Health Care

[guest051510-1]

I may just have to become an illegal alien.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaSP31Be8"]YouTube- Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 - Key Points[/ame]

[ASharperImage]

I know I'm going to regret wading into the polarizing pool that is the heath care debate. But videos like the one above just make my blood boil because all they are designed to do is scare people and prevent honest debate about real issues. And lets just remember that HR3200 has been changed, and had the changes changed multiple times since August of 2009 when this video was made.

For example, take the 2nd point made in the video. It essentially says that you are limited to $5000 worth of heath care per year as an individual. It implies that if you get in an accident and rack up a $100,000 hospital bill, you will be on the hook for $95,000 of it. But if you actually read the bill, what the context of the section says is that "cost-sharing for preventative services" is limited to $5000 per individual and will be adjusted as the average consumer price index changes from year to year.

This says NOTHING about what happens if you get cancer, or fall off a ladder, or if your kid is born with a disability. They are talking about preventative care like well baby checkups, diabetes screening, blood pressure checks and other extremely cheap forms of heath care.

Now if you feel this is unfair and want to debate how this may or may not be in the best interests of people, that is fine. But outright fearmongering by taking passages out of context and telling them you get 5K of benefits per year is an outright lie and detracts from the real matter at hand.

[oden]

The real matter at hand is if we all want to be treated as a ward of the state with no other option. It is amazing to me that an administration that claims to want to help the disadvantaged wants to curb charitable giving. Kind of shows you what their real aim is; control.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by ASharperImage

I know I'm going to regret wading into the polarizing pool that is the heath care debate. But videos like the one above just make my blood boil because all they are designed to do is scare people and prevent honest debate about real issues. And lets just remember that HR3200 has been changed, and had the changes changed multiple times since August of 2009 when this video was made.

For example, take the 2nd point made in the video. It essentially says that you are limited to $5000 worth of heath care per year as an individual. It implies that if you get in an accident and rack up a $100,000 hospital bill, you will be on the hook for $95,000 of it. But if you actually read the bill, what the context of the section says is that "cost-sharing for preventative services" is limited to $5000 per individual and will be adjusted as the average consumer price index changes from year to year.

This says NOTHING about what happens if you get cancer, or fall off a ladder, or if your kid is born with a disability. They are talking about preventative care like well baby checkups, diabetes screening, blood pressure checks and other extremely cheap forms of heath care.

Now if you feel this is unfair and want to debate how this may or may not be in the best interests of people, that is fine. But outright fearmongering by taking passages out of context and telling them you get 5K of benefits per year is an outright lie and detracts from the real matter at hand.

But the fundamental problem with the bill hasn't changed -- government micromanagement of 1/6 of the economy. Based on their well proven track record, they will fuck things up further. The fundamental problem with healthcare is a lack of market signals -- that started with Medicare -- 40+ years later, they still dont have it right and never will. The Soviets proved over and over that central planning does NOT work.

SCRAP THAT PIECE OF SHIT!!!!

[TexTushHog]

PJ, I don't think even you believe the crap that you've written. Even the weak, watered down Senate bill isn't "micromanagement" of the economy. It requires everybody to buy health insurance and subsidizes folks making 330% or less of the poverty level on a sliding scale and little else. In fact, that's what's wrong with it.

As for central planning versus markets, you are generally right. But there are certain areas where markets routinely fail. Finance is one and health care is another. If you truly believe all the Chicago school efficient market hypothesis stuff after the events of the last few years, you're not paying attention.

[ASharperImage]

PJ, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are in favor of major reform and that you simply disagree with the current legislation that has been proposed.

Otherwise you'd be in favor of a system where:
- profits rise 400% in the last 10 years while your premiums have doubled.
- employees who are able to find creative ways to cancel policies and deny payments are rewarded
- on average spend only 70% of every dollar you give them actually buying care while slamming medicaid/medicare where 98% of every dollar is used to buy heath care (Heath Care CEO's need to get
their billions too)
- almost 70% of every bankruptcy where heath care bills are a major factor happen to people who have private insurance
- I could go on and on, but for those of you who are interested...this is some of what our heath insurance companies are up to: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun...s/fi-rescind17

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Medicare -- 40+ years later, they still dont have it right and never will.

