Help find an alternative to the old socialist healthcare system before its too late!

[geauxtohell]

If people truly had to pay the cost of healthcare, few people could really afford it. The current system is a giant insurance shell game where hospitals and insurance companies shuttle money around and overcharge for cheap procedures to cover the loss they incur treating people at the end of life or for catastrophic illness.

This is how it basically works: Say you have a health insurance policy that caps out at $500,000 dollars and you get sepsis and spend 20 days in the hospital and the total bill is $1,000,000. Your insurance is going to pay out the policy cap $500,000 and now the hospital is stuck with a $500,000 dollar bill. They come after your estate for the money, but that means that hospitals would, in essence, become like banks and spend a ton of time suing and acquiring peoples personal assets to recoup losses. That's bad PR and bad public policy. So they don't do that. Instead, a guy comes in for a minor stitch job that should probably cost around 500-700 dollars and his insurance pays out $1200 for it with a wink and a nod between the hospital. It's a huge systematic price inflation game that has been going on for decades.

It's funny to listen to people bitch about medicaid, when in reality, private insurance is the culprit.

On that note, if these dumb-asses had their way and eleminated Medicaid, they would fuck up the whole system. A large percentage of graduate (medical school) and post graduate (residency) training is done in community hospitals that service medicaid populations. Your doctor most likely learned medicine because of medicaid.

I don't pretend to know the answer to the question or the solution to the problem. But some of the people that rant about this shit (i.e. "death panels") have absolutely no clue how it works.

 

[geauxtohell]

How about we go back to capitalism, which we had pre 1930's running the market. You know, patient pay doctor or hosiptal directly? No employers involved, no government mandates, no insurance companies playing games.

It used to be that way. But ever since the New Deal government has had to be in charge and making sure people are 'taken care of'. They stick to standards and quality of care issues, and the anti-fraud consumer protection stuff, and we'll pay our doctors for services rendered.

Because medicine was relatively cheap when diagnosis was virtually 100% clinical and a stethoscope was considered high technology.

That's not the case now. The rising cost of healthcare, is attributed for the most part to the cost involved in the high tech things we use for diagnosis (i.e. CT and MRIs).

 

[The T]

The government lies about everything, or at the best, tell half-truths. I'm not interested in that balogna when it comes to my health care.

Agreed. It is an individual responsibility. And it is a right in the sense that the individual has the right to make their own choices unabated by Government or anyone else.

Liberty is an all or nothing proposition...and with that liberty comes responsibility. We've gotten to the point where people have abdicated both, and deferred it to person(s) that don't care of wit of them except their own power.

I am perplexed as to why anyone would defer other than the fact they are ill educated, lazy, or both.

Modern day conservatism is the political codification of selfishness.

being responsible=selfishness?

There you have it guys.

You think you Statists have the market cornered on compassion? Charity?

I'll tell you what's selfish is forcing others to pay for what people should be doing for themselves. Charity will take care of itself whern not forced upon people at the point of a gun through excessive taxation.

You may get on your Socialist horse and get the Hell outta town.

 

[Big Fitz]

Drug costs have risen exponentially since the advertising restrictions were lifted in 1992. Reverse that for starters. Then cut back on the litigation possible for even manufacturing drugs, there goes another large chunk of cost.

Once again, government is the cause of the ills.
As for the machinery, they will either find cheaper ways to do the same thing or go out of business. You don't think for one second that those big GE medical machines have been inflated in price because nobody's bothering to check their credit card statements since the government is bailing everyone out?

Nooooo that wouldn't have anything to do with it at alllllll.....

Fiscal responsibility is one of the best medicines for rising health costs. First person payer ends most bullshit fast. People make do with what they have and go into debt only when they absolutely must.

 

[Big Fitz]

Every other industrialized nation in the world has national health insurance, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare. The French have the best system, and it is a combination of public and private insurance.

Best collapsing system. They're going down last it seems.

 

[Big Fitz]

Modern day conservatism is the political codification of selfishness.

Selfishness is no vice. Earn for yourself. Charity is given of free will, by use of individual discretion, not by the blanket threat of prison or gun. Taxes, remember, are TAKEN.

Is the dog being selfish when it does not wish to give to the tick, flea, leech or mosquito? And yes, the parasite analogy holds.

 

[geauxtohell]

I don't think government should be involved in healthcare period. An absolute must is that we should demand serious tort reform. All these massive class-action lawsuits go a hell of a long way toward to wreaking havoc all over the whole economic spectrum - and the only people who get rich are the lawyers. Medical malpractice suits do the same thing. It's one thing to get real compensation for damages/injuries but millions upon millions of dollars in punitive compensation? I don't think so.

Tort reform should be a state issue. A large number of states have evoked tort reform and guess what? The cost of health care continues to rise. Tort reform is a red herring.

