OPP Newsletter

roy

yes the time has come for medicare for all,as insurance companys,drug companys,and all the middle men make billions,all that money could go to help pay for all to have heathcare.put all our leaders on the plan and let them decide the what the plan would consist of.obama care although with good intentions is so riddled with what company lobbiest wanted that it is just to hard to understand.

tombrady

medicare has a 5% overhead compare to private insurance companies 30%-35% ( if you include there 10-15% profit).. one reason republicans objected to the public option on healthcare it would drive private insurance out of buisness becasue the couldnt compete. even republicans in congress admit that medicare is cheaper. if im giving a choice to buy the same plan at 30% cheaper i know where im going

roy

amen

donc711 Loc: North East Kansas

Medicare while it is funded by individuals contributing to it, it is guarenteed with tax dollars. Also your percentages are way off. Every Social Security employee is paid from the Treasury Dept. That hides the true cost of administering it. Add in the sick benefit and the exstrodinary vacation benefit each employee recieves and the true costssky rocket. Then there are the other hidden costs such as conventions the adminstraters have to attend and advertising. Why does Medicare have to advertise? We all know it's there and we have to pay in to it every day we work for wages. Medicares true costs are much higher than private insurance I'm afraid.

tombrady

have you check private insurance advertisement? i constantly here there commercials on the radio and tv..i dont here 1/10 of that from medicare and no my figures are correct and admitted by republicans in congress

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Can you explain how new medicines are developed when the government has to pay for all the R & D work? Somehow I have to wonder how left leaners can think that all that money will be saved when the government has to pay for research and development.

roy, how long have you been on Medicare? I ask that because you don't sound much like you know just how much doctors and other health givers are paid by Medicare. I can promise you that it is about 40% of what they ask for. Of course, all of you understand that to get anything to care for we old poops health givers have to agree to take what Medicare will give them. So little understanding about how Medicare works seems to be very rampant from left leaners.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

I am waiting for somebody to start talking about how much is paid to healthcare givers by Medicare. It had been about 50% of what they asked for for most of my time on Medicare but this last January I got a letter from them that the amounts were going down and sure enough, down they went. I asked my doctor who works for wages from her clinic how much the drop was and she didn't know how much, only that it had taken place.

Up went the prices they tried to charge with that lowering of payments, but so few people understand this. i have always said that Medicare was the main reason for the heavy rises in cost since those people have to try to get their money from somewhere so they hit uninsured as well as insured people.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

I am waiting for somebody to start talking about how much is paid to healthcare givers by Medicare. It had been about 50% of what they asked for for most of my time on Medicare but this last January I got a letter from them that the amounts were going down and sure enough, down they went. I asked my doctor who works for wages from her clinic how much the drop was and she didn't know how much, only that it had taken place.

Up went the prices they tried to charge with that lowering of payments, but so few people understand this. i have always said that Medicare was the main reason for the heavy rises in cost since those people have to try to get their money from somewhere so they hit uninsured as well as insured people.

donc711 Loc: North East Kansas

Yeah Health insurance is a mess when it comes to insurance paying the bill, Medicare included. I have heard some who are uninsured requiring heath care being charged a lot more then people who are insured. I'm lumping Medicare in with other health insurance here of course. The reason seems to be that insurers such as Medicare and Private inurance negotiate a lower rate for themselves that the uninsured cannot. That is to recover some of the actual costs not paid by the insured. I don't know how much Medicare does not pay off the top of my head. I get statements every so often from medicare and my supplimental insurance that tells me how much each pays. In the end the health providers do get 100% of the bill between them. For themost part i would get billed for the overage that medicare would not pay. That did happen once. What Medicare would not pay my supplimental would not cover either, soI had to pay the difference. Health providers get 100% of the billing one way or another. Either acepting the Medicare payment or charging uninsured more. The Affordable Care Act seems to change some that but ot all. The only other way that people without insurance get health care is by visiting the ER of hospitals, and then letting the hospital knowthey haveno way to pay the bill. The doctors and hospital have to eat the bill and do not get paid by any insurance or patients in those cases.There is a federal subsidy hospitals get to recover some of the loss once refered tothe Hill Burton Act. There is still a federal subsidy to cover but may be under a different name.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

