The only way we will benefit from Healthcare Reform is if we have no sacred cows.
1. Doctors can not make a million dollars a year, Lets subsidize their education rather than their salary. They need fee schedules. They should not be able to own rehab and testing labs where they send us for test to prove something they already know. Why do we have to pay one doctor to get a referral to another doctor? That’s crazy. Give us a prescription that lasts for our life if we have a disease that requires we take medicine for life.
2. Insurance companies need standard policy forms like we have in personal auto and Homeowners policy. HO3 H05 HO8. etc. They also need an excess profit law where they must return a certain profit back if they make too much money. Establishing affordable premiums should be easy to develop, due to the law of large numbers and mortality tables and an extraordinary amount of statistical data available to actuaries. Carriers are entitled to a fair profit, key word fair when it comes to health insurance. I don’t care if the make a fortune on my car insurance I can always find someone to insure my car.
3. Pharmaceutical companies need to sell us their medicine for the same amount they sell to Canada and only make a certain profit margin after R & D.
4. Lawyers- We need to get them out of the business of sucking on society. We need National mandatory Tort reform for those blood sucking leaches.
5. Congressmen are not allowed to take any political contributions from any entity which is involved in heathcare. Insurance Companies, Lawyers, Doctors. Etc. You see what happened when Dodd and Frank got sweetheart deals from Countrywide and expounded how Freddie and Fannie were in great financial shape as federal regulaters were warning them about collapse . We all almost went broke. Oh by the way all congressmen and senators will be required to take whatever plan they establish for us and pay half the premium. While we are at it they have to forgo their current retirement plan of %100 percent of their annual salary and replace it with Social Security. But they shouldn’t worry; we as their employer will pay half of this benefit like our employers do for us. Welcome to being and American citizen.
6. Get Chiropractors out of healthcare. For goodness sakes my vet has more training than they do. News flash! They are not doctors..
7. Hospitals can’t charge $3000 for an emergency room visit. They should be paid by the hour and that does not include the waiting room. $15. Aspirin. Give me a break. If someone is going to die and believe me doctors know this, don’t keep me alive for 3 miserable days with life support so you can charge my insurance or my family 25k more.
8. Computerize our health records and allow us to send them to any doctor we want, whenever we want. Health insurers and any other entity including the government can not obtain them without our written consent every time they are retrieved. That does not mean we sign it or not get insurance. Doctors seem to think this will save a tremendous amount of money and be able to treat patients better. Oh well, they get it, if it saves us money.
9. All employers are required to pay half the health insurance premium for their employees, all employees will be required to pay the other half. This would lower cost due to the ones who have it now pay for the uninsured. We should be able to take our insurance with us when we leave an employer and the previous employers plan not affected regarding our claims, etc. No group rates based on age, everyone pays the same. That includes the poor or the rich. Healthcare is not a right it is a privilege remember no sacred cows and that includes us.
Good job Bill. Let also allow the purchase of health insurance across State lines and allow private groups to purchase health insurance just as businesses do.
Bill’s comments are well made, articulate, to the point, and would indeed overhaul the healthcare delivery system. They are also exactly why they won’t be listened to, encacted, and enjoyed by all. For the following points, to wit:
Bill wants to get the lawyers out of the equation. Amen, so does the rest of the American population THAT IS NOT A LAWYER. Like our president, who has yet to specify the mandatory absence of PITLA lawyers and tort reform down to a mandatory dollar figure that ALL goes to the plaintiff, with legal fees paid by plaintiff on a mandatory scale. BO will not bite the hand that feeds him. Call it a “Professional Courtesy”.
Bill (and most americans) want to re-write the un-written law that doctors are the highest paid people in any community. As John Lennon said, “We all want to see your plan”. For some reason, doctors have a messianic impression that they are and should be, God. Perhaps it is taught in Med School. I have many doctors as clients, and other than their medical specialty, I do not find them overwhelmingly bright. Technically proficient, yes. Smart? Well……….
They want the healthcare overhaul to stop short of their sacrifice and instead institute language specifying their desire for the insurance company to simply pay their bills without question. And that includes my own brother, who is in fact a doctor.
My favorite Bill rant is the absolute removal of any and all congressional involvement. Let’s start a grass root movement for ballot measures, exclude Barney Fwank and Chris Dodd (on arrival), and force them out of the equation. By the way, americans, the correct measure is something called TERM LIMITS. If we can’t get law passed requiring them, impose them anyway at the ballot box. Cretins like Frank, Dodd, Kennedy (RIP), Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, et al ALL NEED TO GO. And I can’t think of a better way to illustrate it than to interrupt the re-elections plans of Barry and Michelle. However, to Bill’s point, what we will get is 100 senators and 435 congressmen/women all saying that they agree with Bill 100% and then vote the exact opposite way.
