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Health Care’s Bipartisan Problem: The Sick Are Expensive and Someone Has to Pay
The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 12, 2017 | Anna Wilde Mathews and Louise Radnofsky

Posted on 01/13/2017 12:00:44 PM PST by JeepersFreepers

The 2010 health law, also known as Obamacare, forced insurers to sell coverage to anyone, at the same price, regardless of their risk of incurring big claims. That provision was popular. Not so were rules requiring nearly everyone to have insurance, and higher premiums for healthy people to subsidize the costs of the sick.

If policyholders don’t pick up the tab, who will? Letting insurers refuse to sell to individuals with what the industry calls a “pre-existing condition”—in essence, forcing some of the sick to pay for themselves—is something both parties appear to have ruled out. Insurers could charge those patients more or taxpayers could pick up the extra costs, two ideas that are politically fraught.


Most U.S. health-care spending is for a small number of very expensive patients:


(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aca; cost; obamacare; repeal
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To: riri

Ok. What is your solution to the people who are multigenerationally mentally ill and fully disconnected from productive society? See my post 79.

You either efficiently kill them like the Nazis or reverse the damage through many generations of effective culture change. Ignoring it and letting them multiply in the present state will kill us all


81 posted on 01/14/2017 10:35:58 AM PST by varyouga
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To: JeepersFreepers
The price of insulin is up 1000% over the last decade. Why does 'someone have to pay' these ridiculous markups? There are dozens of examples of USA prices 10 times higher than what is charged in other 1st world countries.

That includes things that are off-patent, like insulin or viagra, so we aren't talking about the problem of new intellectual property. The problem of inflated oligopoly or monopoly pricing is across the board.

Some few (or maybe many) should pay, but at the end of a noose.

Yeah, I'm kind of short on compassion for the health industry right now.

Get the prices down to something reasonable, and the problem is mostly solved.

82 posted on 01/14/2017 9:13:30 PM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard to be cynical enough in this age.)
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To: varyouga

“WHAT exactly would you do that doesn’t drag America down to the level of garbage like the Nazis and North Korea?”

So what you are implying is that Americans were Nazis before Obamacare.

Get over yourself and learn what it truly means to be an American, Christian, and conservative before you lecture me on ethics, pal.


83 posted on 01/15/2017 8:24:19 AM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: Navin Johnson

We’ve had Medicaid and Medicare since 1965. Around the time medicine truly began to modernize.

So yes, we’ve had socialized medicine for the dirt poor since practicality the beginning of modern medicine. It was recognized it was not humane to allow AMERICANS to die and suffer when something could be done.

Obamacare came about because the number of people who cannot afford medicine has increased exponentially since then.

Mostly due to automation and tool advancements making manual jobs nearly worthless and incapable of paying for advancing medical care. And also due to the acceptability of illegals without rights working for less. Because the fewer jobs there are, the less valuable they are on the market. Eventually all of our “jobs” will be taken by intelligent machines and we need a gameplan for that.

A guy doing basic work in double shifts to pay the inflated rent with 5 candidates waiting for him to lose his job is NEVER going to pay for a heart surgery. And this guy +5 candidates’ story is repeated millions of times in this country.

The market system is clearly broken for many reasons. Hard working people doing jobs we need done are living in poverty without hope of ever getting ahead.

When I came to America I first sold fruits and then drove a taxi. Without overtime I could afford a 1 bedroom manhattan apartment, unlimited Healthcare and the best food. Not a fancy house or dream vacations but I was happy with having a base from which to grow.

Then I learned drafting at night school, eventually started my own engineering firm and bought a townhouse. THAT was the American dream you speak of.

Today we have people doing the same needed jobs in double shifts who have to squat and eat shit just to meagerly survive. Even drafters with overtime are now living in poverty at many of my competitors’ firms. BROKEN


84 posted on 01/15/2017 9:11:41 AM PST by varyouga
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To: JeepersFreepers

Some of the sick have bad luck. Some bad genes. But the most expensive problems are caused by lifestyle issues. If you want to smoke 2 packs a day and drink a case of beer every day, don’t ask me to pay for your lung transplant.

