Fascinating, Bruce. Really interesting and clear.

Thats great Bruce. I'm personally still waiting for my private illegal immigrant death squad to come visit and tell me that they accessed my bank account. :P
What really scares me is the people who think this shit up and those that actually believe it.

I'm surprised the lie that this plan is going to cost less/save money while insuring tens of millions more people which was resoundingly refuted by the CBO didn't make the top 5.

Thanks, Dutch.:headshake

This is patently false. Here is what has been left out. What will be the rate of Medicare will be. Many physicians already refuse to treat Medicare patients because of the low reimbursement rates. You don't need to be a salaried employe for people who reimburse you to set your wages. Anyone who has been a contractor knows that. I am a contractor and although there is a little wiggle room on the job, it is within a narrow range. In some places that amount is set. You can choose to work for that or they will get someone else to do the job so in fact they do set the wages. The whole paragraph from Newsweek is smoke and mirrors.

In New Jersey, Medicare pays 80% of $110ish ($88ish) for a complete eye exam by an ophthalmologist. Most for-profit insurance companies pay $40 - $50 for the same service. And here's the kicker: some patients pay a $40 copay, and their insurance company contributes zilch, nada, nil, zip, zero. But we're all better off with health insurance companies running things...:cool:

I am looking up their rates now.

I am thinking that you would have a hard time proving that. My for profit insurance company pays 100% for a complete eye exam each year for each person in my family.

Sure. It depends on your insurance. Sort of like car insurance. Not all of them will fix cars for the same and it always depends on your deductable and what kind of coverage you have. No different with the many different kinds of health insurance.

Damm better than having the government running anything. So far they have not been able to do a good job at any of it. :cool:

Once we can establish what the cost of a general eye exam is, which may or may not include refactory testing, which changes the cost, then we can determine what percent Medicare pays. I have the CPT codes and Medicare rates for NJ. So do you have an EOB with the phyicians charged fee on it?

That's between you (the contractor) and the hospital (employer). It has nothing to do with the insurance companies.

True. But even in the case of insurance companies they tell the office what they are going to reimburse. There is no negotiation for that individual fee. They offer it, you take it or leave it. They set the fee schedule. There is very little choice. The office either has a contract with that company making them "in network" or not making them "out of network", which then places the burden of going after the remaining money from the patient. The relationship is the same between me and the office as it is between the office and the insurance company.

Yeah we would all be better off with only toll roads, our own private security detail, cooperate owned water supply, private firehouses, cooperate ambulances (oops we already do)....you're right EVERYTHING the gov't touches falls apart. We can only hope our world soon becomes the absolute property of various cooperations.

:lol2: You mean as long a Obamy is in charge the government is good.

Obamy? I really dislike that. It has connotations I find rather distasteful.

I agree, I find him quite distasteful as well. Him and all the other politicos in D.C.

Edit: Until they change the way they do business inside the Beltway the Government will continue to be completely inept at their attempt to change the way healthcare is delivered in the US. So far all proposals pretty much are doomed to failure. Sure they may appease those people "without" or with the expectation that the government will be their new mommy, providing them with all their wants, but so far most people don't buy that notion.

I am not dumb enough to have absolute faith in anything. Why am I talkin to you? I might as well just be :banghead:

just send him a txt instead :p

Because you want to have babies with me?

I have no idea. I thought you were joining the discussion. But look at how you framed the statement. It sounded to me like you are all ok with everything the government is doing now, but not so when Bush was in charge, back then the government was all evil. I see a common theme here as more people are cool with the government giving them more free shit as long as someone else is paying for it. What eva... :rolleyes:

Maybe she is happy that the government is making some kind of an attempt to resolve a pretty fucked up situation, whereas the Bush administration wasn't?

To me - the Healthcare debate/situation is very similar to when Clinton introduced it in 93. Conservatives run their propaganda to create fear and confusion. Clinton wasn't focused enough on this issue to make it happen.

What is diseartening is that Obama has waffled on the public option. The progressives came out and said no to Obama on this-- which was the appropriate response. True reform cannot happen without a gov't run system.

The conservatives for over 40+ years have had a bull's eye on rolling back the New Deal at all costs. They have chaged the tax system - so the rich get richer. Remeber privatize Social Security? They have continually deregulated since the the time of Regan. Why do you think the middle class was fooled into believing that they could afford a 350,000 home when they make 50000 a year. DEREGULATION. or maybe they believed in "Living the American Dream"- I guess.
Rich get richer again.

Is civic virtue dead or has it been dead? (To the citizens that say - why should I care about people having no health insurance?)



For those who say the government can't run anything right --I have a few friends that are veterans that go to the VA hospital for treatment and they have very minimal complaints (no one is ever happy about any system are they?). Sign a form - no money exchanged - need meds? get them in 2 days in the mail--easy. That is true "socialized" medicine in the USA. Maybe that is not efficient enough for most people?


If this does not go through will it be another in a long list of citizen complaints that assert that corporations run the USA not a government for the people by the people-----(that would be on both sides of the aisle).

Is this our last chance for "universal" healthcare?

BTW - whatever happened to reforming Caimpaign finance? Could this be needed before we have true Health Care reform? In our current system are our representatives truly held accountable to the people?

Respond to any - all - or none.

Clinton wasn't focused enough is what I meant.

Yup yup. I never said that the gov't was all evil under Bush, or that I hated everything Bush did (just most of it: No Child Left Behind, banning embryonic stem cell research, "protection of marriage" wire-tapping citizens, allowing "enhanced interrigation techniques," tax cuts for the rich...)
So yeah, I am much happier that we have more liberal gov't, now if only they prove they have integrity and backbone...

