Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: slingshot on July 15, 2009, 01:47:22 PM
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I keep hearing the press and president talk about all these people who do not have access to health care. Emergency rooms do not refuse service if you do not have health insurance.
Estimates of 30-40 million people without health care in the US as I recall. Who really doesn't have heath insurance? Illegal aliens working for cash... yep, people that can't hold a job, yep. Self employed persons, some. A big chunk of the foks that don't have health insurance are younger people who work for small companies which require the employee to pay a portion of their insurance costs. These people are generally healthy and decline to have the insurance thinking... I'm healthy, nothing will happen to me. I know folks I worked with who declined paying a portion of their insurance costs and only got health insurance when they hit about 40 years of age, started to have health problems, or got married. They wanted the $ to blow on cars and other consumer purchases (maybe guns?). It was only when the employer paid entirely for the health insurance (in lew of raises) that they had insurance like they felt the company owed them the insurance. What are your thoughts?
I can NOT figure out what exactly is broke with the current system that we need to spend a trillion dollars+ over 10 years for a national health insurance program that will eventually become exclusionary to certain operations, age groups, or folks that fail to tow the line on correcting their bad habits like smoking or excessive drinking. Sorry, you are going to die, we can't help you because you chose to smoke....
There must be another way to improve health care in the USA. Perhaps universal major medical plan to cover illness after a certain coverage point when private health insurance plans cap out? Perhaps some sort of plan to control perscription drug costs? Thoughts?
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I've read that roughly half the people who don't have insurance are younger people who don't think they need it. Then there's illegal aliens. By the time you get to the number of people who need health insurance but can't afford it, the number is around 15 million.
We could easily take care of 15 million people without bankrupting the country as Obama wants to do.
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There must be another way to improve health care in the USA.
There is: the market. It wasn't government that got us this far, but open markets. Do you think the miracle drugs came from government?
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There is a free market in health care in the United States?
You tell good ones, SW.
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Nobama is formulating this health plan strictly for the folks on welfare and who are illegal aliens to make sure they vote for him next goaround. Watch, next will be amnesty for all the illegals in this country....chris3
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http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=11378.0
Please review the sticky at the top of the page.
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I'm 25 and I didn't have health insurance from my 18th birthday until a few months ago. Why? Because I didn't feel like paying for it. I could have, I just didn't want to. I know I'm not the only one like this.
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The statists lie every chance they get. For them, power is more important than truth, which they hardly even believe exists in the first place, anyway.
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The problem seems like the dems solution to me.
There are private companies, which, to many of the people, companies are always doing all of the evils. Now private companies don't just let you join up when you are diagnosed with cancer -- and these people cry "that is so unfair! Evil corporate america!" (here they really mean, that is so 'unequal'. It is fair for you to choose between driving a new car with no health insurance and driving an old car with health insurance.) Of course, that gets the heart strings in America going and feeling bad for these people.
Then the next question to be answered is, how do we prevent this from happening? Well, you look at economics. Economics says you can't just let people with cancer jump on the wagon because then no one would have health insurance and they'd all just wait to jump on the wagon, total bankruptcy. However, you have all these low risk people sitting around with no health insurance, very low risk, if they paid into the system (or were forced, perhaps?) they would offset all those people with a new car and cancer. And that is it in a nutshell, from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs.
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and, the simple truth is(as far as i can find at least[heh just in case :angel: =D]).
NO HOSPITAL CAN TURN AWAY ANYONE!!!
jersey is the only example i can find right now (http://www.lsnjlaw.org/english/healthcare/hospitals/hospitalcare/)
edit:DOH!!! (http://public.findlaw.com/bookshelf-dont-get-taken/dgtchp6_a2.html), ah and for non emergency care, there are non-profit groups that can help. i bet if we(the citizens of these United States) all gave 'em 10 bucks a month there would be more problem. =|
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How 'bout letting the market do it.
--Let consumers buy any kind of policy from anywhere in the US.
--Let consumer buy what ever kind of insurance they want to buy. Want chiropractor insurance? Fine! Just pay for it yourself but don't let the state force insurance companies into providing it by force.
--Use community risk pooling forcing risk assessment to be spread over a larger population.
--Remove tax exemption of healthcare costs from employers. Make 'em pay taxes on healthcare provided to employees.
--Lower threshold on deductibility from 7.5% of AGI to dollar one. In other words don't tax healthcare premiums or costs at the individual level.
--Cap pain and suffering awards.
--Make it law that congress can have healthcare no better than Joe and Martha Sixpack, No gold plated plans if Joe and Martha can't get theirs gold plated.
Above suggestions are off the top of my head in about 5 minutes. Anyone who knows the system as it is can do much better.
Our healthcare system is in a mess now because of a series of ill-advised decisions made over the last 60 + years. A lot of the damage can be reverse in fairly short order with a few well place decisions. It will never happen because control of healthcare is the ultimate control over a population short of wire and bars. Both parties are responsible and I've seen nothing to indicate either party is thinking along lines that will solve the problem.
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If I were an American politician, I would promote a very simple scheme:
Make an agreement with European countries – with EUROPEAN countries which have decent medical testing procedures, like France and Britain – that we would honor each other's permits etc. i.e. if a drug has been tested and allowed for use in the European Union, there's no reason not to clear it for use in the US. If the Euros don't agree to do this for some reason (like fearing competition from American drugs) it could still be done unilaterally. This would create savings of hundreds of millions of dollars every year in drug costs. OF COURSE it would not solve all the problems, but it is a useful and simple thing that nobody would really oppose.
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There is a free market in health care in the United States?
You tell good ones, SW.
Which is exactly the problem. Govt meddling has created the problem, now they want to fix it with more govt meddling.
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I'm 25 and I didn't have health insurance from my 18th birthday until a few months ago. Why? Because I didn't feel like paying for it. I could have, I just didn't want to. I know I'm not the only one like this.
I did that for 6 years while I was putting myself through college. I was young, healthy, and had access to excellent routine and preventative care through my school. It just plain didn't make sense for me to buy health insurance.
I suppose if my finances had been unlimited I would have bought it, but they weren't. I spent my limited money in the ways that would provide the best benefits for me and my life. That meant buying tuition instead of health care, so that I'd eventually have a good job that pays well. As a result, now I can afford to buy as much health care as I could possibly want for me and my family.
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Which is exactly the problem. Govt meddling has created the problem, now they want to fix it with more govt meddling.
Divorce yourself of the notion that they want to "fix" anything at all, even through the stupidest and most inefficient methods.
"National Health Care", "bailouts", "stimulus", cap and trade. None of it is about helping or fixing anything, even though they hide under that facade. It is about destroying capitalism once and for all and controlling the citizenry, and they seem to be making steady progress. It is only just getting started and look how much damage has been done.
We've hollered loud, sent plenty of communication to our reps, and held protests. None of it has worked- our "representatives" have ignored us and happily passed bills without reading them because they don't care. Or, they'll be against it until it's sweetened with enough pork.
Our only hope is that maybe we can vote them out in the next election. I just hope that the damage is reversible and we have something to save by then.
I'm not holding my breath. I don't think we have enough people that care.
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When I got sick as a kid, my mother took me to see the doctor, and wrote a check for the bill on the way out and another at the pharmacy on the way home. When my baby sister needed an operation, my father put off buying his first new car an extra year.
We did, indeed, have a free market in medical care once upon a time. We'll soon have a black market for it. That's one measure of socialist so-called "progress."
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Legislators have been trying to find ways to pay for the proposed program. A tax surcharge seems to be the latest approach. Yes, tax the rich, because the are in the minority. Regardless of who pays, it gets paid for and probably by regular folks who work and most already have heath insurance. So they are paying double. Doesn't seem right at all. Definitely discrimination. But then the entire graduated tax system in the US is highly discriminatory. That is why we need the Fair Tax. Everyone is treated the same and we won't need the IRS in its current fom.
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Predictably, Ron Paul is not a fan.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/281590/Healthcare-Is-%22Not-a-Right%22-and-Obama%27s-Plan-Will-Cost-Way-Beyond-1T-Ron-Paul-Says;_ylt=AoQMkNTiqoiR2EdVdvTYcJtk7ot4?tickers=^dji,^GSPC,pph,jnj,mrk,pfe,unh (http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/281590/Healthcare-Is-%22Not-a-Right%22-and-Obama%27s-Plan-Will-Cost-Way-Beyond-1T-Ron-Paul-Says;_ylt=AoQMkNTiqoiR2EdVdvTYcJtk7ot4?tickers=^dji,^GSPC,pph,jnj,mrk,pfe,unh)
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All we need to understand is that for some people, "Compassion" and "emotion" have outgrown their logic and reason. We call these people progressives. They see Government as the vestibule for righting all the world's wrongs. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!
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The Census reports between 45-46 million people do not have health insurance. Of those 10 million are legal aliens; 17 million earn more than 50K per year but opt to not have insurance. Estimate that between 8-14 million don't have health insurance. But all have access to health care at emergency rooms in hospitals.
The current House plan stipulates an 8% of salary penalty to employers who do not provide health insurance. There is a part of the bill that essentially grandfathers private health insurance plans. BUT, if you change jobs or become self employed, you're required to participate in the government run health plan. This would eliminate private health insurance for most people within 5-7 years which I believe is about the average time employed with an employer before switching jobs for whatever reason. I hear that the House plan was moved out of committee this morning/last night to debate on the House floor.
People worry about 2nd Amendment rights.... just look what is being rammed down the throats of American citizens by the Obama Admin and Democrats. It makes me sick. You think this could not happen to gun rights with the right impedous?
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It makes me sick. You think this could not happen to gun rights with the right impedous?
Oh, it could easily and quickly happen. Probably will happen sooner or later.
Guns are no "third rail" issue. Hell, there are no "third rail" issues. It's clear that a lot of the legislature has gone rogue, not bothering to read bills, not listening to their constituents. There are still a few politicians up there listening to their constituents, but there aren't near enough.
The real litmus test will be the next election, to see if enough people have waken up and give a damn. I just don't see anything happening to change the status quo.
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There is a free market in health care in the United States?
Yes, there is.
You are not required to buy health insurance from your employer's program. You're not required to buy from a list of approved retailers. You're not required to buy insurance at all. In fact, you have the freedom of negotiation the price of the health care service you receive/want with any and all providers. Obviously, not all providers will/want to haggle with you, but the choice is yours. Don't like the plan or price that your employer offers? Don't buy it. Think you're young enough and healthy enough that you won't need insurance? Don't buy it. All you want is coverage for major medical procedures? Buy only that.
Under Obama's abomination of a plan, you will be required by law to have health insurance. What kind of crap is that? Which brings me to my next question: Is it lawful/constitutional to force a person to buy a product/service the he doesn't want? Why haven't any of the news sources, including Fox, mentioned this at all?
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I'm 25 and I didn't have health insurance from my 18th birthday until a few months ago. Why? Because I didn't feel like paying for it. I could have, I just didn't want to. I know I'm not the only one like this.
I did roughly the same thing.
Unfortuntely, the people who opt out of insurance are also counted in the numbers of those who "cannot afford insurance." :rolleyes:
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This whole health care bill is about people control and BIG government. It takes choice out of the equation. The bill as understand it will eliminate private health insurance because within a short time period the majority will be forced participants of the plan and the remaining people will see their health insurance skyrocket to where it is not a practical option.
Fly320 says it correctly as it now stands... you have a choice. That is NOW, not if this bill is passed.
Years ago many states made minimal auto insurance coverage compulsory. Even with the laws, many drop their insurance due to cost. Enter "uninsured motorist" coverage being added to your auto insurance policy. The only way for a national health care plan to work is to turn people away from minimal care if they can not pay for the service immediately. I don't agree with this approach, but it is the only way it works.
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"Universal health care is a goal." - Nancy Pelosi.
She just said that a ta live news conference. I saw it on Fox news.
Great. :rolleyes:
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Yes, there is.
I am not disparaging the American system. However, there are literally piles of laws, subsidies, government regulations burdening the process and creating extra cost for the American consumer. FDA approval along costs billions upon billions of dollars.
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You're not going to vote them out.
But you can tell them to go their own way. And pay their own way. And to leave the rest of us alone.
There is no reason we have to be swept up into their nightmare. Unless we either wish to be or are afraid to say no.
In a time of unrepresentative, rogue government, maniacal statist ambitions, voter fraud, and an apathetic and ignorant populace, you have to be realistic about what your options really are. The elephant isn't just in the living room, he and his friends are in all the rooms, and you have been consigned to the garage. Get real.
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I am not disparaging the American system. However, there are literally piles of laws, subsidies, government regulations burdening the process and creating extra cost for the American consumer. FDA approval along costs billions upon billions of dollars.
Far more insulting than all of that, and the very start of the problem. The first step toward "Universal health care" was forcing doctors to treat medicare patients for a percentage of what they were charging everyone else, of course prices increased because they have employees bills, and insurance they had to pay. Eventually the prices got to where medicare was is paying what the doctor needs to make and everyone else is suffering. :mad: If you have to see a Dr.(or need lab work or mri type scans) and can't afford to pay those prices, there are ways to lower them. =)
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You're not going to vote them out.
But you can tell them to go their own way. And pay their own way. And to leave the rest of us alone.
There is no reason we have to be swept up into their nightmare. Unless we either wish to be or are afraid to say no.
In a time of unrepresentative, rogue government, maniacal statist ambitions, voter fraud, and an apathetic and ignorant populace, you have to be realistic about what your options really are. The elephant isn't just in the living room, he and his friends are in all the rooms, and you have been consigned to the garage. Get real.
Remember, you're in the minority? Over half voted for Obama. On his coattails, the senate and congress were filled with Democrats and "Independants".
Representative democracy is mob rule. Right now, the mob wants free health care.
That is real.
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Remember, you're in the minority? Over half voted for Obama. On his coattails, the senate and congress were filled with Democrats and "Independants".
Representative democracy is mob rule. Right now, the mob wants free health care.
That is real.
Preach on, Brother Jamis! I'm afraid National Health Care is in our future, whether we like it or not. I would suggest you all get any serious conditions resolved, posthaste. It could be years before real quality health care is available again in the US, if ever. Gosh, that sounded melodramatic. Honestly, I see nothing but bad coming of this.
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oh, doctors are already opening cash only clinics, i hope to see cash only hospitals soon(just can't put in an emergency room) =D
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oh, doctors are already opening cash only clinics, i hope to see cash only hospitals soon(just can't put in an emergency room) =D
Those will soon be outlawed. Unfair to the poor, don't ya know.
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Assuming that universal health care does not pass the House and Senate, I hope that voters take notice of what/who they vote for in the future. Most say things like, how much damage can be done by one president? The country is already over extended financially. The stimulus has not worked in any tangible way and the powers to be still want to pass extremely expensive health care legislation. I hope voters remember the tactics employed by the Democrats to ram through their legislation without public knowledge of what they are even passing. Time will tell. For me at this point it is just a question of limiting the damage.
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Those will soon be outlawed. Unfair to the poor, don't ya know.
They'll also outlaw private insurance somehow. It probably won't be an overt ban, but they'll find a way to make it impractically difficult for average folks to avoid the public option. One way or another, they will control your health.
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The current crop of policritters want to turn us into another European country. All that remains to be seen is if enough Americans object to this notion to stop it. I think freedom is dying, personally. The world survived a long time without much of it, and I expect it will again.
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They'll also outlaw private insurance somehow. It probably won't be an overt ban, but they'll find a way to make it impractically difficult for average folks to avoid the public option. One way or another, they will control your health.
Page 16 of the bill. After the effective date of the health plan, it will be illegal for anyone to sell or buy private individual health insurance policies.
They're not even trying to hide it.
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It doesn't REMOTELY say that. The infamous page sixteen defines and limits grandfathered plans. Not without ramifications, but not remotely outlawing all private coverage either.
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Not without ramifications is a pretty broad statement. If I have an individual policy and anything changes, I'm screwed.
Investor's Business Daily (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854) has a slightly differing view on the page 16 issue.
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Investor's Business Daily (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854) has a slightly differing view on the page 16 issue.
Yeah, yeah. I spent an hour yesterday on this one. I'll repost the full quote I posted the other place:
SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.
(a) Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined- Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term `grandfathered health insurance coverage' means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT-
(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.
(B) DEPENDENT COVERAGE PERMITTED- Subparagraph (A) shall not affect the subsequent enrollment of a dependent of an individual who is covered as of such first day.
(2) LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR CONDITIONS- Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.
(3) RESTRICTIONS ON PREMIUM INCREASES- The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same rate, as specified by the Commissioner.
