Healthcare Reform

[NM11046]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

But keeping them on the med and getting the med paid for by whatever source is in the pharma co best financial interests as well.

Probably in some cases.  But the nonprofits and foundations used to be funded by industry, so it was a different way to give drug for free or at significantly reduced cost to those patients who make too much money or don't have full insurance coverage (or are on medicare or medicaid).

 

I won't argue that there aren't issues but there are also companies that do the right thing and invest in patient lives for the right reasons.  My experience is in the orphan space most recently and it's very different from general medicine and pharma.

[Moiraine]

I don’t know much about the arguments against medicare for all but I have a feeling most of them are put into people’s heads for some monetary reason.

 

On the surface it makes sense to pursue. Right now we’re paying for medicare for the people who cost the most. Extending it to a much cheaper population shouldn’t be a problem. Most people would probably save money.

[Ratt Mhule]

15 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

I don’t know much about the arguments against medicare for all but I have a feeling most of them are put into people’s heads for some monetary reason.

 

On the surface it makes sense to pursue. Right now we’re paying for medicare for the people who cost the most. Extending it to a much cheaper population shouldn’t be a problem. Most people would probably save money.

 

Mostly it is bad faith arguments like “medicare for all will get rid of your private insurance and people like their private insurance” and “water down the medicare that we have for senior citizens now”. They arent telling people that medicare for all will cover EVERYTHING! Including dental and vision which medicare doesnt cover now.

 

You will be able to go to any hospital or doctor you choose. There will be no premiums. No deductibles. No co-pays. They dont use these facts in their arguments because they realize people dont even understand their insurance now. We have people call our clinic all the time saying “why did I get a bill? I have insurance!”  Well have you hit your deductible yet? “Whats a deductible?” People dont even understand insurance to begin with and realize there are holes in their coverage. Medicare for all with be cheaper than the current system because people will get preventative care more knowing they wont get a huge bill instead of waiting til its too late and needing tons of care for chronic diseases. Republicans wont tell you that though because the insurance companies and big pharma have them in their pockets. 

[Ratt Mhule]

Im 31 years old and my monthly premium through my employer is $469 a month. My deductible is $1,500. Which means at 31 I have to pay over $7,000 every year before insurance will pay a dime. That premium goes up every year as I age. Its a joke. s#!t, raise my taxes $3,000 a year and I save $3,000 a year on premiums. Thats a deal Im willing to make if it means I happen to get cancer at some point and wont go bankrupt getting treatment.  

[Danny Bateman]

1 minute ago, Frott Scost said:

Im 31 years old and my monthly premium through my employer is $469 a month. My deductible is $1,500. Which means at 31 I have to pay over $7,000 every year before insurance will pay a dime. That premium goes up every year as I age. Its a joke. s#!t, raise my taxes $3,000 a year and I save $3,000 a year on premiums. Thats a deal Im willing to make if it means I get cancer and wont go bankrupt.  

 

As an interesting corollary, a TON of employer resources go towards subsidizing employee healthcare, simply because we structured our healthcare system that way a long time ago.

 

What happens to that capital if the government takes over providing the majority of insurance? I'm sure employers would love to allocate that cash differently.

[methodical]

2 hours ago, Moiraine said:

I don’t know much about the arguments against medicare for all but I have a feeling most of them are put into people’s heads for some monetary reason.

 

On the surface it makes sense to pursue. Right now we’re paying for medicare for the people who cost the most. Extending it to a much cheaper population shouldn’t be a problem. Most people would probably save money.

 

Monetary and fear based mainly.  "Your care isn't going to be as good," "government death panels," "You're going to lose your doctor," "The governments going to tell you X," "Where are we going to magically get all this money," "Doctors are going to leave the country in droves," "you'll be standing in the soup line for medical care," "you'll have wait-lists" etc...

 

Then there's the ones targeted at people without empathy or full of hate, "Do you want your money to cover <Insert Stereotype here>" and you can go ahead and insert any marginalized group into that or any population who's decisions they don't agree with or feel deserve any ill that befalls them, I'd call that part of it "revenge masquerading as justice."

 

Then there's the insurance/doctors, they tend to focus on the fact that they may not make as much money, or that they don't want the government to mandate how they treat people.  I think we see less of that from most doctors not in administration anymore because insurance companies do that now, mandate care, make doctors negotiate pre-authorization on any procedure they'd prescribe.  One other thing I've read is possible increases in paperwork.

 

Those are the ones I've seen, read, and talked through with friends off the top of my head.

 

The worry I have, as a supporter of a single payer system, is that we have half our elected government basically acting in bad faith to f#&% things up to prove their sales pitch that "government doesn't work" right now.  They'll do that with this too. screw it with de-funding, under-funding and under-staffing.  This country needs a solid block of years or decades of elected people that are actually looking to do the best they can for the citizens as a whole not just whoever pays for their election to not just undo the damage this administration and senate has done now but to put something like MCA in place but then to keep it in place and fix whatever may not work as well as intended when implemented.  Yet every time a democrat wins an election its like the left/center left of the population goes "didn't we already settle this? we won, why do I need to take time to vote" in the next election.  That's infuriating.

