Health reform: Do you care what it costs? I sure as hell don't.

[Shagbark Hickory]

Health reform: Do you care what it costs? Because I don't give a rat's ass what it costs. We need it.
Too many people are not covered. I don't care if future generations are saddled with debt. They're going to reap the benefits of an improved healthcare system. They will never know what it's like to go broke from medical bills (hopefully).

Suze Orman's famous phrase applies:
***People first***, **then money**, *then things*.

Amen to that.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Health care costs $5800 per person in this country.

any politically possible reform does not reduce this cost. At best, reform suppresses the rate of inflation.

The question is how much of that burden should be on taxpayers, how much on business and how much on individuals.

[Shagbark Hickory]

2. I'm middle class. Raise my taxes. PLEASE. I will pay for public healthcare.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. If you can afford the $24,000 tax hike required to provide healthcare for just my family...

... you are not middle class.

I do think that a tax hike on the top 1 or 2% is appropriate to provide the subsidy necessary to allow middle income folks to purchase coverage.

[Orsino]

17. US$24,000 required for *what* healthcare, though?

The kind in which wheelchairs carry a 300% mark-up, or the kind that would let lower prices be negotiated?

[abumbyanyothername]

6. I disagree with your premise but . . .

all of the burden will always be on businesses and individuals, because those are the taxpayers. The question is who is going to hold the pool.

Now as to my disagreement with your premise, if we work together (completely unified), and have a pool provider who will pay doctors bonuses based on reduction of risk factors -- that is, focus on prevention rather than treatment -- and have a system that encourages early intervention . . . we can damn well reduce that $5800/year to something like half that number.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. I truly and honestly wish that single payer was politically possible in this country.

You make a good point.

[sharesunited]

11. Medicare for All. Ask for it by name and help brand it in a way that will help bring it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. But medicare sucks. You can still easily go broke on medicare if you don't have the $ for 20% of the

costs.

[sharesunited]

14. Damn straight Shagbark. Also need to fight for better funding and fair reimbursement levels.

[Orsino]

18. Yet there's nothing preventing our eventually turning that into 19%.

Or fifteen. Or three. Or zero.

Getting everyone covered now sounds like one good step.

[ipaint]

21. $7,129 per capita

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 45.7 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.

This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Thanks for the correction. n/t

[Betsy Ross]

3. I would gladly pay higher taxes

if I could reduce our monthly premium from $980 a month for two people. My husband's union job provides insurance for one month for each 85 hours he works. As a tradeshow installer who works off a seniority dispatch, he doesn't work that many hours every month. So we go on and off COBRA several times a year.

[damntexdem]

4. Of course we must care what it costs -- especially what costs it saves.

We have a lousy, overly-costly healthcare and health coverage system. Reform must not only assure adequate access to good care, it must also eliminate many unnecessary costs. Our system costs twice what the second-most-costly system (France's) does per capita and delivers second-rate results (whereas France's system is top rated). This means that we need not only better performance but also lower costs.

[sandnsea]

5. No and I don't care who gets the profit

I just don't. Our tax dollars profit so many companies I disagree with, I'll be damned if I'll deny health care to people just because the same corporate toadies want the insurance industry to have the money. Fine, have it. Just make sure every citizen has a health care policy.

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. The reason health care is inaccessable is that costs are out of control.

Bankrupting us all collectively can be as catastrophic as breaking us all individually.

If we make the government responsible for paying unreasonable, highway robbery charges we will not be happy with the result.

Buying off the special interests by offering them terms that will bankrupt is, in return for their support is not the way to proceed.

[nightrain]

10. my thoughts on this? eventually we need to pay attention to costs.

For some time though, we need to be providing more SERVICES to people, and that is costly, labor-intensive, etc, but inevitably worthwhile.

I really appreciate the Suze Orman phrase. I hadn't heard it previously. Thank you.

Big rec

[dgibby]

12. Well, let's see.

We pay for public schools.
We pay for public roads.
We pay for municipal services, including water, police, fire dept, etc.

So why do we balk at paying for public health care? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

I'm middle class, retired military so I don't have to worry about my own health care, but I am more than willing to pay higher taxes to afford everyone the right to good health care. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that it would be much more cost effective in the long run.

The only reason I can see that we don't have publicly funded universal health care is because Congress is owned and operated by Wall Street and the Health Care Industry. It's all about the money.

[Greyhound]

15. It shouldn't cost anything more than we are already paying. Unfortunately this inconvenient fact

has been completely removed from the debate by the parasites.

The only reason for health care costs to go up in covering the whole population is to protect corporate profits. We pay more and get less than any other comparable nation.

Why are we not outraged and so accepting of the BS they feed us?
:kick: & R

Welcome

[Faryn Balyncd]

23. That's why it is so important that we structure reform so it is not just more corporate welfare....

Healthcare reform, as you say, should provide more value for a cost SAVINGS.

But many "reforms", such as the Bush/Baucus Prescription Drug "Benefit", benefited primarily corporate interests, while depleting our resources.

We can't afford more corporate welfare.

We need to be suspicious when Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the AMA (as opposed to PNHP) say they are for "reform".

We need more affordable, better healthcare, and if reform does not accomplish both, it will make eventual progress more difficult.

[Greyhound]

26. Yes well, those of us that realize this are a small minority.

The Sheeple are living up to their earned reputation as completely uninformed useful idiots and are anxious to sell their futures cheap.

The parasites have won this battle and barring a miracle, millions will remain uncared for, corporate profits will increase and the parasites will extract billions more from the dutiful flock.

[Echo In Light]

16. I don't mind paying taxes for humane reasons...

...it's the $ that goes to making those beholden to the MIC-corporate/state nexus wealthier still while contributing to mass murder that I'm strongly opposed to.

How sick is it that this country's establishment exalts the latter and loathes the former?

[gorfle]

19. I don't.

I would rather pay taxes paying for trillions of dollars of health care than trillions of dollars of bankers and warmongers.

[Wednesdays]

20. Anything is better than doing nothing

After all, what's going on now is so cheap and cost-efficient. :eyes:

[Faryn Balyncd]

24. That's the attitude corporatists exploit to get CORPORATE WELFARE in the name of "reform"

[eridani]

25. With single payer, cost stops being a problem, period

I refuse to tolerate costs that do nothing but subsidize useless shitstain intermediaries.

[LaPera]

27. Fuck no we don't care what it cost...

get public option fucking done - stop the fucking money draing wars (our tax dollars) and use that money by putting our tax dollars to work for the people - health care for all!

"Tax the rich - feed the poor"