To clarify: Section 102(a)(1)(A)-(B) states in order to be included within the definition of "grandfathered health insurance coverage," coverage must:
--be already in effect when the bill goes into effect
--not enroll any new individual after the bill goes into effect
--except as pertains to certain enrollments of dependents
--not change most terms and conditions (refer to other portions of document for exceptions)
--comply with restriction on how premiums may be raised.
The subparagraphs of §102 means nothing at all without the preceding paragraph.
The IBD editorial is pure bs panic-mongering.
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Yeah, yeah? The bill doesn't allow insurance companies to enroll any new individuals after the effective date of the bill, and you think that warrants a "yeah, yeah"?
Doesn't that paragraph address HTG's concerns about banning individual coverage?
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Lets see if we can puzzle this out...
On page 19, it states:
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance 1
coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance 2
coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered 3
on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-par- 4
ticipating health benefits plan. 5
So if the individual health insurance policy is not a "grandfathered" policy, it can only be offered as a "Health Exchange" particiating policy.
What is a "Health Exchange" participating policy?
SEC. 201. ESTABLISHMENT OF HEALTH INSURANCE EX- 6
CHANGE; OUTLINE OF DUTIES; DEFINITIONS. 7
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is established within 8
the Health Choices Administration and under the direc- 9
tion of the Commissioner a Health Insurance Exchange 10
in order to facilitate access of individuals and employers, 11
through a transparent process, to a variety of choices of 12
affordable, quality health insurance coverage, including a 13
public health insurance option. 14
(b) OUTLINE OF DUTIES OF COMMISSIONER.—In ac- 15
cordance with this subtitle and in coordination with appro- 16
priate Federal and State officials as provided under sec- 17
tion 143(b), the Commissioner shall— 18
(1) under section 204 establish standards for, 19
accept bids from, and negotiate and enter into con- 20
tracts with, QHBP offering entities for the offering 21
of health benefits plans through the Health Insur- 22
ance Exchange, with different levels of benefits re- 23
quired under section 203, and including with respect 24
to oversight and enforcement; 25
So. Mr. Unelected GovernmentPaidStooge sets the standard for what policies are to be offered under the "Health Exchange"
OK, so what is a what is "grandfathered health insurance"?
SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT 1
COVERAGE. 2
(a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COV- 3
ERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of 4
this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable cov- 5
erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health 6
insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance 7
coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the 8
first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met: 9
(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.— 10
(A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in 11
this paragraph, the individual health insurance 12
issuer offering such coverage does not enroll 13
any individual in such coverage if the first ef- 14
fective date of coverage is on or after the first 15
day of Y1.
Thus, if a policy is offered under this "Health Exchange", its under government dominion with respect to the type and manner of coverage. Some clown in a tax funded office makes the call on the level of benefits, the level of treatment and how much tax payer money is saved by controling costs (aka benifits and payouts), and will likely get rewarded with promotions and raises for controling "costs".
If the policy is "grandfathered" and so NOT under the control of said tax paid clown, the group of invididuals who pay into the collective risk pool (which is what insurance is) will ever decline until such time as the costs to the policy issuer excede the monies coming into the pool. Perhaps (or is it by design?) the issues of such policies will we driven out of buisness.
And in due time all the holders of the "grandfathered" policy die off, and since no new "grandfathered" polices may be issues, all that is left available is those policies under government dominion.
So those of us in this generation who want nothing to do with this stinking bucket of dren can "opt out", but our children or grandchildren will have no such option.
:mad:
So, what do you think NOW Claire?
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What is the incentive for employers to continue to offer health care when the .gov provides it for free? None! I have fairly good health/dental/vision coverage right now, costs have been going up and the company has gotten tighter and tighter with coverage. The government starts offering it and I can see my company first charging to have it, then raising the fee to push everyone out and into .gov coverage.
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Who is "Claire"?
Were you under the illusion that current health insurance policies are not subject to a variety of gov't regulations? New private health insurance options will be subject to new gov't regulations. This is not that radical.
Grandfather clauses exist in virtually every regulatory scheme on virtually every level of government. This grandfather clause outlaws private health insurance in the same way that the grandfather clause allowing my mom's teaching license to remain valid outlawed teachers, or that grandfather clauses allowing houses with old wiring to be sold without complete rewiring outlaws home electrical use.
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What is the incentive for employers to continue to offer health care when the .gov provides it for free? None! I have fairly good health/dental/vision coverage right now, costs have been going up and the company has gotten tighter and tighter with coverage. The government starts offering it and I can see my company first charging to have it, then raising the fee to push everyone out and into .gov coverage.
Well, that's simple, they have to offer it, and they aren't allowed to overcharge for it. Great solution, eh? ;/
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BridgeWalker, I'm having a hard time figuring out what your position is on all of this. Care to clarify?
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I have no firm position.
I think the IBD editorial is incredibly misleading, and that annoys me.
I think that health care reform is a good idea.
I could never afford decent health care when I was paying 30%+ of my income for health insurance, because the premiums killed us and the deductibles/copays made actually getting care impossible with what little money was left--hence eight years of chronic shoulder pain before I was broke enough that medicaid for the surgery. A one hour surgery should not cost $25,000.
I have had great experiences with gov't provided healthcare. I also am cognizant of the fact that my health care is in large part publicly funded, and I keep it cheap. For example, my OB care is provided by a clinic staffed entirely by residents (and the birth itself is already paid for, out of pocket, to an unregulated midwife--$2000). My dental care is provided by the UM Dental School. I see a regular pulmonologist from time to time, paid for by Medicaid. Me being either dead or in and out of the ER is not in the public's best interest.
I am not convinced that having corporate wonks controlling my healthcare is better than having gov't wonks control my healthcare. This may be the result of a couple of profs who worked in health care law for a while and faced some pretty devious behavior from insurers.
I am not convinced that a demi-god-like demagogue is the right person to spearhead this effort, but I'm not convinced that anyone else could.
I am pessimistic about the short term, but am glad that a shake up seems inevitable.
I am in the midst of the one of the worst economies in the nation, and my spouse is employed by a small firm that cannot afford to offer insurance, but may shortly be required to do so. This may mean that his job will disappear or his hours cut in half. We're drowning financially now, so anything that makes life more difficult for small business is a bad thing for us.
I hope to run a small firm someday. Under the current system, I can't because I am uninsurable except under an employer's plan. Under the future system, I likely won't be able to because I will not have the budget to offer insurance, at least not at first.
My position on health care reform? Rock, meet hard place. :|
But I like accuracy in journalism.
The issue is, imho, too complex for someone with as little interest in politics as I possess to really take a firm stand on. My only firm position is that if an editorialist wants to spazz people out about an issue, he should do so using facts and not distortions. The IBD editorial outright lies about what the provision is cites states. That pisses me off. I want health care reform, but I have little doubt that the current effort is going to seriously screw a lot of people in various ways, including quite possible my family.
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Well, BridgeWalker, I can see where you fall into the category of those who really can't get health insurance, or not at a price that's within reason.
The number of people like you, though, is relatively small. The 45 million figure bandied about is also a distortion.
I'd like to think that we could address the problems of the 15 to 20 million people who cannot get health insurance without handing over the health industry to the government. In fact, I'm 100% certain we can.
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Remember, you're in the minority? Over half voted for Obama. On his coattails, the senate and congress were filled with Democrats and "Independants".
Representative democracy is mob rule. Right now, the mob wants free health care.
That is real.
And THAT is exactly my point, thank you, and accounts for why I say what I say. We are in the minority, most probably a permanent minority, and increasingly a minority that is unprotected and naked in terms of its Constititutional protections and liberties. In my view we are on the verge of being overrun by "mob rule," as you rightly say. Therefore we have a choice: divorce or enslavement. No one is saying that separation is easy; it may not even be possible. But what will happen in the alternative won't be easy either.
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If Obama wants doctors to work without profit I suggest he try that experiment first on lawyers and see how far it gets.
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Of course it will cover 12 Million illegals, after all they are great, faithful, Democrat voters.
Obama Health Plan to Cover 12 Million Illegals
Sunday, July 19, 2009 6:32 PM
By: David A. Patten
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/health_care_obama/2009/07/19/237484.html?s=al&promo_code=83A4-1
On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.
The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.
The Democratic plan will embrace Obama’s vision of bringing free government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in America – a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, costs under the Obama plan being proposed by the House will saddle citizens with $1.04 trillion in new federal outlays over the next decade.
Congressional Democrats and Obama have argued that their health plan is necessary to contain rising health care costs.
But, last Thursday, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee and warned lawmakers that the proposed “legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."
A key factor increasing costs is that Democratic plan provides for blanket coverage to as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population not currently insured, including illegals.
Democrats had insisted throughout the health-care reform debate that illegals would be ineligible for the so-called public option plan that is to be subsidized by taxpayers.
"We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters in May. "That's too politically explosive."
Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan.
Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.
GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed out non-citizens from the program.
A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would "better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."
The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill’s proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."
The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen.
Critics: Free Health Care Means More Illegals
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans oppose covering illegals in any public health care bill.
Anti-immigration activists say the availability of low-cost benefits, including health insurance and in-state tuition, will only lure more immigrants to come to the United States.
Political analyst Dick Morris, in his recently released best-selling book “Catastrophe”, warns that giving illegal free health care will lead to a flood of new illegals who can take advantage of such a benefit not offered in their home countries.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, agrees with that sentiment, writing, "Each state and federal elected official must know that illegal aliens should not be given licenses, in-state tuition, mortgages, bank accounts, welfare, or any other benefit short of emergency medical care and law enforcement accommodations before they are deported."
But a small fraction of illegals end up deported, as many make widespread use of fake IDs to easily gain access to government benefits programs.
"Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment," wrote Ronald W. Mortensen in a recent Center for Immigration Studies research paper. Mortensen says one of the big misconceptions about illegals is that they are undocumented.
James R. Edwards Jr., co-author of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, recently wrote on National Review Online that "it's hard to envision how health reform can avoid tripping the immigration booby trap."
Edwards says none of the legislation under consideration actually requires any state, federal, or local agency to check the immigration status of those who apply for the program.
The assumption is that companies have vetted their employees to ensure they are eligibility for legal employment – a difficult task for employers given the active market in fraudulent documents. Thus Edwards maintains "some of the money distributed … inevitably would go to illegal aliens."
The estimates of illegal aliens in the United States without health insurance vary. The most commonly cited statistic, attributed to the Center for Immigration Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, holds that 15 percent to 22 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured are illegal aliens. That would be between 6.9 million and 10.1 million people. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed the nation United States has 12 million or more undocumented aliens.
John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm owned by UnitedHealth Group, recently told National Public Radio that about 6.1 million illegals – about half of all illegals in the United States – lack documentation and therefore would not be legally eligible for benefits under the current health care reforms.
Sheils says the other half of the nation's illegals – 5 million to 6 million – use false documents to obtain on-the-books employment. Many of them are already insured under their employers' plans, he added.
"A lot of those people are getting employer health benefits as part of their compensation," Sheils told NPR.
Certainly, some contend that undocumented workers who are gainfully employed and receiving benefits such as health insurance are contributing to society. But the fact remains that, once equipped with a fake ID, a person in the United States illegally can obtain both a job and the benefits that go with it.
Estimates of the cost of providing illegals with medical care vary. Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal aliens.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was $1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and Arizona at $400 million.
Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's health care cost is about $300 million annually.
One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.
Even if no illegals were likely to benefit from health care reform, Democrats have made it clear that amnesty is the next item on their ambitious legislative agenda.
"I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm looking very closely at doing immigration," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared in June.
Reid explained the urgent need for amnesty in terms very similar to those that Democrats have used to press for health care reform. "We have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair," Reid said.
Immigration expert Edwards, for one, says health-care reform may itself need serious medical attention before it is healthy enough pass through Congress.
"The American people may soon realize how much health reform will benefit immigrants and cost the native-born," he writes. "When that happens, the volatile politics of immigration could derail universal health care."
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It's impossible to argue with the word "free."
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Let's see. 12 million is 4% of 300 million. 4% of 2000 hours a year is 80 hours. That means roughly 80 of the average worker's hours each year will go to pay for health insurance for illegals.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
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No one on this forum should be surprised. It has become obvious to anyone but the most naive what the Obama and Democrat agendas consist of.
I will say this: I have discussed this specific issue with liberals I know and many balk at the idea of illegals getting subsidized health care For a substantial percentage this, properly presented by the conservative faction, can not only be a deal-breaker but an eye-opener in terms of revealing who "the other side" really is and what they want for America. I think the word "racist" is going to end up being thrown back in the faces of the accusers.
If the radical Dems push this one too far we are going to witness racial and ethnic convulsion in this country without any doubt. I'm afraid that the cynics amongst us--and you can count me in that number--expect that that is exactly what is going to transpire.
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If the radical Dems push this one too far we are going to witness racial and ethnic convulsion in this country without any doubt. I'm afraid that the cynics amongst us--and you can count me in that number--expect that that is exactly what is going to transpire.
QFT....
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Merged the illegal aliens thread, as its part of the same discussion.
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"Representative democracy is mob rule. Right now, the mob wants free health care."
The Founders feared the factionalism of a pure democracy. That's why we were given a Republic. Unfortunately, The Founders never anticipated that factionalism became the two party system and both parties pander to the Mob. So, we got the Mob Rule of democracy in spite of what The Founders wanted.
I am ashamed of many Americans at this time.
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Steele comes out swinging (finally :rolleyes:)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 13 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Republican Party on Monday accused President Barack Obama of conducting "risky experimentation" with his health care proposals, saying they will hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage.
Michael Steele, in remarks at the National Press Club, also said the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.
If it took the RNC and Steele this long to come up with a coherent message against health care....the (R) party is doomed.
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"Risky experimentation" is a gross understatement. If the GOP won't draw the line and say no way, it forces the people to do that, which, under the circumstances, is for the better. The Republican Party is hell-bent on being being gracious losers. The leaders of that Party can afford to be that, the rest of us cannot.
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This is another example of how the anti-freedom forces in our society succeed through incrementalism. Years ago, Hillarycare was rejected outright, and it was a factor in the 1994 Republican revolution.
Now we've reached a point where nationalized health care isn't being rejected, but instead the parties are debating the extent of the nationalization. Even some of the most conservative members of congress are saying, "we need some sort of large scale health care reform."
This has to be stopped cold, and the only people who can do that now are the voters.
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Who is "Claire"?
Were you under the illusion that current health insurance policies are not subject to a variety of gov't regulations? New private health insurance options will be subject to new gov't regulations. This is not that radical.
Grandfather clauses exist in virtually every regulatory scheme on virtually every level of government. This grandfather clause outlaws private health insurance in the same way that the grandfather clause allowing my mom's teaching license to remain valid outlawed teachers, or that grandfather clauses allowing houses with old wiring to be sold without complete rewiring outlaws home electrical use.
The "Page 16" provision does indeed outlaw the types of insurance we used to be able to get, and mandates that only the new styles of insurance being pushed by Obama are legal.
Sorry, but I don't want Obama insurance. Why should I be forced to buy it? This is still supposed to be a free country, right?
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And what happens when you have rigged elections and ignorant voters?
Does that mean that "the mob" is permitted to trash what are suppposed to be God-given and Constitutionally-protected liberties?
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Sorry, but I don't want Obama insurance. Why should I be forced to buy it? This is still supposed to be a free country, right?
Where are the lawsuits? Where is SCOTUS?
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Where are the lawsuits? Where is SCOTUS?
SWISH! Same question could be asked of every initiative Obama has made since riding into town. Better yet, ask the question about some of the stunts Bush Parte Deux pulled.
We have plenty of opposition rhetoric. Where is the opposition action?
Where is the discussion of rollback?
Where is the discussion of opposition tactics?
A lot of questions need to be asked. So when do we start?
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The fact is, the existing insurance system is broken. It does not deliver services as efficiently or at a lower price or even faster than most industrialized socialist medical systems. I can find no reason to run around championing the "freedom" to be pigeon-holed into contracts with awful terms by corporations whose main business is not delivering health care, but rather collecting and keeping premiums.
If you are sick or at risk of serious illness and possess an amount under the millions in cash, the odds are that the United States is absolutely the worst place in the developed world that you could be.
Where I'm at now, even completely avoiding the government health system, I can see a doctor for about $35 USD. If I need medicine, it generally costs about $15 USD. Those are the prices I have to pay for not having access to the socialist medical system, which delivers equivalent service using general fund money.
The exact same services in the United States, which I had occasion to pay for because my freely chosen insurance only operates up front in some hospitals and some regions, were billed at $300 to see the doctor, and about $80 for the medicine.
There's absolutely no plus to the current system. You can't bargain the terms of any of those contracts, they are not favourable terms, and the delivery of services that results is so poor that it's inferior by every measure to most socialist systems. Why on earth would you want to defend that?
