Hello again,

I don't know what the Democrats are going to pass. If they pass one, I'll bet it'll be an incremental plan toward a single payer plan that will work, but the incremental part won't.

I think we'll drown before we get to the part that works.

The word "works", means that everybody is covered for LESS money. Plus we'll get BETTER services. It's really a matter of arithmetic, and I can add.

Yes, some health insurance salesmen will have to find work, but things change... I don't know. Farmers had to find new work too during the industrial revolution, but that wasn't a reason to STOP the revolution.

The revolution I'm talking about?? It's when the health care industry begins being concerned about HEALTH instead of PROFIT!!

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

The word "works", means that everybody is covered for LESS money. Plus we'll get BETTER services. It's really a matter of arithmetic, and I can add.

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How do they do that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

How do they do that?

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Hello Steve:

According to the report, here: http://www.nwfco.org/pubs/2008.0110_...ing.Profit.pdf called Insuring Health or Ensuring Profits, the big three carriers in Washington, Regence BlueShield, Premera Blue Cross and Group Health Cooperative saw profits increase from $11 million in 2002 to $243 million in 2003 and $431 million in 2006. Please note, these are profits, and not simply income.

The article shows medical costs rose 16 percent in the same period that health insurance profits went up 23 percent.

So, if I took the latest numbers from Washington state which are offset somewhat because they're old, and because my state is probably larger than your average one, my numbers are probably very close...

If you take $431 Million, and multiply it by 50 states, you get a number like $21.5 BILLION $$$$'s. I'm just suggesting that for that amount we could insure ALL 47 million of the uninsured with bread left over for better services...

I'm just saying..

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again,

I don't know what the Democrats are going to pass. If they pass one, I'll bet it'll be an incremental plan toward a single payer plan that will work, but the incremental part won't.

I think we'll drown before we get to the part that works.

The word "works", means that everybody is covered for LESS money. Plus we'll get BETTER services. It's really a matter of arithmetic, and I can add.

---

So what you are saying is you want more for less, and you want the government to provide it. And you think you can add? What part of your definition of what "works" proves your ability to do basic math? When has the government ever given us more for less?

Yep, we are going to drown.

Want to know the really sick part... even under Obama's plan and by Obama's admission, there will still be 36 million people uninsured (compared to 46 million that are uninsured now by his count).

So we will have effectively dismantled a sysem that everyone admits is effective at least 85% of the time (actually more, but I'll accept Obama's numbers for now) with the purpose of insuring the uninsured, and almost 4/5ths of those currently uninsured will STILL be uninsured when the dust settles. In the end, even Obama admits that his plan only insures about 10 million that are not currently covered, or 3% of the US population. To affect a change to 3% of the population, he's going to dismantle the whole system and screw the 85% that are doing just fine, thank you.

Not to mention the 125 million people that he admitts will be forced to give up their private insurance and sign up with the government system on day one, whether they want to or not, despite his promise of CHOICE within his plan.

We're supposed to just accept this?

Quote:

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Yes, some health insurance salesmen will have to find work, but things change... I don't know. Farmers had to find new work too during the industrial revolution, but that wasn't a reason to STOP the revolution.

The revolution I'm talking about?? It's when the health care industry begins being concerned about HEALTH instead of PROFIT!!

Excon

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Excon, I don't understand you... you just said that you think we'll drown under the government system before we get to what works. That's a pretty scathing statement about the health care system that Obama is proposing.

And then in your next sentence, you go on to defend that system as some sort of revolution.

Your statements don't make sense. Why would you support something that you have just said you don't think can work.

How can you compare what Obama is doing to the Industrial Revolution. In the Industrial Revolution, nobody came forward and said "We're going to dismantle what works and replace it with something else." The Industrial Revolution was a slow process. The Cotton Gin took years to catch on before it became the industry standard. Years during which displaced workers could find new jobs and learn new skills that matched the new technologies being invented. Years during which markets adjusted to new realities. The Industrial Revolution was not a government-mandated, immediate change to a new economy. It was a process that took nearly a century, and which allowed people time to adjust as the revolution moved. You can't compare a mandated change to nationalized health care to the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution was driven by capitalist markets that based themselves on maximizing profit and moved at the speed of the markets, and no faster, so that the markets could gauge the effects and the consequences of the new technologies. This idea of nationalized healthcare is being driven by political ideology with no attention paid to consequences, financial or other. You can't compare the two.

The entire comparison is completely nuts. There IS no comparison. The causes are different. The effects are different. The forces that move them are different.

