Sure is a lot of talk about what's wrong with Hillary's plan. What do you think is a better option?

Question

I'm not sure how I feel about it.

All I know is healthcare is expensive, costs are rising and will continue to rise and more people retire - baby boomers - and more and more people are addicted to drugs thanks to the wonders of pharmsuedical marketing.

How can we address the healthcare issue if you are so against Hillary's plan?

Answer 1

She has the best plan presented so far & it's even an improvement over other countries plans. Smart gal.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/17/health.care/index.html
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Answer 2

Blueridgeliving --I like how you put what the Repub health care plan is. BUT-- the poorest of the poor get FREE Health Care.

It's the millions of us who are stuck working a 32 hour a week [part-time] job who get screwed. I'd love a 40 hour week but they're rare. Instead, there's too many fields where employers pay $9-$12 an hour yet don't have to offer ANY benefits. These are the jobs that are booming everywhere. This absolves employers from all kinds of vac & sick time and health care benefits. Full time jobs are not the ones being offered with benefits. Most companies get around that.

My idea would be to:
1. Make the senate, congress and all government workers MINUS the military- obtain a basic health plan with co-pays and expensive drugs not~completely covered. WE have county workers who can get lyposuction, facelifts and hair transplants covered on their health plans paid for by taxpayers! Think of the money we can save there, alone! --Oh and they only get this health plan WHILE they're in service working.

2. allow ALL non-government workers full & part time to be able to deduct the FULL amount of all health care-including co-pays from their taxes without having to itimize their whole year.

All that info is on file with pharmacies...how much is paid out of pocket. The amount the health care plan costs per month is the other cost to be deducted.

Answer 3

I don't think anyone has a better plan yet, and Hillary's plan may not be the only option, but it's time for people to get their heads out of the sand and recognize that there's a problem and it should at least be discussed.

I think you've touched on a much larger issue here, and that is that mudslinging has become so prevalent it's put an end to constructive debate or discussion. Many people's reaction is simply, "You must be wrong because you're the wrong party", not in so many words but that's the underlying sentiment. That kind of thinking eliminates any possibility of compromise or understanding. We've lived under a two-party system for a long time, but it's never been more destructively polarizing than it is now.

[edit]
Barry, insurance executives are the problem, not the solution. Their greed sometimes causes them to more or less sentence people to death by choosing not to pay for costly surgery or other treartments. We pay for insurance expecting it to cover any catastrophic illness, but when the desire for profit overwhelms the service provided, people suffer and die. I agree with Wayne. If all insurance companies were non-profit we wouldn't have such a huge mess and we wouldn't need any government intervention.

Answer 4

The thing most wrong with Hillary's plan is that it ignores the core issue creating the health care crisis we face. Mandatory insurance is not the answer when we first need to address the abuses of the system by the insurance companies themselves. Without insurance reform no plan will ever work. Any person involved in the medical field will tell you that the main reason costs are so very out of control is because the insurance companies control costs and set treatment policies, not always "approving" the most cost effective course of treatment.

Answer 5

Have non profit foundations such as Kaiser(health care) and CSAA (Auto/Home/Life) handle ALL insurance No more for profit companies at all in the industry.

Insurance was originally based upon the mutual protection from loss by shipping firms back in the 1700's. It was non profit. Today it is super big business sucking profits out of everyone and paying executives hundred million dollar annual salaries. Again an example of greed at its worst.

Look at Katrina if you have any doubts as to the greed of the insurance companies and banks too. (that is why credit unions have become so popular, people don't like paying monster salaries to executives)

Integrated into the plan Clinton has that a minimum of 40% of all insurance would be provided by non profit companies would be a good thing. Having the government back this type of foundation based system would keep government out of the health care business yet provide responsible care for patients

Answer 6

There are many people who arent interested in covering everyone for their medical expenses. In spite of the fact that most bankruptcies are caused by medical bills, in spite of the fact that the premiums are getting cost prohibitive, in spite of the fact that it would cost them less than private coverage. They have coverage provided for them by their workplaces, in most instances. So, they feel the problem isn't theirs. They fail to acknowledge that there is a problem, because it doesn't affect them. Truly shortsighted and selfish.
I believe Kucinich's plan is the best one. Medicare for all, single payer, not for profit health care. Medicare currently has an overhead of roughly 2 to 3 %. The rest goes to pay providers for health care services. If people want to opt out of it and buy private coverage, they should be able to do so.
We have to do something about the cost of health care in this country. At least some people are trying to address the issue and find solutions that are equitable and cost effective.
For more info, I found one site of many that discusses the issue in depth. If you want to go and read it, here is a link:

