"Q. What's the most important lesson that Americans can learn from the Taiwanese example?
A. You can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs. But you have to have a single-payer system to do it."
The problem is still that few Americans realize that the insurance system is based on making profit by spending as little as they can possibly get away with on sick people, and dumping them if possible. The price increases are based on their knowing that the Democrats and Republican POLITICIANS are both dependent on them to insulate them from responsibility for healthcare. But it comes at a huge cost. We are wasting half of the money we spend on something that adds no value.
While watching the health insurance forum, keep in mind, THIS IS ALL COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. The affordability problem is easy to solve. Lots of ther countries have solved it.
The politicians just keep doing everything they can to make that impossible.
We need to ditch the insurance model, because it makes affordable health care impossible to achieve.
#1 DON'T SELL US OUT: Cheaper Plans = MORE EXPENSIVE when you NEED it.
They want to preserve the insurance system by forcing people to buy insurance that will leave them with huge uncovered costs if they get sick. But people have no way of affording those costs. They don't have the extra money. people are buried in debt. The government is trying to avoid spending money, AND preserve the expensive luxury (for politicians) of having insurance insulate them from potential legal prosecution. (because care is so incrediblyy attenuated now that it smells like an intentional situation)
What do they have to hide? Other countries assume this responsibility.
The way we have allowed them to do this is absolutely insane. its the reason the rest of the world thinks that Americans are crazy.
#2 HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS ARE DYING EACH YEAR BECAUSE THE SYSTEM THE USA HAS ENDORSED RELIES ON DUMPING (AND THE DENIAL OF CARE TO) KILLING SICK PEOPLE.
They propose to continue to allow the murderous cheap plans to operate "to make healthcare affordable" BUT that does not make healthcare affordable, it makes it more expensive. When sick people no longer can afford health insurance and then cannot get admitted to hospitals, purchase drugs they need, or see doctors they end up sicker, or even on the edge of death, and sometimes in the emergency room. More frequently, they cannot afford to get care which results in illness that is completely avoidable. If they die at home, they dont even make it into the 101,000 preventable inpatient deaths a year figure, which only applies to inpatient care. People in hospice care (those about to die) and people who dont get admitted to hospitals, are not counted. Its just People in hospitals who died because they could not afford healthcare who would have in France or Japan, for example..
Not surprisingly, as they are only counted in hospitals, most of them have insurance. Millions of people who are dying are not counted because they are prevented from accessing care. they don't have the money to pay upfront.
Even GOP admit that overly restrictive plans are often more of a detriment than a help because they give people false security, FALSE HOPE.
President Obama. You are so full of crap. YOU PRETEND TO CARE, BUT THE DEVILS IN YOUR DETAILS. You and we all know your profit motive is based on dumping the sick. Your beloved plans from the beginning seem to have as their essential element, dumping the sick. Sick people have enough problems, they cannot be forced to worry about paying additional charges of unlimited amounts - your so called affordable plans are actually MORE expensive than Cadillac plans for sick people. Canadian people get a cadillac plan for free. What the hell is wrong with us?
The system you endorse also encourage businesses to lay off people who get sick, or the parents of people who get sick. Your system is leaving the families of the sick in the lurch. Clearly, this wont change and indeed, it seems to be "off the table". I dare you to explain why you do this.
#3 SIMPLY MOVING TO SINGLE PAYER WOULD SAVE AT LEAST HALF OF THE MONEY WE SPEND, PROBABLY FAR MORE BECAUSE THE PRICES WE PAY FROM DRUGS WOULD ALSO DECREASE BECAUSE SUDDENLY THE GOVERNMENT COULD DEMAND PRICE MATCHING BY DRUG COMPANIES, AND PAY GLOBAL NORM PRICES FOR DRUGS.
Regardless of whether its a government "self sustaining" plan that must not increase the deficit, or a for profit plan that wants to make 7% more money, they balance their budgets in a system that WASTES 50% right off the top by GIVING it to insurers for free.
Because of that waste, they make affordable healthcare in any exchange impossible. The false choice they talk about is a code word for NO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE. The choice hides the fact that for profit health care wastes so much on its obsession with denying care, that it is not affordable.
No wonder they have kept doctors out of this fake "debate"! More than half of them support European style single payer, which works.
