70% of current health insurance policies are issued through employer based group insurance. How is this in any way a free market when the insured has no input on which insurer is selected? Are you suggesting we radically reform the health insurance model we now have and abandon the employer-based model?
A major difference between health insurance and other types of insurance is the constantly, rapidly increasing cost of health care. This is caused by a variety of things (advances in medical science, aging population, huge liability settlements, etc.), and creates an incentive for health insurance providers to employ some really devious tactics to cut costs. gonzomax’s story about his brother is a sadly typical example.
I know that there are sometimes local auto insurance crises related to costs paid out, but they are usually confined to certain states (Massachusetts and New Jersey were having problems a while back), and not as permanent as rising health care costs.
And even people denied auto insurance for being bad drivers can decide to drive more safely and eventually qualify for coverage (not to mention that some states have laws requiring companies to cover bad drivers, albeit at high premiums, until they do drive more safely). The auto-insurance equivalent of a ‘pre-existing condition’ can be ‘cured’. Try telling a health insurer that you’re over your diabetes or colitis.
:rolleyes:
Here’s why you do this: you are not intellectually capable of arguing with me on the merits, so you argue that I am evil and can therefore be safely ignored.
I express glee at the demise of health care reform because it is an extremely bad idea. The people that back it do so because they have a very fucked up politival philosophy. I’m looking at things on a more long-term basis than “does Joe have health insurance or not.”. This health care reform bill is not necessary to give Joe health insurance or health care–charity could do that today. And Joe may currently be choosing to not have health insurance–not evberyone withouit health insurance cannot obtain it.
Haha, seriously? Of all the people on the board I can tangle with, I’m intimidated by your intellect?
No, the subject interests me because in recent years I’ve come to realize that many of the people I share certain political beliefs and conclusions with are evil. Which isn’t to say that the beliefs themselves are evil, or even wrong. But the intentions often are, and it bears relevance to how they would handle the specifics of the issues.
It makes me somewhat uncomfortable, but it’s something I’m interested in fully fleshing out.
In any case, I’m not slavishly devoted to ideology. I seem to be the only person in the entire fucking world who sees the evidence and then fits their ideology to it, rather than develop an ideology and fit the evidence to it. I’ve always heard (prior to recent years) that the US health system is the envy of the world, and that those nationalized hellholes had people die in droves waiting forever on treatments that never came. It was compatable with my assumptions about government-run health care, and I’d never been exposed to the evidence, so I took it as true. In recent years, I’ve seen that the evidence contradicts that view - that other countries get WAY more quality medical treatment per dollar than we do, and the gap is widening. Rather than be blinded by faith in my ideology that government couldn’t get that one right, I accept the evidence as it is.
Which isn’t to say that I support any particular plan or even think the proposals under consideration would significantly help us. But, upon seeing the actual evidence, I no longer dismiss the idea out of hand. I’ve considered arguments as to why health care does not respond well to free market pressures and decided that they have some merit.
Our system is pretty severely broken, and playing up the status quo as not only fine, but the envy of the world is sad and harmful.
That said, I’d love to attack the problem from other directions too, like detaching health care from employment through reversing tax incentives, opening up medical school accredation to increase the supply of doctors, etc.
This is so absurd that I’m not sure what planet you’re from. Charity is great, and I think a lot of people are very charitable. But charities aren’t out there handing out people tens of thousands of dollars for medical care. They’re not buying insurance for people. Your idea that we don’t need any sort of reform because oh, we’ll figure out a way to insure 50 or 60 million people through charity is so ridiculous that it doesn’t deserve any sort of serious consideration. It’s a total cop out.
You also simplify the issue. The issue here isn’t only that many people are uninsured - but that insurance companies regularly break the spirit of their agreement to stiff people who were indeed responsible enough to have insurance. A significant minority of employers don’t even offer health insurance - what’s your solution to that? Should 30 or 40 percent of the country just get a better job? Is that even logically possible? There are many issues to fix with our system before you even give government run insurance money to anyone - and yet as far as I can tell you oppose every part of the reform and refuse to admit that there’s anything fundamentally flawed about our system.
