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Posted: 12/12/2003 11:13:32 PM EDT
Link Posted: 12/12/2003 11:14:03 PM EDT
[#1]
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 12:07:03 AM EDT
[#2]
I have mixed feelings myself.

Every year for the last three my profession has faced ridiculous cuts in reimbursement which have been staved off due to passage of bills. I am thankful for that.

I think the .gov is stepping into a big pile of chit by getting into the prescription drug arena for several reasons. Anyone presently confined to a government entity formulary can tell you that the selection of drugs is for the most part very limited and usually what I would consider second tier. Secondly, almost every drug company that visits my office has a patient assistance program that can provide seniors with meds at a reasonable cost. Many of these assistance programs have no income requirements or entry criteria. Third, prescription drugs might become just another ballooning entitlement with no end in sight.

On the positive side, the passage of the "reform" disarms yet another Dem issue for the 04 election. The "reform" also might, as stated in your post, prevent a worse bill from passing in the near future. And finally, the infamous trojan horse of MSA and steps toward privatization are VERY important components and much needed. Unfortunately, the MSA and privatization are provided for with too long of a window before full implementation.

Get some sleep, Hun. I'm up working, you have no excuse!
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 12:09:45 AM EDT
[#3]
"... you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free"
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 3:37:25 AM EDT
[#4]
there's a difference between MSAs (medical savings accounts) which we had before the law, and HSAs (health savings accounts) which the new law allows for.


HSAs are like MSAs on steroids, bigger accounts, money doesn't dissapear at the end of a year, better tax breaks, etc



even though the HSA part is good for my job, i  still can't stomach a $400 billion dollar hand out.



Link Posted: 12/13/2003 4:40:54 AM EDT
[#5]
Perrin's argument runs as follows: The government's existing health-care policies will, if not changed, over time generate increasing pressure for a governmental takeover of the field.
View Quote


I'm not sure this would be such a bad thing.  Health care and health insurance are already completely FUBARed.  It is difficult to imagine anyone (including-- *gasp* --the government) doing a worse job.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 5:30:34 AM EDT
[#6]
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 5:52:56 AM EDT
[#7]
Until we get a graduated vote that matches the graduated income tax, we will be screwed.  We will vote ourseves into communism.  The Republic is history.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 6:02:40 AM EDT
[#8]
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 8:50:14 AM EDT
[#9]
Some of you are missing the reason that some of us conservatives are for a national health care plan, …but maybe not this plan.
1) The current method of each health care purchaser making their own deals,  provides a real mess for employer's and employee's.
Just about no one is big enough to have enough clout to keep the medical profession costs from running wild.
Can anyone give me a real good reason why we American's that can pay, are footing the bill for just about all the medical research costs in the world, while everyone else seems to be able to by the same drugs much cheaper?
Divide and conquer gentlemen. We are paying too much for health care, and the fact that we do not speak with one voice is part of the problem.
2) This current system can tie you down to an employer that has gone bad.
Fear of losing your retirement, and fear of losing your families medical has kept many people tied to a place that is not treating them well.
No one in their right mind will voluntarily walk away from 20+ years invested into a retirement/medical plan. Yet at the same time many companies are terminating people “for business reasons” when they are just short of their goals.
I had always sided with business in the past, we do need to be competitive.
However it does now seem that the upper end of the business pyramid is taking care of themselve’s, and selling us out in the process.
If you could "walk with your plans" many employers would be treating people differently.
3) Do you think that we are not paying anyway?
                                SERIOUSLY?

Many of you rant against the amount that we spend on those who do not work, well get a grip, this segment of the population is already getting “free” health care. Right now we are mainly punishing the working poor, and in my book, these are people that I want to help, and I want to succeed. They at least are trying, and need a hand, not a hand-out.
We need to tackle this beast. WE need to reign in costs, and We need the rest of the world to pay their share. They are getting our jobs, they need to take our responsibility with it.
I've said it before, I'm not defending this out of despair, I've had coverage my entire adult life, and anticipate it being true until I die. However I've seen more than my share of hard working people screwed out of their benefits after a lifetime of work just because they were a few month's short of some number.
It just ain't right, and we need to all get our arms around this issue to make them come up with a plan that is adequate, and accountable to keep cost's in check.
You are all worried that "free" health care is going to run amuck, I say that that portion of the system already has. We have those that are protected as a condition of employment, we have those that are protected because “they got rights” and society owes them. And we have a large segment of working people, who do not have health care, and can’t qualify for it for free, or at an affordable cost.
We really need to demand a system that fairly distributes the cost’s for this need and allow all the people in this country the same value that our efforts provide for less costs elsewhere.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 9:16:32 AM EDT
[#10]
Well, it certainly didn't go far enough. And yes, I'm familar with Socialized medicine as praticed in every civilized country. And if we had adopted the plan put forward by Richard Nixon IMHO we would be a lot better off now. We need to get all of the insurance companies out of the picture and to fully socialize all health care. In addition, getting health care should be a litmus test for any form of welfare payments.

But then I also think we should not only decriminalized drugs, I think we should Nationalize and subsidize the distribution of drugs and keep them so cheap that no one can compete in the sales area.

And that is from a GoldWater Conservative so let's not try challenging credentials.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 10:48:11 AM EDT
[#11]
Quoted:
Well, it certainly didn't go far enough. And yes, I'm familar with Socialized medicine as praticed in every civilized country. And if we had adopted the plan put forward by Richard Nixon IMHO we would be a lot better off now. We need to get all of the insurance companies out of the picture and to fully socialize all health care. In addition, getting health care should be a litmus test for any form of welfare payments.