That noise you are all hearing is the collective bodies of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and the rest of the founding fathers rolling in their graves.
I still don’t get it – What crises?
My insurance is great
If you don’t have it and want it – get a better job
Can’t get a better job? Start showing up on time, stop calling in sick when you don’t feel like working, educate yourself to make yourself desireable to an employer that offers coverage (remember to take regular showers, brush your teeth and wear clean neat conservative clothes that cover up those obnoxious tatoos as well).
You’re poor? – get it free from the state or federal government.
You go to the doctor without insurance? – make payments.
You want to take it with you from job to job? – pay COBRA (don’t quit until you’ve saved up enough to pay the premiums)
You’re uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions and have been turned down by at least two health carriers? – get it from the State (every state has a program for this)
Think the doctors are making too much? – buy stock in their companies.
Will lose insurance if you stop working? – keep working
Lost it when you got layed off? – get it free from the government when your savings runs out (see “You’re poor” above)
Best Insurance? get off your fat butt, exercise, eat healthy and stop smoking in other words survive until you’re old enough for Medicare.
Don’t like my suggestions? – Move to a socialist country.
Irreegular, Your 100% correct in everything you just said.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
The only hope for our country is if we wake up and have our voices heard. Many people think that the current political climate is hostile. I believe it is not hostile enough and the Tea Parties are just the answer. I dont care if your a Democrat or Republican, The Tea parties are about citizens taking control again of our government.
Heres another quote from my favorite President.
“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”
Thomas Jefferson
As far as Bob is concerned. Bob I know you mean well, but you have not paid the health insurance bill for a business lately have you?
Remember this is not about Democrats vs Republicans this is about our politicians becoming Socialist. The Democratic party is not always pushed a socialist agenda as today. There are Democrats who feel strongly about capitalism. Some believe their party has been hijacked by the far left wing raticals just as the far right has been hijacked by some radicals. Politicians have discovered there is money in being on the fringe, Look at Jim Wilson’s comment “you lie” the next day his opponent recieved a uptick in donations along with unknown Joe Wilsons campaign coffers. This is crazy and we need to take back our government and bring back american values of prudence and personal responsibility.
Bill, regarding #2 of your first post. Insurers’ that now compete are non-profits, mutuals’ and profits. The non-profits have approx 60% market share and the profits have the second lowest return on equity of any American industry. So I guess an excess profits law doesn’t matter other than to prevent a brilliant person, with a new idea, to enter that section of the economy.
Rick your right, Insurance companies are really not making money in this line of coverage, if they were there would be more than one or two carriers in any one market. But I think Bill’s point is that there be no sacred cows meaning that every secotor of the healthcare industry including insurance has to give something in order to create the savings necessary to reduce cost in a meaningful manner. For this I have to agree with Bill that there is billions of profit here and Irregular guy is correct that until our Government changes the way it does business that there will not be any real changes to the status quo until this is fixed.
We do need standard forms, Just think right now when you go to the doctor the office clerk in the doctors office has to call someone to see if the proceedure is covered, what the copay is and have they met their deductible. Wouldnt it be nice to know that your doctor knows and you know that you have coverage before you go to the doctor and what is going to be my cost. Right now congress knows as much of whats in the bill they will sign 3 hrs after its complete as I know what my health insurance really covers. We need standard policy language which will make carriers pay quickly and subject themselves to bad faith if they dont.
Bill, I happen to be a democrat who voted for Barack Obama. I really did not know he was this much of a liberal. I also went to the local Tea Party. I found some to be pretty partisan but most were concerned about higher taxes and taking away of our freedoms. I am one Democrat who is not a radical and not happy with the current state of our Government.
First, I’m a small business owner and just because AP writes an article doesn’t mean they speak for me.
Second, if Congress wants to fix something, why not fix one of the hundreds of programs they’ve helped screw up. If they want to fix something, why not let them prove to me and the rest of America, that they can design and run just ONE thing that runs efficiently and doesn’t go broke.
Have you ever had to deal with Medicaid or Medicare? They are a nightmare to work with. What makes anyone think that Congress won’t screw up our healthcare system and leave it in much worse shape than it is currently in. Their track record shows that they will screw it up.
One definition of insanity is to expect a different result from from a process that always produces consistently bad outcomes.
