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

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

what is banned in developed nations with socialized medicine that isn't banned or highly regulated in the states?

Intelligence and common sense maybe, judging by the shit he posts.

[RealAudio 3.0]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

what is banned in developed nations with socialized medicine that isn't banned or highly regulated in the states?

This is just a simple example, but the first thing I noticed upon arriving in the US was that people are free to ride their motorbikes without a helmet if they want. Where I'm from, you can actually get cited by a cop for riding a BICYCLE without a helmet.

Yes, riding a motorbike without a helmet is stupid. But you have the FREEDOM to be stupid.

Add to the list fireworks, BB-guns, toy rockets, playground equipment, vehicle modifications...

They may seem like small things, but take it from me...I fell over BACKWARDS the first time I saw fireworks on sale. Finally, a country that treats me like an adult and not a baby. THAT'S freedom. I don't think Americans realize it because they've grown up with it.

[starlightvideoproductions]

We do have a decent amount of regulation when it comes to that. Using the example of fireworks, the law of what type of firework is legal to buy and sell varies greatly from state to state and even city to city within the state. In Indiana, you can buy pretty much anything. You can even get M80s which are I believe quarter-sticks of dynamite. But in Illinois, you can buy sparklers and smoke bombs but thats about it. And the town next to me (I live in Illinois) banned all fireworks. The reasons are probably more groups of people bitching that their kids lost a finger or something for being a dumbass and then the state passes a law. I don't think its to lower health costs.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by RealAudio 3.0

This is just a simple example, but the first thing I noticed upon arriving in the US was that people are free to ride their motorbikes without a helmet if they want. Where I'm from, you can actually get cited by a cop for riding a BICYCLE without a helmet.

Yes, riding a motorbike without a helmet is stupid. But you have the FREEDOM to be stupid.

Add to the list fireworks, BB-guns, toy rockets, playground equipment, vehicle modifications...

They may seem like small things, but take it from me...I fell over BACKWARDS the first time I saw fireworks on sale. Finally, a country that treats me like an adult and not a baby. THAT'S freedom. I don't think Americans realize it because they've grown up with it.

ok it appears as though you have no actual evidence to back up anything you're saying

big fucking shock.

[publius clodius]

the helmet and fireworks things are the same here

[Eulogy]

I'm fairly sure there are helmet laws in some states. And fireworks laws in most states. People always have to drive across borders to buy fireworks.

If you saw the new playground equipment being built, it's probably as ridiculous as yours. Our culture is the same way, just maybe a couple decades behind. It has nothing to do with the presence or lack of socialized medicine.

I mean we have fucking seatbelt laws. How much more needlessly intrusive can you get?

[Red Scarlet]

stop equating saftey laws with socialized medicine. one is common sense, the other is an obstruction of the constitution

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Red Scarlet

stop equating saftey laws with socialized medicine. one is common sense, the other is an obstruction of the constitution

flawless logic here folks.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by Red Scarlet

stop equating saftey laws with socialized medicine. one is common sense, the other is an obstruction of the constitution

If the government runs health insurance and controls what behavior is allowed, how long do you think it will be before they start banning unhealthy activities to save costs? (smoking, drinking, fatty foods)

[Nimrod's Son]

Check out this story. I've brought up Mackey before, but this health plan is really impressive.

Health Savings Accounts: Putting Patients in Control - ABC News

Health Savings Accounts: Putting Patients in Control

Whole Foods Employees Go Bargain Hunting for Health Care

Don't you hate that high deductible on your insurance policy? You have to pay thousands of dollars before insurance covers your care. That's terrible, some say, but is it really? A version of it may be the key to lowering costs and putting you in charge of your health care.
Five years ago, the grocery chain Whole Foods Market switched to a different kind of health insurance, a policy that puts patients more in control.
CEO John Mackey explained the appeal of these policies. "Because it's like, 'At last, I can go to that acupuncturist! At last, I can go to my chiropractor! At last, I can spend the money the way I want to spend it.'"
Whole Foods has an insurance policy with a high deductible. That means an employee like Braden Weirs must pay about $1,000 before his insurance kicks in. If he gets cancer or heart disease, his insurance covers it.
But if he has a sore throat or a sprained ankle, he pays.
To help workers pay, Whole Foods puts money into an account for them. Weirs got $1,500 this year. If he doesn't spend it on medical care this year, he keeps it and the company adds more next year.
"And I have plenty of money left over," Weirs said. "So I can go get my new prescription glasses at the end of the year."

