American people are torn between the reality they know and the hope of change that promises a fairytale world. In the real world nothing is free. In the world of maidens being rescued from fire breathing dragons by princes with universal healthcare, there just might be.
All insurance programs depend on one thing; the number of people paying into the system is greater than those drawing on its resources. It is based on simple math that anyone should be able figure out, even though our schools are not doing too well with teaching math. The only way Obama’s healthcare program has any hope of working at all is if ever person pays into the system from birth. The way it is now the healthy ones can opt out of the system by paying a minor penalty. The result cannot be anything else but bankruptcy. Deposits of one dollar and withdraws $100.00 will result in a negative balance or subsidizing the account with taxpayer’s money; you know, redistribution of assets and that is not sustainable for long.
Since our courts have ruled demands for mandatory participation is unconstitutional and without it the program cannot work, this bill has to be repealed now and a new start for an improved system allowing cross state participation and competition, reformed tort system, and improved record keeping and communication.
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
How To Improve America’s Healthcare
Healthcare in America could use some restructuring. The main issue is cost. Across the board, costs have been increasing at an alarming rate. Some costs are controlled by outside factors (rising prices of oil, etc.) that cannot be controlled by changes to the healthcare industry. However, there are some changes that would not only curtail the rate of increase in costs but actually reduce current costs.
First, we need to look at healthcare just like anything else we purchase where the cost is controlled by supply and demand. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers choose the field as a career job and expect to be paid a fair wage. A wage to be determined by consumer willingness to pay for it. This gives value to the service. Mandated costs by government are not based on demand, negating any value. This causes indifference by supplier and dissatisfaction by the consumer.
Any enterprise run or tightly controlled by government always adds additional costs to the goods or services provided. Invariably these costs out distance the revenues causing a decrease in value of goods and services provided. A system like this cannot sustain itself and eventually will need subsidization by taxes. Taxes collected for other purposes causing them to suffer lack of funds, as is the case with the Social Security System.
Just like not everyone can afford their own house or designer items, not everyone can afford optimum healthcare services. This is a fact of life. No government has been able to circumvent this concept. If the government mandates that a car costing $30,000.00 to build be sold for $10,000.00, future production of that car will not be worth even $10,000.00. The same is with health care. When the government sets the amount of money that a hospital is to receive, the hospital cannot perform the number of consumer demanded services required. It can only perform those that will be paid for within a specific period of time, leaving patients requiring these services waiting until the next period. Some patients will invariably die before required services are provided.
There are two main reasons for the continuous rise of healthcare, the looming threat of lawsuits and lack of competition within the insurance industry.
Many doctors and other healthcare providers must double and even treble their fees in order to pay for malpractice insurance. These costs are constantly being driven higher by lawyers encouraging lawsuits and well meaning jurors awarding outrageously high monetary awards. Imagine that you were ordered to pay millions of dollars to a plaintive for a mistake you made at your job. True a misplaced decimal point or not matching the color of the carpet to the paint for the walls does not carry the consequences of surgical mistake. An award of $100,000,000.00 does not correct a surgical mistake either. It does however increase the cost of healthcare across the nation. National tort reform would keep these awards to a reasonable level. Awards should be made in full for out of pocket expenses incurred by the plaintive, legal fees of the attorneys need to be regulated to a reasonable amount for services rendered, and punitive damages need a ceiling.
By reducing the risk of Malpractice Insurers, healthcare costs could be cut by half or more.
The cost of individual medical insurance (whether paid individually or through employer) is also a large part of healthcare costs in America. This cost is driven partially by the same circumstances as discussed previously but more so by lack of competition. Medical insurers are regulated by individual states. Each state has a small fraction of the number of insurance companies in America. In many instances the same company operating in more than one state is actually operating differently in each state. That is because they have to adhere to different rules and regulations. This curtails competition. Insurance companies are operating according to the dictates of the states rather than in the most efficient way possible. The consumer is dustily short changed and over charged.
By standardizing insurer requirements and liabilities nationally, every insurance company could compete for business in each state. Restrictions on forming monopolies would be needed to keep competition open and one company from dominating the industry. Government is never an equal competitor with private business. It can run deficits and have an unfair advantage since it has the use of tax funds to operate at a loss.
Competition in the market has always been the major factor in keeping costs down. Competition will do the same in health insurance that it has maintained in all industries.
