Single-payer must really be done at the national level. So, let’s create a plan to initiate single-payer health care with tax reform for funding.
<
p>I would suggest the following approach (would welcome competing ideas).
<
p>1. Strengthen current health care reform initiatives to control costs, as this is required for any plan.
<
p>2. Source health care funding through federal government (primary) and a combination (secondary) of individual premiums and co-pays, and totally eliminate costs from businesses (and States and local governments).
<
p>3. Major reforms to Federal Tax code:
a) Institute a national sales tax of 15% (17.5% if Social Security funding reform is included), but with basic reimbursements to make the tax semi-progressive (about $3,000 per year per couple, with adjustments for greater/lesser family size).
b) Modify income tax to eliminate most deductions, but provide a standard deduction of $100K per couple (again adjusted for family size) and tax rates above $100K starting at 20% and increasing in increments of 5% for every $50K of income up to a maximum marginal rate of 40%.
c) Eliminate Medicare tax on both individuals and businesses.
<
p>4. Individual premiums of $100 per month (scaled down as income drops so that the premium never exceeds 5% of income) and co-pays also adjusted for income level.
<
p>5. If adding Social Security, use extra sales tax (2.5%) to provide employer component of the tax, while modifying employee portion to 6%, but for all income levels.
<
p>This type of approach should be a big step in leveling the playing field for US based businesses that are currenly at a disadvantage to foreign competition due to the burdens of health care costs and social security and Medicare taxes. Just look at how much the State would save by not funding health care (maybe enough to do away with the State sales tax), and the cities and towns would be relieved of a great cost burden. We individuals would pay through our sales tax, but even that would be made somewhat progressive, and we should get further relief by a more sensible income tax code.
Pretty much the whole thing seemed terrible to me…
<
p>Replacing progressive taxes for national sales taxes is a nonstarter, as is pushing people into individual care they have to buy themselves on the private market. Maybe I should have just dropped a 3 or something… but I wanted to register my complaint, not debate the merits of a terrible idea.
christophersays
You are usually a lot better at making your case than this, though you do also sometimes fall into the trap of finding it absolutely absurd that someone could possibly have a different opinion than you do. I gave the original comment a 5 because I felt the commenter had put some thought into a possible solution, without wanting to commit to supporting it. You also shouldn’t IMO drop 3s just for disagreement. You should explain why sales taxes and individual care are non-starters for you. I suspect I come closer to agreeing with you than JoeS, but to just say its terrible or catastrophic without elaborating has the feel of a hit and run.
p>But, no, I’m not going to always debate the merits of a terrible idea. I will if it’s not obvious that it’s a terrible idea, but I thought in this case it was pretty obvious. As I said, a national sales tax and forcing people onto the individual market is a nonstarter. Do we need to rehash why those things are the case every time they come up? That’s a waste of my time. If someone thinks a national sales tax and forcing people onto an individual market is a good idea for the rank and file citizen of this country, me trying to convince them otherwise would be like talking to a brick wall. They’re on the wrong _MG.
stomvsays
A differently-winged comes in and in a few sentences (or less) proposes conservative policy, and then a local is expected to write paragraph upon paragraph dissecting it.
<
p>Every portion of his proposal is out of the Republican playbook. There is very little in the Republican playbook that I consider to be a good idea. Isn’t that enough?
centralmassdadsays
I happen to think you guys are wrong, and that your party missed an opportunity to take a shot at cost control by dismissing things out of hand.
<
p>Health insurance is heavily subsidized through tax policy; employer contributions, the benefit is tax deductible for the employer and tax-free for the employee. Subsidized things become artificially expensive: see the cost of a semester at college, the rent for an apartment in NYC, etc. Eliminate the tax subsidy, you eliminate a significant factor driving expense.
<
p>If the employer and employee don’t get tax benefits through employer-provided health insurance, then why should the employer provide the insurance at all? Pay people a wage/salary, and let them buy what they want.
