It's OK to be against health care reform...

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

But can't we just stop the blatant damned lies being told by the professional opponents? Lies and half truths are usually the weapons employed by the unreasonable in an unsupportable position.

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

And now it looks like Obama is backing off the "public option". This will probably mean some type of reform will now get passed, but it also means it more than likely will have very little in regards to teeth that will actually reform, once and for all, our totally inefficient health care system.

I hear people, mainly the right, crying for tort reform. I would love tort reform, if it actually worked. There are states right now with Tort limits that they passed. It worked real neat. Doctors saw thier premiums drop, and in some cases got refunds. Here's the neat part: premiums for the consumer... rose, just like everywhere else in the country. Heck in some cases like Florida, with tort limits, OBGYN's pay 4x the national rate still in premiums. Interesting older article on tort reform http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-03-04-malpractice-cover_x.htm

This whole debate and fight in the end isn't going to amount to much of anything. The insurance lobby put out enough misleading info, and in some cases flat out lied, and got enough people to buy it. Hell, they got some prominent politicians with a platform in which to get false information out to buy into thier crap.

Wall Street is going to win again.

Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Posts: 1700

Locally, the heavily republican per capita is buried in misinformation. I swear they all get a daily dose from Limbaugh every day.

Their ignorance is astounding. One is still repeating Palin's death panel threats.

I'm beginning to think there's a group trying reverse psychology or sumthin'.... could be a dem group posing and claiming conservative values - and ignorantly & publicly hating healthcare reform to make republicans look bad. Just a thought - because I seriously cannot believe the hatred I'm hearing.

Another questions my pointing out insurance CEO salaries. ... they say I'm picking on the industry, and I've got wealth jealousy. ???

All I'm trying to do is to get people to THINK about an industry that gets money from your paycheck - even before the tax man.

People can't really be this stupid, can they?

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

That "wealth jealousy" bullshit is the lamest excuse for an argument in defense of what's being done to the working class in this country that they've managed to come up with yet.

THEY declared the damned war and the best they can come up with is third grade level tripe..."Oh yeah? Well, you're just jealous, that's all, so there! Nya, nya nya". I keep expecting one of them to tell me my mama wears combat boots.

And it looks like Glen Beck may knock the bloated one off his throne as the Sultan of Stupidity. The better Glenda's ratings get the more outrageous the blimp's talking points. Too damned many of those Oxycontin/Viagra cocktails before air time, I guess.

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 6045

I think the term more commonly than 'wealth jealousy' is ' class envy ' .

But the different classes have got to realize if not them but their advocates have been waging a class war for their benefit for decades.

Here I go riding the fence again but how is 250K a year an income that would be stressed by a little extra taxation. They make that 250k/year on the backs of different classes. But then in the US you shouldn't discriminate so why single out ' the rich ' .

And as Calapso has pointed out I'm starting to hear tort reform again. Those evil lawyers are pricing your HEALTH care out of reach. But the whole thing about health care comes down to cost . So until the ACTUAL COSTS are identified and the price of tylenol isn't padded to pay for nursing you'll never have reform because you'll never know WHAT to reform .

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

There was an article at one of the news sites a few days ago about that exact subject and how the public perception in regard to the NUMBER of these huge malpractice suits had been skewed upward by the attention the press gives to the more notorious of them. I'll see if I can find it.

Basically though, what it was saying was that the doctors are getting just as screwed by the insurance companies on their liability coverages as the rest of us are on our basic health care coverages and that the insurance companies simply screw everybody and that's why prices are so high.

I've become firmly convinced that the insurance companies are what's wrong with health care today. The system worked fine until deregulation and Wall Street's lust for massive profiteering overtook the insurance industry, just as it has everything else.

If anyone wants to twist that opinion into some kind of "wealth jealousy" or "class envy" they can knock themselves out. They still aren't presenting any empirical evidence that says I'm wrong.

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 6045

Nailed it nofs , The insurance industry turned health care into a game with many ways to get in. And it's those that look at what they can get away with while playing ' the game ' are the ones exploiting the system or the premium payers.

Joined: 22 Dec 2007 Posts: 445

"The ONLY for profit health care delivery system on the planet."

Well that's a bit of a strech considering much of latin america, africa and asia are the same.

NHS isn't free. They have higher taxes that pay to cover it.

Also in the UK unlike in Canada they do allow for private practices. Although if someone goes to one it might be viewed as questionable by some.

