Inequities in the Healthcare System

[Sundance]

Here's something interesting that a friend sent to me, I hope you'll read it to the very end:

This guy puts it in easily understood terms.

Business creates wealth, government consumes it.

What ObamaCare is Really About

I'm a 54 year old consulting engineer and make between $60,000 and $125,000 per year, depending on how hard I work and whether or not there are work projects out there for me.

My girlfriend is 61 and makes about $18,000 per year, working as a part-time mail clerk.

For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, which also happens to impose a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 per month.

For my girlfriend, the same exact policy, same deductible, costs $1 per month. That's right, $1 per month. I'm not making this up.

Don't believe me? Just go to http://www.coveredca.gov/ ;, the ObamaCare website for California and enter the parameters I've mentioned above and see for yourself. By the way, my zip code is 93940. You'll need to enter that.

So OK, clearly ObamaCare is a scheme that involves putting the cost burden of healthcare onto the middle and upper-income wage earners. But there's a lot more to it. Stick with me.

And before I make my next points, I'd like you to think about something:

I live in Monterey County, in Central California. We have a large land mass but just 426,000 residents - about the population of Colorado Springs or the city of Omaha.

But we do have a large Hispanic population, including a large number of illegal aliens, and to serve this group we have Natividad Medical Center, a massive, Federally subsidized county medical complex that takes up an area about one-third the size of the Chrysler Corporation automobile assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois (see Google Earth View). Natividad has state-of-the-art operating rooms, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fully equipped, 24 hour emergency room, and much more. If you have no insurance, if you've been in a drive-by shooting or have overdosed on crack cocaine, this is where you go. And it's essentially free, because almost everyone who ends up in the ER is uninsured.

Last year, 2,735 babies were born at Natividad. 32% of these were born to out-of-wedlock teenage mothers, 93% of which were Hispanic. Less than 20% could demonstrate proof of citizenship, and 71% listed their native language as Spanish. Of these 876 births, only 40 were covered under [any kind of] private health insurance. The taxpayers paid for the other 836. And in case you were wondering about the entire population - all 2,735 births - less than 24% involved insured coverage or even partial payment on behalf of the patient to the hospital in exchange for services. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

Now consider this:

If I want to upgrade my policy to a low-deductible premium policy, such as what I had with my last employer, my cost is $886 per month. But my girlfriend can upgrade her policy to the very same level, for just $4 per month. That's right, $4 per month. $48 per year for a zero-deductible, premium healthcare policy - the kind of thing you get when you work at IBM (except of course, IBM employees pay an average of $170 per month out of pocket for their coverage).

I mean, it's bad enough that I will be forced to subsidize the ObamaCare scheme in the first place. But even if I agreed with the basic scheme, which of course I do not, I would *never* agree to subsidize premium policies. If I have to pay $482 a month for a budget policy, I sure as hell do not want the guy I'm subsidizing to get a better policy, for less that 1% of what I have to fork out each month for a low-end policy.

Why must I pay $482 per month for something the other guy gets for a dollar? And why should the other guy get to buy an $886 policy for $4 a month? Think about this: I have to pay $10,632 a year for the same thing that the other guy can get for $48. $10,000 of net income is 60 days of full time work *as an engineer*.

$48 is something I could pay for collecting aluminum cans and plastic bottles, one day a month.

Are you with me on this? Are you starting to get an idea what ObamaCare is really about?

ObamaCare is not about dealing with inequities in the healthcare system. That's just the cover story. The real story is that it is a massive, political power grab. Do you think anyone who can insure himself with a premium policy for $4 a month will vote for anyone but the political party that provides him such a deal?

ObamaCare is about enabling, subsidizing, and expanding the Left's political power base, at taxpayer expense. Why would I vote for anyone but a Democrat if I can have babies for $4 a month? For that matter, why would I go to college or strive for a better job or income if it means I have to pay real money for healthcare coverage? Heck, why study engineering when I can be a schlub for $20K per year and buy a new F-150 with all the money I'm saving?

And think about those $4-a-month babies - think in terms of propagation models. Think of just how many babies will be born to irresponsible, under- educated mothers. Will we get a new crop of brain surgeons and particle physicists from the dollar baby club, or will we need more cops, criminal courts and prisons? One thing you can be certain of: At $4 a month, they'll multiply, and multiply, and multiply. And not one of them will vote Republican.

ObamaCare: It's all about political power.

