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Landmark Health Insurance Bill Passes House
theodp writes "A hastily-crafted amendment imposing tough new restrictions on abortion coverage in insurance policies helped pave the way for the House to approve the Democrats' bill to overhaul the nation's health insurance system. 'It provides coverage for 96 percent of Americans,' said Rep. John Dingell. Rep. Candice Miller disagreed, calling the legislation 'a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding' bill. The 1,990-page, $1.2 trillion legislation passed by a vote of 220-215 and moves on for Senate debate, which is expected to begin in several days."
Update — 11/08 at 13:45 GMT by SS: Changed vote totals above to reflect the actual bill vote. The 240-194 number was for the abortion restrictions amendment.
Amg.
I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
I'm not from the US, but isn't that the main bit of you guys' healthcare system that's most in need of fixing?
In my country, pre-existing conditions just mean that you can't claim anything for 12 months after joining. It doesn't affect premiums or anything, and no health insurance provider can reject your application.
So, I guess, welcome to the 20th century!
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Maybe the US will finally join the rest of the industrialized world in actually providing medical care to its citizens, instead of taking the, "find your own care" attitude.
Palm trees and 8
I would like to offer our congratulations to US of A.
That said, I don't know why this is on /.. This has nothing to do with technology, geeks, etc... And everyone interested in this can read about this from every other news source in the world. I live in Finland and our massmedia caught this before Slashdot. In addition to that, this isn't even final yet (still needs to be signed by a lot of folks, if I understood correctly, so this still might not pass) so we will certainly be able to read about this numerous times more, even in /..
Every single argument that will appear in this comment section will be repeated in almost identical manner when the senate signs (or doesn't sign) the bill, etc...
Unfortunetly the luck favors a terrible outcome And no amount of hope will change that.
The final vote was a lot closer: 220 to 215. Which seems like a mid-20th century vote total. It really is quite remarkable that, in 2009, in the United States, there's still widespread debate and disagreement over the proposition that health care should not be rationed on the basis of ability to pay.
Final vote count is 220-215.
I thought "news for nerds" would be accurate about stuff like numbers.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
How would this get paid for, I wonder? It's written by the same people that brought you "Cash for Clunkers" and the "Stimulus Package", and we know what came of THEM.
The Senate isn't expecting to make a vote on their version until next year. Hopefully it will die a horrible death. This bill has no business at ALL being the Law of the Land.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
As an European, I just want to pass on my congratulations to the US for taking a huge step forward. The mark of a civilized society is one that takes care of its people.
I think you're referring to the abortion amendment vote.
1990 pages? Maybe this is a clue as to why health care is so expensive?
What's with the remaining 4%? How come not everyone will be covered?
Yandelvayasna grldenwi stravenka
So surely this bill, which makes it illegal to charge more for being a woman, also makes it illegal to charge more for being a man with car insurance and life insurance. Right? I mean, god forbid the democrats come up with a good idea and poorly execute it or create unfair exceptions that favor special interest groups that voted them in like they always do. So who read more than 100 of the 1,990 pages of this thing before voting? How do you even summarize something so simply in a matter of a few paragraphs, then someone manage to bloat that to 1,990 pages? Obviously there is a LOT more to this bill than what has hit the press releases.
Well, countdown until this article gets over a 1,000 comments and only the top few become the ones actually read...
I'm of the opinion that even the current system of private coverage is fundamentally a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality. You've got these insurance companies just itching to monetize any piece of data they can get from their paying customers, such that the half-assed nature of HIPAA really provides no assurance that your medical information won't be used in one way or another that is ultimately against your well-being.
The only way to be sure your information (any info, not just medical records) won't be systematically abused is to make sure it isn't entered into a file or a database in the first place. Unfortunately, there seems to be a real focus on doing just the opposite with these healthcare changes - some sort of magical computer worshipping cargo cult thing where too many people think that if they can just get all our personal info into a database it will be the best thing since sliced bread. I'm tired of sacrificing privacy for the promise of increased efficiency and convenience and I am doubly tired of those promises failing to pan out in the long run. But that's exactly what I expect is going to happen here too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
For all of those posting their "welcome to the 21st century" drivel there are two points you need to consider:
It seems public health insurance works in other communist(?) states, like (in no specific order) Norway, France, Sweden, Canada, the UK and so on... Insurance companies are evil by default, they want to KEEP your money.
/tb
Glad I dont live in the land of the free. Article from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8345341.stm
I am a webdeveloper. I know waitresses, construction workers, etc. who are getting paid a lot less than I am despite working longer days.
But if our society lost every webdeveloper, it would be no worse off than it would be if it lost every construction worker.
Your wage does not correlate with how necessary you are to our society. Nor does it correlate with how hard you work.
To thunderous applause.
I guess we're all in the crab bucket now.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The 4% are the "uncooperative" ones.
Where am I going to get the extra cash to pay $15K? These over stuffed asshole millionaires in office are totally disconnected from reality, but then they probably can get the best psychiatric care on THEIR far superior health plan. Which we ALSO pay for.
->Rep. Candice Miller disagreed, calling the legislation 'a jobs-killing, tax-hiking, deficit-exploding' bill.-
*sigh* Why does my representative have to be such a moron? I've been trying every time I vote to get her out of office....
Michigan has been in a recession since 2001. Lots of people are out of jobs and can't afford to get health care (let alone the basics: food, shelter, clothing). And she thinks it's a job-killer? The only thing that's killing jobs in Michigan are the representatives who aren't doing anything about trying to create them.
Let's be clear: 1.2 Billion is the cost for 10 years, not 1 single upfront cost (like bailouts or emergency war funding supplementals)
so health care reform bill has passed it first step - actually a move forward even if you dont like the bill, everyone (except the fat insurance companies) admitted that things had to change, and so this is a start. however, the amendment restricting abortion coverage is HUGE step backwards and another reminder just how much the lunatic Religious Right has taken hold in the US. Hopefully this does not force people into coat hangers and whiskey again. so close, but yet so far still to come.
1. Calling something fascism doesn't make it so.
2. Social welfare is used basically to make nobody go dead broke and end up in so much debt they're better off killing themselves. The idea is that if you have somebody who is close to flat broke to pay him enough so he/she can find a new job, and no more than that. No guarantee if the thing you label as "social welfare" actually resembles this or if it's just a "everyone who earns less than 100k gets teh rest for free!!!" law.