Individual Responsibility

Most companies call these accounts Health Savings or Health Reimbursement Accounts. The company saved money, too. "Our costs went way down," said Mackey.
Still, some employees were angry about the plan. They said they wanted their full coverage back.
"When you go from a system where people are very dependent and now you're telling them, 'Hey, you have to take more responsibility for your own health.' & That was frightening to them," Mackey said. "Because they were going to have to be responsible for themselves, they weren't going to be taken care of any longer."
So, Mackey held a vote among his employees on the plan. "The result was, 77 percent of the team members voted for the health plan that we have today," Mackey said.
Today, some workers have piled up $8,000 in their health accounts.
"And then that's their money," Mackey said. "It builds up over time & and so, that's great because the money is compounding for them."
Weirs said he can save up his money and afford to have a child later on. It's because he controls the money and as it builds up, it can cover all sorts of future out-of-pocket medical expenses.

'How Much Will This Cost?'

Mackey said this changed his employees' behavior.
"They start asking how much things cost. Or they get a bill and say, 'Wow, that's expensive.' They begin to ask questions. They may not want to go to the emergency room if they wake up with a hang nail in the middle of the night. They may schedule an appointment now."
They didn't ask what things cost before?
"Why should they?" Mackey said. "Somebody else was paying for it."
When she went to the doctor, Whole Foods employee Mary Ann Buttros never asked, "How much will this cost?"
"Because it didn't matter," Buttros said. "And now it matters to me, because it's my money."
Because it is Buttros' money, some people worry that Health Savings Accounts will discourage people from getting the preventive care that they need or that they'll shortchange their health to economize.
"The premise in those kind of questions & are that people are stupid. They're not smart enough to make these decisions for themselves. It's sort of an elitist attitude," Mackey said. "The individual is the best judge of what's right for the individual."

Shopping Around

Apparently, most individuals are making smart choices.
Regina Herzlinger, a Harvard Business School professor and author of "Who Killed Health Care?," said that "people who have these high-deductible health-insurance policies take better care of themselves. & They have more yearly physicals," she said. "Because they're saying, if I keep myself healthy, in the long run, I'm gonna be spending less money."
Whole Foods employee Cheralyn Schmidt used her account when she wanted to get a physical. Because it was her money, she shopped around. She found prices varied by hundreds of dollars.
"If I had regular insurance, I would have never called around and asked for prices," she said. "I would have just walked in, showed my card, said, 'I need a physical,' & and I don't even really know what they would have given me."
The fact that she was paying changed the way she thought about that physical.
"I started thinking, 'Well, what I am getting for this price? For $1,200 what I am getting?'" she said.
Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute, which studies free-market solutions to health-care problems, said doctors don't often know what to say when patients like Schmidt ask them what things cost.
"I mean, that shows you how dysfunctional our health-care system is," Turner said. "That people don't have the vaguest idea how much they're spending on health care, close to the closest $10,000 or $20,000, often, when they go to the hospital. And the sellers don't have any idea what it costs."
Competition forces Whole Foods to pay attention to prices. "We know what [Texas supermarket chain] H-E-B is selling broccoli for right now, so we have to reflect our prices to the competition," Mackey said. But in health care, "No one's trying to think, 'Yeah I'm going to cut 5 percent below that price, so I can increase my business.'"

Creating Competition

But some say health care's different. It's too complex. We can't decide that.
"Gosh," Mackey said. "You know, should we allow people to make decisions about whether they have children or not? I mean that's a pretty important responsibility, having children!"
But what about the argument that people don't know anything about things like cancer treatments?
"I don't know anything about cars," Mackey said. "[But] if I go buy a Toyota, or an Audi, or a Lexus, I know I'm going to get a pretty good automobile, because competition ensures that it will be that way."
That is why Americans buy Toyotas instead of Trabants. Of course cars and cancer are different, but where there is competition, information resources like Consumer Reports and Web sites spring up to help consumers make decisions. As the sliver of competition has entered health care, similar resources have appeared, rating doctors and hospitals.
Ingenix, a health-care information and technology company based in Minnesota, has developed software that analyzes data from insurance claims to rate doctors and hospitals on quality and price. The firm has found that doctors that rate higher in quality tend to cost less money. They also catch problems earlier and keep their patients out of the emergency room more often.
Currently, this rating system is only available to customers of insurance companies, but the company plans to make it more widely available through public search engines in the future.
Whole Foods' Mackey said competition could improve American health care, except so far, not enough people shop for that health care.
"The doctor doesn't feel compelled to compete on price," he said. "The doctor doesn't worry that he's going to lose that business to a competitor down the street. So there really isn't any price competition going on."
That's why, he said, despite their big initial savings, Whole Foods' health care costs are creeping up again.
"But if everybody was out there asking doctors what things cost, if doctors were advertising their prices," Mackey said, "we'd begin to see prices dropping."
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

[beef curtains]

Health savings accounts are only practical if you have lots of SAVINGS to put in up front. Most people who can't afford a $600 a month premium probably don't have $3000 either to have a HSA set up.

