The Obama Presidency

The existence of communist governments around the world was great for Americans over those decades. The power elite were scared shitless that Americans would roll out the guillotines and mount their own version of Bolshevik revolution. They had to prove that the system that benefitted them was also the best one for Joe Sixpack, so they upped wages, job security, benefits, and built the greatest infrastructure and educational systems the world has ever seen.

Once it became clear that communist governments were not long for this world and the powerful have nothing to fear, we got "trickle down economics", widening income inequality, corporations are people too my friends, and a separate legal system where rich people can do whatever the fuck they want and get away with it.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Feel free to graph health insurance costs over time. It'll be easy enough to see the before and after.

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Average health care costs have more than doubled in the past 10 years, after doubling the 10 years before that. Meanwhile a greater percentage of people are uninsured.

People like you or I have good health insurance and relatively decent health and we vote so we say the system is fine and health reform is not a priority. It's not a priority for me and when I need health care I go get it and don't pay much. Problem is that while it is not obvious to me, the system has been falling apart under its own weight, and the process is accelerating. It's been getting worse, not better, and it's eating up more and more of the economy. And yea, it does affect me, because money that should be going to my paycheck is instead going to increased health insurance premium.

It's still too soon to tell what will happen with PPACA. I feel like a lot of these insurance industry announcements are political posturing, especially since so many of them came out around the SCOTUS arguments, election times, etc. These companies are rotten as shit.

No issue shows how full of shit conservatives are like healthcare. Remember, before Obama was elected the idea that something had to be done was as far as you could get from controversial. There was certainly debate about what that something should be, but only in the last four years did anyone have this head-in-the-sand everything's fine attitude. And what Obama actually did? The very things Republicans countered with when Clinton tried to advance real reform, and that Romney put into action in Massachusetts. They got their way and still painted it as an evil socialist government takeover. All credibility thrown away forever in hopes of a few short-term political points.

Republicans were never gonna pass that plan. It was just something they put forward to say they had a plan back then. For some reason Dems thought they were arguing with people who actually were operating in good faith and may be attracted to a plan their "side" created but that wasn't the case.

The "modern GOP" thinks that lack of health insurance, like lack of a job, is some type of moral failing. Ron Paul got cheered in a debate when he said that a dude without health insurance should die in the street.

Video? That's a pretty crazy applause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=irx_QXsJiao

Okay so... yeah... he outright said no to letting him die. The crowd went bonkers though. I just know the history of Ron Paul giving away charitable healthcare as physicians (and his father) and thought it was uncharacteristic. Still, a good point anyway at to how many in the GOP feel. I'm not really the most liberal person and I'm glad we have healthcare in Canada.

Yeah, Diff may have misremembered what Paul actually said, but not the sociopathic reaction of the crowd.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

The "modern GOP" thinks that lack of health insurance, like lack of a job, is some type of moral failing. Ron Paul got cheered in a debate when he said that a dude without health insurance should die in the street.

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Pretty much. Many conservatives are kinda sorta for death camps....of people they don't like. Maybe not organized ones. But I've hear more than a few say "if you won't work, and you don't have any money, then you can just go die in the ditch."

They may not want to strike the final blow, but they would be more than happy if everyone they didn't agree with or want to support just 'disappeared'



Personally, I've always been conflicted on this. It would appear that none of the options on the table work. You can't just let people die. But in the case of welfare, are we helping people make a better life for themselves? While my dad has had his practice, he's ha patients that have been on welfare and other forms of gov assistance for the whole period. My roommate's mother works facilitating gov assisted housing. Its the same people every year. Many just stay on it.

From my POV, it doesn't seem like any of the options on the table are making things better.

I would say these people being of government assistance is "better" than them dying on the streets.

At what point do we require that people grow up and take care of themselves? The reason people don't get off welfare is because it's not designed to get them off. It's a system designed to enslave people into voting for more government their whole lives to "help" them. Add to that the fact that we now have a whole generation raised to believe they are entitled, and we're fucked. When everyone thinks they deserve something for nothing, who pays the check?

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Originally Posted by The Gas

Yeah, Diff may have misremembered what Paul actually said, but not the sociopathic reaction of the crowd.

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What sociopathic reaction?
I heard a ton of people cheer when he said people should accept responsibility for their decisions, then at the end I heard a couple of dicks say "Yeah" when he was asked if society should let a person die.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

It's a system designed to enslave people into voting for more government their whole lives to "help" them.

