What scares me is the GOP wouldn't even be talking health care if not for the fact the Dems push it...they never have. Sadly, the GOP has sold out lock, stock and barrel to the many special interest in health care. It's like they put their seats up for auction for bid to the biggest corporations.

If I had a choice of care controlled by corporations or government, both are bad, but I would choose government over corporations. In the end it appears corporations will win..

Assuming that the politicians are in the pockets of the big medical, insurance corps and drug companies and it sure lookes like they are, and the politicians will be the ones to implement and oversee either a government single payer system or some other health care reform, what makes you think the new system will be any different than the old one. The big health care corps will still make huge money and the people will take in in the shorts same as now.
SOSDS. Same Old Sh** Different System.

Health care is a great big cash cow and it's product, your health, is a very vital necessity. If you're sick or in pain you'll pay whatever you can to feel better, even more if it's a loved one.

Health care is just to big to fail (to produce big profits)
The "powers that be" will spend any amount of money to protect those profits. So it will be SOSDS.

Universal single payer system will give more people coverage at greater expense and a lower level of care for everybody, probability bankrupt the country. The big corps will still be making a ton of money, if you don't think so I think you may not understand the power of money.

Reforming the current system will give good coverage to most and some will not have coverage at all. Unless the reforms are drastic this will also bankrupt the country. I can see no circumstances where drastic reform will ever happen. Hell they can't even cut a few billion from an overly inflated fiscal budget.

"Leaches or army ants", to barrow a phrase.
What Armisead said about the drug companies is too true.

I have a mild skin condition and have been using an ointment for years, cost about a hundred dollars years ago, but with the advent of drug advertising and the Prescription Drug Coverage the cost has risen to over four hundred dollars for the same thing.
With Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage I still pay about one hundred dollars and somebody is making off with the other three hundred.

Unless the politicians grow a big pair of brass ones I don't see any hope this mess will ever get fixed. Some very drastic reform is needed and I just don't see that happening. I'm repeating myself here aren't I. Well I guess it's true.

SOSDS. :damn:

Magic

Hello
i think the situation in Germany is heading for the same cost explosion you see in the US.
The "problem" or better PITA is that there are so much lobbyists and interest groups and politicians listening to, and being outright bribed, by them.
In Germany, (not only) medical companies write new laws and "propose" them to politicians and surveying organisations, to sign and accept them. If the latter do not, they may face financial problems in their next election campaign, or receive some pressure from sides they never thought of.

Medical companies are not bad in itself, they have just adapted to locust-capitalism, and let students and doctors do the research, "generously" paying for the study including, say, 100 probands, and declare the result to be statistically significant - and if it does not fit they just let someone else do the same test study again.
They do not want you to become sick or harass you, they just do not care at all - or better, only about money. You will certainly never hear that, from them.

What i do not understand in the US is, that they are completely against any control of pharmaceutical companies, because they always proclaim this would be "socialism" or "communism". Why do you always whine, and blame the government, and only the government ?!
For the same reason they do not want governmental interference, ok. But they also complain about high prices of drugs and medical treatment ? What ?
Do they really believe pharma companies will lower their prices or services to a still high, but more common sense level, voluntarily, without direct hard pressure ?

This will end in medical treatment for those who can afford it, but not because the treatment itself would be worth it (it could be much cheaper and the companies would still make billions of money), but because they do not care about common sense and - even a paid-for - welfare for all, because they do not care, they give a damn, because the stock holders are coming first, always. And certainly also because pharmacy managers want to get rich within their limited lifetime. There is no master plan thinking of decades into the future. Instant cash is it. Also anyone who has a bit money lets the banks - without even knowing it - invest it in fonds and stocks, which directly support this mechanism.

There are some branches in industry that may never have been privatized, simple as that. Especially, when those industries have been initially financed by tax payers, not the private companies which own it today. Losses are being socialized, wins are being privatized.
This whole system itself is foul and rotten to the bones.

Greetings,
Catfish

The United States of One Giant Ponzi Scheme.

The McCarran Ferguson act, passed in 1945, exempts the insurance industry from many parts of antitrust law. That means collusion, price fixing, cartels...all legal! All A-OK! It was supposed to be temporary. 66 years later, we're still waiting.