If you are too stupid to sign a DNR form at the hospital when you have stage 4 lung cancer, on dialysis, and certain to die without ever recovering from your surgery, please don’t expect me to pay the $500,000 that your last 30 days costs as the doctors try to keep you alive.

If your baby is born with an addiction because you are a heroin or crack user, it will cost someone $300,000 to $500,000 in pre and post natal care. Don’t expect me to pay for it.

However, if you are a vet who needs a replacement prosthesis for the leg that got shot off in Afghanistan, we should send a limo to pick you up and get you to the hospital.


85 posted on 01/15/2017 9:19:38 AM PST by anton
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To: Baynative

Millions have similar stories.


86 posted on 01/15/2017 9:27:51 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ ("It's a war against humanity!" Donald J. Trump)
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To: JeepersFreepers

Obamacare.

Dec. 2013 we were paying about $1,000 a Month for our HMO.

January 2017 we are paying $2,000 for the same HMO with larger Co-pays.

Both numbers include about $100 for Dental and Vision Coverage, also with copays.

Still waiting for the $7,500 Obama owes me, $2,500 times 3.


87 posted on 01/15/2017 9:34:47 AM PST by Kickass Conservative ( Democracy, two Wolves and one Sheep deciding what's for Dinner.)
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To: varyouga

This can be boiled down to answering a simple question, I believe:
“Am I my brothers keeper?”

God says we are.
Mankind doesn’t want to do their assigned job.

People don’t want to work. Not even to support themselves. Something like 90 million Americans are out of the work force that could be working and contributing something to their own support and their circle of influence, family and friends. Our real unemployment is much higher than 5% more like 50%.

If we have more work and money we can afford to do more.
The reasons why we are in the situation are myriad but they revolve around the idea that no one has to support themselves and they don’t have to support their own family friends or relatives either.

Women divorcing her husband for any reason other than adultery and turning to the government as the provider for the family has produced a lot of displaced men women and children. There’s no sense of responsibility for one another Because uncle Sam will do it all. No need for husband wife children grandchildren and family church or God.

Adultery, no-fault divorce, and dissolution of the family unit via feminism and selfishness culture wide has put us in this unenviable position.

Making America great again is dependent on us returning to a Christian ethic, work, love of family, love a fellow man, self sacrifice, and commitment to moral excellence, which work every single time they are engaged.

Those who refuse to work should not eat. Those who cannot work should be provided for by those who can. Right now half of americans are refusing to work or cannot find work. For some, it’s beneath their dignity! They need to be put on an involuntary fast.


88 posted on 01/15/2017 10:30:56 AM PST by MIA_eccl1212 (10 rounds 10 meters 10 seconds 10 centimetres T)
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To: varyouga

“WE’VE” had Medicaid/Medicare since 1965?

No, the U.S. had it since 1965. It is not socialized medicine... that is what single payer ala Canada is. Further, it was not the beginning of modern medicine.

You are no different than the dude from Vietnam that has been on FR touting Obamacare and this liberal do-gooder attitude that foreigners have when coming over here. If the U.S. was such a rotten country you would not have come here from the Ukraine. If our system here is so “broken” head back where your ancestors are now fighting Putin’s henchmen. Heck, you would not even have the opportunity to talk about it like you are right now.

The fact is there are no more people being covered now under Obamacare than there were before. Nobody has a right to someone else’s money for ANY government program- whether it be health care, social security, or food stamps. Don’t hand me your moral reasons about the guy doing double shifts, blah, blah, blah... save it for some other site like Dem Underground.

Enjoy the next four to eight years. You are about to get a lesson in true conservatism and American exceptionalism.


89 posted on 01/15/2017 11:15:13 AM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: Navin Johnson

Ok. If you take away medicare and medicaid from the poor, WHAT is your plan for them?

Medicine is different from basically EVERY other service because if you dont get it you will get sick, get others sick and we will ALL eventually die (unless you remove the sick and dying by force).

Our only other option then is to kill them. If not that, then WHAT is your plan?

“Enjoy the next four to eight years. You are about to get a lesson in true conservatism and American exceptionalism.”

