Covid-19 and Medicare for All

[faberryman]

We were promised that with Obamacare.   Lower costs, better coverage, keep the same doctors we had.  We didn't get any of the three.  In fact, costs went up, less coverage as deductible went up too, and we lost many of the doctors we had been using.  So government lied to us.  Again.

Obama didn't lie. It was an aspirational statement.

[JoeKitchen]

Obama didn't lie. It was an aspirational statement.

No, he lied. 

It came out later in his 2nd term that he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said.  Guber, one of the architects of Obama Care, told us so. 

[faberryman]

No, he lied. 

It came out later in his 2nd term that he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said.  Guber, one of the architects of Obama Care, told us so.

Is this the standard for Trump as well?

"he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said"

[JoeKitchen]

Is this the standard for Trump as well?

"he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said"

It was documented and Gruber even told us he knew personally that Obama realized that statement was false when he said it. 

Obama lied about Obama-care. 

If you can prove it, yes, you can use it against Trump too. 

[faberryman]

Is this the standard for Trump as well?

"he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said"

[JoeKitchen]

Is this the standard for Trump as well?

"he knew that statement was false and not possible when he said"

Repeating yourself does not make you smarter. 

[faberryman]

Repeating yourself does not make you smarter.

Neither does ignoring the question.

[JoeKitchen]

Neither does ignoring the question.

Note the last line in my comment, yes, it does, if you can prove it. 

Try reading!

[Rob C]

Neither does ignoring the question.

So I just noted; you are not alone. But anyway, I'm not getting sucked back into this pointless argument with rubber walls and closed minds that imagine their cherished and often largely illusory freedoms are under attack when governments are actually, if belatedly, trying to save their lives. As is often said, one couldn't make this up. Funnily enough, as I write, I just saw another clip of a guy in a US street protest group saying "we were born free; they can't be allowed to take our freedoms away and lock us up unless we are ill!

That the entire point is to prevent him falling ill because some other contaminated dickhead breathed at him seems irrelevant in this theory of freedom for its own, blind sake. And they say justice is blind!

The same denial, at least in the initial stages, has meant that Britain has now become the European country with the highest number of Corinna deaths: 30,000.

Adios, thread!

[Alan Klein]

So I just noted; you are not alone. But anyway, I'm not getting sucked back into this pointless argument with rubber walls and closed minds that imagine their cherished and often largely illusory freedoms are under attack when governments are actually, if belatedly, trying to save their lives. As is often said, one couldn't make this up. Funnily enough, as I write, I just saw another clip of a guy in a US street protest group saying "we were born free; they can't be allowed to take our freedoms away and lock us up unless we are ill!

That the entire point is to prevent him falling ill because some other contaminated dickhead breathed at him seems irrelevant in this theory of freedom for its own, blind sake. And they say justice is blind!

The same denial, at least in the initial stages, has meant that Britain has now become the European country with the highest number of Corinna deaths: 30,000.

Adios, thread!

I'm sorry Rob that you have health insurance problems.  The irony is that it was the government that took your government health insurance away.  So why would you praise the government and want to go back to more of the same?  If you stayed with private health insurance, you could be traveling to other parts of the continent instead of being stuck in Spain.

This is why I'm opposed to government insurance.  You're dependent on bureaucrats who don;t give a damn about you or your family.  It's better to have control of you health and your family's in your own hands.

I've mentioned this before.  But in America we have similar problems.  I'm on Medicare.  Everyone goes on it if they want; most do.  However, what I didn't know is 1. You actually pay thousand of dollars for it annually.  It's not free.  There's also a deductible.  And only a small amount of drugs are covered.  2. Many of the best doctors opt out, meaning if you want to use their services, you have to pay 100% out of pocket. Medicare will not reimburse you a dime. Neither will secondary insurance companies.  Once Medicare doesn;t pay as your primary, the secondary doesn't have to pay either.   Doctors that I could go to before Medicare that would be picked up by my private insurance so I get something back, now becomes voided on Medicare.  So what happens only the rich can afford the best doctors.  The rest of us have to make due with the less competent.  The same things is going to happen with national medical care.  The best doctors will opt out even for younger folks.  This is why private health coverage is better.  But the media and the politicians hide all this just as Obama did when he lied about Obamacare.  They're still lying.