<
p>Then, the consumer of the product might be able to be the one making the purchasing decision, so that the seller of the service actually has incentive to minimize cost and maximize service.
stomvsays
I’m not arguing that the Democratic Party should or shouldn’t respond to stuff like that; I’m arguing that it gets tiresome to invest a lot of effort to respond to a much smaller question.
<
p>I have no idea what cost control measures were put in the health care bill. Required enrollment does seem to be a cost control measure in that it prevents free riders from jumping on just when they get that costly disease. The Dems also made moves IIRC about preventative care, which I suspect also is a cost reduction in the long run. Health care is far from any area of expertise I might have, so I’ll stop there with the speculating.
<
p>
<
p>As for why are insurance and jobs still connected… part of the reason is that there is a huge cost in time and effort to choose a plan, and there’s negotiation and enrollment costs. As a result, it ends up being cheaper for the purchasing of health care if it’s done in a big group (an employer) rather than scattered in ones and twos and families. I think that if there is a push to de-link employment with health care, the first step is to require insurance companies to charge individuals the same as the “company rate”.
<
p>Finally,
Then, the consumer of the product might be able to be the one making the purchasing decision, so that the seller of the service actually has incentive to minimize cost and maximize service.
<
p>This doesn’t make any sense to me. The head of HR likely has the company insurance, as does upper management. Don’t they as individuals have an incentive to push for maximum service? Don’t the managers, as managers, have an incentive to push for lower costs? Why would this be any different than with individuals who, I might add, are less likely to be savvy with health care choices and regulations or with major purchasing decisions as might be an HR manager or a more general bean counter?
centralmassdadsays
Well, yes, de-linking requires allowing individuals into the pools; that is the essence of required enrollment.
<
p>I don’t think that consumer pressure works like that. The employer wants minimal cost and paperwork. They answer to the demands of the multitude– which in my experience is a demand for the cheapest HMO that can be found. People who don’t want the cheapest HMO usually get a higher-tier plan from the same provider. If that person could get a cheaper plan from an alternative provider, tough crap. The employer has chosen.
<
p>It would be like your employer buys you a car, with your money. It is going to contribute $X and get a tax break, woohoo. You pay the difference, whatever it be. The employer has very little incentive to buy what you want, or to get the best deal.
stomvsays
The employer wants minimal cost and paperwork.
<
p>If this were true, then we’d see every employer offer the cheapest (and least papery) health plan. But they don’t do that. There’s a wide variety of coverage offered in plans by different employers. Two reasons I think:
1. depending on your industry, you can’t get great people without offering good health care plans
2. the upper level employees who have influence over the choice also want a good health care plan for their own families.
centralmassdadsays
I see a wide variety of plans from the same provider. What if a different provider offers better coverage for less? Too bad.
<
p>It is interesting how the employer shifts from greedy exploiter in other contexts to advocate on employees’ behalf in this. I see no reason why I need any such advocacy; I chose a car insurance company and a life insurance policy–I can choose my own health plan too.
<
p>Indeed, your points 1 and 2 illustrate how these things are an element of compensation, and might as well be paid as compensation. Why are they valuable in this way? Because I am not allowed to shop on my own, at least not in a cost effective manner, so I have to be grateful for what I get. And, as a little grease to the employer, they get to deduct their contribution. In essence, my employer buys me a $5 car for $15, makes me pay part of the $15, gets a tax deduction for its share, and expects me to think that this is super. That is an excellent deal for everyone but me.
christophersays
Just one paragraph of rebuttal still would have been a lot better than simply saying it’s terrible or catastrophic with zero explanation.
joessays
Maybe I wasn’t sufficiently clear in describing the proposed plan.
<
p>First of all, the premise for health care costs are that it would be primarily paid for by the federal government by tax revenue. It would be single-payer (the federal government), but would require an individual premium payment very similar to the Medicare Part B premium that exists today.
