Repeal of Obamacare

[Armistead]

It's known to everyone that obamacare will not be repealed, even if the house passes it, the senate won't and not near enough votes to stop a Pres Veto. Obvious it's a GOP political ploy, but everyone knows this debate won't do anything. Do you see it as a waste of time and money, since they could be debating other issues? This debate alone cost several million when each side pays to have their own numbers worked up, case studies, ect..

Really, it's just campaigning for the next election. I also read Obama will be the first to raise a billion for his next campaign.

[mookiemookie]

Political grandstanding.

[Bubblehead1980]

It's known to everyone that obamacare will not be repealed, even if the house passes it, the senate won't and not near enough votes to stop a Pres Veto. Obvious it's a GOP political ploy, but everyone knows this debate won't do anything. Do you see it as a waste of time and money, since they could be debating other issues? This debate alone cost several million when each side pays to have their own numbers worked up, case studies, ect..

Really, it's just campaigning for the next election. I also read Obama will be the first to raise a billion for his next campaign.


Not a waste of time, they campaigned on repeal and were elected, they are doing just that which I know is hard for many to swallow, politicians actually keeping their word once elected? shocking I know.Maddog pointed out we will also learn more of whats in this crappy, unconstitutional law that the last congress did not bother to read before passing.

The few good things will find their way into replacement health care law eventually.Repeal and Repass was what they ran on, we are seeing it in action.:yeah:

[AVGWarhawk]

Repeal may not work but starving the 'plan' of money works. :03: As stated above, they campaigned repeal. They are attempting to do so. Therefore, down the road, at least they can say they attempted it. However, short sighted America will forget. :88)

[Armistead]

Missing the point, they have no chance..0% to repeal it, may pass in the house, but won't in the senate and Obama would veto it anyway, so it's political grandstanding. So why waste the time and money until you could actually do something....

I agree it has good and bad points, but that's not what's going on here, it's a wholesale repeal. If the GOP wanted to take the time to work on it, be a different subject.

[GoldenRivet]

the only chance of getting rid of Obama Care (which i think only parts of it should be scrapped) is if the United States Supreme Court rules it to be unconstitutional.

[AVGWarhawk]

Missing the point, they have no chance..0% to repeal it, may pass in the house, but won't in the senate and Obama would veto it anyway, so it's political grandstanding. So why waste the time and money until you could actually do something....

I agree it has good and bad points, but that's not what's going on here, it's a wholesale repeal. If the GOP wanted to take the time to work on it, be a different subject.

So you are suggesting that the bill should not really be looked at this go around? Just let it go and hope for the best? Perhaps if the bill was really read this time those that would oppose the repeal might see this bill in a different light. Perhaps seeing all those that were sent packing after the elections might wise up and think about voting in a repeal or suffer the same at the next election. It is not a waste of time at all IMO.

[RickC Sniper]

If the house votes to repeal it, the Senate should be forced to vote on it, so voters can hold their Senators accountable for his\her vote.

[August]

If the house votes to repeal it, the Senate should be forced to vote on it, so voters can hold their Senators accountable for his\her vote.

That's the biggest thing this is likely to accomplish.

[AVGWarhawk]

If the house votes to repeal it, the Senate should be forced to vote on it, so voters can hold their Senators accountable for his\her vote.

Speaks truth! :up:

[Ducimus]

Really, it's just campaigning for the next election.

This.

Political grandstanding.
And this.

And personally, i think their also going against the health care reform:
a.) Out of spite.
b.) out of principle.
c.) Bill is probably bad for somebody's business. I haven't read up on the bill itself, can't say i give a crap either as i almost never go to the doctor, but i figure if Team R has their panties in a twist, corporate money is involved somewhere.

[GoldenRivet]

and what about team D?

if their panties are in a twist, does that mean that people who have money and work for a living aren't paying enough to support their constituents?

[MaddogK]

This.


And this.

And personally, i think their also going against the health care reform:
a.) Out of spite.
b.) out of principle.
c.) Bill is probably bad for somebody's business. I haven't read up on the bill itself, can't say i give a crap either as i almost never go to the doctor, but i figure if Team R has their panties in a twist, corporate money is involved somewhere.

Most likely the 'R's are representing their constituents: the doctors.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. doctors surveyed fear healthcare reform could worsen care for patients, by flooding their offices and hurting income, according to a Thomson Reuters survey released Tuesday.

The survey of more than 2,900 doctors found many predict the legislation will force them to work harder for less money.
"When asked about the quality of healthcare in the U.S. over the next five years, 65 percent of the doctors believed it would deteriorate with only 18 percent predicting it would improve," Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters, said in a statement.

[Ducimus]

and what about team D?

if their panties are in a twist,

What about them? I haven't heard anything in the way of "OMG! WTFBBQ?!?!!" coming from them out on the issue. At least not that I've read. Are their panties in a twist? I doubt it. If they were, I think there probably would be a special interest group behind it somewhere instead of a corporation.

[GoldenRivet]

What about them? I haven't heard anything in the way of "OMG! WTFBBQ?!?!!" coming from them out on the issue.

and you wouldn't, they are getting their way on the issue completely unchallenged and without compromise of any kind. :doh:

i think 90% of this complaining from the right would vanish overnight if participation were made less intrusive and more optional.

[mookiemookie]

but i figure if Team R has their panties in a twist, corporate money is involved somewhere.

Ah but see that's the brilliance of this whole thing - no matter what happens, the insurance companies win. They wrote the bill. If it stays, they have millions of new customers mandated to them by the government. If for some reason it goes away, they get to go back to putting the screws back to their paying customers the way they were before.

That's why this whole thing is a joke.

[Ducimus]

and you wouldn't, they are getting their way on the issue completely unchallenged and without compromise of any kind. :doh:


My Intentionally vague reference about congressional control during this last decade:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacob%27s_Ladder_toy_demonstration.ogg


Ah but see that's the brilliance of this whole thing - no matter what happens, the insurance companies win.
....
That's why this whole thing is a joke.


Good point.

[Platapus]

If the GOP offers up a better plan, then I think this is a good thing. If all they are doing is "anti-Obama" then it is just a political game.

I won't tell you what the smart money is betting on... I think you can guess.

[August]

If the GOP offers up a better plan, then I think this is a good thing. If all they are doing is "anti-Obama" then it is just a political game.

I won't tell you what the smart money is betting on... I think you can guess.

It's pretty obvious that such a game would have enormous negative political consequences for them in 2012.

[The Third Man]

If you consider that the repeal bill passed with a greater majority than the original obama care, including more party crossovers, it is only the first shot in the long game which will force Obama to defend his signature initiative in 2012. Given his past history on explaining/defending the law, it could very well be his achilles heal.

[Bubblehead1980]

the only chance of getting rid of Obama Care (which i think only parts of it should be scrapped) is if the United States Supreme Court rules it to be unconstitutional.

SCOTUS will most likely rule the law unconstitutional, the individual mandate is blatantly unconstitutional.Only way they would not is if obama gets to replace a conservative vote on the court with another Sotomayor or Kagan by the time it gets to the high court, hopefully he will not or it will fail thus why those opposed to obamacare in congress should launch their assault on the health control law.

[Bubblehead1980]

If you consider that the repeal bill passed with a greater majority than the original obama care, including more party crossovers, it is only the first shot in the long game which will force Obama to defend his signature initiative in 2012. Given his past history on explaining/defending the law, it could very well be his achilles heal.


Exactly :up:

[mookiemookie]

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance - In 1798

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

Looks like this sort of thing is more constitutional than some people think.

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

[ETR3(SS)]

1.25 pages vs. 2000 pages. Just something to think about. For everyone.

[mookiemookie]

1.25 pages vs. 2000 pages. Just something to think about. For everyone.

I know. Isn't that funny? Even the 1947 Packers contract in the NFL thread that August posted was only 1 page. I imagine a modern NFL contract is probably like a book.

[gimpy117]

1.25 pages vs. 2000 pages. Just something to think about. For everyone.

more programs, and undoubtedly much of it filled with pet bills for big business.

[The Third Man]

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance - In 1798



Looks like this sort of thing is more constitutional than some people think.

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

A response......

The Federal government cannot constitutionally force American citizens to purchase services from “PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS”. The monies collected in regards to the Act in question were not required to be paid to a Private institution; they were required to be paid to agents of the Federal government.
Unless Obama Care intends to take over the health insurance industry, and intends to build Federal hospitals, it cannot constitutionally force American Citizens to purchase services from private institutions.

[gimpy117]

and whos idea was it to make people buy insurance and give tax credits in the first place? :hmmm: I think somebody is trying to pass the buck. Because I remember a certain party who for eight years said "tax credits this" and "tax credits that".

[August]

Despite the laudable intentions of Congress in enacting a comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds. Because an individual’s personal decision to purchase — or decline to purchase — health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause does not provide a safe sanctuary.

- Federal District Court Judge Henry Hudson

[CaptainHaplo]

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance - In 1798



Looks like this sort of thing is more constitutional than some people think.

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

Actually Mookie - you should read the item in question.

"That from and after the first day of September next, the master or owner of every ship or vessel of the United States, arriving from a foreign port into any port of theUnited States, shall, before such ship or vessel shall be admitted to an entry, render to the collector a true account of the number of seamen that shall have been employed on board such vessel since she was last entered at any port in the United States, and shall pay, to the said collector, at the rate of twenty cents per month for every seaman so employed ; which sum he is hereby authorized to retain out of the wages of such seamen."

Emphasis added. Not ALL seamen were "taxed" - only those coming in from FOREIGN ports. If you worked on a boat that plied the coasts North and South while staying within US jurisdiction - you didn't get taxed. Thus - you have CHOICE - you can get taxed and work on a boat that goes to foreign ports - or you can work a "domestic only" boat - or you can find another line of work entirely and not worry about it.

The current "health care law" removes all choice when it comes to this - everyone is hit with the mandate - no matter what. Thus - you and the "blogger" are both trying to compare apples to oranges. Nice try - but its a different thing entirely.

[Armistead]

What I find laughable is both sides alway agree the CBO's numbers are most correct. The CBO's number shows that the Dems plan saves much more money so what does the GOP do, ignore the CBO's numbers and create their own.

About 50% of businesses with over 50 employees provide some form of insurance. If you have less than 50, doesn't effect you, which is a majority of small business...so Obamacare isn't coverage for all.

Insurance corps will do everything to repeal government healthcare laws.
One of the most profitable corps ever. They didn't do so based on competition, but because they're a political monopoly.

Let's also be honest..if the Dems didn't bring up healthcare, the GOP wouldn't even be talking about anything, they would continue as is and all facts show as it will lead to a total breakdown in less than 20 years where only the elite class would have coverage.

Lack of medical insurance by all studies is much more expensive. Man gets sick, ignores illness , no insurance...get's chronically ill, spends all assets now trying to get care, goe's bankrupt and homeless...creditors eat that. Finally, on his last leg he runs to the emergency room condition life threatening. Cost go into 100's of thousands. He can no longer work, so now goes on an already overloaded medicare system and applies for SS, foodstamps,S8 housing, ect......This happens to thousands every year. Had he had early testing, could've been treated.

