U.S. companies hoard record amount of cash

ObamacareFail said:

Obviously it deserved enough attention that you bothered to respond. Have a nice evening.

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Fenton said:

You didn't give an answer. You just repeated a bunch of unsubstantiated " Yay ObamaCare " rhetoric.

It needed to be dealt with accordingly. Hope you understand.

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Helix said:

we have different experiences which probably contribute to the disagreement. i have good insurance by my generation's standards, and you have good insurance by your generation's standards. it has eroded so much, though, that the kind of insurance i have would probably have been considered exceptionally ****ty by your generation's standards. my guess is that Gen Y and the Millenials have it even worse. i have just pretty much had it with the American system. about a month after cutting my thumb, i probably should have gone to the hospital because i couldn't stop throwing up, but there was no ****ing way i was giving those assholes another dime. they sent me two bills for the same thing when i had my thumb superglued. i thought that it was a mistake, and they told me that it was two different companies. they are milking it for everything that they can get because it's an essential service with inelastic demand.

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when i was born, my parents had very little money, and i had to have life saving lung surgery. they didn't have to go bankrupt. my girl and i are hoping to get married soon and have kids, and i'm pretty scared about the bills. my parents didn't need to be afraid of that. people in many other first world countries don't have to be worried about being bankrupted because they get sick or have a kid. we can do better. i don't believe that i'm going to die on a waiting list, but i know for a fact that if i lose my job, that insurance is gone unless i COBRA. that is just a stupid way to do it.

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Hari Seldon said:

From you? I understand quite well.

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ObamacareFail said:

You obviously had a bad experience. However it is not common to everyone else. My guess is that you had lousy insurance compared to what most Americans have had. You are about us having different experiances. Good or bad, not knowing your age....the difference may be how many experiances. As I have pointed out, I will be 62 before the year is up and I remember when healthcare was not all that expensive. If we count back to 1980.....I had nasal surgery that included an overnight hospital stay. My out of pocket cost was $104.00. My point is that private healthcare has not always been so expensive.Back then, I earned a lot less money and yet still barely noticed the payroll deductions for health insurance. There is no reason why it cannot be affordable again without a government takeover.

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ObamacareFail said:

My parents were low income as well. My father worked one full time job and two part time jobs during the early part of my childhood, yet we had the typical family medical emergencies. They never went bankrupt and managed to put us through private school. Nobody should have to go bankrupt today either. I think we should just seek to make private healthcare as affordable as it used to be....and without the government taking it over. And once again single payer would not make it less expensive to provide healthcare. It would merely redistribute it and ration it. Any real solution would address the actual cost. Nobody is going to sell you a widget for $100.00 that costs $500.00 to make.

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Helix said:

an overnight stay would cost me more than i'm willing to pay unless i absolutely have to. my max out of pocket for the year is something like $7,500, and that is still pretty damned low for someone of my generation. but that would be really hard to float, and i'm paying almost three hundred a month already.

Once again, the private healthcare system worked in an affordable and efficient manner in the past. I lived through it. It was ill guided government tinkering and our ambulance chasing attorney lobby that has made it expensive. The private system can be fixed with market based solutions and tort reform. As for not worrying about getting sick from a financial standpoint in other first world nations, I supposed ones views depends on what one believes in. Europeans have been generally born and raised in a nanny state government system where all of their needs are allegedly guaranteed, from cradle to grave. Americans value their independence and ability to make it on their own. And as others on DP have pointed out, the single payer system does have some major pitfalls. I could post some single payer experiances people in those other first world nations have dealth with that are much worse then your cut thumb experience....not so much in regards to finances, but availability of care. As for medicare, I can tell you about it's weaknesses even before I sign up for it. It is a pile of %^&*. Consider the fact that I have paid into the medicare system all of my working life, yet when I become eligible to sign up for it, it will be limited. That is why recipients are pushed into adding supplemental insurance to fill into the coverage holes that are big enough to fly the space shuttle through. On top of that Barack "Hussein" Obama has robbed the medicare system to help finance Obamacare. The government is now reim




