Is their a better way to solve our healthcare problems without socializing healthcare?

Question

***Please state if you are a liberal or conservative or any thing else.

Im conservative.

It would seem looking at the answers so far our congress should be able to come up with a compromise.

Don W. Please explain!

Sorry Pablo, anyone how uses Iran or Cuba to support an Idea has no opinion in my book!

Lindsey G. Yes I do. Torte reform, medical savings programs, allow small business to group together, deport illegal’s, tax incentive programs for business that provide greater coverage for their employees, subsidyprograms for religious institutions that form non-profit insurance/medical savings. I just don’t want to make the problem worse by socializing healthcare.

Answer 1

Liberal Democrat. I believe in the people above the government.

I don't want socialized medicine.

However I do think there should be more regulation in the insurance industry!

I don't think profit should trump health.

Answer 2

My husband's employer just changed our insurance carrier to reduce fees for employees & employer.
They offered 2 plans - 1 with usual co-pay & deductibles but the 2nd has a $2,500 deductible per person but after paying it, we file the deductible with another company which reimburses 75%. It means with a little extra paperwork that we pay only $625 a year total & the premiums are exactly the same as before when we stuck paying $1,000 deductible plus co-pays all year.

My big point is with persuasion & incentives to businesses -
add more competition for insurance market & prices will come down. Goverment controlled insurance has always weaken health care as the best doctors go where they are paid what they are worth. No one complains about the outragerous salaries garnered by Hollywood but complain they pay doctors too much & insurance companies should not make profit. Check the worth of Paramount Pictures & Pixar & etc

I am a conservative but do not understand what that has to do with health insurance.

Answer 3

I am a libertarian, What makes people think there is a healthcare crisis? Watching propaganda on TV? The best way to make it work better is to make medical insurance illegal. That is the root of the problem. Too many people do not understand the concept that there is no such thing as a free lunch, somebody, somewhere has to be responsible for it. Government intervention would only steal the money from clear thinking responsible people and give it to people who do not deserve it. But it is going to happen because the voters today are too ignorant to understand, and are being exploited by people like Hillary Clinton.

Answer 4

It depends what you mean. Do we need to nationalize the health industry? No and I do not believe that anyone is advocating such. Should every American have health insurance - yes.
There are plenty of private/public hybrid models around the world. We should be studying those, extracting the best elements and coming up with a model that suits us - not focussing on the negatives of other models and refusing to think about change.
We should certainly not put up with the nonsense being spouted by the likes of Robert C - Canada and France have better systems than us as ranked by the World Heath Organisation and they produce significantly better health statistics (such as child mortality, life expectancy, healthy life expectancy). Our health system at no 37 in the world is a national disgrace - and misinformation about our system or those we should be studying is not constructive.
I am a liberal

Answer 5

Liberal....

The problem here is this.......Doctors and hospitals get way too much for what they do. When not enough people are sick, they raise their fees to keep their standard of living up.
The government on their part, promises money to the healthcare industry but cuts it at the first budget provocation, so again the hospital raises rates.

All the profits for these rate hikes goes to pay the administrators and stockholders who oversee all this with only how to get more profits for themselves. "To hell with the patents! where's my money?" Is their attitude..

(funny how they all seem to be republicans! And how many of them have contracts worth MILLIONS??)

What needs to happen is to give all americans the SAME PLAN all the CONGRESS gets for healthcare. Whatever they vote for themselves you get....that would change things in a QUICK hurry......

SO....you conservatives....you want EVERYBODY to pay for it?...there you are!... Im betting the first time one of them has to pay the full boat for a catistropic injury out their own pocket you'd see some for real changes.

...lets see you pay $800.00+ out of YOUR pocket for 10 stiches in your finger for a Doctor who spends 10 minutes looking at it and tells a $10.per hr. nursing asstiant to sew it up while he goes to make his tee time - with his good friend the CEO of the hospital ( you DO know they BOTH gettin paid for you sitting in the doc's office with her, while he's driving off the tee?)

You think thats stupid eh? Well thats how this all really works folks. You make the upper half of management get a more reasonable wage, and put that back into the people working at the bottom and you'd find things better overall. Not all Doc's are like this - some go to third world countries to fix kids mouths. more should fix whats wrong here....

Answer 6

I'm as liberal as they come pretty much, and I'm torn on this issue. When I was in college I was lucky enough to study in England for a semester. People didn't seem to mind having tax dollars going to pay for health care, what they did seem to mind was the thousands of people immigrating from places like India and Pakistan to Britain because of the health care. The US already has an illegal immigration problem, and this could just add fuel to that fire. I'm not a big fan of putting more a strain on the American health care system by people who aren't even legally suppose to be here. It's already a problem, and socialized health care will just make it exponetially worse.

However, I do think something really needs to be done about the price of health care. I'm on seven medications for nothing too severe (allergies, acid reflux, acne) and that's about 70 dollars a month I pay just in co-pays. Not to mention the money deducted from every pay check. I already don't make that much, and with gas prices they way there are there's not much left. I still consider myself lucky I have a job with health insurance.

All in all, the insurance industry is obviously not regulating itself very well, so I think the first place to start before socializing everything is to work on that. I also think every child (legally in the US) should have access to health care whether their parents can get it through their employers or not. I think each state needs to step up to the plate on this one with the possibility of grants from the federal government to get programs started to ensure kids can get vaccinated on time, that if they get strep throat they can get anti biotics, that if they break their arm they can go get a cast, etc. Yes, I know this takes tax money, but it's not the child's fault that their parents are not as fortunate as some others.

It's definitely not a solution to everything, but it is a start.

Answer 7

Lib here

Lowering the insurance costs for both patient and doctors would be a great step in the right direction. I’m not saying that to make things cheaper but many critical medical choices are made primarily on the basis of economic ability. Too many of those kind of choices cost lives.

Answer 8

Yes, I've heard that Bill Gates is actually putting together a panel to discuss what can be done to bring down the costs of health care. A couple of main issues is the insurance premiums being through the roof, the number of unnecessary test to keep insurance lower and the biggy is the end of life health care costs. Socialize anything is never the way to go. EVER.
I am Conservative.

Answer 9

I am a Conservative. I know that offering incentives to business to provide benefits for employees will force health insurance companies to become more competitive, thus reducing the cost to business. We need to look at the root cause of high health insurance costs, which is a high demand on the system and too few providers to handle it. Educational incentives to place more nurses and doctors into the system will also improve the current situation. Nurses are overworked and in high demand - this costs huge amounts.

Nonetheless, we have the highest level of healthcare available in the world because it is not nationalized. Look at Canada or France - the healthcare is appalling. A nationalized system will push young people into other fields and further deteriorate the system.

Answer 10

Get rid of all the lawyers, or even just the corrupt ones like John Edwards. Why should an OB/GYN pay $200,000.00 a year for malpractice insurance? Because of all the junk lawsuits. There are legitimate instances of malpractice, but cerebral palsy is not caused by oxygen deprivation during labor and delivery. But Edwards convinced 12 people too stupid to get out of Jury Duty that it is, and made himself rich. ...just one example of a thousand. 75 percent of your medical dollars go to trial lawyers who sue doctors, and lawyers who try to defend the doctors. ...then both lawyers have lunch together. Isn't that odd?

Answer 11

I like the idea of a voucher system for the unemployed or whose employers don't offer healthcare benefits, paying for COBRA is too expensive, it would leave the healthcare sector as it stands now, mostly private. I am a moderate, I don't like extremes.