[inthebox]

Not when the people running the companies are filled with greed and corruption.

Untitled Document

George Zeliotis, a retired salesperson from Quebec with recurring hip problems, waited from June 1994 to May 1995 for a left hip replacement and from February 1997 to September 1997 for a right hip replacement. Zeliotis believes he should have had the right to purchase medical procedures, in his home province, from a private provider who could make the surgery available in a shorter timeframe than is available within the public system.

Blogs | CANADA'S SUPREME COURT - "ACCESS TO A WAITING LIST IS NOT ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE"

. After a long legal battle the Supreme Court agreed ruling "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care."

This is no a right winger or a right winger saying this, this is canada's own supreme court.





G&P

[excon]

Gee, let's nationalize 20% of the economy during a recession, thus increasing taxes

Hello again, El:

Dude! Wow! We spend 20% of our money on health INSURANCE?? I didn't know they were THAT bad. We should have nationalized them LONNNNNNG ago, if that's right...

But, of course, it AIN'T right, because if it was, and we nationalized them, we'd have enough money left over after we paid for health care, to buy everybody a brand new Cadalak car.

Listen carefully. It's simple. The government takes over the health insurance industry. It will do the same thing that the health insurance industry now does. That's - WRITE CHECKS.

Hospitals won't be nationalized. Doctors won't be nationalized. Pharmaceutical companies won't be nationalized. Drug stores won't be nationalized. You'll have your CHOICE of doctors, hospitals, drug stores and medicines... Just like you do today.

There will be enough money to cover everybody with the profits that the health insurance industry USED to get, but is now going to health care for everybody instead of profits for some.

Yes, there will be some health insurance employees out of a job. But, the insurance INDUSTRY will keep going strong. After all, there's still car insurance, life insurance, homeowners insurance and many more. I'll bet the recently unemployed can be absorbed back in.

Then we can get back to work and never ever again worry about that crap anymore. If you think you're getting a good deal now, you'll get an even better one when ALL your family's medical needs are met. Plus, you'll never have to worry about losing your coverage.

Let me reiterate. There is enough money being spent NOW by everybody, that if we just changed around WHERE we spend it, there is ample money to provide for the best health care for EVERYBODY and we won't have to raise taxes to pay for it.

It's really no more difficult than that. Ok, I AM smarter than most. You should have realized that by now.

excon

[inthebox]

Not when the people running the companies are filled with greed and corruption.

The common thread is greed and corruption. Does that only apply to the private sector?
Insurance companies etc. are run by human beings, some of whom are more corrupt and greedy than average.


Do you think that those in government - the polticians, are NEVER corrupt, NEVER greedy?

Obviously they are just as corrupt, as greedy. Why would anyone want to get out of the fire and go into the frying pan, and then have no choice but to stay in the frying pan?




G&P

[NeedKarma]

Do you think that those in government - the polticians, are NEVER corrupt, NEVER greedy?
Obviously they are just as corrupt, as greedy.

You are correct. Your government serves the needs of the corporate contributors and the lobbyists not the people. You are indeed in a tough place.

[inthebox]

Hello again, El:

Dude! Wow! We spend 20% of our money on health INSURANCE?????? I didn't know they were THAT bad. We shoulda nationalized them LONNNNNNG ago, if that's right.....

But, of course, it AIN'T right, because if it was, and we nationalized them, we'd have enough money left over after we paid for health care, to buy everybody a brand new Cadalak car.

Listen carefully. It's simple. The government takes over the health insurance industry. It will do the same thing that the health insurance industry now does. That's - WRITE CHECKS.

Hospitals won't be nationalized. Doctors won't be nationalized. Pharmaceutical companies won't be nationalized. Drug stores won't be nationalized. You'll have your CHOICE of doctors, hospitals, drug stores and medicines..... Just like you do today.

There will be enough money to cover everybody with the profits that the health insurance industry USED to get, but is now going to health care for everybody instead of profits for some.

Yes, there will be some health insurance employees out of a job. But, the insurance INDUSTRY will keep going strong. After all, there's still car insurance, life insurance, homeowners insurance and many more. I'll bet the recently unemployed can be absorbed back in.

