Quote from: dannyf on Today at 22:50:03
'If those guys are happy 50 years after being taken by others, I will consider adopting their theories'
I think that should be the ultimate test for any policy proposals. If Obama thinks obamacare is good for us, put his family in it as well. If it is good for my family, it must be good for his too.
If he is not willing to subject his family to his own policies, why should we? Basic fairness.
You don't get it. You drank the Kool Aid.
Obama is wealthy. Wealthy people in the US get
modern care.
Like is the norm in Australia, even still.
Or Western Europe. Wealthy people buy top quality insurance
at tremendous cost.
How much, in New York City "good" PPO insurance for a family can easily cost
$6500 a month.
And thats a conservative estimate. Thats an old figure. From maybe 2008.
And the really wealthy get
concierge medicine, or if they are really really wealthy, and have health issues, they have live in doctors.
They - their doctors, may subscribe to a service where
they basically have medical personnel available to them, with specially equipped vans "On call" 24-7. They get a mini-hospital and lab in a van.. which can come over at any time its needed..
the best that medicine anywhere can offer.
The wealthy self insure. They pay by cash or check or credit card, for their medical care. At undiscounted rates.
They may sometimes have old style 'fee for service' insurance (if its still available anywhere, I doubt it) even though it costs more than what 75% of all Americans make every year.
It pays everything. No gag clauses. No insurance company haggling with the doctor.
in short, its basically single payer. All Canadians get care like that, whatever is called for if they need it. They may have to wait a bit for elective surgery. But emergencies get taken care of right away. And no big surprises. there are no bills.
Unfortunately 99% of Americans have to deal with the companies who arguably add NOTHING - they add no value and all they insure is that most Americans wait too long to get medical care they need. Which makes it still more expensive. And they try to delay diagnoses of serious illness by (kind of) billing doctors - in a sense, by paying doctors a flat rate per patient - so they are basically paying doctors less per hour when their patients are sick, and less when a patient is diagnosed with an illness.
So, among the rich, HMOs are seen as a dumb move for all but the very healthy.
There is a paradox. In America, only the wealthy and healthy can afford cheap insurance.
Others don't ever get HMO insurance. they wouldn't be caught dead with HMO insurance. They have separate waiting rooms and separate doors. Great care is taken to keep the two groups apart in hospitals. For liability reasons.
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Which brings me to the main reason many well to do people would rather pay cash - Its because then they get better care.. it also preserves their privacy and also doctors can be honest with them, if they are sick. I already explained that higher up in the thread, basically HMOS limit the options doctors can discuss with patients to what they want to pay for.
And the wealthy certainly dont get Obamacare.
Obamacare is an minimal insurance of last resort for poor people.
And its designed so they cant really afford to USE it. if somebody who has Obamacare did in fact use it a lot, they likely would come under suspicion for lying on the application. Where did they get the money!?
Its a really f**** up non solution. It doesn't solve ANY of the big problems with the healthcare system.
(Read about them here) State Health Reform Flatlines -
http://www.pnhp.org/states_flatline/State%20Health%20Reform%20Flatlines%20IJHS%20-%202008.pdf PNHP Research: The Case for a National Health Program -
http://www.pnhp.org/resources/pnhp-research-the-case-for-a-national-health-programIts trying to lower the 'legal standard of care' to third world levels. Its main goal is to preserve a really disgraceful situation long enough so that these really horrible trade deals can act to literally lock bad policy into place forever by giving corporations property rights to bad policy continuing forever. In other words, when it becomes too much for the country to bear, then we cant get out, instead we have to buy our freedom with a huge bailout. Something like that happened on a smaller scale to the Slovak Republic, and you can read the actual legal case - well, arbitral case, here.
http://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw3207.pdfRead about the conflicts between democracy and healthcare and the right to regulate, even if that means picking single payer and telling insurance companies to close up shop, and the plan to lock us in forever, i.e. WTO and the GATS - and its successor, TiSA- here: Americans may notice that the media has NEVER told them about THIS. Which one is the dream state then, which one is real. Guess.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.405.5725&rep=rep1&type=pdfThats the real problem - the big problem. the key to the whole mess.