New U.S. Healthcare Reform, No New Business for Insurance Co

[Ryadn]

I'm so sick of these incompetent democrats, and the liberal laws they propose. People should get health care from the government only if they need it.

Which is, strangely, why the national plan is being setup to work *alongside* private insurance. Apparently our good friends didn't read page 5.

[Ryadn]

Even if you find it, you'd also have to factor in that the wait is probably considerably longer for the 46 million uninsured and any other insured person that the Insurance Company feels like dropping to save a buck.

I always laugh when people talk about how healthcare will go down in quality if universal healthcare became available. It can't get any worse for everyone that doesn't have it at all, can it?

and since we are ALL one serious illness away from never having insurance again (pre-existing condition) more and more of the american public would rather have the government decide who gets what than to be blindsided by an insurance company deciding that you wont be covered even though you have paid your premiums on time for years.

Forget a serious illness. If I ever let my coverage lapse, no insurance company in the U.S. would ever take me again--not without paying more than I make, at any rate. I'm epileptic and dysthymic, I had back surgery at 18, and I once tried to kill myself. I take four prescription drugs a day--without insurance, I couldn't even foot the bill for meds, let alone appointments.

[Ryadn]

Even if you find it, you'd also have to factor in that the wait is probably considerably longer for the 46 million uninsured and any other insured person that the Insurance Company feels like dropping to save a buck.

I always laugh when people talk about how healthcare will go down in quality if universal healthcare became available. It can't get any worse for everyone that doesn't have it at all, can it?

On the contrary, I hope that Universal Healthcare will spur the Insurance companies into action, although I somehow doubt it.

Oh, they'll compete. Public education doesn't stifle private education. Isn't it odd that a good education is something that we don't leave to free market forces but health and survival we do?

Nope... but public education DOES have higher standards than private education. Something I hope the NHS emulates.

[Ryadn]

I'm not too proud to state right now and for the record that I will take any system that will give me access to reliable health care when I need it for less than the $260+/month I am paying now (a significant reduction from what I was paying a few months ago) plus deductibles and non-covered expenses, and I don't care if the plan booklet actually comes in a red cover with a gold star on it.

Jesus f-ing CHRIST! $260 a month?! Do you know how much I pay a month?

$32.

For that little amount, I can walk into my doctors office any time I please and have them look at me for any form of itch, burn, pain, soreness, broken bone or severed limb.

Additional treatments, pharmacuticals, specialists, dental, eyeglasses, physiotherapy, hell, even accupuncture and massage are covered by my plan at work, and generally cost me only a fraction of the whole price of the proceedure ($450 orthotics cost me... $100).

Why population paying hundreds of dollars a month for coverage would continue to support such a system when the government is offering to subsidize that cost just sounds... irrational to put it gently. Does the recession not put the pinch on your pocket books? :/

I pay around $500 per month for coverage, pay all mental health appointments out of pocket and send them in to be reimbursed (possibly, hopefully, unless any one of ten random excuses is found to further delay it) about 60% several months later.

I hate you both.

[Eofaerwic]

If the British National health Service sucks so bad, why is it still in place after what? half a century? Why didn't Thatcher slash it to the bone or get rid of it altogether? If it's that bad, surely it would have been repealed by now. The politician who spearheaded that movement

More accurately if any politician speardheaded getting rid of it they would be signing their own political suicide. Even the most libertarian wing of the Tories sees healthcare as one of the domains the government should take care of.

That's not to say it doesn't need reform - given that a perfect system is unlikley to occur, all systems will need looking at and reforming at different intervals. But the idea of getting rid of it is unthinkable.

[Fjorelberg]

I pay around $500 per month for coverage, pay all mental health appointments out of pocket and send them in to be reimbursed (possibly, hopefully, unless any one of ten random excuses is found to further delay it) about 60% several months later.

I hate you both.

$500 a month, and you pay all mental health appointments out of pocket?

I pay €95 (Roughly $130) a month and i pay nothing out of pocket. I just go where i need to go, they do what needs to be done and send the bill directly to my insurance. Usually i don't even get to see how much it costs.

[Eofaerwic]

indeed. i'm actually not sure what i pay per month, in terms of my National Insurance contribution, cos it automatically comes out of my wages on Pay (tax) As You Earn, but i can't imagine its much more than that (say, £50, considering my total taxes and student loan repayments, etc, total about £100 pcm)

Assuming your on the lowest tax bracket - I'd say about £35 of the £100 is National Insruance. I believe the standard rate is about 11% but that also includes social security/pension and you can opt out of part of it depending on your pension scheme.

So yes, probably under £35 a month. When I start work I'll probably pay considerably more, but then I'll be earning more and thus can afford it - seems faire to me. Especially since I've not been paying anything whilst I've been a student and I've still been covered for everything including getting an fMRI scan to check that nerve issues I've been having weren't due to anything serious such as MS (they weren't - as far as can be determined they're injury related). NOne of it cost me a penny, though I did have about a 3 month wait for the scan (seeing as it was non-urgent and all).

[Ashmoria]

You know that taxing the rich just gives them the incentive to move to where things are less expensive and they can buy what they want in other countries?

