Abbott to scrap health plans under Obamacare

Quote




Anonymous said:
Nobody should ever have to lose their house to medical bills after losing their job. Medical costs are the single most common reason that people file bankruptcy. Nobody should have to go bankrupt because they got sick and didn't have medical insurance.
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Don't worry. After Obamacare monthly premiums hit you, now delayed until after the elections, you unless you are very rich you won't be able to afford a house to loose.
 








This is a great thing. Companies will not pay for your healthcare, and should not pay for your healthcare. They should pay you a salary and you should go buy your own healthcare. Big companies hate this because they'll have to pay higher salaries to remain competitive . What Miles specifically hates about this is its going to reduce healthcare costs - abbotts bread and butter. The following logic:

Say your company paid for your groceries, and got a tax break for paying for your groceries. Some of us would choose the whole foods plan, some of us would choose the Costco plan. But a lot more people would choose the Whole Foods than who would normally shop at Whole Foods if it came out of our own pocket, because it was being subsidized by your company, who was getting a huge tax break. JNJ gets a bright idea of offering all employees the Whole Foods plan at a cheap rate, to lure and retain employees - its cheaper than paying higher salaries (because of tax break). Executives get fully subsidized whole foods plans. Abbott follows suit. Eventually you get to the point where you have very generous plans that are inflating at a ridiculously high rate, because their no incentive to keep them low (if companies are ok paying these rates). Why do companies Ok with paying this high rate? The tax break is an incentive, and it is preferable to paying a higher salary.

So say we tax the hell out of the whole foods plans. The companies are like - forget it, we'll just give you money to buy your whole foods plan. What are people going to do? They're going to say pay me like I'm buying a whole foods plan, and then go buy a costco plan, because that's good enough for me, and pocket the difference. Whole foods eventually starts introducing cheaper food into their stores, because there's no tax break inflating their demand. Whole foods plan becomes cheaper. Costco senses the competition, waves their membership fee. Costco plan gets cheaper.

Abbott in the above story - we're stuff that whole foods is selling, who will get replaced by cheaper items. So yes, we will be impacted by Obamacare. BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS THE MORONS ON THIS BOARD ARE DISCUSSING. Abbott bottom line will be impacted because of lower healthcare costs, not because of taxes on insurance plans.

A tax break is just a subsidy (government spending ) in another form. There are conservatives that like to paint unions as greedy and lazy (which I dont dispute), but at the same time insist on their company paying for their healthcare - which is ridiculous. They are both advocating corporate welfare.

Bring on 2018!
 




Anonymous said:
This is a great thing. Companies will not pay for your healthcare, and should not pay for your healthcare. They should pay you a salary and you should go buy your own healthcare. Big companies hate this because they'll have to pay higher salaries to remain competitive . What Miles specifically hates about this is its going to reduce healthcare costs - abbotts bread and butter. The following logic:

Say your company paid for your groceries, and got a tax break for paying for your groceries. Some of us would choose the whole foods plan, some of us would choose the Costco plan. But a lot more people would choose the Whole Foods than who would normally shop at Whole Foods if it came out of our own pocket, because it was being subsidized by your company, who was getting a huge tax break. JNJ gets a bright idea of offering all employees the Whole Foods plan at a cheap rate, to lure and retain employees - its cheaper than paying higher salaries (because of tax break). Executives get fully subsidized whole foods plans. Abbott follows suit. Eventually you get to the point where you have very generous plans that are inflating at a ridiculously high rate, because their no incentive to keep them low (if companies are ok paying these rates). Why do companies Ok with paying this high rate? The tax break is an incentive, and it is preferable to paying a higher salary.

So say we tax the hell out of the whole foods plans. The companies are like - forget it, we'll just give you money to buy your whole foods plan. What are people going to do? They're going to say pay me like I'm buying a whole foods plan, and then go buy a costco plan, because that's good enough for me, and pocket the difference. Whole foods eventually starts introducing cheaper food into their stores, because there's no tax break inflating their demand. Whole foods plan becomes cheaper. Costco senses the competition, waves their membership fee. Costco plan gets cheaper.

Abbott in the above story - we're stuff that whole foods is selling, who will get replaced by cheaper items. So yes, we will be impacted by Obamacare. BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS THE MORONS ON THIS BOARD ARE DISCUSSING. Abbott bottom line will be impacted because of lower healthcare costs, not because of taxes on insurance plans.

