08-25-2009, 10:59 PM
This has got to be one of the biggest threads I have ever seen on the Lounge before. I followed the first three pages then grew tired of the dialog, but trying to catch up now is difficult when my four kids have just entered school this week. I have a few things I'd like to add but am not sure if they have already been mentioned before. Basically, here is my prediction:
Obama's "Plan America" health care reform plan [narrowly] passes both parties. It goes mainstream within a year of being passed. Several uninsured jump onto the plan immediately. Scared of the competition and cheaper costs, Private Insurers raise their rates. More people begin to overlook the "socialist" aspect of the Plan America and convert because of the rising costs of PI. The more people that convert, the more the PI companies have to "downsize" to stay afloat, eventually breaking down into smaller entities that offer comparable services on a local level only - good luck if your out of state and need surgery. Eventually after a decade or so, Plan America becomes THE health care provider for all of Americans with people getting local PI's only when they can't afford Plan America.
As for socialist health care being cheaper in other countries - it won't happen here! The insurance companies get huge payouts from drug companies to carry and offer specific brands that you cannot get in most places. To carry these expensive drugs and offer the same coverage, Plan America will have to be the more expensive socialist health care provider in the world, not to mention the doctors who will get completely screwed over if offered a flat rate compared to what they make now... They simply will not work unless paid a certain premium of what they get now, almost guaranteeing Plan America will be expensive to have, if not an outright failure. Is your doctor part of a union right now? Probably not, but he will be soon.
This isn't so much a problem of "socialist health care is cheaper than private insurers" to me, but more of, "if we pay a comparable rate to what is given now, a socialist system will go bankrupt." How exactly is Obama's plan going to compensate for all this costs? I've seen his re-re-re-revised plan, heard is rhetoric, and I for one and still not convinced that we [Americans] will be better off and paying less in the long run than if we had stayed course.
Just my 2-cents; I'll forward it to my health-care provider.
Obama's "Plan America" health care reform plan [narrowly] passes both parties. It goes mainstream within a year of being passed. Several uninsured jump onto the plan immediately. Scared of the competition and cheaper costs, Private Insurers raise their rates. More people begin to overlook the "socialist" aspect of the Plan America and convert because of the rising costs of PI. The more people that convert, the more the PI companies have to "downsize" to stay afloat, eventually breaking down into smaller entities that offer comparable services on a local level only - good luck if your out of state and need surgery. Eventually after a decade or so, Plan America becomes THE health care provider for all of Americans with people getting local PI's only when they can't afford Plan America.
As for socialist health care being cheaper in other countries - it won't happen here! The insurance companies get huge payouts from drug companies to carry and offer specific brands that you cannot get in most places. To carry these expensive drugs and offer the same coverage, Plan America will have to be the more expensive socialist health care provider in the world, not to mention the doctors who will get completely screwed over if offered a flat rate compared to what they make now... They simply will not work unless paid a certain premium of what they get now, almost guaranteeing Plan America will be expensive to have, if not an outright failure. Is your doctor part of a union right now? Probably not, but he will be soon.
This isn't so much a problem of "socialist health care is cheaper than private insurers" to me, but more of, "if we pay a comparable rate to what is given now, a socialist system will go bankrupt." How exactly is Obama's plan going to compensate for all this costs? I've seen his re-re-re-revised plan, heard is rhetoric, and I for one and still not convinced that we [Americans] will be better off and paying less in the long run than if we had stayed course.
Just my 2-cents; I'll forward it to my health-care provider.
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin