Nearly August now, and time for Congress to stuff all the various healthcare plans into the round (wastebasket) file cabinet and head on home. I just wish everyone, from coast to coast in this country of ours, could stuff their hospital and insurance (if they are lucky enough to have coverage) bills into the same round basket for a month as well.
Ah, but there’s no break on the bills. I saw a report last night that a million dollar tv campaign opposing any type of health care reform will begin to run the minute the Republicans head home. That is one reason they want the month’s break and are so very opposed to bringing any reform to the floor for a vote before August 1. There is no suggested alternative — just opposition. Kit Bond of MO stated in a radio interview that it would have been “best” if Medicare and Medicaid had never been created. It’s nice to have these things cleared up.
I have a suggestion. We give Congress a break, all right. Let’s suspend (as in cancel) their top-notch government-paid premium health care plan for the full month while they are gone. Let’s have them go out into the real world and face the cost of purchasing insurance for their families for a change. We can put the money saved into the federal coffers to pay down the debt, on which they are so focused.
And one last thought: what if we were to suspend their plans indefinitely — until they manage to get a real reform piece of legislation through to a final vote: one with a government option, at the very least, or single payer, but in any case, a plan that will get these costs back under control.
Eileen Kreutz
Industry
wow you blame the republicans? how quickly we forget, both houses of congress have big dem majorities and still you blame republicans, sad. time to start looking in the mirror.
How quickly we forget that both houses of congress are controlled by the Dems, the could ram through any legislation they want!! yet you blame the republicans!
Do you remember this promise?
“no one who makes less then 250,000 will see any tax increases!”
looks like that’s another lie! i suggest you educate yourself and don’t let the media educate you!
the government could not even handle the 1 billion cash for clunkers and you want them to handle health care!
government = waste
Hutch,
Check your facts.
The health insurance industry is a huge layer of business coddled by republicans that has a strangle hold on health care professionals.
The republicans are running ads that use scare-tactics to make the public believe that any change would remove their choice of health care. The truth is that there is very little choice in our health care system that isn’t mandated by for-profit insurance companies. Like most folks lucky enough to have some employer-provided health care benefits, I have an HMO plan. I “choose” my doctor from an approved list and can sign up if the doctor’s practice is still open. I “choose” my specialists by going through the red tape and bureaucracy of a company that doesn’t care about my health…they care about their profit skimmed off the backs of businesses. I only get the health care coverage that my health insurance company deems cost-effective.
The only folks with any real choice are the folks that can afford any health care at any cost. The vast majority of the middle class have no such choice.
Working people without any employee sponsored health care are even worse off!
Why any “working person would vote republican” like the bumper stickers profess is totally beyond comprehension. The republican party has done nothing except coddle the insurance companies who turn a profit year upon year on the backs of business.
The biggest waste of health care dollars in this country is paying the middle-men insurers.
A single payer system is the most efficient system to reduce unnecessary overhead. Sadly, I don’t think anyone in Congress is willing to stand up to the massive health insurance lobby.
Dennis the only facts i refer to is the democrat majority in the house and senate. Suggesting what ever you liberals want you can have! And the facts are 256 Dems 178 Rebublicans and in the senate its 60 to 40 AKA filibuster prof.
then i refer to an article that shows Obama’s talking heads will not say they are not going to raise taxes on the middle class.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-Obama-officials-No-apf-2491158742.html?x=0&.v=7
If you want to point fingers at people making profits how about the lawyers that have been “coddled” by the Democrats.
Read how much we could save if you dems would stop protecting lawyers!
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_12973517
p.s.
i just spend 5 days in the hospital with my son, i have seen the bills i have seen the itemized list, i have seen the expenses and most is from the hospital, because they see i have insurance and pile it on!
Dennis, i think you should look at your own messiah and the lies he is spreading!
Health insurance companies are “making record profits, right now.” Its also feature in a commorcial feature by dems. Its a Lie!
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/23/barack-obama/health-insurance-company-turned-profit-not-rec/
and
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/pushing-for-a-public-plan/
Ask yourself Dennis, Are you part of the lie?
Liberal/conservative arguments aside, I’m sorry to hear about your hospital visit with your son.
I’ve run into the same “insurance inflation” which is effectively a private , insuranced-based subsidy of the uninsured by those of us with insurance. The insurance companies pay it and then just raise rates to maintain their profits. Health care should not be this way.
and by the way this ad by a coalition of liberal and union groups is not very accurate!
http://wire.factcheck.org/2009/07/16/recycled-health-care-ad/
Another money saver, routinely i have talked to Medical equipment retailers, and i always ask what if i paid cash, without hesitation, they respond we could take 10-20% of the price.
Dennis,
i don’t understand why you demonize profits, by anyone, Insurance companies, oil companies, ect. This may be shocking, but the goal of any company is a profit! I really don’t think we should be telling any business that they can’t make a profit.
Is that your goal, a profitless society? No growth, No investment in the future, No R and D, No new employees.
As my business (i.e., patent law) is all about the future/business investment/R&D/creating jobs, I can assure you that my goal is not a profitless society. However, I simply don’t see the connection you’re trying to make between the layers of bureaucracy called the “health insurance industry” and R&D investment.
The health care system we have is horribly inefficient.
