Ryan's Budget Proposal - It's a Start

[milohimself]

I assure you you can get high risk insurance. I had a reckless driving speading ticket when i was your age and still could afford car insurance.

I still can (at a pretty high clip until I hit 24 or 25 or whatever), but I'm saying the same for health insurance would work, no?

You can go to an insurance company, they have to offer you health insurance. They can offer market rates, but they have to offer it.

 

[lawgator1]

seniors already purchase medicare suppliments in this country.

Some seniors purchase limited supplements to Medicare. Let's not pretend that for $9.99 a month you can buy a policy that will cover your third bypass surgery when you hit your personal Medicare cap.

 

[lawgator1]

Some clarification.

1. The amount provided is to purchase insurance - not HC. It is not a set amount of HC spending for a senior - it works like any other private insurance does.

2. This system is a step away from socialized medicine not towards it. Currently, Medicare is socialized - government pays providers. Ryan is proposing to pay the insurance for seniors.

Why? So they can choose the plan that best fits their needs. It is more akin to the Swiss system than the current one (which is more akin to the Canadian system). My bet is that doctors will like it better too.

Basically, it is moving back towards a consumer-driven system than from a socialized system.

I misread that part of the article in your original post. But that raises another interesting issue:

Criticism of Obamacare: It is unconstitutional to force people to buy health insurance, including choice between paying for it or paying a fine that covers government cost of delivering care to the uninsured.

This plan: Forces people to pay taxes that goes to buy this coverage. Alternative is to be fined for not paying the taxes that will pay for your policy.

Difference? Anyone? Bueller?

 

[droski]

Some seniors purchase limited supplements to Medicare. Let's not pretend that for $9.99 a month you can buy a policy that will cover your third bypass surgery when you hit your personal Medicare cap.

medicare will pay for your third bypass. it paid for my grandfathers. and don't get me started on all the pointless crap medicare will pay for i.e. people who will come to your home to explain how to rape the system, motorized scooters, etc.

 

[utgibbs]

that article is 7 years old, has there been any followup on the efficacy of these supposed cancer treatments?

edit: a quick check on google doesn't show anything, although CancerVax, the American company that sought to develop the Cuban drugs, failed in several areas of drug research and eventually merged with a German firm.

It was just an anecdote I remember.

Regardless, they have provided one of the world's most important modern vaccines:

SCIENCE-CUBA: Two Decades of Biotech Advances - IPS ipsnews.net

I think the important point is, according to your model, this can't happen. And yet, whether Lasik or hip replacements, it seems to happen all the time. In fact, it seems to be the norm.

 

[utgibbs]

word of the day calendar on your desk at the Politburo?

Nice one! Delicious, even. :hi:

I would have thought you would have pegged me for the Supreme Soviet or the Central Committee.

 

[utgibbs]

The issue with private companies conducting their own research is NOT that they don't do it but that they don't share it freely - why the f would they? There is a reason why companies spend a lot of money on R&D - they hire really smart people so that they have a good shot at succeeding. It's high-risk, high-reward. They are after the reward. Does the government even care about success rate? I highly doubt it. The last time the government cared about success was WWII and the Manhattan Project.

Not really the case, I'm afraid if you look through the thread. Although nuclear is ceratinly another example of the government developing (volinbham) a technology for the profits to be privatized. :hi:

 

[utvolpj]

I still can (at a pretty high clip until I hit 24 or 25 or whatever), but I'm saying the same for health insurance would work, no?

You can go to an insurance company, they have to offer you health insurance. They can offer market rates, but they have to offer it.

so now you're forcing a company to provide a service.

The auto insurance example just doesn't work on many levels. You do not have to drive. Lots of options out there if you don't and they aren't regulated so as to be ridiculously expensive to consumers. Technically you don't need HC either but the future need is still there (and it isn't with auto)

How will a person that can not afford to buy health insurance right now be able to afford it when the insurers can charge whatever they want? Sure they might not be turned down but they still can't pay for it

 

[MG1968]

Nice one! Delicious, even. :hi:

I would have thought you would have pegged me for the Supreme Soviet or the Central Committee.

not really, the movers and shakers in the Soviet Union never believed their own propaganda, it was just a useful method to line their own pockets while impoverishing the proletariat. You, on the other hand, appear to actually believe that all good things come from the government.