Rand Rover said: “This health care reform bill is not necessary to give Joe health insurance or health care–charity could do that today. And Joe may currently be choosing to not have health insurance–not evberyone withouit health insurance cannot obtain it.”
I thought you wanted people to plan ahead and take care of themselves. They could do that with HC coverage for preventive care better that waiting to get sick and relying on charity to get care, couldn’t they?
Hey SB, I didn’t say you were intimidated by my intellect, I said you are intellectually incapable of arguing with me, so you impugn my motives instead. It doesn’t take any smarts rto just say that I am evil, so that’s what you do. It allows you to feel better about your inability to argue with me on an intellectual level because, after all, I’m just some evil guy.
And the rest of your post proves your intellectual inability. You are looking at the issue narrowly as only a health issue or a health care issue or a health insurance issue (and you don’t really do a good job of separating those things out, or even understanding that they are separate things). You aren’t looking at all of the other practical problems and consequences of government-provided health insurance or UHC or the current reform bill or whatever.
I’m looking at long-term full-societal pros and cons of different ways to set up a government. I think one where people are made to be dependent on government solutions (or come to expect that the government is the only way to provide a solution) is a bad thing for lots of reasons, including that it blocks oportunity and motivation for private sector solutions (and note that charities are in the private sector). Government solutions also inevitably require taxes to pay for it (either now or in the future to repay debt), which has a whole host of other problems (including reducing the incentive to produce and increasing the incentive to attempt to influence the government to obtain special tax reductions).
Bottom line is I am also looking at practicalities, just on a larger and more long-term scale than you are. You can’t understand this so you call me evil so you don’t feel stupid.
The Other Waldo Pepper: your faith in removing the antitrust exemption as being a significant step forward in making health care more affordable is not shared by the Congressional Budget Office, which is a pretty good impartial arbiter of these kinds of matters.
CBO commented on the bill to eliminate the antitrust exemption:
So if your preferred solution is not expected to change anything, what is your plan B?
You look at the issue without ever actually considering health care, which is hardly a better approach.
Look, this is not complicated. Poorer countries are able to offer health insurance to all their residents without too much difficulty, and some have been doing it for 75 years. There is absolutely no reason that we cannot also do so.
Your objection is based solely on your own personal ideology and has absolutely nothing to do with the efficacy or the consequences of health care reform. Well, that’s fine - but don’t throw out nonsense like “charity could do it”. Charity exists, and does not do it, even in the most generous country on earth.
Now, I will agree as a practical matter that the current bill is a bad one, but that’s because every worthwhile item in the original was culled to appease Olympia Snowe.
My personal ideology is based on the practical consequences of different ways to set up a government.
Similarly, I could say that your support for health care reform is based solely on your personal ideology and has absolutely nothing to do with the efficacy or consequences of a government that has lots of long-term large-scale entitlement programs. Why do you think all the rest of us should suffer for your personal ideology?
This is stupid. This thread here is basically to say HAHA BITCHES, DID YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY DENY YOU A NEEDED TREATMENT? MAYBE YOU LOST YOUR JOB WHEN YOU HAD DIABETES AND NOW YOU CAN’T GET MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES!. HAHAHAHAHA YOU IRRESPONSIBLE BITCHES, MY TAX DOLLARS AREN’T GOING TO BAIL YOU OUT NOW!
Look at this thread title. This is not an attempt to hash out the intellectual arguments involved here, this is you being a dick. I called you on being a dick. That’s not a cop out on my part. I’ve participated in the health care debates in GD and I’m quite confident that I have a greater grasp of the issues than you do (if only because my views are amenable to evidence). I understand the basis of your ideology, since I shared it and mostly still share it in broad strokes. I’ve participated substantively in debate in those threads. This is not one of those threads.
