Thread: What would you do to lower the cost of health care in the United States?

Originally Posted by Oreo

1. Put Nurse Practitioners in pharmacies across this country for walk-in patients that pay a fee for their services & can get a prescription right there. (The biggest problem I see with the cost of health care is Americans who are not covered by insurance ending up in our very expensive emergency rooms for common colds & flu's.)

2. Open up interstate competition within private medical insurance companies. (In my area--Anthem Blue cross/blue shield "owns" my region--so they can charge anything they want.)

3. Serious tort reform to reduce the costs to doctor's for mal-practice insurance.

4. Fines for Americans who can afford medical insurance who choose not to get it--because their car stereo is more important to them. (I agree 100% with Obama on this.)

5. People with pre-existing conditions. Subsidies for them--either paid for from others premiums--(in my state it is $3.00 per month per premium--so that they can obtain afforable insurance.)

Damn.

As long as the "serious tort reform" is more in the nature of not making it necessary for a doctor to order more tests than are medically necessary rather than eliminating recourse for patients whose resources don't match the insurance cos, then I agree with just about all of this.

Originally Posted by goober

Yeah, OK, but a real constitutional scholar would know that whatever the Supreme Court says is constitutional, is constitutional, you might not have gotten that far in your constitutional scholarship yet, but that's actually in the constitution.

Where? I don't doubt it, but I'd like to cite it later.

Originally Posted by Oreo

1. Put Nurse Practitioners in pharmacies across this country for walk-in patients that pay a fee for their services & can get a prescription right there. (The biggest problem I see with the cost of health care is Americans who are not covered by insurance ending up in our very expensive emergency rooms for common colds & flu's.)

A general agreement on a restructuring of the primary and preventive health and this suggestion could definetly be part of the equation.

Another possibility system used in Europe works that a Doctor get a retainer for a client base(People chose the doctor and he get a retainer per month/year). The doctor gets a pretty high retainer from a business point of view is great he doesn't have to worry about on going cost as long as he keeps a high client base. His payment for treatment is drastically reduced to the point that it is better for him to high client healthy client base. This encourages him to keep them healthy as possible so financially he is encouraged to keep healthy as possible. So doctors try to encourage the clients to lead a healthier lifestyle on a individual basis rather than having them as a revolving door system. This is just a possible suggestion and I presume this is done in many cases in the US already.

Originally Posted by Oreo

2. Open up interstate competition within private medical insurance companies. (In my area--Anthem Blue cross/blue shield "owns" my region--so they can charge anything they want.)

Competition Good. Also a department in Justice which constantly look in to practices of some of these companies. All Insurers are not bad but a few bad practices have given the industry a bad name. They would also look into cartelling.

Originally Posted by Oreo

3. Serious tort reform to reduce the costs to doctor's for mal-practice insurance.

Suggestions from other countries: http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/blog...und-world.html

The French one looks simple.. One pool they all pay into and local review board pays out.. Pick one of the others they all seem fairly sensible...

France
Up until 2002, France’s malpractice system looked similar to the United States’. Patients brought their cases to court and then either settled or received an award. The two main differences between France and the United States’ practices are that first, France had no caps on malpractice awards, and second, there were several rules that made it more difficult for patients to win a case.

However, since 2002 things work differently in France. France has moved to a out-of-court, no-fault system in which wronged patients bring claims before their regions’ government-appointed review board which is responsible for determining whether or not compensation is in order, and if so, how much. Money for patient relief comes from a national compensation fund which gets its funds from insurance premiums placed on doctors and hospitals or from general fund revenues.

Originally Posted by Oreo

4. Fines for Americans who can afford medical insurance who choose not to get it--because their car stereo is more important to them. (I agree 100% with Obama on this.)

Generally agree. People who have no insurance are just taking a risk with your money. I ended up in hospital twice in my twenties, my sister got diagnosed with cancer in her thirties. The risk is lower when your young and healthy but there is still a risk.

The Irish solution on this is different on Insurance. Everyone pays the same no matter age or pre-existing conditions. Companies then pay each other (call risk equalization) depending on your client base(works on payouts). Companies then compete on administration costs and advertising but advertising on MTV 24 hours a day doesn't make you better than a company advertising on the Knitting channel. The range difference ranges from 450 - 600 euros a year. They did standardise the main packages as well so you get an option A - D on level of cover. Optional extras are allowed then for dental, physio....

Originally Posted by Oreo

5. People with pre-existing conditions. Subsidies for them--either paid for from others premiums--(in my state it is $3.00 per month per premium--so that they can obtain affordable insurance.)

