Our case manager tells me that we all have to use medicare/medicaid when we retire, plus personal savings. Are there any better medical insurances than medicare for retired people?
what kind of medical insurance we use when we retire?
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No idea why your case manager thinks that private insurance isn't an option.
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Medicare or Medicare replacement plan. Medicare primary, and private as secondary. Or you can pay an outrageous amount out of pocket for a private plan. I don't know why you would. Medicare is good insurance, even though it doesn't pay docs as much as it should. It still pays enough most docs take it. It's Medicaid that is terrible and worthless. It pays so little, no one takes it accept the ED and therefore it's just not any good. Once >65 Medicaid is out of the picture and you'll qualify for 'Care.
I'd love to be on Medicare right now, like all those millions of people under age 65 that get on it for life, claiming to be disabled. If Medicare ever drops it's reimbursements so low that docs don't take it, then it'll be as worthless as 'Caid. This is the biggest flaw in Obamacare. Adding all the uninsured to the Medicaid roles, that doesn't pay docs enough to play, gives the uninsured no greater access than they have now.
I'd love to be on Medicare right now, like all those millions of people under age 65 that get on it for life, claiming to be disabled. If Medicare ever drops it's reimbursements so low that docs don't take it, then it'll be as worthless as 'Caid. This is the biggest flaw in Obamacare. Adding all the uninsured to the Medicaid roles, that doesn't pay docs enough to play, gives the uninsured no greater access than they have now.
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Medicare is going to die. It'll either become like Medicaid, only useful at certain public hospitals that accept the low reimbursement, or it will be scrapped entirely for a new system.
As it sits, I'm now counting on it to be there for me.
What we really need to be allowed to do is contribute up to $5000 per year tax free in a medical savings account. It would go towards hospital care, prescriptions and long term care if necessary. Unfortunately Obama and the Dems are against these savings plans, as they feel it would thwart the necessity of a single payer system.
As it sits, I'm now counting on it to be there for me.
What we really need to be allowed to do is contribute up to $5000 per year tax free in a medical savings account. It would go towards hospital care, prescriptions and long term care if necessary. Unfortunately Obama and the Dems are against these savings plans, as they feel it would thwart the necessity of a single payer system.
If medicare drops reimbursements so low that doctors do not take it, will doctors still be able to make a decent living from taking only private insurance pts? Looks like both sides hurt, and government is the winner.
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What will happen, is what happens now with Medicaid. Established physicians with busy practices and specialists that can afford to drop out of those plans will. New practices that need the volume, and physicians that have no choice (EM, academics) will be the only ones that participate. Right now with Medicaid, they pay so little that even many start up practices and primary care don't bother to take it. Any physician practice (even EM) has overhead costs such as employee salaries, malpractice insurance, license fees (DEA, Medical), student loan payments, rent, equipment, supplies, health insurance for employees, taxes, etc. You can calculate that dollar cost per patient. That's the cost per patient you need to collect
just to break even.
If you collect less than that per patient, you are losing money with each patient you see. If you get exactly that amount per patient, you are working for free. If you collect more than that amount you make money per patient, but if it's not enough, it still may not be worth your time or the liability you encounter per patient. This is the price point Medicaid is at right now.
This is why many physicians have decided to opt out of Medicaid. With the incredible amount of time, sacrifice, tuition costs, and liability costs associated with becoming a physician, I can't blame them.
As long as private insurance pays reasonable rates, physicians will do just fine. Considering Obamacare does little if anything to control healthcare costs and inflation, I personally feel there will be enough money bouncing around the system, that physicians at large will do just fine. There will be plenty of opportunity out therefor physicians, but t won't be without some necessary and painful adaptations to our changing system.
It takes work to remain positive with all the negative things happening, but it can be done. Here's a thread I started on that issue:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=966582
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How would $5000 a year help someone if they had surgery and ended up with a $300,000 bill?
Thanks for the excellent posts, Birdstrike. What I am going to do is to figure out opportunities in the new system. Just wonder, if there is a new president from republican party next term, will the unfavorable policies/rules/laws be modified somehow?
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What Doctors, Avalanches, And Rabid Raccoons Have In Common
"So some point, the government will run out of money." - Barack Obama, on this very day, 8/22/2013.
"So some point, the government will run out of money." - Barack Obama, on this very day, 8/22/2013.
The last time Republicans controlled the Presidency, House and Senate (Bush era) very little happened to eliminate red tape in the healthcare system. In fact, Medicare was expanded, adding a prescription drug entitlement. That was a very large, $500 billion dollar expansion over 10 years. Obama with the Pelosi Congress (circa 2010) accelerated the complexity and regulatory aspects of the healthcare system at warp speed with Obamacare.
Do I personally think that electing a Republican President, with or without Republican Congress will somehow magically result in the "unfavorable policies/rules/laws" as you term them, being modified somehow in our favor all of a sudden?
No.
Bush and the Republican Congress didn't roll back the "unfavorable policies/rules/laws" of Medicare, Medicaid, the insurance industry, Stark 1, Stark 2, EMTALA, or pro-attorney medical malpractice laws. Taking away entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, free care under EMTALA, easy money from frivolous lawsuits) from voters is like taking a slab of high-grade Waygu filet mignon from the mouth of a rabid raccoon drooling blood. Bravery in the name of what is "right" often does not end cleanly for he who takes the high road. To think that the healthcare system will do anything but get increasingly big, complex, regulated, expensive and burdensome, regardless of political party is just not realistic. Over the past 50 years, through various political parties and administrations, from Reagan on the Right, to Obama on the Left and everyone in between, this has occurred without losing any momentum at any point. From Medicare, to Medicaid, from burdensome insurance company rules to ObamaCare, the avalanche just keeps on gaining mass and momentum. The political Left believe in serving the majority with ever increasing entitlements. Despite their talk to the contrary, the political Right knows they cannot survive without doing the same. The citizen Majority agrees and wants its appetitive fed on someone else's tab. The master we serve is what political philosophers warned about centuries ago:
The tyranny of the majority.
The only thing that can stop it, is what pushed back against the governments of the USSR, socialist Europe and the City of Detroit: Complete economic collapse. It may happen sooner than we think, or it may not happen until after our lifetimes, but like with all Ponzi schemes, eventually the money runs out. Pick which team you want to play for, but the end game will be the same.
Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. -Alexis de Tocqueville
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