So you really think Government Health Insurance will keep down costs?

[RMNIXON]

Here's some news about the programs they already run:

Senior benefit costs up 24%
'Health care crisis' leads to 8-year rise
By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY

The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.

"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.

He says seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost of government retirement programs.

The federal government spent $952 billion in 2007 on elderly benefits, up from $601 billion in 2000. It's the biggest function of the federal government.

States chipped in $27 billion more in 2007, mostly for nursing homes.
All three major senior programs � Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid � experienced dramatically escalating costs that outstripped inflation and the growth in the senior population.

Benefits per senior are soaring at a time when the senior population is not. The portion of the U.S. population ages 65 and older has been constant at 12% since 2000.

The senior boom, however, starts big time in 2011, when the first baby boomers � 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 � turn 65 and qualify for Medicare health insurance. The oldest baby boomers turn 62 this year and qualify for Social Security at reduced benefits.

USA TODAY used a variety of government data to calculate the cost of providing Social Security, medical benefits and long-term care to an aging population. Billions of dollars paid to non-seniors � the disabled, children and others in the programs � were removed to create an estimate that focuses exclusively on seniors.
Findings include:

•Medicare experienced the most explosive growth from 2000 to 2007. The Medicare prescription-drug benefit, started in 2006, accounts for about one-fourth of the increase in Medicare, which provides health benefits for people 65 and older.

•Long-term care costs per senior have declined slightly in the past three years because of a move away from nursing homes to less expensive home care.

•The cost of senior benefits is equal to $10,673 for every non-senior household.

•About 35% of the federal budget is spent on senior benefits, up from 32% in 2004.

Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Urban Institute, notes that the full cost of senior benefits goes beyond Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A complete estimate would include other programs for retirees, such as military and civil servant pensions and medical benefits, he says.

The Urban Institute estimates that kids receive an average of about $4,000 per child in benefits, including the child tax credit and other indirect assistance.

Economist Dean Baker calls it "granny bashing" to focus on the cost of senior benefits. The elderly paid a designated tax for Social Security and Medicare taxes during their decades of working to support these programs when they retired, says Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy and Research.

USATODAY.com


__________________________________________________

So now that USA Today dares to point out the Elephant in the Room the first response from the liberal Senior Lobby AARP is to change the subject, while Liberal Dean Baker come right out and calls it "granny bashing!" We can be sure that entitlement reform will not be a subject of conversation by either party until after the election, if then? Sorry, too many elderly vote and are easy to scare!

Then we have the overall healthcare issue. I am sure the first argument will be that if we expand the entitlement to all people it will solve the cost problem. Young people just don't need as much healthcare as the old. To me that becomes an even more complex system of taxing Peter to pay for Paul's Healthcare. I would like to see some real math on how that will work and what Peter will be expected to pay?

I think the simple truth is that healthcare is advancing in what it can do rather quicky, and so is the demand that it do everything for everybody. And that just costs more money. And when you remove market incentives to compete and keep costs down it just gets worse. All a medical group or provider needs to do is wait for the government insurance checks to roll in.............

[bheld]

Social Security is as relevant to the universal health care argument as juvenile detention facilities are to education.

[WickedLou9]

Every country that has socialized health care spends less than we do.In total and per capita. We already spend 53% more PER CAPITA than anyone else. We don't have a free market system or a socialized system. We have a usless emulsion of the two.

I don't care how many theoretical situations you come up with, when you have numerous real world examples to point to, anything you come up with to the contrary is meaningless. No offense. If it was going to be so expensive, we would have seen that borne out in all of these other countries. We don't.

U.S. Still Spends More on Health Care than Any Other Country

[Rouger2]

We are getting ripped off royally by the health care industry. No competition in the industry allows them to charge just about what ever they want, and the people, and the government don't yell loud enough. That is the only weak thing that makes them moderate their prices. Health care costs are way more than they should be. So what ever the government is paying it is more than it should be.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by bheld

Social Security is as relevant to the universal health care argument as juvenile detention facilities are to education.

I highlighted the medicare points for a reason. Try going back and actually reading the post. It is very important.

[motivez]

What Lou said. We pay more, get less. Competition can only take you so far, and every system has problems.

The free market can't fix what's wrong with the death by spreadsheet industry.

[hsmith]

Originally Posted by motivez

What Lou said. We pay more, get less. Competition can only take you so far, and every system has problems.

