The new BO health care plan (Page 5)

Guess what, same thing happens with private insurance ( unhealthy people raising rates for healthy in the group ).  It happened at my company when we were much smaller. 

So, I don't buy that as a valid reason to toss out the idea of universal health care.  It is definitely an issue that should be looked at, but it's an issue that is faced regardless of whether you have a private health care system or a public one.

Instead of TAXING rich people to pay for the system. Why not set up tax breaks for the wealthy and have them funnel money into a charitable organization of their choice and have the non-profits help with medical bills? It does not have to be crazy tax breaks but could work like a HSA.. say, you can give 1% tax free on your check to said orginization on your check, have it direct deposited to the Org. Then you count it as a charitable contribution on your taxes at the end of the year....

I would think more people would give if you do not penalize them with a tax... It has been prven that more people give during boom times than in recessions... Taxes work the same way... If you are taxed more, you give less... same concept.

The the Org could pay for bills that the indigent could not.

AND you still have to get the people who can pay something into the plan, get freakin health insurance... If you can afford a $500 car payment, cable TV, a cell phone, and smokes, and or alcohol you can afford to get health insurance on yourself....

There are many others who spend more then we do and there are many other countries where the difference is a few hundred dollars a person.  I do think some European countries do it better then we do, but it's not true that we spend the 2nd most per capita. 

No flaming needed.  I completely get your point of view.  The US is one of a hand full of countries that is able to provide a high quality of care to a large group of people.  Your system is flawed, but so is ours and frankly I don't think a perfect system exists.  The question is and always will be with the issue of healthcare what are we willing to comprimise and what are we not.  In the end no matter what is decided someone gets worse service because of it and someone gets better service.  How to balance those is a philisophical question jsut as much as it is a practical question.   

Tripolar - 2009-06-26 11:32 AM

PennState - 2009-06-26 7:45 AM The current US system is broken. The current solutions people are looking at seem quite worrisome to me. Canada's system is not an ideal one to compare with... it is not as highly rated as many in Europe and is the 2nd most expensive per capita next to the USA.

I don't have the answer, but am very concerned about what Obama (and much more concerned about what liberal Dems like Pelosi are debating) is debating.

Again, to help dispel myths... Cancer patienst are not thrown to the wolves without insurance. To imply this is ignorant. I can tell you in Central PA what happens if someone has no insurance with cancer...

1. There is a strong attempt to retro-actively get medical assitance for the course of her treatment. This is often the best and most used approach.
2. Long-term payment plans. We do this knowing full-well that we are not going to get paid in full. We accept this.
3. Charitable groups. Many groups in our area help raise money or donate money to individuals needing cancer treatment without insurance.
4. Pro-bono. We do this at a complete loss when other options are exhausted. Yes I have done surgery for a complete loss in these cases. Never have I said "but I am not getting paid" never have I said "you will just have to suffer through your cancer"

I will not speak for all of the USA, but I think it is completely erroneous to say that we let un-insured cancer patients die without therapy. We try our best.

I was the one that implied this in the other thread -- well, not implied, I out and out stated it -- and for that I apologize.  I didn't realize there were so many other avenues available.

However, wouldn't a universal solution be better for you as a doctor, since then there would never be any question about what payment avenue to follow?  And wouldn't it cut way down on paperwork/bureaucracy, since no one would need to spend their time working through all the different options?

Uh no... easy question... Do you want the government telling you what you can make???? Ask any government employee and they will tell you heck no.
Why would a doctor spend all those years in college and going thru the crap of residency, hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans just to turn around and have the government say under the universal healthcare system you can only make $85,000 a year or less.
Take a look at public defenders.. I know here in NC they can make as little as $45,000 a year. There is not way I would go thru all of that college and the cost of student loans to make as much as someone that works at the AT&T store...

You take away the incentive to make money and a lot (note I did not say all) of people will not go into that profession... just look at teachers...

the way you have to keep health care low is to control the costs... i.e. salaries, expenses, research.
Alot of the incentive for drug companies to develope drugs is the amount they can make in profit... ie ED drugs, sinus drugs etc. And there is actually a lot of cross drugs that are found out to help other symptoms that if not developed for one thing to make a profit, would not have been found out to help the other...

You take a way the incentive to make a profit and the desire to make innovations will go away.... Yes there will be some people that will do stuff for the good of human kind, but the majority of us wants to make some money for our trouble... There have been a lot of medical innovations made by companies for the purpose of profits... not life threatining drugs for cancer, aids etc... but for drugs that help people everyday that may not have even been developed if some government agency said the drug was low on the totem pole list and we cannot fund that program at this time... think how far down the ploe drugs to prevent pregnancies would be or that little blue pill for that matter....

again just look at how the government psends money in other things it controls, that is how you know what you will get with universal healthcare.

I don't buy that arguement.  Med school is just as competative in Canada as it is in the US.  And when you take into account the lower cost of malpractice insurance doctors make similar amounts of money in Canada.  There are many specialties here where the average wage is in excess of $400,000 a year and a few where the average is over 1 million a year (neuro-surgons as an example).

Not no one but I am sure there would be less to graduate...

As a doctor in the state of TN (I can only speak to this state and laws) you can refuse to treat non-emergency medicare and tncare (the states medical welfare program) or offer services to them. Because yes, they do only allow certain charges for certain services. And the ones that do treat them can pass the losses onto regular folks.

simple econ 101... If it costs $100 for a X-ray and the government will only pay $50 for a medicare patient. The doctor either eats the other $50 or passes the costs to other patients thru charging them a little xtra... The fact that the government will only pay $50 does not change real cost of the x-ray. A doctor can only eat so many $50 charges before he realizes he needs to get out of the business because it is not worth it.
So then I guess the government tells the Xray company what they can charge to the doctor because $100 is too much and the government will not pay that. So then the xray company charges less because they know the government will not pay the full $100... so they make less and since it costs money to develope new technology... where will the funds to come up with the 3D xray come from? The company does not have it because they had to slash the profits because the government will only pay $50 for a xray and that is all the doctor can charge...
so now where will the company get money to develope and buy new machines... Oh I know, thru a government grant!!!

Where does the government grant come from to pay for new R&D and more machines???

TAX DOLLARS.... ding ding ding... so the government raises taxes (see premiums on your medical) to pay for grants for industries to develope faster and more advanced machines to keep the costs down so the companies can sell the machines for less, to the doctors who can only chage $50 dollars for the xray because that is all that a doctor will get from the government..

That is the simple econ 101 of how the government would keep the cost of healthcare down

If you really do not think that is how it works.. Ask the milk producers how they get government subsidies to keep the price of milk affordable....

I knew it was that way in TN... thanks for chiming in Derek

Ding Ding Ding we have a WINNER!