60 Minutes- Boehner and McConnell can't explain an ACA alternative plan

[Dittohead not!]

When the law passed there were 42 million Americans uninsured, today that number is 32 million, don't think that is much of a success story especially since most of those now insured were eligible under Medicaid.

True, it's not much of a success story.

Neither is it the disaster that its detractors would like to claim it is.

It was a baby step forward, that's all it was. There is a lot of work to do yet.

 

[JasperL]

That is simply not true. Obviously you do not have even a basic understanding of what rationing is. If you did, you would understand my point.

I don't know what your definition is, but in economic terms the market rations all goods and services based on ability to pay. That's how I'm using the term, which I explained. I can't figure yours out because if Medicare or Medicaid "ration" then so does every insurance policy ever issued ever, unless one exists out there that pays for anything at any time in any amount for any reason, and I doubt such a policy exists.

What a load of bull durham! Other then government programs like medicare, Medicaid, and organ transplants. The USA does not ration healthcare As for those who are too poor to afford healthcare....have you ever heard of "Medicaid"? If one is too poor to afford healthcare, chances are they qualify for Medicaid....even before Obamacare. There are also free clinics.

You clearly don't know any poor people or if you do have no idea how they access healthcare. No, Medicaid doesn't cover nearly everyone too poor to afford healthcare. In my state, poor isn't enough. You need to be a woman, pregnant or with children, or disabled. Otherwise, you go into a lottery for a slot in Medicaid. And free clinics....goodness. Yeah, that works fine, in right wing alternate reality land. You're clueless about the problems facing the poor.

All of these dozens of so called solutions you are touting from around the world are based on much smaller populations then the USA. And they all come with rationing.If we want to make healthcare more affordable in the USA, it can only be done by addressing the actual cost of providing healthcare. Robin Hood Ponzi schemes like Obamacare are not the answer. They are merely shifting costs and adding costs. America did not become an economic giant with mandates and cost shifting. It became an economic giant through investment and competition in the market place. Healthcare has not always been as costly in the USA as it is now. In my 20s and early 30s, I barely noticed my payroll deductions for health insurance. The cost was less then the price of a round of golf. Every time the government fixes healthcare, they make it worse.

[/QUOTE]

Yeah, OK, I doubt if you've read about three of those alternatives in place around the world. And, again, if they "ration" so does my plan, and so does yours.

And your payroll deduction for healthcare tell us literally NOTHING about the total cost. Goodness - you're trying to show how little you understand. If you tell us what your employer kicked in, then we might be able to compare costs today versus the good old days. Maybe it kicked in 90% of the total, or 40% or 99% or 83%. Who knows....

But, sure, healthcare has advanced a lot since the 1940s when you were a young buck, and those leaps in technology and drugs and all the rest that have improved our health and lifespan cost money. Houses are more than they were in the good old days too.

 

[JasperL]

Not what I would dignify by calling it affordable insurance. The exchange policies are severely limited in networks. And the high cost of premiums and skyrocketing deductables in the private plans have basically turned virtually all insurance plans into "catastrophic policies".

I see you know literally nothing about the ACA or the plans available on the exchanges. It's actually astounding a guy with "Obamacare" in his handle knows so little about what he thinks is so terrible.

But to be clear, there are narrow networks and there are very broad networks. There are plans with high deductibles - bronze plans generally - and plans with very low deductibles - gold and platinum. Lots of options, lots of plan variations. It's the market at work!

 

[JasperL]

If healthcare were rationed in the USA, you would limited in what you could get with or without health insurance due to availability. For instance....in the UK, if you need an MRI and it's not urgent, you go on a waiting list. Government bean counters make the decisions on how much high tech medical equipment is purchased or made available. In the USA, urgent or not, if I needed an MRI, I could get it tomorrow. The decisions on buying high tech medical equipment in the private sector are based on need and profit. There are at least five MRI units within a 20 minute drive from my house.

What you don't understand is in many of those foreign countries where they speak other languages, the insurers are private, the providers are private, and the market will also provide MRIs if they are profitable, etc. No bureaucrat is making purchasing decisions. In Japan, that MRI will cost $100, and you'll get it right away! They have a HUGE healthcare private sector. But you'd have to leave the bubble to understand that and expand your horizons a bit.

 

[Conservative]

You can't make Charlie pay. He doesn't have any money. What are you going to do, send him to debtor's prison?

Our Founders got it right, neighbors helping neighbors, where are Charlie's neighbors?