<
p>Secondly, it is progressive in several ways. It is part of a hybrid system, where the income tax portion of that hybrid starts at incomes above $100K. The sales tax is partially progressive, in that the plan includes a rebate to reflect the sales tax on the first $20,000 of spending. The premiums and co-pays are on a schedule that ramps to zero as income drops to zero. And finally, the social security tax is reduced in rate, but expanded to all incomes, and the Medicare tax is zeroed.
<
p>Although the sales tax increase the cost of consumption, the elimination of the health care, social security and Medicare from the US workforce costs should mitigate the increase in prices.
<
p>And those elusive US jobs should make a comeback.
<
p>It is too bad so many people are so driven by ideology that they cannot consider other options.
kirthsays
Single-payer must really be done at the national level.
Why? Canada’s system began in one province. Are you arguing another instance of American (US) exceptionalism?
joessays
But when we go it “alone” for funding we run into problems, like the increase in sales tax drove more people to buy out of state. And similar negative effects if we try other sources of funding.
<
p>At the national level our competition is overseas, and by shifting the burden to sales instead of labor we improve our position there.
kirthsays
…the increase in sales tax drove more people to buy out of state.
Please give evidence of that.
johndsays
Is it the meds? The DRs? The hospitals? The tests? Where exactly is healthcare costs increases in the last 10 years coming from?
<
p>We keep concentrating on this problem by focusing on the symptoms and not the underlying problem. Single payer does not fix this issue? Removing the 3% profit by Insurance companies does not fix this problem.
johnt001says
Please take a look at this:
<
p>
Medicare, the publicly managed plan for the elderly in the United States, spends 5 percent of each health care dollar on administrative expenses, compared with the 17 percent devoured by private insurers on average. This is because private companies spend more on marketing, often pay exorbitant salaries to executives, and take a cut of each health care dollar for profits and company reserves.
Countries with a public insurance plan for the population immediately save over 10 percent on every health care dollar by cutting out private insurance overhead.
p>Kindly show me a source for your claim that insurance companies take a 3% profit, John. I doubt you have one, other than your fevered imagination…
ward3demsays
Massachusetts has one of the most regulated health insurance markets in the Nation and plan’s profits are at or near 11% and some time better.
johnt001says
Please read the entire article at the link I provided – it gives a very good explanation as to where the massive increases in costs are coming from, and how a single payer system helps to keep those costs down.
Yeah, insurance companies may not rake in a ton of profits, but that’s very different from being a great big cost. Focusing on their profits is actually a straw man. The question is do they deliver a good service for the cost? Medicare is infinitely more efficient than private health care companies, so the answer is no. Roughly 20% of the money we give to health insurance companies may as well be flushed down the toilet, for the good it does premium holders, because of inefficiencies. That brings us a long way toward getting health care costs under control.
Governor Deval Patrick approved a record $9.6 billion last July for the state’s health insurance program for the poor – sufficient, he assumed, to last a year. But the program’s costs quickly outpaced expectations, forcing the governor to approve an additional $329 million in October and then seek $258 million more, which lawmakers approved last week.
And even that may not last, with six months remaining in the budget year.
The ballooning cost of Medicaid is one of the biggest challenges facing Massachusetts and other states, which have seen demand for the program jump during the recession as increasing numbers of unemployed residents enroll in the subsidized insurance plan.
theloquaciousliberalsays
It’s true that Medicaid’s administrative costs are relatively low (compared to private insurance). And, yet, the cost of the program continues to rise. Why, you ask?
<
p>#1. Enrollment growth is the leading reason. Between the recession and state “health reform”, hundreds of thousands of people are newly enrolled. See: http://www.massmedicaid.org/~/…
<
p>#2. Increasing cost of providing care. Though Mediciad pays way below cost (shifting even higher premium costs to the privately insured), it still must adjust its rates to pay for an increasing number of services performed for its enrollees. The same “medical cost growth” we see in the private insurance market.
