National heath care has arrived (Political)

[jgbrowning]

What access are you talking about? As a member of the "poor" I just want access to healthcare. Currently my 11 year old son can't get insurance because he has a pre-existing condition, we make 4,000 dollars a year to much to get medicaid. We are currently classified as "medically needy" which translates out into no coverage at all right now. Why shouldn't we all have access to the medical coverage we need? or are some people not worthy of care?

Stonegiant, you're far from alone. I'd like to see every American have health insurance as much as every American has fire, police, and military protection. The only reason we have fire protection is systemic risk. That same type of risk exists in healthcare, but to much greater degree to the individual as well as in risk to the system. Everyone will eventually need direct healthcare, not everyone eventually needs direct fire protection.

joe b.

[AxeMental]

I'd also like to see every American with health insurance, but with a private system rather then a socialist one.

Myth, its dangerous using your morality as a rational to socialize medicine. First off, TRP and I and others may not share your morality. Secondly, your opening the door to use someone elses morality to justify things you may disagree with, lets say your politicians think "housing in the United States is a national disgrace, why should you get to live in that sized house while others have to live in 1/5th the amount of space." Next thing you know your sharing your house with another family. Thats what the communists did in Russia, and it can happen here. Just remember to tell Billy Bob to wipe the toilet after he's done using it.

The idea that someone who does not pay into the system should be entitled to the same exact health care as someone that sacrifices and does pay in (by buying insurance) is flawed thinking IMHO. I agree that those that do not have coverage should get treatment when needed (and they do as BPoM has pointed out). But to say it should be equal doesn't fit any moral paradigm I share. No more then saying I have to share my house with other families because I have more space then they do (which I don't), or I have to give some of my food to those who have less. This is commi thinking.

You guys are taking a ride down a slippery slope that could easily lead to a Soviet style society in years to come. And your party of liberal socialists you voted in would gladly take you there in a heart beat .

[jgbrowning]

I'd also like to see every American with health insurance, but with a private system rather then a socialist one.

And how do you postulate that could happen?

You can't create a private system that is profitable when, as an aggregate, health care costs are a negative on our national bottom line. Heath care will always cost more than it returns. It's not making stuff, it's not production, heath care will never create wealth like mining, and industry.

You can't make money on healthcare because no matter how much money you "make" it cost our society more than what was earned. It's not a producer, heathcare doesn't make things - the best health care does is allow those that produce things more time and better health to actually make real money, which grows economies.

Healthcare is a drain on finances because being sick means someone doesn't produce. Healthcare's only goal is to minimize that reduction in production

From a systemic perspective, health care is like crime, it's a negative on the entire financial system of a country that must be dealt with because it won't go away. The best health care is the one that provides the most service at the lowest total cost because it's always a cost and not a profit. When you add a profit margin into health care you increase national systemic costs by increasing industry systemic cost.

joe b.

[jgbrowning]

And with that, I'm going to bow out of the conversation. I think I've said everything I want to say and would probably only be repeating myself from here on. I also need to get some real work done instead of thinking about negative network externalites.

Later all, nice talking to you. I think we can do it and I think we'd be better off if we did. Supporting the system we have now will only lead to increasing costs and worse service, IMO.

joe b.

[AxeMental]

Joe B: "And how do you postulate that could happen?"

As I stated before.

[jgbrowning]

Joe B: "And how do you postulate that could happen?"

As I stated before.

I asked how it could happen, not how you wished it would happen. Elucidate the savings that would occur, provide examples of how it would occur, and demonstrate why your proposed round of tort reform and deregulation would have different results than the many other rounds that came before? Are you unaware that such has been proposed and enacted many times before and why do you think your ideas will work when they have always failed in the past?

I've provided examples of successful heath care systems that are cheaper and work better for more people, of which at least some are less error prone. I'd think a reciprocal courtesy could have been provided in rebuttal at any time during this long conversation explaining how such systems are unable to be administered by Americans due some intellectual failing. Why do you think your ideas, with a history of failure, are superior to my ideas with a history of success?

I see I did pick the right time to leave. This WAS an ideological discussion in which what has been done before is expected to fix the problems created by what has been done before based only upon the assumption that a core belief (Socialism bad) is right, regardless how the results have tested against reality time and time again in this case. I'm not interested in ideological discussions about health care, not even the one about how every human should have access to affordable care being a moral goal of a civilized society in the same way that citizens are protected from fire, crime, and aggressive foreign powers.

