From IBD about healthcare. The more I read about nationalized healthcare, the more it concerns me.
http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332723342557746
Oopps. Meant to put this in the great debate. How do you ask a moderator to move a thread?
see that little red triangle at the top right of each post, by the post number? if you click on that, it lets you send a report to the mods. you can use it to ask that the thread be moved.
I’ve already sent a report for you, stating that the OP wants the thread moved to GD as more appropriate.
Also. if you want to engage people in a debate, you have to post more than just a link to an article. What do you think about the article, and why?
Moved from GQ to GD at request of OP, and added clarification to title.
As has been mentioned, I would also recommend actually providing a framework for debate beyond “this concerns me.”
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I think it totally disproves the whole Global Warming hoax.
Oh yeah, because.
Well, I think the reformers’ claims do add up.
There. I win.
Hey all. Thanks for your advice and the move of the thread. Still a newbie. I’m learning.
OK, some quick thoughts for debate.
I’ve been seeing estimates that over 10 years this healthcare package will cost $1.5 trillion. Yet the higher taxes on the rich are only expected to generate about 1/3 of that. Obama has repeatedly talked about the savings we’ll have by modernizing the healthcare system, yet most experts thing that these savings are greatly exaggerated. So where should the other $1 trillion come from?
Raising taxes on small business, which also seems likely, will only continue to hurt employment numbers.
Obama promised to not raise taxes on people who make less than $250k (which I make substantially less than that). But not sure you can have it both ways.
Large portion of people “without” health insurance have chosen not to have coverage. I’ve seen this within our own office – employees who make enough to pay for their portion of the insurance and elect not to have it. Many others already covered by gov’t programs. So then we’re talking about spending $1.5 trillion to cover the small gap of people inbetween these two groups? Seems like a lot of money to me.
OK, I’ll bite. Or nibble, anyway.
The website is ‘Investor’s Business Daily Editorials’, but I don’t see any investment or business articles. The articles have titles like “Terror In Obama’s ‘Old Hometown’” (Jakarta) and “Runaway Train To Less Freedom, Higher Taxes And Rationed Care”.
The article says, roughly:
1)There is no healthcare crisis. Of the 47 million uninsured, on 4% actually want insurance.
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Reform will not save money.
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We already have the best health care inthe world.
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The poor get care already- in the ER.
Maybe the OP would be interested in these Frontine programs- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/ and
Sick Around America | FRONTLINE
This is a hard one for me. I support nationalized health care of some form … but I also think that it will be very tricky to get it right. Reforming a nation’s entire system of health care is a very difficult task. Not because of the politics, although that plays a part. But simply because it is a huge, unwieldy, hugely complex system with the stakeholders including … well … just about everybody, and the stakes (both in dollars and deaths) incredibly high.
Do I think it can be done successfully? Yes, I do, some nations have done it well. Do I think it will be easy to get it right? No way, in some nations it’s a big loser.
My main concern is the way that the Administration is going about it. This is not with reasoned debate and a reasonable time frame. It is with a “gotta get it done yesterday” headset that I would not advise for the most simple of projects, let alone a national health care reform.
What’s the hurry? Can’t we spend more than two weeks on a project that will likely cost a trillion dollars? That’s an unimaginably large amount of money. If I had started a business in the year 0 AD that lost a million dollars a day, I still wouldn’t have lost a trillion bucks …
So while I do support the idea of improving our health care system, I strongly oppose trying to do it by cobbling together a MOAB (“Mother of All Bills”) and then cramming it down our throats as the Administration is doing. And for Obama to stay above the fray and hand it all to Pelosi is a cruel joke.
PS … I’m a liberal Democrat …
I think the fact that every other industrialized country can provide healthcare at a lower cost, and with better results, than the US is no reason to think that we can do it here. The evidence clearly being that our country is populated by a a bunch of morons who think that universal healthcare can not work.
Certainly true. The Democrats’ House plan is focused on maximizing coverage while doing very little of that cost control that the Dems talked about. “The increasing cost of healthcare” is now a reason to OPPOSE this plan.
And preventative care? Notgonna save you money:
Arguably true. Of course people cherry-pick the health comparisons that best suit their argument, but the commonly-cited life expectancy and infant mortality rates are badly flawed because the demography of European countries is different from the US. On the other hand if you measure health once people have a disease, for example cancer, the US does come out on top.
True. There may be more gains here from preventative care but remember the previously cited article.
Any evidence that this is more accurate than IBD’s last enormous fail on the subject of health care reform?
(Last Wednesday, IBD claimed “Right there on Page 16 [of the House bill] is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.” On reading the [1000-page PDF] actual bill, it was kinda hard to miss the fact that this alleged provision was part of a definition of “Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage.” Turns out that what was being made illegal was to count new enrollments in individual private medical insurance as being treated as grandfathered in. Well, duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, you say, but this was too complicated for IBD.
Either that, or they wanted to spread a bogus message. Either way, I wouldn’t rely on their analysis without double-checking it first.)
Is this a thread about health care, or a thread to bash IBD? I am frustrated with the Dope on this one, because it seems to be impossible to have a reasoned debate about these bills…
I am extremely concerned about these bills, and the plans presented so far. I see serious problems both for me personally, and for our economy as a whole. It seems incredible to me that, with all of the brain power we have both politically and privately, that no other options have come up.
The problem is that health care is too expensive for some people. We have Medicare/caid to solve some of that, but others are still being left behind. Is a price-control scenerio better than a sweeping entitlement program? I think so, but I’m not sure how to implement that while still protecting free enterprise.
How about the role of insurance? I have no idea why it is still stuck as a part of employment - I would do away with the tax deduction and drive more people into the private plans that are sure to spring up.