Then we can get back to work and never ever again worry about that crap anymore. If you think you're getting a good deal now, you'll get an even better one when ALL your family's medical needs are met. Plus, you'll never have to worry about losing your coverage.

Let me reiterate. There is enough money being spent NOW by everybody, that if we just changed around WHERE we spend it, there is ample money to provide for the best health care for EVERYBODY and we won't have to raise taxes to pay for it.

It's really no more difficult than that. Ok, I AM smarter than most. You should have realized that by now.

excon

The problem with that statement is that not all doctors accept medicare or medicaid, or severely limit the percentage of medicare and medicaid patients they see.

You know why?


Medicare and medicaid reimbursement often times does not cover the actual cost of doing business.


Have the government and the politicians determine the amount of pay, and Obama has already wanted to decrease reimbursement and more and more doctors will:
1] not see government patients
2] retire
3] potential doctors will make a practical decision that 20 years of schooling then 3- 9 years of training, and 6 figure debt is to daunting - and they will take their talents elsewhere.



So you will, in effect, have rationed healthcare: see Canada's supreme court decision in 2005.






G&P

[excon]

The problem with that statement is that not all doctors accept medicare or medicaid, or severely limit the percentage of medicare and medicaid patients they see.

So you will, in effect, have rationed healthcare:

Hello again, in:

If the government is the only one writing checks, I'll bet the doctors will accept them. You are assuming that the government will adopt the medicare form of payment instead of how the insurance companies pay. I don't think that's a foregone conclusion.

And, I'm not saying that there wouldn't be any disruption. Some doctors who became doctors because of the money will have to find another economy to work in. However, doctors who became doctors because they can save people will have plenty of work.

You keep on using the term "rationed" as though that's not something that's happening now. But, it IS happening now. At the very least, the health insurance industry is rationing them. You're certainly not going to tell me that once you get health insurance, that you can get any health service you want. That just isn't how it works.

I'm just saying, that beyond the minor disruptions that will occur, the benefits will so outweigh them, that we'll wonder why we didn't do it sooner.

excon

PS> (edited) Once we undertake universal health care, there ain't no place for these money hungry doctors to go to anymore. We're the LAST of the behemoths, They're just going to have get used to being paid like an auto worker. I'd be cool with paying off their debt before we asked them to take less money.

[amdeist]

Actually, amdeist, that's EXACTLY how government-run healthcare works in EVERY nation in which it is practiced. The UK just eliminated certain breast cancer drugs from their list of approved meds because they are too expensive. 450donn was giving a specific case in the UK where a woman was denied the drugs she needs to survive. It's cheaper and easier to a) let the patient die, b) give less expensive drugs that don't work as well, and c) pay for cheaper drugs for OTHER people instead of treating this woman.

My grandfather, who was pretty much penniless, had access to renal dialysis for 5 years, three times a week. I know he did, because my mom and I took him to his dialysis treatments. The US system does NOT leave even the most indigent without health care. They may not get great INSURANCE, but they get the best care in the world. Care that is NOT available in the UK or Canada, where the system is nationalized.

Nationalizing the health care system will put "the needs of the community as a whole" over and above the needs of the patient. Obama has already said so... he's said publicly that it might be better to give end-of-life patients some pain killers to ease their pain rather than actually give them health care that "probably" won't work for them, because it's cheaper to let the patient die than to try to save them. I don't want to live in a system where the choices of whether to try to save my life are made by a government bureaucrat.

I don't want the needs of the community (as decided by a bureaucrat who has never met me and doesn't know my situation) to outweigh MY needs. COMMUNISM believes that the needs of the community are more important than the needs of the individual. I live in America, where the rights of the individual are paramount... MY right to choose what medical actions are best for me are paramount over the "needs" of the state or the community.

Elliot

I can't argue with someone without knowledge. I have been to Germany, England, Norway, Denmark and Canada, and know people in all those countries.

[ETWolverine]

Oh, you mean like AIG and Enron and Worldcom. I see.

Enron and Worldcom committed acts of fraud. That isn't "greed", that's illegal activity. There's a difference, though you'll never admit it.

What illegal activity did AIG do that you lump them in with Worldcom and Enron.