[juppiter]

OK, my counter to this:

Obamacare is repealed. This guy's girlfriend now loses her coverage and is completely uninsured. She now must receive all her care through the emergency room. When her bills come back and they are $20,000 she has no capacity to pay and the hospital must sell that debt to a collection agency for pennies on the dollar. The hospital has now lost money treating her and must make up that money somewhere else -- by charging high rates to insurance companies who have a better capacity to pay. This becomes a feedback loop, with insurance companies paying ever-higher rates past normal inflation, thus even more uninsured unable to pay, thus insurance companies paying higher rates, etc.

Thus, middle and upper earners were already subsidizing care for low earners long before Obamacare. Don't like it? Well, we could just make it so if you can't afford healthcare, the hospital can turn you away and let you die. Then we can complete our regression to third world nation status.

[alphanguy74]

Well... as far the engineer goes, I would tell him to switch places with the Girlfriend, and then live by yourself, on your own... and try to live on 18,000$ a year, instead of an average of 90,000$, and see how that works for you. If your'e that jealous of her subsidy, I say reduce your pay so your'e one paycheck from living under a bridge and then kick back, relax and ENJOY. The whole problem is that insurance companies have purchased all the politicians, and nothing will be done in washington that doesn't include them. Keep in mind, Obamacare was the COMPROMISE, single payer was what he originally wanted. To bypass insurance companies altogether. What SHOULD happen if you REALLY want to lower healthcare costs is get insurance companies completely out of the equation. Your'e never gonna get lower costs with a for-profit middle man standing in the way. We should be paying premiums to networks of Doctors and hospitals, not insurance companies. And that 1$ premium thing for someone making 18,000$ a year is bullshit. I have an Obamacare plan, my income is 13,500$ a year, and I pay 26$ a month. And if the engineer would pay the extra 400$ a month for the low deductible, then he's a fool and doesn't know basic consumer skills. He just should save that 400$ a month in a savings account, and in 1 year, you have your 5,000$ deductible at your disposal, for use whenever you need it.

[alphanguy74]

AMEN! And to add to your last paragraph... almost ANYONE can fall on hard times and be unemployed, even if they are sitting pretty right now. Have the peace of mind to know that can get basic healthcare no matter what happens to you is something that conservatives can't appreciate. They tend to be very short sighted and say "I got mine, you don't have yours? Well screw you".... not realizing that they could sustain major brain damage in a car accident tomorrow and then THEY will be screwed without a robust safety net in our society.

[alphanguy74]

And another point.... this guy bemoans the fact that the healthcare system is burdened with the cost of care of illegal aliens, especially in California. You know why this is the case? This is NOT the government's fault... they are not the ones hiring these people, it's the PRECIOUS PRIVATE SECTOR that's too damn cheap to pay a living wage to americans to do the work. So yes, business creates wealth, and it does so on the backs of every citizen in this country by driving up costs for everyone through illegal alien labor and driving up costs of healthcare by requiring employees to have a docotr's note when they are sick... so our health system is clogged up with people going to the doctor with a simple head cold, all because management in the private sector is simply to effin lazy to make a judgement call if someone's playing hookey or not.

[Max]

Because of The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a hospital can't deny treatment to an uninsured patient who is in an immediate life-or-death situation.

http://www.acep.org/content.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&id=25936&fid=1754&Mo=No&acepTitle=EMTALA

Now, it is certainly true--and very regrettable--that an uninsured individual can die if, for instance, they can't afford a medical exam that could or would have detected a treatable form of cancer (if caught early enough).

But there are also people who can die as a result of "universal" health care: suppose someone lost his insurance, and his old doctor (who had a great reputation) does not participate in an ACA exchange. The person now has to choose an inferior doctor, who misdiagnoses a condition (that, if diagnosed correctly, could have been treated early). Or, in another scenario, somebody insured (prior to ObamaCare) has to wait longer to get an MRI or CAT Scan (and that longer wait time would have made all the difference in treating a fatal condition). This scenario is hardly implausible, because the pool of people wanting such tests will be getting larger (due to the previously uninsured entering the mix), while the number of medical professionals will remain essentially unchanged.

There's really no such thing as health care where everyone can have their cake and eat it too. Some people suffered under the old system, and others will suffer under ObamaCare. But since roughly 84% of Americans are insured, it just does not seem fair to punish those individuals so that the other 16% will benefit.

The stereotypes of private sector greed and government inefficiency often apply (even though there are exceptions). The private sector is not precious, but it is the lesser of two evils, as they usually do a better job at tasks than does the government. For instance, look at the far superior job that UPS and FEDEX do over the USPS. And of course, how often do you hear about private corporations needing two-plus months in order to get a fuc-ed up web site working properly?

Now, conservatives support the deportation of illegal aliens for a number of reasons. Of course we think that their behavior makes it tremendously unfair to legal immigrants (who followed the rules). But we also abhor how the private sector exploits these illegals for cheap labor (which, in turn, creates the further injustice of legal citizens losing their jobs or employment opportunities). Yet, although we state that these are the reasons for opposing illegal immigration, the left just shouts and says that conservatives hate Hispanics.

