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Apr 17, 2017 13:23:06   #
Terry Hamblin
 
One thing, at least, is logical.

1.- The only Healthcare system that actually works for the little guy is Single Payer Health care. I used the single payer system when I was living in Spain.

a.- The Healthcare professionals were excellent, including Hospitals and Clinics.

b.- The Spanish people do not have to stumble around looking for insurance that they can pay for. They just call the nearest clinic and get an appointment.

c.- I don't know how much taxes increased to pay for the Health Care system but no one complained about it.

Cons...

a.- Doctors complained that they weren't making enough money since they had to hire clerical workers to take care of the paper work, but... if the doctors were not in the system, they had no patients, ie... no one wants to pay anything when they don't have to!

b.- Every Arab who could get across the strait of Gibraltar showed up for free health care and got it, without being a citizen, just as they will here.!

The problem in the U.S to enact a single payer system is three-fold,

a.- The American Medical Association is lobbying fiercely to maintain things as they are.

b.- The insurance companies are lobbying, paying bribes, you name it, so that the goose that laid the golden egg will not go away.

c.- Big Hospital conglomerates are also fighting tooth and nail against the Single payer system.

Again, why clarify and make health care easy?

Reply
Apr 17, 2017 13:45:23   #
bahmer
 
Terry Hamblin wrote:
One thing, at least, is logical.

1.- The only Healthcare system that actually works for the little guy is Single Payer Health care. I used the single payer system when I was living in Spain.

a.- The Healthcare professionals were excellent, including Hospitals and Clinics.

b.- The Spanish people do not have to stumble around looking for insurance that they can pay for. They just call the nearest clinic and get an appointment.

c.- I don't know how much taxes increased to pay for the Health Care system but no one complained about it.

Cons...

a.- Doctors complained that they weren't making enough money since they had to hire clerical workers to take care of the paper work, but... if the doctors were not in the system, they had no patients, ie... no one wants to pay anything when they don't have to!

b.- Every Arab who could get across the strait of Gibraltar showed up for free health care and got it, without being a citizen, just as they will here.!

The problem in the U.S to enact a single payer system is three-fold,

a.- The American Medical Association is lobbying fiercely to maintain things as they are.

b.- The insurance companies are lobbying, paying bribes, you name it, so that the goose that laid the golden egg will not go away.

c.- Big Hospital conglomerates are also fighting tooth and nail against the Single payer system.

Again, why clarify and make health care easy?
One thing, at least, is logical. br br 1.- The on... (show quote)


WE already have a single payer health care system ih the US right now and we can all see how well it is working out for their patrons. That single payer system is called the VA. Take a good look at your future in years down the road if we go in that direction. The best yet to date is the free market system and that has worked wonderfully in the US and made us a world leader in medicine where by people all over the world come to the US to be treated here as compared to their own countries.

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Apr 17, 2017 13:56:13   #
BBZ Loc: Long Island, NY
 
Agreed - I used to work in a nursing facility in New York and Medicaid and Medicare paid the submitted claims. However, insurance companies delayed and delayed for months until finally paying their claims. There was no fraud or overbilling, they simply did not want to pay for their insured customers until the quarterly profit and loss statement came in. To turn the health care industry over to insurance companies would be the final nail in the coffin of honest citizens
of this country who still believe in the empty promises of our elected leaders. Be aware, Medicare and Social Security are in the sights of government officials seeking to reduce the deficit, give tax breaks to the rich, and force the population to die because of greed. The next few years will be a true tragedy.

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Apr 17, 2017 17:50:23   #
Docadhoc Loc: Elsewhere
 
BBZ wrote:
Agreed - I used to work in a nursing facility in New York and Medicaid and Medicare paid the submitted claims. However, insurance companies delayed and delayed for months until finally paying their claims. There was no fraud or overbilling, they simply did not want to pay for their insured customers until the quarterly profit and loss statement came in. To turn the health care industry over to insurance companies would be the final nail in the coffin of honest citizens
of this country who still believe in the empty promises of our elected leaders. Be aware, Medicare and Social Security are in the sights of government officials seeking to reduce the deficit, give tax breaks to the rich, and force the population to die because of greed. The next few years will be a true tragedy.
Agreed - I used to work in a nursing facility in N... (show quote)


Every day an insurance company withholds payment is a day they make profit on the investments that money is in.

Same philosophy with taxes. Why pay as you go and allow the government to use your money before they can force you to pay it. Invest your taxes until time to pay and keep the profit or at least hold it in case of emergency until tax time.

