…is that this bill dies a quick and merciful death and that the public, awakened to the need for reform, will cause a sensible and affordable alternative to be crafted in its place.

If the insurance industry adds no value to the process, why do millions of employers and millions more employees all have HCI? The answer I think is that they do, even if it is a marginal benefit.

Otherwise, wouldn’t we just have larger paychecks and take care of our own HC? The real answer is that HCI does provide at least a perceived benefit and a real benefit for most of us. Real protection against the rare but catastrophic illness while we pay the everyday, mundane costs of staying alive. For those who have hollow policies, I only suggest you read what you have and if it’s mostly BS where the protection should be, you need to take action or talk to your employer or your fellow employees and root out the BS. I find that daylight is a good antiseptic.

That some of us can’t afford insurance also means that they can’t afford HC period, or very little. In any scenario you can name, short of letting them die in the streets, we the taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for these poor folks. I’ve had the “come to Jesus” talk with myself and determined that I’m my brother’s keeper, regardless of what I might like to do to the contrary. Now the question is reduced to how to get my bro minimum, effective care so the left can stop whining and crying about what a heartless bastard I am. My only concerns are that we weed out the undeserving (those who can afford their own care but opt not to) and those who IMV, are not entitled to it (illegals) and find the most effective and efficient way of getting that care and paying for it.

As I’ve said in another post on another thread on this subject, the W, F&A so rampant in Medicare, Medicaid and many other programs promises to bankrupt us sooner than we will do it to ourselves, if left to the left.

Some have argued that the examples of W, F&A illustrated by 60 Minutes just this last Sunday, are not the government’s fault; it’s the crooks and cheats! That’s laughable of course, but you have to love them when they blame everything on anybody but our government and those idiots in Congress.

This has been going on for decades and the fools in Congress can’t find the money to fund the fraud units with enough to be effective; but yet they can build and support airports and subsidize flights to the tune of hundreds of millions so they can get to their homes easier. The entire government process as currently operated is replete with incompetence, fraud and abuse, beginning with Congress.

You can’t tell me that a private enterprise couldn’t run Medicare more cleanly and that a private enterprise, financially motivated to root out the W, F&A, couldn’t clean it out in 36 months, let alone 36 years.

You all have noticed; not a single word or provision about tort reform as part of the package….

You can’t tell me that a private enterprise couldn’t run Medicare more cleanly and that a private enterprise, financially motivated to root out the W, F&A, couldn’t clean it out in 36 months, let alone 36 years.

I can tell you but you won't listen. Private Enterprise running Medicare would mean that the elderly would have coverage only within 15' of their beds and rules on deductibility that make Bridge No Trump bidding seem like kindergarten ABCs.

There simply is no actual econometric evidence that Waste Fraud and Abuse are any less in private enterprise than in government. And there actually is fairly compelling evidence to the contrary (Madoff, Enron, Harken, WorldCom, Blodgett, Murdoch and Gingrich, Lord Conrad Black, Trump, Silverado S&L, Solomon Bros, Lehman Bros, Bear Sterns...)

If WF&A were so prevalent in Medicare, why is Medicare's Fiscal Multiplier above private industry averages?

If the insurance industry adds no value to the process, why do millions of employers and millions more employees all have HCI? The answer I think is that they do, even if it is a marginal benefit.

Post Hoc fallacy reasoning. Employees have HCI because there is no other means for employers to provide healthcare coverage unless they have the profit margins and employee based of a Microsoft and can 'self insure'. Insurance in theory and somewhat in practice is based on the notion of "pooled risk".

the problem with a 'competitive insurance market" is that it isn't really a case of "pooled risk" unless the insurance company is required to "take all comers". Except that under current law they are not so the the way HCI's make money is not by eliminating WF&A, (which rarely is about 10% of the net costs) but rather by reducing payouts/costs which make up the vast majority of the budget.

Otherwise, wouldn’t we just have larger paychecks and take care of our own HC?

No, because retail insurance is more expensive. Look at the car insurance model.

WF&A is certainly not isolated to government. What is is the pitiful way in which they “deal” with it. No private business, with public knowledge of the massive WF&A going on within its operations would last a quarter let alone decades.

OIG’s report to Congress regarding ‘08’s activity reported fraud estimates of $60 Billion, EVERY YEAR – and that’s “conservative estimate” per the report. According to SFC Ranking Member, Chuck Grassley, that is about 13.3% of the annual Medicare program payments. Moreover, it is not just the amount; it is also about how pitifully easy it is to defraud a government run program.

Your comparison of auto insurance with HCI is lame and you know that Degs. They are so far apart it is not even like comparing insurance with insurance. People approach their auto insurance completely differently than they do their HCI. I have discussed this previously.

Why should an employer be responsible for providing HIC for employees? All you folks on the left whine about how HC is a governmental responsibility and a universal entitlement, but when it comes down to it you want someone else to pay for it; either the employers or the taxpayers.

What I get from your post is that this stuff goes on and we just have to bend over and accept it? We are pissing away our life’s blood here, for our grandchildren at least and we have to draw a line somewhere. Government is so screwed up and corrupt there is no way of avoiding drowning in the slime short of pulling the plug overall on Congress and starting over with a new batch and an informed and active electorate.