There is a contrast between the Industrial Revolution and Nationalized Health Care, however... a negative one. The Industrial Revolution was a success on most levels. Centralized government planning, however, has been a failure every time it has been tried.

Elliot

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

How can you compare what Obama is doing to the Industrial Revolution.

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Hello El:

Yup. You missed it. Obama in an incrementalist. That ain't going to work. I'm a full bore single payer dude. Single payer will work. Incrementalism won't. Nope. Unlike you righty's, I don't walk in lockstep with anyone.

Changing our profit driven health care system into a HEALTH driven health care system will be like the industrial revolution - or similar enough.

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello Steve:

According to the report, here: http://www.nwfco.org/pubs/2008.0110_...ing.Profit.pdf called Insuring Health or Ensuring Profits, the big three carriers in Washington, Regence BlueShield, Premera Blue Cross and Group Health Cooperative saw profits increase from $11 million in 2002 to $243 million in 2003 and $431 million in 2006. Please note, these are profits, and not simply income.

The article shows medical costs rose 16 percent in the same period that health insurance profits went up 23 percent.

So, if I took the latest numbers from Washington state which are offset somewhat because they're old, and because my state is probably larger than your average one, my numbers are probably very close...

If you take $431 Million, and multiply it by 50 states, you get a number like $21.5 BILLION $$$$'s. I'm just suggesting that for that amount we could insure ALL 47 million of the uninsured with bread left over for better services...

I'm just sayin..

excon

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You're just sayin'... what?

Unfortunately, as I have said before, you are saying NOTHING. You don't know what the revenues of these companies are, and therefore, you have no idea what their profit MARGIN is. That $21.5 billion you estimate very broadly could be 1% of revenues or less. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, that number is actually very close to a 0.0175% profit margin. In other words, you have no idea whether these companies are making any serious profit or not. Nor do you even know if your estimate is accurate or not. You're just guessing based on what you read about 3 companies in one state. In fact, I don't even think that all three of those companies operate in every state. Nor do you know their market penetration in each state. So any extrapolation of their profitability based on their operations in a single state is just a guess. You have no idea whether these companies are making a profit overall or not. You know only their dollar profitability in one state, not even their profit margin, which would give you a whole lot more data about how much profit they really are making.

But we already know that you are anti-profit. You have already as much as admitted it in this thread. Health Insurance companies aren't allowed to be profitable. They have to LOSE money and go out of business instead. Otherwise, they are just pigs making money off the pain of others, right?

PROFIT is what drives people to provide a service. Maximizing profit is what drives them to do it efficiently. Government has no incentive to be profitable. If they lose money, they'll just print more (something you have claimed to be against). Therefore government has no incentive to provide service nor any incentive to do so efficiently. Therefore, any government-run solution to health care

Elliot

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello El:

Yup. You missed it. Obama in an incrementalist. That ain't gonna work. I'm a full bore single payer dude. Single payer will work. Incrementalism won't. Nope. Unlike you righty's, I don't walk in lockstep with anyone.

Changing our profit driven health care system into a HEALTH driven health care system will be like the industrial revolution - or similar enough.

excon

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Please explain the comparison... I need a good laugh.

Elliot

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

You're just sayin'... what?

Unfortunately, as I have said before, you are saying NOTHING. You don't know what the revenues of these companies are, and therefore, you have no idea what their profit MARGIN is.

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Hello again, El:

Yeah, I do know stuff. I certainly know what profits are. They're what's left AFTER you subtract ALL the other stuff. It's the amount below the BOTTOM LINE. So, how much income they had, or what their profit margin is, or how much ANYTHING they had, has all been taken care of above the BOTTOM LINE. That's why it's called the BOTTOM LINE.

So, when I speak of profits, I know what profits are. I also highlighted the word above, in hopes that readers would know that I understand profits too. But, it didn't work, did it?

Nonetheless, if my numbers are wrong, why don't you supply the right ones? How much DOES the health insurance industry EARN every year. When I say "earn", I mean profits. Those are what's left after ALL the expenses and taxes have been paid.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

Yeah, I do know stuff. I certainly know what profits are. They're what's left AFTER you subtract ALL the other stuff. It's the amount below the BOTTOM LINE. So, how much income they had, or what their profit margin is, or how much ANYTHING they had, has all been taken care of above the BOTTOM LINE. That's why it's called the BOTTOM LINE.

So, when I speak of profits, I know what profits are. I also highlighted the word above, in hopes that readers would know that I understand profits too. But, it didn't work, did it?