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Apr 18, 2017 12:40:30   #
crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island
 
BBZ wrote:
Agreed - I used to work in a nursing facility in New York and Medicaid and Medicare paid the submitted claims. However, insurance companies delayed and delayed for months until finally paying their claims. There was no fraud or overbilling, they simply did not want to pay for their insured customers until the quarterly profit and loss statement came in. To turn the health care industry over to insurance companies would be the final nail in the coffin of honest citizens
of this country who still believe in the empty promises of our elected leaders. Be aware, Medicare and Social Security are in the sights of government officials seeking to reduce the deficit, give tax breaks to the rich, and force the population to die because of greed. The next few years will be a true tragedy.
Agreed - I used to work in a nursing facility in N... (show quote)



They've changed the rules a lot on Medicaid & Medicare. How would you like to deal with that?

How'd you like to resuscitate a patient and be paid $6.00? How'd you like to be awakened at 3AM to go to the ER to see a 5 year old child on welfare for a 10 day old cold? How'd you like to have a welfare patient indignantly demand a prescription for a vitamin pill that everyone else has to pay for? How'd you like to see the same welfare patients four or five times in a row for an ongoing problem that you referred them to an office for continuity of care? How'd you like to see a woman who you'd seen on welfare in the ER working under-the-table as a waitress in a local restaurant.

How would you like to be asked to see a Medicare patient at 8:30AM on a Saturday and arrange X-rays, an electrocardiogram, lab. work and see him five times over the next ten & a half hours and be 'allowed' $55.00 by Blue Shield, the Medicare intermediary, as your payment?

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Apr 18, 2017 14:57:21   #
Terry Hamblin
 
Bahmer,

If you think that the present system works wonderfully, then you are really rich or you have no idea what normal people are paying to have health insurance, be the health care good or bad! The insurance companies studied the changes that the ACA mandated and cancelled a BUNCH of existing policies and then offered the Obamacare healthcare policies at approximately double the previous price. Trust me, healthcare is a money maker and I think that many of the things included in the Obamacare act were to appease the insurance companies and increase taxes. You use the VA as an example of a single payer system and you are right, the VA is a prime example of a BAD single payer system, which has been horribly managed from the get-go, but if any of the Congressmen look into the VA system and also good single payer systems throughout the World, maybe they would figure out how to run a single payer system and also fix the VA!

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Apr 19, 2017 15:43:51   #
Docadhoc Loc: Elsewhere
 
Terry Hamblin wrote:
Bahmer,

If you think that the present system works wonderfully, then you are really rich or you have no idea what normal people are paying to have health insurance, be the health care good or bad! The insurance companies studied the changes that the ACA mandated and cancelled a BUNCH of existing policies and then offered the Obamacare healthcare policies at approximately double the previous price. Trust me, healthcare is a money maker and I think that many of the things included in the Obamacare act were to appease the insurance companies and increase taxes. You use the VA as an example of a single payer system and you are right, the VA is a prime example of a BAD single payer system, which has been horribly managed from the get-go, but if any of the Congressmen look into the VA system and also good single payer systems throughout the World, maybe they would figure out how to run a single payer system and also fix the VA!
Bahmer, br br If you think that the present syste... (show quote)


One of the first steps to fixing the VA is to stop the unions from protecting the liars, cheats, and gold bricks. Another step would be to reign in the administration chiefs with Napoleon complexes.

Reply
 
 
Apr 19, 2017 16:05:04   #
bahmer
 
Terry Hamblin wrote:
Bahmer,

If you think that the present system works wonderfully, then you are really rich or you have no idea what normal people are paying to have health insurance, be the health care good or bad! The insurance companies studied the changes that the ACA mandated and cancelled a BUNCH of existing policies and then offered the Obamacare healthcare policies at approximately double the previous price. Trust me, healthcare is a money maker and I think that many of the things included in the Obamacare act were to appease the insurance companies and increase taxes. You use the VA as an example of a single payer system and you are right, the VA is a prime example of a BAD single payer system, which has been horribly managed from the get-go, but if any of the Congressmen look into the VA system and also good single payer systems throughout the World, maybe they would figure out how to run a single payer system and also fix the VA!
Bahmer, br br If you think that the present syste... (show quote)


I am not real rich in fact I am what most would call poor. I am on social security and I am 74 years old. But if you go with the free market system and then allow insurance companies to cross state lines that would lower costs as well. Another cost saving that could be implemented would be limit the amount of awards that can be had when a person sues the physician. Most of these lawsuits are ridicules as to the amounts being awarded which in turn increases the doctors malpractice insurance through the roof. Other cost savings would be go to a separate clinic for MRI's and the like they charge substantially less than does the hospital. I have heard that having an MRI taken and read can be as low as $2-300.00 and you have the results the same day you don't have to wait for a week and be charged $2-3,00.00 for the same thing. There are all kinds of money saving things that can be done to lower the costs of insurance but people have to take the initiative to implement them.