I am sure this bill will certainly help many of those who cannot afford insurance and will now recieve it. However that does not mean i think it is the perfect bill, however we will be better off with it. It does not regulate insurance companies enough, included in the bill should have been a CEO pay cap, to open p the finances of private companies to be audited and requiring them to reduce their overhead, eliminate advertising budgets, and use all of the money for providing health insurance coverage and capped salaries to their employees. Only then can we be certain that money being paid into these companies is not going to some fat cat CEO while the companies deny claims for life saving treatments as they do now. Private insurance today is pretty scammy and worthless, you often have to fight with the companies to get things covered. Hopefully the bill does set a basic coverage standard which covers everything essential. I have also always been a little skeptical of ideas of linking insurance to employment unless the insurance can continue seemlessly after employment or persons are transferred instantly to a government plan. The Public Option even in this bill is too weak and should have been set according to medicare's cost alignment rather than an average of private insurance. It is unclear whether it will survive the senate. Without the public option I would be concerned that the private companies will ruthlessly jack up rates and massively exploit the people, which could be controlled by the pay caps i mentioned above however and perhaps setting some price control or requiring that as i said the money be spent on actually providing health care. Better yet still would have been single payer, which ironically would be the most efficient, would have saved enough money considering that private insurance is 30% inefficient while medicare is 4% to provide insurance to everyone without spending any more money than we do now. That would save the lives of 40,000 children who die annually so some capitalist pig CEO can get rich. The single payer in progressive plans would be the least beauracratic, you would not have insurance company beauracrats deciding what health care you can get or deciding to deny stuff to help improve the profit margin. The single payer would gaurantee coverage of essential care, and not deny things to improve profit margins.
As far as rationing, the single payer and this bill both fight rationing. To be honest, any system contains rationing. However, it is important to make sure that highest urgency treatment is giving first priority, regardless of the patients income. Our current system rations in the worst possible way, according to ability to pay. It is genocidal to the poor since it guarantees health care to the rich and denies it to the poor. I don't want to hear this idea that people who make money contribute more. that is a lie. Try telling that to the overworked factory slave laborer or field worker who harvests the food you eat who works out in the hot sun all day making $5 an hour. It is usually the case that the hardest working people who do the most essential thing, bringing food to your table, make the least.
I applaud this move heartily and am glad to see America finally catch up with the rest of the developed, Western world. Forcing citizens to enter patronize particular corporate entities IS the way forward, and I'm glad Obama and the House can see that. Once the citizen realizes he has to give up a large portion of his ability to make selfish INDIVIDUAL choices and act in accordance with that of the leaders of his or her nations, can they develop into a more moral, self-actualized human being. I think this is also an indication that there is a shift towards America having less of this "me, me, me!" attitude and the country is starting to realize that freedom isn't individual greed, but something greater than they are--sacrifice and adherence to ones' governing body. A more moral human being is one that follows the edicts of the body that rules it. A good dog, after all, is not one that jumps the fence and goes where it pleases but one that runs to its master with leash in its mouth, wagging its tail.
Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price fixing and market allocation.
So this sounds like a good thing to come from the bill, but does this mean that Insurance companies are going to pull a lot of new nasty tricks to increase their profit... What tricks exactly would they pull? There's bound to be a loop hole somewhere in the bill...
Considering only around 12 million US citizens aren't covered today (4%) (the same that isn't covered in this bill) it seems all that happened is Government took further control of the system.
So how would you define "If you choose not to buy my product you will still pay for it, or else the IRS will throw you in jail"?
That's a great idea. All of you that believe that should get together, pool your resources and enact this program. We only have a problem when you force me to participate whether I agree with your plan or not. I have no problem with progressives until the decide they know better than me how my resources should be allocated and start reaching into my back pocket.
Just my prediction, but I think it will be taken to court and ruled unconstitutional (since the court is still majority conservative)
Denying social welfare dooms people to that behaviour.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/understanding_the_cause_of_hea.html
They're the ones that started cost inflation in the 1970's that has gotten us to this point. They don't even know they screwed it up...and we expect them to fix it?
It makes me think of the classic demotivator: http://www.despair.com/government.html
Sigh.
Oh well, at least we don't have any money to pay for it....(not that it matters, apparently)
We already have a 12 TRILLION dollar debt, 10.2% unemployment, and fiat money. Now we want to increase the deficit, and print out another trillion dollars? Face the facts: Keynesian economic DON'T WORK. Our money is WORTHLESS, and our government is driving it further into the ground. We haven't had a 'free market' in a hundred years, progressive policies will be the ruin of this country. Goddamn.
Once the government is paying for your health care, they can pretty much mandate what you eat, what you smoke, what you drink, how long you live, etc. Hey, the repercussions of "bad" behavior are on their nickel, right? Government-sponsored health care pretty much covers control of the individual. The next step -- control of the corporation -- is accomplished through cap-and-trade and other such "green" and "environmental protection" legislation.
The problem is, it was supposed to be different in America. The government here was never supposed to be an entity apart from "We the People." We are, BY DESIGN, "not like the rest of the world." That is changing now, in leaps and bounds.
For my wallet ...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You will pay for the health care of illegal aliens - period.
Let me repeat that. Whether they come to the ER without coverage or are enrolled in a government subsidized insurance program, you will pay. At least, in the latter case, they will contribute something and, perhaps, get some earlier care that will avoid expensive hospitalizations.
The bone-headed reflexive anti-immigrant nonsense that passes for debate in the US just saddens me. We really need to upgrade our educational system.
...when did "health insurance" become conflated with "health care"? You buy insurance to ensure that you can get past some kind of catastrophic event, say, if you total your car. I don't expect AllState to pay for my gas, tune-ups, etc. It's about spreading risk, rather than a mechanism to take money from one guy and give to another to that you can buy what you want. HSAs for routine procedures is the way to go. Keep the insurance markets competitive and targeted towards what "insurance" actually means IN EVERY OTHER INSTANCE WHERE IT IS APPLIED!
We're at $12 trillion already, how exactly are we going to pay for this? Sooner or later, the economy will improve, interest rates will go up, and the only way we'll get out is by printing trillions and trillions of dollars to give to China, Japan and the others, effectively ending the US dollar's role as a currency (and a whole host of other consequences).
