What do you think about all these Democratic reforms on healthcare?

Question

They want to create a healthcare system for everyone. This would be good, but they are not getting to the root of the problem. Healthcare does not make people healthy, nor does taking a pill. These temporarily fix the problem. Eating healthy and exercise make you healthy. I believe that any business that serves unhealthy food or products ie(fast food , cigarettes) should pay for the healthcare system. I know some of you are going to say it is a persons choice to do those things and I agree, but when I have to pay for them through my taxes I have no choice. So because of their bad choices I have to pay. Let me know what you think. I have some other ideas that I will ask later. I just want to see some feedback.

Answer 1

I see your point entirely.

Like putting a tax on a fat burger.
Or a fee on a candy bar
Or double the price of fries and the 50% go to public health education.

I think its a good idea
But
People will die anyway.

I want you to think of something. We all know that a high fat diet increases the risk of a heart attack.
Some of us know that 90% of our health care costs go to the last few years of our lives.
If a person falls over dead because of a massive coronary, then the 90% is reduced considerably.

Kind of ironic, wouldn't ya say?

I used to be insured by Kaiser. They were pretty big on eating right and exercising. Plus, when I went into one of their hospitals during the flue season, it was next to impossible to get out without getting a free flue shot.

Kaiser is big on preventive care.

Hillary is smart to listen to them.

Peace

Jim

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Answer 2

You have only to look at Social Security or FEMA and realize that the government is the worst "person" to be involved in fixing healthcare. I was written by one of our founding fathers that the best government is one that governs least. Our political heros seem to have missed that day in history/government.

Most of the healthcare problems can be traced to one of the following: Trial lawyers, Insurance companies or Healthcare corporations. With so many lawyers in the market place, they have to file suits for any reason to support their lifestyle requirements. The insurance companies have settled too many suits instead of fighting them, thus setting a legal precident and then pass this all their rate hikes and cuts in payments off as necessary to remain profitable. The healthcare corporations only concern in their profits. They don't give a hoot whether or not the "patient" gets the very best care, only that the "customer" is happy, has a good experience so they will come back and encourage others to do the same.

I live this on a daily basis and until something is done with these three areas, our healthcare will be the most expensive and least productive.

Answer 3

I don't know.. I'm mixed about it right now.. I've heard horror stories about Universal Health-care in other countries.. but if All the other Developed countries have it.. UK, Canada, Australia, etc.. then there must be something to it. I asked a question on here yesterday for people from other countries and the 3 people that answered spoke very positive about it. Health care is expensive in the US.. if you get laid off and have no health care for you and your family, you go four months with no job, then you finally get a job and you have to wait another 90 days or so before you can get health care.. and that is if your company supplies it.. Legally they only have to have health care as an option if they have a certain amount of employees.. not to mention.. if they do.. they could only cover you and not your family... Private Health Insurance can cost you about $400.00 a month.. plus deductible.. it's expensive and there are alot of people that do not have Health Care... I don't know about businesses that serve unhealthy foods or products because it's a business, they don't force anyone to eat there or use their product..

Answer 4

By your way of thinking, if people choose a healthier lifestyle, they are healthier and require less medical care, and those who chose a less healthy lifestyle require more medical care. If your thinking holds true, then allowing individuals to choose to either pay as you go or insure against health problems is the only way to go. The people living a riskier lifestyle will be forced to pay more by mere usage. Otherwise healthy people are paying for services they aren't receiving at the same price as those with risky behavior. By the same token if the government is supplying this service it is still out of balance. There is a case now in England where a gentleman requires an operation to relieve his back pain, but the doctors refuse to operate because the man will not give up smoking. Do we really want that ridiculous level of control in the hands of government??

Answer 5

The problems with the current health care system are directly attributable to previous government reforms. People forget or have not been around long enough to remember what health care was like before the Democrats led by good old Ted Kennedy began "fixing" it.

Before, the only kind of health insurance available was hospitalization insurance. In other words, if something major happened to you, requiring a hospital stay, tests and medications, you had insurance to help pay or completely pay the costs. For primary care you simply went to your family practitioner who charged a fee or even came to your house (housecall) if you were too sick to go to the office.