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Apr 20, 2017 06:01:43   #
crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island
 
bahmer wrote:
I am not real rich in fact I am what most would call poor. I am on social security and I am 74 years old. But if you go with the free market system and then allow insurance companies to cross state lines that would lower costs as well. Another cost saving that could be implemented would be limit the amount of awards that can be had when a person sues the physician. Most of these lawsuits are ridicules as to the amounts being awarded which in turn increases the doctors malpractice insurance through the roof. Other cost savings would be go to a separate clinic for MRI's and the like they charge substantially less than does the hospital. I have heard that having an MRI taken and read can be as low as $2-300.00 and you have the results the same day you don't have to wait for a week and be charged $2-3,00.00 for the same thing. There are all kinds of money saving things that can be done to lower the costs of insurance but people have to take the initiative to implement them.
I am not real rich in fact I am what most would ca... (show quote)



I am a physician and regularly order MRIs. We have them done at a local free standing facility. One costs about $275. They cost much more at a hospital or hospital owned facility. All services do. Hospitals are free to charge much, much more. It's a result of an original arrangement between them and Blue Cross.

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Apr 21, 2017 13:23:07   #
Terry Hamblin
 
bahmer wrote:
I am not real rich in fact I am what most would call poor. I am on social security and I am 74 years old. But if you go with the free market system and then allow insurance companies to cross state lines that would lower costs as well. Another cost saving that could be implemented would be limit the amount of awards that can be had when a person sues the physician. Most of these lawsuits are ridicules as to the amounts being awarded which in turn increases the doctors malpractice insurance through the roof. Other cost savings would be go to a separate clinic for MRI's and the like they charge substantially less than does the hospital. I have heard that having an MRI taken and read can be as low as $2-300.00 and you have the results the same day you don't have to wait for a week and be charged $2-3,00.00 for the same thing. There are all kinds of money saving things that can be done to lower the costs of insurance but people have to take the initiative to implement them.
I am not real rich in fact I am what most would ca... (show quote)


bahmer, you have just gone through many things that would disappear with a good single payer system!!


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Apr 21, 2017 13:34:22   #
bahmer
 
Terry Hamblin wrote:
bahmer, you have just gone through many things that would disappear with a good single payer system!!



I don't know which I have right now medicare or medicaid with a State Farm supplement.

Reply
 
 
Apr 21, 2017 18:21:54   #
crazylibertarian Loc: Florida by way of New York & Rhode Island
 
Terry Hamblin wrote:
bahmer, you have just gone through many things that would disappear with a good single payer system!!




I'm a physician. Before you start running off your mouth about the wonderful things with a single payer medical system Hamblin, why don't you tell us what your occupation is and then the rest of us can advocate for a single payer system for your industry. Then after a couple of years tell us how much you like it.


Til then, shut your mouth.

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Apr 21, 2017 21:07:14   #
Docadhoc Loc: Elsewhere
 
bahmer wrote:
I don't know which I have right now medicare or medicaid with a State Farm supplement.


You supplement Medicare.

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Apr 22, 2017 09:36:07   #
bahmer
 
Docadhoc wrote:
You supplement Medicare.


There is a dollar limit on one or the other and then it picks back up after the insured pays a certain amount. State Farm picks up that gap between where it drops off and where it picks back up at least that is what my nephew who is my insurance agent told me. Also his father was my wife's brother and his father was my wife's father so I don't think that I am being steered in the wrong direction.

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Apr 22, 2017 14:29:26   #
Docadhoc Loc: Elsewhere
 
bahmer wrote:
There is a dollar limit on one or the other and then it picks back up after the insured pays a certain amount. State Farm picks up that gap between where it drops off and where it picks back up at least that is what my nephew who is my insurance agent told me. Also his father was my wife's brother and his father was my wife's father so I don't think that I am being steered in the wrong direction.


Unless you are on income related Medicaid, you have Medicare with a supplement that fills in what is called the Medigap. That is the "doughnut hole" in the coverage. The Medicare insurance covers you to a point, then stops, leaving the hole. Then the supplement covers you to a point. At that point you go in to catastrophic coverage and the original cuts back in according to Medicare law.

It is also possible that you have a Medicare Advantage Plan which is a private insurance available to Medicare qualified people. If you signed up for that type of plan, you no longer have Medicare. That type provides everything Medicare does plus extra coverage. It looks like original Medicare on your EOBs (Explanation of Benefits) papers except when it is providing coverage in the Medigap hole. If you have an advantage plan, you can shop around for a betterione is available in your area, and change over during open enrollment times.

Who provides your prescription coverage?

Why don't you call State Farm and ask them what coverage you have. Or you can call Medicare and ask them.

Do you need the coverage? I ask because people who struggle with Obamacare but don't need the coverage, really don't need to be paying for something they don't need and unfortunately, when the ACA was passed it tied every one to Obamacare even if they have private insurance.

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