quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Healthcare reform is no more about healthcare than gun control is about guns. Both are about power and centralizing it in the Federal government.

Truer words have never been spoken.



.

If anyone thinks companies will happily start giving you equivalent cash to cover your medical costs you are crazy. They will toss you a couple hundred to shut you up and you'll own the $1000 month premiums, at least, for a crappy plan.

My last job when I hired in our insurance was 100% free. We made a little less than industry average but had free insurance as a benefit and it was a good place to work. Then they started charging for it, and after a few years were paying as much as anyone in the industry but our wages sure didn't increase to make up the difference. My current employer toyed with this when Obamacare was first floated. They were looking into giving us all a $500 a month raise and ending any and all insurance.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
My Canadian friends are not happy with their system. If you like to wait long periods of time for elective surgeries and trust the government to know what is best for you, Medicare for all is for you. CMS the bureaucratic organization that runs Medicare is not a finely tuned machine by any stretch of the imagination. There is a reason many medical specialties no longer accept Medicare patients.

I don't think it just elective surgeries that have a long wait list.



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quote:

Famed investor Warren Buffett has called employer-provided health care the “tapeworm of American competitiveness,” because it forces American firms to bear a costly bureaucratic burden their foreign competitors don’t have to deal with.

Yeah, because we know getting the gummint to take control will make things less bureaucratic.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

As the only buyer of health care, the government would have the power to demand deep discounts, and there would be lower overhead because there would only be one administrative structure.

Yeah, right!

The providers are all in DC, infesting the halls of Congress weeping and wailing to get more money, just like every other government program beneficiary, department or bureau, no incentive to save money, be efficient or otherwise. In fact, the opposite.

This is nuts!

No, for real. The US is the only buyer of US Warships and they get deep deep deep discounts up to 80% and more.

It's been an open secret for military contract bidding that seemingly in rotation, different companies win the "low" bid with the others ridiculously high. It's like how lucky for everyone that the work seems to be given out to everybody in turn even in a highly competitive government bidding.

</sarcasm>

Passing Medicare seemed so benign at first, didn't it? It was a step to condition us and create the environment for socialized medicine. Not so benign at this end of the tunnel.

It says something about Bernie's economic plan when Americans all over have been sending him economics books.

quote:

Originally posted by cne32507:
I recall reading that company provided health insurance grew out of the WWII wage caps and labor shortage. Companies started offering free medical insurance to entice workers to stay or hire-on. Once started down that path they could not end it later. Is that true?

I cring when politicians and the media refer to "The high cost of healthcare " when they really mean " Medical Insurance ".

Yes. That's how we got where we are today.
Wage and price controls were a bad idea by government. To get around them businesses started offering an alternative form of compensation which was not taxed or limited by government at the time.

Circular logic.

Who's going to pay? If you tax the company more, the money they don't have to pay into your premiums goes to company tax. If they tax the individual, the money you started getting from your company goes to tax.

They build this up and act like if we go to universal medicare, the cost somehow just disappears. Magic!

After seeing the 'magic' they've done with education, finance, and housing, I'm not in a big rush to let the government run much of anything else.

quote:

“The other side of the coin is businesses, individuals, states and others are not going to be paying these costs. They’re going to be given to the federal government.”

(Raise hand) “Where will the federal government get the money to pay the costs?
(Answer) “businesses, individuals, states and others.”

Due to a couple of root canals, my dental insurance is maxed out for the year. First time ever. This is what will happen with single payer. There’s only so much money and resources to go around.what happens if you are old and sick? What happens to a baby born with serious problems?

The Netherlands has a policy to euthanize children

“Children are occasionally born with such serious disorders that termination of life is regarded as the best option.

The law permits physicians to terminate the lives of newborn infants and to perform late-term abortion only on condition that they fulfil the following due care criteria:

In the light of prevailing medical opinion, the child’s suffering must be unbearable and with no prospect of improvement. This means that the decision to discontinue treatment is justified. There must be no doubt about the diagnosis and prognosis;
Both the physician and the parents must be convinced that there is no reasonable alternative solution given the child’s situation;
The parents must have given their consent for the termination of life;
The parents must have been fully informed of the diagnosis and prognosis;
At least one other, independent physician must have examined the child and given a written opinion on compliance with the due care criteria listed above
The termination must be performed with all due care.”
https://www.government.nl/topi...-and-newborn-infants
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e...-deaths-netherlands/

Before Obamacare, I remember writing articles about how "bending the cost curve" was a pipe dream. Government control expands costs.

After implementation, the Wall Street Journal ultimately wrote that Obamacare did bend the cost curve - the wrong direction.

The OP's article seems a return to the same ole' failure. Before President Trump made some changes, the costs were set to simply explode.

Just like others who have a precious philosophy, when someone argues that we just need more of what didn't work before, it seems more like blind pursuit than workable policy.

How is this kind of plan going to compensate doctors, who will basically become government employees?