"oh boo hoo, fuck t****.... right? that's all i'm getting out of nimrod and red scarlet these days.

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Red Scarlet

stop equating saftey laws with socialized medicine. one is common sense, the other is an obstruction of the constitution

please give specific examples of where the constitution says that

and please give concrete proof that a govt run plan would create this "doomsday scenario" of socialized medicine even though its been said many times that this isn't the goal

bonus points if your responses do not resemble a giant turd that you have pulled out of either your ass or mouth

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

If the government runs health insurance and controls what behavior is allowed, how long do you think it will be before they start banning unhealthy activities to save costs? (smoking, drinking, fatty foods)

DO YOU SEE MEDICARE DOING THIS?????????

use your fucking brain

[Mayfuck]

Originally Posted by RealAudio 3.0

the FREEDOM to be stupid.

this should be the liberterians new slogan

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

Health savings accounts are only practical if you have lots of SAVINGS to put in up front. Most people who can't afford a $600 a month premium probably don't have $3000 either to have a HSA set up.

"oh boo hoo, fuck t****.... right? that's all i'm getting out of nimrod and red scarlet these days.

Did you even read that article? The employer was contributing to the HSA.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

DO YOU SEE MEDICARE DOING THIS?????????

use your fucking brain

Use yours. It's the next logical step in controlling costs when they become out of control. For the old folks, by then the damage is done to lungs and livers.

[hnibos]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

Health savings accounts are only practical if you have lots of SAVINGS to put in up front. Most people who can't afford a $600 a month premium probably don't have $3000 either to have a HSA set up.

"oh boo hoo, fuck t****.... right? that's all i'm getting out of nimrod and red scarlet these days.

to be fair, what we get from nimrod is that they shouldnt be buying cool jerseys, air force ones, and going to kfc

[hnibos]

i wonder if nimrod is right about the smoking drinking and fatty food stuff though

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

Use yours. It's the next logical step in controlling costs when they become out of control. For the old folks, by then the damage is done to lungs and livers.

I believe the next step is every conservative announcing aloud simultaneously that they're all racists. If I believe it, I can base an entire theoretical argument on it, right??

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

Did you even read that article? The employer was contributing to the HSA.

In that one instance, yes. It does not change the fact that HSAs are completely impractical for people who don't have employer paid insurance.

If every single person in the US had employer paid health insurance, we would not be having this conversation at all. THUS, for the people who are relevant to the topic of healthcare reform this article is irrelevant, and I still stand by HSAs being a shitty choice for poor people.

[Nimrod's Son]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

I believe the next step is every conservative announcing aloud simultaneously that they're all racists. If I believe it, I can base an entire theoretical argument on it, right??

Wait, what? One is a logical progression in an effort to keep down costs; the other is... well, I don't even know what it is.

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by Nimrod's Son

Wait, what? One is a logical progression in an effort to keep down costs; the other is... well, I don't even know what it is.

You think its logical that fast food will be banned? I don't see the farming or restaurant industry lobbies taking to that too highly. Look at the bullshit the insurance lobbies have put out... can you imagine people's outrage at seeing commercials they aren't allowed to eat?

[Crippler]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

You think its logical that fast food will be banned? I don't see the farming or restaurant industry lobbies taking to that too highly. Look at the bullshit the insurance lobbies have put out... can you imagine people's outrage at seeing commercials they aren't allowed to eat?

I know plenty of people who are pissed off that the government taxes the shit out of cigarettes and is making it harder and harder for people to smoke anywhere outside of their homes...but it doesn't stop people from buying cigarettes. If people want to eat junk food enough, it doesn't matter how much it costs.

That said, the idea of junk food being banned is a major stretch, to say the least...the more likely scenario under socialized health care will be the government taxing the shit out of fast food and soda like they do cigarettes. Which of course, is bullshit, for a number of reasons.

[duovamp]

Why is it bullshit? Because companies selling delicious poison to people then selling them the "cure" to their ailments sounds like bullshit to me. Unproductive bullshit.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

You think its logical that fast food will be banned?

