The argument against fixing health care

[detlef]

The people have spoken. Did they think first though?

 

Here's your opposition stance...

 

Ora Ellen Early can barely walk some days, still slowed by the stroke that hit her 13 years ago.

 

The first doctor, she said, misdiagnosed her. A second doctor gave her bad advice, she said. She has just begun a new intravenous medication, which costs her $400 a shot even with insurance.

 

"You can see I'm real high on the medical profession," Early said sarcastically in an interview Monday.

 

Yet Early, 65, of Fuquay-Varina, doesn't want Congress to touch health reform this year. Neither do half of the state's other registered voters, according to a recent News & Observer/ABC11 Eyewitness News poll.

 

"I think they should keep their hands off of it," Early said. "We have the best health care in the world."

[Savage Beatings]

There's a big difference between fixing it and taking it over. Besides, the real issue is not health care, but health coverage. We do indeed have the best health care in the world, but we could certainly work on fixing the way that we are covered. Unforatunately that seems to get lost in the rabid desire of the government to consume the entire industry.

[bpwallace49]

I hope she did not sue for the misdiagnosis. Tort reform!!!

[Kid Cid]

There's a big difference between fixing it and taking it over. Besides, the real issue is not health care, but health coverage. We do indeed have the best health care in the world, but we could certainly work on fixing the way that we are covered. Unforatunately that seems to get lost in the rabid desire of the government to consume the entire industry.

While I do think there is certainly a move afoot to get government into the health coverage industry, it's the fact that this whole conversation centers around keeping the insurance companies as dominant players that bothers me most. If we were truly talking about a gov't take over, then it would establish a fund that everyone pays into and that those in need take from. Period. Or, they could just establish a law that everyone has to pay 5% annually pretax into a fund to cover medical. Use it when you need it. Then the hospitals and doctors could compete in the open market.

 

Instead, what we are getting shoved at us it the worst of both worlds, gov't intervention in a broken system. There is no way this will actually reduce costs and likely stands to increase them. But since everyone currently invested in the system continues to get paid, all the major players think this is OK. Frankly, I think this is a travesty.

[detlef]

There's a big difference between fixing it and taking it over. Besides, the real issue is not health care, but health coverage. We do indeed have the best health care in the world, but we could certainly work on fixing the way that we are covered. Unforatunately that seems to get lost in the rabid desire of the government to consume the entire industry.

I'm not going to pretend to know whether or not we do, in fact, have the best health care in the world. Because I simply do not know. I've never needed medical attention abroad. On the other hand, I would say that my experiences here have been sometimes good and sometimes annoyingly bad. So it certainly doesn't seem an impossible notion that someone is better at it. I would be very surprised to learn we're near the bottom, but I don't think we set the bar impossibly high.

 

However, I'm rather certain that the vast majority of those who go around claiming this fact have no better idea than I do. Among those who it would seem do have a clue, the sentiment certainly seems to be split as to whether this is true.

 

However, it does make me chuckle when I hear rednecks who rarely leave their county, let alone go anywhere else in the world recite this like it's fact. Not, btw, saying that you fit that description.

[matt770]

My biggest concern is that the drug companies seem to run the whole show. A while back I had a stomach ailment and went to a GI doctor. The clock on the wall, the pens and sticky notes all bore the same drug's name and logo. Sure enough, my doctor prescribed that very drug for my condition and even had a closet full of samples. Of course this drug was the most expensive and cost me $600+ per 90-day supply, until I met my deductible.

 

Had a gone to that same doctor a few years earlier, I would have been prescribed a drug that is now OTC. Mention one of those OTC drugs to a GI doctor today, and he will say it is okay, but the new one which has its logo emblazoned all over every item in his office is better.

 

And in the end no drug helped, it was mostly diet which ultimately took care of the issue.

[bushwacked]

There's a big difference between fixing it and taking it over.

 

And there is also a big difference between anything that has been proposed by Congress and taking it over.

[westvirginia]

While I do think there is certainly a move afoot to get government into the health coverage industry, it's the fact that this whole conversation centers around keeping the insurance companies as dominant players that bothers me most. If we were truly talking about a gov't take over, then it would establish a fund that everyone pays into and that those in need take from. Period. Or, they could just establish a law that everyone has to pay 5% annually pretax into a fund to cover medical. Use it when you need it. Then the hospitals and doctors could compete in the open market.

 

Instead, what we are getting shoved at us it the worst of both worlds, gov't intervention in a broken system. There is no way this will actually reduce costs and likely stands to increase them. But since everyone currently invested in the system continues to get paid, all the major players think this is OK. Frankly, I think this is a travesty.