[John Camp]

I'm sorry Rob that you have health insurance problems.  The irony is that it was the government that took your government health insurance away.  So why would you praise the government and want to go back to more of the same?  If you stayed with private health insurance, you could be traveling to other parts of the continent instead of being stuck in Spain.

This is why I'm opposed to government insurance.  You're dependent on bureaucrats who don;t give a damn about you or your family.  It's better to have control of you health and your family's in your own hands.

I've mentioned this before.  But in America we have similar problems.  I'm on Medicare.  Everyone goes on it if they want; most do.  However, what I didn't know is 1. You actually pay thousand of dollars for it annually.  It's not free.  There's also a deductible.  And only a small amount of drugs are covered.  2. Many of the best doctors opt out, meaning if you want to use their services, you have to pay 100% out of pocket. Medicare will not reimburse you a dime. Neither will secondary insurance companies.  Once Medicare doesn;t pay as your primary, the secondary doesn't have to pay either.   Doctors that I could go to before Medicare that would be picked up by my private insurance so I get something back, now becomes voided on Medicare.  So what happens only the rich can afford the best doctors.  The rest of us have to make due with the less competent.  The same things is going to happen with national medical care.  The best doctors will opt out even for younger folks.  This is why private health coverage is better.  But the media and the politicians hide all this just as Obama did when he lied about Obamacare.  They're still lying.

I'm also on Medicare, and I pay (directly) some $3600 I believe (I didn't stop to look it up.) I also pay some $80 a month for supplemental insurance, so that's another thousand. On the other hand, I'm 76, and though I'm healthy, a lot of 76-year-olds have serious health problems. My son, who is 50, and has a wife in her late 30s, both quite healthy with no major health problems at all, and no children, pay more than $15,000 fora fairly standard health insurance policy that covers neither dental or eye care. Your Medicare is a huge bargain, even with the limitations.

[chez]

In Canada you pay for your medical slowly through taxes, but when you need it, you don't have to scramble looking for money to cover the treatment. My father had multiple cancers, the worst being esophageal cancer which had him in the hospital for 6 months and then stayed at a cancer treatment centre for another 4 months getting chemo. Later on he had multiple strokes which had him in hospital and rehab and finally bladder cancer. All treatment was provided at no charge. Yes, you slowly pay for this treatment during your earning years...but when you need to draw on it...it is there for you.

I'm quite happy having government funded medical and not worry about some private insurance company bypassing the correct treatment or medicine in order to save a buck.

[Chris Kern]

Even though medical insurance is supposedly mandatory in the US, it's clear that hundreds of thousands of people don't have it and a significant portion of those will need hospital career which they can't afford. Do you think his pandemic will push Americans closer to a universal Medicare?

Given some of the heated debate that has ensued since this thread was started, I thought it might be appropriate to make it clear to those of you who don't live in the United States that the federal Medicare (for old people) and Medicaid (for poor ones) systems are insurance programs.  They reimburse private doctors and other medical providers who agree to participate at specified rates for the services they deliver to their patients.  Medicare coverage for hospitalized patients is funded by payroll taxes jointly paid by employers and employees, while recipients who want the program's other services―outpatient care and medications for example―fund them through subscription payments.

Medicare and Medicaid are not equivalent to programs in other countries where the government directly provides medical services, such as Britain's NHS.  The only major U.S. federal programs that directly provide medical services to Americans are those operated by the military for its active-duty personnel and by the Department of Veterans Affairs for military veterans.