But then I also think we should not only decriminalized drugs, I think we should Nationalize and subsidize the distribution of drugs and keep them so cheap that no one can compete in the sales area.

And that is from a GoldWater Conservative so let's not try challenging credentials.
View Quote



so goldwater was a fucking commie like you?

Link Posted: 12/13/2003 12:18:40 PM EDT
[#12]
Quoted:
Perrin's argument runs as follows: The government's existing health-care policies will, if not changed, over time generate increasing pressure for a governmental takeover of the field.
View Quote


I'm not sure this would be such a bad thing.  Health care and health insurance are already completely FUBARed.  It is difficult to imagine anyone (including-- *gasp* --the government) doing a worse job.
View Quote


I work in a Governmental Hospital where health care is denied to no one. You really want socialized health care? We have had patients wait easily 12 -24 hours to be seen in the ER. That is not being on a gurney waiting to be seen but waiting out on a chair. You cannot leave because if your name is called and you are not there you are bumped to the back. Clinic appointments can take up to 6 months. Would you want to have Jose "the 2 six pack a night" drinker with DT's as your room mate?  The hospital staff is severly overworked which has all ready been shown in a New England Medical Journey study to increase the chance of something bad happening to you during your stay.  You will end up with the brightest doctors going into elective type fields where they can still charge the patients. Salaries for nursing and ancillary staff will probably be less causing a further reduction in those all ready short staffed fields.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 12:52:18 PM EDT
[#13]
Bad deal. The money just ain't there. plain and simple. It is irresponsible of our gov't and politicians to unload the whining and bitching of a bunch of old fuckers with their hand out on the rest of us. They ought to have the guts to tell their grandkids to buy their meds for them. Instead they have the gov't rob them before many are even of legal age to vote or realize what has been foisted upon them. This will turn out to be one of the great injustices of american history.

As for socialized medicine:
It does exist. Go see how good patient care is at your local VA hospital. Docs there spend 3 times more time doing gov't paperwork than they do taking care of patients. If the .gov ever takes over medicine in this country, this is one doc who will be doing something else for a living. Alot of us will. And many of the best and brightest will decide going into medicine is just not worth the hassle. We can bring in alot more foreign docs...again.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 1:32:46 PM EDT
[#14]
No doubt about it, if we let bureaucrats run things we will be filling out forms, and CYA’ing everything to death. If we let the medical profession and drug companies run things, we will be sucked dry. We all agree on that.
But with all the brainpower in this country, do you really believe that we can’t come up with a sensible set-up that will work?
It’s obvious that it will be up to the people to figure this one out, our politician’s and the medical related companies have been in bed together for so long that now it’s just plain incest.
But it is a situation that we cannot duck forever, Do you really think that people in this country will sit back and be quite forever when they are denied treatments, while even our neighbor next door has access to goods that we fund the development on?

Link Posted: 12/13/2003 2:22:11 PM EDT
[#15]
I have the utmost confidence that my government-- my congresspeople, my executive branch, all those wonderful diplomats and bureaucrats --can give us the finest socialized medical system in the world.  Canada's problems were the result of a large resident population of French speaking citizens, not from any flaw in the social medicine concept. [;D]
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 2:34:43 PM EDT
[#16]
Quoted:
No doubt about it, if we let bureaucrats run things we will be filling out forms, and CYA’ing everything to death. If we let the medical profession and drug companies run things, we will be sucked dry. We all agree on that.
But with all the brainpower in this country, do you really believe that we can’t come up with a sensible set-up that will work?
It’s obvious that it will be up to the people to figure this one out, our politician’s and the medical related companies have been in bed together for so long that now it’s just plain incest.
But it is a situation that we cannot duck forever, Do you really think that people in this country will sit back and be quite forever when they are denied treatments, while even our neighbor next door has access to goods that we fund the development on?

View Quote


The solutions are not hard to figure out but are difficult to get society to agree to. When it is grandma everyone wants EVERYTHING done no matter how gorked out grandma is at the end of life. When it is someone else then to hell with 'em.

1] End to treatment for patients with severe dementia or at the end of life. Dying is a natural process and there is a time for it. For all of us.

2] End to million dollar babies. That one is really hard but who are we really helping here?

3] Copay for ALL healthcare visits. Not so much that it keeps people from coming in but enough that it puts an end to frivolous visits for ridiculous complaints. There are days that less than half of the patients I see need to come to the doctor. More of a copay for expensive tests and procedures. People are plenty willing to pay for their homes, cars, boats, booze, cigarettes but when it is time to consider their health that has now become some kind of "right". Bullshit, things cost money and healthcare is no different.

4] Identify "frequent flyers". They may pay my salary but what they cost society is ridiculous. They should be identified and have a surcharge against them.  Two good examples of these are the people who don't want to work and those trying to get drugs. They cost us so much money in so many different ways that it is probably impossible to calculate it.

5] Tort reform

6] Eliminate much of the bureaucracy from medicine. General administrative costs are getting way out of hand.


If these things are done I will make less, society will be better off and it will be one less reason for .gov to climb on my back. The loss in income is worth it to me as I find many of the above type patients and their families to be incredibly irritating, demanding and not worth the bother. I would gladly give up the income from their visits in order to see my country better off.
Link Posted: 12/13/2003 2:36:19 PM EDT
[#17]
Retirement planning, including health care, is your responsibility. Not the Govt, your employer, or the taxpayers!

Link Posted: 12/13/2003 4:18:27 PM EDT
[#18]
Quoted:
Until we get a graduated vote that matches the graduated income tax, we will be screwed.  We will vote ourseves into communism.  The Republic is history.
View Quote


[size=4]ding ding ding[/size=4]

We have a winner!

sadly so... [V]

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