JetBlue to cancel traditional healthcare plans

[Smarta$$]

You should really bow out of this debate. Those involved in the medical field would overwhelmingly disagree with that statement.
You must have a different definition of "efficient" than the rest of the planet:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/09/27/How-Medicare-Wastes-Almost-50-Billion-a-Year.aspx#page1

So when private companies and providers commit fraud, that is medicares fault?

http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto.../04/23/gao-medicare-experiment-wastes-8b.html

This article is about a questionable program related to funding for Medicare-Advantage (a private health insurance market, not public medicare). The 8 billion dollar figure is a drop in the bucket (still unacceptable) compared to the wasted money in the private insurance market. How much does the payroll, lawyer salaries, lobbyist salaries, glass and marble towers, executive compensation, plan designers, plan administrators etc.... for all of the hundreds of private health insurance companies strip out of the health care system that pay for NO doctors visits or pharmacy bills?

The cost FACTS of our system are NOT on your side, no matter how many articles about waste you can dig up. Our system is CLEARLY the most expensive in the world. Period. By far.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/238654.php

This article does not tell you how private insurance is also burdened by many of the same regulations. It tells us that we can do better with Medicare and medicade... DUH. Again, you can post all the articles you want showing the problems with Medicare, but you can't post ANY that show the U.S. system is cheaper IN U.S. dollars, or as a percentage of GDP than other nations, despite having covered a smaller proportion of our society and despite the fact that we have the most privatized system in the industrialized world.

Simply put, you can't show that our PRIVATE (more than any other advanced nation) provides better value than the more public systems in other countries. You do not have the facts on your side. And pointing to inefficiencies and fraud in the public system while ignoring the inefficiencies and waste in the private system is a dis-service to our country and dumbs down the debate.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/10...-medicare-and-medicaid-still-await-solutions/

Again, selective data and attacks ignoring the waste, fraud and inefficiencies in your "favored" private system. I knew a quote from the heritage foundation was coming at some point....

Now show me reasonable data that shows our private healthcare system is a better value than other public systems. Most international surveys and research papers level the differences in currencies to make easy and accurate cost comparisons. I will wait patiently.


Spend more time reading about than arguing topics you're not familiar with.

See response within your quote.

 

[Rick James]

I said IF. IF. IF we adopted theirs means of financing healthcare. IF.

That's true, on second glance you did say "IF".

Typical, you use standard rhetoric instead of comparable data regarding health care spending and outcomes by nation.

I'm not really sure what "standard rhetoric" is, but would you care to cite an example of something the government does better than the free market system? Let's not forget that Obamacare is a result of government regulations driving the costs of healthcare up (yes, we now have more government regulations to fix a problem that government regulations caused).

 

[Smarta$$]

I don't know how much more I will post on this thread. At this point ideology will over rule any data, or comparitive facts and there is already sufficient information here (unless you ignored it) to show that our system is NOT the best SYSTEM in the world. There are areas where we excel, and some good treatment data points, but our advanced technologies and drugs have been exported and are available anywhere. Any perceived tech superiority is eroding everyday. But we are still left with outrageous costs and barriers to entry with little or nothing to show for it.

Either way, your "favored" system is collapsing. The trajectory of costs and uninsured will continue to a breaking point. When it collapses, republicans will blame government, but Americans will look at the rest of the world and wonder why their health plans didn't collapse and wonder how they are still so popular with their citizens despite being government health systems....

The overall totality of facts is NOT on your side.

 

[Smarta$$]

That's true, on second glance you did say "IF".


I'm not really sure what "standard rhetoric" is, but would you care to cite an example of something the government does better than the free market system? Let's not forget that Obamacare is a result of government regulations driving the costs of healthcare up (yes, we now have more government regulations to fix a problem that government regulations caused).

Health systems, especially large and overly complex systems like ours, have a lot of moving parts and countless influential factors. A significant factor in our high costs are related to our re-importation laws and laws preventing Medicare from negotiating volume discounts for drugs. The re-importation laws raise the costs of ALL insurance, public and private.

But to your point, the example is how our system compares in terms of cost and benefits to the GOVERNMENT systems in other countries. It is more than clear that we are not getting good value. You blame government, because that is your belief system, your religion so to speak. If it were true that government systems cost more, we would have one of the best health systems in the world when considering costs and TOTAL VALUE. But that is not what we see.

Once you drop your per-conceived notions about Medicare, you would clearly see that it is by far the best and cheapest way to provide the SAME coverage vs. privatizing it. Even the waste and fraud that your articles quoted, which are a crime and the providers/doctors that defraud us (happens in private insurance as well) should be prosecuted, still amount to a small fraction of total Medicare spending. Annual Medicare spending is in the hundreds of billions.

To provide the same coverage as Medicare in a private system, you have all the same benefit costs (same coverage means same payments to doctors and pharmacies(actually more, because private plans pay doctors more)), but have to cover all the immense overhead required to run each individual insurance company individually. Lots and lots of duplication.

Insurance, whether public non-profit or private for-profit work the same basic way.

1. take in premiums (or taxes)

2. pay for claims (good) and pay overhead (bad)

Both systems are susceptible to fraudulent claims by doctors and pharmacies. But the private system has the additional burden of duplicate overhead at each company: executive compensation, glass and marble towers, plan administrators, sales people, army of lawyers, army or lobbyists, army of accountants etc... None of the overhead dollars go to patients needs or care.

Private companies simply have much more duplicate, unrelated and unnecessary overhead.

Medicare benefits from economies of scale already by covering tens of millions under one system.

 

[2000Easyguy]

We're fat because of "sugar lobbies"? Give me a break. How about saying no to that third doughnut, or practicing some parenting skills and making your kids drink milk or water instead of a 16 oz. Mountain Dew. Nobody's forcing these things into our mouths. We are not victims.

Really? Reread wave flyer's post again, then think about pink slime and HFCS.
It's not the three doughnuts and Mountian Dew that's increasing the waistline in the USA! CORN!!!
It's pathetic that a third world country's coke contains "real" sugar, while coke in ATL has the toxic HFCS!

I do agree eating habits in the US are in an awful state! It's spreading over here in Europe at an alarming rate, sad to say.

 

[Hair-on-Fire]

You guys need to give up. It's embarrassing watching Smarta$$ wipe the floor with you.

 

[Smarta$$]

Really? Reread wave flyer's post again, then think about pink slime and HFCS.
It's not the three doughnuts and Mountian Dew that's increasing the waistline in the USA! CORN!!!
It's pathetic that a third world country's coke contains "real" sugar, while coke in ATL has the toxic HFCS!

I do agree eating habits in the US are in an awful state! It's spreading over here in Europe at an alarming rate, sad to say.

I agree about HFCS. And other ingredients and processes that are allowed in the U.S., that are rightfully banned in other nations.

We really are sold to big business here.... And we are paying with our health and our treasure.

 

[relief tube]

looks like 1193 servings of kool-aid will hopefully be drying up soon.

Time to fight and be the last major player with embarrassingly cheap mgmt.

What does virgin or allegiant have- are health bennies better there?

 

[tzskipper]

looks like 1193 servings of kool-aid will hopefully be drying up soon.

Time to fight and be the last major player with embarrassingly cheap mgmt.

What does virgin or allegiant have- are health bennies better there?

A friend at va pays about 340/month out of pocket for a family of 4. This is for Blue Cross PPO with a $20 copay/500 deductible (max of three deductibles per family per year). Max out of pocket is $1500.00 per person per year.

S

 

[LearLove]

so does jb management get to keep their heat care?