The Post-ObamaCare World: Reality Check For Hypocrites?

[Ragnarök_62]

(11-11-2016, 08:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: -- it seems to it would be less expensive to expand an already existing agency than to be setting up these exchanges & whatnot from scratch. Also it's not like we don't have the $. lf we have $  to bomb ppl into oblivion  then we definitely have $ to expand medicare

Obamacare is cheaper because it relies on people who work to pay for their own health care, either directly or through their employers.

Medicare costs $600 billion per year.  The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, at their peak, cost $100 billion per year.  Fixing people is more expensive than breaking them.

I think medical care would be cheaper if we:

1  Eliminate the middlemen.  There's no need for health care insurance company bezzle. There's a wad of money there which could be redeployed to Medicare at age 0.
2. Fold VA/Medicaid/CHIP into Medicare.  - Remove the administrative overhead for those 3 programs.
3. Bid out everything.  This includes prescription drugs. I see no reason why companies in India/Canada can't supply some drugs.  This is competition that Republicans want so much.
4. Pay for it with a VAT tax. This is back door tariffs that the WTO and other trade agreements don't bitch about. Since most of our trading partners had the VAT, why can't we?
5. Of course end all wars of choice + War on Drugs.  That saves even more money.

The health care mess is more of a problem of political will than funding.  The US just needs to make up its mind that goring a bunch of sacred cows/ breaking lots of eggs to make omelets is a Good Thing.™

Warren Dew Wrote:It would be too expensive - like Obamacare, it would add subsidies to the cost of those who actually work and earn money - and medicare covers only marginal costs, not average costs, so without further increases in rates, the medical providers would go bankrupt.

I don't think so if we did what I propose.  The providers would get the money that's now going to those useless griftering , health insurance companies.  I couldn't care less if they all went the way of the dodo.