An average of 2 million people a year are now losing health coverage...yea, let's keep ignoring it.

[Armistead]

- Federal District Court Judge Henry Hudson


They already force us to buy a healthplan...Medicare. They also force us to buy a retirement plan....SS.

[AVGWarhawk]

Had he had early testing, could've been treated.




Oh sure.....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR2009111602822.html


Women in their 40s should stop routinely having annual mammograms and older women should cut back to one scheduled exam every other year, an influential federal task force has concluded, challenging the use of one of the most common medical tests.


Early screening...not needed according to the Fed. :hmmm:

[Armistead]

Oh sure.....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/16/AR2009111602822.html



Early screening...not needed according to the Fed. :hmmm:

Take a visit to your local emergency room at a state run hospital. If someone is ill with no insurance and runs to a regular private doc, guess where they send them to get help. Guess what cost more. My daughter is a social worker at Baptist in Winston Salem NC, she signs all these people up. If someone is ill, she tells them to keep going and getting help regardless until you run up 6K in bills so you can get medicare, then the Doctors will take time to treat a chronic illness. Obvious you have to spend yourself into poverty first, no equity in a home, ect....many then put it off longer, but end up sicker, just go bankrupt, then qualify.

[AVGWarhawk]

Take a visit to your local emergency room at a state run hospital. If someone is ill with no insurance and runs to a regular private doc, guess where they send them to get help. Guess what cost more. My daughter is a social worker at Baptist in Winston Salem NC, she signs all these people up. If someone is ill, she tells them to keep going and getting help regardless until you run up 6K in bills so you can get medicare, then the Doctors will take time to treat a chronic illness. Obvious you have to spend yourself into poverty first, no equity in a home, ect....many then put it off longer, but end up sicker, just go bankrupt, then qualify.


The hospital can absorb these unpaid costs. These are passed on to the folks who are paying for insurance. So tell me, why does it cost more? To cover those that do not have coverage? :hmmm: As far as running yourself into poverty: My wifes' aunt without any insurance had a gastric bypass surgery performed. When done she was put on a payment plan that she could afford.

[mookiemookie]

Actually Mookie - you should read the item in question. I did. Nice subtle jab at me, implying that I didn't, though. Don't do that. You're better than that.


The current "health care law" removes all choice when it comes to this - everyone is hit with the mandate - no matter what. Thus - you and the "blogger" are both trying to compare apples to oranges. Nice try - but its a different thing entirely.

I think you're missing the point. The government has been in the health insurance business going back to the 1790s.

[Bubblehead1980]

What I find laughable is both sides alway agree the CBO's numbers are most correct. The CBO's number shows that the Dems plan saves much more money so what does the GOP do, ignore the CBO's numbers and create their own.

About 50% of businesses with over 50 employees provide some form of insurance. If you have less than 50, doesn't effect you, which is a majority of small business...so Obamacare isn't coverage for all.

Insurance corps will do everything to repeal government healthcare laws.
One of the most profitable corps ever. They didn't do so based on competition, but because they're a political monopoly.

Let's also be honest..if the Dems didn't bring up healthcare, the GOP wouldn't even be talking about anything, they would continue as is and all facts show as it will lead to a total breakdown in less than 20 years where only the elite class would have coverage.

Lack of medical insurance by all studies is much more expensive. Man gets sick, ignores illness , no insurance...get's chronically ill, spends all assets now trying to get care, goe's bankrupt and homeless...creditors eat that. Finally, on his last leg he runs to the emergency room condition life threatening. Cost go into 100's of thousands. He can no longer work, so now goes on an already overloaded medicare system and applies for SS, foodstamps,S8 housing, ect......This happens to thousands every year. Had he had early testing, could've been treated.

An average of 2 million people a year are now losing health coverage...yea, let's keep ignoring it.


Good point and I am pretty sure everyone agrees the system needs to be changed in order to allow more access and reduce costs.However, Obamacare is blatantly unconstitutional due to the individual mandate and thus must be repealed and replaced as the GOP vowed to.Really should disturb everyone that Obama and the authors of this bill seek the power for the government to force citizens to purchase health insurance.They seek the power to penalize citizens for not doing so.Give them an inch, they will take a mile.

[AVGWarhawk]

Good point and I am pretty sure everyone agrees the system needs to be changed in order to allow more access and reduce costs.


of course it does. This bill however put the cart before the horse.

[GoldenRivet]

I think you're missing the point. The government has been in the health insurance business going back to the 1790s.

Yes but not until now have we been forced to buy their product and all under the threat of fines and imprisonment if we dont do business with them.

I have been without insurance for the past 3 years.

I have been to the doctor twice in that span of time, and i paid in cash on both.

total cost has been about $165.00

a hell of a lot less than than the 3-5 thousand dollars i would have had to pay to any insurance company in that same 3 year period.

[Bilge_Rat]

Even though the Senate democrats could block repeal, there may be a problem with getting the support of the more moderate democrats who face re-election in 2012.

I would not be surprised if some sort of compromise was not passed by the Senate, with the backing of the White House, to repeal or scale back some of the more controversial aspects of the law, like the individual mandates.

[GoldenRivet]

Even though the Senate democrats could block repeal, there may be a problem with getting the support of the more moderate democrats who face re-election in 2012.

I would not be surprised if some sort of compromise was not passed by the Senate, with the backing of the White House, to repeal or scale back some of the more controversial aspects of the law, like the individual mandates.


which would be fine.

this SHOULD be all about working together - not cramming a law down peoples throats

[August]

They already force us to buy a healthplan...Medicare. They also force us to buy a retirement plan....SS.


And neither of those are private entities. What you're saying is there is no difference between paying excise tax to your town or paying excise tax to some private company.

[GoldenRivet]

They already force us to buy a healthplan...Medicare. They also force us to buy a retirement plan....SS.

which are both pretty much bankrupt and cost huge heaps of taxpayer money.

what does that tell you about the upcoming Obamacare plan?

fact remains that we are living in a time when our government needs to be reducing the deficit, cutting pet projects from the budget and spending less money - when in fact what they are doing is spending record sums of money.

[GoldenRivet]

15 "rights" you will have when it comes down to the new health care law (from Texas Insider Magazine)




1. You will have the right to lose your job as employers struggle to comply with expensive mandates. According to labor economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, those hit hardest will be younger, less-skilled workers. The cost of employing them will soar as employers are required to buy health insurance that may cost as much as a lower-wage person’s annual earnings.

High-tech workers will be hit as well. The $20 billion tax on medical-device companies, to take one example, will force companies to lay off researchers and curtail development of new products. And tens of thousands of insurance brokers will lose their livelihoods because of arbitrary regulations from Washington.

2. As a taxpayer, you will have the right to see the federal debt soar as Congress’s budget gimmicks face economic reality. According to former CBO director Doug Holtz-Eakin, Obamacare will cost nearly $1 trillion more than estimated as employers begin dropping health insurance and sending people to the new taxpayer-subsidized exchanges instead.

3. As a business owner, you will have the right to comply with the expensive new mandates in Obamacare or drop coverage and pay fines instead. You will have the right to keep the IRS informed about the coverage you are offering and its cost. And you will have the right to stop hiring and keep your business smaller than 50 people to escape Obamacare’s fines and mandates.

4. As an employee, you will have the right to lose the coverage you have now as you and 80 to 100 million people (according to McKinsey & Company analyst Alissa Meade) are switched to other coverage when Obamacare takes effect in 2014.

5. As a citizen, you will have the right to have the government decide what health insurance you must have and to either buy the expensive policy or pay a fine.

6. If you are a young person, you will have the right to pay higher premiums for mandatory health insurance to subsidize people who are older and sicker.


7. If you are a senior, you will have the right to see half a trillion dollars taken out of Medicare to pay for new health-insurance entitlements — a move allegedly designed to make Medicare stronger.


8. If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you and 7 million other seniors will have the right to go back into traditional Medicare and take your chances at finding a doctor who will see you.


9. If you are already on Medicaid, you will have the right to compete with millions more people trying to get appointments with doctors, especially specialists.


10. If you are one of the estimated 16 million people who will be added to the Medicaid rolls in 2014, you will have the right to wait in hospital emergency rooms for even routine care as the program swells to 87 million recipients by the end of the decade. (As many as 900,000 additional emergency room visits every year are expected — primarily by new enrollees in Medicaid — and from many of the 23 million people who will remain uninsured.)

11. If you are a doctor or nurse, you will have the right to receive lower Medicare payments while filling out mountains of new paperwork to satisfy government “quality reporting” requirements.

12. If you have child-only health insurance, you have the right to lose that coverage as more insurers exit the market. And you have the right to lose dependent coverage entirely as many employers decide it’s just too expensive to offer.


13. If you are an insurance company, you will have the right to figure out how you are going to continue to pay claims as government adds more expensive, mandatory benefits but caps premium increases at less than the cost of providing the coverage.


14. If you have a preexisting condition and are in a temporary high-risk pool, you and 8,000 others enrolled in the $5 billion program will have the right to pay high costs for your health insurance in the poorly designed program.


15. If you are a governor or state legislator, you will have the right to figure out what state services you will cut further — education? transportation? public safety? — to comply with the federal mandate that you expand Medicaid and set up the huge health-exchange bureaucracies. You also have the right to sue the federal government to protect your state’s rights.

[gimpy117]

2nd time...who brought up the tax credit idea for mandatory health insurance first? I'm pretty sure it was designed by you know who as an alternative to "hillarycare".

But im getting on my soap box now and saying this:

hospitals have become so expensive that the spiraling costs have started to jeopardize people's right to life.

much like college. who's skyrocketing costs are also threatening to ruin my generation's right to the pursuit of happiness.

[Bilge_Rat]

fact remains that we are living in a time when our government needs to be reducing the deficit, cutting pet projects from the budget and spending less money - when in fact what they are doing is spending record sums of money.

A case may be made that it was money well spent and the actual cost to taxpayer may be relatively low:


There is a compelling case that Obamanomics has produced results. An economy that was shrinking in size and bleeding more than 700,000 jobs a month is now growing at 2.6 percent and added 1.1 million jobs last year. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus, produced or saved at least 1.9 million jobs and as many as 4.7 million last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The much-derided Troubled Asset Relief Program (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_crisis/bailout_plan/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), or TARP, started by George W. Bush (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and continued by Obama, stabilized the financial sector, and the big banks have repaid the money with interest. According to a Treasury Department (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/treasury_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org) report sent to Congress this month, TARP will cost taxpayers $28 billion instead of the $700 billion originally set aside. The nearly $80 billion bailout of the auto industry may cost taxpayers only $15 billion, as the restructured General Motors (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/general_motors_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and Chrysler (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/chrysler_llc/index.html?inline=nyt-org) come back to life with strong sales. The stock market has surged; corporate profits are setting records.



at the same time, there may be an argument that the stimulus spending was just too small to kick start the economy:


Obama’s instinct was to take on everything at once. “I want to pull the band-aid off quickly, not delay the pain,” a senior Obama official remembers him saying. “He didn’t want to muddle through it, Japan-style,” recalled Larry Summers, tapped to be director of Obama’s National Economic Council. Romer calculated how much government spending would be needed to fill the gaping hole of consumer demand and came up with $1.2 trillion, the highest of three options. Summers told her to leave that number out of the memorandum to Obama. Emanuel argued that such an astronomical figure would be politically explosive. Romer left it out but mentioned it to Obama during a briefing. “That’s what you’d need to do to definitively heal the economy,” she said, according to someone in the room. Still, she and Summers agreed on recommending close to $900 billion.

