robin1234

So, get the policy-makers to study their systems, and lobby to make our system more like theirs! Surely the USA is a democracy so laws can be improved?

snowbunny

Yep. And I want the insurance companies out of the way. They are acting like death panels on their own, with monetary incentives. I suppose people don't realise that.

Giantaxe

I honestly don't know. But I do know I'm going to be paying more Medicare tax and also being taxed on my "cadillac" employer-provided health insurance to help pay for this. I'm comfortable with that premise. Obviously I would prefer costs for everyone were lower, whici is why a single-payer system would be far preferable. But the political reality is that it ain't going to happen here.

They mesh because of the individual mandate which they are hoping will deliver them a lot of relatively healthy and younger customers.

snowbunny

A democracy with corporate citizens who do most of the lobbying, and an electorate who are largely informed by misinformation and driven by fear.

Giantaxe

Spot on!

snowbunny

At least the Supreme Court had the balls to rule in favour of the obvious: corporations are de facto citizens and spend as much as they like on politics. Might as well call the spade a spade and not waste time trying to bury the dirt.

Brit3964

It could also be a clever plot to allow the insurance/medical industry to hang itself by doing the obvious and keep increasing costs so that when the system has become too expensive for most to afford, a single-payer system will look very attractive to the electorate. It also puts the Republicans in a corner because they back private healthcare over the public option.

cranston

IMO you will get your wish....it may take a few years but the insurance companies will go bankrupt forcing the Govt to step in.

snowbunny

That's not the way to get my "wish" - that'll just waste money in another bailout. End it now and go single payer.

Michael

From an economic point of view, two major things about the US system doesn't make much sense. First the vast majority of medical bill defaults occur on the 2nd quartile of the population (families making between $25k-$50k per year). They are too rich to get medicaid and too unfortunate to not have employer provided medical insurance. They also typically have a net worth of less than $5,000. When they get large medical bills, they default. Many of the medical bills are for expensive emergency medical care treatment. The total defaults on medical bills in the US per year is around $150 billion. Someone has to pay for those defaults and it is the rest of us in higher health insurance premiums or more expensive medical treatment if we are paying our own medical bills. The current health care reform bill attempts to alleviate part of that problem by subsidizing health care for those families. It seems to me that it is better to get 25% of a families health care paid by the family instead of near nothing as is currently the case.

The second issue is that about 30% of medicare costs are for end of life care. When was the last time you brought your 20 year old car with 300,000 miles to a garage and said fix everything that is wrong with the car and left not worrying what they are going to repair and how much it will cost. Of course if you did that, then everything will be checked and replaced and you will be billed for unnecessary repairs, the bill will be padded, and the car may still not work when it was returned to you. The same occurs with end of life care. For terminal patients, there are typically 46 specialists that are sent to see the patient. The hospital is there to make money and of course they are going to send every staff doctor to visit the patient. Medicare has received bills for 85 year old terminal patients for procedures such as pap smears.

The democrats have proposed that medicare pay for end of life consultations to try to reduce some of those unnecessary procedures but the republicans accused the democrats of "death panels" or they are going to "pull the plug on grandma".

Giantaxe

The irony is that the Republicans made similar proposals for Medicare back in 2003.

TracyTN

The issue has never been does our system need to be reformed. It does.

Now it seems we've gotten something that we'll be paying the bill for long after Obama and gang are out of office. How nice for them.

Something like 14 states have plans to opt out of it - the governor of my own state told our congressman prior to the vote that we cannot afford it either. My stupid congressman voted for it - meaning I won't be voting for him when he's up for re-election in the fall.

This idea of 'it's a place to start' is just the ultimate example of underachieving. What - we couldn't be bothered to sit down and REALLY hash out something that will be sustainable and also fix what's so badly broken? That's what it seems like to me.

Michael

But there is reality. The republicans only had window dressing and wasn't going to move off of that position.

Also what is the difference between paying more expensive health insurance premiums (whether by you or an employer) due to mewdical bill defaults or paying the same amount in increased taxes? Many Americans oppose health care reform because they get "free" health care from their employer.

Giantaxe

It's difficult to negotiate with people who merely scream "death panels" and "socialism" at any attempt to change the status quo. Let's be realistic here: the Republicans saw this as their way of bringing down Obama's domestic agenda (just as they did with Clinton in the '90's) and had little or no interest in entering into rational debate. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of republican senators who negotiated in good faith. Actually, I wouldn't even need that many fingers.

robin1234

But I thought the CBO estimated that the new plan would actually save money in relation to the existing system?