Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

[reggie]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Isn't this the very same argument that was made 40 years ago when Medicare was enacted by the Democrats led by Johnson and vehemently opposed by the Republicans? Oh my, the sky is falling (again)!! Armageddon, no less!! In 40 years the Republicans will be falling all over themselves trying to lend support to the reformed health care entitlements we just enacted over their dead bodies.... Some things never change. Read your history...

Who said anything about "the sky is falling"?

We migrated from one social system to another back then, and we're doing the same again. Big deal, it happens all throughout history. What I'm pointing out is that people are trying to understand the new rules through old concepts, but the old concepts no longer apply. New perspective is needed. And it is within this new perspective that this legislation is understandable, and logical.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Ask the rest of the developed world how much they hate their socialized medical care and they will tell you that you must be american.

This system is nothing like those in other countries. If it was I'd be cheering along with everyone else.

This is not a perfect bill. But it is a start.

This is a terrible bill. It doesn't serve the interests of healthcare providers or patients. It was authored, in part, by the very companies who stood the most to gain by it. The private insurance industry should have been removed from the system to save costs not given a blank check, and it does nothing to address the real reasons why health care is expensive. This bill isn't reform its more of the same but with better profit margins for the FIRE portion.

And it will be very popular.

It isn't that popular now, but in 10 years when you have to wait months for medical services people probably won't even remember how it happened.

And the racist/homophobic tea-baggers and GOP apologists will look like idiots, if anyone cares to recall their current hysteria in 5 years.

The mandate exists because it has to. That is the nature of insurance and risk pooling.

Does it also mandate corporate profiteering? I always thought democrats sided with the little guy. This bill is exactly the kind of thing they should have been rallying against not burning political equity to steam roll through congress just to show everyone who is in charge.

They could have introduced a bill with real reform and it wouldn't have cost them anything. I'm waiting for next year when I'll have to buy an F-150 or the IRS will just take that money and give it to ford anyway. We have to keep those lines rolling.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I just noticed this item - The Medicus Firm Physician Survey: Health Reform May Lead to Significant Reduction in Physician Workforce:

This is going to be a problem I fear. You know there is a structural issue when low margin health care providers can't make a living even though there is a supposed shortage of services.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

If there was more personal responsibility for health and finances, we wouldn't be facing an uncertain future.

Case in point; I work with a guy who weighs 350+ lbs and a diabetic, who has filed for bankrupcy a few years ago. His unwise choices cost all of us dearly.

I'm not proposing an Orwellian society, where Big Brother rules everything, but there has to be limits on unhealthy behaviors if we all pay the bill later.

I'm sure you mean well but this would be mightily abused by the government, and it is exactly the sort of totalitarian ideology Orwell was illustrating. The Germans had their own version of it embodied in Gesundheitspflicht.

This sort of law is a vicious cycle. As you legislate more behavior people will become less responsible. Their personal failings become policy failings and government continues to expend its control over peoples lives until there are no choices left to make. I think we should expect citizens to act like adults. We have to allow them to fail occasionally. They need to make mistakes and take responsibly for them. Otherwise we become a society of children with the state as an authoritarian father. I don't think anyone wants that.

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Who said anything about "the sky is falling"?

We migrated from one social system to another back then, and we're doing the same again. Big deal, it happens all throughout history. What I'm pointing out is that people are trying to understand the new rules through old concepts, but the old concepts no longer apply. New perspective is needed. And it is within this new perspective that this legislation is understandable, and logical.

Mussolini said the same thing about "the third way".

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

but there has to be limits on unhealthy behaviors if we all pay the bill later.

You've hit the nail on the head of one of the biggest reasons why we should not all be paying the bill later. Universal health care justifies universal tyranny.

[FRED]

FIRE Economy wins again

We refer to the new "Health Care Reform Bill" as the "No Health Insurance Company Left Behind" bill.

If you want to understand it, watch this presentation created by a man who used to work in the health insurance industry, Dan Roam.

Healthcare Napkins All

Ambrose Bierce on insurance from his Devil's Dictionary:

INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house – pray let me insure it.

HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so low that by the time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.

INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no – we could not afford to do that. We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.

HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can I afford that?

INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time. There was Smith's house, for example, which –

HOUSE OWNER: Spare me – there were Brown's house, on the contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which –

INSURANCE AGENT: Spare me!

HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last so long as you say that it will probably last.

INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it will be a total loss.

HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon – by your own actuary's tables I shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to you – amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?

INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.

HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from your clients than you pay to them, do you not?

INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not –

HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well then. If it is certain, with reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable, with reference to any one of them, that he will. It is these individual probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.

INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it – but look at the figures in this pamph –

HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!

INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.

HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a Deserving Object.

[Ghent12]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

You've hit the nail on the head of one of the biggest reasons why we should not all be paying the bill later. Universal health care justifies universal tyranny.

Very true. If the 350 lb coworker had to pay for his own bills entirely, then his weight is none of anyone's concern. Government policy has coerced him into collective payment systems, and that shifts his failings onto everyone. It takes a village to have a village idiocracy, or something like that.

[kriden]

Re: FIRE Economy wins again

Thanks FRED, that is the perfect slideshow to send to a few members of my family.

[bobola]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I'm sure you mean well but this would be mightily abused by the government, and it is exactly the sort of totalitarian ideology Orwell was illustrating. The Germans had their own version of it embodied in Gesundheitspflicht.

This sort of law is a vicious cycle. As you legislate more behavior people will become less responsible. Their personal failings become policy failings and government continues to expend its control over peoples lives until there are no choices left to make. I think we should expect citizens to act like adults. We have to allow them to fail occasionally. They need to make mistakes and take responsibly for them. Otherwise we become a society of children with the state as an authoritarian father. I don't think anyone wants that.

Radon, I do mean well. However I look at the massive obesity problem in the USA as the root cause of this so-called health care crises and ask why we allow it to keep getting worse..?? On the way to work in the morning I see lines of cars at the drive-throughs at fast food eateries and am a bit horrified that people will actually make that low quality food their first meal of the day.

I have an engineering background. When something is broken I look for a root cause.

I'm all about personal freedoms but to not talk about the way our bad eating habits have caused this obesity problem would indicate that I accept it. I don't accept it, so I talk about it.

A recent letter to the editor of my local paper criticised Mrs. Obama for her new project; obesity in kids. The writer said good food is expensive. HA... The biggest farmer's market in town is open Saturday and Sunday, is fulll of a wide variety of fruits and veggies, and most of the prices beat even big box Costco..!!

The sad fact (generally) is that we have become a fat and lazy society and accept our condition for what it's become. I don't accept it, so I talk about it.

[Ghent12]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Radon, I do mean well. However I look at the massive obesity problem in the USA as the root cause of this so-called health care crises and ask why we allow it to keep getting worse..?? On the way to work in the morning I see lines of cars at the drive-throughs at fast food eateries and am a bit horrified that people will actually make that low quality food their first meal of the day.

I see the "root cause" to be as simple as a bunch of old people. The baby boom generation never migrated or died off; they're still here and are getting older, older, older still. Old = healthcare needy, in aggregate. So a demographic population boom, towards the end of its lifespan, will put so much more strain on the system than normal. Healthcare needs slowly creep up until the start to spike up.

Granted, obesity is a factor. I'd say it's a large one, if you'll excuse the pun. However, I think much of that has been overblown as well. All football players are "obese," for instance. Cooking statistics and vested interests in displaying higher numbers can cause a great distortion. On the other hand, there's no denying that there's a lot of fat people here. A lot...

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I have an engineering background. When something is broken I look for a root cause.

How about we stop subsidizing corn (used to make high fructose corn syrup) then?

From Mike Adams Naturalnews.com - Tax Our Way to Healthy Eating and Subsidize Our Way to Disease:

The United States Government subsidizes crops grown by American farmers to the tune of $10-$30 billion per year, depending on market prices for crops and disaster payments for lost crops. About 35% of those subsidies go towards corn, 14% to wheat, and 7% to soybeans. This means that 56% of all federal subsidies go towards crops that are used as the base for nearly every kind of junk food you can name.²

Corn is made into high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and is the second ingredient in most sodas after water. Corn is also used to artificially fatten beef and other livestock before slaughter (with questionable nutritional outcomes) while wheat and soybeans are the base for thousands of breads and filler items.