Liberals like the Nobel Prize (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/nobel_prizes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier)-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/joseph_e_stiglitz/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Paul Krugman argue that the $800 billion package of infrastructure projects, aid to states and tax breaks that Congress eventually passed was inadequate and poorly targeted. “The stimulus was too small and not well-enough designed,” Stiglitz told me. “Most of my concerns have turned out to be valid.” Romer, who has returned to teach at Berkeley, told me she now agrees about the size. In Washington, she said, “you’re not supposed to say the obvious thing, which is that in retrospect of course it should have been bigger. With unemployment at 10 percent, I don’t know how you could say you wouldn’t have done anything different. Of course you would have made it bigger.”

Given what was known then, however, she said the $800 billion was reasonable and the most that Congress would approve. “In my mind,” she said, “the problem was not in the original package; it was in not adjusting to changed circumstances.” Once it was clear that the situation was deteriorating, she said, the White House should have gone back to Congress for more stimulus money. “That was where we could have been bolder,” she said.


from "The White House looks for work"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/magazine/23Economy-t.html?hp

fairly long article, but which gives a fairly good overview of the economic theories of the Obama team.

[GoldenRivet]

Im fortunate enough to personally know a lot of the medical staff at one of my local hospitals.

a vascular surgeon, a radiologist, 4 CRNAs, an anesthesiologist, various therapists and numerous ER nurses and Doctors.

all total about 15 people

they all feel that the standard of care will be driven down by the health care bill

they all believe that fewer people will enter the health care practice because of the health care bill.

they all believe that many professionals will exit the practice of medicine due to the effects of the bill - themselves included

they all feel that the wages of the medical professional will be driven down by the health care bill.

and on the subject i asked them all"

"Would you go on working in the ER (or trauma, or surgery or whatever dept) if it werent for the money?"

unanimously the answer was "No." with the inflection in their voice as if i were crazy to even ask.




there has to be a better health care bill... just nobody has thought of it yet

[gimpy117]

well thats all well and good..but our system is broken. Cry all you want about "ohh less people going into the profession" or "lower standard of care" (if thats even true). But at the end of the day, when the time comes when its impossible for the average american to even afford a major operation, we'll all be sorry.

[tater]

well thats all well and good..but our system is broken. Cry all you want about "ohh less people going into the profession" or "lower standard of care" (if thats even true). But at the end of the day, when the time comes when its impossible for the average american to even afford a major operation, we'll all be sorry.

Stop whining and go to med school, then work for free.

Nah, you'll just keep whining.

Government is the problem with our system to the extent there is a problem. 46+ % of US healthcare is already "government." The government care is why the rest is so FUBAR. The current expense of the US system is because those paying for insurance are also paying for the fact that the government systems pay too little. Fee for service, combined with artificial (and arbitrary) reimbursements means that there is incentive to "do more stuff" to the nearly 50% on charity care. That and CYA (defensive medicine).

Since no one is actually paying for the care themselves (insurance, gov care does), there is no incentive for shopping for cost, so there is no incentive to deliver savings. Look at cash-only medical practices, and you'll see that while they may keep their rates high, they always offer more and more for those rates. Better Lasik, more effective vasectomy reversal, etc. Lasik used to be really expensive. It's not any more. Why not? The government is not involved, that's why.

The current US system incentivizes all the wrong things, and almost entirely because of the government mucking around.

[MaddogK]

:haha:
I have to laugh because my wife (who'se a NICU nurse of 30+years) tells me the hospital where she works must bill at 200% because medicare only pays 50% of the bills for their covered patients and expects the hospital to cover the rest. The hospital has changed hands 4 times in the last 15 years because all the 'freebie' care threatens to run the hospitals parent company into bankruptcy.

...if only the junkies and baby-momma's would stop coming into the hospital's ER they may stay afloat, and the bills would shrink, but NOOO, all these illegal 13 year old girls having babies are killing the industry...

Because they're ENTITLED to

[GoldenRivet]

:haha:
I have to laugh because my wife (who'se a NICU nurse of 30+years) tells me the hospital where she works must bill at 200% because medicare only pays 50% of the bills for their covered patients and expects the hospital to cover the rest. The hospital has changed hands 4 times in the last 15 years because all the 'freebie' care threatens to run the hospitals parent company into bankruptcy.

...if only the junkies and baby-momma's would stop coming into the hospital's ER they may stay afloat, and the bills would shrink, but NOOO, all these illegal 13 year old girls having babies are killing the industry...

Because they're ENTITLED to

true

[tater]

Medicaid is way worse than medicare, too. A few years ago we had dinner with a friend who is a surgery dept head at the U, and he said their collection rate was 17%.

Ie: their end of year collections were 17% of what they billed "retail." The bulk of their patients are medicaid, followed by medicare, followed by BCBS (distant 3d).

BCBS pays "retail" the rest pay so low it is often below cost. The rest? Gets paid by taxpayers since it's a State university. The private hospitals are not so lucky. They are torn because they need to have an ER for their 'real" patients, but the ERs cannot turn away anyone unless on "divert," so the private hospitals are screwed, too.

Obamacare has a provision that makes making new "Doctor's Hospitals" impossible, too (many docs were talking about making new hospitals that ONLY took private pays, and therefor would drop off the grid of government care, but now it's impossible).

[Kaye T. Bai]

Waste of time and money? Maybe, but at least they're spending their time doing something remotely constructive, instead of talking about the Florida Gators (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgbBP9Em00A) and Guam tipping over into the Pacific Ocean (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg).

[GoldenRivet]

"My concern is that the island might... tip over."


"we dont.......... anticipate that." :-?


wow

this guy is good at maintaining his composure

[August]

You guys have a point but so does Gimpy. The cost of even the most basic medical care is already beyond most peoples ability to pay without insurance or complete financial ruin.

Now I don't think that most Americans are gonna choose death, infirmity and disease over doing something drastic, like nationalizing health care, so if the the GoP want's to avoid this it would be wise to come up with an actual solution to the problem, if for no other reason than because just badmouthing the Dems plan alone isn't going to help them much in 2012.

[Armistead]

The hospital can absorb these unpaid costs. These are passed on to the folks who are paying for insurance. So tell me, why does it cost more? To cover those that do not have coverage? :hmmm: As far as running yourself into poverty: My wifes' aunt without any insurance had a gastric bypass surgery performed. When done she was put on a payment plan that she could afford.

Search hosipitals closing down and you'll see many can't.

So you admit you're paying for others care through your own policy, plus any cash you spend. Would it not be better if people could afford their own care? Again, the GOP wouldn't even be talking about the issue unless the Dems made it one....remember Hillary, if only we addressed the issue then, now it's mass chaos.

Your Aunt is lucky. My wife deals mostly with unemployed that deal with chronic illness. You'll get better care if you have a one time problem, even more if it's life threatening...they have to treat you.

My wife see's many now that were middle class just a few years ago, mainly in construction, because it died here. I'm talking skilled labor. Most owned homes, not castles...With a job loss, the only income they have may be unemployment...it doesn't even pay the normal bills. If they were ill, on meds, working disabled, ect...they lost insurance with the job. The issue for many is they either keep a roof over their kids heads or buy meds...most parents will go without healthcare to feed their kids. Some of them deal with illness that could be controlled, but they chose to take care of family over themselves, end up getting worse and in the hospital. This effects millions of people.

So since we already pay for it, the issue is how to make it affordable for all. Study the history, healthcare went to hell when it became corporate controlled for mass profit, both in medicine and insurance, both have become political monopolies.,,thanks mostly to the GOP, they've now become a corportate controlled party.

Better hope they fix it, if not, in ten years your insurance premiums will take 30-50% of your salary depending on the plan.

My guess is if the GOP had their way, if they get controlled, they'll talk a lot about it, do little or nothing and find a way for corps to get even richer off the illness of people.

[tater]

You guys have a point but so does Gimpy. The cost of even the most basic medical care is already beyond most peoples ability to pay without insurance or complete financial ruin.

Now I don't think that most Americans are gonna choose death, infirmity and disease over doing something drastic, like nationalizing health care, so if the the GoP want's to avoid this it would be wise to come up with an actual solution to the problem, if for no other reason than because just badmouthing the Dems plan alone isn't going to help them much in 2012.

The reality is they don't have to. Show up at the ER and you get treated, period.

People FLY here to ABQ from Mexico (affluent Mexicans), then come to the ER, with symptoms of, say, prostate cancer, then get treated—and a follow up appointment for surgery, etc.

But you are right, if you have to pay cash, it's insane because you're paying for the XX% that are paying well below cost (medicaid), and the larger % paying at or slightly below cost (medicare).

My wife has comped her fee a few times to patients, and that doesn't help since the OR and hospital cost WAY more than her fee (in this case she got paid ~$300 and the hospital part of the bill was over 20 grand). The trick is that the 20 grand was the rate assuming it was through insuarnace, etc. If my wife comped, then insurance would not pay, and the CASH price was like double that. So she ended up charging them the $300 (and had them pay $1 a month or something).

Government is the problem, not the solution (to borrow a phrase from from Ronald Reagan).

[August]

...that were middle class just a few years ago, mainly in construction, because it died here. I'm talking skilled labor.

Well part of the problem is the redefinition of what constitutes "Middle class". It used to describe the owner of a construction company, not the guys who worked for him, skilled laborers or not.

[gimpy117]

You guys have a point but so does Gimpy. The cost of even the most basic medical care is already beyond most peoples ability to pay without insurance or complete financial ruin.

Now I don't think that most Americans are gonna choose death, infirmity and disease over doing something drastic, like nationalizing health care, so if the the GoP want's to avoid this it would be wise to come up with an actual solution to the problem, if for no other reason than because just badmouthing the Dems plan alone isn't going to help them much in 2012.

I agree, to be honest, we are talking about the health of our citizens. whatever can be done to help that is a good thing. Im a dem and i think the bill is crap, or at least parts of it

I think we can all agree that the whole mandate thing needs to go. but I do like the parts that make it harder to deny coverage

too be honest, the medical profession is in a bind. If a person comes into my store and can't pay..tough luck unless they have food stamps, but that pays Olesons 100%. but then we go on to only give 50% to our health care providers. where does that work out?

[AngusJS]

and you wouldn't, they are getting their way on the issue completely unchallenged and without compromise of any kind.:rotfl2:

[Armistead]

Well part of the problem is the redefinition of what constitutes "Middle class". It used to describe the owner of a construction company, not the guys who worked for him, skilled laborers or not.

