Posted on 11/12/2008 10:20:38 AM PST by BGHater
President-elect Barack Obama's plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system would cost the federal government $75 billion but would provide health insurance for 95 percent of Americans, consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Wednesday.
This works out to about $2,500 per newly insured person, the firm said in a report.
"The plan would increase to $1 trillion cumulatively by 2018 or approximately $130 billion per year," the report said.
While the plan would extend health insurance to two-thirds of the 47 million people who currently lack it, the overhaul may worsen some problems, such as a shortage of primary care doctors, the analysis found.
"Unless costs are cut, growing health care costs will increase the costs of Obama's plan dramatically over time and reduce the effectiveness of mandates. This could make the federal costs unsustainably high," the report read.
"Because of the deficit and financial crisis, there's unlikely to be any new federal money available, so health reform may require reallocation of dollars already in the health system."
But some of the money could be recovered from payouts made to hospitals that care for the uninsured, the analysis found. It found that $25 billion, or about a third of the cost of Obama's plan, could come from existing payments to hospitals for uncompensated care.
"Obama's proposal is likely to increase revenues but lower margins for providers, pharmaceutical companies and health plans that increasingly depend on government payment," the report read.
Some people have suggested that dealing with the global financial crisis outweighed the need for immediate health care reform, but PriceWaterhouseCoopers said they were not mutually exclusive. For instance, health reforms could spark new mergers and acquisitions, it said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Crazy to even be thinking about it isn’t it? But how else are the idiots going to learn that government is not the answer?
Obama claims on his website that you will get up to $2500 to put toward your insurance costs.
Do the math. Now what does this mean for the 30 million who do have any insurance? does Obama pay ALL their insurance. Must be so. So do that math as well
LMAO I was wondering when someone was going to bring that up.
Dp the math?
Ma and Pa Kettle did this long ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-AG_9YBa_o
A very funny video and now timely again
An absolute snip at today's prices, I'd say.
If we're going to blow huge amounts of dough, we might as well blow it on peoples' health. Besides, the money may not last much longer. It will only go to some banker or hedge fund manager if we don't spend it.
We might as well party as if it's 1999.
We are in the realm of the surreal. My wife will turn 62 in 10 days. I just turned 61. There are millions of Americans on the cusp of what used to be known as “retirement age”. Very soon now these people are going to start collecting SS checks, applying for Medicare benefits and getting on the drug entitlement program. And now our rulers want to add some form of universal (or near universal) health insurance to the mix. Not to mention universal (or near universal) daycare, tuition subsidies for all, new voluntary (i.e. - involuntary) public service programs which will employ millions, tax cuts for 95% of the citizenry whether they pay taxes or not, global poverty programs to spread the wealth, etc. All this and bailouts of various and sundry failed industries to the tune of X trillions of dollars.
I guess it can be done. Just print the money and the heck with the consquences (all that matters is the next election anyway).
Makes me want to cuss.......
That is the part which worries me most. We basically lost this and a host of other issues (in the public eye) as soon as the largest volley of corporate welfare went flying. People were given the shock treatment of seeing “trillions” as a common number in the news - hundreds of billions to this bank, trillions here, and now hundreds of more billions to the automakers. How successful are we going to be in trying to raise alarms over mere tens of billions spent on “providing poor people with health coverage”? If perception really is reality, bend over and lube up.
Obama has been handed almost every ingredient necessary to destroy America. All of the precursors for a socialist reinvention of the nation (from expanded executive powers and down) were stupidly put in place because of immature impulses to “solve” temporary problems. We got screwed by pragmatism, high-spending, and governing to the center, like always.
The cruelest twist will be the Main Street GOPers (who the establishment fought the most for) giving “bipartisan” legitimacy to the whole mess.
LOL
Thats a rather gloomy plan. Bring down the welfare state by overusing it? Heck, illegals can do that for us, that’s a pretty slow process.
I agree. I believe that the bail outs should go to small business’ since they employ 90% of our work force. I don’t agree with the bail outs but if they are going to do it, give it to small business.
That’s exatly right. People are used to thse big numbers and don’t bother to think things through. The sheeple hear we spend $12B/mo in Iraq and figure they can get health care for just a few months of the WOT.
A few billion here, a few billion there...after a while it adds up to real money and we get stuck with the bill.
So much for that idea! Why don't we just eliminate the insurance companies and make health care free for everyone?
You should have seen the look on the grocery clerks face when I inquired about which dog food tastes best.
Don’t kid yourselves. We aren’t going to get anything near “universal” health care.
It would tax a massive tax restructuring, government forcing the merger of all health insurance providers into one single nation wide provider, to which each and every working person would pay directly off their paychecks on a sliding scale from 20-70% over their pay.
Then the government would have to regulate fee caps for what hospitals and docs can charge for the list of services covered.
The insurance company would have to fund each and every state via transfer payment to maintain their alloted amount of hospitals, administration based on population size. (the insurer in Canada is the fed government)
As I mentioned above, this costs the average working Canadian $20k on a 60k/yr salary. The basic health care in canada does not cover dental care, eye care and glasses, foot care, chiropractic care, medical devices such as canes crutches, it doesn’t cover medications, or physiotherapy after a serious injury or operation. It DOES cover major surgery of most any kind, if you don’t die waiting for it.
This costs the Canadian government 6 trillion/yr for 30 million people for every single person to be covered with “univeral’ health care. Of course most of that cost is for people who don’t pay a dime towards it, and live on welfare/disability as well.
The taxpayer, rarely if ever uses the health care system, except for maybe a yearly check up, a yearly pap smear and breast xray every 5 years. Males over 45 get a yearly check up and a bonus, for being over 45, a prostrate exam.
If the USA was to have a truly universal health care, The Canadian model is the cheapest, and best of all systems. Europeon countries have varying combination’s of private and public health care systems, 2 tier systems.
It would cost us a whopping 60 trillion a year for the most basic health care. But everyone would be covered.
Then the government, as does the Canadian government, would be very careful of illegals trying to get free care. It is a costly service that very quickly eats up bare bone budgets in each province.
Mark my words. Part of Hillary finally pulling out of the nomination was that she would be made the defacto “Universal Healthcare Czar” in congress to implement Obama and her plans for the US healthcare industry.
I'm waiting for him to give me new eyes, new hands, new feet, new back, and while he's at it a face lift!
Of course there is much more to consider, such as a single insurer system would be devastating to the insurance industry in the USA, and toss hundreds of thousands out of jobs directly and indirectly associated with it. Medical suppliers/service industries would be severely impacted, and of course hospital staff levels, the number of hospitals and the number of doctors they can employ.
Street bums prefer cat food. More meat stuff. Canned dog food is rendering plant output, and contains road kill, and all the rotted meat waste animal parts from packing plants.
Of course cat food contains that stuff too, but they get more chunks of meat.
Or you can eat Homel’s spam, looks and tastes the same. comes from the same plant too.
“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.” Sen. Everett Dirksen R-Il, back in the day when your state sent real statesmen to the U.S. Senate, not Saul Alinsky-trained community agitators.
I read an article the other day about the French nationalized health care plan that budgeted about 3,000 a year per person but real expenses were running about twice that. $2,500 per person is totally unrealistic. It is just an opening bid to get control of the health care system.
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