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This doesn't happen in practice. People on the gov tit either A. don't vote or B. Vote republican because of fags.

If what you were saying was true, then republicans would never win a presidential election. Demo's would have the entire south in their pocket and most of the coastal states.

in before Yoshi gets upset that I didn't account for the wealthy conclave he lives in

What exactly is the great Republican plan for healthcare? Two Dem presidents in a row have made serious efforts to get reform, but more than a decade of Repubs in Congress and 8 years of Dubbya led to... what? When has the Republican plan for healthcare ever been anything but "obstruct all Democratic efforts"?

Obstruction is what they were elected to do.

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Originally Posted by Melf

What exactly is the great Republican plan for healthcare? Two Dem presidents in a row have made serious efforts to get reform, but more than a decade of Repubs in Congress and 8 years of Dubbya led to... what? When has the Republican plan for healthcare ever been anything but "obstruct all Democratic efforts"?

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Keep the federal government the fuck out of whatever they can.

That's been going swimmingly.

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

This doesn't happen in practice. People on the gov tit either A. don't vote or B. Vote republican because of fags.

If what you were saying was true, then republicans would never win a presidential election. Demo's would have the entire south in their pocket and most of the coastal states.

in before Yoshi gets upset that I didn't account for the wealthy conclave he lives in

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Yes, the entire south is on welfare. Just stop already.

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Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me

That's been going swimmingly.

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It can't be going too badly when every liberal whines about obstruction and gridlock constantly.

I just want a constitutionally sound party that isn't obsessed with my penis and my asshole and my 7-Eleven purchases. I don't think that's unreasonable.

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Originally Posted by Melf

What exactly is the great Republican plan for healthcare? Two Dem presidents in a row have made serious efforts to get reform, but more than a decade of Repubs in Congress and 8 years of Dubbya led to... what? When has the Republican plan for healthcare ever been anything but "obstruct all Democratic efforts"?

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When my grandparents were young, they didn't stress about deductibles and authorized providers and whatnot. Things weren't perfect, but they never got worked up over paying for medical care.

It's when our federal representatives come up with a "grand (insert party) plan" that things go to shit.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

At what point do we require that people grow up and take care of themselves? The reason people don't get off welfare is because it's not designed to get them off. It's a system designed to enslave people into voting for more government their whole lives to "help" them. Add to that the fact that we now have a whole generation raised to believe they are entitled, and we're fucked. When everyone thinks they deserve something for nothing, who pays the check?

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How about the people that think they deserve something for somewhat in the realm of what it actually costs instead of hundreds of thousands of times more?

If you get the chance, I'd urge you to just take a cursory glance through the exhaustive Time article from earlier this month about the ridiculous divide between healthcare charges vs. actual costs, it's a real eye-opener (unfortunately, Time locks meaningful content away for subscribers on their website). To boil down one of the more interesting revelations, Medicare is essentially the only insurance institution that says "fuck off, we're paying something reasonable" instead of bowing its head and accepting it. And do providers put up any fight when called on their bullshit billing like that? No, most actively seek more Medicare patients. Pretty damning. Converse to popular logic, Medicare's no-nonsense approach to paying for manufactured fluff costs means that untold billions of dollars would actually be saved on healthcare expenditures in our country by expanding the pool of Medicare recipients, rather than constricting it.

I don't see how anyone with more than a passing knowledge of healthcare costs and practices in America can defend our current system or privatized healthcare in general. It's a fucking disaster.

Didn't the TIME article also address that Medicare is actually incredibly well run and efficient? I remember reading the article and thinking "Damn, I wish I was on Medicare".

I work part time and go to school full time. My job offers health care benefits but it costs so much I'd have to work an extra day every week just to afford it. Getting health care outside of my job ranges from comparable to more expensive, and the health insurance offered to me as a student is a reasonable cost but covers literally almost nothing (I think I get a discount on flu shots and the occasional base cost of a doctor's visit). This system is stupid.

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Originally Posted by Ryan

Didn't the TIME article also address that Medicare is actually incredibly well run and efficient? I remember reading the article and thinking "Damn, I wish I was on Medicare".

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Medicare is only well run and efficient if you think a used car salesmen that fucks every customer over is 'well run and efficient'.

Medicare is horrible. Its really efficient at being horrible.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Yes, the entire south is on welfare. Just stop already.