Well, lower middle class, most make $11-$20 bucks per hour, plumbers, ect.. Today $20 an hour would barely give you a middle class living.

[tater]

What people "have" for a given "class" is so different than when we were kids.

People working hourly wage jobs have more "stuff" than I had as a kid, and my dad was president of a publishing company in NYC. People have better cars, better TVs, more everything, nicer kitchens, and new construction homes made for "working class" people are as big as houses in the CT suburbs built in the 1950s.

There has been major "inflation" in what constitutes a normal, middle, or lower middle class lifestyle.

[CaptainHaplo]

I did. Nice subtle jab at me, implying that I didn't, though. Don't do that. You're better than that.

Mookie,

It wasn't meant as a jab at you. Your a pretty sharp cookie. You quoted the blog that stated "The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance." The title of the blog being about "socialized" medicine and its historical support - the blog itself argues that the government has history on its side.

The blog is incorrect, and I figured that in reading the relevant document you would have noticed that. The government had jurisdiction to require such payment (tax) because those involved specifically were defined as participating in international trade and the payment requirement applied to them only in this case. International trade actions are things the government has the right to regulate under the constitution and the subsequent "commerce clause". In fact - the blog does not even attempt to address that domestic shipping is excused - why is that do you think? Could it be that they have a point they want to make - regardless of its accuracy?

Either way, the limitation stands - domestic commerce could not be touched by this - so to claim that it is "socialized medicine" or an insurance mandate is plain wrong. To say that it gives the government precedence to mandate we all buy insurance is ludicrous. In fact, to further argue the point, note that it did not stipulate american seamen. ANY seaman - regardless of nationality - working on a boat that berthed in a us port - paid this - unless the ships master or owner paid it FOR them. Given the time frame, your talking English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc - paying for the care of sailors. Again - this speaks to regulation of (and on) international trade - not a socialized medicine mandate upon all US citizenry or even all US seamen.....

Where in the document as passed does it even have the word "insurance" (or equivelant term) at all? It doesn't. So to say it "mandated" sailors purchase insurance is pure bullocks.

No insult was intended. So lets debate the matter at hand, instead of getting side tracked. The issue is the blog is full of crap - there was no insurance mandate in 1798. Nor did it mandate EVERYONE had to pay it. If you want to say it does in fact contain such mandates, by all means make your argument.

[sharkbit]

I don't know if this adds anything to the discussion or not. To be frank, I don't understand the ins and outs of health insurance. All I really know is I have insurance thru my work and the cost has gone up every year. My employer has switched carriers three times in the last four years due to rising costs.

Anyways, in December, I went to the ER for numbness in my right arm, leg, and face and then had to spend the night in the hospital for a suspected stroke. Went thru quite a few tests, including an MRI and CT scans.

The copy of the bill came earlier this month, all itemized. $36000 total :o, including $6000 for the ER visit and $8000 for the MRI.
With the contractual agreement the hospital had with the insurance company, the hospital only billed the insurance company $2400 with my out of pocket being $240. :doh: :doh: :doh:
I got the Explanation of Benefits from the insurance company yesterday which pretty much backed up what the bill was.

So where does the hospital make up the difference between the $36000 and the $2400?

Another odd story-
My brother in law's girlfriend/fiance/significant other/crazy drunk bitch (long story) who doesn't have insurance and doesn't work(another long story) was admitted to the hospital for a couple days early last year. The bll was some outrageous amount.
My brother in-law went to the hospital, told them she couldn't pay. The hospital said they would set up a payment plan. He told them she couldn't even afford that. The hospital ended up eating the whole amount except for around $600. All of this dealing took place in the span of a couple of hours at the hospital.

All of this is pretty crazy and just mystifies me.

:)

[gimpy117]

Anyways, in December, I went to the ER for numbness in my right arm, leg, and face and then had to spend the night in the hospital for a suspected stroke. Went thru quite a few tests, including an MRI and CT scans.

The copy of the bill came earlier this month, all itemized. $36000 total :o, including $6000 for the ER visit and $8000 for the MRI.
With the contractual agreement the hospital had with the insurance company, the hospital only billed the insurance company $2400 with my out of pocket being $240. :doh: :doh: :doh:
I got the Explanation of Benefits from the insurance company yesterday which pretty much backed up what the bill was.

So where does the hospital make up the difference between the $36000 and the $2400?



But where does the hospital get 36,000 dollars for one person getting one test and an overnight stay? Yes, hospital's are expensive and what not, but $36,000?! some Americans don't even make that in a year. Thats more than what I spend at college a year with full room and board and books plus booze money.

Well, lower middle class, most make $11-$20 bucks per hour, plumbers, ect.. Today $20 an hour would barely give you a middle class living.

yes, wages have stagnated but the CPI has marched upwards. Most of the growth in our GDP since the 80's has not gone to the middle or lower class.

[GoldenRivet]

So where does the hospital make up the difference between the $36000 and the $2400?


the way i understand it, they have to bill out things 5 times higher than actual cost because if you or your insurance doesnt pay they will only get a percentage of it covered by uncle sam.



If you think that your employers are having to spend a lot of time and money shopping around for insurance now... just wait until Obamacare kicks in.

they will likely opt to provide their employees with NO insurance and simply pay the government fine as this is likely to be cheaper, leaving you out in the rain to fend for yourself against the insurance companies and the government both. :nope:

[Armistead]

Stop whining and go to med school, then work for free.

Nah, you'll just keep whining.

Government is the problem with our system to the extent there is a problem. 46+ % of US healthcare is already "government." The government care is why the rest is so FUBAR. The current expense of the US system is because those paying for insurance are also paying for the fact that the government systems pay too little. Fee for service, combined with artificial (and arbitrary) reimbursements means that there is incentive to "do more stuff" to the nearly 50% on charity care. That and CYA (defensive medicine).

Since no one is actually paying for the care themselves (insurance, gov care does), there is no incentive for shopping for cost, so there is no incentive to deliver savings. Look at cash-only medical practices, and you'll see that while they may keep their rates high, they always offer more and more for those rates. Better Lasik, more effective vasectomy reversal, etc. Lasik used to be really expensive. It's not any more. Why not? The government is not involved, that's why.

The current US system incentivizes all the wrong things, and almost entirely because of the government mucking around.

The reason 46% of care is already government funded is do to what, the corporate take over of healthcare making it unavailable to most. The question remains, which is worse, government of corporate? Most look at the past and track the history of how we got here...corporate control, political monopoly, regulation for mass profit over health...all pushed by the GOP, check to see all of these new members advisors...lobbyist for large firms.

Since the corporate takeover, business being business, it's not about health, it's about mass profits, all plans are related to profits. Like meds, we all know the goal of pharma is not to cure, it's to keep you as sick as possible, as long as possible on as many meds as possible. Because of Pharma's basic contol of the medical industry, that seems to be the goal. Americans prescription use is up 100% just in 10 years, including children. Course we see all the new diseases and pill commercials everyday.

Let's face it, we have a great way to fix a lot of this....preventive care, but you'll never see that thanks to corporations, not enough money in it.

What a crisis we're in today, a larger one is coming, the upcoming generation will see a mass increase of chronic life long disease due to being obese, lack of exercise, ect...Many already are. They say this will cost more than the baby boomers. 40% of kids today are just fat, compared to my generation, about 2%. Big Pharma is celebrating.

The biggest issue is health is something we all want, profit is what big business wants. Business will make profits at the expense of health. All the players in health want big profits, med profession, Insurance, Pharma, not to mention the lawyers that make billions off them all. When health fails, it overloads the system, so who pays for it...not the players, but the taxpayers.

Seems we have 3 choices, fix mass profit for health, taxpayers flip the bill or we just say what most in the GOP would prefer...Get sick, pay high cost until poverty and bankruptcy....then just die and go away, that is until a GOP member gets seriously ill without coverage.

They could fix it you know, but they won't...doesn't suit the special interest of either side.

[CaptainHaplo]

Fixing health care actually is really simple, but it requires us to fix some other things too.

If you need life saving care, your always going to get it - regardless. Ok I am fine with that. But when you go to the ER and there is a family of 8 people in there, none of which speaks english, because one of them has a stuffy nose - and they can't pay for service - the quality of care goes down - and your bill just went up - because the staff has to attend to them when they could be attending to other things and you have to bear the burden of some of the costs involved to serve them.

If its not life threatening and/or an emergency - you shouldn't be seen at an ER. Period.

Insurance. I am fine with the pre-existing condition clause - as long as it allows insurance companies to charge higher rates to those with them. This is common sense. What needs to happen with the insurance realm is that it needs to be unexempted from anti-trust legislation and it needs to have the across state lines boundaries removed. Those 2 alone would create huge positive impacts for consumers.

Tort Reform - doctors practicing defensive medicine has made costs skyrocket. Reduce their costs for insurance and your costs for tests and such you don't need, and your health care bills will lessen.

Medicaid - remove the "safety net" for those who are here illegally. This goes not just to health - but all welfare across the board. Without being able to use the ER's for non-emergency treatment and without using our tax dollars to go see a medicaid accepting doctor - illegals will have one less reason to be here.

[GoldenRivet]

If its not life threatening and/or an emergency - you shouldn't be seen at an ER. Period.

The problem with that statement is simple:

a minor persistent cough - while not life threatening - is a symptom of leukemia.

Stomach pain, with an elevation in temperature might just be a minor 24 hour stomach bug - but it could also be appendicitis.

a lot of life threatening ailments start out as minor little annoyances - and if you have an ER that simply dismisses a runny nose, or a fever or a cough as "not being serious enough because this is a hospital and we have better things to do" - you have a system where people go home and die from an undiagnosed problem.

[Armistead]

Fixing health care actually is really simple, but it requires us to fix some other things too.

If you need life saving care, your always going to get it - regardless. Ok I am fine with that. But when you go to the ER and there is a family of 8 people in there, none of which speaks english, because one of them has a stuffy nose - and they can't pay for service - the quality of care goes down - and your bill just went up - because the staff has to attend to them when they could be attending to other things and you have to bear the burden of some of the costs involved to serve them.

If its not life threatening and/or an emergency - you shouldn't be seen at an ER. Period.

Insurance. I am fine with the pre-existing condition clause - as long as it allows insurance companies to charge higher rates to those with them. This is common sense. What needs to happen with the insurance realm is that it needs to be unexempted from anti-trust legislation and it needs to have the across state lines boundaries removed. Those 2 alone would create huge positive impacts for consumers.

Tort Reform - doctors practicing defensive medicine has made costs skyrocket. Reduce their costs for insurance and your costs for tests and such you don't need, and your health care bills will lessen.

Medicaid - remove the "safety net" for those who are here illegally. This goes not just to health - but all welfare across the board. Without being able to use the ER's for non-emergency treatment and without using our tax dollars to go see a medicaid accepting doctor - illegals will have one less reason to be here.

