Sammy Jankis
Was it me?
single payer = price fixing = rationing = death
Rationing and long lines
- Thread starter TuTu Monroe
- Start date
So long as it was within the private system yes, I would adopt portions of any system that worked, if that is how this area decided to work. I have repeatedly stated that I would support price negotiations for prescriptions just like the Canadians do, which would also increase their costs as we currently wind up subsidizing their system. Do you ever actually read what I write?
I think the various states could negotiate regional entities where they can work to support each other if it is necessary. Again, this is something I suggested long ago, but you simply didn't read or pretend not to understand.
It is very frustrating holding a conversation online with somebody who refuses to actually read what you write.
And again, your reference to the savings in Canada refuses to recognize the fact that we subsidize them with our high costs and have stated several times I would prefer that we negotiated a more equitable pricing.
And lastly, what part of "by all means do something" means we should wait? We should do something now, just not something foolish when there is an amazing opportunity to figure out the best, not just "adequate". It's just preposterous to read "wait" into what I have written.
Good Luck
New member
The problem with this so-called refutation is the plans you reference are a minority part of the total system we have in place. The concern - and a valid one - is what happens to the infrastructure when it is all lumped under a government plan.
As for retired military dude with complaints about the medical service given veterans, you are conversing with one. I ended up getting a BCBS policy, waited the mandatory 18 months for preexisting conditions, thus essentially paying for about 50% of my new hip out of my own pocket because the VA didn't think the damage done by a sniper's bullet in Vietnam was "serious enough" to warrant a replacement procedure. And I'm sure you remember the big stink a couple years ago about the condition of VA hospitals? (Yes, you remember, your type tried to put the blame on Bush for conditions that existed going back to LBJ & Co.) There are many more stories of lack of treatment for retired vets, and if you are not aware of them, you need to give up your drugs and rose colored glasses and join reality for a while. VA is also notorious for denying new treatments. The average wait for a new treatment is a bit over 4 years before the VA will acknowledge its benefits and make the treatment available to people under their "care". I've PLENTY of experience with the 2nd largest existing government health care bureaucracy, and it is NOT pretty.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
Both Blue Cross and Aetna are on the list of approved providers for health insurance for federal employees.....
http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/planinfo/2009/states/mi.asp
uscitizen
Villified User
cawacko
Well-known member
I have a very difficult time believing that the health care plan/treatment the President and the VP of the U.S. get is just easily going to translate over to several hundred million Americans. Right or wrong the President and the VP are getting to get the best coverage, especially while in office.
cawacko, senators and congressman get the same healthcare plan as the dude who works a Border Patrol beat. The Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. I think its called FEHBP.
You can't use the "its too hard to do" argument. If the FEHBP is good enough for senators, presidents, and two million federal employees, its good enough for 40 million uninsured americans.
This might pique your interest cawacko.
Rightwing Senator Grassley admits to a constituent that his evil government-financed health care plan is better than most of the crap you get on the free market.
CONSTIUENT: “Why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so better than my insurance?” …. “Okay, so how come I can’t have the same thing you have?”
GRASSLEY: “You can. Just go work for the federal government.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/02/sen-grassley-if-you-want_n_225258.html
Rightwing Senator Grassley admits to a constituent that his evil government-financed health care plan is better than most of the crap you get on the free market.
CONSTIUENT: “Why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so better than my insurance?” …. “Okay, so how come I can’t have the same thing you have?”
GRASSLEY: “You can. Just go work for the federal government.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/02/sen-grassley-if-you-want_n_225258.html
Being in the for-profit non-government system will give you plenty of experience, particularly in your wallet. I know the hip surgery helped in the experience dept. big time, especially post-op.
I believe the "big stink" horror stories were at Walter Reed and other DoD hospitals, not the VA.
Your boys took over Congress in 1994, didn't they have time to fix it in the following 12 years? Your president also held the WH from 2001 through 2008. bush gave vets plenty of lip service while he sat on his hands when it came to funding. It must have made you very angry.
