Hello:

Lemme start by saying the cotton gin became obsolete when we found a better way.. The health insurance industry is obsolete. Its purpose is to collect money, deny claims, and write checks.. But, if we covered EVERYTHING, there'd be NOTHING to deny, and Medicare already writes checks..

Here's how the math works.. It's simple, really. Let's start with whatever amount, as a nation, we spend on healthcare.. Now, if we SUBTRACT whatever amount the health insurance industry takes, and APPLY it to actual medicine, I suggest we can cover EVERYBODY for EVERYTHING and have money left over for an aircraft carrier or two.

Yes, I feel bad about those insurance workers.. I also felt bad about all those cotton gin workers.

excon

the money instead will transfer to an army of bureaucrats who's job it will be to collect money (taxes ) , deny claims (rationing with little or no appeal ... 'take the red pill' ) , and write checks to health providers . No savings and worse than what we have now . As the system goes deeper into the red ,the government will increase taxes to cover it and ration even more . Maybe it's your plan to nationalize pharmaceutical companies also ?

Hello tom:

Well, you can SAY it'll devolve into all those bad things.. But, it won't. At least it doesn't have to. Please.. Re-read what I wrote. Lemme repeat.. The ONLY job the government will have under my plan, is to WRITE checks.. NOTHING else.. They get a claim, they write a check.. Period! A couple hundred computer operators should be able to handle it.

Yes, there'll have to be some cops on the beat making sure nobody rips off the system.. But, their job will be LAW ENFORCEMENT, and NOT medical..

If you want the government OUT of your health care, THIS plan does that.. Here's how it works in the ground.. You feel ill. You go to your doctor. Your doctor treats you. He sends a bill to Medicare. Medicare pays it. Easy peasy. Truly, it's EASY PEASY... The government gets a bill, and they PAY IT. NOTHING MORE.

That's the plan I'm proposing.. It doesn't look anything like you said it looks..

Look.. If you wanna lament the total and absolute DESTRUCTION of the health insurance INDUSTRY under my plan, you'll have an argument. And, maybe my math is wrong.. But, my plan, WON'T allow for any of the stuff you say it will..

excon

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You feel ill. You go to your doctor. Your doctor treats you. He sends a bill to Medicare. Medicare pays it. Easy peasy. Truly, it's EASY PEASY... The government gets a bill, and they PAY IT. NOTHING MORE.

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I'm on your team, excon, but what if the cost of medical services to the patient is $500 and the doctor sends a bill for $1000 to Medicare who pays the $1000. The doctor whispers this to his doctor friends who start thinking ahead to buying a new car or having a neighborhood cookout with Omaha steaks, etc.

Hello CB:

Well, as the BIG guy on the block, Medicare sets prices. I dunno how long a doctor would last if he wanted to charge more. Plus, if he billed for services he didn't deliver, that's a job for the cops..

excon

Geez WG, you think doctors would game the system? I though just us lazy bums did that! That's what Tom said!

In EX's plan is the restricting physicians fees and pharmaceutical prices . He's said in other posts that doctors would have to either accept the fee structure imposed on them by the government ,or find something else to do . The truth is that under the Medicare system already in place , physicians are doing everything they can to reduce their expenses while keeping the quality of their care high. No matter what they do, it does not change the fact that the fees Medicare pays physicians ;especially primary care physicians ;are not enough to cover overhead (rent, utilities, staff, benefits, malpractice, and technology). Medicare reimbursements have not kept pace with inflation, especially when it comes to the overhead costs of running a medical practice.

More and more physicians now outright refuse new Medicare patients . As of September , there are more than 22,000 licensed medical providers that will not take Medicare for payment. Medicare now does not cover wellness care . That means annual check ups are NOT covered . Will the new 'everyone must participate in Medicare 'now add the additional expense of cutting the check for annual checkups and various other childcare expense that Medicare doesn't have to deal with now ?

Medicare now has a number of audit departments . Will they be eliminated ?Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs),Recovery Auditors (RACs),Program Safeguard Contractors,Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs),Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) Review ContractorOffice of Inspector General (OIG) .....If not then doctors will continue to be burdened with the additional over head of regulatory compliance . If the doctors can't afford the staffing ,then they end up spending more time being an office manager than a doctor.
It is not just a simple matter of cutting a check . Claims get reviewed now and will continue to get reviewed .

Even though Medicare today is funded throughout a person's working life ,it is on track to go insolvent in less than a decade . So now when even more and more boomers are becoming eligible for benefits ,and the population ages as we kill off our babies ;future contributors to SS and Medicare , the plan is to suddenly add 100 million + more eligible people with no additional long term funding ? Yeah that's a plan.

Hello excon:

But maybe, for some reason, my tonsillectomy turns out to be more complicated than your tonsillectomy so my surgeon's bill is $500 (the amount Medicare pays for a tonsillectomy) and your surgeon's bill is $750. Now what? Does Medicare stiff your surgeon $250?

Carol

Hello Carol:

If I was drawing up the payment schedule, I'd include a check mark for complicated procedures.. I'll assume that the payment schedule will be set up as fair as possible, and I'm sure there'll be room for modifications.. I dunno exactly HOW these minute details will be worked out.. I'll just assume they will be..

