healthcare reform is coming

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Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors told Obama in a letter that they will voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years in a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now go without it.

By joining Obama, providers are acknowledging at least some responsibility for a bloated and dysfunctional system that economists say is unaffordable.

The groups don't just have the national interest in mind. Industry is worried that Congress will create a government health plan to compete with private insurers. Such a plan would quickly become the biggest in the country and could use its power to set lower payment rates, driving costs down on the backs of medical providers.
 
Originally Posted By: Pablo
This might be a good thing. In the short run.


But I have to wonder what expenses they are going to cut to make up for the rate cuts...executive salaries or coverage? Whatdya think?
mad.gif


John
 
If a hospital is supposed to be non-profit, and is scared of a non-profit government-run deal being legitimate competition, that should say something...
 
Originally Posted By: John_K

But I have to wonder what expenses they are going to cut to make up for the rate cuts...executive salaries or coverage? Whatdya think?
mad.gif


John


People who loss jobs are now joining the unemployed and the "demand" for health care is reducing. The providers and insurance companies have to reduce prices to reach the equilibrium anyways. Nothing political, just business.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Medicare is 98% efficient.

Based on what?

These people have seen what has happened to the banking and car industries and are scared to death of the gov. They are trying to placate the gov. into not nationalizing them as well.

What is happening is not reform, it's cowering in the corner under the velvet gloved iron hand.
 
His example of wasteful spending was his grandma getting a hip replacement while being terminally ill with cancer. Hers, by the way, is not an isolated incident.
 
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What is happening is not reform, it's cowering in the corner under the velvet gloved iron hand.



..and they should be scared. They've milked us from the get go. There is no competition in medical care. You see advertisements for hospitals ..but it's to boast of their expertise, not their price advantage.

We already have socialized medicine. It's just of variable availability and rationed the less you're economically viable. All producers pay all the costs.
 
hospitals are non-profit!
they sell their or your mothers and sisters and goats to the taliban if they could make a buck :)
 
every doctor, nurse, receiptionist, guard, janitor, lawn service, even the air you breathe is in an independent service provider aka contractor.
go stay 1 day, you will get 15 bills,
 
Originally Posted By: CivicFan
His example of wasteful spending was his grandma getting a hip replacement while being terminally ill with cancer. Hers, by the way, is not an isolated incident.


Well Orthopedists need to train on someone!

I've seen it time and again, especially in the older generation, have both knees and a hip replaced, "Well, that's what the doctoe said needed to be done. And look I got this new knee!"
In reality, especially in more rural hospitals, the "doctor" just needed more operating room time and billable hours to pay for that house and yacht on Lake Travis, or needed some more experience and who better to train on than the Medicare patients.
 
Doctors are running, not walking, away from Medicare. The pay is very poor and often doesn't cover their cost. I think it's funny the idea that doctors are getting rich from it.
 
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The pay is very poor and often doesn't cover their cost.



crackmeup2.gif


Try being a college graduate shoe salesman with student loans.

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I think it's funny the idea that doctors are getting rich from it.


Yeah. The real statement is "they're not getting rich enough".

Sorry. There's no way any mundane is going to relate to someone who will, due to the way most "groups" are configured, will be earning several magnitudes of their "earned income" in "acquired worth" aka "wealth" in so few years. Meanwhile most of us will be writing the blank check to afford them the crushing burden of income only limited by the hours in a day and the number of patients that they can process.
 
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The study examined states' Medicaid physician fee schedules from 2003 to 2008 and compared them to the Medicare fees during the same period. On average, combining all services, Medicaid physician fees rose 15.1 percent during the five-year period, while Medicare fees rose about 9 percent. Neither program kept pace with inflation.

http://health.cch.com/news/medicaid/050809a.asp
 
So? Neither did my paychecks or my wife's. Our income has been mostly flat since the late 80's. We were upper middle class in income back then, far more centered in middle class by 2002.

TOO BAD ..how's it feel to want??
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Doctors are running, not walking, away from Medicare. The pay is very poor and often doesn't cover their cost. I think it's funny the idea that doctors are getting rich from it.


Not true. You may be confusing Medicaid and Medicare. The providers like Medicare. Medicaid pays below cost so it cannot be your main payer(for most of the providers). But in order to take Medicare, a provider has to take Medicaid as well.

So the successful providers have 30% of each type of payer. Private pay is 10% and about half of that goes to charity care for people who cannot pay their bills and go bankrupt.
 
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