Costs were the reason we needed reform. Most expensive health care in the world means any reform must address costs.
And worst levels of quality mean that any reform must address quality. Now that we've answered those two key questions, all that's left is to figure out how to do it without incurring a boatload of massive dislocation costs.
What do you mean "what qualifies as cheaper?"
Hmmm. I'll repeat from Post-76 already referenced once since...
Would that be unit costs or overall costs? And what is the reference point from which cost reductions are to be calculated? To be more precise, if I do 10 procedures this year at $10 each, and 12 next year at $9 each, have costs gone up or down? And if costs at some point in the future are higher than they are today, but lower than they would have been extrapolated at current rates of increase from today, have costs gone up or down?
A "who's John Galt" reply. I don't think it's trivial to name a bill something when what it does is the opposite and intentionally deceives millions. A more adequate comparison would have been if they'd named the Patriot Act the Privacy Protection Act.
A "who's Bill O'Reilly" reply. When lacking any salient point to make, just maximize the volume-nonsense product.
Medicare D is the most destructive welfare benefit in history. Even if manufacturers don't just spread this to other customers, it really just buys this financial hemorrhage of a program a wee bit more time.
Bush suppressed actual cost analyses, banned price negotiations, then refused to provide a funding source for Part-D. You just can't expect much good math from people who think that tax cuts will increase government revenue.
Creates a more-you-spend-more-you-earn scenario, encouraging overutilization of health care. They can just raise premiums that much faster. Does nothing to address the exploding costs of the care or the overutitilization/overcoverage thereof.
Speaking of bad math, cashflow is fixed from January 1 since you can't raise current year premiums. If 85% of the total you collect during the year doesn't go to purposes actually related to health care, you overcharged and the overage has to be refunded to customers. Previously, some 25-30% of a consumer's health care dollar was going to something other than health care.
You said it, not me. Maybe this saves some money, but how much of our health care problem was admin assistant wages?
Way too much has been going to adminstrative overhead, none of it improving the actual health of anyone. And I assume you do realize that a particular cost reduction need not in and of itself resolve our health care financing problems in order to be worthwhile. Each step taken toward that goal is worthwhile, I hope you would agree.
If government provides guarantee to health care according to his need, their options are to implement death panels if they want to contain costs, or to simply not contain costs.
Repeating a meritless claim does not improve it.
Intro to Reality -- In 2010 research, surveys among populations of vulnerable elders showed that 93% preferred dying to lingering in a coma, being on a mechanical ventilator, or being on a feeding tube. You are claiming problems based upon conditions that you assume but which do not in fact exist.
And as a personal FYI, some 73% of those surveyed above indicated that they had completed an Advance Directive and given a copy to their health care provider. At none of the survey sites had such directives made it into the medical record of as many as half of those who said they had completed one. Something to keep in mind?
Same way I feel about zit-popping being covered by insurance. There's no reason for it to be expensive enough to need to be.
This at answer is worth 0 points.
