Comments on: The Republican Presidential Candidates’ Health Care Reform Plans–Where’s the Beef?

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:36:42 +0000

So how does this total lack of detail get turned into the Armagedon, Doomsday scenerio being propogated by these people. “I don’t know what I want, I just know what I don’t want” seems to be the platform of these people. Remember all these people as Presidential Candidates said in no uncertain terms “The ECONONMY IS STRONG, I will continue the same policies as we have been on during the King Bush years”! I remember especially Mit Romney talking about the One State Recession in Michigan! I hope John McCain gets his party’s nomination for reelection, his alternative sounds even scarier than John; but with any luck both will shoot themselves in the big toe and a Democrat will come out of Arizona – wouldn’t that be something! Wouldn’t it be something is the Tea Party Wins – we can do away with ALL government, repeal ALL laws and admendments written after the Constitution, all taxes will go away and we will all just fend for ourselves! Remember the Private Militia is there to protect us!

By: MFJ

MFJ — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:10:33 +0000

>There are some very good alternatives to Universal Health Care that include changes to the tax code that currently favors employer-sponsored plans

I agree the current corporate system needs to go. Whoever thought insurance should rely on employment is a little crazy. Also the fact that businesses get full tax breaks for medical costs, but individuals do not.

Sounds like you are very much in the same camp as Ron Paul who is also a Republican Presidential candidate. Some of his plan is located here http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul339.html

By: Joel

Joel — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:29:00 +0000

Regarding your questions about “risk adjustment” bonuses in McCain’s plan- today, typically a state will pay all providers the same rate for the same procedure for all qualified patients. This leads many providers to not accept Medicaid payments for certain patients for various procedures because those procedures can be more costly for some patients versus others. This disproportionately affects the chronically sick and disabled.

A “risk adjustment” bonus is a concept where, based on the patient’s medical history, age, sex, and other demographic factors, the provider would receive a pre-determined bonus on top of the standard Medicaid rate. This would induce more providers to accept Medicaid payments for more at-risk patients.

It’s a good concept, but so technical and confusing that it doesn’t really need to be part of a campaign platform.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:03:58 +0000

I think getting rid of insurance pools entirely would be a great move. It makes no sense that a person is less risky because he works for company A rather than B — they just negotiated a better rate. And the worst part is that anybody who isn’t in a pool (i.e. self-insured) is subsidizing all the people who are in pools. Why not get rid of pools entirely, get rid of employee sponsored plans entirely, and let people get their own insurance and be charged according to the real factors that determine insurance risk?

By: DR

DR — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:18:35 +0000

Plonkee, I agree completely with the points you’ve made. It’s baffling that we tie our health care to employment, and provide no tax incentives for those who work at small companies that don’t provide health insurance. And we have to create insurance pools outside of the employment context to make individual policies more affordable.

By: plonkee

plonkee — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:34:18 +0000

Good to see that politicians all over the world suck.

Random points:
1. I think that your healthcare system needs serious reform, in particular its seems to be too tied to being employed. People need to think about this properly.
2. At some level healthcare insurance has to be redistributive – taking money from the healthy to give to the sick – because that’s the only sustainable model.
3. I quite like the idea of mandatory catastrophic insurance, I’m sure that you can arrange for that to be cheaper than the cost of paying for uninsured people with appropriate limits on the cost of care.

When you’ve fixed yours, you can give me a few suggestions on how to fix ours.