Free market my butt.

My butt as well. There is no free market because we insist on trying to control it.


----------------------------------------------------

What really perturbs me about this whole healthcare reform thing is that this has all been done before. Many times. With healthcare and with virtually everything else. Every single time an issue is brought up, people turn to the government to fix it with new legislation, new regulation, new powers...etc. Every single time, the government does something remarkably inept by any measure. And every single time, business ends up capturing the regulators and using them to abuse us in a worse fashion than it had been before. How many times must we re-create this nightmare golem before we realize what we are doing?

I exaggerate, but not much. The healthcare system we have now is proof-positive of what happens when you mix business with government. You can reform healthcare all you want, but all you'll ever end up doing is re-forming it.

Some say nationalized healthcare is the solution. They point at Canada or England or whatever and say "Look! It can work!". Or Norway. Or some other country that is not this one and is in a completely different situation with a completely different government. Those arguments are pretty easily refutable, and often citizens of those nations say as much, but it's all beside the point. US citizens are generally in the US, and what the US has done with its forays into nationalized healthcare has not been pretty, no two ways about it. Medicare and Medicaid are fiscal disasters on a level second only to Social Security and the US government itself. And this is the entity people want to entrust healthcare to? As if by some miracle the same government that managed to get us into this position in the first place with limited involvement is going to get us out of it by becoming more involved? Is the whole country insane or is it just me?

If we nationalize healthcare, we're just going to get a healthcare system that is reminiscent of our nationalized school system, or our nationalized retirement plan, or our nationalized passenger service, which is to say it will be a complete disaster.

We desperately need truly free-market healthcare. It's the only thing we haven't tried and there is good reason to believe that it will serve us better than the current system, much as vital industries that have co-opted the government less and as such are not matters of national concern tend to do.

I don't promise it will be an easy transition. There will be snake-oil peddlers and extortionists and whatnot, and people will suffer for their profiteering, make no mistake. But is that really any different from what we have now? FDA extortionism aside, we still have an overabundance of drugs and medical procedures that have slipped through their collective regulatory fingers. Don't you people ever watch those incessant lawyer commercials? Ever wonder why there are so many? Of course not, you get to skip past them with your Tivo or whatever that private industry generously provided at a reasonable cost. But the fact remains that the garbage products and the lawsuits are still there. Call me crazy, but for what we spend on FDA "regulation", I'd rather take a little responsibility for myself and read product reviews provided by private companies rather than trusting the nanny-state to care for me.

And then there's the FDA's "successes". The FDA is often quick to point out that "We saved (x) lives today by approving (y) drug." Color me stupid, but doesn't that mean that you cost us (x) lives times eight for taking eight years to approve the drug? And we're supposed to fund you for this with our tax dollars? At gunpoint if need be? What idiot came up with this idea? Oh.... wait, it was us. Yes, us, the same idiots who are now advocating healthcare reform by using the same means that caused us to demand reform in the first place.

By contrast, the free market encourages us to be conscious consumers. Anyone remember any of the variously-named miracle weight-loss products that are advertised all the time or any of that other crap? We generally ignore them, but when we don't, we can buy conscious consumerism for the low price of $19.99 if we call now. Statements not evaluated by the FDA. Sorry, no COD's. Granted, people still fall for this crap, but at least they have the courtesy to limit the damage to themselves, and if they aren't complete idiots, they only do it a few times at best.

So, again, the healthcare system needs to be fixed. Creating a government healthcare plan does not fix the problem of high costs. The plan is only throwing more money at it.

Simply put, there is very little in justifying the enormous costs for pills and proceedures. Just reading Growlers experience is enough to know the costs are inflated beyond comprehension and left unchecked for years. A healthcare reform bill did not fix the broken overpriced healthcare system. It is only going to feed it more dollars.

Is there another way for me, the average citizen, to affect what i'm being charged by the medical establishment? Don't tell me to shop around for a better price because I am not a doctor and unless I want to train myself to become one i'm not going to be able to shop around effectively. Not in a situation where cheaper might mean ineffective or worse.

No it wouldn't be any different and that's why it won't work. Don't forget what we have now is unsustainable so you're just advocating replacing a broken system with another broken system.

