How would getting rid of the VA result in savings?
Like, you think privatizing it and having the government pay the existing healthcare industry would somehow be cheaper?
There’s so many bad ancedotal stories about the VA, because it’s the single largest healthcare provider. But the last MRI I got, the doctor just said “you want a MRI”? Called downstairs, and said I had 15 minutes to get down there.
It’s really really fucking hard to get that level of response time involving any kind of insurance…
It was quick and easy because not a single person was worried about cost or profit. That machine was sitting there and so was the person operating it, the person who reviewed my images worked 8 hours a day anyways.
If it went thru M4A the provider would have paid someone to set the price as high as possible, paid someone to argue it should be higher, would recommend ones that aren’t need to fill a slot…
Meanwhile the insurance would have to pay someone to negotiate a lower base price, lower per instance price, to try and evaluate if it was needed, try to negotiate for a cheaper scan…
Privatization will never solve anything, a better solution would be expand the VA to civilians.
Why is everyone down voting this, he’s right. Having a VA like system for all would probably be the cheapest option because the VA is a government run insurance like MFA but also government run hospitals. So no for profit insurance and no for profit hospitals. So if we got rid of the VA, instead of veterans going to a government run hospital they would be forced to go to a privatized(for profit) hospital.
I just still can’t get over how the person I was replying to just didn’t even know what the word “privatization” meant or that they were literally arguing for it…
Like, especially a month before an important American election, that’s a tough one to believe.
The VA run and operate there own hospitals. So if you got rid of the VA you would get rid of those government run hospitals and force those veterans to go to for profit(privatized) hospitals instead. Which obviously cost more money. A VA like system for all like givesomefucks@lemmy.world described would probably be the most cost effect system to use.
How would getting rid of the VA (a government healthcare provider) and instead paying a private healthcare provider government MFA funds not be considered privatization?
And unfortunately I think my next question is going to have to be: what do you think privatization is, if not the removal of a government service provider and replacing them with a privately owned company?
Edit:
Holy shit…
You think Medicare means you go to a Medicare doctor at a Medicare hospital…
That’s the only explanation for what you’re thinking…
With Original Medicare you can:
Go to any doctor or hospital that takes Medicare, anywhere in the U.S.
Medicare sets its own prices, at least in the specialties I’ve interfaced with. Doesn’t matter who the provider is. The whole thing saves money because there’s no more need for 3 separate national healthcare systems (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) and a ton of bureaucracy can be reduced, especially on the eligibility check front. Whether or not medicare pricing is profitable for the entities providing healthcare or not is their problem, not Medicare’s, but they’ll get to lay off a bunch of billing employees themselves, because there’s so much work with prior auths, benefit verification, etc that’s no longer necessary, so they should be able to reduce their own costs too (which they’ll kinda have to if they can only ever charge medicare rates and not private rates).
Right now, the US federal government spends more on health care as a % of GDP than many nations with single-payer healthcare. And then you add people’s out of pocket spending, private insurance premiums, etc to it… It’s ridiculous. Oh and I forgot state gov spending! They spend some money on Medicaid. Medicare for all isn’t the absolute most perfect possible solution, sure, but it’s going to save a ton of money.
there’s no more need for 3 separate national healthcare systems (Medicare, Medicaid, VA)
We don’t need doctors and nurses as long as we have claim approvers!
You gonna tell us how we don’t need the USPS because we have FedEx and UPS next?
Why the fuck can’t you see a better solution would be nationalizing the rest of the healthcare providers rather than privatizing the single largest healthcare provider in the country?
Why is everyone set on maintaining a for profit healthcare system?
Seriously, why do you think for profit healthcare is a good idea?
Or do you not know what that actually means like the last account didn’t know what privatization means?
We don’t need doctors and nurses as long as we have claim approvers!
But that would actually allow to reduce the amount of claim approvers.
