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American Values and Health CareFollow

#27 Jul 31 2009 at 7:38 AM Rating: Good
publiusvarus wrote:
I know you want to make the insurance guy out to be the bad guy but that's typical liberal tactics. First it was the auto manufacturers, then the tobaco industry, then the banks, now fatty foods. Anytime liberals want to push an agenda they demonize some particular aspect of that industry and put themselves up as the saviors of the people.


So true.

I mean, it's not like auto-manufacturers were producing **** cars that looked like armoured vehicles, and that polluted the planet like there was no tomorrow. Or like the tobacco industry is selling cancer sticks. Or like the banks fucked the world economy only to be given **** loads of cash to make up for it. Or like producers of fatty food created the biggest obesity crisis, ever.

What ever will those crazy liberals demonise next? Arms dealer? Companies that use child labour? Oh, those poor insurance guys. I feel so sorry for the ginormous profits they make from a ridiculously biased system.
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#28 Jul 31 2009 at 7:41 AM Rating: Good
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Wrong. The insurance provider pays for what's covered. If somethings not covered the insurance company isn't responsible for it.
Smiley: dubiousWho decides what's covered. Oh wait..

It's nice to see you're not pretending you actually have any arguments here. Carry on.
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#29 Jul 31 2009 at 7:41 AM Rating: Good
publiusvarus wrote:
You get what you pay for. And generally I find the working poor would rather spend their extra money on beer, cigarettes, and lotery tickets. Which incidentally is why they stay poor and their health conditions worsen as life goes on.
Well, your adorable little misconceptions rightfully have no bearing on public policy.

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These are the reasons the cost of care is so high.



Malpractice suits are only one small part of the mechanism that's driving up healthcare costs. It doesn't surprise me that conservatives like to focus on it so much, because it's the only one that doesn't impune the for-profit insurance model that they favor so much.

The insurance layer itself imposes an estimated 30% overhead that's one of the key factors behind the explosive growth of health costs. The medical infrastructure in place is so overwhelmingly complex and bloated that it sucks nearly 30 cents out of every dollar spend in health care.

Additionally there is the skyrocketing cost of medical education which creates a shortage of health-care providers in general and family practice roles, regulatory overhead, and a pharmaceutical regulation infrastructure which encourages up-front gouging by drug companies to recoup R&D costs.

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Wrong. The insurance provider pays for what's covered. If somethings not covered the insurance company isn't responsible for it.
In other words insurance bureaucrats decide what care they cover based on cost-effectiveness. Smiley: rolleyes

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I don't think medical insurance providers are bad guys. I think they're grossly inefficient guys providing a crappy service that could be better managed by a single-payer government program. Likewise, I have no problem with tobacco companies, auto makers, banks, or fast food companies. Way to generalize, yo.


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Tell me how did the govn takeover of fannie and freddie work out?
Lul, you know those were both government-sponsored enterprises from day one, right?
#30 Jul 31 2009 at 9:25 AM Rating: Default
Mindel,

Quote:
The insurance layer itself imposes an estimated 30% overhead that's one of the key factors behind the explosive growth of health costs. The medical infrastructure in place is so overwhelmingly complex and bloated that it sucks nearly 30 cents out of every dollar spend in health care.


and you think turning it over to the federal govn is going to simplify it? I know you're a bit on the dull side but come on even you can't be that obtuse.

Quote:
In other words insurance bureaucrats decide what care they cover based on cost-effectiveness.


That's right. If someone is a higher risk guess what...they should pay a higher premium. Taxing your neighbor so that you don't have to pay what the risk dictates is only going to hurt the quality, and quantity, of care available. Look at it this way; do you think you should pay the same car insurance rate as someone who has 3 dui's in the last year? That's essentially what you're saying we should be doing in the health insurance industry.



Red,

Quote:
it's not like auto-manufacturers were producing sh*t cars that looked like armoured vehicles, and that polluted the planet like there was no tomorrow.


Basing policy on the myth that if you don't do something a certain way you are going to kill the planet is no way to run a business. Perhaps we should just create a exhorbitant fat tax because fat people produce much more co2 than healthy people do.









