Oh yeah grandpa's been getting a lot of hip replacements lately, everyone needs a hobby I guess.

12/7/2011 10:44:56 AM

Quote :

"That's because you don't appear to be part of the Entitlement Class / Free Shit Army. Medicaid patients are clogging ERs and hospitals for all kinds of free treatment. Why? Because it's free, and they don't have anything better to do. "

Yep. It is the same with other insurances when they meet their deductible. "I have met my deductible for the year so I want to get everything done before the end of the year." Hear it all the time.

Funny history lesson. Medicaid was created to lower costs bc poor people were using the ER for routine care. (a prob govt created btw) So they figured it would be cheaper to give them insurance and cost taxpayers 50 dollars for an OV at a doctors office vs 600 for an ER visit. The morons didnt figure that the cost to that person is still 0 and knowingly skipping on the bill kept people away previously. So once they got their free insurance visits to ERs for routine care INCREASED.. Imagine that. Of course we can NEVER admit that our govt program did the exact opposite of what it was intended and change it...oh no.

Lumex, a HSA IS insurance. It is tied to a high deductible insurance. So you save your money,tax free, in an account in your healthy, younger years. ANd you build up your account to when you need it. Lets say your HSA had a deductible of 5k. And you got into a wreck, got airlifted and had emergency surgery. Total bill 200k... You pay 5k. See how that works?

12/7/2011 11:30:47 AM

Quote :

"Yep. It is the same with other insurances when they meet their deductible. "I have met my deductible for the year so I want to get everything done before the end of the year." Hear it all the time."

Basic human nature, and I can see where they're coming from -- especially if they're on a high-deductible plan.

12/7/2011 11:40:44 AM

Quote :

"Do you have any kind of chronic conditions? Diabetes, asthma, any kind of medications or prescriptions? "

I want to question the accuracy of our common characterization of the big spender conditions in health care. I was surprised - trauma related things are very high. So it makes you wonder, if trauma is such a big factor, are we really speaking correctly about lifestyle factors leading to higher health care costs?



What of this caused the great divergence in health care costs? I really don't know.



But 1996 is probably too late in the game. Heart conditions, might be something that we are overspending on compared to other rich nations, and it probably is. Cancer is an area that's hard to argue with. You can't really tell someone "don't get cancer", unless it's lung cancer from smoking.

[Edited on December 7, 2011 at 11:53 AM. Reason : ]

12/7/2011 11:53:07 AM

Quote :

"Basic human nature, and I can see where they're coming from "

Exactly the point we are trying to make. As the individual contributes less or nothing for the goods or services they use they will consume more. Thus driving up the cost for those who actually have to pay.

12/7/2011 7:31:00 PM

Quote :

"Exactly the point we are trying to make. As the individual contributes less or nothing for the goods or services they use they will consume more. Thus driving up the cost for those who actually have to pay."

Why would people contributing less consume MORE than those who "actually have to pay" ? The point being made was "when something's paid for, it will be utilized to the fullest extent" so why would people who have already paid for it be more hesitant to use it? This makes no sense.

And, by the way, you already do pay for those people. When they go to the emergency room the hospital recoups those losses through you and your insurance company. You pay for them, one way or another, and you pay all those middle-men every singe time.

So you can either start turning people away from the emergency room, or you can cut the middle-men out and just have universal healthcare already. In either event, it's cheaper to pay for someone's regular doctor visits and patch-ups than pay for their emergency room visits when those problems snowball into something worse.


Of course, I've learned from arguing with you types that it isn't actually about money, at all. Even when it's clear you'd save money, you don't care. All that matters is that some nigger unemployed bum might get a free band-aid and that infuriates you.


[Edited on December 8, 2011 at 12:45 PM. Reason : .]

12/8/2011 12:44:33 PM

Quote :

"Why would people contributing less consume MORE than those who "actually have to pay"? The point being made was "when something's paid for, it will be utilized to the fullest extent" so why would people who have already paid for it be more hesitant to use it? This makes no sense."

Wow. I don't even...

Quote :

"Of course, I've learned from arguing with you types that it isn't actually about money, at all. Even when it's clear you'd save money, you don't care. All that matters is that some nigger unemployed bum might get a free band-aid and that infuriates you."

I was going to make a post recently about how, in your mind, anyone that doesn't subscribe to your fucked up ideology is a racist. I decided that would be unfair and to give you the benefit of the doubt. I was wrong. You are an asshole, and you are an idiot.