In Massachusetts, it works like this:
if you don't have insurance, and if you can afford it*, then you pay an extra tax. This is to help offset the aggregate financial strain that you and other like you put on the state government who reimburses hospitals for the free care you take despite being able to afford insurance.
Now, I don't like the law, mainly because I don't like the idea of a gov't requiring me to enter in to a deal with a private company**. But, you don't go to jail... not even close. Don't let the facts get in the way of your rhetoric my friend.
* Yes, we can quibble about just how high the bar of "afford" should be.
** No, it's not like car insurance. I don't have to own a car -- I can choose to walk, cycle, ride mass transit, and bum rides. I do just that. I'm not legally even allowed to end my life in order to avoid being mandated to carry health insurance. I'm not quibbling with the wisdom of carrying insurance, but rather the gov't forcing me to enter a contract with a third party.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Except in this case, measurements of consumption and production are very obscure.
People will 'consume' healthcare when they go to the hospital or see a doctor. Yes, there is a small hypochondriac percentage of the population that will abuse this privilege, but for the most part, people will only go to the hospital when they are sick. I can't imagine wanting to disrupt my schedule to go sit in a waiting room just because I don't have to pay for it. That's absurd.
The population becomes more productive as a whole when they don't have to worry about the day-to-day problems of food and shelter. It's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
If the default state of people was "sick," then yes: they can certainly consume more healthcare than they produce. For an example of this, consider the disabled and the elderly. However, the default state of most of the population is "healthy." This means that when you do get sick, treatment can be had and you can return to your default, healthy (productive) state quicker. If you're sick, and your insurance doesn't cover your condition, you can't return to work until you've had it treated. If you can't afford treatment, then you're an unproductive member of society, no matter how badly you want to get back to work.
This is why nationalized healthcare works. Everyone pays taxes to support the health care system, but not everyone is sick all the time. When you are sick (on occasion), the taxes you have paid and that others have paid cover your costs. When you are healthy (most of the time), you're providing the same safety net that you enjoy to everyone else. And before everyone screams "socialism," note that socialism is not all bad. Military, fire, police, community centres, libraries: all of these are iconic images of American life, and all of them are funded by the idea that collective payment benefits everyone eventually, if not immediately.
Can anyone show me where in the U.S. Constitution it says the government can force you to buy health insurance? On this basis alone this bill should never have come to fruition. We have this thing call enumerated powers in our Constitution and nowhere does it say the government can compel anyone to buy health insurance just because they are alive.
Given that women make up more than half of the population of the United States, and more than half of the voting population of the United States, they are most certainly not a special interest. They are the majority.
I hope you don't think of women as being a special interest, short of finding them especially interesting.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The close vote is intentional. The leaders realize that this is a once in a generation opportunity to reform healthcare, so they're going to push that reform as far as they can. They could propose some really minor changes that everybody agrees with. They could propose some really radical changes that almost nobody agrees with. Or they could push the biggest change they could get without failing.
As for the party split, the Constitution does not entitle all political parties to equal happiness. In a time when reality has a liberal bias, the wishes of the electorate are reflected in the composition of the legislative bodies. Aside from their role in achieving a majority of votes in Congress, the Republicans are no more entitled to appeasement than are the Greens, Libertarians, or Communists.
Right, because providing police for free protective services ( police ) increases crime. Providing better fire protection encourages fires.
Universal Health Care is a profit loosing scenario, that is a fact. The market can not provide a solution to a problem that is not profitable.
"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Dictator? Check, the President has been collecting more and more power since the 20th century. Stringent socioeconomic controls? Check. Supression of the opposition through terror and censorship? Check, look at white house taking on fox news. Belligerent Nationalism? Check.
2. Those on welfare tend to not look for a job. Why look for a job when the government sends you money and foodstamps? Why look for a job when you can join a gang or sell drugs? Welfare doesn't work, it encourages lazyness.
Either they don't know or they don't care.
I want to see Pelosi wait in line at a VA hospital for Psyhc care.
Healthcare in the US is f'd up but the gov is no answer. Remember Walter Reed? Take care of our GI's first before you move to the whole country. It is sad. We will have a tier'd system.
Politicans and the Rich will fly to the islands for care while we are stuck with the left overs.
If I was a sharp heart surgeon I would say f you to gov rates and set up shop in the Caymans and cater to Americans elite while the serfs get stuck in long lines and overworked left over docs.
Government is inept at solving problems like this.
You just set fire to your own Constitution.
Congress can now assign itself any rights it wishes. Get ready for anything that might affect the health of the population to be regulated.
The adults know that you can't fix the problems of a mostly government-controlled mess by making it fully government-controlled. Keynesians are infantile morons.
And recent events on the world's financial markets have demonstrated that the free market evangelists are right? They deserve that even more than the Keynesians do.
I do not understand what $1.2 trillion is supposedly obtaining for us.
There's no public option, it's not going to cover signinificantly more people than the system already in place (96%, leaves about 28 million people uncovered right? It doesn't assist anyone in buying insurance that already has it, it does not actually buy insurance for that that don't have already (except maybe moving people off medicare/medicaid to some other method. The "reform" portions of the bill, as they are don't look like they'll cost the Gov anything, it's a mandate.
What does the $1.2 Trillion get us that we don't already have in some form or another?!?!
I don't agree with the Keynesians but Keynes shouldn't be blamed for every vote purchase that congress comes up with. He would NOT have supported all the dumb-ass perpetual spending that's going on.
What part of recent events represented free markets? BTW, freer markets are recovering and us Keynesians are still bleeding jobs.
Until you run out of other peoples money.
Indentured servitude should be OK, too, right? Lefty's believe people can be property but things can't.
Just because this is "a bill" doesn't mean it is a good bill or it will work. I was in this industry before so I will offer a grossly simplified explanation.
People are forgetting the dire state of the economy now, and most people have no idea how health insurance really works. Right up front, most people still think the premiums they pay go into a pool and claims are then paid out of that pool. Well, that's nonsense, that only covers administration costs and commissions and so forth for the most part. It is laughable to think your premiums in some pool cover health claim payouts, it isn't even close now.