http://www.amsa.org/uhc/

Answer 7

To the first response, the problem is that more and more people are not able to pay for their own health care because of the escalating costs. It is just going to increase. That is a non-answer. That discourages debate and discussion, which is highly unAmerican. I like that Hillary is offering something. It's a plan that is not perfect, of course. This is where debate and discussion come in. We need an objective. I see a lot more contract employees. A lot of them don't receive health insurance because they are contract. Companies get out of paying at our expense. I am dumbfounded at the level of ignorance and laziness of people. It is easy to criticize and make ignorant statements than to actually think about this. I am worried about myself. I think everyone needs health care and everyone should get it. We should all share the costs as equally as possible. I detest health insurance because it's not even really insurance anymore. We need to get rid of the insurance companies. I like Dennis Kucinich's plan. I don't think that anything needs to change except that we have greater power over our health care needs. I'm very healthy and should be like this for a long time. But I don't know how stable my job is. I am on my 3rd career. I'm 33. I'm a graduate student as well. I know that my taxes are helping to pay for someone who's poor to have health insurance. Why shouldn't I be covered regardless? I'm going to continue to work and further my education as life necessitates it. I like being involved and active. My dad was recently laid off and doesn't have health insurance. My mom works but only part-time. They are both close to retirement age, in their 60s. My dad is educated and a very hard worker. He is an electrical engineer and having to compete with Chinese and Indian immigrants that are being brought here so companies can pay them less. That is not going to happen more and more unless we do something. We need to encourage debate and discussion. I can't stand when people just dismiss any ideas because they are so jaded and can't see the forest through the trees.

Answer 8

First, why is health care so expensive? Malpractice is one major reason. The cost of incredibly sophisticated equipment is another and the cost to develop new drugs that actually make it to the market is another. The only aspect of the cost that is out of whack is the salaries of health care workers. Nurses are so underpaid it's a crime. Doctors, after paying their malpractice insurance, aren't making that much either.

And yet people today are no sicker than they were 100 years ago when the family doctor would come to your house. If anything, they're healthier. But they demand more in drugs and technology.

Something like 80% of our health care costs are accrued in the last 20% or so of our lives as we try to make it through another year on a ventilator, eating apple sauce and drooling into our laps. 100 years ago people lived or died as nature intented. Today we're able to extend peoples lives almost indefinitely, it seems and that's incredibly expensive. My mother in law just had a medical emergency that 10 years ago would have killed her and yet today, here she is at 83, $300,000 later, walking around thanks to our tax dollars. It cost her $350 out of her own pocket. I love the old broad, but nature called her home and we paid the equivilant of a nice new house or several teacher's salaries to keep her around for another couple of years.

But you raise a good point. Hillary and the gang are looking at how to pay for health care. No one's looking at the cost of health care.

Answer 9

the better option: let the health care providers get paid up front before they render services. Plastic surgeons do this, eye doctors do this, veterinarians do this and you don't see costs spiraling out of control in any of these areas. 25 years ago this is the way it was done. A trip to the family doctor cost you $35-50. He gave you the treatment he thought you needed without fear of getting sued for a hundred million dollars. Everyone was happy.

Answer 10

Seeing as how Hippa made costs explode I don't think the feds have any business in my health care. Getting the feds and insurance companies under control so it is affordable is a better option.

As I said before - this is not the biggest issue facing the country so I have to think the insurance companies are her biggest donors.

Answer 11

You have to look at it from a realistic perspective.

What that means is you have to abandon the presumption that "we" must address it as a nation. To address it as a nation is to say we are going to have the federal government handle it.

Before we decide that, let's look at what happens when the federal government gets involved in something like that. Is there a track record to consider?

Well, there's Social Security. Does it have problems? Is it in danger of collapse? I think it is. If it does, that's going to hamper it's value as a solution to old folks being broke. Is it a solution to old folks being broke? If you look at the Poverty Line, you'll see that a person whose single source of income is SS, they are below the poverty line. Even with Social Security, people need to provide for themselves. Why would national healthcare be different?

We could look at the FDA. Despite their best efforts, harmful drugs get approved with great regularity. People take pills that kill them, and then their dependents want to know why the government didn't protect them. They rely on the government to shield them from harm, and abandon their own sense of self-preservation.

There's the US Department of Agriculture, with offices in every county in the United States, including those with no agriculture. I guess if you want to know how to grow daisies in a window box, they might be handy, but do you seriously think the Department of "Agriculture" really needs an office in The Bronx? They're there.

Hillary's plan (what "plan"??? There's no "plan") won't work because it isn't something government is for. Government is force. It operates on coercion. Healthcare isn't something that you can achieve by force.

If the goal is to deliver the best healthcare to the most people, the free market is the only plan that will work. If the goal is to deliver everything everyone wants, nothing will do that. If the goal is to claim to deliver what everyone wants and shout down critics, I guess government can do that well enough.