Social Healthcare?

[ExAFO 0]

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I'm probably around more of them than you are. 75 percent of my business comes from idiots. Your line is business is to help the best and brightest.

Therein is the difference--a realistic versus an idealized (to the point of naivety(sp?)) outlook on life

Illinois needs a CCW Law. NOW.

[kallend 2,027]

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I'm probably around more of them than you are. 75 percent of my business comes from idiots. Your line is business is to help the best and brightest.

So it is your opinion that an idiot** is capable of making rational financial and social decisions. OK.

PS you ARE the best and the brightest, yet you hold your success up as a model for idiots.


** Idiot: indicated the greatest degree of mental deficiency, where the mental age is 2 years or less, and the person cannot guard himself against common physical dangers. The term is gradually being replaced by the term profound mental retardation.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[normiss 801]

just having the access to or the ability to purchase the insurance doesn't mean they can afford it.
I've been offered some insurance plans at companies that were quite laughable at best.
I could have bought a very nice car or small home for the payments they wanted.

[lawrocket 3]

Most of them ARE capable. They simply choose not to because it might mean a little less fun.

As an aside, I do not believe that I am the best and brightest. I failed out of college once. I did some STUPID shit and faced the consequences. Nothing about lawyering came easily to me, either. It did to many people I was around. It took effort and a great deal of sacrifice to get it.

I refuse to believe that the vast majority of the population is incapable of making good decisions. They are. They just choose not to because they'd rather have a good time now.

p.s. - the definition you put of "idiot" is somewhat outdated, although we find "idiot" in our California Penal code as a person who is incapable of committing punishable crime.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[lawrocket 3]

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just having the access to or the ability to purchase the insurance doesn't mean they can afford it.
I've been offered some insurance plans at companies that were quite laughable at best.
I could have bought a very nice car or small home for the payments they wanted.

Indeed. It depends on the insurance. I haven't needed to use any insurance (other than health insurance for my kids) in the last 3 years, despite the fact I have car, health, life, disability, commerical general liability, malpractice, workers comp, unemployment... I probably could have paid off my student loans with the money my wife and I would have saved in going bare.

But - we have the insurance and peace of mind. I've even got life insurance policies for my kids started because if we keep it going they cannot be denied when they get older. They have not been without insurance since birth, meaning that they have credible coverage if they ever decide to switch insurers.

That is how I take care of my kids. And I could be driving a nicer car without having done it.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Royd 0]

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obliges me to be considerate of less fortunate people

I'll quote Neal Boortz here. "Define less fortunate."

[birdshit 0]

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1. We have Iraq war threads, we have health care ones. Let's not muddy the issue, please. Apples and Oranges, anyone??

2. My out of pocket expenses should not increase because someone decided to breed indiscriminately. It's your crotch fruit, you feed it and pay for it's maintenance.

3. I do not owe anyone any affirmative duty, unless I assume it voluntarily. I do owe them the duty of doing no harm thru actions, nothing else. "No affirmative duty to act"--ask a lawyer or law professor to clarify.

4. It's bad enough I, a single person, subsidize schools I don't have a child in. Take what you have, breeders, and be happy. Let's not get too greedy, k?

Log cabin republicans are looking for a spokesperson..

[NCclimber 0]

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40% of working Americans have no health coverage?

Where'd you get that?

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The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (4, 5).

Of course, your reply doesn't answer my question, now does it?

But I did like this part:

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Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more

[kallend 2,027]

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40% of working Americans have no health coverage?

Where'd you get that?

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The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (4, 5).

Of course, your reply doesn't answer my question, now does it?

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I thought the source was cited. Anyhow, be grateful that someone bothered to find the data you couldn't be bothered to find for yourself.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[NCclimber 0]

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40% of working Americans have no health coverage?

Where'd you get that?

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The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (4, 5).

Of course, your reply doesn't answer my question, now does it?

I thought the source was cited.

If your post actually answered my question you might have a point.

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Anyhow, be grateful that someone bothered to find the data you couldn't be bothered to find for yourself.

Providing data I didn't ask for. Good show ol' boy.

Sadly, I don't think you get it.

Maybe this will help.
The number working Americans with no health coverage is much lower than the number working Americans with no employee-based health coverage.

Big distinction.

[lawrocket 3]

The key plan being put forward for socialiazed healthcare in the US is forwarded by Hillary Clinton. You can actually read the puffery on her website.

The important things that Hillary seems to be mentioning are to: 1) rein in costs; 2) improve quality of care for everyone; and 3) insuring everyone.

The first way she wants to control costs is focus on prevention. "First, we are going to focus on prevention - on wellness, not just sickness. Under my reforms, all Americans will have access to comprehensive preventive care which will save money in the long run." She will do this by requiring all insurers to cover everything! Of course, preventive care is usually the responsibility of the patient. Doctors tell people to lose weight or stop smoking, but do they?

The second thing to lower costs is to make a national computerized records system. This actually makes sense, but the government seems to be the one who will administer it. Here's a kicker - she cited the VA as the shinig example of how health care can be!