Claims are primarily paid out of the profits the other aspects of the insurance companies engage in, the "market", they take premium monies and reinvest them in the same sort of speculation any other financial concern does, buying stocks bonds and then onto complex and mostly retarded financial products.
Now, anyone who has been paying attention the last two years can see that this system is seriously flawed, and that a lot of these "profits" were no more than theoretical profits and were mostly complete BS, and unfortunately still way too many people sill remain in complete denial of this, hanging on to some fairy tale illusion you can just magically print up wealth.
This economic reality impacts the insurance companies and everyone else, ie, most current claims that are being paid *now* are already way over the top into unreality land, and this level of paying is completely unsustainable. Adding additional levels of payments out will therefore be even more unsustainable. The system is already bankrupt
Easy to see with basic math why the whole system-europe included-is headed for epic fail in the near future. (and in the socialized systems the people there never really *see* an itemized bill so they have no idea what medical care costs except at some vague gross national levels, but they fail to take into account their national debt load to sustain that, it is borrowed money, even at a maximum 100% tax rate they would still run in the red).
It's only been sustained to this point, both private and socialized, with massive future load indebtedness. Look at what medical care really costs, now look at premium levels, or tax levels, now add in that everyone is going to want to have a claim at least once, more likely numerous times. Money paid in to money needed to come out is no where near the same level. It has been teetering for years now, along with a lot of other factors in this massive voodoo econmics bubble economy that national leaders and business people push, sustained by inflation and book keeping tricks. You haven't been paying for what exists, just issuing IOUs.
There is only ONE way for true national coverage to be affordable on a pay as you go notion, and that is if the entire medical industry, all of it, top to bottom from pharmcos to doctors to hospital employees to insurance company workers and owners, medical device makers, all the stockholders, all of that, a huge list, to governmental administrators,etc, take a HUGE drop in income, and there are created 5 times (some large number like that) as many people working in that industry, all at global lower payscales.
There's NO free anything on this planet. It just doesn't exist.
This is a basic fact of reality that is just lost to millions of people. If your nation is not constantly operating in the black, if they are running in the red every year, BOTH your internal debt load and international debt load (and very few nations are in the black with both those figures now) all your services including your "free" healthcare are being borrowed, you aren't "paying for it" no matter your tax rate or what private premiums you cirrently pay. You can only do that for so long before you are bankrupt and the whole thing collapses.
This new bill, not really law yet but what just passed in the US House, is trying to create a fur
Knight Koxp
Another fantastic example of /.'s excellent meta-moderation.
Nothing about public insurance prevents private operators - we don't want Canada's system after all - but there are real economic benefits to cutting people who do nothing but run interference against our own productivity out of the economy. Basic math: A rescission worker uses her own labor to interfere with the labor of both the doctor and the patient. Even ignoring the loss of efficiency due to ill laborers, and even assuming the doctor is not spending any time on hold (ha!), every unit of work you pay the person authorizing care interferes with a minimum of two people, for effectively no gain.
This ignores the moral problems involved in paying companies to deny care - denying a straight A surgical student preventative care for cancer, for example (a friend of mine). That only makes sense if you intend to restrict care to society.
Plenty of money available for health providers after we slaughter the hogs in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. There could easily be a 15% gain in efficiency and a 15% gain in efficiency turns America into a net exporter again.
I am a science fantasy fan
Someone "under the finger" of multinational company is not compelled to buy from them. They can buy from someone else, wait for a lower price, or not buy at all. When the government provides a service you have no choice but to pay for it. If I'm sick and down to my last dollar I will still be compelled to "buy" government services I don't need through tax dollars.
Mr. Troll, who is going to study their (the government's) ass off for years to be a slave? In ten years we're going to have half as many doctors. Then people will have a 'right to health care' but they just won't be able to get it.
This is how I would fix the problems:
1.Eliminate company health plans (the providers of these plans have little to no incentive to offer any actual benefits to the employees as the companies cant change to someone better due to lock-in contracts and the huge costs of changing, nor can the employees generally switch without paying a lot more)
2.Give every citizen a certain amount of tax-free money they can use to buy health insurance. i.e. the first $x of their health insurance costs are tax free. This makes up for the loss of company health plans (which are generally tax free)
3.Make it super-easy for people to switch to another health provider anytime they choose without penalty (i.e. if they switch to a similar plan from a different provider, the new provider cant suddenly deny coverage for all your pre-existing conditions just because you switched providers)
4.All health care providers must charge the same amount for the same treatment no matter who is paying. If a hospital charges $2000 for a procedure to one person, they must charge the same $2000 to everyone who gets the procedure (no matter if its the government via medicare, a large health plan, a small insurance company, an individual paying out of pocket or whatever else). Obviously they can increase the price anytime they want but again they need to charge the same new price to everyone
5.Take away all incentives for doctors and hospitals and others to order "unnecessary" tests (including a reform of medical malpractice law so that lawyers cant argue "I sue the hospital for $$$$$ for failing to carry out when carrying out would have saved my clients life/heart/kidney/good looks/whatever")
6.Remove any laws and red tape that make it harder to start up a health fund. Making it easier to run one (and reducing the administrative costs) may encourage new players into the market who offer better value much the same as what companies like Jet Blue did for air travel)
7.Remove any rules/laws/etc that in any way restrict what health insurance companies are allowed to offer coverage for. If an insurance company wants to offer coverage for prescription glasses (for example), they should be allowed to do so.
8.Low income earners and the poor (who cant afford health insurance) would get subsidized cover. Not government run cover but money from the government paid to the individual to cover part or all of their health insurance costs
9.Health insurance companies would be banned from doing deals with specific hospitals or doctors (i.e. "you will only get coverage if you go to OUR hospital"). Further to this, companies that own health insurers would be prohibited from owning any operation involved in the provision of health care (e.g. hospitals, drug companies, medical equipment makers etc). Also, Health insurance companies would be banned from dictating treatment terms to doctors (i.e. if you want us to give coverage for this heart operation, you will do it the way we specify)
and 10.Health insurance companies would be required to disclose upfront how much they will pay on a given treatment before the treatment is carried out and they must pay up. No more cases of saying one thing before you go into hospital and then changing their mind and denying payment AFTER the patient has racked up the big medical bills.