What is is the pitiful way in which they “deal” with it. No private business, with public knowledge of the massive WF&A going on within its operations would last a quarter let alone decades

How long was Enron in business? Worldcom? How long was GWB in the Oil Business? Sorry there simply is no evidence to support your claim.

OIG’s report to Congress regarding ‘08’s activity reported fraud estimates of $60 Billion, EVERY YEAR – and that’s “conservative estimate” per the report

An now you are engaged in the Innumeracy of Large Numbers US Budget is on avg roughly $1.2 Tril. 0.06/1.2 == 5%. Here's a corp that admits to MORE THAN TRIPLE that rate of Waste Enron's fraud alone was estimated at $45 Billion - and that was one company. Madoff was $13 Billion...

Why should an employer be responsible for providing HIC for employees?

Its a historic artifact. During WWII wages were frozen so companies competed on benefits. That's when you saw the explosion of employer offered healthcare, and companies have been stuck on that competitive treadmill largely becaue of how the HCI's penalize individual contractees.

All you folks on the left whine about how HC is a governmental responsibility and a universal entitlement, but when it comes down to it you want someone else to pay for it; either the employers or the taxpayers.

Like I said, I could make a factually based post but I couldn't be responsible for how you misread it. The reason for going to a single payer system is so that we can reflect the true "pooled risk" costs and share them equally. HCIs are incented to skim the cream and underpay and underserve their contractees.

Government is so screwed up and corrupt there is no way of avoiding drowning in the slime short of pulling the plug overall on Congress and starting over with a new batch and an informed and active electorate

How are the "monied interests" any more powerful than when Jefferson first whinged about them?

3% vs 27% on average for private plans that they could afford to devote more funds to go after fraud. Another 1% would hire an army of aufitors and investigators.

DirtyBird:

You can’t tell me that a private enterprise couldn’t run Medicare more cleanly and that a private enterprise, financially motivated to root out the W, F&A, couldn’t clean it out in 36 months, let alone 36 years.

I will grant you that private insurance devotes more resources to claims denials than Medicare. Of course the big money there is not fraud but weaseling out of legitimate but expensive claims by their own customers.

Private enterprise is not interested in insuring the high cost elderly demographic. That is why only 50% of this age group were covered by health insurance back in 1965 when Medicare was enacted.

Degs,

My point is that the WF&A in Medicare is public knowledge. Perhaps the extent and the ease at which it is accomplished is less known, but it's existence has been. Enron and the rest may have been going on for years, but they were for the most part secret and unknown. Big difference. And my number is an annual screwing, yours is merely a sum total. Admittedly large, but not in comparison. By anyone's measure $60 billion a year is a large number.

My question regarding the tie-in to employment regarding access to HCI was pointed at the obvious: there is no logical tie-in. Why can't each state have a state pool with a variety of programs competing for their business? having 50 payers vs. 50,000 or more, should be a step forward and not involve Uncle Fed. I'd be more in favor of that and never in favor of the federal government option.

As for the "moneyed interests", I've been in favor of stripping corporations of any rights out side of general business law. They should never have any "Constitutional" rights that an individual has an inalienable right to enjoy.

Claims:

The administrative costs include parts of the excessive salaries being paid to the glutted execs in these companies. Claims denial vs. claims investigation are not really the same thing. In the former some companies are engaging in form of fraud by reflexively denying all or most claims. These bastards need to be run out of business and the execs need to be hung up high for all to see...

No one is interested in insuring the sickest demographic. That has to be approached as a humanitarian project that we all take on. I'd suggest we add 1-2% or more to the fraud investigators in Medicare and Medicaid and then expand their roles to cover the high risk populations.

WF&A in Medicare is NOT "public knowledge". there are continueal ongoing investigations, just as there are with Securities Fraud (as in Enron). My numbers from the CORPORATE waste is every bit as much an annual "screwing" as yours are. The point is that in any system there is "waste" - your car's engine "wastes" 75%-85% of the energy in every gallon of gas - simply because an adiabatic engine cannot BE more efficient.

If a governemtn organization is being 3 x MORE EFFICIENT than private industry, and you don't have any specific evidence to point to a particular process within Medicare tht generates WF&A - you have no basis for yourc claims.

My question regarding the tie-in to employment regarding access to HCI was pointed at the obvious: there is no logical tie-in. Why can't each state have a state pool with a variety of programs competing for their business? having 50 payers vs. 50,000 or more, should be a step forward and not involve Uncle Fed. I'd be more in favor of that and never in favor of the federal government option.

This is the option Sen. Cantwell proposed - the so called Health Coops. There are problems though with that

• It doesn't prevent the other HCIs from "skimming the cream" IE it fails to be "pooled risk"
• It isn't portable. If I move from WA to CA or from NY to CA, or from CA to MA (as family members of mine have done) - or if my son attends Univ in NY - none of this works well
• How is having 50 paers "a step forward and not involving Uncle Fed"? The research we know of on coruption all indicates that the more local the form of government, the more CORRUPT it is likely to be.

As for the "moneyed interests", I've been in favor of stripping corporations of any rights out side of general business law. They should never have any "Constitutional" rights that an individual has an inalienable right to enjoy.

On this you and I are 100% in agreement. But it won't eliminate the influence of "the monied interests. It will reduce it but remember, corporations are a mid 1800s creation. And yet the Monied interests were alive and well in Jefferson's time