For-profit health care has become unaffordable to growing numbers of people. Come up with a workable solution to that and you might get my support.

This in a nutshell is why private health care doesn't work and will never work. Private industry has never generously provided anything to anyone ever. They do it purely for profit and only profit. Generosity doesn't come into it. As long as they are driven by money they will always try to provide the least for the most. Basic marketplace law. You can't avoid it.

And you think this would change in an unregulated free market?

Caveat Emptor might work for TiVO players but if I screw up in my choice the worst that can happen is I don't get to watch my Gilligan's Island re-runs for awhile. If I make a mistake when it comes to health care it might cost me my life or the lives of my family. That's just not something I want to play around with.

I guess the bigger question is when did health care go wrong?

I'm old enough to remember seeing my GP, him spending time and cost very reasonable.

In the 80's when I first started working, the company I worked for had great affordable medical insurance as did 90% of contractors and paid the full cost. Over time it changed, employees paid some cost, got worse.

When that business closed down 5 years ago, employees were paying full cost for 60/40 coverage, I'm talking about $600 a month for family. For those working in the field by the hour, that was 30-40% of their pay. Now few offer it at all, if they do, you pay for most if not all of it.


Greed has to be at it's core no doubt....with lawyers.

Also, it seems the industry is more concerned with treating symptoms, not seeking cures or preventing disease. They say the upcoming obese generation of youth will cost more than the baby boomers.

That list is so full of hyperbole, I don't even know where to start.

One (and 2), what an insurance CEO makes is meaningless.

1 out of 4 Californians has no insurance? So what? A huge % of those are ILLEGALS. Another large % are young. Are 25% young or illegal in CA? Young people don't need insurance—if you are 18-40 or so, you can save money by simply paying out of pocket on the odd chance you need it, that or get a super cheap policy only for hospitals (trauma). Insurance is a bad bet for the young and healthy. Caveat—for single people, or couples without kids.

PROFITS HAVE INCREASED 56%!!!!!! OMG! From 1 - 2% to 1.56 - ~3%. 56% sounds HUGE, but health insurance is in fact a lousy business with low profit margins. If 2-3% profit is bad for health insurance, make sure that no other industry is allowed that outrageous (LOL) level of profit.

12.2 billion in profit! healthcare in the US costs ~1 TRILLION. That's... wait for it... 1.22% profit (since almost 50% os government, double that number, so 2.44%. That hyperbolic headline is about companies making under 3% profit. (clearly these bullet points can only really upset people too stupid to know how to do math).

Health insurance premiums are increasing in large part because of the government. The segment of the healthcare industry that is "cash only" of course sees either decreases in costs, or more value per dollar (LASIK, plastic surgery, etc—pure market healthcare, and you can get better lasik now than 10 years ago for the same money, or about the same as 10 years ago for less). Government sets arbitrary reimbursement, and private pays (insurance) have to cover the excess or the providers are screwed.

"Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone." Wow, they spend a few % on advertising. Of course they do, they have to make money before their drug—which takes many billions to get to market—is knocked off as a "generic." They are also the ones who get sued by the ambulance chasers, even though the FDA has already approved their drug.

#s 16 and 17 are funny. Maybe they should stop demanding a drug from their doc. The doc can't win. Most people get better with no treatment, but they'll get complaints if they don't throw drugs at everyone, so they treat empirically. Conservative care FTW.

18 is all about fear of ambulance chasers. Yeah lawyers?!

#19 says layers add 56 billion. That's a gross understatement. The actual payouts are small (the 56B$), it's "defensive medicine" that runs up costs (call that safely 10%—100 billion—possibly approaching 20% of total cost.

Hospitals overcharge by 1%! (doesn't look as nasty that way as "10 billion." Needs to be fixed, but not with hyperbole.

"It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don't know how the system works then you are out of luck."

The government underpays. Private pays can negotiate contracts that are mutually beneficial. Ie: they reduce costs. Apparently this is bad.

There is no possible Constitutional argument for nationalizing healthcare. Any claim it is special is BS. People need food to live, too. Why not nationalize grocery stores and restaurants? What about housing?