Risk-Equalization is an option. Unfortunately the biggest preexisting condition is your old. Something like 80% of your health cost in your last 5 years of life(can't find the source for this).
But some like what your saying seems sensible.

Oreo,
Can't believe we are starting to agree on things... While you do believe in a more private system, I probably believe more in a private/public partnership. Getting private to do what they do best and public what they can do best. Governments around the world have done some very creative stuff in this area. The US system just seems to structured wrong. The Singapore system seems a simple system which has a public/private insurance option but with private suppliers(doctors and hospitals) competing on offering the best service for the price.

European countries also show a way forward on controlling Pharma costs by agreeing prices with the pharma on all drugs. Some countries argue better deals then others. This stops some drug prices going threw the roof. It is an on going process which works pretty well. It also offers the Government usually under doctors advice to subsidize certain drugs which are focused more towards prevention(i.e. Drug which reduces Hearth attacks).

Originally Posted by Eagle88

And my point is that it is not necessarily false either. Furthermore, it is more likely to be true given the fact that there are an estimated 15 million illegals in the country and roughly 45 million uninsured in the country. You believe that they buy their own insurance which may be true for some but I'd be willing to guess that most don't because they are afraid that it could more easily lead to them being identified (which could increase their risk of getting into trouble with the law.)

Actually here's a few numbers for you. Looks like even daddio was way off with his guess of 5%:



Source:
Uncontrolled Immigration and the U.S. Health Care System in 2009 | Border & Sovereignty

Now I don't have a problem with the US letting in legal immigrants. To them I say welcome. But we definitely have an illegal immigration problem and it is affecting our health care.

lol the source is "right side news"

if you like legal immigration so much, why not support relaxing our immigration laws to allow more immigrants to be legal?

Originally Posted by goober

from the link


So if we eliminated all care for illegal aliens we would save the system 10.5 Billion dollars.

We spend close to 2 trillion a year on health care.

So out of every dollar we spend on health care about a half a cent is free care to illegal aliens.
OK, I can see where it's appealing to the racists to imagine slaughtering those people, or flat out denying them health care.

But as a cost savings it's not a lot of money, take that half a cent, eliminate the cost of malpractice settlements (another half a cent), and you've knocked the cost of a dollars worth of health care down to 99 cents

this post would have been a lot better without all the racism talk after this, but seriously i think you made my point for me. actually, considering the source, that's probably an inflated number.

there is no reason why the subject of illegal immigration should be a major issue in the health care debate.

Originally Posted by Steve

I don't think we need to focus on it as part of the health care debate simply because there's nothing which really warrants "debate".

They're here illegally. They should get nothing...

steve we're talking about health care and how to drive down costs. whether you think illegal immigrants are fantastic people or if you think they're scum is pretty irrelevant to the point i was making.

Originally Posted by goober

Most of these illegal aliens you rail against, are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the continent.

You can be against illegal immigration and not be a racist, but many including yourself have expressed a hatred towards undocumented workers, that implies an underlying racist component.

Well, then perhaps you've conveniently ignored posts I've made which show otherwise.

I don't want any illegal scumbag aliens here; I don't care why they're here, and I don't care where they come from. I don't care what color their skin is. I don't care if they're black, white, brown, green, or blue. It doesn't matter to me.

Now, is the largest segment of illegal scumbag aliens in this country made up of people from south of the border? Yeah, it is. That's just what it is; I didn't do that.

But I'm also not going to not speak out about illegal immigration simply because a lot of the illegal scumbag aliens in this country come from south of the border. And speaking out against illegal immigration doesn't make me a racist simply because there are a lot of illegal scumbag aliens from south of the border.

The problem is that people like you are unable to argue against anything that doesn't include race. You cry "racism" at the drop of a hat in the hopes that the people you accuse of it will back away. Well, that's not gonna' happen.

Again, Good, know this: I DON'T CARE WHAT THE COLOR OF A PERSON'S SKIN COLOR IS, OR WHERE THEY COME FROM.

Is that clear enough for you?

Originally Posted by bg85

steve we're talking about health care and how to drive down costs. whether you think illegal immigrants are fantastic people or if you think they're scum is pretty irrelevant to the point i was making.

You want to save money on health care costs, right?

We have a large number of illegal scumbag aliens in this country.

We provide health care to illegal scumbag aliens who do not pay for that health care.

Simple math tells us that, if we don't provide health care to illegal scumbag aliens, we will save money, and that will bring the cost down. It has to. We won't be spending money on something that we currently are spending it on.

The suggestion has been made that, since the savings might be minimal, we shouldn't bother. I think that's ridiculous. When trying to save money, we should save as much as we can wherever we can. If we can only save a hundred bucks by cutting off illegal scumbag aliens, then that's a hundred bucks that can be spent on an American citizen.