I am looking forward to it. But there is no getting around needing to keep our populating from being diseased. Even the dumb, lazy and crazy. It’s nature and the free market does not automatically address that issue


90 posted on 01/15/2017 11:48:15 AM PST by varyouga
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To: MIA_eccl1212

It’s NOT a question of being someone’s “keeper” or figuring out who is too lazy to work.

Medicine is DIFFERENT from any other service because if you dont provide it to people who don’t have it, we ALL get sick from the dying suffering people littering and spewing diseases in the street once they get evicted for being too sick to be paying rent. Even diseases that are not contagious eventually weaken and turn these people into disease vectors.

You HAVE to either treat these people or remove them into camps/prisons. There is no other option IMO. But I am all ears if you have one


91 posted on 01/15/2017 12:26:25 PM PST by varyouga
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To: Navin Johnson

“Enjoy the next four to eight years. You are about to get a lesson in true conservatism”

Except Donald Trump doesn’t share your sadistic delusions.


92 posted on 01/15/2017 12:32:13 PM PST by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: Navin Johnson

And you cant deny the market system is broken when we have people doing needed jobs 60+ hours a week and can’t afford basic food and shelter.

Someone has to do these jobs and they should not be lacking basic life necessities for doing them.

Guaranteed minimum income is coming due to how many jobs will be lost from intelligent machines. Either that or you put people that cant survive the market into camps


93 posted on 01/15/2017 12:35:11 PM PST by varyouga
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To: JeepersFreepers

Therefore the 50% most healthy only cost 3% of total health care expenditures.

They probably keep themselves fit and healthy, because they intend to work and support their families. And they view a healthy lifestyle, and support of their families for its own worth.

I wonder what is the national cost of lifestyle caused diseases and treatment. Smoking, drinking, drugging, obesity from zero exercise?

IOW some people are sick because they did it to themselves.


94 posted on 01/15/2017 12:41:56 PM PST by truth_seeker
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To: JeepersFreepers

Therefore the 50% most healthy only cost 3% of total health care expenditures.

They probably keep themselves fit and healthy, because they intend to work and support their families. And they view a healthy lifestyle, and support of their families for its own worth.

I wonder what is the national cost of lifestyle caused diseases and treatment. Smoking, drinking, drugging, obesity from zero exercise?

IOW some people are sick because they did it to themselves.


95 posted on 01/15/2017 12:42:06 PM PST by truth_seeker
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To: anton

“If you are too stupid to sign a DNR form at the hospital when you have stage 4 lung cancer, on dialysis, and certain to die without ever recovering from your surgery, please don’t expect me to pay the $500,000 that your last 30 days costs as the doctors try to keep you alive.
If your baby is born with an addiction because you are a heroin or crack user, it will cost someone $300,000 to $500,000 in pre and post natal care. Don’t expect me to pay for it.”

Yes it’s horrible. But WHAT is your alternative?

Euthanize people as soon as their money runs out?

Kick them into the street and force everyone to dodge vomit, blood and feces as they all die?

Put them into prisons and let them die in a cage?

WHAT?? SOMEONE please give a solution besides “in not paying for those bums”. They dont disapear if you simply stop paying


96 posted on 01/15/2017 1:35:37 PM PST by varyouga
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To: truth_seeker

“I wonder what is the national cost of lifestyle caused diseases and treatment. Smoking, drinking, drugging, obesity from zero exercise? IOW some people are sick because they did it to themselves.”

The best free market solution: Euthanize and cremate everyone that “did it to themselves”. They deserve it and wont be a drain on the productive

/s


97 posted on 01/15/2017 1:44:13 PM PST by varyouga
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To: steve86

Uh, who are you? Your bio says it is not even you. Take your liberal garbage elsewhere.


98 posted on 01/16/2017 3:09:13 PM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: varyouga

Like I already told you... save your pious rant for Dem Underground.


99 posted on 01/16/2017 3:12:25 PM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: Navin Johnson

That’s not a solution. What is your answer to the problem?


100 posted on 01/16/2017 3:25:39 PM PST by varyouga
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