The first thing you need to understand about my position on issues is that they don't necessarily revolve around what's best for me. (Sometimes, yes. But not always. :) )
I believe that a first cut reasonable definition of catastrophic coverage is a stop loss that kicks in when you've spent more than 10% of your income on medical care in a year. That means that someone making less money would have less out-of-pocket expense before the plan kicked in than someone making more money.
So, yes, this plan would probably cost me money, because I'd end up paying for my own prescriptions. On the other hand, that would have to be offset against what my employer and I pay currently for health insurance and netted against what the government would end up collecting to fund catastrophic insurance. But just because I might not be as well off under this plan, doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad idea.
The problem with single-payer is that there is no longer a market. There's an edict that determines what the government is willing to pay for a service and what services the government is willing to pay for. This tends to reduce the supply of doctors and to reduce the ability of a patient to see a doctor on a timely basis for an acute condition. So the trade off for the check ups is that you may not be able to get timely treatment for a non-emergency but nasty condition. (My recent dental problems come to mind immediately.)
I'm not convinced that's a trade off that I want to make.
Further, single payer is a great system until the government decides not to treat your life-threatening condition. I read recently of a Canadian gentlemen with a brain tumor. They took several weeks to decide that they weren't going to operate. After that, he went to the Mayo Clinic. They managed to remove most, but not all, of the tumor. Then they prescribed Avastin as follow up chemotherapy.
It turns out his Canadian healthcare would cover Avastin for some cancers, but not for the one that he has. So now he has to pay for the surgery and the prescription.
Needless to say, he's absolutely thrilled.
You're welcome to say that this is an edge case. But people use edge cases all the time to criticize our healthcare system, so I consider it fair game.
no subject
I believe that a first cut reasonable definition of catastrophic coverage is a stop loss that kicks in when you've spent more than 10% of your income on medical care in a year. That means that someone making less money would have less out-of-pocket expense before the plan kicked in than someone making more money.
So, yes, this plan would probably cost me money, because I'd end up paying for my own prescriptions. On the other hand, that would have to be offset against what my employer and I pay currently for health insurance and netted against what the government would end up collecting to fund catastrophic insurance. But just because I might not be as well off under this plan, doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad idea.
The problem with single-payer is that there is no longer a market. There's an edict that determines what the government is willing to pay for a service and what services the government is willing to pay for. This tends to reduce the supply of doctors and to reduce the ability of a patient to see a doctor on a timely basis for an acute condition. So the trade off for the check ups is that you may not be able to get timely treatment for a non-emergency but nasty condition. (My recent dental problems come to mind immediately.)
I'm not convinced that's a trade off that I want to make.
Further, single payer is a great system until the government decides not to treat your life-threatening condition. I read recently of a Canadian gentlemen with a brain tumor. They took several weeks to decide that they weren't going to operate. After that, he went to the Mayo Clinic. They managed to remove most, but not all, of the tumor. Then they prescribed Avastin as follow up chemotherapy.
It turns out his Canadian healthcare would cover Avastin for some cancers, but not for the one that he has. So now he has to pay for the surgery and the prescription.
Needless to say, he's absolutely thrilled.
You're welcome to say that this is an edge case. But people use edge cases all the time to criticize our healthcare system, so I consider it fair game.