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Would you support something like the following bipartisan health insurance plan

Would you support such a health insurance policy?

  • Yes, I am a Conservative and would support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, I am a Conservative and would not support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, I am a Liberal and would not support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, I am a Centrist and would support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, I am a Centrist and would not support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, I am a Moderate and would support it

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    2

laska

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1. Single payer 100% coverage for catastrophic
2/everything else cash/charity system


Catastrophic would cover such things as broken bones, prenatal care. Kids and elderly broader coverage such as must have immunizations, medical prescriptions, etc.

Cash would be for like visits to family doctors, scratches, bruises, flu, cosmetic surgery for vain purposes, laser eye surgery, abortions, birth control, etc.


As a Liberal would you support this compromise health bill where there is not full coverage like you may like as you will have to rely on charitable contribution to fund things like Planned Parenthood and for poor people to go on normal doctor visits, with the middle class and rich likely only having access to cosmetic surgery and other non emergency procedures, for exchange of having Conservative support for a single payer that 100% covers everything else.

As a Conservative would you overlook your abhorrence of government, and accept government health insurance already exists in the military, with politicians, Medicaid and Medicare, and pretty much the rest of the Western world, and this plan at least makes a cash system for non emergency health care so the emergency rooms and medical providers will not be crammed full because of "free" health care. Also you get the following benefits:

1. A huge cost of health care is the bureaucracy created to deal with myriads of insurance providers each with their own red tape regulations. A doctor posted on DP several years ago that in her clinic 75% of her employees deal solely with this. A single insurer and cash would have allowed her to eliminate a huge percentage of her costs.
2. A high percentage of health care costs are due to private health insurance companies having to pay shareholders dividends and have large advertising budgets to compete against the myriad of competitors out there. A public single payer does not charge profit or have to advertise.
3. Private insurers are for profit companies so they will always want to insure the young and healthy who don't really need insurance while those who really need it, they will always try and not cover.
4. It helps economic growth. Companies will no longer have to waste their time providing health insurance and can concentrate on real growth. Employees will no longer have to work at a job they may not like because that company has a better health care plan. So it adds much more fluidity to someone's career. If you have a pre-existing condition or over weight you will not have to worry about companies not hiring you because of the extra costs to their health care plans.
5. It helps economic growth part 2. All the employees currently working in the medical providers' bureaucracies that deal with multiple insurers as well as all the employees in the private health insurance industry will be freed up to work at something else which will eliminate inefficient bubbles in the economy and create greater GNP as they will create businesses or work in fields that create real wealth, which will increase gov. revenue as well as increase living standards across the board.
6. No one will have to worry about a serious illness in the family bankrupting you. There is no copay, no limits you have to worry about, no pre-existing condition worries.
 
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1/ Single payer 100% coverage for catastrophic
2/ Everything else cash/charity system




Catastrophic would cover such things as broken bones, prenatal care. Kids and elderly broader coverage such as must have immunizations, medical prescriptions, etc.


Cash would be for like visits to family doctors, scratches, bruises, flu, cosmetic surgery for vain purposes, laser eye surgery, abortions, birth control, etc.




As a Liberal would you support this compromise health bill where there is not full coverage like you may like as you will have to rely on charitable contribution to fund things like Planned Parenthood and for poor people to go on normal doctor visits, with the middle class and rich likely only having access to cosmetic surgery and other non emergency procedures, for exchange of having Conservative support for a single payer that 100% covers everything else.


As a Conservative would you overlook your abhorrence of government, and accept government health insurance already exists in the military, with politicians, Medicaid and Medicare, and pretty much the rest of the Western world, and this plan at least makes a cash system for non emergency health care so the emergency rooms and medical providers will not be crammed full because of "free" health care. Also you get the following benefits:


1. A huge cost of health care is the bureaucracy created to deal with myriads of insurance providers each with their own red tape regulations. A doctor posted on DP several years ago that in her clinic 75% of her employees deal solely with this. A single insurer and cash would have allowed her to eliminate a huge percentage of her costs.
2. A high percentage of health care costs are due to private health insurance companies having to pay shareholders dividends and have large advertising budgets to compete against the myriad of competitors out there. A public single payer does not charge profit or have to advertise.
3. Private insurers are for profit companies so they will always want to insure the young and healthy who don't really need insurance while those who really need it, they will always try and not cover.
4. It helps economic growth. Companies will no longer have to waste their time providing health insurance and can concentrate on real growth. Employees will no longer have to work at a job they may not like because that company has a better health care plan. So it adds much more fluidity to someone's career. If you have a pre-existing condition or over weight you will not have to worry about companies not hiring you because of the extra costs to their health care plans.
5. It helps economic growth part 2. All the employees currently working in the medical providers' bureaucracies that deal with multiple insurers as well as all the employees in the private health insurance industry will be freed up to work at something else which will eliminate inefficient bubbles in the economy and create greater GNP as they will create businesses or work in fields that create real wealth, which will increase gov. revenue as well as increase living standards across the board.
6. No one will have to worry about a serious illness in the family bankrupting you. There is no copay, no limits you have to worry about, no pre-existing condition worries.

Here's the deal. I am NOT a fan of single payer or government health care of ANY kind. That said we need to be honest with each other and point out that for this to happen it will require an amendment to our constitution. No bare majority votes but a straight up amendment so very few are grumbling like they are now at how they got hosed, because lets face it they and I did get hosed. If its proposed as an amendment then I will consider its merits. If its proposed like the last trash, forget about it.

On its face there would be some things that need to be worked out like, what is catastrophic? Is there limits, if so who imposes them and how ect. If it gets hashed out so 2/3s of congress and 3/4s of the states can agree on it then it may be something to at least try.
 
How could broken bones, immunization, etc. possibly fall under the heading of "catastrophic"?
 
1. Bureaucracy is the government's middle name. If one can be created, the bureaucratic boondoggle would be astounding.
2. Eliminating the health insurers will add how many people to the unemployment lines?
3. Define catastrophic. For some, catastrophic illness IS the flu. Others, the severing of limbs may or may not be.
4. Ongoing conditions such as diabetes, heart issues, even cholesterol can require ongoing prescriptions that could bankrupt a person.
5. Low income groups or disable people that can't afford even the most basic insurance premiums would, again, be subsidized by those able to afford premiums.
6. Government control of healthcare brings up that demon, 'death panels'. Does anyone really want a bureaucrat deciding if they deserve a heart transplant?
7. HIPPA? What's HIPPA? :wink:

And the list could go on and on.
 
Yes. I would support old-fashioned *insurance*, as we had in the 60's and 70's, as opposed to comprehensive coverage that we've had since the mid-70's, when congress made it mandatory.
 
I don't know if I should reply (not being a conservative, a socialist ("liberal"), a moderate, or a centrist). But OK, perhaps I can get away with it, as a moderate libertarian.

The current situation is pathological, and the Obamacare just made it worse, by deepening the dependence of health care consumers on two giant serf-serving bureaucracies - of the government and of the so-called insurance companies (as if you could "insure" against routine medical expenses or against getting older). The medical market is distorted, cornered ten times over, and underperforming miserably.

So, having a limited national coverage and expanding, at the same time, the normal no-parasitic-intermediaries cash-based transactions between actual patients and doctors/nurses/drug-makers does sound attractive. But I don't think the acts of Congress and Medicaid panels should decide what is "catastrophic" and what is "mere" manageable diabetes, for example.

I think another form of "single payer" would be preferable: The government cutting an annual check for medical expenses to every citizen, for a fixed sum (the poor people currently eligible for Medicaid getting more) and otherwise staying the hell out the way. Some restrictions on what is "medical" still would have to apply (no aromatherapy and other such nonsense), but basically the decision-making would be entirely between the patient and the doctor. Money unused should be allowed to accumulate over years and turn into plain cash at some maturation date.

This would allow us to scrap the parasitic intermediaries, boost the medical markets, and reverse the unnatural tendency of prices in those markets to climb indefinitely. Insurance companies will be still very welcome to offer actual catastrophic insurance (which does make perfect sense) - for accidents, rare infectious diseases, etc.

(Of course, there is approximately zero chance that either of these plans, or anything similar, will see the light of day in the current political climate).
 
I don't know if I should reply (not being a conservative, a socialist ("liberal"), a moderate, or a centrist). But OK, perhaps I can get away with it, as a moderate libertarian.