Laters! I don't expect any answers to my posts in this thread anymore, so don't bother replying. Hopefully, you'll eventually think about trying something that's been proven to work better as opposed to something that's been proven to perform wastefully through cost and service examples.

joe b.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

The only way you can get medical care without paying for it is to walk into an emergency room with an emergency condition - in that case, a hospital is not allowed to turn you away.

If anyone objects to that, and thinks our nation is one in which poor people (single mothers, for example) ought to be allowed to bleed out in the streets after being mugged, we have a different vision of what the USA stands for.

You said in your first paragraph that people with emergency conditions get treatment. So how are we not addressing the needs of the single mother in your example?

Hospitals being forced to treat emergency victims is an example of regulation, correct? Axe is arguing that all regulation in the medical arena is a bad idea. I'm pointing out an instance in which regulation is a good idea, to highlight the fact that sometimes regulation has a moral as well as an efficiency dimension. Axe is arguing for leaving the single mother in the street. I'm arguing we shouldn't.

I see. I thought you were replying to me, not Axe with that part of your post. Sorry for the confusion.

I'll say again, our medical system is a national disgrace.

It's not. There are problems. We need to address them. Blowing the issue out of proportion doesn't help anything.

That's where we differ. It's a disgrace that senior citizens were crossing the border into Canada to get medications they couldn't afford in this country, at a tenth the price. It's a disgrace that people like Stonegiant are in the box they find themselves in. It's a disgrace that a hospital quietly charged my family $10,000 for an unnecessary catscan on my son when we took him to the emergency room and then cheerfully knocked the price down to $1000 the moment we protested the charge? Is it not a disgrace to you that hospitals would charge a 1,000% markup on a procedure just to see who pays it (people who trust hospitals)?

Other than Stonegiant's situation, none of the things you list have anything to do with the US failing at a moral obligation to get poor people the healthcare they need (unless you are assuming that most older adults who have cars and can afford to drive to Canada are poor). I would say even Stonegiant's situation may not be applicable, since he didn't say his son wasn't getting proper treatment, just that getting the necessary treatment was financially onerous for his family. Hospitals dishonestly charging their patients is, indeed, disgraceful. But it's neither a national disgrace (there are already laws that regulate hospital billing departments, some might argue there are too many at this point), nor does it have anything to do with whether poor people have access to adequate healthcare (since poor people presumably couldn't pay even honestly calculated bills).

I don't think I am blowing the matter out of proportion - that's why I call it a disgrace and a moral failure on the part of this country. And I'm no flag-burning, America-hating, knee-jerk radical. It's possible for a very pro-American person to look at this country and say, "Something's going badly wrong, here."

Assuming that everyone with a strong viewpoint on the other side of an issue is simply blowing the matter out of proportion doesn't help anything either.

There's a distinct difference between saying "Something's badly wrong here" (a statement I agree with) and saying "The current situation is a moral outrage". If it becomes a question of morality, then we are obligated to do whatever we possibly can to fix the situation immediately, without regard to cost or consequences. Whereas, if it's just a policy problem that needs serious thought and consideration, we can take the time to come up with a solution that actually helps everybody.

Assuming that everybody who isn't morally outraged is on the other side of the issue doesn't help anything either, either.

[AxeMental]

Joe: "Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject:

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Joe B:

"I asked how it could happen, not how you wished it would happen. Elucidate the savings that would occur, provide examples of how it would occur, and demonstrate why your proposed round of tort reform and deregulation would have different results than the many other rounds that came before? Are you unaware that such has been proposed and enacted many times before and why do you think your ideas will work when they have always failed in the past?"

What needs to be done has never been tried as far as I've seen...not even close. 100% legal protection from lawsuites for drug companies and those in the medical system (pull licenses instead). Getting rid of HMOs, getting rid of all govt. red tape, getting rid of the FDA's highly expensive testing requirements...just a few ideas that have never been tested or tried. Joe, can you think of a reason Congress hasn't brought these ideas up? I can, and its not pretty.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

Now I'll wait for the responses as to why we can't fix our system using universal heath care because we're so incompetent, unlike those crafty Europeans.