Would Tort Reform Lower Costs? - NYTimes.com

Malpractice reform no 'silver bullet' for skyrocketing healthcare spending - The Hill's Healthwatch

The studies that have looked at the cost of health care have found that malpractice is a small fraction of the problem. The largest fraction is the simple cost associated with CTs, MRIs, and other expensive gadgetry.

Furthermore, "punitive" damages are a rarity in malpractice and imposed when the courts find a civil misdeed that is so shocking that it shocks the conscious. No one who is literate on this matter thinks punitive damages should go away. Are you talking about "pain and suffering"? Most states have capped that amount at around $250K.

Finally, the lawyers that get rich in this game are the big defense firms (the ones who have their names on the high rise buildings) who work on retainer and defend insurance companies. Med mal lawyers are usually small outfits and work on contingency. That means if the case doesn't win, they don't get paid. Therefore, they don't take a case that they think is frivolous.

 

[geauxtohell]

Drug costs have risen exponentially since the advertising restrictions were lifted in 1992. Reverse that for starters. Then cut back on the litigation possible for even manufacturing drugs, there goes another large chunk of cost.

Once again, government is the cause of the ills.
As for the machinery, they will either find cheaper ways to do the same thing or go out of business. You don't think for one second that those big GE medical machines have been inflated in price because nobody's bothering to check their credit card statements since the government is bailing everyone out?

Nooooo that wouldn't have anything to do with it at alllllll.....

Fiscal responsibility is one of the best medicines for rising health costs. First person payer ends most bullshit fast. People make do with what they have and go into debt only when they absolutely must.

How about we do away with exclusivity rights on drugs that big pharma has when, after ten years, a pill that was $10 a pop goes generic and is $1 a pop?

How about we just let Big Pharma operate purely out of motive for profit and we'll have little advances in HAART therapy (not a big money maker for pharmaceuticals), but everyone will be able to have an erection until they are 95 (erectile dysfunction meds are one of the biggest money makers for drug companies).

Those of you who think there is no public interest in this matter are completely out to lunch.

 

[hipeter924]

Let's create a hypothetical situation.

How about schools:

1) All schools are run privately, through donations and through school fees.
2) Teachers control their own salaries.
3) Teachers, the community (businesses, parents, religious groups - even if it kills me saying that) run the schools as opposed to government, and run their own curriculum.
4) The curriculum centers around getting people into jobs as opposed to just getting people into university, and dumping those on the roadside who don't just make it.

How about health-care run on the same principle:

1) All hospitals are run privately, through donations and through hospital fees.
2) Doctors,etc control their own salaries.
3) Doctors,etc, the community (businesses, charity groups, volunteers, religious groups - even if it kills me saying that) run the hospitals as opposed to government, and run their own health-care plan.
4) The health-care plan centers around getting people through their operations quickly and safely so they can get back to work and on with their lives as opposed to just getting people into the hospital, and dumping those on the roadside who don't just make it.

I am going into shock just thinking about it.

 

[Big Fitz]

How about we do away with exclusivity rights on drugs that big pharma has when, after ten years, a pill that was $10 a pop goes generic and is $1 a pop?

Well, that would involve rewriting patent law, which could use a looking at. But in your hacker view of free information, you cut incentive for a company to develop a new drug particularly because they can't recoup the costs.

Of coruse, you could tighten up the rules on what qualifies as a 'new drug'. Take Prilosec, add a time release and you get Nexium. Same drug, with time release. Prilosec becomes "generic" and Nexium is the new pimped drug with patent protection.

How about we just let Big Pharma operate purely out of motive for profit and we'll have little advances in HAART therapy (not a big money maker for pharmaceuticals), but everyone will be able to have an erection until they are 95 (erectile dysfunction meds are one of the biggest money makers for drug companies).

Markets go where the profit lies. That said, you are ignoring some other factors of a market such as "Self Correction". So the heart medication drugs dry up and so do deaths due to it. Suddenly the market begins to get hot in heart meds as people want to live longer without dying of heart attacks, so the profit goes up in developing drugs for that and since erections put strain on the heart, and there'sa glut of drugs already there, they go down in price and profitability as demand decreases. Damn, the market corrected.

The issue is not that it WILL happen, it just won't happen fast enough for your preference. To which I say suck it up junior.

Those of you who think there is no public interest in this matter are completely out to lunch.

At least like you, we didn't leave early and forget to come back.

 

[Chris]

Agreed. It is an individual responsibility. And it is a right in the sense that the individual has the right to make their own choices unabated by Government or anyone else.

Liberty is an all or nothing proposition...and with that liberty comes responsibility. We've gotten to the point where people have abdicated both, and deferred it to person(s) that don't care of wit of them except their own power.

I am perplexed as to why anyone would defer other than the fact they are ill educated, lazy, or both.

Modern day conservatism is the political codification of selfishness.

being responsible=selfishness?

There you have it guys.

You think you Statists have the market cornered on compassion? Charity?