 

I would agree with you on principle. But let's take your idea of a 5% pretax pool. Who controls that money? What is "reasonable and customary" for treatment X or therapy Y? I think the insurance companies provide a valuable service in the market place. They allow a pool and economies of scale which it would take to make HC profitable. I think if the goal is reducing cost, you HAVE to put the consumer in charge of the money. If I have no incentive to save/conserve I'm not going to.

 

If the government controls that pool of money, THEY control HC. Though your suggestion would be more facist-ized medicine than socialized medicine, it amounts to gov't controlling what procedures we can get, what meds we can take, etc, and I'm not comfortable with that at all.

[gbpfan1231]

I would agree with you on principle. But let's take your idea of a 5% pretax pool. Who controls that money? What is "reasonable and customary" for treatment X or therapy Y? I think the insurance companies provide a valuable service in the market place. They allow a pool and economies of scale which it would take to make HC profitable. I think if the goal is reducing cost, you HAVE to put the consumer in charge of the money. If I have no incentive to save/conserve I'm not going to.

 

If the government controls that pool of money, THEY control HC. Though your suggestion would be more facist-ized medicine than socialized medicine, it amounts to gov't controlling what procedures we can get, what meds we can take, etc, and I'm not comfortable with that at all.

What I bolded is huge.

 

Went in for an eye exam two weeks ago - I saw some flashed and heard it was an early symptom of a detached retina - saw the doc and he did his thing and looked everything over and said he could not see anything wrong. he then said "well you may as well come back in 2 weeks just to make sure". I assume he is thinking - this guy has insurance so why not have him come back - it won't cost him much and I will get paid and insurance will cover it. Well we changed health care plans this year and I cover the cost up until a ceratin threshhold and I don't think I will hit that threshold so I am going to spend the money to coat this dudes pockets.

[Savage Beatings]

And there is also a big difference between anything that has been proposed by Congress and taking it over.

 

Bushy you'll love this one... I'm sure you've seen it before. I'm actually smiling thinking about you watching this link and then reacting with your ultra-left hippie rationalization. It's all out of context! We're not really Socialists! Just give us what we want! From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!

 

[Kid Cid]

I would agree with you on principle. But let's take your idea of a 5% pretax pool. Who controls that money? What is "reasonable and customary" for treatment X or therapy Y? I think the insurance companies provide a valuable service in the market place. They allow a pool and economies of scale which it would take to make HC profitable. I think if the goal is reducing cost, you HAVE to put the consumer in charge of the money. If I have no incentive to save/conserve I'm not going to.

 

If the government controls that pool of money, THEY control HC. Though your suggestion would be more facist-ized medicine than socialized medicine, it amounts to gov't controlling what procedures we can get, what meds we can take, etc, and I'm not comfortable with that at all.

When I said 5% I was thinking in a private spending account where the individual controls where and how it is spent. Essentially a polar opposite of a Medicare pool run by the gov't.

 

Right now, there are docs that are trying to change the system. I'll have to look up the exact name, but in NYC there is a consortium of doctors that is looking to cut out the middle man. They don't take insurance, they sign people up for a monthly subscription fee and they can come in and see the doc as needed. There are entry level to Cadillac plans offered. Essentially, you get what you pay for. The total cost is significantly less that an equivalent insurance plan is because there is no overhead of an insurance company to pay in the process. Now that being said, it is for routine doctor's office type visits, not emergency care at a hospital.

 

It is this type of thinking that we should be embracing, not more tinkering with a vast and complex insurance system that doesn't add to the quality of care or help control costs.

 

I certainly don't have an answer to this quagmire, but I do know that the proposed changes will do nothing to address the underlying problems with the system, not the least of which is the undue influence pharmaceutical companies have over the type of treatments prescribed by doctors.

[driveby]

The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is "ungovernable," this is it.

 

The details

[dmarc117]

how about we start eating better and exercising

 

and if youre not willing to do that, then go f yourself. pay up for your own care. i dont want to.

Edited February 23, 2010 by dmarc117

[detlef]

how about we start eating better and exercising

Then there's this.

 

The "pills" I take pretty much amount to the occasional IBP, a high grade multi, and fish oil. The funny thing is the fish oil seems pretty damned expensive but is practically free compared to prescription drugs.

[dmarc117]

Then there's this.

 

The "pills" I take pretty much amount to the occasional IBP, a high grade multi, and fish oil. The funny thing is the fish oil seems pretty damned expensive but is practically free compared to prescription drugs.

