"Affordable Health care" to you means:

[Crazy Dave]

Since nobody is willing to take on big insurance and without naming names the new magic key words that they promise for all of you is, "I'm going to make health care affordable to everyone". My thought on that is without a "Single-Payer System", "Affordable Health care" to me means:

If premiums are forced to go down, then more claims and services will be denied and deductibles will probably be made higher too, you'll be paying $400 a month just so you can pay $3000 before the insurance kicks in if you get a small cut and need about five stitches. Which will be denied anyways if it happened under the following 10,000 conditions and/or on any of the 365 calender days listed on your policy.

[Iris]

1. I'm not sure, but my solution would probably be too radical - cut out the middle man

(insurance companies) and have patients pay doctors directly. Surely the costs of medical care are high because insurance companies are involved.

[Crazy Dave]

2. I have paid directly and it is cheaper

But for those who cannot afford it for themselves, let alone an entire family, something serious needs to be done and the political game playing and big insurance pandering has got to end.

Nobody should ever have to say, "I can't afford to get sick".

[Iris]

8. I know what you mean.

I guess it can't go back to the days when you gave your doctor a couple of bushels of wheat to birth your baby, but I think cutting into the profits of insurance companies is the only way to even begin to put things right.

[Crazy Dave]

15. Maybe if people weren't so lawsuit happy

Doctors need to protect themselves. I've never really considered doctors to be a large part of the problem but I'm sure that some are getting kick-backs for large fees and for prescriptions that treat rather than cure most illnesses. Got to have repeat customers to make a profit and making people healthy won't do that.

[Mojorabbit]

18. My hubby is a

family physician and totally supports people's right to sue. He has seen too much. Frivolous lawsuits are another matter and should be weeded out but right now if someone wanted to sue him he would have no say in fighting it. The malpractice insurance company decides and would pay it off as it is cheaper for them to settle. This needs to change.

[Crazy Dave]

21. That's too bad

IF he felt he did nothing wrong and wanted to protect his license and his name he should have that option too.

[Donnachaidh]

22. Maybe f DOCTORS policed themselves lawsuits wouldn't be necessary

I'm sick to frigging death of hearing this excuse being thrown out at every opportunity. I've had family members who were injured and sickened by doctors who were too busy, or didn't know what they were doing. We didn't sue -- but I would have liked to.

Just because you manage to get a doctor's license does NOT necessarily mean you automatically get a halo and a pass on sloppy, sometimes dangerous mistakes. But the medical community does NOTHING to these butchers. NOTHING.

[Crazy Dave]

29. Oh pulleez

Nobody is using it as an excuse or claiming it to be the sole reason or even giving doctors a free pass. Every doctor should be accountable for their work and proven negligence should even have criminal consequences and it has happened. You got quite an imagination if you claim all of what you said is what I said or you just scan for thread titles you don't like and don't bother reading the rest of it or what it was replying to.

[Donnachaidh]

32. Oh puhleeze back at you

Sorry dear -- Doctors always set themselves up as VICTIMS. And of course, becoming corporations and then asking their buddies in congress to change the tort laws to protect THEMSELVES, rather than address the problem with bad doctors NEVER has happened in this country right?

Who is delusional -- or perhaps trying to gloss over a problem that is too frightening to be honest about? Look in a mirror.

[Warpy]

23. That's not just a lie, it's a damned lie

First, no lawyer will take the case unless he thinks there is a shot at winning. To have that, certain conditions must be met: a patient must have sustained serious injury and that injury had to come as a result of malpractice or negligence.

Second, those huge awards that are trumpeted in the press are always reduced on appeal, which is how the system is supposed to work. The large awards that are allowed to stand generally reflect a lifetime of medical care, something that would be unnecessary with single payer insurance.

What is driving medical costs is a very complex set of problems led by the exponentially multiplying paperwork, much of it now generated and regenerated in the denial of care, worsened by the profit motive.

Anyone who thinks litigation has been driving the cost of medicine in any large part at all needs to stop drinking Republic Koolaid.

[Crazy Dave]

28. You pop off and call it a lie

But I never claimed it to be a fact nor did I claim it the sole or large reason for high medical costs. You put forth no facts in your ignorant statement, just your opinion as I did mine and if you want facts do a google yourself on doctors prescribing unnecessary prescriptions or over prescribing them. Then do a google on lawyers (and doctors) who go looking for individuals who want to file false workman's comp. or other injury claims. They'll tell you to make shit up and they guarantee the company will settle out of court. You do your own "damn" homework and you will find tens of thousands of fraudulent cases not only on rw or lw websites but probably in dozens of reliable news sources and public records, etc. and to make a claim that it has absolutly zero or no effect on medical costs would be a "damn lie" in itself.
Nobody is drinking any Koolaid, just having their own opinions. That okay with you? I really don't give a shit if it is.