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Yours is always one of promoting big govt. while ignoring the results of big govt. Results don't really matter in your world so the question is why?

This is SO ironic. In point of fact, my position was ALL ABOUT focusing on RESULTS.....you were, in point of fact denying the results:

Take a two-earner couple, each making the average wage (an amount equal to $43,500 in 2011). If this couple turned age 65 (the age of Medicare eligibility) in 1980, they would have paid $17,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes, and would have received lifetime Medicare benefits of $143,000. Turning 65 in the year 2010, the couple would have paid taxes of $116, 000, and would expect to receive benefits of $351,000. Turning 65 in the year 2030, the expected taxes paid would be $175,000, and the value of expected benefits would be $527,000.

Fact/Fiction: Medicare beneficiaries only | Medicare News Group

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Our Founders got it right, neighbors helping neighbors, where are Charlie's neighbors?

Wow....so in your world, US citizen.....do not consider themselves "neighbors and countrymen"'?

 

[upsideguy]

My credentials are the US Constitution and it's amendments. Read them sometime.

The Constitution is such a clear and obvious document, there must not be a need for a Supreme Court. We should just disband it in the next budget cut and save ourselves a small fortunate. We could sell the robs to a small college for graduation gowns. If, by slim chance, there are ever any questions of Constitutionality, we will just run them by you.

You got to love the Conservatives... no need for scientists, historians or lawyers. All they have to do is have their own personal impressions. If they think something is true, it must be true. No need for experts when you have amateurs on the job.

 

[Conservative]

This is SO ironic. In point of fact, my position was ALL ABOUT focusing on RESULTS.....you were, in point of fact denying the results:

Take a two-earner couple, each making the average wage (an amount equal to $43,500 in 2011). If this couple turned age 65 (the age of Medicare eligibility) in 1980, they would have paid $17,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes, and would have received lifetime Medicare benefits of $143,000. Turning 65 in the year 2010, the couple would have paid taxes of $116, 000, and would expect to receive benefits of $351,000. Turning 65 in the year 2030, the expected taxes paid would be $175,000, and the value of expected benefits would be $527,000.

Fact/Fiction: Medicare beneficiaries only | Medicare News Group

Fact or fiction Medicare cost more than it was intended or projected??

Fact or fiction, not all or even a majority of the Americans got back more than they contributed to Medicare?

 

[Conservative]

Wow....so in your world, US citizen.....do not consider themselves "neighbors and countrymen"'?

In your world big govt. is that neighbor and we need a massive govt. program to take care of the very few Charlies out there.

 

[sangha]

Name one GOP Senator or Representative that suggested much less proposed mandates. And don't give me the "Heritage Foundation" myth.

Sen John Chaffe in 1993. The HEART Act was co-sponsored by 19 other Senate Republicans (almost half of all the repubs in the Senate), including Christopher Bond, Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, and Arlen Specter.

Summary Of A 1993 Republican Health Reform Plan | Kaiser Health News

Look at Subtitle F

 

[JasperL]

Name one GOP Senator or Representative that suggested much less proposed mandates. And don't give me the "Heritage Foundation" myth.

What I don't understand is the mandate is a conservative concept. We've decided as a society to 'insure' everyone, so if you show up at the ER having a heart attack/broken legs from a car wreck/etc., you WILL be treated without regard to ability to pay. The mandate simply imposes a cost for that benefit. No 'mandate' and we're subsidizing freeloaders who have the financial ability to buy insurance but choose instead to offfload their 'insurance' costs onto the rest of us.

What's pretty amazing is conservatives have abandoned this common sense principle because Obama included it in the ACA and somehow convinced their followers that being responsible for getting insurance and paying a penalty for freeloading is a bad thing.....

Car insurance is a state issue. And it is not forced in every state. Try again.

But the car insurance mandates are the same concept - they recognize that if you choose to drive, you have an obligation to other drivers to have the financial ability to make good on the damages YOU cause to their person or property. Why would you support a world where a driver can plow into you, drunk or texting or talking on the phone, and leave you paying all the bills for the damages he caused?

 

[jaeger19]

, instead you have middlemen analysts running a FOR PROFIT business making those decisions, which is why you had the pre-existing conditions problem, for example.



VA hospitals on par with private sector for patient satisfaction - The Washington Post

Odd, since veterans report higher satisfaction with the VA system (despite its flaws) than the private medical industry does.

