Healthcare Policy

[Replicator]

Even as a Republican I find that Paul Ryan's budget would be bad for Medicare. What do you all think of this as an alternative to his proposal and a possible replacement for Obamacare.


Lawsuits:

No time limits or caps on damages for malpractice lawsuits.
No limited awards for suing HMO's.
Require report cards for HMO's quality of care.
Compensate people who have been harmed from childhood vaccines while protecting manufacturing companies from suffering over lawsuits by providing finances.


Mental Health:

Export drugs awaiting approval if their use is allowed in Canada in order to increase the competitiveness of the American pharmaceutical industry abroad, create jobs, foster biotechnology, and aid other nations.

Provide grants to the states for mental health planning and enact  new authorities for research, education, and information dissemination activities.

Include mental health services under Medicare.

States not implementing such plans will not be eligible to receive funding under the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Services Block Grants.

Give mental health full equity with physical health.

 
Post Employment Coverage Benefits:

Allow employees to continue their insurance for up to 18 months after leaving a job for the following reasons. Companies who do not provide this opportunity will not be eligible for tax deductions for offering their employees health insurance.

1. Death of a family member employed by a company continues coverage for 36 months.

2. If an employee loses eligibility for coverage due to voluntary or involuntary termination or a reduction in hours as a result of resignation, discharge other than gross misconduct, layoff, strike or lockout, medical leave, or slowdown in business operations, then coverage continues for 18 months.

3. In the case of a divorce or legal separation that terminates the ex-spouse's eligibility for benefits, coverage continues for 36 months.

4.  If a dependent reaches the age at which he or she is no longer covered, then coverage continues for 18 months.

5. Coverage continues for 29 months if an individual is deemed disabled by the social security administration. 


Post Employment Options:

1. Employees must continue to pay the equivalent of what they and their employer were paying plus a 2% administrative fee.

2. Coverage doesn't continue if an employer drops coverage for their employees or goes out of business.

3. Employees and dependents may choose a lesser form of coverage during or after leaving employment.

4. Employees who fail to make timely payments on premiums may lose coverage.

5.  Employers are required to inform employees and dependents upon loss of coverage, in writing, by at least fifteen days before the coverage ceases.

 
Coordination of Coverage:

1. Dependents include spouses, civil union partners, children, and step-children under the age of 26.

2. Those with pre-existing conditions may not be denied coverage. Companies may charge more for pre-existing conditions subject to subsidization through Medicaid for those in households making less than $30,000 annually.

3. Individuals may purchase health insurance across state lines.
4. Hospitals are still required to treat uninsured individuals.
5. Hospitals are still required to treat illegal immigrants confidentially.
6. Require that all uninsured children be covered under law through SCHIP.
7. Allow beneficiaries to make choices.
8. No rationing of care through an unelected panel of bureaucrats.
9. Help healthcare to become a right, not a privilege.
10. Include body mass index and end of life planning among initial preventive physicals.

 
Federal Health Regulations:

Encourage small businesses to provide health insurance.
Expedited licenses for biosimilar products.
Continue to regulate tobacco, cigarettes, and beer as a drug.
Continue to create a smoke-free environment with smoking bans in public.
Continue immunizations for children.
Legalize marijuana and regulate it like we do alcohol.
Allow for physician-assisted suicide in last days of life.


Funding and Research:

Increase funding for Rx benefits, community health, and children's insurance.
Keep slush fund for public health.
Increase funding for AIDS treatment and prevention by 15%.
Expand National Health Service Corps.
Help states to fund for health centers and community hospitals.
No tax-exempt Medical Savings Accounts.
Require insurers to cover breast cancer treatment.

 
Malpractice Lawsuits:

Limit anti-trust lawsuits on health plans and insurers.
No financial limits on medical malpractice lawsuits.
No cap on damages for medical malpractice lawsuits.
No time limits for medical malpractice lawsuits.
No federal rules or limited awards for suing HMO's other than class action lawsuits.

 
Medicare:

Extend Medicare to cover additional preventative services.
Eliminate Medicare co-payments for psychiatric services.
Cover senior Rx under Medicare.
Require negotiated Rx prices for Medicare part D.
No denial of emergency care for lack of Medicare co-payments.
No limit of prescription drugs covered by Medicare.
Allow importation of prescription drugs from Canada.
No subsidization of private health insurance plans for Medicare Rx drug coverage.
Allow physician assisted suicide in the final days of life.
Terminal patient rights and senior rights.


Preventative Youth Education:

Continue dietary and physical fitness programs at schools.
Continue teaching about dangers of drug use throughout school years.
Focus on preventing teenage pregnancies in health classes.
Establish a national childhood cancer database.

[TNF]

I think the way to solve the medical care crisis in the United States is fairly straight-forward.