[alphanguy74]

Oh, I disagree compeltely. I've done alot of shipping in my time, and UPS and FEDEX are in no way superior to the USPS. The USPS has been better, in my experience, and they are non profit, so they deliver a letter for less than any private company could do it, no question about that. And if the USPS didn't exist, what would you have people do who live in rural counties where you have to drive 25 miles to a facility that will ship Fedex or UPS?

[Max]

Alphanguy, I'm glad that you're pleased with the USPS, but people are willing to pay UPS and FEDEX prices because the perception exists that they are more efficient than the USPS. UPS and FEDEX must be doing something right, because they are making a profit, while the USPS lost $5 billion in 2013.

I personally have become very dissatisfied with my own mailman, because he now delivers the mail after 7 P.M. every night (sometimes after 8 P.M.). I see this inefficiency as a huge waste of my tax dollars, because the mail always used to come at around 3 or 4 P.M. Perhaps some of this sharp decline in service is due to the "evil" GOP House not giving the USPS all the money it wants. But the years of massive losses (and subsequent service declines) go beyond budgetary constraints; the USPS has lost a lot of revenue due to people choosing UPS or FEDEX.

Honestly, I don't think that somebody in rural America having to drive 25 miles to get and receive their mail is a tremendous hardship. Rural life has a lot of advantages, but one of the big disadvantages is that one is so far away from places of convenience such as the supermarket. While it would be impractical for many to drive 25 miles each day, making the trip a few times a week really isn't a major inconvenience. (As with being far away from a supermarket, I just see it as one of the negative aspects of rural life.)

And the fact that the USPS seems to have an office in each small town is another reason why it is losing so much money. Now, I don't know if this is true everywhere, but in Cape Cod, MA (where my family vacations) a post office is open year round in each town, even though most towns have few year-round residents. It would make a lot more sense to place the postal offices in just the larger towns like Orleans, Hyannis, and Falmouth.

[allmc2008]

Why does everyone complain about helping the lower class? It is barbaric and narcissistic to say "I don't want my taxes to help illegals and homeless people".

The only people who have the right to say they don't want to help illegals are people of 100% native American decent and are incapable of becoming homeless. It reality every white person in the country, including me, are illegal because white people INVADED this continent and claimed it as our own.

[JaneAusten]

I consider myself a moderate and it really annoys me probably even more so when I read about people complaining about the healthcare program. The original proposal was single payer, which by the way isn't that what medicare is? Yet the Affordable Care Act is the same program Romney implemented in Massachusetts, the program the Heritage Foundation supported, yet the right seems hell bent on portraying it as yet another handout for poor people. They are so clueless as to the fact that one reason insurance costs are so high is due to the fact that yes we have to care for those who don't have insurance and that premiums are so high because insurance coverage is not regulated and they have to make up for the costs that get forfeited somehow , so they end up increasing premiums on those who can afford it to make up for those who can't. The ignorance is astounding.

I might have more sympathy for these so called Christians, if they spent less time cutting programs like foodstamps which represent less than 1% of our national budget and started looking at our defense spending which is almost 60% of our national budget. It's ludicrous that the wealthiest country in the world does the worst job of caring for those less fortunate but yet seems to have no qualms sending money all over the world and building tools for the military, even when the military says they don't need it, like those 50,000 jeeps produced that just went to scrap. How much did that cost us? According to the right it's just standard military budget fallout.

[alphanguy74]

True... these are "faux christians" that listen to Rush and Hannity and really worship money and material posessions, not God. Now on the other hand, TRUE Christians are the Women (Many times nuns) and men that run the catholic hospitals in this country. They all run non-profit, and give hundreds of millions of dollars away in charity care each year to the uninsured, they just take the loss themselves because there is a need to be filled, and it's so admirable that they do this, although we as a society should lessen their burden. It also astound me that people bitch and moan about paying taxes for healthcare, when we pay taxes to house pot smokers in our prisons! All we need to do is make changes in our legal system and we'd have plenty of revenue for healtcare for the poor, imagine if instead of jail time, every Marijuana violation would be punishable by a 250$ fine INSTEAD? It would be a cash cow for the state.

[quartermainefan]

There are inequities in every system. The middle class and wealthy use airports and make use of the FAA, the poor do not. The poor pay taxes that go to the FAA anyway. The entire economic system we have is tantamount to a giant conspiracy to keep the poor poor and it is ridiculous that a guy making $75,000 a year wants to see someone making $25,000 a year begrudged to the point he is trying to convince others to begrudge the poor.

