if a doctor charges 200 per hour with most insurance. medicare currently gets charged 160. my "medicare plus a third" plan would cap out pay at 210. i'm completely confident the market will find a way to take that money.
As with basically all of your proposals, the how is glaringly absent. "It'll all work out!" That is a vague solution to a vague problem. You need to know exactly how it will work out - or at least how it is supposed to work out. Would you start a business with a plan like, "We don't have to figure out our expenses. We'll just charge what everyone else charges and it'll all work out!" That's only a slightly generalized comparison to your approach as shown from these comments:
hopefully we can revamp the system without doing much damage to those guys.
...
i suppose it just boils down to we need to take the risk, and just overhaul the system.
Moving on...
you act like my hopes and dreams approach is bad because i dont have all the details figured out.
Because it is. And I'm not saying that to be mean. I'm saying that as someone who works less than ideal hours in a less than ideal work environment so that I can have high quality healthcare. And knowing how many deadbeats are out there mooching off an already extremely charitable system, I know how your revolution is going to work out. And it's not good.
the problem with your argument, is that you haven't gotten any clear unintended consequences figured out.... your argument is just "government incompetent, thus it's inevitable catastrophe will happen".
Not necessarily inevitable, but almost certain. Do you think the government has shown efficient business practices with concern for profit margins overall?
And you have actually failed to meaningfully address most of my arguments. Here were some specific points:
PROBLEM: Doctors and staff are paid too much. This implies they make more than they should.
SOLUTION: Make sure doctors and staff are not paid too much.
QUESTIONS: What is the amount that doctors and staff should be making?
How will we specifically make sure that doctors and staff aren't paid more than they should be?
I did the math of adding 25% and then asked what that number meant, as well as how that policy would specifically impact healthcare costs. I received no response.
PROBLEM: Healthcare costs are too high.
SOLUTION: Let the government control prices and set limits.
QUESTION: What happens if regulations force the hospital to lose money because they can't charge patients enough to cover the actual cost of their services?
Your answer:
it's easier said than done, but the solution is just not to regulate too much [other than regulating all staff salaries, and all prices based on Medicare].
PROBLEM: Wait times are too long.
SOLUTION: Decrease wait times.
QUESTION: How will this specifically be accomplished?
Your answer:
get more doctors and specialists. the indistry puts a limit on all those guys, and we can simply get more of them. nurse practitioners too.
So, pay them a bit less, but hire more of them? Have you done an analysis to figure out if this will cost more or less?
PROBLEM: Debt collections (compelling people to pay their medical bills) currently makes the poor pay more.
SOLUTION: ????
QUESTIONS: How will hospitals be paid for services?
What means will hospitals have to recuperate payments for services rendered if bills go unpaid?
Your answer:
you're worried about small fries [in the amount of an estimated $140 billion in lost revenue].
I have pointed out a multitude of flaws in your approach. You are the one who wants to overthrow the system that, despite all it's flaws, provides some of the best healthcare in the world to a massive population of people. And you have no real plan with what to replace it with. The onus is on you to show what your plan is and, more importantly, how it will actually work instead of just saying, "We'll figure it out as we go. It'll all work out in the end. Nothing could possibly go wrong."