I agree that the VA system isn't pretty, but no hospital is. and they do seem to be under orders to make the crossing of each threshold difficult, but their drug plan for vets is excellent when compared to the open market.
If you're a retired military vet, and you don't like the VA, I don't understand why you aren't using TriCare. All retired military vets are eligible for Tricare, and most of them choose TriCare over market civilian health care coverage because the evil government Tricare is often superior, according RAND
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2007/RAND_RB9236.pdf
So is you're retired miliary who hates VA, why didn't you get that other evil government program, TriCare?
The VA is there to serve a niche service. A service that Blue Shield and other private companies won't provide. Do you really think Blue Shield wants to cover fucked up vietnam war vets and iraq war vets with mental and physical disorders and other physical military and war related conditions? Do you think your precious free market is just dying for the chance to insure an iraq war quadrepelegic? LOL.
the VA serves a niche service that your precious free market won't. Cheap and affordable access to people who served the nation and deserve coverage no matter how fucked up they are.
If you don't like VA, I don't see why you don't have Tricare. TriCare is going to kick the shit out of most of the crap you will get on the private market
Good Luck
New member
I got BCBS because tricare has the same "live with it" attitude toward my hip. They didn't want to pay for a replacement. Wanted me to get it "repaired" for the third time. BCBS's only qualification was I wait for their "preexisting condition" clause to expire - they didn't want to tell the doctor which treatment was "acceptable" for my condition. Doc said I needed a full replacement, and that's what I got. BCBS paid 80% of the costs above my deductible. After adding in premiums, I ended up paying a bit less than half the total costs, including rehabilitation.
And since BCBS did cover me, I guess your diatribe about private companies not covering vets is the usual hot air. Since I am in good health other than war injuries, (which are now taken care of as best they can be) I had their basic major medical, $2500 deductible plan until I was old enough to get on medicare, which happened last year.
BTW: the Federal Employees Health Benefit is a self-funded health plan. Depending on the area one works, the plan is administered through private companies, such as BCBS, Aetna, etc. It is less expensive than "traditional" group plans because BCBS (or whomever) simply administers the plan according to a standardized formula, rather than selling their own coverage. Premiums go into a fund from which payments are made. It is essentially "non-profit" in function, though the administer does, of course, receive an administration fee.
The advantage of self-funded insurance plans are less premiums go toward corporate profit, so premiums can be held down that way. They also have a bit more freedom in determining types and limitations of coverage. The drawbacks are it takes a lot of people to make such a plan work. A company covering less than 500 employees or so probably could not make a self-funded plan work. It only takes a few major illnesses to draw down the fund of a smaller self-pay insurance plan. In fact most self-funded insurance plans include buying a type of major medical from the administer. FEHB may be big enough to not need that. The other drawback is premiums are directly related to how much the plan is used. A company of healthy people can get away with low premiums. A company of couch potatoes will have much higher premiums for the same plan.
Anyway, the point is your precious "government" plan is, in reality, a private self-funded insurance plan. government just happens to be the customer.
Last edited:
Good Luck
New member
You assume way too much. I was a registered democrat until June 2004 when I was kicked out of the local democratic campaign office for daring to have an opinion contrary to Kerry's. While I hate the tax policies of democrats, until I was told to shut my nigger mouth (I'm only 1/4 black, and 1/2 Native American) i felt a party that at least acknowledged the problems of racism was better than a party that has a "ignore it and maybe it will go away" attitude. I thought I could, as a minority, make better headway on racial inequity issues inside the party that acknowledges them. I was wrong. The democratic party does not want people with opinions, they want a bunch of mindless bobble heads.
Anyway, DoD hospitals are, by and large, administered by the VA, so it is still the VA who ran those facilities into the ground. And democratic led congress had a hell of a lot longer to fix things, but did not, so that argument is so much drivel. Fact is neither party gives a pinch of sour owl shit about vets, especially vets from our (until recently) most unpopular war.