<
p>#3. Few efforts to control rising medical claims. Not enough “managed care” (see Senior Care Options program for the exeption to the rule), no use of “limited networks” and related other efforts to steer people away from expensive teaching hospitals, and too few moves away from the fee-for-service system that incentivize growing volume.
johndsays
which some here want to ignore… we have a problem with the “costs of healthcare”. For some reason, many people during the 2010 and even here today want to focus their ire and attention on the “evil bloodsucking” insurance companies and I am trying to say we have a problem with the actual costs of caring for people, the bills themselves and not Blue Cross…
<
p>Multiply this by 50 and think of the staggering costs.
a lot less severe if we had single payer or something similar to it. That extra 5-10% we’re paying as a country (for a worse quality of care) than most other developed countries means we’re a couple decades closer to having our entire health care system fall apart, perhaps taking the country’s finances with it. That’s a lot of time to buy to find the solutions necessary to address the areas of health care expenses we don’t have solutions for yet.
<
p>The thing about problems is you don’t always have to solve them all at once. If we solve what we can, now, though, we’ll be in much better shape to solve everything else when we know how to address it.
p>I heard an interesting comment a few years ago from a health care expert. His comment basically was that health care is very expensive but the results are amazing. We all realize that the costs are out of control – but would you be willing to accept the health care technology of 2000 to have the rates you paid it 2000.
<
p>
john-from-lowellsays
medfieldbluebobsays
<
p>
The ballooning cost of Medicaid is one of the biggest challenges facing Massachusetts and other states, which have seen demand for the program jump during the recession as increasing numbers of unemployed residents enroll in the subsidized insurance plan.
<
p>If Republicans cared as much about JOBS, JOBS, JOBS as they about quoting the bible as science, we’d take care of this little unemployment problem.
johndsays
but I did read it.
<
p>How would Republicans take care of this unemployment problem? Is there an “easy” button that I missed?
john-from-lowellsays
I’m now buying insurance for my family direct from Fallon. I’m not really clear how our rate is set. Maybe we are benefitting from some form of “aggregate” or group rate. I don’t know. I do know it is A LOT.
<
p>The market driven costs are draining our ability to provide necessities. In the working class, a reliable car(s) is critical. Work and home for both of is separated by 20+ miles. I’m paying now for health insurance, what I could pay for two, mostly new, cars each month.
<
p>Using a car every day, I can justify the cost. But using my health insurance less than once per month for all 4 of us, makes me cringe at the outlay of wealth.
Single-payer must really be done at the national level. So, let’s create a plan to initiate single-payer health care with tax reform for funding.
<
p>I would suggest the following approach (would welcome competing ideas).
<
p>1. Strengthen current health care reform initiatives to control costs, as this is required for any plan.
<
p>2. Source health care funding through federal government (primary) and a combination (secondary) of individual premiums and co-pays, and totally eliminate costs from businesses (and States and local governments).
<
p>3. Major reforms to Federal Tax code:
a) Institute a national sales tax of 15% (17.5% if Social Security funding reform is included), but with basic reimbursements to make the tax semi-progressive (about $3,000 per year per couple, with adjustments for greater/lesser family size).
b) Modify income tax to eliminate most deductions, but provide a standard deduction of $100K per couple (again adjusted for family size) and tax rates above $100K starting at 20% and increasing in increments of 5% for every $50K of income up to a maximum marginal rate of 40%.
c) Eliminate Medicare tax on both individuals and businesses.
<
p>4. Individual premiums of $100 per month (scaled down as income drops so that the premium never exceeds 5% of income) and co-pays also adjusted for income level.
<
p>5. If adding Social Security, use extra sales tax (2.5%) to provide employer component of the tax, while modifying employee portion to 6%, but for all income levels.
<
p>This type of approach should be a big step in leveling the playing field for US based businesses that are currenly at a disadvantage to foreign competition due to the burdens of health care costs and social security and Medicare taxes. Just look at how much the State would save by not funding health care (maybe enough to do away with the State sales tax), and the cities and towns would be relieved of a great cost burden. We individuals would pay through our sales tax, but even that would be made somewhat progressive, and we should get further relief by a more sensible income tax code.