What primarily distinguishes Medicare from private insurance programs is that the former is regulated by the federal government and the latter by the individual states.  Medicaid is funded by the federal government but operated by the state governments under a shared regulatory regime.

Various Democratic Party and nominally independent politicians have proposed creating either (1) a "Medicare for all" program which would enroll everyone in the country and essentially replace private insurance or (2) a "public option" which would make a government-funded, Medicare-like program available to everyone as a competitive alternative to private insurance.  To date, at least, almost all Republican politicians have opposed both proposals.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 ("Obamacare") is a statute enacted by Congress and signed by President Obama which essentially authorizes the federal government to regulate a special insurance exchange in each state that can be used by participating insurance companies to offer private medical coverage to those who are not insured by an employer or who are unable to purchase a satisfactory insurance policy on the open market.

There has never been any viable political movement in the United States to create a true "socialized medicine" program.

[Alan Klein]

I'm also on Medicare, and I pay (directly) some $3600 I believe (I didn't stop to look it up.) I also pay some $80 a month for supplemental insurance, so that's another thousand. On the other hand, I'm 76, and though I'm healthy, a lot of 76-year-olds have serious health problems. My son, who is 50, and has a wife in her late 30s, both quite healthy with no major health problems at all, and no children, pay more than $15,000 fora fairly standard health insurance policy that covers neither dental or eye care. Your Medicare is a huge bargain, even with the limitations.

I was listing the limitations.  I was mainly trying describe how these limitations cause problems similarly to Rob's in GB (Spain).  What the government gives, the government can take away.  Right now you're only paying $3600.  What will it be next year?  The charge is based on income so your's will definitely go up. What with less taxes collected and the GDP going down, the government is going to have less money.  SS and Medicare were already going broke before the virus.  The money's gone.

You also paid for Medicare all your life at 1.45% of your salary and your employer matched that.  So you've been paying for it for years that you didn't use it.  So it's a lot more than $3600 a year.  Like SS, heirs can't collect on all those payments if a person dies before they start to collect.  That doesn't happen with savings and investments.  You also can't use the best doctors.  The point is, just like Rob got screwed by the government, future recipients are going to get screwed too.  Just how much benefit will your son and my 42 year old daughter get when they hit 65?  They're going to get screwed just like ROb got screwed.  Just like the states are broke and can't afford to pay the pensions they promised, the same thing is going to happen with SS and Medicare. You and I may be the last people who benefit from it.  And since we're not dead yet, thank God, we may loss benefits before we go too.  The whole thing is very tenuous.

[John Camp]

In Canada you pay for your medical slowly through taxes, but when you need it, you don't have to scramble looking for money to cover the treatment. My father had multiple cancers, the worst being esophageal cancer which had him in the hospital for 6 months and then stayed at a cancer treatment centre for another 4 months getting chemo. Later on he had multiple strokes which had him in hospital and rehab and finally bladder cancer. All treatment was provided at no charge. Yes, you slowly pay for this treatment during your earning years...but when you need to draw on it...it is there for you.

I'm quite happy having government funded medical and not worry about some private insurance company bypassing the correct treatment or medicine in order to save a buck.

You bring up several things problems that you don't hear about private insurance in the US, one of the worst being that unless you buy *really* expensive plans -- $30,000 or 40,000 annually per person -- most have a pay-out cutoff. You *won't* get complete treatment if it costs too much -- in fact, you won't get the best treatment if it costs too much, even if the total cost wouldn't reach the cutoff. In other words, they leave you to go bankrupt or die, or both. Medicare doesn't do that. And most critics of Medicare don't talk about the fact that before Obamacare, the cost of health insurance was soaring out of sight, one reason that the plan passed. Obamacare at least slowed the costs, although they have continued to rise. High tech medicine costs a lot.

Alan is (technically) wrong about paying 1.45% of my income for Medicare -- since I'm self-employed, I pay 2.9% of my total income, just as I pay 15% (up to the limit) for Social Security, because I'm self-employed. So the situation there is a little worse than he suggests, in terms of costs.

