News flash… we are already paying for the uninsured… So for all those out there who hate Universal Health Care because they don’t want their hard earned dollars to help some crack head who ended up in the emergency room because of an overdose, guess what… you already are. You just don’t have anyone on your side regulating whether or not that crack head is going to get a free MRI while he’s in there.
It’s pretty simple really… the hospital isn’t going to eat the cost of covering the uninsured… they just increase the cost of the services that they charge the insurance companies to cover the costs of treating the uninsured. The insurance company certainly isn’t going to eat the costs… they pass that cost onto employers who pay for the insurance. The employer isn’t going to eat that cost. Instead they are going to go to their employees and unions and say that because healthcare costs are so high they have to cut wages.
So in the end you’re already paying for the overdosing crack head! And you’re going to keep on paying for every visit they have to the ER. So the question becomes how do you want to pay for it? Do you want the crack head to be able to get chemical dependency treatment before the overdose, or at least afterwards, so that he might actually do something other than be a leach on society? Maybe have a chance to clean up his act, get a job, pay some taxes… or just keep on paying the ER fees.
Honestly I know that most of the Republicans I know are reading this and saying, “put a bullet in the crack head and stop wasting my money”. As much as my NRA supporting, octagon loving, blood lusting republican friends would like to see it happen… preferably on network television or at least pay-per-view… we’re not going to start shooting the uninsured. Besides as soon as you start costing more than you and your employer are paying for your health care you’re going to be one of the uninsured.
By the way, employer provided health care is a bunch of crap. If you want to change jobs then you have to pay a boat load of money to cover the cobra costs while you wait for your new insurance to kick in, then you’re terrified that they are going to find a preexisting condition at which point you can’t get insurance. Speaking of which even people who are insured are terrified of going to the doctor because if they find something then our insurance company will drop us. Talk about ludicrous. What’s the point of preventative maintenance if we’re too scared to get it done. If we felt like our health care system was actually here to help us become healthier people then maybe we’d go every once in a while instead of waiting for something to be so painful we can’t take it anymore.
The thing that irritates me the most is the republicans are just repeating what their conservative right wing talking heads are telling them to say. And the right wing talking heads are just saying what the current health care industry wants them to say:
- There isn’t a single government agency or division that runs efficiently; do we really want an organization that developed the U.S. Tax Code handling something as complex as health care?
Really? I’ve always loved this one. What is inefficient? Do the police and fire departments not show up when called? Does our military not bomb the heck out of people when we ask them to? Speaking of the overly complicated U.S. Tax Code… isn’t it so messed up because it was designed by a bunch of Republicans trying to figure out how to help their buddies hide their money from a bunch of tree hugging liberals who wanted to spend their money on crazy ideas like education and job creation? If there’s a bunch of pork in government then tell us where it is and cut it. Democrates aren’t against getting rid of waste. We just don’t like it when you call education waste. I know you’d rather put the money into important things like building higher walls between here and Mexico (build the wall as high as you want, but if you had a better education you’d know that they’re digging the tunnels under the walls.
- “Free” health care isn’t really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.
You’re paying for it either way. It’s just a matter of whether you pay for it with tax dollars or through higher premiums. Question is do you want to pay preventive to make people healty and more productive, or reactive in the ER to just keep people alive and returning to the ER more frequently.
- Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness.
Really? So when the financial system collapsed due to eight years of deregulation and some far out “ingenuity” was that the greater cost control and effectiveness you were talking about? Here’s the problem I have with this statement… If a company is publicly traded then their stakeholders expect a return on their investment. That return is extra money that they get that they didn’t have to pay out. The government doesn’t have a ROI. Which means they don’t have to take in as much money. Also they have a larger bargaining position that any one insurance company can have so they can demand better pricing for what they want because they get to buy it in bulk, plus they get to be more diversified in their claims. They can spread the high costs of treating the small group of sick people across a larger number of healthy people which means it’s cheaper for everyone.
- Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility.
How is this any different than private insurance controlled health care? The only difference is that currently our employers get to decide who our health care company is. If we had a government run health care organization then we would at least be able to elect the representatives we believe would oversee our healthcare.
- Patients aren’t likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.
So in the previous complaint you don’t want government telling you how to manage your healthcare and now you’re complaining because government won’t tell you how to manage your healthcare? Private health care tells you who is in your network and the insurance company tells you whether or not a procedure or drug is covered. Ideally Government would do the same thing, but the government wants to put together a oversight board to determine the best course of action given a medical situation. Currently doctors have to trust the drug companies to tell them what the best solution is and that’s not a very unbiased opinion.
- Just because Americans are uninsured doesn’t mean they can’t receive health care; nonprofits and government-run hospitals provide services to those who don’t have insurance, and it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service because of a lack of insurance.
Thank you for reiterating my above point. We are already paying for it we just don’t have any control over it.
- Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care.
Currently doctors have studies done by pharmaceutical companies to help them decide on patient care. Not surprisingly most medical solutions come with a prescription. Government run programs can aggregate data from electronic records to determine in an unbiased way what solutions actually work. Giving a doctor a solution that works is not the same thing as reducing their flexibility.
- Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
As stated above everyone who pays for health insurance already pays for the sick people. It’s just a matter of whether they pay for them in a reactive manner or a proactive one. Besides the larger the group of insured people you have the less impact the sick people have on the costs of the healthy people. If we insure the entire nation then that is a well diversified group of people to spread those costs to.
- A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.
Well we better not do something if it’s going to be hard. Was it GM that said that for the past 30 years while they were slowly going bankrupt? Yes there is an entire industry that would go away as a result of universal health care and it would be a very painful process. The other option is we continue to lose our competitive edge in the global market because of rising health care costs. We end up spending so much on healthcare that we can’t manufacture or export a single product. Our trade deficit becomes overwhelming and the entire nation declares bankruptcy because we can’t pay off any of our debts to China… but it’s too hard to do so let’s not do it.
- Loss of private practice options and possible reduced pay may dissuade many would-be doctors from pursuing the profession.
If it’s government run then we as a people get to vote for our representatives who will be deciding how much to spend on healthcare. Just like we do with our military and our education. If we want better healthcare and more doctors then we as a nation will decide that we want to spend more of our tax money on it and we will let our representatives know that. We will get what we pay for, but at least we’ll be able to decide what’s important.
Ok so this has been a ridiculously long rant about health care and I welcome well thought out criticism of what I have put here. Feel free to inundate me with your ditto-head, garage-logic regurgitated crap if you feel that you have to. But, first let me add that I love my republican friends and I do respect their right to have their own opinion just as they respect my right to have mine. I am not a healthcare expert nor do I claim to be. This is a rant, my gut feeling on this subject and I although I believe the above to be common sense truth I may be completely off my knocker, but that’s why I vote for people who I believe are smarter and better able to deal with these types of issues. I work on computers and I’m good at it… I’m hoping that I’ve helped to elect people who are good at steering our country in the right direction in terms of healthcare, economy, national security, and all those many other things that go along with running this country of ours…
Pawlenty really ticks me off. He has spent the past six years destroying our states budget and splitting before the crap hits the fan. It’s one thing to balance the budget by cutting programs and scaling back on government. I can totally understand doing that. If there are programs that aren’t working then save the money and either put it into programs that are working or reduce revenues and let people keep their tax money. If people want more services from their government and are willing to pay for them then raise taxes. Just keep it balanced. Pretty simple.
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