Quote:
Originally Posted by Excaliber
Dan, I'm not applauding or discounting Medicare or Medicaid, I don't have anything to do with either one. I'm simply noting they are a Federal Health plan that is to easy to take advantage of. Throwing them out is not a viable solution, fixing them is the only realistic alternative. But how? A question I'd like to see addressed in regards to Health Care reform.
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First, health care "reform" as viewed by liberals is a misnomer. Liberals want to scrap a working system and replace it with a Utopian system that cannot and will not work. And as yet they don't even know what that system is. That is not reform, that is idiotic nonsense.
IDENTIFY the major problems and FIX them whatever they are. Why has that absolutely BASIC step NOT been done in over 20 years of "PSEUDO CRISIS"???
Second, TORT REFORM! The most obvious and costliest change that no one will touch. Eliminate the Doctors NEED to carry multi-hundreds of thousands of malpractice insurance and they could significantly reduce their fees AND realize a greater net income. Eliminate the malpractice scare and premiums and numerous CYA tests would no longer be done. Lower fees, fewer tests means lower health insurance costs. The Government wants to be involved? I've said it before, establish the National Malpractice Bureau. Want to file a suit, file it against the Gov. Bureau. Win the suit, the Government writes you a check. Loose it and your lawyer writes the Gov. a check. [the plaintiff pays the lawyer]
Kindly get it through your head that Medicaid is WELFARE. Only Medicare is health insurance. Medicare works well, I'm on it, treatment is fine, costs are far below what costs were as an under 65 patient. For instance, an in patient hospital stay under 60 days costs only $1068 TOTAL for the Medicare beneficiary. My wife recently did an 18 day stay in the hospital, cost $1068. But you have to acknowledge that Medicare is propped up by the Trillions of dollars of private, for profit, health care already existing. Medicare utilizes that in place system. Dismantle that for profit system [and that IS the liberals intent] and Medicare crashes overnight. The total bill for the wife's stay was above $80,000. We paid $1068. Medicare paid $27,000.00. $52000.00, the hospital "adjusted" away into the ether. And Medicare ONLY paid that much because Barb developed complications and Medicare pays more for complications.
Another example, an eye clinic does cataract surgery for about $4800. for patients under 65 [non-Medicare]. They ALSO do the same surgery on Medicare patients. The Medicare APPROVED amount for that procedure is $700.00. The clinic CANNOT collect another cent from the Medicare beneficiary. Well if they are operating on 60 patients in a certain time period and 8 are on Medicare, the clinic takes in $255,200.00 in whatever the time period was. Change that to Government health with pay like Medicare and the take is $42,000.00 for the same period. Those numbers mean the clinic would NEVER have been built. The private, for profit, system allowed that clinic to be built. No one would be interested in building it for Medicare or Government reimbursement rates. Which means under Gov. Health, the Gov. would have to build and staff that clinic and so goes your savings, long long and far away, never to be seen or thought of ever again. Medicare works terrifically, but only because it is a boil on the ass of the best medical care system on the plant.