[Edited on December 8, 2011 at 1:37 PM. Reason : ]

12/8/2011 1:31:47 PM

only a fucking moron would say that letting the govt run something is "taking out the middleman."

12/8/2011 7:43:20 PM

Quote :

"Wow. I don't even..."

No, seriously, explain to me why somebody who doesn't pay for something would use it more than somebody who does pay for it, when both people have unlimited access to it once it's paid for.

12/9/2011 9:27:04 AM

Maybe it's that the people who pay for it spend too much time at work and so can't make it to the doctor?

And yet, the people who don't pay for it are also busy smoking crack and having children out of wedlock...

Quote :

"I was going to make a post recently about how, in your mind, anyone that doesn't subscribe to your fucked up ideology is a racist. I decided that would be unfair and to give you the benefit of the doubt. I was wrong. You are an asshole, and you are an idiot."

Lmao I really don't care what you think because I already know you're entirely complacent with racism fucking over millions of people because that's better than big gubmint doing something to actually enforce meritocratic society.

So I guess it's wrong to characterize all conservatives as racists. Some are simply racist-enablers.

[Edited on December 9, 2011 at 9:41 AM. Reason : .]

12/9/2011 9:33:59 AM

Quote :

"No, seriously, explain to me why somebody who doesn't pay for something would use it more than somebody who does pay for it, when both people have unlimited access to it once it's paid for."

You're asking the question wrong. I don't pay to go to the doctor, then not go. I pay for insurance so that when I go, I pay LESS. When that 'unemployed bum' goes to the hospital, my taxes/inflated hospital prices go to pay for him. He pays nothing. If he pays nothing, why motivation does he have to not use it unecessarily? My motivation for not going to the doctor unecessarily is that I have to pay $70 each time I go to a hospital...

12/9/2011 9:41:57 AM

Quote :

"You're asking the question wrong. I don't pay to go to the doctor, then not go. I pay for insurance so that when I go, I pay LESS. When that 'unemployed bum' goes to the hospital, my taxes/inflated hospital prices go to pay for him. He pays nothing. If he pays nothing, why motivation does he have to not use it unecessarily? My motivation for not going to the doctor unecessarily is that I have to pay $70 each time I go to a hospital..."

We're talking about universal healthcare you shmuck. You and the bum would be paying exactly the same amount at the actual doctor's office.

The point I'm making is that some folks are trying to argue against universal healthcare by arguing that tax incentives work the same as fuckin clearance sales or something.

[Edited on December 9, 2011 at 9:56 AM. Reason : .]

12/9/2011 9:54:54 AM

Quote :

"You and the bum would be paying exactly the same amount at the actual doctor's office."

Hmm.... maybe I didn't connect the dots enough. Let me try this a different way.

Currently, I don't go to the hospital for every nick, cut, and bruise because I have to pay a copay. That was the point of my last post. The individual who is visiting the hospital on government assistant/hospital overhead is having all of his expenses paid for, so as you said, there are all these "umemployed bum[s that] might get a free band-aid". They use it because it's paid for.

Now, if we all paid the same amount ($0 at the doctor's office), what is to stop me from going to the doctor just as much as the "unemployed bum"? Your point, as I'm reading it, is that it would be more fair because we would all pay the same amount at the doctors office and therefore no one can complain about how frequently anyone uses the healthcare system.

Alright, that makes perfect sense.

Now think about how we fund this universal healthcare system. My insurance is $400/month or something like that (I looked it up earlier in this thread, but I think that's about right). That is for my "household", and it still requires me to pay for copays, et al. We'll assume $400 covered EVERYTHING. That means the plan effectively covers "all expenses" (in this hypothetical) for $100/mo. Now, there are 350 million odd people in the US, IIRC. Also, 45% of Americans (almost 160 million) don't pay income tax. Those are just for the people who file income tax returns, keep in mind, so it doesn't include undocumented workers.

So the total cost for every American would be $35,000,000,000/month or $420,000,000,000/year (yeah, I caught the 420 joke). But wait, 45% of Americans don't pay income tax so in reality, this $420,000,000,000 is being paid by 190,000,000 Americans which comes out to 2210/year. Recall that in this scenario, we assumed that $100/month would cover EVERYTHING. That's a rosey estimation since that $100/month figure is based on a number that still involves copays and high fees for operations and special procedures.

