MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-04-09 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout of NYLXS] Response to insanity over healthcare debate
|
In response the article:
Mark Meadows Wants the AHCA to Take Even More from the Poor
https://epeak.info/2017/04/08/mark-meadows-wants-the-ahca-to-take-even-more-from-the-poor/
Frankly, the author, Justin Miller written April 6, 2017
also published on
http://prospect.org/article/mark-meadows-would-make-gop-giant-reverse-robin-hood-wealth-transfer-even-bigger
Justin Miller doesn't understand even the beginning of healthcare costs
and economics and what is driving healthcare costs through the roof.
Justin Miller believes in a world where we have a fixed amount of
resources and that all prices and resources can be divided up between
rich and poor. And healthcare doesn't work anything like that.
He writes:
Meadows now calls for a plan that allows states
to do away with two of the core ACA protections
that the AHCA had previously left untouched. As
Margot Sanger-Katz explains in an excellent piece
at The Upshot: First, states could rescind the
essential health benefits component that requires
providers to cover some basic benefits, including
prescription drugs, maternity care, mental health
services, and hospitalization. Second, states could
effectively nullify protections for people with
preexisting conditions by getting rid of community
rating, a provision that requires insurers to charge
the same rate for everyone of the same age.
The result of this proposal, Sanger-Katz writes,
would be devastating—while a cancer patient may
still be able to get health insurance, it could
very well not cover chemotherapy treatment and
would cost many times more than that of a healthy
person. “Only cancer patients with extraordinary
financial resources and little interest in the
fine print would sign up,” Sanger-Katz writes.
Republicans would likely be able to point to lower
premiums because the only people who could afford
coverage would be those with a perfect bill of
health—and even then, their plans would likely be
very stingy.
He obvious has ignored the basic facts about healthcare, especially as
it affects the working poor. The Poor will get their chemotherapy
anyway through medicaid or state hospitals. The really question is how
is it that the costs for healthcare keep escalating at a breakneck pace
while supposedly we have all these protections in place designed to keep
the costs under control, like the insurance mandate, and the age/class
pricing protection.
The answer is because the PBMs and the insurance companies don't give a
shit. It makes no difference to them to raise the price on a specific
group of preexisting conditions, or increasing the rates on the entire
class. In FACT. raising the rate on the entire class is BETTER for them
because everyone by law has to pay, and they don't have to deal with the
moral issue of raising prices on just cancer costs. But the real
question here is, and this is the pink elephant in the room, why does
Cancer Treatment Cost so much in the first place? The answer for this
is EXTORTION. And Miller has joined the extortion racket... yelling
Cancer Cancer Cancer... death to the poor... over and over again. What
is really needed is that buyers need to stop paying those outrageous
prices for Cancer Treatments... PERIOD.
And that is true for a whole crop of other diseases as well. It is high
time to reduce the cost of healthcare, and that requires that people
stop paying for it. Until we are willing to say, no, we will not pay
that price for cancer treatment, until people are no longer subsidized
for treatments that they can not afford, and that nobody can reasonably
afford, we will continue with a healthcare system that will SQUEEZE
EVERY LAST CENT it can from the whole of the American Public. If this
continues, the only people who will be able to afford ANY healthcare
will be the ultra rich.
This is not just true for Cancer, but also for Diabetes, High Blood
Presure, Giving Birth,, the measles, broken bones, etc etc etc. There
is no end to it.
As it is, the "Insurance" companies pay for NOTHING. Copays and
deductibles pay for the COMPLETE reimbursement to healthcare facilities
for the vast majority of procedures. And those are being pushed to
market rates, which is the cost that the buyer would have to pay if
there was NO coverage, because supply and demand is supply and demand,
so these insurance companies push that copay right up to the supply and
demand curve and POCKET the rest.
The only means of reducing healthcare costs is to get the third party
payers out of the way. If Grandma doesn't want to pay $900 a MONTH for
her diabetic drugs, that is Grandma's right! The whole pricing
structure needs to collapse. And the insurance mandate GUARANTEES a
steady and inevitable rise in healthcare costs to the highest rate
possible without causing a total collapse of the US economy.
... or maybe not. What does Aetna and CVS/Caremark care about the US
economy...
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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