A little while ago on my tee-vee, a cable reporter (and does it matter which one?) insisted that unnamed Senate staffers don’t think there will be a public option when a bill makes it to a floor vote, and the reporter left the definite Village impression that this is the reasonable and moderate thing to think. Real Dakota demands it!
Switching to Food Network now. Mmm, I should make a health care table scape out of baloney, in the shape of an unnamed Senate staffer who should STFU. Oh yeah, only libruls get yelled at about being team players. I forget.
Still waiting to find out more about how you too can pay shitty insurance companies for shitty insurance that goes to shit just when you need it most, or pay a fine. It’s like a grill and a cooler, it’s fines and insurance, it’s Finesurance.
As seen on tee-vee.
Whats worse?
That the staffers go unnamed (yet are still credible)
or what they spew. (It’s true, I swear!)
Here’s how you guys get what you want with health care reform:
1. Make all insurance companies subject to anti-trust laws; make them take all comers, regardless of pre-existing conditions; make them pay all claims made; make health insurance portable. With these new rules, insurance companies will abandon the market and the government will have to take over the health care system.
2. Put limits on malpractice awards. Better yet, make malpractice like workers’ comp: built into the fee structure. Doctors wouldn’t have to have malpractice insurance at all. That means lower doctor salaries and less money for trial lawyers to get. Make it a loser pay system. Frivolous suits cost money to the loser.
3. Crank out doctors like there’s no tomorrow. Increased supply of docs means lower salaries and more availability. Force medical schools to produce 7 times as docs as we have currently.
Just a few radical ideas…
Umm…tort reform and malpractice would save less than 1%.
Meanwhile, the insurance companies overhead in profit and beaurocracy: 20%
Medicare overhead: 3%
There is simply no competitive market in health insurance – and there maybe should not be one (here buy my cheaper insurance (shhh, you may go broke if you don’t read the fine print and get sick)).
@4
My idea? Give everyone Medicare, yes everyone. If you are a citizen or a resident alien you have Medicare. In order to pay for it raise the payroll tax. Allow private insurance to keep offering what they are offering for those who don’t want that nasty government money tainting their health insurance. Allow doctors to opt out as well. However all employer provided health insurance benefits will be taxed as income.
Senate Finance Committee Rejects Public Option; Support For Health Reform Up
Even as the Senate Finance Committee voted 15-8 to reject a public option today, a new poll from Kaiser Family Foundation shows public support for health care reform increasing.
“The poll, released today, found that 57% of Americans now believe tackling health care reform is more important than ever, compared with 53% in August. The poll also found that … 68% of Americans back a mandate that all adult citizens be required to buy insurance, 67% want an employer mandate requiring companies to offer insurance to their employees, and 59% would support ‘having health insurance companies pay a tax for offering very expensive policies.'”
http://www.businessweek.com/bl....._publ.html
Maybe the SFC is out of sync with public opinion?
@2 The way you get the most bang for the buck from your health care dollars is by reducing administrative costs to a necessary minimum while paying doctors and hospitals reasonable but not extravagant amounts for providing needed care. The 30% of total health care costs currently going to insurance intermediairies is 95% unnecessary, and getting rid of the insurance companies is where the big cost savings are.
Sounds like a job for Sumner homegirl Sandra Lee…..
The only way to get what you want is to make it so non-profitable to be in the health care business that the insurance companies abandon the market.