This brings us to pre-existing conditions. No logical person would expect an insurance company to write a policy on a house that has burned down or a car mangled in a crash. Yet many of these same people see nothing wrong in expecting an insurance company insuring someone with a possibly fatal condition. Rather than making insurance payments while they are healthy and getting regular medical checkups, they decided to spend their money on other things, makes no difference whether this is by necessity or just plain self-indulgence. This is not the same as if a person with insurance for a number of years and then changing jobs where there is a different insurance company. But the new insurance company might now be burdened with high medical costs without the benefit of collecting payments that it can use to obtain interest from. Those were collected by the previous insurance company during the healthy period of the insured. This too can be taken care of. Every insurance company must keep a healthy ratio of assets to liabilities. By creating a national asset pool that all insurers contribute to. A company picking up a new insured with a pre-existing condition can claim some of those assets built up with premium payments and interest.
What about the many uninsured (estimates range from 30 to 45 million)? We first must define them. Few of these are in a position to pay for most medical needs they may have. A large portion of the uninsured are fairly young people believing to be healthy and not needing insurance. Without insurance they are very likely to join the balance of uninsured with no means to pay for needed medical care later in life. These people will in evidently become a burden on society one way or another. As a nation based on Judeo-Christian values there is a moral obligation to help. It should not be a government mandate.
There is a way to overcome this also. Nationally, the education system is grossly lacking in teaching self reliance and responsibility. In addition to the various math and other courses, the subject of preparing for the future must become mandatory. They must include money management stressing the importance of having health insurance, providing for retirement, and budget management.
In all the years I attend various educational institutes across America (grammar school, middle school, high school, and various colleges) few offered them and none had them as required courses. Lack of education has created a large group demanding new and more entitlements.
This nation cannot long endure an ever growing consumption of the earnings of others. If this trend continues, America will end up a nation of poor, uninspired, and miserable people living in a socialist state with no prospects for a better future.
When the government provides all, it takes away all freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty is what made this the greatest country of all time.
First, we need to look at healthcare just like anything else we purchase where the cost is controlled by supply and demand. Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers choose the field as a career job and expect to be paid a fair wage. A wage to be determined by consumer willingness to pay for it. This gives value to the service. Mandated costs by government are not based on demand, negating any value. This causes indifference by supplier and dissatisfaction by the consumer.
Any enterprise run or tightly controlled by government always adds additional costs to the goods or services provided. Invariably these costs out distance the revenues causing a decrease in value of goods and services provided. A system like this cannot sustain itself and eventually will need subsidization by taxes. Taxes collected for other purposes causing them to suffer lack of funds, as is the case with the Social Security System.
Just like not everyone can afford their own house or designer items, not everyone can afford optimum healthcare services. This is a fact of life. No government has been able to circumvent this concept. If the government mandates that a car costing $30,000.00 to build be sold for $10,000.00, future production of that car will not be worth even $10,000.00. The same is with health care. When the government sets the amount of money that a hospital is to receive, the hospital cannot perform the number of consumer demanded services required. It can only perform those that will be paid for within a specific period of time, leaving patients requiring these services waiting until the next period. Some patients will invariably die before required services are provided.
There are two main reasons for the continuous rise of healthcare, the looming threat of lawsuits and lack of competition within the insurance industry.
Many doctors and other healthcare providers must double and even treble their fees in order to pay for malpractice insurance. These costs are constantly being driven higher by lawyers encouraging lawsuits and well meaning jurors awarding outrageously high monetary awards. Imagine that you were ordered to pay millions of dollars to a plaintive for a mistake you made at your job. True a misplaced decimal point or not matching the color of the carpet to the paint for the walls does not carry the consequences of surgical mistake. An award of $100,000,000.00 does not correct a surgical mistake either. It does however increase the cost of healthcare across the nation. National tort reform would keep these awards to a reasonable level. Awards should be made in full for out of pocket expenses incurred by the plaintive, legal fees of the attorneys need to be regulated to a reasonable amount for services rendered, and punitive damages need a ceiling.
By reducing the risk of Malpractice Insurers, healthcare costs could be cut by half or more.
The cost of individual medical insurance (whether paid individually or through employer) is also a large part of healthcare costs in America. This cost is driven partially by the same circumstances as discussed previously but more so by lack of competition. Medical insurers are regulated by individual states. Each state has a small fraction of the number of insurance companies in America. In many instances the same company operating in more than one state is actually operating differently in each state. That is because they have to adhere to different rules and regulations. This curtails competition. Insurance companies are operating according to the dictates of the states rather than in the most efficient way possible. The consumer is dustily short changed and over charged.
