Obamacare doesn’t even need to be repealed and replaced in order to do it. Action Alert!
Last week, the Senate considered a number of bills to repeal and/or replace Obamacare—all of which failed. For those interested in keeping score:
- One version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act included Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) initiative that insurers be allowed to sell catastrophic and other health coverage and not have to conform to Obamacare regulations. As we explained, however, those plans would have been in the same risk pool as Obamacare plans, meaning the Cruz reform would not create the consumer-driven alternative to Obamacare that we need. This bill was defeated by a 45-55 vote.
- The Obamacare Repeal and Reconciliation Act would have repealed Obamacare without specifying a replacement. This bill failed by a vote of 45-55.
- Then there was the so-called “skinny repeal” bill (The Health Care Freedom Act), which would have repealed the individual mandate but left Medicaid expansion and Obamacare policy requirements intact. That bill was defeated when Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and John McCain (R-AZ) voted against it.
With Obamacare still standing unamended, primarily because of the power of special interests, the problems facing our health care system are not going away. Premiums in parts of the country are expected to increase by as much as 50%. Providers are continuing to opt out of providing coverage on the state exchanges, leaving consumers with fewer and fewer choices. In some counties, there are no choices left.
As we’ve been saying for some time, there is an elegantly simple solution that does not require repealing Obamacare. The single most important reform that is needed is to allow a consumer-driven health insurance market to develop alongside government-run insurance like Obamacare.
In particular, ANH-USA has fought to legalize catastrophic-only insurance policies in a standalone risk pool. This is central to establishing a consumer-driven system. If catastrophic-only plans were put in the same risk pool as Obamacare plans, then consumers purchasing the cheaper catastrophic plans would see their premiums balloon to subsidize the more expensive Obamacare plans.
The system we propose would allow insurers to offer plans that consumers actually want, while continuing to allow those who want Obamacare plans to purchase them. We suspect that, in the long run, the consumer run system would take over, because it would bring healthcare costs down.
Last week’s flurry of action on health care reform is likely not the final word. Legislators still need to hear from constituents that they want health care reform to happen without a repeal of Obamacare being necessary.
Action Alert! Write to your Members of Congress and tell them you want a consumer-driven alternative to government-run insurance. Please send your message immediately.
“The single most important reform that is needed is to allow a
consumer-driven health insurance market to develop alongside
government-run insurance like Obamacare.”
But… that would be tantamount to government admitting its own failures!
Consumer driven health insurance is a euphemism for the high deductible HSA compatible plans that allow the insurance companies to provide plans that don’t in most cases have to pay benefits. The assumption is that market forces will be brought to bare on medical costs if consumers shop for their own care. Of course this is a specious argument since the costs of services aren’t easily apparent and the most costly procedures such as treating a heart attack aren’t appropriate for shopping. In actuality the HSA’s are really only beneficial to the wealthy who can get almost a 50% tax deduction for their contributions and have fungible assets to set aside for a rainy day fund. Lower income folks don’t get nearly the tax benefit, not being in the high tax brackets and usually don’t have spare money to fund HSA accounts. They simply wind up with major out of pocket costs for any departure from good health. So this is no solution at all.
Nor was I expecting it to be. But someday it must be faced, after all that remains is devastation.
So what the poor would get is the same as what they would get under Obamacare. Why not help some?
Obamacare was designed to coordinate medicaid with subsidized private health insurance. Medicaid expansion made people under 138% of the minimum federal poverty level eligible. People earning between 100% and 400% of minimum federal level eligible for subsidies. This is what they were supposed to get under Obamacare except governors in 19 states refused to expand medicaid leaving poor people with no health insurance coverage. If those states where medicaid was not expanded would permit medicaid expansion then that is what poor people would have. It may not be perfect but it would be better than nothing which is what they have now. This would only be a starting point.
Where would those poorer states get the money after the Fed quits paying their share? Vermont already dropped it’s planned single-payer system because of the forecasted costs. In the real world of economics, there are always tradeoffs and if you want to give “free” coverage to poor people, something else will have to give, like a brain drain of rich taxpayers to other states that were needed to fund those poor people’s “free” sickcare. No, this kind of problem can only be solved at the Federal level since state’s are too resource-constrained.