A tax break is just a subsidy (government spending ) in another form. There are conservatives that like to paint unions as greedy and lazy (which I dont dispute), but at the same time insist on their company paying for their healthcare - which is ridiculous. They are both advocating corporate welfare.

Bring on 2018!
Click to expand...

I agree but they also need to do something about the price gouging from the hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies. That is the real problem with healthcare in the USA.
 




Anonymous said:
This is a great thing. Companies will not pay for your healthcare, and should not pay for your healthcare. They should pay you a salary and you should go buy your own healthcare. Big companies hate this because they'll have to pay higher salaries to remain competitive . What Miles specifically hates about this is its going to reduce healthcare costs - abbotts bread and butter. The following logic:

Say your company paid for your groceries, and got a tax break for paying for your groceries. Some of us would choose the whole foods plan, some of us would choose the Costco plan. But a lot more people would choose the Whole Foods than who would normally shop at Whole Foods if it came out of our own pocket, because it was being subsidized by your company, who was getting a huge tax break. JNJ gets a bright idea of offering all employees the Whole Foods plan at a cheap rate, to lure and retain employees - its cheaper than paying higher salaries (because of tax break). Executives get fully subsidized whole foods plans. Abbott follows suit. Eventually you get to the point where you have very generous plans that are inflating at a ridiculously high rate, because their no incentive to keep them low (if companies are ok paying these rates). Why do companies Ok with paying this high rate? The tax break is an incentive, and it is preferable to paying a higher salary.

So say we tax the hell out of the whole foods plans. The companies are like - forget it, we'll just give you money to buy your whole foods plan. What are people going to do? They're going to say pay me like I'm buying a whole foods plan, and then go buy a costco plan, because that's good enough for me, and pocket the difference. Whole foods eventually starts introducing cheaper food into their stores, because there's no tax break inflating their demand. Whole foods plan becomes cheaper. Costco senses the competition, waves their membership fee. Costco plan gets cheaper.

Abbott in the above story - we're stuff that whole foods is selling, who will get replaced by cheaper items. So yes, we will be impacted by Obamacare. BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS THE MORONS ON THIS BOARD ARE DISCUSSING. Abbott bottom line will be impacted because of lower healthcare costs, not because of taxes on insurance plans.

A tax break is just a subsidy (government spending ) in another form. There are conservatives that like to paint unions as greedy and lazy (which I dont dispute), but at the same time insist on their company paying for their healthcare - which is ridiculous. They are both advocating corporate welfare.

Bring on 2018!
Click to expand...

You are correct in part, but are missing the whole point as to why health care costs have gone up dramatically under Obamacare. And there are no forces at play that will lower costs. Quite the opposite.

Pre-WWII, most people paid cash for healthcare. The wealthy and the middle class sometimes bought health care policies for catastrophic things, but most people handled everyday visits and such on a cash bases. That did two things. First, you didn't run to the doctor or emergency room for every little thing, as we do today. Second, market forces naturally kept costs down to what most could afford. There was negotiation as well between provider and patient, and breaks given to those with little or no ability to pay.

After WWII, to attract and retain employees, employer provided everyday health insurance because common, and grew into what we have today.

Today there are two key differences. First, because very few if any pay cash for services, the vast majority have little idea of the real cost of healthcare. We have become accustom to using it whenever we want to with out regard to cost. Second, because the patient's has no involvement in the cost side of healthcare anymore, there is no correlation between their ability to pay and the cost of service, and the "negotiation" of healthcare cost is between the service providers and the payer, who are both larger entities that the patient in just about all cases.

I'm not discounting other factors, like the availability of so much more within healthcare, from drugs to procedures, or litigation, which in and and of itself have driven costs up. But the first two items in the paragraph above speak to market forces.

Now I agree that if employers got out of providing healthcare, theoretically they could shift some portion of their contribution towards employee's healthcare into compensation, and realize a savings at the same time by simplifying HR.

You are right that Obamacare is intended to foster employers to dump healthcare in this fashion.

But you are dead wrong that this will lower healthcare costs. In Obamacare, the government has legislated what kind of insurance everyone must have, as well as costs and other factors that should be market driven. One size fits all. Obamacare is essentially socialism, and it puts the federal government in the healthcare business buy controlling the market.