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If you are sick or at risk of serious illness and possess an amount under the millions in cash, the odds are that the United States is absolutely the worst place in the developed world that you could be.
funny then that so many folks come here for treatment and so few leave to go elsewhere. and of those that DO go elsewhere they often go due to the way our gov regulates medicine here
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Where I'm at now, even completely avoiding the government health system, I can see a doctor for about $35 USD. If I need medicine, it generally costs about $15 USD. Those are the prices I have to pay for not having access to the socialist medical system, which delivers equivalent service using general fund money.
I can see a doctor for $60 and often have the medicine cost less than your $15 in the US, no insurance involved.
My flight medical costs $90.
That's for what I commonly have to go to a doctor for each year. I see the dentist twice a year for $80 per visit. That's no socialism, no gov't run healthcare, no insurance. Just cash up front.
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Why on earth would you want to defend that?
Because what people are defending it from is even worse.
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i see the doc for 10 bucks and prescriptions are 10 also i pay 300 a month for the 4 of us my wifes employer pays about 900 thats for dental eye glasses the works.
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If you are sick or at risk of serious illness and possess an amount under the millions in cash, the odds are that the United States is absolutely the worst place in the developed world that you could be.
funny then that so many folks come here for treatment and so few leave to go elsewhere. and of those that DO go elsewhere they often go due to the way our gov regulates medicine here
Yeah, actually it's the opposite: medical tourism to places where health care is affordable is one of the biggest gigs going in travel these days. The reason is that surgery generally costs 1/10th for equivalent service outside of home.
Try to find a medical tourism company that lists the US of A as its destination...
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I can see a doctor for $60 and often have the medicine cost less than your $15 in the US, no insurance involved.
My flight medical costs $90.
That's for what I commonly have to go to a doctor for each year. I see the dentist twice a year for $80 per visit. That's no socialism, no gov't run healthcare, no insurance. Just cash up front.
Well, you have managed to find the bargain of all time in the US at those prices. You do realize that your experience is far, far from the norm though, right?
CS&D,
Take a look at your numbers there. I pay just over half what Avenger pays to see the doctor for each visit, and no monthly or yearly fees from my employer. That is a HUGE price difference.
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Because what people are defending it from is even worse.
This is what gets me though: in what way is it worse? By all indicators, copying a socialist system would deliver equivalent levels of service at lower prices.
What's "better" about a free market where you can't bargain the terms of your agreements, and where you pay inordinately more money for services that the rest of the world can provide at far lower costs?
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we had 2 kids both by c section one an emergency c section total cost 2 kids including prenatal visits? 300 bucks plus one scrip of vitamins
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we had 2 kids both by c section one an emergency c section total cost 2 kids including prenatal visits? 300 bucks plus one scrip of vitamins
That's great - you had insurance and it worked in that instance. Your personal experience doesn't negate the hard numbers though, which prove that costs for this and most services in the United States are far higher than elsewhere in the world.
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Try to find a medical tourism company that lists the US of A as its destination...
Try any Israeli medical insurance/service company.
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Try any Israeli medical insurance/service company.
After a short search, all I can find are companies that offer packages for Americans to go to Israel and get care at lower costs....do you have any links/examples of the reverse trip?
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Shootin''s right. Systems without profit are wonderful. Great idea to have doctors work for the government "at cost." But if this is a nation built on the law, rather than on health care, why shouldn't we expect lawyers to work "at cost" and without profit too? Let them go first into the brave new world.
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Where are the lawsuits? Where is SCOTUS?
Soon to be in the jurisdiciton of "wise Latinas"....thanks to the Republican Senators' lack of opposition.... :mad:
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Shootin''s right. Systems without profit are wonderful. Great idea to have doctors work for the government "at cost." But if this is a nation built on the law, rather than on health care, why shouldn't we expect lawyers to work "at cost" and without profit too? Let them go first into the brave new world.
See, that's the thing: the other systems generally aren't without profit. They're able to operate entire private hospital systems at vastly lower rates than in the US.
Lawyers fees are regulated by law, btw, and quite tightly. More so in other countries, but that's true of the United States as well. A court can declare your fee "unreasonable" even if it was actually freely negotiated with a sophisticated client and take it away from you as a lawyer.
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A court can declare your fee "unreasonable" even if it was actually freely negotiated with a sophisticated client and take it away from you as a lawyer.
when has that happened?
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A court can declare your fee "unreasonable" even if it was actually freely negotiated with a sophisticated client and take it away from you as a lawyer.
when has that happened?
Happens all the time - in California you are required to submit to mandatory fee arbitration any time a client files a request for it with the state bar.
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Soon to be in the jurisdiciton of "wise Latinas"....thanks to the Republican Senators' lack of opposition....
Your angst is misplaced. There's nothing the Republican senators can do to prevent Sotamayer from being confirmed. They simply don't have enough votes against the Democratic majority, so a liberal judge replaces a liberal judge on the Supreme Court bench. They'd be pissing in the wind.
Yawn.
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Your angst is misplaced. There's nothing the Republican senators can do to prevent Sotamayer from being confirmed. They simply don't have enough votes against the Democratic majority, so a liberal judge replaces a liberal judge on the Supreme Court bench. They'd be pissing in the wind.
Yawn.
Being unable to prevent her nomination is one thing....actually voting FOR her nomination is reprehensible and beneath contempt....something I will be notifying my senators about...esp. the one deluded enough to believe she'll ever be governor...
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If you are sick or at risk of serious illness and possess an amount under the millions in cash, the odds are that the United States is absolutely the worst place in the developed world that you could be.
Those that have seen my posts in the past will know that the language I am about to use is completely out of character for me, but I just cannot let this pass. And I apologize in advance to any that are offended. Moderators, take whatever action you deem appropriate.
SS, your statement quoted above, like many that you have made before, is complete and unadulterated bullshit.
That is all I will say about this.
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Ya know, despite shootin's belief that Americans are fleeing overseas for medical care, I just don't see it.
I've met several Europeans overseas who wanted to know if they could come here to use our medical system. I've not known any Americans who wished they could go overseas for medical care there. The contrast is quite striking given that I've met many, many times more Americans than Europeans, and I've spent much, much more time in America than I have in europe. Anecdotal for sure, but it's a striking contrast.
So how many of y'all have wanted to go overseas for medical care?
And tell me, just how is our system "broken"? Everyone who's willing to put up the resources is able to secure all the medical care they could realistically expect. It doesn't come free here, obviously, TANSTAAFL and all. It doesn't come free anywhere. But if you want it and you're willing to work for it, just about anyone can get excellent care here.
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Those that have seen my posts in the past will know that the language I am about to use is completely out of character for me, but I just cannot let this pass. And I apologize in advance to any that are offended. Moderators, take whatever action you deem appropriate.
SS, your statement quoted above, like many that you have made before, is complete and unadulterated bullshit.
That is all I will say about this.
If that's all you were going to say, it would've been a lot more productive to contribute something to the discussions about health care.
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If that's all you were going to say, it would've been a lot more productive to contribute something to the discussions about health care.
Hint: he did say something about health care. It just happened to be something you want to dismiss.
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Ya know, despite shootin's belief that Americans are fleeing overseas for medical care, I just don't see it.
I've met several Europeans overseas who wanted to know if they could come here to use our medical system. I've not known any Americans who wished they could go overseas for medical care there. The contrast is quite striking given that I've met many, many times more Americans than Europeans. Anecdotal for sure, but it seems to be quite a contrast.
So how many of y'all have wanted to go overseas for medical care?
And tell me, just how is our system "broken"? Everyone who's willing to put up the resources is able to secure all the medical care they could realistically expect. It doesn't come free here, obviously, TANSTAAFL and all. It doesn't come free anywhere. But if you want it and you're willing to work for it, just about anyone can get excellent care here.
The determination of "broken" comes from straight numbers: cost is higher, and results are either similar or not as good as other systems. Can you name any specific advantage to this system over others?
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we had to send my mom overseas to save her for another 8 years. interestingly enough the treatment/drugs we sent her for were developed in the us and used for treating tb in the 50's. just weren't approved for cancer treatment in the us. so we sent her to japan for treatment. oddly/ironically it was the government that we are told that we should trust that denied her the right to use those drugs to save her life
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Your mother's problem, C&SD, was not a health care cost issue so much as a risk aversion or risk abatement issue. An issue that some might say has been taken to the extreme, mostly through govt. regulation and liability concerns.
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Shootinstudent, I keep reading things about the Canadian and British systems that don't coincide with what you're saying. For example, I read that average waiting times in ER's in Canada for non-life-threatening problems is 18 hours, and that the wait for exams such as colinoscopies can be eight to nine months. I also keep reading about rationing of procedures such as bypasses.
I also know that hospitals in the US cannot turn away patients because they have no insurance. I see patients at the county hospital here in Milwaukee (one of the best facilities in the country) who obviously don't have any money, but are receiving top-notch care utilizing expensive equipment and expert doctors.
Those people are receiving care that's paid for by those of us with insurance, just as those of us who either pay with our Cadillac health plans or pay by cash pay for those who are treated through Medicare. Doctors would go broke if they received what Medicare pays from every patient.
How, then, can it be that a system being proposed that is very similar to Medicare is going to give better results? It doesn't add up.
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The point of the proposed "reforms" is to ingeniously combine equality with punition--except for the political class that wil continue to get options for real health care. I'm sure Obama's Kenyan/Marxist dad would be ecstatic about everything BHO is trying to do.
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it makes perfect sense when your knee deep in political ideology and can not bring yourself to see just how crooked your(both) political party(parties) happens(happen) to be :angel:
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Your mother's problem, C&SD, was not a health care cost issue so much as a risk aversion or risk abatement issue. An issue that some might say has been taken to the extreme, mostly through govt. regulation and liability concerns.
i think it was an fda with head in a dark place issue. and i have no reason to think the gov has gotten smarter/better
shucks it was a government doctor at nih who told us about the treatment we could get in japan. that said as soon as we could we got mom over there and in treatment. then we smuggled several years worth of the drugs back. she wanted out of their medical system as fast as she could. didn't like it at all. and she was japanese it was free. couldn't get back soon enough
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I know there are a lot of Canadians who are so impressed with their socialist health care plan that they routinely cross the border to Detroit:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20080418/BRIGHTSIDE/577130486#
Or did you not want us to bring that into play, SS?
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i think it was an fda with head in a dark place issue. and i have no reason to think the gov has gotten smarter/better
I think you said it better than me, C&SD.
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Gewehr, that's certainly relevant, but there are just as many anecdotes and articles about Americans flying to India and Thailand (and driving to Canada) to get care because they can't in the US. A single article or story about how much you paid can't settle this question. I have my stories, CS&D has his, Monkeyleg has heard about Canada, and we can all quote news articles until the cows come home.
The best way to judge the situation is to look at detailed research on the total costs and total results. Here's some research on it that I think pretty clearly outlines the problem: assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf
That's solid documentation that costs are higher, and results are not better, in this system. If there are any studies that debunk these figures or show that costs are not higher, and results are comparable per unit of cost, I would consider that to be evidence to the contrary. But I don't think any such study exists.
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the japanese live longest and have whats is supposed to be the greatest system and yet mom couldn't get away fast enough. now granted we had decent insurance here .as well as access to nih and the lombardi cancer center so we were blessed. even back then her total medical bills were in 7 digits.we had catastrophic medical and liquidated some assets to pay for the overseas treamnet. since the gov didn't approve it the insurance didn't pay for it
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The issue with the US system, the reason it is indeed broken, is that it's already largely socialist. Medicare, Medicaid, Cobra etc etc etc. Rail against socialized medicine all you want; we already have it, and it's killing us.
Oddly, I actually like the Australian model for healthcare as one can opt out of the socialist plan. There are totally separate hospitals with separate docs etc. Wouldn't that be a nice change?
Of course, while we have millions upon millions of illegals flooding our system that's a bit less practical. /sigh That's the real issue; people want an isolated solution not a holistic one. Fixing the issues with the healthcare system are made exponentially more difficult by the massive drain that is illegal immigration, which is made worse by porous borders birthright citizenship and the welfare state etc etc
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Mark Steyn has zeroed in on what is really behind this: it's about, he says, nationalizing your body. Let's not kid ourselves about what Obama is up to here. It's of a piece with all his other programs, which to me are an extension of the Marxist "plantation" system. Transfer wealth from the middle-class to the "disadvantaged," encourage MORE disadvantaged, and make sure the right people in the financial superstratrum are taken care of.
Now we have Obama, the malignant narcissist par excellence, telling us that "it's not about me." No, but it's about what you want to do to us. If Obama had honorable intentions, he wouldn't be giving Americans the bum's rush and asking them to hurry up and love a plan that remains deliberately vague and lacking in specifics. This is rank and insulting nonsense, and I can only hope that Americans will rise up against it, now or later.
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As an employee of the federal gov't, let me assure you of one thing: you do NOT want any employee of the federal gov't making any form of health care decisions for you. There are political motivations in most every decision made, even if the decision is "will this make my boss appear before Congress." It's worth noting that when it comes to insurance, our administrators find the private insurance company the agency wants to work with and gets out of the way. Any issues, you deal with the company directly. I had one yesterday that took 10 minutes to resolve. If I'd had to work within my own bureaucracy, I'd still be waiting on a return call.
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Mark Steyn has zeroed in on what is really behind this: it's about, he says, nationalizing your body. Let's not kid ourselves about what Obama is up to here. It's of a piece with all his other programs, which to me are an extension of the Marxist "plantation" system. Transfer wealth from the middle-class to the "disadvantaged," encourage MORE disadvantaged, and make sure the right people in the financial superstratrum are taken care of.
Now we have Obama, the malignant narcissist par excellence, telling us that "it's not about me." No, but it's about what you want to do to us. If Obama had honorable intentions, he wouldn't be giving Americans the bum's rush and asking them to hurry up and love a plan that remains deliberately vague and lacking in specifics. This is rank and insulting nonsense, and I can only hope that Americans will rise up against it, now or later.
Go ahead, rise up and lead the "Divorce". You first.
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As an employee of the federal gov't, let me assure you of one thing: you do NOT want any employee of the federal gov't making any form of health care decisions for you.
Also a Fed .gov employee, the idiocy and insanity I witness everyday is nothing short of amazing.
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Also a Fed .gov employee, the idiocy and insanity I witness everyday is nothing short of amazing.
Yup. Supporters of Obamacare need to understand that it will basically consist of taking the worst run health insurance company around and giving it sovereign immunity. That's a sure recipe for success.
People keep talking about leaving the country in order to get treatments not authorized by the feds (which is the sole reason to seek health care outside the US). Does anyone seriously believe that these treatments will suddenly become allowed under Obamacare? There's no chance of that happening.
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--Make it law that congress can have healthcare no better than Joe and Martha Sixpack, No gold plated plans if Joe and Martha can't get theirs gold plated.
I've said before that if you want to see a lot of problems go away, change the VA to an overall government employees health plan; when Congress and POTUS are limited to the same level of government-provided care as Buck Private Bubba, the system will either fall apart, or at least veterans will start getting the care they've earned.
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Also a Fed .gov employee, the idiocy and insanity I witness everyday is nothing short of amazing.
I worked for a relatively small chunk of the state government for a while, and I really don't want to see what kind of incompetence can be gathered when you have a barrel the size of the entire country to scrape employees from the bottom of.
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I've said before that if you want to see a lot of problems go away, change the VA to an overall government employees health plan; when Congress and POTUS are limited to the same level of government-provided care as Buck Private Bubba, the system will either fall apart, or at least veterans will start getting the care they've earned.
I support that 100% if for no other reason than your second point. With all the complaining about insurance companies, the person I knew who got screwed the absolute worst was a vet. He took rounds through his knees, and the VA wouldn't get him knee replacements until he found someone who could work around the bureaucracy.
Byrd and Kennedy would likely be dead right now if they'd had to work through the VA system.
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Just a small example on this. My father-in-law is an anesthesiologist in Germany, but he also goes out with the ambulance on emergency calls. It's the law in Germany that a doctor go out on emergency calls because he has to make the decision on whether they should try to keep people alive. If they're too old or not likely to survive, etc. they may not try to resuscitate, primarily because it's too expensive to revive someone who will most likely die in a day or two anyway.
I'm not terribly familiar with the U.S. ambulance/emergency system, but I believe that they try to keep everyone alive regardless of the cost and leave the decisions about unplugging, etc. to the family.
Just one example of the wonders of socialized medicine.
Having said that, though, the actual quality of care in Germany is better in some ways and worse in some ways than in the U.S., but overall, I'd say they're about equal. People do pay less out of pocket for care there, and it's generally very good. But if you factor in the taxes and the cost-based medical decisions, I'd vote for the American system.
