Political Compass

[Nuclear Raunch]

There is a reason why America has the BEST health care in the nation.

I'd be less pissed Shadow if this was about people getting insurance, but show me ONE example of where the Government takes over an industry and DOES IT RIGHT.

Here's one from last year, taking over failing banks. NPR did a special report on one in particular that was a pretty entertaining.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =102384657

I hurt me knee again about 2 years ago. I had to go to the hospital, not the ER mind you. I got FREE services done FROM the hospital. My family doctor has given me and my family free trial packs of prescriptions for years. I needed to take some medicine and every month, I went back and they gave me another month of samples. They charged me $20 for a visit instead of the $50 they'd charge insurance.
People who don't have any plan are NOT alone, and the ones that think so don't know anything. There are PLENTY of safety nets out the for US citizens.

Man, you have no idea how lucky you are. My dad is self employed and he has no government assistance program available because of his property and his business. He's hit all of them because the insurance is killing him, he's paying $2k a month out of pocket every month for a family of 4. He can't switch because of pre-existing conditions, the first $4k in prescription drugs he has to pay out of pocket, and I forgot what his copays are. I'd call and ask but you just don't call my dad if you don't have an hour or 2 to spare.

His wife is a social worker that deals with troubled teens and she's trying to get a county job just for the health insurance, and she doesn't care what the pay is.

Actually, that's not quite true. People from 20-40 pay about the same as people in countries with socialized medicine. It's the 50- when you get medicare bracket that are paying the most. Freen, even if he had health insurance, would paying about the same as you do.

I don't know who told you that but I can guarantee that's bs. When you look at how much more money we pay than they do there's no way in hell that difference can come from just the last 20-30 years of life.

Sorry Nuke, but that's exactly what the government did wrong. The didn't let some banks fail. I don't see the Fed saving small businesses in Michigan or Indiana. Thank god.

As for your story, I'm not saying that the current system is right Nuke. I never said that. All I'm saying is what was passes was wrong. I'm sure if your Dad had the ability to buy across state lines he wouldn't be in such a befuddled mess.

How in the hell is being able to buy across state lines going to help anyone with pre-existing conditions?

[Freenhult]

I'm not a lawyer, hell if I know.

[Shadow I]

Well, the new bill certainly solves a lot of problems for people with pre-existing conditions.

It is interesting to look at approval for the bill by geographical location. In general, approval gets higher the closer you get to the Canadian border, where people have a better understanding in general of how Canada operates, whereas the further south you get, the more opposition you find.

I'm not a lawyer, hell if I know.

The point is that being able to buy across state lines won't change much. Frankly I was really surprised to learn that it is even legal to refuse insurance to someone with a pre-existing condition.

[Gen. Volkov]

I don't know who told you that but I can guarantee that's bs. When you look at how much more money we pay than they do there's no way in hell that difference can come from just the last 20-30 years of life.

Um... why not? The vast majority of medical problems occur in the last 20-30 years of life. Billy Mays dying at 50 of a heart attack was a shocker because heart attacks are rare at age 50. When's the last time you heard of a 30 or even a 40 year old having a heart attack that wasn't drug related? Shoot, even Billy Mays heart attack was drug related. He was using cocaine. The years between your teens and your 40s are the healthiest years of your life. None of my grandparents experienced major medical problems until they were well into their 70s. My parents are in their late 50s and still have few medical problems. As for myself... I doubt I spend more than 400 bucks a year on anything related to actual medical bills. My health insurance premiums are a much bigger expense. Even then, my grand total is only about 1600 a year. I'd be highly surprised if someone in my same general situation, but in a country with a single-payer system was spending considerably less than that in taxes.

The point is that being able to buy across state lines won't change much.

I think the idea is to increase competition, which results in lower prices.

[Shadow I]

I'd be highly surprised if someone in my same general situation, but in a country with a single-payer system was spending considerably less than that in taxes.

Me? The taxes in Canada and the US are not that drastically different, but my total medical expenses out of pocket in the past 5 years adds up to... $29.32. Which I could have refunded any time but I am too lazy to actually send in the claim form.

But when you are considering a comparison between health care spending and taxes, you need to consider your taxes + your health care spending, versus our taxes alone. What percent of your income is current taxed, and what percent of your income is made up by medical expenses (if you don't mind me asking?)

[Nuclear Raunch]

I don't know who told you that but I can guarantee that's bs. When you look at how much more money we pay than they do there's no way in hell that difference can come from just the last 20-30 years of life.

