Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Blame The Right For Obamacare
Date:	3/4/2016 12:52:14 AM

When Hillary proposed her healthplan in 1993, the Dems oppossed and  Conservatives supported a mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance.

When Obama proposed Obamacare, it was decided by the Dems to include the mandate to encourage support from the Conservatives. Suddenly, the right oppossed mandates. 

Too bad from 1993 till 2010, the Right did nothing to develope a health plan. Obama reacted to the lack of any action from the Right and Obamacare was passed. They only need to blame themselves for Obamacare for doing nothing during the time they contolled Congress and the 8 years of Bush. Shame on them.

The plan proposed by the Right to replace Obamacare is pushing to remove the barrier for an insurance company to sell across state lines. Insurance companies sell auto and homeowners across state lines by becoming licensed in each state and filing a policy in each state. The don't file an auto policy in one state and sell it across country. 

An insurance company has always been able to file a policy in any state and sell it. Many do not cause they have to negotiate charges with hospitals and develope a network of doctors. Unless they can send enough business to hospitals, , they will not receive good discounts off the standard fees. That is why smaller companies have never tried to expand nationwide. BC/BS has so much business in most states that they demand and receive high discounts. Higher discounts means lower claims and lower rates. Removing state lines is not a solution.

I have seen some hospital bills and the medicare payments. Here are 2 that I saw recently:

$59,000 bill from hospital. Medicare approved for payment $6,600 This was outpacient procedure.

$35,000 bill for 5 days. No surgery. Medicare paid $3,500. This bill as an example had 2 Cat Scans billed for a total of $19,000. I understand an outpatient Cat Scan would be around $800.

The hospitals have agreed up front to accept the Medicare schedule. Talk about a screwed up system. Maybe, a reason for a single payer system.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	More left wing nut non-sense
Date:	3/4/2016 7:37:05 AM

Goofy, only you could blame the GOP for not allowing Democrats to screw up health insurance back during the Clinton administration instead of having them screw it up in 2010 with Obamacare.........all I can say is wow, you have been so miserably failed by your government school it is sometimes beyond astounding.  And then you provide an example of the govt insurance screwing hospitals and then complain about BC/BS......simply mind bogglingly stupid.........

Selling across state lines is not the only solution but it is part of the solution as it allows more competition and also allows insurers to spread risk across the country.  But there is more that needs to be done, all centered around getting the recipient of care closer to the payment so they and the providers make good decisions.  Some tort reform would help to eliminate defensive medicine and lots of other sensible reforms.  Unfortunately, left wing nuts have a bizarre, unjustified belief that any problem requires a govt solution.....

Govt is not the solution to our problems......govt is the problem.

Name:	lucky67 -	Reply
Subject:	Blame The Right For Obamacare
Date:	3/4/2016 7:46:28 AM

It's a tax game IRS allows ; they ( hospitals & doctors ) all know how much insurance will pay, but they over bill & take a tax write off on the difference

Name:	copperline -	Reply
Subject:	Not the case
Date:	3/4/2016 8:53:15 AM

No, there has never been a tax write off for the unpaid difference between what is billed and what insurance companies actually pay, and you are specifically prohibited ( in the case of Medicare and Medicaid ) from billing more than the original copay to the patient.  In the case of commercial insurance panels, when you sign up to be a provider, you are legally obligated to accept what they pay and not seek more from the patient (other than their copay & deductible).

Unpaid medical bills simply are written off as bad debt, uncollectable.   This puts upward pressure on pricing and results in these astronomical bills you see from hospitals.   It is a crazy system because it was developed as a response to the commercial insurance industry's presence in the marketplace.   Those bills you see bear little relation to the real cost of delivering the services.

Hosptials & healthcare businesses are unlike any other commercial business I can think of, and can't be managed in the same way.  They can't withhold their services because doing so would endanger lives, so that is illegal.   They can't repossess services once rendered.   And they can't set prices for their services, that is done by insurance companies.   Imagine running a business wherein each of your customers points you to a third party for payment, and that third party gets to set the price that you are paid.

