Our national health care expenditure (NHE) is about $3.6 trillion a year. We spend more than $10,000 a year on health care for every man, woman, and child in the country. It represents about 18 percent of our gross domestic product, and our NHE is growing at a rate of about 5 percent every year.
As Lynn Jennings, CEO of WeCare TLC, said last year, “When an employer sits down with his health care providers – the broker, the health plan, the physician, the hospital, the drug and device firms – everyone in the room wants it to cost more, and they’re all positioned to make that happen.”1 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, will not, as it currently stands, have a substantial positive effect on our NHE. For the first few years, NHE will be basically neutral, maybe slightly positive.2 By 2017, NHE will again grow for no other reason than the fact that the country is aging at a rate of 10,000 people hitting age 65 each day for the next 15 years.3 "
Folks, we cannot afford our health insurance. It should not cost 20% of our income or whatever it is over our lifetime. Are we supposed to go without?
What do you think about this whole mess? We are running doctors out of practice. I was raised beside three good doctors who gave us excellent care. They made more money than anyone else in our community but I can't say they died rich.
The greed in this country and putting me in front of you has really increased our cost of living. The best thing I can do is try to live as healthy as I can because I can't afford to get sick! Some of us have health problems from birth, though and that cost must be passed on.
I never worked this long and this hard to leave my 12 beautiful grand children in the mess they inherit. It is wrong, sinful, and disgraceful. The president doesn't have a very good track record but this could be his biggest failure. Pass a 2500 page bill before you study it? What a joke and what a mess.
What say you?
Ed Winkle
The congress was his partner in crime; we need rid of nearly all of them.
ReplyDelete1. The ones who use the services typically don't pay for them directly.
ReplyDelete2. The is no, or very little competition; it is very hard to compare cost between different doctors, hospitals, etc.
3. Every aspect of the system is exceessively regulated by government.
4. Getting the federal govenment involved was guanranteed to make health care vastly more expensive and less efficeint.
I don't think the problem lies with the health insurance, but with the ultra expensive American health care system, that's the gist of your first link too. Obamacare would be much cheaper if they would really reform the system, which unfortunately they did not set to do. Medicare just released the details of how it's paying doctors, hospitals and drug companies to the tune of $80 billions a year, lots of people will be looking at it.
ReplyDeleteFYI, the total employee charges are 22% of the base salary, and 25 to 42% for the employer. That includes pension, unemployment insurance and the guarantee of a salary even if the company goes bust. Involving the government was a guarantee to drive prices down in this case. For instance only proven generic drugs are reimbursed, not whatever low efficiency drug companies release. In the case of the U.S., I would rather accuse these companies, their lobbies and the superpacs for driving the cost of healthcare sky high, not Obama. The federal government, regardless of who is president, also needs to go on a diet though, if it wants to be efficient and not just a huge cost center. Better be regulated by a single efficient federal government than by 50 redundant state governments;
The FYI was a comparison with France.
ReplyDeleteI don't claim too understand anything about your new health bill BUT why not copy our Canadian-Ontario model with tax funded Health care services for everyone...no , our system is not perfect but we give health care too you if you are a street panhandler or President of a company. Some Americans call it socialist system but there really is no "free enterprise" anymore ,if you are a factory,farmer,ect. you all receive many gov't subsidized services...My wife spent 35 yrs. in Burn Unit and OR and no one was ever turned away or sent a bill for services,yes we pay higher taxes but I truly feel it is worth it...an example of ours and American charges is a joint replacement in Windsor ,Ontario that runs $11,000 costs you $30,000 1 mile across the border in Detroit-Kevin in Ontario
ReplyDeleteOur son was born 3/24/14, we must pay for the whole month of march per obummer care.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's grandma who is near 80 is now forced to have coverage that covers her if she gets pregnant.....
Excellent comments, all of you. I really enjoyed reading them.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how LuAnn and I will cope with this mess the rest of our lives but we will do the best we can, like all of you.
There is so much stupidity written into that bill and forcing people to go against their beliefs, their needs and their will.
Thanks,
Ed Winkle