Um... why not? The vast majority of medical problems occur in the last 20-30 years of life. Billy Mays dying at 50 of a heart attack was a shocker because heart attacks are rare at age 50. When's the last time you heard of a 30 or even a 40 year old having a heart attack that wasn't drug related? Shoot, even Billy Mays heart attack was drug related. He was using cocaine. The years between your teens and your 40s are the healthiest years of your life. None of my grandparents experienced major medical problems until they were well into their 70s. My parents are in their late 50s and still have few medical problems. As for myself... I doubt I spend more than 400 bucks a year on anything related to actual medical bills. My health insurance premiums are a much bigger expense. Even then, my grand total is only about 1600 a year. I'd be highly surprised if someone in my same general situation, but in a country with a single-payer system was spending considerably less than that in taxes.

The point is that being able to buy across state lines won't change much.

I think the idea is to increase competition, which results in lower prices.

Actually, that's not quite true. People from 20-40 pay about the same as people in countries with socialized medicine. It's the 50- when you get medicare bracket that are paying the most. Freen, even if he had health insurance, would paying about the same as you do.

I'm 100% positive that this claim is nowhere near the truth, before we discuss it further I want to see where your source for this is.

As for heart attacks both parents had one before 50, one was 40 the other 45 and neither did drugs. My sister had a heart operation at 26 (uberly rare heart disorder) and she hadn't even smoked pot once in her life, let alone did any real drugs.

And the insurance across state lines thing, wouldn't do a damn bit of good for pre-existing conditions because nobody would insure you when it was just intrastate insurance and nobody would insure you if it's interstate insurance either. They don't make money off of insuring sick people, they make money off of insuring healthy people and dropping them the second they get sick.

[Shadow I]

They don't make money off of insuring sick people, they make money off of insuring healthy people and dropping them the second they get sick.

This is the fundamental difference between the American system and a socialized one. I have said it before, but nobody really acknowledged it.

In your system, the company has a monetary incentive to not pay your bill. By not paying for you, they increase their own value. In a socialized system, this incentive is gone.

Now, there are plenty of reasonable arguments in opposition to the bill, based on the contents, where money is being spent, etc. It is not a perfect system, and it won't be, especially at the start. But the vast majority of the opposition to it is not based on this reasoned argument, but on some skewed perception that socialized health care impinges on the liberty of the people who participate in it. Let me, and the rest of the world, tell you that this is utter nonsense. There is a good reason that the vast majority of the world has at least partially socialized health care, and that if a government anywhere in the world suddenly suggested adopting the American model, there would be riots and another election the next day.

[windhound]

Just kinda skimmed, but a couple points

It is interesting to look at approval for the bill by geographical location. In general, approval gets higher the closer you get to the Canadian border, where people have a better understanding in general of how Canada operates, whereas the further south you get, the more opposition you find.

That's akin to the Palin's "I can see Russia from my house!"
People living in the northern parts of the US have no experience with the Canadian system and are unlikely to have looked much into it. No. I suspect your map matches up with the last http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 08.svg.png

I mean, holy . They were planning on including illegal immigrants?! Where is the money going to come from to pay for people's medical bills who arnt even supposed to be here, much less pay into the system. That damn article gives a sob story, but illegals are not supposed to be here. There are legal ways of entering the country, if you cant do it then please stay in yours.

The problem is and will always be funding. Look at the Massachusetts system. Costs are way above projections
"Health care costs in the state were rising at an annual rate of 10 percent, and the state budget deficit was $1.3 billion."
"...New business starts were reduced in Massachusetts by 16%, and that this reduction included displacement of new firm starts across the state line into New Hampshire."
"Massachusetts' problem of overcrowded waiting rooms and overworked primary-care physicians (who were already in short supply) has been exacerbated by the influx of patients now covered. One criticism of the program is that it has done nothing to realign incentives for MDs to provide primary care."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachuse ... m#Outcomes

To pay for this mess of a [s]bill[/s] law government revenue will have to be raised. They're going to hide it the best they can, as part of the deal with this thing is supposed to be that its cost effective.
But funding will have to come from somewhere.

Anyways, one of the biggest sticking points for me is that they made health insurance mandatory for a large number of people.
Personally I think its a good thing to have, as I recently racked up some rather large medical expenses...
But the government should not beable to require its constituents to -buy- anything. They can discourage (cig. tax) or make illegal (pot, cocain), but to require purchase?