MRIS cost $98 in Japan - $3000 here. Why? The machines can be bought for less than the cost of a single doctor's sports car. Why are MRIS $98 in Japan and $3000 here? Both countries make machines. Why are MRIs $200 in Mexico and $3000 here?
because the hidden agenda is keeping people sick and denying them care.
They obsess about denying people tests, because it denies diagnoses. They don't want information that can help people get better. they want them to get the run around and then, quietly die.
Otherwise, instead of talking about cutting important diagnostic process like medical tests in order to save money and prevent people from losing their jobs or being dumped because of new illness, we would be talking about how we can make them healther. Even if they then live longer.
We would make it so people could go to the doctor without worrying "will I be able to afford it"? "Will I lose my job?" Will I be able to get another job later?
Thats right, now, after 2014, forever, in America, to get better, you have to risk losing your insurance.
Obama endorsed pricing insurance for employers by jacking up the rates for employers who have employees with health issues. If you ask me, that proves that Obama is part of the problem.
By preserving the system of jacking up rates for, the system of dumping companies who have employees with preexisting conditions, private or false hope public plans propose to remain profitable while paying exorbitant salaries and preserving politicians blame free lifestyles and keeping them out of the Nuremberg-like trials. Even though at least a million people have been killed.
If you ask anybody with a health condition, they will tell you, once you have a health condition, in some companies, you never get another raise. You never get another promotion. This does not happen to Senators or Congresspeople. It should, until they fix this problem.
They should also be locked in a room until they solve it. The only way to solve it without huge disruption is single payer. That only effects 450,000 jobs. There are over 300 million Americans. Deal with it. 101,000 Americans are dying in hospitals every year because they cannot afford decent health care. Most of them have insurance.
Obama interrupts legislators when they start talking about the real issues. Obviously, he's part of the problem. he wants to maintain unaffordable prices, preserve an unsustainable system.
Is that what they want, to trap employees in jobs that offer no hope of salary increases? To trap Americans in inferior healthcare that is unnecessarily killing 101,000 hospital inpatients a year because their insurers wont pay for care because we want to preserve an insurance system that insulates politicians from blame and maintains the highest prices in the world.
The for profit system is based on charging people for false hope and then dumping them when they get sick. By charging people for the lie that they will get decent care when they actually get milked for every penny they have and often, given substandard Third World level care, that is going to get worse as long as we give them no valid choices false choices they cannot afford.
Self sustaining plans that must compete with the cheap cherry picking plans must then BREAK IMPORTANT MEDICAL RULES TO MAKE MORE MONEY, The doctors are also shafted, they then must impose "one problem per visit" rules or draw out people's complaints in order to make them pay for more visits, patients who never get better.
The name for this is "patient retention". It means that to preserve the politicians beloved thieving system, millions of people never get better, and they cannot pay for care either.
Do they get sicker? yes. Do they get injured? yes. Do they lose their jobs and miss payments and their insurance, yes.
But, once in a while the system breaks and people get better, or they get some proof of what is happening and they try to sue. So, in response, we now have tort reform, even though both patient lawsuits and expenses on awards are at record, historic lows (life is just cheaper now than its ever been, what a deal, huh?) So, the system made in hell, they now make it impossible for injured people to get lawyers.
SINGE PAYER WORKS.. ITS FAR CHEAPER THAN WHAT WE HAVE NOW- It SAVES ENOUGH TO GIVE EVERY AMERICAN BETTER HEALTH CARE THAN EVEN MOST RICHEST AMERICANS GET NOW, FOR FREE.
THERE IS NO SINGLE PAYER OPTION.
MAKING A HEALTHCARE PLAN THAT TREATS THE SICK OPTIONAL - THAT'S THE WAY THEY KILL AFFORDABILITY, AND CONCEAL THE LIE THAT SOME POOR WORKING PEOPLE CAN MANAGE IT "If they make the right choices"
AFFORDABLE CHOICE IN AN EXCHANGE IS A LIE. ADVERSE SELECTION WILL KILL IT. ITS JUST A BAIT THAT WILL BE USED TO DELAY THE CHANGE WE NEED.
MEDICARE BUY IN IS A LIE.
DONT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THEIR CHERRY PICKING LOOPHOLES.