Here It Comes: Governement Health Plan

[Winter_123]

Winter and GreenSky make the same old, tired, arguments we all heard back in 1963 when Medicare was debated.

Their theme is that government is evil and that only the private sector can save us. What they fail to mention is that in the health financing arena it is the private sector... that got us where we are today.
Al

Really? Why don't we take a little look at how public sector health care financing is working in California (see below). for those areas that are publicly-funded. How is that working out for you?

In regard to this being the same old tired issues that the neo-cons raise, just keep telling yourself that it is all out-dated thinking and you can just keep funding the madness with no consequences. We might check back and have this same discussion after the vote in California next week. You can give me a little update on how things are going in the workers paradise.

In typical Cuban fashion the frigging nutcases in California tried to fund everyone and now the whole system has collapsed. Now Pelosi is at the helm. Good God!!!

============================================
This is from the LA Times no less. Just think of how a paper outside of Havana would have reported it.

Healthcare

No matter how Tuesday's vote turns out, Schwarzenegger's proposals would hit hard at Medi-Cal, which provides medical care for the poor. The plan calls for saving $750 million, likely by restricting patient eligibility and cutting payments and benefits.

The governor wants to save on pharmacy costs as well. He would require that the state review prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs before they could be dispensed. He also wants to create a force of investigators to police for fraud by physicians in the program, as well as in adult healthcare centers and pharmacies, for a potential savings of nearly $50 million.

Medi-Cal payments to private hospitals would be reduced by 10%, and the reimbursement rate for family-planning services would be rolled back to pre-2008 levels, saving nearly $37 million. Schwarzenegger also would cut services for newly qualified legal immigrants ages 21 and older.

If the ballot measures are defeated, the state would cut more deeply into Medi-Cal programs. It would limit an adult day healthcare program to three days a week and cut by 10% the money the state pays to providers of substance abuse treatment.

Tobacco tax money that now goes to county health programs would be shifted to Medi-Cal. Eligibility for the state's Healthy Families program, which serves the working poor, would be tightened. That would make health coverage unavailable to about 225,000 children.

In addition, the state would halt a dental disease prevention program that serves about 300,000 preschool and elementary school children in 31 counties.

 

[Guest]

In regard to this being the same old tired issues that the neo-cons raise, just keep telling yourself that it is all out-dated thinking and you can just keep funding the madness with no consequences.

This is why you and your guys are just empty suits. All you and your hero Rush Limbaugh can do is be critical.

I called you out to present a solution... and just like each time before you reply with your usual party-line, old-rich-guy, rhetoric.

You and your guys don't even know what you WANT to do, much less HOW to do it. All you are good for is criticism. And while that is not intrinsically a bad thing, in that it will help guide the ship of state closer to the middle, you have to be careful to not look like a dumb-ass when the great un-washed turn to you and ask "OK, Winter, what is YOUR solution?" and you turn to them and all you can say is "It isn't THEIR solution."

Winter, you're an empty suit. Like Rush Limbaugh, you're just a big bag of hot air. You don't have any solutions, all you have is the tired old rhetoric from the 1950s. It's the same for all you neo-cons. All you know is that the other guy is wrong. Good luck with that political strategy. How well did it work for Alf Landon and Wendel Wilkie and John McCaine?

Al

 

[Dave020]

CALIFORNIA COUNTIES CUT HEALTHCARE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Los Angeles Times -

Apr. 27: Forced to slash their budgets, some California counties are eliminating nonemergency health services for illegal immigrants a move that officials acknowledge could backfire by shifting the financial burden to emergency rooms.

Sacramento County voted in February to bar illegal immigrants from county clinics at an estimated savings of $2.4 million. Contra Costa County followed last month by cutting off undocumented adults, to save approximately $6 million. And Yolo County is voting on a similar change next month, which would reduce costs by $1.2 million.

"This is a way for us to get through what I think is a horrible year for healthcare in California," said William Walker, director of Contra Costa Health Services.

Walker said the national ambivalence on immigration policy means that illegal immigrants are living here but without federal or state funding to provide essential medical services to them. Walker, who began his medical career treating undocumented farmworkers, said that deciding to cut their services was difficult.

"This is the community of people we have all relied upon for decades, providing work not only in construction but in service and child care," he said. "We all live and work here together."

Trend could spread

As the recession continues, property tax revenue decreases and the number of newly uninsured patients increases, other county health departments in California and the nation may make similar changes, said Robert Pestronk, executive director of the National Assn. of County and City Health Officials.

"Communities are having to make excruciating decisions about the services they fund," he said.

But Pestronk said that shifting costs isn't the answer.

"This is a balloon that just expands," he said. "If you squeeze it in one place, it's just going to expand somewhere else."
John Schunhoff, Los Angeles County's interim health services department director, said there is no plan to eliminate health services to the county's illegal residents, despite significant projected deficits and concern about further cuts in state funding.

