Randy Inman
Jingo's Ruminations
Kim K.
Healthcare plans we can't afford
June 18th 2008 14:36
We all know healthcare costs way too much, but is socialized medicine the way to fix it?
I’ve read over the entire plans of all of the current presidential candidates and I see errors and questions all the way around.
When you are making a business plan, a loan application, a grant proposal…there is one essential that you can’t leave out of the paperwork- the cost. Obama, who proposes government sponsored healthcare, can't give the actual premium costs that will accompany the plan. Would it be what is “affordable” relative to a Massachusets socialite or to an inner city family of 6? Obama gives the vague figure that it “could” save families $2500 a year, but what are the numbers on premiums used to figure this?
He lists vague ideas of what he plans. He outlines where the money for his plans will come from and, at no surprise, a large portion comes from bigger government and redistribution of wealth. Obama’s plan is all about control- requiring health insurance for kids, requiring employers to contribute to the government plans if they don’t give health insurance to their employees…everything being handed to the government. Another question I have is, if he plans on repealing tax cuts, what are the true monetary differences between the paying of taxes and saving on health insurance? Will we really save money or are we just turning over control with more broken promises? We have continually heard that democras will not revoke the tax cuts from the “middle class,” which burdons that age old question Who is Middle Class?
McCain stresses that he wants to keep control in the hands of the people. While he acknowledges that something needs to be done, the song and dance of it all sounds eerily familiar to the debates of 2000 and 2004. Since healthcare costs have done nothing but rise in the decades since I was a child, I need more than vague ideas from everyone.
In our little family of 5, last year we spent approximately $10,000 a year on health insurance
. Like many companies, my husband’s employer did not cover insurance for the family, so we were left paying into an expensive program out of pocket. We were considering changing companies, but when we discovered that we were pregnant again last Fall, we decided to stay with them since they had good maternity coverage. We were told in January our premiums went up, as well as the out of pocket costs for maternity hospital stays. Being in the middle of the pregnancy, we havd no option but to stay with this company until the baby was born or go without coverage for the delivery- a costly second option. Needless to say, I have not been all that impressed with the “changes” over the past years.
The question I have now: ”is there a way to fix healthcare without making it socialized?” I found a quote from McCain’s website amid other fancy talk that said, “Controlling health care costs will take fundamental change - nothing short of a complete reform of the culture of our health system and the way we pay for it will suffice.” Of all the statements I see on all the websites, this one little snippet really speaks to what needs to be done.
I had a pinched nerve during this last pregnancy. I went to my OB and asked if there was anything that could be done to help it. She suggested to see a chiropractor. I called my insurance company. In order for me to see a chiropractor, I needed to see my primary care physician (PCP) first. So I had to pay $20 to go to the doctor and my insurance had to pay for the rest of the cost of that appointment so that she could tell me there was nothing she could do and refer me to the chiropractor that I wanted to see in the first place. The same thing happened when I needed to see a dermatologist. In one year, I had two useless PCP appointments. Lets conservatively say that my insurance paid $30 for each of those appointments for a total of in-network charge of $50 per appointment. If just 15% of our population had to do this same thing, that just cost the insurance companies $2,710,260, 500. That’s $2.7 Billion that they paid, and about another $2 Billion that the people paid out of pocket for useless healthcare. That is taking my conservative figure of $50 per appointment, which is actually $100 less than many state averages.
Usually, I have a pretty good idea of whether my kids are really sick or not, but there were a few occasions when I called the nurse’s desk to see if something bad was going around. They always said we needed to see the doctor. I would go in only to have them tell me that a certain bug was going around and just to give them plenty of water, keep them comfortable and come back if things got worse. Why couldn’t the nurse tell us this in the first place? Lawsuits. Everyone talks about malpractice reform, but no one does anything about it.
The American people take for granted that they will be covered. The uninsured can’t be refused care at an emergency room. The costs of those visits are absorbed by others, pushing everyone’s costs higher. It is significantly cheaper to see a doctor, but if someone knows that they have to pay a doctor $150 and potentially a bit more for a real illness as opposed to walking away from a $2000 emergency room bill scot-free, which do you think they will choose? That’s the Catch 22. You don’t have insurance so you go to the emergency room which raises costs so you can’t afford health insurance.