1. Socialize the entirety of the medical-industrial complex. Health insurers, hospital chains, medical parts manufacturers, and the drug industry should be brought under democratic control and public administration. Provide financial incentives for independent practitioners to form medical collectives (which would be an integral part of the socialized system that would gradually become part of the fully socialized sector) or transition into the socialized medical sector itself. The sector should be democratically run, with local boards consisting of randomly selected members of the public planning out policy with employee representatives and medical experts.
2. Provide medical care without cost at the point of use. All scientifically proven medical procedures should be covered without regard to cost at the point of use, including coverage for mental, dental, and other forms of medical care often left out of socialized medical plans elsewhere in the world.
3. Provide pharmaceuticals and medical devices at low or no cost. Any person needing glasses or braces or any kind of drug for dealing with an illness should be provided with it at no cost (anything that can be produced en masse) or at very limited cost (cosmetic procedures or more difficult drugs to produce on a large scale). Democratic decision-making in pricing and distribution should be integral to this process.
4. End the War on Drugs and establish policies with regard to drug addiction that treat it as a public health problem. Legalize the use of all currently illicit drugs under the purview of a socialized monopoly and treat addicts as addicts, not as criminals. Establish safe injection sites and encourage safe use of drugs by cutting out all of the anti-drug propaganda in our education system and replacing it with fact-based assessments on the dangers of certain substances.
5. Promote healthier eating. Socialize the entirety of the agricultural sector and put it to work producing healthier foods. I'm not a GMO alarmist, but I think you'd have to be seriously deluded to think that companies like Monsanto have our best interest in mind when they're putting food to market, and that's ultimately why I don't think that we should leave our food supply in the hands of the private sector. Under democratic management, GMOs can be unleashed to their fullest potential, as can other kinds of agricultural production hampered by the private, for-profit capitalist sector (lab-grown meat, vertical farming, etc).
6. Promote healthier living. Build publicly owned gyms and other exercise facilities and change our educational curricula to promote physical activity in schools on a daily basis. Require restaurants to reduce portion sizes and substitute healthier alternatives, ban fast food companies from having contracts with school cafeterias, and promote healthy eating from a young age. Encourage physical fitness, with the goal of eliminating obesity at some point in the near future.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Other than the mandated reduction of portion sizes and mild suspicion in the demarchy advocated by TNF, I might as well have just empty-quoted my comrade.

[Replicator]

Other than the mandated reduction of portion sizes and mild suspicion in the demarchy advocated by TNF, I might as well have just empty-quoted my comrade.

Can we please get some serious discussion about healthcare rather than quoting Obama's ideas about socializing everything? He's really done a number on this great nation.

[TNF]

Other than the mandated reduction of portion sizes and mild suspicion in the demarchy advocated by TNF, I might as well have just empty-quoted my comrade.

Can we please get some serious discussion about healthcare rather than quoting Obama's ideas about socializing everything? He's really done a number on this great nation.

lmao

[Representative MJM]

Other than the mandated reduction of portion sizes and mild suspicion in the demarchy advocated by TNF, I might as well have just empty-quoted my comrade.

Can we please get some serious discussion about healthcare rather than quoting Obama's ideas about socializing everything? He's really done a number on this great nation.

If what you are saying about the President were true, I would consider him one of the greatest Presidents of all time. Unfortunately, the ACA is not what TNF is endorsing. Obama is not "socializing," which is what he should be doing to health insurance. A single-payer system is the only option for the US. Governments of other countries with this system provide free health care at the point of use and often pays for prescription drugs and dental/eye/mental health as well...all for a remarkably lower price tag than the current system in the United States. Health care shouldn't be a privilege, in my opinion.

[AggregateDemand]

If what you are saying about the President were true, I would consider him one of the greatest Presidents of all time. Unfortunately, the ACA is not what TNF is endorsing. Obama is not "socializing," which is what he should be doing to health insurance. A single-payer system is the only option for the US. Governments of other countries with this system provide free health care at the point of use and often pays for prescription drugs and dental/eye/mental health as well...all for a remarkably lower price tag than the current system in the United States. Health care shouldn't be a privilege, in my opinion.

Insurance is inherently socialistic, and when the administration forces insurance buyers to subsidize costs that have no relation to their healthcare needs, they are socializing the health insurance system.

The existence of private health insurance companies says little about the nature of the system. If you can't opt out of certain benefits and expenses, and you're not free to associate with the health group of your choosing, we're headed further down the road to socialization of medicine.

[Representative MJM]

If what you are saying about the President were true, I would consider him one of the greatest Presidents of all time. Unfortunately, the ACA is not what TNF is endorsing. Obama is not "socializing," which is what he should be doing to health insurance. A single-payer system is the only option for the US. Governments of other countries with this system provide free health care at the point of use and often pays for prescription drugs and dental/eye/mental health as well...all for a remarkably lower price tag than the current system in the United States. Health care shouldn't be a privilege, in my opinion.

Insurance is inherently socialistic, and when the administration forces insurance buyers to subsidize costs that have no relation to their healthcare needs, they are socializing the health insurance system.

The existence of private health insurance companies says little about the nature of the system. If you can't opt out of certain benefits and expenses, and you're not free to associate with the health group of your choosing, we're headed further down the road to socialization of medicine.

I think you and I view the definition of socializing differently, but I won't argue with you on that because I do agree with your point. I was just trying to say that nobody in this thread was "quoting Obama's ideas about socializing everything," because Obamacare is vastly different from single-payer.

[AggregateDemand]

I think you and I view the definition of socializing differently, but I won't argue with you on that because I do agree with your point. I was just trying to say that nobody in this thread was "quoting Obama's ideas about socializing everything," because Obamacare is vastly different from single-payer.

The vast difference between single-payer and Obamacare is that most single-payer systems are universal, while Obamacare still requires Americans to rely on their employers for health insurance benefits.

The difference between a non-universal single payer system, like Medicare, and our private insurance system is becoming more nuanced with each "reform".

[H. Ross Peron]

See the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany