Govt in health care? What to expect...

[Skibo]

The Federal Govt already is involved inhealthcare.

it seems that they don't do very good at it either.

WASHINGTON - The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient's condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.

Careful what you wish for guys....

[ph4ever]

that's why the majority of those that are for nationalized healthcare would like a complete overhaul of all the services the governemnt does offer sucha s Medicare/Medicaid as well as the entire VA system

[RinglingRingling]

The Federal Govt already is involved inhealthcare.

it seems that they don't do very good at it either.

WASHINGTON - The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient's condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.

Careful what you wish for guys....

tho to be fair, this could very well have been the result of an incredible lead time to actually get the request done thru the channels of paperwork; and in the interim, the patient ended up losing the leg...

[krusin1]

that's why the majority of those that are for nationalized healthcare would like a complete overhaul of all the services the governemnt does offer sucha s Medicare/Medicaid as well as the entire VA system

In all the nationalized health-care arguments I've heard so far, NOBODY has mentioned they want a complete overhaul of services the government offers.

And yeah, ask the government to overhaul and streamline itself... that'll work...

[krusin1]

The Federal Govt already is involved inhealthcare.

it seems that they don't do very good at it either.

WASHINGTON - The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient's condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.

Careful what you wish for guys....

tho to be fair, this could very well have been the result of an incredible lead time to actually get the request done thru the channels of paperwork; and in the interim, the patient ended up losing the leg...

And yet another reason NOT to let the government take over health care...

[RinglingRingling]

The Federal Govt already is involved inhealthcare.

it seems that they don't do very good at it either.

WASHINGTON - The government paid more than $1 billion in questionable Medicare claims for medical supplies that showed little relation to a patient's condition, including blood glucose strips for sexual impotence and special diabetic shoes for leg amputees, congressional investigators say.

Careful what you wish for guys....

tho to be fair, this could very well have been the result of an incredible lead time to actually get the request done thru the channels of paperwork; and in the interim, the patient ended up losing the leg...

And yet another reason NOT to let the government take over health care...

there is no difference between public or private. once an organization gets beyond a certain size, the sheer volume of inertia built into the system squashes any ability to rapidly address an issue.

If the private sector was the panacea it's claimed to be, the combination of unfettered capitalism and innovation would have our banking industry buying India AND China by now.

[green1]

there is no difference between public or private. once an organization gets beyond a certain size, the sheer volume of inertia built into the system squashes any ability to rapidly address an issue.

If the private sector was the panacea it's claimed to be, the combination of unfettered capitalism and innovation would have our banking industry buying India AND China by now.

Are you really suggesting that the private sector is unfettered? Maybe, if it was truly unfettered they could do what you suggest. But I don't think that is such a good idea.

[RinglingRingling]

there is no difference between public or private. once an organization gets beyond a certain size, the sheer volume of inertia built into the system squashes any ability to rapidly address an issue.

If the private sector was the panacea it's claimed to be, the combination of unfettered capitalism and innovation would have our banking industry buying India AND China by now.

Are you really suggesting that the private sector is unfettered? Maybe, if it was truly unfettered they could do what you suggest. But I don't think that is such a good idea.

well, we certainly took off a lot of the oversight on the banking industry from 2000 to 2005...

and the claim is made that the private sector can do so much more than the public, all the time, every time. If that were the case, in that atmosphere of deregulation, the creativity that gave us derivatives and the like should have enabled us to become a financial powerhouse, rather than the millstone we appear to be.

[The Lost Manatee]

While this is troubling, a billion dollars isn't very much when you compare it to the waste in the private health care insurance industry. According to a study commissioned by Families USA, only 60% of premiums are spent on actual health care, the remaining 40% are spent on administrative costs (this is approximately 2.5 times more than is spent on administrative costs in any of the public health care systems), which includes hiring people whose only purpose is to deny claims and remove individuals from the insurance roles.

When you consider the sheer magnitude of the private sector health insurance industry, a billion dollars is less than 1 percent of the total amount of money spent on health care by insured Americans.

Other issues that arise with the Private Health care system in this country is the tendency for the health insurance companies to build up huge cash reserves, far in excess of what the National Insurance Commission suggests in their guidelines. They suggest 250% reserves, which means that the insurance company has on hand 2.5 times it's anticipated liabilities, instead many companies are running reserves that are in the 750% range. Why do they do this? To help increase shareholder value. Several, including Highmark and Wellpointe, have actually raised their premiums so that they could meet their goals of shareholder value, not because their costs had gone up nor because it would allow them to better meet their customer's health insurance needs. It's all about taking care of the shareholder at the expense of the consumer.

Additionally, in the year 2000, it was estimated that there were approximately 20 million Americans that were living without any insurance and another 5 to 7 million that had a very little coverage. So a total of 27 million Americans with either no or very little insurance. In 2006 that number has grown to an estimated 47 million people who either have no or very little health insurance. This means that 1 out of every 7 Americans don't have health insurance. We're not talking about 1 out of every 7 people, including legal and illegal immigrants, we're talking about American citizens, 1 in 7 don't have health insurance. Sure some are young and probably don't need much and there are some that can't afford health insurance, it's tough to pay a health insurance premium when you can't afford to put food on the table. And there are those who chose not to purchase health insurance when they can afford it however we have a very large number of Americans who are unable to get health insurance.

What can be done about it? Well, according to some we need a national health care program, others say that we just need to let the free market forces work it out, like we have for the last 40 years and others say that we need to regulate the health insurance industry forcing it to offer a variety of plans that allow everyone to purchase health insurance and then we can require everyone to buy health insurance.

I'm not sure which, if any of these solutions will work, but I do know that the current system is broken and has way too much waste and fraud in it, whether it is Medicare/Medicad or if it is private corporations offering health insurance. We need to either completely reform the industry or we need to find a different model that we can modify to suit our society's needs.

[TropicalTroubador]

OTOH, government-run healthcare seems to work okay for members of Congress...

And universal healthcare seems to work in every other first-world country except the US. Beware scary information; the insurance industry has plenty dollar to spend making universal healthcare look bad, because they'd all have to go find honest work if it happened.

[jackiesic]

[quote="TropicalTroubador"]OTOH, government-run healthcare seems to work okay for members of Congress...

And universal healthcare seems to work in every other f

Honestly, I'm in the business and it's screwed up on both sides. I've definitely had about all the "socialized" medicine I can handle though.

[Elrod]

once an organization gets beyond a certain size, the sheer volume of inertia built into the system squashes any ability to rapidly address an issue.

So you want to increase that size of that organization by making them responsible for everyone's health care?

[RinglingRingling]

once an organization gets beyond a certain size, the sheer volume of inertia built into the system squashes any ability to rapidly address an issue.

So you want to increase that size of that organization by making them responsible for everyone's health care?

I am saying that any operation, public or private is going to be so large already that if they get the contract/task/job, they are going to be lumberingly-slow and that maybe (at best) half the money in the pool is going to go for "admin costs" rather than actually helping the clients it was tasked to aid.

[keybdplyr]

Please remember that any universal government health care plan has, at it’s core, the promise that the GOVERNMENT can provide BETTER service, for MORE people, at a LOWER cost. Does the government have a history of successfully and consistently managing anything to such standards?