What will happen is so obvious ….

Quality & Price are connected. How we address “price” will affect the quality of care we receive. To be a success, whatever we do has to take human nature into account & use it productively.

If all we do is reduce what the providers receive for providing care, then we’re going to wind up with fewer providers. Which will mean lower quality care – fewer doctors leads to longer waits & cheaper treatments, which lead to poorer results.

At which time the types who think they ‘know best’ will tell us the answer is to put them more fully in charge (“single payor”).

BD57 on November 27, 2012 at 9:19 AM

Actually this is what is happening, and will continue to happen…

Medicare payments are reduced to providers, prompting more and more of them to stop taking new Medicare patients (currently going on). More and more Medicare recipients can’t find providers who will treat them, unless they wait weeks for routine checkups or months for procedures.

As a result, the ever-wise Feds will use the student loan cudgel to bludgeon new doctors into submission to force them to treat Medicare recipients. (This will be done using a combination of poison-coated carrot and spike-encrusted cudgel.)

When potential doctors see what is going on, fewer and fewer will opt for medical training, or seek to circumvent the Fed enforcement and go for cash-only services (many turning into a form of black-market to avoid the oversight and underpayment).

Even single-payer will suffer from these results. So “progress” will not end with single-payer.

Throughout this time, you will see immigration/visa restrictions eased for medical professionals and those who go to American medical schools.

Inevitably, we will see a healthcare system rife with corruption (bribery to get earlier scheduled treatments), mediocrity (as people are payed less, so why invest the effort) and despondency (after all, suicide IS a state-sponsored way to end an elderly parasite)…

How far we will have fallen…

I’m not sure why a lot of people are riding this emotional high. I live in California, where voters passed Prop 30, essentially giving the government in Sacramento the right to plunder without limit, and I am moving to protect my family as much as is possible. I am not expecting boom times. I expect my utility rates to “skyrocket,” to quote a famous community organizer, and I expect my property taxes to shoot way up. It’s even possible that I will lose my property, as many senior citizens did the last time Governor Moonbeam was in office. As far as I can see, Barack Obama is going to bring the joys of California’s government to the rest of the states. This is not cause for celebration.

Mark it in whatever book that you keep for prophesies. This excitement about the coming wonderful economy will be short-lived, and there will be a lot of very disappointed people.

Quality & Price are connected. How we address “price” will affect the quality of care we receive. To be a success, whatever we do has to take human nature into account & use it productively.

If all we do is reduce what the providers receive for providing care, then we’re going to wind up with fewer providers. Which will mean lower quality care – fewer doctors leads to longer waits & cheaper treatments, which lead to poorer results.

At which time the types who think they ‘know best’ will tell us the answer is to put them more fully in charge (“single payor”).

BD57 on November 27, 2012 at 9:19 AM

Bingo. Quality and Price are connected….in a competitive market. The price of a good under more competition will bring greater value when there are multiple entities deliving goods.

A single payor system will kill this, drive up prices, not down, and decrease quality.

If you need a reminder, visit your local DMV.

I have no faith in Democrats cutting entitlements.

My guess they will shake hands for the camera and next year we’ll be talking about our trillion dollar deficits.

Let sequestration happen.

Let the debt hit its statutory ceiling, and don’t raise it.

Instant recipe for balanced budget.

Then, you can begin negotiations…

Finding money in the mammoth federal health program is important in the “fiscal cliff” talks, as Republicans are demanding cuts to entitlement programs in exchange for tax increases on the wealthiest Americans in working out a deal to put off $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to government spending.

That $1.2 trillion in cuts happens over 10 years. That comes to $120 billion a year. Obama’s budget deficit is over $1 trillion dollars per year. Yet, despite that, $120 billion is too much to cut, so they will eventually cut even less, lol.

We have seen this before.

Now, imagine, that the ‘entitlements’ will have to be cut. You have $1 trillion plus deficit per year.

You have, on your platter: SSA, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and then the rats nest of unemployment insurance, food stamps, and all sorts of freebies and handouts.

Where do you think these people will actually start?

The freebies? The Obamaphone lady and those types, including the food stamp families? Meanies! Not giving free stuff to the needy!

SSA? Raise the retirement age? Means test it? But… but… people paid into it for those things!!! You can’t take that away from them even though you have ALREADY SPENT THE MONEY. Meanies!

The M&M’s and Ocare? Cut the State portions to sick, poor and elderly with Medicare? Meanies, wanting these people to die! Cut Medicare? But… but… we’ve they’ve already paid into that… although you have ALREADY SPENT THE MONEY. Meanies! Obamacare? Hmmmmm…. the new entitlement that we like less of the more we see of it.

Exchange Obamacare for a tax deal? Oooooooo… wouldn’t that be interesting? Will Democrats give away the insane thing they put in to stop the meltdown of the economy? Nah! Its ‘progress’!!

Sorry, the Republicans will get painted as meanies for any suggestion they make and Democrats do not want to touch their voting bloc.

So why not just say: remember that last deal for the one year extension of the tax cuts for a one time debt ceiling raise? You got the debt ceiling, now you can take your tax increases, try to figure out how to run the government on $2.44 trillion and not go over the debt ceiling.