Nonetheless, if my numbers are wrong, why don't you supply the right ones? How much DOES the health insurance industry EARN every year. When I say "earn", I mean profits. Those are whats left after ALL the expenses and taxes have been paid.

excon

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Here's a question:

Company A had a net profit of $100,000. Did the company do well or not?

Company B had a net profit of $100,000. Did the company do well or not?

Here's a few details:

Company A had sales of $100 million. It's top 5 officers decided not to take salaries or bonuses this year, despite having contracted salaries of $500,000 each plus bonus.

Company B had sales of $1 million, and it's top officer took a $100,000 salary and a $50,000 bonus. The company also paid out bonuses of $100,000 to all its employees.

Which company did well?

Company A had a net profit margin of 0.1%, and is barely profitable. It would have lost money had it paid the salaries to the execs. It is a company barely hanging on for its life.

Company B had a 10% profit margin after exorbitant salaries and bonuses. The company is poised for increasing sales in the next year, and likely will grow quickly. This company is in a growth cycle.

Two different companies with the same bottom line profitability figure. But two very different financial conditions at opposite extremes.

Knowing the bottom line dollar amount of profits without having any details about the companies tells you absolutely NOTHING. You don't have enough data to tell you whether these insurance companies are doing well or barely hanging on or are somewhere in the middle. Neither do I. Without more information, there is no way to know how well the insurance companies did based on a dollar figure for profits for a single state.

Sorry to tell you this, excon, but you don't know as much as you think you do about these insurance companies. Not that you are likely to admit it.

Elliot

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

Here's a question:

Company A had a net profit of $100,000. Did the company do well or not?

Company B had a net profit of $100,000. Did the company do well or not?

Here's a few details:

Company A had sales of $100 million. It's top 5 officers decided not to take salaries or bonuses this year, despite having contracted salaries of $500,000 each plus bonus.

Company B had sales of $1 million, and it's top officer took a $100,000 salary and a $50,000 bonus. The company also paid out bonuses of $100,000 to all its employees.

Which company did well?

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Hello again, El:

Boy, you are slippery, but I can keep you on track. I suppose you're trying to change the subject because you're afraid of the answer...

I'm talking about HOW MUCH these companies MAKE. You want to talk about how WELL THEY DO. They're not the same. I don't care if they're managed well or not. I care about how much they MAKE. If a badly managed company didn't make any profits, that fact didn't change the profits the well managed companies DID make. I stand by my numbers.

I ask you again, if I'm wrong, please supply the correct profit information for the health insurance industry. Afraid to look?? If it were you, I would be too.

excon

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Well there ya go, that proves it, the US healthcare system is a failure.

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Nobody is saying the USA's health care is great but from the stories we hear of people dying waiting for surgery makes us want another option.

Furthermore in our great stimulus package it does have a plan for a board that will decide if 'THEY FEEL' you should receive care or not. Therefore even if your socialized medicine isn't as bad as we think ours WILL BE thanks to that provision.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

Boy, you are slippery, but I can keep you on track. I suppose you're trying to change the subject because you're afraid of the answer...

I'm talking about HOW MUCH these companies MAKE. You want to talk about how WELL THEY DO. They're not the same.

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Absolutely correct. But knowing how much they made doesn't give you any useful information. What information have you gained about these companies? You mentioned $25 billion dollars. Is that a lot of money or a little? I don't know and neither do you.

Throwing around dollar figures with no other information to put those numbers into context is a good way of creating a false sentiment based on false information... Libs use it all the time. Like when they say that the government spends X dollars on military spending without telling you how that compares to the rest of government spending, how it compares to prior years, and what effect it has on the economy as a whole. It is just a number until it's put into context, and it's an emotionally charged number that creates a reaction on a false basis. I'm not going to let you get away with it no matter how hard you try.

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I don't care if they're managed well or not. I care about how much they MAKE. If a badly managed company didn't make any profits, that fact didn't change the profits the well managed companies DID make. I stand by my numbers.

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This statement made absolutely no sense. If you are looking at net incomes, those net incomes have to be compared to SOMETHING, otherwise they are meaningless, as I pointed out in my last response. Again, you are trying to create a false reaction based on a single figure taken out of context. Not on my watch.

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I ask you again, if I'm wrong, please supply the correct profit information for the health insurance industry. Afraid to look?? If it were you, I would be too.

excon

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They made every single penny you say they made. I won't argue that your figure is wrong. I'm aguing that your figure is meaningless without a context.