The problem I see with any government system that could come into the USA is that frankly it's not going to lower costs. Outside of the crop subsidy I can't see any example of the government in the USA ever entering a business and lowering costs. There's psedo government organizations like amtrak and the post office. The was the Arpanet that came before the internet.

And using the food subsidy would be a interesting example as it did cheapen food in the USA...however it also decimated family farms and as a result led to the benifit of big agra (Monsanto, ADM, Con Agra and by proxy Tyson foods...which has direct links to Hillary Clinton)

From what I understand given the models that do exist (UK's Belvadire system, Canadas social insurance and Germany's Bismark) I think we are aiming more for the bismark system.

Obama says there'll be no public option..ok so I'm assuming he means no nhs like system...he says that the canadian system would be impossible in the usa so this only leaves this one. Probably modeled after what we have in mass.

To note I know someone that has a good source at the capital. This system in mass will probably be dismantled within three years. it isn't so much the employer mandate but it's the lower subsidized pool. For the government to insure people that aren't working and aren't paying in it adds up. It is also starting to be an attractant...RI has unemployment of nearly 1/8th the population... The governer won't say this...but the reason is he's running for office again. However there's another one running that did oversee the budget...meanwhile this will kill romney's chances in 2012 because he'd have nothing to run on.

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

I don't get the argument that a NHS won't lower costs. We already spend about 2x percapita more on health care as a country than that of the 2nd spendiest country, Switzerland.

Our health care takes up 16-17% of our GDP. ALL of these other countries, including those with NHS, spend about 9% of thier GDP on health care. Why are we freaking DOUBLE that, specially considering the crapload of money we spend on Financial services and National Defense.

Here's why. Turn on your TV. In a standard prime time TV viewing evening you are going to get innundated with TV commercials from pharmacuticals, hospitals, and insurance agencies. I see more adds for Levitra than I see for Coca Cola for christs sake. Who pays for this shit? Oh, thats right, you and I.

Heck, this morning I decided to actually count how many health care related radio adds I heard on my 45 minute commute. In that brief time span, I counted freaking 8 of them. What the hell! It was anything from "come to this drug rehab center" to the cancer care at one hospital to cardiac care at another. Hell one add I head was about one of our designer drugs telling me not to accept a generic instead of the real deal.

Jesus H Christ don't tell me a NHS is going to cost too damned much. Don't tell me how inefficient a governemnt system would be. Our damned administrative costs alone are 2x the % they are in Canada. In France you go to the doctor, give him or her your medical card, and when you are done, you and your doctor swipe your card and your billing is freaking done. That's it. No umpteen support staff required just to process your doctors office visit. It's insane what we do. And government would be inefficient? Come on, our current private system is the absolute model of inefficiency and waste. As screwed up as people claim Medicare is, you realize is about 2%, or as much as 5% if you believe those that try to discredit medicare is administrative cost. Now compare that to the private sectors preformance. I was generous with my 16%, some claim it to be as much as 20%. There is your example of how government can be more efficient than the private for profit sector. You really don't have to look far for an example huh?

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

Dead on, Calapso. I'd like to address Dovell's post also:

First off Dovell, your first two sentences. What part of "First World", "Industrial" or "Developed" do you not understand?

The US is the only First World, Developed, Industrial nation with a health care delivery system based primarily... almost solely... on the profits derived by private insurance companies. I have made that statement often enough that anyone who actually gives a rat's ass what I write to the extent that they read it knows that that is an important qualification.

In many of the other developed countries where private insurance companies play even a small part, those companies are fairly tightly regulated to prevent gouging and profiteering and the emphasis is on patient care... NOT the company profit margin. In other words, the private insurance companies have not been given life or death sway over the masses.

We don't have that kind of monitoring or patient advocacy here. We have our free for all, tricledown "market" based system that allows the rules governing the relationship between insurer (and therefore the actual health care providers) and insured to be governed pretty much solely by the insurers themselves. Good for profits... NOT good for health care.

And ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL while a public system MAY or MAY NOT lower costs overall... what it would do is apply MORE of the costs to actual patient care and the administrative costs involved in providing actual patient care instead of providing massive payouts to insurance company executives and dividends for the institutional shareholders... Wall Street parasites who have absolutely nothing to DO with patient care.

Again... read my lips now and try to refrain from parsing MY statements to make YOUR points... we have the only health care system among the First World... Developed... Industrial nations where profit for the insurance companies is the number one criteria for deciding how much and what kind of care a patient gets. And to have those decisions made by some bean counter who draws his bonus based on how much he "saves" the company every year is totally unacceptable.