The federal government has made a total mess of what it has undertaken. The FDA protects companies that make poisonous pharmaceuticals, and that market GMO seeds. They don’t protect the public. The federal government is clueless. Maybe the states cannot afford it. But the federal government can’t, either, not until something gives, and they start protecting the public instead of profitable companies who don’t care whom they hurt.
In other words, make it possible for doctors to poison the poor with pharmaceuticals as well. By the way, they can always get care in the emergency room. I’m not trying to downplay their plight, but unfortunately, the way the system is designed, it runs up huge costs by giving lots of inappropriate treatment. (Did you know that when doctors went on strike in a hospital a few years back, the death rate dropped?)
“Make it possible for doctors to poison the poor with pharmaceuticals”? They poison the rich too!!!!!!!!!! That is called equal rights. The only “cure” is to STOP taking ALL pharmaceuticals, both prescription AND over the counter as I have.
That’s what we did, too. Decades ago. But we needed emergency surgery. While still unconscious, the patient was filled with FOURTEEN drugs without our knowledge and against our will. We wrote on the admission form that ALL TREATMENTS were to be discussed with us first. It didn’t matter. They gave poisons anyway, and almost killed the patient. If you are ever in a car accident, you are in danger. And we cannot always protect ourselves from the need for emergency surgery. THIS HAS TO STOP!
Obamacare is hardly “government-run”. It’s run by Big Insurance, Big Pharm, and even Wall Street.
If the US national health system was run by The Government (We, The People..not Them, The Corporations) for just one thing there would be No for-profit insurer allowed anywhere near it. After all, they invest BILLIONS (with the “B”) of our supposed health-care dollars in the worst of the worst health-damaging industries…including Cigarette Manufacturing, Oil, Fracking, Military Weapons, Coal, Pesticides, GMOs, Pharms that make tobacco pesticides and cig additives, Nukes, Petroleum-based Plastics, Pesticide Drenched Ag Biz, Junk “Food”…and on and on.
As for the “non-profits”…who knows where CEOs invest their “non-profit” take-home dollars?
It’s really hard for leftists to hide their biases. I couldn’t help but notice that jonik excused the government and handed the blame for Obamacare’s failure to Big Insurance, Big PHarm and even Wall Street. Advertising, campaign gifts, unnecessary paper work, cigarette manufacturing, oil, fracking, military weapons, coal, pesticides, GMOs, Pharms that make tobacco pesticides and cig additives,nukes, petroleum-based plastics, pesticide drenched ag biz, junk food and etc. The only lefty hate attraction missing is the pitiful SUV. If the left could get rid of this list, no-one would ever die again.
Didn’t excuse THIS government…which has about zero interest in, or input from, us people. We PAY those who’ve taken over our government, in taxes, to deny us and take from us as much as the Corporatocracy wants, pretty much. Can’t go Too Far…lest popular unrest inconveniences this grossly un-democratic system. Luckilly, perhaps, we now have Trump exposing how atrocious “our government” has become…and how worse it could be.
We are not designed as a democratic system. We are supposed to be a republic. One of our biggest problems is that we have confused those 2. Democracy becomes mob rule and that is what we have; what the mob wants they get. Republic is rule by law. How many laws does this country just turn a blind eye on? So we have a Constitution, that isn’t being followed, and a mob that wants all the healthcare modern society can give them. It’s time we stood for truth. Get back to following law, and if you want health care, pay for it with your own money.
And those who have no money?
Re/ “Mob rule”…it’s famous that we have Mob Rule, gangster style, going on in DC…like never before.
Should “We, The People…” be fixed to “We, The Mob…” ?
The government more importantly denies us the proper education on how to stay healthy. Most Doctors do the same. Self educate! Become your own doctor. Its very liberating.
That is exactly true! Well said holisticpoet! With today’s technology, libraries in every town (full of books that no one reads), we don’t have much excuse. If you want the gov’t to do it for you, well, you get what the gov’t gives, AND even worse, you keep giving more power to the entity you hate. Do it yourself. That’s how this country became great!
Look what government run health care is doing in England. They are KILLING vulnerable babies because they cost too much. That would happen here. Get rid of pesticides, GMOs, pharmaceutical drugs, tobacco, and toxic “inert” ingredients in things, including pills and cosmetics. Let the marketplace allow many different kinds of healing, and let the best methods win.
