Why can't the solution just be simply: open Medicare to anyone to buy into?

[Carl]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7593233

begin_within  (1000+ posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 01:29 PM
Original message
Why can't the solution just be simply: open Medicare to anyone to buy into?
   
That could bring billions more into Medicare, making it stronger. It would mean nobody who is happy with their private insurance would have to change anything. It would mean still nobody is forced to buy insurance if they don't want to. It would mean millions of people who are not insured now could buy insurance at a reasonable premium (say $100 per month) and not have to face the threat of financial ruin if they have a large medical bill. Medicare is already set up and popular, so it would be able to take effect quickly. It would put an end to the petty squabbling over this and that in the current bills. Why can't this happen, when it seems like the simplest and most effective way to reduce the number of uninsured people in America?

The GD corner of the island sure has been boring lately so just for a dose of stupid.
Mostly all a bunch of cheering and carrying on as normal but a couple of posts that stood out.

sharesunited (1000+ posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
14. We will need to federalize the licensing of medical professionals in order to do this.
   Edited on Thu Jan-28-10 02:01 PM by sharesunited
With so many new patients on Medicare, you can expect them to be turned away en masse by a majority of practitioners.

The only way to assure them treatment is to impose a requirement on the licenses of medical professionals that they accept Medicare.

Post was ignored.

fmlymninral (28 posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 02:39 PM
Response to Original message
16. you do realize
   that you pay into medicare every month while you work. And for people who have not worked at least 30 quarters the premium for medicare A & B would be about $570 per month, it goes down if they worked between 30 and 40 qtrs to about 360 per month and if worked 40+ qtrs it is 96.40 per month. Part A pays hospital bill minus 1100 deductible per event in a 60 day benefit period so if you had an hospital stay at the beginning of year and at the end of year you pay deductible twice(could pay deductible 4 times). Part B pays doctors and you are responsible for 20%. Medicare does not pay for physicals. Most seniors buy additional insurance to cover these costs. premium is 89-125 dollars a month and go up as we get older.

alc (148 posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 03:10 PM
Response to Original message
17. because of who would buy into it - at least initially
   The fear is that a disproportionate number of people with serious medical needs would buy in since they don't have other options. That would make the cost per person go up which means premiums go up across the board, or doctors reimbursement goes down, or coverage goes down. People on medicare now don't like those options. Doctors & hospitals don't like one of those options.

That's why one of the "medicare for all" options is to create a separate "medicare" pool with different premiums, coverage, doctor's rates, etc. than current medicare.

begin_within  (1000+ posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. Or, the way I look at it is,
   rather bluntly, that Medicare now serves only people over 65, who typically have higher medical costs than younger people. Bringing in millions of people in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s would add a lot of money to Medicare, while those people typically have lower medical costs than people 65 and over. On average anyway. So it would make Medicare stronger and more solvent, by bringing in people who will pay the premium but are likely to have fewer claims. Like me, for example, I rarely have a claim. I'm a net profit for them. Why should the private insurers be able to have me as a customer but Medicare not be able to?

Yet daily the DUmp is filled with screeds about how they would go to seek medical or mental care if only they didn`t have to pay for it.

Juche  (1000+ posts)          Thu Jan-28-10 03:47 PM
Response to Original message
19. They'd need to offer high deductible plans
   Edited on Thu Jan-28-10 03:48 PM by Juche
I'd buy a plan if it had a $2500 or more deductible. The premiums for medicare would be something like $800/month from what I remember hearing.

Post ignored.

On with the cheering.

[IassaFTots]

fmlymninral (28 posts)        Thu Jan-28-10 02:39 PM
Response to Original message
16. you do realize
   that you pay into medicare every month while you work. And for people who have not worked at least 30 quarters the premium for medicare A & B would be about $570 per month, it goes down if they worked between 30 and 40 qtrs to about 360 per month and if worked 40+ qtrs it is 96.40 per month. Part A pays hospital bill minus 1100 deductible per event in a 60 day benefit period so if you had an hospital stay at the beginning of year and at the end of year you pay deductible twice(could pay deductible 4 times). Part B pays doctors and you are responsible for 20%. Medicare does not pay for physicals. Most seniors buy additional insurance to cover these costs. premium is 89-125 dollars a month and go up as we get older.

Wow.  That is just about factual.  Wow.

[DefiantSix]

Wow.  That is just about factual.  Wow.

The n00b must be an early candidate for granite.  I'm sure it's in the Skin's Island Manifesto somewhere: ..."there will be NO intentional clouding of DUmp discussions with factual information".

[Carl]

Wow.  That is just about factual.  Wow.

I have never understood where they get the notion (or at least seem to) that medicare is a complete and total payment for services.

[IassaFTots]

I have never understood where they get the notion (or at least seem to) that medicare is a complete and total payment for services.

Me neither.  Would love to have my Mom enlighten them on a fact or two. Or two thousand.

[Oceander]

I have never understood where they get the notion (or at least seem to) that medicare is a complete and total payment for services.