my folks only had a hard time financially until i was about six or seven. i didn't have it rough, so i don't want to give you that impression. however, i see people in other first world countries who don't worry as much about getting sick or old from a financial standpoint, and they don't worry that they might not be able to leave their kids whatever they managed to save up. i just don't see a private, for profit system fixing that. what are you going to do, not get treatment? it's not a situation in which the free market works very well. i don't oppose people making money providing health care to others. i just think that all basic care should be covered publicly like we do for the poor and for older people. i suppose in a few years when you are on medicare you can tell me a little bit more about the strengths and weaknesses of that system. my parents are on medicare now, and they are fairly happy with it so far.

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ObamacareFail said:

I really don't expect that much will be left in the Medicare system by the time Barack "Hussein" Obama leaves office. He has robbed half a trillion from medicare already to help finance obamacare. The government is now re-imbursing doctors who treat medicare patients at a rate less then what it costs to treat them. Inotherwords, the doctor pays out of his own pocket for the privilege ot treating a medicare patient. It is already causing many doctors to leave the medicare system. I expect a serious doctor shortage by the time I sign up.

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ObamacareFail said:

I really don't expect that much will be left in the Medicare system by the time Barack "Hussein" Obama leaves office. He has robbed half a trillion from medicare already to help finance obamacare. The government is now re-imbursing doctors who treat medicare patients at a rate less then what it costs to treat them. Inotherwords, the doctor pays out of his own pocket for the privilege ot treating a medicare patient. It is already causing many doctors to leave the medicare system. I expect a serious doctor shortage by the time I sign up.

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Threegoofs said:

The irony of a guy who names himself after a healthcare system he barely understands is incredible as evidenced by this post.

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Fenton said:

Whats to understand ? Obama and the Democrats pulled the largest " Bait and Switch " scam in History on the American people by passing a law that mandates the purchase of a product that was created by the Government.

A law that was sold under false pretenses. ( lower premiums by 2500 dollars a year and keep your Dr and Insurance )

Ironically if a private insurance company had used deceptive advertising to sell me a policy prior to ObamaCare I could appeal to the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive trade practices.

If the FTC refused to do anything about it I could always go to their competitors. Such are the many advantages of the Free market

Something that Obamacare and its. Policies completely undermine.

There was recourse for the consumer before ObamaCare. Now, theres none.

Now Consumers are mandated to purchase a product that can't be objectively valued because no matter how bad or expensive those policies become their value will always be based on how bad or good they make the Democrat party look.

Glad you support underhanded deceitful machinations and stupid laws passed by stupid people thaf hurt the American consumer and the economy.

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Helix said:

you might want to edit this. there's a bunch of stuff in the quote attributed to me that i didn't post.

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Threegoofs said:

The irony of a guy who names himself after a healthcare system he barely understands is incredible as evidenced by this post.

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ObamacareFail said:

My apologies....did not see that request until just now. It is far too late me to edit it. That middle paragraph is my own. I somehow goofed it in with the quote utility.

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ObamacareFail said:

I really don't expect that much will be left in the Medicare system by the time Barack "Hussein" Obama leaves office. He has robbed half a trillion from medicare already to help finance obamacare. The government is now re-imbursing doctors who treat medicare patients at a rate less then what it costs to treat them. Inotherwords, the doctor pays out of his own pocket for the privilege ot treating a medicare patient. It is already causing many doctors to leave the medicare system. I expect a serious doctor shortage by the time I sign up.

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Value-Based Health Care Is Inevitable and That’s Good
Toby Cosgrove
SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

Vaccines. Anesthesia. Penicillin. Bypass surgery. Decoding the human genome. Unquestionably, all are life-saving medical breakthroughs. But one breakthrough that will change the face of medicine is being slowed by criticism, misunderstanding, and a reluctance to do things differently.

That breakthrough is value-based care, the goal of which is to lower health care costs and improve quality and outcomes. It will eventually affect every patient across the United States. Not everyone, however, is onboard yet, because part of the value-based equation is that hospitals will be paid less to deliver better care. That’s quite a challenge, but one that Cleveland Clinic is embracing as an opportunity to do better. Others must, too.