[Ulty]

10 hours ago, Frott Scost said:

 

Mostly it is bad faith arguments like “medicare for all will get rid of your private insurance and people like their private insurance” and “water down the medicare that we have for senior citizens now”. They arent telling people that medicare for all will cover EVERYTHING! Including dental and vision which medicare doesnt cover now.

 

You will be able to go to any hospital or doctor you choose. There will be no premiums. No deductibles. No co-pays. They dont use these facts in their arguments because they realize people dont even understand their insurance now. We have people call our clinic all the time saying “why did I get a bill? I have insurance!”  Well have you hit your deductible yet? “Whats a deductible?” People dont even understand insurance to begin with and realize there are holes in their coverage. Medicare for all with be cheaper than the current system because people will get preventative care more knowing they wont get a huge bill instead of waiting til its too late and needing tons of care for chronic diseases. Republicans wont tell you that though because the insurance companies and big pharma have them in their pockets. 

 

Good comments in this thread. Understanding your insurance in the first place is one of the first major hurdles that most people never get past. I worked in an insurance office for several years (property & casualty and life insurance mostly). Even though I understand the concept of insurance better than most, and was licensed to sell health insurance products, most health insurance plans are Greek even to me. Health insurance is a beast all unto itself, and the industry and the available options change so quickly, with so much uncertainty, that even the professionals can't keep up.

 

Folks need to really have pointed conversations with their health providers, or their HR/benefits manager if they have one at work, to understand what their plans actually do for them and when they kick in. If you don't understand your own plan, it will be extremely difficult to intelligently discuss the industry on a broader scale or understand the issues related to wacky costs in the healthcare industry. Let alone coming up with an alternative plan to fix it all. 

 

I would wager that most of our government representatives don't fully understand their own insurance plans or the concept of insurance in general. When you have jackasses like Donald Trump saying things like: "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated" and Paul Ryan saying the problem with insurance is "the people who are healthy pay for the people who are sick," it only confirms that notion. Not only are they acting in bad faith to address the issue, they just straight up don't know what the f#*k they are doing at all.

[Moiraine]

8 hours ago, methodical said:

The worry I have, as a supporter of a single payer system, is that we have half our elected government basically acting in bad faith to f#&% things up to prove their sales pitch that "government doesn't work" right now.  They'll do that with this too. screw it with de-funding, under-funding and under-staffing.

 

 

Yep. They did that with the ACA because they couldn't let the Democrats have had a good idea. That's not to say the ACA would have 100% been wonderful, but they did everything they could to drag it down from day 1 instead of giving it a chance and *gasp* maybe even trying to make it better.

[Danny Bateman]

1 hour ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

Yep. They did that with the ACA because they couldn't let the Democrats have had a their good idea. That's not to say the ACA would have 100% been wonderful, but they did everything they could to drag it down from day 1 instead of giving it a chance and *gasp* maybe even trying to make it better. 

 

FIFY.

[Ratt Mhule]

Trumps budget proposal will cut medicare by $818 billion and medicaid by $1.5 trillion. Theres your $2 trillion tax cut for corporations, the rich and dewiz right there. Woohoo!

[BigRedBuster]

2 hours ago, Frott Scost said:

Trumps budget proposal will cut medicare by $818 billion and medicaid by $1.5 trillion. Theres your $2 trillion tax cut for corporations, the rich and dewiz right there. Woohoo!

This is going to get really interesting as to elderly people and their support for Trump. 

[Ratt Mhule]

2 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

This is going to get really interesting as to elderly people and their support for Trump. 

 

I doubt they will ever see this information on fox news.

[BigRedBuster]

Just now, Frott Scost said:

 

I doubt they will ever see this information on fox news.

True, but if their Medicare is actually cut they will notice. 

[Whistlebritches]

They'll back-load the cuts so they take place after the election like they did with the tax code changes coming up this year.

[RedDenver]

How many of Trump's base will he have to screw before they can see he's not interested in helping them?

 

Farmers slam Trump 2020 budget plan that includes deep cuts to subsidies
 

Quote

 

The White House budget request includes a 15 percent decrease in funding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture

...

The administration wants to slash the average premium subsidy for crop insurance from 62 percent to 48 percent.

...

According to Peterson, the plan includes $26 billion in cuts to crop insurance and $8 billion trimmed from programs that help ranchers recover grazing land hurt by drought.

 

 

I'm not necessarily against reducing agriculture subsidies, but a lot of Trump's base is from rural areas and this is going to hurt them especially with the tariffs and trade war.