Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care ...

[TU Curmudgeon]

[NOTE - Article headline too long for forum format - truncation identical to the one done on the FOX News main page so don't blame me if the thread title is misleading]
​

From FOX News

Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
​

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished -- the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.

Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.

KAMALA HARRIS VOWS TO GET RIS OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'LET'S ELIMINATE ALL OF THAT. LET'S MOVE ON'

"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.

"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

COMMENT:-

The odds on Mr. Trump's supporters making any distinction between "a call to eliminate private (for profit) health care insurance plans" and "a call to eliminate private health care" are slim to non-existent.

Of course, I'd never suggest that FOX News was deliberately fostering a belief that the Democrats wanted to eliminate ALL private health care in the United States of America and turn America into a socialist dictatorship where every aspect of daily life would be regulated and you could be "declared redundant" by some "state death panel" at any moment (especially if you were deemed to be "opposed to the state") - but others will.
​

 

[Mithros]

[NOTE - Article headline too long for forum format - truncation identical to the one done on the FOX News main page so don't blame me if the thread title is misleading]
​

From FOX News

Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
​

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished -- the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.

Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.

KAMALA HARRIS VOWS TO GET RIS OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'LET'S ELIMINATE ALL OF THAT. LET'S MOVE ON'

"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.

"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

COMMENT:-

The odds on Mr. Trump's supporters making any distinction between "a call to eliminate private (for profit) health care insurance plans" and "a call to eliminate private health care" are slim to non-existent.

Of course, I'd never suggest that FOX News was deliberately fostering a belief that the Democrats wanted to eliminate ALL private health care in the United States of America and turn America into a socialist dictatorship where every aspect of daily life would be regulated and you could be "declared redundant" by some "state death panel" at any moment (especially if you were deemed to be "opposed to the state") - but others will.
​

Fox News articles are hilarious.

Kamala Harris came under fire? From whom? Why is it breaking news that Ron Nehring, a senior campaign advisor to Ted Cruz, sent this mildly snarky text?

Kamala Harris declares all Americans to lose their health insurance policy even if they like it, forced into government system. So, pro-choice apparently doesn’t apply to health care. Once again these people are for anything so long as it’s mandatory.​

 

[ttwtt78640]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

 

[Cardinal]

I have no doubt that health insurers, whom everybody but those who have stock in health insurers hate, have lobbed great criticism at Harris for her comment.

 

[NeverTrump]

[NOTE - Article headline too long for forum format - truncation identical to the one done on the FOX News main page so don't blame me if the thread title is misleading]
​

From FOX News

Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
​

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished -- the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.

Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.

KAMALA HARRIS VOWS TO GET RIS OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'LET'S ELIMINATE ALL OF THAT. LET'S MOVE ON'

"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.

"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

COMMENT:-

The odds on Mr. Trump's supporters making any distinction between "a call to eliminate private (for profit) health care insurance plans" and "a call to eliminate private health care" are slim to non-existent.

Of course, I'd never suggest that FOX News was deliberately fostering a belief that the Democrats wanted to eliminate ALL private health care in the United States of America and turn America into a socialist dictatorship where every aspect of daily life would be regulated and you could be "declared redundant" by some "state death panel" at any moment (especially if you were deemed to be "opposed to the state") - but others will.
​

What's Trump's health care plan??? Also, I seem to remember a certain GOP Russian Stooge named Ron Paul saying that we shouldn't help a guy who is dying on his death bed if he can't pay for health insurance.

 

[Cardinal]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

We have the internet, and therefore we are able to look to countries with single payer or hybrid care that are not basically failed states (and are not in any danger of being so).

 

[Conservative]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

Which are liberal utopias. Incentive is something the left doesn't grasp and that so called help from the govt. has created most of the 21 trillion dollar debt we have today. Imagine what would happen if the private sector with no incentive to provide private healthcare insurance would adopt her Medicare for all plan and what would happen to an already inefficient and cash poor healthcare system? Just what we need more dollars for the federal bureaucrats to have and waste

 

[Phys251]

[NOTE - Article headline too long for forum format - truncation identical to the one done on the FOX News main page so don't blame me if the thread title is misleading]
​

From FOX News

Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
​

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished -- the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.

Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.

KAMALA HARRIS VOWS TO GET RIS OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'LET'S ELIMINATE ALL OF THAT. LET'S MOVE ON'

"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.

"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

COMMENT:-

The odds on Mr. Trump's supporters making any distinction between "a call to eliminate private (for profit) health care insurance plans" and "a call to eliminate private health care" are slim to non-existent.

Of course, I'd never suggest that FOX News was deliberately fostering a belief that the Democrats wanted to eliminate ALL private health care in the United States of America and turn America into a socialist dictatorship where every aspect of daily life would be regulated and you could be "declared redundant" by some "state death panel" at any moment (especially if you were deemed to be "opposed to the state") - but others will.
​

:yawn:

Right, and no politician has ever said this before her. Not Warren, Sanders, AOC...

 

[iguanaman]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

And Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and every other western nation. They all have universal HC coverage. We insist that paying a minimum 20% surcharge on all HC coverage to insurers for cutting the checks to providers with our money is the best system and then we complain about how expensive it is.

 

[ttwtt78640]

We have the internet, and therefore we are able to look to countries with single payer or hybrid care that are not basically failed states (and are not in any danger of being so).

I agree 100% yet that same internet shows us the 100% pubic K-12 education in the US is not on par (measured by per pupil costs and/or student test scores) with those 'superior' other nations. It is not a simple matter of if government control can make a system better but also a matter of which government is doing the controlling and how. Many (most?) of those other governments are not dominated by only two political parties or, as ours sometimes is, controlled completely by only one.

 

[NeverTrump]

We have the internet, and therefore we are able to look to countries with single payer or hybrid care that are not basically failed states (and are not in any danger of being so).

You know as well as I do, that we have some stable genius' here who start threads asking a very simple question they can simply google. Even after showing them how...

 

[ludin]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

ol no she won't phase out private healthcare for herself and all the political cronies.
they are not going to wait in line for a year or more to see a specialist.

 

[Sampson Simpson]

Under fire from whom? A hole right wingers?

Granted, there is no need to ban private healthcare, if rich people want special treatment they should be able to pay for it. But companies should not be making profits over people's healthcare. it's disgusting, and it should really piss off everybody how much money corporations are making off people's health and well being. Need universal healthcare, and the option for premium for the rich could still be available

 

[Sampson Simpson]

We have the internet, and therefore we are able to look to countries with single payer or hybrid care that are not basically failed states (and are not in any danger of being so).

Which is every industrialized country. That should be a huge red flag to our country's healthcare. But it is representative of who the government really works for, the rich. So the government continues to allow these companies to make insane profits off of people's lives, health, suffering, etc.

 

[Lursa]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

I used to think this, regarding timeliness and quality of care.

But the health insurance that is 'affordable' for most middle and lower income Americans is nearly worthless anyway (And you still end up paying a lot of out of pocket) so maybe it wouldnt make any difference in quality of care.

But you make a good point about just general govt budgetary failure/danger. Bureaucracy is always a huge problem.

 

[ttwtt78640]

And Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and every other western nation. They all have universal HC coverage. We insist that paying a minimum 20% surcharge on all HC coverage to insurers for cutting the checks to providers with our money is the best system and then we complain about how expensive it is.

OK, then why not select (based on best bid price) one of those nations to run our national healthcare system? I have long advocated for mandatory auto liability insurance to be run by a single-payer (funded by a tax on motor fuel) but few want to give up having their personal choice of insurance provider.

 

[Lursa]

Under fire from whom? A hole right wingers?

Granted, there is no need to ban private healthcare, if rich people want special treatment they should be able to pay for it. But companies should not be making profits over people's healthcare. it's disgusting, and it should really piss off everybody how much money corporations are making off people's health and well being. Need universal healthcare, and the option for premium for the rich could still be available

That may even change if we went to this total medicare or govt system.

