Please check my "all-purpose" blog at www.justsomeposts.blogspot.com or my blog about my wife's journey with a fatal disease - MSA - at www.livingwithasnowman.blogspot.com

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Healthcare and government funding of same

On Facebook the other day a good friend of mine posted this link to a story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/upshot/a-deal-too-good-to-turn-down-unless-its-medicaid.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

It goes into the fact that Virginia is not meeting the criteria set up by the federal government on expanding Medicaid as outlined in the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). This prevents Virginia from receiving funds from the federal government.

My friend's comment was: "Hey VIrginia legislators! Get a clue."

He and I differ somewhat on the role of government and such, but I respect his opinion and knowledge greatly. I felt compelled to post a response.

Then this exchange follows between he and I:

  • Scott Poole My argument is - there is no government money! Neither state nor federal! To tell one overdrawn bank account they will be made whole by another larger overdrawn bank account is not fiscally responsible nor ethically honest.
  • Brian Keller Would you agree that there are pools of money that are collected from the citizenry? If so, how should they best be distributed to provide for the common good? How should we get a grip on our current healthcare system?
  • Scott Poole You know I love a good, sensible dialogue. So...Yes monies are needed from the citizenry. I do not, however, agree in the scope and reach that we have allowed government to obtain; especially at the Federal level. There simply is not enough money from the producers to support the non-producers. Some societal "safety nets" are necessary, and I might even be convinced that government should provide some of them. (I am greatly in favor of private enterprise and personal charity - another subject) Regardless of the negative press that the US healthcare system gets, we have the best system in the world. By force of law, public hospitals are required to treat and provide care for anyone that needs it. IMHO, the biggest improvement we could make is to eliminate the threat of bankruptcy by tort by capping awards for malpractice in all but the most egregious negligence. We could also help by making health insurance sales national, not state by state. Also, health insurance policies that offer whatever coverage the insured wants/needs. The idiocy of making all insurance policies cover all illnesses and conditions is just making it more expensive for most at the expense of some. Many, many more. Not necessarily the forum for this. I may try my "discussion blog" again with this.
  • Brian Keller Let me know when you start it, Scott. I'll serve up some responses. I love a sensible dialogue too, you know. There are so damn few of them.
I would ask that any and all of you that can have an adult, responsible discussion of this subject please do so. ANY respectable, non-judgmental, and civil response will be posted. Any rude, crass, disrespectful response will NOT.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for doing this, Scott.

    Here's my thoughts this morning.

    First, the US doesn't have the best healthcare system in the world, only the most expensive. According to whomever's report you believe, we have anywhere from the 33rd to the 37th in terms of quality of care and life expectancy. Now I'm not saying that the Affordable Care Act is going to fix that but it was the best step that anyone could come up with, considering the fact that tort reform is just not going to happen. (I'm with you, I believe that would have a big impact on reducing it.)

    The larger cost in the system is waste and hospital groups are the biggest culprits. A NYT story last year came up with back of the envelop numbers of $750 Billion in waste, over billing, and bogus billing; that would reduce our healthcare costs by about 1/3. That's ridiculous and I don't see anyone in that sector, and that's a for-profit entity in most cases, doing anything to change it. (Since my time in healthcare, I've said that if the Consumer Protection Agency looked into healthcare pricing like they do retail pricing, the bigwigs would just have a heart attack.) That, to me, is the role of the Federal Government; to ride herd on the businesses so that they do the right thing, or at least, something that passes for the right thing.

    My wife works for Capital One. That corporation works very hard to provide benefits that are far above the minimum. As a result, their people are very loyal, hard working, and devoted to doing a good job. I expect it costs the company a lot of money to do that; they appear to see it as an investment instead of an expense. If all companies acted this way, there would be less reason for govt to intrude.

    Does everyone have "healthcare" in this country? Yes. But that's only in times of crisis. The ACA was produced with the desire to help everyone be healthier and reduce the overall cost of healthcare in the country which has been rising at an unsustainable rate for many years.

    Bear in mind, we still don't have socialized medicine. The law is taking direct action at businesses to do something about it. Is it perfect, nope.

    On the original document that I posted, my entire point is that Virginians have already been taxed for the Medicaid expense. Not collecting it back into the state and providing a higher level of care to 400,000 residents is just dumb, in my opinion.

    I've got to go catch a plane but I'll check back later today.

    ReplyDelete