C a t o s t r o p h i c for the American people.
…why you think it is catastrophic/terrible idea.
Pretty much the whole thing seemed terrible to me…
<
p>Replacing progressive taxes for national sales taxes is a nonstarter, as is pushing people into individual care they have to buy themselves on the private market. Maybe I should have just dropped a 3 or something… but I wanted to register my complaint, not debate the merits of a terrible idea.
You are usually a lot better at making your case than this, though you do also sometimes fall into the trap of finding it absolutely absurd that someone could possibly have a different opinion than you do. I gave the original comment a 5 because I felt the commenter had put some thought into a possible solution, without wanting to commit to supporting it. You also shouldn’t IMO drop 3s just for disagreement. You should explain why sales taxes and individual care are non-starters for you. I suspect I come closer to agreeing with you than JoeS, but to just say its terrible or catastrophic without elaborating has the feel of a hit and run.
I meant to say 4 (as in Needs Work).
<
p>But, no, I’m not going to always debate the merits of a terrible idea. I will if it’s not obvious that it’s a terrible idea, but I thought in this case it was pretty obvious. As I said, a national sales tax and forcing people onto the individual market is a nonstarter. Do we need to rehash why those things are the case every time they come up? That’s a waste of my time. If someone thinks a national sales tax and forcing people onto an individual market is a good idea for the rank and file citizen of this country, me trying to convince them otherwise would be like talking to a brick wall. They’re on the wrong _MG.
A differently-winged comes in and in a few sentences (or less) proposes conservative policy, and then a local is expected to write paragraph upon paragraph dissecting it.
<
p>Every portion of his proposal is out of the Republican playbook. There is very little in the Republican playbook that I consider to be a good idea. Isn’t that enough?
I happen to think you guys are wrong, and that your party missed an opportunity to take a shot at cost control by dismissing things out of hand.
<
p>Health insurance is heavily subsidized through tax policy; employer contributions, the benefit is tax deductible for the employer and tax-free for the employee. Subsidized things become artificially expensive: see the cost of a semester at college, the rent for an apartment in NYC, etc. Eliminate the tax subsidy, you eliminate a significant factor driving expense.
<
p>If the employer and employee don’t get tax benefits through employer-provided health insurance, then why should the employer provide the insurance at all? Pay people a wage/salary, and let them buy what they want.
<
p>Then, the consumer of the product might be able to be the one making the purchasing decision, so that the seller of the service actually has incentive to minimize cost and maximize service.
I’m not arguing that the Democratic Party should or shouldn’t respond to stuff like that; I’m arguing that it gets tiresome to invest a lot of effort to respond to a much smaller question.
<
p>I have no idea what cost control measures were put in the health care bill. Required enrollment does seem to be a cost control measure in that it prevents free riders from jumping on just when they get that costly disease. The Dems also made moves IIRC about preventative care, which I suspect also is a cost reduction in the long run. Health care is far from any area of expertise I might have, so I’ll stop there with the speculating.
<
p>
<
p>As for why are insurance and jobs still connected… part of the reason is that there is a huge cost in time and effort to choose a plan, and there’s negotiation and enrollment costs. As a result, it ends up being cheaper for the purchasing of health care if it’s done in a big group (an employer) rather than scattered in ones and twos and families. I think that if there is a push to de-link employment with health care, the first step is to require insurance companies to charge individuals the same as the “company rate”.
<
p>Finally,
<
p>This doesn’t make any sense to me. The head of HR likely has the company insurance, as does upper management. Don’t they as individuals have an incentive to push for maximum service? Don’t the managers, as managers, have an incentive to push for lower costs? Why would this be any different than with individuals who, I might add, are less likely to be savvy with health care choices and regulations or with major purchasing decisions as might be an HR manager or a more general bean counter?
