"We are out of money" says Obama "So we must subsidize health care"
-
Fisticuffs wrote:
Then everything would be way better."
No, everything would be better if there were fewer people involved in the process. Health insurance is an entirely separate industry which takes your health care money, yet provides no health care, while getting rich for pretty much doing nothing. Our health care dollars are essentially supporting three entirely separate industries - the health care industry itself, the health insurance industry, and the industry represented by a huge government bureaucracy. That is untenable. I simply refuse to believe that the problem of managing health care expenses necessarily requires that much more overhead than does that of virtually any other industry. We are being duped into believing that is the case because all three legs of that stool are in cahoots with one another to take our money away from us.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, everything would be better if there were fewer people involved in the process.
Well, pretty much every system everywhere has demonstrated that doesn't make things better, it means that a smaller number of people have to handle a larger diversity of problems, which means everything gets handled both less efficiently and less competently.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I simply refuse to believe that the problem of managing health care expenses necessarily requires that much more overhead than does that of virtually any other industry.
You guys spend more per capita on your health care than any other country, mostly because of the profit margin for your huge private insurers*, which seems to suggest that switching to a public government accountable non-profit insurer model would save you considerable amounts of money. Beyond that, I don't really know what the best solution is for you guys (capping personal income for insurance owners? capping the amount of funds an insurer is permitted to acquire? financed non-profit insurers?) but at least we can agree on the fact that some form of government intervention is necessary to keep the health care system fair. * - removed the part in which I talk out of my ass
- F
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, everything would be better if there were fewer people involved in the process.
Well, pretty much every system everywhere has demonstrated that doesn't make things better, it means that a smaller number of people have to handle a larger diversity of problems, which means everything gets handled both less efficiently and less competently.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I simply refuse to believe that the problem of managing health care expenses necessarily requires that much more overhead than does that of virtually any other industry.
You guys spend more per capita on your health care than any other country, mostly because of the profit margin for your huge private insurers*, which seems to suggest that switching to a public government accountable non-profit insurer model would save you considerable amounts of money. Beyond that, I don't really know what the best solution is for you guys (capping personal income for insurance owners? capping the amount of funds an insurer is permitted to acquire? financed non-profit insurers?) but at least we can agree on the fact that some form of government intervention is necessary to keep the health care system fair. * - removed the part in which I talk out of my ass
- F
<blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">Fisticuffs wrote:</div>Well, pretty much every system everywhere has demonstrated that doesn't make things better, it means that a smaller number of people have to handle a larger diversity of problems, which means everything gets handled both less efficiently and less competently.</blockquote> Actually, doing more with less is the very definition of productivity. And productivity is the only thing capable of growing an economy.
Fisticuffs wrote:
You guys spend more per capita on your health care than any other country,
Yes, and, as I said, that is because we are supporting three industries while most other nations are only supporing one - the government. Yet the actual healt care we receive is, arguably, better than elsewehre precisely because it is more market driven. Your government managed health care systems are going to fail, as will ours if we go that route, and it will bring your entire economy down with it. That isn't a possbility, that is a certainty.
Fisticuffs wrote:
fact that some form of government intervention is necessary to keep the health care system fair.
Fairness should never be the goal of the US government. The goal of the US government should be equal opportunity, not fairness. Fairness is an inherently Marxist concept and has no place in a Jeffersonian political system. Equal opportunity is best achieved by making the overall economy as productive as possible, which would include a productive, free market, health care system.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, everything would be better if there were fewer people involved in the process.
Well, pretty much every system everywhere has demonstrated that doesn't make things better, it means that a smaller number of people have to handle a larger diversity of problems, which means everything gets handled both less efficiently and less competently.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I simply refuse to believe that the problem of managing health care expenses necessarily requires that much more overhead than does that of virtually any other industry.
You guys spend more per capita on your health care than any other country, mostly because of the profit margin for your huge private insurers*, which seems to suggest that switching to a public government accountable non-profit insurer model would save you considerable amounts of money. Beyond that, I don't really know what the best solution is for you guys (capping personal income for insurance owners? capping the amount of funds an insurer is permitted to acquire? financed non-profit insurers?) but at least we can agree on the fact that some form of government intervention is necessary to keep the health care system fair. * - removed the part in which I talk out of my ass
- F
It's the law of supply and demand. As long as the supply of health care remains limited, some mechanism will spring into place to ration what is available. In Canada, is is a bureacracy where waiting times for health care have quadrupled since the 90's; in the U.S. it is costs which have gone up even faster. If we really want to do something about health care delivery costs we have got to figure out how to make more of it available. The costs will come down; the waiting times will come down. But those doctors who are accustomed to owning islands in the Aegean and taking summer vacations in the Alps will not be thrilled. Neither will the Congress critters who like donations from these same docs come re-election time.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
-
Mike Gaskey wrote:
unless you're as wealthy as Rush Limbaugh, without insurance you would recieve a death sentence the minute you had: a stroke, a heart attack, cancer or any number of other costly to treat conditions. anyone of the three I chose to list, and I can produce an exhaustive list, can run into millions of dollars to treat.
Yeah? So? The answer to that is to take better care of yourself. No system, not insurance, nor government, not free market can cost effectively deal with the general decline in health related to aging or those who simply refuse to care for their own health by their behavior. Yes, insurance is a method of spreading the costs of the few to a larger group of people, but that simply means that those of us who do watch our health are paying for the health care of those who do not. People get sick and people die, there is nothing that can be done to prevent that and any system which assumes that goal is doomed to failure. And certainly cancer can strike anyone, and accidents can injure anyone. But the numbers in that category are not so enormous that a free markdet health care system could not deal with the few who would simply be incapable of providing for their own care. Again my own family in the 1950's was a perfect example of how effectively a free market system was able to provide care for the poor.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Yeah? So? The answer to that is to take better care of yourself
Stan Shannon wrote:
And certainly cancer can strike anyone
I hate to belabor the point, but you simply do not understand the problem.
Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.
-
It's the law of supply and demand. As long as the supply of health care remains limited, some mechanism will spring into place to ration what is available. In Canada, is is a bureacracy where waiting times for health care have quadrupled since the 90's; in the U.S. it is costs which have gone up even faster. If we really want to do something about health care delivery costs we have got to figure out how to make more of it available. The costs will come down; the waiting times will come down. But those doctors who are accustomed to owning islands in the Aegean and taking summer vacations in the Alps will not be thrilled. Neither will the Congress critters who like donations from these same docs come re-election time.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
Oakman wrote:
In Canada, is is a bureacracy where waiting times for health care have quadrupled since the 90's
In Ontario, ironically, for that you can thank the NDP (socialist) government that had the astounding foresight to viciously cut the number of places available in medical schools in the 90s. They've only just started adding more spaces recently.
Oakman wrote:
If we really want to do something about health care delivery costs we have got to figure out how to make more of it available.
Tell me about it. One other issue is that both of our systems are very prohibitive against foreign trained doctors practicing. The reasons for that are multifactorial - some are good (are they trained enough to do it?) some are not so good (perhaps some resistance to competition?).
- F
-
<blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">Fisticuffs wrote:</div>Well, pretty much every system everywhere has demonstrated that doesn't make things better, it means that a smaller number of people have to handle a larger diversity of problems, which means everything gets handled both less efficiently and less competently.</blockquote> Actually, doing more with less is the very definition of productivity. And productivity is the only thing capable of growing an economy.
Fisticuffs wrote:
You guys spend more per capita on your health care than any other country,
Yes, and, as I said, that is because we are supporting three industries while most other nations are only supporing one - the government. Yet the actual healt care we receive is, arguably, better than elsewehre precisely because it is more market driven. Your government managed health care systems are going to fail, as will ours if we go that route, and it will bring your entire economy down with it. That isn't a possbility, that is a certainty.
Fisticuffs wrote:
fact that some form of government intervention is necessary to keep the health care system fair.
Fairness should never be the goal of the US government. The goal of the US government should be equal opportunity, not fairness. Fairness is an inherently Marxist concept and has no place in a Jeffersonian political system. Equal opportunity is best achieved by making the overall economy as productive as possible, which would include a productive, free market, health care system.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Actually, doing more with less is the very definition of productivity.
Now you're playing word games. You seriously expect me to believe that if there are fifty small practices, and each of those practices needs to somehow come up with their own fee schedule, means of billing, billing records, and payment processing that would be a more productive system than consolidating and standardizing those services through a single agency? What are you smoking?
