The rational choice.

[ellie-kay.livejournal.com]

Comments

[xforge.livejournal.com]

None of your horror stories have to happen if we create a system that works properly. I do not fully trust the current administration to do this, but continuing to watch insurers make obscene profits while denying care to their paying customers is definitely not an answer. At all. Fifty million people going without, having to depend on our public hospitals' emergency rooms, which is not only not a real solution but costs us working folks actual money and reduces our overall level of care, just isn't going to cut it.

You keep repeating your horror stories over and over and over again; do you have any ideas for any solutions? Or are you like all the Republicans in the legislature who repeatedly insist that nothing Obama says (even if it's 40% Republican ideas, like the stimulus bill) is right but don't offer any solutions themselves other than "keep doing it the way we've been doing it because things are JUST FINE?"

During the past, well, many years, it's been readily apparent that Conservatives think that if they say something loudly, fervently and repeatedly, it automatically makes it true even when it's plainly not. As much as you'd like for that to be the case, it simply isn't.

[ellie-kay.livejournal.com]

here's what i think we should be discussing:

1. tort reform. do you know how much money every year is wasted on CYA testing?
2. either taking away employment health benefits completely, or allowing them to continue at the same price even if we quit or get laid off. this takes away the "pre-existing condition" worry everyone has.
3. medicaid reform. someone on medicaid can go to the doctor with a runny nose and get coverage and tests 100% paid for. how about we change it to, "if it's a life-threatening disease, you will be covered."
4. lessen government regulations on the healthcare industry.


anyone have better suggestions?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

1. Heck yeah. So why do you keep posting about how awful things will be when Obama's plan which hasn't even been written yet will be enacted?

2. If you get rid of employment benefits, which is fine I think, and certainly will allow our businesses to compete with those in Europe and Asia, you pretty much had better offer some kind of public option. While still allowing those who want to pony up to buy their own if they like. Competition's fine with me.

3. A runny nose can be an indicator of something worse. A sore throat could be strep, untreated strep turns into rheumatic fever, rheumatic fever kills or causes permanent heart damage. Treat everybody for everything. But you don't have to spend three days and $1200 worth of tests to cover your ass once you've already ascertained it's just the sniffles 'cuz we took care of that in #1.

4. Mmmmmmmmmokay. Long as poor people don't get taken advantage of by rich corporations, what the heck ever.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

There's a coalition of businesspeople lobbying Congress, I believe they're calling themselves "Get a Public Option Or We're All F*CKED." Well maybe not, but there is a group that have gotten together to push Congress to do the right thing.

[jhohanna.livejournal.com]

1.4 Million Dollars A Day spent lobbying Congress just on health care - and I'm not thinking FOR either...but I hope so. Think about that for a second. Just HOW much of the economy might we be able to fix with actually creating jobs with that kind of cash? Or I dunno, doing something worthwhile?

(sorry, sick and crotchety and tired of the BS)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It couldn't possibly be the differential in corporate tax rates (http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/taxes/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5061116) though, right?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

4. lessen government regulations on the healthcare industry.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAAA!

Fucknuckle.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

None of your horror stories have to happen if we create a system that works properly.

No one with the ability to do anything is looking toward a system that works properly. We have a system that works somehat properly, moving away from it would be an error when we can repair what's already here.

ontinuing to watch insurers make obscene profits while denying care to their paying customers is definitely not an answer.

In what universe is 0.6% of spending (http://www.factcheck.org/politics/pushing_for_a_public_plan.html) "obscene profits?"

Fifty million people going without

Well, no (http://keithhennessey.com/2009/04/09/how-many-uninsured-people-need-additional-help-from-taxpayers/). The "50 million" includes anyone who was uninsured for any amount of time over the calendar year (I would have been considered "uninsured" for 3 years per the census, even though the total was fewer than 8 months over 6 years), doesn't factor the Medicare undercounts, etc. In reality, there's probably fewer than 15m "going without," and that can be addressed without a massive overhaul of a working system.

Or are you like all the Republicans in the legislature who repeatedly insist that nothing Obama says (even if it's 40% Republican ideas, like the stimulus bill) is right but don't offer any solutions themselves other than "keep doing it the way we've been doing it because things are JUST FINE?"

"No" is a valid response to "WE MUST ACT NOW DISASTER IS COMING IT IS A CRISIS."

Beyond that, we could look here (http://cprights.org/plans.php) for starters. Looks like a lot more than "no solutions" to me.