So in this little "napkin calculation", the universal healthcare system makes my yearly healthcare costs go from $1200/year to $2210/year while the 45% who don't pay taxes pay $0/year. We may end up all going to the doctor the same amount, but the fact that I pay thousands more a year for it is what creates a problem.

This is all assuming that those who currently don't go to the doctor for every little thing due to fees, such as myself, don't start going more often "just to be safe" or "just to get something checked out" because I'm not paying anything extra at the doctor's office. In theory, what you're saying does make sense and if we can help the less fortunate without sinking the ship, the absolutely should, but unfortunately when you start running scenarios, this thing doesn't pan out too well.

12/9/2011 10:21:28 AM

Lol sorry I couldn't finish once you started using numbers from a for-profit insurance company middle-man to describe the cost for a non-profit single payer system. I mean seriously, I know you're against universal healthcare, but can you really say with a straight face that you think it would cost 35 million dollars a month per taxpayer? Honestly, you don't think that math might be making a few strange assumptions to reach such an absurd number?

You know, there's actually countries that already do this, maybe you should look at their numbers instead of making napkin calculations specifically formulated to reach the conclusion you're arguing for. An example country might be...almost every other OECD nation that spends way less on healthcare per capita and as a % of GDP than us...in other words, all of them.

Quote :

"This is all assuming that those who currently don't go to the doctor for every little thing due to fees, such as myself, don't start going more often "just to be safe" or "just to get something checked out" because I'm not paying anything extra at the doctor's office. "

No, it's not assuming that at all. In fact I'd encourage you to go to the doctor's regularly so you can nip health issues in the bud and reduce your healthcare costs overall. I'm okay with you going to the doc for knee scrapes as long as you get a cancer screening while you're there.


[Edited on December 9, 2011 at 12:15 PM. Reason : .]

12/9/2011 12:02:01 PM

lmao yes divide it out across everybody because that's how taxes do/should work

12/9/2011 12:04:35 PM

Alternatively, you could just eliminate the "emergency rooms must treat sick people" thing, if you want to live in that kind of society. As long as you're going to treat people's emergencies, it's just good sense to try and keep them in good condition to reduce lifetime costs.

Again, is it cheaper to wait until your car breaks down on the highway to take it to a mechanic, or actually get your regular oil changes? So if for some reason mechanics were legally obligated to fix a broken down car, wouldn't you rather everybody else gets their yearly inspection and oil change?

12/9/2011 12:11:20 PM

^So far all I've heard is rhetoric and you saying "look at other countries". How many figures have to be posted showing the difference between our healthcare costs and other countries before you realize that healthcare in the US and healthcare in other countries don't cost the same.

Is that because of health insurance companies? I don't know, maybe... but you can't inact a universal healthcare system and instantaneously drop prices. Do you have any idea, your own or any links/references, of how long it would take for our prices to fall in line with other countries'?



It takes time for that blue line to move back over to the left. How long will that take? In the meantime, how much will that cost out of our taxes? How much will that cost the average American versus the American that currently doesn't pay taxes? How would you go about eliminating the current private corporations that hire thousands of people? What affect would that have on the market?

The problem is what you're trying to advocate, it's how you do it. Rhetoric just explains what it is. No one denies that if we could give healthcare to ALL people in this country, we would be a better nation. The problem is in the side-effects of pursuing this goal.

12/9/2011 12:20:11 PM

Quote :

"No, seriously, explain to me why somebody who doesn't pay for something would use it more than somebody who does pay for it, when both people have unlimited access to it once it's paid for."

Do you not understand how insurance typically works?

Person A: Has no money, goes to emergency room, gets treated, never pays.

Person B: Has insurance, goes to emergency room, gets treated pays some copay amount, has to hit some deductible, and often has to pay coinsurance.

Person B does not have "unlimited access" to anything except with the best of insurance plans, in which case they (or their employer) is paying very high premiums. People will almost always be more likely to buy something if it is cheaper or free. That's why my mind was boggled by your statement. I don't understand how someone can be so oblivious to basic human behavior.

