Universal Healthcare is Wonderful and Will Ensure Better Health care for everyone

[Debaser]

from now on all my posts will be in this form. just play the movie, thanks

[Mayfuck]

lol

[ravenguy2000]

Originally Posted by ravenguy2000

heh

my "heh" was in response to some really awesome spam, for the record. about wine dvds.

[Trotskilicious]

from Malmsteen to boot

[Ever]

Originally Posted by Debaser

The rationing argument is such a dodge. Rationing occurs in both free market and socialized systems. I can understand that under socialized healthcare, there may be people left with too little healthcare*. But I would have to say that is quite a bit better than leaving over 40 million people with nothing at all.

The rationing argument is not a dodge. I know that the market rations too, I am just curios as to how the proposed new system would ration healthcare.

In fact you seem to be the one who dodged the question

Originally Posted by Debaser

For all the gripes you toss at other wealthy countries' socialized healthcare systems, would you prefer to give up your own country's healthcare system in exchange for the United States?

I wouldn't know I haven't lived in America.

I would rather have neither though.

I would rather see healthcare that works and is affordable to those that really need it.

Originally Posted by Debaser

Instead of building a nice big strawman of a fictional proposal of an american single payer system, maybe you should research the actual proposals flying around washington. If you get into the nuts and bolts of them, you would realize that these proposed reforms pretty much do everything they can to protect and preserve the private healthcare market, to the probable detriment of substantial cost savings.

*under the proposed hybrid system, you are still perfectly free to purchase additional coverage with your own money if the govt system is not enough for you.

I understand that you are free to receive additional coverage, this is not the problem.

The problem isn't that a wealthy man can't get better service than a poorer man. The wealthy man is always going to be able to get better service than the poorer man one way or another. This is never going to be a problem.

The problem is will consumers in this "hybrid system" base their decisions on costs and gains?

For example will a person seeking to receive an operation for a hernia be faced with multiple treatment options all at different prices or will he be able to choose among them with no prices involved?

If no prices are involved then the necessary trade offs between the costs of production and the service offered cannot be made. People will instead go to the service which provides the best care to them, no matter the cost of the service to the producers.

This means the market process which selects the best mode of production as measured by profit as a differential between revenues and costs of production (in this case the production of hernia services) will not be able to take place because the consumer cannot make a distinction between someone who uses this technology, this staffing and this organizational structure and someone who uses another technology and staffing and organizational structure.

Effectively this leads to prices becoming meaningless. The price a hospital can and is willing to pay for a certain machine or tool used in medicine now cannot reflect consumer demand and the same applies for the price of different types of labor and other factors related to the production of medical services.

Without these prices having any real meaning the market cannot hope to co-ordinate organization and activity in the healthcare industry. The market, if tampered with in this way, will simply break down.

I argue that, if the delicate co-ordinating function of the price system is tampered with by regulations, compulsory employee insurance, tax rebates and the like in any way or form that the proposal will not be able to achieve the effect it desires because the market part of the market hybrid will not do what it is intended to do.

This is why a "hybrid system" even though it retains some key features of a market will not be able to be controlled by market forces and run effectively. Eventually government will want to step in to try and alleviate these problems by direct co-ordination similar to what has happened with the motor and financial sectors.

There is no such thing as a reasonable "hybrid" There is only the market and not the market and the sooner this gets into peoples heads the sooner health care will become affordable and accessible to the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich.

[Nimrod's Son]

If government run health care lowers costs, why does Massachusetts have one of the highest costs in the country?

[ravenguy2000]

In the Massachusetts plan government doesn't provide health care, it mandates that everyone must buy private health insurance.

[Ever]

Wow, well that's certainly a sure fire way to destroy healthcare. That sort of tampering with the market is almost as bad as price controls.

[duovamp]

Originally Posted by Ever

Wow, well that's certainly a sure fire way to destroy healthcare. That sort of tampering with the market is almost as bad as price controls.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Blah blah blah

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by ravenguy2000

In the Massachusetts plan government doesn't provide health care, it mandates that everyone must buy private health insurance.

.. which makes it government run, essentially.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

.. which makes it government run, essentially.

uh, what? explain that.

[Mayfuck]

no, don't

[Debaser]

response to Ever:

[Shawn Osmond]

It's fun reading posts from a bunch of little kids like Trotty and DeBoy who have never worked in the health insurance/healthcare field, and watching them attempt to debate points for a government takeover. I wish I still had the time to waste that you guys do...

[hnibos]

have time to read the posts though. dipshit

[Mayfuck]

debaser you rule

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Shawn Osmond

It's fun reading posts from a bunch of little kids like Trotty and DeBoy who have never worked in the health insurance/healthcare field, and watching them attempt to debate points for a government takeover. I wish I still had the time to waste that you guys do...

