dagblog - Comments for "Obamacare changes thread: 1) Administration will allow people to switch health-care plans to a limited degree"

Yes!

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:10:04 +0000

In reply to While I am there I will check

Yes!

Yes, I covet one, but my

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:07:25 +0000

In reply to one word: Tesla...(0-60 in

Yes, I covet one, but my resources force me to wait for the Volksla.

While I am there I will check

EmmaZahn — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 04:19:03 +0000

In reply to Well, being Jewish, I'm

While I am there I will check out their microgrid electrical system, too.

....in the face of hundreds of blackouts in 2005, Cuba reorganized its electricity transmission system into networked microgrids and cut the occurrence of blackouts to zero within two years, limiting damage even after two hurricanes.

I really would like to visit Cuba before the crowds rush in. Love Art Deco architecture. I would like to see how well it survived before it is modernized.

one word: Tesla...(0-60 in

jollyroger — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 03:12:07 +0000

In reply to Well, being Jewish, I'm

one word: Tesla...(0-60 in 3.5 seconds....to quote the Honorable Speaker, "Are ya kiddin' me?"

Edit to add: Just before I met her, Baby and her then-fiance made the Cuban trip via some casino island off the coast of Mexico (name escapes me, but the trip was without misadventure...)...send me the collection, I'll go.

Plus, I'm connected--my late first cousin once removed was married to Fidel's girlfriend's sister (does that make him some kind of n-brother-in-law?)

Well, being Jewish, I'm

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:49:44 +0000

In reply to Here's a non fantasy system

Well, being Jewish, I'm genetically inclined to be a communist. As I've gotten older, I've gradually moved a bit away from Karl Marxism toward Groucho Marxism, but I can still give you 19 year-olds a run for your money.

Here's the thing: I bought a hybrid, but I'll be happy to buy an all-electric when it's ready for prime time.

In the meantime, perhaps we should chip in and send AA and Emma down to Havana on a medical fact-finding mission and have them report back. Just to make sure Michael wasn't just selling us a bunch of political swill.

Here's a non fantasy system

jollyroger — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:22:13 +0000

In reply to Here's the thing: We have

Here's a non fantasy system with fantastic results.

In Cuba, they have roughly three times as many doctors per capita as we, and they pay them roughly 150% of the pay for bus drivrs (possibly recognizing the crucial role of bus driving in keeping you alive, who knows...?)

Of course, the private part of the hybrid is really, really, teeny--(that's why its called Communism).

The only thing I'll say here

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:15:34 +0000

In reply to The link is a year old, and

The only thing I'll say here for the record is that you accused me of being a political operative, not the other way around.

Yes I did. It showed that

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:12:41 +0000

In reply to Outcomes, son, outcomes.

Yes I did. It showed that Medicaid was more cost-effective per patient than the VA. As we sit here. Why would be the thing to delve into.

Yes, theoretically, single provider should be able to control costs just by sitting on them and not allowing them to go up.

Here's the thing: We have

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 01:06:59 +0000

In reply to Sometimes shitty policies are

Here's the thing: We have basically three choices.

• All private.

• Hybrid private/public

• All public.

I'm not sure any countries have all private systems. This is basically the libertarian desideratum, and they claim, without evidence, that it would work best.

The hybrid system is what we have and most countries have. We're weighted more heavily toward the private than most Western countries. Even Medicare and Medicaid are hybrids: The government pays but the private sector (more or less) provides.

Then there's the all-public system, like the NHS and VA For All. Of course, even there, you do have private enterprise. Most of the wealthy people in the UK buy their private insurance or self-insure and go to see their Harley Street doctors.

In a hybrid system you have a tension between public and private that is a feature, not a bug. So Obama, in fact, was NOT lying when he said that if you like your insurance policy you can keep it. The only party that can decide which insurance policy you get to keep is your insurance company. It can't uninsure you, and it has to provide you with 10 essential benefits, but it can change your policy. It's a private company that simply has to obey new rules. The ACA is the new book of rules, but it doesn't provide the insurance.

Saying Obama lied is like saying: He told us we could our cars with any kind of gas we wanted and then wouldn't let us fill our cars with leaded gasoline. Well no, you can't do that, even if you've been doing so up to the minute that leaded gas was banded. You can, of course, fill your car with any sort of gas that ExxonMobil et al are willing to sell you (that also meets federal regulations).

You might have caught this little bit of (humorous) nonsense that went something like this: Horrors! When convicts get released from prison they can't get Medicaid. The ACA isn't fixing this! Then, the next day, when this was fixed at warp speed and prisoners got Medicaid inside prison as well as after their release, it was: Horrors! The private sector is pigging out at the public trough! All concern for the prisoners and their health seemingly had vanished as the new complaint blotted it out.

Now the complaint is that scrawny ladies are going to get Medicaid. Why? Because someone is profiting from it. Why? Because we have a hybrid public/private system. The details can be tricky to work out and the solution isn't elegant--hybrid solutions aren't--but, at the moment, it has a BIG advantage over fantasy plans, IMO.

Outcomes, son, outcomes.

jollyroger — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 00:12:37 +0000

In reply to Yes, we have. But having lost

Outcomes, son, outcomes.

Was it not YOU who came with the article from the ecnomist.

BTW, when it comes to cost control, you are not (I hope) going to seriously argue that there is anything better than single provider, are you? (wait, maybe you conceded that already in the post to which I am responding--TLDR....)

Edit to add: I have already, elsewhere, posited an expanded and federalized Medicaid coupled with expanded vocational school access to provide the needed personnel...sadly, it never made it out of committee...