12/9/2011 12:54:55 PM

The Richest 1% Get $10 Billion A Year From Uncle Sam

Quote :

" Using IRS data, IBD found that the top 1% of income earners claimed approximately $7 billion in Social Security benefits in 2009. That year, the program paid super-rich seniors — those with adjusted gross incomes exceeding $10 million — an average of $33,000 each. Medicare, meanwhile, paid roughly $2.6 billion in health care subsidies for the richest 1% of enrollees, based on calculations using Medicare enrollment, overall Medicare spending and premium data. (Medicare does not track spending by enrollee income.) And if you consider that 5% of Medicare enrollees have more than $1 million in savings, the amount taxpayers spend to subsidize retiree health benefits skyrockets. The richest 1%, for example, claimed a total of about $400 million in jobless benefits in 2009. The reason for these billions in payments to the wealthy is that many federal transfer programs don't have income limits on benefits. "This is not an accidental loophole in the law," Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., noted. "To the contrary, this reverse Robin Hood-style of wealth distribution is an intentional effort to get all Americans bought into a system where everyone appears to benefit." In November, Coburn issued a report focused on federal subsidies going to millionaires. In addition to direct payments, the top 1% claimed about $31 million in tax credits for buying electric cars, $469 million in home energy credits, and $111 million in child care credits, according to IBD's analysis of IRS tax return data.... "Shifts in the distribution of government transfer payments (since 1979) contributed to the increase in after-tax income inequality," according to a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office. The rapid growth in Medicare, for example, "tended to shift more transfer income to middle- and upper-income households." The CBO also found that while the poorest fifth of households got 54% of federal transfer payments in 1979, they received just 36% in 2007. Several political leaders and policy groups have proposed changes to reduce federal payments to the super rich."

http://news.investors.com/Article/594429/201112120805/1-get-10-billion-from-government-each-year.htm

12/14/2011 12:49:41 AM

Quote :

"Lol sorry I couldn't finish once you started using numbers from a for-profit insurance company middle-man to describe the cost for a non-profit single payer system."

hahahahahahahahah. I'm sorry, I couldn't help but laugh, again, that you complain about a for-profit middleman and then laud the government as not a middleman, much less one that would be better.

Quote :

"How many figures have to be posted showing the difference between our healthcare costs and other countries "

not only that, but he completely ignores some of the major reasons why our costs are different. as a whole, we are a massively unhealthy nation, what with so many people being obese and never exercising. Then he's shocked, just shocked, that our costs are higher.

Quote :

"I don't understand how someone can be so oblivious to basic human behavior."

because he's a stupid liberal. duh.

12/14/2011 10:26:18 PM

Quote :

" Do you not understand how insurance typically works? Person A: Has no money, goes to emergency room, gets treated, never pays. Person B: Has insurance, goes to emergency room, gets treated pays some copay amount, has to hit some deductible, and often has to pay coinsurance. Person B does not have "unlimited access" to anything except with the best of insurance plans, in which case they (or their employer) is paying very high premiums. People will almost always be more likely to buy something if it is cheaper or free. That's why my mind was boggled by your statement. I don't understand how someone can be so oblivious to basic human behavior."

Jesus fuck try again, we're talking about a universal healthcare option

Person A: Makes less than poverty level income, does not pay into national universal healthcare program

Person B: Pays into national universal healthcare program

Both persons have equal access to healthcare now throughout the year, with no additional payments required. Why would person A make use of it more than B? What I think you're missing, so I'll state the point bluntly, is that tax-funded services do not have the same "basic human behavior" incentivizations as our current pay-as-you-go system.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 10:26 AM. Reason : .]

12/15/2011 10:25:27 AM

Quote :

"hahahahahahahahah. I'm sorry, I couldn't help but laugh, again, that you complain about a for-profit middleman and then laud the government as not a middleman, much less one that would be better."

It's impossible to have a conversation about that with you because you believe a priori that the government is inherently less efficient than the market...I'm really curious if you can actually explain why you believe it in this case

We're talking about replacing a few dozen insurance companies with a single system, that means eliminating all the redundancies you get by placing those insurance companies side by side, removes profit from the pricing structure, removes most if not all costs of advertising and marketing, vastly simplifies the paperwork requirement for thousands of patients, doctors, and hospitals, and puts all the health information that's currently spread out over these companies into a single database.

How can this not be more efficient?

Quote :

"not only that, but he completely ignores some of the major reasons why our costs are different. as a whole, we are a massively unhealthy nation, what with so many people being obese and never exercising. Then he's shocked, just shocked, that our costs are higher."