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Can you name any specific advantage to this system over others?
Yes. Quite simply, this system works for me, my family, and everyone I've talked to. It's expensive, but that's going to be true of anything valueable that everyone wants. TANSTAAFL.
The people I've spoken with who live under socialized systems complain about their systems and seem envious of ours. Their complaints match up with what you would expect from a socialized system given a bit of thought and common sense: care is lower quality, waiting times are longer, and there is always some form of rationing limiting the care they have access to.
Funny thing is, none of these foreigners seem at all comforted by the "expert" studies extolling the virtues of socialized medicine.
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I'm not particularly envious of yours. I doubt I could get better care than I do.
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I'm not particularly envious of yours. I doubt I could get better care than I do.
I read a newspaper article the other day about some member of the Saudi royal family flying over to Durham to get medical treatment at the Duke University med center. Apparently it is common for the royal family to do this, and whenever they do they donate a new building to the hospital or pay to have a wing remodeled or somesuch. Over the years most of the hospital has been built or re-built by these donations.
I point this out to illustrate that Saudi royalty have the option of flying anywhere in the world for their care, including Britain. They choose to come here.
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The best hotels in the world might be in Dubai. Solid gold taps, eiderdown quilts with ludicrous thread counts and butlers on call 24/7. If I want a clean, comfortable spacious hotel - do I have to go to Dubai?
If the Saudi royal family, who can afford anything that they want, find what they want in the US - does that say anything at all about the standard of care that is available to the ordinary US citizen?
That's what matters to me, and the ordinary person. The valid comparision is not between the care that the Saudi royal family receive in the US and the NHS. It is between what American born Iain gets and what British born Iain gets.
I'm not going to participate in this thread really, it is subject that is too personal to me for me to watch people engage in ideological, political internet battles over it.
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I'm not particularly envious of yours. I doubt I could get better care than I do.
This is the problem with socialized care. It is very deceptive.
My only question is: have you ever been SERIOUSLY ill while living with socialized care?
Because that is where the socialized system fails. People with cancer being told they can't get the drugs that would help them. People needing surgeries and having to live with pain because their surgery isn't urgent enough. (Also, the general lack of modern technology- I'm not as familiar with Britain's healthcare as I am with Canada's, but getting an MRI takes WEEKS in Canada. I needed one and got it within two hours of first seeing my doctor.)
Most people aren't in those categories. Thus, most people think the medical care is fine.
Socialized medicine works very well if you don't get sick.
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I'm not going to participate in this thread really, it is subject that is too personal to me for me to watch people engage in ideological, political internet battles over it.
It's personal for a lot of us. Many of us know people who will be denied access if the health care rationing being discussed as part of nationalized health care goes into effect.
Actually, let's get a little more personal. How much of your hard earned money are you willing to give me so I can have health care? How much are you willing to contributed? Let's stop talking about soaking the rich because if we took everything they had, we wouldn't pay for nationalized health care (especially after the economy tanked from the capital flight). How much are you personally willing to pay?
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This is the problem with socialized care. It is very deceptive.
My only question is: have you ever been SERIOUSLY ill while living with socialized care?
Because that is where the socialized system fails. People with cancer being told they can't get the drugs that would help them. People needing surgeries and having to live with pain because their surgery isn't urgent enough. (Also, the general lack of modern technology- I'm not as familiar with Britain's healthcare as I am with Canada's, but getting an MRI takes WEEKS in Canada. I needed one and got it within two hours of first seeing my doctor.)
Most people aren't in those categories. Thus, most people think the medical care is fine.
Socialized medicine works very well if you don't get sick.
We can't forget that in England, the age of the patient helps determine if they get a bypass or other "routine" procedure. At least, that's what British doctors are now openly admitting.
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I'll never pay back what I have cost and what I will cost.
There is no point carrying on, my contributions to this topic always provoke strident responses, as they already have.
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The best hotels in the world might be in Dubai. Solid gold taps, eiderdown quilts with ludicrous thread counts and butlers on call 24/7. If I want a clean, comfortable spacious hotel - do I have to go to Dubai?
If the Saudi royal family, who can afford anything that they want, find what they want in the US - does that say anything at all about the standard of care that is available to the ordinary US citizen?
That's what matters to me, and the ordinary person. The valid comparision is not between the care that the Saudi royal family receive in the US and the NHS. It is between what American born Iain gets and what British born Iain gets.
I'm not going to participate in this thread really, it is subject that is too personal to me for me to watch people engage in ideological, political internet battles over it.
That's an interesting point. Health care certainly isn't free. Those who can afford anything they want have their choice of any system in the world. Those of us who have limited resources have narrower options. We might naturally prefer a system that makes someone else pay for our health care rather than try to pay for it ourselves.
So which system is better? One system gives us whatever we can provide for ourselves, and a s a consequence it provides the best cost-no-object care anywhere in the world. The other system gives us whatever we think we want and then coerces someone else into paying for it.
I can see the immediate appeal of making someone else pay for my health care. In the long run I know such a system is a road to disaster.
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This is the problem with the healthcare debate in America.
The only hard data available show two things:
1. Health care quality is not superior in America (outcomes are equal to or worse than in comparable economies.)
2. Health care cost is several orders of magnitude higher than anywhere else for the same or lower-quality services.
But because Headless likes his insurance plan, and read an article about a hundred Canadians who came to the US, that's good enough proof that the system ain't broke.
It reads a lot like the anti-gun arguments really: "but a machine gun can kill so many people, why let those be sold!" "Carrying a gun is crazy, I knew this one kid who shot his own eye out!". Nevermind that there are mountains of stats that show it's not actually that dangerous...it's media perceptions and "what I see myself" that rule the debate.
It'll be interesting to see how healthcare turns out in America after all of this. I'm not confident Obama has the stones to take on the medical industry, and I'm also not sure that they could craft a plan that's any good. Ideally they'd just copy a system that already works, like Australia's.
In the meantime, I'll continue to be amazed that in a country where capitalism is king, people are happy to pay higher prices for substandard outcomes. Apparently capitalism does not produce demanding consumers.
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1. Health care quality is not superior in America (outcomes are equal to or worse than in comparable economies.)
both you and obama ignore one component of health care and its results. understandably unpopular amongst his followers is the term personal responsibility. i impact my own health and if i fail to take care of myself you can throw all the money in the world with scant results now go get me some beer and a couple big macs before american idol starts
i think your definition of "orders of magnitude" differs from mine
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1. Health care quality is not superior in America (outcomes are equal to or worse than in comparable economies.)
both you and obama ignore one component of health care and its results. understandably unpopular amongst his followers is the term personal responsibility. i impact my own health and if i fail to take care of myself you can throw all the money in the world with scant results now go get me some beer and a couple big macs before american idol starts
i think your definition of "orders of magnitude" differs from mine
Personal responsibility is great, but what does that have to do with costs per service measures? The exact same procedures are not ten times more expensive in the US because of personal responsibility or a lack of it.
"orders of magnitude" includes billions of dollars, which is the amount of excess the US pays for its often inferior health care services. This is what the hard data show on the subject, anyway.
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i was referring to the cause of the outcomes being to some great degree a result of personal responsibility, or the lack thereof
and then there is this
Orders of magnitude are generally used to make very approximate comparisons. If two numbers differ by one order of magnitude, one is about ten times larger than the other. If they differ by two orders of magnitude, they differ by a factor of about 100. Two numbers of the same order of magnitude have roughly the same scale: the larger value is less than ten times the smaller value. This is the reasoning behind significant figures: the amount rounded by is usually a few orders of magnitude less than the total, and therefore insignificant.
though i do agree "orders of magnitude" sounds more dramatic.
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This is the problem with the healthcare debate in America.
The only hard data available show two things:
1. Health care quality is not superior in America (outcomes are equal to or worse than in comparable economies.)
2. Health care cost is several orders of magnitude higher than anywhere else for the same or lower-quality services.
But because Headless likes his insurance plan, and read an article about a hundred Canadians who came to the US, that's good enough proof that the system ain't broke.
It reads a lot like the anti-gun arguments really: "but a machine gun can kill so many people, why let those be sold!" "Carrying a gun is crazy, I knew this one kid who shot his own eye out!". Nevermind that there are mountains of stats that show it's not actually that dangerous...it's media perceptions and "what I see myself" that rule the debate.
It'll be interesting to see how healthcare turns out in America after all of this. I'm not confident Obama has the stones to take on the medical industry, and I'm also not sure that they could craft a plan that's any good. Ideally they'd just copy a system that already works, like Australia's.
In the meantime, I'll continue to be amazed that in a country where capitalism is king, people are happy to pay higher prices for substandard outcomes. Apparently capitalism does not produce demanding consumers.
Point one is wrong. As you did not deign to back up your statement with anything, I will not waste me time with rebuttal.
Point two is stupid. There are "orders of magnitude" of difference between COST and PRICE. You and your ilk have confused the two and think that if you lower the price, it's the same as lowering the cost.
That is utter foolishness! Lowering the price without affecting the cost (what socialized medicine does) simply increases demand for services and RAISES the cost. That's why you end up with rationing and denial of services under socialized medicine.
But, it's ok, the proponents of socialized medicine SWEAR that would never happen here.
I'm glad we can rely on the good intentions behind a government program.
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Point two is stupid. There are "orders of magnitude" of difference between COST and PRICE. You and your ilk have confused the two and think that if you lower the price, it's the same as lowering the cost.
That is utter foolishness! Lowering the price without affecting the cost (what socialized medicine does) simply increases demand for services and RAISES the cost. That's why you end up with rationing and denial of services under socialized medicine.
There's one thing that isn't being mentioned. The gov't routinely reduces Medicare/Medicaid payments each year. To make up for the loss, docs have to push through even more patients. So, next time you have to wait forever in a doctor's office and only get a few minutes of his/her time, thank the gov't.
When you combine that fact with the gov't notorious problems with paying Medicare/Medicaid claims, it's understandable why more than a few docs are considering dumping patients who don't have private insurance. Dealing with the gov't is absolutely abhorrent (as any vet at a VA can tell you) unless you have Senator or Representative in your title. I'm sure things will improve greatly when all health care is Obamacare and we are paying far more in taxes for lower levels of services.
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I work for a not-for-profit hospital that owns a for-profit medical supply company. That company will see a reduction in the reimbursement for equipment and supplies paid for by Medicare and Medical Assistance this year.
Medicare payments will be reduced by 4.5% while MA payments will be reduced by 14.5%. Does anyone here think that the cost of these supplies and equipment have declined by those percentages? Anyone? Didn't think so.
About 60-65% of our hospital patients are Medicare recipients. The payments are such that we might, if lucky, break even on the care they get. Private insurance is better but the big companies are allowed to dictate what we get paid. Self payers are the unlucky bastages that help subsidize the Medicare patients.
Shooting Student - "...several orders of magnitude." Really? A procedure that costs one thousand dollars in America can be had for one dollar (three orders) or ten cents (four orders) in European countries? You can't possibly believe that, can you?
My 83-year-old father is having his hip joint replaced tomorrow. He has early-stage Alzheimer's; would he get the same prompt, expensive care in a socialized system? The appointment was made less than two months ago; more likely 6 weeks. My suspicion is that he'd either be declared ineligible or would wait several years for the surgery in England.
jb
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My mother, who died recently at nearly 97, got cataract surgery through Kaiser at 83. Lens replacement, both eyes. The result was that for the last 13 years of her life her vision was better than mine. Remarkable. But I'm pretty sure "the national health" would have been content to just let her go blind. Isn't that what old age is for after all?
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Actually it's all true. If you get cancer past retirement age we just shoot you. Babies that look a bit sickly get thrown against a wall.
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Actually it's all true. If you get cancer past retirement age we just shoot you. Babies that look a bit sickly get thrown against a wall.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1136844/NHS-kidney-cancer-patients-denied-life-saving-drug-expensive.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/127436.php (this one is actually good news because, despite it being too "expensive" the health service is now being forced to provide it... how many people didn't get treatment because of NICE, though?)
I found those in 3 seconds of searching.
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Uh-huh. Did I deny that healthcare has costs, or that there is effectively rationing? No, I did not. I do however object to the 'my dad had X, it got sorted here in our marvellous system, but I bet if he was English they'd have turned him into soylent green' school of conjecture. The fact is most of you don't really have a clue about what goes on here. Pretty obvious that the scare stories are swallowed whole.
Let's start with the simple fact that private health insurance in this country is not illegal. It exists. As does your ability to go to a private healthcare provider for your hip replacement, or for you to pay for drugs that are not provided under the NHS. Those that can pay will always get a higher standard of care, everywhere.
Are patients with healthcare insurance in the US ever denied treatment on the grounds of cost? Because I get the funny feeling they are. That of course ignores those without healthcare insurance (and I bet not all of them are mooches who don't want to pay, rather they are 'bad risks') who are effectively receiving what looks like an even shittier form of 'socialised health care' than I get.
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Let's start with the simple fact that private health insurance in this country is not illegal. It exists. As does your ability to go to a private healthcare provider for your hip replacement, or for you to pay for drugs that are not provided under the NHS. Those that can pay will always get a higher standard of care, everywhere.
Let's start with the simple fact that private schooling in this country is not illegal. It exists. As does your ability to go to a private school for your child's education or for you to pay for books that are not provided by the Department of Education. Those that can pay will always get a higher standard of education, everywhere.
Like education, though, when the government starts stealing large amounts of money from my paycheck to pay for this service, it is unlikely I will have the money left over to pay for private school tuition or for private healthcare.
UNLIKE eduaction, I don't really have the option of operating on myself like I can homeschool my children in order to aviod the substandard education provided in this country.
CAN you get a good education from public schools? Of course- I am a product of the public schools as well. However, I was not best served in the public school. I was not challenged and did not have options I wish had been available.
CAN people get good care from a public health insurance plan? Of course. Just like in public schools, though, it is those consumers at the margin that will suffer the most under a public health plan.
I'm sure your healthcare is not shooting people. It is rationing and denying service. Every good must be "rationed" as none is available in unlimited quantities. I prefer a system where I do the rationing rather than some government bureaucrat deciding what is best for me.
Honestly, I have no animosity towards people who would prefer a socialized medical system. I wish they would go to a country that already has it, though.
The biggest reason for my animus and hostility for those pushing for it in this country is that I HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO. I don't want socialized healthcare. What first world country is available for me to flee this stupidity?
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Honestly, I have no animosity towards people who would prefer a socialized medical system. I wish they would go to a country that already has it, though.
The biggest reason for my animus and hostility for those pushing for it in this country is that I HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO. I don't want socialized healthcare. What first world country is available for me to flee this stupidity?
If I may drift the thread a bit here, The above is the biggest problem I have with what is happening in America today. I would rather live and let live. I don't like politics, I don't like keeping an eye on the inner workings of government, I consider it to be a waste of my time. However, every single time I turn around, some government lackey is shoving some new tax or program down my throat, and there's nowhere left for me to go. America is the best thing going, and it's being shoved down the drain. Those of us who just want to be left alone have no option anymore. It used to be a given that America was more free than the rest of the world, now we're becoming just another flavor of socialism, by small degrees.
Socialized medicine of necessity, requires rationing of goods and services. The elderly and poor, who are the very people this plan allegedly is meant to help, will be the most hurt. The elderly, because "you're going to die soon anyway', and the poor because they tend to have more self inflicted health problems.
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This is the problem with the healthcare debate in America.
The only hard data available show two things:
1. Health care quality is not superior in America (outcomes are equal to or worse than in comparable economies.)
Back up that wild assertion. You'll need to first define what constitutes superior vs inferior health care quality, then you'll have to demonstrate how our systems succeeds or fails on that definition.
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Are patients with healthcare insurance in the US ever denied treatment on the grounds of cost? Because I get the funny feeling they are. That of course ignores those without healthcare insurance (and I bet not all of them are mooches who don't want to pay, rather they are 'bad risks') who are effectively receiving what looks like an even shittier form of 'socialised health care' than I get.
I just disagree that the result of universal healthcare is to simply provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it.
Right now the free market dictates that a good number of healthy individuals have done a risk assessment and decided that health care was not worth the cost. On the other hand, unhealthy people (due to choice or poor genetics) are being denied expensive care because the health insurance company needs to make ends meet somewhere.
It seems more to me that they are trying to "spread the pain" by forcing healthy people onto the (government) health care rolls (via taxes), which means more money to pay for other peoples problems. Then for good measure, they are trying to buy future votes by making sure to insure illegal aliens.