 

[lawgator1]

medicare will pay for your third bypass. it paid for my grandfathers. and don't get me started on all the pointless crap medicare will pay for i.e. people who will come to your home to explain how to rape the system, motorized scooters, etc.

With regard to your first point, are you sure that under Ryan's plan it would pay for his third? Or even his second? I don't think you are.

With regard to your second point, if its unnecessary it is either fraud or over-prescription by the doctor. That goes on -- of course it does in a program so massive. But the solution might be to police such abuse better rather than just arbitrarily stop coverage at x point for everyone. You know, a baby out with the bathwater thing.

 

[droski]

ummmm

HipNav - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was developed at Carnegie Mellon University

 

[utgibbs]

ummmm

HipNav - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was developed at Carnegie Mellon University

Are you throwing this out there because it is a private university?

Oh, the humanity! :lolabove:

For the 2006 fiscal year, the University spent $315 million on research. The primary recipients of this funding were the School of Computer Science ($100.3 million), the Software Engineering Institute ($71.7 million), the Carnegie Institute of Technology ($48.5 million), and the Mellon College of Science ($47.7 million). The research money comes largely from federal sources, with federal investment of $277.6 million. The federal agencies that invest the most money are the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, which contribute 26% and 23.4% of the total university research budget respectively.

Well, 277 million out of 315 million isn't ALL of it. We better check the state sources too...

DELICIOUS!

 

[droski]

no i'm throwing it out since it was developed here, not in europe as you suggested. where is the other 50% of the research money coming from?

 

[bamacheats]

Misleading Thread Title!


I thought this was about Ryan's banning Fulmer and Low to keep within budget.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[utgibbs]

no i'm throwing it out since it was developed here, not in europe as you suggested. where is the other 50% of the research money coming from?

It was 277/315 not 50%. I misplaced my bold. :lolabove: That was just federal though. We got to check the state funding too....

Joint replacement was pioneered by Charnley in Britain. HipNav, as we have just seen, wasn't developed (volinbham) on private funds at a private institution.

 

[Gramps]

Some seniors purchase limited supplements to Medicare. Let's not pretend that for $9.99 a month you can buy a policy that will cover your third bypass surgery when you hit your personal Medicare cap.

My parents are in their 70's and on Medicare.
If I understand them correctly, they have a premium for Medicare deducted from each of their social security checks Medicare pays 80%, they purchased a supplement to cover the other 20%, with some restrictions. It's around $200 per month. They also purchased a prescription drug card, don't know the cost of it, I do know they have to pay for some of the meds.

 

[lawgator1]

My parents are in their 70's and on Medicare.
If I understand them correctly, they have a premium for Medicare deducted from each of their social security checks Medicare pays 80%, they purchased a supplement to cover the other 20%, with some restrictions. It's around $200 per month. They also purchased a prescription drug card, don't know the cost of it, I do know they have to pay for some of the meds.

What Ryan would appear to be proposing is a cap for each person for Medicare. Now, whether that is a cap on what the insurer pays, or a cap on the amount the government pays for your insurance, matters.

If the former, then that means you can run out of the benefit. Would like to know what it is. I mean, if its millions, it probably doesn't matter. If its $25,000 and the expectation is that each senior buys insurance for anything over that, its a nonstarter.

If the latter, I wonder how that would work. Is that a limit on how much of your premium it would pay each month, i.e. $350 each month such that, if by the time you retire the cost of a decent policy is $600, you have to come up with the other $250? Or is it a lifetime cap, i.e. the government pays 100 % of the premium for you for up to $20,000 and then you are on your own after that?

Just seems like a giant shell game to me. I mean, if the idea is to collect taxes when people are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and then use that to pay health insurance premiums for them when in their 70s and 80s, who benefits from that other than the health insurers? Why wouldn't you just sock it away for them to pay for care where there's more efficiency and no profit issue?

Seems odd.

 

[CSVol]

from the article



while doing this we need to grow the economy and raising taxes won't help that at all.

Nowhere did I mention raising taxes. Just not an advocate of cuts at this time.

 

[sjt18]

Cutting spending wont help the economy either. You can argue right or wrong on whether these government positions should exist, but a lot of jobs will be lost with cuts to government (none of them being politicians).