Lmao please offer me a citation that this is the source of our higher costs, with some numbers please. Simply saying "We are fat so it costs more to be healthy" doesn't cut it when there's so many other variables that go into this.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 10:34 AM. Reason : .]

12/15/2011 10:32:30 AM

Quote :

"We're talking about replacing a few dozen insurance companies with a single system, that means eliminating all the redundancies you get by placing those insurance companies side by side,"

And all the competition and choice too.

Quote :

"removes profit from the pricing structure,"

BCBSNC is non profit. Also, when was the last time you saw a high level government administrator that wasn't making money hand over fist? Hell, just locally, we have heads of ABC boards bringing in salaries over 300k / year off of a money losing store. There will be profit to be made in .gov care.

Quote :

"vastly simplifies the paperwork requirement for thousands of patients, doctors, and hospitals,"

Have you never looked at the tax code? Or the HIPAA laws? Or really ever dealt with a government regulatory agency? Simple is not the word I would use.

Or, looking at it another way, if the government can do it so much better and cheaper, why was Obama pushing to have private insurances take over more veteran's care? Why was it only recently that medicare finally started taking electronic billing. Up until recently (last 2 years I think) if you billed medicare, it was on paper. If you did all your billing electronically, you contracted with an outside company that would bill medicare on your behalf by taking the electronic claim and printing it out and mailing it in. EFFICIENCY!

12/15/2011 1:42:26 PM

Quote :

"And all the competition and choice too."

What competition? What choice? I thought competition was supposed to keep prices steady and lead to better service, whereas our system has only gotten more costly and less comprehensive over time.

Quote :

"BCBSNC is non profit. Also, when was the last time you saw a high level government administrator that wasn't making money hand over fist? Hell, just locally, we have heads of ABC boards bringing in salaries over 300k / year off of a money losing store. care. There will be profit to be made in .gov "

lol compared to the private industry, a board head making 300k a year is a pauper.

Quote :

"Have you never looked at the tax code? Or the HIPAA laws? Or really ever dealt with a government regulatory agency? Simple is not the word I would use."

Simpler than 30 different companies each with their own procedures and protocols. It's a lot simpler to train a hospital employee to process standardized government paperwork than be prepared to deal with any one of many insurance companies on any given day.

Quote :

"Or, looking at it another way, if the government can do it so much better and cheaper, why was Obama pushing to have private insurances take over more veteran's care?"

Find that in a chain email? http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/obama-veteran-insurance.htm

Quote :

"Why was it only recently that medicare finally started taking electronic billing. Up until recently (last 2 years I think) if you billed medicare, it was on paper. "

Because some people who believe government is inherently bad and inefficient like to hold up any kind of funding that might go to modernizing its programs.

Quote :

"If you did all your billing electronically, you contracted with an outside company that would bill medicare on your behalf by taking the electronic claim and printing it out and mailing it in. EFFICIENCY!"

See the above, there's no inherent reason it has to be that way, there are just political forces that insist on underfunding everything then pointing to the poor functioning as proof that government sucks.

For the 50th time, every other OECD nation has nationalized, universal healthcare, every single one of them has lower costs per capita and as a % of GDP, wider coverage, and most of them have a higher life expectancy than us as well. It works for every other modern nation, while our private system is getting progressively costlier and more broken. There comes a time when you put ideology aside and just recognize that what we're doing does not work, and what they're doing does work. The best explanation for this I've heard so far is aaronburro's "Americans are fat that's why healthcare is expensive here." and I'd be lying if I said I found that explanation at all compelling.


[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 2:02 PM. Reason : .]

12/15/2011 1:57:15 PM

Foolish, will you admit that if a person pays little to nothing for the services/goods they use they will tend to consume more? There is CLEAR evidence of this.

Lets start there


Actually 1337, Medicare was the only reason we had to keep a fax machine. I think until last year we had to use the FAX to get our billing statements from medicare. Most of the privates either automatically download into our patient management software or have a website you can go and check on your claims. FAX..unreal.

Oh and it took Medicare over 6 months to change our business address. Of course they held ALL our medicare checks during this time. My boss had to take out loans to run the business while they dragged their feet. He had to call his congressman before it was finally fixed. HUGE pain in the ass.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 2:28 PM. Reason : .]