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many red states (many of which are in the south) pay out less in yearly taxes than they take in from gov aid.

except for the county you live in, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

What sociopathic reaction?
I heard a ton of people cheer when he said people should accept responsibility for their decisions, then at the end I heard a couple of dicks say "Yeah" when he was asked if society should let a person die.

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Oh LeftRight politics — it's incorrigible.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

I work part time and go to school full time. My job offers health care benefits but it costs so much I'd have to work an extra day every week just to afford it. Getting health care outside of my job ranges from comparable to more expensive, and the health insurance offered to me as a student is a reasonable cost but covers literally almost nothing (I think I get a discount on flu shots and the occasional base cost of a doctor's visit). This system is stupid.

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Die in the street, hippie. This is America.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/att...1&d=1364268410

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

Medicare is only well run and efficient if you think a used car salesmen that fucks every customer over is 'well run and efficient'.

Medicare is horrible. Its really efficient at being horrible.

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But what if the context of that analogy is that every other used car salesman fucks customers over thousands of times worse?

I really can't stress enough how ridiculous the divide of numbers in that article were. Like, hospital charges a patient $13,000; Insurance Company A takes it at face value, pays it without any investigation, and sticks the insuree with the fallout. Medicare analyzes the costs, says "nah, we'll pay $850", and the hospital's happy to come away with that and closes out the tab.

I'm sure Medicare has plenty of follies and foibles, but they lay bare that healthcare providers are clearly overcharging by comically hilarious amounts. Confronting that basic, crystal clear observation with "Yeah but Medicare sucks" isn't going to help resolve the issue.

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Originally Posted by Josh

Die in the street, hippie. This is America.

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Pretty much.

Uintied.

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Originally Posted by Bacon McShig

But what if the context of that analogy is that every other used car salesman fucks customers over thousands of times worse?

I really can't stress enough how ridiculous the divide of numbers in that article were. Like, hospital charges a patient $13,000; Insurance Company A takes it at face value, pays it without any investigation, and sticks the insuree with the fallout. Medicare analyzes the costs, says "nah, we'll pay $850", and the hospital's happy to come away with that and closes out the tab.

I'm sure Medicare has plenty of follies and foibles, but they lay bare that healthcare providers are clearly overcharging by comically hilarious amounts. Confronting that basic, crystal clear observation with "Yeah but Medicare sucks" isn't going to help resolve the issue.

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oh jesus fuck tap dancing piss cake, I don't feel like going over this again.

Part of the reason one mother fucker pays 13000 and the other pays 850, is because that mother fucker is paying 850. If the butt x ray costs 7000, but Jim Bob's medicare only pays 850, they recoup their costs by shoving it on top of the other guy's bill. Prices are further increased because of all the nonpayers so they shovel even more costs onto others.

Hospitals agree to take medicare because they hope to make up for it in volume in the same way companies give Walmart what they want in hopes they can make up for it in total volume. If the caregiver gets forced to do somethig at below costs, well tuffshit for them because they've already signed an agreement saying they will take it. So they get it from someone else.


Medicare is a broke pile of shit. The people who run it have no real idea what things are worth or what people really need. Did the article forget to mention that bit of costs savings? Did it talk about all the procedures they just flat refuse to pay for? Grandma needs important care, but medicare tells grandma and her doctors to get fucked, and she instead receives what some suits in a medicare office building that have never seen her old wrinkled ass, thinks she needs?

And do you like further destroying care at the individual level and propping up big business Hospitals? Because thats what Medicare does. It rewards hospitals that can make up for losses with volume in a way that private practices can not.

And lets not forget how it encourages institutions to commit fraud. Medicare wants to pay for something below cost or refuse to pay for something outright? If the establishment is crooked, they will give unneeded but profitable tests that medicare will pay for. Medicare doesn't know any different because they never get involved in healthcare at the personal level.


Medicare is just another side of the coin. Its the same 'medicine is for profit and gain" suits, they just work on a different side of the argument.

Medicine and healthcare is for helping people. Its also a scientific endeavor where humanity tries to understand life and use what it learns to increase our longevity.

It isn't for suits to just randomly pick this and that group to fuck over.

Also, 'that' is not a defense of private insurance or an attack on future public options. It is purely aimed at medicare as it is today.

I am not a fan of private insurance and would like to see a public option if it was superior to what we have right now.

