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What should be the first step to fixing healthcare in the US?

What should be fixed first?

  • Total voters
    37
polgara said:
Same thing happening here in Ohio. The World famous Cleveland Clinic is partnering with Summa Health Systems and Catholic Health Partners, which are the largest hospital systems in Ohio. It looks like everyone than can is merging with others. Plus, one of our largest local hospitals has just closed down an entire wing of the hospital. That does not make sense, Pero, but they're doing it! The problem is that they are laying off "non-essential" health care personnel, and creating problems for nurses who are being expected to pick up the work. When you're sick or injured, you do not need to be cared for by a tired, overworked and angry nurse who is working 50 to 60 hours a week!
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I suspect one of the reasons that private practices have been merging with hospitals is that if they combine, overall malpractice insurance is lower.
 
I can't remember all that my father thinks should happen, but he sells insurance for a living. I can only remember four main points; regardless, it should be considered.

1.) Close the border. There is nothing wrong with legal immigration, but illegals coming over using our hospitals is driving costs up. If an immigrant comes over legally, then they should be able to have care.
2.) Force insurance companies to sell nationally. In some states, there are insurance companies that just compete on the state level, and essentially have a two company monopoly. If we provided time and maybe government assistance to expand the insurance companies nationally, we would have countless companies competing on a national scale. More competition hopefully correlates to better coverage and costs.
3.) Penalize insurance companies for denying coverage on people who have paid for coverage.
4.) TORT reform. Doctors should be held accountable for their mistakes, but there has to be a limit to how much you can sue for. Malpractice insurance is crazy, and the cost affects everyone.

Thoughts?
 
The Mark said:
So you're saying the only way to reduce costs is to either decrease the number of people using health care or decrease the number of people alive (which effectively does the same thing)?
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The only significantly effective way, yes.

Slapping cost controls on suppliers will only reduce the number of suppliers and increase the scarcity to the point of simulating long waiting lists .. either way, socialistic consequences result that are not good for both the consumer and producer.

What little else that can be done isn't effective enough to be of noticeable value.

And robbing consumer Peter to pay consumer Paul is unpalatable for too many Pauls, as those tens of millions justifiably complaining about their new increase in healthcare insurance rates exemplify.
 
sookster said:
I can't remember all that my father thinks should happen, but he sells insurance for a living. I can only remember four main points; regardless, it should be considered.

1.) Close the border. There is nothing wrong with legal immigration, but illegals coming over using our hospitals is driving costs up. If an immigrant comes over legally, then they should be able to have care.
2.) Force insurance companies to sell nationally. In some states, there are insurance companies that just compete on the state level, and essentially have a two company monopoly. If we provided time and maybe government assistance to expand the insurance companies nationally, we would have countless companies competing on a national scale. More competition hopefully correlates to better coverage and costs.
3.) Penalize insurance companies for denying coverage on people who have paid for coverage.
4.) TORT reform. Doctors should be held accountable for their mistakes, but there has to be a limit to how much you can sue for. Malpractice insurance is crazy, and the cost affects everyone.

Thoughts?
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Additional suggestion: Somehow force medical services to charge at or slightly above cost, and somehow force insurance companies to pay exactly that.
 
Redress said:
First is cost. Not so much because of where it is, but because of how fast it is rising. All of them are areas that should be looked at. Claim denial is one that I that hit close to home and I got to learn about such things as "first denial", where the insurance company denies as many claims as it can when first submitted, even when they know they will have to pay out, simply because slow paying makes them a shockingly large amount of money and there is no downside to doing it. Denial of coverage and fraud are probably the hardest to fix, but that does not mean working towards improvements is not worthwhile.

Excellent poll by the way.
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I think a lot of people are unaware that insurance companies make a lot of their money from investment of premiums.
 
sookster said:
I can't remember all that my father thinks should happen, but he sells insurance for a living. I can only remember four main points; regardless, it should be considered.

1.) Close the border. There is nothing wrong with legal immigration, but illegals coming over using our hospitals is driving costs up. If an immigrant comes over legally, then they should be able to have care.
2.) Force insurance companies to sell nationally. In some states, there are insurance companies that just compete on the state level, and essentially have a two company monopoly. If we provided time and maybe government assistance to expand the insurance companies nationally, we would have countless companies competing on a national scale. More competition hopefully correlates to better coverage and costs.
3.) Penalize insurance companies for denying coverage on people who have paid for coverage.
4.) TORT reform. Doctors should be held accountable for their mistakes, but there has to be a limit to how much you can sue for. Malpractice insurance is crazy, and the cost affects everyone.

Thoughts?
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The insurance industry, I'm told, has obscenely high profits for something that now everyone must purchase.

I would think changing the insurance industry to public utility status with a maximum considerably smaller profit the "house" can win on a "bet" in the insurance "gamble" might be effective with respect to healthcare insurance.

But healthcare itself, there's little more tweeking that can be done without significant adverse side-effects.
 
The first step toward fixing the health care system in this nation cannot be anything other than to completely repeal the ObamaCare scam, and to remove from office every single legislator who had any part in enacting it in the first place, as well as the President who signed it into law. Until this is done, it will not be possible to repair any of what is wrong with our health care industry.
 