Always look good on paper but the government never manages anything well. Look at anything it does and the bureaucracy will glare back at you. Fact is, those best able to care for their health is the individual. It starts with what they eat and what they feed their kids. The reason our healthcare is in such a mess is because no one is being held responsible for their own bad choices and, personally, I am sick of paying for them.
Few people get sick from paying for health care, but many are sick because of lack of health care, industrial air pollution, pesticides in food and water, lead in water, unsafe food additives, pesticides and dioxin-creating chlorine in typical cigarettes, under-tested drugs, fracking chemicals…and on and on. One may be sick AND paying for care of oneself and other victims of industrial toxins and other products.
It’s easy to point the finger of blame out but when you do, you have 3 pointing in. Some of the most polluted places in the world don’t have cancer, heart disease, arthritis, auto-immune diseases, and on down the list you can go. Why? Because they have simple diets, produce and very little animal anything. If you feed the body what it needs, it will protect itself. …and it’s cheaper! Replace meat with dried beans and processed junk with fruits and veggies: save $$ at the store, save $$ at the trough of healthcare and big pharma.
Meat is NECESSARY. Far more of these people eat some meat than you obviously think. They raise their own animals. And look at the Maasai. ALL they eat is animal products: milk, blood, etc. I have studied this. A vegan diet is deadly. A vegetarian diet isn’t much better, unless you add eggs and milk.
You are so wrong on so many levels, I won’t even try to dispute. I am vegan, have been for many years. I am well into my sixties, on no medications, and haven’t seen a dr in years. My BP runs about 115/72 and it’s not bc of my genes. I purposely live healthy to stay healthy and a big part of that is my diet. That said, it’s not just animal that needs omitting. Processed food is just as bad, if not worse. We’ve fallen for what appears to be cheap and it’s costing us dearly.
Yes, processed food is bad, if it contains harmful ingredients. Processed organic food, not so much. As for the vegan diet, it fails to provide quite a few ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS, and if you supplement, these are either artificial, or from animal sources. It cannot be any other way. You are fine, for now. But your biggest danger will be dementia. I’ve seen this for myself.
By the way, high blood pressure doesn’t mean diddly squat. In fact, blood pressure readings in general don’t mean diddly squat. Your blood pressure is too low for your age. Spells trouble.
Man, you are so far off base but I don’t care to argue it. We will agree to disagree. If we were sitting face to face, I could show you the research, but… . If you want to know more, check out my fb group, Abilene Nutrition. It will help you see the truth.
I hate to say this, but it already sounds like you are suffering from dementia! I HAVE DONE MY HOMEWORK. And I watched as a vegan diet nearly destroyed several of my family members. One became suicidal. She had irregularites and could not conceive a child. Her father developed dementia (and I think he died from it). Her sister developed bulimia and was seriously obese. Her husband had been a robust, well-muscled man, and he became a scarecrow as his body ate his muscle mass. I don’t need to read your “truth”. It just plain IS NOT HEALTHY. I have yet to meet any older person who isn’t either seriously overweight or underweight as a result of such a diet. And if you say you are in your 60’s and your weight and body mass are normal, you’d be a first, but I haven’t seen you face to face, have I? (By the way, I am Christian, and the Bible tells us God COMMANDED us to eat meat after Noah’s flood, and He ALSO commanded the Israelites to eat lamb for ceremonial reasons. But you may not be a Christian. This comment is for readers who are. The original command is in the qal form in Hebrew, and it means, “IT WILL HAPPEN”. It is foreordained. You can’t be healthy without it. The present world simply does not support the plant life necessary for health in one location anymore, and genetic changes, due to radiation once the protective canopy of water vapor was removed, have taken their toll.) You can do what you want, but you do not have a moral right to mislead other people, to their detriment.
If you want to continue the conversation, I will get specific about vital nutrients YOU CANNOT GET from a vegan diet.
There was a time, and I am old enough to remember, we each paid for our own health care. If you couldn’t afford the best, you got something. You might not get the open heart surgery but you would be treated. That was the consequence of the life choices one made. That is what a free society is all about. You get to make your own choices and get to reap your own consequences.
jonik, most peoples’ health problem are self inflicted by their own poor choices. Health care does not make people well. Good health choices do!
It’s not a “poor choice” when one buys and eats what they think is just a banana (or…) but, unknown to them, it’s a pesticide-contaminated banana.
