[tater]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Why not just kill the few million that would die without those programs and at least stop the suffering...Hope it's not someone you love...

The programs are the problem.

Ending them as they are currently set up can only HELP. Medicare WILL bankrupt the country. No one wants to take medicaid as it is. Specialists take it only because they have to to get privileges at hospitals—and hospitals cannot turn away emergent cases, period.

Seriously, why is the cost curve the way it is? GOVERNMENT. They force docs to take below cost, but it's fee for service. The incentive—really a REQUIREMENT with medicaid if you want to, you know, not lose money on every patient—is to do more services. Government is not the solution, it's the problem.

This idiotic bill will in fact hurt those you claim I want to kill. Docs cannot afford to see patients below cost. As soon as this passed, my wife's office stopped taking any new medicare patients at all until further notice. They have too since it's unpredictable right now, and once seen, they "own" the patient and must continue care. Her specialty is already underrepresented in the state (fewer than half the number we need) so those patients are well and truly SOL. They have to head to the U and get seen by slaves, erm, residents (the collection rate at the U is 17%, BTW. What a way to run a business, to only collect 17% of what you bill. Waits will be long. They already dumped medicaid, except those they are forced to see through the ER. Docs in town have talked about starting their own hospital that is off the grid, as it were and will not take medicaid. If you live away from the coasts, the problem currently is the lack of providers. Adding more patients they cannot afford to see—should your plumber be forced to charge you below his actual cost (not even counting his labor) since you need plumbing to live? Should the grocery store be forced to sell every product except luxury foods at a loss (you need food to live, after all)?

The US system's problem is not that we don't have enough government, but that we have too much (~46% of all healthcare is already government paid—and everyone with real insurance is paying a huge tax in premiums to subsidize the deadbeats on government care).

People I love will see docs, we can pay, and/or all our friends are docs. The government is screwing it up for you, not me. I'm trying to help everyone else by telling it like it is.