insane medical costs

Kevin B (Asheville NC)

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as this was not fully addressed in the budget talks, lets start fresh here....

I say medical costs are outta sight, and that the gov't has a responsibility to its citizens to take action to reduce this burden on American families.

I offer my situation as an example of out of control medical costs:
- 2 income family of 4
- wife with orthapedic issues (results of automobile accident a decade ago
- kids healthy
- me with insulin dependant diabetes

last years medical costs were 25% of my gross income.
what portion of income is that after taxes.....

some say, get a better job with better benefits.

without obamacare being enacted, I would suffer 12 months of no diabetes coverage if I did that. While my income is not high, my benefits are pretty good. (BCBS 80/20 plan with $3500 out of pocket limit (excluding co-pays and prescriptions)

The reality is a significant portion of the US population is one hospital visit away from financial instability.

So the question is: How is America's middle class supposed to deal with escalating medical care costs, diminishing insurance coverage, and politicians that will not stand up for the needs of the middle class, in todays economy? AND Is it the role of the US Gov't to control costs withing its borders which are threatening the stability of the american family?
 
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

"Health care is a huge and growing sector of the U.S. economy. The United States spends $2.6 trillion on health care, roughly 17 percent of the gross domestic product. Additionally, government is responsible for approximately 50 cents out of every dollar spent on health care because of the huge and rapidly growing government health care programs: Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and state and public health care programs. The result of so much government control is that health care is one of the most highly regulated sectors of the American economy. Government financing means government control, and government control means less personal freedom.

In order to protect individuals and families, we must change laws and regulations at the federal and state level to enable individuals and families to own and control their own health care policies and to take them from job to job without tax or regulatory penalties. Currently, only nine percent of Americans directly purchase their own health insurance.

Individuals and families should be able to buy the health care plans they want at the price they wish to pay. Health plans and providers should be forced to compete on a level playing field in a free and open market where government will not be in the business of picking winners and losers. Finally, individuals and families should be free to choose health plans that accommodate their own ethics and morals. This means we must also transform Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP so that individuals and families have a broad choice of health plans and providers and that those providers are directly accountable to patients for their quality of care."

- Heritage Foundation
 
I'm afraid we'll just have to agree to disagree

I presume you meant to write "industry". When you don't enforce existing laws, how can enacting new laws help solve the problem?

Come visit sunny California and see what over-regulation has done for our state. Businesses have been fleeing the state in record numbers (each year it increases) and our elected legislators and governor are too ideologically myopic to even understand what's required to right the foundering ship, much less have enough of an interest to actually do something about it.
 
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Something should be done about

rising medical costs, but I don't think giving our government control is the sound approach. They turn a blind eye to waste, they have no apparent interest in curbing fraud and some factions are all too eager to extend the scope and reach of the State.

It's all about limited, enumerated powers in my humble opinion.
 
single payer, single buyer....

as the single buyer of services, control of costs can exist. taking profit motive out of the equation (gov't involvement) allows cost control.
 
Your discussion of Calif and over-regulation ignores competition (heard of NAFTA), lobor rates, lack of natural resources for production, and a service based economy.

Studies have shown that equality of regulations, quality of life, and education base are the three most significant factors in a companies decision in location.
 
again, we disagree

Your discussion of Calif and over-regulation ignores competition (heard of NAFTA), lobor rates, lack of natural resources for production, and a service based economy.

Studies have shown that equality of regulations, quality of life, and education base are the three most significant factors in a companies decision in location.

Okay... here's your chance... please lead me to any links that support your contention that "competition (heard of NAFTA), lobor [labor?] rates, lack of natural resources for production, and a service based economy" trump over-regulation.
 
Went to the doctor the other day....

as a single payer-me. I got a 20% discount right off the bat and the doctor offered to do three procedures in one visit that he normally does in three visits because he saw I was paying my own bill and not the insurance company. It looks to me like the intrusion of the insurance company somehow incentivized him in the wrong direction relative to total cost. This is not unique, a close friend who is a physician lost his medical coverage due to a long illness and lapse from work; he cut a deal with the local hospital for cash for services 40% below the cost if he had been insured.
The notion that the inclusion of the 'free market' that is tied to insurance will ever bring down costs is patently absurd. the notion that the 'free market' might bring them down if there was only the patient paying might have some merit. But how to make it possible to pay direct is the problem. We would, most of us, be bankrupted before a week was out.:blackeye::blackeye:
 
and how did relaxing regulations work for the financial indistry?

The problem with the financial industry was not lack of regulation. It was regulation that built in huge moral hazards and created complacency among those that use the system. No regulation at all would have been far better than the monster than Federal government created.
 
