Will 2012 Healthcare Fee Really Improve Your Health?

I don't believe so, Lora. A Government Organisation is not 'independent,' and of course, as you've said might be the case, those "fee's" won't go to the HealthCare Provider...but to the patient.

ObamaCare, contrary to what is being peddled (and bought), will only decrease effective Care, and increase costs.

Decrease effective care and increase costs ... I believe that totally. The bill passed only through the use of accounting tricks and omissions. One being the 'doc fix' (which dems knew would be needed and knew was going to happen in any case), which was left totally out of the calculations sent to The cbo (and which would have, and still will increase the overall costs of implementing obamacare).

I don't believe so, Lora. A Government Organisation is not 'independent,' and of course, as you've said might be the case, those "fee's" won't go to the HealthCare Provider...but to the patient.

We agree, for once. :)
There are some good points to this legislation but this fee that will be based on the rate of inflation in 2014 -- and passed on to the insured -- is not right and I sure do not want to pay for it because it's all BS. Just another way for insurance companies to FORCE us to accept substandard care under their coverage and pay extra to get the "good" care.

Will wonders never cease! :)

Great point, Lee. Isn't it ironic that this Government monstrosity, which was shoved down our throats as the great Healthcare panacea, actually needs something called "Doc fix?"

Lol!

I highly doubt it. Sounds like NEW TAXES to me.

Sounds like the pharmaceuticals found a nice new government "insurance program" for themselves.

I am not part of this argument over whether health care should be administered through the government or through insurance companies because it's just a red-herring, anyway. The public continues to be duped even though the facts are right before them, but they still argue like kids on a playground, the government side vs. the insurance side. This is not health care reform. How the same horrible health care is administered is not health care reform. What Palin called death panels are inevitable without private insurance or with it. It's a matter finite money and money that we do have used the wrong way. Here's an example of exactly that.

"However, there is concern that insurance companies will use this information to charge higher fees to the insured people who choose healthcare providers that do not prescribe the 'approved' drugs based on PCORI reports."


This is the kind of sentence that people take off on, some defending the insurance companies and others defending government. If you've got experts telling you that one drug is more effective than another, those who are prescribed what experts say is the less effective drug will most certainly have to be charged more. Why would anyone say they would USE this as an excuse to charge more? It's not an excuse; they're charging for a liablity that your government experts are telling them is risky. How can they possibly do otherwise but to cover the risk by charging more?

So sure, there should be concern that prices are going to rise, but the problem is not solved until you look beyond to the waste, the corruption and the malpractice in the medical industry. That's how you reform health care.

I agree with your statement in that last paragraph. And, in your opinion, Sue, how do we look beyond, to the waste, the corruption and the malpractice?

I have to disagree with you only on this: "I am not part of this argument over whether health care should be administered through the government or through insurance companies because it's just a red-herring, anyway." --

I understand that you don't wish to be a party to that discussion; however, it is an important part of the discussion. If we are looking for efficiency, both in Care and in Cost, allowing the Government to handle it is a fools folly. We all know that Government can't handle anything efficiently.

Therefore, how do we look beyond, to the waste, the corruption and the malpractice? What do you suggest?

This is not the article I wrote that I was looking for, but it's a start before I find the other one.

Would you be kind enough to synopsise, here?

This is another article I wrote, but not the one I have in mind.

I'm tired of looking for the article I wanted to show you, but it was based on this book I read and referenced.

Of course, none of this is going to answer your how question because all this only provides the facts that show you what needs reforming. How to go about it requires representatives of the people without their own elitist interests conflicting with that representation. Since even medicine has become so polticized, it's probably not going to happen that real health care reform will ever come about. The public will continue to fight about the red-herring talking points.

I don't know what's going on with this, but I clicked that hyper-link in my last comment that takes you to Death by Medicine, and it works fine sometimes and others it doesn't. Just in case it doesn't work for you, the URL is below.


http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/features/death_by_medicine2.html

No can go, Sue. Another Gather shortcoming.

Well, really, how am I to know what you think about solving it, if we don't scratch one-anothers eyes out over it? :)

I disagree that common sense is a red herring. It is a problem to be solved, and Government cannot solve it. YOU may have the solution, Sue...you owe it to the NATION! :)

I've done my 'iatrogenic' reading. OK, let's throw down! (euphemistically speaking ;)

It isn't a case of government vs. insurance companies. We already know the government is incompetent. If the government were not incompetent, it wouldn't be admitting that the FDA has not all along been adequate to determine whether drugs they allow on the market are safe and effective and now decide to implement another agency to determine efficacy of drugs.

