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Forums - Politics Discussion - U.S. House Passes Bill To Defund Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

snyps said:
Kasz216 said:
DevilRising said:
papamudd said:
All I know is that since obama has been in office health care has no longer been affordable...


Sorry, but get a clue. Healthcare has been a massive and rising issue in this nation for decades, specifically BECAUSE we've left it in the sole hands of the "private market", the health insurance companies and the pharmacudicals. The only reason over half the medical shit we need costs anywhere near what it does, is because they say it should. The so-called "Obamacare" act wasn't what we needed, what we NEEDED was the "Public Option" (accent on OPTION) that he originally championed, but Congress and special interests saw to that. Still, at the very least, the bill makes it so that stupid things like being denied coverage for pre-existing health problems will no longer happen. More people can GET insured. It's just going to still cost everyone money. It's not perfect, in fact it's still fucked. But it's better than it would have been under McCain/Palin, if that's where you're trying to go with that statement.

I'm guessing you haven't actually done a lot of resarch on the topic.

that's a condescending way to begin a discussion. He knows he was lied to on the campaign trail, and both parties would have screwed up the system. He's also correct that the system is dictated by the cost of insuring people and not buy the cost of providing care.

Non-profit health insurance costs the same and often times more as for profit health insurance which DEFINITLY shows that it isn't artificially inflated costs.

Why then, In the past decade, nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurers set aside billions of dollars in surplus – essentially retained profits – even as they raised premiums for consumers by as high as 20 percent annually? Insurance premiums shouldn’t keep going up year after year when insurers are hoarding such huge surpluses. http://consumersunion.org/news/nonprofit-health-insurers-hoard-billions-in-surpluses/


Healthcare costs so much in the US because US Hospitals and Doctors are always upgrading their machines to the newest best product, it costs so much to get through medical school and because our patent laws are somewhat fucked up.

You don't have an opinion of this? When you or I go in for a sprain or break. We want to pay for the doctors schooling, his new machine that goes 'BING', and somebodies patent? No. I want to pay for my cast and x-ray. Which, by the way, cost nothing. I also wanna pay the doctor for his time. Which is 5 minutes (waiting doesn't count) i guess $20 a minute is good. That equals $100 for 5 minutes.

That and people with insurance will get everything treated.

If they don't get sick they're losing money! Are you making a case for insurance rate increases being due to ppl using the insurance they went broke for? Can't you see how ridiculous health insuance is? You're forced to buy a product you are not supposed to use,and you don't always know when you should use it. Cause it'll get more expensive. That's a scam.

 

In Europe, they'll only upgrade things like MRI scanners every so often rather then every new model.  The US is so expensive because it's a driver of new medical technology... and because people with insurance will do EVEYRTHING to save their own lives, well after europeon medicine decides it's enough.

That's not trailblazing, that's just wasteful. Throwing out good equipment for the sake of innovation just because you can pay for it by ripping people off. No just no. I'm not aware of any statistics of numerous american lives being saved by miraculous new technology unavailable in European hospitals.

It's also worth noting, rising healthcare costs are generally a problem everywhere.

no where is more expensive than the U.S.A. http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn574healthcareed


What's up with the replying in quotes? That's so annoying.

 

Outside of which....

 

1) Hording Billions of dollars.   Billions sounds like a lot I know... but it really isn't. 

I mean what, do you NOT want healthcare companies to keep money in reserve to make sure they don't go bankrupt? 

The article you are talking about is complaining about insurance companies having a surplus greater then state miniums.

Boy it sure would of been great if Banks had kept surplus' greater than what was legally required back when credit default swaps were skyrocketing right?


Sort of like going into a situation where the baby boomers are entering the age where they need the most health insurance, at the same time health insurance costs are rising?

No... it's far better to be at the state minium required levels and if you just go out of buisness because healthcare costs skyrocket, all those people will just be out of luck.

As for private insurance companies....

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html

Health Insurance has a net proft margin of about 9%.   Which isn't exactly setting the charts on fire... and coincidentally is  a lot higher then the 4-5% it was at before Obamacare was passed.