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

I don't feel like going over this again.

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No one is forcing you.

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

many red states (many of which are in the south) pay out less in yearly taxes than they take in from gov aid.

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That's not even remotely the same thing as everyone or even a majority in those states being on welfare.

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Originally Posted by Ryan

Didn't the TIME article also address that Medicare is actually incredibly well run and efficient?

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Who cares what Time says? People need to stop confusing things they read or hear with unbiased journalism.

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Originally Posted by Bacon McShig

I really can't stress enough how ridiculous the divide of numbers in that article were. Like, hospital charges a patient $13,000; Insurance Company A takes it at face value, pays it without any investigation, and sticks the insuree with the fallout. Medicare analyzes the costs, says "nah, we'll pay $850", and the hospital's happy to come away with that and closes out the tab.

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You do realize that these are not independent events, right? The fact that medicare implements price controls very likely increases the prices for everyone else, so that the hospital remains solvent at an aggregate level. So if you expand medicare, the prices will further skyrocket for everyone else. If you implement price controls across the board, a significant percentage of hospitals will just close, so access to medical care in general will deteriorate. You'll pay less, but you'll wait longer. That's a terrible trade.

The problem is that hospitals don't work in anything anybody would consider even close to a "market" where the laws of supply and demand can lower prices and increase quality. And, here's the thing! They never will.

In a twisted way they do. It's just that the demand will always exceed the supply, so the prices won't settle in, and quality doesn't need to improve. The problem with the alternatives we have is that they try to fix the costs, but that will reduce both the supply and the quality further. You can see this in any number of countries worldwide, where you get an appointment X weeks from now and still fly to the US to get more critical care if you can afford it.

Is Yoshi actually arguing that supply and demand works in US healthcare? Is this real life?

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

Medicare is a broke pile of shit. The people who run it have no real idea what things are worth or what people really need. Did the article forget to mention that bit of costs savings? Did it talk about all the procedures they just flat refuse to pay for? Grandma needs important care, but medicare tells grandma and her doctors to get fucked, and she instead receives what some suits in a medicare office building that have never seen her old wrinkled ass, thinks she needs?

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That's all health insurance you're describing. Not Medicare

Demand always exceeds supply, in everything, that's why things have prices. The problem here is that prices are irrelevant, elasticity is basically zero. Every hospital in American can double their prices tomorrow and the number of people checking in will be about the same. The stakes are too high in this game. People will understandably go to any length to stay alive.

That's why applying econ 101 "rational agent" theory to health care doesn't work. People are NOT rational about this. They will never be, so any discussion of this needs to have this in mind. Cost-benefit analysis fails because the benefits are infinite.

We "fix the costs" too, we ration too, but we ration based on ability to pay. The hospital gets some price negotiated on my behalf from my insurance company, and I get to go if I need to. Without that negotiation, I am screwed.

The problem is that people without the ability to pay are not going to just sit there and die - they have people who love them, many of them are productive members of society, etc. Those people do the rational thing for them, which is to go to the hospital and stiff the bill. The main theory behind the PPACA was to get these people paying into the system so they don't need to stiff the bill. They would also, hopefully, get preventative care so they can nip problems in the bud.

I don't like PPACA for a lot of reasons, but the general idea to get more people paying into insurance is a good one. I just wish it was not paying into for-profit private parasite insurance.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

Demand always exceeds supply, in everything, that's why things have prices. The problem here is that prices are irrelevant, elasticity is basically zero. The stakes are too high in this game. People will understandably go to any length to stay alive.

We "fix the costs" too, we ration too, but we ration based on ability to pay. The hospital gets some price negotiated on my behalf from my insurance company, and I get to go if I need to. Without that negotiation, I am screwed.

The problem is that people without the ability to pay are not going to just sit there and die - they have people who love them, many of them are productive members of society, etc. Those people do the rational thing for them, which is to go to the hospital and stiff the bill.

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I can think of lots of ways to fix stiffing the bill that wouldn't materially impact the people who actually contribute to the system.

Take away medical bills from bankruptcy protection like they did with student loans? How about the young and the poor would no longer be able to declare bankruptcy at all. It'd be a great system, only fit for middle aged middle class whites who made an honest mistake and none of the riff raff!