That is what I mean by "for profit", get it? If I actually used the phrase "for profitEERING" would you get it then? I doubt it.

Right now, 16% of our GDP goes to health care, a figure expected to rise to 25% by 2025... (in comparison, as of 2007, our manufacturing industry only accounted for 12% of GDP.) and a large portion of those costs accrues directly to profits for the insurance companies and huge payoffs for the Wall Street parasites that suck from the same host.

In the same vein, in 2007 21% of our GDP went directly to the financial sector... which I like to call the Wall Street parasites... and this will also almost surely rise by 2025... to the point where it is projected that over half of every dollar earned by the American worker will be going either directly to the health care industry with a cut to Wall Street, or to the Wall Street banksters directly. Do we understand why Wall Street and it lackeys in what's supposed to be OUR government don't want anything to change?

Of course the same applies to every other "industry" but that's for another thread. Just remember that as of today ... Banksters = 25%, Health Care = 16%, Manufacturing = 12%... everything else 47%... see the pattern?

And you know what's REALLY ironic... what really sucks? Might as well say yes, because I'm going to tell you anyway.

Fifty million of those American workers... the main SOURCE of that 50% of the wealth owned by less than 10% of the population... cannot afford health insurance and thereby don't have the same access to adequate health care that their "betters" get.

Any system that costs as much as ours does today yet leaves 35-40% of it's work force without accessible and adequate health care is NOT a system designed to serve the people. Check your obviously superior sources and get back to me on how many of those First World Etc. countries don't provide universal care, eh?

While we spend more per person for health care than any other industrial nation and since we're being told we have the greatest health care system going and all others suck... Why is it we constantly rank in the mid to low 30s in terms of standard measures of health care effectiveness? The figures are out there. Look 'em up if you're interested. If I post them, you'll just sit and parse the post sentence by sentence again.

Insurance company profits have exploded over the same time period in which health care became the second largest source of wealth for the financial sector, the first of course being the financial sector itself which accounts for 21% of our GDP. They "won" all those billions of bucks in a game that millions of working class Americans... in spite of being the source of those billions... don't even get to play.

Even that figure is sure to rise over the next 15 years also as Wall Street takes it's cut from the increases in health care costs. In the years 2000-2007, roughly the same period during which health care was rising to 16% of the GDP, health insurance company profits rose 428%. Do you understand that?

At the same time the costs per capita for health insurance were rising to second place in terms of GDP share, the profits of the insurance companies were rising by 428%. Those two sectors alone, financial and health care, already accounted for 37% of our GDP as of 2009 and the health care portion is expected to rise by 7-8% by 2025 with of course a proportional increase in Wall Street's cut.

That means that by that period, roughly half (if not more) of every dollar an American worker makes will be going to the health care industry, primarily the insurance companies... and to the Wall Street parasites and entitled thugs that suck from them and that same worker will still not be able to afford insurance OR adequate health care. This is the pig you're trying to put lipstick on.

Just about always , when profits increase explosively over a period... when there has been no proportionate increase in services provided... and the number of people who might have been able to afford those services previously has DECREASED by ginormous amounts... the public is taking it in the shorts. Simple arithmetic and don't bug me with your version of "corporate math".

If you don't understand the the arguments I'm trying to make, then I'll be happy to explain them to you once... as I'm doing now. After that, it's plain that you have no interest in the what I've said but are interested only in playing nitpicking little games designed pretty much to show that you can read and I don't have time to play those with you.

Your time might be better spent on defending insurance companies to people who aren't being victimized by them on a daily basis... or are too stupid to REALIZE they're being victimized by them on a daily basis and who will walk around presidential appearance venues with handguns and assault rifles in plain view in order to intimidate those who do.

Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Posts: 1700

Nofs- just had to share this....

whereami wrote:

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

Yeah, old Rush is genuinely the Marie Antoinette of the 21st century. Remember what happened to the French monarchy because of that sel same sense of entitlement?

They aren't gonna ever get it Mags. It ain't that some rich asshole makes more money... it's that the only way he can GET that money is to impoverish the west of the fricking country by taking more from the people who produce the wealth he's already taken over half of.

What's making people mad is having to do with less than they need just so some fat cat can have MORE than he'll EVER need.

They may have to learn it the same way Louie the 16th did.

Joined: 22 Dec 2007 Posts: 445

"First off Dovell, your first two sentences. What part of "First World", "Industrial" or "Developed" do you not understand?

