OT: Politics and other stuff that is sure to piss everyone off

[Camfantasy]

See ya later, Guyblow.

Hahaha reppp.

 

[Hokie200proof]

Very underrated movie.








Oh, and something called the "Affordable Healthcare Act" was upheld by the Supreme Court. I turned on network news and found out that it will either:

1) cure all diseases for free; or
2) bankrupt the nation to the point where we will all be begging Greece for a loan

 

[bchampy]

Very underrated movie.








Oh, and something called the "Affordable Healthcare Act" was upheld by the Supreme Court. I turned on network news and found out that it will either:

1) cure all diseases for free; or
2) bankrupt the nation to the point where we will all be begging Greece for a loan

Time to throw away the condoms.

 

[VTscores]

Time to throw away the condoms.

Why? Because birth control is free?

 

[MattB4VT]

Chief Justice Roberts isnt dumb. He did the American Party a favor. Now it won't be used against us on the campaign, and instead, will be a rallying cry. Romney raised 4.3 million yesterday alone, after it came out that the HEALTHCARE TAX had been upheld. ANOTHER TAX. Many companies wont be able to afford this new plan. This will also help in many House and Senate elections. Can and will be repealed after this coming round of elections.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

This particular bill is not as bad as the people on the right are trying to label it, actually. As long as the public option is kept OFF OF the table for good, tweaks like this are OK.

I will be interested to see how they plan to implement this though. It is going to be more difficult than a lot of people think and politicians are mostly morons so I doubt if they have even considered it.

 

[VTscores]

This particular bill is not as bad as the people on the right are trying to label it, actually. As long as the public option is kept OFF OF the table for good, tweaks like this are OK.

I will be interested to see how they plan to implement this though. It is going to be more difficult than a lot of people think and politicians are mostly morons so I doubt if they have even considered it.

I'm a conservative, but would have preferred the public option.

This is the worst of both worlds. Universal coverage, but locks in private sector profits. American's are paying double what other developed countries pay for health care. For that, they should have kicked in "universal" for free. Instead, we have what amounts to a perpetuation of current health care profits for an interconnected group of monopolies.

 

[MattB4VT]

States won't be able to afford it either.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

Well, I have a very good three prong approach to fixing healthcare, and making it still very affordable but I am way too smart to go into politics.

I also have to go get these slides printed for a talk I have to give today at the SER conference (ironic, I know) but ask me next week and I will lay it out.

 

[VTscores]

Well, I have a very good three prong approach to fixing healthcare, and making it still very affordable but I am way too smart to go into politics.

I also have to go get these slides printed for a talk I have to give today at the SER conference (ironic, I know) but ask me next week and I will lay it out.

I'd love to hear it.

 

[hunzworth]

Well, I have a very good three prong approach to fixing healthcare, and making it still very affordable but I am way too smart to go into politics.

I hope one of those prongs involves the regulation of pharmaceutical and medical supply companies. These people are making 1000%+ profit off of simple medical supplies and prescriptions. Im not going to get into a big rant but these huge markups have put a major strain on the insurance companies who in turn have to pass that cost on to us.

This is a problem that if cleaned up should help EVERYONE. I.E. Lower insurance rates help everyone from joe blow to huge corporations and leave more money to help boost the economy. This is all without getting into how much the government would save on medicare.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

I hope one of those prongs involves the regulation of pharmaceutical and medical supply companies. These people are making 1000%+ profit off of simple medical supplies and prescriptions. Im not going to get into a big rant but these huge markups have put a major strain on the insurance companies who in turn have to pass that cost on to us.

This is a problem that if cleaned up should help EVERYONE. I.E. Lower insurance rates help everyone from joe blow to huge corporations and leave more money to help boost the economy. This is all without getting into how much the government would save on medicare.

There is part of it that deals with that but the pharm companies are not solely to blame for it. When the FDA takes 15 years off of a patent life and companies get drugs taken off the market for side effects that occur in 1/10,000 cases they have to gouge in many cases just to protect themselves. Add in the issues of litigation in this country and it hurts even worse.