The issue with those that have preexisting conditions, they are allowed to raise premiums, up to 30%. If you have to buy it on your own, the cost way exceed what most could afford, so they wouldn't buy it. So they would live with it until it got worse or life threatening, go to the ER and cost sky rocket.

The state line deal is crap. All studies show they would all still charge the same, basically agree on high cost.

I agree on tort reform to a degree, but it's also dangerous. Today Doctor's kill a lot of people. The bigger issue is Doctor's often don't dx many chronic illnesses. I live with a nerve disease that took me 5 years and over 30 different Doctors, finally figured it out at Mayo. Doctors did do numerous test and couldn't figure it out. Finally Doctors started calling me a nut or that symptoms were in my head. The lead Neuro at Mayo guessed it in one visit, follow up test proved it.. My fear is many with severe or rare diseases would get passed over as Doctors refuse to find a dx or do test. Go to any nerve disease forum and you'll find many that had to Doctor shop over and over.

We spend 1 out of every 4 health dollars in end of life care. I know that's a hard issue, but with treatment and meds this high cost of extending life for a few months to a year is breaking medicare. ...60 trillion in debt now.

[UnderseaLcpl]

The reason 46% of care is already government funded is do to what, the corporate take over of healthcare making it unavailable to most. The question remains, which is worse, government of corporate? Most look at the past and track the history of how we got here...corporate control, political monopoly, regulation for mass profit over health...all pushed by the GOP, check to see all of these new members advisors...lobbyist for large firms.

And this is exactly what you get when you allow companies to co-opt the government. It's just giving them an easy way to game the system. Healthcare costs are so high because we have a combination of the government making it extremely expensive, time-consuming, and risk-heavy to develop drugs or practice and large companies shutting out competition with legislation.

Since the corporate takeover, business being business, it's not about health, it's about mass profits, all plans are related to profits. Like meds, we all know the goal of pharma is not to cure, it's to keep you as sick as possible, as long as possible on as many meds as possible.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but that's an irresponsible claim on every count.

Firstly, you're assuming that medical and pharmacological professionals are unethical, which is not true. Medical and insurance firms do sometimes make harsh decisions involving care, and sometimes those decisions are wrong, but look at it from their perspective; people swindle them all the time, both intentionally and because so many people have a tendency to believe that anything that doesn't feel right is a disease. Plus, they get sued all the time for providing care, and for not providing care, and for providing the wrong care in a field that any doctor will tell you is difficult to make proper diagnoses in.

Secondly, while people like to think that medical firms try to keep them sick or convince them they have problems they don't have, that's not true, either. Insurance companies have a profit motive to get you healthy as quickly as possible, and few doctors would ever be so evil. There are the occasional quacks and profiteers, but they're never around for long. Any person or company in a private system that relies extensvely upon peer review and competition makes it difficult for them to operate for any perid of time.


Because of Pharma's basic contol of the medical industry, that seems to be the goal. Americans prescription use is up 100% just in 10 years, including children. Course we see all the new diseases and pill commercials everyday.


And thirdly, you're ignoring the actual state of the medical field today, a state which largely exists because of private innovation and development.

Yes, we see commercials for new pills and the like all the time, but there are two very good reasons for that:
1) Companies have to focus on marketing to recoup the huge losses they incurred while trying to get the drug through the FDA and
2) Medical nand pharmeceutical technologies are allowing us to address problems that were without remedy before.

Granted, I think a lot of people end up taking these drugs or getting procedures performed without needing them, but that's not the industry's fault, it's their own fault. I don't know why they do it exactly, but there are a lot of psychological reasons for people to want to believe that they are sick or that they have a condition. I could outline them in general, but I'd probably get it wrong. I'd ask Skybird if you want to know. Actually, I may ask him myself because now I'm curious.


Let's face it, we have a great way to fix a lot of this....preventive care, but you'll never see that thanks to corporations, not enough money in it.

Yeah, people like to think that, but again, not true. Ignoring the existence of entire industries based upon things like proper nutrition and other healthy lifestyle habits, and ignoring the shift that companies in general have taken towards making more healthy products, have you ever had a doctor who told you to do something unhealthy, or an insurance company that rewarded high-risk behaviours with lower premiums?

What would you have them do? Provide free checkups? Regulate your diet? Take a more active role in monitoring your health? There's a point at which such things are not economically viable, even for governments, and moreover, there's a point at which people have to take responsibility for themselves. I'm not assuming that you don't know this, I'm just putting it out there for people who like to blame everyone else for their own lack of responsibility.


What a crisis we're in today, a larger one is coming, the upcoming generation will see a mass increase of chronic life long disease due to being obese, lack of exercise, ect...Many already are. They say this will cost more than the baby boomers. 40% of kids today are just fat, compared to my generation, about 2%. Big Pharma is celebrating.


Hardly. Big Pharma has to pay for that, you know, and most of the obese population is lower-class, so it is unlikely that they'll be paying for it. Ultimately, when people can't pay their expenses, the state ends up absorbing the costs, and that spells taxation to business, big and small.



The biggest issue is health is something we all want, profit is what big business wants. Business will make profits at the expense of health. All the players in health want big profits, med profession, Insurance, Pharma, not to mention the lawyers that make billions off them all. When health fails, it overloads the system, so who pays for it...not the players, but the taxpayers.

Well, we're agreed upon the lawyers. I hate them, partly because they take so much and produce nothing, but the point is invalid. Why do you assume that profits and proper service are mutually exclusive?

Everyone wants food as well, and big business provides it because they want a profit. Every variety imaginable, and in every price range imaginable. If one is a fatass it's because one has chosen poorly from a vast selection. Where business can't provide in essential goods because consumers can't afford their product, they often opt to just give it away. Charitably-available food and healthcare is present almost everywhere and on a regular basis, not because the government made it so but because private firms with this terrible profit motive are not so heartless as you believe. And they get good PR.

Healthcare is no different from any other industry in that respect. It would be cheaper and we'd have more choices if the government didn't insist upon getting so heavily involved. Consider that it takes anywhere from five to twenty years to get a new drug approved by the FDA, and during that time everything you invested in the development is money that is not doing anything for anybody. It could have been used to invest, or pay employees, or for charity, or for development of a product with a more immediate return, but instead, it just sits there. Given that, I'm amazed anyone bothers to develop anything at all, and not surprised that only big companies can afford it. And then there are the liability requirements, and the licensures, and the restrictions, and the fact that all of the aforementioned have basically reduced the competitors to a handful of large firms.


Seems we have 3 choices, fix mass profit for health, taxpayers flip the bill or we just say what most in the GOP would prefer...Get sick, pay high cost until poverty and bankruptcy....then just die and go away, that is until a GOP member gets seriously ill without coverage.

I doubt that would ever happen that way. Members of Congress in both parties have their own healthcare plan, which is very expensive, but not suitable for the peons.

What they have for us is government healthcare, which, given the numerous examples of failure of government healthcare and the fact that a third of our considerable budget is devoted to government healthcare that nobody is happy with, is something which I do not expect to work. It's not a matter of politics or parties, it's a matter of logic. Without the profit incentive, work is just work, which is to say that it sucks, unless you're one of those enviable types who sees work as its own reward or you have a job you're really happy with.

Clearly, government workers are generally devoid of this incentive, and doubly so because they must maintain strict EEOC standards that require them to hire a workforce reflective of the population, regardless of aptitude. Furthermore, their workforce size is preset, so they can't shuffle bad workers into do-nothing positions and replace them good workers. The idea behind their system is very nice, but it doesn't work. That's just one of the handful of problems that plague every government agency with inefficiency, waste, and inefficacy.

What you want is a healthcare system that does the right thing because it is the right thing to do as dictated by consensus. What you'll get is a healthcare system that does the wrong thing because it is based upon the assumption that people are somehow different when they work for the government, or that Democracy is a valid type of government.


They could fix it you know, but they won't...doesn't suit the special interest of either side.


True enough.

In conclusion, I'd like to apologize for the tone of this post. I can see how it would be abrasive to some degree, but I was trying to keep it succinct by not putting a disclaimer in front of everything. I don't really disagree with your ideals, Armistead. I just don't think they are practicable without some changes to the equation.

[Armistead]

Try studying up on insurance corps like Unum. It was found their stated policy was always first to deny all but critical claims, deny first over 90% of all claims, then after red tape try again. They have been sued by most states as fraudulant, sued billions by lawyers.....why no changes, reports show they still make much more money doing fraud over what they pay out in lawsuits.

If you think big Pharma is ethical, well, let's agree to disagree....you should no better. There's a reason they have 20 lobbiest for every congressman and senator.

[mookiemookie]

Tort Reform - doctors practicing defensive medicine has made costs skyrocket.

No it hasn't. And protecting bad doctors is not the answer to our health care problems.

[GoldenRivet]

i'd say different mookie.

Doctors do practice medicine - constantly in "CYOA" mode. :yep:

[mookiemookie]

i'd say different mookie.

Doctors do practice medicine - constantly in "CYOA" mode. :yep:

According to the actuarial consulting firm Towers Perrin, medical malpractice tort costs were $30.4 billion in 2007, the last year for which data are available. We have a more than a $2 trillion health care system. That puts litigation costs and malpractice insurance at 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs.

...

“It’s really just a distraction,” said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of “The Medical Malpractice Myth.” “If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we’d be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we’re not talking about real money. It’s small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care.”

Insurance costs about $50-$60 billion a year, Baker estimates. As for what’s often called “defensive medicine,” “there’s really no good study that’s been able to put a number on that,” said Baker.

...

A 1996 study in Florida found defensive medicine costs could be as high as 5 to 7 percent. But when the same authors went back a few years later, they found that managed care had brought it down to 2.5 to 3.5 percent of the total.



http://washingtonindependent.com/55535/tort-reform-unlikely-to-cut-health-care-costs

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/would-tort-reform-lower-health-care-costs/

I prefer to deal with data and facts.

Limiting the relief that people can seek from bad doctors is bad policy. The only tool we have to weed out bad doctors and hold them accountable is bringing malpractice charges against them.

[GoldenRivet]

Well i certainly believe that Doctors need malpractice insurance, if thats what you guys are getting at.

Malpractice insurance is not something that needs to go away, and even if it did it wouldnt make a lot of difference i dont think.

EDIT: look at my dad as an example. He carries malpractice insurance. He is also working OB which requires LONG and irregular hours which often results in less than 1 or 2 hours of sleep per night. Lets say he ovelooks a drug allergy or something on a patient's chart due to fatigue. Sure, he is a professional and i doubt he would do that, but what if? He has been in practice for 35 years and is very respected by his peers... but anyone can screw up.

insurance is for what ifs

[Armistead]

No it hasn't. And protecting bad doctors is not the answer to our health care problems.

Having dealt with many Doctors, I find most decent wanting to help, certainly GP's. It's when you start dealing with specialist they become arseholes. Neurologist disgust me on more levels than I can post here.

Too many groups take on too many patients, you're lucky if you get 5 minutes per visit at my group. There's as many pharma sales reps in there as patients most the time.