Eliminating illegal immigrants from health services may enable counties to balance their budgets this year but won't solve the problem in the long term, said David Hayes-Bautista, professor of medicine and director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.

"We are mortgaging the future to scrape through the present," he said.

And study after study shows that illegal immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born residents to go to the doctor or seek regular medical care, he said.

Anti-illegal immigration activist Barbara Coe said she was thrilled that counties are beginning to restrict services. Coe's group, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, sponsored Proposition 187, the initiative that tried to bar the state from providing public services to illegal immigrants before it died in federal court.

Illegal immigrants "have absolutely no right, No. 1, to be here and, No. 2, to take the tax dollars of law-abiding American taxpayers for anything," she said.

But the policy changes have angered immigrant rights advocates, who argue that restrictions could also cause a chilling effect on legal residents and U.S. citizens in mixed-status families.

"Even those people who qualify to get care won't," said Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Policy Center

 

[Guest]

If you never teach them to become better citizens and keep giving them handouts, what incentive do they have to become better?

Yeah, let 'em starve. Let 'em die. Who gives a rat's ass?

I make average money but sacrifice every month to pay my health premium because it is a priority. I make no excuses.

You da man!

You look at the stats that talk about the poor uninsured in this country. Many do have the income to pay for coverage but refuse to as they rather buy that new boat or RV or dune buggy. NOT MY PROBLEM!

Yep, all those people making minimum wage are all out there with their plasma TVs and new cars.

It would be lovely to have health care for all but that is not feasible. In socialist systems, you always have the few that work and the many who sponge off of the few. Everyone needs to be responsible for themselves.

I agree. Let's close down the ER's for everyone without insurance. And make sure we drop your parents or grandparents from Medicare. And by all means, lets close the public schools and just have private schools. And let's make all the interstates into toll roads. And we need to fire all of those nasty meat inspectors, and get rid of FDA regulations which just complicate things for you. And of course, we don't want to provide legal assistance to those who can't afford a lawyer. Yep, let's all rush back to Alabama of 1958... or in your case probably Alabama of 1858.

Of course with Liberals, they make big statements of how much they are willing to sacrifice until it affects them. The same group that talks how others should donate to worthy causes but donate very little themselves. It's always "do as I say but not as I do".

Of course. As Leona said, "It's only the little people who pay taxes." I have no doubt that you are a follower of the Bernie Madoff school of finance... no morals, no scruples, "just make money, baby."

And the politicians who pass this crap will use private healthcare for themselves. You watch. Do you think Obama or Pelosi will use government healthcare? More "do as I say and not as I do". Oh, and that will go for the crappy Republicans as well. They are all crooks and liars!

If you ever leave your survivalist encampment in the Idaho mountains, I think you might find happiness in Albania. The weather is nice this time of year. Or how about one of those African countries where you can raise you own little army and rape and pillage... which metaphorically speaking is basically your reactionary, neo-con message.

We'll call you InsuranceHound Da Da!

Al

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Al,

I don't believe in a hand outs but believe in help. If someone is in need of welfare give them free education, free child care, basically free everything.....for a limited time.

After that, yes, if they choose to starve or live in the streets just herd 'em into a homeless shelter and call it a day.

What we have now is generations living on hand outs since there's no incentive to get off free programs.

A girls gets pregnant and needs welfare? She gets it. But she gets pregnant again while on welfare and that now nullifies her welfare status - all checks stop and into a homeless shelter she goes. State takes the kids and call it a day.

Yes, as a nation we give people a helping hand but we also cannot allow people to take advantage or abuse the system.

 

[Dave020]

Single Payer Off The Table Per Obama

Associated Press

RIO RANCHO, N.M. — President Barack Obama says if he were building the health care system from scratch, a single-payer system would be the best approach. But he says his goal is to improve the current system.


Responding to a question at a town hall-style meeting in New Mexico today, Obama said he expects a plan from Congress by the August recess that will be a "vast improvement" over the current system.

Obama was asked why a "single payer" plan — where the government makes payments directly to medical care providers — isn't on the table.

He said the nation has a tradition of employer-based health care using private insurance companies, and that a lot of people are satisfied with it.

Congressional leaders have said a single-payer plan is politically impractical.


I see it as follows:

Group will be pretty much left alone, tax incentives to insure and tax penalties to skip out to go goverment option.

IFP will either get GI with or without a mandate, or a state/federal pool will be expanded/created to catch the ones who fall through the cracks. Everyone not covered under group will have the option to be insured and covered. Those with underwritten private will still pay a commission, public will likely pay a small enrollment fee to agents.

Costs across the board will be reduced in the private system to capture back at least the $2 trillion and maybe more.
Agent commissions will be reduced and those, along with other administrative cutbacks will help fund the state/federal risk pool(s).

 

[Winter_123]

k "OK, Winter, what is YOUR solution?" and you turn to them and all you can say is "It isn't THEIR solution."