I believe that the US taxpayers are already paying when illegals with no money end up in Emergency Room ( and get some treatment there, eventually). That means the cost is not that different, it's just if the system is fixed more people actually get to live longer for about the same amount of money spent. Rather than just getting stabilized and dying soon after (wasted $$$) or making regular visits to ER since they don't get proper healthcare and just "emergency care". And here's another thing to think about - the more people cluttering up the ERs = the less ER resources for you if you ever need it. Even if the hospitals don't treat them, their dead bodies could get in the way of your critically injured body.
To me, it just shows how ignorant most US people are. They are already _paying_ lots of money for their broken system (more per capita than UK's NHS). They pay for Medicare, Medicaid. They pay for illegal immigrant ER. They pay to HMOs, etc. And then when stuff happens, way too many of them don't get much after all that paying (the number of healthcare related bankruptcies is very high in the USA). And then the US people scream "No!!!" when their President actually tries to fix it. Maybe he's trying to fix it the wrong way, but plain "No!!!" isn't going to help much, since the system is clearly broken. Why not just come up with better suggestions? If most of the US people don't think it can be fixed or don't want it fixed, that actually reflects rather poorly on the USA and the US people.
Look, if it's all about economics and "who cares about the health of 'stupid people'", then Governments shouldn't really try so hard to discourage people from smoking. Most smokers live till near retirement age then die around then or not long after, add enough tobacco taxes and they're good for the economy. And if they take down a few nonsmokers with them via secondhand smoke, that's good too. Since on average those nonsmokers will still live past their main productive years - after that they're taking more out than they're putting in (they may be entitled to "take out" after all their contributions but hard economic fact is the longer they live the more they'd take out).
Stupid people will say "But dying from lung cancer is expensive!". Here's the bad news, you will eventually die of something. And the odds are it'll be about as expensive, or even more expensive. And if you follow all those health tips on eating well and keeping fit, you'd lower your odds of dying of heart disease and stroke, but that means the odds of dying from cancer (and other stuff) go up.
Oh and if you live really long, keeping a person in a nursing home for a decade or more isn't cheap. Your body or/and mind[1] will fall apart and you'd need help.
So if people want to talk hard economics, that's some hard economics for them.
My suggestion is there should be subsidized healthcare for everyone. BUT it's limited to a finite quota per person. e.g. stuff like max of 400K every 2 years, with a max of 1 million per lifetime, adjusted for inflation and country's finances. Figures are just for example - let the actuarists and economists work it out.
Once you run out, too bad so sad - the country and taxpayers have done what they can reasonably afford for you. If you have money or other source of money, you can still pay full rate at hospitals (private or otherwise). No more taxpayer money for you.
But what if you are some poor but "exceptionally deserving" person?
OK, here's one workaround (I'm not sure how good and practical it is)- other people can choose to apply to sacrifice some of their quota for you (subject to regulations so that stupid and illiterate people don't get conned too much - hey there's no 100% when it comes to stupidity ok?).
How do you stop people from blowing away their quota on useless treatments? I don't know. It depends on how much freedom you want the system to have. I'd say you wouldn't want to allow people to spend their quota on quack doctors.
This thread looks like it could make a lot of use of this.
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Socialized medicine may be bad but socialized insurance will be an order of magnitude worse in terms of care and expense.
The stench of Randroid droppings is thick in the air today.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
In the words of an infamous congressman: you LIE.
The bill provides mandated coverage for the health insurance industry - only a small handful of people will quality for the reduced "public option" plan. If you freelance, or are self employed, or otherwise fall above the cutoff -- you are required to buy full priced health insurance from a private firm.
This is NOT the change I voted for.
A more obvious solution would be to regulate Medical and Insurance industries. Why not? Other industries are regulated. The same old argument about R & D shutting down or going offshore doesn't wash as no one is going to exclude the U.S. as a market for fear of industrial embargo affecting it on some other level.
This is just another Democrat bid at buying votes and gaining control over previously free people.
Quit voting for Democrats and Republicans. Quit sticking your fingers in light sockets and meat grinders. Options outside these are plentiful yet invisible due to the same old blinders and rumours like " there are no other sound choices. The complete truth is exactly the opposite. Other fatal mistakes in political philosophy include assuming the majority is right, assuming the majority are informed ( only by mass distribution of disinformation) , assuming that since these parties have been in power too long they have the only workable feasible solutions and that we are a democracy. If you haven't figured out any of this yet , you aren't informed enough to vote on a flavor of popcicle.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
1. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10710/hr3962Dingell_mgr_amendment_update.pdf, pg. 1.
2. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c111j3JbX9:e330194:,SEC. 347. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.
Our corporate overlords (those who own Congress) won't allow it.
Call me cynical, but I think that our overlords (one of my friends calls these people "the owners", and she has that right) let the House pass this bill to keep people's hopes alive and distracted.
I am basically against large government expenditures, but the cost of our military industrial complex is so much more that what a reasonable medical bill would cost, that I have softened my position and now I do support health care reform.
BTW, we could save a lot of money by trimming our ""defense"" costs but that is not going to happen because a relatively few people make so much profit that any reform there is not going to happen.
I guess you've never been robbed.
The rest of us, those who work from home or are otherwise self employed - will have to pay for insurance whether we need it or not.
This bill is a bailout for the health insurance industry, not socialism.
Despite the scare tactics from the right, this bill is NOT national healthcare. It is another fucking welfare check written to corporate America.
I am an independent, freelance software developer. I am the primary earner in a family of five. Universal medical care helped allow me to take the opportunity to make the jump, and in 6 years, there has been no looking back. Without it, fear would likely have kept me at my last employer.
I think your moves in this will be liberating; and there will be many unforeseen benefits. I hope you have the stamina to hold out over the rough patches.
But in a free market people can easily produce enough value to be able to buy what they need and much of what they want through voluntary transactions instead of force. US workers produce about $50/hour worked. The US government collects about $15/hour. Most of that for social services. Is there anyone who has worked the majority of their adult life who has come out ahead on government services? Force is bad. Free will is good. http://www.bls.gov/
Since this will be mandatory, everyone will of course need a card to verify who they are. Probably not called Real ID though. That might worry some people.