By standardizing insurer requirements and liabilities nationally, every insurance company could compete for business in each state. Restrictions on forming monopolies would be needed to keep competition open and one company from dominating the industry. Government is never an equal competitor with private business. It can run deficits and have an unfair advantage since it has the use of tax funds to operate at a loss.
Competition in the market has always been the major factor in keeping costs down. Competition will do the same in health insurance that it has maintained in all industries.
This brings us to pre-existing conditions. No logical person would expect an insurance company to write a policy on a house that has burned down or a car mangled in a crash. Yet many of these same people see nothing wrong in expecting an insurance company insuring someone with a possibly fatal condition. Rather than making insurance payments while they are healthy and getting regular medical checkups, they decided to spend their money on other things, makes no difference whether this is by necessity or just plain self-indulgence. This is not the same as if a person with insurance for a number of years and then changing jobs where there is a different insurance company. But the new insurance company might now be burdened with high medical costs without the benefit of collecting payments that it can use to obtain interest from. Those were collected by the previous insurance company during the healthy period of the insured. This too can be taken care of. Every insurance company must keep a healthy ratio of assets to liabilities. By creating a national asset pool that all insurers contribute to. A company picking up a new insured with a pre-existing condition can claim some of those assets built up with premium payments and interest.
What about the many uninsured (estimates range from 30 to 45 million)? We first must define them. Few of these are in a position to pay for most medical needs they may have. A large portion of the uninsured are fairly young people believing to be healthy and not needing insurance. Without insurance they are very likely to join the balance of uninsured with no means to pay for needed medical care later in life. These people will in evidently become a burden on society one way or another. As a nation based on Judeo-Christian values there is a moral obligation to help. It should not be a government mandate.
There is a way to overcome this also. Nationally, the education system is grossly lacking in teaching self reliance and responsibility. In addition to the various math and other courses, the subject of preparing for the future must become mandatory. They must include money management stressing the importance of having health insurance, providing for retirement, and budget management.
In all the years I attend various educational institutes across America (grammar school, middle school, high school, and various colleges) few offered them and none had them as required courses. Lack of education has created a large group demanding new and more entitlements.
This nation cannot long endure an ever growing consumption of the earnings of others. If this trend continues, America will end up a nation of poor, uninspired, and miserable people living in a socialist state with no prospects for a better future.
When the government provides all, it takes away all freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty is what made this the greatest country of all time.
Friday, October 23, 2009
More Shenanigans By Congress With Our Healthcare
Pelosi and Reid do not see the votes for a public option in the healthcare bill. Their latest scheme is to give the states the option to for a state healthcare. They hope that this will get some Democrats to go along with the bill. This may be a temporary set back for socializing America but it is still a step towards it.
First of all, who will pay for the a state run healthcare system? We have seen two states create a state run healthcare system. One state just gave up on it since it could not sustain itself. An other state is swimming in huge cost overruns and is in very deep economic trouble. Pelosi and Reid know that this will be the situation in any other state and give the federal government a reason to step in and take it over. This method may even be a faster way to implement a national one payer healthcare system. In any event, the feds will be in a position take over the healthcare on the grounds that “this is too big to allow to fail”. We have seen that scenario before.
When you contact your representatives in Washington, don’t forget to let them know that you are against an option for the states to have a state run healthcare system. Your state will run into huge deficits that only a large state tax increase or a federal takeover can rescue (ha, ha). It is not enough to keep the public option out of the bill. Individual states must stay away from providing more welfare.
The one thing that will help lower healthcare cost is to bring more competition into the healthcare insurance business. We need to eliminate in state insurance monopolies. By allowing across state competition, insurance rates will fall dramatically. We can see how competition keeps lower prices of gas when there are four stations on busy corner verses where there is only one.
Attorneys are the main benefactors of medical law suits. By limiting the amount of punitive damages and the amount attorneys can make beyond reasonable expenses, medical insurance costs will be decreased.
We can have healthcare reform without going socialist. This will be accomplished if we vet new candidates, select the right ones, and work hard to replace the socialist minded elite office holders running this country now.
First of all, who will pay for the a state run healthcare system? We have seen two states create a state run healthcare system. One state just gave up on it since it could not sustain itself. An other state is swimming in huge cost overruns and is in very deep economic trouble. Pelosi and Reid know that this will be the situation in any other state and give the federal government a reason to step in and take it over. This method may even be a faster way to implement a national one payer healthcare system. In any event, the feds will be in a position take over the healthcare on the grounds that “this is too big to allow to fail”. We have seen that scenario before.
