Ron Paul on Healthcare

Really great comment man! No policy reform regarding healthcare will instantly heal our tattered system, but it amazes me how far this country has deviated from something which originally made it great – a free market. We’ve lost this independence, and socialized medicine is looming on the horizon. Coupled with the problem of dealing with millions without insurance, systems like those in Great Britain seem almost unattainable.

A private doctor is NOT required to accept ANY government plan whether it’s Medicare, Medicaid, or any other government plan. Nothing has or will change that. When you’re in private practice, you can do whatever you want.

This is not single payer where EVERYONE would have to be on a government plan (which I am against as it limits choice – although numbers wise it is more cost-effective – the quality of care would not be that great). A public plan would compete with private plans (which you can still choose if you want to) and thus lower premiums. The private market would always have to worry about you leaving them and getting a better deal somewhere else. There is no competition by any means right now and insurance companies know it. You can’t even get competing insurance even across state lines, so this free-market talking point is crap. The glut we are in now where we have people who DO pay for private insurance, but the moment they need it to kick in the most (like a diagnosis of cancer), they get their coverage terminated, after all those premiums that went for nothing (well, for profits of the company)

Insurance companies exist to make the most profit – that is done by bringing in money thru premiums, copays, and trying as much as possible to reduce coverage for claims whether it’s outright denial of a claim OR give the doctor the run-around in paperwork, hoping the doctor will give up (any private doctor will attest to this). Many times you can’t even do a necessary procedure (which you as a doctor have used your knowledge as needing to be done) bc you have to call (on automated hold of course), to get authorization of coverage for a procedure or the patient is stuck with the bill.

Right now, if you have HTN, Diabetes, and High cholesterol and you want to change insurance companies bc you found a better deal – guess what? You can’t, as your new insurance company will not cover “pre-existing conditions”. People like John McCain with 4 melanomas would NEVER get private health insurance coverage in the real world as he is a liability.

Not to mention, you obviously don’t know anything about private insurance as unlike Medicare and Medicaid (who send a check immediately – one of the few things they are good at), they don’t try to weasel out of payments to doctors like private companies do. What’s the point of paying exorbitant premiums, AND a copay, AND having a deductible, when the insurance company won’t pay for ACTUAL healthcare??

All this about politicians making healthcare decisions is RIDICULOUS. Guess who makes the decision about your healthcare now when you go to a doctor – your private insurance company. If your company says they will not pay for something guess what, either you pay out of pocket or you don’t have it done.