How about people who run to the doctor for everything from a stuffy nose to a hangnail? People like to bellyache about little Timmy with brain cancer, but I see a lot more people who abuse their insurance with bullshit “medical care” that they would be unwilling to pay for themselves.
I do not understand how medical care has become this nebulous idea. It is a service, just like any other, but with more important consequences. Why do so many people think that is exists outside the normal market of goods and services? That they shouldn’t have to pay a fair price for it?
I have an HSA with catastrophic insurance, and I am in complete control of my medical care, including the bills. We just had $4800 worth of dental bills, and we bartered $2200 by doing computer work for the dentist. The rest we paid for with cash, and never once did I complain about the price. That is what it costs, and we treated it like any other service we received. I made a phone call last week to get the price of a vasectomy for my husband - why is there no price list available?
No one wants the poor or elderly to just die, regardless of how selfish you think they are. Medicare/caid covers the worst of it, but is going broke. I have a real problem with solving that one specific issue with forcing everyone into a massive tax-funded insurance pool. There are too many variables involved - what about the drug addict who won’t take care of himself? What about idiots who get themselves shot in a gang war or bar fight? How about soccer moms who deny vaccinations to their kids then plead poverty when they get the mumps? How about people who drive drunk or eat fifty pounds of bacon or any number of ultra-unhealthy things that they do out of ignorance or idiocy?
I am being told that I must do it for the good of my fellow citizens, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I have no problem taking care of the less fortunate, but there has to be some kind of limit.
Of course, I have said nothing in here about the chilling effect this will have on the American economy, which is in pretty bad shape to begin with. Others, here and elsewhere, have done so much more eloquently.
So Dopers, you mean to tell me there’s no other way we can fix this? It Pelosi’s way or the highway? I’m sure many of you will think I’m a monster, but it seems to me that, yes, if you get a debilitating illness or suffer a disability, you will probably become/stay poor. I’m really sorry (really) but that’s how it is sometimes. It’s an old canard, but life is not fair. If you are below a certain income level, then you will get some help, but if you’re in that nether region just above that line, you’re kinda screwed. It’s a terrible shame, and I have several examples of it in my own family, but that’s the way the dice falls sometimes.
The OP hasn’t made an argument of his own; he’s just linked to an opinion piece from IBD.
If the only thing at the link is a disreputable pile of junk, there’s no point in debate. Because this isn’t a thread about health care generally; it’s a thread about what IBD is saying about the current health care legislation.
Got any data on the number of people who do this? Why would extending care to those with low income jobs without insurance increase it - especially considering that these people have a hard time getting off from work to bring their runny nose to the doctor?
BTW, I agree that both the house and senate bills need to have some method of restructuring the system to reduce costs added to them. Just cutting Medicare payments is not going to do it.
Interesting article. It claims preventative care won’t save money for several reasons. One, it won’t reduce costs to 0. Duh. Second, people saved now will later get expensive illnesses anyhow. That is no doubt true, but in computing benefit to society people staying alive needs to count for something - otherwise we might as well cut off medical care to anyone over 70 who is not working. Would save a bundle, no doubt.
Third, the benefits to those who don’t get an expensive disease if outweighed by the costs of preventative care. I’d like to see data on that, since it depends strongly on the percentage of people who would get an illness that could be caught early and cheaply by preventative care. For instance, he says that while stop-smoking programs may reduce the incidence of lung cancer, they require some more time for the doctor to badger the patient. I have a hard time believing that any number of 15 minute intervals adds up to lung cancer treatments - or even therapy sessions.
Finally, he says that preventative care does work, but at a certain point the cost of finding and treating patients gets higher, since you’re into the ones who don’t want to see the doctor anyhow. Now this is no doubt true, but he gives no evidence that we’re anywhere near the cutoff point now.
I know that my insurance pays 100% for preventative care, so they obviously think it is profitable to do so. I also know that this issue isn’t as cut and dried as he makes it sound. At one point in my life I had to justify my budget based on savings, which in my area was cost avoidance rather than cost reduction. This is very difficult to compute accurately, and you can make the numbers say whatever you want. Preventative care is cost avoidance, so we shouldn’t expect to see exact numbers for the benefits.
The CBO is on record - we are not going to save any money with any of the proposals currently being considered (cite).
You aren’t going to save money on a plan by adding 47 million people to it.
Regards,
Shodan
When reading this stuff, keep in mind that, until proven otherwise, the goal isn’t to find a system that works, it’s to kill healthcare reform.
I’m reminded of the ‘principaled’ arguments that internet libertarians put forth a decade ago in favor of school voucher programs. The goal wasn’t to improve education, it was to destroy publicly funded education.
Anecdotal perhaps and I do not have a cite myself because I heard the following on the radio (paraphrased but largely correct):
A doctor was being interviewed and related a story about a woman who came into the Emergency Room with a ruptured blood vessel in her brain. The doctors worked for 90 minutes to save her life and ultimately failed.
Turns out the woman was poor and raising several children. She was on medication for high blood pressure but the medication was expensive. She was faced with buying her medicine or buying food so she chose to buy the food. Lack of medication was almost certainly a prime cause in her having a cerebral hemorrhage (or whatever the proper term was).
The doctor noted her care at the point she ended in the Emergency Room was so expensive the money spent there could have easily have kept her in her medicine for the rest of her life and then some.
The ER costs will be paid by you and me one way or another. Taxes, insurance premiums, higher hospital costs. One also has to wonder if her children, now lacking a parent, are more likely to become a drain on the state once grown rather than productive members.
We can never tell of course (maybe she was a lousy mom and they are better off now…we just do not know) but I am hard pressed to see this system being the “better” one. I’d rather have spent the money on her medicine. Lots cheaper.