Very true, but we both know that is the rare exception and most people, through their own volition make themselves toxic by poor diet choices.
…And very poor voting choices…when corporate-serving, not public-serving, “representatives” are selected.
Representatives of The People?? LMAO About 99% of congress is corporate owned, it doesn’t matter which party, and it isn’t just health insurance.
We have no voting choices.
Research shows that even then, they are better off eating it than not. What’s inside that banana will help protect them from what is on that banana and much more.
Wrong, paying for health care insurance gets you chemo which (with the exception of 2 types of cancer) has a TWO % chance of saving you, while meanwhile poisoning the rest of your body and torturing your existence, what remains of it. Other protocols OUTSIDE the insurance and frankenstein world have more successful alternatives. See notes above for one example.
The treachery is so deep that “they” at the FDA have made it insanely difficult and expensive to get VITAMIN C in ampules for administering IVs. The process they require is that you have to get a prescription from the doctor, take it to a compounding pharmacy (not ALLOWED to be kept in the doctor’s office, nor available from an ordinary pharmacy), return in 24 hours minimum, take the ampules back to the doctor’s office and wait for him to administer them. The trick is that the C has to be pure, but the FDA demands that you can’t get pure C and insists on putting PRESERVATIVES into all the readily available C, which then makes THERAPEUTIC DOSING PROTOCOLS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT HARM… only special pharmacies, with unpredictable turnaround are permitted to make them, unlike in the past when doctors in the old days made their own or had a nurse that did it. The bill for a few grams of C was over a hundred bucks, compared to the price of a kilogram — a thousand grams — of C being about $25 at Amazon. And therapeutic doses run around 100-200 grams per IV…
And many other chronic diseases have nutrient and lifestyle causation that would be more sane to fix if you didn’t have to depend on the price of insurance. One of our neighbors dragged herself mercilessly through her work schedules while fighting off cancer AND its INSURED TREATMENTS, because if she quit that job in order to take care of herself, she’d lose her insurance that was the only way she could afford chemo… TOTALLY HARMED BY PAYING FOR HEALTH CARE INSURANCE…..
Why should we pay to see such torture imposed… that’s immoral
By “paying for health care” I sure did not mean BUYING it as a consumer product. Civilized countries pay for health care, for all, via income taxes just as we, so far, pay for sidewalks. No tolls on sidewalks…yet. And even those in incomes too low to pay income taxes can use those sidewalks..without fear of being called “moochers”.
“Civilized” countries do not understand basic economics, and they’re all going broke. Socialism DOES NOT WORK. A person is entitled to keep what he earns with his life and his efforts. When you take that from him, there is no incentive. Collectivized farms resulted in mass starvation. There is no check on driving up costs to provide profit to pharmaceutical companies and doctors unless the system is accountable to the PATIENT. Single payer, socialized medicine is accountable to NO ONE.
Well said! I agree 100%.
Until we have a honest discussion about the basic drivers creating a bloated healthcare system nothing that they do in Washington will fix the problem. We have a nutrient deficient food delivery system laced with toxins that is creating a bloated too costly healthcare system. We can save almost $1 trillion a year if everyone in the US was not nutrient deficient. We could save another 200 billion if the RX manufactures had to compete for the prescription business. And finally if we didn’t over treat those at the end of their life we could save another $500 billion dollars . Unfortunately the special medical interests are cashing in on our status quo and doesn’t want to change and has the congressman in their pocket.
If all our politicians would reject political money from the agricultural corporations and the pharmaceutical institutions then maybe we have a chance to fix healthcare. I doubt that will happen and what is coming is an economic collapse due to the burden of the cost of healthcare in the USA.
Wow what aggressive talk — end-of-life overtreating as a savings opportunity…. DEATH PANEL ALERT!!! take away this treacherous person’s scheming…..
It doesn’t necessarily mean death panels at all. Overtreating includes giving multiple toxic, poisonous pharmaceutical drugs that can actually kill a person. Don’t give people drugs without a medical indication, and don’t give them prophylactically. An older person doesn’t need to be taking a drug intended to lengthen his life from 20 to 22 years. Overtreating, giving UNNECESSARY drugs, is a huge problem. It creates demands for MORE drugs to treat side effects, until the person is literally being poisoned to death, puts on fat to store all these extra toxins, and dies younger anyway. Overtreating CAUSES death. Limiting one’s medications to what is absolutely necessary lengthens life. I speak from experience. You don’t want to experience what we did. I can guarantee you. But it is STANDARD OF CARE. They abuse and poison EVERYONE. And think of this: we talk about avoiding GMOs. Food for tube-fed patients is FULL of GMO corn and soy. Even Dr. Blaylock notes that this causes substantial harm. If you want real food, you pay for it yourself. And then try to get reimbursement, even though you are entitled to it. Good luck with that one!