From simple minds, simple solutions.  Just like the simpletons of old - too dimwitted to make the connection between things that cannot be seen directly with the eyes nor tasted with the mouth (like an infant), so it must be "magic."

[Specbid]

Ok, this well-intentioned DUmmie wants to spend around 100 bucks a month...my seasoned citizen father pays more than that for his Medicare. I pay a similar amount for private insurance. Just for the hell of it, I just checked with BC/BS and they have plans starting at 79 bucks. Now how is that not reasonable?

[BlueStateSaint]

Ok, this well-intentioned DUmmie wants to spend around 100 bucks a month...my seasoned citizen father pays more than that for his Medicare. I pay a similar amount for private insurance. Just for the hell of it, I just checked with BC/BS and they have plans starting at 79 bucks. Now how is that not reasonable?

It's real simple--someone's making money off the policyholder, and it ain't the government.

[Lord Undies]

I have to laugh how every time the Little Goons take off on this subject there is an underlying understanding that doctors and other folks in the medical profession will just roll over and accept their butt invasion with a grain of salt. 

Little Goons, let me say this one more time as simple and easy to understand as possible:  When good doctors cannot make a boatload of money being good doctors, they won't be good doctors anymore.  Understand?

Profit motivation is the key to excellence.  It always has been and it always will be.

That's also why it is hard to find a doctor who doesn't speak English with a heavy accent.  These are excellent doctors who come to the USA because they can make money - EVIL MONEY - they cannot make back home in their socialists paradise.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I have to laugh how every time the Little Goons take off on this subject there is an underlying understanding that doctors and other folks in the medical profession will just roll over and accept their butt invasion with a grain of salt. 

Little Goons, let me say this one more time as simple and easy to understand as possible:  When good doctors cannot make a boatload of money being good doctors, they won't be good doctors anymore.  Understand?

Profit motivation is the key to excellence.  It always has been and it always will be.

That's also why it is hard to find a doctor who doesn't speak English with a heavy accent.  These are excellent doctors who come to the USA because they can make money - EVIL MONEY - they cannot make back home in their socialists paradise.

Oh but the DUmmies already want price controls (and no doubt higher liability rewards). Once people stop becoming doctors I have no doubt the retards would compel people to attend 12 years of medical school, internships and residency at gunpoint.

[Specbid]

It's real simple--someone's making money off the policyholder, and it ain't the government.

True.
There are affordable, private plans out there (don't know about pre-existing conditions.) Now you'll pay high deductables, but isn't this DUmmie's concern that folks don't get wiped out? If someone can't afford 79 bucks a month, they probably qualify for Medicaid. I'll bet most DUmmies pay around 175 bucks a month for their phone/internet/cable TV packages. DUmmie, forget the "luxuries" and buy insurance if you're so worried about your health.

[Carl]

True.
There are affordable, private plans out there (don't know about pre-existing conditions.) Now you'll pay high deductables, but isn't this DUmmie's concern that folks don't get wiped out? If someone can't afford 79 bucks a month, they probably qualify for Medicaid. I'll bet most DUmmies pay around 175 bucks a month for their phone/internet/cable TV packages. DUmmie, forget the "luxuries" and buy insurance if you're so worried about your health.

I firmly believe their obsession is not about health care and costs per se but the fact that it is tied to employment.

They want to be able to drop out of the job market and if health care was provided free they could do it without fear of losing their possesions.

[Specbid]

I firmly believe their obsession is not about health care and costs per se but the fact that it is tied to employment.

They want to be able to drop out of the job market and if health care was provided free they could do it without fear of losing their possesions.

You're probably right. Seems half of them are trying to see how to qualify for SSDI. Guess they don't feel they need to work.

[The Village Idiot]

If the leftists were not so intent on taking over a large portion of the economy and destroying private healthcare they would have proposed a 100-page bill that would have made some of those state mandates optional, allowed indiviualized plans, portability, malpractice tort reform, a national market and then being leftists they could have simply offered health insurance vouchers to the poor and unemployed. Would have passed with a 2/3rds vote I bet.

but NNnnnoooooo they had to go full Stalin on us.

[USA4ME]

And that they have this notion that single payer/universal care would be of any significant difference than Medicare for everyone, especially considering all the new limits and rationing that would need to take place, is laughable.  Economics is not their friend.

.

[dandi]

Oh but the DUmmies already want price controls (and no doubt higher liability rewards). Once people stop becoming doctors I have no doubt the retards would compel people to attend 12 years of medical school, internships and residency at gunpoint.

You took the words right out of my mouth. DUmmies have an authoritarian streak in them a mile wide. Once people started refusing to continue to be a slave to the enforced mediocrity of the Hivemind, you're damned right they'd want to force them into whatever societal role they deemed fit.

That's why Socialism can never work except at the point of a gun. People, American people anyway, instinctively want better for themselves and their families and will strive for achievement. That has to be forcible quashed in order for DUmmy-style "equality" to hold sway.