Who the heck are you going to tax for your national health care /socialized medicine if the rich emigrate and don't have to pay for your health care?

if the rich can emigrate, find a cheaper place to live AND no longer make their money in the US, then they should leave.

good luck to them.

[Treznor]

You know that taxing the rich just gives them the incentive to move to where things are less expensive and they can buy what they want in other countries?

Who the heck are you going to tax for your national health care /socialized medicine if the rich emigrate and don't have to pay for your health care?

Standard GOP talking point: driving rich people away with taxes. Check.

It's an interesting strawman, and certainly there are rich people willing to abandon their homes and communities in the interests of protecting their greed. But there are plenty of nations who have implemented high tax rates around the world, and somehow they still manage to make ends meet, don't they? For that matter, the US used to tax the highest tax bracket at 79% for many years before it was cut by Reagan, and Bush Jr. finally cut it to below 20% (I think it's around 15% now?). Suddenly, Obama is declared a Socialist for proposing that those taxes be returned to around 30%, what it was before the Bush administration. Because we all see how healthy the economy is after Bush Jr. managed it, right? Of course, that's not his fault, that's the fault of all the horrible legislation that was passed and never repealed by the GOP majority that dominated government during the Bush administration.

So, what's the next talking point? This is fun!

[Dakini]

Tell that to my dead grandfather. If he had gone to the private sector, he would still be alive.

I'm so sick of these incompetent democrats, and the liberal laws they propose. People should get health care from the government only if they need it.

My grandfather went in for routine surgery in the US (he lived there) where it's all private sector. He didn't make it out. What do you know, people die with private health care too.

[Dakini]

Also, I don't pay anything for most of my health care. Well, I pay something in between $100-200 for the health plan that covers most of the cost of prescription meds, dentist visits, $200 of vision costs, I mean, I have to pay for things but then I get reimbursed.

[Tiesabre]

I look forward to this as I suffer from two chronic diseases and no health insurance company would dare give me a break on health insurance. The only reason I've been able to get treated was because I was on my folks insurance, now that I've aged out...well things are much harder for me.

Thanks for making my life so much better and painless private sector.

[Sibirsky]

I live in BC

As someone who gets someone else to do her taxes every year, I'm not sure what my tax rate is, but if it helps, I've got this.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html
and this
http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/msp/infoben/premium.html

Even granted that being classified as lower income gives me a subsidy... Even paying full coverage for a large family would only be $108 a month...

Thank you, that's a lot of info.

[Allanea]

They quote it, but let's just say that IBD Editorials isn't exactly known for being objective in their propaganda.

Editorials are not supposed to be objective.

[Treznor]

They quote it, but let's just say that IBD Editorials isn't exactly known for being objective in their propaganda.

Editorials are not supposed to be objective.

Probably why using them as a valid source of news is unwise.

[Opola]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

[Tiesabre]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

[Opola]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

Bush put us into 600 billion USD deficit in 8 years, Obama has put another 400 billion USD into the deficit in 3 months!
And now with his health care proposal that is going to be another trillion.

[Opola]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

OOC: The true conservative way is much different than what his pathetic administration did.
Take a look and educate yourself before you talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservati ... ted_States

[Treznor]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

Bush put us into 600 billion USD deficit in 8 years, Obama has put another 400 billion USD into the deficit in 3 months!
And now with his health care proposal that is going to be another trillion.

No, Bush added over $1.2 trillion to the USD deficit. He simply omitted his military spending from his budget reports.

[Vervaria]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

OOC: The true conservative way is much different than what his pathetic administration did.
Take a look and educate yourself before you talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservati ... ted_States

So if conservatives didn't support him, who did?

[Opola]

OOC: I am afraid you are wrong Treznor, the defense budget is seperate from the fiscal budget. Besides, the way Obama is spending now he will surely surpass Bush's record in a year or so.

[Opola]

OOC: Ververia, I am not saying the Conservatives did not support him in 04' (which they did because he was running against strong liberals) but instead the true Conservative/Reagan Ideology is for less gov., less taxes not for more spending, more military.

[Vervaria]

OOC: Ververia, I am not saying the Conservatives did not support him in 04' (which they did because he was running against strong liberals) but instead the true Conservative/Reagan Ideology is for less gov., less taxes not for more spending, more military.

That's absolute bullshit. Government massively increased under Reagan, it didn't get smaller, and spending shot up massively. No "conservative" president has made government any smaller since Calvin Coolidge to my knowledge. Also, if you think Democrats are strong liberals, I'd hate to see what you think of actual leftists. This whole "Bush isn't a real conservative" nonsense is completely disingenuous. Not by your personal definition perhaps, but he is a far-right wing American conservative.

[Sibirsky]

Dumb ass the health care reform. Democrats can not stop spending to fund there dumb social programs and health care plans and now the US has a trillion $ deficit that is growing like crazy. Anyway this insurance punishes the wealthy and middle class who actually have healthcare and work hard to maintain good benefits.
Go back to the good old Conservative methods of government spending and maybe we can get ourselves out of this mess.

Wasn't it your best pal Bush's conservative methods that got us that $1 trillion deficit?

Or Maybe I'm wrong and Clinton was president for 16 years and not 8?

OOC: The true conservative way is much different than what his pathetic administration did.
Take a look and educate yourself before you talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservati ... ted_States

Correct. Bush was not a conservative.