How the Freedom Caucus Is Undermining the G.O.P.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/3...com/?state=nwa
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How the Freedom Caucus Is Undermining the G.O.P.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/3...com/?state=nwa
A key point about the Freedom Caucus is they're not geared at all to be pragmatic - they (and their supporters) value principles more than effectiveness. If they're in safe districts, they'll be done only when they decide to give their seat to somebody else... kind of like Orrin Hatch.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...lcolm-turnbull
Quote:
On Friday, Trump stuck to his guns – with a clarification. “Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do – everybody does,” he wrote on Twitter. “Obamacare is dead! But our healthcare will soon be great.”
Quote:
But Trump told Turnbull: “We have a failing healthcare. I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia, because you have better healthcare than we do.”
The claim got 4 Pinocchios.
Despite critics’ claims, the GOP health bill doesn’t classify rape or sexual assault as a preexisting condition
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.9e5391e36c6d
The bill is flawed and won't come out of the Senate looking much like it does now. Still, the debate over it needs to be fact-based.
Interesting editorial. According to the author, the AHCA is about cutting taxes, not health care policy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/o...dayspaper&_r=0
This piece has a political edge to it, but ignore that, it's right about the law.
The Pre-Existing Lie
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ts-are-telling
The legislation is going to look a lot different after the Senate gets done with it, but I doubt the pre-existing condition part will change much.
I think it is fair to say that the pre-existing condition clause affects a minimal number of people - right now.
The problem is that as people lose their jobs, are unable to find new jobs and are unable to afford private insurance, that number will grow.
The idea of having your insurance tied to employment and having the handling of pre-existing conditions tied to continuous insurance is what makes the situation so unpalatable. Those in Congress either are unable or don't want to understand that not being able to continuously have insurance is a serious problem.
The healthy pay for it.
And that is fine, that is the way to pay into it. I look at the hundreds of thousands I pay into healthcare over a lifetime with the hope that my relative non-utilization will cover me when I do need it. But how can we make that healthy pool bigger?
Long ago I worked for SelectHealth. We spent a lot of time developing some online programs aimed at improving people's health. We had health trackers, health assessments, programs for employers to execute to reduce their utilization. Preventive care visits, which I mock that I now get for free (for only triple the premium I used to pay) are also a good thing. Exposing people more to the actual cost of care will also reduce utilization and ultimately cost. Prevention and better utilization are a big way to help, yet nobody really does much about that.
One example from back in the day: The discussion was around a new gamma knife that basically improved recovery time by a day, but was massively more expensive than the current gamma knife they had. The question was should the new knife be covered by insurance or was it elective. Now if you don't pay directly for that knife, then recovering a day faster seems awesome. If the patient was asked if they'd pay $10k extra to use that knife, suddenly an extra day didn't seem so bad at all.
Those are just a few of the problems with the utilization and cost of healthcare that seem relatively easy to fix, but nobody addresses that.
We keep saying, "who will pay for it?"
Yet, we currently pay more for healthcare and get the worst results.
Why don't we take the money already being spent, and spend it better.
Yeah, your taxes might go up. But your healthcare costs will go down, creating a wash, at worst.
Odds are, costs would go down overall under single payer, because we already pay more than everyone else.
Just for fun:
Judd Gregg: How the GOP can win on healthcare
http://thehill.com/opinion/judd-greg...-on-healthcare
It won't happen, but the op-ed is a good read and is dead-on accurate about the ACA and why it was designed as it was.
If only it were that easy. Remember when Medicare Part D was being debated and everyone thought "oh if we make it so Drug companies have a single payer from the government it will save costs" Drug prices havent gone down for seniors. Their is an inherent problem with just saying whatever you are paying now just has to go to the government. For most of the commercial business companies pay 75% - 80% of premiums. If you tried to regulate and say oh you now have to pay what is essentially a tax on what you were giving as a benefit companies will find ways to get around it. A lot of companies are also self insured so it would be really hard to keep tabs on what the were paying. The old saying of "you build a better mouse trap..." is applicable.