The US is the only First World, Developed, Industrial nation with a health care delivery system based primarily... almost solely... on the profits derived by private insurance companies. I have made that statement often enough that anyone who actually gives a rat's ass what I write to the extent that they read it knows that that is an important qualification."

Well you just said world. I don't know what you consider to be first world or developed. There's differences between developed, developing and underdeveloped. I just took a class on that!

"We don't have that kind of monitoring or patient advocacy here. We have our free for all, tricledown "market" based system that allows the rules governing the relationship between insurer (and therefore the actual health care providers) and insured to be governed pretty much solely by the insurers themselves. Good for profits... NOT good for health care."

But yet everyone that is a native in MN can go to the Mayo clinic free...and everyone has health care in Mass.

"And ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL while a public system MAY or MAY NOT lower costs overall... what it would do is apply MORE of the costs to actual patient care and the administrative costs involved in providing actual patient care instead of providing massive payouts to insurance company executives and dividends for the institutional shareholders... Wall Street parasites who have absolutely nothing to DO with patient care."

I have no doubt about the ability to provide care but if anyone thinks this is going to save the government money I doubt it. Even if you curb back the advertising on tv and the lobbying and the selling of drugs from doctors.

Again where as the government ever entered a business (and indeed we agree that health care for better or worse is a business) and lowered costs?

"Check your obviously superior sources and get back to me on how many of those First World Etc. countries don't provide universal care, eh?"

You aren't defining as to what is universal care. There's serious differences between the systems I described.

"That means that by that period, roughly half (if not more) of every dollar an American worker makes will be going to the health care industry, primarily the insurance companies... and to the Wall Street parasites and entitled thugs that suck from them and that same worker will still not be able to afford insurance OR adequate health care. This is the pig you're trying to put lipstick on."

OK but again how is the government going to lower costs? Obama already said we can't have a canadian like system and they already said earlier that a government option doesn't need to be required. This leaves the bismark system of germany.

I understand your argument. But listen to what obama is saying here. He's the president not me!

Most of what you say is that health care should be universal and that it shouldn't be an industry or at least a for profit industry. OK that's fine but telling that to the public unfortuatly doesn't sell. It doesn't sell due to lobbying and if anyone makes a living in health care they might get the impression that they would make less money (which probably isn't true)

Obama is citing the post office as an example of competing in the marketplace (against ups and fed ex)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aJ01reSCujDQ

Unfortuatly what he doesn't say is even if the post office loses hundreads of billions we legally still have to have one per the constitution. And the shipping industry has not lowered costs due to the post office.

I realize that there's drug ads all over the place. but even if we said "Look if you want to be part of the medical system and get paid by the government you must end the ads" I don't think it would lower costs.

I'm not saying that the private sector is more efficient than government. What I'm saying is that there's no evidence outside of the food subsidy of the government lowering prices by entering the market. In terms of a canadian or european perspective I've met one canadian that didn't like the system there but she wasn't graphic to me as to why. I was in france in '97 but didn't need any medical assistance there. I know some from the UK though I'll see if I can ask them some Q&A (they are from the USA now working in UK)

Logically if health insurance companies only insure those that are health then the sick ones would end up on the government programs and balloon up the costs. If someone already has care then they might view this as simply a large expansion of government. 50 million people uninsured unfortuatly might not be a large enough number to get peoples attention. If it gets up to about half then it probably would say 155 million people...

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

Ok a bunch of things.

The numbers being thrown about from the right regarding people losing thier current employer based medical insurance is a flat out, deceptive falsehood. Why? They are scaring people into thinking they would lose thier medical insurance period. Not so. The 'possibility' is there that your employer might choose to drop your current provider in favor of the governemnt option. Why? Because they are assuming it would be CHEAPER! Holy hell how hard is that to understand? Year after year I have been shuffled from plan to plan by my employers. Why do they constantly switch me? Because it's CHEAPER! See a pattern developing here?

Now, what are private insurers going to do if folks start switching to a cheaper government option? It's actually pretty simple. They will have to do some or all of the following, or go by the wayside. Increase service. Lower thier own administrative costs. Lower thier pricing. Provide better coverage. Do you smell that? You know what that smell is? That smell is a win for the american health care consumer. Lower costs, better coverage? Holy crap someone point out to me what's so bad about any of that.

