Ok. GOP what is your solution to the healthcare crisis in the US? Do nothing?

The Republican plan is simple: Don't get sick. If you do get sick, however, die quickly.

 

In economic terms, what happens when price controls are enacted on a product or service?

 

John Mackey proposed some common sense reforms.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

And John McCain had a health reform plan when he ran in 2008:

McCain's Health Care Plan: Radical and Right

McCain would move us away from such a system. He would count at least some of a worker's employer-paid insurance as taxable income. At the same time, he would provide all Americans with a $2,500 refundable tax credit for individuals and a $5,000 credit for families, regardless of how people obtain their insurance. McCain's proposal exposes him to criticism that he would put people with pre-existing conditions at a disadvantage, because they have a hard time finding affordable individual coverage. But his campaign says he is considering risk-rating the tax credit he would offer, providing more money to those who need it most. And McCain would use federal funds to subsidize state high-risk pools already covering those who have trouble buying insurance in the open market.

In addition, McCain's campaign maintains that his proposal would make insurance more affordable for everyone, including those with pre-existing conditions. In particular, by making insurance more affordable to the young and healthy, McCain's plan will attract them into the market before they develop pre-existing conditions. And McCain rightly claims that deregulation will lead to the creation of new and innovative insurance products that can help solve these problems.

Most notably, McCain would allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines, a practice now prohibited. Health insurance is largely regulated at the state level, and the different regulations and mandates in each mean prices vary widely from state to state. For example, New Jersey imposes more than 40 mandated benefits, including in-vitro fertilization, contraceptives, chiropodists, coverage of children until they reach age 25, and other regulations. As a result, according to the Commonwealth Fund, the cost of a standard health insurance policy for a healthy 25-year old man in New Jersey comes to $5,580.

McCain would also allow people to purchase insurance through non-traditional groups. Today, three types of organizations can offer group insurance: employers, unions and trade associations. McCain would open this to other groups, notably churches and professional organizations.

Finally, McCain wants to change not only who pays for health care, but how they pay for it. McCain challenges the concept of traditional "fee for service" medicine.

"We should pay a single bill for high-quality health care," he says, "not an endless series of bills for pre-surgical tests and visits, hospitalization and surgery, and follow-up tests, drugs and office visits."

McCain also rightly calls for greater transparency for health care costs and prices.

 

There is no crisis. Libs like to manufacture crisis after crisis where none exist. What do you say obama takes on the gas price crisis, or the overspending crisis, or the unemployment crisis for starters.

 

Simple, they are the fault of Republicans.

You even have to ask?

 

I think the best way to deal with the lack of exercizing crisis and the unhealthy eating and lifestyle crisis is to turn off the television. I did that back in early 20's and people often tell me now that I look much younger then my age.

 

I offer the 50/50 plan. Government pays for 50% and your private insurance pays for 50%. That is not combining the two powers like Obamacare, which would be gov't corp. collusion, say it with me, fascist.

Actually I condone neither, but point stands.

 

While Obamacare is certainly a corporatist statute, it is not a fascist statute. Corporatism is just one element out of the plethora of others that makes fascism what it is. The sum of its parts must equal the whole, and in this case it does not.

In regards to your 50/50 plan, that is essentially what Obamacare intended to be. It would not have any individual mandate, complex pharmaceutical cost formulas, or predetermined health care exchanges. A public option would be separate from the regulations governing the private sector.

 

Well first, there is no healthcare crisis. Why is it as soon as a socialist is elected everything in America is "broken"? The whole package would work very well if the federal government would keep out of it. Every problem we have right now can be traced back to the federal government trying to regulate it or "fix" it. If it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing. Get the government out of my life and I CAN MAKE IT JUST FINE. Same as all other people, earn it yourself, don't expect me to pay your way.

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I have read over my copy of the Constitution many times and I simple cannot find these things there. Fill me in, what part is it in?

 

There was never a healthcare crisis to begin with. It almost seems that its the liberal agenda to create crisises and to put fear into the American peoples' heads. Sort of what obama was doing with the sequestration scare. Look how all that scare nonsense is backfiring on the idiot now. The crisis we're going to get with healthcare won't really begin until Janurary of 2014 when everyone is going to get taxed up the youhoo to support the monstrosity known as obamascare or obamunism. Why do you think about half the states in the union are taking obamascare to court?

 

There are also 2 other problems:

1.) Frivolous lawsuits: The medical profession is plagued by countless lawsuits. This drives up the cost because the healthcare profession is forced to practice defensive medicine that drives up costs.

2.) There is also the problem of oppressive government regulation at the federal, state and local level. In my own state, there is a law that requires the hospital to throw out all surgical knives after each operation. That's a cost like any other. With today's technology, we can't sterilize those knives for repeat use? That is just one example. Regulation has to be smart.

 

Their plan is simple; those who can afford health insurance will continue to do so; those who cannot afford it will have to stay sick and/or die. Survival of the fittest is the republican slogan.

 

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The "not Obamacare" outcome would be, people who can't afford medical care with be sic and die? I'd caution you to not let your opinion cloud your reality.

 

Before Obamacare people didn't just get sick and die, they went to the emergency room and got taken care of. So this is a strawman.
Here is the problem with giving people free health care. I had free health care in the army. I never even had to buy aspirin. Whenever I got a headache I would go to sick call and get me some for free while getting out of having to do any work. It didn't cost me anything so why not. Now if the whole country did that we would be in trouble.

 

First of all, there is no crisis. The health care system works well for the vast majority of Americans. It also works well for many from other countries who come here for health care.

That said, the best thing that can be done for health care is for Americans to eat healthier and exercise.

 

Do not treat illegals unless they can pay for it on the spot. The number keeps jumping around as to how many there are in this nation and it ranges from 12 million to 50 million. If your on welfare, use the clinics and not the emergency room when your child has a cold is another way. Considering that we didn't have your so called crisis until Clinton started running off at the mouth, the government pushed our doctor bills up by 40% with their demand of paperwork that isn't any of the governments business, the government told hospitals that they had to treat anyone that came through their doors, etc, etc, etc..

 

What's our healthcare system rated compared to other countries these days? 26th or so?

 

Hey, RtW, I don't care who rates us where, over 70 % of the people here have very good health care and the other 15% are on welfare which means they are also covered. Then we have the illegals and those people need to go back to their own countries and tell them they want free health care and see how far they get. But since you like to compare systems, on my health care plan which those in this government want to take away, the most I have to pay out of pocket is $2,500 and I'm covered up to $2,000,000 each year. I can go to any hospital I chose and get in immediately, see any doctor I want, and my medication is also paid for along with dental and optical care. Can you say the same??

 

Can you find a rating system that doesn't include whether the government provides the care or not as a metric? If you can then provide that and we'll see where the US ranks.

 

That is nonsense, typical propaganda simply spewed out from an angle of hate.

Actually, myself and a great many other Conservatives have long endoresed a "pay as per ability" program. The more you make, the more you pay. The problem is that to many have been completely fooled by the promise of "free health care".

And none seem to ever remember the old saying, "you get what you pay for". Personally, I have no desire to pay for Bill Gates to get free health care, I find that idea simply repulsive. And I already have decent insurance. So why should I be paying for everybody else?

 

Sounds rather selfish doesn't it? You just proved my point.

 

Tort reform and equipment management.

Every single hospital does not need a duplicate of insanely expensive equipment. Esp in denser populations. Every hospital needs defibrillators... every hospital does not need multiple MRI machines.

Drive the healthcare costs down logically.

 

I am not a member of the GOP, nor am I a Democrat simply becasue both parties are abjectly corrupt entities lead by abjectly corrupt individuals catering to mostly small-minded, narrow visioned individuals.

That said, you believe the a lobby-based, heavily regulated system we have is market based? If you do, then you need to do some research on the topic.

The GOP mantra of deregulation will have little to no effect as long as corporate personhood (and by extension, a corporation's ability to lobby Congress as if they were a person) is eliminated. The Democrats mantra of high regulation will continue to fail, as all it does is exasperate issues created by the same.

In summery, neither party's mantra will work so as a country our healthcare is screwed. Get used to it.

 

You can get in immediately and have to file bankruptcy shortly thereafter. Great system. 5K for paper cups and the like. Yup...Can't say the same for other countries where the rape isn't so evident and the profit so high. You're right.

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Typical republican point of view. I'n good so....F all the others.

 

If there's no health care crisis, certainly there's a "profit" crisis. Wouldn't you say?