During the past, well, many years, it's been readily apparent that Conservatives think that if they say something loudly, fervently and repeatedly, it automatically makes it true even when it's plainly not.

Also, the stimulus is working, the New Deal was a success, Bush wants to attack Iran, Sarah Palin thinks you can see Russia from your house, and Dick Cheney has assassination squads.

Clearly, conservatives have the market cornered on thinking "something loudly, fervently and repeatedly," automatically making it true.

[weswilson]

1) How would you contrast the rationing that goes on now with health insurance providers to make it more appealing than rationing that a government agency might offer.

2) Why do you think that an insurance company, whose main goal is to deny you benefits if they can, would provide a better product than a government program, whose main goal is to provide you with benefits if they can?

3) Can you think of a logical situation where an ill patient who is displeased with their insurance and the coverage it offers could transfer to another provider without a cash outlay far beyond the average person's disposable income?

[capthek.livejournal.com]

I predict you will get no response.
: (

[jhohanna.livejournal.com]

THIS!!

My mother gets better care from Medicare coverage than I did with Aetna that I was paying $400/month for AFTER my employer's portion. And oh yeah, btw, the doctors actually get paid regularly by the government, and just get hassled by the big insurance company, so they end up not being able to make THEIR bills cuz the insurance wants to argue about care.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

1) What rationing? At what point is any insurance company saying "we cannot sustain this care, so we're only offering it to this group today?" You're confusing rationing with cost analysis and a variety of other factors.

2) That is not the main goal of the insurance companies. Perhaps you want to phrase this in a more accurate way?

3) ?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

What is the main goal of the insurance companies?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

To insure health, to be very basic.

As a more significant point, to provide a service where people pay into a system in return for a reasonable expectation that necessary health needs will be paid out, assuming they fit into the initial agreement reached.

The problem is believing insurance companies to be health care ATM cards, which they are not.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Who are they more beholden to, their customers (who will pay anyway) or their stockholders (who will not)?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If the customers dry up, the stockholders invest elsewhere.

[weswilson]

1) You're familiar with the rescission stories. You know, as well as I do, that an insurance company will cut off customers from procedures if they can find a way to do it. You know the stories that were told before congress, of insured Americans who were denied coverage for the most obscure violations of their contract. Health care is already rationed by way of what the company can find to maintain their profit margin. Pretending that it's not rationed for financial reasons is pretty oblique. "Cost Analysis" is supposed to take place up-front. Not with post-claim underwriting.

2) The main goal of an insurance company is to convince their customers that they will get the best medical coverage they can, while simultaneously limiting as much actual expenditure as they can. Rescission saved UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. $200 million dollars over a five year period by canceling 20-something thousand plans for their customers. I'm sorry to say, but refusing to provide benefits is the best way for a insurer to make money.

3) What's confusing? I'm asking how our market works in actual practice.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

1) Sometimes, yes. They aren't representative of the whole, nor do they represent a substantial section of the customer base. If they did, they surely wouldn't exist.

Health care is not currently rationed. No one is turned away from getting care they need due to an overflow of patients or a lack of available facilities.

2) I'm not agreeing at all with your presentation on this, sorry.

3) If you are, your original statement makes no sense. I can't even parse it in an understandible way to respond to it.

[weswilson]

1) How can you say we don't currently ration? Rationing by price is the very basis of the free market. We have a system that rewards those with health insurance by offering those insurers really low rates for procedures, while charging several times that for someone who walked in from the street with a handful of cash. The corporate bureaucrats are already deciding who they will and will not provide certain procedures for, and that decision is based on the bottom line of the company.

The key issue here is "If I had enough money, could I buy the procedure?" And that answer to that is yes today, and yes under Obama's plan.

2) I really recommend you watch that Wendell Potter interview again. The idea that insurance companies are out to give you everything you need is not supported by ANY evidence.

3) It's a simple question. If the freedom of our markets is a strength for the American system, can you think of a single rational scenario where an ill patient, who becomes dissatisfied with his medical coverage, can change his program to one that will meet his needs... but at the same time not cost him way more money than the average person can afford.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

1) I say that because...we don't currently ration. We don't have a true free market in medicine right now, far from it.

Your key issue may not be as likely under Obama's plan, because the market still requires some form of scarcity.

2) I never said they were. The Potter interview is a lot of populist handwringing by a guy who has an interest in the system's overhaul - I'm appropriately skeptical.