I won't say we can't fix things with universal healthcare, but I will say that the Europeans have had 40-50 years to get the kinks worked out of their systems and they still don't have all the problems worked out. Plus, we have 40-50 extra years where the insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals have developed ingrained, systemic, prejudices that will actively complicate a transition to universal healthcare, not to mention all of the lobbying groups that will try to f*&% things up because universal healthcare will interfere with their patron's particular economic niche.

And yes, our federal government is, in general, fairly incompetent and will likely screw a lot of things up in implementing ANY healthcare reforms, especially a major change like a transition to universal healthcare. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it does mean there won't be someone waving a magic pen over some legislation and tomorrow all of our healthcare issues will be fixed.

Stonegiant, you're far from alone. I'd like to see every American have health insurance as much as every American has fire, police, and military protection. The only reason we have fire protection is systemic risk. That same type of risk exists in healthcare, but to much greater degree to the individual as well as in risk to the system. Everyone will eventually need direct healthcare, not everyone eventually needs direct fire protection.

joe b.

I think the important distinction here is that everyone has fire protection. Not everyone has fire insurance. In addition, you can call the fire department and get fire protection while your house is on fire. It would be unreasonable, however, to think you should be able to wait until your house is on fire before purchasing fire insurance.

If we could achieve the same arrangement in regards to healthcare, I think that would be great; a minimum reasonable level of access that everyone gets which can be supplemented by private health insurance by those who can afford it. But I get the feeling that people believe providing the healthcare equivalent of fire insurance for everyone will be as easy as providing fire protection is. IMO that's wishful thinking.

[Stonegiant]

My situation is that because my wife makes $1200 a month from her disability check (including the boys portion), I make $1000-$1200 a month depending on how many hours I get. My 11 year old currently is not getting any treatment other than a walk in clinic which wrote him refills for his meds while we try and figure out some sort of solution to this problem. I myself have no insurance for the same reason as my son and my employer won't be offering any until July and even then the policy hardly covers anything. I had to go off of my blood pressure medicine because I can't afford the lab work required to get the refill. Currently we qualify for no coverage because we make to much money and we got sick before. Not only does the private system have the right to deny coverage but they can take forever with it (It took Blue Cross/Blue Shield 4-5 months to deny my son coverage). I also know that there are allot of other people in the same dilema as my family is, the problem is that this problem did not develop overnight and both sides are to blame for it and people are ready for socialized medicine because both sides (dems and rep) have failed to come up with an alternative. People are desperate and tired of waiting.

[jgbrowning]

What needs to be done has never been tried as far as I've seen...not even close. 100% legal protection from lawsuites for drug companies and those in the medical system (pull licenses instead). Getting rid of HMOs, getting rid of all govt. red tape, getting rid of the FDA's highly expensive testing requirements...just a few ideas that have never been tested or tried. Joe, can you think of a reason Congress hasn't brought these ideas up? I can, and its not pretty.

You're suggesting that preventing a citizen from suing when wrongdoing occurs is a solution to anything? You worry about rights being lost under a national health care solution by postulating a solution based upon utter loss of rights? Access to the court is a basic American right, restrictions on restitution can be reasonable, but loss of access will never be reasonable. There's no need to slip into soviet socialism when we can just jump right there by denying right of access to the judicial system.

FDA regulations are primarily there because drug and food companies have continually shown that without restriction, they will produce dangerous and sub-par products. The market forces will eventually bankrupt bad companies, but hundreds, thousands, or even millions will die or be injured before such occurs. We had a society before the FDA and there was a reason why people wanted it created. It's been tried and it was found lacking.

I think these ideas haven't been brought forth to congress because they are laughably ridiculous and show a tremendous misunderstanding of a multiple of basic realities and rights.

joe b.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

My situation is that because my wife makes $1200 a month from her disability check (including the boys portion), I make $1000-$1200 a month depending on how many hours I get. My 11 year old currently is not getting any treatment other than a walk in clinic which wrote him refills for his meds while we try and figure out some sort of solution to this problem. I myself have no insurance for the same reason as my son and my employer won't be offering any until July and even then the policy hardly covers anything. I had to go off of my blood pressure medicine because I can't afford the lab work required to get the refill. Currently we qualify for no coverage because we make to much money and we got sick before. Not only does the private system have the right to deny coverage but they can take forever with it (It took Blue Cross/Blue Shield 4-5 months to deny my son coverage).