So... insurance companies made $25 billion dollars in the state of Washington in 2006. What does that tell you?

Absolutely nothing.

But $25 billion seems like a lot, so people see the number and get upset. But they get upset without knowing how many people were serviced by those companies, what those companies made in revenues, what they paid in expenses, and whether $25 billion was enough to support them in doing it again next year. Without context, your number means NOTHING, and I'm going to make sure everyone knows that fact.

Good try, excon, but I'm on to you, and I'm going to keep dogging you on this until you supply a context for the numbers you supply. A net income figure alone, with no other information is a meaning less piece of information that tells us NOTHING. Which is exactly the basis of your argument that these companies made too much money... NOTHING.

Good try, though.

Elliot

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

This statement made absolutely no sense. If you are looking at net incomes, those net incomes have to be compared to SOMETHING, otherwise they are meaningless, as I pointed out in my last response. Again, you are trying to create a false reaction based on a single figure taken out of context. Not on my watch.

Without context, your number means NOTHING, and I'm going to make sure everyone knows that fact.

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Hello again, El:

I don't know what's so hard here. You've got an industry that makes $25 Billion a year doing stuff. If you can get another entity (the government) to do the same stuff at the same rate, with the same cost structure, but doesn't have owners that it needs to split the profits with, there's $25 Billion left over to spend on whatever - like the uninsured. It's just simple arithmetic and not too difficult to understand.

excon

Hello again, El:

Let me ask you a question... Let's say that you're suffering from prostate cancer. Your FOR PROFIT doctor says you need $100,000 worth of treatments... Your second opinion doctor says you need therapy that costs only a couple thousand.

So, is your for profit doctor looking out for YOUR interests or is he looking out for his OWN?

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

I don't know what's so hard here. You've got an industry that makes $25 Billion a year doing stuff. If you can get another entity (the government) to do the same stuff at the same rate, with the same cost structure, but doesn't have owners that it needs to split the profits with, there's $25 Billion left over to spend on whatever - like the uninsured. It's just simple arithmetic and not too difficult to understand.

excon

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OH come on now EC. You have been around more than two weeks. When have you EVER known the government to do anything and make a profit at it?
If the private sector can do it and make 25B dollars, if the fed government were to take it over and change nothing I would expect them to loose 25B dollars in the second year of operation.
One only needs to look at how Freddie and Fanny were run into the ground for the profit of a few select individuals to see what a government owned/run operation would turn out like.

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Originally Posted by 450donn

One only needs to look at how Freddie and Fanny were run into the ground for the profit of a few select individuals to see what a government owned/run operation would turn out like.

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Hello again, 450:

Surprisingly, I don't disagree with you. But, we KNOW how the present system is going to turn out - and it ain't pretty. So, I'd be willing to undergo some changes BEFORE it goes bust completely. You?

excon

Hello again, 450:

When I used the word "we" above, I probably shouldn't have. Of course, I assumed that "we" see the same problems in the health care industry, and that "we" see the need to fix it...

But, I'll bet, just like the Wolverine, you don't see ANY problems in our health care system. And you, like the Wolverine, consider it to be the BEST health care system in the world.

Furthermore, you think Obama's fix, isn't really designed to FIX anything, since you don't think anything is broken. It's really designed to promote socialism or solidify his rein as dictator, or something like that.

True??

excon

HA!! You finally got it right for a change!
All one need do is look to the rest of the worlds health care systems to know ours is clearly superior to any other system. Why is it that so many doctors from the rest of the world try and come here to practice medicine? Money? Partly I am sure. But if you get right down to it it is because we (theUSA) have the most modern of equipment and technologies. If all the doctors trained in places like India were to stay in India, what would happen? Would their health care systems be better? Would ours be worse? Ask yourself, why is it that citizens from other countries that can afford it come here instead of using their own (free) system? Several reasons stand out.
1) they have been denied for one reason or another. 2) the waiting period for care is too long and they could/would be dead before service is rendered.
There is no clear answer to the problem of the uninsured. However government intervention is NOT the answer. Like I said before when have you ever seen any government agency run efficiently? The answer of course is NEVER!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

Lemme ask you a question.... Let's say that you're suffering from prostate cancer. Your FOR PROFIT doctor says you need $100,000 worth of treatments... Your second opinion doctor says you need therapy that costs only a couple thousand.

So, is your for profit doctor looking out for YOUR interests or is he looking out for his OWN?

excon

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Both.