Realistic? Not anytime soon, at all. But logical? Definitely.


If we are all "our brothers keeper" when it comes to health - the healthy pay for the sick - it is inevitable that certain healthier segments of the population will have a right to regulate the exercise, eating and vices of other segments. I think the most realistic way this could be pursued is through tobacco prohibition, alcohol limits and taxes, food taxes and prohibitions, mandatory PE requirements for kids (perhaps even for young adults as part of mandatory community service) - but those are just my own uninformed speculation.

What is not speculation is the incentives and unintended consequences produced by a healthcare system which makes certain segments of the population pay for other segments - war over monopoly resources which will attempt to force behaviour restrictions, subsidies and other further interventions.

[RealAudio 3.0]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

If we are all "our brothers keeper" when it comes to health - the healthy pay for the sick - it is inevitable that certain healthier segments of the population will have a right to regulate the exercise, eating and vices of other segments. I think the most realistic way this could be pursued is through tobacco prohibition, alcohol limits and taxes, food taxes and prohibitions, mandatory PE requirements for kids (perhaps even for young adults as part of mandatory community service) - but those are just my own uninformed speculation.

What is not speculation is the incentives and unintended consequences produced by a healthcare system which makes certain segments of the population pay for other segments - war over monopoly resources which will attempt to force behaviour restrictions, subsidies and other further interventions.

This is true.

Like I said, I grew up under a public healthcare system, and you wouldn't believe how up-in-arms people get about the lifestyle choices of others. People feel like they have a right to force others to change because they're paying for it.

I'm not entirely against public health, but Americans should be aware of the hidden baggage that comes with it.

I personally think charities should be set up to help pay for people's health care.

[beef curtains]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Realistic? Not anytime soon, at all. But logical? Definitely.


If we are all "our brothers keeper" when it comes to health - the healthy pay for the sick - it is inevitable that certain healthier segments of the population will have a right to regulate the exercise, eating and vices of other segments. I think the most realistic way this could be pursued is through tobacco prohibition, alcohol limits and taxes, food taxes and prohibitions, mandatory PE requirements for kids (perhaps even for young adults as part of mandatory community service) - but those are just my own uninformed speculation.

What is not speculation is the incentives and unintended consequences produced by a healthcare system which makes certain segments of the population pay for other segments - war over monopoly resources which will attempt to force behaviour restrictions, subsidies and other further interventions.

I still can't believe you live in the UK, the hub of socialized medicine, when you spout stuff off like this it makes you sound off grid cabin in Montana.

Do you see that shit happening in the UK? You guys hear the letter A, assume someone is reciting the alphabet and scream out Z. Its such a huge non sequitor jump its hard to really argue with you. Unless I find some fringe militant website myself and spout off their talking points.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by beef curtains

I still can't believe you live in the UK, the hub of socialized medicine, when you spout stuff off like this it makes you sound off grid cabin in Montana.

I don't really want to get into it here, but I have basically had awful experiences with the NHS. I am about to undergo an operation on my guitar fretting hand which has gotten worse over the two months I have had to wait for treatment ( was broken and then healed over in a crooked and bent state, and I can barely play anymore). I am still on the waiting list to see a specialist for a broken finger that has already stiffened up and healed crooked and only half-way bendable.

So if I sound like a crazy person, it isn't from a lack of experience.

Originally Posted by beef curtains

Do you see that shit happening in the UK? You guys hear the letter A, assume someone is reciting the alphabet and scream out Z. Its such a huge non sequitor jump its hard to really argue with you. Unless I find some fringe militant website myself and spout off their talking points.

All I am responding to is your question about whether or not something like a fast food ban could be a consequence of universal healthcare. And I am saying, maybe - but it is sort of inevitable that people will wage political and legislative war on each other when their taxes are paying for things.

[ravenguy2000]

Originally Posted by Crippler

I know plenty of people who are pissed off that the government taxes the shit out of cigarettes and is making it harder and harder for people to smoke anywhere outside of their homes...but it doesn't stop people from buying cigarettes.

Actually it does stop people from buying cigarettes. In New Jersey they raised the taxes so much the revenue from cigarette taxes declined. Part of that was because of an increase in black market sales, and more people going out of state to buy them, but not all of it. It's easily measurable, and not that hard for economists to know where the tipping point is.

It's true, it's true.

[RealAudio 3.0]

Regulations will be passed to ease the burden on the system --it's a logical consequence. You'll be wrapped in cotton-wool.