Anyone in favor of nationalized health care in the US needs to ask how it will contain costs. Eliminating insurance would eliminate their outrageous 2.5% profit, there's that. Of course real insurance is grossly more efficient than government, so we lose whatever that is... of the 3 employees per doc at my wife's office that deal with "insurance" 2 of them do nothing but medicaid/medicare, with the 3d helping out sometimes (since private insurance is so easy—they get billed electronically, and pay literally the same day, the government returns claims constantly with no indication why (usually a check box that doesn't even matter is not checked—they return it, and don't say WHY (*******s)).

The vast majority of lifetime medical bills are in the last months of life. The only way to significantly reduce costs is to reduce end of life care. Period. Rationing, "death panels," call it what you like. "Flyover" states have fewer docs, and therefore are forced to practice "conservative" care. Average end of lfe costs in the middle of the US are grossly lower than in the urban areas for the same diagnosis (Duke did a study on it). So minus the excesses of the "blue" states, healthcare costs nationally per capita could be significantly lowered. Note that such urban areas also get paid more for the same care in less hip zip codes (you can get a large pay raise just by crossing into the more populous state of TX from NM, for example, because everything (private, too) is pegged to Medicaid/Medicare, and they pay more in those zip codes than here)

Hello,
now i hear the same argument again: "We need a free market, real competition, no control blahblahblah ! "

What do you think will happen with the prices if you do not control the pharmaceutical companies' greed by brute force by someone who has the power to do so ?
Anytime any industry like railroads, telecom, water, energy, health care was privatized, the prices immediately rose. There never was competition, and there never will be, in those branches.
Those basic services a state provides for its citizens does not belong in private hand, just like military defense !

The only market where those things work are with surplus luxury products like electronics made in China, Korea and Japan, when selling their stuff here. But do you know how much a worker in a chinese Apple iPhone factory earns ? 0,65 cent, per hour ! If you want this in the US, there will be competition alright.
But i have news for you: YOU will be working there, for 65 cents. The Company manager will still be in his exclusive club making money, but you won't be in it !

Who do you think will be able to pay for something simple like Aspirin in ten years from now if you let the companies do what they want ?

Did you ever hear about price agreements and partitioning the market between companies ? Cartels ? Ar$ehole managers not caring for anyone but themselves with an ethical conscience of a corpse maggot ?


Greetings,
Catfish


P.S. re Tater:
" ... Medical companies are not bad in itself, they have just adapted to locust-capitalism, and let students and doctors do the research, "generously" paying for the study including, say, 100 probands, and declare the result to be statistically significant - and if it does not fit they just let someone else do the same test study again.
They do not want you to become sick or harass you, they just do not care at all - or better, only about money. You will certainly never hear that, from them. ..."
Just in case you overread that. Therr were no real new medicaments or breakthroughs in the last two decades ! Pahramaceutical companies do not invest in research period. They bring new drugs or mediaments on the market, without those helping against anything, just as cash cows.

Ok I got this far before I quit. Thanks for the laugh.

http://mattjohnsontrading.com/wp-con...onMinister.jpg

"Health insurance is fine. Nothing to see here. There are no problems with the health insurance industry whatsoever!"

I should have added "single." My bad. Obviously with kids, it becomes a positive cost-benefit (or perhaps not, but people are going to go for added security with kids than without, even if the cost-benefit is still against buying insurance).

I edited for ya.

tater, in your points, some agreed, some not.

End of life care is where most of the money is spent. Course, I guess it's what you mean by end of life care, years of prolonging life or care such as Hospice, which is mostly paid out of medicare. Course, I'm sure Hospice is much cheaper than keeping someone in the hosptial to die.

My mother is home under Hospice, maybe a week, maybe 6 months, all her treatment is free, except if we step into areas of wanting other meds, etc.

My mother spent two weeks in the hospital before being sent home, total cost, $133,000 rounded off.

Normally I agree on just about everything you post tater but not on this one. Just my experience alone and before I was 40 years old:

Hernia
spontaneous pneumothorax THREE TIMES!!! I spend 7-10 days in the hospital depending on the severity of the hole in my lung. My second collapse on my left lung required a surgery of talc powder to make the lung stick to my chest cavity so it will never collapse again.

Anyway, each stay is usually 10-15k depending on how many good drugs I take.

All ages should have coverage.