The link you gave to FactCheck.org says there are erroneous facts on a liberal backed ad that’s running. FactCheck.org states that “In 2007, national health care expenditures totaled $2.2 trillion. Health insurance profits of nearly $13 billion make up 0.6 percent of that. CEO compensation is a mere 0.005 percent of total spending. What if that was stripped away? Well, it wouldn’t amount to a whole lot of savings for the health care system.”
Profit is what’s left after you take the $2.2 trillion into account and deduct the massive layers of bureaucracy. It’s precisely the $2.2 trillion that’s the problem. We spend too much and don’t get enough health care for individuals. Certainly this is a major part of the economy and many jobs depend on the layer upon layer of health care industry bureaucracy, but it’s a very wasteful proposition.
There are several things that government can do well, and many more that it can do very poorly. However, promoting the things we take so dear out here in Western Maine like clean air and lakes is something I can’t imagine you’d argue against. Likewise, elementary education is a pretty fundamental aspect of society that government provides.
I know you’ll jump all over me when I mention the term “welfare”, but that has its basis in our Constitution…even before the Constitution mentions the right to bear arms!
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Right after the preamble talks about providing for a common defense, it mentions promoting the general welfare. How better to promote the general welfare of the people than providing for their health and well being? This is so fundamental.
Medicare is a prime example government promoting the general welfare of the people in a fairly efficient manner. The overhead of the Medicare system is often touted as quite low and much lower than the health care industry overall. I say “fairly” efficient because so much of the for-profit mentality sinks back into Medicare when you have middle men working the system often resulting in fraud. I’d say put more controls in place to eliminate that avenue of fraud against the government. It’s not the wasteful government of ours that gives Medicare any taint. It’s the private sector that is there to profit from us all.
Three years ago when my mother was sent home for Medicare-subsidized hospice care, I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions for all sorts of things to ease my mom’s pain. I paid cash and came home with a huge bag of drugs. When I arrived back home, the home hospice worker practically read me the riot act for not going through their service to supply the drugs. In her tirade, she said that those drugs cost a fortune so she wanted to “save us the money” and go through the Medicare-subsidized hospice care. She even tried to call the pharmacy to see if my order could be transferred to her company’s account. My mind was on my mother, but if I was thinking on my feet at that moment I might have thrown her out of the house. The large paper grocery bag of drugs only cost me $56.00 cash. Based upon the hospice worker’s reaction (and well after the clarity of hindsight after my mother passed away later that week), I’m certain the hospice company’s pricing would have been inflated way beyond that $56.00 that I paid.
Multiply that hospice care event many times over and there is your waste. There is the inefficiency. There is your $2.2 trillion health care.
It’s not as if there’s no alternative out there we can collectively model ourselves after. Why not look to the best practices of single payer health care systems such as those in Europe or Canada? Those places do quite well competing and making profitable businesses. However, people in those countries are not stuck in jobs just because they can’t afford to lose their health care coverage. Do you know how liberating it is to not have to worry about the cost of basic health care? I do. I spent over 6 years covered by OHIP — Ontario Health Insurance Plan. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Health_Insurance_Plan).
In 1999, I paid MORE taxes (41%) than I did in 2000 (38%).
In 1999, I paid MORE for health insurance than I did in 2000.
In 1999, I lived and worked in Farmington, Maine. In 2000, I lived and worked in Ottawa, Ontario.
In Canada, our family dealt with lots of the standard and not-so-standard fare of health care needs and it was always covered by my government provided health care. My biggest nightmare was every summer when we came back to Farmington with the kids who, like most kids, inevitably ended up with some injury or illness and related trip to the doctor or FMH. $700 to see a physician’s assistant in the ER for looking at a toddler’s bumped head (he learned to run before he walked) is a bit much. That’s the $2.2 trillion of health care expenditures in this country and it’s really got to end. We can’t keep paying for this and still have an economy left beyond processing health insurance claims and medical transcription.
I’m not demonizing profits. It’s simply that there is so much incredible waste in the system we have. A single payer system is the way to go.
Dennis,
A lot to go over and its late so i will be brief.
When i said R and D it was a general Industrial term, not necessarily targeted at the health insurance companies. Most good companies will take some profits and reinvest them in themselves as R and D.
We all agree something needs to be done, how we get there is a totally different game.
I am sorry but the Europe/Canada arguments are sad on many levels.
Europe, not a country, a continent comprised of many countries, all with different systems of health care, taxes, etc.
Canada, 33 million people, 9.4 people per square mile
US, 306 million people, 87 people per square mile
Canada does not need a big military budget, because the have us!
Medicare is a fairly efficient, some estimate IT RUNS OUT OF MONEY IN EIGHT YEARS!
Look, i want reform but not single payer, call me hateful or a despicable human being, but i don’t want to help someone who does not help themselves. The thought of my money paying for a band aid for some punk who spends a couple of nights in the hospital after he killed a family drunk driving, sickens me. and it should anybody.
Wow hutch, looks like that’s another republican lie! Have you organized a right-wing militia yet? I was against the bailouts but not this health care bill.
I voted republican and was so surprised our party was so quick to bash these dems on their plan without a republican plan that could make any sense.
And the town hall meetings, how bout’ the arrogance. I guess we call this debate?
“”You have awakened a sleeping giant,” one town hall attendee said. “We are tired of this. This is why everybody in this room is so ticked off. I don’t want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country.” rofl!!!! McCain lost get over it, I did, lets move on.
I suggest you educate yourself and don’t let the media educate you!