You don't believe in the AMA cartel? That means you believe that anyone should be able to do anything to anyone if they call themselves a "doctor," because no one will have the ability to do any research before using their services. Without ham-fisted regulation, no one will know how to make decisions, bro.

9/9/2011 11:36:04 AM

1 to 2 million, damn!

We do tax returns for quite a few doctors. Off the top of my head, the plastic surgeon who has his own practice makes near the top. We do a bunch of radiology docs but they're making nowhere near 1 mil. I'd say most are around 500k or so. The highest paid doctor I've done a tax return for was a neurologist from Duke who makes somewhere near 800k.

I mean, with their investments and whatnot, their tax return is showing > $1 mil in income but it's not all from salaries.

9/9/2011 11:50:16 AM

PCPs make $90000 - $150000 ...in salary.
Hospital doctors make $110000 - $450000 depending on their specialty and department title ...in salary.
Specialists in private practices can pull in $200000 - $900000 depending on whether they own the practice, whether they preform surgeries themselves, how much they are putting back into the practice, etc, ...in salary.

I'm sure that after investments and before deductions, a lot of their balance sheets are =$1mil.

9/9/2011 12:03:42 PM

looks like crocoduck just got schooled by LoneSnark. you were saying?

9/9/2011 2:53:03 PM

Quote :

"Deloitte estimated in 2008 that 400,000 international patients go to the US for medical care, but since then other sources have suggested it is much higher and the current figure could be around 750,000. Ironically, the country most targeted by overseas destinations, the USA, now probably has more inbound medical tourists than there are Americans going overseas.""

9/9/2011 6:21:19 PM

but they all have socialized medicine! why the hell would want to leave that utopia for care elsewhere?

9/9/2011 6:35:00 PM

Quote :

"looks like crocoduck just got schooled by LoneSnark. you were saying?"

schooled? how? by ignoring my points and picking out the one topic on which a tangential point can be made with a picture? "crushing the ama cartel" will do nothing. the ama is already effectively powerless. when i think about the five to ten minutes i've spent reading this thread i'm reminded that arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics. enjoy your useless, uninformed circle jerk.

9/9/2011 11:20:11 PM

Quote :

"the ama is already effectively powerless"

Despite all evidence to the contrary?

The AMA wants to lessen the severity of the doctor shortage because they fear a political backlash, such as scraping the AMA and replacing it with a government run and appointed licensing board as exists in every other industrialized country. We are the only idiots that put doctors in charge of determining who gets to become a doctor.

9/9/2011 11:34:47 PM

Quote :

"schooled? how? by ignoring my points and picking out the one topic on which a tangential point can be made with a picture?"

by showing exactly what the AMA has achieved with one simply graph. cognitive dissonance is bitch, aint it?

9/9/2011 11:45:11 PM

Quote :

"that SS projection is woefully inadequate. Baby Boomers retiring is going to massively increase outlays"

I'm fairly certain that the increase in projected social security spending (depicted in the chart) after 2012 until approximately 2032 accounts for the baby boomers' retirement.

Quote :

"How can you not see that health care inflation and entitlements are interconnected?"

Social Security is not a problem.

Rising health care costs are the problem.

Quote :

"why health care costs might be increasing at an abnormally high rate"

Million dollar question - I don't know. The inflation of health care costs was rising faster than overall inflation before Medicare or HMOs were ever established, so I can't say with certainty that they are the problem.

Kris mentioned before that an Asian country (Taiwan?) had conducted a study examining the costs and benefits of several different national health care systems. I would be very interested in seeing the results of that study.

9/28/2011 1:29:51 AM

Quote :

"I'm fairly certain that the increase in projected social security spending (depicted in the chart) after 2012 until approximately 2032 accounts for the baby boomers' retirement."

and if that's all they project, then they are fucking morons. You can't have that much of the population retire and start taking benefits and not see an increase in expenses in that sector. jesus.

Quote :

"Social Security is not a problem."

Yes, it is. you can stand outside and yell 2+2=5 all you want, but that doesn't make it true.

Quote :

"Million dollar question - I don't know. The inflation of health care costs was rising faster than overall inflation before Medicare or HMOs were ever established, so I can't say with certainty that they are the problem."

people here have stated over and over what the problem with rising costs is: customer insulation from actual costs, gov't meddling, and a fucked up insurance system.

