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Super B
Well-known member
^^^DITTO!!! I voted, and it was not for him...
Who is going to vote?
- Thread starter Mafesto
- Start date
^^^DITTO!!! I voted, and it was not for him...
Incidently, we have found the cost of mammograms as dropped TREMENDOUSLY!!!!
I've always felt it's not about healthcare reform, IT'S INSURANCE REFORM. I have health insurance through my work, but it's what's called a "High-Deductible Health Care Plan." I have a special needs child and two other children. My wife and I have pre-existing conditions. Between the premiums I pay for family medical each month (my employer pays more each month for each employee, like 60/40) and the $6000 family deductible I'm paying about $12-13K for health care each year.
My employer contributes to a Health Savings Account each payday, and I have money taken from my paycheck to add to this. I normally get a refund on my taxes each year, but this ends up being paid back to cover what I had to pay out of my pocket to pay my medical bills until I meet my deductible for the year. Not to mention other emergencies and expenses like the new furnace I needed to buy for my family for Christmas, or the new snow tires I needed to buy for the family van, or the near total remodeling of our manufactured home we had to pay for when we found black mold in our house. All of this in addition to the everyday bills we all have (rent/mortgage, food, lights, etc.)
I was already part of my employer's "group" when the company switched to this new plan, so my family's pre-existing conditions were already grandfathered in under this new plan. But for me to get coverage through Obamacare now with these conditions, I would end up paying as much or more as I do now.
Thankfully my employer had insurance through Blue Cross/Blue shield with a $1000 deductible and a $500 50/50 split when I had major ankle surgery done about 6-7 years ago. Otherwise then I would have paid almost $20,000 out of pocket with no insurance back then.
Just think, I could have had a whole rental fleet of new sleds with the money I've spent in the last five years on healthcare!!!!
By the way, I did vote this morning as well!
I believe that everyone here is intelligent enough to realize that you cannot add tens of thousands of pages of regulations along with tens of thousands of people to administer this complex program and reduce costs at the same time. It is a mathmatical impossibility.
Certainly there will be examples where people are paying less. This is not because the system is more efficient, it is because tax payers/national debt is absorbing these excess expenses
Certainly there will be examples where people are paying less. This is not because the system is more efficient, it is because tax payers/national debt is absorbing these excess expenses
Yeah pretty stupid how complex everything has to be on paper. It is frustrating in pharmacys too when we have to tell people that their insurance won't pay for a medication because the doctor has to get a prior authorization completed first. Not to mention all the other fun insurance games that get played like false insurance cards people get on the internet that basically phish for information and don't actually reimburse anything. And despite the fact pharmacists can barely keep up with all the paper work and regulations somehow they have to make the common man understand the stupid rules hoops we gotta jump through.
So you work in a pharmacy p.d.?
You see first hand how much resources (time) is spent chasing the paper end of the game.
This is resources that does not add value to the product.
These are dollars that are gone, poof! GONE.
This total waste happens at every clinic, hospital, pharmacy, nursing home, ambulance service, insurance company and on and on and on.
Billions of dollars wasted, GONE.
Insurance began as a safety net for catastrophic instances only. Everything else was cash pay. The system was very efficient & worked well.
Think of the waste eliminated if we went back to a cash pay system.
Lastly, we are an opportunist society that pounces at the moment anybody makes a mistake. That moment is their golden ticket via malpractice lawsuit. This insurance costs caregivers a bunch, which means it costs us all a bunch. MORE WASTE.
My thoughts in any business is that if it does not add value of some sort, it must go.
You see first hand how much resources (time) is spent chasing the paper end of the game.
This is resources that does not add value to the product.
These are dollars that are gone, poof! GONE.
This total waste happens at every clinic, hospital, pharmacy, nursing home, ambulance service, insurance company and on and on and on.
Billions of dollars wasted, GONE.
Insurance began as a safety net for catastrophic instances only. Everything else was cash pay. The system was very efficient & worked well.
Think of the waste eliminated if we went back to a cash pay system.
Lastly, we are an opportunist society that pounces at the moment anybody makes a mistake. That moment is their golden ticket via malpractice lawsuit. This insurance costs caregivers a bunch, which means it costs us all a bunch. MORE WASTE.
My thoughts in any business is that if it does not add value of some sort, it must go.
Thank you welfarians and union workers.....
You got that right! There are some good people from the city of course, but the majority of them that come "Up North" are yuppie a-holes. Also known as Cidiots. Happiness is a south bound Cidiot.
I agree that cash pay would make things VASTLY easier and probably cheaper for the majority of people, but then there would be a significant amount of people who couldn't afford the drugs they need. Diabetic insulin is pretty darn expensive and a couple of anti-psychotic drugs are pretty expensive to name a few. Strange as it may seem people don't seem to mind paying 40$ a pill for viagra though
I do think medicare was a good idea because a majority of elderly people have put in the time and money to get that safety net, but I think we should set a date where people born after 1990 or so do not get social security or medicare and all contributions get transferred to an account that will be accessable ONLY after they turn 65 and they can ONLY use it for medical benefits(including housing and such).