However, I don't think a 3% - 6% payroll taxes (for employed and self-employed) rather than the current 1.45%/2.9% -- in other words. double the tax -- would be unreasonable for a national medical program. I would favor opt-outs, from the program, but not opt-outs from the taxes. IN other words, you'd be free to add private insurance if you wished, on top of what the government offered.

[Alan Klein]

You bring up several things problems that you don't hear about private insurance in the US, one of the worst being that unless you buy *really* expensive plans -- $30,000 or 40,000 annually per person -- most have a pay-out cutoff. You *won't* get complete treatment if it costs too much -- in fact, you won't get the best treatment if it costs too much, even if the total cost wouldn't reach the cutoff. In other words, they leave you to go bankrupt or die, or both. Medicare doesn't do that. And most critics of Medicare don't talk about the fact that before Obamacare, the cost of health insurance was soaring out of sight, one reason that the plan passed. Obamacare at least slowed the costs, although they have continued to rise. High tech medicine costs a lot.

Alan is (technically) wrong about paying 1.45% of my income for Medicare -- since I'm self-employed, I pay 2.9% of my total income, just as I pay 15% (up to the limit) for Social Security, because I'm self-employed. So the situation there is a little worse than he suggests, in terms of costs.

However, I don't think a 3% - 6% payroll taxes (for employed and self-employed) rather than the current 1.45%/2.9% -- in other words. double the tax -- would be unreasonable for a national medical program. I would favor opt-outs, from the program, but not opt-outs from the taxes. IN other words, you'd be free to add private insurance if you wished, on top of what the government offered.

Obamacare caused the costs to go up a lot.  And for a lot less in coverage.  Deductibles went up too although frankly, I don't think health insurance should cover much of initial regular coverage, but rather for heavy duty stuff.   No one has eating insurance or haircut insurance, or for that matter dental insurance.  W should consider paying some health costs as part of living costs like eating. That would also lower the premiums as those costs just get passed along anyway.

Regarding Medicare salary deductions, I didn;t know you were self-employed.  But the amounts are the same.  Since you're employer and employee, you pay both halves.  Other people who work for someone else, their employer pays half (1.45%) and the employee pays the other half (1.45%) of the 2.9% total. Same with SS.  6.2% + 6.2% = 12.4%.  Now Trump and Congress are talking about waiving these taxes until the end of the year.  They want to buy votes.  Of course, these programs will be even broker.  But there are always the printing presses.

If the government can do national health care for 3% or 6% including employer, so could private health insurance.  Keep the government out of it.  Otherwise we'll all have to move to Spain like Rob. 

[Rob C]

I made the mistake of going into this section of LuLa before I logged in. Unfortunately, that meant that my "ignore" list was inoperative.

Clearly, Mr Klein remains incapable or both reading and understanding what I write at the same time. (Perhaps starting with the chewing gum first might help. ;-))

1.  "I'm sorry Rob that you have health insurance problems.  The irony is that it was the government that took your government health insurance away."

No, for the hundredth time: I still have UK medical cover should I return to Britain. What has been lost is guaranteed reciprocal medical care for all Brits throughout European member states, whether living in Europe or on holiday in Europe. That was a bonus brought about by membership of the EEC. Without being members, it would be as daft as expecting Americans also to have full rights of access to free European health care systems. It is not a case of the US government taking their rights away - they would simply never held those rights in the first place. Do you get it now?

2. "Keep the government out of it.  Otherwise we'll all have to move to Spain like Rob."

In which way did the British Government or its National Health Service make me move to Spain?

I moved to Spain because of professional reasons that had everything to do with shooting calendar productions and nothing whatsoever to do with health. In fact, for the first thirty-odd years I was paying private health insurance here in Spain whilst still eligible for any treatment I needed back in Britain.

