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Nation must focus on care over politics
Published 12:00am Sunday, July 1, 2012Is America finally ready to focus on tangible health care results instead of partisan agendas?
Hopefully the answer is yes now that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that most of the Affordable Care Act — “Obamacare” to its critics — is constitutional and can be enforced by the federal government.
For months the battle over this landmark legislation has been more about political posturing than anything else. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have tried to blur the facts or twist them to further their own agendas.
Although some critics have vowed to continue the fight to repeal or overturn the legislation, it would be far more constructive for our leaders to start working together on ensuring that the result of the law is that we have the best health care system in the world, one that is accessible to everyone.
Does the Affordable Care Act include positives changes? Absolutely. These include the fact that millions of Americans who couldn’t afford or couldn’t get approved for health insurance will now have access, the costs of many prescriptions will drop and more preventative screenings will be fully covered, just to name a few.
Does it have some negatives? Of course. Tops among these is the uncertainty of how this will work and how it will impact the average taxpayer. Also, how will insurance companies respond in terms of changes to existing coverages. The plan also had a forced Medicaid expansion that could have been devastating to state governments but it was thankfully struck down by the court.
The time for rhetoric and grandstanding has passed. These changes are likely here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.
Let’s start really focusing on patients instead of politics.
I’m always amazed at liberals shallow thinking. Who do you think would pay for the costs if nothing was ever denied? That’s right, those paying the insurance premium. Don’t like paying $4,000 a year for single insurance? How about $8,000 or $10,000 a year?
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Sounds like you want to go to a medical facility and have the receptionist to tell you to take a number and have a seat.
If you don’t like your treatment, tough. If you don’t like your doctor, tough. The only doctors and nurses left will be the ones practicing their “vocation”.
Maybe you as a union man should have given back half or more of your paycheck because you just loved your vocation and want to sacrifice for the fine citizens of this country.
Teachers should do the same also. Farmers also, the gov’t should confiscate all land and pay them a “vocational” wage.
Welcome to communism!!!
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Health Care should not be classified as a business, for profit, in particular. The giving of health care is a service to humanity and those belonging to the health care profession are for all effects and purposes practicing a vocation, a calling. Fair and just payment for services rendered are to be expected, whether from the government (we the people) or from the individual receiving these services (if possible). All members of society have the right to expect equal and competent medical assistance irregardless of their station in life.
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You think 3.3% is excessive? Insurance companies keep health care costs down by catching fraud
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Good lord. 16%, the actual return on investors’ money, is excessive. 1% is excessive, when it comes to little bald kids with ports for chemo. A health care system whose bottom line is profits for shareholders is obscene. And FYI, insurance companies keep their costs down by denying claims, refusing to insure sick people, and claiming Grandma’s brain tumor was a pre-existing condition, not a covered expense. The affordable Care Act puts a stop to that nonsense, and not a moment too soon.
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Goverment run health care. About time, then people that really need it will get help, just like the ones on SSI.
Yea, right.
At least the goverment payroll can increase, just like Obambi did on ACA.
Money no problem, rob Medicare and ACA tax will cover it.
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Oops, messed up. Not ACA, ACT(affordable care tax).
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Where’s the beef Keta? All I hear is a bunch of hot air.
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Insurance Companies are bloodthirsty scavengers that capitalize on fear and ignorance and wallow in their excessive profits. You are not guarantied a payoff for losses. Ask people in Florida and Louisiana.
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What excessive profits Mick? You think 3.3% is excessive? Insurance companies keep health care costs down by catching fraud, something that the government isn’t very good at:
“…Howard Antelis, says he got tired of reporting fraud to his managers and getting told to look the other way. The fraud deals mostly with illegals and other criminals signing up for ITINs (like social security numbers) to get tax credits that they aren’t supposed to get, costing the tax payer over 4 billion every year…”
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as measured by profit margins
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Health insurers LOVE to talk about profit margins, because that’s so misleading, and because it diverts attention from where their profits come from. Their return on equity – percentage of the amounts invested – is a whopping 16%. They deliver a higher return for their investors than even booming businesses like cell phone companies. Their profits are massive and endless, as long as Americans are dumb enough to include them in the health care delivery system.
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Keta, you really need to use reputable sites. It’s pretty sad when you have drunk so much kool-aid, you don’t even believe the New York Times.
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noesis-A new CNN poll taken after last week’s Supreme Court ruling shows that 51% of the American people want all provisions in the health overhaul law repealed.
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Yes, but what do we do with the remainder 49%? Free mental evaluations?
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How about we put them to work? They are probably the ones who are used to getting government handouts.
There’s a reason you are told not to feed the wild animals, they get dependent on you and forget how to fend for themselves.
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Well, I see that the liberals are talking about stuff they are clueless on…. but what else is new?
Oh those evil insurance companies!!!
From the liberal Washington Post:
“…The insurance industry is not a particularly profitable industry. To be more specific, they’re the 86th most profitable industry as measured by profit margins, with an average margin of 3.3 percent. That’s lower than drug manufacturers (16.5 percent), health information services (9.3 percent), home health care (8.4 percent), medical labs and research (8.2 percent), medical instruments and supplies (6.8 percent), biotech firms (6.7 percent), generic drug manufacturers (6.6 percent), and much else. That’s not to pretend that 3.3 percent is nothing, but it’s hard to see how that’s a primary driver of health-care spending, much less the growth in health-care spending…”
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they’re in BUSINESS TO MAKE MONEY
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Amen. People who are afraid of change continue to defend the insurance industry, but the way to lower costs is to completely eliminate it, like every other civilized country has done. Health care is too basic to be run for profit, big profits for shareholders. Insurance companies never saved a life, cured a disease, relieved anyone’s pain. They just take a big chunk of every health care dollar, and if you don’t like it, you’re a flaming socialist. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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People who are afraid of change continue to defend the insurance industry, but the way to lower costs is to completely eliminate it, like every other civilized country has done.
