Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

In their minds Soviet Russia was an oligarchy, grinding the people into forced servitude and forced labour, epitomized by Imprisonments and Gulags (even though imprisonment rates are much higher in the US compared to Soviet Russia by almost an order of magnitude)

You must be kidding. The above was exactly what it was. At least in America you don't disappear in the back of the black maria never to be heard from again. In america you can even get good statistics on who is in gaol and where they are. In dictatorships like that you don't ask those sorts of questions. America is nothing like that yet. If that is the price to pay for free health care I'd rather go without.

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Put clear and upfront prices on health care and let the market decide what things are worth. In my experience people are almost never worth what they think they are.

A long time ago, before HMOs and the like, when people used to pay their provider directly the first question out of their mouth was what is it going to cost. Now they wave a card, pay their copay, and ignore the actual cost. Another testament to the "how much is it a month" culture - all finance no substance.

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

I would not disagree with you on abuses of power.

However my problem comes when we point the finger at someone, and refuse to examine ourselves with the same criticality. It is very easy to point out somebody else's faults, and yet at the same time excuse those very same faults in ourselves

What you see in a dictatorship like that is rarely what you get. It is like when some party offical comes to visit your town, and suddenly the store is full. Then it is emptied as soon as he leaves and the goods are shipped on to the next town the itinerary.

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

And in the near future, "capitalism" and "central reserve bank" will resonate with equal horror.

This is sad since capitalism seems to work better without one.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

A long time ago, before HMOs and the like, when people used to pay their provider directly the first question out of their mouth was what is it going to cost. Now they wave a card, pay their copay, and ignore the actual cost.

Some of us still purchase medical services with cash, for a price agreed to up front.

When the clerk asks for my medical insurance card, I'll say I'm paying cash in my best "non-sense, man of few words" voice, the clerk shifts gears, and we then agree on price and terms.

If I have major (expensive) work to be done that can be put off for a few weeks while arrangements are made, I'll like go to Thailand or some such place.

More importantly, avoid the usual chronic diseases (cardio, cancer, ...) in the first place with whatever regime of nutrition, exercise, and clean living it takes to stay chronically healthy.

[Rajiv]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Ah! disappearences, and unjust imprisonments? Brings to mind a little bit of the past!

and chain gangs



Also the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.[1][2] The U.S. incarceration rate on December 31, 2008 was 754 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents.[3] The USA also has the highest total documented prison and jail population in the world.[1][4][5]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): "In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults."[6]

2,304,115 were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails in 2008.[3][7] In addition, according to a December 2009 BJS report, there were 92,854 held in juvenile facilities as of the 2006 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP), conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.[3][8]

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Ah! disappearences, and unjust imprisonments? Brings to mind a little bit of the past!

and chain gangs



Also the United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world

And yet we are not executing them and burying them in mass graves. Hundreds of thousands of state prisoners were shot hundreds of thousands more "counterrevolutionaries" were also killed. This is to say nothing of people who were purposely starved and worked to death in camps.

What you describe, while horrible, is nothing like what happed to people in the Soviet system. The fellow who is busted on drug charges has little in common with the guy who is taken from his home for no reason at all at 4am and worked to death in a camp somewhere. I'm surprised you find them comparable.

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Some of us still purchase medical services with cash, for a price agreed to up front.

When the clerk asks for my medical insurance card, I'll say I'm paying cash in my best "non-sense, man of few words" voice, the clerk shifts gears, and we then agree on price and terms.

If I have major (expensive) work to be done that can be put off for a few weeks while arrangements are made, I'll like go to Thailand or some such place.

More importantly, avoid the usual chronic diseases (cardio, cancer, ...) in the first place with whatever regime of nutrition, exercise, and clean living it takes to stay chronically healthy.

If more people were like you we wouldn't be in this mess. The problem is that when people don't have to pay for services price ceases to be a consideration as they have no motivation to save when someone else is picking up the tab. It is similar to the explosion in tuition costs and the school loan racket.

So long as every thing is free there is no motivation to save. It seems like the only way that

[Rajiv]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Yes that is exactly what I am talking about -- "What happened here, is nothing like what happened there" It is generally a mindless repeating of propoganda that has been put out to keep an "enemy" as a bogeyman -- Anybody remember the "Babies being killed in the incubators" in Kuwait by the Iraqi troops - How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf

MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: "The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied. ... Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations."82

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."84

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.

If Nayirah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action.
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Lots of lies are told to get policies in place -- some may be small truths exaggerated until they take on a life of there own. Things have to be questioned the most, when "others" are being demonized

For "The Powers that Be" enemies are a very useful thing to have -- they the keep the riff-raff diverted, and controlled.

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Yes that is exactly what I am talking about -- "What happened here, is nothing like what happened there" It is generally a mindless repeating of propoganda that has been put out to keep an "enemy" as a bogeyman -- Anybody remember the "Babies being killed in the incubators" in Kuwait by the Iraqi troops - How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf



Lots of lies are told to get policies in place -- some may be small truths exaggerated until they take on a life of there own. Things have to be questioned the most, when "others" are being demonized

Not in this case.

The fact that you wrote the above in a public forum and are not in the least bit worried about being arrested, or at the very least censored and ostracized, is testament to those differences you describe as propaganda.

[c1ue]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

And yet we are not executing them and burying them in mass graves. Hundreds of thousands of state prisoners were shot hundreds of thousands more "counterrevolutionaries" were also killed. This is to say nothing of people who were purposely starved and worked to death in camps.

What happened under Stalin was absolutely a horrific thing.

But to say that it could never happen here, or never has happened here, is incorrect both in absolute and relative scales.

Understanding US history such as from the Civil War, from the Indian wars, and adding in new chapters on Afghanistan and Iraq - then perhaps you might consider your lily white image of America the paragon of virtue.

[Munger]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Insurance companies are quite motivated to negotiate the price. Not only that, with the volume that they bring they often can force the price down substantially. Indeed, the rates a typical insurance company pays are well below the rates a non-insured or cash-payer pays. A tip: if you plan on paying with cash, ask for the insurance rate. If they will give it to you it's a pretty good guide to see what you should be paying.

Granted, this doesn't totally solve the problem of unnecessary treatments. Of course, this is partially addressed by the fact that the insurance companies won't pay for many treatments if they deem them experimental or ineffective.

A large part of the problem is the incentives doctors have in ordering more treatments. And, there is also a significant information asymmetry in this market: If a doctor tells you that you need a treatment, who are you to turn it down? The problem is that doctors are paid based on the number and amount of treatments they order. Salaries could go a long way to addressing this issue.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

Not in this case.

The fact that you wrote the above in a public forum and are not in the least bit worried about being arrested, or at the very least censored and ostracized, is testament to those differences you describe as propaganda.

That we are cows in a pasture, not a barn, does not mean we are free. See a good video on this at The Story of Your Enslavement by Stefan Molyneux . The text for this video can be read at The Story of Your Enslavement (text).

[radon]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

What happened under Stalin was absolutely a horrific thing.

But to say that it could never happen here, or never has happened here, is incorrect both in absolute and relative scales.

Understanding US history such as from the Civil War, from the Indian wars, and adding in new chapters on Afghanistan and Iraq - then perhaps you might consider your lily white image of America the paragon of virtue.

Never did I say america is lily white, but I would suggest looking somewhere other than the Soviets for ideas of good governance. And yes I still maintain it is apples and oranges. America has never had that level of totalitarianism or systematic purges.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Not in law yet, and costs already rising for ObamaCare?

If a doctor tells you that you need a treatment, who are you to turn it down?

As George W. Bush once said, "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."