That wasn't on my initial list, but I'll add it! "Bankruptcy protection" is such a terrible phrase. Ugh.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

I can think of lots of ways to fix stiffing the bill that wouldn't materially impact the people who actually contribute to the system.

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Yea, one way is making everybody contribute to the system.

That's a way to fix stiffing the bill, but this thread is full of ways it will impact the people who contribute today, at least in its current form.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Who cares what Time says? People need to stop confusing things they read or hear with unbiased journalism.

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They also need to stop confusing any opposing viewpoints as biased journalism.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

You do realize that these are not independent events, right? The fact that medicare implements price controls very likely increases the prices for everyone else, so that the hospital remains solvent at an aggregate level. So if you expand medicare, the prices will further skyrocket for everyone else. If you implement price controls across the board, a significant percentage of hospitals will just close, so access to medical care in general will deteriorate. You'll pay less, but you'll wait longer. That's a terrible trade.

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Plenty of examples were put forth where healthcare providers not only took what Medicare offered without any apparent reticence or grousing, but actually actively recommended that patients refer their Medicare-using friends to them. If Medicare was shorting providers on their cost estimates, why would they invite a compounding of that?

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

That's a way to fix stiffing the bill, but this thread is full of ways it will impact the people who contribute today, at least in its current form.

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Like I said earlier, people who contribute today have been facing massive price increases for years.

It's not like "individual/small business health insurance is really expensive" is some new thing.

Like I said, I believe these health insurance industry announcements are mostly political.

I don't dispute any of that, but I don't see a path by which this law does anything but make it worse, even if it's not to the levels of the potentially political announcements. The statements from businesses like Papa John's are very real. It's a net increase in cost that absolutely has to be mitigated in some way, such as increased prices or reduced man hours.

We could also help fix the root cause of a lot of new health care costs, but no one wants to touch that one.

I'm not even sure we know what the root cause is, unless you mean really obvious stuff like diets and smoking. If we did, I'd be a hell of a lot more in favor in investing to fix it, even if it cost more in the short run than these stupid band aids.

I see no difference between mandating health insurance and mandating eating and smoking habits, so once you eradicate freedom, you might as well tell the fatties and chimneys to stop or be "taxed."

CVS just started charging their employees 600 dollars if they're a fatty

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

I don't dispute any of that, but I don't see a path by which this law does anything but make it worse, even if it's not to the levels of the potentially political announcements. The statements from businesses like Papa John's are very real. It's a net increase in cost that absolutely has to be mitigated in some way, such as increased prices or reduced man hours.

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They are real in the way that they exist, they are not real in the way they need to be taken seriously at all. Papa John is using this to get up on a soapbox and make a political point.

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

CVS just started charging their employees 600 dollars if they're a fatty

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I don't think that's exactly accurate, but I saw the story to which you're referring. I think they charge them $600 if they won't get a health screening or something along those lines.

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

They are real in the way that they exist, they are not real in the way they need to be taken seriously at all. Papa John is using this to get up on a soapbox and make a political point.

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How does it not need to be taken seriously? These businesses costs are going to go up. That is an indisputable fact. They have to mitigate those costs.

They deserve to air their opinions like everyone else, but that's about it. Business costs go up for a lot of reasons, I don't see Papa John out there complaining when the price of cheese goes up.

It's a complicated situation. Maybe some of those low wage folks are on some forms of public assistance they can now get off because they get HI through their jobs. This cost-shifting is a good thing, it removes a negative externality that Papa John was benefitting from. Maybe some of them don't wait until they are at death's door before ringing up a $75,000 hospital bill they can't pay for. Etc.

More broadly, this goes to the point of why we have an economy and a system that I touched upon last page. I don't think this economy solely exists to fatten the bank account of Papa John. It also doesn't exist to bankrupt Papa John and use his money to buy t-bone steaks and Cadillacs for everyone either, keep in mind. But people who put in an honest day's work should be treated with dignity and be able to, at the least, go see a doctor when they are sick.

Is that $600 a year? Ouch. I wonder if that is for people who may have been denied before. My insurance charges $300 a year to smokers, I wouldn't be surprised if a fat tax wasn't next.

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Originally Posted by GohanX

Is that $600 a year? Ouch. I wonder if that is for people who may have been denied before. My insurance charges $300 a year to smokers, I wouldn't be surprised if a fat tax wasn't next.