 

 

i take fish oil too. and that f you wasnt directed at you.

 

and i would bet that eating healthier and exercising would be cheaper in the long run for all of us.

Edited February 23, 2010 by dmarc117

[bushwacked]

Bushy you'll love this one... I'm sure you've seen it before. I'm actually smiling thinking about you watching this link and then reacting with your ultra-left hippie rationalization. It's all out of context! We're not really Socialists! Just give us what we want! From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!

 

 

 

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/white-house-fact-checking/

 

The people who spread falsehoods, Douglass says, are "taking sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression." We certainly agree. But we would have fact-checked this a little differently, taking on directly the "uncovered video" that purports to show Obama saying he would "eliminate" private insurance.

 

That video shows a clip of Obama speaking at a March 24, 2007, health care forum for presidential candidates sponsored by the union SEIU and the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The video claims that the clip shows "Obama admitting his plan will ELIMINATE private insurance." But that’s not what he said.

 

In the clip, Obama said: "But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out …" The full transcript from the event shows that Obama was talking about setting up an insurance exchange, much like the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, through which federal employees buy coverage. (The FEHBP site shows that several private insurance companies offer coverage to federal employees; a media representative for the Office of Personnel Management told us there are 269 health plans offered in total – about 10 national Fee-For-Service plans plus HMOs that vary by state.) His eliminating "employer coverage" – not "private" coverage – comment is about people buying insurance through this exchange or "pool" rather than through their jobs so insurance would be portable.

 

My "ultra-left hippie rationalization" is a non-biased fact checking site; yours is a bunch of cut and edited phrases on youtube. It's amazing you people allow yourselves to continually get duped into this nonsense.

[westvirginia]

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/white-house-fact-checking/

 

 

 

My "ultra-left hippie rationalization" is a non-biased fact checking site; yours is a bunch of cut and edited phrases on youtube. It's amazing you people allow yourselves to continually get duped into this nonsense.

 

So now you believe everything politicians say and don't think for yourself all of a sudden? If anyone was being honest they'd be glad the "party of NO" stopped the evil monstrosity that was coming. I've explained this to you before, why it was so important that the government option be a part of this, but you refuse to see.

[bushwacked]

So now you believe everything politicians say and don't think for yourself all of a sudden? If anyone was being honest they'd be glad the "party of NO" stopped the evil monstrosity that was coming. I've explained this to you before, why it was so important that the government option be a part of this, but you refuse to see.

 

 

What are you talking about? I'm not sure what any of this has to do with people falling for all the nonsensical prattling about Socialism and stuff like death panels when it comes to the HC debate.

Edited February 23, 2010 by bushwacked

[detlef]

i take fish oil too. and that f you wasnt directed at you.

 

and i would bet that eating healthier and exercising would be cheaper in the long run for all of us.

I responded before you added that.

 

And yes, gym memberships, quality food, and good supplements are a hell of a lot cheaper in the long run than being a fat ass who pumps himself full of crap.

[driveby]

What are you talking about? I'm not sure what any of this has to do with people falling for all the nonsensical prattling about Socialism and stuff like death panels when it comes to the HC debate.

How about this?

 

Obama's initial plan was supposed to cover more people and cost less.

 

Almost everyone is smart enough to figure this one out.

[detlef]

How about this?

 

Obama's initial plan was supposed to cover more people and cost less.

 

Almost everyone is smart enough to figure this one out.

That, in principle, is not impossible. If someone's making mad money off how it works right now and can be excluded from the loop, then you can cover more people for less money.

[driveby]

That, in principle, is not impossible. If someone's making mad money off how it works right now and can be excluded from the loop, then you can cover more people for less money.

I agree, in principle.

 

However, has any gubment program ever been correctly scored?

 

Sorry, I'm not a believer.

[Yukon Cornelius]

i take fish oil too. and that f you wasnt directed at you.

 

and i would bet that eating healthier and exercising would be cheaper in the long run for all of us.

I didnt realize you were a commy / socialist

Edited February 23, 2010 by Yukon Cornelius

[Chavez]

And there is also a big difference between anything that has been proposed by Congress and taking it over.

From what I've seen, there's also a big difference between anything that has been proposed by Congress and fixing the f*cking problem, too.

[bushwacked]

From what I've seen, there's also a big difference between anything that has been proposed by Congress and fixing the f*cking problem, too.

 

Concur on that. The last bill that was supposed to pass was barely more than step 1a to acknowledging the problem.