…everyone relax.
(AP) Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who promised early in his campaign to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, says he would keep several important parts of the overhaul.
“Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place,” he said in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”
Romney also said he would allow young adults to keep their coverage under their parents’ health-insurance.
Those provisions have been two of the more popular parts of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
“I say we’re going to replace Obamacare. And I’m replacing it with my own plan,” Romney said. “And even in Massachusetts when I was governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions and with young people.”
This caused a freakout by some on the Republican side Sunday, and glee from some Liberals. But, should it cause those reactions? No.
Once Ocare was passed, it was always known that certain portions would have to be part of the Republican plan, because those ideas, such as pre-existing conditions and adults up to 26 being allowed to stay on their parents insurance are extremely popular with the American people when polled. Heck, the “up to 26 years old thing” is actually a part of SCHIP, and has been around for years now, and is actually not that bad of an idea. These younger adults are typically the ones that decide they won’t get health insurance because they are “freaking immortal man, nothing can hurt me!!!!!!”. Better that they have insurance and contribute healthy bodies to the insurance pools. Then there is pre-existing conditions. As National Review points out, Romney previously said this
I also want to make sure that people can’t get dropped if they have a preexisting condition. . . . So let’s say someone has been continuously insured and they develop a serious condition and let’s say they lose their job or they change jobs, they move and they go to a new place. I don’t want them to be denied insurance because they’ve got some preexisting condition. So we’re going to have to make sure that the law we replace Obamacare with assures that people who have a preexisting condition, who’ve been insured in the past are able to get insurance in the future so they don’t have to worry about that condition keeping them from getting the kind of health care they deserve.
Just like under O-care, there’s no mention of cost. And under O-care those with pre-existing conditions are being charged out the wazoo for insurance.
The notion that one cannot be actually dropped because they get sick is another notion in Obamacare that is popular. I bet you think this is a good idea. It’s not like getting dropped from your auto insurance because you’re a bad driver who keeps side-swiping other cars. You didn’t have that much choice in getting sick.
Romney also wants to empower consumer choice with
- End tax discrimination against the individual purchase of insurance
- Allow consumers to purchase insurance across state lines
- Unshackle HSAs by allowing funds to be used for insurance premiums
- Promote “co-insurance” products
- Promote alternatives to “fee for service”
- Encourage “Consumer Reports”-type ratings of alternative insurance plans
And plenty of other ideas, some of which may be popular with Conservatives, some of which are meant to be popular with independents and middle ground voters.
As a physician, I can tell you that tomorrow the cost of medical care would drop 30% if you got the government out. That is about how much we have to pay to meet all the regulations and make sure no one will say we are committing fraud.
Then, reduce the number of doctors, that includes eliminating all doctors with foreign degrees. Why? Because for every doctor on the streets, that is one more individual that wants an income of several hundred thousand dollars. They will get that income no matter what. They will schedule patients for visits they don’t need, they will do unnecessary surgery, they will do unnecessary procedures, in short anything to get the bill up. Fewer doctors means that they will not need to do these extra things.
Then ask why hospitals charge $1000 or more to provide the same service that a hotel provides for $150 per night. Or why surgery using the same nurses getting paid the same amount they were 20 years ago and the same techniques cost $50,000 now versus $5000 in the day.
Basically the way billing occurs is due to the efforts of Bobby Jindal, it is a failure and should be dumped. Get the government out, eliminate all the secondary cirtificates you have to get after training (ACLS) and leave the industry alone. The cost will drop significantly.
[…] of health insurance across state lines. Both are part of the plan outlined on his website, which as William Teach pointed out, includes the following:End tax discrimination against the individual purchase of insuranceAllow […]
While I do agree with david’s assertion that government regulations increase the costs of health care, the rest of his post seems to be lacking.
For example, while I agree the burden on doctors as far as paperwork is concerned in ridiculous, fraud will increase if all regulations are stopped. david’s argument is akin to saying “if we had less police, all crime will stop.” The fact of the matter is that fraud in health care amounts to about $250 billion a year of which $100 billion is from Medicare / Medicaid. That means fraud is more likely in the private sector than in the public sector.
david’s point on fewer doctors makes no sense at all. In essence, he is trying to rewrite new economic theories where less of a supply (doctors) decreases costs. Once again, the fact of the matter is that there is a critical shortage of doctors in the world and the US is not exempt from that fact.
