Socialized medicine
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There should be a picture of espier in the dictionary.com entry for "red herring[^]" as he is masterful at using them rather than sensible and on-topic argument.
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I have come to realize that all the arguments pro and con 'socialized medicine' in the US are merely smokescreens promulgated by those who profit most from the status quo (no, not doctors...). The truth seems to me to be that we have had 'universal free medical care' for a long time, but we are unfotunate enough to have institutionalized the least efficient delivery system for it. Anyone can walk up to the emergengy room and get treated without regard to ability to pay. Those of us who can pay (including insurers) pay an indirect tax to fund this (higher charges and insurance premiums), with middle men (hospital corporations and insurance companies) trying to profit as much as they can from this tax. The non-contributors (I'm thinking of the idiots I have to talk to at my insureres help line) siphon off a fair piece as well. Although it goes against my basically conservative philosophy, in this case I have come to believe we would be much better off if we quit arguing about the merits of socialized healthcare (since it is irrelevant - we have it anyway) and started exploring the most efficient and effective way to deliver and fund that. Clearly, what we have today is crap.
Rob Graham wrote:
but we are unfotunate enough to have institutionalized the least efficient delivery system for it
Well said! Emergency room style health care is very expensive, since those who use it wait until they are very sick before going. No preventative treatment can occur.
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. - Jim Morrison
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Rob Graham wrote:
but we are unfotunate enough to have institutionalized the least efficient delivery system for it
Well said! Emergency room style health care is very expensive, since those who use it wait until they are very sick before going. No preventative treatment can occur.
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. - Jim Morrison
Worse, most insurance companies don't cover preventative care, so many who are living payday to payday neglect it as well. Like I said, it shouldn't be about the merits of the concept, but rather about the best way to fund and deliver.
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I think he is actually making a telling point. He thinks that health care is like a luxury automobile. If you can't afford you, you can't have it.
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. - Jim Morrison
The same reasoning for the socialistic rationing of health care can be equally applied to luxury sedans. You believe that health care is an entitlement because it extends lifespan and it is wrong to deny such a service to somebody merely because he does not have the funds to acquire it. I therefore will hold the position that, since luxury sedans are safer than inexpensive compact cars (and therefore possess the same life-extending properties as health care), we should all be entitled by the state to share in them equally, regardless of income. It's wrong to deny somebody the inherent safety of a luxury sedan merely because he does not have the funds to acquire it.
"I curse economic prosperity as it puts an end to much-needed poverty, famine and pestilence." -dennisd45 "I fully support Communists in key positions of our government. I believe that they contribute positively to the liberal ideal." -dennisd45 "Liberals do not exist. You invented them to facilitate your strawman arguments." -dennisd45 "The Communist Manifest was written 150 years ago. It has been rigorously tested and is accepted by left"
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Mike Gaskey wrote:
I'll be 62 next June and I'm perfectly willing to let you dumbasses support me.
Jerk.
"I curse economic prosperity as it puts an end to much-needed poverty, famine and pestilence." -dennisd45 "I fully support Communists in key positions of our government. I believe that they contribute positively to the liberal ideal." -dennisd45 "Liberals do not exist. You invented them to facilitate your strawman arguments." -dennisd45 "The Communist Manifest was written 150 years ago. It has been rigorously tested and is accepted by left"
You're losing your touch. Once upon a time you would litter the soapbox with words like "moron" and "idiot". Is "jerk" the only thing you can muster these days? :P
-- Coming Soon to an Illegal DVD
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You're losing your touch. Once upon a time you would litter the soapbox with words like "moron" and "idiot". Is "jerk" the only thing you can muster these days? :P
-- Coming Soon to an Illegal DVD
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
Is "jerk" the only thing you can muster these days?
With the rate I pay on Social Security and Medicare...Yes. :|
"I curse economic prosperity as it puts an end to much-needed poverty, famine and pestilence." -dennisd45 "I fully support Communists in key positions of our government. I believe that they contribute positively to the liberal ideal." -dennisd45 "Liberals do not exist. You invented them to facilitate your strawman arguments." -dennisd45 "The Communist Manifest was written 150 years ago. It has been rigorously tested and is accepted by left"
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Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
Is "jerk" the only thing you can muster these days?
With the rate I pay on Social Security and Medicare...Yes. :|
"I curse economic prosperity as it puts an end to much-needed poverty, famine and pestilence." -dennisd45 "I fully support Communists in key positions of our government. I believe that they contribute positively to the liberal ideal." -dennisd45 "Liberals do not exist. You invented them to facilitate your strawman arguments." -dennisd45 "The Communist Manifest was written 150 years ago. It has been rigorously tested and is accepted by left"
Well, why don't you try to get some happy pills through Medicare? You've paid for it already. ;P
-- This episode performed entirely by sock puppets
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Worse, most insurance companies don't cover preventative care, so many who are living payday to payday neglect it as well. Like I said, it shouldn't be about the merits of the concept, but rather about the best way to fund and deliver.
Rob Graham wrote:
most insurance companies don't cover preventative care
that is because it is, "point of care". Insurance covers damage. HMO on the other hand focuses on preventative care (HMO == health maintenance organization). So, you get what you pay for.