The free market can't fix what's wrong with the death by spreadsheet industry.

And you actually think the gov't will do better at allocating resources? How can they increase supply with no profit motive?

[motivez]

I'm sure there will be inefficiencies in the system, there are in any system. That's something I think everyone can agree would be a good idea to tackle.

That said, I'd rather have a system that didn't try it's hardest to deny people coverage to make a buck. Where it wasn't better to let someone die to maintain profit margins.

Health care should be about getting people the help they need, not trying as hard as possible to profit as much as possible from their suffering.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by hsmith

And you actually think the gov't will do better at allocating resources? How can they increase supply with no profit motive?

Thats assuming you can't put a profit motive on gov healthcare

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Every country that has socialized health care spends less than we do.In total and per capita. We already spend 53% more PER CAPITA than anyone else. We don't have a free market system or a socialized system. We have a usless emulsion of the two.

I don't care how many theoretical situations you come up with, when you have numerous real world examples to point to, anything you come up with to the contrary is meaningless. No offense. If it was going to be so expensive, we would have seen that borne out in all of these other countries. We don't.

U.S. Still Spends More on Health Care than Any Other Country

They do it through rationing and having their pharmaceuticals subsidized by the United States. We do all the R&D and must pay higher market prices in order to suport their price controls. If anything such a system in this country will screw Europe and Canada even fast as it does the United States.

Some comments that go great with this subject:

"Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them.

Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment.

In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."

Universal Healthcare's Dirty Little Secrets

It all sounds so great until you actually need it!

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

Health care should be about getting people the help they need, not trying as hard as possible to profit as much as possible from their suffering.

Well I am glad to see you think good intentions should control the work and earnings of doctors and medical researchers. What greedy bastards they are!

[motivez]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Well I am glad to see you think good intentions should control the work and earnings of doctors and medical researchers. What greedy bastards they are!

Oh yes, because that's exactly what I said.

And because that's exactly what insurance companies are. Medical doctors with nothing but good intentions.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

They do it through rationing and having their pharmaceuticals subsidized by the United States. We do all the R&D and must pay higher market prices in order to suport their price controls. If anything such a system in this country will screw Europe and Canada even fast as it does the United States.

Some comments that go great with this subject:

"Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless. Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to patients who need them.

Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than 50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment.

In a 2005 ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare."

Universal Healthcare's Dirty Little Secrets

It all sounds so great until you actually need it!

I'm not sure about the drugs thing. IT seems like there should be a way around that problem...

Ans as far as access to care, those countries have longer life expectancies and lower rates of infant mortality than we do.

[A_C_E]

While I hesitate to support a fully universal system, I do agree with government interference to keep costs low. However, there is another problem which is only now being talked about, and that is doctor's ripping off HMOs and the government.

First, a little background on how I know about this...My mother is the Senior Special Agent in the Buffalo office of the Health and Human Services-Inspector General's Investigations division. As complex as that sounds, what it boils down to is that she is the head agent of the team which investigates health care fraud in the entirety of upstate New York...admittedly not the biggest metro area in the world.

In addition to that, I spent this past summer as a Legal Intern in the US Attorney's White Collar Crime division, and my area of work was (you guessed it) health care fraud. So I have a good amount of exposure to those taking advantage of the system.

Basically, a TON of doctors are simply robbing the government and HMOs blind. There are so many complicated processes for obtaining Medicare and Medicaid procedures that most of the time the states/Feds administering these programs don't notice any irregularities. Billing for procedures not performed, overbilling for services, out-patient services billed as inpatient, medically-unnecessary cosmetic procedures billed to HMOs and the government, and surgery performed when not necessary are ALL frequent practices in the health care industry.

I really have had my opinion of medical professionals soured over the years, but never moreso than over last summer, when I was actually working on these cases. The money-hungry bastards are stealing like crazy from the system and causing much of the so-called inefficiency you read about. What we need is not only to expand the health care coverage, but to DRAMATICALLY expand the investigations teams and the billing/licensing departments, so that we can make sure people aren't robbing the system blind. I genuinely think most of you wouldn't have such a problem with the current system if you really knew how much money the doctors' practices are sucking from the system and making the government spend WAAAYYYYY more than it has to be.

Just as a matter of reference, in 2007 the Buffalo office (just the smallish cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton-that's it) recovered over 300 MILLION DOLLARS in fraudulently taken money from Medicare and Medicaid. That doesn't include private insurers, and is just one year in a small area. Obviously they didn't get everything that was fraudulently billed either. 300 million in stolen funds from the government in just one of over 70 regional offices.

