The rising cost of Premiums isn’t because of who devised the Plan…its because of the spiraling overall cost of Medical Delivery as provided in the U.S…
Have any of you seen one NICU/Adult intensive care bill? The Bill for taking care of just ONE (among millions) cancer patient…or one trauma patient…or the cost of many meds?
I was sitting in a Lounge today listening to Spicer spew out how “they” had the answers…and it began to sound like Charlie’ Brown’s teacher to my ears…
Until we are able to make some tough choices…the cost of Health Care delivery will continue to spiral out of control…whether DEMS or the GOP writes the Bill.
As for Tap-Gate, where it looks like it is landing is that the feds listened in on some communications between Trump’s associates and the Russians, but contra to Trump’s tweet-sputtering, not because they tapped Trump’s team - but because they had tapped the Russians and heard the communications incidental to those wiretaps:
Quite frankly, this is incorrect. To think we’re not capable of doing things many many other countries have done doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I think with literal proof of working socialized healthcare across the globe, I think he should have said “they won’t.”
Let me rephrase–our presence in bases around the world and in seas around the world protects our allies. Thus our presence rather than our tax dollars (i.e. via “foreign aid” or some such thing) is what subsidizes the relative lack of defense spending in other areas of the world.
If we withdraw our presence, we by default give up much of our influence and hegemony. The takers will be Russia and China. Look at Syria as an example. Forget whether we “should” have done or not done things there—our foreign policy has been FUBAR for a long time in the Mid East–and look at what the result of our political inaction was: Russia assumed a leadership role. They did this on the cheap with a barely functioning aircraft carrier older than Time. But they successfully did it.
Now multiply that all over the globe. You do not need to be a war-hawk to see that the world in general is much more stable with US in the leadership role than Russia and China expanding and other countries scrambling to figure out WTF just happened.
I much prefer a world with us as the sole superpower dictating things than one with 2 aspiring superpowers and a bunch of regional destabilization amongst others. This world leadership comes with a cost, and that cost is a) true world wide force projection capabilities and superiority and b) increased defense spending to ensure the same in the present and future.
This does not mean that we can’t attempt to cut waste and it doesn’t mean that we should drop billions upon billions of dollars on wasteful items (F35 “multirole superiority” cough cough).
This DOES mean that we need to be careful and considerate about how much we cut, because sustaining world superpower status militarily takes a certain threshold of spending that is BY DEFINITION far greater than a regional power, or even a bunch of them. This is so because we have to have the ability to project our power everywhere and many places at once where they do not.
While your post is sensible, I believe you have it backwards. Certainly nobody is blaming ERs because they are not designed, nor should they be, to handle chronic conditions. Yes it is quite accurate to say that letting a condition become a crisis leads to drastically higher cost of care than nipping it in the bud or managing it. Yes it is true that many folks do not seek medical care until a chronic condition becomes a crisis. But ask yourself why that is the case. There are essentially 2 possible reasons:
they don’t care/they suck at decision making/stubbornness
they feel that they can’t afford “normal” care check ups
Now while there are many who are just plain stubborn and stick their heads in the sand about things until it blows up in their face, I would posit that group of people is far, far less in number than those who don’t feel they can afford regular care to manage a condition. When they can’t afford care, they don’t get coverage. When they don’t get coverage they don’t go to the doctor (which I view as relatively stupid, since even without insurance you can get a check up relatively cheap and you can afford basic medicines most of the time–I was poor and without insurance and I managed that). But regardless of the reason they don’t go to the doctor…and they go to the ER when they get scared about something that is a crisis.
But in that scenario the fundamental problem isn’t coverage. They don’t get checked because they feel they can’t afford the bill. Cost comes first. Coverage is a function of affordability–if Obamacare didn’t address the fundamental problem in substance it at least named the bill after the goal: the “Affordable Care Act”.
That chart is not accurate for this year. That chart also reflects the final year of a 7 year attempt to shrink the deficit under the Cameron government.