You can cut out all the junk not listed in the constitution (EPA, DoJ, Agriculture, Energy, all that junk), pay for the mandatory stuff (Debt Maintenance, DoD, and the cats&dogs of the Constitution), and pay for SSA fully… and still have just a bit left over to portion out as block grants to the States for subsidized medical care for the sick, poor, elderly, etc. Balanced budget by no increase of debt ceiling. Oh, and for the Lefties, you could take out all of DoD and still not pay for the M&Ms and Obamacare… you would still be in block grant territory as the best way to do it and deliver the most cash in the most accountable way to those who need it…. which, really, would be a great help in the ‘entitlements’, you know?

Too bad no one ever tries to do that. Removes graft and government overhead. Can’t have that!

What will happen is so obvious ….

Quality & Price are connected. How we address “price” will affect the quality of care we receive. To be a success, whatever we do has to take human nature into account & use it productively.

If all we do is reduce what the providers receive for providing care, then we’re going to wind up with fewer providers. Which will mean lower quality care – fewer doctors leads to longer waits & cheaper treatments, which lead to poorer results.

At which time the types who think they ‘know best’ will tell us the answer is to put them more fully in charge (“single payor”).

BD57 on November 27, 2012 at 9:19 AM

Which is exactly what Democrats want, and what Obamacare was designed to achieve. Everyone knows Obamacare is unworkable. It was designed to fail. It’s a stepping stone to single payer. It gives them the cover of, “see, we tried a solution that incorporated insurance companies and free market principles, and it failed, so we have to go single payer.” Getting to cut Medicare payment under the guise of “deficit reduction” only accelerates the collapse of the system and the march toward single payer, and that’s so much the better for folks like Carville.

Sen. Dick Durbin said today that his Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate should be willing to address entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid in deficit reduction negotiations.

So the Democrats finally realize they get no ‘revenue increase’ without cutting entitlement programs.

Maybe let it go off the cliff.

Here is a novel idea, leave medicare alone. Start allowing medicaid recipients to pay some of their “fair share”. If you have medicaid insurance, you should pay about 75 bucks a year. Not too steep and you can return bottles to get that.

shar61 on November 27, 2012 at 9:30 AM

This! Medicaid is actually the biggest problem.
For those who aren’t aware, and I get the impression that many aren’t, Seniors on Medicare pay for part of it each month. An amount is taken directly out of your Social Security check. Say for example you get $900.00 a month in Social Security, don’t forget that $1100.00 a month they talk about is an average. You would have $100.00 a month taken out as your Medicare payment. You also have a yearly deductible you pay plus Medicare only pays a percentage of costs. That being true most people have to buy a supplemental policy, Medigap, to cover the rest. That can be anywhere from $60 to $100 a month. So this concept that seniors on Medicare are getting a free ride is a myth.
People on Medicaid pay zero. There are some Seniors who do qualify for Medicaid because their income is low. But the majority of people on Medicaid, which they get for free remember, are people on TANF or low income, not seniors.

My neighbor is on Medicaid. Nice gal actually. She has great insurance, cell phone, a job, free head start, free daycare, and of course food stamps. Last year she garnered almost 10 grand in a tax return.

shar61 on November 27, 2012 at 9:30 AM

One quibble. Your moocher of a neighbor (there are lots of nice moochers) did not get 10K as a tax return. She essentially got a refund on what she paid into the system (and then some most likely) so her net contribution to all that “free stuff” she gets is either nothing or nothing plus a few dollars of somebody elses hard work because she has children. She is the epitome of the parasitic mentality that is destroying this nation.

Here is a novel idea, leave medicare alone. Start allowing medicaid recipients to pay some of their “fair share”. If you have medicaid insurance, you should pay about 75 bucks a year. Not too steep and you can return bottles to get that.

See, and in Carville’s mind, that makes these cuts okay. Social Security cuts aren’t okay, because the people get those payments directly. But Medicare isn’t money people see. It’s money that’s paid to eeeeeeeevil entities like doctors and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. And if we have to cut their payments, well, so be it. That certainly won’t impact on the availability or quality of care patients receive.

And that said thing is, people will believe that. They already have no clue about the costs involved in health care because they are completely removed from the payment process. And they’ve been conditioned to believe that the government can manage to provide “free stuff” without it being a cost to anyone. So, sure, why shouldn’t we just take some money from those evil drug companies in order to help cut Medicare costs? I mean, they have too much money as it is anyway.

Shump

What will happen is so obvious ….

Quality & Price are connected. How we address “price” will affect the quality of care we receive. To be a success, whatever we do has to take human nature into account & use it productively.

If all we do is reduce what the providers receive for providing care, then we’re going to wind up with fewer providers. Which will mean lower quality care – fewer doctors leads to longer waits & cheaper treatments, which lead to poorer results.

At which time the types who think they ‘know best’ will tell us the answer is to put them more fully in charge (“single payor”).

1. Seal the border.

2. 10% across the board spending CUTS every year.

Saves entitlements, state budgets, fiscal discipline and on and on.

And it’s “FAIR”.