Three major facts are too often overlooked in the ongoing debate over healthcare reform in the U.S., the first is that America’s healthcare is the most expensive because it provides the MOST testing and the most advanced techniques to all, which is why Americans with early detected prostate and breast cancer have a virtually 100% chance of living for over 5 years compared to just 77% for second place England. The second is that one of the things crushing America’s healthcare system is the unfunded mandate that dictates that hospitals treat ALL regardless of their ability to pay or citizenship status. Those costs are not “eaten” by doctors and hospitals, they’re passed on...to you and me. And the third major fact that is too often overlooked is that “We already have a “public option” and it’s failing miserably!”
Medicaid is irredeemably broke and I mean flat busted, not just unworkable. It’s over $17 BILLION in the whole and growing AND the fraud and abuse, which is systemic in that system is even harder to ferret out than Medicare fraud, as Medicaid is apportioned and overseen by each state!
But a recent 60 Minutes piece chronicling the incredible $60 BILLION/year Medicare fraud problem proved just how pervasive the abuse of even that system has become!
SEE: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/60minutes/main5414390.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
The federal government already controls about half of the U.S. healthcare market via Medicare and Medicaid and THAT “public option” is the part that’s failing the worst!
Why don’t more people notice that?!
Look, it’s one thing for dolts, like the one featured below this piece to pontificate about how a government-run health system would work better, but when people who should and DO know better fail to make the basic argument that goes, “Look, IF a government-run healthcare system, or "public option" COULD work better, why ISN’T IT? Why are our current public options failing worse than the rest of our healthcare system?”
Not only would Alan Grayson be unable to answer that, no one else could either, because there is no defense for that!
pela68 (I dont want to log in). Let me tell you about socialised medicare here in Sweden.
ReplyDeleteA while ago I was in an accident. I shattered my scapula and broke my collar bone. OK! This was in January!
Iv'e been to the doc's 15 times so far, and they have done NOTHING!
All the while I have to pay for the medicare fees- not so much- if you don't count in the actuall taxes that I also pay.
Now I can't work and because of beurocracy I only get the minimum from the insurance company. I have appealed (it's a long story), but I think that I have a chance of snowballs in hell.
Finally, I have now got an appointment for an ultrasound examination (because of suspected soft tissue damages). But not before 9/11- how ironic is that?
Sorry for eventual misspellings, I'm writing this with just one working arm.
JMK, the public that is supporting the fraudulent "public option" mandate of Bela Pelosi (and that is EXACTLY what it will become, a mandate), simply ARE dolts. Some by choice, a lot by simply not bothering to look at the fine print.
ReplyDeleteThere are folks out there who think they'll get health care for free, and have no economic grasp of government's monunmental failure in that regard with Medicaid (Medicare's on the same track, and not running too far behind Medicaid).
For the dolts, it's something for nothing (which it never is, and I know the money doesn't come from Barry's "private stash"). For Pelosi & Co., it's CONTROL.
I'm afraid that unless a whole lot of inarticulate people wake up quickly and lean heavily on their congressional reps NOW, regardless of the probable blood-letting that will take place with mid-term elections in '10, a really nasty economic trainwreck is going to hit a whole lot of sheeple, before they perhaps start to grasp what they have done by ignorance and inaction.
Hi Pela!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see you back online!
I feel bad every time I hear about your medical nightmares.
It seems like a prelude of things to come here.
Pela, would you email me? I'd like to use a few of your accounts to give a preview of what government-run "care" is really like.
I'd need your OK for that.
You're in my thoughts and prayers...hoping for a speedy recovery.
They indeed ARE exactly that SF, UNFUNDED MANDATES, just as Medicaid is....and Medicaid has been breaking the bank in many states, like NY, for decades!
ReplyDeleteWorse still given this level of fraud ($60 BILLION/YEAR!) for just this small part of the 1/6th of the economy healthcare is, puts the lie to even the CBO's most dour stats....making them incredibly optimistic.
With no sign of Medicare OR Medicaid fraud ending any time soon, why would there be any less, once the public option is expanded?
If anything it SHOULD greatly increase, raising the pie-eyed $1+ TRILLION between 2010 and 2019 to perhaps $2.4 TRILLION!
And we can't afford even $1 TRILLION!
I'm afraid the dolts won't wake up.
At least that's my prediction.
What WILL wake them up is the rationing of care and the restrictions that come with the public option.
As I said at the start, some form of cost-effective, efficiency-drive public option COULD be a net positive, IF done well...and by "well" I mean strictly rationed and tightly restricted (ie. no more than five vistis and no more than $10,000 to $12,0000 in treatments over 3 years)....would (1) ration care and rein in the costs of illegal immigrants using our emergency rooms, (2) free business and industry from the burden of providing free healthcare (the SECRET "It ain't free, it comes from monies that WOULD HAVE been added to a worker's pay") and (3) would drastically cut down on healthcare costs by limiting the amount of care GIVEN away...BUT, we all know that's NOT what many Leftists WANT.
They want an UNAFFORDABLE "give more for free to the freeloaders," kind of plan...one that will eventually (hopefully SOONER, rather than later) re-tooled and corrected by Republicans and Conservatives once they get back into office.
But the irony is that EVEN the Dem plan will restrict and ration care for those who'll be forced to rely on the public option.
The fatal flaw of Liberalism is that it's so unworkable and so pernicious in its attitude, that ultimately it turns adherents into opponents.
Of course, the problem is that every generation produces more young idealists who believe that wishing it would rain root beer is as good as making it happen.
Lately I've been greatly disappointed by the likes of Newt Gingrich, who's supported Dede Scozzafava of NY's 23rd District...a pro Card Check, pro-ACORN "Republican" over a true Conservative Jim Hoffman.
This is exactly the WRONG time for Conservatives to compromise....a Moderate LOST BAD last election and he lost because he WAS too moderate (a/k/a Liberal)!
I believe that in 2010 we need to watch out for an ACORN runaway and other such attempts to steal that election....but the landscape will almost certainly look at LOT more dire by late 2010 than it does now.
I think there'll be a need for Conservatives to go out and poll watch and really get involved in the direct election process by 2010...