Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Originally posted by: Carmen813
Spend trillions just because things aren't OK for a small amount of Americans! This game is fun!
The question isn't spend trillions because things aren't okay for a "small" amount of Americans because we already do it. We spend $2,500 more per person on average than other countries yet do not cover at least 10% of our citizens. Another 5-10% are under insured. We can do better.
The question is about spending the same amount (or hopefully less) money and expanding coverage to all Americans. It can be done if we could stop arguing about idiotic problems and actual focus on what is wrong with the current system.
Idiotic problems like how we are going to pay for it? Idiotic problems like discussing if we should nationalize a huge portion of our economy? Idiotic problems like discussing if costs will actually GO UP and quality of care will GO DOWN? Idiotic like that? :roll:
I'll take your word on the $2500 more per person. I don't know if thats accurate but lets say it is. WHERE is that extra $2500 going? Do we know? If we DO know, why don't we find a way to bring that cost down and provide coverage to underinsured people? If we DON'T know where its going, why do you think that government in running things that will change and not possibly even INCREASE?
You are assuming I'm a strong advocate of a public option. I'm not, I think it would help, but I'm flexible on it. I'm fine with non-profit co-ops or a trigger for a public option if costs do not decrease. My biggest concern is instilling consumer protections by removing pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps. I'm a cancer survivor, those are real problems I face everyday.
Idiotic issues like "death panels," "cries of socialism," and "illegal immigrants." Stuff that detracts from what the debate should be about, like how we can effectively lower costs, emphasize preventative medicine, and improve quality of care while cutting unnecessary tests. In other words, propaganda that side rails a legitimate debate into demagoguery.
We do know where a large portion of that lost money goes. Some goes to administrative costs, some goes to profit, some goes to ordering of unnecessary tests, some to Medicare Fraud, and some to other issues. There is no one thing you can point at and say "this is the problem." There are lots of problems, which is why the bill is long.
The Lewin Group (which is non-partisan, but funded/owned by an insurance company) has a good analysis of HR3200 that they update periodically. It does a good job discussing the positive and negative aspects of the bill.
http://www.lewin.com/content/p...oundation%20Report.pdf
They estimate the total cost to the government will be $39 billion over 10 years. In other words, for about the cost of the Cash For Clunkers program each year we can provide 30 million more Americans with health insurance.
Put another way, for 1/3 the cost of ONE MONTH in Iraq or Afghanistan we can obtain nearly universal coverage for 1 years. They also believe that about 20.7 million people would join the public plan (consistent with the 5% number Obama said in his speech).
That rosy picture is just through 2019. After that, due to rising health care costs, the deficit numbers would explode to $1 trillion over 10 years. Still cheaper than Iraq or the Bush Tax Cuts, but not a good sign by any measure. So we've got to do something about long term costs still. My point is that the bill is making a lot of progress. It isn't there yet, but it's getting much better.