http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vAXNt4Hr5A
This may be a surprise to some…but.. I tend to lean politically to “the right ” and have certain libertarian tendencies … Even before the Supreme Court decided that Obamacare was a TAX and was legal… I really didn’t think that it would really get fully implemented… but… after they see how much it is really going to cost.. it would be slowly dismantled and/or morphed into some different type of creature…
Last night in Romney’s speech.. (listen starting about 03:15 into the speech) he proclaimed that one of his highest priorities was to REPEAL OBAMACARE AND REPLACE IT ! WTF… REPLACE IT… what does that really mean… ???
IMO.. the only way that we are going to provide a wider cross section of the population with medical care is to get rid of all the for-profit middlemen in our healthcare system. The DMERC – the carriers that pay the Medicare Part B claims.. consume ~ 5% of what is paid out… as compared to the 20%-30% that the insurance companies extract from our total healthcare dollars…. plus all the dollars sucked off by the PBM’s and the other middlemen that we never hear about.
Some have claimed that ACO ( Accountable Care Organizations) ..that are now evolving because of Obamacare.. are here to stay… regardless if Obamacare lives or dies… think of these as “baby Kaiser Permanente ” that will evolve into regional composite healthcare provider systems.
I will pull out my crystal ball and go out on a limb about where our healthcare system may be going… I see the “replacement” of Obamacare… being a tinkering of Medicare & Medicaid.. until everyone is covered in some fashion or another by one or the other … until the time comes that the two will “merge” into a single system. With “means tested” .. premiums, deductibles & copays… This may take 5-10 yrs.. if Obamacare is repealed… Congress seldom does anything this massive in a single move.
Just what our economy needs more uncertainty of what the government is going to “tax” us in the future….
Filed under: General Problems
If other countries can have universal coverage without 50% taxes why can’t we? If you really think uncertainty of taxes is holding the economy back I have got a bridge to sell you. We have the lowest tax rates we have seen for the past 50 years for at least 8 years now. The economy is stagnant because people are out of work and don’t have money to spend. The people who are working are worried they will lose their jobs or they have taken lower paying jobs after being fired so they have less purchasing power. When people don’t buy things business suffer then lay off workers who then can’t buy things and the cycle continues.
IMO.. there are three basic reasons why we can’t.. one is, that as a society, we are not really interested in preventive care… more in catastrophic care and then ..we throw ever thing we got… even if the cost of extending a life for a few days is measured in tens of thousands of dollars per day.
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here is an example https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=212
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We have too many for-profit middlemen in our healthcare.. the primary function of a public for profit company is.. SHAREHOLDER VALUE… which is in ethical conflict with the purpose of their existence.
We have too much fraud/abuse in all the systems.. none of these same corporations and the people who implement such illegal procedures, really suffer much other than some monetary loss. If some of these execs had their asses thrown in jail for being in the position to implement and/or failing to prevent such actions. I believe things would change
So really the solution to that is to have Medicare part E. E stands for everyone. Roll in Medicaid like you suggested. Means test it then have everyone pay a premium. Medicaid has held down costs more than any insurance company on the market today.
Please re-read my post ” I will pull out my crystal ball and go out on a limb about where our healthcare system may be going…”
https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=1185..
here is a post where I talk about how our system could work with everyone having skin in the game…
I had not read that post before. Well put. Not very libertarian but I like ideas from anywhere on the political spectrum as long as they work. Here’s an even better one. Throw in some malpractice reform and maybe we can get both sides to agree to it. Imagine only having one set of billing codes. Doctors wouldn’t have to hire as many staff just to help with insurance issues. You could save money right there.
The Republicans cannot repeal all of Obamacare. The government would probably only be able to repeal parts of Obamacare. There are some good parts of Obamacare, but most of it is crap. We, the people, cannot afford it! Eventually, everyone is going to have insurance, and the upper class and middle class will have to pay for it. Here comes 50% taxes!
When you consider the typical Pharmacist is upper middle class with our 100K income… and you start throwing city/county/state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes and all “the other taxes” on to your margin Federal income rate… you are probably already there…