You need to emigrate, mate.

[jgbrowning]

I won't say we can't fix things with universal healthcare, but I will say that the Europeans have had 40-50 years to get the kinks worked out of their systems and they still don't have all the problems worked out. Plus, we have 40-50 extra years where the insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals have developed ingrained, systemic, prejudices that will actively complicate a transition to universal healthcare, not to mention all of the lobbying groups that will try to f*&% things up because universal healthcare will interfere with their patron's particular economic niche.

And yes, our federal government is, in general, fairly incompetent and will likely screw a lot of things up in implementing ANY healthcare reforms, especially a major change like a transition to universal healthcare. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it does mean there won't be someone waving a magic pen over some legislation and tomorrow all of our healthcare issues will be fixed.

I completely agree. These are the real issues of a transition. We can do it, the question is do we have the moral fortitude to put our citizen's best interests ahead of the people who gain wealth through the status quo.

I'm not trying to oversimplify. It will be very difficult, be we can do it. One great thing is that there is so many examples of working systems (warts and all) that we have to help guide us in the decision making process towards a universal health care. We can learn from other's mistakes.

I think the important distinction here is that everyone has fire protection. Not everyone has fire insurance. In addition, you can call the fire department and get fire protection while your house is on fire. It would be unreasonable, however, to think you should be able to wait until your house is on fire before purchasing fire insurance.

Fire protection is also to insure that fires don't spread. Every time a fire is put out or contained, and it's not my house on fire, I've been fire protected similar to the person who's house had its fire put out. Such is similar with immunizations, IMO.

Purchasing fire insurance when your house is on fire is, IMO, as reasonable to visiting the Emergency room because they cannot deny service. Its doing the right thing at the absolutely worst, and most expensive, time. That's just an analogy, so don't try to pick it apart too much.

Also, existing conditions are always treated like the house is on fire, and that is, IMO, tremendously detrimental to our nation.

If we could achieve the same arrangement in regards to healthcare, I think that would be great; a minimum reasonable level of access that everyone gets which can be supplemented by private health insurance by those who can afford it. But I get the feeling that people believe providing the healthcare equivalent of fire insurance for everyone will be as easy as providing fire protection is. IMO that's wishful thinking.

I'm not really asking for much more than that. I wouldn't mind payment scales based upon income and private insurance. I think we'd start seeing savings right away if we had cheep preventative care. IMO, it would be a great step towards my end goal.

I'd like to eventually migrate out of a private system to a public system as that would reduce the search for profit cost input and the marketing/advertising cost inputs in the current system. I believe that would result in cheaper and better health care overall than one functioning based upon private companies.

joe b.

[jgbrowning]

I also know that there are allot of other people in the same dilema as my family is, the problem is that this problem did not develop overnight and both sides are to blame for it and people are ready for socialized medicine because both sides (dems and rep) have failed to come up with an alternative. People are desperate and tired of waiting.

Yes. People are tired and desperate. I hope citizens understand that America isn't Red and it isn't Blue: it's Purple and the solution that we need is one only based upon results and not ideology. The solution needs to treat the problem, not the symptoms.

My folks declared bankruptcy for medical reasons. 90% paid by insurance is good coverage unless you have a quadruple-bypass in your 60's and you're a working class family. They did everything right, and still they get screwed by our health-care system in ways that would never happen in almost every other civilized nation. Our people are the most valuable part of our nation and we need to treat them as such.

joe b.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I think what BPoM means (and I may be wrong here, if so hopefully BPoM will clearify) is that anyone without insurance (or with a pre-existing condition) can walk into just about any hospital in the United States and get treated with state of the art care that few (if any) countries can equal.

I'm confused. People keep saying that as if it was common knowledge or common sense.

But if it was true, wouldn't life expectancy in the US be longer than in Europe? Or is there some distorting factor I'm unaware of?

My own understanding is that ten-year cancer survival rates in the US are slightly higher, but ten-year organ transplant survival rates are slightly lower, i.e. there's not much in it.

I'm aware of a few high-profile cases of Europeans going to the US for medical treatment, but my understanding is that in these cases, they're seeking a treatment that hasn't been proven to work -- and that, therefore, the European health authorities won't pay for.