It appears to me that some of the extreme fears some folks have about ObamaCare may NOT be exaggerations...some of them already seem to be coming to pass...

As one example, Hospice of the Valley,the largest hospice care organization in the USA, has reportedly just laid off 150 workers in the Phoenix, AZ area. That includes professional staff who have been with them for up to 10 years. They told the laid off workers that under the new government rules, paper work, and payment schedule, it will be impossible for the company to maintain services and make ends meet.

In addition, some local doctors are now telling folks they will no longer accept ANY patients whose bills are paid by government health insurance....especially federal government insurance such as Medicare. That goes for both new patients and existing patients. Those same medical practitioners are predicting that within 1 year from now, it will be very, very difficult for any Medicare patient to obtain an appointment with any doctor in private practice.

How much of this will truly come to pass, I cannot predict, but the Hospice of the Valley action suggests to me it MAY well be true. If so, this will be the greatest boondoggle and disaster ever to hit America...hundreds of thousands times worse than 9/11 was.

I have long been a luke-warm observer of ObamaCare, but I am now very much in favor of the current government shutdown until the law is either massively overhauled or revoked entirely.

Americans cannot do without a functioning medical system, which seems to be more and more clearly the coming result of this federal government intrusion into areas which are not constitutionally within its domain anyhow. And there is a very strong possibility that IF millions of Americans can no longer obtain reliable medical care for which they paid for many years, a violent revolution may be the unintended consequence. That would be a presidential legacy no President could be proud of, not even Der Fuhrer, B. Obama.

For the heck of it, I just checked to see what ACA plans were accepted by my physician and my preferred hospital. The online navigation indicates they are not in the same network. I would have to go 40 miles to get an in-network hospital but my doc doesn't have privileges at that hospital.

Perhaps I just don't know how to navigate the system. I'll wait a few weeks to see if something has changed.

In the meantime, Obama is correct that I can keep my doc, I just can't keep my hospital, or so it seems.

Perhaps others seeking the exchanges, might want to check to see if their docs and hospitals are in the same network. It is a twist I just stumbled across, never having thought about it.

They destroyed Medicare with it.

If I had anything to do with this in Congress I'd offer a debt limit extension in exchange for scrapping Obocare, with a promise to replace it with a national program that made sense. I'd make it a limited program that targeted those most in need of help, which is the 55-65 age class who health insurance companies don't want. And who they intentionally run off with outrageous premiums.

I'd let them buy their way into Medicare and subsidize it to a degree but not totally. This would be good for everyone, the seniors affected by it, the youngsters whose premiums could then go down because they're only paying for themselves and not also health problem prone seniors, and it'd of course be good for the insurors too who don't want those folks as customers.

In other words, if I'm going to fix a problem, I go first to the place where the problem is worst, and it's that 55-65 age class where the majority of the serious uninsured health problems kick in. Those 65 and over of course are already on Medicare.

My program would be voluntary with no mandates or threats.

I favor the GOP insisting on this.

quote:

If I had anything to do with this in Congress I'd offer a debt limit extension in exchange for scrapping Obocare, with a promise to replace it with a national program that made sense. I'd make it a limited program that targeted those most in need of help, which is the 55-65 age class who health insurance companies don't want. And who they intentionally run off with outrageous premiums.

I'd let them buy their way into Medicare and subsidize it to a degree but not totally. This would be good for everyone, the seniors affected by it, the youngsters whose premiums could then go down because they're only paying for themselves and not also health problem prone seniors, and it'd of course be good for the insurors too who don't want those folks as customers.

In other words, if I'm going to fix a problem, I go first to the place where the problem is worst, and it's that 55-65 age class where the majority of the serious uninsured health problems kick in.

What political world do you live in?

So who the hell do you think is going to "subsidize" those 55-64 year olds who can't afford as you say "outrageous premiums". Could it be that those outrageous premiums are simply a business response to a group that costs more?

We have to understand that the Supreme Court was the last shot at getting out of this without something big and intrusive being done.

In other words, the politicians aren't going back to what was. The dems don't want to and the republicans don't have the political muscle or street cred to pull that off. If they did, I'd say fine. I'd love to see Obo lose just for the Hell of it alone.