9/30/2011 12:10:05 AM

Quote :

"You can't have that much of the population retire and start taking benefits and not see an increase in expenses in that sector."

Did you not look at the graph? There's a significant increase in Social Security spending as a percentage of GDP over a span of approximately twenty years. That's nothing to sneeze at.

Social Security is about as solvent as a government program can be, so...

Quote :

"you can stand outside and yell 2+2=5 all you want, but that doesn't make it true."

Well said.

[Edited on September 30, 2011 at 12:44 PM. Reason : ]

9/30/2011 12:43:57 PM

Quote :

"Did you not look at the graph?"

and that graph is 100% wrong. it's a fucking projection, and we know how the CBO's projections turn out. You are pointing to that graph as if every part of it will 100% come true. I'm saying it's full of shit. I dispute the veracity of your graph. what fucking part of that do you not get? How in the fuck do you think you are going to add a sizable chunk of the population to outlays and NOT have a massive jump in costs? ex-fucking-xactly. if you'd like, I can go make my own graph that says something completely different. would that make you happy?

Quote :

"Social Security is about as solvent as a government program can be, so..."

yes, when you play with the numbers, you can make anything look great. Ponzi schemes always look great until you look at the facts

9/30/2011 6:50:34 PM

Then you're clearly ignoring the graph, because it shows a significantly large increase in Social Security spending over the next two decades.

Also, Social Security doesn't fit the definition of a Ponzi scheme, because it doesn't pay out abnormally high returns.

Where are you getting this notion that Social Security is not solvent? Social Security has accounted for and planned for the baby boomers' retirement for decades.

[Edited on September 30, 2011 at 7:55 PM. Reason : ]

9/30/2011 7:55:07 PM

Quote :

"Also, Social Security doesn't fit the definition of a Ponzi scheme, because it doesn't pay out abnormally high returns."

oh look, someone else who doesn't know what a Ponzi Scheme is. The amount of the returns is not a determinant for the definition. What makes it a Ponzi Scheme is that the "returns" are paid from the actual "investments". jesus.

Quote :

"Then you're clearly ignoring the graph, because it shows a significantly large increase in Social Security spending over the next two decades."

What part of "the graph is bullshit" do you not comprehend? Again, since random un-credited graphs appear to be mighty persuasive to you, would you like me to make my own?

Quote :

"Where are you getting this notion that Social Security is not solvent?"

ummm, common sense? We have to keep "tweaking it" to make it work. By definition, that's insolvent. it's a god damned Ponzi Scheme. again, BY DEFINITION, that's insolvent. the only way "it's accounted for" is by reducing benefits and increasing the tax rate. that's not solvent

9/30/2011 8:07:11 PM

Both your definitions for Ponzi scheme and insolvent are incorrect.

It is solvent. It's tweaked to account for changes in the population as well as changes in the cost of living. The Social Security trust fund is funded and is not going to run out of funds until long after the baby boomers have retired, and that is with no needed tweaking whatsoever.

Again, just because you say that the graph is bullshit doesn't it make it so.

I wise user once said:

Quote :

"you can stand outside and yell 2+2=5 all you want, but that doesn't make it true."

[Edited on September 30, 2011 at 8:48 PM. Reason : ]

9/30/2011 8:46:33 PM

Quote :

"It is solvent. It's tweaked to account for changes in the population."

and what happens if they don't "tweak" it? right, it goes insolvent. AKA, it's fucking insolvent. it's akin to saying that a Ponzi Scheme isn't insolvent as long as you can keep getting people to pay more into it. that's EXACTLY what SS has done. they've repeatedly increased the SS tax rate to "fix it." That, AGAIN, means it was, and is, insolvent. What in the hell makes you think that this time the "tweak" fixed it?

and, since my definition of "Ponzi Scheme" is incorrect, give me one. Show me any definition that requires a Ponzi Scheme to promise X% returns. please.

[Edited on September 30, 2011 at 8:51 PM. Reason : ]

9/30/2011 8:49:11 PM

I'm pretty sure insolvent means unable to pay returns that are due. Seeing as how Social Security is able to do so - not only today, but for the next two decades - I would say that it is solvent.