I am pretty sure that nobody pays the difference between what the doctors get from Medicare and what the insurance company pays for me. They have to agree to take wh**ever Medicare will pay in order to get anything. It embarrasses me every time I look at one of those statements from CMS where they tell what Medicre did pay and then add the cost that the insurance company paid. That amount is never very close to what the people have tried to get.

donc711 Loc: North East Kansas

Prehaps that is your case. In my case they get 100%between Medicare and my supplimental. Exceptinrare but odd instisences.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Medicare always says you may have to pay a certain amount which is much less than the care givers have asked for and always my insurance pays the amount they talk about.

For instance, I will be going for my 15th endosopy since 2001 this spring and I know they will be asked for around $750 by my doctor and he will get four something from them and around $50 from the insurance company. I seriously wonder if I will get many more of those things after January 1, 2014 when Obamacare comes in and the committee of 15 bureaucrats starts deciding who can have that test and who can't. I know that Zeke Emanuel thinks that 81 year olds are too old to get that kind of test. I can't wait to see just what happens when we get $70 billion taken from Medicare each year.

Tasine Loc: Southwest US

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This is, without a doubt, one of the dumbest suggestions I have heard, and I've heard a lot of dumb suggestions since Obama was handed the Oval Office. Every comment you made in that simple paragraph is based on incomplete and flawed information that logic ALONE should tell you you are in favor of buying a cracked and fragile monstrosity which you can never rid yourself of. It isn't you, Tom, as much as the article that I am calling dumb.

OF COURSE Obamacare is cheaper to the inidividual - IF one doesn't consider all the additional expenses that will be incurred BECAUSE it is cheaper to the individual. OF COURSE private companies' overhead is ALWAYS higher than a government program's is BECAUSE THEY MUST PRODUCE THE ENTIRE PRODUCT - GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS ARE FINANCED UNDER THREAT OF A GUN. Private insurance doesn't have the option of tying us to a tree and beating the cost out of us. Government insurance DOES have that option and DOES operate that way in all programs which government funds with tax dollars. Private insurances must abide by GOVERNMENT regs - not so with government insurance - if it becomes too tough for government programs, they can merely change the rules to benefit them - private businesses cannot do that. ALL collectivist governments govern solely by virtue of FORCE, how big their gun is and on whom will they use it. Ergo, ALL COLLECTIVIST PROGRAMS rule by FORCE. Private businesses cannot do that - because government will destroy them if they try, whereas, that is how government works itself.

Obamacare has already run the cost of health care out of the attic into the sky - and it isn't even operational yet. If this cancer of a "Healthcare insurance" ever gets off the ground, i hope all of you who want it, become the first cases it takes. You will rue the day you ever gave it more than a loud cackle. The government will in fact OWN YOU. I know you don't believe me. I don't expect you to. But, I promise you that you will wish you had put at least a couple of hours of thought into HOW the government can work miracles for you when it cannot even balance a budget. Government has destroyed our economy and it is failing, probably will self-destruct within months - that's when your government health care will really feel like a dead elephant is sitting on your heart. Good luck in avoiding having NO healthcare insurance, government or otherwise.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

First, let's stop using the euphemism of "single payer" instead of t***hfully saying the working "tax payer" pays for everybody's insurance. Then, let's be honest in saying that the highest users of the tax payer supported health insurance program will be the non-paying welfare crowd and the Medicare seniors. That's not a formula for saving money on healthcare insurance.

A good analogy would be to think of "grocery insurance" as a good idea, to insure that everyone has sufficient food. The tax payer would eat lightly and economically, while the non-paying (Its free, it doesn't cost anything, the government pays for it.) crowd would enjoy caviar, wine and lobster or steak, every day. Nothing seen as being "free" and unlimited will be used sparingly or properly.