Obama Care

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

If its anything more than 150 bucks a month then she would just get a priv health care coverage. if people could afford 200 a month on health care there wouldnt be people walking around without it.

150 bucks a month to cover a person for emergency visits and preganancies is absurd? your absurd.
i pay close to alil over 200 a month and i am covered for every freakin lil thing but i am fortunate to be an attorney with a good employer plan.

...

if 150 a mo for basic services is absurd, how much do you think people should pay for ins a mo under the new health care plan? the whole issue is lowering costs! it shouldnt cost thousands of dollars to take an MRI or 450 bucks for a med tech to take 3 mins in reding an MRI or xray.
and drs are racking up unneccesary treatments for people with health insurance to rack up the bills. see dr in balt city who was implanting 100s of unnecessary stents in peoples veins for money.

You include pregnancy as one of the basic services to be covered - you do realize that pregnancy is one of those really expensive services in part due to malpractice issues. What about truly major medical shock trauma issues - those helicopters ain't cheap? How much should it cost for "basic services"? Find an actuary, describe the services and the population that has to pay it and ask him. Otherwise your just blowing smoke. I mean, you do know how insurance works ... right??

I agree that costs are the issue. As for the specific costs you mention - again, where's your basis for assesing the accuracy. How much does the machine cost to purchase? to maintain? How much does it cost to train the techs? What's there salary? What are the liability issues? Seriously - does your firm do a cost analysis, market comparison in determining your hourly rate? Or do they do you just charge by the hour on what "feels" right?

On a larger scale - what is your plan for lowering medical costs? How do you intend to revamp the system. Sure the stent issue is obvious malpractice - now. A lot of these "unnecessary procedures", however, are litigation fodder when someone is injured and a test that might have alerted the doctor to a problem exists but was not used. So, just to be safe, test away. You can drive up costs for treatment (increased testing) or drive up doctor's (and therefor patient) costs for malpractice insurance (decreased testing). Take your pick.

As was discussed ad nauseum earlier in this thread - the health care system is broken and needs to be completely revamped. That is just not going to happen now - we got our "reform". Count me as one of those who thinks it is just pumping more money into a fractured system and is only a very short-term, expensive band-aid.