When you contact your representatives in Washington, don’t forget to let them know that you are against an option for the states to have a state run healthcare system. Your state will run into huge deficits that only a large state tax increase or a federal takeover can rescue (ha, ha). It is not enough to keep the public option out of the bill. Individual states must stay away from providing more welfare.
The one thing that will help lower healthcare cost is to bring more competition into the healthcare insurance business. We need to eliminate in state insurance monopolies. By allowing across state competition, insurance rates will fall dramatically. We can see how competition keeps lower prices of gas when there are four stations on busy corner verses where there is only one.
Attorneys are the main benefactors of medical law suits. By limiting the amount of punitive damages and the amount attorneys can make beyond reasonable expenses, medical insurance costs will be decreased.
We can have healthcare reform without going socialist. This will be accomplished if we vet new candidates, select the right ones, and work hard to replace the socialist minded elite office holders running this country now.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Obama the Distributer
Posted with permission of Author; Robert Gismondi
What Obama proposes for health insurance and care (in essence) is that people who own homes with sagging back doors turn over the houses to the federal government, which will knock down the houses, and build new ones, smaller, greener, and uglier, with nice new back doors, and tax you for it, directly and indirectly, so he can use the extra tax money to build the same houses for illegal aliens and people on welfare.
Moreover, if you do not pay what he regards as your fair share, he will have access to your bank account, and will merely have it debited! That is what he calls "fixing" a "broken" system.
This is what you get from a charismatic politician whose studies at two elite universities, and one left wing college, prepared him to create nothing of value, but convinced him that taking from the hard workers, and re-distributing to the less productive, is "fair.” Of course, in implementing such fairness, his cronies and supporters, and minions, will have access to an enormous number of government and government-supported jobs, all to administer, study, audit, and oversea the fairness in stealing from the productive to re-distribute to those who are not entitled to it.
In addition, notice that with higher taxes, fewer deductions for charitable giving, and interfering with "Cars for Kids" and similar programs through unfair "Cash for Clunkers," and other programs, he is destroying private charity, and creating more "Pauls.” (When you rob Peter, to pay Paul, you get no argument from Paul.)
Now there is a shortage of used cars Obama calls clunkers. Folks of limited means will have to pay more for a clunker, as, so far, about a quarter million have been summarily scrapped, and the parts destroyed.
This is creating jobs. What happened to the method we used for a couple of hundred years without an Obama in sight? It was called a market economy. As soon as Obama lets people know that government interference is stopping, and lowers taxes, people will spend, business will expand, people will be hired, and we will thrive. It worked for over two hundred years; and, no other system has ever worked as well.
Is there anyone out there who still thinks that Obama believes in a market (free enterprise) economy? If so, please email me. I have an excellent investment in a high traffic bridge available.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Hidden Agenda of ObamaCare
Re-distribution of wealth encompasses more than just taking cash from those who earned it and giving it to those that didn’t. It includes denying the deserving.
The latest example is when several men qualified for advancement in their fire department but were not promoted because most of them where Caucasian. Now there were no quotas in place but it was decided that the politically correct thing to do was to deny them their due. Ms. Sonia Sotomayor summarily ruled that it was a proper decision. Soon, she will be confirmed to the highest court of the land.
This appointment along with Federal Government’s control of grants and loans to college students sets the stage for the use of criteria other than excellence graduating and hiring medical professionals. ObamaCare has provisions for selection of who will get to attend medical school, what fields of medicine they will study and practice, and where they will work. People with lesser qualifications will be admitted to medical school. The schools will be forced graduate not the best but an “equal representation” of the population. There will be no incentive to excel.
This means that the doctor diagnosing your ailment may not be knowledgeable enough to make an accurate assessment. Your dentist might have missed most of the classes on gum disease. How dedicated is a nurse who went through school with mediocre or even failing grades?
With ObamaCare, private medical practice will not exist. Medical professionals won’t be able to choose where to practice they will be placed where the government puts them. How dedicated will the medical professional be under these circumstances? How comfortable will you be, knowing that your life is in the hands of a disgruntled practitioner?
The Obama administration along with congress under the leadership of Pelosi and Reid are working to control you in all aspects of your life. ObamaCare is one other part of this socialist plan. We all must reject socialism else we lose all that past generations have fought and some died for. Do not let that happen. Be sure to vet, campaign for, and elect candidates that will stand for our great constitution; freedom of speech, individual rights, and liberty for all.