3) Again, there's no true free market in medicine right now.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

That is not the main goal of the insurance companies.

The main goal of a for-profit business whose business model is "take money but don't spend it" is not profit?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Making profits is not incompatible with a business model that requires financial expenditure.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

Isn't it in the best interest of an insurance company to ensure [hurrhurr] that they don't pay for the medical expenses of those they insure?

It's a direct conflict of interest that bubbles to the surface time and time again.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, it isn't, as their business model involves - nay, insists upon - timely and useful expenditures. It's not a conflict of interest at all, it is their interest.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that their business model promotes the idea of them paying for as much medical care as a person under their coverage needs?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

As a very basic proposition, yes.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

We're going to disagree on that, then.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

By this, do you mean simply that the market will punish insurance companies who shirk their duties because those companies will earn a reputation? The business model is supposed therefore to reward the companies who are consistent and fair in their coverage rulings?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It would were there an actual market in place.

[donolectic.livejournal.com]

But you've already stated that there's not a free market in place. Does that mean you agree then with what spaz_own_joo is saying in regards to how things really are, rather than how things might be?

[star-white.livejournal.com]

The very fact a health insurance company has shareholders to appease puts a conflict of interest between insuring health of their clients and insuring profits. It is not incompatible when the clients are cut who are putting more stress on the financial expenditures the company needs to pay out. The very notion of asking if a pre-existing condition exists tells me the company is avoiding doing their job when it is not profitable.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The very fact a health insurance company has shareholders to appease puts a conflict of interest between insuring health of their clients and insuring profits.

No, it doesn't, as shareholders buy stock in this company knowing exactly what their motive and purpose are.

The very notion of asking if a pre-existing condition exists tells me the company is avoiding doing their job when it is not profitable.

Untrue. It could be for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with profit - if that were th case, those with preexisting conditions could never get covered, and we both know that isn't true.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't, as shareholders buy stock in this company knowing exactly what their motive and purpose are.

Oh my lord, that's ridiculous.

A publically traded insurance company that does not do everything they are legallyu able to do in order to maximize their income and minimize their expenditures can be sued by the shareholders for breaching its fiduciary responsibility.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Sure, the key word being legally.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

And legally they can do quite a lot to screw people over.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

rofl, you're funny :) So in the future, the poor people who can't afford insurance will have rationed healthcare, as opposed to no healthcare like now. Is this really the argument you're putting forward?

Good luck America! Things are lovely here in the 21st century, hope you come soon!

[jessica-leah.livejournal.com]

LoL, I know right? This super scary bleak view isn't doing it's job properly.

[star-white.livejournal.com]

Also somehow the technology for colored footage will be lost.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ha!!

[jhohanna.livejournal.com]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.3200:

Read the damn bill. Quit listening to the lies. Inform thineself.

Um, yeah, btw... you might want to inform the party leaders of the GOP - their scare tactics of the last 10 years is WHAT GOT Barack Obama elected, we're tired of the bullshit and don't buy it anymore.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

How is the sore throat scenario different from current insurance?

Man, I forgot all American clinics are open on weekends. And American ERs never have 2-10 hour waiting times. And they never ration triage bullshit patients with sprained wrists. And an American person who WANTS penicillin or a blood test just because is never going to get shut down.

Look, I'm tired of listening to his bullshit. Do you realize that we pay almost twice as much for healthcare (that covers a third of the country) as Canada (that covers everybody)? If they funded it better, there wouldn't be these delays - THE SAME DELAYS MOST AMERICANS GO THROUGH.

A fellow hater of americasn

[hazardous-filth.livejournal.com]

I agree America shouldn't have proper 1st world healthcare. Screw that shit! Let the damn dirty americans die and suffer. Survival of the fittest (wealthiest/corruptist).

[spoon-o-doom.livejournal.com]

None of the things these videos show are too drastically different from the U.S. health care system that I pay through the nose for here in Illinois, even though I have "adequate" health insurance - that I also pay through the nose for. I often wait hours for care. I find I have to make an appointment a month or two ahead to see my doctor, and I EXPECT to wait longer in the ER for a "hurt wrist" than someone else who might be bleeding to death. The only big difference I see between the Canadian health care system and that of the U.S. is that the Canadian who can't afford any insurance has a better shot at eventually getting treated that he would in the U.S..

[star-white.livejournal.com]

The only people who can get decent health care are the super rich... the rich will always be able to afford the privatized and better health care

Yeah no shit, isn't that the point of the public option?