You see, if he gives bad advice to line his pockets, and patients suffer because of it, word begins to get around, patients stop going to him, and he ends up out of business. On the other hand, if he wants to stay in business as a doctor, he has to actually be effective at curing patients and offering good service. So in order for him to MAXIMIZE his profits, he has to do a good job for ME.

Now... in the scenario that you proposed, where I have two possible choices of treatment, under our current system I get to choose which treatment I like most based on advice from multiple sources. Under a government-run system, a guy sitting behind a desk makes that decision for me and I don't get the option. Most likely, he will choose the cheaper treatment, regardless of whether it really is the more effective one or not. And I don't get the option of getting the other treatment, even if I can prove that it will work better for me.

I'll take the current FOR PROFIT system, where I have choices, and doctors who want to stay in business HAVE to do a good job for me, over the government system where someone else makes the choices for me and I and my doctor have no say in the matter.

Elliot

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Originally Posted by ETWolverine

You see, if he gives bad advice to line his pockets, and patients suffer because of it, word begins to get around, patients stop going to him, and he ends up out of business. On the other hand, if he wants to stay in business as a doctor, he has to actually be effective at curing patients and offering good service. So in order for him to MAXIMIZE his profits, he has to do a good job for ME.

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Hello again, El:

I used to believe that nicey nice Milton Friedman theory too, until I woke up to the real world. You see, I ran MY business based on those principles, and thought everyone else did too, because as your correctly point out, it IS in everyone's best interest to act that way...

But, in the real world, most business's DON'T act that way. They're interested in SHORT term profits - not long term business relationships. Most business try to get away with as much as they can. They think THAT'S where their profits lie - in screwing over their customer for the SHORT TERM BUCK and making the MOST out of the present circumstances.

If what you say is true, the banks wouldn't have lent to people who couldn't pay it back - but they did. Oh, I know you'll say the government made them do it - but I somehow don't believe that crap.

If you still have your head in the clouds, when was the last time a customer service representative actually answered their phone?? Doncha think that THOSE business would value you enough as a customer to actually answer the phone when you call?

By the way, when was the last time you asked your doctor for references?

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, El:

I don't know what's so hard here. You've got an industry that makes $25 Billion a year doing stuff. If you can get another entity (the government) to do the same stuff at the same rate, with the same cost structure, but doesn't have owners that it needs to split the profits with, there's $25 Billion left over to spend on whatever - like the uninsured. It's just simple arithmetic and not too difficult to understand.

excon

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You are assuming that a body that doesn't care whether it loses money or not is going to be as efficient as a company that lives or dies by it's efficiencies. Remember the $500 hammer and the $1200 toilet seat paid for by the government? The government is, by it's very nature, the most inefficient spender of money in the entire world.

Additionally, the government is already (on a state by state basis) spending 21% of it's budget on Medicare and Medicaid and failing miserably at it.

You are also assuming that the government can do the job as well as the private sector. Go compare the care given at the VA Hospitals to that given at hospitals in the private sphere, and tell me whether the government can do the job as well as can be done in the private sector. The answer is no, and you know it.

Finally, keep in mind that government employees are all unionized. The benefits for union employees cost much more than the benefits offered in the private sector. Especially when it comes to pensions and the like. (NY City is currently paying for 3 police forces... one that is currently working and two that are retired but have full salary pensions.) The costs of administering a government-run health system are going to be twice or three times as high as the costs of administering a private system, just because of the cost of retirement benefits for former government-insurance employees.

Do you think that there will be $25 billion left over after doubling or tripling the costs of those government retirees?

That's what I meant when I said that just knowing the net income figure isn't enough information. You have to understand the entire P&L and the balance sheet as well in order to put that $25 billion in context. You don't know what the costs of running a medical insurance company are, what the similar costs of running them would be for a government with union employees, and whether $25 billion is enough to sustain that increase in expenses, much less enough to cover more people.

Elliot

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

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Well now gee, it's a long bill so let's not quibble about whether we actually know what it contains. Poor things, wouldn't be able to pass a darn thing if they actually had to read the crap they're pushing on the American public. Here's an idea, stop submitting this massive, complex nonsense that no one reads in the first place.

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

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Maybe because the bill being crafted is loaded with unrelated or periferally related pork.

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Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers' markets.
The add-ons - characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation's health “infrastructure'' - appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.

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In health bill, billions for parks, paths - The Boston Globe

This is a pretty long thread, and maybe this point has already been made. If so I apologize.

VA hospitals are government run health care.

Would you want them to be your only source of health care?

I have had some relatives who didn't think much of their quality.