Ok, the whole "I have a friend in Canada" BS and he/she came to the US for treatment because they were on a 8 gazillion month waiting list.... horseshit. Yup, horseshit! Ok, in regards to waiting lists. There is no damned waiting list for 'needed' services. You get your ass right in. Goddamned people make it sound like people are dieing waiting in line to see the doctor. You have the sniffles? Guess what, you do get bumped for the guy with a ruptured spleen. Need othopedic surgery? Guess what, your surgery does get weighed against others needing a orthopedic surgeon. Why? Let's see...... they guy who is completely dibilitated needed hip replacement over-rides the weekend warrior wanting his knee scoped because it's stiff and he wants to preform better playing flag football on the weekend. I got no problem prioritizing service. Hell prioritizing service would cut one the they loudest bitches I currently hear from folks, people that go to the Dr. for the sniffles.

How many stories do I need to link about people going to frikking Mexico of all damned places to get anything done from dental work to lasic surgery? Christ a estimated 1 freaking million Californians every year go to Mexico for medical treatment, and no, they aren't all immigrants. Over half are full fledged natural American citizens. Look at India. They are into freaking 'medical tourism'. Folks from the US are actually planning vacations to India, and getting whatever medical treatments they need while they are there. It's a whole damned industry India has built, partly because of our out of control system. For every damned "my friend in Great Britian" and "My 6th cousin in Canada" story I hear, there 100 fold the exact same story, only reversed where US citizens went somewhere else for treatment. Holy crap not too long ago there was a big stink by folks because American's were going to.......... wait for it................... Canada to get prescriptions. Where are the right wing morons on this issue? Why is it freaking 40% less or more for the same damned drug? Canada blah blah blah my shiny ass.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

Ok, one at a time Dovell...

First point. You don't HAVE a point. I can show you at least two... Social Security and Medicare. Of course you'll just heave up all the right wing talking points but you can NOT deny that they've worked and that the main problem with SS right now are successive raids on the fund to balance budgets or fund other projects.

Now... your turn... show me where privatization... of which there have been MANY many more instances over the past thirty years than there have the one you describe (which is actually moot because there haven't been any of any significance)... where turning over a government function to the private sector and letting them run it for profit resulted in lower costs for the public... and while you're at it, compare the levels of service the public actually receives before and after the transition. Believe it or not, to those needing the services, that's just as important, if not more so, than your dollar signs.

I'll give you a few examples to start you off... Walter Reed and the other military hospitals... The VA centers that have become prime sources of infections like HepC and HIV... allowing the food and drug agency to supposedly regulate themselves... The stacking of corpses of our veterans because some private company couldn't fulfill it's contract but wanted to keep taking the bucks anyway... and the worst example of the bunch, the franchising of wars to corporations like Halliburton and KBR (talk about hating our troops).

When you get through those and have enumerated all of the wonderful benefits that the taxpayers... ALL of the taxpayers, not just those with stock in the contractor companies... have derived from them, I'll supply you with a few more.

Oh another thing... just to avoid any future misunderstandings... my main reason for advocacy for health care reform, for the most part has little to do with lowering costs. Lowering costs is an important factor, yes but my mention of the costs and their relationship to our GDP is more in regard to what we GET for the dollars being spent, and not so much reducing the number of those dollars.

In other words, it's a secondary consideration for me and only the biggest deal for people who can't see beyond the dollar signs painted on the inside of their eyelids. I'm pretty sure there's a reason why you keep trying to turn this into a discussion on costs but for any purpose other than getting the most bang for the buck, i's not what I'm talking about.

My main contention is and always has been that nobody should have to die a long slow agonizing death because they don't have the money to pay for medical treatment. I may mention a cost factor, beneficial or otherwise as part of the (to me) larger argument but for me it's more a moral issue than anything else

As I said in the original post, a government "option"... and "option" is all I've supported here... nobody is trying to force YOU into a government program if you don't want it... anyway, as I said, a government option may or may not lower costs. What it WILL do... and this is of primary importance to me... is stop private companies from making life or death decisions for and about American citizens based on nothing more than the impact on the bottom lines for those companies.

No more being turned down for health care... not insurance, HEALTH CARE, medical treatment itself... because you don't meet some damned financial criteria... no more having your coverage canceled because you develop potentially terminal cancer but forgot to tell the insurance agent you had mumps when you were four. In short, my health means more to me than your fricking wallet does. Can you understand that.

Those are my goals Dovell. You're the one that keeps bleating about dollar signs as the primary issue and that may be so for you. It isn't for me and to be frank about it, I really don't care to hear someone say that my right to life should depend on my impact on the income from their stock portfolio or the dividends and fees and bonuses for corporate CEOs, institutional investors and hedge funds.