I also am a supporter of a flat tax system.
Hate seeing our state in "blue" today but this liberal place will never change. With Franken and Dayton getting reelected it just goes to show that.........It's time to move!
At least Wi knows who to vote for.........
Social Security/Medicaid not just for old people
We receive SSI disability benefits from Social Security for my 5-year-old Autistic child based on my income, what I've paid into Social Security over the years, my "Resources" (home, automobiles, my snowmobile, savings account balances etc). If I have overtime on my paychecks (which is typically the case in the summer during the busy season at my work) his benefits for the next month are reduced. If I sold a car I have to show what I did with the money etc.
So holding Social Security money until someone is 65 doesn't take into account if someone has a disability that prevents them from working or for a child like mine who is 5 but developmentally only at a 1-year-old's capacity.
I will be the first to remind anybody reading this that our Federal Gov't is FUBAR'd. I have to send copies of my paychecks every payday to the Social Security office for them to determine how much my son gets each month for his benefit. So as I said if I have overtime, they send me a letter saying they are reducing his benefit or that I was overpaid for the previous month and that he won't receive any benefit for the next month and that they will take out payments until the overpay is paid back. Yet within a day or two of receiving this letter his full benefit for the month is deposited via direct deposit.
Another example--When we first started this SSI process, I had to deliver the application to the local Soc. Sec. office. When I went in, the security guard at the office said I needed to drop the application in their mail slot outside the front door. A couple months later I had to drop off some more forms. This time their mail slot was no longer in service. The guard (same guy I talked to before) said I would have to mail them. He indicated there was a USPS mailbox outside the door of the building to drop them in.
Only our mail is no longer sorted here in Kalispell, (a town of what 35K to 45K people?) it goes to Missoula, MT to be sorted overnight and sent back. So I mailed the forms at a Mailbox outside the building where the forms needed to go only to have it delivered the next day via USPS. Go figure!!!
We receive SSI disability benefits from Social Security for my 5-year-old Autistic child based on my income, what I've paid into Social Security over the years, my "Resources" (home, automobiles, my snowmobile, savings account balances etc). If I have overtime on my paychecks (which is typically the case in the summer during the busy season at my work) his benefits for the next month are reduced. If I sold a car I have to show what I did with the money etc.
So holding Social Security money until someone is 65 doesn't take into account if someone has a disability that prevents them from working or for a child like mine who is 5 but developmentally only at a 1-year-old's capacity.
I will be the first to remind anybody reading this that our Federal Gov't is FUBAR'd. I have to send copies of my paychecks every payday to the Social Security office for them to determine how much my son gets each month for his benefit. So as I said if I have overtime, they send me a letter saying they are reducing his benefit or that I was overpaid for the previous month and that he won't receive any benefit for the next month and that they will take out payments until the overpay is paid back. Yet within a day or two of receiving this letter his full benefit for the month is deposited via direct deposit.
Another example--When we first started this SSI process, I had to deliver the application to the local Soc. Sec. office. When I went in, the security guard at the office said I needed to drop the application in their mail slot outside the front door. A couple months later I had to drop off some more forms. This time their mail slot was no longer in service. The guard (same guy I talked to before) said I would have to mail them. He indicated there was a USPS mailbox outside the door of the building to drop them in.
Only our mail is no longer sorted here in Kalispell, (a town of what 35K to 45K people?) it goes to Missoula, MT to be sorted overnight and sent back. So I mailed the forms at a Mailbox outside the building where the forms needed to go only to have it delivered the next day via USPS. Go figure!!!
I love MN. HATE the Metro!!!!!
I realize that my solution only works in a perfect scenario and many of us do not live in a perfect scenario. My point was to illustrate how something brought on from good intentions (health insurance) has evolved into a beast that can no longer be contained.
I cannot tell you guys how much I miss threads like this.
Relevant topics with well thought replies and good back & forth debate.
This is exactly why I gladly pay my membership.
Thanks!
I cannot tell you guys how much I miss threads like this.
Relevant topics with well thought replies and good back & forth debate.
This is exactly why I gladly pay my membership.
Thanks!
I also support keeping the disability benefits. My point was to cut down on a majority of the paper work and red tape that no longer applies. Things are changing rapidly and a lot of small additions to law over time add up and new technology makes a lot of old laws irrelevant/a pain in the but. Simplifying things(ie laws that don't have 10,000 pages of BS) would be better for everyone and I think it would eliminate the lawyer types who run for these positions because they are the only ones who can comprehend what is going on. I'd like to see more military guys becoming president. At least if they have been in the military they understand concepts like duty, honor, and self sacrifice for your fellow men.
Me and my dad were talking about this the other day. Great leaders throughout history usually had been in the military before they were in politics. Now it seems entitled people who have spent most of their lives doing slack jobs for a political party (bankrolled by mom and dad's money) are the ones getting into politics.
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