So, PJ, if the govmint never got Medicare right, how did it become such a sacred cow? Try and reduce or eliminate Medicare benefits, and you will be whole-salely attacked. Every politician at the Health Care Summit agreed that we needed to keep Medicare, and they also agreed that the fraud inherent in the system needed to be uniformly attacked.

I just can't believe that the U.S.--the greatest country in the world--can't do what most other countries do: provide health care to all citizens. The French system is the best example of this--just Google it.

People against providing health care to all U.S. citizens engage in kamikaze scare tactics. Scare tactics like: (1) we will lose the best health care in the world; (2) you won't be able to choose your own doctor; (3) you won't be able to make choices about your own health care, and the like. Like all scare tactics, they are untrue.

I think the real issue is money. Hospitals fear they won't make the multi-millions of dollars they now make. Doctors fear their standard of living will be downgraded because they won't be able to continue to charge the outrageous fees they now charge which lead to outrageous profits. Pharmaceutical companies fear they won't be able to continue to charge outrageous sums in the U.S. for drugs, thereby securing the outrageous profits they make. And the whole healthcare system wants to be bullet-proof from tort lawsuits. They want their profits, and they want to be shielded from any negligence.

It is time for the healthcare entities--hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies--to give up their massive outrageous profits in consideration of the greater good: affordable national health care for all. Most doctors would be aghast if you told them their income could only rise to that of the level the President of the US makes. But I think most people in the country would believe that the President is paid plenty, and it should be more than enough for most people. No, make that all people, including doctors.

Keeping the old health care system is no longer viable. Everyone has to sacrifice. The whole system needs to be remade. And in order to provide reasonable affordable health care for all (as most of the rest of the world is able to do), those now making Midas-like profits in the system have to give up those profits in order to remake the system and for the good of all.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Nicolette Bordeauxva

I may just have to become an illegal alien.

Nic, you would have to move to another country and do so illegally. Don't sneak into Canada, they have healthcare! You'd be right back where you started.

That video was misleading....ASharperImage summed it up rather well. Please do not believe video's like that. It is no wonder that some are aganist this change in the way we look at healthcare.

BTW, illegals already have free healthcare as do every person in this country. It is called the ER visit. The system right now is not working. The GOP had from 2000-2006 to fix it. They did nothing. Get'er done, blue collar fix to healthcare is now under way.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Why do the powerful. The privileged. Of the world. Come to this U.S.A. when they have heart problems. Cancer. Because they have the best chance to stay alive with the doctors and the equipment here.

[guest051510-1]

Originally Posted by WTF

That video was misleading....ASharperImage summed it up rather well. Please do not believe video's like that. It is no wonder that some are aganist this change in the way we look at healthcare.

.

This is why I posted it. I am sure it is misleading, yet I'm not sure which points they make are correct or what. I figured if I posted it, the people in the know would point out the finer points for me.

[guest051510-1]

Medicaid is the BEST health care EVER!!!! But, it is abused terribly. People take ambulances to the E.R. because they have a hang nail. All their medical and drug bills are covered, no questions asked, no paper work. You can take your child to the doctor just because you have nothing better to do or because you want to play hooky from a job that requires a doctor's note.

My only fear of National Health Care is I don't trust the general population not to abuse it and cost the tax payers too much. It is my same opinion with legalizing drugs. Sure it works in other countries, but Americans do everything to excess.

[ASharperImage]

Originally Posted by Marcus Aurelius

Why do the powerful. The privileged. Of the world. Come to this U.S.A. when they have heart problems. Cancer. Because they have the best chance to stay alive with the doctors and the equipment here.

This is a common arguement used to try and maintain the status quo. And like the other scare tactics, it just takes a little bit of thought to see how irrelevant it is to what is going on.

The issue is not, and never has been about the amount of know how and ability that is present here. What the national debate is about is the heath care system and its ability to deliver care to the population. By any measurable metric of general heath, the United States ranks close to dead last among industrialized nations. For example, in the 1990s we were 15/19 among industrialized nations in terms of how we do on preventable disease (diabetes, high blood pressure, easy to prevent cancers), in a repeat study done by the same people in 2008, we are 19/19.