Right now, it's cheaper for me to NOT use my health insurance for a basic visit to my Dr and to pay cash right there. I save 30% right off the top. That is a BROKEN system.

But people would still have that option under the medicare/single payer system and the overall costs might come down once health insurance companies were no longer able to get their cut.

 

[ttwtt78640]

I used to think this, regarding timeliness and quality of care.

But the health insurance that is 'affordable' for most middle and lower income Americans is nearly worthless anyway (And you still end up paying a lot of out of pocket) so maybe it wouldnt make any difference in quality of care.

But you make a good point about just general govt budgetary failure/danger. Bureaucracy is always a huge problem.

One huge problem with a nationwide system is the vast cost of service (based on cost of living) variation - what is setting a broken bone worth (i.e. its "fair" price)? Does it vary based on the care provider being located in rural MS or in central NYC - like the cost of a haircut, restaurant meal or two bedroom apartment does?

 

[iguanaman]

Under fire from whom? A hole right wingers?

Granted, there is no need to ban private healthcare, if rich people want special treatment they should be able to pay for it. But companies should not be making profits over people's healthcare. it's disgusting, and it should really piss off everybody how much money corporations are making off people's health and well being. Need universal healthcare, and the option for premium for the rich could still be available

Yes and make it VERY expensive and use the excess to subsidize the rest of us.

 

[Cardinal]

I agree 100% yet that same internet shows us the 100% pubic K-12 education in the US is not on par (measured by per pupil costs and/or student test scores) with those 'superior' other nations. It is not a simple matter of if government control can make a system better but also a matter of which government is doing the controlling and how. Many (most?) of those other governments are not dominated by only two political parties or, as ours sometimes is, controlled completely by only one.

Their governments aren't dominated by a two-party system, therefore we should have stupid, misinformed debates about one of the biggest issues in our country where one side only cites countries that are failed states in order to make the case that nothing should be done?

 

[iguanaman]

One huge problem with a nationwide system is the vast cost of service (based on cost of living) variation - what is setting a broken bone worth (i.e. its "fair" price)? Does it vary based on the care provider being located in rural MS or in central NYC - like the cost of a haircut, restaurant meal or two bedroom apartment does?

What is so "huge" about a cost of living multiplier? You are exaggerating the difficulties because you have no faith in America. Medicare is one of the most cost effective and popular programs in the country.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, administrative costs in Medicare are only about 2 percent of operating expenditures. Defenders of the insurance industry estimate administrative costs as 17 percent of revenue.
Insurance industry-funded studies exclude private plans’ marketing costs and profits from their calculation of administrative costs. Even so, Medicare’s overhead is dramatically lower.
Medicare administrative cost figures include the collection of Medicare taxes, fraud and abuse controls, and building costs.
So-called “competition” in the private health care market has driven costs up.

In most local markets, providers have monopoly power. Consequently, private insurers lack the bargaining power to contain prices.
In most areas, two or three dominant insurers dominate the regional market, limit competition and make it extremely difficult if not impossible for new insurers to enter the marketplace and stimulate price competition.
Medicare Advantage, which enrolls seniors in private health plans, has failed to deliver care more efficiently than traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Both the CBO and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), the commission which advises congress on Medicare’s finances, have calculated that Medicare Advantage plans covering the same care as traditional Medicare cost 12 percent more.
Karen Ignagni, who heads America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry’s trade association, has admitted that private plans cannot bargain down provider costs and has asked Washington to intervene.
Medicare Is Publicly Accountable, Private Plans Are Not

When it comes to how much it costs private plans to deliver care, or individual insurer innovations that deliver value, the publicly available data are scarce. Goodman and Saving present only one study on the ways that insurers try to control costs, and this was published by AHIP. Because Medicare is publicly accountable, it allows us to study what works so that we can improve the health care system.