I always feel so left out in these poll questions. :lol:
 
1. Bureaucracy is the government's middle name. If one can be created, the bureaucratic boondoggle would be astounding.
2. Eliminating the health insurers will add how many people to the unemployment lines?
3. Define catastrophic. For some, catastrophic illness IS the flu. Others, the severing of limbs may or may not be.
4. Ongoing conditions such as diabetes, heart issues, even cholesterol can require ongoing prescriptions that could bankrupt a person.
5. Low income groups or disable people that can't afford even the most basic insurance premiums would, again, be subsidized by those able to afford premiums.
6. Government control of healthcare brings up that demon, 'death panels'. Does anyone really want a bureaucrat deciding if they deserve a heart transplant?
7. HIPPA? What's HIPPA? :wink:

And the list could go on and on.

With regard to #6, a bureaucrat already DOES decide if you get a new heart or not. It's just that person works for a company whose profits grow if they deny you the new heart.
 
With regard to #6, a bureaucrat already DOES decide if you get a new heart or not. It's just that person works for a company whose profits grow if they deny you the new heart.

No, he doesn't. Those arrangements are made between me and my doctor. If I had to hock every last thing I owned pay for it, I could get it no matter if the insurance says aye or nay. You get the government involved, and that goes right out the door.

Insurance is a method of payment, and that is all.
 
No, he doesn't. Those arrangements are made between me and my doctor. If I had to hock every last thing I owned pay for it, I could get it no matter if the insurance says aye or nay. You get the government involved, and that goes right out the door.

Insurance is a method of payment, and that is all.

Government insurance isn't any different from private insurance. Just because Medicare doesn't cover something, doesn't mean you can't get the procedure done. It's just about whether you could afford it on your own.

Most people can't afford life-saving procedures, so no matter for whom the bureaucrat works, the bureaucrat still makes life or death decisions.
 
Government insurance isn't any different from private insurance. Just because Medicare doesn't cover something, doesn't mean you can't get the procedure done. It's just about whether you could afford it on your own.

Most people can't afford life-saving procedures, so no matter for whom the bureaucrat works, the bureaucrat still makes life or death decisions.

Considering the government subsidizes a number of hospitals, you don't think they could exercise control over who gets what done?

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I believe they could and will.

Cash prices for services vary greatly from insurance prices, been through it. And most hospitals will work with a person when something must happen. After all, we supposedly have a couple of million people who were uninsured for quite a few years, and they still manage to get treatment.
 
1. Bureaucracy is the government's middle name. If one can be created, the bureaucratic boondoggle would be astounding.
2. Eliminating the health insurers will add how many people to the unemployment lines?
3. Define catastrophic. For some, catastrophic illness IS the flu. Others, the severing of limbs may or may not be.
4. Ongoing conditions such as diabetes, heart issues, even cholesterol can require ongoing prescriptions that could bankrupt a person.
5. Low income groups or disable people that can't afford even the most basic insurance premiums would, again, be subsidized by those able to afford premiums.
6. Government control of healthcare brings up that demon, 'death panels'. Does anyone really want a bureaucrat deciding if they deserve a heart transplant?
7. HIPPA? What's HIPPA? :wink:

And the list could go on and on.

In regards to #2, having inefficient bubbles in the workforce is long term very negative. To see it, think of an agrarian society in the past. It took everyone, 100% employment, to just feed everyone. Then someone has an idea to invent machinery that when successfully commercialized only 1% of the workforce is needed to produce food. These 99% would be out of a job, should then the commercialization of the machinery be blocked? What it actually does is free up the labor to increase additional national wealth. Some of those ex-farmers will build brick houses so many of the people no longer have to live in huts. Others open clothing factories, etc, etc. The same with ex-private health insurance employees. They will have their labor capital re-directed from something inefficient to something that creates real wealth. In the long term everyone wins. This greater economic growth by freeing up inefficient labor capital increase government revenue, lowers debt, increases living standards across the board. You can take this principle throughout government. If technology and world class managerial policies can allow a government bureaucracy to do their job just as well or better with a reduction of say 60% in costs and reduction in employees, it benefits society long term. There needs to be a very wise job training and welfare program that quickly re-directs this capital labor to more efficient areas where it is needed. The problem is we do not have this type of job education and welfare program, and we have politicians who will not be willing to risk their jobs short term by implementing such an efficiency program. So we keep putting it off until all of these bubbles with all of the debt keep building towards economic disaster..
 
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