Drugs and frankenstein… those are not the only choices IF YOU DON’T DEPEND ON INSURANCE… it’s insurance that keeps you trapped in the drug/frankenstein nightmare… see my comment on Vale of Leven above on alternatives that extend life AND quality AND ARE INEXPENSIVE……
If you have to have major surgery due to a totally unexpected medical event, you aren’t going to be able to afford it if you don’t have at least Medicare, and we were forced to pay for it against our will. The money could have been better invested. We use a lot of alternatives, and individually, they aren’t expensive, but they add up if you need much. We spend hundreds a month out of our pockets for these. And some doctors are DETERMINED to poison you with drugs just because you came in for surgery, and they’ll do it behind your back, and when there are problems, they blame the patient. They never pick up on the fact they’re poisoning the patient. You can go alternative all you want, but most people have a major medical event at some point, and then you are at their mercy.
Totally agree, as we were also BUT I just saw an alternative way to get better control in the hospital, as I also saw that treachery… The enlisting of the intern was with the condition that, as our primary care doctor, he would have the additional responsibility to attend any surgery and oversee our hospital care….
I saw in one of the videos at the MyHealthyChild Summit an amazing realization, specifically that Dr Carolyn Dean, a naturopath as well as an MD, does that with her patients, why not demand that from a doctor.
I also saw that my niece (an ObGyn) was able to save her step father by checking his hospital data (not so allowable in ordinary hospital rules) and seeing that they were ignoring the tests that showed his hemoglobin was so low that he was near hallucinating and the fools had put him in the psych ward and focused on symptoms elsewhere… she ordered the necessary transfusion and saved his life….
If you have your own doctor advocating for you, you have leverage and an immense safety compared to facing the incompetence and treachery in hospitals, especially rural ones, as I mentioned earlier
And if your APPOINTED doctor is against you, you’re SOL, especially if you don’t have a medical person in the family.
The Coined Word “death panel” translates to : don’t gore my money machine. Medicine can prolong the end-of-life procedures not for the benefit of the patient but for the profitability of the hospital. They can deliver purgatory on earth. Hospice is much more humane and is done with love. I know. I saw my brother suffer on a ventilating machine for nine months. Obama wanted to educate seniors about their end of life choices. Of course the campaign that a death panel was being created was done to discredit this aspect of Obama care for the overtreatment and overmedicating and prolonged suffering of the terminally ill for The benefit of the hospital corporations.
Death Panels are real. As we saw in the UK and their assigning of a 10 month old Charlie Gard to death because the hospital system there couldn’t provide the advanced chances that were available in the USA, and that was even in spite of the money, transport, and every other detail being lined up from private sources organized by the baby’s parents and supporters. The holy deciders stalled, took the case to the courts until the baby’s health dwindled beyond recovery.
In a family case of ours in the MEDICARE system, the patient declined the stomach tube after a stroke that made eating a risk. The ‘deciders’ withdrew food support and bludgeoned the family to pressure the patient. At least the family backed the patient’s choice. Because food was withdrawn, my sister chose to bring food from home every day and patiently worked out ways to deal with feeding. The patient regained his strength, was able to again (at least with my sister’s management) begin to take steps the nursing home had thought were outside the abilities he had. My sister coached him through rehab exercises when he was depressed. She managed to attend medical meetings so that the correct status was reported, chased down resources that were otherwise withdrawn by staff who didn’t want to work with difficult cases. Yet the bills kept coming, unabated and exorbitant. At that point at least there was choice IF YOU WERE ABLE AND WILLING TO DO IT YOURSELF, NOT BECAUSE YOU WERE ‘INSURED”…
The cause of death panels is socialized, single-payer health care. Pure and simple. The weak are expendable for the sake of the many.