How the Health Care World Will Change

We all know that U.S. health care is too expensive, too inefficient, and the quality is too varied. The goal of value-based care is to fix that.

A major component of the Affordable Care Act is to change the way hospitals are paid, moving away from a reimbursement model that rewards procedures to one that rewards quality and outcomes. No longer will health care be about how many patients you can see, how many tests and procedures you can order, or how much you can charge for these things. Instead, it will be about costs and patient outcomes: quicker recoveries, fewer readmissions, lower infection rates, and fewer medical errors, to name a few. In other words, it will be about value. And that is good.

https://hbr.org/2013/09/value-based-health-care-is-inevitable-and-thats-good/

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March 26, 2015

But in a stunningly decisive 392-37 vote, Republicans and Democrats came together behind a deal negotiated personally by GOP House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi – one that paves the way toward fixing an overwhelmingly disliked provision that still sparked disagreement over just how to replace it.

Government to Overhaul Medicare Payments

The Sustainable Growth Rate is the formula the government uses for reimbursing doctors who treat Medicare patients; it ties payments to how fast the economy is growing. But Medicare spending started to grow faster than the rest of the economy in 2002, and Congress has passed short-term patches 17 times since 2003 to prevent cuts in payments to doctors that would have limited their ability to provide services to Medicare patients.

This time, Boehner and Pelosi agreed to put forward a permanent solution, foregoing the safety net of a short-term fix and getting closer to a deal than anyone has been able to in years. The new $200 billion measure provides more stable funding through 2025 and includes $70 billion in spending cuts.

“We will deliver for the American people the first real entitlement reform in nearly two decades,” Boehner said ahead of the vote. “Normally, we’re here to admit that we’ve just kicked the can down the road. Today, because of what we’re doing here, we will save money 20, 30 and 40 years down the road.”

<snip>

Health care providers are among those targeted by the spending cuts. Reimbursement rates for hospice care, home health care and nursing homes will grow more slowly, while hospitals will face small reimbursement cuts. The bill also will create incentives for doctors to shift to a payment system based on the value of care a patient receives instead of one that rewards volume.

Americans' pocketbooks also will see a change as costs shift in their direction. Under the deal, premiums would increase for seniors who earn more than $133,000.

Still, industry members praised the bill's passage.

“A permanent solution will help millions of patients, residents and their families continue receiving the care they depend on to heal and return to their communities," Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, said in a statement. "Bipartisan votes like the one which occurred today on challenging yet vital issues such as the future of Medicare are encouraging. Not only do they signal the potential for future successes as in the area of payment reform, but also the promise that we can come together to address big problems with even bigger ideas on how to solve them."

Dr. Robert Wah, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that the new policy supports innovative new delivery and payment models that will help improve care quality and health outcomes, and lower costs.

Bipartisan Medicare 'Doc Fix' Bill Passes in the House - US News

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finebead said:

He didn't rob anything, he will demand that hospitals become more efficient and stop "ripping off" the taxpayer by abusing the medicare system. Do you think Medicare is administered in the most efficient way? Of course not, doctors and hospitals order tests so they can keep their test facilities utilization up, despite its impact on our national debt. Some of them are nothing more than thieves. They are enriching themselves while sinking the nation, I have seen it with my own parents care, and many others have their own stories of waste in medicare. This must be eradicated.

Obamacare envisions the move from "fee for service" which allows the rip offs, to outcome based or "value based" payments. You will get a set amount of money to treat a condition. You can run all the tests you think you need, but you are whittling down your own profits. Do you think testing will go down? You bet.

Cleveland Clinic has been working on this for years now and they are recognized for their innovation and effectiveness in treating patients at a low cost level. It CAN be done. The hospitals need to innovate, and they won't without the financial incentive.

Dr. Cosgrove runs Cleveland Clinic:

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ObamacareFail said:

Translation: Doctors and hospitals who treat medicare patients will now be re-imbursed at a rate less then it actually costs to treat them. Efficiency does not have a damn thing to do with it.

