Sunday, July 26, 2009

Single payer system stinks or How I singlehandedly solved Universal Healthcare ;)

I am keeping the theme of stinking in the titles....


If you take out the people that could afford insurance and CHOOSE not to purchase and you take away illegal immigrants as well as those that are eligible for medicare/medicaid but have not signed up....you are left with between 8 and 12 million people who are classified as chronically uninsured, meaning that sometimes they have insurance and sometimes they dont....


You are telling me that spending TRILLIONS to insure those 12 million people is the way to go? Really? How about just buying them private insurance - it would be SOOO much cheaper!


But how about what Oklahoma does.... Oklahoma has a program where depending on your family's income, they subsidize private insurance. Its called Insure Oklahoma or OEPIC. And I dont mean that you need to have like 6 kids and make $25,000 a year or less.... It is designed for those that make too much for State or Federal programs, but dont really make enough to take on the entire burden themselves. Its for those that are squeezed in the middle - for a Single parent that make enough, but not that much.... Its made for the small business owner who is doing a good job, but needs just a bit to cover his or her family with medical coverage.


Here are a few little tidbits:

** If you are a family of 4 and you both work and make $50,000 or less, you can get the insurance...

** Say you are a single mom with 2 kids - If you make $40,000 or less you qualify....

** It has qualifiers for those that work for a company or those that are self-employed.

** If you are college student, you qualify....



Heres how it works - The state of Oklahoma will pick up 60% of your insurance premiums. The worker is expected to pay 15% and the business pays 25%. If you have a spouse, you pay 15% for them and the State pays 85% - the business pays nothing for a spouse.


Kids are counted in regards to family size, but are not eligible for the Insure Oklahoma program - they are covered under a program called Sooner Care.


Monthly premiums will not exceed 4% of monthly gross income.

$10 doctor co-pay
$5 pharmacy drugs
$30 emergency room visit (waived if admitted)
$50 copay for hospital stay


I think this is a good deal.


One of the reasons I love it so much is that it requires the person getting the insurance to put a little something in - they have some skin in the game. They will go see their doctor as opposed to go sit in the emergency room. They will pay attention to their health as it now affects their wallet.


When you hand people housing - food - medical care - it is an entitlement and it is eventually scorned. They feel they deserve it instead of being thankful for it.


But, ultimately, if you dont want coverage, you shouldnt have to get it. Of course, you will suffer the consequences of your actions, as it should be. You should not be penalized if you choose to pay your own way and you shouldnt get a free ride either.


My doctor should be allowed to take no insurance at all and be on a cash only system.


I dont have all the answers and I am sure there are people for whatever reason wouldnt make it on this plan either, but honestly - you arent going to catch every single person with one plan. And that is just fine -because despite what BO wants you to think, people in this country get the medical care they need. People NOT FROM THIS COUNTRY get the medical care that they need because when push comes to shove, we are Americans and we take the tired, the weak and the poor and we will fix them up, feed them, but we will also send their butts back home, sometimes on a private jet.....


This is Oklahoma's plan. It works here. It may not work elsewhere and thats just fine too....work your own state plan - but what we do not need is the Federal Government telling me in Oklahoma that I have to subsidize all the crap that they dictate in California or New York or Massachusetts. Let them work their own plan as we work ours.


In the same way the firearm legislation is a 10th Amendment issue, so is health care.


One final point....if you want to know where cheating, waste, fraud is greatest? Its in Medicare and Medicaid where the Government has taken away profit. There is no motivation to work harder, work smarter, take care of more people in order to increase your take home - there is only incentive to cheat and so many do. That doesnt mean that the private sector does things perfectly, but do you really want a single program that takes away a person's pursuit of happiness?


One last point - The Fed Gov touts tort reform as a major reason for a single payer system vs. private insurance. The major problem with rising insurance premiums is the doctors having to pay higher and higher malpractice insurance premiums. Capping jury amounts is not the answer because if someone really screws up, they should pay - but what would stop all the crap is just a simple system of loser pays. It would make the blood sucking ambulance chasers (different than an attorney) think twice before they sign up scumbags with soft tissue damage. It would make patients take a more active role in their care - which ya know, they should....this is your body and this doctor is working for you - make sure they do their job and do their job right.


As always and ESPECIALLY if Universal Health Care is passed - PRAY - PRAISE - PREPARE and today - PATIENT/PRESCRIPTION/PREMIUMS :)

7 comments:

Mo said...

Brilliant. I suspect you pay your taxes, don't work of ACORN or contribute large sums of money to the democratic party so you probably don't qualify to be a czar ;^) Too bad our nation doesn't have more of the likes of you.

Ryan said...

Brilliant, I am totally stealing this.

I drive my tractor in pearls... said...

Thanks yall :)

TOR - In bloggerdom, theft is the highest form of flattery.

And I read yours and in formulating what needs to be done in my head, I wanted to make sure Maggy was covered.

Wildflower said...

What I don't understand is why we have to jump through so many hoops to keep the healthcare corporations in their obscene profits.

Subsidizing the extremely wealthy is all we are doing.

If we cut out all the money we give them, we could easily afford single payer healthcare.

Why is good to give money to the rich and not the common people? We forget we ARE the common people.

Why can every other first world country in the world provide healthcare to its citizens, along with education (which we do get--although frankly, I think it's as important to keep my kids alive as to keep them educated).

The reason rightwingers aren't screaming about socialist education and how it shouldn't be available to the common man is because education never was privatized to make obscene profits for the rich like health care does.

Sheesh.

Abraham said...

The Oklahoma plan sounds like it takes tax dollars from private citizens, gives it to different private citizens and then the chosen private citizens than get to redirect those tax dollars to private insurers. And that's okay with you?

You also can't just "take away" illegal immigrants because they are the ones running to the ER for their baby's runny nose or to get vaccinations for their kids.

I think that healthcare has a few problems.

1. Health insurance is tied to jobs. We need to decouple it.

2. Insurance companies are bloodsucking leaches draining resources out of the system. The insurance cos. stand between providers and recipients.

Each ins. company also requires different forms. Just having standard forms across the board would create tremendous savings.

We need to reduce the incidence of ins. cos. rejecting folks for pre-existing conditions.

3. how to cover the uninsured.

I drive my tractor in pearls... said...

Abraham - Wildflower...

Excellent points and another post to follow answering your concerns (is that the right word?)

Give me a day....

Pearls

Anonymous said...

Oh you are paying taxes its very good..
___________________
Britney
Cash in your hand in 24Hours with payday loan