I don't disagree with the premise -- there are hard working poor people that need help to make ends meet. I grew up so dirt poor we couldn't afford dental visits, much less real healthcare. I know what it is like to be one of "those poor children" this is aimed at. There are still some people in my family that haven't made any bad choices but do work as hard as they can and still can't afford what they need.
Here's the problem: No one in my family has ever or will ever go on the government take. Why? Because people who work hard are too proud to just take hand outs, it wastes their feeling of hard work.
Who will take the hand outs? Professional moochers. There are people whose job it is to be on the government take. I remember being so excited when Clinton "put an end to endless welfare." I have a sister-in-law who does social services in an urban area. She says that they all have figured out how to get around any and all of those limitations on welfare. They swap their dependents on paper every few years and get around working. These people will use "hard working poor americans" as an excuse, but those "hard working poor americans" can't find time to run through the system when professional moochers clog it up all day long.
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Who will take the hand outs? Professional moochers. There are people whose job it is to be on the government take.
I know a few people who are professional moochers. It's not just welfare queens, it's guys, too. They've got the system down, and they've been working it for decades. In fact, it's the only work they do.
Shootinstudent, you keep saying that the quality of care in the US is inferior to many other countries. First off, let's define "quality of care," and then let's see the proof.
By the way, I didn't just read or hear that there are long delays in the Canadian system. It's been something that's been reported upon extensively, both in the US and Canadian press. If it's just a rumor, it's one hell of a publicized rumor.
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I know a few people who are professional moochers. It's not just welfare queens, it's guys, too. They've got the system down, and they've been working it for decades. In fact, it's the only work they do.
Yep. I bet the majority of people on some form of SSD are white males.
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You'll need to first define what constitutes superior vs inferior health care quality
First off, let's define "quality of care," and then let's see the proof.
He provided some research (http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf) a few pages back that has a bunch of different ways to measure quality and relates them to spending. They aren't perfect, but they mean a whole lot more to me than all the anecdotes that come up when this topic is discussed.
Things like life expectancy, mortality rates, medical errors, and how many doctors/nurses/beds per 1,000 population seem to be the most common ways to measure quality. If we are indeed spending significantly more per capita than other countries, we certainly don't seem to be getting the best results for it.
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He provided some research (http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34175_20070917.pdf) a few pages back that has a bunch of different ways to measure quality and relates them to spending. They aren't perfect, but they mean a whole lot more to me than all the anecdotes that come up when this topic is discussed.
Things like life expectancy, mortality rates, medical errors, and how many doctors/nurses/beds per 1,000 population seem to be the most common ways to measure quality. If we are indeed spending significantly more per capita than other countries, we certainly don't seem to be getting the best results for it.
Life expectancy: horrible choice as a gauge of medical quality as too many factors beyond medical care go into it.
Mortality rates: would be a wonderful choice if we had a uniform measure. Unfortunately, too many countries think a child that dies within a day of being born is a stillbirth. The United States classifies that as an infant death. (This is an example of the non-uniformity of measure).
Medical Errors: this may be a good choice. However, I would bet it suffers from similar measurement issues as Mortality rates.
Number of doctors/nurses/beds: Excellent choice. However, as that would be a symptom of government enforced shortages (medical licensure et al...), I don't think that's a good measure of whether a free market works better when it's decidedly NOT a free market.
As for spending, I note our public spending per capita on medical care is ALREADY higher than almost every other country (Iceland, Norway, and Luxemburg the only other exceptions).
If we are already outspending these other countries in government money on healthcare, why not address THAT issue rather than attacking the private spending on healthcare? Let's just expand the VA hospital system and send everyone on any form of government payment (Medicare, medicaid, VA) there.
That way the government can control its own costs and the private healthcare system can go its own way. Change nothing about coverage for anyone else, just "fix" the government side.
But we can't do that, it has to be "comprehensive" reform. The reason is that these people aren't interested in "fixing" things or lowering costs. They are interested in moving this country step by step into a European-style socialist hellhole.
As I have thought many times, I have to wonder: What happens to the world when they finally succeed in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?
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Mortality rates: would be a wonderful choice if we had a uniform measure. Unfortunately, too many countries think a child that dies within a day of being born is a stillbirth. The United States classifies that as an infant death. (This is an example of the non-uniformity of measure).
The study claims to address this non-uniformity, yet it doesn't help our ranking...
"The United States is one of eight countries that counts very premature
babies with low chances of survival as “live births,” which has the effect of
increasing infant mortality rates over what they otherwise would be. Nevertheless,
among the eight countries that report live births using the same methodology, the
United States has the highest rate of infant mortality. Even with more consistent
methodology, the U.S. ranking — which has been slipping over time — would
probably not significantly improve."
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So that's the best evidence you can present of how our medical system is broken? Demographic data on average life expectancies and whatnot, stuff that only has a passing relevance to the quality of medical care we can get here?
:|
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So that's the best evidence you can present of how our medical system is broken? Demographic data on average life expectancies and whatnot, stuff that only has a passing relevance to the quality of medical care we can get here?
:|
I already admitted it's not a perfect way to measure how well our system works but it's more meaningful than a bunch of anecdotes about how long somebody's uncle had to wait for some procedure in Canada. If you have a uniform metric with data available to use in a comparison, feel free to share it.
Besides, Makattak seemed to think mortality rates are a "wonderful" way to measure, so maybe he can explain why it has more than just passing relevance to the quality of medical care. =)
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I liken this whole conversation to:
"GM is better than Ford" "Every other city has only GM dealers, why do we have only Ford dealers??"
Capitalism (even on a global scale) says this is a good. If you don't like Ford, you can leave the city and buy a GM vehicle. If you don't want to do that, move to any other city.
I don't know if our system is bad or good (relative to other systems, as stated, this is hard to measure). What I do know is that it is different. People in Canada can come here for treatment that is needed in a hurry and we can go to Canada for drugs not approved here. When all the countries get the same medical system, there is no choice.
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Besides, Makattak seemed to think mortality rates are a "wonderful" way to measure, so maybe he can explain why it has more than just passing relevance to the quality of medical care. =)
Well, I'm busily looking for the stats that I read that show that babies born SERIOUSLY premature have the best chance of survival in the United States than in any other nation.
When I find it, I'll explain how that's a good measure of medical care.
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my bleeding heart sister left japan at warp speed when her first pregnancy was a lil complicated. no way he was being born there
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If Obama-Care is enacted, the mobsters should start sending their children to medical school....because black-market medicine is going to get profitable quick....and it might be a good "business investment".....say, anybody got the phone number for the Cosa Nostra secret hideout?.... :cool:
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I already admitted it's not a perfect way to measure how well our system works but it's more meaningful than a bunch of anecdotes about how long somebody's uncle had to wait for some procedure in Canada. If you have a uniform metric with data available to use in a comparison, feel free to share it.
Anecdotal? Did you actually read the report you cited? Excessive wait times for major surgeries is a real problem under socialized medical systems. The anecdotes exist for a reason.
The United States is one of eight OECD countries in which
waiting times for elective surgery are reported to be low. Meanwhile, wait times are
considered a serious health policy issue in 12 OECD countries.83 In these 12
countries, wait times of 1 to 1½ months are common for procedures such as invasive
heart surgery, whereas wait times for procedures like hip or knee replacement cluster
around five months. In a recent survey, a quarter to a third of respondents in Canada,
the United Kingdom, and Australia reported waiting more than four months for a
non-emergency procedure, compared with only 5% of Americans.84
I said earlier that I've noticed Europeans complain about their health and their health care systems at a much higher rate than Americans. My saying so is anecdotal, but the CRS report saying so is not.
As shown in Figure 23, 89% of Americans
report their health as being “good,” “very good,” or “excellent” — the third highest
levels in the OECD.
All in all the report paints a picture that shows that the US system is good in some areas, adequate in others. It definitely does not show that our system is "broken" or "in crisis" or a "national embarrassment".
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Anecdotal? Did you actually read the report you cited? Excessive wait times for major surgeries is a real problem under socialized medical systems. The anecdotes exist for a reason.
I said earlier that I've noticed Europeans complain about their health and their health care systems at a much higher rate than Americans. My saying so is anecdotal, but the CRS report saying so is not.
All in all the report paints a picture that shows that the US system is good in some areas, adequate in others. It definitely does not show that our system is "broken" or "in crisis" or a "national embarrassment".
Waiting time is one of the areas our system has some advantages in, but it's not like we're clearly "The best in the world" by that metric either (unless you limit it to a specific subset like elective cosmetic surgeries. Heaven forbid we wait for those!) I don't think anyone is claiming our results overall are any worse than average, the problem is that we're paying twice as much for it.
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What is going on is the lawyers convincing the American people that it's the doctors who are screwing them over.
Now that's funny.
America, built on the rule of law, has legalized itself into oblivion. Health care costs are out of control, we are told. Try the legal costs that are now built into every layer of American activity, at every level. Doctors make too much money? Not by lawyer standards, they don't.
If health care's a "right," so is equal access to the law, no? By collectivist logic, I say yea verily. Obama is part of the social class that went to law school rather than "make things" because the latter would be declasse' and force them to get their hands rather than their souls dirty.
By the way, I am not "anti-lawyer," but the lawyers of America, especially the trial lawyers, have plenty to answer for.
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Waiting time is one of the areas our system has some advantages in, but it's not like we're clearly "The best in the world" by that metric either (unless you limit it to a specific subset like elective cosmetic surgeries. Heaven forbid we wait for those!) I don't think anyone is claiming our results overall are any worse than average, the problem is that we're paying twice as much for it.
AH HA!
NOW we get to the area in which I AM particularly knowledgeable.
IF you think the idea is that we are paying too high a price, the question is, then what is the cause?
Other countries are using monopsony powers to lower prices. Not only that, they threaten to ignore patent protections on drugs in order to lower those prices. As a result, the only place where drug companies can recoup the cost of research is the United States.
Next, we have the government paying for half of our medical care already. Government involved ALWAYS creates inefficiencies: that is the nature of government.
Now, what in the history of government actions makes you think we will get a more efficient product? What makes you think it will be a superior product?
What makes you think we will have MORE doctors when we are lowering their pay?
Lastly: What makes you think there will be any advances in medicine when we remove all reward for those advances?
But hey, so long as you want today's healthcare (just slower) in 50 years, this is GREAT plan.
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Waiting time is one of the areas our system has some advantages in, but it's not like we're clearly "The best in the world" by that metric either (unless you limit it to a specific subset like elective cosmetic surgeries. Heaven forbid we wait for those!) I don't think anyone is claiming our results overall are any worse than average, the problem is that we're paying twice as much for it.
I don't know about you, but if I needed heart surgery I wouldn't want to have to wait 6 weeks to get it. If I needed a joint replacement to continue walking I wouldn't want to have to wait half a year.
At the very least, can we stop pretending that the excessive wait times found in socialist systems are phony anecdotes?
If your gripe is with cost, then that's a different matter entirely. You need to ask yourself why our system is more expensive. Then you need to answer your question correctly.
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One of the reasons our system is "more expensive" may well be that we have far more sophisticated delivery systems, medical technology, and pharms. All that has cost billions upon billions of dollars. Is it "over-priced?" Maybe so, but it also probably wouldn't exist unless there were serious profits to be had by making the effort. Right now we have thousands of biotech companies at work on advanced technology that may or may not pay off, their costs fueled by venture capitalists and ordinary investors who are hoping for a big return. That's the American system and it's produced medical miracles in the last half-century and will produce far greater ones in the future (if it's not destroyed by the Left). Where have most of the great medical advances come from in the last century? We know where. If most of our best minds end up first partnering with, then joining forces with the Chinese, we'll have only ourselves to blame.
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Now, what in the history of government actions makes you think we will get a more efficient product? What makes you think it will be a superior product?
I am not/will not argue that more government in health care will fix the problem, so far I've only been arguing that there is indeed a problem.
At the very least, can we stop pretending that the excessive wait times found in socialist systems are phony anecdotes?
I never claimed these anecdotes were phony, I just said they are of little use. I can come up with plenty of anecdotes that make gun ownership look terrible, but the statistics that show otherwise are much more meaningful. Horror stories are more publicized than success stories and sharing them makes a great emotional appeal but nothing more than that.
One of the reasons our system is "more expensive" may well be that we have far more sophisticated delivery systems, medical technology, and pharms.
Sophisticated is nice, but effective would be better. I wouldn't complain if our high costs gave us the best results. Instead we get average results, on par with the "socialist hell holes" that spend less.
Since we have less government involvement (and therefore we're more efficient, correct?) shouldn't we be spending less for the same results as other countries instead of more?
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Since we have less government involvement (and therefore we're more efficient, correct?) shouldn't we be spending less for the same results as other countries instead of more?
Non sequitor.
Also, it may not be true.
The government is not PAYING for the totality of healthcare. It is making significant requirements of private insurance and its tax policies are seperating the consumer from the price of the service. The government is REGULATING all of healthcare.
I have a simple solution: get the government OUT of healthcare. If you wish to encourage health insurance, make ALL health insurance tax deductible, rather than only that provided by employers. Encourage medical savings accounts.
It's funny how medical procedures like Laser eye surgery have been going down in price because the consumers are responsible for paying those prices.
We ALREADY have examples of what happens when you let the free market work.
Instead, this plan will kill it because what we have now isn't working. Like all socialist plans it complains about the problems cause by too much government and claims the solution is more government. Why don't we look at the states that have already implemented similar plans before we screw over the country?
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Non sequitor.
Also, it may not be true.
The government is not PAYING for the totality of healthcare. It is making significant requirements of private insurance and its tax policies are seperating the consumer from the price of the service. The government is REGULATING all of healthcare.
I'm sorry, I think you lost me. Are you saying we have about the same amount of government involvement/regulation in health care as the other OECD countries?
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I'm sorry, I think you lost me. Are you saying we have about the same amount of government involvement/regulation in health care as the other OECD countries?
If you'll note I said it MAY not be true.
Simply because the government doesn't have total control over healthcare does not mean it is not involved in every aspect of our healthcare- varying levels of government dictate what must be covered by insurance, incentives only for employer-provided insurance, inter alia.
The areas where government is LEAST involved-- lasik and plastic surgery-- are the areas with decreasing prices.
Funny how that works.
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I never claimed these anecdotes were phony, I just said they are of little use. I can come up with plenty of anecdotes that make gun ownership look terrible, but the statistics that show otherwise are much more meaningful. Horror stories are more publicized than success stories and sharing them makes a great emotional appeal but nothing more than that.
Fair enough. I just want to be sure we all recognize that long wait times for major operations is a real problem under socialized health systems, a problem that is missing from our current system.
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Fair enough. I just want to be sure we all recognize that long wait times for major operations is a real problem under socialized health systems, a problem that is missing from our current system.
Genuine question - what about wait times for people without insurance? Say I can't afford the insurance premiums quoted for me, and I get a hernia - what then?
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Genuine question - what about wait times for people without insurance? Say I can't afford the insurance premiums quoted for me, and I get a hernia - what then?
Those don't count. People who can't afford insurance premiums plus out of pocket costs for care are a myth created by the liberals. ;/
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Point one is wrong. As you did not deign to back up your statement with anything, I will not waste me time with rebuttal.
Point two is stupid. There are "orders of magnitude" of difference between COST and PRICE. You and your ilk have confused the two and think that if you lower the price, it's the same as lowering the cost.
That is utter foolishness! Lowering the price without affecting the cost (what socialized medicine does) simply increases demand for services and RAISES the cost. That's why you end up with rationing and denial of services under socialized medicine.
But, it's ok, the proponents of socialized medicine SWEAR that would never happen here.
I'm glad we can rely on the good intentions behind a government program.
'
Mak, point one is covered in the only study that's been posted on this thread. Look at any international comparison on quality of care and results; try to find one that puts the US out front.
Ten times the price compared to other countries is not uncommon for procedures.
Headless, that quote on wait times is so selective that it's obvious you had to search to find a way to cut something that would fit your thesis, not the other way around. The overall conclusion of the report is that the US does not improve on wait times for most procedures; only slightly compared to other countries on elective (ie, non-emergency, non-life threatening issues) surgeries. And for that we pay ten times the price.
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Sorry, the whole notion that we are entitled to something for nothing is an anethema and will destroy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If if a man will not work, he will not eat.
Those friends that I have that are socialistic lefties are always good at talking, but very low on the doing.
A lawyer friend's wife, who is a bleeding heart lefty, asked me if I shouldn't think about giving back some of my social security benefits (which I contributed to for over 50 years, that statist politicians stole) because I
had also set up my own pension and have a company pension as well.
I told her when she opened up her 2nd home on the lake to the homeless, I might think about it.
