Not to be confused with “Death Panels” . . . 'cause they’re like totally different!
CMC fnord!
I do indeed have ideas. Subsidies for good health practices, for instance. This could be accomplished through regular blood work, for instance. Most health care problems could be greatly reduced through better nutrition and health practices.
Also, having a single-payer system would reduce costs by roughly 20%. Yes, it might reduce quality of care slightly…but if everyone were eating like they should, exercising, etc., then the system wouldn’t be overclogged with patients, so there’d pretty much be no noticeable change in quality of care.
I have other ideas, but nobody cares. I make sense, and that’s so unusual in the discussion that it scares people.
Not torturing would make everyone better off and would harm no one. It harms all involved. Yet we do it for the sexual excitement it engenders in its proponents. They could substitute almost anything else.
That’s wonderful and all - did you come to the wrong thread or did you think the conversation was about torture? You’ll have to help out with relevance.
You made a general statement about principles. The road to hell is paved with principles, torture and lack of health care. About as relevant as the balanced diet stuff you were trying to force us to consume. Torture might involve rectally consuming it.
Tort reform wouldn’t make that much of a difference- malpractice lawsuits (including the cost of defensive medicine) make up less than 3% of the cost of American healthcare. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2010/09/07/the-true-cost-of-medical-malpractice-it-may-surprise-you/
He knows. He’s not arguing from sincerity on that issue. Have you seriously not encountered him before?
So a discussion about health care and health insurance, which arguably is concerned with people’s health similar to healthy diets is related to torture in your mind? Does that really make sense to you? I understand the need to try and seem witty or get points for flare but this is just confused flailing.
You ought to see how the…heavier folk…react when I mention changing their diets. Many of them would, literally, prefer torture. No kidding.
and they are what is so expensive in our health care system, largely.
No, they are actually related - death panels are an extreme example of the rationing of care. If we are serious about saving money on health care, we will need to say No. As in “your grandfather has dementia, we are going to let him die of pneumonia to save money. Your newborn weighs only 1500 grams - we are going to leave her to die to save money.” Etc.
Regards,
Shodan
There are different levels of seriousness about saving money. After all, the very best way to save money is to spend zero – no one gets health care is the cheapest health care system. But we can be “serious” and still not say “No” to a grandpa with dementia and a low-birth-weight baby.
“Reasonable” always contains the rational, but the rational is not always reasonable. If a rational solution offends our humanity, it is not a reasonable solution.
Similarly, if an arcane exercise in legalistic theology can offer two outcomes, one rational and one reasonable, we should choose the reasonable solution even if it were not as strictly rational. If the most exacting and strictly precise rationale would lead us to decide to injure or even to permit suffering needlessly, it must be rejected. We are humans, not spreadsheets, this is the superiority of reason over rationalism.
Please note that I do not address the question from my authority as Queen of Romania, as that would be unreasonable.
For further proof of the illegitimacy of the King/Halbig argument, please examine this article on the vertical integration at work in this case.
The legitimacy has already been explained by local, legal experts on both sides of the political spectrum. Linking you some article and saying "go read and explain this’ is just another indication that you are unwilling to accept that you’re wrong.
Two plus two equals five is wrong. Coors produces beer, also wrong. Sometimes, “wrong” is clear and unequivocal. But not as often as we would hope.
In this instance, we have acknowledged legal scholars at odds, the World’s Foremost Authority on one side, Judge Parker on the other. And other lesser lights too minor and numerous to merit recognition. The issue is not clearly resolved.
In such a situation as this, the humane interpretation is to be preferred. Otherwise, we value the law above the purpose for law. If there were some dreadful national emergency that demanded no other option but that thousands (perhaps millions?) of our fellow citizens should suffer ill health and even death…perhaps then.
I contend that is not the case with “the calm confidence of a Methodist with four aces”.
Therefore, we should issue a Writ of Oopsy-Daisy and proceed with the ACA. We can be sure needful corrections will surface, we will tinker, we will fix. Opportunity to correct irregularities will abound,. Performing a semantic transplant is not a difficult procedure.
It’s because I’m not. I’m just calling this bullshit as I see it. 
Do you guys remember the famous conservative meme about ACA death spirals? You know, the massive insurance hikes that were supposed to take place after the ACA came online & nobody but the sick & elderly signed up, creating a cascading effect that would eventually decimate the entire industry?
The ironic thing about this fiasco is that because the death spirals never materialized - and WON’T ever materialize barring the outcome of this lawsuit - the lunatic masterminds of King are DELIBERATELY trying to create them in order to further sabotage the ACA.
Fucking pathetic.
The verdict is very much out on these. They are being held somewhat in check at this time by interim reinsurance provisions and temporary risk corridors. Attention should be paid to the words “interim” and “temporary” here, and what happens when these phase out is an open question.
See some discussion from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners
What reason is there to think that the phase-out of risk corridors will lead to premium increases?
I thought their purpose was to avoid the necessity of a risk premium to account for uncertainty about who would sign up in the individual market. Whether the program does so successfully or not (which we don’t know as of this date), by 2016 much of that uncertainty about who will be in the market will be gone, so any consequent premium increase wouldn’t have anything to do with the risk corridors, would it?
There was a lot more uncertainty when the program first began. But there’s always some uncertainty as there’s turnover from year to year.
[And it’s not just uncertainty about “who will be in the market” but who will be in the specific plan being offered and priced by the insurer. To the extent that they have to be concerned about the consequences of misjudging the risk pool, they have to be more conservative in pricing, which then makes healthier people less incented to enroll.]
Right. The point is that there’s no particular reason to think premium increases resulting from uncertainty will be deferred to 2016, as you suggest, because the uncertainty in 2016 will be much lower.