How does Obamacare reduce healthcare costs?
It forces people who are healthy to pay into the system, rather than only start paying AFTER they become sick like they do now. That puts a lot of money into healthcare for everyone. It also cuts a wasteful corporate welfare program called "medicare advantage". It also forces insurers to create larger risk pools which reduces costs overall.
Do you think Obamacare will positively or negatively affect the underlying costs of Medical Care in the United States?
Negatively affect underlying costs for the following reason: The ACA expands covered benefits. Therefore, more money (mostly from the insurers, but partly from the beneficiary in terms of copays and deductibles) will be spent on health care. For example, much more mental health services will be consumed, which will negatively affect costs. The standard argument is that preventive care, mental health services, etc. will actually reduce costs due to their beneficial effects in reducing downstream costs to the insurer. This is certainly true in specific instances, but I don't know anyone with a checkbook (meaning a sophisticated entity paying for health care) that buys this argument for a whole population group, in the short run especially, but probably not even in the very long-run.The best way to test this is to watch premiums.I wouldn't argue for a moment that the people receiving more services will receive value from those services. My point is confined to the underlying costs, which will be negatively impacted.
Did President Reagan close mental health hospitals and cause a dramatic rise in homelessness and crime in America?
This is a gigantic misconception that has been ‘repeated until true.’And it is not true. It simply is not true. It’s a lie, but an oft-repeated lie.The policy of closing hospitals that were run by each state began RIGHT AFTER World War II.Reagan came in on the tail-end of the closing of the state hospitals and simply continued an existing policy.There was ALREADY a huge problem in mental health care when Reagan took office.Read history, folks, instead of people commenting on history or making up histories in ways meant to further their agenda or just parroting what they heard!And people are NOT homeless because the state hospitals are gone!They are homeless - I’m talking about the URBAN LONG TERM CHRONICALLY HOMELESS - because 90% of them (yes, in urban studies that is what has been found, again and again), have severe untreated mental illness.For MOST of them the problem is NOT access, it’s that they refuse treatment.For mildly ill people the problem is 1.) paying for mental health care 2.) getting access to it.For the SEVERELY mentally ill individual far more often, the problem is different: refusing treatment.The state hospitals were HORRIBLE places for the most part, and it was almost impossible to get decent treatment there. Most were warehouses.There is NO REASON to lament the passing of the state hospitals.Community based care administered by the counties can work VERY well, especially with new and better treatments that can usually be done on an outpatient basis.And that is what was SUPPOSED to happen when the state hospitals closed - that money was supposed to go to the counties so people could get treatment near their homes.Instead, that money…disappeared.THAT is what you should be asking about! Where’s the money?Instead, now the counties are struggling to provide mental health care and it’s nearly an ‘unfunded mandate.’
Why exactly is Obamacare bad?
Because the government is utterly incapable of doing anything better than the private sector. We don't need health care reform, we need insurance reform. If you break your arm and go to the emergency room they will see you, x-ray it, put a splint on it, some bandages, give you some pain medication, and send you on your way. How does that even remotely justify the $6000 price you will have to pay for the emergency room visit? Obamacare approaches the problem from the entirely wrong end. Health care reforms should have been centered around the practice of the insurance companies and hospitals jerking each other off and splooging all over the citizenry, but that isn't at all what we got.
How does the Latino paradox effect the present health care system?
research The Latino Paradox on the internet (if you dont believe the following) ; ) contrary to popular belief illegal immigrants use public health care dramaticaly less than residents, 1. latinos (specificaly mexicans) have stronger immune systems and are less likely to require health services, or contract diseases, than ANY other racial group!! dont believe me? then look it up, unless your too scared to have your ANGLO-american superiority complex challanged, look it up, if your brave enough 2. for fear of exposure, ask any doctor and see how hard it is to keep the ones that do come to keep coming for further treatment or try to convince those that need to but dont go 3. are less likely to be affected by enviorment, fatigue, or mental stress this information is based soley on stats, math, numbers, unlike the majority of opinion based on emotion, respond to me in a LOGICAL MATHEMATICAL manner only, i have no respect for emotional arguments, only scientific