Re:Healthy California Act: proposal to make findings about s...
by cmurf on Wednesday March 08, 2017 @09:14PM
(#13826280)
It's financially feasible if everyone's contributing. So if it were done as a progressive tax, just like income tax, rather than making a portion of it employer paid while then exempting employers who operate in multiple state; in fact in today's world exempting companies that don't even do business in the state other than having employees in that state is a problem. There's also no integration with Medicaid or Medicare.
Anyway, there's no reason it's a financial funding problem. No matter what it's some kind of tax. Either it's a government tax for a government operated health care system (single payer); or it's a tax on the business vis a vis employer based insurance where they are the true customer not those who are insured; or it's a tax on the employee getting a plan on the market place if the employer doesn't provide one.
The number one problem is that it's simply too profitable for doctors, hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies right now, to have system that incentivizes pay per procedure per per visit, rather than paying for health. It is not health care, it's sick care. Very little of our system incentivizes health. A miniscule number of insurers pay if you actually show up at a gym, not merely pay for the gym; or pay you to lose weight by actually getting weighed at an approved clinic, and so on.
It's presently politically untenable that we have for-profit education to become a doctor, and salaried doctors.
And there probably isn't a way to make this work on a scale like Vermont. It's probably possible to do it on the scale of California, but deeply depends on the politics.
Democrats basically took a dump on ACA. They tried to get Republicans on board, which is why they went with the Heritage Foundation plan. But then Republicans didn't go for it anyway. So what they should have done, hindsight being 20/20, is offer Americans a way to buy into Medicare rather than set up all these stupid state exchanges to expand a busted for-profit system. Oh well!
Anyway, there's no reason it's a financial funding problem. No matter what it's some kind of tax. Either it's a government tax for a government operated health care system (single payer); or it's a tax on the business vis a vis employer based insurance where they are the true customer not those who are insured; or it's a tax on the employee getting a plan on the market place if the employer doesn't provide one.
The number one problem is that it's simply too profitable for doctors, hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies right now, to have system that incentivizes pay per procedure per per visit, rather than paying for health. It is not health care, it's sick care. Very little of our system incentivizes health. A miniscule number of insurers pay if you actually show up at a gym, not merely pay for the gym; or pay you to lose weight by actually getting weighed at an approved clinic, and so on.
It's presently politically untenable that we have for-profit education to become a doctor, and salaried doctors.
And there probably isn't a way to make this work on a scale like Vermont. It's probably possible to do it on the scale of California, but deeply depends on the politics.
Democrats basically took a dump on ACA. They tried to get Republicans on board, which is why they went with the Heritage Foundation plan. But then Republicans didn't go for it anyway. So what they should have done, hindsight being 20/20, is offer Americans a way to buy into Medicare rather than set up all these stupid state exchanges to expand a busted for-profit system. Oh well!