Why the fuck can’t you see a better solution would be nationalizing the rest of the healthcare providers
It’s a better solution, but much harder to achieve, particularly in such a large country. How do you forcibly nationalize hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers at once? Keep in mind, most of them aren’t Kaiser Permanente sized. Tons of businesses are one or two doctors, their nurses and front desk, if they even have a front desk employee.
Medicare for all could easily be a start, it does not preclude building a bigger nationally-owned network of providers.
Imagine this: All the VA hospitals remain government owned exactly as they are now, but everyone gets access to them, not just veterans. But since there aren’t enough for everyone, you can alternatively go to a private provider if they’ve signed a medicare contract, and to you the cost is the same - and to the government, the cost is decided by a regulatory body, NOT the private healthcare provider. If the private provider doesn’t agree to that pricing, they lose access to the medicare network and get fewer patients. Some doctors at the top of their specialty will refuse, because people will be willing to pay extra to see them, but most providers would prefer having the ability to treat literally everyone without having to worry about billing issues.
The government can then build more nationalized hospitals, particularly in areas where there aren’t enough private providers that choose to partner up with medicare.
Even most (all?) countries that have nationalized healthcare, allow for private providers, and many allow private providers to provide services to the national health insurance system if they agree to the terms. Medicare for all could be a stepping stone towards a similar system, where the share of nationalized providers can grow over time.
That’s not an opinion, you just don’t know what privatization means:
privatization, transfer of government services or assets to the private sector. State-owned assets may be sold to private owners, or statutory restrictions on competition between privately and publicly owned enterprises may be lifted. Services formerly provided by government may be contracted out. The objective is often to increase government efficiency; implementation may affect government revenue either positively or negatively. Privatization is the opposite of nationalization, a policy resorted to by governments that want to keep the revenues from major industries, especially those that might otherwise be controlled by foreign interests.
Because it would eliminate insurance companies and the manipulation that they do in order to raise costs for healthcare, while incentivizing the elimination of big pharma from using drugs and treatments developed by public funding and colleges to be privitised and owned by big pharma and charging asinine prices for them. The health insurance and drug industry are why healthcare in the US is stupidly expensive.
With MFA we can eleminate all other government health care programs at all levels including the VA. There is so much cost savings for all involved
How would getting rid of the VA result in savings?
Like, you think privatizing it and having the government pay the existing healthcare industry would somehow be cheaper?
There’s so many bad ancedotal stories about the VA, because it’s the single largest healthcare provider. But the last MRI I got, the doctor just said “you want a MRI”? Called downstairs, and said I had 15 minutes to get down there.
It’s really really fucking hard to get that level of response time involving any kind of insurance…
It was quick and easy because not a single person was worried about cost or profit. That machine was sitting there and so was the person operating it, the person who reviewed my images worked 8 hours a day anyways.
If it went thru M4A the provider would have paid someone to set the price as high as possible, paid someone to argue it should be higher, would recommend ones that aren’t need to fill a slot…
Meanwhile the insurance would have to pay someone to negotiate a lower base price, lower per instance price, to try and evaluate if it was needed, try to negotiate for a cheaper scan…
Privatization will never solve anything, a better solution would be expand the VA to civilians.
Means testing is expensive.
Why is everyone down voting this, he’s right. Having a VA like system for all would probably be the cheapest option because the VA is a government run insurance like MFA but also government run hospitals. So no for profit insurance and no for profit hospitals. So if we got rid of the VA, instead of veterans going to a government run hospital they would be forced to go to a privatized(for profit) hospital.
I just still can’t get over how the person I was replying to just didn’t even know what the word “privatization” meant or that they were literally arguing for it…
Like, especially a month before an important American election, that’s a tough one to believe.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say?
The VA run and operate there own hospitals. So if you got rid of the VA you would get rid of those government run hospitals and force those veterans to go to for profit(privatized) hospitals instead. Which obviously cost more money. A VA like system for all like givesomefucks@lemmy.world described would probably be the most cost effect system to use.
The rest was me explaining why it wouldn’t save money…
You were talking about privatizing I wasn’t.
