Discussion: Healthcare

[SuBe]

are you against any and all government regulation in the insurance industry?

It's not that, I'm against Government Regluation in General. I think there ways to fix this, without getting Government Control over Healthcare.

If we fix point A, it'll fix Point Z. You don't just Change Y and let the problem exist inbetween.

Lift people out of Poverty, so they can afford it themselves. Help people have more economic Liberty. Don't steal from someone to help another, it doesn't work.

 

[sinewave]

It's not that, I'm against Government Regluation in General. I think there ways to fix this, without getting Government Control over Healthcare.

If we fix point A, it'll fix Point Z. You don't just Change Y and let the problem exist inbetween.

Lift people out of Poverty, so they can afford it themselves. Help people have more economic Liberty. Don't steal from someone to help another, it doesn't work.

lifting people out of poverty won't really resolve the issues that are inherently wrong with the way the insurance industry is setup right now, though. it doesn't address the issues i mentioned above. i think government regulation could help in that instance.

 

[Franklin Richards]

That's the Thing, health Insurance really doesn't cost that much. And, if it costs so much that you have to get rid of some luxuries, do it. It's a choice you make.

It's not that, I'm against Government Regluation in General. I think there ways to fix this, without getting Government Control over Healthcare.

If we fix point A, it'll fix Point Z. You don't just Change Y and let the problem exist inbetween.

Lift people out of Poverty, so they can afford it themselves. Help people have more economic Liberty. Don't steal from someone to help another, it doesn't work.

So you just don't like the word. You feel that people MUST spend the money on healthcare, you just don't want them to call it a tax.

 

[sinewave]

So you just don't like the word. You feel that people MUST spend the money on healthcare, you just don't want them to call it a tax.

chris matthews put it pretty well last night when he said that conservatives seem to fight tooth and nail when the idea of increasing taxes to institute universal health care is proposed, but then when things like $700 billion bailout and billions of dollars are sent to iraq every month pop up, they consider it a necessary evil. basically he said "why do we always scoff at helping the poor but find ways to justify helping the rich?"

 

[Paradoxium]

While I agree that people should not aspire to keep a minnimum wage job for life. Let's take some example from the real world. A young person, makes a few mistakes and becomes a single parent at, oh 19. Now, they have no real education beyond high school, so their employment options are limited. They get a job working for $7.25/hr. Now that equates to $290/week before any taxes. Now, they need shelter, most two bedroom apts. near me are at least $750/mth or higher. So 2.5 paychecks go to nothing but rent. Now with the other $410 they need to pay the electric bill, $100, car payment $100, and groceries each week, $75. Uh oh, that's $90 more than they have. So, I can see your point, let ditch the minnimum wage so her employer doesn't have to keep breaking the bank and can get away with paying her around $4/hr. That will certainly help her.

You save one potential family but then you have 10 other people now robbed of their opportunity to accumulate capital. These 10 people fall into welfare, or even go into the black market like drugs and prostitution to make means. Even worse one of these lives could have been an entreprenuer who would have employed hundreds of people. Many lives ruined or stymied to save 2. We are talking most about teens and MINORITIES here getting a bigger shaft too.

Is it going to suck for the young parents who gets pregnant and alienates all her social support? Yes it will. But the fact is, in real life you can't have it both ways. You cannot save everyone, and neither of us are qualified to judge which lives are more important than another. But you can certainly maximize the chance for everyone to prosper and the system of capitalism at least fullfills this. It is not perfect, but there are systems more flawed than it that exists.

A week or two ago in Somalia, a 13 year old girl was raped by a gang of men. She was then stoned to death on the charge of adultry. And the chances are, this will repeat again. Where were you or I to stop this from happening? You cannot realistically save everyone as much as you want to. That is how reality operates; a series of choices with consequences.

 

[danoyse]

You save one potential family but then you have 10 other people now robbed of their opportunity to accumulate capital. These 10 people fall into welfare, or even go into the black market like drugs and prostitution to make means. Even worse one of these lives could have been an entreprenuer who would have employed hundreds of people. Many lives ruined or stymied to save 2. We are talking most about teens and MINORITIES here getting a bigger shaft too.

Is it going to suck for the young parents who gets pregnant and alienates all her social support? Yes it will. But the fact is, in real life you can't have it both ways. You cannot save everyone, and neither of us are qualified to judge which lives are more important than another. But you can certainly maximize the chance for everyone to prosper and the system of capitalism at least fullfills this. It is not perfect, but there are systems more flawed than it that exists.

A week or two ago in Somalia, a 13 year old girl was raped by a gang of men. She was then stoned to death on the charge of adultry. And the chances are, this will repeat again. Where were you or I to stop this from happening? You cannot realistically save everyone as much as you want to. That is how reality operates; a series of choices with consequences.

So wait a minute...now the rationale is that if we help people out, a future entrepenuer who might save the system could end up homeless and die? How do you explain that to your sick kid when you can't afford the medicine?

No one deserves to be denied healthcare. The people I've known who worked full time and couldn't afford the insurance by the time they finished paying bills hated the public system, but it was there for them if they needed it. One went through a cancer scare. Others had sick kids. It's scary as hell when they don't have coveage.

I don't know if universal healthcare is the answer, but they need something. That's real life. You don't just leave them out suffer.

 

[Paradoxium]

So wait a minute...now the rationale is that if we help people out, a future entrepenuer who might save the system could end up homeless and die? How do you explain that to your sick kid when you can't afford the medicine?

No one deserves to be denied healthcare. The people I've known who worked full time and couldn't afford the insurance by the time they finished paying bills hated the public system, but it was there for them if they needed it. One went through a cancer scare. Others had sick kids. It's scary as hell when they don't have coveage.

I don't know if universal healthcare is the answer, but they need something. That's real life. You don't just leave them out suffer.

Actually the topic went off tangent about minimum wage and how it contributes to poverty and poor health.

 

[SuBe]

Actually the topic went off tangent about minimum wage and how it contributes to poverty and poor health.

I think it's related. Would it be an issue, Universial Healthcare, if these people could afford it?

 

[The Senator]

Sigh... so many people who argue against universal healthcare really astound me with the sheer idiocy of their arguments... the most likely approach we will take to health care reform will be a free market approach which relies primarily on private insurers with a mandate for people to purchase health insurance... the only public system will be an expansion of Medicaid and Medicare which people will have the option to buy into... it's in the plan proposed by Max Baucus, and apparently is the direction Ted Kennedy is planning on going next year.

People will still be able to choose their doctor, their hospital, their insurance provider... the only difference is, they'll actually be required to have health insurance.

Additionally, I don't see how this could be a financial disaster considering Americans currently spend MORE on health insurance overhead costs, percentage-wise, than countries such as Switzerland and France. We pay 13% overhead costs, versus 1.5-3% in countries with "socialized health care" (ooooooh.... scary )... that's where the problem lies: How much we are spending on health insurance (in addition to all the people who lack basic coverage).

PLUS... I personally don't see why a SERVICE should be left entirely to the free market... health insurance is not a GOOD, like vehicles and clothes... it is a SERVICE...

 

[Handsome Rob]

chris matthews put it pretty well last night when he said that conservatives seem to fight tooth and nail when the idea of increasing taxes to institute universal health care is proposed, but then when things like $700 billion bailout and billions of dollars are sent to iraq every month pop up, they consider it a necessary evil. basically he said "why do we always scoff at helping the poor but find ways to justify helping the rich?"

Just for the record, I'm a conservative, and I don't consider the $700 billion bailout a necessary evil. It's quite unnecessary and unwanted (by me, anyway).

As for the money going to Iraq, support the war or not, the military is a responsibility of the federal government. Hey, I don't think we should have military installations located in as many overseas locations as we do. But, the federal government is acting within its boundaries in doing so.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't scoff at helping the poor. I just think there are much better and more efficient ways to do it than to do through government. It seems sometimes as if liberals like Chris Matthews believe that ONLY the government can help people. THAT notion is what I scoff at.

 

[Paradoxium]

I think it's related. Would it be an issue, Universial Healthcare, if these people could afford it?

True, but at this point it doesn't matter, universal health care is unsustainable based on the law of supply and demand. The bank bailouts and now today's automobile bailout added another nail to the coffin.

Think about it. Jmanspice proposes we tough it up and just pay the taxes. But most of this tax money is going into the bailouts or paying back debt or into the military nowadays. Diverted funds from the military through cuts is already being allocated for other programs (i.e. Department of Peace and Nonviolence). The only way to pay for universal health care at this point is taxing at insanely high rates, which has the paradoxical effect of reducing the stream of revenue to tax from, or to borrow money. But if you borrow more money, all you do is encourage the creditors outside of America to just decouple. Now you have no creditors or anyone willing to buy T-bills. So you are left with a printing press to run up inflation. Great! Now most people can afford nothing else BUT universal health care. I fathom people on a lower standard of living will only run health care costs.

It always sounds great on paper, it sounds like UHC (Universal Health Care). But reality tends to dictate, these numbers given out are almost certainly colored up for the most ideal scenarios and not for the long term. Take this for an example

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20081120/opcomthursday.art.htm

The $2,500 figure comes from an estimate by unpaid Harvard University advisers to Obama’s campaign. They calculated that if you inject more information technology (IT) into health care, manage diseases better and cut extraneous paperwork, you could save about $200 billion a year in health spending — or about $2,500 off the average family’s health insurance bill.

Obama’s advisers figure that more IT would save $77 billion, based on a report from the RAND Corp., a prominent research organization. Makes sense. After all, IT saves money in the private sector by improving efficiency. But when the Congressional Budget Office looked at the RAND report, it found serious problems, including that researchers had excluded studies, even those published in peer-reviewed journals, "that failed to find favorable results" from adding more IT in health care.

Meantime, a comprehensive look at ways to cut health care costs by the independent Commonwealth Fund pegged annual savings from IT at just $29 billion — and not until 2017.

Obama’s experts also claim that $46 billion a year could be saved by cutting administrative overhead. Anyone who has come in contact with the health care system knows it’s paperwork heavy. Administrative costs today eat up about 14% of benefits.

Even so, whether Obama’s health plan, which also adds multiple layers of regulation on the insurance industry, will cut that paperwork load is debatable.

Even if Obama did save all this money, he’d still be hard-pressed to deliver those premium cuts, because other parts of his plan would almost certainly drive up costs.

Simply expanding insurance coverage, which is the main goal of Obama’s plan, would boost spending. A study published in the journal Health Affairs calculates that covering all the uninsured would increase the amount they spend on health care by $122.6 billion a year because people with insurance buy more health care.

Absent some form of price controls, this sharp increase in demand for medical service would push up costs for everyone.

It doesn't matter to me, I think people will get less health care irregardless, UHC might paradoxically speed up this process. You try to have it both ways, then you are going to have neither ways. If people want to do this let them. Save your money, go on a good diet (watch what you eat) and workout. Prevent what is preventable within your means, that is all that matters. No liberal or conservative will argue against doing this, because it produces utility. I fully expect this type of stuff coming from an Obama administration, the matter is not trying to argue against it (besides narrative at most) but adapt to it where possible.

 

[sinewave]

Just for the record, I'm a conservative, and I don't consider the $700 billion bailout a necessary evil. It's quite unnecessary and unwanted (by me, anyway).

As for the money going to Iraq, support the war or not, the military is a responsibility of the federal government. Hey, I don't think we should have military installations located in as many overseas locations as we do. But, the federal government is acting within its boundaries in doing so.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't scoff at helping the poor. I just think there are much better and more efficient ways to do it than to do through government. It seems sometimes as if liberals like Chris Matthews believe that ONLY the government can help people. THAT notion is what I scoff at.

right, but if you consider that the role of the military is to protect the country, it's citizens and the rights inherent in our society, that doesn't exactly address the sheer amount of tax dollars that go towards many of the efforts our military is currently engaged in. the point is that the money might be better spent on things that would make the country as a whole a better place to live. i guess it comes down to priorities, which obviously differ between the parties and varying ideologies. should we be pumping billions of dollars into securing and rebuilding other countries or would it be better used here in our own country on things that effect our fellow citizens. i'm all for funding our military to keep it as effective as it can be as a defensive resource, but i view much of the current military spending to be unnecessary in comparison to other facets of our society that are in need of increased funding.

 

[SuBe]

Sigh... so many people who argue against universal healthcare really astound me with the sheer idiocy of their arguments... the most likely approach we will take to health care reform will be a free market approach which relies primarily on private insurers with a mandate for people to purchase health insurance... the only public system will be an expansion of Medicaid and Medicare which people will have the option to buy into... it's in the plan proposed by Max Baucus, and apparently is the direction Ted Kennedy is planning on going next year.

People will still be able to choose their doctor, their hospital, their insurance provider... the only difference is, they'll actually be required to have health insurance.

Additionally, I don't see how this could be a financial disaster considering Americans currently spend MORE on health insurance overhead costs, percentage-wise, than countries such as Switzerland and France. We pay 13% overhead costs, versus 1.5-3% in countries with "socialized health care" (ooooooh.... scary )... that's where the problem lies: How much we are spending on health insurance (in addition to all the people who lack basic coverage).

PLUS... I personally don't see why a SERVICE should be left entirely to the free market... health insurance is not a GOOD, like vehicles and clothes... it is a SERVICE...

Jman, someone doing something for you is a Service. Someone painting your house, fixing your car, and tending a broken toe, is a service.

Don't you see the inherent problems with the Government "Requiring" you to do something?

What would be next? The Government "Requiring" you to work out, as to reduce obesity for your own good? The Government "requiring" you to work follow orders of the Government, even if it's for your own good, destroys liberty.

 

[The Senator]

Jman, someone doing something for you is a Service. Someone painting your house, fixing your car, and tending a broken toe, is a service.

Don't you see the inherent problems with the Government "Requiring" you to do something?

What would be next? The Government "Requiring" you to work out, as to reduce obesity for your own good? The Government "requiring" you to work follow orders of the Government, even if it's for your own good, destroys liberty.

And millions of Americans who don't have health insurance are being denied the ability to live healthy lives. Insurance agencies deny people coverage based on age, gender identity, and pre-existing illnesses... therefore, many insurance companies infringe upon people's right to life by denying them coverage.

 

[SuBe]

And millions of Americans who don't have health insurance are being denied the ability to live healthy lives. Insurance agencies deny people coverage based on age, gender identity, and pre-existing illnesses... therefore, many insurance companies infringe upon people's right to life by denying them coverage.

One thing, that Right to Life, limits the Government to do so. But, remember, each Right (Life, Liberty, and Property) are equally important.

Whats to say that the Government won't begin to limit medication for the Elderly, only because they no longer pay into the revenue stream? What gets the re-elected, keeping a balanced budget? What happens when you remove the ability to create profit in the next new wonder drug?

Companies won't have the reason to invest in risky ventures, if there's no profit in them. Doctors won't spend 12 years of their life, learning thier trade, if theirs no profit in it for them. That is why so many NHS doctors are leaving for India, theirs no reason to do these things, if they don't have the incentive.

 

[Franklin Richards]

It's time to get past the whole profit thing.


Yeah, I know. I'm a socialist.

 

[BlackLantern]

and a good number of med students are going into specialties instead of general practice...I don't know about you guys but I don't want the guy who barely passed his exams attempting to treat me...

 

[Paradoxium]

Well on the bright side, due to the economic down turn and the freeze on credits. Education should be cheaper and more streamlined; like medical school.

 

[SuBe]

It's time to get past the whole profit thing.


Yeah, I know. I'm a socialist.

Again, that gets rid of the incentive to do so. Or, are you in favor of the Government deciding that for you?

Would you be willing to DJ parties, only to get paid enough to pay for food? No, you will always ask for a little bit more, so you can get that tv. You remove the reason to do something, you remove the want to do it. Then, you don't have it at all.

 

[Franklin Richards]

I've never DJ'd a party. I do appear on 88.9 KETR though and those guys on Star Trek seem to be doing OK without profit as the reason to wake up every morning.

 

[BlackLantern]

what guys on Star Trek??

 

[Franklin Richards]

Todd and Steve.

 

[SuBe]

I've never DJ'd a party. I do appear on 88.9 KETR though and those guys on Star Trek seem to be doing OK without profit as the reason to wake up every morning.

Dude, they have replicators! When I get a replicator, and can replicate anything I want, I won't care about profit either!

 

[BlackLantern]

I have no clue who you're talking about...but us grown folk have bills and rent to pay, groceries to buy and such....money is needed for those things.....

 

[Franklin Richards]

Oh yeah. I forgot. You think dreaming is stupid. I'll shutup and get back to work.

Maybe I'll go dream on a site not dedicated to comic books.