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These are still mere tweaks of our huge, costly, burdensome health-care system, but everything helps.
The present medicare/medicaid monster will always be with us. its a political reality.
The option at this point is to allow some kind of free, simple and unregulated (a word which even scares some so-called conservatives) cash system to develop alongside it.
Trump is not only erasing Obama's errors, he is now starting on FDR's.
Onward to Woodrow Wilson's Income Tax fiasco!
Four More Years.
great step in the right direction
Good first steps. Now we need...
> A fully competitive prescription drug marketplace.
> Transparent pricing for all medical services (if somebody can go to jail for screwing with the charges on your auto repairs, so much more so for padding a bill for your medical treatment). This pricing and estimate needs to be provided to you BEFORE anything can be charged and violations for undisclosed and unauthorized charges should be SEVERE.
> Level pricing for services by each individual doctor’s office and hospital — no more with the checking the insurance and the clients history to see what ‘could be’ afforded and charging that; everyone at that doctor’s office pays the same rate for a physical, same rate for blood work, and the hospital you stay charges each patient the same price for the overnight stay. And that would get rid of the $400 for two asprins BS that people with “good” insurance get charged now, while medicare patients get charged $8 (or the max medicare reimbursement for asprin).
The HSA or HRA account which are similar would be major steps forward to lower the cost of healthcare.
My wife and I have had an HSA account for 15-20 years now, we have accumulated over $50,000 in the account tax free and tax free from any interest it earns.
We combine that with a high deductible policy and pay under $700/month for insurance, the deductible is $5000 but you can pay that out of the HSA account.
5 years ago I had hip replacement surgery and paid the $5000 deductible and never saw another bill.
I also take on prescription for blood pressure and pay $5/month because of the drug price my insurance company has negotiated..
Plus, if you leave your current job or get laid off, you can keep your insurance
I am of the opinion that by changing the health insurance market to a model that has employers contribute pre-tax dollars to an employee purchased insurance from an national and/or state market, would be the better way to go.
Nice idea!
Clark Howard (consumer affairs talk show host) has been saying that for years.
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
From John Mackey 2009
https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/john-mackeys-blog/health-care-reform-full-article
The menace is that if such an organization attempts in any way to exert influence over election of government officials or their policies when elected, the organization's contributions will no longer be non-taxable.
What I say is to decertify the whole scheme of exemptions for charitable contributions. Tax and be damned, and let the do-gooders be not hushed up. Let them say whatever they want from pulpits or charity boards to expose the subterfuges of candidates and the bruising and evil enactments they would inflict on the citizenry. Let their support be derived from willing contributors who see a clear voice crying for and getting decency and transparency.
Tax exemptions are the tool that government uses to stifle and silence public morality.
“Socialism is Slavery”
I would like this to become an ubiquitous saying. Not only is it true, but it is almost self-evident. Look at Venezuela. To say that the fruits of my/your labor do not belong to the one who did the labor is ludicrous. But that is exactly what socialism does.
And that is the central lie of progressivism: the government can give you whatever you want. Because if someone else has it, then the government taking it away to re-distribute is obviously “the right thing to do”.
Socialism is Slavery
One major change in healthcare MUST be bringing the manufacture of our medications back into the USA where we know the FDA inspects them and we know what’s in them.
“...In truth, generic drugs are far from identical to their brand name counterparts. For one thing, brand name manufacturers do not hand over the recipe for making their medications. Generic drug companies have to reverse engineer products they want to copy. They often use different “excipients.” Those are the fillers, binders and coloring agents that hold the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) together in the pills or capsules...”
In Brazil, they have two health care systems; a government-run one, and a private one.
When we were there, we were told not to use the government health care system. It’s free, yes, but, as my dad told me so many years ago about “free” stuff, “You get what you pay for.”
YES!!! When you think you're not paying, you don't care what it costs. Econ 101.
BFL