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The veteran’s medical system provides a perfect example of a fully automated health information system that supports the needs of patients, clinicians and administrators. Its computerized patient record system contains every detail of a patient’s health record including laboratory test results, medical images, barcode medication administration, progress notes and appointments, all accessible from anywhere within the VA system. The VA started modernizing its program in 1993, using health IT as well as other care management techniques, and now it delivers some of the best quality health care in the United States with amazing efficiency. Between 1999 and 2003, the number of patients enrolled in the VA system increased by 70-percent yet funding not adjusted for inflation increased by only 41-percent, so the VA not only has become one of the health care industry’s best quality performers, it has done so while spending less on each patient. Health care spending per capita averages, as I said, over $6,300 in the U.S. At the VA, however, the per patient cost is $5,000 and 20-percent lower than the national average, even though the average age of a VA patient is 60.

Those of us who have said, "Look at the VA for what to expect" were actually DEAD ON CORRECT! Hillary is saying, "Look at the VA. That's what you'll get! YAY!!!" (Note: this quote came from a Hillary speech on May 24, 2007. Incidentally, this was while the Walter Reed scandal was brewing, and while another scandal regarding pencil whipping of raw data was also brewing)

The third thing she proposed is to streamline chronic care. She said that chronic illness accounts for 75 percent of medical expenses. Her solution is to use central decisionmaking to avoid duplication of efforts by care providers. This would be done through "chronic care coordination models" that are funded by the government but administered privately on a bid basis.

The fourth thing is to increase insurance pools to "end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions." In other words, people who did not get insurance who are suffering from a chronic condition can NOW receive insurance to cover it.

This is simply INSANE! The effect is that every rational person who is well will drop coverage. Then, when the person becomes ill, that person will get insurance to cover it. How in the WORLD will this be workable if only the sick are paying premiums?

Should a car insurance company be made to repair the fender of a car if the fender was ruined prior to getting coverage? How's that for "moral hazard?"

She also added, "As president, I will end the practice of insurance company cherry-picking once and for all, by allowing anyone who wants to join a plan to do so and prohibiting insurance companies from carving out benefits or charging higher rates to people with health problems."

This means that people who take care of themselves do not get a benefit - they are treated the same as a person who does not. What's the point of preventive care if there is no consequence for the individual who does not heed medical advice?

Fifth - and here's the really scary one - she wants to improve the quality of care by central management.

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I will start by establishing an independent public-private best practices institute. This institute would be a partnership among the public and the private sector to finance comparative effectiveness research so that doctors, nurses, and other health professionals as well as consumers and businesses would know what drugs, devices, surgeries and treatments work best. This would reduce the use of inefficient and ineffective treatments and I believe that it would have tremendous benefits because we could get evidence-based medicine into the bloodstream of the country much more effectively.

Thus, it seems that a patient's decision-making and a doctor's decision-making will be severely limited.

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Too often, doctors and patients don’t know which medical interventions are most effective and which have little benefit.

The days of seekign a second opinion will be over, by the sounds of it. Bureaucrats will decide how you should be treated, thus to "increase quality" and "lower costs."

Sixth - she'll lower prescription drug costs. She'll do it by limiting the "monopoly" drug companies have on new drugs. It sounds like she wants to make drugs unpatentable.

Finally, she proposed malpractice reform.


Now, to me, the scariest provision in this is mandating that companies provide coverage for everything. OF course, the offer of only Lexus-level coverage prices the Honda-level consumer out of the market.

Clinton wants her health-care system to be modeled on Medicare. And modeled on the VA. Two systems that are experience serious problems. The former because of its offer of market-level services at below-market prices and the latter because of issues of government accountability and lack of competition.

Folks, this stuff is scary. Clinton is attempting to do what, to me, seems inmpossible. Provide Ferrari-Level Coverage - to Everybody - on demand - at Honda Prices. As I have explained numerous times, you can provide Ferraris to everybody, but it will be extremely expensive. You can provide access to Ferrari's to everyone and do so inexpensively, but the access to the Ferrari will be rationed. Or, you can provide Hondas to everyone inexpensively.

This plan is nuts.

Cite for transcript of speech: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=1789

Read abstract of Hillary's plan here: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/americanhealthchoicesplan.pdf

Another Hillary speech: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=3006

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[kallend 2,027]

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40% of working Americans have no health coverage?

Where'd you get that?

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The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped from 70 percent in 1987 to 59.5 percent in 2005. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (4, 5).

Of course, your reply doesn't answer my question, now does it?

I thought the source was cited.

If your post actually answered my question you might have a point.

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Anyhow, be grateful that someone bothered to find the data you couldn't be bothered to find for yourself.

Providing data I didn't ask for. Good show ol' boy.

Sadly, I don't think you get it.

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I am not under any obligation to answer any of your questions, kid. Be grateful for the wisdom you receive.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[NCclimber 0]

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I am not under any obligation to answer any ... questions

It's a good thing. Otherwise, you'd be in a shitload of trouble for all the off-tangent replies you post.

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Be grateful for the wisdom you receive.

I always am.

Perhaps, someday you'll provide some worth noting.