Sadly, a lot of Doctors think they can figure out everything in a few minutes, instead of taking the time to talk in detail, they just order test after test. When the group I saw purchased a MRI, my sister in law that works there said they started ordering many more MRI's, since they now did them in house.

This should scare anyone...

The JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA) Vol 284, No 4, July 26th 2000 article written by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.

The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness. (drug reactions are the most common cause).

[GoldenRivet]

I remember a recent discussion with an old doctor friend of mine at the airport one day.

He said when he was just out of medical school back in the stone age, people used to come in with several lbs of fruit and vegetables as payment.

Or if the patient was a mechanic, the Doctor would receive all his maintenance for free minus the cost of parts.

and they made house calls for whatever cash, tangible goods or other services the family could often spare.

what happened to the good old days?

[AVGWarhawk]

I remember a recent discussion with an old doctor friend of mine at the airport one day.

He said when he was just out of medical school back in the stone age, people used to come in with several lbs of fruit and vegetables as payment.

Or if the patient was a mechanic, the Doctor would receive all his maintenance for free minus the cost of parts.

and they made house calls for whatever cash, tangible goods or other services the family could often spare.

what happened to the good old days?

Good question. My dad in residency(doctor) in NY back in the late 50s he would go with the ambulance to calls. They received a call for a women about to give birth. Upon arrival my dad was presented with a black woman very much in labor. He helped deliver the baby. Baby and mom were fine. The father of the child gave my dad all he had in payment for delivering the baby. It was a quarter. .25 cents. On the way out the door my dad put the quarter on the kitchen table. This family would need it much more than he ever would. That is pretty much how my dad handled patients and payments from then on out.

[GoldenRivet]

that brings an interesting point.

Being a doctor or nurse used to be about helping your fellow man.

but it has grown to be a big money industry.

surgeons making $800,000/year

it attracts a lot of people who want to do the job because of the lifestyle it has come to offer.

lets face it.

when a kid says "I just got accepted to medical school!"

the first thing that comes to the listeners mind is $$$$$$$

[CaptainHaplo]

No it hasn't. And protecting bad doctors is not the answer to our health care problems.

Nobody said we should protect bad doctors. Where did you get that from? Tort reform won't protect bad doctors - but it will protect good ones.

Also - why no response on the previous issues - the "insurance mandate" discussed previously? Do you concede the point that the blog you posted is invalid?

[mookiemookie]

Nobody said we should protect bad doctors. Where did you get that from? Tort reform won't protect bad doctors - but it will protect good ones.

Also - why no response on the previous issues - the "insurance mandate" discussed previously? Do you concede the point that the blog you posted is invalid?

It costs serious money to bring in expert witnesses, pay lawyers, subpoena records, etc in a malpractice suit. If you limit damages, you make it less likely that someone is going to go to the expense of bringing a case and you protect bad doctors. I do not agree with limiting the right to seek relief through our legal system.

And how is it invalid? It shows that there's a history of the government mandating someone purchase health insurance. Is it a direct and exactly the same comparison? No, of course not. But that's not the point. The point is that the framers believed that the government had a basis for being in the health insurance business.

[AVGWarhawk]

that brings an interesting point.

Being a doctor or nurse used to be about helping your fellow man.

but it has grown to be a big money industry.

surgeons making $800,000/year

it attracts a lot of people who want to do the job because of the lifestyle it has come to offer.

lets face it.

when a kid says "I just got accepted to medical school!"

the first thing that comes to the listeners mind is $$$$$$$

True..the first this is $$$$$ but the reality it is a bit different. The emotional and physical toll it took on my dad who was a ER physician was incredible. He had two congestive heart failures. One silent heart attack. The 12 hour shifts took their toll. Pronouncing children dead and telling the parents took their toll. Telling an elderly women her husband has passed took their toll. The boys detention center across the street would often bring over bodies of boys who hung themselves. He had to legally pronounce them dead. Believe it or not...there is a human inside the doctor who suffers triumph and tribulation just like any other human. They react just the same. It is not like see on TV with George Clooney. Far from it. I know...did a 12 hour shift with my dad once. My dad was known at the hospital by the nurses as "The Baby Saver.' He would not stop until every last resource and bit of knowledge was used to save a baby. Money did not matter. Nothing matter....just life for that baby.

[GoldenRivet]

True..the first this is $$$$$ but the reality it is a bit different. The emotional and physical toll it took on my dad who was a ER physician was incredible. He had two congestive heart failures. One silent heart attack. The 12 hour shifts took their toll. Pronouncing children dead and telling the parents took their toll. Telling an elderly women her husband has passed took their toll. The boys detention center across the street would often bring over bodies of boys who hung themselves. He had to legally pronounce them dead. Believe it or not...there is a human inside the doctor who suffers triumph and tribulation just like any other human.

My mother who works in Trauma - that sounds a lot like the things she deals with.

and people say they should make less money?

please.

i say what they do make is barely enough.

[AVGWarhawk]

My mother who works in Trauma - that sounds a lot like the things she deals with.

and people say they should make less money?

please.

i say what they do make is barely enough.

My dad never made over 100k a year. People fail to realize malpractice insurance coverage is in the 100k region for million dollar or more policy. That is not a cheap policy.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Try studying up on insurance corps like Unum. It was found their stated policy was always first to deny all but critical claims, deny first over 90% of all claims, then after red tape try again. They have been sued by most states as fraudulant, sued billions by lawyers.....why no changes, reports show they still make much more money doing fraud over what they pay out in lawsuits.

I'd appreciate it if you could provide a link. I didn't find that specific claim and the fact that they are still around speaks volumes about their actions and the actions of the state.


If you think big Pharma is ethical, well, let's agree to disagree....you should know better. There's a reason they have 20 lobbiest for every congressman and senator.


Well, that's one of the things I'm against. And yes, I'll give it to you that such behaviour is unethical, but it is also necessary; if you dont do it, someone else will and you're out of business.

My point is that so long as the state has the power to intervene on their behalf, it will always be a target, and it will always be like that. Big companies have armies of highly-paid, highly trained professionals whose only function is to manipulate the government you would give power to for their own ends.

I have faith in democracy and the average voter, but let's be honest, they're nothing against purpose-built lobbyists; and that is especially true when you consider the people they are talking to. Politicians are not purpose-built social servants, they are purpose-built vote-getters. All it takes to get them to vote for something that will become law for generations is a good spin-doctor, and that's not taking into account normal Washington politics.

The free market works pretty well for everything else, why not let it run the healthcare system? It isn't perfect, but it generates wealth to enable the successful to help those who slip through the cracks, and it can't be perverted (for long) by convincing words or kickbacks or political stunts. In a free market, at the end of the day the responsibility lies with the consumers, who should be able to take responsibility for themselves and with whom any kind of real responsibility must lie anyways.

We can agree to disagree, but unless you have some system to ensure that only well-qualified saints dictate the terms of national policy, I'll place my faith in the fact that people don't buy bad products twice and that they tell their friends about it.

Oh, well. Even if we don't agree, thanks for listening to my side of the case and taking the time to voice your opposition. I appreciate anyone who doesn't simply accept things without question. We could discuss this further, but odds are I'll just end up repeating myself since I've mostly presented my case already, and nobody wants that. If you've anything further to add, though, I'd be happy to hear it.

[CaptainHaplo]

And how is it invalid? It shows that there's a history of the government mandating someone purchase health insurance. Is it a direct and exactly the same comparison? No, of course not. But that's not the point. The point is that the framers believed that the government had a basis for being in the health insurance business.

Mookie - your killing me here. There is nothing in the entire legislation - and I challenged you to point it out if it were - about insurance or purchasing ANYTHING. It was an tax on those carrying out international trade - nothing to do with insurace or the purchase of a good or service by those involved. Show me otherwise. As for the government being involved in the health care business - they were specifically setting up a hospital for "sick and injured sailors" - man alive - look at the timeframe - this was the beginnings of the formation of the VA. Why would sailors be injured? Could it be from having fought a war? This was taxing international trade to fund a VA hospital - not getting into health insurance. Sheesh.

I prefer to deal with data and facts.

Really - data and facts? This statement comes right after you link 2 articles - one that states:

"The health economists and independent legal experts who study the issue, however, don’t believe that’s true"

and then admits the "experts" they talk to "estimate" amounts ("Insurance costs about $50-$60 billion a year, Baker estimates") with absolutely NO fact based studies to refer to. What is he basing this on? In other words - they disagreed with 2 studies that HAVE been done - so they find a guy to make his own "guestimates" based on their own viewpoints. Yea - thats "data and facts". Oh - the other link - its called a BLOG. Those don't count as data and facts either.

The article you linked was Baker giving his own out of his arse guess on costs, yet it does at least mention 2 studies that point some of the excessive costs. But the point of the article - and yours along with it - fail to have any source other than some fella's personal opinion and guess.

Let's deal in Data and Facts - show me studies that show where such reform would not assist (and its no panacea by any means - I know that) in reducing the costs of health care. Oh wait - you can't - because there aren't any.

Just like there are no references to insurance or the mandated purchase of a good or servince in the 1798 act.

[gimpy117]

Its sad that healthcare should be profit based in the first place. Your health is a right, not just a privilege like a new car or a T.V.

its a lot like college.

Education and health are two things that should never be profit driven, or allowed to have prices skyrocket like they are currently. I still wonder why our government allows this madness

[Takeda Shingen]

Its sad that healthcare should be profit based in the first place. Your health is a right, not just a privilege like a new car or a T.V.

its a lot like college.

Education and health are two things that should never be profit driven, or allowed to have prices skyrocket like they are currently. I still wonder why our government allows this madness

K-12 education is a right. College is not, and it is entirely profit-driven.

[mookiemookie]

Oh - the other link - its called a BLOG. Those don't count as data and facts either.

What the heck are you talking about? It's an interview with a professor who studies this stuff. But you discount it because it's posted on a NYT blog. WTF? If you make comments like this, then I think the debate's about done.

Oh wait - you can't - because there aren't any.

There aren't any that you wish to believe. Go ahead and write Professor Baker and tell him what's wrong with his research. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Psst: your Semmelweis reflex is showing...

Done here.

[Armistead]

Its sad that healthcare should be profit based in the first place. Your health is a right, not just a privilege like a new car or a T.V.

its a lot like college.

Education and health are two things that should never be profit driven, or allowed to have prices skyrocket like they are currently. I still wonder why our government allows this madness

Totally agree. When it comes to the lives of people, it is the governments duty to protect life. We go to war over so called self interest, it would seem the, pain, suffering and death of millions of US citizens would be such an interest when it can be denied by those seeking mass profit.


As I stated earlier, medicine has becompe a political based monopoly, the whole health spectrum is driven now by mass profits, Doctor's, Insurance, Pharma and Lawyers getting rich off all.

The GOP is big on stopping abortions because of life, yet they have no problem denying life after your born.

Course that's how you create two class cultures, create a system by law where only the elite can have either. In the end it doomed any nation that's tried it.

