dagblog - Comments for ""Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!"

This is the problem with

CMN — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:57:46 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

This is the problem with arguing with Liberals; they only have emotional reactions that aren't based on reality.

I can back my assertations up, and when I can't, I have the ability to admit that I'm wrong.

You guys can't admit that stealing from anyone for the sole benefit of another person is wrong.

No, the facts are that 72% of

CMN — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:56:00 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

No, the facts are that 72% of americans want healthcare to *change*. Not a public option.

Only 16% of americans think that Obama's plan will be a change that will positively affect them.

That's true; by assailing the

El Presidente — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:11:15 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

That's true; by assailing the usual and flawed arguments for government sponsored care, I don't mean to imply that the current system is ideal, or even that it is reasonably decent.

I just mean to imply that government isn't the solution to the problem.

To my mind the problem is that we're thinking about the problem th wrong way; we're thinking of health care as a risk rather than a product. Health insurance isn't really insurance at all; the vast majority of the expenses incurred are not a matter of risk, they're a matter of choice, or a matter of time.

Here's what I mean:

1. Insurance is a way of preventing low-probability, high-impact events from causing disproportionate effects. By spreading the risk, we gain a net benefit; we all get to stop worrying about it.

2. Health insurance doesn't do that. The vast majority of health costs are either inevitable at some point (think of nursing home care or vaccinations), or lifestyle choices (obstetrics, lung cancer related to smoking, heart disease, etc.). This means that moral hazard is a greater concern (smoking sure ought to be illegal if the government is paying for the chemo), and that risk really isn't the problem.

3. The problem, such as it is, is that some people can't afford health care, or, more accurately, that some people would like to buy more health care than they can afford. We've papered over the problem, partially, by calling health costs an insurable risk. As a result, the people who fall into the above category ae now called "uninsured" rather than "poor".

4. The result is that we have a system with all the barnacles but none (well, few) of the benefits. All the yelping about managed care now is by the by; managed care was introduced as a way of reducing costs, and for some years it was successful.

5. Government run health insurance wouldn't solve any of these problems, it would just ensure that everyone suffered from them.

6. The real problem is not distribution, it's desire. Health care is important to people. People will, if permitted, consume a virtually limitless amount of health care, because nothing (God aside) is likely to be more important than continued life. This means that health care can and will break the bank - any bank - with the ongoing march of technological advancement and the commensurate training rquirements of health professions. We can do more, but it costs more. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

7. "No republic has long outlived the discovery by a majority of its people that they could vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."

Alexander Tytler

That should about sum it up.

Again, under the current

cuchulain — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:07:37 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

Again, under the current system, wealth is being "redistributed". It's going from us into the pockets of fat cat insurance and big pharma execs, along with doctors and hospitals that overcharge.

Wealth is "redistributed" by the insurance companies. They take all of the premiums you send them, and pay for services rendered for OTHER people. They make huge profits on JUST those premiums, copays and out sourcing. They make sure they pay out less than they take in. They hire people to make sure that happens. And the number of people they've hired to do that has skyrocketed.

Young, healthy people who don't get sick pay for the health care of older folks who do. In general, the healthy pay for the sick.

You're not paying for your own health care when you have private insurance. You're paying for other people's health care through a collected, collective pool. And when YOU'RE sick, they pay for YOUR treatments.

As for who you want deciding coverage for you. I'd MUCH rather have career civil servant making that decision than for-profit insurers whose job it is to collect more cash than they pay out.

The government doesn't have to worry about making profits or paying its execs eight figure salaries.

I have no idea why anyone in their right mind WOULDN'T rather have a career civil servant making that decision.

A few things. First, you

El Presidente — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:21:06 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

A few things.

First, you know nothing about me, and whether or not I even have health insurance.

Second, pointing out the practical effects (transferring money from healthy people to sick people, with no regard for ability to pay, let alone lifestyle choices, etc.) is hardly the cave man's thinking. It's rational thinking, full stop. Something rarely encountered in health care debates to be sure, but it is what it is. I make no moral judgments; I'm just pointing out the actual effects of policies.

Third, one of the main reasons I don't support government involvement in health care is precisely that I'm worried that someone I love will get sick. I do not want Rahm Emanuel or Mitch McConnell deciding how much care my loved ones shall receive.

I'm honestly surprised that anyone does.

John, That's why Obama and

cuchulain — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:02:41 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

John,

That's why Obama and the Dems are pushing for effective medicine review. It's a big part of their reform measures.

