I personally feel the amount of money it takes to keep me alive a sin. But then I read Forecast mag. and it states that it cost $0.15 to make test strip but they cost $1+. So who is the bigger sinner? A person who needs $0.15 to live or the system, company, or person that requires $0.85+ to let them?
Hi Gary. I agree that we need a happy balance. About the voucher system, I have heard that it will cost seniors something between $2,000 and 6,000 annually, which if true would be devastating for many if not most. If only people on both sides of the aisle could come together with common sense and compassion...
Oh, wow! It's low carb.
Please accept, what I posted in the Canada Group ...easy to delete, if not appropriate in this discussion. How easy it is to frauduently ( SP???) obtain $$$!
Information from Canada Revenue Agency
Information for Qualified Practitioners
Persons with disabilities The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is advising physicians to contact it if they feel they
http://www.cma.ca/index.php?ci_id=204820&la_id=1
Disability tax credit applications rising by 10% annually
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is advising physicians to contact it if they feel they are being pressured to provide information to support patients' claims for the federal Disability Tax Credit (DTC) that "they may not have medical records to support."
The advice comes as private companies that "help people apply" for the DTC and then claim a major portion of resulting refunds use advertising campaigns to seek potential applicants. The Toronto Star reported last year that one "refund company" claimed 30% of refunds resulting from DTC applications it initiated.
I totally agree that "disability" is a great way to fraudulently obtain $$, whether Canadian or USA. I totally believe there are people who need the support and I don't begrudge them any support they can be given but ther are a lot of people milking the system. Of course, it would require investment of $$$ in a means of investigating them to perhaps change things but the system is demented enough that some people are abble to get things arranged so they can make the system work for them.
Hi Trudy, I don't really know the details of of what it would or would not cost seniors and feel that the political system of conserative and liberals would balance it out. I argue for the mechanics of the system not the dollar amounts.
I see so much waste and inequity in our current system. I see waste every time I visit my doctor because of unnecessary staff there only to file insurance and collect debts. I see waste when the cost for those that can't pay is shifted to those that can. I advocate for a system where all can pay for their own health care and each persons cost is truly his/her cost not cost that's inflated by those that can't pay. Our current system runs up the cost for all and I believe the are savings to be had by replacing it.
I believe all should be insured not just those with means.
Gary S
HAS IT COME TO THIS?
Healthcare and it's subsets Medicare and Medicaid are at the root of our budget problems. Simply put, growth in costs that exceed inflation year after year are unsustainable.
When other countries designed their health care systems they started with the premise that all citizens would be covered and worked back from there. In the recent health care debate it became obvious that the underlying principle for our reforms was the existing profits of the various players in the system must be preserved at all costs. So we wound up with a bill that does very little to control costs.
We spend way more of our GDP on healthcare and have very mediocre outcomes, this is something we should be able to fix. Instead of looking at other countries, who have much lower costs and better outcomes to see what we can learn and adapt to our country, we spent our time debating "death panels" and the infringement on our personal liberties that insisting everyone take responsibility for their healthcare would cause.
In the land of rugged individualists it is perfectly acceptable to go without insurance and then when you get sick to pass the cost's on to those of us who more prudently sacrifice so that we have insurance. Personally I resent this infringement on my liberties way more than that caused by demanding personal responsibility of everyone.
Ryan's plan is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, this will cause the number of uninsured to rise. Then he would slash medicaid, which would also add to the number of uninsured. So in this brave new world, there would be more and more costs from the uninsured passed on to those still able to carry insurance, raising our rates even more. Where does it all end? The only way out would be to deny care to those who can't pay, is this where we want to go?
Since Ryan's plan does nothing to control costs seniors, will soon be unable to afford insurance under the voucher system. What then, go without? I have always felt we owed it to our seniors to take care of them as they age. Our lives and our liberties come from the hard work and sacrifice our elders made. We owe them a dignified old age.
Little noted in Ryan's plan is a slashing of veterans benefits. Since we owe them our freedom how can we do such a thing?
In a perfect world I would start health care reform with this simple premise, everyone is covered and everyone pays at least something. But until the stranglehold of big money has on our elected representatives is broken, this is nothing more than a pipe dream.
As for the budget in general, raising revenue to apply to 1/3 of the deficit and making up the other 2/3s in spending cuts would be a workable compromise, everyone gives up something. But when one side refuses to even consider raising taxes and the other demagogues Medicare and Social Security shamelessly, compromise is impossible.
Very thought-provoking stuff BadMoonT2, thank you for your post.
BadMoon, I wholeheartedly agree. Very well written.
Many have spoken of Ryan's proposed Medicare vouchers being used to purchase insurance on the free market... but nobody here has mentioned the fact that PWD on insulin can't purchase insurance on the free market... and will never be able to if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. It worries me because we all know that, even with vouchers, insurance providers are not going to welcome PWD with open arms. And, if forced to accept us, what is to keep insurers from pricing coverage such that most or all can't pay it?
Many speak out against long standing safety nets. I always say to those people that if you and your family are fortunate enough to have never needed any type of assistance, I'm happy for you. But for at least one member of my family, his life depends on those services.
The way I see it is that failure of states to implement the ACA and the slashing of Medicare and Medicaid will result in higher mortality rates for our country. For me, that's too high of a price to pay. Balancing the budget with people's lives is not acceptable.