I work in health care you dumb fuck and I agree with everything they've said.
On a certain level there are things that can't be taken away from the healthcare system - Drs, nurses, other providers. Equipment, testing etc.
But if you look at the incredible amount of waste and paper pushers in any office, hosptial, pharmcy, company, its staggering. The coding and exemptions and the people who spend all day writing this shit to make it more difficult for people to get reimbursed...
I had an imaging test that wasn't paid for for some stupid reason (date fell on a strange day for my plan's renewal). I call my insurance company and someone is going to contact the bill issuer, have them reissue it and rebill it in a few weeks, and then she's going to recode it, have it paid and call me back when its done. That's probably a good 4- 8 hours of watching it and working on it in the next weeks. If she's making $12 an hour to answer the phone, this little boo boo costs $100 which is a large portion of the bill to begin with. This doesn't "produce" anything for the healthcare system but it sure does employ a lot of people and raise costs of everything. This happens at every office, hospital and pharmacy you visit.

Most of the people you just attempted to call out are a hell of a lot smarter and more well informed than you are, your "knowledge" of the medical profession aside.

[Future Boy]

You reminded me I wanted to post this.

Hes a single payer advocate, but in general its one of the best reform pitches than most have given.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

uh, what? explain that.

When the government is regulating and requiring something, they're running the show. They're affecting the market for sure.

[Debaser]

hey nimmy:

[Trotskilicious]

i think shawn osmond is obsessed with me since i really haven't driven any kind of argument other than america sucks in this thread

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

When the government is regulating and requiring something, they're running the show. They're affecting the market for sure.

"Affecting the market" is not the same thing as "running the industry."

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Future Boy

You reminded me I wanted to post this.

Hes a single payer advocate, but in general its one of the best reform pitches than most have given.

I want to make love to the weiner

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Debaser

hey nimmy:

[Shawn Osmond]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

I work in health care you dumb fuck and I agree with everything they've said.
On a certain level there are things that can't be taken away from the healthcare system - Drs, nurses, other providers. Equipment, testing etc.
But if you look at the incredible amount of waste and paper pushers in any office, hosptial, pharmcy, company, its staggering. The coding and exemptions and the people who spend all day writing this shit to make it more difficult for people to get reimbursed...
I had an imaging test that wasn't paid for for some stupid reason (date fell on a strange day for my plan's renewal). I call my insurance company and someone is going to contact the bill issuer, have them reissue it and rebill it in a few weeks, and then she's going to recode it, have it paid and call me back when its done. That's probably a good 4- 8 hours of watching it and working on it in the next weeks. If she's making $12 an hour to answer the phone, this little boo boo costs $100 which is a large portion of the bill to begin with. This doesn't "produce" anything for the healthcare system but it sure does employ a lot of people and raise costs of everything. This happens at every office, hospital and pharmacy you visit.

Most of the people you just attempted to call out are a hell of a lot smarter and more well informed than you are, your "knowledge" of the medical profession aside.

Having worked for 2 different health insurance companies now, I can tell you that no person anywhere is spending 4-8 hours on your very minor billing issue. Fifteen minutes tops, I would say.

The fact is that doctors and hospitals know more than you, Debaser, and Trots -- and more than the government -- about who they need to hire and when they need to hire them to take care of their patients. They also know more than you do about what they need to pay their "paper pushers" and what they need to charge, or bill your insurance company for, to cover those costs and have a little left over to put in their pocket. If you truly feel that this is not happening where you are, as you stated above, then find another doctor. There's plenty of physicians and specialists in your network i'm sure.

The insurance companies are backing you up by building these large networks of doctors and hospitals so that you aren't stuck with that one doctor who you feel is not being efficient. Likewise, if you feel that its your insurance company that has the problem with efficiency and cost overruns, you still have the ability to opt out of your employer coverage and go with your own insurance company that you feel is being run more efficiently, according to your high standards.

This is a much better idea than yours, which is to whine about what you paid for your little imaging test just because you think that most of the cost for that test is due to clerical errors. What's nice about living in the US is that your health is worth whatever price tag you want to put on it. And if its worth more to you than say having an HDTV or new refrigerator or any of that, then no one is stopping you from going online and purchasing a $0 deductible individual insurance plan for about $180 a month that will pay for anything and everything that you need done by a doctor, dentist, hospital, or whatever.

Otherwise, you can just keep bitching about how the government should come in and tell your doctor that he is only allowed to charge you $10 for that imaging test because that's all that you think his time and that equipment is worth. And it's interesting that you neglected to even mention that the US government is already the largest employer of "paper pushers" in the history of the world.

[Trotskilicious]

again mentioning me even though i haven't proposed anything about health care in this thread

[sppunk]

Originally Posted by Shawn Osmond

Having worked for 2 different health insurance companies now

Working in a call center at a health insurance company doesn't mean you know shit. Shut the fuck up.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

[Order 66]

KEEP GOV'T OUTTA MY MEDICARE