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All of these great foreign welfare states that purport to offer so much more for so much less are, in fact, slowly but surely UNWINDING their social welfare programs because they are fiscally unsupportable. You can't have one worker paying the health care bills of one other worker any more than you can have that same ratio with retirement costs in general. Meanwhile, Europe is busy trying to "solve" this problem by bringing in as many young potential tax serfs from foreign cultures as possible. Too bad most of those imports end up as tax drains rather than economic pluses. As for the impact on the national heritage, the less said the better.
I think you cannot talk about national health care plans without talking about the underlying cultural agenda that is behind them. We talk around it when we discuss people getting something for nothing; that's only one element of the great transformation that the Left envisions.
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I think you cannot talk about national health care plans without talking about the underlying cultural agenda that is behind them. We talk around it when we discuss people getting something for nothing; that's only one element of the great transformation that the Left envisions.
Yes, yes we know. Genocide, eugenics. But we also are constantly reassured by you that "the time will come", the "frogs" are getting warm and "something" is going to happen.
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I suggest you do a refresher course on history, especially European history, although that may be verboten in Europe by now under the new pan-Euro regime.
If you want to see the future of your continent you might want to look at the Hell's Angels in Denmark. They are at the flashpoint of the whole bloody mess.
"Something" has already happened. If you don't know what it is, I don't think I can help you too much.
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And, by the way, that's a pretty feeble rebuttal to my statement. I think you know the kind of shape Europe's economy is in. America's not the only land in serious trouble. Are you denying that the welfare state model of Europe is crumbling?
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Genuine question - what about wait times for people without insurance? Say I can't afford the insurance premiums quoted for me, and I get a hernia - what then?
Wait times are the same whether you have insurance or not. All the insurance does is reimburse for the costs of the treatment.
Let's not forget what insurance does. Insurance protects you against financial risk. The insurance doesn't provide any medical care, doctors do that. All the insurance does is limit your financial risk should you need costly treatment.
Those don't count. People who can't afford insurance premiums plus out of pocket costs for care are a myth created by the liberals. ;/
Those people surely exist. I was one for a while. I'm still unsympathetic.
If you can't afford insurance then the solution is to work harder, improve your situation, reprioritize your fiances, and so forth. (This assumes that you want some outside help mitigating the fiancial risks, many people do not.) Being poor doesn't justify dumping your health care costs onto everyone else.
And of course, if you are genuinely poor and need medical treatment you'll still get it under our current system. The hospital may come after every last cent you have should you fail to pay them for the services they performed for you. But you'll still get your treatment.
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And of course, if you are genuinely poor and need medical treatment you'll still get it under our current system.
Yes, and you'll get the very same level of treatment as those with the very best insurance...at no cost.
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Yes, and you'll get the very same level of treatment as those with the very best insurance...at no cost.
So I get the same treatment as the super-rich - and I don't have to pay? I get access to the same surgeons, the same follow-ups, the same on-going care? Even though, as far as insurers are concerned, I am a Ferrari Enzo - expensive and a crash is inevitable?
Sounds perfect. - http://www.cnbc.com/id/31099365
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So I get the same treatment as the super-rich - and I don't have to pay? I get access to the same surgeons, the same follow-ups, the same on-going care? Even though, as far as insurers are concerned, I am a Ferrari Enzo - expensive and a crash is inevitable?
Sounds perfect.
You don't have any problem making someone else pay for your care?
:|
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You don't have any problem making someone else pay for your care?
I like breathing.
Pandora's Box got opened a long time ago for most people. For me it is only just being opened, people like me died in childhood until the latter part of the last century. One day they are going to find a way to inject healthy genes into our lungs - and it is going to cost a shedload.
I have no idea of the answers. None. But I ain't dying younger than I have to thanks.
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I like breathing.
Pandora's Box got opened a long time ago for most people. For me it is only just being opened, people like me died in childhood until the latter part of the last century. One day they are going to find a way to inject healthy genes into our lungs - and it is going to cost a shedload.
I have no idea of the answers. None. But I ain't dying younger than I have to thanks.
I'm not asking why you want to live. I'm asking why you think keeping yourself alive should be someone else's cost to bear.
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Well, good thing you don't live here then and may face the prospect of ObamaCare. ObamaCare isn't thrilled with infirm people, especially older infirm people. Expendable, you know. They just get in the way of vibrant young Democratic voters.
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btw - my initial 'sounds perfect' comment was a little sardonic. I find it somewhat unbelievable that everyone gets the same level of care, and that some are not expected to pay. I can believe everyone gets some care, and some are not expected to pay. But I doubt that there aren't at least two tiers of treatment available - am I wrong?
I'm not asking why you want to live. I'm asking why you think keeping yourself alive should be someone else's cost to bear.
I know top rate taxpayers who talk about taxes and the NHS and then qualify it with 'but I'm not talking about you mate'. I am the reality.
There are two kids with the same disease, which can be treated at significant expense. One can pay, and one can't. Is this the most moral of situations? Or even a more moral situation? That's you or your kid, it's emotive sure, but it's also daily reality. I don't know the answers, but I like breathing.
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I find it somewhat unbelievable that everyone gets the same level of care, and that some are not expected to pay.
The ear surgeon who did two surgeries on me works out of Froedert hospital in Milwaukee (the Medical College of Wisconsin). The two surgeries cost over $60,000, of which $24,000 was for the surgeon's fees. He's nationally renowned.
When I went to his office, there were plenty of people there who obviously didn't have any money, but were there nonetheless.
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when i had my detached retina worked on i was gonna use a local doctor a client whose home i was working on was insistent i use his guy. so he drove me to the wilner eye clinic at johns hopkins. got my stuff done. wonder of wonder my insurance was taken there i paid the same 10 bucks there as at home and even better one of the associates there does twice a month road trips to my home town so after first trip i got treated close to home
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There are two kids with the same disease, which can be treated at significant expense. One can pay, and one can't. Is this the most moral of situations? Or even a more moral situation? That's you or your kid, it's emotive sure, but it's also daily reality. I don't know the answers, but I like breathing.
It would seem rather obvious that if you need lots of expensive medical care to keep breathing, the thing to do would be to work your posterior off so that you can afford the care you need. Work every waking moment if that's what it takes, don't spend a penny you don't have to spend, devote your life literally to saving your life. If this is what it takes to preserve your life, then there should be nothing more important than that.
I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly makes an effort to earn a real income, and who places their health care as a high priority in their finances, would be unable to afford a decent high deductible health insurance plan to cover major medical emergencies.
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It would seem rather obvious that if you need lots of expensive medical care to keep breathing, the thing to do would be to work your posterior off so that you can afford the care you need. Work every waking moment if that's what it takes, don't spend a penny you don't have to spend, devote your life literally to saving your life. If this is what it takes to preserve your life, then there should be nothing more important than that.
I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly makes an effort to earn a real income, and who places their health care as a high priority in their finances, would be unable to afford a decent high deductible health insurance plan to cover major medical emergencies.
I find this astounding. You really think this is the answer?
Next time I chat to some of my fellow sufferers online I'll tell the 21 year olds with 25% lung function and diabetes, on liver and lung transplant waiting lists, constant IV antibiotics, ports, PEG feeding and the rest that they really should go get a job and earn a "real income" despite the fact that most of them were lucky to stay in school until 16, let alone pick up any qualifications.
They sound real employable, no qualifications after 16, lots of time off sick. Hire me a dozen and I'll pay them enough to live on and cover their enormous medical expenses.
I don't think you have a clue.
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In other words, people that are eligible for medicare/medicaid/ssi but are to good for it? obama's screwup won't help them one bit, just give 'em morphine till they die and move on. =|
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eh.
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Yeah, there's one other bug (besides the obvious one Iain nailed) in this "work hard" theory: if you need to buy your own insurance for a special problem, it is guaranteed not to be covered, because the insurance company will underwrite out coverage for everything you're known to need care for.
That leaves you working to pay the full prices of care, which in America are too high for 99 percent of the population to handle. The prices for major care of the sort Iain described are high enough that anything short of double-digit millions in cash is easy to exhaust.
The line about poor people getting free care is not accurate. Hospitals only have to give emergency care; once they stabilize you enough to have answered the acute issues that led to presentation, they can discharge you and refuse to offer any other care (and they do.) So, for example, a long term condition that destroys the major organs of your body would not be covered by a hospital until organ failure led to an emergency....before that point, you either find a charity (those don't cover everyone) or try to pay (impossible for everyone who doesn't have the money of a Saudi prince.)
That's not exactly "the exact same care" a millionaire gets.
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IMHO, it's one thing if they're not healthy enough to get a real job or somehow foot at least part of their health care costs, and honestly want to contribute.
If they feel somehow they're entitled to such social handouts by virtue of them simply drawing breath, then they're not much above whale excrement in the general hierarchy of thing.
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The line about poor people getting free care is not accurate. Hospitals only have to give emergency care; once they stabilize you enough to have answered the acute issues that led to presentation, they can discharge you and refuse to offer any other care (and they do.) So, for example, a long term condition that destroys the major organs of your body would not be covered by a hospital until organ failure led to an emergency....before that point, you either find a charity (those don't cover everyone) or try to pay (impossible for everyone who doesn't have the money of a Saudi prince.)
That's not exactly "the exact same care" a millionaire gets.
They can?
http://news.aol.com/article/hospital-deports-patient/584523
Seems to me this hospital wasn't allowed to discharge him without a court order. AND is now getting sued for discharging him.
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I find this astounding. You really think this is the answer?
Next time I chat to some of my fellow sufferers online I'll tell the 21 year olds with 25% lung function and diabetes, on liver and lung transplant waiting lists, constant IV antibiotics, ports, PEG feeding and the rest that they really should go get a job and earn a "real income" despite the fact that most of them were lucky to stay in school until 16, let alone pick up any qualifications.
They sound real employable, no qualifications after 16, lots of time off sick. Hire me a dozen and I'll pay them enough to live on and cover their enormous medical expenses.
I don't think you have a clue.
I don't know how society got it in mind that everyone is entitled to a long, healthy, carefree life, and if the don't get it the government wave a magic wand and make it happen, but it's a myth. Sometimes life just sucks. Any attempt by government to circumvent this reality is bound to fail in the long run. The notion that government can out-tax and out-spend everyone's problems is just plain stupid.
I'm sorry you got dealt a bad hand in life, Iain, but such is life. We all have our problems and difficulties to overcome. You're no different in that regard. The best solution is to get government out of our way so that we each have the best chance to solve our own problems.
Taking my money from me (or from your fellow citizens) so that you can have your lung treatment may help you, but it comes at the cost of the rest of us not being able to take care of our own problems. It simply isn't right. Saying you did it because you wanted to live doesn't change things. The resources you took from us may well be the resources we need to keep ourselves alive.
What makes you think you're more important, or more worthy, or more deserving of the chance to live? What gives you the right to diminish anyone else's life or livelihood to elevate yours?
And then you have the nerve to say that I don't have a clue for not wanting to play along with this scourge? :mad:
So now we get to the root of the matter. You think it's OK to take our livelihoods from us to preserve your life. If that's right, then it's equally right for the rest of us to tell you to FOAD in order to preserve our lives, or even take your livelihood away from you to benefit ourselves. Nay?
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Yes, yes, yes. Heard it all before, and it's why I don't get involved in this debate much. I'm a dirty thief, and libertarian principles are far more important than life. It's a lovely theory you have, right up there with communism, and it works just like communism - brilliantly until the real world gets involved. Then you amusingly resort to overblown self-righteous rhetoric.
"The best solution is to get government out of our way so that we each have the best chance to solve our own problems." - great. Except for the simple fact as pointed out by SS, that some medical conditions are absolutely not solveable by persons with ordinary financial means.
So you're talking about closing Pandora's box. Your present medical set-up doesn't do that. Your idealism might think that expensive medicine is some sort of 'bread and circuses' for the foolish masses, but it is life. It is not dying of stupid, preventable stuff. That simply isn't right (two can play that game)
The actual medical system in the US, where people are paying daily for each other anyway, doesn't sound terrible when contrasted with your ideal.
Get the thorough genetic testing that was not available to my parents, and have your kids young to avoid Downs*. Even then you're taking a crapshoot, one that might just give you a clue, but I genuinely hope you aren't that unlucky. So save me your little angry face.
*oh btw - what do you think would happen to the abortion rates in your world?
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I'm afraid you misunderstand completely.
You seem to understand how money is life when it comes to the money you need to save yourself from whatever fate you lung problem implies. Somehow you fail to see how money is life to the rest of us, too. Our money represents the hours of our lives we've spent working, so that we can have the things we need to stay alive. It represents the things we need now, or will need in the future, to fight off our own medical problems, and to provide for all of the other needs in our daily lives.
Money is life in a very real way. You acknowledge that fact when you take our money to save your life, acknowledge it in action if not in word. What you fail to recognize is that we deserve life as much as you do. By taking it from us you are literally diminishing our lives to elevate yours. Even if you have no moral problem with that, we might.
That brings us to the basic question of who deserves life/money more, you or me? If you claim the right to take my money and/or my life, then I'll claim the right to A) not let you, even if that means you dying, and B) take yours from you just as you're trying to do to me. You don't get to harm me and claim the moral high ground for doing so.
As for costly treatments, that's why so many of us work hard to buy insurance, so that if we ever need a treatment that would be financially ruinous, we may get that treatment and not be ruined. There's no need to take from anyone to get proper medical treatment, even the expensive stuff.
Of course, if there are folks like you taking our money from us at every turn, it tends to limit our ability to acquire the insurance coverage (among other things) we need to stay alive. See how that works? Give me a good reason why we should put up with it.
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ever read jack londons seawolf?
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Give me a good reason why we should put up with it.
You shouldn't. Make sure you never take more from the insurance company than you paid in.
Or would that be acceptable because it is a company and they took that risk when they took you on? They'll ration your care when you get costly too. I pay into a National Insurance scheme, but that's administered by the government, so yeah, evil. I don't think this way is necessarily the better way, but it does seem to take better care of the minority like me.
You haven't begun to address the issue of putting things back in Pandora's Box. It can't be done. Modern medicine works wonders, so even if we dash the sickly newborns against the rocks, a number of people are going to get things they can't afford to treat. Better that we have never learned how to treat cancer than we withdraw all those treatments from the many who cannot afford to pay the real costs of medicine. So it'll never be done.
You have to learn how to deal with that imperfect world. It's ugly and messy, and that's life. I was born with some genetic disease, and you acquired an unrealistic idea of how things should work. It's tough for both of us, and I'll never get all the treatments that I perhaps need, and you'll never be comfortable with the modern world.
In your system you pay for others all the time, your costs reflect this because even big business healthcare recognises how wrong it is to not treat the treatable. Is there a better way of doing it? I don't know, but it isn't the end of the world and the death of freedom when someone suggests that there might be. Is the Obama plan a good idea? Possibly not, but he'll closer to the mark than you are.
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When you choose to buy insurance, you pay for the risk that you yourself represent, which is as it should be. Not so for compulsive government wealth-redistribution schemes. You pay whatever the government says without any say or choice in the matter. You get back whatever the government is willing to give you, even if that's not enough.
As for Pandora's Box, that's not my problem to solve any more than it is yours. It is certainly true that science now knows how to perform treatments that are so expensive, so resource-intensive, that we cannot afford them.
What should we do about this? I proposed that working harder (producing more resources) was a good way to increase our access to pricey treatments. I still stand by that. But you rejected that idea for some reason.
I'm not sure there are any other viable solutions. Scarcity is a bitch, innit? Resources must come from somewhere, they must be produced. Government can promise to give you resources, but it cannot do anything to make the resources exist. All government can do is take existing resources from one place and move them to another. If there aren't enough resources to go around there's simply nothing anyone can do (aside from producing more).
You seem to see this situation as some sort of great evil. I'm not sure why. Knowing how to treat illnesses doesn't strike me as a problem ever, even if we can't necessarily afford all of the treatments right now.
I'm glad so many wonderful treatments are known, even if I don't have the direct means to purchase all of them. The fact that I cannot afford all of them is simply motivation to increase my means, and thereby elevate my life. Access to better medicine is a fair reward for producing more resources than we consume.
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What should we do about this? I proposed that working harder (producing more resources) was a good way to increase our access to pricey treatments. I still stand by that. But you rejected that idea for some reason.
Can you read? I'm serious, because if you can, then you can't comprehend.
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We've been making a concerted effort to give this board alot more leeway. Keep it civil or the gloves come back off..
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Can you read? I'm serious, because if you can, then you can't comprehend.
???
Do you not understand how as more resources are produced, more resources are available for use in medical treatments?
The solution to the problem of scarce resources is to either produce more resources, or to use less resources. Nothing else is viable.
