TAPS- Why America is Not Coming Back

[Truthmatters]

we have to stop them from keeping Americans from voting folks.

Its the ONLY way to save this country from these evil people.

they want the founders experiment in democracy to die.

pretending that is not what were fighting will keep us from winning

 

[Bfgrn]

Actually, employer provided health care was created because the government capped salaries during WWII.

But that's neither here nor there.

The rest of the world had the good sense to go to single payer or universal insurance, while we have our system that costs the most and has the worst results.

but some guy in a corner office is getting a nine-figure salary, and that's the important thing.

I know what it was Joe ... And you do too.
Own it ... And make more sense when you and Truthmatters post.

No need to brush it off because it suits your ill-intended crap.

.

i'm sorrry, I know sniffing CEO flatulence has made you woozy, but here's the thing.

Private insurance sucks.

It costs more and produces worse results.


We have the lowest life expectency in the industrialized world and an infant mortality rate that is comparable to third world countries, and we spend 20% of our GDP for the privalage. (Most countries only spend about 8% of their GDP on health care.)

Insurance companies were originally run by doctors. Their idea was to spread the risk. They had a sense that getting sick usually wasn't fair, so going bankrupt because you were sick probably also wasn't fair. They had the idea that pooling people in advance made it easier on everyone, and improved access to healthcare.

It's a great irony that only a few years later, some business people (people who are very good with money, but not so interested in medicine) realized that they could make a lot of money on health insurance if they created a special insurance plan that excluded the sickest people. In other words, insurance for people who probably didn't need it, which was very different from the original idea of health insurance for everyone, but far more profitable. The idea of preexisting conditions is almost as old as health insurance itself.

Here's one way to look at how the system came to be: People usually try to find occupations that follow what they love, at least in the beginning. Hospitals can be callous in their billing, as we've seen, and doctors like money as much as anyone else, but fundamentally there was a point in their lives when they (doctors and people who run hospitals) decided to get into the profession of helping sick people. Some are genuinely compassionate. Some are biology wonks or technology wonks, or just like the action. But most of them lose interest pretty quickly when they have to start dealing with complicated financial matters like insurance payments.

The first insurance companies were started by doctors, but they couldn't stay in the game when the money professionals started showing. They couldn't compete financially, and they didn't have the mindset to try. So they did what most of us do: focus on the details that interested them (medicine), and left the tedious stuff (finances) to someone who was interested in it (insurance companies). Now the insurance companies could start building a system in their image.

As the system grew and healthcare became more complex, more people came into the health insurance industry who had a good understanding of money but little interest in healthcare. It’s no secret that confused people are easier to take advantage of, so layers of confusion were slowly piled on and profits soared. Insurance companies sell nothing more than security against financial risk. If no one really understands what that risk is (because all prices are hidden or deceptive) then the price of the security (insurance) can be grossly inflated.

Doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers didn’t protest as the process slowly grew away from them because, as this started to happen, they too, were making money, and didn't think they needed to worry about it. As the system became less and less transparent, insurance companies were careful to make sure that all of the major players were kept very happy. But you can't keep everyone happy forever, and when things get tight, that's when you start to learn who's running the system. Now, after 30 to 40 years of slowly allowing all of our understanding of the financial transactions to erode, we are left seeing more and more money dumped into a black hole with little understanding of what happens to it.

It’s rare to see a discussion about healthcare costs that isn’t centered on co-pays, premiums, and deductibles. These are all indirect costs. They tell you almost nothing about the cost of the final product (the medical services that you might need). If the cost of individual components of healthcare are mentioned at all in these conversations, the price given is usually the billing charge. But the billing charge has little to do with what health care costs either. You've seen in almost every section of this discussion that the billing charge is a hugely inflated price that almost no one ever pays.

Why would anyone want us to focus on a price that's almost never paid (unless you don't have insurance, of course)? Well, one reason might be that it makes it look like all that money is really going into paying for our health care. We all know how important an MRI can be, or an Emergency Room visit, and as long as people think an MRI really costs $4,000, and an ER visit costs $4,500, maybe they'll resign themselves to paying big insurance premiums, and we can all tell ourselves that it's the only way we can continue to have "the best health care in the world."

But if these charges have nothing to do with reality, then neither do any of the discussions. MRI's and ER visits cost hundreds of dollars, not thousands! This is all a very effective diversion because, if no one ever addresses the real problem, it’s unlikely a real solution will ever be proposed. And if you don't want people to find out where their money is going, it helps to have them looking in the wrong place.

Healthcare - *Conclusion: Is Healthcare Really so Expensive?

 

[Jarlaxle]

[

I guess you think the Democrats that have run Detroit for the last half-century must have been worshiping the corporations.
The condition of Detroit is an excellent example of what any Liberal Mecca is worth without corporations.

Please try to understand what, where and who you are posting about.

.

So it was the fault of the "Democrats" that the big three produced big gas guzzlers that no one wanted to buy?

The two best-selling vehicles have been "big gas guzzlers" for the past FORTY YEARS RUNNING. You fail, as always.

 

[Truthmatters]

[

I guess you think the Democrats that have run Detroit for the last half-century must have been worshiping the corporations.
The condition of Detroit is an excellent example of what any Liberal Mecca is worth without corporations.

Please try to understand what, where and who you are posting about.

.

So it was the fault of the "Democrats" that the big three produced big gas guzzlers that no one wanted to buy?

The two best-selling vehicles have been "big gas guzzlers" for the past FORTY YEARS RUNNING. You fail, as always.

dear idiot,

go read the history of the oil embargos of the 70s

 

[Truthmatters]

60 Free Essays on The Rise Of Global Corporation Toyota - AllFreeEssays.com

 

[Truthmatters]

if you believe this country will fail because republican wont be able to cheat enough to win in elections anymore please leave this country

 

[Jarlaxle]

So it was the fault of the "Democrats" that the big three produced big gas guzzlers that no one wanted to buy?

The two best-selling vehicles have been "big gas guzzlers" for the past FORTY YEARS RUNNING. You fail, as always.

dear idiot,

go read the history of the oil embargos of the 70s

Did you actually READ the post you quoted? I thought not.