But hell, with Obama spearheading this healthcare reform, maybe I shouldn’t worry.
I’m sure he’ll be as successful with this venture as he was with his Olympic presentation.
Sam, I realize what Bill was getting at. I was just attempting to point out the fallacy of any type of “excess profits” rule. There is no such thing as excess profits in a free market capitalist system. The more profit the better for society, as that creates more competition and innovation. Unfortunately, as I posted previous there is very little profit in health insurance, and for those that feel it unseemly for someone making a profit in this line of work they are free to purchase coverage from a non-profit.
–Max Baucus accepted > $1,500,000 in campaign contributions from the health industry
–The “Gang of Six” are the top recipients of health industry contributions
–Max Baucus’s aid, who was previously a senior executive for Wellpoint, is said to have written much of the bill’s text
–The health industry has six lobbyists to every one member of congress
–The health industry has expended in excess of $360,000,000 in lobbying money so far in 2009.
How about a three-line bill?
Line 1 –Eliminate state-specific legislative coverage mandates.
Line 2 –Eliminate restrictions on interstate policy buying
Line 3 –Extend advantages from employer-provided plans to the individual market
(optional line 4 & 5)–Coverage mandate for all Americans, but only if an affordable catastrophic “public option” is avaiable and preexisting conditions are prohibited.
I think that there are solutions here, just need to get the politicians and lobbiest out of the way of real reform. Until the politicians know that they will be voted out, they will keep the legislation up for sale to the highest bidder. That is not in the best interest of society. EVERYONE MUST GIVE for us to get something less expensive. Lawyers, doctors, drug companies, hospitals, insurance companies. It is called regulation of cost’s. It is the only solution to this problem.
Rick unfortunately free market capitalism in this area is already not the case, you have medicare setting benefits where the doctors subsidize what they get from medicare from you and I. How is it that if you have insurance your bill is less because the network negotiates a better rate. What if I have no insurance shouldnt I get the same rate for the same proceedure. WE NEED A FEE SCHEDULE, sorry doctors you will not be the richest guy in town anymore.
The only way we will benefit from Healthcare Reform is if we have no sacred cows.
1. Doctors can not make a million dollars a year, Lets subsidize their education rather than their salary. They need fee schedules. They should not be able to own rehab and testing labs where they send us for test to prove something they already know. Why do we have to pay one doctor to get a referral to another doctor? That’s crazy. Give us a prescription that lasts for our life if we have a disease that requires we take medicine for life.
2. Insurance companies need standard policy forms like we have in personal auto and Homeowners policy. HO3 H05 HO8. etc. They also need an excess profit law where they must return a certain profit back if they make too much money. Establishing affordable premiums should be easy to develop, due to the law of large numbers and mortality tables and an extraordinary amount of statistical data available to actuaries. Carriers are entitled to a fair profit, key word fair when it comes to health insurance. I don’t care if the make a fortune on my car insurance I can always find someone to insure my car.
3. Pharmaceutical companies need to sell us their medicine for the same amount they sell to Canada and only make a certain profit margin after R & D.
4. Lawyers- We need to get them out of the business of sucking on society. We need National mandatory Tort reform for those blood sucking leaches.
5. Congressmen are not allowed to take any political contributions from any entity which is involved in heathcare. Insurance Companies, Lawyers, Doctors. Etc. You see what happened when Dodd and Frank got sweetheart deals from Countrywide and expounded how Freddie and Fannie were in great financial shape as federal regulaters were warning them about collapse . We all almost went broke. Oh by the way all congressmen and senators will be required to take whatever plan they establish for us and pay half the premium. While we are at it they have to forgo their current retirement plan of %100 percent of their annual salary and replace it with Social Security. But they shouldn’t worry; we as their employer will pay half of this benefit like our employers do for us. Welcome to being and American citizen.
6. Get Chiropractors out of healthcare. For goodness sakes my vet has more training than they do. News flash! They are not doctors..
7. Hospitals can’t charge $3000 for an emergency room visit. They should be paid by the hour and that does not include the waiting room. $15. Aspirin. Give me a break. If someone is going to die and believe me doctors know this, don’t keep me alive for 3 miserable days with life support so you can charge my insurance or my family 25k more.
8. Computerize our health records and allow us to send them to any doctor we want, whenever we want. Health insurers and any other entity including the government can not obtain them without our written consent every time they are retrieved. That does not mean we sign it or not get insurance. Doctors seem to think this will save a tremendous amount of money and be able to treat patients better. Oh well, they get it, if it saves us money.