12/15/2011 2:24:52 PM

Quote :

"It's impossible to have a conversation about that with you because you believe a priori that the government is not inherently less efficient than the market...I'm really curious if you can actually explain why you believe it in this case"

FTFY.
The first problem is that you decry the insurance companies as middlemen. And then you say let's let the gov't be the middlemen, but declare that doing so removes the middlemen. As well, why do I think gov't is vastly inefficient? Does a $500 hammer and a $1000 toilet seat ring any bells in your mind? How about those $15 muffins?

Quote :

" It works for every other modern nation"

sure, if you like massive wait times and rationed care, then yeah, it "works."

Quote :

"while our private system is getting progressively costlier and more broken."

and isn't it odd that as we add more and more gov't intervention and meddling, it gets progressively costlier and more broken? hmmm....

Quote :

"Simply saying "We are fat so it costs more to be healthy" doesn't cut it when there's so many other variables that go into this."

if that were what I was actually saying, then you might have a point. I offered out obesity as one reason for increased costs, from the perspective of how much we actually pay. And it makes damned sense. In general, obese people are less healthy. Less healthy people need more care. More care means you pay more. So then, it should come as no fucking surprise that, when tallying how much people actually pay for healthcare, that a less healthy people magically have more costs. Is this the only reason our costs are higher? Of course not, but to dismiss it out of hand is pure stupidity. Moreover, to also cite, for "the 50th time," our "lower life expectancies" as being due to not having universal healthcare is also absurd, given, again, the obesity epidemic, something which has literally ZERO to do with the method of healthcare payment.

12/15/2011 4:52:15 PM

the medicare-industrial complex is bringing in more and more revenue for my company as obamacare kicks in. it owns so much.

12/15/2011 6:20:36 PM

Quote :

"and isn't it odd that as we add more and more gov't intervention and meddling, it gets progressively costlier and more broken? hmmm...."

The 2 most heavily subsidized industries in the US have the two fastest growth rates. 1. Education 2. Healthcare

But if we only got MORE govt....things things will get better. lol

12/15/2011 7:06:03 PM

Quote :

"What competition? What choice? I thought competition was supposed to keep prices steady and lead to better service, whereas our system has only gotten more costly and less comprehensive over time. "

You're not telling me anything I don't already know, so stop pretending like I think healthcare in this country is perfect the way it is. I've already spoken on this before, and I don't have the time or inclination to repeat it here. That said, we may not have much competition and choice now, but we certainly have more than we would if only the government (or in a more likely scenario, some private company were granted exclusive government monopoly over health insurance). Consider, in the early 1900's AT&T successfully argued that telephone service could best be provided by "One Policy, One System, Universal Service". After the federal government nationalized the telephone service, they then handed control to a "regulated" AT&T, complete with price regulations and laws which forbade competition with AT&T. This proved to be such a fantastic idea that in the 1970's the federal government went ahead and sued AT&T for being the very monopoly they wanted in the first place. Forgive me if I'm not to convinced that the government can best decide how a market should work.

Quote :

"lol compared to the private industry, a board head making 300k a year is a pauper."

point <----------------------------------------------------> you

Quote :

"Simpler than 30 different companies each with their own procedures and protocols."

I thought you said we have no competition or choice.

Quote :

"It's a lot simpler to train a hospital employee to process standardized government paperwork than be prepared to deal with any one of many insurance companies on any given day."

And yet at the pharmacy I work for, any employee would much rather deal with any of the aforementioned 30 insurance companies rather than medicare or medicaid. At least the private insurance company's claim processors don't go down for 1 or 2 days at a time every month.

Quote :

"Find that in a chain email?"

So by your own link, I spoke the truth. Obama was pushing to have private insurances take over more veteran care.

Quote :

"Because some people who believe government is inherently bad and inefficient like to hold up any kind of funding that might go to modernizing its programs."

And I'm sure you have some proof of this right?

12/15/2011 8:05:37 PM

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/28/more-proof-that-the-american-for-profit-health-insurance-model-is-doomed/

This is basically why I was never too concerned about a public option not being included in the PPACA. It's also why I don't really care if the supreme court shoots down the individual mandate. The other provisions of the act, the ones that force insurers to actually provide coverage, are going to drive them all out of business. As the private insurers drop like flies, congress will have no choice but to pass a public option and eventually single payer. Granted, a lot of pain could have been avoided had we just passed single payer in the first place, but this will do.

