make these decisions as a group (as, actually, Oregon tried to do a while back). Then, of course, the crazies on the right start shouting "RATIONING! DEATH PANELS!" This ignores the fact that there's rationing, and worse, with non-socialized healthcare, that is, the poor people just die because they can't afford it. So it's hard. And a lot of people are going to be unhappy. (People in England got used to having teeth that were ugly but effective, because cosmetic dentistry was not covered. But none of us had cavities that went un-filled, we just had crooked teeth. Also, free NHS glasses were pretty ugly, as I knew because I had them from age 7-17. Although now they would be coveted as being hipster-ish.) But really it's the only remotely moral route. And anyone who cries "FREEDOM!" as an objection just means "FREEDOM FOR RICH PEOPLE TO KEEP MORE OF THEIR MONEY TO BUY A THIRD CAR!" so ignore them.
Not quite true. Expensive healthcare is because we allow the government intrution into the system a little as we go, a little more control every so often as we head toward the Communist system. 50 years ago I broke my right humerus. Went to the emergency room, they confirmed, I had fucked up. Put my arm in a sling and sent me home. The bill was 80 bucks, I paid and later got the money back from my employer as part of my healthcare benefit. The Hospital did not know I had insurance, nor did they need to know, as I paid the bill just like most people did in that day. The hospital had no deals to make with insurance companies, Medicare and a Medicaid did not exist, well Medicare had just started. So there was no cost shifting from those that can't pay to those that can because they have insurance. Costs were low and a person could afford to seek help and pay the bill even if you did not have insurance. Three months ago, my wife broke her right humerus. I took her to the emergency room, they confirmed she had fucked up. Put her arm in a sling and sent her home. They didn't even give her a Tylenol I had to stop at the pharmacy and get her some. Got the bill recently or saw it after the dickering was done between the Hospital and the Insurance company who is the agent for Medicare. The Bill was for $2775.00. But we really don't know what the insurance company paid the hospital. This bill from this hospital is on top of the $275 I pay them every year via property taxes to support the nonprofit Hospital in town. I have talked with the business office about why there bills are so friggin high. For every patient they take in that pays the full bill, they serve; Two dead beats residents that do not pay and have nothing to lean. Two non residents that do not pay and can not as they have nothing. Two Medicaid patents that the government reimburses the Hospital at about 70% of cost. Four Medicare patients that the government reimburses the Hospital at about 70% of cost. When the guy with Insurance shows up it is get well time! Cash is like a gift from heaven. Little by little our Government has caused that all to happen. Creating Medicare, Medicaid, and passing laws that force the hospitals to service the indigent.
So here's the plan. We'll build a healthcare machine. The patient will enter the machine and leave healed. It works this way. If the patient has a bit of cash, he'll be sent by the machine back in time 50 years to where his 2017 cash can purchase very inexpensive healthcare. If the patient has no money, he'll simply be incinerated by the machine. We'll call it the MarAzul 5000. barfo
I support anyone who is socialist especially if they are willing to take the good with the bad and take on my tax bill.
Having lost one friend and 2 relatives to gross malpractice by doctors, I strongly oppose supposed tort reform. The healthcare industry, and that's what it is, is massively overpaid across the board. You could cut the pay of every healthcare employee from nurses to brain surgeons by half and they'd still be overpaid compared to other occupations requiring the same level of education. A podiatrist should not be hauling in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