The authors cite a number of innovations that could lower the cost of care, but all of them have been introduced by doctors and clinics, not insurers. Because insurance companies treat their claims data as trade secrets, we do not know if they have adopted such innovations.
Even government-funded Medicare Advantage plans don’t release payment and coverage data.
A closer look at the data shows that, contrary to Goodman and Saving’s claims, Medicare delivers health care more efficiently than private insurers. Medicare’s public accountability and bargaining power give it the ability to drive system change and control skyrocketing health care costs, while profit-driven private insurers have offered no solution.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20110920.013390/full/

 

[Bullseye]

[NOTE - Article headline too long for forum format - truncation identical to the one done on the FOX News main page so don't blame me if the thread title is misleading]
​

From FOX News

Kamala Harris under fire after calling for abolition of private health care plans: ‘That’s not American’
​

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., came under fire on Tuesday for calling for private health care plans to be abolished -- the latest plank is what is becoming an increasingly left-wing platform from the California Democrat.

Harris, who announced her 2020 bid for the White House last week, was asked by CNN host Jake Tapper Monday night if people could keep their current health care plan under her “Medicare-for-All” plan. She indicated that people could not, suggesting she wants to move toward a single-payer system rather than a mere expansion of Medicare.

KAMALA HARRIS VOWS TO GET RIS OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE PLANS: 'LET'S ELIMINATE ALL OF THAT. LET'S MOVE ON'

"Well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require," Harris told Tapper.

"Who among us has not had that situation?" she continued. "Where you got to wait for approval, and the doctor says, 'Well I don't know if your insurance company is going to cover this.' Let's eliminate all of that. Let's move on."

COMMENT:-

The odds on Mr. Trump's supporters making any distinction between "a call to eliminate private (for profit) health care insurance plans" and "a call to eliminate private health care" are slim to non-existent.

Of course, I'd never suggest that FOX News was deliberately fostering a belief that the Democrats wanted to eliminate ALL private health care in the United States of America and turn America into a socialist dictatorship where every aspect of daily life would be regulated and you could be "declared redundant" by some "state death panel" at any moment (especially if you were deemed to be "opposed to the state") - but others will.
​

Why so you consistently poison the well of discussion by including slams on Fox and "Trump supporters? This could have been an interesting discussion. Now, it's just another ignorable TDS effluvia stream.

 

[ElChupacabra]

Her argument (assertion?) is that monopolies are bad unless they are run entirely by government elites (central planners?) who are allegedly accountable to the people. That, of course, is what yields things like Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela.

It's a lot of eggs to put in one basket; and while I'm not anti-government, there is definitely a lot that can go wrong if that much control only lies in one entity. That said though, I don't think we'll ever see a healthcare system similar to Canada or certain European countries. I think the best we can do is a hybrid system where you still have private healthcare options, and a government run program to cover basics.

 

[Lursa]

One huge problem with a nationwide system is the vast cost of service (based on cost of living) variation - what is setting a broken bone worth (i.e. its "fair" price)? Does it vary based on the care provider being located in rural MS or in central NYC - like the cost of a haircut, restaurant meal or two bedroom apartment does?

Right, and there is a ton of overhead in alot of facilities: all that supporting staff, computers, medical equipment, etc.

Should people living where the overall costs are less be penalized by paying the same taxes for medicaid/single payer in more expensive areas?

Or should people move to where the care is more affordable? Or choose smaller facilities?

I'm not even using my current Dr for twice yearly blood pressure checks. That costs $250+ WITH my insurance. I can shop around, find a smaller practice that will see me (not a walk-in clinic, they dont do refills) for $150 to $170 in cash.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Their governments aren't dominated by a two-party system, therefore we should have stupid, misinformed debates about one of the biggest issues in our country where one side only cites countries that are failed states in order to make the case that nothing should be done?

You seem to have missed my point entirely. Pick any one of those 'successful' UHC countries and hand them the contract to offer UHC to our nation (based on a per capita bid). That seems like a far better bet than letting our corrupt batch of congress critters get together with their big money campaign cash providers and lobbyists to invent a UHC system from scratch.