Let’s not mix apples and oranges. All terminally ill patients have the right to know their end of life choices. Knowing that overtreatment drives up medical costs in the last six months of a person’s life, the right to know you can direct the extent of end of life treatment, the right to know that hospice is a humane and loving way to remain at home with loved ones. That is what is not communicated by the medical profession to the terminally ill patient. That is what Obama wanted to do. The cost of medical treatment in the last six months of a patient’s life’s exceeds ONE TRILLION dollar annually. A least 50% is unnecessary treatment. Our allopathic medicine model in the US is responsible for making “Death by Medicine” the number 3rd highest method of dying in the USA. Google it and learn.
We have a bloated costly medical system that is twice as expensive as any other developed nation and our life span is declining because we are not addressing the food system that is not delivering nutritious food and is laced with too many trace toxins that are driving our sickcare system that benefits no one except the medical entities that benefit from the status quo.
If you know anything about our medical system they will take a terminal patient and spend $10,000.00 to $20,000.00 at the end of someones life and add one more hour or day of suffering so they can make this money. In other words they will spend exorbitant amounts of money to make someone suffer a little longer. Not for me thank you. This is not letting them die. It is trying to bring them back after they are dead.
“They” will do all the frankenstein things they can think of BUT that doesn’t mean there aren’t saving solutions that preserve the quality of life. The cancer (terminal patients) research at Scotland’s Vale of Level hospital (back in the 70s) did a mere 15g IV of vitamin C periodically and the patients’ lives were FIVE TIMES LONGER than their extensively franken-treated comparable patients… PLUS they were able to be home and active in their family and hobbies…. some actually coming off significant doses of morphine, bed ridden and fading fast…
For the record, “they” then attempted to discredit the large study at Vale by setting up a ‘test’ that used oral C (instead of IV) and smaller doses, then concluded Vale was a fluke or fraud… What do you choose, longer life and quality right to the end,…. or franken ‘medicine’ and govt death panels to extract as much $$ out of the system and its players as they can…
But that is illegal in much of our “medical system”.
That was the only thing tbran10 said I disagreed with. Everything else was spot on. Aided by the collusion of the USDA and FDA and a bought off Congress, the major agribusiness players have created a malnourished population with a host of degenerative diseases and cancers making the pharmaceutical companies wealthy by selling drugs to treat symptoms.
Meanwhile, a small handful of evil corporations, who if we don’t stop them will *own* most of the fruits and vegetables in a generation, are using the world’s population as test subjects while they spread their genetically engineered seeds under the guise of helping to feed the planets burgeoning population. This is allowing farmers to put more toxic chemicals on our food, bringing the cycle of disease and slow death full circle. The World Health Organization’s classification of glyphosate as a possible carcinogen, and California’s recent classification of it as an actual carcinogen are important wins in this fight, but its going to take much more.
very well said!
Vitamin D is a great example. Idiots slather on the sun-block, while never even getting tested for a vitamin D deficiency. And 80% of Americans are vitamin D deficient…in something that is FREE!!!!
There is a new research study out that if we eliminated the Vitamin D deficiency in the American population, we would avoid many disease states. Saving is estimated at 800 BILLION dollars.
Cellular health is key to good health and depends on having a nutrient rich diet. Vitamin D is a key hormone it is necessary for turning on 3000 genes to allow them to function properly on demand. Medicine is still in denial over the true value of vitamin D . Our bloated sickcare system will remain until we embrace the true value of a nutrient rich diet
Nice try. The most important thing to do is allow buy in to Medicare, A/K/A single payer, Then, you don’t have to build in a subsidy to make sure insurance company execs make a profit. ther is no reason why —if I pay for an MRI $500 out of pocket—they should bill an insuraqnce company $1500, or a sleeping pill in a hospital should be $5 a pill. what all the companies now offer is CATASTROPHIC ARE! Y9ou can never get into your $6000 deductivle unless you ar hospitalized. Now…wherw will the $$$ come from? If we didn’t build in an automatic profit for paper pushers & slim flammers, it could be very cost effective…but i suggest we look at the foreign aid budget—-lobbied for by—lobbyists for foreign governments, and audit that, and start reducing it & directing the money fo0r our own citizens. My gosh, right now the $$$ we give to both Israel & Egypt–th largest recipients…Egypt can account for none of it—& Israel offers single payer! & remind those opposed thty can always by private health insurance on the market.