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finebead said:

So you think every doctor and provider taking care of seniors on medicare is totally honest and does not run unnecessary tests nor perform inadvisable procedures?

In my own family, I have seen this waste. My father had pneumonia and recovered. He went home and was on oxygen. The dr. told him to try and decrease the time spent on oxygen per day in order to return to a normal life. Dad did that, then he called the home oxygen people to come pick up their equipment. A few weeks later he called again and was told "Why worry about it, its not costing you anything." They came and picked up the equipment 2 months after the first phone call.

My aunt was in the hospital dying from congestive heart failure, she was in a coma. My mother was acting as her guardian and authorizing the care. The dr. told my mother my aunt needed a tracheotomy, my mother took the dr. at his word, the procedure was done, and my aunt expired 2 days later. Totally unnecessary, just padding the bill.

I know everyone else has multiple stories. We must stop the waste. Cleveland Clinic shows that it can be done. We may not like everything about it, but we MUST find a healthcare system that is effective, and that we can AFFORD! Otherwise medicare and medicaid will break the nation. Why do you want to just keep throwing money at the problem in the same old failed manner that we have been (failed in the sense that the growth rate of expenses will break the nation)?

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Fenton said:

That's not what we were given.

In fact the Democrats and the Obama administration pulled the largest Bait and switch scam in American.

A scam that would have wound up at the center of a major Federal Trade Commission investigation if it was done by a private insurance company.

Obama and the Democrats had NO idea what was going to " affordable " and what wasnt and by accounts should have known that they're product wasn't going to live up to their claims.

Now, thanks to a bunch of dishonest Politicians the American consumer is mandated to purchase a product and their is absolutely no recourse for the consumer if that product continues to increase in price.

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CanadaJohn said:

Considering the employer mandate for the ACA is still in limbo and the Republicans have taken over Congress and may take over the White House in a couple of years, it's not surprising that businesses would hold onto their liquid assets until they see how these things shake out.

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Dragonfly said:

1) one time bonuses for employees
2) cut prices and see if sales increase and even more profits are made
3) give out raises
4) provide more benefits to employees
5) provide an actual and HONEST cost of living increase to employees

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finebead said:

So you think every doctor and provider taking care of seniors on medicare is totally honest and does not run unnecessary tests nor perform inadvisable procedures?

In my own family, I have seen this waste. My father had pneumonia and recovered. He went home and was on oxygen. The dr. told him to try and decrease the time spent on oxygen per day in order to return to a normal life. Dad did that, then he called the home oxygen people to come pick up their equipment. A few weeks later he called again and was told "Why worry about it, its not costing you anything." They came and picked up the equipment 2 months after the first phone call.

My aunt was in the hospital dying from congestive heart failure, she was in a coma. My mother was acting as her guardian and authorizing the care. The dr. told my mother my aunt needed a tracheotomy, my mother took the dr. at his word, the procedure was done, and my aunt expired 2 days later. Totally unnecessary, just padding the bill.

I know everyone else has multiple stories. We must stop the waste. Cleveland Clinic shows that it can be done. We may not like everything about it, but we MUST find a healthcare system that is effective, and that we can AFFORD! Otherwise medicare and medicaid will break the nation. Why do you want to just keep throwing money at the problem in the same old failed manner that we have been (failed in the sense that the growth rate of expenses will break the nation)?

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Helix said:

yeah, like maybe give workers some job security and slightly higher wages.

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ObamacareFail said:

Translation: Doctors and hospitals who treat medicare patients will now be re-imbursed at a rate less then it actually costs to treat them. Efficiency does not have a damn thing to do with it.

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finebead said:

The point here is about medicare moving to outcome based reimbursement instead of fee for service, which is a component of the ACA (see post 389). It is being implemented with bipartisan support in the House, see post 390. It is designed to reduce cost without downgrading care. Cleveland Clinic is working toward this goal and is succeeding. The inflation in health care must be slowed or medicare/medicaid will break the country. I think this is a good move to bring us a healthcare system we can afford, and one that is still effective.

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