American Politics XIII

[Ector]

I could go on, but the idea that the ER will fix it all for free is just stupid, dude.

I never said it would be free. You pay out the ass for it after. But you get the treatment.

[Ector]

I can't stop laughing about the surreal inanity of this statement. Ector, may I sig this. I want to laugh about it again and again!

i would be honored!!!!!

[Andriy Czarchenko]

While that's a good assumption based on free market theory, in reality it doesn't work that way. These companies are too big and spread out for a few cancelation to truly affect them. The CEOs claim they drop less then 1% of the people they cover, which there is no way to verify but even if the number was 2 or 3% that's still not enough people for it to make news. But the savings can be huge. And enough people are either happy with the coverage or unaware of the practice to not be concerned about it. Plus most people get their insurance their work and even if they are stuck with a bad company are to far removed to actually care about it. Until they are directly effected that is.

That 1% means huge profit´s for the insurers. There´s obviously no incentive to drop those who don´t need at all or very little treatment. There was article about this which said that that 1% is actually over 50% of those whose treatment costs more than what they pay for the insurer.

[Watcher]

All these things are faults of the individual. A person not caring enough about their insurance to do the necessary amount of research before purchase has nobody to blame but themselves.

Yep it's all the individual fault, we are to lazy to go to the insurance companies headquarters and go through all their records to find out how many people they threw off their roles. I'm sure all you have to do is ask them nicely for them to tell you. Or maybe I could go to the website "how often does company X screw over their customers." Yep it's so easy to do. Like most people you didn't even now about this until I mentioned it. Explain where I'm going to find this information without a lawyer?

[Annelise]

25% of people diagnosed with prostate cancer die in the UK. 0% die in the US. Tell me why that is?

Unfortunately my Father-in-law died of prostate cancer here, as did my Dad's good friend. I don't know what the % actually is, but 0% it is not.

ETA: here's a quick stat...

For some men, trying to hold out is an option because the cancer often isn't lethal. About 1 in 6 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point, but only about 1 in 35 men will die of it, according to the American Cancer Society.

http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/art.../17prostate.htm

[Ector]

Yep it's all the individual fault, we are to lazy to go to the insurance companies headquarters and go through all their records to find out how many people they threw off their roles. I'm sure all you have to do is ask them nicely for them to tell you. Or maybe I could go to the website "how often does company X screw over their customers." Yep it's so easy to do. Like most people you didn't even now about this until I mentioned it. Explain where I'm going to find this information without a lawyer?

Message boards would be fantastic for this. You could start a thread asking for "health insurance company fucked me stories" and get the names of the companies who you feel screwed their clients and cross them off your list. Their is bound to be similar threads on other message boards. To a much lesser degree you could read the newspaper or watch the news. Liberal media loves a good "big insurance abusing little guy" story. How about you support legislation that forces companies to show these stats ( I have no idea if thats in the ObamaCare bill). Personally I would be against that but it would seem to be right up your alley.

[Ector]

Unfortunately my Father-in-law died of prostate cancer here, as did my Dad's good friend. I don't know what the % actually is, but 0% it is not.

Your right I was answering three posts in a row and forgot to add "5-year" death rate. Sry.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Exactly. Isn't Dante a Diebolder as well?

Now the King of community organizers is complaining about potential community organizing. What hypocrisy. The polls show most Americans do not want the bill to pass yet the far left doesn't want to think a few of them (Dems included) might just protest a little when their lives are on the line? The union and ACORN brownshirts however are out in force now to deal with the elderly. There's some real astroturf for you. Well done, Obama.

I think my irony detector just broke.