PS: A bit off topic but I'm beginning to suspect that you are one of those who actually has a "portfolio" or at least have invested to some degree in the insurance companies. Just a niggling little feeling (that's starting to grow) but you've been awfully defensive of insurance companies since you started posting here, including AIG. But I promise not to tell anyone, OK? Wink

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

Oh, and this morning, 3 more commercials about Lipitor alone on my way to work. "If you like the results you have gotten with Lipitor, don't let your Doctor switch you to a generic"!! (otherwise we won't have as much money to invest in tobacco comapny stock) shhhh on that one.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

LOL!!! Medicare and my Part D supplement insurance company insist I take generics (if they exist)... as did my insurance company when I was still working. They've kept me alive for almost 15 years now and my generic version of Lipitor costs $10 a month. Does anyone know how much Lipitor itself costs?

Joined: 22 Dec 2007 Posts: 445

"Because they are assuming it would be CHEAPER! Holy hell how hard is that to understand? Year after year I have been shuffled from plan to plan by my employers. Why do they constantly switch me? Because it's CHEAPER! See a pattern developing here?"

Why would anyone assume that a government service would be cheaper? I don't assume a private is cheaper either.

"Ok, the whole "I have a friend in Canada" BS and he/she came to the US for treatment because they were on a 8 gazillion month waiting list.... horseshit. Yup, horseshit! Ok, in regards to waiting lists. There is no damned waiting list for 'needed' services."

http://www.freep.com/article/20090820/BUSINESS06/908200420/1320/Canadians-visit-U.S.-to-get-health-care (BTW this is not some far right wing rag here)

"Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery."

Yeah there are some lists. It depends though. Would you want universal care and wait a bit or an insurance plan and you might pay though the nose. Note that it reported "can" not "will" We just signed a bit of an agreement that if people don't want to wait for health care in canada that the Canadian government will pay for services in the USA.

"I got no problem prioritizing service. Hell prioritizing service would cut one the they loudest bitches I currently hear from folks, people that go to the Dr. for the sniffles."

That logically is something we should do but we're a country that nearly expects instant services at will.

"How many stories do I need to link about people going to frikking Mexico of all damned places to get anything done from dental work to lasic surgery? Christ a estimated 1 freaking million Californians every year go to Mexico for medical treatment, and no, they aren't all immigrants. Over half are full fledged natural American citizens. Look at India. They are into freaking 'medical tourism'. Folks from the US are actually planning vacations to India, and getting whatever medical treatments they need while they are there. It's a whole damned industry India has built, partly because of our out of control system. For every damned "my friend in Great Britian" and "My 6th cousin in Canada" story I hear, there 100 fold the exact same story, only reversed where US citizens went somewhere else for treatment."

India's Apollo program I'm well aware of it. They have patients from around the world. I'm not saying that their performance is better than ours but the costs are much lower. I did get pink eye (conjunctivitis) while in china. Cost of the eye drops was 30 cents...no cost to see the doctor.

I'm not saying canada is a bad place by any means...heck I just had Poutine a few weeks ago..and my great grandfather moved the family from there.

"First point. You don't HAVE a point. I can show you at least two... Social Security and Medicare."

Neither one of them have lowered costs. Medicare hasn't lowered costs for the whole industry. Social security if being compaired to an investment would be out performed by most bond funds.

I wouldn't say that the VA centers have been prime sources of infection. That's a pretty crass remark. I'm not a vet so I can't say anything of the sort. Are you a vet and get treatment there or care? If you do fine I'll believe you if not...

Unfortuatly anything that is provided as a service from government or a business or non profit does have to be paid for at some point. There is labor cost, material etc. I'm in mass and the medical schools churn out nurses. they also run them with extreamly long hours once they graduate. They enter the field because of the pay. Yes there are things in the medical world like doctors without borders but if in these professions they made less money they'd attract less people. Same with the legal industry. I've heard a minimum for a lawyer for anything is $300, even if it's a 5 minute paper shuffle. Some work pro bono but not always.

Actually I have no portfolio. I have never owned a single share of stock in my life. I'll admit I fell for the bait of a MLM and got burned a bit. I learned a fair amount about spending, earning and saving money from that though. I mostly just saved my money rather than investing in in other places. I don't really gamble much either...I've been to a casino once it was OK. I'm against the high priced lottery tickets (the $10 and $20 ones) because I think they target the poor. I follow the stock market and the economy and knew about some of the downturns ahead of time. A few of my comments have been featured on Radio Netherlands and CNBC World.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

Susie Madrack at Suburban Guerrilla received the following email about a Facebook death announcement. It arrived via an old friend.