Quote :

"Show me any definition that requires a Ponzi Scheme to promise X% returns."

Does not compute. Not that it doesn't make sense, but I'm fairly light-headed at the moment. Could you explain this for me?

As for a definition, here are a couple:
a swindle in which a quick return, made up of money from new investors, on an initial investment lures the victim into much bigger risks;
an investment swindle in which early investors are paid with sums obtained from later ones in order to create the illusion of profitability

9/30/2011 8:58:14 PM

Quote :

"I'm pretty sure insolvent means unable to pay returns that are due. Seeing as how Social Security is able to do so - not only today, but for the next two decades - I would say that it is solvent."

yes, ONLY AFTER CHANGING IT. AKA, it was fucking insolvent. They had to change it. And in a little while, it'll happen again. we're talking about it right now.

Quote :

"As for a definition, here are a couple:"

ok. now, show me where in those definitions it mentioned anything about the amount of the returns. show me where those definitions say anything about that. here's a hint: you can't. see what those definitions do say: returns paid directly from investments. sound like Social Security? damn fucking right.

9/30/2011 9:03:31 PM

They would only have to make marginal adjustments to maintain its solvency for an additional fifty-five years.

I believe quick return implies an abnormally high return.

However, if not:
The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent.

9/30/2011 9:14:06 PM

Quote :

"I believe quick return implies an abnormally high return."

what part of "quick", an adjective that refers to speed, makes you think it deals with the amount of the return?

Quote :

"However, if not:"

note that it says "usually." Note that that term, thus, is not a requirement. it speaks about how it usually works. but not how it must work for the definition. you really can't comprehend a dictionary, can you?

note the wikipedia definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation."

funny that you actually referenced that very page, without posting what the definition from that page was. you are pathetic

let's go over others' definitions, as you've seemed to find Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ponzi+scheme
"A fraud disguised as an investment opportunity, in which initial investors and the perpetrators of the fraud are paid out of funds raised from later investors, and the later investors lose all funds invested."

http://www.answers.com/topic/ponzi-scheme
Barron's Business Dictionary:
"Any false investment opportunity where the promoter uses money from new investors to pay interest and principal redemptions of existing investors."

how about the SEC?
http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm
"A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors."


now, where do any of these require a high rate of return? right. none of them do



now, let's look at how I defined it:

Quote :

"What makes it a Ponzi Scheme is that the "returns" are paid from the actual "investments"."

spot on, isn't it?

[Edited on September 30, 2011 at 9:25 PM. Reason : ]

9/30/2011 9:18:04 PM

I've gotta bail on this discussion for now - enjoying it, though. Before addressing your most recent post, I'll just say:

Ponzi scheme is based on the market and profit; Social Security is not.

Those who have paid into Social Security have received what they had invested; the same can't be said of Ponzi schemes.

9/30/2011 9:37:48 PM

Quote :

"Ponzi scheme is based on the market and profit; Social Security is not."

well, yes and no. the key part of both of them is that people are paid out from the funds that are coming in. one might declare that the SS tax is an "investment" in the same way that a pension payment is an investment. The difference with a pension, though, is that the money paid in is actually invested in some manner. That's simply not the case with SS. They put the money in a "trust fund" which is a glorified shoe box. The thing that differs with SS is that it is gov't run, which makes it so the usual rules don't apply. That and it's a mandated "investment," thus we don't really call it an investment. It operates similarly to a pension or an annuity, but under the hood it's completely different.

Quote :

"Those who have paid into Social Security have received what they had invested; the same can't be said of Ponzi schemes."

even that isn't entirely true. If you are single and you die before you retire, you get none of your money back, nor do your heirs. If you are married, your spouse might get some of your money "back", but only if they choose to forgo their own SS benefits. More importantly, you don't really have an "account" in SS, so there really is no "money you have invested" anywhere. They keep track of it, of course, and your "returns" are certainly based on what you paid in. But there is no guarantee that you will get back what you put in. If you die before you get it all back, then you lose. If you live long enough, then you "win". but make no mistake, the only reason SS is still around is because the gov't can change the rules on it and back it up with regular tax dollars. A ponzi schemer doesn't have the luxury of bilking tax-payers to make up for shortfalls

9/30/2011 9:58:50 PM

Quote :

"Those who have paid into Social Security have received what they had invested; the same can't be said of Ponzi schemes."