Compare those subsidies and their food outcomes to the subsidies given to vegetables and organic growers. Those amount to less than 1% of all federal subsidies through the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

It's a proven consequence of subsidizing food crops for lower-class foods (helping to keep the prices at the fast food joint and soda fountain low) that a disparity exists between nutrition and income. A lower income means a lower nutritional value even if the caloric intake is above hunger or starvation levels statistically. In fact, children who are obese or overweight are more likely to have nutrient deficiencies.³

Yet these farm subsidies persist and opposition to them is met with cries of "We have to protect the farmer!" Yet the largest agricultural recipients (making up 10% of all recipients) received a whopping 72% of all subsidy payments in recent years, yet other agricultural commodities that do not receive subsidies make up 64% of all agricultural production. Most small, family-run, and organic farms receive no government money at all.⁴

In New Zealand, farm subsidies were cut back and nearly eliminated in 1984 and yet agriculture there has thrived, grown, prospered, and even moved towards more sustainable methods to cut costs. The result is that today, New Zealand has a thriving agricultural sector.⁴

[radon]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

Radon, I do mean well. However I look at the massive obesity problem in the USA as the root cause of this so-called health care crises and ask why we allow it to keep getting worse..?? On the way to work in the morning I see lines of cars at the drive-throughs at fast food eateries and am a bit horrified that people will actually make that low quality food their first meal of the day.

I have an engineering background. When something is broken I look for a root cause.

I'm all about personal freedoms but to not talk about the way our bad eating habits have caused this obesity problem would indicate that I accept it. I don't accept it, so I talk about it.

A recent letter to the editor of my local paper criticised Mrs. Obama for her new project; obesity in kids. The writer said good food is expensive. HA... The biggest farmer's market in town is open Saturday and Sunday, is fulll of a wide variety of fruits and veggies, and most of the prices beat even big box Costco..!!

The sad fact (generally) is that we have become a fat and lazy society and accept our condition for what it's become. I don't accept it, so I talk about it.

While obesity is a problem I don't think it is the biggest one. Health care would be cheaper if people rarely needed it, but that ignores the great deal of waste right now in medicine. There are whole industries that depend on medicine that are essentially parasitic. Both malpractice and health insurance are very profitable. If we had universal coverage all that money that was used to run insurance companies could be saved. How many billions of dollars a year does it take to run those companies and they make a profit on top of it.

Doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine. The threat of lawsuits spawns the need for malpractice insurance and unnecessary treatments. There is a reason antibiotics are handed out like candy here.

Drug companies with huge advertising budges use political clout at the FDA to raise a barrier to entry for others. Do they really need to spend a billion dollars a year to convince us that their brand is better than the generic equivalent.

The iceberg is huge and this is just the tip. Medical transcription/billing alone is a nightmare. I guess my point is that fat or not many other things getting worse. They could be fixed without spending a huge pile of money or attacking civil liberties, but that won't happen because to many people have their hand in the cookie jar.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

I see the "root cause" to be as simple as a bunch of old people.

Old people can be healthy, and young people sick. Consider for example the dramatic increase of obesity, ADHD and autism in children.

In my view, the biggest problem is diet. We've replaced natural foods with concoctions of treated water (chlorine and fluoride, etc), high fructose corn syrup, chemicals (coloring, preservatives, texturizers, flavor enhancers, ...), industrially processed fats and oils (e.g., Pasteurized and homogenized milk) and genetically modified grains.

Nutrient deprived soils, toxins and pollutants in much of what we breath, touch, drink and eat, a lack of exercise and sunlight, and a plethora of pharmaceutical agents (vaccines, pills, ...) compound our problems.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Here we go...Health Care 'Reform' passes

There are whole industries that depend on medicine that are essentially parasitic.

Yes - that too.

Criminy - given all the challenges we face to good, economical health, it's a wonder we aren't all in the poor house or the grave.