Quote:The mid 90s isn't that long. Traditional healthcare has been entrenched since the second world war. Over time practices have become dependent on it. It will take time for a competing structure of risk management to filter through the system.


Aside from not outlawing it you have yet to give a shred of evidence to support the idea that obamacare did anything to directly bolster concierge practices. Are they on the exchanges and i just missed them?

Direct pay to care providers can save tons of real dollars in both premiums and out of pocket expenses for everyone. If going to the Er cost 1500 for stitches and your primary care doctor can just squeeze you in for free between patients that's real money for the insurer and the insured out of pocket expenses.


The problem with debates on. Health care is that too often they focus solely on premiums and not on the underlying cost of providing care. This would be moving to a much more efficient and inexpensive means of providing care for families and would relieve the burden on the insurance system and a lot of emergency room visits.


Is it perfect? Nothings perfect. But it moves a long way towards efficient management of risk.


As for the national old age survivor and disability program there's not enough to start a thread about. The feds made a decision based on a 19th century understanding of the capital markets and the private sector beat it to a pulp demoralized it and watched it steam off towards bankruptcy. Nothing else to really talk about.

 

That's part of the problem.  Health insurance should be just that... INSURANCE.  It's not supposed to take care of routine and/or minor things.  It's supposed to be there in the case of a catastrophic event, the same as car insurance or home owner's insurance.  After all, car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes and home owner's insurance doesn't pay for pressure washing.  Those are MAINTENANCE things that need to be done.

 

How about allowing people to put money into a Health Savings Account that is TAX FREE in order to pay for routine medical needs?  Then the person can purchase a health INSURANCE plan to cover a catastrophic event such as an accident or unexpected ailment?  Oh wait....

 

How about getting rid of the employer mandate and allowing people to get their insurance on their own?  You know, that would probably bump wages just a bit higher and relieve some of the burden off of employers.  Nah... what am I thinking?  We can't let individuals determine their needs for themselves... we need to make employers do that for them.  After all, people are too dumb to take care of their needs on their own.  We need an employer to take that responsibility from them.  The new IPhone is out...

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