Right.. you have middleman analysis running a FOR PROFIT business.. oh the horror... which means a company has to attract customers... if its service sucks.. it loses customers.. if its services are better it gains customers... the key is to have a competitive system.


As far as VA hospitals... sure.. I have contracts with a few... the problem isn't often the Quality of care (though often in my experience the quality is not suspect) is being able to GET the care.

Several hospital whistleblowers claim that administrators ordered thousands of medical appointment requests be placed on a secret unofficial list — allegedly in an effort to improve their performance record. If the patients died, their names would disappear from the list. Dr. Samuel Foote, who retired from the VA, was one of the whistleblowers.

"This was basically an elaborate scheme to cover up patient wait times," Foote told NBC News last week. "The main problem was we had a huge demand and we had a relatively limited supply of service."

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki is set to testify Thursday in a hearing before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee regarding the state of the VA health care system.

'Treatment Denied': Vets Sound Off at VA Town Hall Meeting - NBC News

 

[Dittohead not!]

In your world big govt. is that neighbor and we need a massive govt. program to take care of the very few Charlies out there.

There are still millions of Charlies out there. There may not be as many as there once were, but there still are many millions. Most of them won't need expensive medical care, at least not until they mature and take responsibility for themselves, but a few will. If only one in a thousand, say, need a hundred thousand dollars worth of medical care, the one can't pay a hundred thousand dollars, but the thousand can chip in a hundred each. That's how insurance works. It works because most people will never need it.

 

[jaeger19]

Got it, so I wasn't forced into contributing to Medicare? What world do you live in? Give me my money back, the hundreds of thousands of dollars I invested over my working career and I will buy my own annuity and healthcare insurance.

No you won't.. Likely you won't buy squat.. that's the reality because likely at your age.. you are uninsurable. Face it.. if you WERE insurable.. if elderly people were insurable.. the there would have been no need for Medicare.. just as now.. there really isn't a need for a socialized federal system for working folks because? the private system developed one because there is profit to be made.

so you go out and try to find a primary policy... at your age.. and tell us just how much it costs for a policy that's BETTER than medicare. We will be all ears.

Sorry sir.. but your premise is a pipedream...

 

[Conservative]

There are still millions of Charlies out there. There may not be as many as there once were, but there still are many millions. Most of them won't need expensive medical care, at least not until they mature and take responsibility for themselves, but a few will. If only one in a thousand, say, need a hundred thousand dollars worth of medical care, the one can't pay a hundred thousand dollars, but the thousand can chip in a hundred each. That's how insurance works. It works because most people will never need it.

There are millions of Americans out there too that can afford to pay their own healthcare bills, there are millions of Americans who need to understand personal responsibility and chose not to participate thus should pay the consequences for poor choices, there are also millions of Americans who are covered by state programs that they didn't sign up for. Guess they need a nanny state.

Again, neighbor helping neighbor is the issue and a neighbor is defined as someone in their local community. Are you telling me that people in Charley's neighborhood wouldn't step up to help him? How about his Church? How about local charities? No, of course not.

Let me ask all you ACA supporters a question, does there ever come a time when we have too big of a Central Govt. for you? We have state governments with their taxes and social programs, local governments with their taxes and social programs, local charities but that isn't enough so we have to have a big central govt. doing the same things those other groups do??

 

[Conservative]

Sen John Chaffe in 1993. The HEART Act was co-sponsored by 19 other Senate Republicans (almost half of all the repubs in the Senate), including Christopher Bond, Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, and Arlen Specter.

Summary Of A 1993 Republican Health Reform Plan | Kaiser Health News

Look at Subtitle F

Question for you, do you believe there ever will come a time when you say enough federal spending and enough govt. growth? Is there a point when the Federal Govt. gets too big for you?

 

[Conservative]

No you won't.. Likely you won't buy squat.. that's the reality because likely at your age.. you are uninsurable. Face it.. if you WERE insurable.. if elderly people were insurable.. the there would have been no need for Medicare.. just as now.. there really isn't a need for a socialized federal system for working folks because? the private system developed one because there is profit to be made.

so you go out and try to find a primary policy... at your age.. and tell us just how much it costs for a policy that's BETTER than medicare. We will be all ears.

Sorry sir.. but your premise is a pipedream...

Yep, that would be denying personal responsibility. I learned a long time ago to anticipate and not react. You believe I wouldn't have purchased insurance when I was insurable? Where does personal responsibility exist in your world and is there ever going to be a point when the Federal Govt. gets too big for you? What does your state, local government, and local charities do?