The reality is if we go to single payer like Canada we are going to have to ration care. Whether that is by panels or pricing it will have to happen. Additionally, one of the strongest lobby groups (The AMA) would fight everything tooth and nail. Cutting reimbursement to physicians would be a long ardous battle. Every year they try and cut the Medicare Fee schedules and pass a silly bill only for it to be rescinded when the budget is passed. IMO the only way to straighten this out is give people skin in the game and let them push the market. But it has to be everyone person with skin in the game. Only then can market forces push prices down. The incentives hospitals have right now is to keep builidng new stuff.
I've mentioned my plan before but I'd like to add some things to my list:
Medical school, Nurse Practitioner and PA schools tuition is capped at $2k per year. Most universities are not for profit and get a massive benefit from the government. If we are going to cut physician's pay we shouldn't make them take out 500k in loans to become a doctor.
I recently had back fusion surgery. The EOB's are just starting to show up.
My wife recently had some treatment for some nerve pain in her neck and back of her head. IHC apparently used the wrong billing code for part of the treatment, which prevented Medicare from paying that portion. Often multiple phone ccalls and faxes to both IHC billion department and Medicare over two months, we were no closer to getting it resolved. Medicare told us that the way that IHC coded the line items was incorrect and even illegal. We told IHC this, but they didn't offer any help, and started threatening to to send us to collections and having our credit rating affected.
Finally, I noticed on the back of the bill a procedure to dispute billing items. There was only one way to do this, by using a communication method that I could have used 200 years ago, sending a letter by mail within 60 days. Ther is no option to use new-tangled technology like phone, fax, or internet.
We we sent the dispute letter certified mail, and the department that received it resolved the issue the day they received it. I guess the lesson is that in bureaucracy, following the rules if more effective than screaming and shouting.
I don't believe Medicare can negotiate drug prices, which is just stupid. You can't say it isn't working when you won't let it try to work in the first place.
Let Medicare negotiate drug prices. Watch how fast those costs drop.
Canada has better healthcare than we do. So, even if that is what we did, it would be an improvement.
We ration healthcare as well by cost.
Also, we are seeing the benefits of a shitty, yet improved healthcare under the ACA. Costs have risen slower than before and bankruptcies are down 50% since then...and a large reason why is because people are insured.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.marke...6-40342CF4B8E3
We've seen so much good from the ACA but it's not enough.
I think it's crazy that we ignore the good, don't try to improve the bad and want to go back to a system am that we know is worse and more expensive
Let's move forward. Keep the good, improve the bad. Let's not move backwards.
"Make America Great Again" is nothing more than backwards movement. Let's move forward.
And yet, every other first world government in the world provides better, cheaper healthcare.
Hell, the ACA has reduced costs and bankruptcies. So, our government has done it better.
Finally, the government is speedy Gonzalous compared to for profit insurance company that their whole business model is about not paying for healthcare.
See the example above. Everything in our medical system is to not give patients what they have paid for (insurance) and then charge patients on the back end. It's a poor system and it shows in how much we pay and how little we get for it.
Look at Chris. He paid for insurance. He should have acces to the care he paid for. Yet, he had to put in countless hours fighting to get what he paid for.
And how many people don't do the work that he did and just pay the bill (so the insurance company and Dr's office have stolen from them)? How bad does that impact our economy? How many bankruptcies come about from this (about half, we are discovering)?
How many dollars are taken away from people that they could have spent somewhere more effectively, like at a local, small business?
How many jobs are lost?
Healthcare is such a no brainer. Provide affordable healthcare. Free people up to be healthy, make money, innovate and progress.
That's the Republican Party. Take the most intelligent, efficient way to do something and make it expensive, inefficient and profitable for you and your friends then whine about it all while invoking Jesus and something about abortions and marriage.