[gimpy117]

K-12 education is a right. College is not, and it is entirely profit-driven.

but why is that? To get almost any kind of job over minimum wage now you need at least 4 year degree.

maybe when you were younger you could go work at gm or something takeda, but its not anymore.

[Takeda Shingen]

but why is that? To get almost any kind of job over minimum wage now you need at least 4 year degree.

maybe when you were younger you could go work at gm or something takeda, but its not anymore.

I don't have a really good answer for that. And you are right; nowadays an undergraduate degree is practically a minimum if you don't want to end up in a dead-end job making minimum wage for the rest of your life. The masters degree is the new bachelors degree, and the doctorate is the new masters degree. If this trend continues, your children will likely need a doctorate if they want to compete for the highest-paying jobs.

[gimpy117]

I dunno if thats even right. Doctorates are getting more common too. Maybe they need to make an even higher level

I vote uber super doctor :O:

[nikimcbee]

This is why this beast has to go away:



Three SEIU Locals--Including Chicago Chapter--Waived From Obamacare Requirement
Monday, January 24, 2011
By Fred Lucas (http://cnsnews.com/source/72750) (CNSNews.com) – Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama (http://query.nictusa.com/pdf/663/28934201663/28934201663.pdf) in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.
The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.
The waivers allow health insurance plans to limit how much they will spend on a policy holder’s medical coverage for a given year. Under the new health care law, however, such annual limits are phased out by the year 2014. (Under HHS regulations, annual limits can be no less than $750,000 for 2011, no less than $1.25 million in 2012 and no less than $2 million in 2013.)
The SEIU, with more than 2 million members nationally, includes health care workers, janitors, security guards, and state and local government workers.
The three SEIU locals, covering a total of 36,064 enrollees, are covered by the federal waivers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS gave a waiver (http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html) to Local 25 SEIU in Chicago with 31,000 enrollees on Oct. 1, 2010; to Local 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund with 4,544 enrollees on Oct. 10, 2010; and to the SEIU Local 1 Cleveland Welfare Fund with 520 enrollees on Nov. 15, 2010.
So far, the Obama administration has issued waivers to 222 entities, including businesses, unions and charitable organizations. Of that total, 45 were labor organizations.
A total of 1,507,418 enrollees are now included in the waivers (http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html). More than one-third -- 512,315 – of the enrollees affected were insured by union health plans.
SEIU Local 1199’s health plan put a $50,000 cap on medical expenses for its New Jersey nursing home workers, according to 1199 SEIU spokeswoman Leah Gonzalez. That’s $700,000 under the 2011 limit stipulated by HHS regulations.
In September, HHS announced it would grant waivers to employers to prevent some workers from losing their benefits if the insurer could not meet new health care law’s requirements on annual limits. The waivers are granted by HHS if the department determines “compliance with the interim final regulations would result in a significant decrease in access to benefits or a significant increase in premiums,” according to a Sept. 3 memo (http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/patient/ociio_2010-1_20100903_508.pdf) by Steve L. Larson, director of the HHS Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Local 1199, SEIU's Greater New York Benefit Fund, requested the waiver specifically with respect to its separate plan for New Jersey members, according to Gonzalez. This waiver primarily affects low-wage New Jersey nursing home workers whose health care plan provides medical, hospital, prescription, dental and vision benefits.
The New Jersey members now have an annual maximum health care benefit of $50,000. Gonzalez said fewer than 1 percent of members have ever reached that cap, and that those members who did received additional help.
“The members’ health benefits are paid for by the employer and are negotiated through collective bargaining,” Gonzalez said in a written statement to CNSNews.com. “Several years ago, facing limited dollars from the employers for this small group, the members themselves chose how to shape their health plan to get the most out of their coverage.”
Gonzalez added that prescriptions are excluded from the cap. “For example, if a member maxes out from a hospital stay, she/he can continue to get their life-saving medications throughout the year while accessing alternative coverage at low-cost community clinics.”
Neither SEIU Local 25 nor Local 1, nor the national organization responded to CNSNews.com’s request for comment.
The SEIU's Committee on Political Education made $27,829,845.91 (http://query.nictusa.com/pdf/663/28934201663/28934201663.pdf) in independent expenditures on Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. SEIU-affiliated groups in Illinois have long supported Obama’s campaigns and endorsed him for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2004. In 2008, the national union backed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. (See earlier story. (http://cnsnews.com/node/40959))

[Takeda Shingen]

I dunno if thats even right. Doctorates are getting more common too. Maybe they need to make an even higher level

I vote uber super doctor :O:

Oh god, don't make me go back to school again.

[nikimcbee]

Oh god, don't make me go back to school again.

:haha::wah: Same here. I took a community ed Korean class, and after two sessions I though to myself "what the hell am I doing here!":dead:

[CaptainHaplo]

While apparently Mookie has decided to avoid a serious discussion on this issue, I would like to inform some of the readers regarding the points he - and by extension - the person quoted in the article/blog he linked were making.

Now, Its important to actually read the blog/interview, since the first thing one notes is that it is dated 2009. Sounds fairly recent - but the latest medical data study (not costs study) that the good Dr. Baker could point to was 1996. Hmm wait a second - thats 15 year old data. Well, it gets better - or worse, depending on your perspective. Dr. Baker is a "critic" of tort reform - in other words - he is perfectly HAPPY with the system as it is. Wonder why? Well, could it be because he is a professor of LAW and Health Services? In other words, he teaches lawyers - who are the ones that get the nice big contingency fees for such cases. He teaches folks like John Edwards, who by "channeling" the spirit of a dead child, made over a million dollars in contingency fees for a malpractice suit.

So now that its clear that the Dr. Baker has a reason to not want tort changes, lets look at his data for arguing against it. After all, judging an argument on the desires of the person is unwise - their facts may hold water. Dr. Baker is correct on some things - for example 2.1 Trillion dollars was spent on health care in 2007. He then quotes the Towers Perrin Study saying Tort Costs totaled 30.4 Billion, or 1 to 1.5 percent of the total costs. Dr Baker is telling an out and out LIE here - the 2008 update for the total tort costs in 2007 from Towers Perrin is not 30.4 Billion, but 252 Billion. Verify this at:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GtKB5P8M3T8J:www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc%3Fwebc%3DUSA/2008/200811/2008_tort_costs_trends.pdf+Tower+Perring+tort&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh8uR21LoyT1vkd7-RdtrG96PWg8upBLNoic1crLEL4jQus8xTcC2e8T8I1d63lCoi_ Mv8IdI6DdpP4Ubo1y1m88hYHR0BDyLMQIk_G51r3jciActJf3G BG03MNvGYBgW00eJUB&sig=AHIEtbTm2ngAdTz52QEHj-eJdxTYkg34qA

If you prefer not to use the google doc viewer - just google TOWER PERRIN TORT and read it yourself. I will quote it here (page 5):

Towers Perrin estimates that total insured and self-insured tort costs in the U.S. were $252 billion in 2007. This is an increase of $5.1 billion, or 2.1%, from the estimated $246.9 billion of tort costs in 2006.

$252 billion is nearly over 10% of the TOTAL costs in 2007. Yet this is only the TORT costs - it doesn't even take into account the increase in insurance premiums the doctors - and thus by extension - we the consumers - pay. Considering the same study notes that insurance premiums have risen beyond the rate of inflation - the link between excessive RISK of tort claims and the increases in costs cannot be ignored.

Tort reform is not a panacea for health care. Anyone who thinks it is could not be more wrong. But - taking on a segment of costs that is more than 10% right now, plus the (very conservative) 7% extra defensive medicine costs, along with the decrease in risk exposure insurers would face - could easily equate to a 20%-25% drop in costs. Is it a total fix? No way. But knocking about 1/4 of the costs off is a really good start!

Why did Dr. Baker lie? I don't know. But look at the CBO's numbers from 2007 - then look at Towers Perrin. 10% is nothing to sneeze at - and when your talking the associated savings as well, tort reform is a major piece of the puzzle.

The only folks who don't like the idea of tort reform seem to be those in the law field, or those who get suckered into taking someone's word as gospel.

[mookiemookie]

EDIT: Ah nevermind. It's probably best I excuse myself from the "debate" altogether. Too much to take and make personal here.

[nikimcbee]

My issue isn't with tort reform - if you want to take rights away from people in order to shield bad doctors from facing financial and legal accountability for their mistakes, that's your prerogative. But quit acting like that's the be all and end all solution to all problems. It's not. It will do nothing to solve the long term problems inherent in our health care system - problems that can be laid at the door of the crooked health insurance cartel.

You want real reform? Try repealing the antitrust exemption that the healthcare industry enjoys. Funny how these people with such a hardon for the free market and capitalism will never talk about eliminating the anti-competitive scams that the insurance companies run. Collusion isn't the free market. Price fixing isn't a free market.



I wish there was a way to weed out the frivolous lawsuits vs the legitemate ones.

For point two, just sic Teddy the trust-buster on them.

[CaptainHaplo]

Or the ones who have seen it do jack sheet in practice, like here in Texas - home to three of the top ten most expensive cities in the country for health care: Harlingen, McAllen and Corpus Christi. But by all means, keep repeating the mantra. Proof is in the pudding.

For now, how about looking at the reality of the tort reform in Texas:

$2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue
$468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products
$15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
499,000 permanent jobs
430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms

Source? The relevant Perryman Group Report of 2008 which can be found here: http://tlrfoundation.com/beta/files/Texas_Tort_Reform_Report_2008.pdf

Oh - want more?


Texas physicians have witnessed a 25% overall drop in liability rates since 2003, the state insurance department says. For the first time, the state's largest medical liability carrier, Texas Medical Liability Trust, saw a 50% reduction in lawsuit filings, this from 2003 to 2008. Texas went from four insurers to more than 30 during that period.
According to the Texas Medical Board, medical license applications have soared from 2,561 to 4,041 -- a 58% jump. At the same time, the number of neurosurgeons has climbed 12%, while the supply of orthopedic surgeons has risen 9%.
The results seen in Texas, with lowered liability insurance premiums, are repeated in experiences from other states that have enacted caps of varying degrees. In February, the AMA released an analysis of independent research that showed caps on noneconomic damages are effective and have lowered premiums at least 17%, with some specialties seeing even greater drops.

Source: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/09/15/edsa0915.htm

Oh - and before we forget, lets deal with the the three cities listed. Take a look at the map and see how close they are to the southern border....

Harlinger? About 10 miles from Mexico.

McAllen? Less than 10 miles from Mexico.

Corpus Christi? About 100 miles, but its also the largest major city that close to the border - meaning its going to get more than its "fair share" of illegal, non-paying customers with issues that the local small town hospitals in McAllen and Harlinger can't handle.

Like I said, bringing health care costs down is more than just tort reform - but when your giving away health care to illegals who just crossed the border with a sneeze, you can't reasonably expect tort reform to fix it all.....

[nikimcbee]

Corpus Christi? About 100 miles, but its also the largest major city that close to the border - meaning its going to get more than its "fair share" of illegal, non-paying customers with issues that the local small town hospitals in McAllen and Harlinger can't handle.