 

[sangha]

Question for you, do you believe there ever will come a time when you say enough federal spending and enough govt. growth? Is there a point when the Federal Govt. gets too big for you?

Will there ever come a time when you take personal responsibility for choosing to purchase and use Medicare?

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Fact or fiction Medicare cost more than it was intended or projected??

By whom?

Fact or fiction, not all or even a majority of the Americans got back more than they contributed to Medicare?

And now you show how truly confused you are about math, rest assured that if the average worker gets FAR more than they contributed, the majority (more than 50%) did. Show your math if you think otherwise.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

In your world big govt. is that neighbor and we need a massive govt. program to take care of the very few Charlies out there.

Of the people....you know....countrymen. You a good neighbor?

 

[Dittohead not!]

There are millions of Americans out there too that can afford to pay their own healthcare bills, there are millions of Americans who need to understand personal responsibility and chose not to participate thus should pay the consequences for poor choices, there are also millions of Americans who are covered by state programs that they didn't sign up for. Guess they need a nanny state.

Again, neighbor helping neighbor is the issue and a neighbor is defined as someone in their local community. Are you telling me that people in Charley's neighborhood wouldn't step up to help him? How about his Church? How about local charities? No, of course not.

Let me ask all you ACA supporters a question, does there ever come a time when we have too big of a Central Govt. for you? We have state governments with their taxes and social programs, local governments with their taxes and social programs, local charities but that isn't enough so we have to have a big central govt. doing the same things those other groups do??

The issue is ideology vs. practicality.

Actually, when you say the government has gotten too big and powerful, I tend to agree.

Conversely, health care actually costs about half again as much as all federal spending outside of what it spends on health care.

So, health care is way too big of an expense as well, and is actually more of an issue than federal spending.

and, when you say that neighbors, meaning local charities, small communities, churches, etc. should help out, that's all well and good except that they don't have the power or the economic might to do very much.

The big elephant in the room that self described "conservatives" (SDC) like to ignore is the indisputable fact that every other advanced nation in the world has one form or another of universal health care, and they all pay far and away less than we do. Sometimes, the practical way to address an issue is actually to create a government function to do so.

The other large and lumbering beast there is the fact that most of the provisions of the ACA have been supported by Republicans in the past. The real reason it has become such a target for the SDC is that it was passed by Democrats. That is just another manifestation of how dysfunctional our government has become due to hyper partisanship.

 

[JasperL]

Right.. you have middleman analysis running a FOR PROFIT business.. oh the horror... which means a company has to attract customers... if its service sucks.. it loses customers.. if its services are better it gains customers... the key is to have a competitive system.

OK, but that competition doesn't need to be between for profit companies. For some reason in other countries, they manage to have competition between insurers when they're all non-profit.

 

[Conservative]

Will there ever come a time when you take personal responsibility for choosing to purchase and use Medicare?

Now you won't or cannot answer the question I posed to you. I didn't expect one. I find it interesting that you believe I chose to "contribute" to Medicare. What world do you live in?

 

[jaeger19]

Nice chart and projections, meaningless to the average person who pays into SS AND Medicare and if those people die before using the money the family gets what? If I took the same amount, put it into a simple savings account for SS and a similar amount into a healthcare account that money would belong to my family and even when I retired I would have been a multi millionaire not dependent on the Federal Govt.

Big govt. liberals always buy what they are told and never hold their own for failed projections or predictions. just throw more money at the problem never solving the problem including what is driving up costs.

No you would not.. BS on you being some multi millionaire based on what you put into social security... that's pure bull.

The maximum amount that's taxable for social security is 117,000.. and that's now.

so lets take that number.. for giggles. Lets say that you make over 117,000 your whole working life.

The tax per year that you would have put into social security would be 6.2% x 117,000 or 7,254
Lets say you worked for 49 years (65-16)

That's 355,446 over your WHOLE WORKING CAREER. At 5% interest.. over roughly 50 years.. you know what your ending balance will be after income taxes? 945, 923.

So not even a million dollars... AFTER using TODAYS maximal amount (which was not the maximum 50 years ago) , and assuming you paid that inflated maximum every year and assuming that you made 5% on your savings account.

And you don't even get to a million dollars.. much less a multi millionaire.

This idea that people would all be "multi millionaires" if they "just took thei social security and put it in a savings account".. is the greatest of falsehoods.