 

2)   Your joking right?  So your point is, you don't want to pay for the cost of doing buisness?   That's like saying I want to buy a hamburger at Burger King but not pay for the oven that cooks it or the time spent training the workers.   That equipment and training is part of the cost of a product is common sense.  Without the training, equipment etc.  The buisness couldn't exist.   

 

3)  I'm not sure what your talking about.  Health insurance doesn't get more expensive as you use it.   It's not car insurance.   Everyone in the same age group pays the same rate for health insurance minus a few factors like smoking.  I can use my healthcare a dozen times, you could use it never.  We'd pay the same rate.  

 

4)  Only because healthcare statistics are mired by a ton of different confounding variablse like culture, crime, accidental deaths.

The US actually tends to perform worse on large scales... though mostly due to stuff like are ridiculiously large prison population, high stress culture, accidents/sucides and crime and obesity rates.

As fun a chart now as it was when the data was released...

(Note some countries decrease in life expectancy on the right because it's standarded not just removing fatal injuries.  The actual results aren't quite as neat, but this does illustrate the point failry well.)

 

If a Machine works    .5% better though.  For every 2000 people, it's saving 1.  Minor gains?  Sure.  Given the choie though... i'd rather have the best possible chance.

 

5) I never said that it was.  Simply that Healthcare costs are generally always going to rise, at least as long as we find new ways to save peoples lives.  This will be biggest in the US, because we focus the most on innovation?  Is it fair we're paying so much more for an increase in medical technology?

No, but i'd rather medical technology keep being refined.   In a perfect world, Europe would abandon their system to be like ours, and we could have medical advancmenets 2,3 maybe even 4 times as fast.

 

As it stands though, the US government even spends more per captia than other countries do towards healthcare research.  Why?  Because for them it's counter productive.  Every advancment they find only increases their bill, and the benefits they create are ones people didn't know where possible...

so they don't miss them.



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Also, the biggest group of people in the US who want health insurance but can't get it... still can't get health insurance.

That group? Illegal Aliens.

They make up the largest percentage of uninsured people in the US. (Illegal aliens count the same as legal citizens on census reports, including ones that count the amount of uninsured in the US.)

 

Which is an issue by the way.  We've got over 10 million people here that can't get health insurance even if they want to pay for it.



A Basic healthcare system should be part of every so called civilised system.

btw-this is just show for the stupid who believe in this left/right paradigma.And it works.
Spending 1/2 trillion for war(orwell speak=defense),50 billion for spying and 1.1 trillion for QE but they don't have money for the basic healthcare???
Obamacare was promoted for years by the republicans like Mitt Romney(who(for the show) opposed it at the last election) and was written by the pharmalobby.
It seems to be pretty uneffective in terms of costs/efficiency=huge profits for the pharmaindustrie
As i've heard people working less than 30 hours a weeK don't need to pay for that= more and more jobs will be turned into parttime jobs>30h by companies to avoid these costs.



snyps said:

I broke my toe last year, the emergency room cost over $3000, took 4 hours, and all i got was a piece of tape. But it's cheaper than $1200 a year for insurance i'll never use. I don't want to buy health insurance. I want care to become affordable like it was before insurance took over the industry. I want health insurance to go extinct. In the 1950's a doctor's visit was only a few dollars.


My President is going to force me to buy it.. never.


That's why you shouldn't mind too much if Obamacare gets killed off because it's a really poor imitation of a proper public health system. If the Republicans were smart they'd leave this thing be, because if they actually defeat it the next time the Democrats take control they're likely to push something even closer to a public health system. If the Republicans are going to kill off something like Obamacare, the Democrats might as well push through something far closer to a true public health system.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

binary solo said:
snyps said:

I broke my toe last year, the emergency room cost over $3000, took 4 hours, and all i got was a piece of tape. But it's cheaper than $1200 a year for insurance i'll never use. I don't want to buy health insurance. I want care to become affordable like it was before insurance took over the industry. I want health insurance to go extinct. In the 1950's a doctor's visit was only a few dollars.


My President is going to force me to buy it.. never.


That's why you shouldn't mind too much if Obamacare gets killed off because it's a really poor imitation of a proper public health system. If the Republicans were smart they'd leave this thing be, because if they actually defeat it the next time the Democrats take control they're likely to push something even closer to a public health system. If the Republicans are going to kill off something like Obamacare, the Democrats might as well push through something far closer to a true public health system.