What AIG did was perfectly legal and permissible. They made a lot of money LEGALLY trading real estate derivatives. They also made some bad investments and got killed for them. Their greed outweighed their good sense and they got nailed. But there was nothing about their greed that was illegal. It was just bad judgement.

Greed can be tempered by good judgement. Or it can overwhelm a person with bad judgement. Those with good judgement do well. Those with bad judgement either lose their shirts, learn from their errors and start again, or they become criminals and try to cheat their way out of a loss.

Bernie Madoff was greedy and had bad judgment that caused him to commit criminal acts. Henry Ford was greedy and had good judgement that made him rich and provided something good to the people of the world... affordable automobiles. Both were driven by greed, but the outcomes were very different.

You can point to cases of EVIL people all day long. That doesn't make GREED evil.

Put in a logical formula, all evil people are greedy, but not all greedy people are evil.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

Dude! Wow! We spend 20% of our money on health INSURANCE?? I didn't know they were THAT bad. We should have nationalized them LONNNNNNG ago, if that's right...

Actually, the US government already spends 20% of GDP on a per-state basis on health care in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. And after spending all that money, we STILL have 46 million people who are uninsured. What makes you think that spending even MORE is going to fix the problem... especially when the CBO has estimated that even after Obama's big plan, there will still be 35 million people uninsured?

Doing more of something that is already not working.. You remember the definition of insanity don't you? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

But, of course, it AIN'T right, because if it was, and we nationalized them, we'd have enough money left over after we paid for health care, to buy everybody a brand new Cadalak car.

Assuming that Cadalac is worth the weight of metal it's made from after the government is done trying to manufacture it.

But I'm afraid the numbers ARE right. We spend more money trying to insure the uninsured in this country than on anything else, and we fail every time we try. And the cost of the government insuring them is HIGHER than if the government just handed each of these people a check to cover their health care insurance premiums. About 3-4 times as much. So that "excess" that you think would be left over afterwards is not going to exist. There will, in fact, be a major budget deficit caused by nationalized health care... on the order of $3 trillion dollars. But you are so focused on the profits of private health care companies that you can't see the losses caused by government run health care.

Listen carefully. It's simple. The government takes over the health insurance industry. It will do the same thing that the health insurance industry now does. That's - WRITE CHECKS.

The cost of writing each check will be tree times as high as if it were handled by private industry. GOVERNMENT OVERHEAD, you fool. You can't even see the obvious.

Hospitals won't be nationalized. Doctors won't be nationalized. Pharmaceutical companies won't be nationalized. Drug stores won't be nationalized. You'll have your CHOICE of doctors, hospitals, drug stores and medicines... Just like you do today.

Uhhh... wrong again, numbskull. If the government controls the methods of payment, then it controls the hospitals, doctors and drug stores. If you are not allowed to pay for your own care, then the government is in de facto control and the "private" hospitals aren't private. As soon as the government can say "do things our way, or we won't send you your reimbursement check" they are in control. That IS nationalization. There will be no more private hoispitals or health care providers. They will all be on the government payroll because the government is the only source of payment. That is what your non-incremental system would cause.

There will be enough money to cover everybody with the profits that the health insurance industry USED to get, but is now going to health care for everybody instead of profits for some.

If the government cost for administration is 3-4 times what the current costs are for private companies, there will BE NO PROFITS!! Why can you not see this obvious fact.

Yes, there will be some health insurance employees out of a job. But, the insurance INDUSTRY will keep going strong. After all, there's still car insurance, life insurance, homeowners insurance and many more. I'll bet the recently unemployed can be absorbed back in.

With income taxes doubling or tripling in order to cover the new medical insurance ponzi scheme you're proposing, people won't be able to afford new cars, houses, etc. There will be massive foreclosures because people won't be able to afford their home payments, car payments AND their taxes. When the dust settles, home ownership will be lower, car ownership will be lower, and there will be fewer homes to insure.

Then we can get back to work and never ever again worry about that crap anymore. If you think you're getting a good deal now, you'll get an even better one when ALL your family's medical needs are met. Plus, you'll never have to worry about losing your coverage.