Medicare is almost bankrupt already… how in the world do you think the buy-in types are going to improve that situation?? The bottom line is the usual personal responsibility.
Exactly. We need health care freedom, not slavery to the state. If we are free citizens, we should be allowed to make our own health care choices and decisions. Health insurance companies and hospitals should have to answer to us as consumers, not to government or big corporations, whose interests are very different from ours as we make life and death decisions.
Keep on mind that the PPACA (Obamacare) is actually a Republican invention designed by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank. It was first installed in Massachusetts by Gov. Romney. It should have been called the Private Health Insurance Preservation Act. It’s the Republicans who have been tearing down the marketplace by first crippling the Risk Corridor program. This program was designed to reimburse insurers who’s premiums were insufficient to cover benefits since there was no actuarial data when plans were rolled out in 2012. The Republicans inserted language in the 2012 Budget Reconciliation Act forbidding general funds to be used to fund the program. The large insurers like Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana, United Healthcare, etc. could wait for their reimbursement since it is a government obligation but the smaller not-for-profit co-ops that had been designed to take the place of a public option were forced out of business if they couldn’t wait to recoup their losses. Next the Republicans challenged the Cost Savings Reduction benefit which reduced deductibles, co-pays and out of pocket maximums for low income purchasers of Silver plans. Governors in red states refused to expand medicaid leaving people below the 100% of the minimum poverty level with no coverage at all. These folks still get sick and injured and wind up at hospital emergency rooms receiving uncompensated care the cost of which is passed on to the rest of the insured population.
The first thing that needs to be done to provide a robust marketplace is to require that insurance companies that sell group policies be required to also offer individual policies. In jurisdictions where there are either no or only one insurance company offering individual policies a public option such as a buy in to medicare should be available as an option..
And the Democrats think money just grows on trees. Neither side will act sensibly until a crisis happens.
It’s already a crisis when premiums are going up from 20% to 100% and many jurisdictions have only one insurer or none at all. The question is who is responsible for this situation? What is the solution? Do you have any suggestions?
Maybe for consumers it is, but its not for politicians yet. They are the ones responsible for this mess ever since they started interfering with and micromanaging sickcare back in the 60’s. My solution isn’t politically feasible so its pointless to waste time on it, so bring on the single payer boondoggle.
OK, the need to separate the ‘pools’ is basically sorta clear and valuable, but where are the midwives, the abundant 24/7 urgent care sites, the naturopathic physicians with hospital privileges, the chiropractors as primary care as well, homeopaths for vaxxing, plus the orthomolecular psychiatrists instead of deadly drug-pushers, and EMTs with licenses to do IVCs and hyperbaric oxygen…
They are the primary care that would service the better-food infrastructure ‘pool’, and that would complement the catastrophic coverages and create the safety net to ensure people get care when needed… they have to be in the picture as well to get people to launch for the abstract ‘pool’ key to the catastrophe care/cost picture….
You hit the nail on the head. You mentioned a number of REALLY GOOD treatments that currently people have to pay for themselves, whether they can afford it or not. Have you priced hyperbaric oxygen? It should be FIRST TREATMENT OF CHOICE for many, many conditions, but no insurance ever covers it. And it is horribly expensive.
So is IV vitamin C treatment which works really well also. This is by design to keep us sick and unhealthy. That is what our current system wants. I reject it except for trauma care.
I’ve heard about IV Vitamin C. Haven’t tried it. I agree with you about trauma care, but be careful. They can still fill you full of drugs behind your back. Make sure you have a good doctor, and he understands that you are not willing to let them do that. I tried to write on the admission form that they were to discuss all treatments with me, but not only did they NOT do that, they defamed and humiliated me, and hid from us that they were giving these drugs. Since they had control of his body 24/7, and they can slip things into IVs and stomach tube food, there’s no way to know what they are doing. This has to change. I don’t even know if ultimately he will survive what they did to him. He’s already almost died twice. And we’re not out of the woods. I want to sue, but lawyers say they couldn’t win, because this is “standard of care”. Translation: we abuse everyone, so we can get away with it. The fox is in charge of the hen house.