6th out of 10 reasons here
http://jan.ocregister.com/2010/12/28/o-c-experts-10-reasons-firms-leave-california/51630/

urbanization, not regulation
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1585520/posts

indirect effect of regulation
http://californiabusiness.wordpress...e-to-carb-and-ab-32-implementation-from-sclc/

taxes and litigation, not regulation
http://www.examiner.com/finance-exa...-york-for-companies-leaving-due-to-high-taxes

A liberal rebuttal to the conservative mantra ove taxes and over regulation
http://www.speakoutca.org/weblog/2009/07/tracking-republ.html

This talks about a hige shift in workers comp costs. (need to fix the problem, not the supposed costs (un-motivated workers, tort reform (which you reference elsewhere), and a "sue me" population all play a role)
http://www.workerscompzone.com/index.php?entry=entry100918-091812

increased technology allowing jobs to be mobile
http://www.thestoneroad.com/patter/...video-production-jobs-leaving-california.html

The list goes on and on, but a common thread amongst the non politically slanted articles (on both sides) discuss a huge gap in employee education in the middle. there no longer remains a productive middle class of educated, skilled workers. You have service industry, and you have high tech. Nothing in between.

Also discussed, is a lack of a motivated work force. When you get a significant portion of your work force is service industry, motivated employees become harder to find.

on and on and on......

( hint: http://scholar.google.com/ is your friend)
 
as this was not fully addressed in the budget talks, lets start fresh here....

I say medical costs are outta sight, and that the gov't has a responsibility to its citizens to take action to reduce this burden on American families.

The government has taken action time and time again that has largely caused the problem. To help fix the problem they should start by not doing it anymore. At this point the best thing the Federal government can do is get out of medical regulation almost entirely and let the states take over the regulation. It would be messy at first, but it's messy now, and in a few years the states would figure out what works and what doesn't. At the state level anything done would have to be sustainable and workable. At the federal level, because of the ability to monetize debt, we end up with systems that are unsustainable. They will keep kicking the can down the road until the system implodes and hurts millions of people. At the state level budgets need to be relatively balanced so things are less likely to get out of control before they are fixed (California not withstanding). All this could more easily be done at the federal level if we had a sound currency that imposed discipline on Congress. Even still I don't think a huge centralized solution is the answer and I don't believe the government even has that power under our current constitution anyway.
 
Your thinking on this is...

probably no worse than any, and, no offense, probably no better either. It has seemed to me that the whole health cost issue is somehow a category error. If the raw cost of going to the doctor or into the hospital and the frequency with which those things occured could be addressed then maybe talking about the 'cost of health care' would make sense. Instead the talk is always and exclusively about what route money takes from the patient to the health care provider, meaning it is not about the cost of the care as such,but about the costs of accounting for and transfering the payment for care. That is big stream of moola and everyone and his brother is going to try and stick a bucket in it. And there is every incentive to make the stream bigger by making it more costly.

One thing you said is right on-if that 'cost of health care' becomes monetized debt we are screwed every which way because in not too many years it will be 1/5 of our GDP!!!!
 
No leaving things to the states is a guaranteed way to screw it up further. 50+ quasi-independant authorities all doing things differently is not a greater recipe for efficiency. First, the profit motive must be removed from healthcare. Completely. Other basic human and essential services are not operated for profit. I will gladly redirect the ludicrous amount of money I currently pay towards healthcare coverage over to a model that is not profit driven.

I'm sure some will see it as an extreme viewpoint, but in my view this whole states' rights movement has gotten far out of hand. I am an American. I hold a US passport, not a Washington passport.
 
Eliminating the profit motive may reduce costs. The side effect will be to massively reduce innovation in health care. Taking away the profit incentive will guarantee that cures are never discovered or are discovered years later than they otherwise would have been. Of course once you start down that road there is no way to prove the damage that is done. You can't prove what might have happened if things had been different. However, you can look at other industries and societies and compare them. I think you will find that the evidence strongly suggests that the profit motive is the most powerful force for progress in the world provided there is some protection against the abuse of the rights of others. There is a reason that for years the US led the world in heath care innovation. The erosion of the free market in health care has badly damaged that and driven costs sky high.
 
I was saying "using gov't as single largest buyer of HC products, they can control costs, and being Gov't, they have no profit motive." The manufacturers would still have profit motive.
 
I was saying "using gov't as single largest buyer of HC products, they can control costs, and being Gov't, they have no profit motive." The manufacturers would still have profit motive.

Except that's not what is likely to happen. Health care companies lobby the government, politicians put incentives and subsidies in for health care providers in their districts and get special deals for their buddies/contributors in the business. In a free society government cannot be in this sort of business because it devolves into crony capitalism. If we had a strong authoritarian government that didn't receive it's powers from the consent of the governed it might be workable but that's not what most people want.
 
Yes

Eliminating the profit motive may reduce costs. The side effect will be to massively reduce innovation in health care. Taking away the profit incentive will guarantee that cures are never discovered or are discovered years later than they otherwise would have been. Of course once you start down that road there is no way to prove the damage that is done. You can't prove what might have happened if things had been different. However, you can look at other industries and societies and compare them. I think you will find that the evidence strongly suggests that the profit motive is the most powerful force for progress in the world provided there is some protection against the abuse of the rights of others. There is a reason that for years the US led the world in heath care innovation. The erosion of the free market in health care has badly damaged that and driven costs sky high.

Exactly and well said, sir. Profit is one difference between capitalist and socialist nations. Real world vs. Utopia.
 
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