Any progressive liberals willing to defend the argument?
If you're looking into buying insurance with Cigna, let me relate what I am going through with them right now. My son was in an accident and we took him to our local hospital. It was determined that he had a broken jaw and needed treatment. There are no Oral Surgeons on call at that hospital. The Oral surgeon that is in network (they are in a different town and even state but they are pretty close) would not see him due to not being on call at Hospital (makes no sense, I know) so we went with the only oral surgeon in town, who was out of network. Due to them being out of network, they wanted payment up front. At this point, several days after the accident, I just wanted care for my son. I was able to pay with credit card and he recieved the care that he needed. He had to have a plate put in over the break and the jaw lined back up.
Now after paying the $15100 for the surgery, Cigna say they would only allow $1250.92 towards the surgery and it went into out of network individual deduction. So I'm out $15100, they are putting a credit of $1250.92 towards a $2500 deductible. Don't know which back alley doctor Cigna based the $1250.92 surgery on but cant say that I would want to use them. I wasn't expecting to be reimbursed for the full amount, but this was just a slap in the face. Totals for Hospital and surgery came up to $18505 and I owe $17059.79. Why do I even have insurance and pay the premiums if it is not going to cover accidents. Thanks for nothing Cigna.
Seriously....you should have changed his name to Rodriquez and snuck him into Mexico and then back across the border into a sanctuary city and then it'd be "free".
Before ObummerCare I was paying $475 per month with a $500 deductible.
For 2018 I will be paying $732 per month with a $3,750 deductible.
But I am thrilled to know that I'm likely covered if I were to get pregnant...... Although as a man, if I did get pregnant, money probably would no longer be an issue anyway!!!!
2. The problems we have today are with healthcare costs, not with healthcare itself and can all be placed on the Federal government:
Who knew!
A) During WW II the Congress froze wages. But they did not freeze employer-paid benefits. As a result, employers started adding employer-paid health insurance to their list of fringe benefits in order to better compete for scarce employees. That began the process of disengaging the user of healthcare from the cost of healthcare, which was and is a very dangerous thing..
B) In the early '60's, Medicare came along which did the same thing in spades. Worse, it also allowed the feds to limit the amount providers could be reimbursed for when they treat Medicare patients.
The feds, being the feds, somehow thought it would be a great idea to reimburse providers at below-market rates. That meant providers needed to charge non-Medicare patients above-market rates to cover their losses, a practice that soon became known as 'cost-shifting.'
This trend continued for decades with an ever-expanding difference between Medicare reimbursement payments and the actual costs to providers who provided those services.
Then, predictably, when non-medicare insurance premiums soared, the Libs claimed our system was broken (which it was, but not for the reason they claimed). As a predictable result, the Libs blaimed insurers and providers for the escalating costs and demanded the Feds take over all healthcare.
Which is how we arrived at ObamaCare and the demands for a single payor system.
As Ronald Reagan so aptly said in joking about big and incompetent government, "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help."
Yeah, right!
All these "Health care is a right" people don't seem to understand that nothing is free, and, as you said, "cost shifting" is just a part of any business who ends up absorbing additional costs. I don't care if it's Walmart increasing prices to cover "shrinkage" (a.k.a. shoplifting) or our doctor. Increased costs ALWAYS get passed down to the consumer.
Why is that such a hard thing for some people to understand?
And just whom should be enslaved to provide these services for free? If there's no profit, what motivates the scientific community to come up with new treatments?
In a free-market, the very best and brightest become doctors, surgeons, nurses and medical researchers because there is a lot of reward there for their talents.
If there were no financial incentive in medicine, they'd put their collective brain-power elsewhere - somewhere that there IS financial incentive.
Did they stop teaching basic economics somewhere along the way while I wasn't looking?
I, for one would not want to trust my health care to the lowest bidder. If you do, that's your right, but I would wager you'd prefer to be treated in a Mayo clinic over a VA hospital. Those over-priced doctors are sure a lot more competent than my mail man, who it seems you would be OK with doing your double bypass surgery, as long as it was available for free to everyone.
How would you know? You have to follow Him first to have anykind of relationship with Him. Besides, He expects us to work for and earn what we have. Nothing is free, including eternal salvation...
That which requires an action by one person on behalf of another cannot be a right.
As Jesus came in fulfillment of scripture his inspiration would have more likely arisen from that text and not Confucius.
If you had an understanding of history the better "argument" to have advanced would have been the inspiration of "Tales of the Eloquent Peasant" which some historians date back to Egypt around 2,000 BC.
Of course if the interest were other than to be an inflammatory gadfly vetting would be the norm, not the exception.....actually, it's never even the exception with some.....vetting never happens......ever......
However one poor soul knew that if they could just touch him they would be healed. But Jesus said it is not I who healed you but your faith...
But FRAUDTHIEST already knew that
Government was never designed to be a welfare state. I have 0 college education but I can figure it out. The best the gov could ever do for the American people is get out of our lives, including healthcare and so-called Social Security. When government governs at the least it governs best.
If a professional accountant handles someone's money the way the gov has handled SS they would be in prison for extortion. This started way back, before Obummer Care. The more the gov gets involved in any aspect of the private sector, the worse it gets and the higher the cost will rise.
God bless, steve