Like I said, bringing health care costs down is more than just tort reform - but when your giving away health care to illegals who just crossed the border with a sneeze, you can't reasonably expect tort reform to fix it all.....

Here's my fix, we treat the people and send the country of origin the bill, vis-a-vie, deduct it from their foreign aide.:D

[mookiemookie]

For now, how about looking at the reality of the tort reform in Texas:

$2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue
$468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products
$15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
499,000 permanent jobs
430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms

Source? The relevant Perryman Group Report of 2008 which can be found here: http://tlrfoundation.com/beta/files/Texas_Tort_Reform_Report_2008.pdf


• The percentage of uninsured people in Texas has increased, remaining the highest in the country with a quarter of Texans now uninsured; - is tort reform going to insure the uninsured?
• The cost of health insurance in the state has more than doubled; THE ONLY STATISTIC THAT MATTERS.
• The cost of health care in Texas (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) has increased at nearly double the national average; and
• Spending increases for diagnostic testing (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) have far exceeded the national average.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=3018

The only improvement shown by the data is a decline in doctors’ liability insurance premiums. But the reported 27 percent decrease in those premiums is dwarfed by the 67 percent reduction in malpractice payments, suggesting that liability insurance companies have pocketed most of the gains. The Texas data provide no evidence that patients or taxpayers have shared in the windfall at all.

And you completely ignore the 800 lb gorilla in the room - the failure of the corrupt politicians to repeal McCarran Ferguson. Where's your free market now? But go ahead and keep arguing for folks who are victims of malpractice to be unable to find a lawyer. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19tttort.html?pagewanted=all) If that's your answer to skyrocketing medical costs, then it's a terrible answer. Let's spend our time and energy on things that will give more bang for the buck. Institute a truly free market for insurance if we're not going to go the single payer route. As it is, the game is rigged for the insurance companies.

[Ducimus]

I don't have a really good answer for that. And you are right; nowadays an undergraduate degree is practically a minimum if you don't want to end up in a dead-end job making minimum wage for the rest of your life. The masters degree is the new bachelors degree, and the doctorate is the new masters degree. If this trend continues, your children will likely need a doctorate if they want to compete for the highest-paying jobs.


That's just depressing. I blame executives for sending middle class jobs over sea's so they can pad their personal bonuses. I blame the rest on automation. I've seen that happen first hand, With what was my primary function here at work for the last 8 years. Frankly, im amazed I haven't been laid off yet. I consider myself dead man walking. I won't quit though. Not with 10 years worth of severance pay on the table. With my luck they'll find a reason to fire me to cheat me out of my severance. Man that would suck, but it would be my luck.

[Platapus]

I dunno if thats even right. Doctorates are getting more common too. Maybe they need to make an even higher level

I vote uber super doctor :O:

Doctorates in the United States are pretty steady at 2% of the adult population.

And there is actually something higher than a Doctorate, but it is not recognized in the United States. cf "Habilitation"

[August]

I don't know where you guys get the idea it takes a college degree to make more than minimum wage. My students start out earning between $30 and 40 grand a year upon graduation. No college, just a 6 month trade course.

It's not the degree that's valuable, it's the skills the degree is supposed to represent.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I don't know where you guys get the idea it takes a college degree to make more than minimum wage. My students start out earning between $30 and 40 grand a year upon graduation. No college, just a 6 month trade course.

It's not the degree that's valuable, it's the skills the degree is supposed to represent.

You haven't been in schoool for a while. To be fair, neither have I, but when I was in high school in 2001 there was a really big push to get kids to go to college, and they'd tell you whatever it took. I can understand how someone might come away from that and think that they'd be doomed to minimum wage if they didn't get a degree. That was pretty much what they told us.

Personally, I opted for the easy route: automatic admission to any state college by doing well on the SAT, automatic tuition payment through the Hazelwood Act, and a do-nothing union job that pays way more than I'm worth.

[gimpy117]

unfortunately in the aviation industry they like you to have a 4 year education. But a top 3 school in the nation for flight aviation good. :up:

[Ducimus]

when I was in high school in 2001 ....

Christ I'm getting old.

[Sailor Steve]

Christ I'm getting old.
Everything is relative, my son.

[Ducimus]

Everything is relative, my son.

LOL, you got a snicker out of me on that one. Good one. :haha: Thanks, i feel better now. :O:

[Sailor Steve]

LOL, you got a snicker out of me on that one. Good one. :haha: Thanks, i feel better now. :O:
Always glad to help. :sunny:

I've met Lance, and we still talk on the phone from time to time. He's the same age as my younger daughter, so yeah, I feel the weight.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I've met Lance, and we still talk on the phone from time to time. He's the same age as my younger daughter, so yeah, I feel the weight.

WTF is that supposed to mean!?!:stare:

[Ducimus]

Young pup! :haha: (edit: Man, i remember when people used to say that about me! lol )

[Sailor Steve]

WTF is that supposed to mean!?!:stare:
It means I don't have a son to compare you with.

Why, what did you think it meant?
:rotfl2:

[UnderseaLcpl]

It means I don't have a son to compare you with.

Why, what did you think it meant?
:rotfl2:

Something totally different. Forget I said anything.

[August]

Everything is relative, my son.

Yep, it's one of the reasons I so like visiting my 90 year old uncle and his wife. It's one of the few remaining places that Mrs. August and I are referred to as "The Kids".

[Takeda Shingen]

Christ I'm getting old.

I was thinking the same thing. I graduated in 1995; got my Masters in 2001.

[gimpy117]

you guys are right to say that they ramped up the whole "you need to go to college or you fail at life" thing. Its probably even worse now.

[August]

I was thinking the same thing. I graduated in 1995; got my Masters in 2001.

So you're saying that you were still poopin in your drawers when I joined the army in 1977 and you think you're getting old? :o

[CaptainHaplo]

And you completely ignore the 800 lb gorilla in the room - the failure of the corrupt politicians to repeal McCarran Ferguson. Where's your free market now? But go ahead and keep arguing for folks who are victims of malpractice to be unable to find a lawyer. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19tttort.html?pagewanted=all)If that's your answer to skyrocketing medical costs, then it's a terrible answer. Let's spend our time and energy on things that will give more bang for the buck. Institute a truly free market for insurance if we're not going to go the single payer route. As it is, the game is rigged for the insurance companies.

Actually mookie - while we disagree on alot of things - I actually totally agree with you on repealing McCarran Ferguson. There is no reason that insurance companies should be exempt from anti-trust regulation. I don't defend the politicians on this - and busting up alot of the price fixing from insurance would drastically alter the equation for the good of the consumer. This is one reason I say tort reform isn't the only answer. Agree to disagree on many things - but this one you and I are in total agreement on. In fact, I think I have said I supported removing the exemption before, just not in this thread. So many things to fix, and you my friend have hit the biggest nail in the equation! Well done!

[The Third Man]

One reason insurance rates are rising in certain states more than others is the gov't regulation which disallows companies from selling insurance across state lines.

If allowed to sell insurance nationally the rates would most certainly stabalize at a lower level as competition ignites insurance companies competitiveness. The battle for customers who will choose their carriers based on service, benefits and cost would drive down the cost and make it affordable and more customer friendly.

[Takeda Shingen]

So you're saying that you were still poopin in your drawers when I joined the army in 1977 and you think you're getting old? :o

Yes. Yes I was.

[Sailor Steve]

So you're saying that you were still poopin in your drawers when I joined the army in 1977 and you think you're getting old? :o
And what were you doing when I joined the navy in 1969? :O:

[Takeda Shingen]

And what were you doing when I joined the navy in 1969? :O:

I sure hope he wasn't pooping in his drawers.

[CaptainHaplo]

One reason insurance rates are rising in certain states more than others is the gov't regulation which disallows companies from selling insurance across state lines.

If allowed to sell insurance nationally the rates would most certainly stabalize at a lower level as competition ignites insurance companies competitiveness. The battle for customers who will choose their carriers based on service, benefits and cost would drive down the cost and make it affordable and more customer friendly.

Your correct to a point - but the last thing you can do is open up interstate trade without allowing the feds to regulate it. After all - that is a defined power in the constitution. Otherwise, your gonna end up with one big monopoly (worse than now) and there won't be any competition.

Removing interstate barriers can be a blessing or a curse. They cannot be removed without the anti-trust exemption repealed. Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 specifies that trade/commerce across state lines should be regulated by the federal government. If we are going to be consistent and hold to the Constitution, then we should be holding to the Constitution the whole time, not just when it is convienent or when we like it.

[mookiemookie]

So many things to fix, and you my friend have hit the biggest nail in the equation! Well done!

:salute::()1:

[Ducimus]

I was thinking the same thing. I graduated in 1995; got my Masters in 2001.


I graduated in 92, and went to basic training a couple months later. Left active duty in december 96, decided i wasn't done yet, and went to the active reserves less then a year later while going to community college. After that, decided the country club for retiree's and LIFER's (Lazy Ineffiecent F___er Expecting Retirement) wasn't for me, and left active reserves 2 years later. So all i have to my name is just under 7 years Time in Service, and a couple two year degree's. Blech.

So i guess i'm not that much older then you. Just chose a different walk of life.

[nikimcbee]

And what were you doing when I joined the navy in 1969? :O:

Was that Pharoh's navy? Please clarify.:D

[Ducimus]

Was that Pharoh's navy? Please clarify.:D

I'm guessing Mchale's navy. :O:

[August]

And what were you doing when I joined the navy in 1969? :O:

Getting to stay up late to watch mans landing on the moon of course! I did not poop in my drawers I swear!

[August]

Was that Pharoh's navy? Please clarify.:D

Steve was a side boy on the Ark. :yep:

[Sailor Steve]

Was that Pharoh's navy? Please clarify.:D
Bark! Woof woof! Yowwwl! Bark bark! Grrrrrrrrrowwlll. Sniff. Bark!




Just wanted to put it in language you could understand. :O:

[krashkart]

Bark! Woof woof! Yowwwl! Bark bark! Grrrrrrrrrowwlll. Sniff. Bark!


No wonder I can't understand Dog... their penmanship and typing skills aren't as good as yours are. *sigh* :nope:

[Sailor Steve]

No wonder I can't understand Dog... their penmanship and typing skills aren't as good as yours are. *sigh* :nope:
:rotfl2:

I just wanted to use words I could be sure he'd understand. There may be some translation problems, but I don't really care. :D

[August]

:rotfl2:

I just wanted to use words I could be sure he'd understand. There may be some translation problems, but I don't really care. :D

I ran your dog talk through babblefish. I'm pretty sure that you told McBee that you'd love him long time.... :yep:

[Sailor Steve]

I ran your dog talk through babblefish. I'm pretty sure that you told McBee that you'd love him long time.... :yep:
"Love" isn't quite accurate. In fact the words I used would get me banned if Neal could read dog.

[nikimcbee]

No wonder I can't understand Dog... their penmanship and typing skills aren't as good as yours are. *sigh* :nope:

http://cimonsays.com/pictures/pic_dog_typing_blog2.gif