Agreed. Size undetermined from available evidence.
Putting aside my ever growing sickness of the hackneyed (not a strong enough word) “kool-aid” analogy…and since this has veered into a socialized medicine discussion, I’ll just state my view for Dr Rael.
For markets to be efficient, people must be allowed to be priced out of a particular market for scarce resources. That’s OK for most things and leads to the most productive allocation of those resources. But with medical care, doctors (and all us really) have an ethical duty to try and treat anyone who presents in need of care.
So until we dispense with these silly (dare I say Christian) ethical considerations, we HAVE socialized medicine.
The question is just how to administer it, and the fact that that we (the US) have so much money and yet are ranked so low in health indicators suggests that our system needs to be rationalized. And until the per capita death rate sinks below 100%, I don’t see why we all shouldn’t have to pay in.
Flip–libertarian for Obama who hates pie and kool aid. 
But how do you feel about Kool-Aid Pie?
Sounds delightfully sweet! I’d try adding cream cheese to the mix and cutting the milk in half. No-bake Kool-aid Cheesecake!
And then I’d serve it at an Obama rally! Woohoo!
Am I the only one who sees “Obama and his Kool Aid Drinking Puppets” and thinks it would be a good band name ?
I certainly hope so.
My guess, and hope, is that you’re the only one who “sees” and “thinks” most of what you see and think.
How about “Obama and his Kool Aid Drinking Quiche-Eating Puppets” ? Got to make sure everyone knows this is an elite band. 
Well, shucks, podnuh, if this “quiche” thing is what I think it is, hell, who doesn’t?
I’m confused. Is Rael in the health-care industry, or the health insurance industry? It’s funny how he talks about them as though they’re the same thing.
Or maybe I have it wrong and the actual providing of health care is the health-care profession, and calling it an industry automatically means it’s insurance?
Dunno. And the thought that claims are handled by a computer with no human input scares the shit outta me–very Rube Goldbergian. Or do I mean [insert sci-fi author here–I just got home and am beat. No energy for pithy]…
We get the health insurance industry we consider worth paying for. Sad, no?
To be fair, Leftists can do that too.
Wow–that looks like an alternative set to Star Trek. It was never completed and is kaput, as opposed to the current health insurance industry which apparently considers people’s illnesses and health concerns to be formulas that can be effectively handled by binary calculations, but other than that, they’re exactly the same!
(just partly messing with you–that is one interesting link.)
I used to be a phone jockey for a big health insurance company 10 years ago, and did a little bit of claims processing as well. Obviously, I’m now long out of the loop, but back then, the process went something like this:
- insurance company receives HCFA claim form from provider/customer
- someone in data entry digitally encodes the essential info (service performed, provider number, date, etc.)
- after encoding, about 85-90% of claims are paid out on automatically, according to covered benefits (most are routine office visits, specialist consultations, allergy testing, etc.)
- the remainder require human input (from a claims processor, not data entry), usually because of incorrect or missing info on claim form, but a small percentage require authorization/denial from people higher up the chain with medical training
IME, it wasn’t nearly as inefficient as Rael’s description of the process. Of course, the insurance company was still a bunch of bastards because they dragged their feet as long as possible to actually pay out on the claims. Try that approach next time you pay your premiums and see how far that gets you.
Yes, it is. I’m glad I’m now living in a country (Ireland) where I don’t have to worry about going bankrupt if I require hospitalization and/or expensive treatments. Of course, I might still die from rationing in the mean time, but that’s another, slightly different story…
[aside] what is rationed in Ireland? 
I thought it had a growing economy, a young workforce and a ton of fun to be had…
Oh, it does (although the economy has been cooling off lately). I don’t mean official rationing of care, only that the same sorts of situations where people may have to wait a long time for scarce services (a la Canada, according to many Republicans/conservatives) exist here as elsewhere nationalized medicine is practiced.
My father actually flew to India 6 years ago and paid out-of-pocket (approx. $20K) to have a pacemaker put in, because he couldn’t afford to wait over a year for one, which is how long the Irish health services told him he’d have to wait. There are also critical nursing shortages in many areas and overburdened emergency facilities.
All in all, though, I prefer the system here to that in the U.S… Of course, I’m only 38 and in reasonably good health. I might have a different opinion in a few decades.
From what little I’ve gleaned from the few UK nurses I’ve talked to over the years–nurses over there have the shit end of the stick. I would not want to be a nurse over there… There’s complicated levels of licensure, they are responsible for housekeeping (cleaning the room between pts–a corollary to that is that here in the USA, nursing is usually included in the room charge–along with housekeeping).
I would really like to take a tour of a health care facility in UK sometime–just to see.
[Kool Aid contemplating the phrase for his new group of giant anthropomorphized giant glass pitchers]
“Oh Yeah!”
[/Kool Aid]
[Kool Aid contemplating the phrase for his new group of giant anthropomorphized giant glass pitchers]
“OH YEAH!!”
[/Kool Aid]
Was it any better for them before health care was nationalized?