In a ponzi scheme, as with SS, all you need to be is lucky. For a ponzi scheme, cash in early and cash out before the collapse and pocket your 20% annual rate of return.

For SS, be damn lucky, out-live us all by surviving to 100, and pocket your 4% annual rate of return.

10/1/2011 1:54:13 AM

I'll try to find time to address your arguments, but ^^that is a solid response.

Also, I appreciated the health care discussion that occurred earlier in the thread.

[Edited on October 3, 2011 at 1:21 AM. Reason : Just saying, "Kudos."]

10/3/2011 1:20:56 AM

Didn't want to start a new thread but:

Check out these crazy healthcare statistics




The top 5% of US healthcare spenders account for almost 50% of Total healtchare expenditures


http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/11/other-1-percent-sick-people

Quote :

"barely 1 percent of the population accounts for nearly 20 percent of the nation's already inflated health care spending. These few people each account for, on average, $115,000 in health care spending every year, which is almost three times the annual salary of the average American worker. Only 5 percent of the population accounts for fully 50 percent of all the nation's health care spending. Everybody else generates, on average, about $360 a year in health care costs, or about 3 percent."

I don't really have any solutions to offer I just thought these numbers were pretty startling


[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 11:27 AM. Reason : bump]

11/29/2011 11:23:50 AM

Quote :

"For SS, be damn lucky, out-live us all by surviving to 100, and pocket your 4% annual rate of return."

Is there a single person here that thinks Social Security will still be kicking in 75 years? I think we will have to see a major dollar revaluation before then.

11/29/2011 11:29:16 AM

Quite right. Medicare/medicaid should have a lifetime cap, something like $400k.

11/29/2011 11:31:05 AM

I suppose thinking that 5% of the people spend on average $50,000 a year might be thinking about it the wrong way, although I'm sure there are some people that need continuing care that could rack up numbers like those. But Im guessing that a bunch of people rotate in and out of that 5%????? As in people get seriously sick but then get better a year or so later and spend much less the next year (but someone else gets sick to take their place in the 5%)????

11/29/2011 11:35:31 AM

^^Let them die after that.

Didn't Obamacare remove lifetime caps? Now we want them back on? Does not compute. Force private companies to remove caps, force people to go onto government health care, and then put caps and rationing on government healthcare. AWESOME.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 11:42 AM. Reason : ]

11/29/2011 11:39:10 AM

just went to the actual paper and it says

Quote :

"These figures exclude those institutionalized in nursing homes and long term mental hospitals; their inclusion would drive these figures even higher"

which makes this even more startling IMO

11/29/2011 11:41:57 AM

Social security is the hands-down best example of why, allowing private entities to opt out of government assistance, citizens can profit for themselves by providing for their own securities. Last time I had to attend a benefits/retirement briefing, I think the government estimate for your return on investment into social security is something like 2%-or-less which barely matches long-term inflation. Let me take that same amount of money and invest it in my TSP (government version of a 401K) and I promise I'll return a better investment than 2%. Hell, let me stick my social security deductions into a government bond and I'll even do better than 2%.

The same thing is true for healthcare, but people have a harder time saving for medical expenses. Today you see a lot of people voluntarily depositing money into the 401K and IRA. No one is telling them to do that. Because of their investments, they will have post-retirement funds. For medical expenses, since we access the money more frequently, IMHO you are going to have a harder time convincing people to responsibly set money aside for the dentist, optometrist, etc... The "best" solution I could think of for reducing healthcare costs would be to remove the "industry of overhead" (insurance) from the equation and move towards something along the lines of a Flex Spending Account (FSA) or whatever the civilian equivalent is. This allows someone to take money straight out of their paycheck and place it into a medical-expenses-only account that can pay providers directly or reimburse individuals after services have been rendered.

It's a model that already exists and works as an insurance supplement (I don't personally have one, but a lot of my coworkers do). It's a good system that makes perfect mathematical sense for most individuals in the long term. The problem is that going to a 100% FSA-styled system would require completely eliminating an entire industry that employs hundreds of thousands and has a strong lobbying effort. Good luck.

