when it comes to universal health care, how are we to save money in health care costs?
Posted by Dolores
rdub8503 asked:
I’ve been hearing that if the U.S. goes into universal health care, that we’d actually save money, but if were spending let’s say 100 billion(I know it’s more than that but just using it as an example) dollars because of medicaid and medicare, how is going to universal health care supposed to bring that number down? how is covering 300 million people going to bring health care cost down if covering 50 million is costing 100 billion already?
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I’ve been hearing that if the U.S. goes into universal health care, that we’d actually save money, but if were spending let’s say 100 billion(I know it’s more than that but just using it as an example) dollars because of medicaid and medicare, how is going to universal health care supposed to bring that number down? how is covering 300 million people going to bring health care cost down if covering 50 million is costing 100 billion already?
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April 3rd, 2010 at 2:42 am
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The plan will not change things for anyone except the uninsured who currently cost about $58 billion a year, which is about what heath care bill will cost the government, so their will be little if any net savings, However it will change who pays the bills of the uninsured. Now most of the cost of caring for them is passed on to insured patients and their insurance companies making premiums higher, so the plan should lower the premiums paid for heath insurance for most businesses and individuals but increase taxes on some of them.
April 4th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
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There are some common sense reforms that could be done to lower the cost of health care, but that is not what the current bill is really about. The non partisan Congressional budget Office said that the bill will actually increase the cost of health care for everyone in addition to all of the money that will be paid in increased taxes. it is also estimated that ti will cost over a million jobs primarily in the Small Business segment.
Some ways that money could be saved in a government plan:
Last year the Republicans proposed a plan to let Small Businesses collectively negotiate insurance prices like the larger corporations are able to do. This would allow them to g et better pricing. It would also break up the barriers that have been set up from state to state allowing companies to bid on any insurance product from any state. it would have been a great way to reduce some costs, but the democrats including Obama voted against it.
Another way money could be saved is by investing in an electronic records and billing system that would greatly reduce paper work and need for as many office assistants at each medical office.
I think the best way to save money would be to have people have more at stake in determining which tests to do and what procedures should be done. This is by far the best way to lower health ccare costs. To do this we would have to move to more of a catostrophic health insurance plan lowering premiums greatly. The plan should provide well visits, but consumers should pay for everything else up to a certain amount. This will make them mroe conscious about which tests are being done and if they are nencessary.
People find money to maintain t heir homes and their cars. They cann find comprable amounts of money for their health care when necessary.