 

[hokiegrad]

a few random thoughts on the topic:

insurance should be insurance. It is not insurance to say "we'll pay for all these future expenses that we both already know you'll have". This includes routine visits like physicals (although insurance companies could certainly still incentivize people by giving premium deductions to those who pass physicals, etc.) as well as treatment for pre-existing conditions. Should the government provide some assistance for pre-existing conditions? Perhaps. Less than what you'd get if you had insurance coverage, else what was the point of buying insurance? But let's not call that insurance.

insurance should not be subsidized by your employer. I don't get my home owner's or auto insurance subsidized by my employer. They shouldn't subsidize my medical insurance either. This indirectly leads to a LOT of problems, both medical and otherwise. And no, this wouldn't mean the end of group discounts. Employers and others (e.g. university you attended, etc.) could still negotiate with insurance companies to setup a group, as they do today for other types of insurance.

medicare and medicaid should cover much less than they do today. The line demarcating what people consider a luxury when it comes to medical care has been moving steadily in the wrong direction, and has no basis in reality anymore.

 

[sparko]

good thoughts .. and i'd love to hear an md's thoughts as well .. my thoughts -- i'm tired of paying for everyone else's health insurance. i know it's not that simple but the fact of the matter is that ONE of the reasons that my insurance premium is so high is to compensate for so much written off for those without insurance. some of my colleagues are up in arms saying that it shouldn't be constitutional to penalize people for not having it (taxing). why not? line has to be drawn somewhere. when i rebut with my "well we have to carry car insurance", they respond with "yeah -- if you drive a car" .. fact is EVERYONE drives, whether they have a car or not .. that's why we have to carry uninsured motorist insurance too. hard decision had to be made and i agree with the GENERAL premise of it all .. whether it breaks more than it fixes is yet to be seen

 

[hokiegrad]

you're only required to carry car insurance covering damage you do to someone else. You are not required to carry insurance covering damage to your own vehicle.

I don't have a problem with a tax (and it should be clearly called such) for those individuals who don't carry health insurance. But leave employers out of that entirely. Drop any requirement that any employer must do anything at all regarding health insurance.

 

[hunzworth]

There is part of it that deals with that but the pharm companies are not solely to blame for it. When the FDA takes 15 years off of a patent life and companies get drugs taken off the market for side effects that occur in 1/10,000 cases they have to gouge in many cases just to protect themselves. Add in the issues of litigation in this country and it hurts even worse.

I was more or less refering to the amount that hospitals, doctors offices, and medical supply vendors are charging for "everyday items" (i.e. bandaids, gauze, etc etc etc). I work in insurance so I see these "mark ups" all the time.

Ive got an itemized bill from carilion in front of me right now and just to throw an example out there:

2x2 sterile gauze X's 3 =$8 <------ I can buy a pack of 100 for less than $1.00 a riteaid so the "real cost" is about $.03. Now i understand that there are other cost associated with this like paying the nurses, keeping the lights on at the hospital, etc etc etc, but there is no reason for a such a huge price difference.

Another example: ambulance services $1943.58 <-----this was for an ambulance ride that was less than 2 miles and reading vital signs.

Another example; admittance service $245.00 <-----it cost this much for a receptionist to punch less into a computer than i have in this post

I mean the list could go on and on but this is one area of the economy were everyone is suffering to fatten the pockets of a very few.

 

[Hokie200proof]

I'd like to address the folks who claim that the AHA will be a new tax. Two issues to consider -

1) The healthcare mandate only charges a fee (call it a tax if you like) to those people who can afford health insurance, but choose not to have it.

2) If you've had health insurance (say since 1999?), you've already been paying a premium (like a tax) to the insurance companies for the same or worse coverage.

