Healthcare on the back of a napkinFollow

I can make it simpler:

Democrats:
Socialism!
Want to kill your granny.

Republicans:
Malignant neglect
Want to kill your granny.

I'm sorry to say that she's ****** either way.

Make sure you get into her will.

Hey, I listened to the is Author yesterday talk about his book The Healing of America. Essentially the guy went to various countries with a shoulder injury to see what kind of treatment he might get if he were a citizen of that country. No clue how valuable the information might be, but it was pretty interesting listening to him.



Edited, Aug 27th 2009 6:13pm by Elinda

Yeah, that helped me too. I might be able to follow some US politics from over here, but I was really sketchy on the healthcare reforms, because your system is SO different from ours to start with.

It was a good synopsis of the options, but did leave out a few details. For example, it clearly detailed how the private insurers motivation for profit might affect things, but did not show the other side (what the government's motivation is, or how that might affect things). I don't remember which section that was in, but it was a bit jarring to me given that up until that point, it had done a good job of balancing out each "side" of each option.

It also dismissed the public option entirely as off the table, but the reality is that the Dems are still pushing really hard for this. While I understand that the point here was to examine the stuff in the middle, it might have been a good idea to go over pros and cons of each of the stuff on the far sides as well. If for no other reason that to explain why those should be off the table in the first place.

I was actually surprised on how, well... almost reasonable gbaji was being. But I think it's because I've listened to his crazy shenanigans for too long and forgot what real normalcy was like.

Shenanigans is an awesome word, by the way, and normalcy was credited as having been made up by Warren Harding in around 1920, but actually was around since the mid-1800s

It's a bit overused in my exposure. I like "chicanery" a lot more.

Slide 23 had nothing to do with this though. It simply states the obvious fact that employed people with coverage pay for the coverage they get. Even with the government as a payer, they get their money via taxes and thus, those who are employed (and presumably also covered by the government plan) are the ones who pay. Unless you're saying that unemployed people pay for health care under any system, this slide is 100% accurate.



Missing the point. That slide isn't talking about the cost of the health care itself (ie: how much the doctor charges, or the cost for the equipment, tests, etc), but rather how much the insurer will charge the consumer for said coverage. The government can't magically pay less for an examination than a private insurer, but it can charge it's customer less for covering that examination. This is because the private insurer has to make a profit (or at least break even), while the government can run at a loss and make up the difference in tax revenue of some kind.

That's what this slide was talking about. The government could provide 100 dollars of coverage to the end consumer, but only charge them 80 bucks for it. No one else can do this.



Again. They don't discuss the effect a given reform choice might have on overall health care costs over time. You're insisting on introducing speculative changes. One of the things I liked about this is that the author specifically did *not* speculate, but rather compared apples to apples. In the US, a doctor is going to charge X dollars for a visit. How much exactly X is isn't the issue, but rather how X is paid.

Your statements assume much more significant changes than anyone is seriously proposing and assumes those changes will actually change the cost of X. There's certainly valid argument to be had there, but it's completely outside the scope of what this presentation is about.




Yes. Because it wasn't about that.

From what I understand, in all honesty in the US there is basically 1 health insurance provider, a whole lot of names and faces, but no one really competes or tries to undercut anyone. They try and hurt the customer(denying claims and raising premiums).

Look at car insurance, everyday you see adds on TV, with several different companies trying to sell you the cheapest, best fitted coverage. They drive down the price, because they will still be making money anyways. If you are a good driver, you don't have to pay a whole lot compared to the guy with 2 DUIs.

I'm a non smoker, light drinker, low risk life style, work out 4-5 days a week, good body mass index, perfect resting heart rate and blood pressure.

If insurance worked the way its suppose to, I would pay a very low amount per month, and if everyone was like me we could all probably afford it even without our jobs paying for it.

The problem is the guy with the 2 DUIs. He smokes, drinks, drives fast, eats out at McDonalds 4-5 times a week, is obese, and a resting heartrate above 100 BPS....he will get sick, and it will cost a lot of money.....

So how much more should the guy who takes horrible care of himself pay more then me? If I'm paying 1,000 dollars a year(seems like a good ball part number, they will make off me, and I will use their service, maybe see the doctor once or twice a year and pay nothing for it, if I get hit by a car, I'm golden assuming I live through it)

So what about the guy who will get sick, see the doctor, get medicine, get treatments, and cost a lot of money? 2 grand a year? 5 grand a year? If he is 600 pounds, and eats McDonalds with one hand, and smokes crack with the other? 10 grand a year?

Here is health care reform:

1. Keep things the same for those who want their private insurance.
2. Government programs for those who cannot get, or afford normal insurance.
3. Greatly reduce the cost for those who take good care of themselves.
4. Make the fat, unhealthy people pay through the noise. If they want it cheap, lose weight and stop unhealthy habits.

Car insurance makes you pay for driving unsafe, health care insurance should make you pay for living unsafe.

The problem is that a lot of the most expensive treatments are just rotten luck.

A child born with a genetic predisposition to leukemia that comes down with the cancer at the age of 7 will cost his parents insurance almost a million dollars after all is said and done. And that kid didn't smoke, drink, or eat greasy hamburgers, he just got born with ****** genes.

My teeth are going to fall out by the time I'm fifty, despite my regular brushing and flossing with prescription toothpaste, because of genetics. Both my parents were due for dentures when they died.

A perfectly healthy person with no family history of heart disease could drop dead tomorrow. A person who smokes, drinks, eats McDs, but has a genetic resistance to liver cancer, metabolic disease, and heart disease, will live to be 100 despite it all.

Because of the random dice of genetics, the only thing to do is treat everyone equally, and the only way to force companies to do that is to offer a neutral non-profit option, such as a federal insurance plan. Sort of like the FDIC, you know? No one ever ******* about the FDIC driving private banking insurers out of business these days.

$1000 a year for health insurance is monumentally cheap. Cheapest I've ever found was $160 a month for absolutely terrible coverage. If you're married and god forbid, have a family, you're looking at $10,000/year on average.




Edited, Sep 1st 2009 11:43pm by bsphil

So why should I and a guy who kills himself a little bit every bigmac and xigreete have to pay the same amount? Everytime I see an obese person in a power chair at walmart with a 44oz pop, I want to throw up. You cant help having bad genes, or getting hit with a bus, but you can help being overweight....

How often is this?

My moms obese, my dads obese, my older sisters obese, my younger sister is obese. weird i only weigh 165 pounds, oh right I used to weigh 230, but I decided to live a healthy lifestyle....You can help, and dont pretend you cant.