[quote=Djshakes]Well, you can argue on the other side of the aisle that the dems are just as guilty as pushing funny numbers and offering solution that will not work…and therefore, according to you, are not solutions…which I agree. This is going to be long so I am going to to say it once. Most people want to look at the numbers (presented to us) to determine if the health care legislation is going to reduce the debt/deficit. It won’t and here is why.
The argument about our current healthcare situation is that it costs too much. One of the biggest reason the cost are high is because someone else is paying those costs. Specifically the government and insurance companies. What is the government’s answer, to have these two entities pay more. When people were the single payer they were selective on what they spent their money on. A cold, no. A broken bone, yes. When someone else is paying, people tend to use medical care more. Rationing by the individual now becomes rationing by the government. Lines grow longer as people with minor issues take time away from doctors to see patients with serious issues.
Country after country grossly underestimate government medical costs. Even when they use the current numbers they are underestimated because the numbers are based off of the individual paying, not the government. As stated, having someone else pay will always guarantee more use.
One of the biggest costs that affect most hospitals is the government mandate to treat anyone that walks into an emergency room, whether they pay or not. Those people that talk about bringing down the cost actually want more mandates like this. If this is such a good policy, why doesn’t the government pay for it instead of forcing the hospital to?
Often what is called lowering costs is actually refusing to pay the costs with lower prices set by the government. They think there will be no repercussions until doctors eventually stop taking medicare as payment which is already happening. If it costs 1 million to produce a drug we are going to pay 1 million or not get the new drug. Nothing is free.
All these mandates are only going to increase costs. Why are the insurance companies not already including these mandates in their packages if they are so great? Because those things raise costs that by an amount people are unwilling to pay for the benefit. If people wanted the extra mandates the insurance companies would gladly add them for a profit. Instead, government requires them to add them and when they increase the price they look like the bad guys. I’m not saying insurance companies are innocent…but they are not the only ones to blame like this administration would like you to believe.
We rarely look to see how government medical care actually turns out…or we chose to ignore it. British newspapers often talk about the horrible conditions. No other country has as high tech medical equipment and short waits as the US. You can always bring costs by having a lower quality of product.
Much of HEALTH CARE depends on how people live their lives. Eating habits, exercise, drugs and alcohol and homicide. When you don’t do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. Look at Mormons. They tend to live a decade longer. Is that because Mormon doctors are better? No. Our country tends to have higher rates of the above…what are doctors suppose to do about it?
A lot of proponents of government healthcare love to compare metrics that involve these stats…when they should be comparing stats like cancer survival rates. Things hospitals actually can make a difference on. Americans have some of the highest survival rates…because it is detected earliest.
Medical insurance should simply cost risk, which is what insurance is about. It would be far cheaper this way as opposed to covering everything to a checkup. However, there are political incentives for people in government to create mandates that increase costs. This way the politicians look like the good guys and the insurance companies the bad. Politicians claim to want to keep the insurance companies honest. The fact that this is coming from a politician in itself is a joke.
We can reduce insurance by putting an end to state regulation of insurance companies. This will immediately remove all those mandates from marriage counseling to hair transplants based on special interests of the state. Nationwide competition will bring down prices.[/quote]
We often hear that “people going to the doctor for colds (or other things demanded by the patients)” is the reason for our higher healthcare costs; but has anyone actually considered that it might be the healthcare professionals, themselves, who are behind these higher costs as they direct their patients to the technologies and treatments that have are the highest profit centers, and often have the highest costs?
What “free market” types fail to mention is the fact that U.S. taxpayers ALREADY cover the most expensive patients — the elderly, the indigent, and the very young. We’ve left the profitable patients to the private insurance companies; once again, privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.
Additionally, the taxpayers pay for the majority of our medical research, either through the NIH or public universities or grants, etc. Why should the private industry reap the rewards from the research (especially the foundational R&D) that the taxpayers have paid for?