Al

You are not unlike that fellow that was here a while back. I can't remember, maybe 9 months or a year ago. I think his name was Nate and his wife was a doc. He would come on with a lib answer to everything and then ask what your solution was. You would lay it out but then he would go off and have marital and career problems and not be able to tune in on it and then come back and ask you all over again. Anyone remember him. Same thing with Al. You lay out the specifics, then he goes off and nickel-bags it and reappears and the process starts all over again. Whatever was explained while he was stoned does not count.

I will spare the forum the larger version which I have layed out and can be searched. I know that will be appreciated Briefly, I am a moderate when it comes to health care reform. I would implement some major changes to get us up and running on a more comprehensive level and then revisit what is still broken in a second phase.

For starters I would have a private sector system with a national risk pool. I would not have mandate in the first phase but could get there based on how things go. I agree with Obama and disagree with Hillary in that I believe that it is more a question of affordability rather than not wanting to have coverage. Like Obama and Hillary I am not sure but would know after the first phase. When the facts shook out based on program experience I would change my view as needed.

I would have system of tax credits and subsidies to make insurance more affordable. It would be costly but so are all the other alternatives.

I would not have guaranteed issue within the private sector plans that cover most of the population but an applicant could be guaranteed coverage somewhere in the system even if it meant that they fell to the national risk pool.

There are a number of pilot and demonstration projects that I would support being funded by the government in terms of community health care delivery, preventive care, and group purchasing of drugs, outcome based treatment, etc.

That would leave some pieces to be fixed in future phases but get everyone up and running sooner because it would work primarily through the existing system but with more afordable options for consumers.

Everything would not be pretty but as noted in detail, everthing is not pretty in the public health programs run in California either.

I am not willing to hand the whole thing over to the private sector as in the past and just let happen whatever is going to happen, but neither am I willing to hand the system which includes healthy pieces as well over to the government to have them trash it and Californicate and Cubanize it. As I said, I am a moderate on the issue. I would go at it phases but those phases would be real. And there would be no Fannie Mae, SEC, or Inspector General crap where nothing gets looked at and changed. All is lost if that happens regardless of the system.

If Obama ever tells us what his system is going to be I might take pieces of it and change my mind. Might do the same as I see the opposition views as well. Funny how that happens.

Instead of leaning on us for our view, why dont you lean on Obama to tell us what his plan is. Oh, he is still making it up and Sebelius just came on board. I thought from his campaign he had a plan already. Guess not.

 

[Norwayguy]

All the right-wingers are using "government-run health care" as their stalking horse scare-tactic. What we're talking about is government-run financing of the health care system.

I don't know about VA, but I don't know of one 65+ person who is willing to give up their Medicare or MA Advantage plan in order to get IFP... because they can't afford it.

When you hear the government-run healthcare scare mongers on this board what you are hearing are health agents (greedy or not) who are willing to keep a system that 45% of the people can't get so that they can make their 6-figure incomes. Here is the math:

Conservatism x (Harry + Louise) = Greed

Even a junior college grad can understand that, right Winter?

Al

Al you are correct about people 65+ being happy with medicare and not wanting to go onto an IFP because of cost....but if you compare the true cost per person by what medicare pays which I believe is 9K-10K per person and add on part d plans and a supp then you are talking about something comparable in cost to an IFP and Medicare is already going broke so the only way to fund this is a on the 2-3% in fica taxes with just retirees so how much will this cost when you throw everyone on this type of system.

There is one area I totally agree with you on. I would be more than happy to take my children to some one trained to a lesser degree than a doctor for routine cold flu etc....In most cases I know that the most the medical community can do to help my child will be a prescription...but the only way to get the script is to see a doctor or nurse practicioner. I would definatly want either some form of supervision or triage though because some conditions could present like 1 bland problem but be something totally different. I'm always glad to here that the problem in healthcare isn't totally the insurance side...and that changes on the hospital and doctor side need to be made as well.

 

[insurehound]

Hey Al...mwaah! That's a big kiss to you

BTW, what's a "Neo-Con"? Is Bernie Madoff a "Neo-con"? Is Alen Stanford a "Neo-con" as well or just Bernie?

 

[Paradigm]

Harry and Louise are right. I kept seeing that reference from Al in several post and didn't realize it was a reference to 1992 and anti single payer ads. That was before I cared about politics and when I was chasing sorority girls and draining beer kegs.

The truth of Rationed healthcare is this life expectancy will fall. The elderly will be the first to suffer as Medicare is rolled up in the FHIP. They will not receive life saving care that will extend their lives.

The others that will suffer will be those who need transplants or complicated specialist procedures quickly. rationing will increase wait times and those waiting periods will decrease the efficacy of the treatment.

But yes people will be able to get abortion on demand, prozac through a vending machine and can be as fat as they want to be because they wont pay for it those who pay taxes in this country will.