Just think about the billions paid every year $3 at a time at every ATM in the world. Those with money take out large sums, those with less take out $40 at a time and pay an almost 10% surcharge. The wealthy take out $200 at a time and pay a 1.5% surcharge--if they use ATMs at all. Across every state every state government has decided to go into the casino business to rob the poor blind. Who plays mega million lotteries at the 7-11? Billionaires? No, the poor. And the poor go to casinos and piss their money away on slot machines. The poor smoke cigarettes so the governtments slap on oppressive taxes aimed at taking money expressly from the poor. Did those revenues go to some poor only fund no one knows anything about?

This guy in his condo and BMW begrudges poor people getting a doctor. My heart breaks for him.

[Max]

With all due respect, this is the biggest piece of b.s. I have read on the internet in a long time. How the hell is every white American "illegal" (according to your definition) when many--including my own German and Irish ancestors--came here legally long after some white people slaughtered many Indians? Trying to blame all white people for atrocities that happened long ago--in effect forcing them to have "white guilt"--is a huge reason why the Democrats do so poorly amongst whites. (It explains white voting patterns far more than idiotic statements such as "you can't stand to have a black man as POTUS.") And it is only the MSNBC wing of the Democratic Party that seems to want to lay huge guilt trips on certain groups for atrocities that those living today are completely blameless. As a counter-example to the left-wing madness, I have never heard one Jewish group suggest that there needs to be "Gentile guilt" (or anything along those lines) because the Holocaust occurred (even though that was worse than slavery and Jim Crow combined).

Most people do pay all their taxes, and many find their combined tax payments to be an enormous burden. In recent years, those most notorious for not paying their taxes have been "progressives" like Rep. Charles Rangel and Obama's former Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner. Of course, if you feel that you are not paying enough in taxes, you are always free to send more money to the government.

Obama's approval rating wouldn't be hovering around 40 percent if it was just a bunch of conservatives who are angry about ObamaCare. Many independents are angry about it because they were told that they could keep their insurance, period, and are finding out that this is not the case. This forced change in insurance (which will also mean that people will have to switch doctors if their previous doctors aren't in their new plans) is far more burdensome than a tax increase. It would be one thing if Obama and company told us that those currently insured (prior to ACA implementation) would have to make a big sacrifice, but such sacrifice is necessary because universal healthcare is a moral imperative. Yet that wasn't stated, most likely because liberals knew that such statements would kill the chances of ObamaCare becoming law. Instead, we were led to believe that everyone would be just as well off under ObamaCare as before. (Unfortunately, the Democrats themselves seemed to encourage ignorance over the ACA, as evidenced by Pelosi's outrageous comment that Congress should pass the health care bill now, in order to find out what was in it later.)

The individual mandate that conservatives (at Heritage and elsewhere) once argued for was not intended to be used in the same way as it is being used in the ACA. Nor is the version of RomneyCare (that existed when Romney was governor) the same thing as ObamaCare. These are talking points that the left likes to say, because it advances their narrative at how "extreme" today's GOP has become. Here is a great article that explains the differences: http://www.policymic.com/articles/65939/obamacare-isn-t-romneycare-and-the-gop-didn-t-invent-it

[allmc2008]

Either you read to much into what I wrote or I did not phrase it correctly. Or both.

Here is my original post:

"The only people who have the right to say they don't want to help illegals are people of 100% native American decent and are incapable of becoming homeless. It reality every white person in the country, including me, are illegal because white people INVADED this continent and claimed it as our own."

The point I was trying to make is that we are all human and we must respect one another unless that person is someone like Hitler. I also said "Incapable of becoming homeless". First, I just realized that I needed to add "...and poor people" after "Illegals" because the point I was getting at with "incapable of becoming homeless" is that nobody is incapable of being homeless. We all are dependent on money so we all can be poor.

[Max]

Allmc, you are such a nice person, so I hated being so harsh on you. (I sincerely apologize if I hurt your feelings.) However, I just couldn't disagree more with your reasoning that every white American is technically illegal, especially since many whites have ancestors who weren't among those who killed the Native Americans.

I can't speak for everybody, but I think that most conservatives and independents want to help the poor, and they do so by paying their taxes. (And many give to charity as well.) But in quite a few cases, federal income taxes, state (and sometimes city) income taxes, property taxes, payroll taxes, and still more taxes comprise 50% or more of one's earnings. I don't have any objection if multi-millionaires are having 50% of their earnings going to the government, but such a high tax percentage is usually a big burden, even for those who earn $500K or so a year (given that they could have mortgage payments and child-related expenses). (Of course, most people don't earn anywhere near $500K, thus making taxes even a larger burden for them.)