But yeah. The US healthcare system does need some changes. What passed was not it, imho.

[The Beatles]

Oh, the MBTI? I'm an INFP, apparently.

I thought those were kinds of ground-to-air missiles.

(No I didn't, just poking fun at the military's dedicated attack on English with their acronyms.)

[The Beatles]

This is funny Shadow. Do you know that your own political leaders have come to America in the past couple years to have surgery? Do you know that foreign leaders come to America to have surgery, when they could be checked out in their own country.
I'm not talking about small time leaders, I'm talking about people from major European countries.

This was never about health care, it was all about controlling people's lives.

So? American politicos go to European centres for treatments sometimes too. The best centres are going to be in different places for different fields. But what I can tell you from overall stats is that American doctors are overpaid and American drugs are overpriced.

Tort reform isn't as big as you think it is. There have been a couple of studies, and if you like I will look them up for you to see if they're any good.

[Gen. Volkov]

But when you are considering a comparison between health care spending and taxes, you need to consider your taxes + your health care spending, versus our taxes alone.

Actually... no I don't. My insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses are a fixed cost. My taxes vary with the amount of money I make. I'll pay the same for healthcare regardless of whether I make 50,000 a year or 10,000 a year. The taxes that pay for Social security take a fixed percentage, of 6.2%, and I haven't made enough to actually pay income tax until this coming year.

What percent of your income is current taxed, and what percent of your income is made up by medical expenses (if you don't mind me asking?)

You have to remember, this coming year is the first year in which I will be employed at or near full time for the majority of the year. I will probably have 15% of my income taxed though. So in total, about 21% of my gross income will be taken in taxes. Again, that will vary based on how much I make. My healthcare costs won't. Assuming you make about the same amount of money I do, we'll match on income tax. However, I believe you live in Ontario, so you'll be paying another 13% in other taxes, whereas I will only be paying another 6.2%. You'll also have to pay 300 bucks for healthcare if you make more than 20 grand this year.

I'm 100% positive that this claim is nowhere near the truth, before we discuss it further I want to see where your source for this is.

And you would be 100% wrong.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09347/1020585-114.stm

Most relevant:

"Assembled by Carnegie Mellon University professor Paul Fischbeck, the chart shows that per capita health care spending in the United States is pretty similar to that in Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Japan -- until about age 60."

All those countries have UHC. US healthcare costs skyrocket after age 60. That is why our numbers are so much higher. I was actually pegging the rise a little low.

As for heart attacks both parents had one before 50, one was 40 the other 45 and neither did drugs. My sister had a heart operation at 26 (uberly rare heart disorder) and she hadn't even smoked pot once in her life, let alone did any real drugs.

OK, fine, your family is unusual. Here are some stats about deaths from Heart disease. Scroll down about and you'll find the deaths per 100,000 by age group. Take-away point? From ages 1 to 34, your risk is really damn low. Up till age 54, your risk is still low, but increases. After 54, heart attack risk increases dramatically.

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/h/heart_d ... deaths.htm

And the insurance across state lines thing, wouldn't do a damn bit of good for pre-existing conditions because nobody would insure you when it was just intrastate insurance and nobody would insure you if it's interstate insurance either. They don't make money off of insuring sick people, they make money off of insuring healthy people and dropping them the second they get sick.

I never said health insurance companies weren't out to make money. I was just saying that being about to buy health insurance from anywhere would drive competition, and whoever provided the best service would get the most customers. Thus, the health insurance company that wiggled out the least number of claims would get the most customers, and thus be able to afford to pay more claims. The simple fact of the matter is, the majority of people on any health insurance plan at any given time are not going to be getting sick. Competition would drive down costs and likely increase the number of people who got their claims covered.

[The Beatles]

Heh. Shadow, maybe this is because you've never spent time in America, but man. The people that "aren't covered at all" is interesting. Let's take me for example, I have no insurance and I haven't for 4+ years. I have a bad knee condition among other things, but I won't digress. I hurt me knee again about 2 years ago. I had to go to the hospital, not the ER mind you. I got FREE services done FROM the hospital. My family doctor has given me and my family free trial packs of prescriptions for years. I needed to take some medicine and every month, I went back and they gave me another month of samples. They charged me $20 for a visit instead of the $50 they'd charge insurance.
People who don't have any plan are NOT alone, and the ones that think so don't know anything. There are PLENTY of safety nets out the for US citizens. I don't know how that was in Canada before socialism but there is a major difference. No one in America has to die, there is ALWAYS some place to go or some program to enroll in. I'm probably eligible for Medicaid now, I was going to re-in-role this year. Never mind that now.

