John Geyman, MD, Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine, University of Washington, explains what will happen when the American health insurance industry dies.
Duration : 0:3:8
Rep. Lynch D-MA Town Hall. Austria’s top rated European Universal Health Care vs. American private insurance.
Duration : 0:1:37
http://www.moorebenefitsinc.com/video-center/ A lot of people are wondering how the new health care reform will affect them?
And, it will impact everybody in some way, I think the way that it’s going to be most helpful is that it will increase access to health care to alot of Americans. The very first segment who will be impacted are people under the age of 26. Employers who offer health coverage to their employees and who provide dependent coverage will be required to allow employees to keep dependents on the health coverage up to age 26 and that’s even if they’re married and not dependant upon them for support. Another increased access is that an insurance company will no longer be able to limit coverage to people who have pre-existing conditions. That means people who are already experiencing health problems will still be able to get insurance which is exactly what insurance is there for. If you are an employer and you offer health insurance to your employees you may be eligible for a small business tax credit. You have to have less than 50 employees and there are income guidelines which may or may not apply to you. In 2014 when most of the provisions roll out if you’re an employer and you have 50 or more employees, you’ll be required to offer health insurance to those employees. Where as right now, employers are not required to offer health care to employees. If you have over 50 employees and you don’t offer health insurance and your employees have to use a voucher to get it through the state exchange, you’ll be penalized 2000 dollars per employee per year. And so, if you’re an individual and you don’t have access to employer sponsored health coverage, you’ll still be required to buy health insurance and if you don’t, there will be a penalty. And so, I think overall, more people will be in the system and the thought is, that the more people who are insured, the more we’re able to level the costs among the population. Because the fact of the matter is, we’re paying for the uninsured’s health coverage anyway, ’cause the costs of the uninsured are shifted on to the private pay people. So I think overall it will be a positive thing.
Duration : 0:2:18
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/03/03/Sick_and_Tired_How_Americas_Health_System_Fails_Patients
Helene Jorgensen, author of Sick and Tired, asks why Americans pay such high costs relative to the amount of care received. She faults unnecessary paperwork, billing practices, and pharmaceutical advertising as wasted health care expenditures.
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As an active person, Helene Jorgensen decided to enjoy a hike in the mountains one afternoon while attending a conference in Montana. Warned by friends to beware of bears, Jorgensen was attacked by a creature much more menacing — the Rocky Mountain wood tick. Sick and Tired is the story of Jorgensen’s subsequent illness and her descent into the quagmire that is the American health care system.
Returning home from her trip, Jorgensen is quickly debilitated by a mysterious illness and sets out to find a diagnosis and cure. Along the way, she is seen by countless doctors, none of whom seems to be able to diagnose her accurately. She undergoes two surgeries, is forced to quit her job as a labor economist, and is saddled with countless bills and denied payment for claims. Jorgensen quickly learns that the health care system does not work; finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, she struggles for years to receive proper medical treatment.
Based on the author’s notes and observations, statistics, and survey data, Sick and Tired details the health care system’s failings and lays out arguments to fix it. As an economist, Jorgensen takes a critical look at conflicts of interest between doctors, pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic laboratories, and insurance companies that restrict treatment options and increase patient charges.
While millions of Americans negotiate the health care system, and try to make sense of health care reform, Helene Jorgensen’s saga may prove an important consideration in the national debate. She provides advice about how to seek better and more affordable medical care from physicians, health plans, and elected officials. – Booksmith
Duration : 0:1:53
New York Grand Central Station was the scene of a demonstration by the New York City private health insurance MUST GO! coalition in support of a single payer system of Medicare for every body.
Duration : 0:6:55
Kartik Varma, Co-founder of iTrust Financial Advisors, describes why you must have an independent health insurance policy for yourself and your loved ones.
Duration : 0:5:25
Professor Katherine McGrath, General Manager, Strategy and Corporate Affairs, Medibank Private discusses the climate of private health insurance industry today, steps that health insurers must take to survive and the possibility of health costs (9% a year) being brought down.
She is a speaker at the 11th Annual Health Congress in Sydney on the 23rd – 25th of March 2009.
Website: http://www.informa.com.au/healthcongress/vid
Contact: +61 2 9080 4307
Duration : 0:5:6
If so, how is that any different than mandatory car insurance? Everyone who has a car must have it but no one ever complains about that being socialism.
I would consider government funded socialized medicine a step towards socialism.
Socialism is where the burdens are placed upon the more productive.
For socialized medicine to happen socialism needs to take place to fund such a program.
You can be for or against socialism but what I said is true.
Added:
and for the uninformed poster below me, western European countries are socialists countries
I would also like to add that universal health care alone isn’t enough , most europeans have private health insurance plans as well becasue they can’t visit a doctor in a timely mannor.
-executive pay and bonuses
-multimillion dollar ad campaigns
-lobbyists
-stockholder dividends
and, since doctors and so many attorneys make their living by either billing or suing insurance companies,
-malpractice insurance/awards
-unnecessary tests and procedures
-overpriced medications (the proverbial $15 aspirin tab)
-legal fees
How would all of that change under a single payer system like Canada’s?
* Executive pay and bonuses would be curtailed if not eliminated.
* The government might perform some advertising, but it wouldn’t be the degree to which private competitive companies do.
* Lobbyists will be in Washington as long as there is wealth and influence to be had. They may have to switch focus.
* There are no stockholder dividends in government programs unless you count political favors given to lobbyists.
* Malpractice practice depends upon the strength of the legal lobbies. I’m guessing that they’ll continue to get their slice of the pie.
* Whereas a market system rations its product by raising the price above the affordability of some, a single payer program rations according bureaucratic decision. Really, we already are largely bureaucratic. World War II wage controls and 1970′s reforms leading to the HMO system have already greatly socialized medicine through the backdoor. Costs are born by a collective. A single payer system would simply push collective cost sharing to the national level. The result of either today’s system or some future single payer one is a great deal of central planning. The mandates lead to following rules to protect the practitioners. Therefore, many unnecessary tests and procedures will continue to be administered. Meanwhile, other procedures could become unavailable at any price.
* Medications would cost pretty much what they do in real terms though recognizing those costs could become elusive since they will be funneled through general budgets. A single payer system would certainly make many of the “free”. However, as said before, price rationing will be replaced by bureaucratic rationing (google the English NICE agency).
* Legal fees would be partially replaced by bureaucratic expenses. However, to the extent that the legal lobby maintains the wide ability to raise lawsuits, we would still have legal fees to deal with.
"Tory Home Secretary Theresa May has warned that she is considering forcing firms employing non-EU migrant labour to take out private health insurance to cover them."
I do not.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/92181
No it’s not wrong. I think it’s right to expect that all foreigners coming here should not get free health care having never contributed one penny into British taxation. And if company bosses insist on employing so-called ‘cheap’ foreign labour, then perhaps the bosses should pay the immigrant health bill for them. Why should hard working people who have paid taxes all their lives be asked to foot the bill of foreigners that never paid anything in? That’s what we’ve got now, and it’s helping to cripple the NHS.