Edited, Jul 31st 2009 1:27pm by publiusvarus
#31 Jul 31 2009 at 9:30 AM Rating: Good
publiusvarus wrote:
and you think turning it over to the federal govn is going to simplify it? I know you're a bit on the dull side but come on even you can't be that obtuse.
Absolutely. Medicare operates with less than 1/3 the overhead that private insurance does.

Quote:
That's right. If someone is a higher risk guess what...they should pay a higher premium. Taxing your neighbor so that you don't have to pay what the risk dictates is only going to hurt the quality, and quantity, of care available. Look at it this way; do you think you should pay the same car insurance rate as someone who has 3 dui's in the last year? That's essentially what you're saying we should be doing in the health insurance industry.
I'm saying that approaching healthcare with an insurance model is idiotic and devastating to the public health and welfare.
#32 Jul 31 2009 at 9:35 AM Rating: Default
Mindel,

Quote:
I'm saying that approaching healthcare with an insurance model is idiotic and devastating to the public health and welfare.


And I think turning healthcare over to the govn is the surest way to ruin the quality and cost of care.

Tell me how has GM done since the govn took them over?

How has fannie mae and freddie mac done?

This is where health care is heading if the govn takes over.
#33 Jul 31 2009 at 10:01 AM Rating: Excellent
publiusvarus wrote:
And I think turning healthcare over to the govn is the surest way to ruin the quality and cost of care.
Because a healthcare system with costs increasing at twice the rate of inflation and accessibility decreasing by a third of a percent per year is so great?

Quote:
Tell me how has GM done since the govn took them over?
They're still in bankruptcy. Smiley: lol The reorganized company won't even IPO until next year. No one has a clue what the outcome of that whole mess will be. I will say that if the government hadn't stepped in to finance the new holding company, this bankruptcy would have been much messier, much costlier, and much more disruptive to the already fragile economy than it has been. So yeah, thumbs up to the government on that one.

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How has fannie mae and freddie mac done?
They're solvent. Lord knows, they were so fucked by the end of 2008, that's a miracle in and of itself.

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This is where health care is heading if the govn takes over.
It's amusing that you keep pointing to economic crises to attack a single-payer system, but you ignore the single-payer system that's already in place in the United States. Medicare is more efficient than private insurance (2-3% of revenues spent on administration, compared the private insurance average of 20-30%) all while being considered one of the larger constraining factors against health cost increase, traditionally keeping pace or lagging behind private insurance in costs. And amongst health professionals (many of whom would like to see a single-payer system in place), Medicare is widely regarded as easier to deal with than private insurance; they pay claims more quickly and at a generally higher rate of reimbursement, and Medicare doesn't have the tendency to outright deny claims after the fact leaving either the patient or the provider in the lurch for an often substantial amount of money.

I think that's a much better indicator of the government's ability to manage a healthcare system than whether or not the bankrupt companies it bailed out are still posting ****** financials.
#34 Jul 31 2009 at 10:16 AM Rating: Default
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So true.

I mean, it's not like auto-manufacturers were producing sh*t cars that looked like armoured vehicles, and that polluted the planet like there was no tomorrow. Or like the tobacco industry is selling cancer sticks. Or like the banks ****** the world economy only to be given sh*t loads of cash to make up for it. Or like producers of fatty food created the biggest obesity crisis, ever.

What ever will those crazy liberals demonise next? Arms dealer? Companies that use child labour? Oh, those poor insurance guys. I feel so sorry for the ginormous profits they make from a ridiculously biased system


Liberal logic both amazes and scares me.

It's always some evil companies fault, it's never the people responsible for there own actions.

The economy collapsed due to decades of out of control government spending on the state and federal level. People buying things they could not afford running up huge credit card debts and politicians telling you it's not thier fault they mismanaged your money it's the evil rich that need to give more. No it can't be that it's the evil Bankers that caused the problem.

People who smoke despite knowing how harmful it is (Any smoker who tells you they didn't know is lying thru thier yellow teeth) it's not thier fault they have cancer it's the evil tobacoo company.

People who are eat fast food 3 times a day 5 days a week it's not thier fault thier fat it's Mcdonalds and Burger Kings fault.

What's next, if you hit your thumb with a hammer is it the evil hammer companies fault?

The funny thing is you people speak about "evil" companies that are destroying your lives but have no problem letting the governament decide your healthcare needs or how much of your money you should be allowed to keep.