I'd be less pissed Shadow if this was about people getting insurance, but show me ONE example of where the Government takes over an industry and DOES IT RIGHT.

The idea in national insurance, Freen, is that you should be able to get healthcare without bankrupting yourself even if you're middle class. Being treated at fair rates, so you don't have to be super-rich or be forced down to the dregs -- as your description amply illustrates. Free samples of prescription drugs do not constitute a scalable healthcare system.

As for examples of industries that the governments run well, what scale are you interested in? At the big end we have things like the NHS or the US post office. At the small end we have regional ISPs and utilities in a lot of Europe. There are a lot in between and there have been many in history. There are just too many examples to choose from, so just narrow your field if you want specific examples.

[The Beatles]

A study done at Harvard University indicates that this is the biggest cause of bankruptcy, representing 62% of all personal bankruptcies. One of the interesting caveats of this study shows that 78% of filers had some form of health insurance, thus bucking the myth that medical bills affect only the uninsured.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budget ... ng_savings

On this topic, I'll bring up the NHS again as I've always advocated that sort of system and there's virtually no chance of it happening anywhere outside the UK this century. So if I remember the quote from Sicko correctly, the founding pamphlet that families got about the NHS had something about "relieving your money-worries in time of illness". Here's a chart which illustrates that:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/uploa ... l/HFA2.gif

Basically, they established percentages of people who "had serious problems paying/unable to pay medical bills in the past year", to which the answers were:
US 19%
UK 1%
NZ 8%
NET 5%
GER 4%
CAN 4%
AUS 8%

So the NHS seems to have fulfilled that goal admirably well -- it can't be perfect, for some 9% (or was it 16%?) of the British have some degree of private insurance, and I think 3% use it exclusively.

Anyway the article in which I read it was full of interesting facts and no emotion or rhetoric or economic speculation or other editorial rubbish, which was refreshing.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/ ... l_heal.php

[The Beatles]

Anyways, one of the biggest sticking points for me is that they made health insurance mandatory for a large number of people.
Personally I think its a good thing to have, as I recently racked up some rather large medical expenses...
But the government should not beable to require its constituents to -buy- anything. They can discourage (cig. tax) or make illegal (pot, cocain), but to require purchase?

You're already required to buy, out of your own pocket, tanks and cruise missiles for yourself, machine guns and land mines for oppressive states, bribes for Saudi princes, bling for corrupt African dictators, cold hard cash to line the pockets of pork-project contractors... it's called taxes. This is just another tax but you have to spend it on something that's good for you. One way or another if there was going to be anything like universal healthcare in the US, people would have to pay. They wouldn't stomach another straight tax so they're getting a straight tax but it's called something else and it looks so different that they don't mind.

Now I think it's a shame there isn't a public option, but the industry is massively entrenched and has put up a huge fight, so this is all they could safely pull off.

(I'm sorry for the multiple posts, I found it tricky to quote multiple people, but I'll do it better next time.)

[Freenhult]

Anyways, one of the biggest sticking points for me is that they made health insurance mandatory for a large number of people.
Personally I think its a good thing to have, as I recently racked up some rather large medical expenses... 
But the government should not beable to require its constituents to -buy- anything.  They can discourage (cig. tax) or make illegal (pot, cocain), but to require purchase?

You're already required to buy, out of your own pocket, tanks and cruise missiles for yourself, machine guns and land mines for oppressive states, bribes for Saudi princes, bling for corrupt African dictators, cold hard cash to line the pockets of pork-project contractors... it's called taxes. This is just another tax but you have to spend it on something that's good for you. One way or another if there was going to be anything like universal healthcare in the US, people would have to pay. They wouldn't stomach another straight tax so they're getting a straight tax but it's called something else and it looks so different that they don't mind.

Now I think it's a shame there isn't a public option, but the industry is massively entrenched and has put up a huge fight, so this is all they could safely pull off.

(I'm sorry for the multiple posts, I found it tricky to quote multiple people, but I'll do it better next time.)

And what's your point here? This doesn't justify another tax or another program we have to pay for at all. Maybe we should restart slavery just because we did it for 200+ years.

That logic doesn't work.