It's complicated.   Maybe that's part of the problem.    Medicare works, and probably should be a model for what the entire health care billing system should be... warts and all.   It's not perfect, but it's lots more rational that what we had before.     Competition between insurance companies isn't keeping medical prices down, it probably is having the opposite effect.

Obamacare has achieved a great deal, there are now 15 million people who have insured healthcare where before they had none.   That number is nothing to scoff at.

Name:	wix -	Reply
Subject:	Goofbutt the Googler
Date:	3/4/2016 9:56:12 AM

The reason there is such a variance in billing vs gubment payments has little to do with profitability and more to do with recovering lost costs created by gubment forced treatment of illegals and uninsured at hospital loss w/o gubment reimbursement.  Many years ago an amendment law was attached to the Hill-Burton law that said if the hospital received Fed funding, then the hospital had to treat patients regardless of whether they could pay or not.  That law hit the small county hospitals which were built under H-B.  Then the Feds passed a law that made all hospitals give free stuff.  Now if one customer gets free stuff, the other customers have to make up the difference...right?  With all the illegals having drugged up anchor babies,  local druggie dimokraps having drugged up babies without Medicaid, etc., hospital unreimbursed costs have gone thru the roof, so they just keep adding to the list price of the bill.

Yes, it is a very stupid system, but don't blame the hospital.  Many small hospitals have folded because of gubment stupidity.....let's just hope o-BAMAcare doesn't force them all out of business.

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	Not the case
Date:	3/4/2016 10:21:36 AM

Actually Copper it number of new insured is closer to 20 million when you include the under 25's who have been put on their parents coverage.

Great explanation of how our current dysfunctional system works.  No wonder the 2d most costly healthcare system in Switzerland is still only 60% as costly as ours on a per capita measure.

Name:	wix -	Reply
Subject:	Archidiot, I didn't know....
Date:	3/4/2016 10:52:01 AM

you live in Switzerland.  That 20,000,000 you quote.  Breakout by category how many o-BAMAcare, new Medicaid, and unemployed, livin' with momma up to 26  make up your 20 million.  Oh, since OC counts those thrown out of policies before OC started, tell us how many of those are counted.  BTW, Goofbutt will be happy to google that for you.

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	More RIGHT wing nut non-sense
Date:	3/4/2016 1:10:51 PM

MM...It is your church school education that left you unable to understand simple facts. Or, I think you do understand but refuse to except the truth.

The Right had years of opportunity to propose their solution to the health insurance crisis after Clinton's plan went down the tubes. The Right did nothing. Why didn't they proposed insurance across state lines during the reign of Bush..8 years? The only reason the Right now has a "solution" that is better than Obamacare is because Obamacare exists. Otherwise, there would be NO right wing solution.

To deny that as a fact just proves you live with your head in the sand.

As to BC/BS, my point was simply to show that they receive larger discounts from hospitals because of the volume of business they send to the hospital. That enables them to be more competitve. I was not being negative about BC/BS. 

Your chuch school education let you down...read before your jump to conclusios.

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Goofbutt the Googler
Date:	3/4/2016 1:46:36 PM

Thanks for the title. As an Alphabet shareholder, I am proud to be a "Googler".  My motto is "Eat more chickin and GOOGLE more."

Why don't you tell the rest of the story? 

In 1986, Reagan took the first step toward  Socialized Medicine when he signed into law the Emergency Medical Treatment and active Labor Act.

This law MANDATES that all emergency rooms in all hospitals that take federal money serve anyone who comes to that emergency room, regardless of his or her ability to pay including illegals. And it offers no funding to achieve this mandate, which raises the cost of health care for everyone who can pay.   

What is your solution to Obamacare????  Unless a company can write alot of insurance in a state, they are nable to negotiate good discounts with hospitals  and  they won't be competitive. Simply removing border lines is not the solution.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	3/4/2016 3:09:00 PM

No, you don't understand.  According to all the polls the vast majority of Americans were happy with their insurance and health insurance was so far down the list of priorities of the American people that the GOP rightly did nothing.  Especially since they understand that any  solution that involves more control by the govt guarantees it will be screwed up as we have seen with Obamacare.  You have made this stupid point before and I have knocked it down with facts.  Health insurance is now an issue for Americans because of Obamacare.  You are literally too dense to understand and too ADHD to remember how many times you keep going back to this non-sense.  