A better solution would be for the government to require that everyone has healthcare, but stay out of the actual business of healthcare. It would be better to reduce the regulations and allow healthcare providers to compete for customers, across state lines, by providing all kinds of options and coverage plans that best meet the needs of people. If there is a minimum standard policy, it should be the basics only, and people can then layer on what they need. If you want to keep you kid on past college, you pay more. If you smoke and are a higher health risk, you pay more.

Relieving employers from providing healthcare, done correctly, puts money in employees pockets to buy insurance. As Obamacare is set up today, does the opposite, and increases healthcare costsm which are not off-set by increased compensation.

Allowing market forces to work with guidelines and some regulation means there will be competition for customers, which will keep costs in check. And because the compensation shifted from employer to employee will not be quite enough, the patient will get back involved in costs with the service provided, and the service provider will have to adjust their costs to they will have enough patients to serve.

Obamacare is like requiring everyone has auto insurance, with the exact same coverage. If you have a clunker worth $2,000, or a brand new car, you have to have full collision. Weather you own a car, or just have a license to drive one, you pay the same premium, based on a new $40,000 car. That would make auto insurance unaffordable for just about everyone.

Obamacare is not intended to "fix" healthcare. It's about government control.
 












Anonymous said:
You are correct in part, but are missing the whole point as to why health care costs have gone up dramatically under Obamacare. And there are no forces at play that will lower costs. Quite the opposite.

Pre-WWII, most people paid cash for healthcare. The wealthy and the middle class sometimes bought health care policies for catastrophic things, but most people handled everyday visits and such on a cash bases. That did two things. First, you didn't run to the doctor or emergency room for every little thing, as we do today. Second, market forces naturally kept costs down to what most could afford. There was negotiation as well between provider and patient, and breaks given to those with little or no ability to pay.

After WWII, to attract and retain employees, employer provided everyday health insurance because common, and grew into what we have today.

Today there are two key differences. First, because very few if any pay cash for services, the vast majority have little idea of the real cost of healthcare. We have become accustom to using it whenever we want to with out regard to cost. Second, because the patient's has no involvement in the cost side of healthcare anymore, there is no correlation between their ability to pay and the cost of service, and the "negotiation" of healthcare cost is between the service providers and the payer, who are both larger entities that the patient in just about all cases.

I'm not discounting other factors, like the availability of so much more within healthcare, from drugs to procedures, or litigation, which in and and of itself have driven costs up. But the first two items in the paragraph above speak to market forces.

Now I agree that if employers got out of providing healthcare, theoretically they could shift some portion of their contribution towards employee's healthcare into compensation, and realize a savings at the same time by simplifying HR.

You are right that Obamacare is intended to foster employers to dump healthcare in this fashion.

But you are dead wrong that this will lower healthcare costs. In Obamacare, the government has legislated what kind of insurance everyone must have, as well as costs and other factors that should be market driven. One size fits all. Obamacare is essentially socialism, and it puts the federal government in the healthcare business buy controlling the market.

A better solution would be for the government to require that everyone has healthcare, but stay out of the actual business of healthcare. It would be better to reduce the regulations and allow healthcare providers to compete for customers, across state lines, by providing all kinds of options and coverage plans that best meet the needs of people. If there is a minimum standard policy, it should be the basics only, and people can then layer on what they need. If you want to keep you kid on past college, you pay more. If you smoke and are a higher health risk, you pay more.

Relieving employers from providing healthcare, done correctly, puts money in employees pockets to buy insurance. As Obamacare is set up today, does the opposite, and increases healthcare costsm which are not off-set by increased compensation.

Allowing market forces to work with guidelines and some regulation means there will be competition for customers, which will keep costs in check. And because the compensation shifted from employer to employee will not be quite enough, the patient will get back involved in costs with the service provided, and the service provider will have to adjust their costs to they will have enough patients to serve.

Obamacare is like requiring everyone has auto insurance, with the exact same coverage. If you have a clunker worth $2,000, or a brand new car, you have to have full collision. Weather you own a car, or just have a license to drive one, you pay the same premium, based on a new $40,000 car. That would make auto insurance unaffordable for just about everyone.

Obamacare is not intended to "fix" healthcare. It's about government control.
Click to expand...

Obamacare prevents market forces from working for exactly the reasons you point out. "Necessity is the mother of all invention." If health insurance was deregulated, and mandated, insurers would create all kinds of ways to lower costs and be more competitive by tailoring coverage to meet specific consumer needs. If the end user had a direct involvement in paying for services, rather than some faceless entity, there would be competition and other market forces at work with the people providing the service, like doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.

