Reform: Obama Plan Beginning to Gasp for Air

[djs]

its gonna be like Medicare; you can get treatment from over 97% of Drs and hospitals and no pre existing exclusions ... thats all Obama has stated ... you guys need to stop listening to talk radio, its rotting your brains.

Except.... it's hard to find a doctor who has a medical opening (may be different in your area). Doctors can only take on so many medical patients, then they have to take on patients who pay the costs of doing business.

You should start listening to talk radio. A rotten brain is a good thing!

Dan

You can tell I'm from California. I wrote medical, meaning medi-cal, but I really meant medicare.

 

[rapidrobert]

Hey Agent Orange do you believe in the Ishtar bunny too? How's Obama going to pay for this? Answer he's not...you and your posterity will. Think the availabilty of care, or the length of time to see a Specialist will go up, or down? Ah...change...

 

[Winter_123]

its gonna be like Medicare; you can get treatment from over 97% of Drs and hospitals and no pre existing exclusions ...

True in some ways.

First, of all it will be scheduled to go broke, just like Medicare.

Second, Medicare is government subsized. Part B premiums for example, are only required by law to cover half of actual costs. The so-called private option will also have so many government supports that no carrier can compete with it.

Third, like Medicare (the ideal model for the libs) you will end out with so many holes and gaps that people who want true coverage will need to get a supplement. One might say that is fine. Let the private sector fill in there then. Not really, not after you have put the next two generations in debt to fund it. You would expect more.

Fourth, like medicare, the upper hand will go to the option run by the entity that also sets the rules. This notion that we never have true competition unless the government is competing with you is just socialism. Really, there is no other way to put it. Maybe we need a government run grocery store to make the market truly competitve there too. Or how about a government run car maker to make the market really work well. Woops, nevermind on that one.

Fifth, like Medicare there will be extensive fraud and bilking of the government. Instead of fixing it, we will just throw more tax dollars at it compensate for the amount lost through fraud.

Unlike Medicare though, the government will soon move toward creating its own provider network to serve its own insurance option. This will be done in the name of holding costs down, managed care, prevention, savings through integrated services, blah, blah, blah. National Health Service here we come.However, you will always be given the choice to choose one of the options that the government made unattractive long ago through its system of unfair competition, and government subsidies and credits for its favored plans.

Change we can believe in.

 

[somarco]

Its gonna be like Medicare; you can get treatment from over 97% of Drs and hospitals

While "Medicare for all" has been thrown out as an option, they are also moving toward expanding the roll of Medicaid . . . which is probably a good option. Much better than anything they are discussing now.

About half of docs refuse to accept ANY Medicare patients and the rest limit the number of Medicare patients. So what happens if you open up Medicare to those age 50 - 64 as has been discussed?

Access to coverage does not mean access to health care.

InsureBlog: The Public Health Insurance Option [UPDATED]

Expanding Medicaid has drawbacks, but also has merit.

According to a 2006 report by KFF, 65% of those uninsured, the 46 million (or whatever number you want to use) earn less than 200% of the FPL.

If the goal is to cover more people who truly NEED help buying coverage, this is an option that makes more sense than anything else.

Of course giving coverage to low income people does little to help if there are no docs willing to treat these people.

 

[Charpress]

its gonna be like Medicare;

You are referring to the same system that is somewhere around $100 trillion in the hole for unfunded obligations, right?

The playbook for Obama is to get whatever passed for starters and then morph it to whatever he wants incrementally.

When it does not work, then blame it on having done it only "half way" and demand more control and more money. That is exactly the way FDR did things and it worked because things just kept getting worse and people got more desperate.

Think "no child left behind" and the calls to spend more and more to fix the perceived problem. Yeah, I know, that was a Republican thing. This works on both sides of the aisle.

 

[bluemarlin08]

I've had personal experience with gov't health programs. A few years ago our state, Tenn, had a program called Tenn Care for the uninsurable etc. I was on this coverage due to health issues. I couldn't find any decent docs that would take on tenncare patients. To see just a regular Int Med doc one had to settle for what you could find, sitting in an office with hookers, drug addicts and the like. The docs were horrible and you were treated like second class citizens. Then, when I had a BIG problem, a brain tumor no quality docs available. We finally got other coverage and back to the real world. Folks better wake up, this isn't anywhere near the change they want!

 

[Winter_123]

one had to settle for what you could find, sitting in an office with hookers, drug addicts and the like. !

Yeh, and those are just the doctors and nurses. Some of the other patients are kind of rough too in those programs.

 

[motoxxx]

Winter you just crack me up sometimes!

 

[ABC]

Yeh, and those are just the doctors and nurses. Some of the other patients are kind of rough too in those programs.

LOL that was good!

 

[bluemarlin08]

Winter, you don't realize how correct you are!! Wife went to the doc to have her BP checked, waited 3 hours, got to the exam room and the doc couldn't find a stethascope. When I told him about my rare tumor, his comment was "cool, never seen one of those, could I see your MRI?"
Change you can really believe in!