The reason jobs went overseas is greed. Most plants that shut down here and pop up in Asia were profitable beforehand. Corporations see their competition raking in far greater profits due to lack of regulations in third world state, so they manufacture reasons why plants have to close down in America. Hell, most of them are pretty clear about their intentions and reasoning.
And stupid American workers buy into it, or the other PR technique -- guilt. Let's show pictures of starving children in Ethiopia.. Have to move our factories there, got to lift the third world out of poverty they tell us. But the money saved from cheap third world labor winds up in corporate earnings portfolios. Very little trickles down into the hands of third world peasants (sic).
I do wonder what part of the constitution is going to be used to force people to buy health insurance. This question was asked to Peloski but brushed aside. Further emails from her office say it's part of Interstate Commerce and the general welfare clause. How long before it's challenged in court?
we drive more than anyone else, and the WHO includes accidents in "life expectancy."
Few people will actually be covered under the reduced "public option". This bill was another payout to corporate America, on the taxpayers' dime.
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Big gov't has such a great track record of success...
- U.S. Post Service, 234 years later, well not so much.
- Social Security, 74 years later, well no.
- Fannie Mae, 71 years later, na
- War on Poverty, 45 years later, naa
- Medicare and Medicaid, 44 years later, no
- Freddie Mac, 39 years later, no
- Department of Energy 32 years later, no
- Gov't run health care, hell no
It is currently illegal for the government to pay for abortions.
I am in my thirties and have been sick for most of my life until a few months ago. My mother has MS and can't walk more than five feet. My friend has MD and goes to work every day. We all paid much more than our share of taxes. Please tell me why raising our taxes to give insurance to healthier people who choose not to work is just?
Until they finish taking all your moneys. Socialism is a dog eat dog world, man. And capitalism is just the other way around.
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
I love all these comments praising this bill as "providing health care! YAYAYAYAY!!!!!" Nothing in this bill provides anyone with health care - what it DOES provide is a MANDATE that YOU MUST PURCHASE health care of some form (baseline plan is $15k) or you go to PRISON. Now would you care to explain how that is "compassionate" or "affordable" to ANYONE?
If your definition of worked includes selling lots of 12 MPG pickup trucks.
Trust Dr Obama with the knife!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
It's not a lie; it's using a different metric. US Health Care is usually the best in the world, if (1) you can afford it, and (2) you know how to navigate it. Sometimes you also need to be capable of reading the studies yourself so you can ask intelligent questions.
US Health care is far from the best in the world if you are talking about on-the-average as measured by life expectancy. There are also a few areas where--although there are phenomenal surgeons here--you are usually better-treated elsewhere. For example, Stomach cancer, because it occurs more frequently in Japan, because they're more aggressive about screening for it, and because they'll do the right operation for it--whereas here, many surgeons are either too lazy or too uncertain to do the complicated operation required.)
I think that most people forget that the money has to come from somewhere to pay doctors.
If doctors want money more money, do they unionize and strike?
If the taxpayers want to pay less, what choice do they have?
The problem with socialized "one-payer" systems, is that there's no choice. Basically all this will do is turn into another "edumacation" situation.
Teachers have tenure -> Doctors have tenure
Teachers can't be fired -> Doctors can't be fired
Teachers demand more resources -> Doctors demand more resources
Teachers convince students/parents to advocate for them -> Doctors convince patients to advocate for them
Students/parents demand more resources -> Patients demand more resources
Then after this huge lobbying capacity builds up...
Teachers' unions demand gold-plated benefits -> Doctors' unions demand gold-plated benefits
Teachers demand fewer hours, fewer students -> Doctors demand fewer hours, fewer patients
So when there's no choice left, nobody can opt-out. Who ends up paying, well, the taxpayers end up paying...
Of course this bill doesn't do any of these things, and it's isn't necessarily a slippery slope, but socializing medicince is not the same as trying to reign in health insurance companies. Note that this bill will still purchase health care services from the private sector just like medicare and medicaid.
Of course this bill doesn't reign in health insurance companies either. It's just an expensive exentension of medicare-advantage to people under-65. Probably the main accomplishment of this bill (if it were to pass the senate in substantially the same form which by all accounts right now is unlikely), it would basically create an insurance mandate (similar to car insurance) and require insurance companies to provide insurance (similar to the way that car insurance companies are "required" to provide insurance to otherwize uninsurable folks), and for companies to provide health care.
These are somewhat desireable goals, but they aren't the same as providing insurance to "everyone" as people have mistakenly mis-interpreted. The only thing this bill really does is to force people to -pay-into-the-pot- (which is what insurance is all about anyhow).
The bad side of this bill is that it's not self funded, it relies on two really poor funding techiques: an additional sur-tax of 5+% on high-income people (not necessarily rich, but just high-income), and that some young/healthy 20-39 under-employed people and some lower-middle class folks can't afford insurance and will instead pay the fine of not having insurance. Of course this a political calcuation by the dems that high-income folks either won't care or aren't part of their voting base anyhow, and the young/healthy 20-39 under-employed and lower-middle class folks don't vote and if they do, they vote democratic by default anyhow...
If (and I say IF) we wanted to go down the socialized route for insurance, a much better way to do this is to socialize catastrophic insurance (basically so people don't go broke owing +100K medical bills), but leave the rest of insurance to the free market. If insurance companies didn't have to actualize for the extreme medical bills, they would become by default more affordable for people. The problem with the current scheme is that it dabbles in the less clear cut areas of medicine, but socializes their costs (acupunture, prayer medicine, on the questionable side and abortion on the political side). That part should have real free-market choice, not part of a one-size-fits-all public option.
Anyhow... That's my 2-cents worth... :^)
We rank 37th in infant mortality
The US ranks 37th in *reported* infant mortality. The main difference is what is considered a live birth vs. still birth. Most countries don't count it as an infant death if the baby dies within 24 hours of birth, and in countries with less capable neonatal intensive care that happens a lot. Premies simply die and don't get counted, except in the US.
Illegal aliens: This is a non-issue, made up to inflame the ignorant.
How ignorant do YOU have to be to not see the issue here. This is covering tens of millions of people who are not citizens, all of the burden of which is shouldered by the taxpayer.
Forget any of the arguments about covering people that have been here for a long time and working and paying into the tax system. Instead focus singly on the FLOOD of people coming in from fairly weak borders with Mexico and Canada, and you can see that the system will be swamped with non-U.S. citizens eager for a handout at the expense of a country that cannot afford to cover fully even the citizens they have.