Let me reiterate. There is enough money being spent NOW by everybody, that if we just changed around WHERE we spend it, there is ample money to provide for the best health care for EVERYBODY and we won't have to raise taxes to pay for it.

It's really no more difficult than that. Ok, I AM smarter than most. You should have realized that by now.

Excon

Let ME reiterate. If you change HOW the money is spent, you change who controls the care. You also change how much it costs to provide that care. You drive taxes up. You drive home ownership down. You drive medical experts out of the industry. EVERYTHING in the health care industry begins to fail.

You don't even know what you are proposing. You can't look past the "greedy company" pablum and figure out what happens next.

Oh, you poor, poor fool. You derserve what comes next. But I'm going to do my best to save you from yourself despite your own foolishness.

Elliot

[excon]

Hello again, El:

Couple things. The above is MY plan. It is NOT Obama's plan. Therefore, you can't tell me that I can't execute my plan. If MY plan doesn't include nationalizing the hospitals, then don't tell me it does.

You assume the government can't do it as cheaply as the insurance industry does. I thought you said that conservatives don't dream up numbers, but they use the real ones. Dude. Real numbers ain't been had yet, so you're dreaming. The numbers you ascribe to the situation above are totally made up. Your diatribe is FULL of assumptions and political clap trap. Are you sure you're a conservative?

It's MY plan, and I know how to run my plan. MY plan would work. It's just simple arithmetic - and THIS liberal can add.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

Couple things. The above is MY plan. It is NOT Obama's plan. Therefore, you can't tell me that I can't execute my plan. If MY plan doesn't include nationalizing the hospitals, then don't tell me it does.

You assume the government can't do it as cheaply as the insurance industry does. I thought you said that conservatives don't dream up numbers, but they use the real ones. Dude. Real numbers ain't been had yet, so you're dreaming. The numbers you ascribe to the situation above are totally made up. Your diatribe is FULL of assumptions and political clap trap. Are you sure you're a conservative?

It's MY plan, and I know how to run my plan. MY plan would work. It's just simple arithmetic - and THIS liberal can add.

excon

Regarding my "assumptions", they are based on the numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office... people who DO KNOW the cost of insuring and providing care for people in the USA. If you have problems with those assumptions, take it up with the CBO. If you have reason to believe that those numbers are incorrect, provide it. Otherwise, just accept that there are others in the world with more information than you. I'm just one of many in that regard.

As far as "your plan" is concerned... you're telling me that while everyone else on the board is talking about OBAMA'S health plan, you've been spending the past 70 posts putting forward something that NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD IS EVEN DISCUSSING as if it were "the plan"? You're telling me that for that past 7 pages of your posts you have been completely off topic?

Why are you wasting our time?

YOUR PLAN, whatever it is, is not the topic for discussion in this thread. Obama's plan is. If you want to create another thread with YOUR HEALTH PLAN, go for it. If you are trying to give an alternative to what Obama is proposing, then identify it as such. But the topic of THIS string is the rationing that will take place under Obama's plan. And now you tell me that I have been wasting my time debating Obama's plan with you, while you were talking about something else entirely?

No wonder we were miscommunicating. I was talking apples, you were talking mashed potatoes.

Why can't you stick to the topic at hand?

YOUR PLAN means nothing to me, and probably precious little to most Americans who are concerned with the direction of healthcare in the USA. YOUR PLAN is not the one Obama wants to implement. It's OBAMA's plan that's up for debate in the national spotlight.

Again, you are free to put forward any ALTERNATIVE plan you want. But at least IDENTIFY IT as such so we don't waste time when we SHOULD be debating the REAL topic at hand.

I apologize for my earlier comments. I have NO IDEA whether YOUR PLAN would work. I have no idea HOW your plan would work. I just know that OBAMA'S plan is going to fail, as it has everywhere else it's been tried, and it's going to cost the country between $3 trillion and $10 trillion over a 10-year period, creating the largest budget deficit in history and creating the largest national debt in history.

Elliot

[excon]

Hello again, El:

I'm sorry if I was going to fast for you. I'll try to slow down. I'll even use smaller words.

excon

[ETWolverine]

Hello again, El:

I'm sorry if I was going to fast for you. I'll try to slow down. I'll even use smaller words.

excon

:confused:

I think I can keep up if you just keep me informed as to what you are talking about!!