You left out the part where those people who get VA benifits actually had to give up something to get them, you that little government service thing. They didn't get them for nothing like the current plan central to the current debate. Like I said before, if they want a public plan make sure that everyone pays the same percent of income to make it happen. No one gets a pass, no matter how little or much you make, the same percent. There are lots of other problems with it but I will spare you and not repeat them all again.

You can edit your post inside a certain time frame. Etiquette says to make a note of it in the reason box. Welcome aboard. g

Adam haz a health care?

Who is Adam?

How much does your insurance company pay the doctor, though? That's the question. I'll bet it's not doctor's the "regular retail" rate, nor is it as much as Medicare pays.

92014. Medicare allowable is $111.83, of which they pay 80%, or $89.46. Medicare never pays for a refraction. Are you sure this is your business?

You do understand that most private insurance pays much more than Medicare rates don't you? Private insurance has contractual relationships with each provider or group or hospital.


Each state is different for reimbursement amounts.

Mercenary - When you said that everyone pays the same percent into the system - I had a flashback to Steve Forbes ---Flat Tax campaign.

One of the purposes of socialised medicine is to ensure that everybody gets access to healthcare regardless of their income. It equalises service, not input. A 1% tax on someone earning $20k a year, whilst it is mathematically less than a 1% tax on someone earning $200k a year, has a far greater impact on that person's finances: they're the ones on the breadline; the ones struggling to put food on their family's table and the ones with the least capacity to borrow in times of trouble. The lower the earnings, the less surplus there is to tax.

Taking larger contributions from people who are earning larger incomes goes some way to equalising the impact of the cost of healthcare. If you equalise the contributons by some kind of flat tax approach, then you are taking from the wealthy man's surplus and the poor man's food cupboard.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on television. But I do work in an ophthalmologist's office, and work with insurance programs every day.

I don't know anything of the sort. I know that Medicare pays the highest for an annual eye exam. I also know that most for-profit insurance companies use Medicare guidelines for their cataract surgery reimbursement. Where do you get your information that for-profit insurance pays the provider more than Medicare?

Yes, that's why I bagan with:

Ah, that's why you were giving out such helpful advice for free... :)

Kitteh can esplains it tu yu
 

... but I don't own any people. ;)

You don't really "own" your critters either. ;)

We just think of it that way.

Charlie Rangel plays the race card as his own ethics probe heats up. What an idiot.

http://wcbstv.com/local/charles.rang...2.1162895.html

Awesome!

I fully understand that. And to that I say tough. If you want to get it, you need to pay your portion. No one gets a pass. I am quite sure that friends of mine who make $400 a month would gladly pay $16 a month (4%) of their income if they knew that they would have health insurance.

I get my information not from cataract surgery but from other procedures, GYN surgery specifically, but I was thinking of reimbursement in the larger sense. For example in bariatric surgery Medicare pays 28% less than private insurance. http://www.springerlink.com/content/m52w62k100j21n71/
. For choclear implants Medicare paid 57%, and Medicaid 46% of what private insurance paid for the surgeon. For the hospital Medicare paid 80% of what private insurance pays for outpatient services and less for inpatient services. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_br...-1/index1.html . For anesthesia services the difference is huge. For GYN procedure is in our outpatient surgery center the differences are huge. Bottom line is that Medicare pays significantly less than what private insurance pay for reimbursement. Cataract surgery may be the exception, not the rule when it comes to differences between private insurance reimbursement and Medicare.

Trauma reimbursement is along the 80% of what the private insurers pay.

And among the most expensive care not covered because of lack of insurance and other issues. It is a huge issue in our state and the topic of much discussion as of late as we try to address the holes in care.

http://grady.healthstatgeorgia.org/f...aumaSystem.pdf

http://www.traumacare.com/download/N...port_May04.pdf

Trauma reimbursement is set up on a "per diem" basis. The hospital charges for each thing independently. Nursing staff, medication, supplies.... The total could be somewhere in the $1,000,000 range for three weeks. However, the hospital has a "deal" with the insurance company, so they only pay out about $66,000. The hospital writes off the rest. . . or so I've heard.

Translated: Charges everyone else for the difference.

Death Panels
 

Franken, of all people, actually manages to calm a mob of tea baggers and encourage rational discussion.

Maybe it is just his comedic wit. Maybe he passed out pictures of him in a diaper.

Nice.

You mean those phony photoshoped photos you keep posting?

No, the ones of him when he did the skit on SNL.

The photo is a fake..
...but no surprise that gullible morons like you believe it because it fits your agenda.

But still not as ignorant as your Hitler/Nazi references to another member of Congress.

One can only wonder how low you are willing to sink to perpetuate bullshit that you find on the net in you never ending quest to slime those with whom you disagree politically.

Would that include the Hitler/Nazi comparisons made by Pelosi and other members of the Demoncratic Congress? Or do you give them a pass like you do for most of the double standards?

I have condemned any and every reference to Hiter comparisons....but Pelosi doesnt post here.

A lame and childish justification of your actions....."they did it" so I can too.

Thank Frigging God for small things. Maybe we can all have a favor and she will get hit by a bus.

Another mature response rather than to own up to your own ignorant posts.

I am crushed by your opinions, on anything. Well not really.

I expect nothing more from you.

Hey, I know you dont let the facts, not my opinion, get in the way of your agenda.....the Franken fake pic is just the latest example.

Who would have thunk it?

Analysis: More wrangling could doom health care

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/new...alth_care.html

It is still pretty funny. :D

Only to morons who need an excuse to avoid manning up to the fact that it was fake

Are you just sad because the Demoncrats are failing to pass healthcare reform like they wanted it. Pelosi and her ilk don't get to shove this one down everyone's throats and Rham it through. Don't be sad. There is still hope the process works the way it should.