America's Health Care System Compared to Other Nations

[PLC1]

You didn't answer the question. What makes you think it is going up too much?

In a couple of years the amount of money spent on green technology will have doubled or tripled. Will it have gone up too much? Or will that just mean that people wanted to spend more money on green products and they completely got their money's worth? Will that just mean that the green industry is a better place for people to spend their money than coal?

Growth in health care spending is expected to be about 6.7% annually. Why do you think that is high? We have heard that it is higher than inflation but inflation is of course at a very low rate because we are in a recession. Often inflation is higher than that which would mean that the growth in health care is lower than the typical growth in inflation. Then we could compare it to other industries. How many industries do you think are growing faster than health care? And how many of them are offering new innovations and better service all the time.

Then of course who is to say that the growth in health care will remain unchecked? It certainly will be checked if we stifle innovation and reduce care neither of which we want to do. But it could be checked appropriately if we restore market forces.

So again I ask why do you think it is growing too fast?

Where did that 6.7% figure come from? The rise in the cost of health care has been a lot more than that for some time now. I can remember years in which our health insurance costs doubled, followed by a 20% increase. If costs had been held to 6.7% for the past couple of decades, we wouldn't be facing such a challenge today. Has something happened to magically lower the increases to single digits?

I used to be involved in labor negotiations. The main issue was not salary increases, but how to pay for health insurance increases. No one was asking for a double digit salary increase, but health insurance went up that much every year for a while, and there was no negotiating it. Either the employer or the employees, or generally both absorbed the increase.

That's why I say that the costs are going up too much.

 

[Dr.Who]

And after they are out of the hospital, then what? With no savings left, are they to live on the joke that Social Security has become? Are they to enter the job market at the age of 75? Who is going to hire them?

If they are out of money after paying for health care then that is a problem but it is not a reason to socialize medicine. It is a separate problem that needs to be addressed separately.

Oldsters and people who have health issues can't buy their own health insurance. If they bought in while young, there is no guarantee that they can keep it later. There is pretty much a guarantee that they will lose private individual insurance should they become a risk that the insurance company doesn't want to take.

Those who get sick before they buy health insurance have made a stupid decision and don't understand what insurance is if they want to buy it after they get sick. Insurance is to protect against future events not past ones. they will have to be left to welfare private or public. Those who have paid premiums and then been cancelled have been harmed and gov should step in and correct the injustice. Why has it not?

National catastrophic health insurance that covers everyone is the way to go. It will bring down costs, get those market forces working, and get the burden of health care off of the backs of employers.

It is using a hammer to push a thumbtack. It reduces freedoms for all and expands government opening the door for future leaders to abuse that power. it will not bring down costs unless service suffers. It will reduce the impact of market forces and as proposed does not do much to reduce the burden on employers (unless you expect that everyone will be using the public option some day).

Of course, the federal bureaucracy won't do anything so simple and logical, probably, so costs will continue to soar for a time at least.

They rarely do do anything simple and logical.

 

[PLC1]

If they are out of money after paying for health care then that is a problem but it is not a reason to socialize medicine. It is a separate problem that needs to be addressed separately.

It is not a separate problem if it is caused by the health care system.

Those who get sick before they buy health insurance have made a stupid decision and don't understand what insurance is if they want to buy it after they get sick. Insurance is to protect against future events not past ones. they will have to be left to welfare private or public. Those who have paid premiums and then been cancelled have been harmed and gov should step in and correct the injustice. Why has it not?

C'mon, seriously? The government is going to step in and correct the injustice when people get their health insurance canceled?

It's a given that it will be canceled if it is an individual policy and if the individual becomes unprofitable for the insurance company. If the government were to step in, which it will never do, then the cost is going to go up to make up the difference.

It is using a hammer to push a thumbtack. It reduces freedoms for all and expands government opening the door for future leaders to abuse that power. it will not bring down costs unless service suffers. It will reduce the impact of market forces and as proposed does not do much to reduce the burden on employers (unless you expect that everyone will be using the public option some day).

The employers would not have to provide insurance for their workers. The employees would have the choice of buying a policy to make up the difference between what catastrophic care pays and what costs are, or establish an account to pay that difference themselves. It's a perfect compromise between a totally free market solution in which the old and infirm spend all of their assets and then depend on welfare, and a totally public option in which the government pays the bills and the consumer doesn't care what charges are.

