Of course, everyone reading this has always known that the endgame for FHer-care was to make it impossible for private insurance companies to make a profit in these exchanges, so that they'd pull out of the health-coverage biz and the American people would be driven to the sole remaining provider of coverage: government. Single payer. Socialism.
But if anybody ever needs plain substantiation in a situation where someone has doubts about that, Harry Reid has provided it.
Did you read that lyin' red-head's response? Who let her in this thread man?
ReplyDeleteFUplutocracy > Feisty. Redhead. Roselle, IL
• 10 hours ago
−Single payer health care is great. One of the reasons I decided to stay in Taiwan when I could come back to the USA. Here's why-
1- My wife, daughter and I pay about $60 for health insurance each month. It is deducted from our pay check so we don't even miss it.
2- Each time we visit the doctor we pay about $5. That would cover a weeks medication if we need it.
3- I have never waited more than an hour to see a doctor.
4 - After years of putting it off, I went in to have my hernia checked on a Thursday, my operation was completed by noon that Saturday. If the system is run properly, there are no lines like republicans scare-monger about.
5- Our daughter was born here, our total cost was less than $1000 which included a stay overnight in a private room, vaccinations, prenatal care and HD pictures of the baby before it was born.
6 - I pay $2 to have my teeth cleaned twice a year.
7 - Nobody here would like the system that is in America. They would riot in the street if a bunch of clueless tea baggers tried to take it away
Unlike most suppliers of goods in a free market, insurance companies do not compete with each other by lowering prices or raising quality. Instead, they compete by excluding anyone who is likely to cost the insurance company money. This “adverse selection” is well known by anyone who has attempted to get an insurance company to pay for healthcare benefits. Thus, a major reform is stopping insurance companies from denying coverage to those with “pre-existing conditions.” This is coupled with individual mandates which stop an inverse form of adverse selection. If there is no individual mandate, the majority of people who sign up for healthcare will be those who are more likely to need it. This pools unnecessary risk on insurers. The individual man- date fixes this by making the healthy buy insurance as well, thus lowering the general risk pool while raising overall coverage to over 90% of Americans.
ReplyDeleteRead more at http://www.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=49
Re: you second comment: all the more reason to lower income tax rates - and I mean to serious levels, levels we've never seen in practice - so people can budget for their own health care. You get no disagreement from me that insurance companies are way too involved in healthcare coverage for stuff that people ought to be paying for themselves. If health insurance were confined - by the market - to a few very specific types of coverage, it would be a much more competitive field.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kpmg.com/sg/en/pressroom/pages/mc20120824.aspx
ReplyDeleteThe NHI is partially funded out of payroll tax and Taiwanese taxpayers are free to choose their healthcare providers.
This freedom of choice, however, has led to many problems.
For one, the Taiwanese tend to self-refer themselves to specialists of their own choice. Since medical costs are covered by insurance, they also seek top-notch medical services at the best hospitals- which might not be necessary all the time.
Hospitals naturally jumped at the opportunity to offer high-end services and then bill the government, leading to rapid increases in healthcare costs during the initial stages of the NHI. In 2003, the Taiwan Government introduced block budgeting for NHI, which is also practised in the budgeting for public hospitals in Singapore. This is essentially a cap on expenditure for each hospital.
This cap, coupled with the fact that the NHI does not get enough money from premiums to cover all its costs and is now suffering a deficit of about NT$60 billion, means that hospitals now face severe budgetary constraints.
They do not have the necessary funding to upgrade technology, infrastructure and skills. Doctors are also underpaid, exacerbating the challenge of acute doctor shortage in Taiwan.
Worsening this situation are regulations preventing public hospitals from providing private care and offering new services or programmes- these could have provided additional streams of revenue to cash-strapped hospitals.
Patients' free choice have also led to a phenomenon where the most reputable hospitals struggle with too many patients while having to operate within ageing infrastructure and budget constraints. The smaller hospitals experience declining business.
Another result of patients being able to see any doctor at any hospital is the erosion of the role of the family doctor as a 'gatekeeper'. There is little incentive for a healthcare provider to offer services across the continuum from womb to tomb or provide continuity of care for patients with chronic diseases.
Sorry, pal, your Taiwanese model suffers from the same shortcomings socialist health care always does.
ReplyDeleteYour linked article is not at all damning enough dude. It says, early on that Taiwan's NHI has an incredible 99 percent coverage, meaning that nearly all of its 23 million people have access to health insurance. While the NHI system has much to boast about, it also has several weaknesses...
ReplyDelete