There is an intersting study that has been going on for a couple of years under the public radar. In several large physicians offices around the country, Medicare has been encouraging doctors to use advanced systems and better basic in-office care to save on costs to Medicare. If they are able to save the program at least 2% of the costs that are expected, Medicare gives bonuses to the office. In 2006, these few offices saved the program a reported $9.5 million dollars. This program is set to end its experiment in 2009, at which time they will evaluate and proceed as they see fit.
The problem here isn’t some nameless evil who is stealing healthcare from poor Americans. The problem is us. The citizens. We are taking advantage of our own system and pushing ourselves into a health-bankruptcy in the process. We eat too much, we smoke, we drink, we don’t use protection when we have sex and catch diseases or get pregnant, and we expect the healthcare system to continue to pay for it all. Insurance companies force useless appointments to the tune of billions of dollars. People take advantage of medical morality. Doctors are sued anytime that someone thinks they can make a quick buck, whether damages were significant or not. Doctors perform procedures that may not be needed in order to protect their own butts. They charge ridiculous amounts of money because they know insurance will pay for it. Everyone just wants to pretend it is the drug companies fault or the rich or immigrants…no one wants to take responsibility for themselves.
We don’t need the costs of a universal plan, we need to pay one phenomenal PR person to give us a new way to look at American medicine. Everyone from patient to doctors have to learn self-discipline and responsibility and pass this on to our kids.
I’ve read over the entire plans of all of the current presidential candidates and I see errors and questions all the way around.
When you are making a business plan, a loan application, a grant proposal…there is one essential that you can’t leave out of the paperwork- the cost. Obama, who proposes government sponsored healthcare, can't give the actual premium costs that will accompany the plan. Would it be what is “affordable” relative to a Massachusets socialite or to an inner city family of 6? Obama gives the vague figure that it “could” save families $2500 a year, but what are the numbers on premiums used to figure this?
He lists vague ideas of what he plans. He outlines where the money for his plans will come from and, at no surprise, a large portion comes from bigger government and redistribution of wealth. Obama’s plan is all about control- requiring health insurance for kids, requiring employers to contribute to the government plans if they don’t give health insurance to their employees…everything being handed to the government. Another question I have is, if he plans on repealing tax cuts, what are the true monetary differences between the paying of taxes and saving on health insurance? Will we really save money or are we just turning over control with more broken promises? We have continually heard that democras will not revoke the tax cuts from the “middle class,” which burdons that age old question Who is Middle Class?
McCain stresses that he wants to keep control in the hands of the people. While he acknowledges that something needs to be done, the song and dance of it all sounds eerily familiar to the debates of 2000 and 2004. Since healthcare costs have done nothing but rise in the decades since I was a child, I need more than vague ideas from everyone.
In our little family of 5, last year we spent approximately $10,000 a year on health insurance
The question I have now: ”is there a way to fix healthcare without making it socialized?” I found a quote from McCain’s website amid other fancy talk that said, “Controlling health care costs will take fundamental change - nothing short of a complete reform of the culture of our health system and the way we pay for it will suffice.” Of all the statements I see on all the websites, this one little snippet really speaks to what needs to be done.
I had a pinched nerve during this last pregnancy. I went to my OB and asked if there was anything that could be done to help it. She suggested to see a chiropractor. I called my insurance company. In order for me to see a chiropractor, I needed to see my primary care physician (PCP) first. So I had to pay $20 to go to the doctor and my insurance had to pay for the rest of the cost of that appointment so that she could tell me there was nothing she could do and refer me to the chiropractor that I wanted to see in the first place. The same thing happened when I needed to see a dermatologist. In one year, I had two useless PCP appointments. Lets conservatively say that my insurance paid $30 for each of those appointments for a total of in-network charge of $50 per appointment. If just 15% of our population had to do this same thing, that just cost the insurance companies $2,710,260, 500. That’s $2.7 Billion that they paid, and about another $2 Billion that the people paid out of pocket for useless healthcare. That is taking my conservative figure of $50 per appointment, which is actually $100 less than many state averages.
Usually, I have a pretty good idea of whether my kids are really sick or not, but there were a few occasions when I called the nurse’s desk to see if something bad was going around. They always said we needed to see the doctor. I would go in only to have them tell me that a certain bug was going around and just to give them plenty of water, keep them comfortable and come back if things got worse. Why couldn’t the nurse tell us this in the first place? Lawsuits. Everyone talks about malpractice reform, but no one does anything about it.