9. All employers are required to pay half the health insurance premium for their employees, all employees will be required to pay the other half. This would lower cost due to the ones who have it now pay for the uninsured. We should be able to take our insurance with us when we leave an employer and the previous employers plan not affected regarding our claims, etc. No group rates based on age, everyone pays the same. That includes the poor or the rich. Healthcare is not a right it is a privilege remember no sacred cows and that includes us.
NO GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER – JUST CUT COST
You make some very good points, Bill.
finally someone that gets it! Bill for PRESIDENT…
Good job Bill. Let also allow the purchase of health insurance across State lines and allow private groups to purchase health insurance just as businesses do.
Bill’s comments are well made, articulate, to the point, and would indeed overhaul the healthcare delivery system. They are also exactly why they won’t be listened to, encacted, and enjoyed by all. For the following points, to wit:
Bill wants to get the lawyers out of the equation. Amen, so does the rest of the American population THAT IS NOT A LAWYER. Like our president, who has yet to specify the mandatory absence of PITLA lawyers and tort reform down to a mandatory dollar figure that ALL goes to the plaintiff, with legal fees paid by plaintiff on a mandatory scale. BO will not bite the hand that feeds him. Call it a “Professional Courtesy”.
Bill (and most americans) want to re-write the un-written law that doctors are the highest paid people in any community. As John Lennon said, “We all want to see your plan”. For some reason, doctors have a messianic impression that they are and should be, God. Perhaps it is taught in Med School. I have many doctors as clients, and other than their medical specialty, I do not find them overwhelmingly bright. Technically proficient, yes. Smart? Well……….
They want the healthcare overhaul to stop short of their sacrifice and instead institute language specifying their desire for the insurance company to simply pay their bills without question. And that includes my own brother, who is in fact a doctor.
My favorite Bill rant is the absolute removal of any and all congressional involvement. Let’s start a grass root movement for ballot measures, exclude Barney Fwank and Chris Dodd (on arrival), and force them out of the equation. By the way, americans, the correct measure is something called TERM LIMITS. If we can’t get law passed requiring them, impose them anyway at the ballot box. Cretins like Frank, Dodd, Kennedy (RIP), Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, et al ALL NEED TO GO. And I can’t think of a better way to illustrate it than to interrupt the re-elections plans of Barry and Michelle. However, to Bill’s point, what we will get is 100 senators and 435 congressmen/women all saying that they agree with Bill 100% and then vote the exact opposite way.
That noise you are all hearing is the collective bodies of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and the rest of the founding fathers rolling in their graves.
I still don’t get it – What crises?
My insurance is great
If you don’t have it and want it – get a better job
Can’t get a better job? Start showing up on time, stop calling in sick when you don’t feel like working, educate yourself to make yourself desireable to an employer that offers coverage (remember to take regular showers, brush your teeth and wear clean neat conservative clothes that cover up those obnoxious tatoos as well).
You’re poor? – get it free from the state or federal government.
You go to the doctor without insurance? – make payments.
You want to take it with you from job to job? – pay COBRA (don’t quit until you’ve saved up enough to pay the premiums)
You’re uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions and have been turned down by at least two health carriers? – get it from the State (every state has a program for this)
Think the doctors are making too much? – buy stock in their companies.
Will lose insurance if you stop working? – keep working
Lost it when you got layed off? – get it free from the government when your savings runs out (see “You’re poor” above)
Best Insurance? get off your fat butt, exercise, eat healthy and stop smoking in other words survive until you’re old enough for Medicare.
Don’t like my suggestions? – Move to a socialist country.
Irreegular, Your 100% correct in everything you just said.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
The only hope for our country is if we wake up and have our voices heard. Many people think that the current political climate is hostile. I believe it is not hostile enough and the Tea Parties are just the answer. I dont care if your a Democrat or Republican, The Tea parties are about citizens taking control again of our government.
Heres another quote from my favorite President.
“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”
Thomas Jefferson
As far as Bob is concerned. Bob I know you mean well, but you have not paid the health insurance bill for a business lately have you?
Remember this is not about Democrats vs Republicans this is about our politicians becoming Socialist. The Democratic party is not always pushed a socialist agenda as today. There are Democrats who feel strongly about capitalism. Some believe their party has been hijacked by the far left wing raticals just as the far right has been hijacked by some radicals. Politicians have discovered there is money in being on the fringe, Look at Jim Wilson’s comment “you lie” the next day his opponent recieved a uptick in donations along with unknown Joe Wilsons campaign coffers. This is crazy and we need to take back our government and bring back american values of prudence and personal responsibility.