This is Murder by Spreadsheet writ large.

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

Again, about Canadian heatlh care. It's not perfect, but it's not the Demon our insurance agencies, are paying lobbyists, who are getting info out the the media and our politicians, make it out to be. Interesting "mythbuster" site about Canadian Helathcare http://www.pnhp.org/single_payer_resources/mythbusters_by_the_canadian_health_services_research_foundation.php

You quoting me:

Me: "Because they are assuming it would be CHEAPER! Holy hell how hard is that to understand? Year after year I have been shuffled from plan to plan by my employers. Why do they constantly switch me? Because it's CHEAPER! See a pattern developing here?"

You:Why would anyone assume that a government service would be cheaper? I don't assume a private is cheaper either.

Holy hell, have you not payed ANY attention to the health care debate? Insurance companies are crying at the top of thier lungs, and have been, because they won't be able to compete with the government pricing they say. Thier lobyists are screaming to the right wing politicians, who are crying that offering a public option would in a sense put private insurers out of business. Just why is it do you think the biggest scare tactic right now being used by the right is that umpteen million americans would lose thier employer based private insurance? Seriously man, you are a prime example of what's wrong right now with the health care debate, you don't listen, or even hear anything excpet what you want or your pre-conceived notions tell you. Your quote again "why would anyone think governemnt service would be cheaper" Good lord man. Read something, or at least listen to those that are AGAINST a public option. Sheesh.

It's not worth going on about the rest.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

They blatantly lied about Britain's NHS, they lied about France's "socialist medicine" system and what they termed "death panels"... why would they NOT lie about the Canadian system too?

Joined: 22 Dec 2007 Posts: 445

"Holy hell, have you not payed ANY attention to the health care debate?"

Anything that involves half truths, outright lies and arguing isn't a debate. I don't think we have had a real health care debate in the country. A real debate would say have a 3 hour amount of time on tv with someone pro and someone against and they'd go back and forth. No commericals, no spin, no soundbites.

"Thier lobyists are screaming to the right wing politicians, who are crying that offering a public option would in a sense put private insurers out of business. Just why is it do you think the biggest scare tactic right now being used by the right is that umpteen million americans would lose thier employer based private insurance?"

The argument is that if the costs go lower with a public option that it would go low to the point of these other companies going out of business and then everyone would have to have national health insurance. Under theory could it happen....maybe but under theory if we just gave NASA all of the US budget maybe we could get to Mars in ten years. It's not probable.

In terms of the "death panels" palin is a moron. There are no death panels. It simply said that I believe every five years there'd could be a discussion as to the plans for next of kin.

I realize death is not a nice or a good thing to talk about but obviously it can help to have arragements ahead of time. Healthcare proxy, power of attorney etc. I had one great aunt who's husband passed away...when she passed away that whole wake and funeral etc was more prepaired than a microwave dinner.

With all due respect chances are we are going on the Bismark system. Most of what we have in this country and europe to a degree came from Bismarks ideas. Under his rule of germany it led to the first unemployment benifits in the world and the first health insurance in the world. This is not marxism...far from it.

The arguments get interesting when the forms of government for these countries are also viewed. Basically North America is made up of federations whereas Europe is mostly unitary states (except germany and netherlands). Why does this matter? A unitary state means the federal/national government has all the control. The mayor of say Portland Oregon has much more power than the Mayor of London or Paris. They have to toe the national line or else (Thatcher did this in the 1980's to the London city council). So I don't think a full NHS style is possible unless states and cities in the USA agree to give up most of their influence in health care. Canada on the other hand has differences within the provinces but it does not allow for private practices (outside of quebec). That's the part that scares some people. If we follow the bismark system we'll still have private businesses but nearly everyone will be covered.

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

Dovell, you really do not pay attention.

Dovel, have you ever looked at Medicare? I mean really looked at it? You do realize Bush got Medicare Advantage passed right? I assume you know what Medicare Advantage is? It's a program that gives Medicare patients a choice to get off the standard government Medicare plan, and move to plans run by PRIVATE companies, which could do it cheaper.

Patients could join an HMO, even get a Medical Savings Account.

And to encourage seniors to make the switch, the government paid a subsidy to those private plans.

Well now it's 2009, 10.2 million medicare patients made the switch to these subsidized private plans -- and they're still being subsidized. Because they're not saving any money. In fact they turn out to be 14% more expensive than regular Medicare. Which pencils out to 177 BILLION dollars over ten years.