11/29/2011 11:46:00 AM

Quote :

" The problem is that going to a 100% FSA-styled system would require completely eliminating an entire industry that employs hundreds of thousands and has a strong lobbying effort."

It would also price-out vast swaths of medical procedures for 90% of Americans.

How many Americans end up needing an expensive medical treatment like coronary bypass, organ transplant or dialysis?

How many of those Americans can actually afford to put away $200,000 for a one-time medical procedure? or $30,000 a year for a lifetime of chronic treatment?

11/29/2011 12:40:37 PM

That's kind of like asking, "How would kids put away 300k for a law degree in the absence of student loans?"

Obviously, they wouldn't. Prices would come down. Would all these doctors that are trained to perform these procedures just stop working? Nope. They'd just have to negotiate.

Who would stand to lose the most if we restored the client-doctor relationship? The insurance companies and the government.

11/29/2011 12:47:11 PM

Quote :

" Obviously, they wouldn't. Prices would come down. Would all these doctors that are trained to perform these procedures just stop working? Nope. They'd just have to negotiate."

No, they would just stop treating poor people who didn't have an insurance company to pay up. (Actually, they already do this for 40 million Americans)

It's more profitable to let some people, in fact many people, die. It's also profitable to keep others addicted to drugs. That's why for-profit medicine is a sick, twisted joke. Healthy people aren't profitable.

Everybody needs roads, no matter who they are, and we all work together to make roads. Can we just have single-payer already?

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 1:08 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2011 1:06:27 PM

A law degree is an investment that pays back.

Your point relies on a lot of shaky assumptions:
-the price of expensive medical procedures is highly dependent on the compensation to a doctor
-doctors are in it for the money
-doctors don't have an array of lucrative alternatives
-health-care costs SHOULD depend on the demand and supply, in other words PROFIT

I reject those

Quote :

"How many Americans end up needing an expensive medical treatment like coronary bypass, organ transplant or dialysis? How many of those Americans can actually afford to put away $200,000 for a one-time medical procedure? or $30,000 a year for a lifetime of chronic treatment?"

btw, $200,000 is conservative. A single bone marrow transplant will cost around $600k.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 1:24 PM. Reason : .]

11/29/2011 1:21:41 PM

So a lot of people on other forums are operating under the assumption that a majority of the big healthcare spenders are probably older, which ?I think? makes pretty good sense. I really liked this quote with respect to our current healthcare/medicare system:

Quote :

"Existing policy itself is fundamentally a reflection of an ad-hoc political reality: well-to-do older people vote."

11/29/2011 1:27:06 PM

Quote :

"No, they would just stop treating poor people who didn't have an insurance company to pay up. (Actually, they already do this for 40 million Americans)"

The vast majority of Americans could not afford any kind of medical care without insurance. That's because the prices are inflated beyond affordability. That's what happens when it's always a third party paying for the service.

Take away the props for the insurance companies, and it's going to make a lot more sense for the doctors and patients to deal directly with each other.

There are way too many trained doctors and surgeons to just serve the rich. Some of them are going to have to make services accessible to the middle class.

Quote :

"It's more profitable to let some people, in fact many people, die. It's also profitable to keep others addicted to drugs. That's why for-profit medicine is a sick, twisted joke. Healthy people aren't profitable. "

It's never profitable to deny people services. If people are lining up for services and are willing to pay, but you're charging way above market clearing price, then you're not making money. You're missing out on money that you could be making.

You're truly an idiot for hating profit and the profit motive. Without the profit motive, your life would be hell.

Quote :

"A law degree is an investment that pays back."

Not in a lot of cases.

Quote :

"-the price of expensive medical procedures is highly dependent on the compensation to a doctor"

The doctor knows that the patient isn't paying, so he tries to get as much from the insurance company as possible. That's why getting a towel in a hospital room is 50 bucks.

Quote :

"doctors are in it for the money"

If they're not in it for the money, why don't they do it for free?

Quote :

"doctors don't have an array of lucrative alternatives"

What else would a medical doctor, who spent years and years getting trained, go into that would make more money? Obviously, medical care is a highly sought after service.