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Health Insurance
This page will provide you with links to information, providers and news relating to health insurance for Canadians.
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Thinking about health insurance?
England: Health insurance helps you to get fast access to specialists for diagnosis, helps reduce NHS waiting times for medical care and you benefit from pioneering treatments and proven drugs not widely available. All at a time and place to suit you. It all adds up to invaluable peace of mind.
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As usual Keta… you really don’t know what you are talking about…
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As an RN at a county hospital, I saw many patients who, for whatever many reasons, did not have insurance. But we still took care of them every bit as well as all the others. I once answered a [misdirected] phone call from an insurance company representative demanding to know why my hospital was submitting bills for non pre-approved treatment. Their client – my patient – had been involved in a traffic accident and failed to notify their insurance company IN ADVANCE in order to quaalify for coverage on the terms of their policy. The INSURANCE industry – not “Obamacare” is what has “rationed” healthcare access. We taxpayers pay when uninsured people get medical services AND when insurance companies decide to DENY claims and coverage to people whose premium payments they’ve taken for years – as long as they didn’t need services. Insurance companies are wealthy and hugely profitable because they collect premiums but routinely deny claims and refuse benefits. Don’t ever forget they’re in BUSINESS to MAKE MONEY – not to help you.
And always remember how much of your premium is funding expensive advertising but denying your claim for service.
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caglewis, aye you a RN to help people or, to get a paycheck? Would you be willing to accept less pay to help your patients out? See how silly you sound when you rail against insurance companies? Yes, they make a SMALL profit, so what. It costs the taxpayer less money if insurance companies do it rather than the government which really doesn’t care about waste or fraud.
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deist; Thanks for an informative and positive post. At the present time the only fault I find, has to do with freedom of conscience in regards to sexuality issues. Taxpayers dollars being used unequivocally, without due concern for religious beliefs. This can be disputed and decided in the public arena. My compliments to the Supreme Court on a wise decision.
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This is what we get. What part of this is not good?
1) Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime coverage limits on your insurance. Never again will you face the risk of getting really sick and then, a few months in, having your insurer tell you, “Sorry, you’ve ‘run out’ of coverage.” Almost everyone I’ve met knows someone who had insurance but got really, really sick (or had a kid get really sick) and ran into a lifetime cap.
2) If you don’t know someone who has run into a lifetime cap, you probably know someone who has run into an annual cap. The use of these will be sharply limited. (They’ll be eliminated entirely in 2014.)
3) Insurers can no longer tell kids with preexisting conditions that they’ll insure them “except for” the preexisting condition. That’s called preexisting condition exclusion, and it’s out the window.
4) A special, temporary program will help adults with preexisting conditions get coverage. It expires in 2014, when the health insurance exchanges—basically big “pools” of businesses and individuals—come on-line. That’s when all insurers will have to cover everyone, preexisting condition or not.
5) Insurance companies can’t drop you when you get sick, either—this plan means the end of “rescissions.”
6) You can stay on your parents’ insurance until you’re 26.
7) Seniors get $250 towards closing the “doughnut hole” in their prescription drug coverage. Currently, prescription drug coverage ends once you’ve spent $2,700 on drugs and it doesn’t kick in again until you’ve spent nearly $6,200. James Ridgeway wrote about the problems with the doughnut hole for Mother Jones in the September/October 2008 issue. Eventually, the health care reform bill will close the donut hole entirely. The AARP has more on immediate health care benefits for seniors. Next year (i.e., in nine months), 50 percent of the doughnut hole will be covered.
Medicare’s preventive benefits now come with a free visit with your primary care doctor every year to plan out your prevention services. And there are no more co-pays for preventative services in Medicare.
9) This is a big one: Small businesses get big tax credits—up to 50 percent of premium costs—for offering health insurance to their workers.
10) Insurers with unusually high administrative costs have to offer rebates to their customers, and every insurance company has to reveal how much it spends on overhead.
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#1) Nope… Don’t know anyone. One of my co-worker’s daughters even had cancer at the age of 18…They tried every treatment known to man to keep her alive. In desperation they even removed all her limbs one at a time until she was nothing but a head and a torso… All this intensive care took place over 6 months… and he never reached a “cap”
#2) See #1 above.
#6) That’s because the vast majority of young adults (especially males) don’t need to go to hospitals.
#9) But with the penalty being a tiny fraction of the health care costs, lots of companies will be kicking their workers off their health insurance plans (So much for…. If you like your plan, you can keep it!)
#10) That won’t be much money…and most of it goes to the company who pays the majority of your insurance costs.
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This man has never told the truth in his life, at least not since he’s been in office. If this obamma care was just about health care it might be ok , but its not. It has so many things hidden in it that we don’t know whats in it. so i say if thay can’t show the people whats in it, get rid of it. jmo.
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A new CNN poll taken after last week’s Supreme Court ruling shows that 51% of the American people want all provisions in the health overhaul law repealed. Clearly the American people are not growing to like the law better, as President Obama promised they would. Instead, their opposition has hardened.
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It seems that rherotic comes from both sides and each side seems that there poisition is the right and many case only position. Not sure how this plan will affect overall heath care. It may lead to an increase in coverage for many that do not now have coverage. It will certainly increase the national debt and this has been shown in the EU. It does appear that most turn a blind eye to what occurs in the EU unless it directly affects there financial state. We seem to follow in the footsteps of many of the same mistakes the EU makes. The EU would love to have Obama as there world leader. This may not be so far fetched when you look at his popularity there. Do we want to follow this direction?
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