The next time you post this same line of thinking I am going to use my best expert witness answer, "Asked and answered".

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	3/4/2016 6:58:01 PM

MM you need to see someone who can test you memory if you think that in the years the majority of Americans said they were satisfied with their health insurance.  My memory is that most placed their health coverage carrier down there with used car dealers, undertakers and politicians!

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered WRONG
Date:	3/4/2016 7:25:51 PM

The vast majority who had insurance were satisfied. Great. The point is NOT those who had insurance but those who did NOT have insurance. The vast majority of those insured were concerned with Bush's war going after non existent WMD and the tanking economy. But, to those without insurance....health insurance was a priority. Your church school education was not broad enough to see the big picture. You are looking thru the wrong end of the binoculars.

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	These guys just hate it
Date:	3/5/2016 9:36:52 AM

When anybody posts something that makes sense thereby deflating their talking points and/or delirious imaginations!!

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	Reply to GF's reply to WIXIE-poo
Date:	3/5/2016 9:47:03 AM

I have understandably "banned" receipt of any of Wix's idiocy, but before I logged in this morning I had access to his typically bloviating non-sensical post and GF's reply. 

Please be careful what you say to these guys GF.  Anytime somebody posts something that makes sense and is based in the facts thereby  deflating their talking points and/or delirious imaginations, they get real mean...kind of like their new hero...Donald (The Big One) Trump!

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Go back and look Archie
Date:	3/5/2016 10:00:06 AM

According to the polls around the time Dems forced this through that fully 85% of Americans were satisfied with their health insurance.  Look it up instead of making it up.  

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered WRONG
Date:	3/5/2016 10:05:10 AM

Right, and just what percentage of Americans that did not have health insurance that actually wanted it.  Best estimates I saw were around 15 million people which is less than 5% of the population.  So genius, screw up health insurance for the vast majority of Americans that were happy with theirs or didn't want it to address the 5% that didn't have it but wanted it.  Pure genius....not!

Yes, until Obamacare screwed up our health insurance system Americans were worried about other issues......and you call that a success.  You should think long and hard about criticizing my education.......

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered WRONG
Date:	3/5/2016 3:11:35 PM (updated 3/5/2016 3:14:35 PM)

As long as you and the Right had health insurance, screw the 15 million without. You are showing a character trait of greed.

You should think long and hard about criticizing my education.......WHY???? That church school education let you down. You are entitled to a refund.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	You aren't paying attention
Date:	3/5/2016 8:37:17 PM (updated 3/5/2016 8:38:31 PM)

Your ADHD is showing again.  I have long and often said I am all for sensible reforms that addresses those who are uninsured and actually want it as well as dealing with portability and pre existing conditions.  Had dear leader and the imbecile Democrats actually tackled those problems and left everyone else alone I would have been supportive.  But they didn't did they?  

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	You aren't paying attention
Date:	3/5/2016 8:54:48 PM

We are making progress. Why was this "sensible" plan never proposed by the Right during the years of Gingrich and then Bush? Bush did sign Medicare D for drugs. Your response is it wasn't a big issue. For those without insurance, it was always a big issue. 

If the Right had proposed and passed sensible changes as they now propose, there would have been no Obamacare. I state again that the Right can only blame themselves for Obamacare.

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	Where did MM go to college
Date:	3/6/2016 3:40:03 PM

Considering he is devout Catholic I have to assume Georgetown, Notre Dame, maybe Holy Cross, or BC, but his mind works like a graduate of Trump U

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Wrong on all counts
Date:	3/7/2016 8:38:31 AM

Guess again.......

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Asked and answered
Date:	3/7/2016 8:39:31 AM

Not going to repeat it.  You are invincible to the truth anyway.