I'll tell you what's selfish is forcing others to pay for what people should be doing for themselves. Charity will take care of itself whern not forced upon people at the point of a gun through excessive taxation.

You may get on your Socialist horse and get the Hell outta town.

Sorry, you are wrong.

Every other industrialized nation has national health insurance, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare. We are being ripped off by the greedheads.

 

[Chris]

France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing. In a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, France came in first, while the U.S. scored 37th, slightly better than Cuba and one notch above Slovenia. France's infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.

That's not to say the French have solved all health-care riddles. Like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. That has led to some hefty tax hikes, and France is now considering U.S.-style health-maintenance organization tactics to rein in costs. Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.

The French Lesson In Health Care

 

[mdn2000]

Modern day conservatism is the political codification of selfishness.

being responsible=selfishness?

There you have it guys.

You think you Statists have the market cornered on compassion? Charity?

I'll tell you what's selfish is forcing others to pay for what people should be doing for themselves. Charity will take care of itself whern not forced upon people at the point of a gun through excessive taxation.

You may get on your Socialist horse and get the Hell outta town.

Sorry, you are wrong.

Every other industrialized nation has national health insurance, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare. We are being ripped off by the greedheads.

Thats a pretty good argument, Chris won this round. Every other, thats half right, Chris did not say every industrial nation.

 

[mdn2000]

Modern day conservatism is the political codification of selfishness.

being responsible=selfishness?

There you have it guys.

You think you Statists have the market cornered on compassion? Charity?

I'll tell you what's selfish is forcing others to pay for what people should be doing for themselves. Charity will take care of itself whern not forced upon people at the point of a gun through excessive taxation.

You may get on your Socialist horse and get the Hell outta town.

Sorry, you are wrong.

Every other industrialized nation has national health insurance, and they pay HALF per capita what we pay for healthcare. We are being ripped off by the greedheads.

If every other industrial nation was jumping off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge to.

 

[Big Fitz]

France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing. In a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, France came in first, while the U.S. scored 37th, slightly better than Cuba and one notch above Slovenia. France's infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.

That's not to say the French have solved all health-care riddles. Like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. That has led to some hefty tax hikes, and France is now considering U.S.-style health-maintenance organization tactics to rein in costs. Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.

The French Lesson In Health Care

This is still the same france in a massive budgetary crisis, riots caused by raising the retirement age, rampant unemployment due to too much entitlement, an immigration and cultural crisis that we can only shudder in fear at?

Yeah, you go run your railroad that way. I'll be over here waiting to buy you up for scrap value.

 

[The T]

France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing. In a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, France came in first, while the U.S. scored 37th, slightly better than Cuba and one notch above Slovenia. France's infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.

That's not to say the French have solved all health-care riddles. Like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. That has led to some hefty tax hikes, and France is now considering U.S.-style health-maintenance organization tactics to rein in costs. Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.

The French Lesson In Health Care

This is still the same france in a massive budgetary crisis, riots caused by raising the retirement age, rampant unemployment due to too much entitlement, an immigration and cultural crisis that we can only shudder in fear at?

Yeah, you go run your railroad that way. I'll be over here waiting to buy you up for scrap value.

And what of Greece? Same thing applies.

 

[Sallow]

Funny the military gets mentioned.

I can't think of a more socialist institution in this country. Or perhaps the world.

 

[ConservativeDad]

Why not have a government run insurance plan that I can choose to pay into? I call that collective bargaining with a larger pool of people. Why are capitalists so afraid of a little competition?

Other than Military? What does Government run well?

You would have bureaucrats make your decisions for you? Seriously?

I don't even know that I'd say the government runs the military well. Certainly not efficiently.

 

[Chris]

Funny the military gets mentioned.

I can't think of a more socialist institution in this country. Or perhaps the world.

And the irony is that when they retire, they get free healthcare and a government check every month for the rest of their lives.

 

[Chris]

France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing. In a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, France came in first, while the U.S. scored 37th, slightly better than Cuba and one notch above Slovenia. France's infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.

That's not to say the French have solved all health-care riddles. Like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. That has led to some hefty tax hikes, and France is now considering U.S.-style health-maintenance organization tactics to rein in costs. Still, some 65% of French citizens express satisfaction with their system, compared with 40% of U.S. residents. And France spends just 10.7% of its gross domestic product on health care, while the U.S. lays out 16%, more than any other nation.

The French Lesson In Health Care

This is still the same france in a massive budgetary crisis, riots caused by raising the retirement age, rampant unemployment due to too much entitlement, an immigration and cultural crisis that we can only shudder in fear at?

Yeah, you go run your railroad that way. I'll be over here waiting to buy you up for scrap value.

Massive budgetary crisis, raising the ritirement age, rampant unemployment?

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

Of course this has nothing to do with their well run healthcare system.

Nice try at changing the subject.