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If I remember correctly, it's actually going the other way. Obamacare makes it illegal to charge people with pre-existing conditions, including being a smoker or a fatty, more, so we'll be subsidizing them even more now.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

It's a complicated situation. Maybe some of those low wage folks are on some forms of public assistance they can now get off because they get HI through their jobs. This cost-shifting is a good thing, it removes a negative externality that Papa John was benefitting from. Maybe some of them don't wait until they are at death's door before ringing up a $75,000 hospital bill they can't pay for. Etc.

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That's an interesting but valid take on it.

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

The existence of communist governments around the world was great for Americans over those decades...

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Interesting. I've never thought of it like that.

Edit: typo

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

If I remember correctly, it's actually going the other way. Obamacare makes it illegal to charge people with pre-existing conditions, including being a smoker or a fatty, more, so we'll be subsidizing them even more now.

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With the happy by-product of people with serious conditions (not caused by overeating or smoking) being allowed to have any insurance period. It's a shit situation but I'd rather have people able to obtain insurance if they want to.

Healthcare is never going to thrive if it's run like a business that needs higher and higher returns every year.

It sickens me that I have to spend 60+ minutes on the phone with my insurer every time I visit the doctor and he orders blood tests. I didn't ask for these tests, my doctor decided that he needed them to get more info. But every single time Medical Mutual flatly refuses to pay for them because they're not the the list of what a person my age should be getting (since all humans' bodies behave exactly the same). I go through at least 3 levels of phone operators before they finally agree to pay them, or allow me to pay what they (Medical Mutual) would instead of what the lab charges any random uninsured person. I get a bill that says I have to pay $800 for the test but if it was being billed to my insurance it would be around $100. Sometimes I agree that not all tests have to be paid for by my insurer but I sure as hell should only have to pay what my insurer would.

There really, really needs to be a delineation made between existing conditions that are congenital and those that people earn. A person with, say, MS I have no issue subsidizing. A guy who smokes three packs a day can die on the street, hopefully where I can't smell him.

Democrats want to make such delineations, but Republicans get sore-assed over "fat taxes" and the like.

It's clearly an encroachment on freedom, but once freedom has been trampled by the Supreme Court's ridiculous decision already, you almost have to take it to the next step.

If not for slippery slopes, we couldn't sled.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

There really, really needs to be a delineation made between existing conditions that are congenital and those that people earn. A person with, say, MS I have no issue subsidizing. A guy who smokes three packs a day can die on the street, hopefully where I can't smell him.

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Bleeding heart over here agrees with this. (Better if the guy dies in his home, though, and then I don't have to hope that wherever he dies in the street isn't upwind from me.)

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

It's clearly an encroachment on freedom, but once freedom has been trampled by the Supreme Court's ridiculous decision already, you almost have to take it to the next step.

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we're already there with private insurance. There is very little difference in freedom between private and public insurance refusing to pay for practical things like blood tests and a fatty tax. Both instances are trying to control the patient and caregiver.


I don't know if medicine can afford to be free to do what it wants anymore. I'd love for it to stay that way because that is my families history, but I don't see it turning around.

Some answers that would help but will make red blooded Americas unhappy:

1. Build a better medicare. Provide a free public care agent for every practice in the US. Have this son of a bitch on the floor so they can help judge what a patient needs and stop making caregivers go through a check lists of codes of what will and will not be paid for. This would save institutions money because they're no longer paying for employees to file insurance. It would also save Timber time on finding out how to pay for stuff. It would also keep crooked institutions from pushing for bullshit tests to pad their income. Let them file reports on care so prices can be set realistically and not on the fly.

This will never happen because it would be seen as an invasion of privacy. The state and fed governments would never want it because it would costs a fuck ton. They also wouldn't want it because it would put a face on all the insurance claims they deny. They'd have to look timber in the face and tell him they don't pay for blood tests.

2. Control the number of doctors that can be in an area. And if an area already does this, control it more. Lower the number of doctors so that when prices drop, they can make up for it in volume. Maybe even start controlling the number of people that can be accepted to medical school.

This will never happen because Medicine has a long history of entrepreneurship. Everyone in medicine would be livid and claim that the Fed is killing jobs. Med schools would be livid if the gov told them how many people they could give degrees to. And med students would be livid about their course work getting even harder just to make some of them fail out.

