"Healthcare costs in the United States are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.
"Those words come from famed investor Warren Buffett, who said he would scrap Obamacare and start all over.
"'We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control,' he added. 'And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else.'
"Buffett insists that without changes to Obamacare average citizens will suffer.
"'Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage,' he said. 'I would much rather see another plan that really attacks costs. And I think that's what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill.'"
Obamacare isn't a health care law. It's an insurance law. It does nothing to address costs other than increase some with new taxes. I've always maintained that addressing costs should be the first priority. Congress has already screwed up the health care market by colluding with insurance companies that guaranteed their profits often to the detriment of the health care consumer. If congress were full of doctors instead of lawyers Obamacare would never have passed.
If it were full of doctors instead of lawyers we'd probably have seen a large increase in Medicare payouts.
Obamacare isn't a health care law. It's an insurance law. It does nothing to address costs other than increase some with new taxes. I've always maintained that addressing costs should be the first priority. Congress has already screwed up the health care market by colluding with insurance companies that guaranteed their profits often to the detriment of the health care consumer. If congress were full of doctors instead of lawyers Obamacare would never have passed.
Yes, my main criticism has always been that it addresses coverage but misses on cost dramatically.
And no, tort reform and crossing state lines is not a magic bullet solution to this.
edit: that, and the fact that it's further entrenching a faulty fee-for-service model.
Abandon the medicare, medicaid and obamacare systems.
Adopt universal healthcare as it is in France!
France may not be the best model.
Sure, they pay less than half as much as we do, but they're still above the median.
If America is really "exceptional", then we should be able to come up with an exceptional health care system.
France may not be the cheapest but it is consistently ranking in the top 3 countries in healthcare services along with Norway and Denmark... italy, spain usually get in there too, Austria. Of course, you discount countries like Singapore and Andorra because they're city states, not proper countries. And by your own chart, it's cheaper than both Norway and Denmark.
The 36 Best Healthcare Systems In The World - Business Insider
last year it was #1.
So, now you want not only less expensive, but quality as well. That's going to be difficult. We could copy France, of course, and halve our costs while making it into the top three, but then, our government doesn't want to copy anyone else. If we did that we wouldn't be exceptional.
What we have now, of course, is simply exceptionally high costs.
Fas est et ab hoste doceri.
???
The Latin I never took in school is a bit rusty now.
I agree. Scrap it. The only people who "like" Obama care are the people on the left who will support, in a hyper-partisan manner, anything that their side puts to paper. Most free thinking liberals I know dislike Obamacare as much as many conservatives (although for some different reasons)
A big reason I voted for Obama in 2008 was the possibility of UHC and a single payer system. What we got was a bloated piece of crap that continues to serve big business above all.
I say scrap it and work on medicare for all.
Costs can be attacked with Obamacare in place.
I'd love to see tort reform. We need it, and we need it bad.
The FDA approves drugs for market after hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent testing them and jumping through FDA hoops. And then, when the side effects they know are going to happen? Happen? Law firms whose only business is suing drug manufacturers step up to the plate and file class action suits.
Doctors are sued for malpractice because of poor outcomes. Malpractice, by definition, means the doctor did something SO wrong, the patient or his family deserves compensation. Doctors are not perfect. The AMA, in conjunction with our government, should have standards of care in place which, if doctors follow, insulate them from civil suit.
And, actually, because Obamacare provides different levels of deductibles, not ONE of which is a mere $500, people are going to be spending their OWN money for the first $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, etc. of their individual healthcare per year. They'll be more discerning consumers with these higher deductible plans. Less demand? Price will begin to reflect that. Patients are going to look askance a their doctors when they're paying $150 out of their own pockets for doctor visits.
And emergency rooms. There's plenty of room there to attack costs. Emergency rooms have become Medicaid doctors of choice. Sore throat? Let's get junior to the ER. Sliver? ER comin' up. Even Medicaid should have co-pays. And most especially, when ERs are used as primary care physicians. I've had occasion to go to the ER twice in the past five years. In both cases, it was a genuine emergency. Pain at level 12 . . . one an abscess; another a kidney stone. I waited five and three hours while kids were being treated for the flu, sore throats, bad colds, etc. That's just wrong.
Where I can agree with warren's sentiment Obamacare is about the same disaster as the health insurance industry his methods lack. First, the law was a compromise disaster. They tried to make something that would get republican votes and kept on making it harder on themselves to pass the thing because the dems were too weak to pass it on their own and defy their insurance company masters. So they went from fixing the problem of for profit medicine to forcing everyone into it to please their masters and get some republican support. If you want to stop the rising costs of health care you have to recognize that they rise because the health care providers are holding people hostage. Any competition from doctors who did not agree to the corporate mindset was driven out of existence because health insurance companies would not work with them depriving them of business and starving them.
The other thing warren ignores is there is some small regulation that came along with it that may help. Your health insurance company can no longer deny you because of pre-existing conditions. Seriously, doctors were coming up with terms like pre-cancer or pre-diabetes which meant you were not sick but that you were going to lose your coverage because you were high risk. People did not even make claims and get driopped. They went to their trusted doctor for a check up and got these conditions and no more health insurance. At least the ACA did address a few of these problems, and there is no chance that something will be passed again if Obamacare is trashed. The reps are not even bothering with an alternative because they know it is not necessary, and they do not want to restrict for profit health care.
There should be universal healthcare like we were promised which gives people medical care for their health. By allowing the government to do it you allow the government to apply cost reductions to the industry to stop the huge markups on hospital service, to eliminate the 15 middlemen all being paid to get in between you and your doctor, and to eliminate bonuses for executives and shareholder dividends from taking away from the care people pay for. Of course if you really love the health insurance companies that much we could always force them into NFP status and eliminate a lot of the waste.
the ACA is a disaster because it was warped by republicans into the fail monster it is. The dems shot themselves to let it happen, but the republicans were the force behind it's fail because they wanted it to be a disaster. If it is about to destroy the health insurance industry I am pretty good with a few people dying over that. I know, I am horrible, but the people may need a deadly lesson in the problems of for profit health coverage and insurance. Perhaps when they get sick of being ass raped by the healthcare companies they will do something about it.
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