12/29/2011 5:56:30 PM

Quote :

"This is basically why I was never too concerned about a public option not being included in the PPACA. It's also why I don't really care if the supreme court shoots down the individual mandate. The other provisions of the act, the ones that force insurers to actually provide coverage, are going to drive them all out of business. As the private insurers drop like flies, congress will have no choice but to pass a public option and eventually single payer. Granted, a lot of pain could have been avoided had we just passed single payer in the first place, but this will do."

I just want you to realize that this is what conservatives were saying was the "ulterior motive" of Democrats, which was decried as ludicrous at the time (around 2009). In fact, I'm certain that we could find some comments by burro or even me saying that the goal was simply to sabotage the entire system, and then of course some TWW Democratic party loyalists pretending to not know what we were talking about.

12/29/2011 6:15:04 PM

yep. i've said it before, but that has been the goal of democrats for quite a while, and Obamacare was an obvious manifestation of that. if the SC only strikes down the individual mandate and not the rest of the bill, it would be outrageous, as it is obvious the entire bill was built on that mandate. Democrats even said so when they were working on it.

12/29/2011 7:43:51 PM

Every American should watch this.

https://www.facebook.com/truTVAdamRuinsEverything/videos/677187679150643/

How can y'all let this happen? I guess your hands are tied, because if it were any other business, you could just let it collapse by not patronizing it, but you can't employ that tactic here, ever.

Does that mean the system is forever screwed and can never be fixed? Well, until the prices inflate so much that the system implodes.

Quote :

"The healthcare industry spends more on lobbying than the oil and defense industries combined."

$7 for an alcohol swab
$137 for an IV bag (137 times cost)
$154 for a neck brace (7.5 times cost)
$37 for 1 Tylenol (50 times cost)
$2,200 for 3 stitches
$33,000 for heart X-rays

WTF???



It is ~$10,000 pp now.


[Edited on July 31, 2017 at 11:12 PM. Reason : ]

7/31/2017 11:10:01 PM

Their hands aren't tied. They continue to vote for it even though they claim not to want it. In our current system, higher costs means more profits which means more campaign dollars so politicans want it. If it was publicly funded, higher cost would mean higher taxes which would put the policians at odds with either voters or lobbyists. Why wouldn't they continue the system that lets them be friendly with both?

7/31/2017 11:21:10 PM

^^I don't want to jump too far into this because I really know very little about this topic but one thing I have seen stated before was that part of the reason those things are so expensive is that they factor in the cost of all the people who come in and never end up paying for any of it.

[Edited on July 31, 2017 at 11:56 PM. Reason : a]

7/31/2017 11:55:50 PM

^so that’s what I thought initially too but if you think about it it doesn’t make sense unless in the 19 “rich” countries those people just don’t get treated which obviously isn’t true because their life expectancy would drop. So if you assume that in all lines everyone gets treated the difference is one of two things

pure profit because it’s clear that the lower prices paid can provide an acceptable level of service
OR
the US is essentially subsidizing medicine in the other countries, essentially the other 19 are receiving medical care at cost or below and so the US needs to pay more so that the companies can make an acceptable level of profit

8/1/2017 12:03:43 AM

^ it's a little bit of both. It's also got a lot to do with how we blow most of our healthcare dollars in the last 3 months of life, arguable for very little gain. I also imagine our obesity rates aren't helping

9/2/2017 3:52:02 PM

Don't forget the pure profit of our doctors being the highest payed on the planet, by a very wide margin. AMA: a cartel to drive up wages at the expense of patients nation wide!

9/3/2017 11:24:02 PM

Quote :

"It's also got a lot to do with how we blow most of our healthcare dollars in the last 3 months of life, arguable for very little gain."

I'd like to see your data, and what's your solution?

9/4/2017 12:35:49 AM

A TALE OF TWO CANCERS

Quote :

"Two sisters, both diagnosed with breast cancer. Catherine, a Canadian, focused on getting well, while her American sister received mounting medical bills."

5-minute video that every American should watch
https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/videos/10156479123482908

Full story of the two sisters
http://www.ucobserver.org/faith/2017/10/two_cancers

How mentally deficient would one have to be to still say the American system is better after watching/reading that?

LOL 'Merica

11/8/2017 3:46:28 PM

How America likes to fuck the common man:

https://www.facebook.com/ATTNVideo/videos/vb.1541839722787650/1802702293368057

1/19/2018 10:15:31 AM