Obamacare is destined to fail, or if it manages to be somewhat operational at some point, as efficient and cost effective as the DMV to USPS. In other words, always in the red and needing ever more tax dollars, with mediocre service, long waits, errors, and frustration.
 




Anonymous said:
Obamacare prevents market forces from working for exactly the reasons you point out. "Necessity is the mother of all invention." If health insurance was deregulated, and mandated, insurers would create all kinds of ways to lower costs and be more competitive by tailoring coverage to meet specific consumer needs. If the end user had a direct involvement in paying for services, rather than some faceless entity, there would be competition and other market forces at work with the people providing the service, like doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.

Obamacare is destined to fail, or if it manages to be somewhat operational at some point, as efficient and cost effective as the DMV to USPS. In other words, always in the red and needing ever more tax dollars, with mediocre service, long waits, errors, and frustration.
Click to expand...

The best way to lower total healthcare costs is get the end user directly involved in paying for the service, and those providing the service competing for customers. The insured should provide information to the insurance company for a service, not the service provider, and the insured should be reimbursed by the insurance company directly. The insured would then pay the provider. This does two things. First, it eliminates an entire layer and "middleman", which only adds cost. Second, it also simplifies and reduces costs for the provider.

In this model, insurance companies would structure policies and premiums based on the types of benefits the insured wants, and the desired level of coverage. Suppose plan A pays $50 per office visit, and plan B provides $90. Plan B cost more. Doc A may charge $100 per visit, and Doc B charges $70. The customer can pick the doc they want, with price being part of the decision making. If I want Plan A, but like Doc A, I have to pay $50 out of pocket. If Doc A needs more income, he can lower his costs to be more competitive. Or Doc C comes along and figures out how to provide a service more like Doc A, but at $75 per visit.

In this model, employers can offer health care funding rather than employer provided healthcare plans. Employer A offers employees $100 per month, while employer B wants to attract better employees and therefore offers $300 per month towards healthcare. This is a big savings to employers.

Insurance companies will compete directly with the end user, and the most successful would attract the most customers. Creative insurance companies could negotiate discounts with large employers or organizations, like AARP, for the employees or members, but the employee can still choose what plan and coverage levels they want.

If the government wants everyone to carry insurance, make the contribution from employers to employees tax deductible to the employer, and allow healthcare premiums to be pre-tax for the insured. All the government needs to do is provide reasonable regulations that keep everyone honest and provide consume protection against fraud, gouging, etc.

For less than $10B per year, less than we give annually to islamic terrorists like Egypt, the government could provide low cost and free insurance to those who truly can't afford it. But eliminate Medicate and Medicaid, and put that service out to bid to private insurers.
 




Anonymous said:
The best way to lower total healthcare costs is get the end user directly involved in paying for the service, and those providing the service competing for customers. The insured should provide information to the insurance company for a service, not the service provider, and the insured should be reimbursed by the insurance company directly. The insured would then pay the provider. This does two things. First, it eliminates an entire layer and "middleman", which only adds cost. Second, it also simplifies and reduces costs for the provider.
Click to expand...

This would also do one thing more: it would put the negotiation of costs squarely between the insured and the provider, encouraging negotiation, and letting normal market forces to come in to play. Providers of the best service would earn more business.
 




Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.

Anonymous said:
You are correct in part, but are missing the whole point as to why health care costs have gone up dramatically under Obamacare. And there are no forces at play that will lower costs. Quite the opposite.

Pre-WWII, most people paid cash for healthcare. The wealthy and the middle class sometimes bought health care policies for catastrophic things, but most people handled everyday visits and such on a cash bases. That did two things. First, you didn't run to the doctor or emergency room for every little thing, as we do today. Second, market forces naturally kept costs down to what most could afford. There was negotiation as well between provider and patient, and breaks given to those with little or no ability to pay.

After WWII, to attract and retain employees, employer provided everyday health insurance because common, and grew into what we have today.

Today there are two key differences. First, because very few if any pay cash for services, the vast majority have little idea of the real cost of healthcare. We have become accustom to using it whenever we want to with out regard to cost. Second, because the patient's has no involvement in the cost side of healthcare anymore, there is no correlation between their ability to pay and the cost of service, and the "negotiation" of healthcare cost is between the service providers and the payer, who are both larger entities that the patient in just about all cases.