And that makes that money better spent than if we spent it on an illegal scumbag alien...

Originally Posted by Steve

The suggestion has been made that, since the savings might be minimal, we shouldn't bother. I think that's ridiculous.

you're putting words in my mouth steve i never said we shouldn't bother. i don't know how many times i have to repeat myself but what i am saying is that several posters listed "stop providing care to illegal aliens" as the first thing on their list to drive down health care costs. that's ridiculous. illegal immigrants are NOT one of the more significant reasons for the high cost of health care (according to rightsidenews.com at least, for whatever that's worth) and continuing to act as though they are is counterproductive to solving the overall problem.

Originally Posted by Steve

When trying to save money, we should save as much as we can wherever we can. If we can only save a hundred bucks by cutting off illegal scumbag aliens, then that's a hundred bucks that can be spent on an American citizen.

this is obviously true. but how much will it cost us to save that hundred bucks? how much will it cost the taxpayers to ensure that no illegal immigrants receive care? will it be more than $10.5 billion?

Originally Posted by Steve

You want to save money on health care costs, right?

We have a large number of illegal scumbag aliens in this country.

We provide health care to illegal scumbag aliens who do not pay for that health care.

Simple math tells us that, if we don't provide health care to illegal scumbag aliens, we will save money, and that will bring the cost down. It has to. We won't be spending money on something that we currently are spending it on.

The suggestion has been made that, since the savings might be minimal, we shouldn't bother. I think that's ridiculous. When trying to save money, we should save as much as we can wherever we can. If we can only save a hundred bucks by cutting off illegal scumbag aliens, then that's a hundred bucks that can be spent on an American citizen.

And that makes that money better spent than if we spent it on an illegal scumbag alien...

However, what is the cost of figuring out, finding and deporting the illegal scumbag aliens?

I'm with you, I would like to see them gone, I am just not sure which cost would be more. Increasing law enforcement to a point where they can actually accomplish the goal of ridding this country of illegal aliens seems like a trillion dollar effort (I have no math for the trillion dollars nor do I know how we could figure out the actual amount, if you have a suggestion, I'm all ears).

I would allow hospitals to deny care. In this case, people will get serious about having insurance and saving their money for future problems.

Originally Posted by Steve

Well, then perhaps you've conveniently ignored posts I've made which show otherwise.

I don't want any illegal scumbag aliens here; I don't care why they're here, and I don't care where they come from. I don't care what color their skin is. I don't care if they're black, white, brown, green, or blue. It doesn't matter to me.

Now, is the largest segment of illegal scumbag aliens in this country made up of people from south of the border? Yeah, it is. That's just what it is; I didn't do that.

But I'm also not going to not speak out about illegal immigration simply because a lot of the illegal scumbag aliens in this country come from south of the border. And speaking out against illegal immigration doesn't make me a racist simply because there are a lot of illegal scumbag aliens from south of the border.

The problem is that people like you are unable to argue against anything that doesn't include race. You cry "racism" at the drop of a hat in the hopes that the people you accuse of it will back away. Well, that's not gonna' happen.

Again, Good, know this: I DON'T CARE WHAT THE COLOR OF A PERSON'S SKIN COLOR IS, OR WHERE THEY COME FROM.

Is that clear enough for you?

Yet you use services and products made by these 'Illegal Scumbags' everyday. Like the cheap goods and services don't we...

Anyway what happens during an epidemic say the Flu... Your going to keep vacinating the citizens every year but never get rid of the problem.

You didn't suggest a way of reducing costs , just dramatically increasing them.

So your stuck the black economy workforce keeps costs low and thus prices and business community can't presently survive without them. Over 15% of the US labour force is illegal and that is way higher than unemployment figure. So it you get every unemployed to work on these jobs your going to cut the labour force by 10%. Realistically zero unemployment in about 3-4%.

And there is another factor to consider, according to Friedberg: newcomers to the United States do more than earn a wage.

"Because immigrants not only work, but also spend money, the increased demand for goods and services will create jobs and raise wages throughout the economy," she said.

The consensus view among those who testified before the subcommittee is that immigration, whether legal or illegal, brings net economic benefits to the United States.

Illegal Immigration's Impact on US Workforce Examined

Steve,
Your numbers don't add up. So you want US economy to suffer...

Originally Posted by islandflyer

I would allow hospitals to deny care. In this case, people will get serious about having insurance and saving their money for future problems.

That's impossible, the human element comes in to play. If you're working at a hospital and a guy is dying in your lobby, I doubt you're going to say "sorry, should have stayed in Mexico".