And what I'm suggesting in allowing 55-65 yr olds to buy their way into Medicare is less objectionable than Obocare. And no mandates and fewer people affected. And it would be at least targeted to the ones really in need, like I was at that age. And you'd have premiums coming in that would be paid by said group, most of whom are still in their working years and therefore not getting any social security to deduct it from, like they do now from me and everyone else 65 and over.

Whether the outrageous premiums (and they are outrageously high with stuff to go with it like $15K out of pocket limits) are "simply a business response to a group that costs more" is obvious. Of course it is. But at the end of the day, either you can afford to get sick under that, or you do what MANY of us did, which is just live for that 65th birthday. And you save up your illnesses, your prostate cancer, spinal fusion, kidney stone lithotripsy, hernia surgery and the like, for that. Because otherwise you're looking at bankruptcy with no insurance.

Or, behind this door, IF you can somehow find a company, any company, that will even write you (regardless of your health) at all, you wind up with a company that doesn't pay claims, or that all doctors regard as "out of network". And that still costs more than you have. And that you can't file insurance for with minor trips to the doctor because you can't risk the insurer finding out about it.

That's what happens if you're hanging out there on your own and not with a big outfit with a lot of employees and a good group plan.

Anyway, I doubt that anybody's bothered to run the figures on my suggestion, so I guess it doesn't really matter...except I think they would be a lot less than what Obocare will cost.

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That's what happens if you're hanging out there on your own and not with a big outfit with a lot of employees and a good group plan.

Of course exactly that situation is what Obamacare tries to answer. Your answer of voluntary enrollment is not workable. Medicare is losing money as is, and the real costs for the age group you are referencing would likely be more than most people would pay, probably on the order of $1000/month/individual or more. Obamacare works on the assumption that young people, under duress, will sign up for insurance that is not very expensive, but has little benefits (fairly high deductibles) for most young people who as a group have very little assets. They're not worried about the costs of catastrophic illnesses but rather how to pay if they break an arm or get sick for a week or so requiring hospitalization. This concern is not addressed in Obamacare and will likely cause it real problems as the younger people who are paying more than their actual costs to support the group you're refering to, reject it. Of course, the dumbass Republicans don't seem to understand the economics and are ruining their chances in the next election or two by being fools.

I understand and don't disagree with any of that. Including the political calculations.

About the only thing that it occurs to add is, on your question of how to pay for my "idea" I really think there is so much waste in the "as is" federal spending that a huge chunk of health care subsidies could be paid without more taxes.

I got an example just today when driving on the x-way. Endless construction that's been literally going on for years. Strengthening the old "crumbling infrastructure" you know. That in my opinion is not crumbling. We've got construction workers on the public dime who I swear have probably spent their entire 30 yr careers on one 3 mile section. Fixing things that do not need to be fixed.

We've got mile after mile of rural back roads in my area that are being blacktopped that are not in the slightest need of being blacktopped.

Or turning to "bigger" things, we've got the hundreds of millions spent on stopping a "climate change" that does not exist.

Or wasting more hundreds of millions trying to find life on other planets that also does not exist.

Or doling out hundreds of millions more to countries around the world who don't remotely rate it.

And that's not even to mention questionable and/or ridiculous federal grants, and probably a million other things.

In essence I think there's enough generalized "slop" in the federal budget to do a lot of good in domestic health care. If anyone was interested.

quote:

Originally posted by Shack:
I understand and don't disagree with any of that. Including the political calculations.

About the only thing that it occurs to add is, on your question of how to pay for my "idea" I really think there is so much waste in the "as is" federal spending that a huge chunk of health care subsidies could be paid without more taxes.

Fixing things that do not need to be fixed.

.

...turning to "bigger" things, we've got the hundreds of millions spent on stopping a "climate change" that does not exist.

Or wasting more hundreds of millions trying to find life on other planets that also does not exist.

Or doling out hundreds of millions more to countries around the world who don't remotely rate it.

And that's not even to mention questionable and/or ridiculous federal grants, and probably a million other things.

In essence I think there's enough generalized "slop" in the federal budget to do a lot of good in domestic health care. If anyone was interested.

AND, doing away entirely with federal departments which do nothing truly useful but do waste taxpayer money on intrusions into areas constitutionally left EXCLUSIVELY to the States...such as

-Health & Welfare
-Education
Agriculture
and numerous more.