[Annelise]

Anyways, I have returned from my expedition with my friend where I followed up on our former HCR discussion. Yesterday I had the impression that she did not want any HCR. But as it turns out, she thinks it's a problem that needs to be addressed, she is just against it because the republicans are against it. ("Damn Democrats!" she declared.) I asked her if she wanted the Republican proposal then and she fessed up that she didn't know anything about it or what the Democrats want. I tried to summarize to the best of my knowledge and by then end she said to send her that Kaiser Foundation link so she could compare proposals. I don't know if she's serious of if she just wanted me to stop shaking my head. :P

It seems we are at an impasse, if it is not acceptable for the government to legislate on this issue. This would seem to be the course we are on with seemingly no way to correct it:

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

They concluded that 62.1 percent of the bankruptcies were medically related because the individuals either had more than $5,000 (or 10 percent of their pretax income) in medical bills, mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills, or lost significant income due to an illness. On average, medically bankrupt families had $17,943 in out-of-pocket expenses, including $26,971 for those who lacked insurance and $17,749 who had insurance at some point.

Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankr....medical.bills/

[TrackerNeil]

I do oppose it. I don't believe in forcing moral opinions on others. A society will never function in this manner. Since government is an object of force, I believe its only function should be protecting the rights of the individual (health care is a right. cheap health care is not a right) and taxing to provide for this protection.

Also the last place I want an object of force in my life is in my health care decisions. Thats just dumb.

Oh gosh...every six to nine months this board acquires a new libertarian, whose ideas and beliefs and 100% consistent and about 10% reality-based. So I guess this means there won't be another new addition until, say, April or so.

[Guy Kilmore]

I am still confused on why a speed limit is about protecting individual freedoms.... :leaving:

[Annelise]

Exactly. Isn't Dante a Diebolder as well?

The polls show most Americans do not want the bill to pass

Which bill? There's a number of proposals out there and they have hardly whittled it down to one. Further, the evidence about what exactly Americans think is contrary. Just compare the poll data you posted and what I posted from the monthly Kaiser Foundation poll and now this:

The good news for the White House is that polls show support for specific elements of its health insurance reform effort – including some of the most controversial ones.

For instance, Americans favor the establishment of a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance providers, according to many polls. Majorities favor government subsidies to help lower-income Americans buy insurance.

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/200...-on-healthcare/

Honestly, I think this sums up public opinion best:

A recent Gallup analysis of numerous polls on healthcare concludes that US views on healthcare reform remain in “a state of flux,†perhaps mirroring congressional debate on a contentious issue.

[Annelise]

Imagine getting cancer and then having your insurance company tell you that you are no longer covered. What was the point of that so-called "insurance" again?

I am terrified of this. My mom had a hard time getting picked up by an insurance company after she got fired due to pre-existing conditions. She just had bloodwork done today for a swollen lymph node because the antibiotics didn't bring it down. Naturally, everyone is hoping for the best but you can't get the big C out of your head. Or you know the stuff about medical bankruptcies even when people had insurance.

[The Progressive]

Your right I was answering three posts in a row and forgot to add "5-year" death rate. Sry.

And Japan has higher survival rate for colon and rectal cancers in men compared to the US, while France has higher survival rate for colon and rectal cancers in women compared to the US ................. so I don't know what's your point here with that random and arbitrary example.

has everyone heard about the guy at one of the town hall meetings who exclaimed "Keep your government hands off of my Medicare!" ???? Awesome.

These conservatives are operating on emotion so much more than intellect. It's a bit of a cheap shot for me to categorize tons of people with one example like this but it does seem very indicative of the movement at large.

About a week ago on NPR, they interviewed out-of-work Richie Drake from the Appalachian who riled against health care reform and government funded programs because "minorities are going to get more attention than the whites and stuff like that." Here's the kicker ................... his children are on Medicaid.

people being denied coverage or being dropped after getting sick is an absolute embarrassment and must be changed.

This doesn't happen to millions upon millions of people but it is the worst thing ever for those that it does happen to. It is done by a colluding oligarchy of companies that have billions in profit. Messed up. I got my buddy to say something to the effect of "I don't like some of the things I've heard about the reform but you have completely convinced me on this one issue."