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I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly makes an effort to earn a real income, and who places their health care as a high priority in their finances, would be unable to afford a decent high deductible health insurance plan to cover major medical emergencies.
how many insurance policies have you bought? i mean you bought personally not ones that were a part of a social welfare program offered by an employer.
is it possible you over look those folks who can't work as a result of their illness? it might not be a large enough number of folks to be important.... unless you end up one of them or a family member does. then your perspective might change
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When you choose to buy insurance, you pay for the risk that you yourself represent, which is as it should be.
my understanding is that insurance is based on shared risk, so aren't you also paying for the risk everyone else in yur plan represents?
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This is to be my last contribution in order to respect JJ's post.
HTG - meet 27 year old Jessica from Canada:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg339.imageshack.us%2Fimg339%2F2250%2F86671352.jpg&hash=50ce791af3607a77691955f0d0441086b282f154)
Get a job Jessica. Oh wait, she's dead. (http://www.mervsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/02/days-after-marrying-her-sweetheart.html)
That is what you are not comprehending. Your ideal world does not begin to deal with Jessica and the needs she had.
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This is to be my last contribution in order to respect JJ's post.
HTG - meet 27 year old Jessica from Canada:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg339.imageshack.us%2Fimg339%2F2250%2F86671352.jpg&hash=50ce791af3607a77691955f0d0441086b282f154)
Get a job Jessica. Oh wait, she's dead. (http://www.mervsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/02/days-after-marrying-her-sweetheart.html)
That is what you are not comprehending. Your ideal world does not begin to deal with Jessica and the needs she had.
You can post all the emotional baggage you want. Fact remains that resources are not unlimited. This is not my fault, I'm merely the calling your attention to the fact. So don't blame it on me, or accuse me of not comprehending.
Scare resources are scarce. Either produce more, or use less. Unless we count the Star Trek replicator thingie, there aren't any other options.
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Ok, so I lied. Or I'm being misunderstood and want to clear it up.
I've never denied that resources are scarce. Earlier I stated outright that there is rationing in the NHS. In a world where it is immoral that anyone is paid for at all by another then Jessica is ignored. You are not drawing my attention to the scarcity of resources alone, I know they are scarce, you are drawing my attention to the fact that in your ideal world Jessica and others like her are not accounted for.
You think you are accounting for them, but that is where your lack of comprehension comes in, and it is down to your apparent lack of appreciation for the impact that serious illness has, especially on the ability to work, or as you put it, produce resources.
It's my baggage yeah, but it's a lot of peoples baggage. And it is reality, we live or die by the ideas that dominate healthcare, some younger than others.
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I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly makes an effort to earn a real income, and who places their health care as a high priority in their finances, would be unable to afford a decent high deductible health insurance plan to cover major medical emergencies.
how many insurance policies have you bought? i mean you bought personally not ones that were a part of a social welfare program offered by an employer.
is it possible you over look those folks who can't work as a result of their illness? it might not be a large enough number of folks to be important.... unless you end up one of them or a family member does. then your perspective might change
Three. All were high deductible plans, which was all I could afford since I was only making about 15 or 20 grand a year, but they were enough to buy the best treatment in the world if I needed it.
I also bought a disability plan to protect against the possibility that I wouldn't be able to work.
And oh yeah, I also save money for a rainy day.
Believe it or not, it is possible for reasonable people to take care of themselves. It's expensive, and it's difficult, and it requires you to give up some of the luxuries we all want. It's just plain no fun. But that's what responsible people do.
When you choose to buy insurance, you pay for the risk that you yourself represent, which is as it should be.
my understanding is that insurance is based on shared risk, so aren't you also paying for the risk everyone else in yur plan represents?
Eh, I suppose this is a matter of semantics. It depends upon what you mean by paying for everyone else's risks. The premiums you pay will almost certainly will go to pay for someone else's care, so in that sense you are paying for their risk, too. On the other hand, you're not obligated to pay their costs no matter what they happen to be, so in that sense you're not at risk for their expenses.
You pay premiums in exchange for having the insurance company assume you risk. It isn't risk sharing in a strict sense, it's risk transferal.
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but they were enough to buy the best treatment in the world if I needed it.
we paid for what i call middle high class treatment for my mom the bills were well over 7 figures probably 10 percent or so not covered experimental treatment/overseas treatment and she died in 81.
and heres some stuff on shared risk
http://www.canyon-news.com/artman2/publish/Labor_Week_1134/article_4337.php
http://www.voices.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=22806&articleId=6286
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It isn't risk sharing in a strict sense, it's risk transferal.
so isn't it still someone else paying your bills? in amounts in excess of what you paid in? aren't you opposed to that?
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Ok, so I lied. Or I'm being misunderstood and want to clear it up.
I've never denied that resources are scarce. Earlier I stated outright that there is rationing in the NHS. In a world where it is immoral that anyone is paid for at all by another then Jessica is ignored. You are not drawing my attention to the scarcity of resources alone, I know they are scarce, you are drawing my attention to the fact that in your ideal world Jessica and others like her are not accounted for.
You think you are accounting for them, but that is where your lack of comprehension comes in, and it is down to your apparent lack of appreciation for the impact that serious illness has, especially on the ability to work, or as you put it, produce resources.
It's my baggage yeah, but it's a lot of peoples baggage. And it is reality, we live or die by the ideas that dominate healthcare, some younger than others.
Look, I'm sorry that people die of diseases, Iain. I really am. I nearly died of a childhood disease myself. I've watched good friends pass away. Illness and disease is not some rare event that only you are capable of understanding.
I read some of the story about Jessica. I'm not sure what relevance she has to the discussion of resources. She died of cystic fibrosis, which has no cure at any price. It's a sad story, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.
You speak of your Pandora's Box, about the fact that there are known cures and treatments which are more expensive than can be provided for everyone. You asked me what the solution was. As I've said, the only solution to limited resources is to produce more or use less. We can't wish more doctors into the world, or more hopsital beds, or create cures out of thin air. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
People die, Iain. It's a fact of life, inevitable for all of us. For some people it comes sooner than for others. It's not fair. Sometimes we can do things to help someone live longer. Sometimes we can't. That's not fair either, but that's life
What do you want me to say? Do you want me to pretend that there's a solution when there isn't one? Want me to sing Kumbayah with you around the fire while we all pretend that there is nothing bad or unfortunate in the world? Want me to act as though government has a magic wand that can right all wrongs and make all of the scary realities go away? Want me to act like all we need to do is believe harder, or hope more, or something like that?
Want me to post a bunch of sob stories of Brits dying under NHS? Would that inform the discussion any?
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Sometimes life just sucks.
Repeated for truth.
Just this past month, I've stacked up $4.2k in medical bills I have no way to pay. I may or may not get to keep the lights on for next month.
I'm still against government run healthcare.
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It isn't risk sharing in a strict sense, it's risk transferal.
so isn't it still someone else paying your bills? in amounts in excess of what you paid in? aren't you opposed to that?
In most cases you pay far more into insurance than you get out. It's rare that any one person gets more from an insurance plan than they pay in, else the system doesn't work.
That's the root of the health care "problem" in the United States. Everyone wants to get more out of their health insurance plan than they put in, and to some extent they succeed. Then they get indignant when the insurance company has to increase the premiums.
Apparently it's a national crisis that you can't get more care (and more expensive care) without paying more for it one way or another.
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Here's my question:
It seems some people think that either the government pays for people with very expensive care for which they could not pay themselves or we let them die.
As one person noted, we have insurance for some people.
Another option we have is CHARITY. Just because we think the government should not be forcibly taking money from one person in order to care for another does not mean we want those who suffer to just die and leave us alone.
I would much prefer if people who could not pay for themselves ("sob stories") went to a charitable organization.
It's also generally far more compassionate than the government system AND it still encourages innovation.
But, why take the chance that someone might not want to help you when you can force them to do so at the point of a gun.
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Another option we have is CHARITY. Just because we think the government should not be forcibly taking money from one person in order to care for another does not mean we want those who suffer to just die and leave us alone.
I would much prefer if people who could not pay for themselves ("sob stories") went to a charitable organization.
I'm much more inclined to donate to charity, and doubly so if the government isn't holding a gun to my head. Unfortunately, because the government is busy mugging me, I have little to contribute voluntarily.
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as i said before, if you don't have insurance you sit down BEFORE treatment. and lay out your financial status, and the hospital lowers the bill(they are forced to do it this way by the gooberment) and work out a no interest payment plan, as little as 5 bucks a month. If your to good or lazy for that, to D... bad. =|
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I'm sorry, I think you lost me. Are you saying we have about the same amount of government involvement/regulation in health care as the other OECD countries?
I.E. "too much"? =D
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Ok, so I was over tired last night. What I ended up arguing was a more extreme version of what I was trying to say, perhaps we get more extreme in the face of what we regard as extremism, who knows. Anyway, it did point up the extremes of the debate. One is that healthcare is purely a financial proposition, the other is that healthcare is purely a humanitarian proposition.
Of course the reality lies somewhere in the middle, resources are not finite and people do die. By discussing Pandora's Box (which was bizarrely interpreted as regret over medical advances) I'm suggesting that, rightly or wrongly, the public are never going to accept healthcare as a purely financial matter. You can tell them that you will tax them less and they will cheer, tell them that there is a human cost they will stop cheering, tell them that their aunt, uncle, friend or they are the faces of that human cost and they will revolt. And everyone knows a Jessica.
The public want it both ways - to pay less and to get more. Yes it's never going to happen, but it is human nature. I'm regularly told that liberal ideas ignore human nature, I can't see the position being put forward here as being any different. You're trying to win a philosophical debate with people who in the end don't want to see their friends and family struggle to afford treatment. It's the same as the welfare debate that in essence ended a long time ago - people might rant about welfare and how much it costs, but they also don't want kids starving either. Welfare and public funding of healthcare aren't going anywhere; their form changes, their popularity waxes and wanes, but you are stuck with them.
Until something drastic and radical happens, which none of us should want because the human cost would be astronomical. Measured, realistic efforts at reform should be aiming to avoid that. Politicians recognise that, they are the people in power. Interpret their negotiations as compromise and weakness, but you are then guilty of the same thing those angry at Obama for failing to deliver are - failure to realise that the world looks different from DC, Whitehall etc. With some good reasons and one is that things are actually way more complicated than Obama supporters and guys on internet messageboards discussing healthcare want them to be.
Now the charity thing - sounds interesting. Unfortunately I regard the statement 'if I paid less tax I would give more to charity' as being very similar to the statement 'if I had more free time I'd go to the gym more' - true of some people, but a statement that sounds suspiciously like wishful thinking. Hard figures would be good though as I'd like to be wrong.
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Iain, you raise an interesting point. The idea that people are entitled to medicine and food as birthrights did not "arise" in the 20th century. It is the norm throughout human cultures for most of recorded history. I don't know of a pre-industrial culture that wrote anything and didn't adopt, in some form or another, "feed the hungry" and "care for the sick" laws.
It is this idea that people are not entitled to medicine, and that society and individuals are under no obligation to provide for others that is new to humanity. That idea can be traced directly to social darwinism, and it came as a package with eugenics laws. Civilized countries have mainly discarded the eugenics element, but many maintain the social darwinists' rejection of the traditional norms on hunger and sickness.
The idea that people are not entitled to anything by virtue of birth is a recent experiment in human history. I think it will be interesting to see whether in our culture, the biblical values that persisted for so long ultimately prevail, or whether the atheism of the social darwinists and positivists manages to supplant those deeply ingrained traditions.
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I think it will be interesting to see whether in our culture, the biblical values that persisted for so long ultimately prevail, or whether the atheism of the social darwinists and positivists manages to supplant those deeply ingrained traditions.
I think that biblical values in our culture are still intact, and the main problem is that this culture is unhappy with the .gov for its pillaging and misuse of our money for its medical care schemes.
I've read that charitable giving goes up whenever the .gov relinquishes its grasps on our finances, so to me this speaks of a continuing desire to help others, only without too much .gov interference.
You've given me some things to think about. =)
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Iain, you raise an interesting point. The idea that people are entitled to medicine and food as birthrights did not "arise" in the 20th century. It is the norm throughout human cultures for most of recorded history. I don't know of a pre-industrial culture that wrote anything and didn't adopt, in some form or another, "feed the hungry" and "care for the sick" laws.
It is this idea that people are not entitled to medicine, and that society and individuals are under no obligation to provide for others that is new to humanity. That idea can be traced directly to social darwinism, and it came as a package with eugenics laws. Civilized countries have mainly discarded the eugenics element, but many maintain the social darwinists' rejection of the traditional norms on hunger and sickness.
The idea that people are not entitled to anything by virtue of birth is a recent experiment in human history. I think it will be interesting to see whether in our culture, the biblical values that persisted for so long ultimately prevail, or whether the atheism of the social darwinists and positivists manages to supplant those deeply ingrained traditions.
The idea that people are entiteld to something by "birth" goes hand in hand with the worship of DNA, on the contrary, and the universality of tribalism as the ruling principle in most places until The Enlightenment. The idea that modern ideas of generosity, much less entitlement, extended far beyond one's own bloodline--except for the idea of hospitality to strangers, practiced here and there--is, well, ultra-romantic. People helped "their own," and that was a tight circle indeed.
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The IBD editorial is pure bs panic-mongering.
Uh, no.
At only 500+ words, it is not going to examine in detail the exact gov't and market machinations and include citations to a baker's dozen scholarly journals that support IBD's contentions. But, it pretty much nailed both the letter and the spirit of that provision.
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If you love me, keep my commandments: To care for the widows and orphans, and to keep yourself unspotted from the world.
Parallel:
What is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love thy neighbor as thyself.
The part about not caring for widows and orphans is a thread found all through the prophecies about judgment in the OT. In many cases the religious and political leaders are prophecied against for not caring for the helpless.
But don't confuse that with Welfare.
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There is a distinct line between feeding those who CAN NOT feed themselves and those who WILL NOT.
There is a moral obligation to the former but not the later. Knowing this, the latter usually tries to pawn themselves off as the former.
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It is indeed a long tradition that the poor and needy are cared for, and that everyone has to be provided for by their rulers. Feudalism was so great, I'm glad to see it's still being defended. I agree, birthright slavery is a small price to pay for .gov provided food!
In any case, Iain makes the annoyingly true point that people are unlikely to let the logic of finite resources overrule emotionalism. Who was it that said democracies last until the voters realize they can use .gov as their own private bully to shake down the successful?
I'd also like to remind everyone that we already have socialized medicine, and it and illegal aliens are the root cause of most of the problem beings used to advance the expansion of socialized medicine.
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First health "reform," then wealth "reform." All in the name of state control. Health care and "cap & trade" have one real aim: to tell you, down to the last detail and last breath, how to live and, worse, whether you can live. I said a week ago it was about the unholy triad of euthanasia, eugenics, and genocide. I'll stand on that, radical as it sounds. The agenda here is nothing less.
Helping the weak and the needy is a good thing, but not at the price of destroying the strong and productive.
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Being unable to prevent her nomination is one thing....actually voting FOR her nomination is reprehensible and beneath contempt....something I will be notifying my senators about...esp. the one deluded enough to believe she'll ever be governor...
Sounds like our very own squish, Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
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If you are sick or at risk of serious illness and possess an amount under the millions in cash, the odds are that the United States is absolutely the worst place in the developed world that you could be.
Oh, yeah, which is why we have American citizens 8.75 months pregnant illegally crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico to have their kids in Mexican hospitals...
Where I'm at now, even completely avoiding the government health system, I can see a doctor for about $35 USD. If I need medicine, it generally costs about $15 USD. Those are the prices I have to pay for not having access to the socialist medical system, which delivers equivalent service using general fund money.
$35+$15=$50
Locally, there are cash-only docs that charge $50/visit and will prescribe one of a panoply of various treatments from least to most expensive, depending on patient choice and willingness to pay. The least usually being the $4 Wal-mart Rx.
$50+$4=$54
Note: that $54 includes the hit Americans have to take in the face due to gov'ts like Australia insisting American drug companies sell them drugs at or below cost. So, Bibagpharma Corp has to make all its money on the US consumer.
2. Health care cost is several orders of magnitude higher than anywhere else for the same or lower-quality services.
Yeah, others have clubbed you over the head for this one, but the mendacity shown in the quote deserves drubbings, early & often.
US health care spending per capita in 2004, according to your preferred data source: $6102
Several indicates two or more. WRT orders of magnitude, that works out to be a factor of 100, at minimum, or $61.02. The lowest health care spending per capita in 2004 included in your preferred data set is Turkey's $580. Anyone reading this want to forego care in the USA for care in Turkey?
Anywhere else indicates all places on Earth save the USA. Well, the very next entry under "United States" is Luxemboug ($5089), which clearly qualifies as elsewhere.