While there are doctors who will pad their bill with extra tests, most procedures and extra tests are done to prevent lawsuits.
In essence, david wants people to believe that all doctors are perfect little angels and if left to their own devices, everything would be perfect.
That assertion is absurd.
gc,
I have indicated in the past that you are too stupid to answer and a bully. I will do it this time. If you bother to take a fundamental course in economics, you will find that the economics of the medical industry do not work in the same manner as the general rule. You will find a principal known as “economic profit”. That is the money a person receives in return for services provided after all the bull in factored in. Like as I respond to someone who comments without knowledge on a subject one has spent over 40 years, 24/7 involved in. Go to school, read a book, quit looking stuff up off the internet and listen when an expert in a field gives you information. You look far less stupid.
You will find a principal known as “economic profitâ€.
Perhaps you need tyo go back to school, david. “Economic profit” is defined as “The difference between the revenue received from the sale of an output and the opportunity cost of the inputs used. This can be used as another name for “economic value added” (EVA).”
So when you have fewer doctors, the economic value rises. The costs to the end user (the patient) would also rise. Doctors, like any service industry, will charge the max of what they can get.
Lowering the number of doctors would lower the number of service hours available from doctors. The lower number of hours will naturally cause costs to rise. You cannot escape that conclusion. You cannot come to any other conclusion.
So despite your protestation of others not knowing anything, it seems that you aren’t familiar with economics or simple math.
Have a nice day.
Sorry Teach. I have to disagree with you there. If young adults don’t want to be on insurance, they should have that choice. And if people want to insure someone, they should have that choice.
The FEDERAL government, heck anyone, should not tell me who I want to pay insurance for. If I want to insure my whole family, I don’t see why I can’t? Why do we need a law to mandate it? Seems like insurance companies would love it too.
I fear however with this pre-existing condition exemption, the insurance companies will find another way around it. They will say, as they do now, “fine, but we won’t cover that condition for 5 years. We will cover everything else, but not that condition.”
And yes, Romey’s idea of “his own plan” scares the conservative crap out of me. It harkens back to the talk during the primaries that he loves Romney-care and Obama-Care so much, that any change would be minimal at best.
And now that he is speaking out about keeping parts of ObamaCare… I fear that he won’t reverse much of anything this Socialist gov’t has implemented.
gc,
Can’t help myself, but yet again, you looked something up off the internet and did not understand what the statement said. Economic cost involes opportunity cost (per the internet), in the text and in class it is explained a bit different. The fact is that putting up with humans and expected revenue stream are all “opportunity cost”. So if a doctor does not get a certain amount, he bumps his accounting cost to compensate for the excess opportunity cost.
Now, you mentioned medicare fraud. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. I have to protect myself every minute from a charge of fraud because when you file any medicare bill, you automatically commit fraud. That is according to the federal da in my area as well as several attorneys that I know. In fact, I had to school an attorney recently on medicare fraud as it is different from regular fraud. The whole thing is bogus, much like your tax return.
By the way, your orginial comment contradicts itself several times.
Please, learn something before commenting and don’t pull stuff off the internet that you think you understand.
I am back to ignoring you.
So how does one know that a test is not needed until they are given the test. That is what the test is for, to find out. I have never been given a test that wasn’t related to why I was at the doctor’s office anyway. An unnecessary test would be giving a GI series for a mental disorder. A necessary test would be giving the same test for severe stomach pain, even if nothing was found. That just tells you that you need to look at something else. The former test would tell you the same thing, but in that case, you already knew that it would reveal nothing and was a waste of time and money. But if the doctor is following an honest path, there will be the common tests, followed by less common tests and finally the more arcane tests until the condition is identified. Some folks with bizarre conditions have to go through many tests and many doctors before their particular condition is identified. Once discovered, often their condition can be either cured, or controlled. Will you tell them that all their tests were unnecessary?