Eventual mutual membership of the EEC removed the need for private insurance for all member Europeans within each other's countries. In my case, I stopped buying private when my wife discovered that the national service in Mallorca was every bit as good as the private one which was costing us an arm and a leg, an added expense which, whilst working, was bearable, but in retirement, painful.

That did not kill the private insurance systems. They flourish to this day because people enjoy choices, and it's great having at least two, especially for as long as one both can, and is willing to afford, the cost of the private one.

Advocates of a comprehensive, paid-by-taxation government/national health service do not demand the abolition of the private sector. They are separate, independent entities and both have a place in society. Stop thinking of health services as a zero-sum game.

Rob

[Rob C]

Must have been prescient those years ago:

[Alan Klein]

I made the mistake of going into this section of LuLa before I logged in. Unfortunately, that meant that my "ignore" list was inoperative.

Clearly, Mr Klein remains incapable or both reading and understanding what I write at the same time. (Perhaps starting with the chewing gum first might help. ;-))

1.  "I'm sorry Rob that you have health insurance problems.  The irony is that it was the government that took your government health insurance away."

No, for the hundredth time: I still have UK medical cover should I return to Britain. What has been lost is guaranteed reciprocal medical care for all Brits throughout European member states, whether living in Europe or on holiday in Europe. That was a bonus brought about by membership of the EEC. Without being members, it would be as daft as expecting Americans also to have full rights of access to free European health care systems. It is not a case of the US government taking their rights away - they would simply never held those rights in the first place. Do you get it now?

2. "Keep the government out of it.  Otherwise we'll all have to move to Spain like Rob."

In which way did the British Government or its National Health Service make me move to Spain?

I moved to Spain because of professional reasons that had everything to do with shooting calendar productions and nothing whatsoever to do with health. In fact, for the first thirty-odd years I was paying private health insurance here in Spain whilst still eligible for any treatment I needed back in Britain.

Eventual mutual membership of the EEC removed the need for private insurance for all member Europeans within each other's countries. In my case, I stopped buying private when my wife discovered that the national service in Mallorca was every bit as good as the private one which was costing us an arm and a leg, an added expense which, whilst working, was bearable, but in retirement, painful.

That did not kill the private insurance systems. They flourish to this day because people enjoy choices, and it's great having at least two, especially for as long as one both can, and is willing to afford, the cost of the private one.

Advocates of a comprehensive, paid-by-taxation government/national health service do not demand the abolition of the private sector. They are separate, independent entities and both have a place in society. Stop thinking of health services as a zero-sum game.

Rob

I'm glad we're communicating.  I think we agree on more things then we don't.  First, about my comment that we'd all have to move to Spain was just me being lighthearted about the subject.  Some things don't translate well on an international forum. Actually Spain seems like a nice place to go.  I learned Spanish in JHS and High School, Castilian with the hard C's not like most Spanish speaking people in the US with the soft version.  I enjoyed the bullfight I went to it 40 years ago in Mexico City and would love to see it again in Madrid. What with the virus, I don't suppose I'm traveling any time too soon.

The point with government insurance is you're dependent on them.  Bureaucrats control your destiny.  Because of Brexit, they wound up hurting you and making it hard to travel throughout Europe.  I believe you said that you're only covered in Spain.  Had you private insurance, there are plans available that would protect you anywhere on the continent.  Sure you still can buy private plans.  The problem is taxes have gone up to pay for government provided medicine.  So buying a private plan becomes prohibitive for most people because the additional taxes they collect to pay for public health care leaves you less money to afford to buy a private plan.  Plus most people will accept things that are "free".  It's just a bad deal in my opinion.  My own Medicare is a government plan.  As I mentioned I'm limited to the doctors I choose.  The best opted out and charge cash which I can't afford.  Anyway, stay healthy and stay safe. 

[Robert Roaldi]

The point with government insurance is you're dependent on them.  Bureaucrats control your destiny.

Utter nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about.