Meh, I was going to further comment, but I will not waste any more keystrokes on a blatant source of disinformation.
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So I get the same treatment as the super-rich - and I don't have to pay? I get access to the same surgeons, the same follow-ups, the same on-going care? Even though, as far as insurers are concerned, I am a Ferrari Enzo - expensive and a crash is inevitable?
Sounds perfect. - http://www.cnbc.com/id/31099365
Many times, yes. It helps to be an illegal alien.
Get shot, in a traumatic auto accident, or some such in Dallas county and the lowliest illegal alien gangbanger gets the same world-beating, life-saving trauma care as a multi-millionaire at Parkland or Baylor.
Nobody expects the wet to pay for his care. The millionaire can pay outta pocket, if he so desires. Middle class best have insurance or they will be hounded to the ends of the Earth.
'Bout the same for any major metro area in the USA.
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I find it hard to believe that anyone who truly makes an effort to earn a real income, and who places their health care as a high priority in their finances, would be unable to afford a decent high deductible health insurance plan to cover major medical emergencies.
how many insurance policies have you bought? i mean you bought personally not ones that were a part of a social welfare program offered by an employer.
is it possible you over look those folks who can't work as a result of their illness? it might not be a large enough number of folks to be important.... unless you end up one of them or a family member does. then your perspective might change
I bought a large deductible "catastrophic" policy to cover me between jobs a few years back. Essentially, if I would have been crunched by a bus and had millions in medical bills, I would have owed ~$10,000, counting deductible and my portion of the med bills before the cap.
Not really a bad deal. I was healthy at the time, but I thought the policy as a rational form of risk mitigation.
All incidental med bills were out of pocket & went against the large deductible.
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Of course the reality lies somewhere in the middle, resources are not finite and people do die. By discussing Pandora's Box (which was bizarrely interpreted as regret over medical advances) I'm suggesting that, rightly or wrongly, the public are never going to accept healthcare as a purely financial matter. You can tell them that you will tax them less and they will cheer, tell them that there is a human cost they will stop cheering, tell them that their aunt, uncle, friend or they are the faces of that human cost and they will revolt. And everyone knows a Jessica.
The electorate can demand limitless health care all they want. It simply cannot exist. The electorate may as well demand the moon turn purple, for all the good it will do them.
You Pandora's Box idea is the root of the problem. We now know lots of miraculous new treatments, but we don't have the wealth to provide them for everyone who might want them. It isn't a matter of caring enough, or wanting it enough, or being willing to make enough sacrifices, or having the right government program, or anything else. These treatments simply require far more resources than we can possibly deliver.
We also know how to fly men to the moon and back, but that doesn't mean we can afford to give everyone a lunar vacation.
We know how to build enormous skyscrapers, but that doesn't mean we can afford to build one for everyone to live in all by themselves.
Obviously none of this stops people from trying to vote themselves these treatments. There will always be a golden-tongued demagogue promising to hand over that which does not exist in exchange for being elected into office. It's up to us to recognize that a politician can promise to give us anything we want, but he cannot make those things exist to be given.
I know you don't like to hear it, but the problem is insufficient resources to cover all of our desires and the only viable long-term solution is to produce more resources. Historically, it's clear that the best way to maximize a nation's resources is to allow the free market to work its magic. Socialized medicine is a giant leap in the wrong direction.
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I bought a large deductible "catastrophic" policy to cover me between jobs a few years back. Essentially, if I would have been crunched by a bus and had millions in medical bills, I would have owed ~$10,000, counting deductible and my portion of the med bills before the cap.
Not really a bad deal. I was healthy at the time, but I thought the policy as a rational form of risk mitigation.
All incidental med bills were out of pocket & went against the large deductible.
I've purchased high deductible plans in the past, and that's what I have now. I like them. They provide the coverage I need at an attractive price. In fact, for many years this kind of plan was the only thing I could afford.
I also like have a Health Savings Account, which let's me save my money, tax free, to use however I see fit to advance my health. Any doctor I want, any treatment I want, any time I want, so long as I'm willing to pay for it myself.
Naturally Obama's health care "reforms" will outlaw high deductible plans and HSAs, and force everyone into overpriced one-size-fits-all government-approved insurance plans. :mad:
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Sounds like our very own squish, Kay Bailey Hutchinson.
Your squish detector is spot on, jf.....but it could also apply to the junior squish who'll be eyeing the gov's seat if she loses....
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Great article from Fortune on the new health care "reform" bills.
5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform (http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009072410)
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
Someone tell me again how government health care is supposed to save us money.
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This is to be my last contribution in order to respect JJ's post.
HTG - meet 27 year old Jessica from Canada:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg339.imageshack.us%2Fimg339%2F2250%2F86671352.jpg&hash=50ce791af3607a77691955f0d0441086b282f154)
Get a job Jessica. Oh wait, she's dead. (http://www.mervsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/02/days-after-marrying-her-sweetheart.html)
That is what you are not comprehending. Your ideal world does not begin to deal with Jessica and the needs she had.
Insisting that people pay their own way, for the most part, and ruling the use of violence to extort money from A to give to B out of bounds / illegal / immoral is not an ideal world, just the very beginning steps of a civilized one.
In the real world, needs & wants are infinite, while resources are finite. In Jessica's case, clearly Canada's splendiferous health care system was unable to provide for her needs, the primary one being a cure / efficacious treatment for CF.
Does anyone really think that that need (cure for CF) will be more likely met in the future in a less-free health care market rather than a more-free health care market? We have seen the once-frequent Euro pharmaceutical innovations dry up to a trickle. Should we expect any different after oing to the USA what has been done to Europe?
Now the charity thing - sounds interesting. Unfortunately I regard the statement 'if I paid less tax I would give more to charity' as being very similar to the statement 'if I had more free time I'd go to the gym more' - true of some people, but a statement that sounds suspiciously like wishful thinking. Hard figures would be good though as I'd like to be wrong.
Faith in apparatchiks, but not your neighbors, churches, or other local charitable orgs? How Progressive of you.
"Wishful thinking" is thinking the gov't will care for one after one's use to gov't has ended. Previous Progressive implementations have shown us what happens to "useless bread gobblers" when the Progressives get the power to make life & death decisions. OTOH, charitable organizations have traditionally been much better in every regard: efficiency, outcomes, humanitarian motivation, etc.
There used to exist a network of fraternal organizations (like theses guys: http://www.shrinershq.org/Hospitals/Main/), most of which were crowded out by gov't over the decades.
They were voluntary, charitable organizations whose membership declined as gov't took more of their members' incomes.
Other charities are actively pushed out by gov't regulation and regulators.
It is reasonable to assert that if those tax burdens were lessened that charitable giving would increase.
Welfare and public funding of healthcare aren't going anywhere; their form changes, their popularity waxes and wanes, but you are stuck with them.
Until something drastic and radical happens...
Well, when economies crater in a Wiemar-esque* fashion or the civilization comes apart at the seams a la the Ottoman Empire or Visigothic Spain**, formerly viable gov't functions do go somewhere: the dustbin.
Welfare & taxpayer-funded health care increase the likelihood of such "drastic" outcomes.
* Pick your economic collapse model: Wiemar, Argentina, Zimbabwe, etc....
** Again, there are numerous examples & models that show that the only thing more persistent than a gov't program is gov't collapse after internal decay.
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There are some of us who are close enough to the age where we'd be rationed to death that there's simply no way government-run health care will ever be acceptable.
The federal government has yet to prove it can successfully run a large social program. Its two flagship programs--Social Security and Medicare--are near-insolvent disasters. Why should we expect any less from nationalized health care?
If this was as good as its supporters say it is, they would have no problem with the public knowing the details. The fact that Obama is pushing to have this passed as soon as possible--when even he doesn't know what's in it--speaks volumes about the intentions of the bill's backers.
This isn't New Zealand, a country with a population smaller than Wisconsin.
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There are some of us who are close enough to the age where we'd be rationed to death that there's simply no way government-run health care will ever be acceptable.
The federal government has yet to prove it can successfully run a large social program. Its two flagship programs--Social Security and Medicare--are near-insolvent disasters. Why should we expect any less from nationalized health care?
If this was as good as its supporters say it is, they would have no problem with the public knowing the details. The fact that Obama is pushing to have this passed as soon as possible--when even he doesn't know what's in it--speaks volumes about the intentions of the bill's backers.
This isn't New Zealand, a country with a population smaller than Wisconsin.
Quoted for extreme truthiness.
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Government health care now covering abortion. This is going to be comedic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion)
WASHINGTON – Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.
Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the health of the mother. Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan.
Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange.
Advocates on both sides are preparing for a renewed battle over abortion, which could jeopardize political support for President Barack Obama's health care initiative aimed at covering nearly 50 million uninsured and restraining medical costs. The dispute could come to a head with House and Senate floor votes on abortion this fall, a prospect that many lawmakers would like to avoid.
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Government health care now covering abortion. This is going to be comedic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion)
Ahhhhhhhh.... the Democrats just can't help themselves. I'm now fairly certain their ineptitude will save us from this debacle, at least for this year.
Keep shooting yourselves in the foot, please!
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Ahhhhhhhh.... the Democrats just can't help themselves. I'm now fairly certain their ineptitude will save us from this debacle, at least for this year.
Keep shooting yourselves in the foot, please!
But, wait, it gets better! Facts are stubborn things...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/
Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."
Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.
For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
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But, wait, it gets better! Facts are stubborn things...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/
I'm DYING here! They're quite right, facts are stubborn things.
It's a shame for them that people are aware of what they plan to do. "BUT BUT BUT BUT, we didn't put that in the BILL! (We didn't right? Oh, crap, we did?) Ok, well, yes, that's in there, but that's not what it means, we just want to make sure people know their options."
Misinformation only works for a short time. Once people know you are a liar, it's over for you.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
Obama, your time of duping the American public is FAST coming to an end.
I'm feeling quite optimistic today.
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MakAttack I don't believe anyone responded to your article about a hospital deporting a patient so I have. The lawsuit wasn't about the hospital ejecting the patient and refusing to continue care (even though that might have been the reason the hospital did what it did), the lawsuit was about the hospital deporting a mentally handicapped man to Guatemala. If that doesn't sound cold, I don't know what is.
But without telling Jimenez's family — and the day after Gaspar filed an emergency request to stop the hospital's plan — Martin Memorial put Jimenez on a $30,000 charter flight home early on July 10, 2003.
Weeks later, Jimenez was released from the Guatemalan hospital and soon wound up in his aging mother's one-room home in a remote mountain village.
The case has raised the question of whether a hospital and a state court should be deciding whether to deport someone — a power long held by the federal government.
Granted the hospital paid 1.5 million in care for this man, but if they had just kicked him out the door in the care of his brother / family / legal guardian I would have been fine with their actions. A private institutional should not be placed under such a financial burden, but the hospital and state court decided to deport a mentally ill man on their own. No mention of ICE which would have been the appropriate LE agency to refer this too, no a hospital went beyond their authority and then got sued.
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MakAttack I don't believe anyone responded to your article about a hospital deporting a patient so I have. The lawsuit wasn't about the hospital ejecting the patient and refusing to continue care (even though that might have been the reason the hospital did what it did), the lawsuit was about the hospital deporting a mentally handicapped man to Guatemala. If that doesn't sound cold, I don't know what is.
Granted the hospital paid 1.5 million in care for this man, but if they had just kicked him out the door in the care of his brother / family / legal guardian I would have been fine with their actions. A private institutional should not be placed under such a financial burden, but the hospital and state court decided to deport a mentally ill man on their own. No mention of ICE which would have been the appropriate LE agency to refer this too, no a hospital went beyond their authority and then got sued.
Yeah, the hospital wasn't allowed to discharge him without a court order. My point was not that they got sued AFTER discharging him to Guatemala, but that they could not discharge him without a court order:
However, under federal law, Martin Memorial was required to care for Jimenez until someone else would take him. Because of his immigration status, no one else would. But hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursements are required to provide emergency care to all patients and must provide an acceptable discharge plan once the patient is stabilized.
The lawsuit seeks nearly $1 million to cover the estimated lifetime costs of his care in Guatemala...
Jimenez spent nearly three years at Martin Memorial before the hospital, backed by a letter from the Guatemalan government, got a Florida judge to OK the transfer to a facility in that country.
You'll note they were responsible for his care, under Federal Law. Yep, look how terribly people without insurance get treated! They get over 1.5 million dollars of care, free lawyers to keep them in the hospital and a $30,000 plan ride home!
Whew, how heartless we are.
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You missed the entire point. The hospital didn't discharge him to Guatemala, their hospital isn't located in Guatemala. They deported him.
However, under federal law, Martin Memorial was required to care for Jimenez until someone else would take him. Because of his immigration status, no one else would.
Because of his brain injury, his cousin Montejo Gaspar was made his legal guardian.
True they were obligated to take care of him, but instead of going behind the scenes and secretly deporting him without his family knowledge the hospital should have petitioned the court system to have Mr. Gaspar be responsible for his medical care and to have him released into his care. I don't understand how Gaspar could be his legal guardian but not be responsible for him. I'm not 100% sure on this but it seems that the need for a court order to discharge him was needed because he was mentally handicapped, not based on his immigration status; which if accurate wouldn't be ridiculous. Maybe one of our legal eagles can explain better? Yea the court system in this country sucks. It can take a long time and cost you alot of money, but its the legal way to do things. Instead they somehow convinced a state court (not its jurisdiction) to somehow approve a back door deportation.
In 2004, an appeals court ruled the lower court had overstepped its authority, and that the hospital did not have the right to return Jimenez to Guatemala.
Before sending them to the jury room Thursday, Martin County Senior Judge James Midelis told jurors that the appeals court had already decided that Jimenez was "unlawfully detained and deprived of liberty." Midelis said the jury's task was to decide whether the hospital's actions were "unreasonable and unwarranted under the circumstances," and whether its actions had in turn caused Jimenez damage.
Machaud said the hospital was simply following a judge's order at the time.
Granted the lower court Judge is partly responsible for this mess because he / she doesn't know his law but its the hospitals lawyers that decided to go this route and now they are paying for it. They tried an illegal legal maneuver and got slapped for it.
Yep, look how terribly people without insurance get treated! They get over 1.5 million dollars of care, free lawyers to keep them in the hospital and a $30,000 plan ride home!
LoL Yep, that's how all illegals get treated all the time, didn't ya know!? It's not like this is an atypical case or anything . . . ;/
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flag@whitehouose.gov, eh?
Wonder what kind of fun stuff we can send 'em?
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flag@whitehouose.gov, eh?
Wonder what kind of fun stuff we can send 'em?
Be my guest. I'm going and entering it at a bunch of porn sites tonight.
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Seenterman,
My sympathy went away when the man broke the law and entered the US illegally.
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Illegal aliens have turned the health care issue into theater of the absurd.
We are now supposed to destroy our system and bankrupt ourselves to give health care to people who break our laws coming here?
When does "humane" morph into insane?
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when the LSD dropin' hippies started running the country =|
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You missed the entire point. The hospital didn't discharge him to Guatemala, their hospital isn't located in Guatemala. They deported him.
No, you missed the entire point. I used that as an example that they were unable to discharge this man without a court order.
That they were subsequently sued AFTER discharging him following the court order (after THREE YEARS of care) was immaterial to my point.
My point was that he was getting free care and the hospital was REQUIRED by federal law to provide it. The case which the hospital eventually won was simply more egregious. My problem was that he received care for three years and the hospital just had to eat it.
Wonder why those who CAN pay see increasing costs...
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Check out the latest tactics from the Dems as reported via video by drudgereport.com:
SEE THEM SCREAM:
Crowd mocks lawmakers over Obama health plan in Arkansas...
VIDEO: Sen. Boxer: 'Well-dressed' protesters at Town Halls are out to 'hurt our president'...
Pelosi: Town Hall Protesters Are 'Carrying Swastikas'... Republican leader attacks 'fishy' White House request...
Boxer bloviates about taking on a mob, Pelosi likening her opponents to Nazis, the DNC's new ad accusing anyone opposed to BHO's health care disaster a mindless drone.
We are getting to them. We need now to make them fear us.
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They already fear us. They already fear (and hate) liberty.
But tyrants always, inevitably go back to what has worked in the past, and we'd best be prepared for that.
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They deported him.
They just sent him home. I think the hospital should ask for some documentation that they are in the country legally. I would produce the same documentation. If they are illegal or don't have acceptable insurance, point them to the door unless they or their family can produce the money. Maybe they wouldn't come in the first place. As far as the one room shack... that's how poor people or common people live there. Talk to the Guatamala govenment about improving their lot in life. That is just not the US's fault.