The American people take for granted that they will be covered. The uninsured can’t be refused care at an emergency room. The costs of those visits are absorbed by others, pushing everyone’s costs higher. It is significantly cheaper to see a doctor, but if someone knows that they have to pay a doctor $150 and potentially a bit more for a real illness as opposed to walking away from a $2000 emergency room bill scot-free, which do you think they will choose? That’s the Catch 22. You don’t have insurance so you go to the emergency room which raises costs so you can’t afford health insurance.
There is an intersting study that has been going on for a couple of years under the public radar. In several large physicians offices around the country, Medicare has been encouraging doctors to use advanced systems and better basic in-office care to save on costs to Medicare. If they are able to save the program at least 2% of the costs that are expected, Medicare gives bonuses to the office. In 2006, these few offices saved the program a reported $9.5 million dollars. This program is set to end its experiment in 2009, at which time they will evaluate and proceed as they see fit.
The problem here isn’t some nameless evil who is stealing healthcare from poor Americans. The problem is us. The citizens. We are taking advantage of our own system and pushing ourselves into a health-bankruptcy in the process. We eat too much, we smoke, we drink, we don’t use protection when we have sex and catch diseases or get pregnant, and we expect the healthcare system to continue to pay for it all. Insurance companies force useless appointments to the tune of billions of dollars. People take advantage of medical morality. Doctors are sued anytime that someone thinks they can make a quick buck, whether damages were significant or not. Doctors perform procedures that may not be needed in order to protect their own butts. They charge ridiculous amounts of money because they know insurance will pay for it. Everyone just wants to pretend it is the drug companies fault or the rich or immigrants…no one wants to take responsibility for themselves.
We don’t need the costs of a universal plan, we need to pay one phenomenal PR person to give us a new way to look at American medicine. Everyone from patient to doctors have to learn self-discipline and responsibility and pass this on to our kids.
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Comment by Harry
Sydney Diary
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Zoo Parent
Comment by Josie
Comment by Ex-Libertarian
Your argument regarding costs is flawed, as well. Last year, about 15 percent of our GDP (~2 trillion dollars) was pumped into our health care system. Per capita, that is more than every industrialized nation in the world: and they all have universal health care. This is for two reasons: first, the insurance companies have all the reasons to jack prices and deny care, and second, the administrative waste and red tape result in monstrous increases in price. Nearly 50 percent of each US Health dollar goes to pay for clinical waste. Consider this: Medicare's overhead is 1.5 percent, compared to 13-16 percent in the private sector. This, in conjunction with that fact that the lack of universal care results in large numbers of people being pulled off the workforce, simply demonstrates that we actually cannot afford NOT to pay for universal care. Even the Congressional Budget Office has stated that we could provide universal care for the money that we spend now. Taxes wouldn't have to increase at all, according to some estimates.
As to your argument about how the uninsured choose to seek "free" emergency care instead of paying money to see a doctor, I find it a bit far off. Why do you assume they conciously chose not to see a doctor? Perhaps they simply cannot pay for it, and can only hope for the best.
I think it's a bit hypocritical to be against Universal health care if you aren't willing to rally for repeal of legislation that gives people the "right" to "free" emergency care (not saying you are, necessarily)-unless you are arguing from a cost-analysis standpoint, in which case, I still think you are wrong. While I totally agree that Americans need to change their ways, and that we live in an informed society by which we should be able to make better choices; however, the cost of uninsurance is still too much for our nation to bear. I see no fundamental disadvantage in progressing towards a universal system of care.
Comment by Josie
Here's an example for you. We went 3 months without insuance for my husband when he changed jobs. He went to the doctor with an ear infection during that time. The doctor charged him half of the price for the visit that she would have charged the insurance company and gave him the medicine for free.
My sister does not have insurance either. She went to a speclialist for a foot problem she was having. She got a shot that he said normally gets charged $400. He told her he would figure something out. She got the bill in the mail and he charged her $100 for the shot and the visit.
In both of those situations, had they had insurance, the companies would have been paying several hundreds of dollars more. That is why insurance is so expensive.
The problem is that our current system does not allow for competition to ACTUALLY flourish. If insurance went back to being catastophic insurance alone as it was until the 1960s, doctors would have to compete on a monetary level.
As far as the emergency room, it is an absoute fact that people choose to go there because they cannot be refused care. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 55% of emergency room visits were unnecessary and great portion of those were uninsured patients. Talk to any hospital administrator and they will tell you that patients choosing to go to the emergency room instead of doctors is a fact.