I have no tolerance for illegal aliens. If we need that many workers here, then lets open up the gates of immigration and let the hundreds of thousands of people from Mexico and other places that have legally applied for immigration and are waiting patiently in. I don't see why a line-jumper should be given preference or favors over people who seek to follow procedure and come to the country legally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
-- formerly Socialist 3rd world -- and every time I hear this blather about the US being "3rd world", I can just shake my head. What utter ignorance. Truly, Americans have *no idea* of what lies beyond their borders, even if they think they do. In my experience, this affects the so-called "progressive" Americans *worse* than others.
The quickest way for the US to plummet to 3rd world level is through more "public" services that eliminate choice. The "public" school system is already a shambles, a gigantic waste of students' time and resources. Pray that health care does not follow.
The last I heard is that everyone would be forced to buy in, or be fined or face jail time. Some option that is.
Nobody wants to talk about health insurance in cost terms. By this I mean people aren't willing to say what is and is not worth the money. They aren't willing to say "This treatment costs too much for its expected return, and thus shouldn't be covered, even if it means someone will die sooner." Well the problem with that attitude is, of course, that costs get huge. But they don't want to admit that is why, so instead they want to find someone else to blame, someone who's being an evil profiteering bastard that is clearly the reason things are too expensive.
However that's just not the case. What it comes down to is health care will either be very expensive, or very slow (as is seen in Canada) unless we are willing to start doing cost/benefit on it. There are treatments, in particular end of life treatments, that are expensive and have a low ROI. You spend six figures to extend someone's life 6-12 months. This is not a good use of money.
The idea that a public health system will fix everything shows a rather large amount of ignorance of countries that actually have public health systems. You can have all the case, but you'll spend a ton on it in taxes. You can also have reasonable spending, but then something has to get cut. In Canada it is unfortunately often quality of life things. You can wait half a decade on something like a hip replacement that will drastically improve your quality of life because it isn't critical.
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is this on Slashdot? Quite unusual...
Health Care Mythology
7/22/2009
Clifford S. Asness, Ph.D.
What We Know That Ain’t So
Will Rogers[1] famously said, “It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.” So it is with the health care debate in this country. Quite a few “facts” offered to the public as truth are simply wrong and often intentionally misleading. It seems clear that no truly productive solution will emerge when these false facts represent our common starting point. So, this essay takes on the modest task of simply disabusing its readers of some untrue notions about health care.
I do not take on the harder task of prescribing how we should (and if we should) reform health care, though I offer a few thoughts. Important work must be done here by those who understand, far better than I, the details of health care provision. However, no details are necessary for this essay, and no animals (though perhaps some egos) were harmed in its creation. The fallacies I present are basic and it takes only a rational economic framework to expose them
There are large groups of people in this country who want socialized medicine and they sense that the stars are aligning, and now is their time to succeed. They rarely call it socialized medicine, but instead “single payer health care” or “universal coverage” or something that their public relations people have told them sounds better. Whatever they call it, they believe (or pretend to believe) a lot of wrongheaded things, and they must be stopped. Step one is understanding how and why they are wrong. Step two is kicking their asses back to Cuba where they can get in line with Michael Moore for their free gastric bypasses.
Finally, please read my standard disclosure (though it’s more designed for something that might be construed as financial advice, it can’t hurt) and my admission of non-originality.[i],[ii]
Myth #1 Health Care Costs are Soaring
No, they are not. The amount we spend on health care has indeed risen, in absolute terms, after inflation, and as a percentage of our incomes and GDP. That does not mean costs are soaring.
You cannot judge the “cost” of something by simply what you spend. You must also judge what you get. I’m reasonably certain the cost of 1950’s level health care has dropped in real terms over the last 60 years (and you can probably have a barber from the year 1500 bleed you for almost nothing nowadays). Of course, with 1950’s health care, lots of things will kill you that 2009 health care would prevent. Also, your quality of life, in many instances, would be far worse, but you will have a little bit more change in your pocket as the price will be lower. Want to take the deal? In fact, nobody in the US really wants 1950’s health care (or even 1990’s health care). They just want to pay 1950 prices for 2009 health care. They want the latest pills, techniques, therapies, general genius discoveries, and highly skilled labor that would make today’s health care seem like science fiction a few years ago. But alas, successful science fiction is expensive.
In the case of health care, the fact that we spend so much more on it now is largely a positive. The negative part is if some, or a lot, of that spending is wasteful. Of course, that is mostly the government’s fault and is not what advocates of government control want you to focus upon. We spend so much more on health care, even relative to other advances, mostly because it is worth so much more to us. Similarly, we spend so much more on computers, compact discs, HDTV, and those wonderful one shot espresso makers that make it like having a barista in your own home. Interestingly, we also spend a ton more on these other items now than we did in 1950 because none of these existed in 1950 (well, you could have hired a skilled Italian man to live with you and make you coffee t
The only thing more annoying than the religious right is the whiny left, of which you seem to be a member. These are the people who blame the republicans for all their ills and do nothing but cry and whine about how they can't do anything. Oh shut up and hold the parties responsible to account. The republicans control jack and shit at the federal level any more. The President is a democrat, and a rather socialist democrat by all accounts. Well that accounts for the entire executive branch, since he has the power to appoint the people who run things. Now, in terms of making laws that's the House and Senate of course. In both cases the democrats have not just a majority, but a commanding majority. The house has 257 democrats, 178 republicans. That is a 59%/41% advantage. In the Senate it is even bigger 60%/40% which is a supermajority that can override filibusters.
So you have a situation where the republicans have no power to make laws at a federal level without a large amount of democrat support. The democrats on the other hand can pass legislation without even a single republican supporter, and can do so even if procedural tactics are used to attempt to block it,
Thus we are now in what would be called "Put up or shut up," time. But they aren't.
Well part of the reason they may not be is because of people like you that refuse to hold them to account. You bitch and whine about The Right(tm) causing problems and don't hold any democrats to account for this.
I swear that during Bush's terms the democrats got so used to doing nothing but bitching that they now just keep doing the same shit. Well bitching time is over. You've got the power, use it.
As usual, I think the Daily Show really nailed it http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-30-2009/democratic-super-majority.
