Medicare for All

[docsherm]

Sorry, I misread this, and got the impression you were saying you din't have TriCare due to mentioning both Select and Prime in the same sentence: I am not on TriCare Select for Retired. I have a 20% copay for everything now. I could be on Prime and not have that 20% but I want to bigger network so I pay more.

I'm also on TriCAre, but unlike you (apparently) I didn't do all my time active duty, so I had to wait until 60 to draw.

I'm grateful for the government assistance with my insurance, it allowed both my wife and myself to retire early and not have to worry about insurance.

Unlike an active component retiree, I had to pay health insurance premiums, along with co-pays, for most of my adult life, plus chunking away 1/4ish of my pay for retirement, again something I've often found the active component retiree often doesn't get.

Empathy doesn't mean sympathy, it simply means trying to look at things from the other person's perspective. Generally if both sides look at things with an empathetic mind, they can find middle ground to work from. Spotting the dogmatic response doesn't generally get you there.

It must have been a typo, I am NOW on TriCare Select for retires. I agree with the Empathy part. I can empathize with those people because I was there at one time. I did not like it... So I changed my situation. What I can't condone are those that don't try.

[docsherm]

Yep. That's what they believe but they refuses to recon the fact that everyone can't be. Only one can be at a time. In his view all are failures except the one that made it. On my birth certificate it list my father's occupation as professional baseball player. He was but never got called up from the farm league. He was obviously a failure for not trying hard enough to make the big leagues. These people's logic is warped. They made it and refuse to admit any part of their success was due to being in the right place at the right time.

So you are saying that everyone is a winner? What?

Not everyone can be the winner. Your father never made it to the pros...... But he did make it to the farm league, correct? If so that means he tried and did make it farther than 90% of the people out there. That is an accomplishment.

Being in the right place at the right time is CRAP The people that are in the right place at the right time put themselves there for the reason that they WANT to make it.

Most of the "reasons" that other people make it are excuses that people that didn't make it tell others to make themselves feel better. "I would have gotten an A in that class but the teacher didn't like me", "I could have been the starting quarterback but it is all political"..... Right, keep telling yourself that.

[Adrenaline_6]

So you are saying that everyone is a winner? What?

Not everyone can be the winner. Your father never made it to the pros...... But he did make it to the farm league, correct? If so that means he tried and did make it farther than 90% of the people out there. That is an accomplishment.

Being in the right place at the right time is CRAP The people that are in the right place at the right time put themselves there for the reason that they WANT to make it.

Most of the "reasons" that other people make it are excuses that people that didn't make it tell others to make themselves feel better. "I would have gotten an A in that class but the teacher didn't like me", "I could have been the starting quarterback but it is all political"..... Right, keep telling yourself that.

Yup. It's like Bruce Lee quote of you will never see the winner of a fight say it was a dirty fight.

I don't know where he got it from, but my Dad always said, you need to be good (skill/talent) to be lucky. for the most part barring something like the lottery, he was right.

[26 Inf]

Strange question. It's because I can't afford to work for free.

My apologies, I'm backing out of this thread.

[26 Inf]

Or want to work for free........

I'm backing out of this thread.

[docsherm]

So now your saying I'm a loser for working as a volunteer? Got it.

In HMAC's example, the patient shouldn't have been billed for the office call IF they HAD to send them to the ER for treatment.

Likewise, if you take what was billed for the office call, and divide it among the time spent in the office and on the OR consult, since the two are interconnected, it isn't working for free, it's just not making as much.

WOW..... Projecting much? I never said that. Charity is a great thing. Everyone should be charitable in some way. I have no issue with that at all. I give time and money to many charities.

There is a huge difference between charity and having people EXPECT free sh!t. When people EXPECT Charity they need to be cut off immediately.

Charity should be given. Not forced or EXPECTED.

Thant was my point

[26 Inf]

WOW..... Projecting much? I never said that. Charity is a great thing. Everyone should be charitable in some way. I have no issue with that at all. I give time and money to many charities.

There is a huge difference between charity and having people EXPECT free sh!t. When people EXPECT Charity they need to be cut off immediately.

Charity should be given. Not forced or EXPECTED.

Thant was my point

I guess I deleted too late. Shouldn't have taken the break to work with the dogs.

[docsherm]

I guess I deleted too late. Shouldn't have taken the break to work with the dogs.

No Problem.

[Hmac]

In HMAC's example, the patient shouldn't have been billed for the office call IF they HAD to send them to the ER for treatment.

Likewise, if you take what was billed for the office call, and divide it among the time spent in the office and on the OR consult, since the two are interconnected, it isn't working for free, it's just not making as much.

In this case, the insurance company's rules require that such a patient has to go to the ER...the needed CT scan can't be obtained in a timely fashion demanded by good medical care unless he goes to the ER. In doing so, I then have to put my clinic on hold, make my other patients wait, while I trudge over to the ER to duplicate much of the work and record that I had already done. The extra work is probably more than double given the inefficiencies of most ER's (ours is very efficient but not as efficient as my outpatient clinic because of different rules and regulations, also not of my doing nor the hospital's) is not my fault and certainly not my choice - it's the insurance company's. But it has to be done and I should be paid for it.

Someone around here mentioned administrative and regulatory inefficiencies as adding a lot of work and a lot of cost to the system. Yep.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

My apologies, I'm backing out of this thread.

I'm backing out of this thread.

Three steps towards the door.......


While there are plenty of economic, political and fairness reasons that 'universal healthcare' is not as simple or good as it seems, I wanted to focus in the literal term "Medicare for all". It seems that is the shorthand that they want to use to get around terms like "socialized medicine" and 'universal healthcare".

As I pointed out, you pay into Medicare for decade before getting benefits, so that seems to be a big difference. I also knew that there different parts of Medicare and even insurance. So I asked my MIL about her and her sisters medicare.

My MIL is healthy as a horse. He sister is in the start of dementia and is in a controlled care facility. Really different use patterns.

MIL pays about $7k out of pocket for co-insurance and pays a bit of a premium due to income. She showed me her 2019 benefits and costs statement. That means medicare and the insurance cover almost all her costs with little or no deductible. I;'m not sure on the sisters co-inusrance, but I assume it similar since it covers all her care. What it doesn't cover is all her drug costs and she is in the 'donut hole' on those where she has bog out of pocket payments as coverage stops and before it starts again. I don't know the exact dollars there.

But what you can see is- with all the parts and insurances you need to add to be truly 'covered'- it is pretty complex and definitely not simple. Also, Medicare isn't 'free coverage' and there are still private insurances. So the idea that young people may have- and how the commies are selling it- are wrong. You can still get into financial problems even with 'medicare' coverage.

And lastly, that doesn't even address the fact that Medicare pays about $0.20 on the $1.00 for reimbursement. Now we know the list price are BS, but Medicare pays less than regular insurance, so if you went with all medicare payments, there would be less dollars for care- and something has to give.

My main point is that "Medicare for All' isn't a solution to the real problems and it is an implied lie that it would address all the cost, price and access issues. It won't.