3. Force mandatory visits for almost everyone. If everyone had to go in for maintenance and inspection visits, things would be caught sooner, and losses on some things would be easier to make up because of the increased volume of visits. This would let care givers adapt a profit model like Guitar stores have, where they make very little off of big ticket items like guitars but make a ton on selling dozens and dozens of guitar string packs.

The public would hate this because muh freedoms. They would also hate that they were being forced to pay $50 for a basic visit every 6 months, despite it doing a lot of offset the costs of others.

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Originally Posted by GohanX

I wouldn't be surprised if a fat tax wasn't next.

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I look forward to it.

Oh yeah? Which demographic has the most fatties?

by state or by per numbers?

it would be interesting to see. the most obese states have the lowest population densities.

Article w/ graphs illustrating healthcare costs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...are-ludicrous/

Which also has a link to this article.

In particular, and related to the previous discussion of Medicare, is this part:

Quote:

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In America, Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices on behalf of their tens of millions of members and, not coincidentally, purchase care at a substantial markdown from the commercial average. But outside that, it’s a free-for-all. Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.

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In other countries insurance providers actively negotiate, but in America Medicare and Medicaid are the only ones that do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

2. Control the number of doctors that can be in an area. And if an area already does this, control it more. Lower the number of doctors so that when prices drop, they can make up for it in volume. Maybe even start controlling the number of people that can be accepted to medical school.

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We have an issue right now with not enough health care workers including doctors being available to cover all the patients so I'm not so sure that would work out. They did recently try to promote nurse practitioners to a doctorate level partially to try and compensate for the lack of doctors (which would likely help drive down the salaries being paid a bit, as while NP salaries might increase they would still be lower than a MD) although that was stopped by the ruling board of NPs. As is hospitals already have a small team of doctors who command a fleet of NPs to spread out the workload, but this is still leaving us with shortages.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

Which demographic has the most fatties?

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America.

Fuck yeah.

It's as I thought.
http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-a...ht-or-obesity/

A fat tax would punish lower income people the most. Though the article does state that higher incomes are getting fatter at a faster rate over an extended period of time, poor women and children make up the fattest americans.

I guess it's time to make class warfare a two way street.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

I guess it's time to make class warfare a two way street.

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You're hilarious. Won't someone think of the rich people?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name

A fat tax would punish lower income people the most. Though the article does state that higher incomes are getting fatter at a faster rate over an extended period of time, poor women and children make up the fattest americans.

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The way our food industry is set up is probably the biggest issue there, though crime is also somewhat of a factor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josh

You're hilarious. Won't someone think of the rich people?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by GohanX

I wouldn't be surprised if a fat tax wasn't next.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josh

I look forward to it.

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Who did you think this was going to target? Rush Limbaugh, Chris Christie, and no one else?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josh

Won't someone think of the rich people?

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This summarizes the political debate of the past 35 years perfectly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

Who did you think this was going to target? Rush Limbaugh, Chris Christie, and no one else?

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Implying there hasn't been a top down class war going on for fucking ever.

ONE TIN SOLDIER RIDES AWAY-AH

My comment was intended to be tongue in cheek. I just thought your response was odd.

Everyone interested in learning about obesity and this nation's health needs to read this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/ma...junk-food.html

What you'll learn is that the 'food' industry has been scientifically engineering addictive garbage, peddling it in subtle and deceiving ways, and stonewalling legitimate research while funding phony misleading research. They are the new tobacco industry.

The problem starts there.

That article reminds me of a discussion I had with my wife recently. Those without kids probably don't know, but McDonald's several years back changed their Happy Meals to include your choice of fries or apple slices. Then, roughly a year ago, they changed it again to include both. My wife was wondering why, as it likely costs them more. My cynical but I think correct ass told her that it's so they could ensure another generation got hooked on their fries, which is really what I think gets people in the door at McDonald's.

It also trains people into believing that the reward for eating good food is eating bad food.

Why would anyone go to McDonalds for a god damn apple?

For various reasons.

We should split diff's post with the link and everything related into a separate thread. I suspect lots of people would be interested in that but want to avoid the overtly political threads.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

That article reminds me of a discussion I had with my wife recently. Those without kids probably don't know, but McDonald's several years back changed their Happy Meals to include your choice of fries or apple slices. Then, roughly a year ago, they changed it again to include both. My wife was wondering why, as it likely costs them more. My cynical but I think correct ass told her that it's so they could ensure another generation got hooked on their fries, which is really what I think gets people in the door at McDonald's.

