If you really want to understand the devastation our nation’s health care would suffer under an Obama  “National healthcare plan”, simply look at Medicare. The initial cost for this plan has been estimated by the Administration at over $650,000,000,000. That’s billion with a capital “B”. Realistically, the costs will be well over $1 TRILLION. Those are the numbers to PAY THE COSTS of the plan and those are taxes YOU will have to pay.

It will also succeed in ruining our nation’s entire health care provider system. Let’s face it, when you look at Great Britain, France, or Canada, you understand that their QUALITY of medical care is falling as this country sees more and more of their citizens seeking the needed care, treatments, surguries right here in America. They pay cash too, as their “insurance” plan isn’t going to pay here, not be accepted here, and just like our own Medicare system, not worth very much.

Doctors are not accepting new patients if you have Medicare. Hospitals and other providers are cost-shifting to private insurance to cover the real losses when Medicare is the payor of the treatment or services. Many are leaving the medical field all together as Government payments for health care approaches the 45% mark of total health benefits paid.

The solutions are simple. First, we MUST stop the cost-shifting that is occurring by medical personnel and we must do it in a way that preserves the providers income for their services. It must be equitable on both ends as well. The cost-shifting is forcing private insurance, as well as employer provides/sponsored insurance to raise premiums to cover the added costs of over billing for services to offset the losses from government payments. Unless “we” are fair to the medical field, we can be assured that there will be fewer doctors, nurses, and providers as time passes as the field isn’t going to be one where one can survive the Government cuts in benefits.

These cuts will and already are, not paying for certain treatments and is a form of “rationing” for our seniors on Medicare. IF  you can afford to pay the costs out of pocket, then you are in luck. If not, sorry about your luck. That is all you get from Medicare when talking about a treatment or bill they refuse to pay or cut benefits accordingly. Many must pay the difference in “Medicare allowable” charges and the REAL bill submitted for payment and that can be more than substantial. In many cases it it over 50% of the actual amount the service provider billed Medicare. And believe me, Medicaid is just about as bad.

What PREVENTS real reforms in these two programs is simple. People feel “invested” in Medicare because they paid TAXES into the plan. When you start talking about privatization of Medicare, people naturally wince and get nervous. People have come to believe that GOVERNMENT payment plans are working, when the facts are simple- they are in dire trouble and will totally collapse under the weight of benefit payments in the next 5-7 years.As it stands today, that will leave millions of seniors and totally disabled people with nothing to provide benefit payments.

Unless we DO get these programs from under the umbrella of government, these programs will not even be there for anyone, or will result in the same identical fate as we witness in other nations with socialized programs- rationing, denial, long waits for simple services, and an angry mob demanding what they feel they are OWED. They also have the highest tax rates world wide and from inside, a system that is becoming sub-standard each passing month and year.

You can make a gradual shift to private sector benefits and do so economically. You do this by using a Health Savings Account in which people contribute to early in their working career. As their younger, healthy years require little in benefit payouts from that account, it would grow over time. This is YOUR MONEY, not the governments to take and use as YOU deem necessary. We basically “de-power government” from benefit payments. You can use this HSA for any purpose- to purchase medical coverage, pay deductibles and co-payments, buy prescription drugs, or any other medical, dental, or even over the counter products to treat illnesses. Our seniors coming into the Medicare system over the next 10 years, would benefit from “some” HSA benefits, but special allowances and special private insurance plans would allow a gradual phase out of Medicare with the eventual goal of every new “senior” in that 10 year period being covered under private/group plans. These plan benefits would NOT change at retirement.They would also be portable as you can keep them, take them from employer to employer. Your employer would have the ability to contribute a benefit into your HSA for you to also use for premium payments or as you see fit.

Additionally, the overall costs of benefits would either stabilize or fall slightly. Premiums would become affordable to many of our younger people and coverage would be more affordable in their early years. As with any private sector plan, the actuarial costs help to offset the benefits of those who older and in greater need of medical care.

Government “mandates” for exotic and un-needed benefits would be eliminated as well. Instead of “mandates”, the individual would be offered these types of coverages as OPTIONS, and they can choose to add or not to their plans. Face reality- if you are over a certain age, or elected to have your desire to not have any children exercised, you don’t have a NEED for maternity benefits. Neither do “single males”. There is no need to MANDATE these coverages if you don’t need them. These mandates are increasing medical insurance costs on the average of 20% per year in additional premiums.

We must also face some realities as well. Under our current system of health care benefit payments, especially government funded programs, there are roughly 20 million illegal aliens in this nation and when these people with NO insurance or benefits need medical care, they are being paid for with OUR tax dollars. WE pay for that care and treatment under Medicaid or other programs that, at any one time, account for close to half of what government considers the “uninsured”. When you add to the mix, those younger people who have a far greater desire of an I-phone than they do for health insurance, and elect to buy the I-phone instead, WHO should pay for their coverages? We can keep government as their solution when they need medical care, or we can use this as a teachable moment of individual responsibility. However, with their HSA, which WOULD be the only requirement under this type of system, they would at least understand the importance of their contributions when that is all they have to pay the doctor for that broken arm or case of flu.

Basically this leaves roughly 8 million uninsured and most of those are so by their own choosing, , not because of inability to purchase coverage. This is from the “claimed” 43 million “uninsured” being used to “sell” the National Healthcare Plan. That has been the government way to “sell you” on government solutions for decades, and it is time that COMMON SENSE prevails and the core values of your Representatives offer the FACTS, not some numbers to make a political, government solution acceptable to the people.

Somewhere along the way,Americans seem to have forgotten that with GREAT LIBERTY comes GREAT RESPONSIBILITY. That lesson is one we need to teach our youth early as it is one we seem to be no longer teaching them and the result is evident. Instead, it is easy to “demand” from our government and expect results. The simple facts are found in our own Medicare system as the example of fallacy in reasoning that government programs will work.

Yes, these are hard choices and tough ones to make. Unless we make those decisions and work that plan effectively, we are going to continue to see the same identical problems for the decades to come. The solutions are very simple ones and yes, puts the “monkey on the back” of the people. But isn’t that what WE demand??- that being the best the world has to offer in medical care and at costs we can afford to pay. When the INDIVIDUAL controls the purse strings, then the simple laws of economics forces the costs in line with what people can afford. Private solutions always offer a win-win situation where as government solutions merely fail miserably as you can’t “legislate” human behaviour. THAT is only changed when you effectively allow failure as much as you encourage success.

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