We should have the best heath care in the world. But we don't. A system where quality care is only available to the powerful and privileged is only qualifies as the best for the powerful and privileged. Everyone else who isn't a world leader is on the outside looking in.

-ASI

[Marcus Aurelius]

Originally Posted by ASharperImage

This is a common arguement used to try and maintain the status quo. And like the other scare tactics, it just takes a little bit of thought to see how irrelevant it is to what is going on.

The issue is not, and never has been about the amount of know how and ability that is present here. What the national debate is about is the heath care system and its ability to deliver care to the population. By any measurable metric of general heath, the United States ranks close to dead last among industrialized nations. For example, in the 1990s we were 15/19 among industrialized nations in terms of how we do on preventable disease (diabetes, high blood pressure, easy to prevent cancers), in a repeat study done by the same people in 2008, we are 19/19.

We should have the best heath care in the world. But we don't. A system where quality care is only available to the powerful and privileged is only qualifies as the best for the powerful and privileged. Everyone else who isn't a world leader is on the outside looking in.

-ASI

I cannot argue with that. I agree.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

PJ, I don't think even you believe the crap that you've written. Even the weak, watered down Senate bill isn't "micromanagement" of the economy. It requires everybody to buy health insurance and subsidizes folks making 330% or less of the poverty level on a sliding scale and little else. In fact, that's what's wrong with it.

As for central planning versus markets, you are generally right. But there are certain areas where markets routinely fail. Finance is one and health care is another. If you truly believe all the Chicago school efficient market hypothesis stuff after the events of the last few years, you're not paying attention.

Well ignoring for a minute the small Constitutional issue of whether the government can require someone to buy insurance, the truth of the matter is that we don't have health insurance in this country. Insurance is where you make a small known payment so that you are covered for a catastrophic and unpredictable risk. Like with your homeowners -- you don't expect to have a claim in any given year, but you are covered if the place burns down. Instead, we have this bastardized system where people (or other people through the government) pay a premium and expect to get all the healthcare they may want.

The argument is always that people need health care. Yes, they need food too, but nobody expects the government to provide food insurance that lets somebody have as much high priced steak and lobster as they want every day.

A big part of the problem is the tax code, where employers provide tax-free "benefits" to employees. Why don't we have tax-free employer provided car insurance too? Because it would be fucking stupid -- just like it is for health insurance.

Another part of the problem is state monopoly markets that mandate special coverages whether you want to buy them or not. This is as stupid as allowing states to specify that all new cars sold in Georgia have to have GPS so nobody get lost. Now thats cool if you run a GPS biz, but sucks if you have a map biz.

And the strangest part is the insane Government/Insurance negotiated prices where if you walk into a hospital without insurance it costs you something like $1,000 a night, but they buy in bulk and get the same room for something like $300. Maybe we need to get William Shatner and Priceline working on this.

The fundamental problem is that they have destroyed most of the market elements of the healthcare system. No wonder it is functioning poorly. But I hardly see the wisdom in giving the people who screwed it up more say in how it works. Thats like trying to cure a drunk by buying them another case of booze.

Originally Posted by ASharperImage

PJ, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are in favor of major reform and that you simply disagree with the current legislation that has been proposed.

Otherwise you'd be in favor of a system where:
- profits rise 400% in the last 10 years while your premiums have doubled.

I do favor major reform, but nothing that looks like this current POS. More like what I outlined above.

BTW, what 400% rise in profits are you looking at? The table below shows the Net Income for the top 6 publicly owned health insurers. They look flat to down to me over the last 5 years. On average they are about 5% of premium -- not enough to even get you in the upper half of industry profitability -- and the Blues, which are mutually owned (i.e., by the policyholders) are about 40-50% of these levels.

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

It is time for the healthcare entities--hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies--to give up their massive outrageous profits in consideration of the greater good: affordable national health care for all.

This is too much horseshit to even comment on. Do you work for free?


Now if y'all will excuse me, I have to go earn some obscene profits.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Nicolette Bordeauxva

This is why I posted it. I am sure it is misleading, yet I'm not sure which points they make are correct or what. I figured if I posted it, the people in the know would point out the finer points for me.

Excellent, then I suppose you no longer feel the need to become an illegal immigrant!


All is good.