This is a great study into the rising cost AND rising worker contribution to skyrocketing health insurance premiums -

Charts and Graphs from the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation study on Healthcare costs

The real issue in this whole debate is - healthcare costs are rising and they're rising way faster than we can pay for them. There are many reasons for why this is happening (among them are the rising costs of meds, frivolous malpractice suits, a healthcare industry that is now incentivised by performing procedures that bill huge dollars rather than being focused on improving the long-term health of patients) but a couple of the biggest reasons are -

1) Uninsured Americans - 50.7 million people, roughly 17% of the current population. These people still get treated and when they do, we (the insured American) pay for it through higher insurance premiums. Hospitals, doctors, etc build the added costs unpaid by uninsured patients into what they charge for through legitimate claims to health insurance companies. Insurance companies then charge employers (who then charge their employees) higher premiums to offset these higher costs. There's not a single ER in America where someone with a serious injury or illness would be refused treatment. But, we pay for that.

2) We, Americans, are getting sooooooo fat - The CDC has a pretty awesome and frightening slide show on this page:

Middle of the page, starts in 1985 , goes to 2010

With more fat comes more specialized health issues... and expensive ones to boot. Type 2 Diabetus, Heart Disease, stroke, some forms of cancer - all specialized ailments (as in, not your average infection, illness, broken bone, cut, etc) that have been proven to be linked to obesity that need specialized treatments (expensive drugs) or surgeries (expensive procedures). All expensive, all adding to the total bill.

Another interesting set of graphs...
Notice any similarities?

MAP of Uninsured Americans:

And Map of Obese Americans:

A large portion of the fat (and getting fatter) states are also the homes of the largest percentage of uninsured patients. So, not only are these uninsured Americans requiring much more expensive treatments because of their own poor and selfish lifestyle choices, they're also not paying for it.

All that = much higher insurance premiums for everyone doing what they're supposed to do.

So, the healthcare mandate isn't really a new tax. It's going to be a fiscal penalty to try to incentivise fat and uninsured assholes to get health insurance (if they can afford it, and many who aren't paying now definitely can) OR force them to help pay into the public trust that has been picking up the bill all of this time.

Will it work? We'll see. But at least it's a start to a very important and potentially crippling economic/social issue.

 

[VTscores]

You can say we're already paying for the uninsured, but the uninsured cost the public $43 billion in 2008. (75% of $57 billion) Obamacare is projected to cost $100 billion a year. We're clearly deciding to put more resources against this problem.

Obamacare IS a tax. Not just the penalty, but the premium that the government is forcing you to pay. You can debate the societal merits, but you can't just claim that we're already paying this much, because we're not. If the government dictates that you buy it, it's a tax. The whole concept of Obamacare is that the general population subsidizes those who can't afford care. Not just emergency room visits, but the full monty, which does cost more.

The reason health care costs are going up is because there is nothing in place to check the cost. The entities in health care are all basically monopolies. The system is NOT about price competition. The AMA, the ABA, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies are all basically monopolies who negotiate prices among themselves. Pharmaceutical companies have been caught colluding on prices.

The missing partner? The consumer. Sure, you can choose among insurance companies, but they're all pretty similar in price. What exactly is it you're purchasing? How can your insurance cost the same as everyone else at your company? Surely you're healthier than them, right? You don't have any realistic consumer choice in terms of pricing. You can't choose the doctor who gives you the best service for the money, because you are so many levels of indirection away from paying his bill.

 

[hokiegrad]

The missing partner? The consumer. Sure, you can choose among insurance companies, but they're all pretty similar in price. What exactly is it you're purchasing? How can your insurance cost the same as everyone else at your company? Surely you're healthier than them, right? You don't have any realistic consumer choice in terms of pricing. You can't choose the doctor who gives you the best service for the money, because you are so many levels of indirection away from paying his bill.

^^^ This.

Get employers out the equation (for their sake as well as ours). One of the many benefits of that will be increased choice. Where there is increased choice there is increased competition, and that tailored to our needs/desires, not our employers.

Also, the states need to work on making it less difficult / costly for insurers to operate in their state. Better align with your neighbor states.

 

[hokiegrad]

Will it work? We'll see. But at least it's a start to a very important and potentially crippling economic/social issue.

It has no chance of working, and the only way this is a start is that we've started talking about the problem more (as it gets worse).