They rarely do do anything simple and logical.

Which is why we're not likely to get a plan that works very well, unfortunately.

In conclusion: We're screwed.

 

[top gun]

If they are out of money after paying for health care then that is a problem but it is not a reason to socialize medicine. It is a separate problem that needs to be addressed separately.


Those who get sick before they buy health insurance have made a stupid decision and don't understand what insurance is if they want to buy it after they get sick. Insurance is to protect against future events not past ones. they will have to be left to welfare private or public. Those who have paid premiums and then been cancelled have been harmed and gov should step in and correct the injustice. Why has it not?


It is using a hammer to push a thumbtack. It reduces freedoms for all and expands government opening the door for future leaders to abuse that power. it will not bring down costs unless service suffers. It will reduce the impact of market forces and as proposed does not do much to reduce the burden on employers (unless you expect that everyone will be using the public option some day).


They rarely do do anything simple and logical.

All of that is basically malarkey.

The tiny things you're willing to "fix" are basically nothing.

You're for Tort reform. Litigation makes up one third of one percent of total healthcare cost.

You want buying across state lines. Sounds good doesn't it, buy insurance from anywhere in the country? But that's not just what happens. What happens is the insurance companies then get to go lowest common denominator as far as coverage goes on every policy everywhere. Say Maine has really tough health insurance regulations as far as what must be provided and Texas has almost no regulation for coverage. Now the insurance companies can offer their crap policy to those in Maine and get around the higher standards. That's not a good thing my friends. It's called whoring out the market.

The smoke screen that you want to fix anything is not even for a minute a real statement. You want the costs to keep rising double digits every year. You want families with someone with a preexisting conditions to lose everything to medical bill bankruptcy. You want beneficial treatments halted due to arbitrary preimposed caps. You want 36 million or more Americans to not have any healthcare outside of a rush to the emergency room.

Just be honest and say this is what you want because that's exactly what we have now and what you are evangelizing for.

Even though I'd think you were crazy to want that I'd at least be able to say... Well at least he's completely honest about how bad he wants to see people hurt.

 

[Dr.Who]

It is not a separate problem if it is caused by the health care system.

Being broke is the result of spending all of ones money on food or housing or health care or whatever. The problem is that a person has gone broke not that they have spent the money on one expense or another. Once we say that a person who is broke because they spent all their money on health means that all people have an imaginary right to free health care then all things that could cause a person to go broke would become rights.

C'mon, seriously? The government is going to step in and correct the injustice when people get their health insurance canceled?
It's a given that it will be canceled if it is an individual policy and if the individual becomes unprofitable for the insurance company. If the government were to step in, which it will never do, then the cost is going to go up to make up the difference.

The gov already does. When the policy is canceled for no good reason the person can take the company to court. Companies that cancel people who paid premiums because they have become expensive even though they have not yet reached their limit should be taken to court and the gov should help.

 

[Dr.Who]

All of that is basically malarkey.

The tiny things you're willing to "fix" are basically nothing.

You're for Tort reform. Litigation makes up one third of one percent of total healthcare cost.

You want buying across state lines. Sounds good doesn't it, buy insurance from anywhere in the country? But that's not just what happens. What happens is the insurance companies then get to go lowest common denominator as far as coverage goes on every policy everywhere. Say Maine has really tough health insurance regulations as far as what must be provided and Texas has almost no regulation for coverage. Now the insurance companies can offer their crap policy to those in Maine and get around the higher standards. That's not a good thing my friends. It's called whoring out the market.

The smoke screen that you want to fix anything is not even for a minute a real statement. You want the costs to keep rising double digits every year. You want families with someone with a preexisting conditions to lose everything to medical bill bankruptcy. You want beneficial treatments halted due to arbitrary preimposed caps. You want 36 million or more Americans to not have any healthcare outside of a rush to the emergency room.

Just be honest and say this is what you want because that's exactly what we have now and what you are evangelizing for.

Even though I'd think you were crazy to want that I'd at least be able to say... Well at least he's completely honest about how bad he wants to see people hurt.

Those are some pretty mean spirited conclusions.

 

[Gipper]

Most recent poll:

61% against Dems communist health care plan
36% want Dems communist health care plan

Why do they persist in their efforts to socialize the best health care plan in the world when overwhelmingly Americans are against it? I know why. Do you?