#35 Jul 31 2009 at 10:20 AM Rating: Excellent
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ThiefX wrote:
The funny thing is you people speak about "evil" companies that are destroying your lives but have no problem letting the governament decide your healthcare needs

As opposed to a profit driven insurance company whose entire motive is to squeeze every possible penny from me as they decide which things they will and won't cover for me? Sure.
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#36 Jul 31 2009 at 10:24 AM Rating: Excellent
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ThiefX wrote:
Liberal logic both amazes and scares me.

It's always some evil companies fault, it's never the people responsible for there own actions.

The economy collapsed due to decades of out of control government spending on the state and federal level. People buying things they could not afford running up huge credit card debts and politicians telling you it's not thier fault they mismanaged your money it's the evil rich that need to give more. No it can't be that it's the evil Bankers that caused the problem.

So you don't see that a corporation, by it's very structure, has no conscience? Has no need to stick to any set of rules or morality that aren't specifically laid out for it?

COrporations are like software in our big worldwide operating system. If the software develops a glitch, do you try to fix the software, or do you start complaining at the people attempting to make use of the software?
#37 Jul 31 2009 at 10:28 AM Rating: Good
Companies aren't evil, ThiefX. The people who run them often can be, though, and that's very sad.
#38 Jul 31 2009 at 10:42 AM Rating: Default
Jophed,

Quote:
As opposed to a profit driven insurance company whose entire motive is to squeeze every possible penny from me as they decide which things they will and won't cover for me? Sure.


And govn doesn't?
#39 Jul 31 2009 at 10:43 AM Rating: Default
Mindel,

Quote:
Companies aren't evil, ThiefX. The people who run them often can be, though, and that's very sad.


But govn officials are angels?
#40 Jul 31 2009 at 10:46 AM Rating: Excellent
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publiusvarus wrote:
And govn doesn't?

Ok, sure. So it can't be any worse.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#41 Jul 31 2009 at 10:48 AM Rating: Default
Joph,

Actually it can. Where insurance companies have to determine acceptable risks in order to make a profit to stay in business the govn will simply just print more money when it begins to fail thereby hurting the entire economy.

#42 Jul 31 2009 at 11:09 AM Rating: Good
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publiusvarus wrote:
Joph,

Actually it can. Where insurance companies have to determine acceptable risks in order to make a profit to stay in business the govn will simply just print more money when it begins to fail thereby hurting the entire economy.

A properly set up government insurance company is hands off. They are responsible to set rates so they don't lose money. The difference is that they set rates to break even, where a private company will set rates to make as much profit as they possibly can.
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#43 Jul 31 2009 at 11:19 AM Rating: Default
Xarus,

Quote:
A properly set up government insurance company is hands off


LMAO...govn and hands off shouldn't ever be in the same sentence. H*ll they shouldn't be on the same page.

#44 Jul 31 2009 at 11:20 AM Rating: Excellent
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publiusvarus wrote:
insurance companies have to determine acceptable risks in order to make a profit

You mean when they're not just ******** people over to make a profit?
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#45 Jul 31 2009 at 11:22 AM Rating: Default
Jophed,

Quote:
You mean when they're not just ******** people over to make a profit?


Do you think Insurance companies should surcharge young drivers who have at fault accidents?
#46 Jul 31 2009 at 11:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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publiusvarus wrote:
Do you think Insurance companies should surcharge young drivers who have at fault accidents?

Let's stay on medical care. Since that's the topic of discussion, there's no reason to stray afield.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#47 Jul 31 2009 at 11:27 AM Rating: Default
Jophed,

Ok...do you think insurance companies should surcharge someone who has a condition caused by poor living habits?

#48 Jul 31 2009 at 11:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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publiusvarus wrote:
Ok...do you think insurance companies should surcharge someone who has a condition caused by poor living habits?

Be more explicit, please.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#49 Jul 31 2009 at 11:38 AM Rating: Default
No
#50 Jul 31 2009 at 11:40 AM Rating: Good
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publiusvarus wrote:
Xarus,

Quote:
A properly set up government insurance company is hands off


LMAO...govn and hands off shouldn't ever be in the same sentence. H*ll they shouldn't be on the same page.

Smiley: dubiousYou don't think government programs should be hands off?
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#51 Jul 31 2009 at 11:40 AM Rating: Excellent
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Then I can't answer.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
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