Quote :

"health-care costs SHOULD depend on the demand and supply, in other words PROFIT"

Hell yes. Just like computers and cell phones.

If you want shitty, expensive care, then the government can provide that, guaranteed.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 1:40 PM. Reason : ]

11/29/2011 1:27:52 PM

That graph about health care costs per spending level doesn't make any sense.

The top 50% account for 97% of spending? No. It's cumulative. So the top 100% account for 97% of spending.

Wait. What?

11/29/2011 1:39:01 PM

It would be the top 50% of the population (with the highest annual medical bills, aka the 50% of the population that is the sickest) account for 97% of the dollars spent on healthcare (excluding the things I mentioned in an earlier post) . . . .. . . I think.

Im gonna look at that report later and see if they break it down by age and what the money is spent on -- I wanna see how much is spent on drugs.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 1:53 PM. Reason : edit]

11/29/2011 1:51:40 PM

Quote :

"The doctor knows that the patient isn't paying, so he tries to get as much from the insurance company as possible. That's why getting a towel in a hospital room is 50 bucks."

In the real world, the patient is almost always paying something. So this is irrelevant.

Quote :

"If they're not in it for the money, why don't they do it for free?"

They do it because they want to save lives. No one becomes a surgeon because their first priority is making money. Even if they did want money above anything else, they could do medical research and earn just as much, without the stress and legal liability of performing surgery on living people. There is a high demand for lab surgeons.

Quote :

"If you want shitty, expensive care, then the government can provide that, guaranteed."

Guaranteed huh. What will you pay me if I come up with a half-dozen western nations with single-payer systems that are both cheaper and have higher-quality?

11/29/2011 2:07:53 PM

Quote :

"In the real world, the patient is almost always paying something. So this is irrelevant."

Yes. Usually a tiny fraction of the total cost.

Quote :

"They do it because they want to save lives. No one becomes a surgeon because their first priority is making money. Even if they did want money above anything else, they could do medical research and earn just as much, without the stress and legal liability of performing surgery on living people. There is a high demand for lab surgeons."

Who said anything about it being their first priority? Money is just part of it. People don't become doctors or surgeons to just break even. It's a good, honorable profession, but you still want to make a living with it.

People aren't fucking altruistic. You're kidding yourselves, and it's impossible to take such a naive worldview seriously.

Quote :

"Guaranteed huh. What will you pay me if I come up with a half-dozen western nations with single-payer systems that are both cheaper and have higher-quality?"

They have better health care in spite of their single-payer systems. We don't have a free market in the United States. It's anything but free. The government has been fucking with health care and health insurance for 3/4 a century, and not in minor ways. I know we've had this discussion a thousand times.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 2:14 PM. Reason : ]

11/29/2011 2:13:50 PM

Quote :

"People aren't fucking altruistic. You're kidding yourselves, and it's impossible to take such a naive worldview seriously."

most any assertion as to what is truly human nature is pure arrogance. you don't know what people are capable of more than anyone else. personally, i'm a believer that people will largely rise to the expectations that are set for them. if you reduce the notion of humanity to a pack of greedy brutes, then yeah, the profit motive will be the most effective incentive.

here's an interesting video on motivation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Quote :

"They have better health care in spite of their single-payer systems."

please elaborate on this claim. why are they more successful than ours, despite being even further removed from the free market? are there any examples of a free market based health care system that exceeds the quality and expansiveness of coverage of single-payer systems?

11/29/2011 2:42:32 PM

Quote :

"It would be the top 50% of the population (with the highest annual medical bills, aka the 50% of the population that is the sickest) account for 97% of the dollars spent on healthcare (excluding the things I mentioned in an earlier post) . . . .. . . I think."

Ok, so if there are 5 break point, that means there are 6 intervals. Meaning

1%
2%
5%
10%
50%

And they show bars for 5 intervals, leaving the last one off. Of course, the % of total spending would be meaningless for that point, but the per capita spending would not be. It's just not on the chart.

11/29/2011 2:49:49 PM

Quote :

"most any assertion as to what is truly human nature is pure arrogance. you don't know what people are capable of more than anyone else. personally, i'm a believer that people will largely rise to the expectations that are set for them. if you reduce the notion of humanity to a pack of greedy brutes, then yeah, the profit motive will be the most effective incentive."