Yes. Cutting most types of gov't spending will help the economy. Spending for the sake of consumption doesn't "help" the economy. The right to consume has to be associated with a contribution to the welath production of the economy. On the whole, consumers MUST contribute at least as much wealth as the whole consumes. Our private and gov't debt is a reflection of having too many consumers who do not contribute enough to the composite wealth.

Part of the answer is that programs must be shrunk to INCLUDE gov't payrolls to push more people into jobs that produce more real wealth or better support wealth production.

 

[sjt18]

Just seems like a giant shell game to me. I mean, if the idea is to collect taxes when people are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and then use that to pay health insurance premiums for them when in their 70s and 80s, who benefits from that other than the health insurers? Why wouldn't you just sock it away for them to pay for care where there's more efficiency and no profit issue?

Seems odd.

For the exact same reason it is smarter to invest money in bonds than to bury it in your yard.

Insurers as I am sure you know make their profit from investing premiums... not from simply collecting more than they pay out.

If you "sock it away" then you have to sock alot more away to get the same benefit.

The best solution IMO would be to take a short term hit to encourage medical savings accounts that would eventually be used to cover the health care costs of the elderly.

 

[sjt18]

Nowhere did I mention raising taxes. Just not an advocate of cuts at this time.

Seeing that we are still above the optimum % of taxation.... tax cuts and reform make very good sense. Taxes should be cut until revenues actually start to decline instead of continuing to increase. The dirtly little secret Dems keep hiding is that the Bush tax cuts worked. It is about the ONLY good thing he did for the economy. His spending was terrible. Just like JFK and Reagan before him... he cut taxes, people invested and created jobs in the private economy generating wealth, and revenues increased.

The stimulus spending has gone to dead end projects and for political payoff. None of it was effectively invested in anything that will create a ripple effect in the economy... Keynes was once again proven wrong in the real world.

 

[lawgator1]

For the exact same reason it is smarter to invest money in bonds than to bury it in your yard.

Insurers as I am sure you know make their profit from investing premiums... not from simply collecting more than they pay out.

If you "sock it away" then you have to sock alot more away to get the same benefit.

The best solution IMO would be to take a short term hit to encourage medical savings accounts that would eventually be used to cover the health care costs of the elderly.

The main problem with that analysis is that the government isn't paying the health insurer all the way back when you are earning money and paying the taxes, in your 30s and 40s, say. They are paying it once you are a senior.

I don't have a problem with health savings accounts as a means to shore up Medicare, by the way. But in terms of budgeting, what you are really saying is that the people that have the account or put away more have more health care coverage. The political problem that creates is that most people aren't bothering right now to save money for basic living expenses much less to cover Medicare shortfalls.

I mean, bottom line, people don't talk about using Social Security to supplement their retirement savings. They speak in terms of having Social Security cover everything and they might save a little extra to supplement it.

 

[sjt18]

The main problem with that analysis is that the government isn't paying the health insurer all the way back when you are earning money and paying the taxes, in your 30s and 40s, say. They are paying it once you are a senior.

Which is a big reason gov't should not be in the equation.

I don't have a problem with health savings accounts as a means to shore up Medicare, by the way. But in terms of budgeting, what you are really saying is that the people that have the account or put away more have more health care coverage. The political problem that creates is that most people aren't bothering right now to save money for basic living expenses much less to cover Medicare shortfalls.

That's where I kind of depart from my normal line of reasoning. I am not sure that we should not pass a USC Amendment instituting a voucher system for healthcare. I would say it is an "infrastructure" needed for people to exercise their REAL rights in the modern world.

Very simple idea. Everyone gets a voucher. One guardian would receive the vouchers for children. The individual would then shop that voucher for the best deal. They could add money if they wanted. One thing a young person could do is put it in a MSA type program.

To start, older people would need a larger voucher but over time they wouldn't if enough young people chose an MSA. The incentive? One, it would be transferrable. Two, maybe an incentive of some sort.

I mean, bottom line, people don't talk about using Social Security to supplement their retirement savings. They speak in terms of having Social Security cover everything and they might save a little extra to supplement it.

That's a lack of education for the most part... and one that tends to benefit those who want people dependent on politiicians and gov't... like liberals maybe?

 

[sjt18]

Such a system would have an immediate downward impact on health care costs since it would re-introduce the consumer into setting price points.

 

[Weezy]

Isn't Blue Cross classified as a not for profit? (Read as all profit goes to executives)