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IBTN. My daughter is banned from french fries until she is much older, but it would help if the fucking day care would quit feeding her shit during the day. Luckily, she prefers vegetables anyway.

It doesn't help that the apples at Mcdonalds are bland and horrible. Mother fuckers need to put some golden delicious or granny smith applies in there.

I don't know what parents can o about french fries. I'm pretty sure public schools still serve them once a week. Everyday if the school gives the student a choice between the normal meal and a soyburger meal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fe 26

It doesn't help that the apples at Mcdonalds are bland and horrible. Mother fuckers need to put some golden delicious or granny smith applies in there.

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I think it's that they take the skins off. That's where a lot of the flavor is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Which also has a link to this article.

In particular, and related to the previous discussion of Medicare, is this part:In other countries insurance providers actively negotiate, but in America Medicare and Medicaid are the only ones that do.We have an issue right now with not enough health care workers including doctors being available to cover all the patients so I'm not so sure that would work out. They did recently try to promote nurse practitioners to a doctorate level partially to try and compensate for the lack of doctors (which would likely help drive down the salaries being paid a bit, as while NP salaries might increase they would still be lower than a MD) although that was stopped by the ruling board of NPs. As is hospitals already have a small team of doctors who command a fleet of NPs to spread out the workload, but this is still leaving us with shortages.

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you and the article use the word 'negotiate' deceptively. There is not a medicare/medicaid main office that a care giver can call up and debate prices with. Caregivers agree to accept medicare and medicaid and in doing so they agree to whatever price they set and whatever care they agree they will pay for.

I don't know about you, but that isn't my idea of a negotiation. And I don't think most people would put up with getting a job somewhere AND THEN LATER find out what their pay was or that they would or would not get paid to do certain things at work.

And to add insult to injury, medicare and medicaid are rarely consistent with how much and what they will pay for. Or how they want you to file it. Or how long it will take them to pay it.

The word isn't being used deceptively and the article spells out what kind what kind of negotiating happens between what groups. Negotiating isn't only haggling on a person-to-person level.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

The word isn't being used deceptively and the article spells out what kind what kind of negotiating happens between what groups. Negotiating isn't only haggling on a person-to-person level.

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From the article

Quote:

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Other countries negotiate very aggressively with the providers and set rates that are much lower than we do,” Anderson says. They do this in one of two ways. In countries such as Canada and Britain, prices are set by the government. In others, such as Germany and Japan, they’re set by providers and insurers sitting in a room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail.

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The government telling you what the price will be is not a negotiation.

And the US does not do it like Germany or Japan. There is no room that 'they' go sit in and decide prices.

The government steps in if they can't come to an agreement. That doesn't mean negotiation doesn't happen.

You're really trying to latch onto semantics here for some reason, so since you clearly have no real input on the matter I'll just move on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

The government steps in if they can't come to an agreement. That doesn't mean negotiation doesn't happen.

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I'm telling you, as someone that has spent the past 25 fucking years of his life around medicare, medicaid and whole fucking process around it, that shit is not negotiated with care givers.

If you want to ignore that because of an opinion piece, you're dull and stupid and choosing to believe what you want even when presented with facts and opinions to the contrary.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

You're really trying to latch onto semantics here for some reason, so since you clearly have no real input on the matter I'll just move on.

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No, you're just being an idiot that wants to believe something and doesn't care about the truth. It has nothing to do with semantics.

In the US, medicare and medicaid do not negotiate with caregivers. You're the one playing at semantics by trying warp the meaning of the word.

WE GET IT YOUR DAD IS A DOCTOR.

I love how every thread like this IP pretends to have all of his dads empirical data and experiences through redneck osmosis.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

I love how every thread like this IP pretends to have all of his dads empirical data and experiences through redneck osmosis.

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Wouldn't that just make him a walking moonshine still?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

WE GET IT YOUR DAD IS A DOCTOR.

I love how every thread like this IP pretends to have all of his dads empirical data and experiences through redneck osmosis.

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I wonder what your dad does for a living.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

WE GET IT YOUR DAD IS A DOCTOR.

I love how every thread like this IP pretends to have all of his dads empirical data and experiences through redneck osmosis.

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And that it's representative of the whole US. I wonder how much time he's actually spent in a hospital dealing with this stuff.

Remember folks, IP's anecdotal evidence trumps all other real evidence