Imagine getting cancer and then having your insurance company tell you that you are no longer covered. What was the point of that so-called "insurance" again?

My 2nd priority would be bending the cost curve as they say.

My 3rd would be expanding coverage. I think liberals may be making a mistake when they present expanding coverage as their top priority.

The US cannot achieve the first two priority without getting the third priority through first, and here's why.

First, bending the cost curve could only come as a result of bargaining power. Whether that is fees for specialists' services or brand names medication, collective bargaining have the most clout and the larger the public insurance plan, the more negotiating power it has. Furthermore, a large chuck could be cut just from administrative expense alone under the public plan, but I'm quite sure you're rather more well versed in that topic than anybody here.

Second, denial of coverage is inherent in any system where profit is the primary objective. As untasteful as it is, insurance companies are there to make a profit and it makes absolutely economic sense to eliminate costly policies. We could make legislation so that all insurers must accept customers with prior conditions or make it illegal for them to denial coverage to people who developed expensive medical problems ...... the problem is that the insurance companies would eventually bypass this by passing the bucks on to the rest of us by raising everyone's premiums. There's really no way around this, and eventually premiums for private insurance would be prohibitively expensive for most people. A public option with expanding customer base for the collective pooling of risk is the only solution against this spiraling system of for-profit health coverage. This of course would kill the market share of health insurance providers in the US, reducing them to a scale similar to the market share that private insurers occupied in other first-world countries.

This is inevitable; those who can't even grasp this eventuality are welcome to pay more than everyone else for their private insurance coverage.

[Ector]

I am still confused on why a speed limit is about protecting individual freedoms.... :leaving:

Its not. Since I don't believe in forcing morals upon others, public roads would not exist in my utopia (they would all be private). So the question is irrelevant to me. I figured this would derail the thread from health care, which I would rather talk about then my ethics, so I didn't write this before.

[Shryke]

Its not. Since I don't believe in forcing morals upon others, public roads would not exist in my utopia (they would all be private). So the question is irrelevant to me. I figured this would derail the thread from health care, which I would rather talk about then my ethics, so I didn't write this before.

:rofl: Oh wow.

You really make me appreciate Tormund.

[potsherds]

Its not. Since I don't believe in forcing morals upon others, public roads would not exist in my utopia (they would all be private). So the question is irrelevant to me. I figured this would derail the thread from health care, which I would rather talk about then my ethics, so I didn't write this before.

*pats Ector's head* You're cute. Can't wait to see what you're like when your older, son. :)

[Commodore]

:rofl: Oh wow.

You really make me appreciate Tormund.

We know how stupid you think we are. Posting about is serves no purpose other than to derail the thread and drive people with a different point of view away.

[The_BlauerDragon]

We know how stupid you think we are. Posting about is serves no purpose other than to derail the thread and drive people with a different point of view away.

Oh, but it does serve very well to draw the wrath of the swarm down upon you. It sometimes gets tiring wading through the onslaught of all of the "OMG! That's Like So Totally Stupid and Like Stuff and Stuff" type comments that usually come rolling out anytime any moderate or conservative viewpoint comes up in a thread.

Still, I think it's worth it, because there are a great many genuinely intelligent people here, and every now and then you can get them to stop attacking and try to look at an issue from a new perspective.

After all, isn't that what debate is all about? Getting someone to consider the possibility that they might not have seen the whole story and trying to show them where your opinion stems from? They're always free to disagree, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I just like getting the occasional person to at least try to understand why I see things the way that I do. In turn, I do my best to try and understand their point of view as well (when it is presented as anything other than an attack, that is).

[sologdin]

anytime any moderate or conservative viewpoint comes up in a thread.

i'm amazed that you think there's a dearth of moderate opinion here. sure, there's less conservative types, probably. but hell, it's not like most of the folks in this thread are leftwing radicals.

issue from a new perspective

i hope this doesn't mean to suggest that the new perspective is the status quo ante, which is an abject failure and thoroughly rejected.