I think it's safe to say more government control over the system is a good thing. More investigators, more employees, more scrutinized and licensing of federal funds would cut an enormous amount of the inefficiency out. Hell, if we could stop all the fraud all together we could have a fully Universal HC system and probably still pay out less money for services

It really sickens me that people who are supposed to be devoting their lives to the health and services of other are stealing like crazy from taxpayers

[Phantom]

I bet the fraud rate with insurance companies is much lower than with government.

Insurance companies have a greater incentive to save themselves money and can afford to hire competitive employees who will work hard to prevent fraud...

Just my opinion though, I don't have anything to support this other than my few years of working both in government and private practice.

[A_C_E]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I bet the fraud rate with insurance companies is much lower than with government.

Insurance companies have a greater incentive to save themselves money and can afford to hire competitive employees who will work hard to prevent fraud...

Just my opinion though, I don't have anything to support this other than my few years of working both in government and private practice.

It depends, I think. The HMOs are much more hawkish about getting their money back quickly, but their investigations units are made up of civilians who, in the end, don't really know how to work a criminal case. So the government usually winds up doing a lot of the work.

I think you are right in that insurance companies are more careful in selecting the people who manage how the money is paid out, so there is probably less willingness to defraud them, due to a higher perceived risk. Not to mention that people who are healthy and insuring themselves are less likely to go along with whatever a doctor asks them to do.

I don't have access to those numbers though, so I can't answer truthfully either way. I would hope, however, that if a UHC-type system is put into place, we spend the money to hire people to watch where the money is going. Cracking down on the fraud could easily pay for dozens of new employees to handle billing and still save the taxpayers money.

[David Octavius]

Health care costs are insane and there is plenty of blame to go around - no system, be it government or private is innocent. We as a people are also to blame, do we really need to be so sedentary and eat those kinds of foods? Finally the food industry doesn't help, putting sugar, fat and god knows what else in foods that make us sick.

Health care is a total problem and until we tackle it as such, we are
just putting a band-aid on a gushing wound

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

While I hesitate to support a fully universal system, I do agree with government interference to keep costs low. However, there is another problem which is only now being talked about, and that is doctor's ripping off HMOs and the government.

First, a little background on how I know about this...My mother is the Senior Special Agent in the Buffalo office of the Health and Human Services-Inspector General's Investigations division. As complex as that sounds, what it boils down to is that she is the head agent of the team which investigates health care fraud in the entirety of upstate New York...admittedly not the biggest metro area in the world.

In addition to that, I spent this past summer as a Legal Intern in the US Attorney's White Collar Crime division, and my area of work was (you guessed it) health care fraud. So I have a good amount of exposure to those taking advantage of the system.

Basically, a TON of doctors are simply robbing the government and HMOs blind. There are so many complicated processes for obtaining Medicare and Medicaid procedures that most of the time the states/Feds administering these programs don't notice any irregularities. Billing for procedures not performed, overbilling for services, out-patient services billed as inpatient, medically-unnecessary cosmetic procedures billed to HMOs and the government, and surgery performed when not necessary are ALL frequent practices in the health care industry.

I really have had my opinion of medical professionals soured over the years, but never moreso than over last summer, when I was actually working on these cases. The money-hungry bastards are stealing like crazy from the system and causing much of the so-called inefficiency you read about. What we need is not only to expand the health care coverage, but to DRAMATICALLY expand the investigations teams and the billing/licensing departments, so that we can make sure people aren't robbing the system blind. I genuinely think most of you wouldn't have such a problem with the current system if you really knew how much money the doctors' practices are sucking from the system and making the government spend WAAAYYYYY more than it has to be.

Just as a matter of reference, in 2007 the Buffalo office (just the smallish cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton-that's it) recovered over 300 MILLION DOLLARS in fraudulently taken money from Medicare and Medicaid. That doesn't include private insurers, and is just one year in a small area. Obviously they didn't get everything that was fraudulently billed either. 300 million in stolen funds from the government in just one of over 70 regional offices.

I think it's safe to say more government control over the system is a good thing. More investigators, more employees, more scrutinized and licensing of federal funds would cut an enormous amount of the inefficiency out. Hell, if we could stop all the fraud all together we could have a fully Universal HC system and probably still pay out less money for services