No one likes to get cheated. It's not about being a greedy brute. It's about self-ownership and being entitled to what you work for, and not having someone come in and tell you that they're entitled to what you worked for.

Quote :

"please elaborate on this claim. why are they more successful than ours, despite being even further removed from the free market? are there any examples of a free market based health care system that exceeds the quality and expansiveness of coverage of single-payer systems?"

Those systems are not further removed from the free market than the United States. What we have now is not, in any way, shape, or form, free market capitalism. Our tax code has severely distorted the market and it's extremely inefficient.

11/29/2011 2:55:17 PM

^^right, per capita for the bottom 50% is left off but from the article:

Quote :

"barely 1 percent of the population accounts for nearly 20 percent of the nation's already inflated health care spending. These few people each account for, on average, $115,000 in health care spending every year, which is almost three times the annual salary of the average American worker. Only 5 percent of the population accounts for fully 50 percent of all the nation's health care spending. Everybody else generates, on average, about $360 a year in health care costs, or about 3 percent.""

The per capita spending of the bottom 50% is on average $360. Or perhaps that means the per capita spending of the entire nation (the full 100%) on average is $360, I'm not sure.

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 2:58 PM. Reason : arrows]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

[Edited on November 29, 2011 at 3:12 PM. Reason : Great link BTW]

11/29/2011 2:58:18 PM

Quote :

"No one likes to get cheated. It's not about being a greedy brute. It's about self-ownership and being entitled to what you work for, and not having someone come in and tell you that they're entitled to what you worked for."

surely, cuckold fetishists aside, no likes to be cheated. but here's the thing that I think is too often ignored, most people don't like to cheat, either. its only sociopaths who truly desire to take advantage of others. granted, more of the general population than just the sociopathic does end up exploiting institutions. but the next step doesn't have to be the acceptance of moral decay, rather we can work to repair it.

Quote :

"Those systems are not further removed from the free market than the United States. What we have now is not, in any way, shape, or form, free market capitalism. Our tax code has severely distorted the market and it's extremely inefficient."

what we have isn't a truly free market, but still, our health care system does operate under a paradigm of chasing profits. there's doesn't, and it works better, no?

11/29/2011 3:11:13 PM

Quote :

"surely, cuckold fetishists aside, no likes to be cheated. but here's the thing that I think is too often ignored, most people don't like to cheat, either. its only sociopaths who truly desire to take advantage of others. granted, more of the general population than just the sociopathic does end up exploiting institutions. but the next step doesn't have to be the acceptance of moral decay, rather we can work to repair it."

I agree with the sentiment of your statement. Most people don't like cheating, but a lot of people will cheat if they think the payoff is great enough, especially when they aren't aware of any "victims" of their cheating.

And, yes, sociopaths do like to take advantage of others. You know what the best way to take advantage of someone is? Get a position in government. I posted this in chit chat, but I think it's relevant here:

Quote :

"The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

And that goes for pretty much all positions of power. A small percentage of the time, someone who's committed to upholding principles does get elected. Most of the time, the people most likely to get in office are the sociopaths you're talking about.

Sociopaths can be hard to identify. I've known individuals that, in retrospect, were clearly sociopaths. At the time, it wasn't so obvious. The voting public is quite easily duped into voting for these people that lack any sort of integrity.

Quote :

"what we have isn't a truly free market, but still, our health care system does operate under a paradigm of chasing profits. there's doesn't, and it works better, no?"

Our banking system operates to chase profits, too, and you'll see me railing against that often. Profit is only a good thing if it comes from voluntary transactions. The insurance companies have lobbied hard for the conditions we have now, which means that they have influenced legislation to improve their own bottom lines, to the detriment of the population at large. Legislation is the use of force. Having a free market (where prices are allowed to rise and fall) means eliminating these unfair advantages and getting the government out of health care.

11/29/2011 4:00:06 PM

Medical expenses are not voluntary

11/29/2011 5:49:54 PM

Neither are hunger expenses. Should we have a single payer food distribution program administered by the state? If not, why not?

11/29/2011 5:56:02 PM