So the Obama Administration proposed cutting that subsidy.

Well, I'll bet you haven't heard one sound bite from any Town Hall where someone actually supports saving that 177 billion dollars. No! Just the opposite. Don't cut my Medicare!

Look -- it was a nice try: a lot of us figured that the private sector could deliver the same health care more efficiently than regular Medicare.

But it's been tried now for six years. It hasn't worked. The numbers above come from the most recent 2009 CBO report.

The numbers Dovell are out there. Still not sure the government can do it cheaper than the private sector? There the numbers are. They in fact, DO do it cheaper, even after subsidizing the private sector.

No theory, it's right there. It's been happening right under your nose since 2003. Not sure why you haven't seen it.

Here's a few of links since it seems you have no idea that government can, and currently is doing Health care cheaper than the private sector.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/washington/28medicare.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=private+medicare&st=nyt

http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080228/REG/599657580/1036&template=printart

Oh, guess who gets that extra $160 BILLION? Yup....... back to our Entitled Elite again. Odd how this all comes back to our top 1% isn't it. Every single change being railed against. Every injustice by the Obama administration beinging tea partied. It always makes a bee line right to the top 1%. If these people would only look up, they would see the puppet strings they are swinging from and the Wall Street Banker giggling with glee as he marches you into your town hall meeting spouting things like "Don't let government take away my medicare" or posting things on small little web forums like "Why would anyone assume that a government service would be cheaper? I don't assume a private is cheaper either." Look up....

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 8212 Location: Central CA

Excellent post Calapso. Unfortunately, there are some people who are simply so caught up in the BS, they're never going to get it until our conversion to a 14th century style feudalism is an accomplished fact. We already have our 1% nobility and the 4% that make up their lackeys and lickspittles in the royal courts, charged with passing and enforcing the laws of the realm. We have another 5% that make up the massive bureaucracy that does the grunt work in keeping the masses under control in return for crumbs from the masters table.

And that 10% already owns or controls as much as half or more of the wealth (GDP) being generated in the country today and the rate at which their percentage increases every year they'll have it all by 2020.

And, as is inevitable in a situation where more and more being of our wealth being channeled into the pockets of the upper classes... we're watching the middle class disappear right before our eyes. If it continues at the rate it's going, we will definitely have our true feudalistic society by then and a whole lot of bubbles are going to be popping in those comfortable little formerly middle class neighborhoods. My first great grandson is being born even as I type this and I'm sitting here thinking about what a sorry world we're creating for him to grow up in.

The astounding thing is how many people... destined to be no more than serfs themselves... are OK with all this and STILL support what is being done to them and will actually stand up and try to defend it simply because so far it's only affected those underneath him on the food chain. They actually think the whole cycle will somehow end before the grinder gets to them.

Greed will kill this country eventually... gullibility will be it's chief accomplice.

Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 269

The arguments against any form of government involvement in health care just flat out astound me.

Dovell says things like "there is no seroius debate". It's the same thing the right has been saying all along. But, they don't even see that it is in fact the right itself, that continues to bring absolutely zero to the table other than complete falsehoods and sound bites with zero merit in truth.

What we have heard: Death Squads - Proven untrue, yet some still cling to this. Millions will lose thier employer based health care and forced on to a government plan - Again proven to be a distortion. Millions are moved year after year already by thier employer to less expensive plans. Government can't run healthcare more effectively, and at a cost savings than the private sector can - Again, proven untrue. Government already DOES, and has been since 2003 when private health care was brought in, even with the private sector receiving government subsidies for crying out loud. Government ran health care will cost, at high estimates, 1 trillion a year. Again, another distortion. Federal studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting office show that single payer universal health care would save 100 to 200 Billion dollars per year despite covering all the uninsured and increasing health care benefits.

Our current health care system has been bankrupting us for years now. Clinton tried, but lacked the fortitude to actually fight the fight. Bush, his answer was to fatten some more Wall Street wallets, and it's costing us MORE. Now Obama is actually fighting the fight, yet, all we hear is how the big socialist government just wants to bloat itself more, all the while failing to see that our big socialists (the Wall Street goons) have already bloated themselves to the point that employers all across the country are either cutting, or flat dropping our middle class from health care coverage every day.

There is currently, in the US, a perfect example of exactly what government involvement in Health Care can do for costs, and at the same time cover a whopping 95% of its citizens.... Hawaii. Read up on how health care there works. It's amazing.

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