The Republican proposed alternative

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Yachtie -> The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 9:38:58 AM)
You asked for it. Here it is. One provision I think makes absolute sense, allowing insurance across state lines. Under the current tax scheme, expanding the tax credit beyond employers is right. The number one thing, though, is costs. More could be done to reduce them beyond the 5-8% CBO says the R proposal might do. One thing I'd correct revolves around an incident that happened where a woman was stung by a scorpion and the anti-venom treatment was billed at $40,000 for the two vials. Those can be bought in Mexico for (IIRC) $100 each. Hospitals billing a five cent aspirin for, say, a buck is absurd. Anyway, the link is the R idea.

Tkman117 -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 11:21:32 AM)
If you could, could you explain what differences this makes from the ACA?

DomKen -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 11:33:35 AM)
FR No bar to denying coverage of preexisting conditions. No bar to dropping coverage for honest mistakes on applications. No ban on annual or lifetime limits. No minimum standards for plans. Why not just give handjobs to each insurance industry exec?

FellowSlave -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 12:51:35 PM)
Health care Tax credit is basically a corporate welfare. It is very difficult to solve the racketeering issue. Price controls would be impossible to introduce because the government is corrupt to the bone. It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions.

Moonhead -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 1:09:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. The alternatives that are practised in the rest of the western world outside America aren't viable, then? You know, the sort of thing that's very popular with Americans who live along the Canadian border?

joether -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 8:23:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave Health care Tax credit is basically a corporate welfare. It is very difficult to solve the racketeering issue. Price controls would be impossible to introduce because the government is corrupt to the bone. It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions. Problem with this 100% free market is when it has been used in the past, created more problems than it was worth. Markets went bust in heavy ways, and the boons were experienced by a tiny few (who would then survive the bust shortly afterward). During the 50's to 90's, the United States had what was called 'Regulated Capitalism'. It allowed companies to grow, but forced them to hire Americans to expand their operations. Companies were taxed at a much higher rate then today; this served as an incentive to keep competitive in the dozens of markets across the nation. The removal of regulations (towards a 100% free market) recently took place back in 2003-2006. In that time, many industries (particularly Banking, Housing, Financial, and Energy Industries) saw further reductions. All in the name of 'keeping American Companies profitable'. Problems were experienced that created new levels of problems/uncertainty. There should be (in my opinion) a decent medium of regulations to the industries. Keeping those laws balanced is not a very easy or simple task to perform. Yet when it has been accomplished, Americans as a whole gained, not just a small minority of super rich individuals. The government itself is not corrupt. We do have a collection of individuals trying to undermine the government from within. They are known far and wide as the Republican/Tea Party. An who elects these corrupted individuals to office, election after election? Conservatives and libertarians!

graceadieu -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/10/2014 10:02:42 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions. Well, unless, of course, someone has a patent or local monopoly on the product/service and there is no equivalent treatment. Or unless it's an emergency treatment where the patient must accept whatever price is set or die. And of course, that also assumes that there's no industry collusion and that all prices are available to be researched ahead of time. In reality, drug companies can and do charge anything they want for life-saving cancer treatments, because they know that if you have a choice between paying $100k (for a drug that costs a fraction of that) or dying, you'll choose to pay $100k.

DesideriScuri -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/11/2014 6:23:51 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: joether quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave Health care Tax credit is basically a corporate welfare. It is very difficult to solve the racketeering issue. Price controls would be impossible to introduce because the government is corrupt to the bone. It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions. Problem with this 100% free market is when it has been used in the past, created more problems than it was worth. Markets went bust in heavy ways, and the boons were experienced by a tiny few (who would then survive the bust shortly afterward). During the 50's to 90's, the United States had what was called 'Regulated Capitalism'. It allowed companies to grow, but forced them to hire Americans to expand their operations. Companies were taxed at a much higher rate then today; this served as an incentive to keep competitive in the dozens of markets across the nation. The removal of regulations (towards a 100% free market) recently took place back in 2003-2006. In that time, many industries (particularly Banking, Housing, Financial, and Energy Industries) saw further reductions. All in the name of 'keeping American Companies profitable'. Problems were experienced that created new levels of problems/uncertainty. There should be (in my opinion) a decent medium of regulations to the industries. Keeping those laws balanced is not a very easy or simple task to perform. Yet when it has been accomplished, Americans as a whole gained, not just a small minority of super rich individuals. The government itself is not corrupt. We do have a collection of individuals trying to undermine the government from within. They are known far and wide as the Republican/Tea Party. An who elects these corrupted individuals to office, election after election? Conservatives and libertarians! Because mercantilism worked so well before...

mnottertail -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/11/2014 6:42:54 AM)
No, but Protectionism, the 'American system' of economics, and National Economics worked pretty damn good, embarrassingly pretty damn good. Just need some tweaking on corporate regulations side. But mercantilism ran a good second, and 'freetrade- freemarket' like its basis, international communism runs a very very very poor third, a devastatingly poor third (of those choices).

Moonhead -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/11/2014 6:52:06 AM)
I'm not sure that "tweaking" would cover it. You'd actually need some corporate regulation to help matters any. [;)]

mnottertail -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/11/2014 6:59:01 AM)
By tweaking, I mean heavy and exacting draconian measures applied in law to multi-national and national corporations, somewhat slightly less to big business, and less to small business and infant industry. You need a system that presents no moral hazards whatsoever to corporations, no free rides, since they have no morals, and they live on skate.

MrRodgers -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/12/2014 5:18:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave Health care Tax credit is basically a corporate welfare. It is very difficult to solve the racketeering issue. Price controls would be impossible to introduce because the government is corrupt to the bone. It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions. 100% free market health is close to what we have now, the ACA does little to change that. An 100% free market health care would result in greater price fixing, less competition then there is now and an absolute windfall even greater than the industry will realize under the ACA. US consumers already pay twice as much as other western patients and die 3-4 years younger. Under a 100% free market, those numbers would only get worse. Oh and mark ups of 1000% is crumbs of peanuts compared to what the market gets now. Aspirin is really $10 ea. or more, Tylenol $100 ea. $125 to draw blood. $400 and more for a $5 foam runner mattress. Drugs are even worse, in some cases...much worse.

graceadieu -> RE: The Republican proposed alternative (2/13/2014 3:12:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: MrRodgers quote: ORIGINAL: FellowSlave Health care Tax credit is basically a corporate welfare. It is very difficult to solve the racketeering issue. Price controls would be impossible to introduce because the government is corrupt to the bone. It looks to me the only viable alternative is 100% free market based health services. It is impossible to charge a service 1000% actual cost under free market conditions. 100% free market health is close to what we have now, the ACA does little to change that. An 100% free market health care would result in greater price fixing, less competition then there is now and an absolute windfall even greater than the industry will realize under the ACA. Eh, it is technically free-market, but the way our whole "health insurance" cost-sharing system works means that there's a lot of middle-men and costs are hidden. This makes it impossible to shop based on price, because you don't ever know how much something will cost till afterwards, and it allows for a lot of collusion and shady practices that drive costs up. (For example - CVS owns Caremark, which is a major company that negotiates payments between insurers and pharmacies. Some insurers that use Caremark require prescriptions to be filled at CVS.) When people say 100% free market system, what they usually mean is that we should scrap the whole insurance system, and have it so that you have to pay for everything yourself, but prices are posted up-front. So you could go to a hospital website and it'll say, like, "MRI - $950" or whatever, and that will allow you to shop around and find the best price. I really don't think that would solve all the problems, for reasons I mentioned in an earlier post, but I understand the desire for greater transparency and price competition.

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