It's a flippin' given that they're incompetent, but you have to understand that there is huge collusion between the government and medicine. I, for a time, dabbled in scientific recruitment, chemistry and biotech. One of the jobs I took on initially, because it didn't involve a lot of technical jargon, was to find a Director of Regulatory Affairs for a large pharma company. This guy used to call me and talk to me for hours because he liked me for some reason or other. I used to put him on speaker phone sometimes. He bragged about his history of convincing the FDA that they should approve drugs that had no business being approved. In essence, that's exactly what they wanted, a drug salesman for the FDA, but they called it Director of Regulatory Affairs because the person handling it needed extensive knowledge of CFR regulations and how they could be circumvented for drugs to pass "the test."

Health care reform is not contingent on who administers the funding. If you have a genius and a moron greeting customers at Walmart, it doesn't matter which one does the greeting. The result is the same.

Sue, I know that collusion exists; it's rampant in every sector of Society. My question is, what is the solution?

And, I want to work on your cynical component; there are crimes going on with Pharma; but I disagree with you that we have terrible Healthcare. It is some of the best in the World. We need to solve the corruption. If looking at it strictly on a Constitutional basis, Government has NO BUSINESS being the arbiter of our Health Care. So, I don't agree with your WalMart analogy. We can't have the moron greeting the customer, in this case.

We shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

What I try to say, Sue, is that I understand the criminality in any enterprise, particularly as it becomes involved with Government.

Power is the Mother of corruption; we must find a way to drain the swamp.

The Constitution.

Look, the criminality is not the main issue. Yes, the Constitution is being challenged with this health care issue because we can't have government dictate what we must buy, but that's ancillary to the health care reform issue.

Of course, you don't want to admit that we have a terrible health care system because like millions of other Americans, you're deluded into thinking that because we have the most advanced technology we also have excellent health care, but excellent compared to what? We supposedly have the best justice system in the world too. How's that working out for you?

If you even read the first two pages of that book you would understand that we need health CARE reform that is not ever going to be addressed if you people insist on focusing on the talking points, pandering to the politicians who have no interest in representing the public other than satsifying what they want to hear. You want to hear that insurance companies and private enterprise are going to administer the money to fund the bad health care and they want to hear that government is going to administer the money to fund the bad health care. Personally, I don't give a damn for myself becasue I don't buy into the impending doom of the horrible health care and death panels offered, one way or another. I have to pay for my naturopath, and she is not covered under my health care plan, and won't be whether the government or the insurance companies supply the means of payment.

Oh, one more best in the world:

We supposedly have the most democratic election process too. I won't ask you how that's working out for you until November 7, 2012, just to be extra fair, though.

Sue, the book wouldn't load, remember?

(Smile). I'm not deluded, Sue. I have no trouble admitting that there is room for (usually massive!) improvement in everything. The enemy of the good, remember?

Compared to what? Compared to anywhere else in the World.

And, of course this Justice System sucks! It should more accurately be called an Injustice System! Just ask any Divorced Man! (no, I don't refer to me).

Unfortunately, Sue, Sir Winston Churchill was correct. Aside from all others, we have the worst Systems in the World.

"You want to hear that insurance companies and private enterprise are going to administer the money to fund the bad health care and they want to hear that government is going to administer the money to fund the bad health care. Personally, I don't give a damn for myself because I don't buy into the impending doom of the horrible health care and death panels offered, one way or another."

No. I simply want it to be given a fighting chance of being streamlined and improved by getting it the HELL out of the hands of the Government, and into the Free Markets. And I submit that you may be quite surprised, Sue, at the chilling and DEADLY effects this legislation has coming for us...

(This goes to something deeper and more personal for you, I sense...but I won't hold my breath that you'll confide it).

You'd said something very funny up there..."because he liked me for some reason or other..!"...hehe...

...what ever possessed him? :)

Mark-John, there's nothing personal about this issue whatsoever.

What you are not understanding is that the health care issue is a separate issue from the administration of the funds that promote bad health care and that is why I have no hope that the problem will ever be solved. You ask how when there is no way and you and others like you make it impossible. No one seems to even understand what needs to be addressed. Do any search on this site and find people complaining about their medical problems, many of which would not exist if they had proper care. So they continue to die while they pay money to die and they want to make sure they're always going to have enough money to delay the inevitable while they live in pain and misery.

Hmmmn...I do understand the distinctions, Sue. You aren't having any of it. What you do is give me the same answer Mr. Knight gives me, when I request from him his solution (on what we already agree upon;).

I haven't gotten involved in your exchanges with John, but I saw why he gave you the answers he did.

Well, I certainly wish I did! ;)

Just like with John, you ignored some of his major points. You continue to ask me for the solution when I've told you what the solution is and you ignore it, telling me that you understand the distinctions.

