Don’t worry, this isn’t true. Universal healthcare is, TADA! “Socialized Medicine”, and the devil. And also the worst thing since slavery. Actually, since it would be more socialized than Obamacare, and Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery, then “Socialized Medicine” is probably worse than slavery.
2 Likes
I guess there’s still a hangover from MaCarthyism where Socialism == Communism == EVIL.
Whereas some aspects of socialism, such as universal healthcare, are quite nice really.
1 Like
In truth, it has nothing to do with ideology or issues. The modern (i.e. Reaganite) Republican party is not founded on issues but tribalism. Our tribe good, their tribe bad. The rest is window dressing. You see this in their rejection of essentially a Republican plan presented by a Democrat, or the fact that any indiscretion, even one that in theory violates the “values” of the tribe, can be easily forgiven, with the exception of ever suggesting the the tribe might be wrong.
4 Likes
From this side of the pond it’s pretty obvious that both sides are saying “us good, them bad”, but then, that’s generally what people do.
1 Like
You mean as when Democrats, in order to compromise, adopted a Republican health care plan?
5 Likes
At the risk of redundancy, even if you are paying for private insurance, what you invest and don’t use for your own care, you are paying for other people’s care, plus salaries of CEOs, dividends for investors and administrative costs on both the insurance side, the hospital side and the lab side, the physician side and so on. Very often you can put thousands of dollars into the system for other people without ever reaching insane deductibles where you are even covered for care. The private insurance model is the worst of ponzi schemes because you are less likely to ever see any type of honest return on what you’ve already put in. There are too many levels of middlemen who want profit. Having private insurance is such a misnomer, it makes me stabby.
en·sure
transitive verb \in-ˈshu̇r\
: to make (something) sure, certain, or safe
There is most definitely nothing certain or sure about actually being finacially covered for healthcare when you pay private insurers.
3 Likes
I just don’t understand why some people prefer the idea of freedom to not have insurance than freedom from worrying about affording healthcare, or freedom from crappy jobs that you can’t leave without losing your coverage.
Obamacare is a crap idea because it forces everyone to buy parasitic private insurance ( who have, as with all insurers, an incentive to deny their customers the service they’re paying for - I’d nationalize ALL insurance, personally), but perhaps the individual mandate makes it slightly better than the status quo, and maybe it’s a tiny step closer towards a sane health system.
3 Likes
But there is choice in purchasing a car and/or house, and the insurance rate is attached to that financial value of those assets. You can choose not to buy either of those things and forgo associated insurance related to those items. Your health or lack of health is often not tied to decisions, but a host of other factors. The fact that you are alive was a choice made by your parents.
Also, this:
While primary care doctors’ pay averages over $220,000 a year, good
money to most of us, doctors who specialize average close to $400,000
a year.
What the fudge? That’s an obscene salary.
They don’t seem to be including required expenses – such as malpractice insurance – in those numbers. It’s actually horrifying how low the take-home is for the majority of (non-surgeon) MDs.
Scare tactics. Being told that you are paying for someone else who is sucking up your hard earned dollars. Well, news flash, that’s what private insurance does. And second news flash, even if you are very young and healthy, eventually, you will age. 99% of the population that reaches into the senior years will require healthcare, drugs, and so on.
3 Likes
I always hear the argument that it is the expense of the education that justifies the salaries upon completion, when in practice. But, for the most part, those who enter into medicine have a financial advantage to begin with. So, in other countries, going to university for medical school is covered. That would make a lot of sense, and perhaps it would drive more people into the field who are more interested in healing than making up for school costs, loans, and making a financial killing or maintaining an elite life style.
We (in the US) need the business & administrative sides of medicine to become much more functional to enable doctors to concentrate on patient care instead of everything else.
I was referring the levels of administration in private insurance.
But I do take some issue with that on the doctors’ side. Now that there are physician assistants covering what MDs might have done, I noticed that the administrative side of medicine is still charging for MD rates. A few months ago, I was seen by a PA at the ER. The MD was simply strolling through the hall, never examined me, never spoke with me, never entered the room, but I was charged his rate by the administrators at his office. He wasn’t busy. Everyone is gaming the system to one degree or another to pad profit.
A true American forming your opinion on the basis of prejudice.
But that’s not the doctor’s call. That’s a business decision by administrators. And that doctor might have been responsible for hundreds of patients that day – literally, the equivalent of 2-3 minutes per patient – and would bear the brunt of the malpractice suit if something went wrong under his/her signature.
The whole system is set up to be about making money for people in offices, not people in scrubs.
I don’t think we’re in disagreement about the need for fair charges as well as fair work in the industry. I think we’re just looking at different anatomical features on the elephant.
Yeah, that I couldn’t say. I only know that it is grossly unfair that anyone should be charged for his time who hasn’t been seen by him. The culture of the office administrative staff is dictated or allowed by those who own the practice, so I can’t say he gets a pass on the decision being out of his hands, it’s his office. But I wouldn’t disagree that those adding charges are doing so as a form of job security, which really doesn’t make it any more ethical nor keep costs down or is effective in displaying any accuracy in terms of physician labor output versus payment.
They think they face a victorious Democratic Party that is intent on expanding government to increase dependency and therefore electoral support.
Well, I understand how they can look at it that way. But the alternate is that people want and need these social programs, and since the GOP is ideologically opposed to them, what choice do voters have but to prefer the other party? It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The GOP supports legislation that makes life easier for the wealthy and harder for the poor and middle class, and re-frames government programs designed to help them as “slavery”, and yet doesn’t understand why the poor and middle class are resistant to voting for them?
Or to put it in simpler terms: the GOP thinks giving the people what they want is some kind of sinister Democratic Party plot to win elections.
3 Likes
Not just someone else – that might be okay. But it’s “blah people”, with their secret, special “blah people” welfare.
The election strategy for the Republicans is to win seats during congressional redistricting years ( http://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/republican-state-leadership-committee/ ) and then brag that they only won the House because of gerrymandering ( http://www.rslc.com/redmap_2012_summary_report ).
2 Likes