Well, yes, de-linking requires allowing individuals into the pools; that is the essence of required enrollment.
<
p>I don’t think that consumer pressure works like that. The employer wants minimal cost and paperwork. They answer to the demands of the multitude– which in my experience is a demand for the cheapest HMO that can be found. People who don’t want the cheapest HMO usually get a higher-tier plan from the same provider. If that person could get a cheaper plan from an alternative provider, tough crap. The employer has chosen.
<
p>It would be like your employer buys you a car, with your money. It is going to contribute $X and get a tax break, woohoo. You pay the difference, whatever it be. The employer has very little incentive to buy what you want, or to get the best deal.
<
p>If this were true, then we’d see every employer offer the cheapest (and least papery) health plan. But they don’t do that. There’s a wide variety of coverage offered in plans by different employers. Two reasons I think:
1. depending on your industry, you can’t get great people without offering good health care plans
2. the upper level employees who have influence over the choice also want a good health care plan for their own families.
I see a wide variety of plans from the same provider. What if a different provider offers better coverage for less? Too bad.
<
p>It is interesting how the employer shifts from greedy exploiter in other contexts to advocate on employees’ behalf in this. I see no reason why I need any such advocacy; I chose a car insurance company and a life insurance policy–I can choose my own health plan too.
<
p>Indeed, your points 1 and 2 illustrate how these things are an element of compensation, and might as well be paid as compensation. Why are they valuable in this way? Because I am not allowed to shop on my own, at least not in a cost effective manner, so I have to be grateful for what I get. And, as a little grease to the employer, they get to deduct their contribution. In essence, my employer buys me a $5 car for $15, makes me pay part of the $15, gets a tax deduction for its share, and expects me to think that this is super. That is an excellent deal for everyone but me.
Just one paragraph of rebuttal still would have been a lot better than simply saying it’s terrible or catastrophic with zero explanation.
Maybe I wasn’t sufficiently clear in describing the proposed plan.
<
p>First of all, the premise for health care costs are that it would be primarily paid for by the federal government by tax revenue. It would be single-payer (the federal government), but would require an individual premium payment very similar to the Medicare Part B premium that exists today.
<
p>Secondly, it is progressive in several ways. It is part of a hybrid system, where the income tax portion of that hybrid starts at incomes above $100K. The sales tax is partially progressive, in that the plan includes a rebate to reflect the sales tax on the first $20,000 of spending. The premiums and co-pays are on a schedule that ramps to zero as income drops to zero. And finally, the social security tax is reduced in rate, but expanded to all incomes, and the Medicare tax is zeroed.
<
p>Although the sales tax increase the cost of consumption, the elimination of the health care, social security and Medicare from the US workforce costs should mitigate the increase in prices.
<
p>And those elusive US jobs should make a comeback.
<
p>It is too bad so many people are so driven by ideology that they cannot consider other options.
Why? Canada’s system began in one province. Are you arguing another instance of American (US) exceptionalism?
But when we go it “alone” for funding we run into problems, like the increase in sales tax drove more people to buy out of state. And similar negative effects if we try other sources of funding.
<
p>At the national level our competition is overseas, and by shifting the burden to sales instead of labor we improve our position there.
Please give evidence of that.
Is it the meds? The DRs? The hospitals? The tests? Where exactly is healthcare costs increases in the last 10 years coming from?
<
p>We keep concentrating on this problem by focusing on the symptoms and not the underlying problem. Single payer does not fix this issue? Removing the 3% profit by Insurance companies does not fix this problem.
Please take a look at this:
<
p>
<
p>Source: http://masscare.org/health-car…
<
p>Kindly show me a source for your claim that insurance companies take a 3% profit, John. I doubt you have one, other than your fevered imagination…
Massachusetts has one of the most regulated health insurance markets in the Nation and plan’s profits are at or near 11% and some time better.