How many times and in how many ways do I have to tell you that if you are going to continously insist that health care reform involves the administration of money under the guise of health care instead of the administration of good and responsible care, there is no one who will even feign an attempt to solve the problem? You yourself said that you think we have the best health care in the world. If that's what you think, there's no reason for reform and you are part of the problem because it is only a change in your focus and the focus of millions of others that will implement a real solution. There's no hope for that because you don't see the problem.

"Sue, the book wouldn't load, remember?"

Didn't you see the comment below it?

Here's the URL again. Copy and paste it and at least read the first two pages to understand what I am talking about.

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/features/death_by_medicine2.html

Yes, Sue, I did say that we have the best in the World, because we do. I didn't say it was perfect; I didn't even say it was great! I've also said we can do better and improve it, but you've disregarded. Then, I ask you how we can do better, what the solution is, how we can improve it, and...crickets.

Yes, of course I read the first few pages already, as I had said; but it clearly states that it merely discusses the problems...not the solutions.

I'm asking for your solutions.

My solutions involve the rallying of the public to call attention to the problem of poor health care as outlined in that book. My solutions call for the identification of the problem first and foremost. Then and only then can we try to get attention to those problems that exist in the medical professions. Once those problems are identified as being the problems, the awareness needs to be brought to the public so they can pressure for investigations. They may start to demand that naturpoaths are covered under the current insurance programs, whether they be governmentally implemented or privately implemented. The costs would be so astronimically reduced that money would no longer be a major issue. That's not going to happen, obviously. People are far too reliant upon, subservient to and accepting of the current care they are offered so they won't recognize what the real problems are. That's why I think the whole health care debate is ridiculous.

I see. An activism is what you are calling for. Impossible....Doctors are educated at University (laughs!)

OK, levity aside, this is serious, and dire...just as everything else is...

Now do you understand why, in my latest piece, I've said that we're stupid? The piece wasn't just about Socialised Medicine...

...it was about the fact that we're stupid...and screwed.

Bring on the Lord.

It doesn't matter how doctors are indoctrinated if people would wake up. I already understood the point you made in your comment on your post. I specifically said that you used it as an example so you didn't understand that I understood. I understood that you said that we're stupid and screwed and that's why I said, after you told me that you were a man and had to do something about it all, that sometimes all you can do after you've already done all you can do is to trust in God's plan.

So, I'm preparing a surprise for you now.

Oh! I just got here, and I can (hardly) wait!

I'm all a-quiver...and that's a difficult thing for a Man to admit.

Off I go, for my surprise (I should be terribly worried about this, if I was any smart kind of Man... ;)

When are the pharm companies going to pay for the government-sponsored research that creates drugs they patent and sell for huge profits?

The pharmaceutical companies are busying paying the FDA to get approval on drugs that don't really work and have HUGE side-effects.

Correct, jj.

Ditto, Lee and jj.

I am in favor of anything that regulates the big drug companies.

I don't feel its the governments business to TAX us, NOR is it the governments business to mandate health care, nor is it the governments business to force us to pay for something we don't agree with.

sounds like SOCIALISM TO ME!

Mooch, without taxes, the private sector from whom you'd purchase things would nickle-and-dime you to kingdom come! You've probably heard about cases where people were denied fire department services because they didn't pay a fee beforehand and were still denied when they offered to pay the fee during the fire. That is what life would be like without taxes!

Taxes, properly administered, are the way a civilized nation pays for its needs and wants. For the last 30 some years, the tax code has been skewed to favor the rich very disproportionately to their stake in the economy and now income inequality is at least as high as it was just before the Great Depression.

The only thing they are going to do with these funds is line their wallets with it. It will not go to researching anything. They have already funded studying health care. So why the extra fees? Oh wait it is so they can get more undeserved money.

Poor people are going to the ER because they can not afford a doctor's visit. Who is footing that bill? TAX PAYERS! Wake up people!

It may as well be tacked on to the fines you will get for NOT having insurance. Hope and change really isn't going to do it for the American people, neither will their dreamy eyed look when they re elect the masiha again, then when you as parents get fined because your 26 yr old lazy rear ended kid can't work and pay for health coverage themselves then you are the lucky one who will get fined for lazy azz not having a job. But wait the Government lets them vote at 18, buy a gun at 18 some 21, send people to war, you don't have to be 26, to drink you don't have to be 26 and they want to fine parents whose kid doesn't have insurance. I say total b.s. and so is the fact of charging 2.00 LET them pay for it. ( The Government)

Exactly.

This should not be, no matter how small, this is forced wealth redistribution.

Exactly.

wow, shouldn't we have a choice?

that does make it seem like a tax, doesn't it?