These could be implemented along with Single Payer.

What it is, essentially, is peer-reviewed standards of what works, what's effective, and what's overtreatment, as you mention. Most of it is just common sense. Most of it deals with the abuse we all knows happens. Running dozens of tests when the doc already knows it's with a much smaller range of possibility.

Most doctors and hospitals do that in house. They streamline care on their own. They work like technical troubleshooters, eliminating variables, doing process of elimination.

But some don't. Some take advantage of the system.

That could be reduced.

And, we could leave safeguards in place allowing for special circumstances. Always do that, I'd say.

Insurance is the single biggest problem right now. It's the thing that has the least to do with health care and the most logical thing to cut. Medicare practice is next in line for reform. But the insurance part of the deal, the for-profit insurance side, is simply in the way. It's a parasitic middleman that doesn't need to be between doctors and their patients.

with singlepayor you would

JohnRove — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:41:07 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

with singlepayor you would still get the overtreatment and needless specialists only they would bill the government rather than an insurance company.

The whole system is screwed up not just the insurance side.

Oleeb, He's yet another

cuchulain — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:22:21 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

Oleeb,

He's yet another John Galt wingnut, like CMN.

Their basic philosophy is "I've got mine, screw everyone else!"

They'll get their comeuppance one of these days. They'll find themselves in need of help and they'll take it gladly, despite bloviating the way they do about their tremendous self-reliance and moral superiority.

Writ large, this is like the governor of Texas bitching and moaning about government interference, but then taking massive federal funds after hurricanes devastated his state.

They want to secede from the union until they need the union to bail them out.

Phonies and hypocrites, all of them.

The difference in overhead is

cuchulain — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:16:04 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

The difference in overhead is just one aspect. It's a huge aspect but it's just one. That's the difference for the systems themselves. As in, on the INSURANCE side of the ledger.

Single Payer, as I said, would dramatically reduce costs for health care PROVIDERS. Right now, they are swamped with paper work. They have to deal with hundreds of plans and dozens of insurers. Some regional, some local, some national.

That would change with Single Payer. One source. One place to send all of your bills.

Other cost savings:

We pay far, far more for drugs than they do in Canada, Europe and in much of Asia. Big Pharma rips us off constantly. Single Payer would have tremendous power in negotiating lower payment rates. Medicare did this before Congress meddled with it and helped Big Pharma yet again with Part B. Get rid of all of the privatization in Medicare, make it 100% non-profit, and it has the power to force lower prices, at least to normal rates seen in MOST countries.

As for that "transfer of wealth" you speak of. That's being done under the current system. Private insurance companies make ginormous profits by adding zero to the quality of our health care. They are totally unnecessary and parasitic. They suck up trillions of dollars that should be going directly for health care, and not for their eight figure salaries, yachts and lavish homes and vacations, etc.

You also "transfer wealth" when you send them your premiums each month. If you're young and healthy, especially, you're paying for the health care of the older and sicker people who need coverage from your insurance company. The insurance company collects premiums, copays and out of pocket expenses into a huge pool. Many people pay in far more than they ever use. Many other people use far more than they ever pay in.

There's virtually no difference between that model and paying taxes for insurance. Except for the most important one:

Single Payer would be non-profit. You wouldn't be paying for eight figure salaries. You wouldn't be paying to make an unnecessary middleman filthy rich. Your tax dollars, minus less than 3%, would be going toward HEALTH CARE. Unlike with private insurance.

Also. The government has no incentive to deny coverage. Private insurers do. They lose money when they cover people, which is why they're invested in "recission" and "purging" right now.

Private insurers also keep jacking up their rates, year after year after year. Their profits have soared for decades.

The government doesn't have to worry about pleasing greedy executives and stockholders. It just needs to run an efficient department. Medicare is already massively more efficient than any private insurer. If it covered everyone, it could easily increase those efficiencies.

You're just wrong, willfully

oleeb — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:56:02 +0000

In reply to "Health Reform" Proposals in Congress: No Connection to Reality The Time for Single Payer is NOW!

You're just wrong, willfully ignorant and justifying your preference with unsupportable rhetoric but no facts of any kind. Your concept of transfering money from the healthy to the sick is the thinking of a cave man. No civilized country on earth respects that sort of opinion. Not even here in America is that position respectable. You should be ashamed, but I understand you are too far gone for that. Of course, the moment you or someone in your family gets sick and needs help you'll change your tune instantly. You're a hypocrite just waiting to be exposed.