Doctors lived in the neighborhoods they practiced in and could only charge what the market would bear. Often, people with cronic conditions that required constant office visits would work out a deal so each visit was much more affordable.

The now greatly despised HMO is a Kennedy creation. The theory was that by providing free or low cost preventative care, costs could be contained. It sounded good on paper.
When they first came out the deductable was around five dollars. The results? People ran to the doctor's office for every little ailment overloading the office and costing the insurance companies a fortune.

You would be far better off paying for your own office visits directly. The doctors would not have to wait for payments reducing their costs and there would be little incentive to make more money by overprescribing medications.

Look at it like car insurance. You have car insurance to help pay if the car is badly damaged in an accident, catches fire, is vandalized or stolen. Such insurance is affordable.

If you wanted an insurance policy that paid for regular maintainance such as oil changes, wiper blades and brakes the cost would be astronomical. Everyone would bring their car to the shop for every little thing, overloading the ability of shops to provide proper service.

You are far better off having car insurance to pay for emergencies and paying the regular maintance yourself. See what I mean?

.

Answer 6

With this healthcare reform, Pros and Cons?

Tax is up? yes.
Bad Management and administrative cost by Goverment? Yes

The current uninsured will get access to healthcare? Yes (we are paying for them right now anyway thru medicare and welfare.)

Drugs and healhtcare sevices ( salaries and hospitals'fiscal budget...) cost controls? Yes, and the healhtcare professionals,drug manufactures and insurance companies will take the biggest loss because they are 100% accountable for raising healthcare cost

Free choice of services? Yes, in Canada and European countries you do have a choice, and you can go to any doctor and drugstore in any province and state without worrying about what insurance group you have.

Long term care when you get old and bedridden? Yes +++ because 90% americans don't have coverage for long term care. It comes with the univeral health care in other developed countries.

Waiting in lines for costly treatments like MRI,CT scan or total hip surgeries? Yes , because the government doesn't have as much $ as those profitable insurance companies to support the healthcare providers' increasing cost of advanced equipments and salaries. Hopefully our current infratructure of medical technology would sustain the demand in the future.( In Canada, the rate for population vs available MRI machines is 500,000/machine)

Business loss? No, most businesses make enough profit to provide a limited health coverage to their workers. They just don't want to do it because it is their $$$ . What makes you think that they can't afford? with their humongous house and fancy cars and an annual income of 10 to 100 times of ours that they need an accountant to take care for them.

Please be sensible and click on this link, not by hearsay or party line.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/summary.aspx

Answer 7

If the proposed health care reforms do not incorporate marketplace reforms, no solution will be reached by these proposals. We need to be able to shop around for health care coverage the way we do for auto insurance. If consumers are the ones who actually determine which coverage provider they will use, rather than one chosen for them, then health care coverage providers will have to compete for our business. As consumers, we will gravitate toward the provider that gives us the best bang for the buck, so providers will have ample incentives to be perceived as the one that gives consumers the best bang for the buck. As a result, we will have a greater menu of options to select from, price increases will have a damper put on them, and the providers will be much more responsive in terms of customer service in aiding both patients and doctors. Gone will be the day when you dial your coverage provider for help and reach only a touch-tone phone menu, for such a provider will no longer have a captive consumer base, and consumers will flock to providers who actually answer their phone calls with a live person. Gone will be the slow reimbursement process for doctors to get paid, because if the doctor drops from that provider's network because of slow pay, the consumers that visit that doctor will switch to another provider that continues to work with that doctor. In order to boost consumer enrollment, providers might start to waive pre-existing condition clauses and streamline the appeals processes. The providers most ready to embrace competition will allow open enrollment all the time rather than the brief window of time alloted to select between employer-chosen plans. We have removed incentives for peak performance from the health care coverage industry, and only free-market-based reforms that put the consumer in the driver's seat will restore those incentives.

Answer 8

The government runs nothing better than the free market. There are plenty of examples in this thread and all around you. Soviet Russia didn't run many of their programs too well either for an even bigger example.

Does the government have any right to pry into any business's profits? No, people choose to spend their money there.

Answer 9

Person A (the politician) forcing Person B (the citizen) to fund healthcare for Person B while Person A takes credit.

Answer 10

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