Seems unlikely.  Though Obama used his presidential push to get healthcare passed.  In recent years it's only gotten more and more unpopular with more and more people turning against healthcare in general.

The only reason Republicans are trying to repeal it plays so poorly is because everyone knows that pretty much isn't going to happen.

 

You are right though in that everyone should be pissed about.

Hell, i can't believe how many liberal people still support it after seeing groups turning against it.

For example... pretty much every labor union.

http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/07/12/union-letter-obamacare-will-destroy-the-very-health-and-wellbeing-of-workers/

 

I mean

"When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class."

are pretty dire words.



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Kasz216 said:


What's up with the replying in quotes? That's so annoying.

 

Outside of which....

 

1) Hording Billions of dollars.   Billions sounds like a lot I know... but it really isn't. 

I mean what, do you NOT want healthcare companies to keep money in reserve to make sure they don't go bankrupt? 

The article you are talking about is complaining about insurance companies having a surplus greater then state miniums.

Boy it sure would of been great if Banks had kept surplus' greater than what was legally required back when credit default swaps were skyrocketing right?


Sort of like going into a situation where the baby boomers are entering the age where they need the most health insurance, at the same time health insurance costs are rising?

No... it's far better to be at the state minium required levels and if you just go out of buisness because healthcare costs skyrocket, all those people will just be out of luck.

As for private insurance companies....

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html

Health Insurance has a net proft margin of about 9%.   Which isn't exactly setting the charts on fire... and coincidentally is  a lot higher then the 4-5% it was at before Obamacare was passed.

 

2)   Your joking right?  So your point is, you don't want to pay for the cost of doing buisness?   That's like saying I want to buy a hamburger at Burger King but not pay for the oven that cooks it or the time spent training the workers.   That equipment and training is part of the cost of a product is common sense.  Without the training, equipment etc.  The buisness couldn't exist.   

 

3)  I'm not sure what your talking about.  Health insurance doesn't get more expensive as you use it.   It's not car insurance.   Everyone in the same age group pays the same rate for health insurance minus a few factors like smoking.  I can use my healthcare a dozen times, you could use it never.  We'd pay the same rate.  

 

4)  Only because healthcare statistics are mired by a ton of different confounding variablse like culture, crime, accidental deaths.

The US actually tends to perform worse on large scales... though mostly due to stuff like are ridiculiously large prison population, high stress culture, accidents/sucides and crime and obesity rates.

As fun a chart now as it was when the data was released...

(Note some countries decrease in life expectancy on the right because it's standarded not just removing fatal injuries.  The actual results aren't quite as neat, but this does illustrate the point failry well.)

 

If a Machine works    .5% better though.  For every 2000 people, it's saving 1.  Minor gains?  Sure.  Given the choie though... i'd rather have the best possible chance.

 

5) I never said that it was.  Simply that Healthcare costs are generally always going to rise, at least as long as we find new ways to save peoples lives.  This will be biggest in the US, because we focus the most on innovation?  Is it fair we're paying so much more for an increase in medical technology?

No, but i'd rather medical technology keep being refined.   In a perfect world, Europe would abandon their system to be like ours, and we could have medical advancmenets 2,3 maybe even 4 times as fast.

 

As it stands though, the US government even spends more per captia than other countries do towards healthcare research.  Why?  Because for them it's counter productive.  Every advancment they find only increases their bill, and the benefits they create are ones people didn't know where possible...

so they don't miss them.



0. Sry i thought i'd try it out. I agree it makes for an awkward discussion.

1. The article says the nonprofit is holding on to 7 times the state minimum and could instead use the a small % of the money to keeps rates lower. My only point is to dispell your myth that it's a black & white issue. Btw way, 9% profit margin is huge when everyone must buy and everything costs tens or hundreds of thousands. Not to mention lots of revenue goes toward employees of insurers. With out a health insurance system, health care would cost 80% less.

2. atleast with burger king it's cheap and i have a choice to go somewhere else cheaper. I even implied in my post that doctors should make $400 an hour. But the system is so screwed up I can't even begin to explain their justification for the current costs. Point is a hospital visit for the smallest of minor injuries, in which nothing is even done, should not cost thousands of dollars.

