Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[crashcourse]

so in a country of 320 million 90% currently have insurance 32 million who either unemployed totally or currently don't make enough money to afford insurance

http://kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/

those living below the poverty level make up much of the uninsured.

they cant or wont work --cant or wont choose to get there own insurance

already on the government dime for as much as they can

I really want to help those who want to help themselves but I don't have a lot of patience for those who don't want to help themselves. when over 80% of the country is covered with insurance plans that they choose I think we need to cut overkill medical expenditures and the profit angle of some of these larger institutions.

seems like the biggest building every city now have an insurance company or financial institution name on it. so the 80% who have insurance certainly are putting enough money in the pot.

target those who work and produce for society for those who cant afford insurance. and aim plans at helping those guys out. but my gut feeling is the 20-30 million who don't have medical insurance do so at there own choosing. for a lot of reasons listed in that article above. good thing most of them have cell phones gaming systems and cable companies with internet capabilities though--wouldn't want to short them of that to pay for health care

[froot loops]

LOL are they really saying that? "We wanted an estimate to how wrong CBO was going to be"? That's great

Yep, it's in that politico article below the ad. They had the OMB make the estimate based on the methodology CBO was going to use.

I'm not how credible their criticisms of the CBO are going to seem. When you take 1 trillion dollars out of the system over 10 years, a lot of people are going to lose coverage. But maybe they can try jamming it through anyway. Eventually when people get premium hikes or cancellations notices, the spin becomes useless.

[Da Geezer]

...When you take 1 trillion dollars out of the system over 10 years, a lot of people are going to lose coverage.

Interesting. Do you have a link for this?

The numbers I've read for Rinocare were 14M losing coverage near term, 24M long-term. These are net numbers. The long-term number in absolute terms was 52M for Rinocare and 28M for Obamacare. The number of people without insurance will grow under either plan, both near-term and long-term.

[froot loops]

Read the CBO report, Trumpcare cuts medicaid by $880 billion dollars over 10 years and replaces the ACA tax credits and cost sharing program by 300 billion. The tax cuts come to 883 billion. The 300 billion left over goes to reduce the deficit.

[CGVT]

Rinocare. How cute.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think we've gotten over-focused on who is going to lose HC insurance coverage under the R's plan.

What we need to be focused on is how is the R's plan going to alter the HC Insurance market place since there is, in this plan, a shift away from Federal funding for it.

As E pointed out, there are a lot of "bets" on how things are going to shake out in this regard. In my view, the longer it takes to wring inefficiency and rising costs out of HC delivery, the higher the price of HC insurance is going to get and the larger the numbers of uninsured there will be.

I don't think there is any doubt that free market forces are appropriate to do this. I'm also of the belief that an unregulated free market for HC won't produce an acceptable outcome. But I'm not smart enough to know what kinds of regulation or incentives ae going to help and not hurt free market forces.

For example. Selling insurance across state lines - something that DJT offered as a way to boost competition and lower prices - is easier said than done - in states that allow this, not one of them has had an out of state insurer jump into the out of state business. That's because limitation of state to state sales of HC Insurance is not due to regulatory issues but rather financial ones - Insurers have important ties with doctors, pharmacies and hospitals that are difficult and expensive to establish in new markets.

I do believe that left alone, it is quite likely that there will be more and more aggregating of HC services, as I've suggested above, out of the concept of economies of scale which conceivably leads to lower costs and therefor lower prices for consumers.

What should be abundantly clear is the reality that the HC Insurance market place is the conduit through which consumers pay for and then access HC. Obviously, there are exceptions for cash pay patients but they are a small part of the consumer of this product.

It makes sense then that this is the market that should be the target of regulation. I've not studied it thoroughly enough yet but I do think the R's HC plan attempts to do this by fixing a lot of the very bad aspects of HC Insurance exchanges that started out as a good idea in the ACA but in practice were awful.

[froot loops]

14 million losing coverage starting next year is hard not to focus on. It's a BFD.

[froot loops]

Somebody tell Steve King when you are in a hole, stop digging.

[entropy]

Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2017/03/growing-number-babies-born-addicted-prescription-drugs/amp/

A growing problem...


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[WingsFan]

Stella Hammers the Northeast; Two Feet of Snow Reported; Blizzard Warnings For Nine States

[Da Geezer]

yup, they got 2 inches in DC. Schools shut down.

[Jeff Buchanan]

14 million losing coverage starting next year is hard not to focus on. It's a BFD.

Lets look at it this way ....... you either think the government is responsible for those 14 million who will loose coverage under Medicaid reductions or you don't.

Right now, the Medicaid program is a proven and well documented disincentive to work. The reason for that is as soon as a Medicaid beneficiary gets a job and starts earning money, they lose Medicaid coverage and have to buy it on the open market.

If you start from the premise that each person, not the Feds, has to be responsible for purchasing HC insurance then you put your legislative efforts into lessening the cost of care which translates into lower insurance costs.

There are two targets: (1) Incentivize the formation of aggregated care entities in the health care delivery market place. (2) Regulate Insurance Exchanges, subsidize or provide tax incentives for insurance coverage for specific groups.

[CGVT]

Or...Single payer.

[Wild Hoss]

If you start from the premise that each person, not the Feds, has to be responsible for purchasing HC insurance then you put your legislative efforts into lessening the cost of care which translates into lower insurance costs.

...or increased profits.

Once a facility can charge $10.00 for an aspirin, its never going to take less. The way to cut costs is to reduce the amount of aspirin charged for. JMO.

[hack]

LOL that it's a named storm. Eventually we're gonna get "Light Drizzle Stephen", and "Evening Breeze Alice".