Please read the entire article at the link I provided – it gives a very good explanation as to where the massive increases in costs are coming from, and how a single payer system helps to keep those costs down.
Yeah, insurance companies may not rake in a ton of profits, but that’s very different from being a great big cost. Focusing on their profits is actually a straw man. The question is do they deliver a good service for the cost? Medicare is infinitely more efficient than private health care companies, so the answer is no. Roughly 20% of the money we give to health insurance companies may as well be flushed down the toilet, for the good it does premium holders, because of inefficiencies. That brings us a long way toward getting health care costs under control.
From the Globe today…
<
p>
It’s true that Medicaid’s administrative costs are relatively low (compared to private insurance). And, yet, the cost of the program continues to rise. Why, you ask?
<
p>#1. Enrollment growth is the leading reason. Between the recession and state “health reform”, hundreds of thousands of people are newly enrolled. See: http://www.massmedicaid.org/~/…
<
p>#2. Increasing cost of providing care. Though Mediciad pays way below cost (shifting even higher premium costs to the privately insured), it still must adjust its rates to pay for an increasing number of services performed for its enrollees. The same “medical cost growth” we see in the private insurance market.
<
p>#3. Few efforts to control rising medical claims. Not enough “managed care” (see Senior Care Options program for the exeption to the rule), no use of “limited networks” and related other efforts to steer people away from expensive teaching hospitals, and too few moves away from the fee-for-service system that incentivize growing volume.
which some here want to ignore… we have a problem with the “costs of healthcare”. For some reason, many people during the 2010 and even here today want to focus their ire and attention on the “evil bloodsucking” insurance companies and I am trying to say we have a problem with the actual costs of caring for people, the bills themselves and not Blue Cross…
<
p>Multiply this by 50 and think of the staggering costs.
a lot less severe if we had single payer or something similar to it. That extra 5-10% we’re paying as a country (for a worse quality of care) than most other developed countries means we’re a couple decades closer to having our entire health care system fall apart, perhaps taking the country’s finances with it. That’s a lot of time to buy to find the solutions necessary to address the areas of health care expenses we don’t have solutions for yet.
<
p>The thing about problems is you don’t always have to solve them all at once. If we solve what we can, now, though, we’ll be in much better shape to solve everything else when we know how to address it.
“Medicare estimates that about 7.8 percent of the $308 billion it spent in fiscal 2009 was “improper,” a term that encompasses non-criminal waste along with fraud. There is no similar estimate for the private market, Saccoccio said, though his group estimates that about 3 percent of national health spending is lost to fraud every year. National health spending totaled about $2.3 trillion in 2008, according to the most recent estimate from the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
<
p>I heard an interesting comment a few years ago from a health care expert. His comment basically was that health care is very expensive but the results are amazing. We all realize that the costs are out of control – but would you be willing to accept the health care technology of 2000 to have the rates you paid it 2000.
<
p>
<
p>
<
p>If Republicans cared as much about JOBS, JOBS, JOBS as they about quoting the bible as science, we’d take care of this little unemployment problem.
but I did read it.
<
p>How would Republicans take care of this unemployment problem? Is there an “easy” button that I missed?
I’m now buying insurance for my family direct from Fallon. I’m not really clear how our rate is set. Maybe we are benefitting from some form of “aggregate” or group rate. I don’t know. I do know it is A LOT.
<
p>The market driven costs are draining our ability to provide necessities. In the working class, a reliable car(s) is critical. Work and home for both of is separated by 20+ miles. I’m paying now for health insurance, what I could pay for two, mostly new, cars each month.
<
p>Using a car every day, I can justify the cost. But using my health insurance less than once per month for all 4 of us, makes me cringe at the outlay of wealth.
<
p>I’m happy to hear from the Governor about plans to contain costs beyond those of the insurance providers. But let’s simply say, I’m edgey and need more action, now.
Health insurance is heavily subsidized, and therefore gets more expensive. Same phenomenon as college tuition.
And if you add co-pays, 20%.