- F
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
Actually, doing more with less is the very definition of productivity.
Now you're playing word games. You seriously expect me to believe that if there are fifty small practices, and each of those practices needs to somehow come up with their own fee schedule, means of billing, billing records, and payment processing that would be a more productive system than consolidating and standardizing those services through a single agency? What are you smoking?
- F
Fisticuffs wrote:
You seriously expect me to believe that if there are fifty small practices, and each of those practices needs to somehow come up with their own fee schedule, means of billing, billing records, and payment processing that would be a more productive system than consolidating and standardizing those services through a single agency?
Yes, I actually do expect that. These organizations are set up to achieve the very results Jon mentioned below - sucking as much money as possible out of a captive customer base forced to deal with a business plan that has intentionally eleminated competition. There is no reason that a medical practice could not operate the same way any other small business does. You don't see other business operations requiring insuarnce of their customers, yet they confront the same basic business requirements any doctor would. Yes, obviously, the costs of non-payment has to be figured into their business plan, but that is no different than any other business. And the issue of catastrophic health problems is not an argument against that. No system can provide top level service for everyone who needs to be cared for when they are not able to provide for their own needs due to illness and injury. It simply cannot be done.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
-
Fisticuffs wrote:
You seriously expect me to believe that if there are fifty small practices, and each of those practices needs to somehow come up with their own fee schedule, means of billing, billing records, and payment processing that would be a more productive system than consolidating and standardizing those services through a single agency?
Yes, I actually do expect that. These organizations are set up to achieve the very results Jon mentioned below - sucking as much money as possible out of a captive customer base forced to deal with a business plan that has intentionally eleminated competition. There is no reason that a medical practice could not operate the same way any other small business does. You don't see other business operations requiring insuarnce of their customers, yet they confront the same basic business requirements any doctor would. Yes, obviously, the costs of non-payment has to be figured into their business plan, but that is no different than any other business. And the issue of catastrophic health problems is not an argument against that. No system can provide top level service for everyone who needs to be cared for when they are not able to provide for their own needs due to illness and injury. It simply cannot be done.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No system can provide top level service for everyone who needs to be cared for when they are not able to provide for their own needs due to illness and injury.
So who picked up the tab when your son has his catastrophic medical problem that drove you back into the waiting arms of god?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!! -
Stan Shannon wrote:
No system can provide top level service for everyone who needs to be cared for when they are not able to provide for their own needs due to illness and injury.
So who picked up the tab when your son has his catastrophic medical problem that drove you back into the waiting arms of god?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!!Tim Craig wrote:
So who picked up the tab when your son has his catastrophic medical problem that drove you back into the waiting arms of god?
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
-
Tim Craig wrote:
So who picked up the tab when your son has his catastrophic medical problem that drove you back into the waiting arms of god?
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
:omg: Stan using health insurance and provided by the grace of public tax money. You sure are a do what I say and not what I do hypocrit, aren't you?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!! -
Tim Craig wrote:
So who picked up the tab when your son has his catastrophic medical problem that drove you back into the waiting arms of god?
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
Oh, out of curiosity, just how big was the tab?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!! -
Stan Shannon wrote:
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
:omg: Stan using health insurance and provided by the grace of public tax money. You sure are a do what I say and not what I do hypocrit, aren't you?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!!<blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">Tim Craig wrote:</div>Stan using health insurance and provided by the grace of public tax money. You sure are a do what I say and not what I do hypocrit, aren't you? </blockquote> My hyprocicy knows no limits - I also used the GI bill to help pay for college, and took out low interest loans. But the fact of the matter is I am locked into an economy crippled by these kinds of programs. Like everyone else, I have no choice but to use them. That is the entire point of creating them in the first place - making people dependent. Well, sorry, but I have every intention of biting the hand that feeds me.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
-
Stan Shannon wrote:
My wife's insurance plan provided by the state of Alabama.
Oh, out of curiosity, just how big was the tab?
"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke
I'm a proud denizen of the Real Soapbox[^]
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!!!Tim Craig wrote:
Oh, out of curiosity, just how big was the tab?
Don't remember, but it was pretty steep. The most expensive part was the massive doses of gamma globulin my son needed.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.