I have my daughter spent 5 months in the PICU before passing away waiting for a heart transplant. I was laid off as a chemist at the time and my wife ended up quitting her part time job, our daughter ended up qualifying for medicaid. Our bill was well north of a million dollars, with all of her procedures (3 heart catherizations, 2 heart surgeries, drugs, genetic testing for rare diseases, tracheotomy, consulting with other major hospitals, etc.) She passed away while the surgeon was trying to put in a Berlin Heart (I know this type of stuff is right up @ActivitiesGuy alley).
I don’t see the Republicans plans as solving any issues we have and by some estimates its going to throw 10 million more people won’t be covered. Before the ACA costs were going on average 10%-13% a year, thats letting the market handle things. I agree with @EyeDentist that we need a public option to healthcare. I would like to see what the CBO says about the Republican plan, but I don’t think it is going to be a good outlook.
Except it’s not. The “market” for healthcare has been heavily regulated and influenced by government for quite some time…
I’m not advocating anything one way or the other with that statement and I certainly feel for you and your family, but no, that isn’t the market handling things - there are so many rules and regulations just with insurance and hospitals that it’s does NOT resemble what the market would have looked like had it been less regulated. I can’t say that it would have improved your situation.
Again, I’m deeply sorry for your loss and what you went through. I can’t imagine…
I wasn’t talking personally about my situation as being the market I am saying on average prices were increasing at 10-13% a year before the ACA. That is what a lot of Republicans want to revert back to is a time before the ACA and they consider that to be the market handling things vs the government (under ACA). I am just pointing out that wasn’t a very good time for a lot of people with insurance prices still going up and around 48 million people without insurance.
The point is that Congress has the authority to raise an army/navy via the Constitution. The same cannot be said for Medicaid or any form of welfare that I’m aware of. Many of us “conservatives” believe giving people money for years does more harm to them long term than good.
It isn’t semantics. Military spending is codified in the Constitution. Welfare is not.
Like I said, we could probably cut military spending in the future by streamlining our branches; however, there are serious issues with certain weapons systems and huge overlays with replacements (Ex. F/A-18 & the F-35).
Healthcare costs increase in countries with socialized healthcare too. They are just paid for in a different way. I have said this many times on here before, trying to compare what other countries do (like Finland or Canada) is extremely difficult to damn near impossible. There is simply too much noise. For example, most of the countries with socialized healthcare would struggle to control prices if we didn’t subsidize their national security via NATO. Another country, Finland, is often cited as proof we can do it. Finland’s population is half of the size of the estimated illegal immigrant population of the U.S. that can obtain care for free (i.e. paid for by tax dollars) at area hospitals.
I’m aware of that - my point is healthcare has largely been infiltrated by regulation and government intrusion (i.e. not free market influences) for a long time before ACA.
You’d have to go back a lot farther than the time frame I think you’re referring to to get to a free market analysis of healthcare and its impact on prices, and even then the technology has changed so much that it’d be comparing apples and oranges as far as costs are concerned.
That is very true, but I can’t think of single market that doesn’t have the government involved to some extent, so I think its a fantasy to believe anything will ever be truly free market.
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the thought that we’d rather cut “entitlements” to Americans before cutting defense spending to foreign countries.
If there’s a single shred of anything to back this up, I’d love to see it.
I’ve already said I support cutting defense spending…
We cover like 75% of NATO funding… The EU is overleveraged as it is and already over taxes their populations. They could barely bail Greece out. France and Italy are on the brink of bankruptcy and you think they can cover the $650B/year we spend on NATO?
I don’t think they can cover it. Conversely I don’t care if they can cover it. If we’re over-contributing to NATO, the solution is simple AF, contribute less. I refuse to believe our non NATO defense spending can’t keep America safe.
I don’t support cradle to grave entitlements either.
NATO is an extremely important stabilizing factor in the world. The power vacuum that would be left if we were to pull out is troubling, to say the least. Yes, our military can defend the U.S., but NATO spending is a deterrent against an emerging enemy, like China or Russia, starting WWIII.
I mean, that’s what universal healthcare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc… are…
