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And I'm supposed to believe that UHC will show cost savings when all cost saving measures for what we have now in trouble get ignored.

Farmerkev wrote:

And I'm supposed to believe that UHC will show cost savings when all cost saving measures for what we have now in trouble get ignored.

Cutting money from the doctors is not the right spot to trim the fat.

Farmerkev wrote:

Chickenhawk wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

And I'm supposed to believe that UHC will show cost savings when all cost saving measures for what we have now in trouble get ignored.

Cutting money from the doctors is not the right spot to trim the fat.

Or from the hospital or the pharmacist or the nurses or the guy scrubbing the floors.

Doctors are the ones being affected the most. Many doctors have been leaving insurance networks due to them paying so little because the insurance companies structure their in-network billing around what medicare does, and medicare pays much less than the procedure is actually costing. That results in a lower in-network quality of care, and leaves people with lower tier insurance screwed.

You're right. There is no way to reduce costs for the health care system. Nobody else in the world has figured that one out.

Cutting costs in lieu of quality of care is not an appropriate course of action.

Farmerkev wrote:

Chickenhawk wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

And I'm supposed to believe that UHC will show cost savings when all cost saving measures for what we have now in trouble get ignored.

Cutting money from the doctors is not the right spot to trim the fat.

Or from the hospital or the pharmacist or the nurses or the guy scrubbing the floors.

Actually - the guy scrubbing the floors is a good spot to start.
Instead of hiring US janitorial labor, the government could just hire illegals for $1.95/hr.

Farmerkev wrote:

Chickenhawk wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

And I'm supposed to believe that UHC will show cost savings when all cost saving measures for what we have now in trouble get ignored.

Cutting money from the doctors is not the right spot to trim the fat.

Or from the hospital or the pharmacist or the nurses or the guy scrubbing the floors.

Let's take the money away from the guy scrubbing the floors.

He's probably making too much anyway, and if he doesn't like it, he can always leave.

Hospitals don't need clean floors anyway.

Hawaii hospitals are being creamed.  Doctors are leaving, nurses are leaving, it's pretty bad.  And hospitals were just hit with a 4% reduction.

Farmerkev wrote:

Now tell me how UHC is going to make things cheaper.
A handful of CEO's gone?

Why don't try a little harder to underplay the problem.

Not just a few CEOs but an entire industry designed by its basic business plan to limit medical care.

user wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

Now tell me how UHC is going to make things cheaper.
A handful of CEO's gone?

Why don't try a little harder to underplay the problem.

Not just a few CEOs but an entire industry designed by its basic business plan to limit medical care.

Business plan, a method of action that allows a service to be provided and make a profit.
So we remove the profit margin.
We'll still need all the worker bees so no savings there. In fact probably an increase since they will go from crap pay to govt bennies.
We'll still need to house all those workers so no real office building savings.
We'll still need middle managers to oversee the worker bees.
That leaves CEO's and shareholders if you nationalize the whole system.
Those are still there if you contract with them to do the job.

Savings are going to come in other ways and they aren't willing to do those.

user wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

Business plan, a method of action that allows a service to be provided and make a profit.

In this case the business plan is that of an insurance company - an industry best at provideding help in extrordinary situations, not commonplace ones like medical care

Farmerkev wrote:

So we remove the profit margin.

Right.

Farmerkev wrote:

We'll still need all the worker bees so no savings there. In fact probably an increase since they will go from crap pay to govt bennies.

bullsmurf. Health insurance employees do NOT get crap pay. They even get bonuses when they save the company money by denying care.

Farmerkev wrote:

We'll still need to house all those workers so no real office building savings.
We'll still need middle managers to oversee the worker bees.
That leaves CEO's and shareholders if you nationalize the whole system.
Those are still there if you contract with them to do the job.

All of us will be the shareholders. You are tilting at a strawman - no one is claiming that UHC will be perfect. Most of us understand that it won't, because that's the way of the world - but that's no reason for not trying.

Dude, I know people that work in claims processing for blue cross blue shield.
It isn't great money by any stretch of the imagination.

As far as the "no harm in trying" idea, not always.

The problem with a lot of places that have universal health care is that they forbid private health care. Germany seems to be one of the few that actually get this right.

Provide universal health care as a backstop, but let people with the extra cash choose to pay more, and get more. Simple enough. Sure, it may not appear fair, but it would be far more fair than what we have now.

To ensure it doesn't get ridiculous, require that all practitioners in areas serviced by the UHC system provide service to both private and public patients. The exceptions would be specialists in cosmetic and other elective surgeries.

This way, we don't have to completely wipe out the current system.

Of course, insurance would be pointless in this system, which is why it won't ever happen.