You assume that my posting to this thread, which by and large is not a health care debate but you gloating, is the entirety of my understanding of the issues, which is of course incorrect. My point only is that you gleefully defend the status quo, which is imperfect and broken, a system that hurts millions, and you assume it to be somehow a just system, by which if anyone is screwed then it’s their own fault. My point was merely that even if you oppose the idea of government subsidies or universal coverage, certainly we can acknowledge flaws in the current system and the need for some form of reform. But you seem to be gleefully shitting on all of it.
I’ve already said that I was against any sort of government run health care in the past. Do you think at thet time I didn’t understand the problems involved with it? You are making not only unfounded assumptions, but ones that conflict with the information I’ve given. You are the one here assuming that anyone who doesn’t see the brilliance of your ways must not have thought much about the issue, but it’s quite possible for reasonable people to disagree on this issue.
Quite frankly - your concern about the long term is interesting. Do you think that countries like Canada and Great Britain are headed for economic collapse because of their medical systems? Even though they pay significantly less as a fraction of their GDP on health care, less per citizen, and less for any given procedure, you seem to think they’re going to bankrupt themselves simply because the money comes from the public sector instead of the private sector. Do you think that they’re in serious trouble, or do you think it’s impossible for us to realize the benefits of their systems? Our costs are increasing at a greater rate than theirs, and our bureaucracy eats up over a third of all medical spending. If their governmental systems were that inefficient, you would call it disastrous.
No, quite frankly, the status quo is unsustainable. We already pay way more than anyone else for roughly equal outcomes, and the difference between what we’re paying is increasing. There’s much room to argue for the nature of reforms, but if one is truly concerned for the long term impact, some form of reform is clearly necesary.
There are other people who have debated against the proposed legislation who I haven’t implied whatsoever are dicks, nor do I think they’re dicks. Sam Stone and Bricker for example. There would be no point for me to proactively enter a debate that I knew I was wrong and outclassed in and just start calling everyone dicks - no, I’m calling you a dick (probably! again, I have to try to read between the lines to ascertain your motivation and that’s imperfect) because you are a dick. Mean spirited and I think you take some joy in the suffering of others.
The only people I take joy in the suffering of is liberal douches qua liberal douches. I don’t take joy in the suffering of poor people qua poor people.
Also, you have changed your charge of me being evil to me being a dick. I’ll certainly agree that I’m being a dick in this thread if what you mean by that is gloating that liberal douches won’t get to pass a liberal douche policy. But that doesn’t mean I’m evil and hate poor people.
I’ll respond to the rest of your inane post later.
It’s got nothing to do with my ideology. It’s all about practicality. For-profit health systems have proven to be grossly inefficient and deliver significantly worse healthcare outcomes at a significantly higher cost.
And again, you are only looking at the narrow issue of health care and not at the broader practical issues (even assuming what you are saying is true, which is of course highly arguable).
Such as?
More tax cuts for the wealthy. What else?
Health care will never be a narrow issue.
But as we have seen, for RR, ideology trumps all; he’d rather pay more and have everyone pay more, just so long as the evil “government” does not deliver services that he deems not to be appropriate. If this results in increased deaths, bankruptcies, or poor health outcomes for the nation - so be it. As long as the purity of the ideology is maintained.
And many people would rather have more governmental involvement in health care even though increasing the size of government presents numerous long-term practical difficulties. If I am being ideological, so are they.
No, your personal ideology is based on a book you once read. Duh.
The “numerous long-term difficulties” you speak of is simply more of your ideology of “government = bad”.
It’s simply a way of saying “bad things will happen in the future if we do this - I have no idea what these bad things are, but they’ll be bad because my ideology says they will be bad”
“They” are not being ideological, because they can point to countries that have government involvement in universal health care. Many of these countries have been doing this for a number of years, and the only “long-term difficulties” for these countries have been better health outcomes, longer lifespans and bitching about wait times for non-urgent surgeries. None of them have gone bankrupt yet. So “They” actually have evidence to point to, rather than your hollow ideological theory.
Of course you can always fall back on the American Exceptionalism argument; even though other nations around the world can do it with no “long-term difficulties”, you can always try to convince us that the USA is particularly inept. I don’t happen to agree with this line of reasoning.