There is some hope on both these counts, as I am finding out, little by little.. there are soft-sided hbot chambers (limited to 1.3ATA, not the high pressures of 2.5 ATA and above) that are less expensive than a snazzed up lawn mower or used truck, and people think they can own those… the surprise is that the higher pressures are more hazardous (to central nervous system and lungs) when done too long or too high… plus in a recent DOD experiment to compare the usual drugs used to treat traumatic brain injury and PTSD, to HBOT (hard chambers) used the mild soft-sided hbot as the placebo… their shock was that BOTH the hard chambers and the mild ones outperformed the drugs… treachery alert: THEIR conclusion was that HBOT was no better than the placebo, so they’re sticking with the drugs… figure that one out in any sane way you want…
For those who would think they could not afford even the truck — even though it’s for use by all the members of the family since it’s anti-aging, but also for blue babies, migraines, recovery from surgery, preparation for surgery, as well as stroke recovery, stopping heart attacks, etc — I see that the socialized medicine in the UK denies it to MS victims who then struck back by banding together to buy their own for group sharing at extremely minimal cost, about $20 per session. They’ve managed to do this for some decades by now with successful outcomes for those who joined in. Yet the socialized medical frankensteins continue to deny it…
On the intravenous C obstacle course, I see that there are nebulizer protocols for COPD patients that show good results, in fact at lower doses than IV as well as being delivered right to the respiratory system’s needs… plus there’s liposomal C, not cheap but cheaper than IV, self-administerable (using a combination with oral C & gut tolerance protocols) and doesn’t require that you go to Puerto Rico or Witchita for a month…
It looks like the only way to fix the system, IMO so we’re setting up our ‘recovery room’ in an extra bedroom (for extended family), and wondering if it would be possible for a local group to offer a young intern (instead of cleaning the biology lab at the univ for spending money) or maybe a returning veteran a start-up office… like in the Alaskan tv series?? to study the Riordan protocols or Puerto Rico’s…. ttyl
Oh, and by the way, I had three midwife-attended births, including one high risk birth. We paid for all that ourselves, and it didn’t cost insurers or the government a cent. And it turned out much, much better. Life instead of death, completely normal child, who would have been killed by anesthesia that would have been required in a hospital setting. Deadly drug pushers are INTENDED to keep us in slavery to poison, and they really do a great job of it.
It’s real simple. Give people the choice of going alternative. Put the lid on doctors who force medications down hospital patients. Make pharmaceutical companies liable for the damage they do. Much health care is driven by overmedicating, and the costs that this causes. This happened to us. What should have been an uneventful recovery has been prolonged, agonizing, full of disease, risk of death, and more expense for insurance. They did it against our will and behind our backs. Honor the patient bill of rights. Then educate the public against polypharmacy Forget prophylactic drugs. They cause more harm and contribute little or nothing to wellness.
Insurance is NOT healthcare!!! The “healthcare system” that allows one company to buy another and the take a product that sold for $5 and raise the price to $600 is the problem. (epipens) The government has no business getting into insurance. Their job should be to stop thieves.
Unfortunately, the failed government takeover of medical treatment has become the standard to judge any changes or attempts to fix the problems built into it. Somehow, Pelosi and her fellow travelers felt it was best to essentially take away healthcare from the middle class through insane deductibles, higher copays and ever rising premiums to provide mediocre care to the non-earners, low earners, and indolent. The pools of healthy people–always essential to a viable insurance market model–have deferred on signing up.
After the fiasco of a law was signed into being–and rushed through with far less deliberation than the plans to fix it have been–I asked a European what he thought of it. He said the attempt to marry a market model with government control will result in a deficiency on all fronts. He was spot on.
What do I want for healthcare in the USA? Unlimited care for every citizen. Wellness programs to educate people on how to stay healthy. Primary care by Naturopaths, backed up by allopathy for the failures. Acupuncture, Chiropractic, a gym membership that comes with a tax break for regular attendance and goals set and met. Yearly consults with nutritional biochemists to teach the latest breakthroughs. All available to every American citizen.
Now all we need to do is find a way to pay for and implement it.
The problem here, and even carefully avoided in the article, is that Schumer has promised to oppose any attempt to alter, change, replace or even fix Obamacare to keep up resistance to Trump. 100% of democratic senators have voted against fixing Obamacare.
I’m a centrist democrat. Blaming this on republicants is silly when Schumer has throttled the party into voting against any and all solutions. This hard-left hatred isn’t doing anything good for America except making hysterical headlines.