I'm not saying she's in touch with the masses at all. She's the media elite. But she has a lot of interesting points. I'm trying to read other's opinions and base them on the logic (or lack of) in the argument. I'd rather not focus on purely the source unless the source has shown it's inability to present logical arguments over and over again.
As president, his salary is zero. As you should know, he is against the establishment, especially career politician. He knows what it's like to make payroll and pay taxes. Sure he has failed businesses but he's not alone, many businessmen do. Comes with the territory. However, career politicians benefit from taxes, and getting rich off the masses. I've worked in DC and seen the corruption from the front lines. Inflated budgets and spending in fear of cuts. And much more...
Exactly. Now the 64 dollar question is how do we get some level across the board pricing in healthcare without the hand of government forcing the issue? One thing for sure, the industry itself isn't suddenly going to do the right thing just because.
I've struggled a lot with this, personally. As a Libertarian (a real one, not a Piezoe half made-up classification from 150 years ago), I am adamantly against the government enforcing any price controls or restrictions on the free market in price. But this is a special circumstance. When there is a drug someone must take or else they will die, they will pay anything for it. There's no free market actions to protect the consumer. Normal demand/supply and pricing mechanics don't come into play. A pharmaceutical company with patent protections for 10 years and demand any price and be paid for it. As a result, I believe the government is the only entity that can protect consumers here. Of course, when the government is in bed with the very same pharma companies, then these protections aren't applied until the outcry gets loud.
Does anyone understand it takes time to change things, especially in the federal government. You all really expect Trump to walk into office and change healthcare in 9 weeks? How long did it take for Obamacare? Give Trump a chance.
Perfectly willing to let the guy have a chance. I'm not calling for his impeachment or other nonsense you see around here. What I do believe, however, is that he handled the OCare replacement thing poorly, mainly because he got bamboozled by Ryan and the GOP. I'm not going to give Trump a pass on a particular failure merely because there hasn't been enough time for him to do other good things.
It's a difficult problem, but they are making it harder. Actually Obama and the dems made the issue unnecessarily difficult by virtue of wrapping it all up in one enormous bill. Unraveling that ball of thread will be tough because you have to have some sort of replacement ready. It does seem to me there are three separate issues, and two closely related ones. One is people who can afford private insurance and are willing to buy it. They should be able to access a free market, where carriers can offer plans nationwide with various coverage options, ie major medical only, high or low deductibles, etc. These people are Trump's core constituency and if he screws them, he can kiss reelection goodbye. The second group are people who cannot afford coverage. The problem with obamacare is that they ended up with better coverage than the first group. Many are illegals who are not even supposed to be in the program. There are a number of options here. Typically, Ryan chose the worst one, giving them in effect government vouchers to buy insurance through tax credits. It seems better to me to put them all in Medicaid or some other government plan. It's welfare and that's what we should call it. these people tend to be big consumers of health care, so keeping them out of private plans should lead to cost savings. The third group are people who could have purchased insurance but didn't. Perhaps they are young people who develop a serious condition with no health insurance. They have to go in the second group but with a big penalty charged. They will get worse care than the first group and pay through the nose for it. Risky decisions have consequences. Two related issues. One, employer-provided insurance is a big problem that needs to be ended. It makes our companies uncompetitive internationally, it keeps people in jobs they hate and it is unfair to the self-employed. Unfortunately it is popular. It is a big tax break for employees. Do away with the tax break and the reason for it essentially goes away. Probably the easiest way to do this is to give people a tax writeoff for insurance, employees and self-employed alike. Not ideal tax policy but doable. The other issue is drug prices. Americans finance pharma R and D for the entire world because other countries use patent protection as leverage to set prices. That's why you can buy the exact same Rx in Canada for a lot less. Similarly, we prevent medicare from negotiating low prices. Republicans will just have to bite the bullet here and decide if they want to be reelected or get pharma campaign money, because it doesn't look like both are possible. You can expect howling from the free market "conservatives" here, but the drug companies have done Trump a favor by price gouging, so the public is with him. The conservative purity test was violated anyway when the government started paying for this stuff.
Perhaps this question belongs at the 5$ level, ans: "We don't." Much of medical pricing is virtually inelastic, so government's intervention on the side of the consumer is essential if the goal is to bring down prices. Currently we have government intervention biased on behalf of the suppliers. The bias must be shifted to favor the consumer. Now the 64 thousand $ question is: How do we do that without running head long into the interests of the government protected healthcare Cartel? ans: "I'd like to go to the audience now!"
The answers are known. We have at minimum 15 places to look for them. But just knowing the answers isn't enough. A Cartel's power stems from money. Logic is powerless against money. Therefore the money interests of the consumer must be melded together and organized against the money interests of the Cartel. If that is done, and it can be, the Cartel will break.
Get rid of lobbyist protecting pharma industry, reduce physician malpractice insurance. The more doctors will reduce prices. Many medical procedures and preventative care do not require a physician that can be completed by a nurse or assistant. Open industry for competition. No reason why treatment needs to cost 1000% times in USA vs other developed countries. Canada uses a clinic model, from the clinic they are diagnosed and sent to specialist as needed. IMHO only