All Life Insurance Tips

The AARP has it right on healthcare...? what do you think???

Cost is at the root of this problem. Health care is expensive and getting more so every day. The health care system is a maze of paperwork and confusing charges that make it impossible for an ordinary family to understand what they have to pay to get the care they need. The United States spends $1.9 trillion a year on care - some $6,280 for every man, woman and child in the country. 31 percent of this is expenditure is wrapped up in administration costs... far more than any other country. A bureaucracy created by insurance companies to increase their bottom line. Health care expenditures are 16 percent of the U.S. economy, well above what any other industrialized nation spends on health care. And these nations make health care available to all their citizens. Yet, when we compare health outcomes-measurements of health such as infant mortality or life expectancy-the U.S. trails these nations.

Public Comments

1. Infant mortality would not be a particularly good measure. Much of heath care expense in the US is skewed toward geriatrics. Life expectancy also has a lot to do with genetics. If the US was as predominately northern European stock as it was 50 years ago, average life expectancies would be higher. Nobody is forcing you to spend $30,000 on knee replacements either, but it's the second most common surgical procedure (after cataracts). You [probably wouldn't have even been able to have one 30 years ago.
2. "And these nations make health care available to all their citizens." Take note, that alot of those nations don't have 300/Million people to take care of, but a fraction thereof. Also healthcare affordability is a trade off between taxation vs. users pay as they go. Here is the deal. The company who makes the drugs or equipment have a cost of production, research, profit, etc.. So trying to cap the PPI of healthcare is impossible and doing so would only hurt innovation or just outright create shortages in the system. Because nobody is going to sell a drug they spent Billions on developing to only recoup Millions on. This leaves costs on the CPI side to pay. So what do you do? Well you can have the Government pay the tab of healthcare, which really means all citizens and companies pay for healthcare through their taxes regardless if they are using the healthcare system or not. Because there is no unlimited pot of money in the Government coffers. They get their money by taxing the people. Or the government can keep out of the healthcare game and let private citizens and companies cover the cost of healthcare with insurance or direct payments. Thus shifting the payment for healthcare to those who need it or want it. There is no silver bullet and comparisons to foreign nation's programs is a bit silly as they don't have the population of the United States. Somebody has to pay, healthcare is not a Right, its a Privilege. And those with the money to afford that Privilege get it. Those who don't, won't get it.
3. the aarp has intelligent staffers who listen to the experiences of thousands of their members, who being older than the general population, have life long experiences, memories of their families, and others for a vast knowledge base of information, on which to draw from. where else can you find a daily information input from the public on what is really ocurring out there. where else can you hear about the difficulties, problems and issues all members of the public face in obtaining essential health care, special needs, and long term care, solutions. older americans aren't as easily fooled by empty promises or clever rhetoric, they've heard it all before, and have a broader vision of the matter, and what genuinely needs to be done, to help all of us.