Look.. Nobody is saying that a major change such as the one I propose is gonna be easy.. But, we don't endeavor to do things because they're easy.. We do them because they're the right thing to do.

excon

Hello excon:

I wonder how the countries with free health care for all have figured this out. I think I'll call a reference librarian. :D

Carol

zero the successful ones like the Aussies have a 2 tier system where the regular schmo has to live with what the government gives them and the privileged get to buy into supplemental private insurance ...much like Medicare here .

btw remember when Obamacare was peddled and the Repubs said that it was designed to fail so that we would end up with single payer as the only alternative ......and they were accused of fear mongering ? Well now Obamacare is failing and the Dems plan B is ...you guessed it .... Medicare for all.
But they have gone far beyond that .
Under their new freebie plan there would be NO co pay . Even the most socialized system today has co pay . The plan Bolshevik Bernie is proposing would cost the federal government $32.6 trillion over its first 10 years. That's the price of 16 air craft carriers . And that assumes drastic cuts in reimbursements . More than half of the Dems running for the House support some version of this plan . Of course ,much like Obamacare they are outright lying about the details .... Remember 'if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor "? Good luck with that .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

zero the successful ones like the Aussies have a 2 tier system where the regular schmo has to live with what the government gives them and the privileged get to buy into supplemental private insurance ...much like Medicare here .

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Have to say Tom our scheme works pretty well, payment works electronically even for the private health insurance and all for a small impost on our income tax so if you don't pay income tax it is free unless you want a high priced doctor. Medicare (we call it Medicare too) can get you some wait times for elective surgery so private insurance gets you in the door right away but there are always those doctors who want to charge more. The Doctors have resigned themselves to the fee structure and still drive expensive cars

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The Doctors have resigned themselves to the fee structure and still drive expensive cars

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I don't know what expenses your doctors have just the run their practice . Here people like to sue ;so their liability insurance alone to cover

frivolous litigation is a major expense .

Our doctors have to work their tails off just to be a primary care physician . To move up to specialized medicine is many years investing in their education . Maybe your medical schools are another freebie ,but here the doctors pay . They also have to do a number of years in internship to get their license to practice . If I chose to I could drive around in a fancy car too. It depends on what you are willing to pay . Having a so called fancy car doesn't mean squat. That is just a life style choice . The only limits to what a doctor earns should be what the market bears .

When there is competition like in some of the elective procedures then the doctors have to compete with other doctors .That keeps fees in check much more than artificial fee structures imposed by the government . That is true with examples like Lasix surgery ,cosmetic procedures, infertility treatments, etc. ;and in direct primary care clinics where patients are offered the choice of quality, affordable, convenient primary care in a monthly, quarterly, or annual care package. There is no secret to the price structure . Many of them post their prices on line so the patient can compare prices .

https://www.northwestradiology.com/pricing/

Actually you would be surprised at the cost difference when you ask a doctor or hospital what their cash price is compared to the insured price.

Many of the patients pool their resources in heath care sharing ministries like Medishare .In many cases they customize their coverage to fit their needs instead of these comprehensive cover everything mandated public /private big insurance scams most Americans are living under .Obamacare mandates Birth control.Alcohol counseling.Depression screening.Diet counseling.Tobacco use screening.Breastfeeding counseling. etc .Some people want those things, but mandating them for everyone drives up costs. In my perfect world most things doctors do would be price negotiated with the doctor without insurance intervention . Catastrophic insurance would be the only thing mandated and of course government programs would cover the health care of the truly needy.

As always Tom you have a way of complicating what is basically simple by introducing the profit motive. No one says doctors shouldn't be adequately compensated but the public are not sheep to be shorn, as to working their buts off I have never seen a doctor with his butt hanging out, have you? We are not as litigious as you as we are not into making the legal profession rich but no doubt there are those who use the system. We don't do medicine as a business but as a necessity and thus we try to keep the vested interest groups out of it. Not an easy road but our government uses its legislative power on occasion. Thus "universal" health care was introduced so long ago few care to remember the "calamity" that befell us in those days when the transaction gained an extra party but we learned that having paid for service we should use it and today about 70% of all consultations are paid by Medicare without supplementary fees

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The plan Bolshevik Bernie is proposing would cost the federal government $32.6 trillion over its first 10 years. That's the price of 16 air craft carriers

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At 16 bil a pop, 32 tril would pay for nearly 2,000 aircraft carriers.

I would agree that we need to make some serious changes to medical care, but as Tom has said, if you think the feds can run a health care system efficiently, go take a look at the VA. The last thing anyone should want is for the feds to take over health care. At any rate, it still comes down to enforced charity, as in forcing one person to spend his/her money on another person.

Tom is a whatever the market will bear kind of guy. That whole profit motive thing is what usually screws things up because when they can't get that annual 2, 4, 5% growth rate capitalists heads explode. LOL, doctors rag on about their insurance rates being high but you think they care about yours? Wasn't that why we had to get Obama care n the first place because many could not afford even to se a doctor let alone buy health insurance. Still the costs are high and even Medicare here only covers 80% of costs, and you need more insurance to cover the rest. That's all good if you're healthy and can get by with a few visits a year and some cheap pills but if you have a CONDITION that requires a specialists and expensive medicine or treatments, you are going to pay.

Stay out of hospitals! LOL, those junk policies Obamacare ended and repoobs brought back are only for healthy people mostly single GUYS with no kids, and insurance in name only, and despite Tom's still opposition to Obamacare and repoobs relentless attacks even repoobs are growing to like it a lot.

Tom hates government! Capitalists hate it too! Sometimes I do three, but an aging consumer driven economy requires people before profits so screw those capitalists, and those aircraft carriers. Medicare for all, screw the insurance companies and their ever rising profits.

I do not "hate " government . It has a role in a free society . I love a Constitutional Republic and free market economics . Looking forward to the days they return .

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As always Tom you have a way of complicating what is basically simple by introducing the profit motive.

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You call it 'profit motive' I call it the market deciding the value of the service .

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At 16 bil a pop, 32 tril would pay for nearly 2,000 aircraft carriers.

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yeah I get my bils and trils confused sometimes . When you are talking trillions you are talking real money .

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I love a Constitutional Republic and free market economics.

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Well stated.