Good luck finding a specialist if we go to this plan. Life-saving surgeries will be rationed, and the number of doctors who can perform them will decline rapidly as the incentive to go into medicine drops.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Separating employment from health insurance is actually a good idea. There is no reason to couple health insurance with employment. The tax code never should have been used to do so... but this can be fixed by changing the tax code. No socialism required. It would open the individual market to competition.

If it was no longer tax deductible to the corporation to provide health insurance, they wouldn't provide it. A quarter to a third of your pay would no longer be "benefits". You would receive cash instead of the standard package of "benefits".

I agree with the statement that healthcare never should have been linked to employment. However, we both know that if the tax incentives were taken away companies would not just give that money to employees, they would apply it to the bottom line. Some might give a portion to employees, but they wouldn't be able to compete with those who applied it to their bottom line.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Separating employment from health insurance is actually a good idea. There is no reason to couple health insurance with employment. The tax code never should have been used to do so... but this can be fixed by changing the tax code. No socialism required. It would open the individual market to competition.

If it was no longer tax deductible to the corporation to provide health insurance, they wouldn't provide it. A quarter to a third of your pay would no longer be "benefits". You would receive cash instead of the standard package of "benefits".

I agree with the statement that healthcare never should have been linked to employment. However, we both know that if the tax incentives were taken away companies would not just give that money to employees, they would apply it to the bottom line. Some might give a portion to employees, but they wouldn't be able to compete with those who applied it to their bottom line.

Several have opined that companies would not give employees the whole cost of insurance: both employee share and company share. Hell, have the IRS make 'em. Congress would love to get their grubby hands on the billions of increased taxes: both individual and corporate.

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
Healthcare reform is no more about healthcare than gun control is about guns. Both are about power and centralizing it in the Federal government.

^^^This.

All a thinking, coherent, person would need to ask themselves to completely destroy this "cost saving" premise nonsense is...."Is there 'one' thing that the federal government does more cheaply and efficiently than the private sector?" Not a single one.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
How is this kind of plan going to compensate doctors, who will basically become government employees?

Good luck finding a specialist if we go to this plan. Life-saving surgeries will be rationed, and the number of doctors who can perform them will decline rapidly as the incentive to go into medicine drops.

Yeah, that gene pool will empty rapidly as potential Doctors jump ship. My son wants to be a doctor and the large salary is incentive to go to school for 8 years and rack up a couple hundred K in debt. Tell him he'll only make $100k as a GS and he'll change gears in about 30 seconds.

Or the high level doctors will just go 'cash only' and do private party work / etc. They wont take medicare at all or will have the 'budget' wing for that kind of shit.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Wage and price controls were a bad idea by government.

Riddle me this. Over the past 40 years, can you think of anything the federal government has done that might be classified as a 'good' thing? I can't.

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
However, we both know that if the tax incentives were taken away companies would not just give that money to employees, they would apply it to the bottom line. Some might give a portion to employees, but they wouldn't be able to compete with those who applied it to their bottom line.

Maybe, maybe not. Other factors would/could come to bear that might alter that relationship.

Example.

• Two companies selling same or very similar products.
• Company A offers a salary of $50k with no health insurance. Any insurance savings go to their bottom line.
• Company B offers a salary of $40k and discounted insurance employees like.

If the demand for both companies products is increasing, both will likely require additional labor to address that growth. In that environment, Company B should be far better positioned to hire new staff than Company A who could see their sales opportunities decline if they can't meet demand.

I'm not saying this 'would' happen as I've noted, but varying economic factors 'could' drive this decision in different directions.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal: Over the past 40 years, can you think of anything the federal government has done that might be classified as a 'good' thing? I can't.

Hmmmm....1978 to present. Nope.

I think I'd have to go back to the early days of NASA. The Reagan years were good for building up the military from the depletion of the Carter years, but that just got us back to where we needed to be. Not exactly breaking new ground.

Articles about this study, done by a Libertarian leaning group that has some financial support from the Koch Brothers, have been selectively quoted by left and extreme left news outlets claiming support for government takeover of healthcare.

None of them go beyond the headlines into even the first paragraph of the actual report and there is a reason for that. The conclusions in the report itself are not supportive of this takeover.

Here is the first paragraph and below is a link to the report itself. Unlike government reports, it is relatively short and to the point.

"The leading current bill to establish single-payer health insurance, the Medicare for All Act
(M4A), would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by
approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation (2022–2031),
assuming enactment in 2018. This projected increase in federal healthcare commitments would
equal approximately 10.7 percent of GDP in 2022, rising to nearly 12.7 percent of GDP in 2031
and further thereafter. Doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income
tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan. It is likely that
the actual cost of M4A would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume
significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that healthcare
providers operating under M4A will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than
those currently paid by private health insurance."

The complete report:
https://www.mercatus.org/syste...rking-paper-v1_1.pdf