If you heard the same comments on a rw talk show then you listen to them more than I do and if you even read my OP then you would know I'm in favor of the Single-Payer System. But I'm sure you only scan the thread titles, find ones you don't like, don't even bother reading the entire thread or the one it was replying to and just pop-off like you did.

[rucky]

9. good for everyday care, but what about catastrophic? n/t

[wakeme2008]

3. read my post about my Australia friend and their

National Health Care

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Yael]

6. I read that the other day

Aussies are in a tiered system. Likely something like that would be proposed here as well (as opposed to just single-payer). One can only hope.

[wakeme2008]

10. But in her case, they did not get private insurance until

older.

[Crazy Dave]

13. They have lower taxes there too than we have

One, or should I say the only argument people give who oppose government health care is long waiting lists. My friend, here in this country you don't wait if you don't have insurance, you just plain go without and perhaps die.

[Yael]

17. Do you have a breakdown of their tax system?

I am in process of collecting information in order to present the case for single-payer. Would love anything you have on the numbers aspect!

[Crazy Dave]

19. Not right off hand

I've seen it once in a documentary and a good friend of mine's brother has lived there over twenty years and keeps him well informed. They both recently inherited a large sum of money and my friend said that even with a weak American dollar his brother gets a lot more for his money there than here.
I've also heard that ex-pats who live in Germany say they pay the same in taxes there as they did here but over there they get free health care, free day care and mandatory vacations.

[Yael]

20. Thanks

I will keep looking. If you see anything along these lines, please post!

[Yael]

4. Get rid of the insurance companies

Tax the additional 3.3% (or whatever the estimate is this week) and let the doctors file directly -- so that they can focus their resources on scheduling and treating people, not billing and insurance nightmares.

[cutlassmama]

30. IMHO the insurance companies are the biggest problem

[jojo54]

5. Hell, let's go back to the barter system.

I'll give the doc 5 chickens to stitch up that cut finger. It took us $1200 (payments for a year), to get 7 stitches in hub's thumb.


Edit: Hell, I'll give him 5 gallons of gas!!

[rucky]

7. Only fair way I can see is as a percentage of (gross) income...

say 5%?, taken out before other taxes are figured:

Make 1000/month, pay $50.

Make 5000/month, pay $250

Make 10000/month, pay $500

[baldguy]

11. If you get sick, you should not lose your house or your life savings.

You should be able to pay the premiums without going into debt. There should be no such thing as a disqualifying pre-existing condition.

Health insurance should be more about "health" and less about "insurance": it exist primarily to allow people to be healthy rather than to generate profits for corporations.

[Crazy Dave]

16. That and...

...I'm sure you've seen neighborhoods and churches try to raise money for someone they know who needs a life saving surgery but was denied by their insurance. That should be criminal in my opinion and the insurance company should be held accountable, but they're not.

[dkofos]

12. It means the same SHIT coming out of a different oriface.

[Crazy Dave]

14. Best answer

[percussivemadness]

24. we`re currently working with

http://www.pnhp.org /

Putting together a viral movie that will propose an alternative to the current system. Its gathering some support in DC - http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_in... .

Once they sign off on it, if its groovy with the mods we`ll post a link on DU.

Peace

[yella_dawg]

25. Affordable health care means FREE healthcare in my case.

Because my health has failed, I can't work. Thus no income, and no way to "afford" the health care that might allow me to work again. Catch 22.

[LWolf]

26. I'm not looking for "affordable" health care.

I want universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care as a RIGHT.

That means anybody can get the health care they need, when they need it.

Just like they get other public services.

I don't have to fight for "affordable" public libraries, schools, fire or police protection.

[damntexdem]

27. What it means to me is that individuals should not be bankrupted by medical bills.

What it means to those in power is that insurance company profits should not be held down by having to cover necessary healthcare expenses.

So let's instead talk about "universal healthcare coverage."

And, of course, single-payer is the way to go.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Affordable health care means NO DEDUCTIBLES

It's absurd that I should spend over $200 a month on premiums AND have a $5000 deductible, but if I wanted a $300 deductible, I'd have to pay $600 a month, and there is no option for a 0 deductible.