I think this type of discussion is important because I see many people in my world (particularly at work) who will vote without researching, reading and really trying to understand the issues.
These are the same people who demand budget cuts locally and at the state level but scream when services are eliminated because we can't afford them anymore. They don't seem to realize that there is a real consequence associated with cuts.
I've experienced the debris and aftermath some of these same campaign issues implemented at the state level have caused so I know how I will vote.
And, if provision is made to "squeeze" insurance companies to provide coverage for us, within the terms of the vouchers, it's not really all that different from mandating coverage by eliminating exclusion for pre-existing conditions, which is what the current, Supreme Court-approved plan does. You can call it what you want to call it but, without health care, our pursuit of happiness is impaired because when you hve diabetes or any other chronic medical condition, you need medicine and test strips.
smileandnod, I agree, people who vote, without thinking through why, are the root cause of many of our problems. It's why candidates can propose things whose math is not even close to adding up and get away with it. Also no memory of the past. Every time the minimum wage is raised there are dire predictions that the economy will be ruined and companies will go out of business right and left. I don't recall any such thing happening.
Now a pizza chain says they will have to charge 18 cents more per pizza to cover the ACA's mandated health care for their employees, to which I say, what a deal why would we not?
I am not sure we can really say we've ever tried approaching problems like health care and other social issues communally, really hardly anywhere. Any time there's been a revolution of one sort or another, there's always a ruling clique, whether Robespierre or Stalin or Thomas Jefferson. Ours seems to have lasted because the clique is nice but the weight of demography will obligate them to share, whether they want to or not. I still suspect that we could, in fact, manage sharing of one sort or another reasonably effectively and, if it turns out we can't, then I'll believe them.
OK...if the government is so good at running Health Care and Social Security then why are both systems broke. They are both ponzi schemes and have been mismanaged for decades(regardless of political party) and they keep kicking the can down the road for fixing the problem. Also with baby boomers getting closer to retirement it is political suicide to propose changes.
Something different has to be done to allow the systems to be financially viable. Regardless who is in office I don't see much hope they will accomplish anything until China stops buying our bonds. At that point they'll start printing money to pay for Medicare and Social Security and the US dollar will be worth about the same as the Iraqi dinar.
Probably more of an issue for generation X and Y then baby boomers and current recipients of the benefits.
I didn't say they were good at it, my point is that we haven't sincerely tried to make the systems work because of the constant stream off attacks against supporting "them" with "our" money.
When we (or FDR?) decided we "needed" a nuclear bomb, we found the resources, both intellectual and material, to put a few together to shorten the war and save some lives at the expense of others. If we want to save the USA, we need to focus on the demographic bubble that is poised to swamp the health care system in which, I suspect, diabetes is probably small potatoes, which is not good news for all of us. There is quite a bit of wealth to be had out there and I think it's about time to figure out a way to share it.
If the non-sharing side would like to figure out terms upon which they might share, I would think that there'd be plenty of room to compromise but this is not an option since "no new taxes" is very marketable. I have no problem getting rid of waste in government, getting rid of disability fraud, controlling medical costs and other big opportunity areas that are out there but taxes are another opportunity area we can't walk away from.
TuFAMILY, this is a fascinating and an informative discussion. I have learned a lot about Paul tyan , Medicare, the ACA,insurance and how We MUST must be informed and edcated about how we vote!! Thanks so much for starting this discussion, Judith. And thanks to all who responded. You spoke with clarity and detail about health care funding and the ramifications of multiple plans, without derision nor uncivility. Tudiabetes abounds with a grand pool, no, a giantic ocean, of intelligent, caring, articulate persons. So glad to be a member, here. I Will close with Acidrock's well-stated comment,"You can call it what you want to call it but, without health care, our pursuit of happiness is impaired because when you hve diabetes or any other chronic medical condition, you need medicine and test strips."
God bless,
Brunetta
Good points AR. The key is compromise. I wish the folks who are talking about going back to the original principals of the Founding Fathers knew a little more history. There was no consensus at the Constitutional Convention. We would have no Constitution if not for the willingness of the Founders to compromise.
I sometimes thought during the 90's when we had divided government that this was how the Founders wanted things to work. Power flowed away from the extremes of the Right and Left to the Center. Unfortunately moderates in both parties are a dying breed and so there is no one to broker the compromise. Divided government today means gridlock in the face of truly monumental problems that must be dealt with.
Sadly, no one knows what the word compromise means anymore.
Couldn't agree with you more, BadMoon, and it is worth noting that the gravitation toward extremes in thinking has correlated to the widening of the socioeconomic chasm. Sadly, the divide that has always been always will be -- the Founding Fathers, great thinkers though they may have been, were also landed gentry having no more intention of fostering social, economic or educational parity than their present-day counterparts.
Judith, thanks for this topic!
I think that the thing overlooked by the "founding fathers" allusion is the fact that there was a continent full of natural resources, freely (taken from indigenous people for the price of lead and blankets...) or very cheaply available (Louisiana purchase) for the taking. Plus the life expectancy was like 45 so the actuarial tables were a bit different. If you survived a long time, hey great, but your health care options are limited if you run into anything...