It was the VA who refused me a hip replacement even though I had 3 different orthopedists stating that repair was not a viable option. The tricare option was no better, according to the person I talked to. They also would have insisted on repair surgery, which was about 1/5th the price of a replacement.
I have a lot of buddies, both retired and still in. To say that not many of them are very impressed with VA services is to understate in epic proportions. Tricare isn't much better unless you don't need much more than prescription coverage. Both are of the opinion they know more than your doctors when it comes to expensive "optional" treatments. Both are strone age farts when it comes to accepting new treatments - it's the bain of anything run via a large bureaucracy.
Well, it doesn't sound like you were forced into VA. Sounds like you chose it. Everything I've read about Tricare for military retirees, suggests that its a fairly gold-plated insurance program that is equal to or superior to crap one could get on the private civilian market. I have no idea why Tricare screwed you. But broadly speaking, Tricare is generally acknowleged as a superior-level government funded insurance program. The RAND corporation assessment I gave can hardly be considered a partisan liberal organization.
As for VA, I don't think your realize that you're comparing apples to oranges. Like I said, VA provides a niche service that I doubt private insurance want to touch with a ten foot pole. The demographic the VA serves tends to be older, sicker, and have more long term pre-existing conditions, or physical and mental handcaps. Blue shield would lose money hand over fist if they tried to insure that demographic, on a collective and actuarial basis.
So VA provides a service the free market is unwilling to provide.
And any rate, I conclude that you did not rebut my orginial assertion. That retired federal employees, and retired military have access to government financed health care that is superior or equal to most of the crap on the free market. Which makes the whines and complaints from retired republicans from government and the military about how a government health care program would be a socialist nightmare
I guess I was assuming when I used "your boys" connecting you to the GOP, most other people would have been insulted also.
Regarding the VA, I don't think they have any connection to the DoD system operations, the only connection being that the VA is a veteran's next step after discharge.
I had some experience with the VA under an earlier bill but for several reasons, I bypassed it, however, it's good to know they're there and they're free in case of an emergency of poverty created by the for-profit system. I know your problem with the hip, it's not fun. Your experience had to be aggravating, but I can tell you the private sector also makes mistakes in that prognosis. I hope you're fully recovered.
Maybe it's location, but here the opinions about VA care are a mixed bag. I know some who swear by it, my brother-in-law for example. Florida has a huge amount of vets, maybe the facilities are better or more available.
Taichiliberal
Shaken, not stirred!
Yep, and the legislative actions/inactions of the neocon driven gov't under the Shrub basically put the screws to the Vets. This is why I take anything that current GOP supporters say with a heavy dose of salt.....because they almost lock step deny the reality of their party's actions for the last 8 years.
Good Luck
New member
As to the VA health system: the problem is it in not SUPPOSED to be a "niche" player. It is supposed to be the nation's way of taking care of those who served. There are some good VA hospitals out there. There are some good VA doctors. If you're military and have a pregnant wife, VA will take the best of care of you and yours.
But then there is the bureaucracy that turns down legitimate requests for treatment because A: the ones in charge are the typical bogged down, feet-in-the-past, can't-find-the-door bunch of bureaucratic twits and B: these self-same twits have it in their heads they are supposed to save money at the expense of wounded veterans. Tricare is good, UNLESS you are asking for a relatively new treatment, then it is "We do not cover this type of treatment." for the same reasons as the VA's problems: a bogged down, live-in-the-past bureaucracy. Private plans, for all their faults, at least respond WAY more quickly to accepting - and thereby covering - new treatments.
As to FEHB - yes I did refute your position. See post 291 where I explain carefully what a self-funded insurance plan is, and explain the fact that the FEHB is nothing more than a self funded insurance plan, administered by private companies with the federal government as their client.
It isn't a government plan at all - it's a private plan with the government as the customer.