One government heath care system is enough for all of us MFA fixes redundancy
How would getting rid of the VA (a government healthcare provider) and instead paying a private healthcare provider government MFA funds not be considered privatization?
And unfortunately I think my next question is going to have to be: what do you think privatization is, if not the removal of a government service provider and replacing them with a privately owned company?
Edit:
Holy shit…
You think Medicare means you go to a Medicare doctor at a Medicare hospital…
That’s the only explanation for what you’re thinking…
https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/how-does-medicare-work
Medicare is a system to pay for healthcare…
It is not a network of healthcare providers employeed directly by the government. That is what the VA is
I hope that clears it up, but please try to learn the basics of a topic first
Medicare sets its own prices, at least in the specialties I’ve interfaced with. Doesn’t matter who the provider is. The whole thing saves money because there’s no more need for 3 separate national healthcare systems (Medicare, Medicaid, VA) and a ton of bureaucracy can be reduced, especially on the eligibility check front. Whether or not medicare pricing is profitable for the entities providing healthcare or not is their problem, not Medicare’s, but they’ll get to lay off a bunch of billing employees themselves, because there’s so much work with prior auths, benefit verification, etc that’s no longer necessary, so they should be able to reduce their own costs too (which they’ll kinda have to if they can only ever charge medicare rates and not private rates).
Right now, the US federal government spends more on health care as a % of GDP than many nations with single-payer healthcare. And then you add people’s out of pocket spending, private insurance premiums, etc to it… It’s ridiculous. Oh and I forgot state gov spending! They spend some money on Medicaid. Medicare for all isn’t the absolute most perfect possible solution, sure, but it’s going to save a ton of money.
We don’t need doctors and nurses as long as we have claim approvers!
You gonna tell us how we don’t need the USPS because we have FedEx and UPS next?
Why the fuck can’t you see a better solution would be nationalizing the rest of the healthcare providers rather than privatizing the single largest healthcare provider in the country?
Why is everyone set on maintaining a for profit healthcare system?
Seriously, why do you think for profit healthcare is a good idea?
Or do you not know what that actually means like the last account didn’t know what privatization means?
But that would actually allow to reduce the amount of claim approvers.
It’s a better solution, but much harder to achieve, particularly in such a large country. How do you forcibly nationalize hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers at once? Keep in mind, most of them aren’t Kaiser Permanente sized. Tons of businesses are one or two doctors, their nurses and front desk, if they even have a front desk employee.
Medicare for all could easily be a start, it does not preclude building a bigger nationally-owned network of providers.
Imagine this: All the VA hospitals remain government owned exactly as they are now, but everyone gets access to them, not just veterans. But since there aren’t enough for everyone, you can alternatively go to a private provider if they’ve signed a medicare contract, and to you the cost is the same - and to the government, the cost is decided by a regulatory body, NOT the private healthcare provider. If the private provider doesn’t agree to that pricing, they lose access to the medicare network and get fewer patients. Some doctors at the top of their specialty will refuse, because people will be willing to pay extra to see them, but most providers would prefer having the ability to treat literally everyone without having to worry about billing issues.
The government can then build more nationalized hospitals, particularly in areas where there aren’t enough private providers that choose to partner up with medicare.
Even most (all?) countries that have nationalized healthcare, allow for private providers, and many allow private providers to provide services to the national health insurance system if they agree to the terms. Medicare for all could be a stepping stone towards a similar system, where the share of nationalized providers can grow over time.
I don’t really consider paying a private sector doctor with government funds privatization.
Then you’re wrong…
That’s not an opinion, you just don’t know what privatization means:
https://www.britannica.com/money/privatization
You’re literally arguing for privatization, and defending it by not knowing what the word means…
Are you serious right now?
Yes I’m serious now
Because it would eliminate insurance companies and the manipulation that they do in order to raise costs for healthcare, while incentivizing the elimination of big pharma from using drugs and treatments developed by public funding and colleges to be privitised and owned by big pharma and charging asinine prices for them. The health insurance and drug industry are why healthcare in the US is stupidly expensive.