The Cost of ‘Medicare-for-All’

Discussion in 'Health Care' started by Hoosier8, Mar 5, 2019.

  1. Old Man Fred

    Old Man Fred Well-Known Member

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    Ever heard of Medicaid? It's intentionally free by design

    Do you have any idea whatsoever how Medicare is financed?

    About 40% is funded by general revenue spending, which means income taxes and deficit spending
    About 30% comes from FICA
    About 30% comes from beneficiary premiums and taxes on Social Security benefits

    It only covers 80% of health care costs billed to beneficiaries, excluding the biggest costs seniors will actually incur.
     
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  2. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    Nope, you still don’t know.
     
  3. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    Wrong. You’re conflating Medicare A with Medicaid and Medicare b-f.
    I know how Medicare is funded. I also know it takes care of the sickest People we have. I also know private insure before Medicare meant few older s had much for coverage. Get a clue.
     
  4. Old Man Fred

    Old Man Fred Well-Known Member

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    That's the funding for Medicare in total
     
  5. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    Awe shucks, did you finally make night manager?
     
  6. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    Really?
    Been to a trauma unit lately?
     
  7. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    Yes.
    Uninsured still get billed and what isn’t paid by federal rebates and Medicaid gets handed to bill collectors. These people have their wages garnished by the legal system if they can’t pay.
    Get a clue. You just think poor people ( euphemism for black an$ brown,) are hoarding all their money.
    It’s laughable you think the ER is free......it’s Socialism.
     
  8. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    No it hasn't.

    Who commits that fraud? Providers. How? One way is by prescribing unnecessary services. "Fee-for-service" is a problem.

    Yeah "liberal" legislation signed into law by Nixon on December 29, 1973.

    An intelligent person would factor-in the reality that we are the only nation that has such high costs for healthcare and that we get mediocre outcome results for it. IOW, we pay MORE for WORSE medical care.
    An intelligent person on either side of the aisle would see that we need improvement and that we MUST OBTAIN improvement.
    An intelligent person would then dedicate their investigation, their inquiry, their debate, and their political advocacy to making sure that whatever change we get will put us among the countries with the best healthcare for the best price. They wouldn't debate our current system's "virtues" versus those of other countries or of national healthcare. They would see that our current privatized system is failing us.

    So roll up your sleeves and pitch in to identify the changes that we need to incorporate as we transition to a new system that isn't like what we have.
     
  9. Jimmy79

    Jimmy79 Banned

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    Yes it has

    Yes, providers commit the vast majority of fraud. Mostly because Medicare doesnt do any oversight. If you dont want to pay doctors for the services they provide, how do you plan to pay them? A flat monthly rate no matter what they do?

    That same intelligent person would also look at what the govt does to everything they take over. It gets more expensive with lower quality. Just look at 2 perfect examples, the VA and govt schools.
     
  10. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    "The trustees’ summary listed total Medicare expenditures of $678.7 billion for 2016, of which $9.2 billion was characterized as "administrative expenses." That works out to 1.4 percent"

    "A February report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research totaled overhead costs for private individual and employer based plans at 12.3 percent in 2015. And America’s Health Insurance Plans found that 17.8 cents of every premium dollar goes to operating costs."

    https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ing-administrative-costs-private-insurance-a/
    So you're wrong.

    The trustees’ summary listed total Medicare expenditures of $678.7 billion for 2016, of which $9.2 billion was characterized as "administrative expenses." ..... That covers salaries and expenses, patient outreach, and fraud and abuse control by the Health and Human Services, Justice Department and FBI, among other things.
    https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ing-administrative-costs-private-insurance-a/
    So you're wrong again.

    Your Reagan slogan fails. The VA was underfunded BY REPUBLICANS. Public schools are suffering for the same reason and why?... in both cases the Republicans WANT to privatize services in order to enrich capitalists so they will contribute huge sums to Republican PACS and ensure Republicans win elections. Public schools in the US were among the best in the world until they became neglected as private schools gained favor with Republicans who were in control. But we'll fix that soon. Medical care in foreign countries is commonly better than ours at a much lower cost. But you are saying that for some reason the US isn't able to be as good as other countries.

    ALL your arguments here fell apart.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2019
  11. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    What part about paid for are you missing?
    Wages garnished, funny.

    It's cost prohibitive to pursue collection.
    The bills get written off.
     
  12. Old Man Fred

    Old Man Fred Well-Known Member

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    DADT and DOMA were signed into law by Bill Clinton. Does that mean that liberals don't believe in marriage equality because the Clintons' are still highly esteemed members of the party?

    Senator Ted Kennedy wrote, and was the primary sponsor of the HMO Act.
    Senator Joe Biden voted for it.

    As an intelligent person I understand that the reason for the US's high health care spending is government involvement. Government is responsible for the lion's share of health care spending, and dominates the market share in "health insurance entities" by spending, but covers a minority of the population.

    For what we spend on Medicare and Medicaid most countries cover their entire populations(per capita spending, obviously), while that same spending only covers about 40% of Americans.

    Hospitals and service providers lose money on every patient covered by Medicare and Medicaid, and our current "private" health insurance field would cease to exist without the massive government subsidies that keep it afloat.

    We look at the system, yet ignore the culture. I was raised in a traditional German household, and as to be expected maintain a diet heavy in liver, fermented/pickled foods, and alcohol, a commitment to industry, and the typical stubbornness associated with my people.

    I also hate doctors, because they have a tendency to be idiots, which leads me to avoid them.

    My wife represents the complete opposite side of the spectrum, and very recently had over a dozen UC visits where she was habitually told by a dozen doctors that there was nothing medically wrong with her.

    But since we're talking about real productive ways to reduce health care spending, I'll throw in my two cents.

    Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. Use that spending to cover all Americans with a catastrophic plan. Call it a day.
     
  13. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    The irrelevant continually boorish right wing talking points of free stuff and the ER being free makes the right look really funny, uninformed and trollish. Tax dollars pay RETAIL or it can pay more cheaply. Either way, we have long ago decided people shouldn’t die because they can’t afford healthcare, even given the rights fear of minorities and their support of Trump and his white supremest movement. They’re not hiding anything.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2019
  14. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    Ha ha
    Let’s substitute one form of socialism for another. Who’s going to pay for this catastrophic plan ? So, we only pay for catastrophic illnesses for the elderly ? That’s funny. Old people die from the flu.
     
  15. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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  16. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Deflection?

    I didn't say Democrats were blameless.

    W H A T ???? As an intelligent person the only way I can agree that to be true is if we blame government for allowing private companies to cause this mess. Is that what you mean?

    Huh? The government doesn't dominate the market. There is no government program to cover medical costs with taxpayer money other than Medicare/Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the Department of Defense TRICARE and TRICARE for Life programs (DOD TRICARE), the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) program, and the Indian Health Service (IHS) program. None for the general public. And the spending is due to private insurers not wanting to cover some of the most expensive customers, like the elderly.

    That's unclear. You can't have a cost per population defined by cost per capita as you did. Choose one or the other. ...Or are you saying that the cost per capita for Medicare and Medicaid is higher than the cost per capita of most other countries that cover their entire population with their one system? If so, being an intelligent person, I'm sure you can understand why.

    The first part is true IF we only count those with no supplemental coverage. And I know of no "subsidies" for private insurers, which are among the most profitable businesses in the nation. So you need to provide a link.

    ok....

    I have a better idea. Copy verbatim top to bottom what the UK does, and then add 50% more to the expenditures to make ours the best anywhere. We'll still save about 30% off what we now pay.
     
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  17. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    From your article
    "Litigation is a very high-cost mechanism for trying to collect a debt," says Rob Foehl, general counsel at the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals. "It's really only a small percentage of outstanding debts that go through the process."


    Are you saying that the argument used by single payer proponents, "Were paying for the poor anyway", is false?

     
  18. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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    You said "Boorish"
     
  19. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    The uninsured still get hounded for medical payments. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcies;
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2019
  20. squidward

    squidward Well-Known Member

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  21. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    No I didn’t.
     
  22. dagosa

    dagosa Well-Known Member

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    Like most Trumpets, the codes for angst vs black and brown healthcare costs is obvious. Yet, the vast majority who lost their healthcare due to job lost during the last gop lead recession , were middle class and white, driving the need for govt. intervention for ACA healthcare insurance. It still persist today. Keep it real. Gop bigotry is obvious.
     

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