I'm not discounting other factors, like the availability of so much more within healthcare, from drugs to procedures, or litigation, which in and and of itself have driven costs up. But the first two items in the paragraph above speak to market forces.

Now I agree that if employers got out of providing healthcare, theoretically they could shift some portion of their contribution towards employee's healthcare into compensation, and realize a savings at the same time by simplifying HR.

You are right that Obamacare is intended to foster employers to dump healthcare in this fashion.

But you are dead wrong that this will lower healthcare costs. In Obamacare, the government has legislated what kind of insurance everyone must have, as well as costs and other factors that should be market driven. One size fits all. Obamacare is essentially socialism, and it puts the federal government in the healthcare business buy controlling the market.

A better solution would be for the government to require that everyone has healthcare, but stay out of the actual business of healthcare. It would be better to reduce the regulations and allow healthcare providers to compete for customers, across state lines, by providing all kinds of options and coverage plans that best meet the needs of people. If there is a minimum standard policy, it should be the basics only, and people can then layer on what they need. If you want to keep you kid on past college, you pay more. If you smoke and are a higher health risk, you pay more.

Relieving employers from providing healthcare, done correctly, puts money in employees pockets to buy insurance. As Obamacare is set up today, does the opposite, and increases healthcare costsm which are not off-set by increased compensation.

Allowing market forces to work with guidelines and some regulation means there will be competition for customers, which will keep costs in check. And because the compensation shifted from employer to employee will not be quite enough, the patient will get back involved in costs with the service provided, and the service provider will have to adjust their costs to they will have enough patients to serve.

Obamacare is like requiring everyone has auto insurance, with the exact same coverage. If you have a clunker worth $2,000, or a brand new car, you have to have full collision. Weather you own a car, or just have a license to drive one, you pay the same premium, based on a new $40,000 car. That would make auto insurance unaffordable for just about everyone.

Obamacare is not intended to "fix" healthcare. It's about government control.
Click to expand...
 




Anonymous said:
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.
Click to expand...

Anonymous said:
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.
Click to expand...

We really need universal healthcare. The prices of the prescriptions are too high in this country.
 




Quote: Originally Posted by Anonymous
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.

Quote: Originally Posted by Anonymous
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.

We really need universal healthcare. The prices of the prescriptions are too high in this country.

I agree this is a joke. The prices are too high.
Anonymous said:
We really need universal healthcare. The prices of the prescriptions are too high in this country.
Click to expand...
 




Anonymous said:
Quote: Originally Posted by Anonymous
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.

Quote: Originally Posted by Anonymous
Couple of things inconsistent with your argument. If you use the car insurance analogy to healthcare, then you have to apply it in terms of how healthcare insurance and paying for medical care works today. Applying that analogy - yes, we could all have different levels of insurance depending on what kind of Auto we have, but the contrast with healtchare insurance is that there is no law stating that a auto repair shop has to fix your car regardless of whether or not you have insurance.

With healthcare, we do have hospitals paying for the uninsured, because the laws under EMTALA make it illegal to turn away patients seeking emergency illegal care. These recouped costs are incorporated into higher hospital/medical fees, which are incorporated into higher premiums, which corporations are subsidizing at a tax break. So there's your government control. Of course we dont call preventing people from dying on hospital door steps 'government control', we call it the law. Of course, government control sounds a lot more nefarious than the law.

Also, you're confusing higher premiums with higher medical costs. Yes, there is about 5-10% of insured who have to pay higher premiums because their insurance plan didnt meet the minimum requirements of coverage. Healthcare costs on the other hand, have stabilized as a percentage of overall GDP. The higher premiums as a result of increased coverage ensures that the risk is being pooled among people who dont need that insurance, otherwise we go right back to the situation of paying for underinsured individuals through the hidden costs in higher premiums. The rate shock, or higher premiums is initially expected, until enough uninsured healthy people enter the system.

We really need universal healthcare. The prices of the prescriptions are too high in this country.

I agree this is a joke. The prices are too high.
Click to expand...

The prices are really low.
 




















Anonymous said:
Am I to interpret "libtard" as an accolade and not an insult, then? Pot calling the kettle black. I take it "logic" was never your forte.
Click to expand...

No, you're right, "libtard" is very non-PC. Perhaps "logically challenged", "progressive", or maybe "socialist" is nicer? By the way, calling the kettle black is racist.
 




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