Bill, regarding #2 of your first post. Insurers’ that now compete are non-profits, mutuals’ and profits. The non-profits have approx 60% market share and the profits have the second lowest return on equity of any American industry. So I guess an excess profits law doesn’t matter other than to prevent a brilliant person, with a new idea, to enter that section of the economy.
Rick your right, Insurance companies are really not making money in this line of coverage, if they were there would be more than one or two carriers in any one market. But I think Bill’s point is that there be no sacred cows meaning that every secotor of the healthcare industry including insurance has to give something in order to create the savings necessary to reduce cost in a meaningful manner. For this I have to agree with Bill that there is billions of profit here and Irregular guy is correct that until our Government changes the way it does business that there will not be any real changes to the status quo until this is fixed.
We do need standard forms, Just think right now when you go to the doctor the office clerk in the doctors office has to call someone to see if the proceedure is covered, what the copay is and have they met their deductible. Wouldnt it be nice to know that your doctor knows and you know that you have coverage before you go to the doctor and what is going to be my cost. Right now congress knows as much of whats in the bill they will sign 3 hrs after its complete as I know what my health insurance really covers. We need standard policy language which will make carriers pay quickly and subject themselves to bad faith if they dont.
Bill, I happen to be a democrat who voted for Barack Obama. I really did not know he was this much of a liberal. I also went to the local Tea Party. I found some to be pretty partisan but most were concerned about higher taxes and taking away of our freedoms. I am one Democrat who is not a radical and not happy with the current state of our Government.
Funny how small business and mothers with children with disabilities are left out of the conversation in congress about healthcare.
First, I’m a small business owner and just because AP writes an article doesn’t mean they speak for me.
Second, if Congress wants to fix something, why not fix one of the hundreds of programs they’ve helped screw up. If they want to fix something, why not let them prove to me and the rest of America, that they can design and run just ONE thing that runs efficiently and doesn’t go broke.
Have you ever had to deal with Medicaid or Medicare? They are a nightmare to work with. What makes anyone think that Congress won’t screw up our healthcare system and leave it in much worse shape than it is currently in. Their track record shows that they will screw it up.
One definition of insanity is to expect a different result from from a process that always produces consistently bad outcomes.
But hell, with Obama spearheading this healthcare reform, maybe I shouldn’t worry.
I’m sure he’ll be as successful with this venture as he was with his Olympic presentation.
Sam, I realize what Bill was getting at. I was just attempting to point out the fallacy of any type of “excess profits” rule. There is no such thing as excess profits in a free market capitalist system. The more profit the better for society, as that creates more competition and innovation. Unfortunately, as I posted previous there is very little profit in health insurance, and for those that feel it unseemly for someone making a profit in this line of work they are free to purchase coverage from a non-profit.
–Max Baucus accepted > $1,500,000 in campaign contributions from the health industry
–The “Gang of Six” are the top recipients of health industry contributions
–Max Baucus’s aid, who was previously a senior executive for Wellpoint, is said to have written much of the bill’s text
–The health industry has six lobbyists to every one member of congress
–The health industry has expended in excess of $360,000,000 in lobbying money so far in 2009.
How about a three-line bill?
Line 1 –Eliminate state-specific legislative coverage mandates.
Line 2 –Eliminate restrictions on interstate policy buying
Line 3 –Extend advantages from employer-provided plans to the individual market
(optional line 4 & 5)–Coverage mandate for all Americans, but only if an affordable catastrophic “public option” is avaiable and preexisting conditions are prohibited.
There is a waiting list of over 288,000 people for Adult Basic in PA as of August 2009. Probably a lot higher today.
http://whyy.org/cms/news/health-science/2009/08/19/long-waits-for-pa%e2%80%99s-low-cost-health-plan/15358
Keep up the great work!
I think that there are solutions here, just need to get the politicians and lobbiest out of the way of real reform. Until the politicians know that they will be voted out, they will keep the legislation up for sale to the highest bidder. That is not in the best interest of society. EVERYONE MUST GIVE for us to get something less expensive. Lawyers, doctors, drug companies, hospitals, insurance companies. It is called regulation of cost’s. It is the only solution to this problem.
Rick unfortunately free market capitalism in this area is already not the case, you have medicare setting benefits where the doctors subsidize what they get from medicare from you and I. How is it that if you have insurance your bill is less because the network negotiates a better rate. What if I have no insurance shouldnt I get the same rate for the same proceedure. WE NEED A FEE SCHEDULE, sorry doctors you will not be the richest guy in town anymore.
I know I know I know!!!
I was posting in generalities.