The Obama Presidency

[MechDeus]

This is all exactly the point I was originally trying to make. You can't point to Medicare as a model for anything, because it's not at all scalable outside of the specific constraints you just so eloquently outlined.

Your original point was that a program designed around limitations can cover care that people otherwise couldn't afford or were rejected by private insurers due to their medical condition? The primary constraint I mentioned is that it's limited due to being an assistance program because complete private insurers are out of reach for many people, so if we change that to where it receives greater government funding to become a primary program then it should scale just fine.

Again, I'm not saying it's a perfect system, but it's much better than the laughable nonsense which constitutes our current private insurance availability and costs. The simple fact that insurers will refuse to cover someone because they have a medical condition is about as retarded as things could possibly get.

The medical field itself also has a lot of work that needs to be done in order to drive down costs, such as unified patient systems and access to results. Even though many upgrade plans are being executed a lot of places are still dragging their feet and using paper reporting, various models of incompatible reporting software, and no unified database. This means that going from one place to another even in the same city can mean redoing tests and a lack of access to patient history which is almost inexcusable in the modern day. Once a lot of these issues have been rectified costs will be dropped lower than where they are now.

[Fe 26]

Even though many upgrade plans are being executed a lot of places are still dragging their feet and using paper reporting, various models of incompatible reporting software, and no unified database.

This is pretty much the governments fault. All they've done is tell the medical industry that they really wish they'd get on the stick, while forcing care givers to organize things on their own, buy and implement the software on their own, and hire and train the staff to do so on their own.

The federal government really just needs to create a body to study all of it, create a computer system and software to meet the US's needs, give it to care givers for free, and maybe pay for an employ to keep up with it.

This shit we have right now where care givers buy random programs for 800+ then pay someone 50k+ a year to file it, and then send it to a claims clearing house that keeps a cut, is a god dam sad joke. If someone made a joke about red tape and bureaucracy, all this bullshit would be the punchline. Its one big money wasting clusterfuck.

[Fe 26]

It's amateur hour in here. How about this one:

What kind of punishment is free health care? There's a cost cutting opportunity for the penal system.

*sigh* Yoshi, we keep them healthy because the act of being inn prison is suppose to be punishment. You can't really punish them if they're dead.

You guys. Really?

You'd rather be healthy in prison than have a cold and be free?

This is worse than conservatives hate-envying all teh free stuff mom's on welfare get.

[FirstBlood]

[MechDeus]

The federal government really just needs to create a body to study all of it, create a computer system and software to meet the US's needs, give it to care givers for free, and maybe pay for an employ to keep up with it.

This would be the best and easiest solution and I really wonder they haven't bothered starting one yet. It could easily be something they attach to roll out with each decade's Healthy People program as a combination method of monitoring hospital compliance and efforts while simultaneously uniting the field, so I hope they at least something in the pipeline that's similar. It was only like a month or so ago that an announcement was made regarding the hospitals in my city about beginning to build a shared database, which is a good start but it needs to be national.

[Yoshi]

Your original point was that a program designed around limitations can cover care that people otherwise couldn't afford or were rejected by private insurers due to their medical condition? The primary constraint I mentioned is that it's limited due to being an assistance program because complete private insurers are out of reach for many people, so if we change that to where it receives greater government funding to become a primary program then it should scale just fine.

Again, I'm not saying it's a perfect system, but it's much better than the laughable nonsense which constitutes our current private insurance availability and costs. The simple fact that insurers will refuse to cover someone because they have a medical condition is about as retarded as things could possibly get.

The problem with all of that is that the two are not independent. The coverage of Medicare in terms of services and population impacts the prices of the actual care and private insurance. So if you scale Medicare, the other two pieces see their prices explode. If you cover everyone on something like Medicare, some significant portion of hospitals just close, because they're no longer profitable.

[Yoshi]

The federal government really just needs to create a body to study all of it, create a computer system and software to meet the US's needs, give it to care givers for free, and maybe pay for an employ to keep up with it.

Yes, let's bloat the government even more. How the fuck do you propose that gets funded?

[Timber]

Exactly, lets leave it to all the corporations that have a vested interest in us all very slowly dieing and throwing them all our monies to stave off death. Capitalism ho!

[Yoshi]

You realize that the federal government and corporations are not even close to the only options, yes? There is absolutely nothing that the federal government does that could not be done better somewhere else, except print money. And the actual, physical printing process probably could too.

[Timber]

I'm just saying that dealing with healthcare in Capitalistic terms is an awful way to go about it. Profit should not be something healthcare is run for.

Of course, you're going to tell me how asinine a view that is, but that's cool. You <3 Capitalism and I think it's just a very slow road to a corporate fascist state.