The latest example is when several men qualified for advancement in their fire department but were not promoted because most of them where Caucasian. Now there were no quotas in place but it was decided that the politically correct thing to do was to deny them their due. Ms. Sonia Sotomayor summarily ruled that it was a proper decision. Soon, she will be confirmed to the highest court of the land.
This appointment along with Federal Government’s control of grants and loans to college students sets the stage for the use of criteria other than excellence graduating and hiring medical professionals. ObamaCare has provisions for selection of who will get to attend medical school, what fields of medicine they will study and practice, and where they will work. People with lesser qualifications will be admitted to medical school. The schools will be forced graduate not the best but an “equal representation” of the population. There will be no incentive to excel.
This means that the doctor diagnosing your ailment may not be knowledgeable enough to make an accurate assessment. Your dentist might have missed most of the classes on gum disease. How dedicated is a nurse who went through school with mediocre or even failing grades?
With ObamaCare, private medical practice will not exist. Medical professionals won’t be able to choose where to practice they will be placed where the government puts them. How dedicated will the medical professional be under these circumstances? How comfortable will you be, knowing that your life is in the hands of a disgruntled practitioner?
The Obama administration along with congress under the leadership of Pelosi and Reid are working to control you in all aspects of your life. ObamaCare is one other part of this socialist plan. We all must reject socialism else we lose all that past generations have fought and some died for. Do not let that happen. Be sure to vet, campaign for, and elect candidates that will stand for our great constitution; freedom of speech, individual rights, and liberty for all.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse
There is a big caveat that has not been addressed (as far as I know) by anyone. This plan will also grow government, eliminate many private enterprises, and exercise more control over the lives of Americans.
As people end their participation in a private health insurance plan they will be forced to take on ObamaCare. The lose of insured by the insurance companies combined with the ability of ObamaCare to undercut the cost (the government has no problem running in the red) will drive many insurance companies out of business. Eventually ObamaCare will either take over the control of or replace private hospitals with federal clinics.
This will increase the size of ObamaCare requiring more union federal employees (with the enthusiasm and efficiency of a DMV employee), not only growing the government but giving it more control over more people, the ObamaCare employees and the patients will now dependent totally on ObamaCare.
The government now controls 2/3 of our auto industry (manufactures, suppliers, and after market producers and suppliers). The Administration with its Czars is pulling all the strings on our financial institutions and this destruction of the insurance industry and elimination of private hospitals will just about take over the whole enchilada.
The next arena for the Obama Administration and congress under the leadership of Pelosi and Reid is to get more control over institution of higher learning. They are contemplating prohibiting college loans by private lending institutions. Just think what power that will give them over the curriculum. The schools will be forced to produce more and more socialist dupes cementing this country in a Socialist Utopia.
And oh yes, you are aware that the National Socialists are planning to repeal term limits on the presidency, aren’t you? Just think, Obama will be eligible to be president for life. Isn’t that just peachy?
Americans have bent over to pick up the soap and the feds have grabbed us all by the waist. Soon we will all experience discomfort we were not planning on.
As people end their participation in a private health insurance plan they will be forced to take on ObamaCare. The lose of insured by the insurance companies combined with the ability of ObamaCare to undercut the cost (the government has no problem running in the red) will drive many insurance companies out of business. Eventually ObamaCare will either take over the control of or replace private hospitals with federal clinics.
This will increase the size of ObamaCare requiring more union federal employees (with the enthusiasm and efficiency of a DMV employee), not only growing the government but giving it more control over more people, the ObamaCare employees and the patients will now dependent totally on ObamaCare.
The government now controls 2/3 of our auto industry (manufactures, suppliers, and after market producers and suppliers). The Administration with its Czars is pulling all the strings on our financial institutions and this destruction of the insurance industry and elimination of private hospitals will just about take over the whole enchilada.
The next arena for the Obama Administration and congress under the leadership of Pelosi and Reid is to get more control over institution of higher learning. They are contemplating prohibiting college loans by private lending institutions. Just think what power that will give them over the curriculum. The schools will be forced to produce more and more socialist dupes cementing this country in a Socialist Utopia.
And oh yes, you are aware that the National Socialists are planning to repeal term limits on the presidency, aren’t you? Just think, Obama will be eligible to be president for life. Isn’t that just peachy?
Americans have bent over to pick up the soap and the feds have grabbed us all by the waist. Soon we will all experience discomfort we were not planning on.
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