:D

Elliot

[tomder55]

Here is one of the details of the bill just passed

The President promised that those who have their own coverage would be allowed to keep it and that is true according to the language in the passed bill . But that does not mean that we will continue to have "choice" .
If you have private coverage don't try to change providers .If you wanted to purchase private care it isn't happening . If you leave an employer to work on your own... furgetaboutit.

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law. Page 16

So here is your "choice " stay in your employer provided plan until your employer decides to bail out because it becomes too expensive to cover you(the gvt plan will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it).You can stay in your private plan as long as the insurance company stays in a business where the rules are stacked against private insurers ;or join the new government plan.Tighter limits on contributions to HSAs will kill that option.

That's it . Eventually private insurance companies will discontinue service .Private coverage will wither on the vine and soon everyone will be covered by the government plan .

And that's page 16 of a 1,018 page bill . Stay tuned.

[speechlesstx]

Details are emerging. The bill for all intents and purposes will eliminate private coverage. Sure you can keep the coverage you have... with exceptions.

If your employer drops insurance benefits and you can't afford to continue the coverage, which is likely since moving people to the public plan will look mighty good to their bottom line, or if your insurance company cancels your plan, you won't be able to enroll in another private plan.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

There's your 'choice.' At least Obama has been technically correct (unless I've missed it) in telling us if you like the coverage you have you can keep it. For now.

Next up, Peter Singer argues for rationing in NY Times magazine:

You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?.

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another...

Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?

We already know how they want to do it, by assessing a value on people as the opening post by tom illustrates. So how much are YOU worth?

[excon]

We already know how they want to do it, by assessing a value on people as the opening post by tom illustrates. So how much are YOU worth?

Hello again, Steve:

There's a lot to discuss about this bill, and there's a lot of things WRONG with it... But, to suggest that health care WILL BE rationed, as though it ISN'T rationed now, isn't one of the things we should be arguing about. Primarily that would be because it isn't TRUE!

The question SHOULD be, are you worth MORE to your insurance adjuster, or to your government.

In MY view, I don't think EITHER of them cares about me or my family. But, if you're going to tell me, that my INSURANCE company cares, while the GOVERNMENT doesn't, I ain't going to buy it. To even hint that it is so, as you do constantly, is unfair, and disingenuous at best.

But, it's NOT unfair to ME. I KNOW the facts. It's unfair to the people who believe that crap.

excon

[tomder55]

YouTube - joker parade

[speechlesstx]

In MY view, I don't think EITHER of them cares about me or my family. But, if you're going to tell me, that my INSURANCE company cares, while the GOVERNMENT doesn't, I ain't gonna buy it. To even hint that it is so, as you do constantly, is unfair, and disingenuous at best.

But, it's NOT unfair to ME. I KNOW the facts. It's unfair to the people who believe that crap.

Ex, I have yet to argue that my insurance company cares about me. I know I'm a means to end, profit. I have argued that the private sector can do a better job as a provider of goods and services than the government. You don't trust 'em, you think they're all dufuses, just some more than others. Why should I trust my health to the government ? Just what is that they get right? And why should I trust a government that won't even read the d*&*@! Bills they pass?

[excon]

Why should I trust my health to the government ? Just what is that they get right? And why should I trust a government that won't even read the d*&*@! bills they pass?

Hello Steve:

This isn't legislation of choice. It's legislation of MUST. You should trust your health care to the government, because you CAN'T trust private industry from ruining us quicker than the government might.

There is NO DOUBT that we are headed for the cliff, and about to go over... I haven't see ANY solution to the problem offered by industry at all. I'd be HAPPY to entertain one or even two. But, there are simply TOO many pigs feeding at the health care trough. Instead of trying to keep on paying them, which is what we've done in the past, it's time to impose a system. Just saying NO, ain't a solution.

excon

PS> Please understand that I don't support THIS particular bill. It's an incremental bill toward my solution. But, we should just cut to the chase.

[speechlesstx]

Ex, I count on government to defend our country and that's about as far as it goes. There's no way I SHOULD trust my health to them. By the way, WWRPD? I thought that was your kind of thinking.