Seniors and the poor are the president’s targets. In his July 22, 2009 press conference the transcript reads, “And it’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.” Today CNN quotes the President saying, “…must get control of Medicaid/Medicare spending.” The problem is Mr. Obama never talks about the ways to control costs. Will there be limits on the payments to doctors and hospitals, limits on payments for drugs, or limits on payments to insurance companies? Ignoring the discussion on cost control, I believe, is intentional.
Once again it’s the rich and powerful versus the rest of us. Insurance companies, large medical care businesses, and pharmaceutical companies are permitted to charge what ever they want. There are no incentives to lower the costs. The middle class senior relies on Medicare for health insurance. The poor and disabled rely on Medicaid. If it’s the middle class and poor versus the rich and powerful it doesn’t take a terribly smart person to realize who will win that confrontation.
In California the poorest among us have been impacted most by the budget cuts. Medicaid and in home health care services were cut in the face of a rising budget deficit. The influential and high ranking members of government were not significantly impacted.
“If only the elderly would die without making a fuss the Medicare system will be able to handle its costs. Why must you old people be so uncooperative?” They won’t say the words exactly like that but everything points to those thoughts. Of course the president denies this idea. Unless he proposes other cost savings ideas this can be the only conclusion that can be reached. This is disgusting.
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Tort reform would help. The liberals want to dismiss it because it won’t fix everything, but who says it has to? It is just PART of the equation!
Decreasing paperwork.
The government could choose to intrude to a small degree by mandating that the insurance companies standardize their paperwork or else the government would do it for them.
Those two issues would cut about half the waste in the health care industry.
We also need to allow the insurance market to open up across state lines. Gibbs was acting like we need a government option because in some areas there is only one or two insurance companies to choose from and a government option would allow competition. But if we allowed companies to compete across state lines, the increased Competition would drive down insurance prices.
Also, on the Supply and Demand front, if we increased the number of doctors, that would decrease prices. Government loans and allowing immigrants on student visas to stay here if they are going into the medical field would help.
And how about vouchers for people who can’t afford insurance? If a person get laid off, the could get a voucher to help them keep their insurance until they get another job.
And allowing more people to band together to get insurance separate and apart from a business. That is a significant disadvantage of having your own business.
Please share more info.