Ontologuy said:
The only significantly effective way, yes.

Slapping cost controls on suppliers will only reduce the number of suppliers and increase the scarcity to the point of simulating long waiting lists .. either way, socialistic consequences result that are not good for both the consumer and producer.

What little else that can be done isn't effective enough to be of noticeable value.

And robbing consumer Peter to pay consumer Paul is unpalatable for too many Pauls, as those tens of millions justifiably complaining about their new increase in healthcare insurance rates exemplify.
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So you're arguing for a decrease in demand to slow or stop the price increase trend.
 
Hatuey said:
This option actually shocked me. Would you be alright with importing doctors from any other country? ?
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I am not anti-legal immigration.

Or specific countries
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I could care less what countries they come from as long as their medical standards are close to ours.
 
"Thread: What should be the first step to fixing healthcare in the US?"

Making government understand that this issue is beyond its purview. In other words, if you wouldn't hire a bunch of publishers to fix your car, then don't hire a bunch of lawyers to fix your healthcare.


It's really as simple as that.
 
Ontologuy said:
Clearly cost is going to be the runaway winner.

The only significantly effective way to get costs down in such a constantly changing high-tech industry as healthcare where supply is naturally comparatively very limited is to significantly reduce the population and thus demand .. then, foundational rules of economics will drop the prices.
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Really. Well, according to the CIA the US ranks 51 in life expectancy and 146 in birth rate so all you have to do is completely stop immigration and let nature take it's course.
 
Hatuey said:
It's no secret that before Obama came along, the US had major healthcare problems. ....
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Though I think the costs are the main problem and insurance for medical treatment is more important than accident insurance on cars, I am not sure how to deal with the former and think the second was poorly handled by ACA.

After all, the US does have the highest level of medical expertise of anywhere in the world. All of the medical doctors I know think this and send their children to the states to study, if they can afford it. That is driven by the cost of treatment and we would lose competence if the costs of treatment or medicine are capped.

As for insurance, it seems silly to have write a few Thousand pages to say that everyone must have it and that it will be checked and punished, where people have no insurance.
 
Living healthier lifestyles.
 
Costs are up, not because of insurance, but because of the unhealthy lifestyles of the average American.
 
The last two choices are subsets of cost.
 
Redress said:
There have been done some studies on how much tort reform would lower cost, and it is pretty small. If I remember right, it would be less than 1 percent. Does not make it not worth doing, but when costs are rising 2 to 3 times the rate of economic growth, there is a major problem and 1 % ain't gonna do it.
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But you're getting more. Do you want medical science to grind to a halt?
 
mpg said:
But you're getting more. Do you want medical science to grind to a halt?
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Research and improved technology is certainly not the only cause of the increase.
 
Redress said:
Research and improved technology is certainly not the only cause of the increase.
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Are the wages of health care workers rising too fast? Are insurance company profits rising? What's causing the increase aside from more health care?
 
CRUE CAB said:
So eating potato chips or sky diving would cancel your policy.
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Yeah... I'd reason that if your lifestyle consists of eating potato chips and sky diving, you should be either uninsurable or at the very least pay higher premiums than everyone else.
 
Hatuey said:
Yeah... I'd reason that if your lifestyle consists of eating potato chips and sky diving, you should be either uninsurable or at the very least pay higher premiums than everyone else.
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How about 15% over weight, or smoke, or drink, or ride a bike, or ride a motorcycle, or own a gun, or go hunting, or have unprotected sex, or light fireworks on 4th of July, race a car, go off road and ride ATVs or surf.
 
CRUE CAB said:
How about 15% over weight, or smoke, or drink,
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These things are already taken into consideration by any self respecting insurance company.

or ride a bike, or ride a motorcycle, or own a gun, or go hunting, or have unprotected sex, or light fireworks on 4th of July, race a car, go off road and ride ATVs or surf.
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Do you understand what the concept of "lifestyle" means? Does your lifestyle consist of surfing? Racing cars? Then yes. You SHOULD pay more and not expect the rest of us to pay for your lifestyle decisions. These are all choices and activities the overwhelming majority of people do every once in a blue moon - so to consider them parts of a "lifestyle" is incredibly disingenuous.
 
Hatuey said:
These things are already taken into consideration by any self respecting insurance company.



Do you understand what the concept of "lifestyle" means? Does your lifestyle consist of surfing? Racing cars? Then yes. You SHOULD pay more and not expect the rest of us to pay for your lifestyle decisions. These are all choices and activities the overwhelming majority of people do every once in a blue moon - so to consider them parts of a "lifestyle" is incredibly disingenuous.
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I have a co worker that rides his bike probably 200 miles a week, swims in the ocean and rivers to train and does triathelons on the weekends.
I have a co worker that rides his motorcycle every day he can. Meaning not raining.
I shoot on a regular basis and raced a car for over 20 years.
I would call those things more lifestyle as much as anything.
My car hobby is part and parcel of who I am. So I should not have insurance for a doctors visit for a cold or sleep issue becasue I also do things YOU dont like.
 
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