3. you said one of the reasons rates go up is because ppl with insurance get everything treated. i said that's a scam.

4. your statistics doesn't prove that Europeans can't save lives like we can. And expecting (read forcing) ppl to pay 10% of they're annual income every year so that machines that work can be replaced with machines that work a little better is bad business practice. They only get away with it because patients (read suckers) have no alternative system. Except if you are lucky you have a no-insurance clinic which, while highly profitable, are being force to start using insurance.



snyps said:
Kasz216 said:



0. Sry if thought i'd try it out. I agree it makes for an awkward discussion.

1. The article says the nonprofit is holding on to 7 times the state minimum and could instead use the a small % of the money to keeps rates lower. My only point is to dispell your myth that it's a black & white issue. Btw way, 9% profit margin is huge when everyone must buy and everything costs tens or hundreds of thousands. Not to mention lots of revenue goes toward employees of insurers. With out a health insurance system, health care would cost 80% less.

2. atleast with burger king it's cheap and i have a choice to go somewhere else cheaper. I even implied in my post that doctors should make $400 an hour. But the system is so screwed up I can't even begin to explain their justification for the current costs. Point is a hospital visit for the smallest of minor injuries, in which nothing is even done, should not cost thousands of dollars.

3. you said one of the reasons rates go up is because ppl with insurance get everything treated. i didn't. i said that's a scam.

4. your statistics doesn't prove that Europeans can't save lives like we can. And expecting (read forcing) ppl to pay 10% of they're annual income every year so that machines that work can be replaced with machines that work a little better is bad business practice. They only get away with because patients (read customers) have no alternative system. Except if you are lucky you have a no-insurance clinic which, while highly profitable, are being force to start using insurance.


1. It says that, but nowhere in your article does it actual prove 7 times the minium is in anyway excessive.  Consdiering that money is just sitting in the reserves to act as protection it almost assuridly isn't.

I mean, think for a second.  What exactly is their motive for holding the cash and raising rates?   Keep in mind, it's a non profit, so nobody is making any money off of this.  This is all money the insurance holders are going to make use of eventually one way or another.

2.  It's all honestly not that hard a thing to figure out, it's mostly based on the fact that you can't refuse someone treatment.

3.   You individually not using your healthcare isn't going to mean shit to healthcare costs.  Nor does it sound like your the type of person that has that type of healthcare.  It's essentially what Obama calls a "Cadilliac" plan.  Think, Union worker at a car factory and up for example.   Those kind of plans are super expensive because they get used all the time.  Other plans have stuff like co-pays and benefit limits (though not anymore) to reign in costs so peopel use them when they need them.

4.  Not true.  Something like two thrids of hospitals lose money.  If they could make money by not using insurance, or by using lesser equipment, they would. 

Sure when it comes to icecream or something, people are more then willing to pay 20% less to get somethign almost as good.   Healthcare?   People want the best treatment possible, and are willing to pay for it.

The solution of "make it so people can't get the best equipment possible" doesn't seem like a good idea to me.



Kasz216 said:

4.  Not true.  Something like two thrids of hospitals lose money.  If they could make money by not using insurance, or by using lesser equipment, they would. 


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/22/cutting-insurers-out/



snyps said:
Kasz216 said:

4.  Not true.  Something like two thrids of hospitals lose money.  If they could make money by not using insurance, or by using lesser equipment, they would. 


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/22/cutting-insurers-out/


A single guy who admits it's a niche buisness (Ie very small) isn't exactly the most convincing arguement. 



Kasz216 said:
snyps said:
Kasz216 said:

4.  Not true.  Something like two thrids of hospitals lose money.  If they could make money by not using insurance, or by using lesser equipment, they would. 


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/jan/22/cutting-insurers-out/


A single guy who admits it's a niche buisness (Ie very small) isn't exactly the most convincing arguement. 


80% of healthcare costs go toward the administrative expense of using insurance.  That means if you don't accept insurance and cut the cost in half, you'll more than double your profit.  This guy brings home more money than other doctors and charges only a 3rd of the cost.  You said it's not true, well it is.