Mike Dear NYT - the fact is, the founding fathers hung traitors. Vincent Reynolds: My opposition is as enlightened as your support, jackass. dennisd45: My view of the world is slightly more nuanced
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Rob Graham wrote:
most insurance companies don't cover preventative care
that is because it is, "point of care". Insurance covers damage. HMO on the other hand focuses on preventative care (HMO == health maintenance organization). So, you get what you pay for.
Mike Dear NYT - the fact is, the founding fathers hung traitors. Vincent Reynolds: My opposition is as enlightened as your support, jackass. dennisd45: My view of the world is slightly more nuanced
That would be fine if I had that choice. I don't, I get what my multi-national employer is willing to provide, and pay whatever premiums he is unwilling to subsidise. My choices of physicians and hospitals are limited to those the insurance provider deems suitable, as are the treatment options and prescription medications that can be selected without financial penalty. Given the size of the combined (company paid and mine) premiums, I pay a pretty substantial tax for a limited and controlled benefit. I see little difference in this and 'socialized medicine'. What I do see is a crappy delivey system, with tremendous overhead that includes insurance brokers, lawyers and beancounters at multiple levels. A fully government operated delivery system might be worse, but they would have to work hard at incompetence to do worse. 50 years ago we had a real free enterprise health care delivery system, that worked well (for it's time). Since then we have turned it into a bueaucratic nightmare run by people who have no responsibility to the health care consumer, but rather to competing interests. We need to fix the delivery system, and eliminate non-contributors from the process, so that practitioners can enjoy reasonable compensation for their work, and patients can get reasonable care at an affordable price. Neither happens today for the majority of consumers or practitioners.
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Rob Graham wrote:
most insurance companies don't cover preventative care
that is because it is, "point of care". Insurance covers damage. HMO on the other hand focuses on preventative care (HMO == health maintenance organization). So, you get what you pay for.
Mike Dear NYT - the fact is, the founding fathers hung traitors. Vincent Reynolds: My opposition is as enlightened as your support, jackass. dennisd45: My view of the world is slightly more nuanced
As an additional point, I have several co-workers (in other parts of the US) who are offered HMO as an alternative (or in some cases only) plan. Most of them would argue that the HMO offers little preventative care, and that what they actually paractice is "specialist minimization", since it is quite difficult to actually see a physician who is a specialist. It's basically up to the HMO to determine whether your condition warrants consultation with one of their limited supply of specialists. Even closer to a 'socialized medicine solution', which further supports my argument that we are already (at least most of the way) there, but had, along the way, implemented a terribly inefficient and costly delivery system.
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That would be fine if I had that choice. I don't, I get what my multi-national employer is willing to provide, and pay whatever premiums he is unwilling to subsidise. My choices of physicians and hospitals are limited to those the insurance provider deems suitable, as are the treatment options and prescription medications that can be selected without financial penalty. Given the size of the combined (company paid and mine) premiums, I pay a pretty substantial tax for a limited and controlled benefit. I see little difference in this and 'socialized medicine'. What I do see is a crappy delivey system, with tremendous overhead that includes insurance brokers, lawyers and beancounters at multiple levels. A fully government operated delivery system might be worse, but they would have to work hard at incompetence to do worse. 50 years ago we had a real free enterprise health care delivery system, that worked well (for it's time). Since then we have turned it into a bueaucratic nightmare run by people who have no responsibility to the health care consumer, but rather to competing interests. We need to fix the delivery system, and eliminate non-contributors from the process, so that practitioners can enjoy reasonable compensation for their work, and patients can get reasonable care at an affordable price. Neither happens today for the majority of consumers or practitioners.
Rob Graham wrote:
with tremendous overhead that includes insurance brokers, lawyers and beancounters at multiple levels.
ah, you've hit on the head the reason why we don't have a universal health care system and why every effort to create one has failed and will forever fail: the entrenched status-quo industry. It's the same reason we'll never get a flat-tax system in place either: doing so would put entire segments of "professionals" out of work, accountants and IRS agents in the tax case, insurance companies, agents and like people.
Silence is the voice of complicity. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. -- monty python Might I suggest that the universe was always the size of the cosmos. It is just that at one point the cosmos was the size of a marble. -- Colin Angus Mackay
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Rob Graham wrote:
with tremendous overhead that includes insurance brokers, lawyers and beancounters at multiple levels.
ah, you've hit on the head the reason why we don't have a universal health care system and why every effort to create one has failed and will forever fail: the entrenched status-quo industry. It's the same reason we'll never get a flat-tax system in place either: doing so would put entire segments of "professionals" out of work, accountants and IRS agents in the tax case, insurance companies, agents and like people.
Silence is the voice of complicity. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. -- monty python Might I suggest that the universe was always the size of the cosmos. It is just that at one point the cosmos was the size of a marble. -- Colin Angus Mackay
ahz wrote:
: doing so would put entire segments of "professionals" out of work, accountants and IRS agents in the tax case, insurance companies, agents and like people.
In this case it's headed rapidly in the direction of pricing itself out of business. More people are being forced into the emergency room door mode, as health care insurance costs (not to maention 'pay it all yourself' costs) increase at double digit percentage rates each year. It may become a problem we're forced to fix, regardless of who gets displaced.
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Medical miasma[^] Sounds pretty good to me!
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. - Jim Morrison