The infant mortality statistic has a lot of things that affect it and make it appear much worse in the U.S. than it really is, if you actually read the scientific literature on the topic, such as the CDC's infant mortality data rather than just regurgitating propaganda. First, not all industrialized countries even calculate infant mortality the same way. Secondly, American doctors are much more likely to deliver the infant in a pre-term threatened pregnancy, while in Europe they are more likely to not intervene and the fetus is miscarried. A delivered infant that dies counts in the stats, while a miscarriage generally does not. The U.S. has the some of the lowest pre-term infant mortality rates in the world according to the literature, but that fact is certainly NOT being publicized. Yes, term infant mortality rate could use a little work here, but some of the biggest risk factors for that one are solved culturally (i.e. reducing the number of teen pregnancies, which are correlated with higher infant mortality rates) rather than medically.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
My understanding is that inflation was caused in the 1970s because of the United States rampant spending in Vietnam and subsequent dropping of the gold standard. Not the Europeans "Socialism". In fact there seems to be a direct correlation between most problems in the world and the U.S. Speaking on behalf of the rest of the world, we'd like to say thank you for all the insight and entertainment this issue has raised about your country. Reagan a good President ... indeed! We don't want health care
for our children! Hilarious, just hilarious. Keep up the good work.
We're moving in the direction of socialized insurance more than socialized medicine. The difference is significant. BTW, do you think Canada and the UK have enough doctors?
Any abortion except in the case where the mother has to chose their life or the baby's is an elective procedure and as such is not a health issue.
If the government wants to pay for non-health related (aka elective) surgeries then they should cover boob jobs as well.
If people want to cut up their perfectly healthy bodies in an unsafe manner because the government won't pay for it then that's their own stupidity.
Work Safe Porn
I thought it was interesting that Associated Press published an article recently on the profits of the health insurance industry, something railed against persistently by various politicians. They found that the usual average profit margin for health insurance companies was 6%, and last year it was only 2%. From 2003 to 2008, the growth in their costs exceeded the growth in their profits.
But then, as the article itself notes, no one seems interested in the actual facts of the debate.
How much are the executives making?
The profits for Wall Street have also been sucky, but that hasn't stopped people from getting "performance" and retention bonuses.
You're assuming that the ones at the top are actually trying to run things to reward investors, and not simply trying to do the minimum amount of work for the maximum way to line their pockets. (Woohoo! Go capitalism! ;)
If the government insurance is as good as the private insurance but cheaper, what's the problem? If the government insurance is worse than the private insurance, well the business was free to buy cheap and crappy insurance anyway. Or not provide any insurance at all.
A smart business factors employee contentment into their assessment of "cost". They won't choose to save $100 a month on health insurance if it means losing employees that brought in $10,000 a month in business.
The way the bill has it is that if you don't buy insurance, you pay a tax to make up for the cost of it. Refusing to pay that tax leads to fines, levies, and possible prison time -- just like any other tax evasion.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Because there's a cap on how long you can be on welfare. I know that it's there, because I have a couple of friends who have hit the caps and been dropped. And while children are often exempted, the welfare benefits that are paid out for children are absolutely not enough to live on, even in Section 8 housing.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Undocumented aliens are explicitly prohibited from benefiting from any subsidized health insurance programs created in this bill.
Please see: Title III, Subsection C, Section 347
SEC. 347. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.
"Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3962:
Your mere existence is now taxable.
People who like to claim that "there are no illegal aliens because people aren't illegal" are about to find their words ringing hollow in an especially perverse way.
You can be a monk meditating on a mountain somewhere for 5 years and be gang raped by the government's black and hispanic prison gangs for doing so.
Seastead this.
They're the ones that started cost inflation in the 1970's that has gotten us to this point. They don't even know they screwed it up...and we expect them to fix it?
They know they screwed it up, it was part of the plan. See Cloward-Piven strategy.
You sound like my 80-something mother.
"How can it be optional if they are going to fine you when you say no???" She comes from the World War 2 generation, when freedom actually meant something. I don't think today's Generation Hippy, Generation X, or Generation Me have any idea of the concept. Many of them think if they want something, it's okay to ask the government to raid their neighbors' wallets and get it.
It's a lot like how the Roman Empire's government operated.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I am so glad the people who bankrupted Social Security and Medicare will finally have their hands in everything to do with our health care. This bill doesn't lower prices, but only shifts the actual insurance from 1100 competing private companies to one big government bureaucracy. Each year, less and less doctors are accepting Medicaid and other government health insurances because their payments stink. Of course liberals don't seem to mind because doctors are all rich people anyway who can afford to work for low wages. Nevermind that they pay hundreds of thousands in malpractice insurance, rent, electric and other business expenses. Who cares about business anyways? It's only math and numbers! Truth is, all of that doesn't matter when people are sick. In fact, I heard that the laws of gravity cease to exist when people get sick. Seriously, it seems only the lawyers are allowed to charge $500/hr because democrats love litigation, especially litigation that brings down private companies so that ill-funded and high taxing government programs can step in. I feel all future doctors should be forced to spend 10 years in medical school, come out with hundreds of thousands in school loans and do this to get paid low wages because the government says so. That will give the future doctors of America something to look forward too! However, there is one way to remedy this. Make medical school only 1 year, this avoids a lot of the expensive school loans, but gives us tons of uneducated shitty doctors who will work for government pay. I'm sure liberals don't mind that as long as everyone is covered, right?
The next thing we should do is force pharmaceutical companies to lower prices for all drugs to 1 cent a pill. That's right! Where do these big pharm companies get their nerve spending billions on new life saving drugs and then charging us a dollar or more a pill so they can keep funding their research?? Why can't these people simply work for less money? In fact, the engineers and the construction workers who build the pharmaceutical buildings, the electric companies that power the research departments and the companies that supply all the medical testing equipment should all take a pay cut because these pills are just too important! All pills that can save lives should be free, and the people who helped develop those pills shouldn't complain. If they do, then throw them out and hire cheaper chemists and scientists. If that doesn't work, we can always unionise the chemists and scientists so that instead of making drugs, they can be sipping more coffee and can keep their job even if they suck at it . That'll fix these rich pharmaceutical bastards! Right??
I love the fact that the people who scared us into getting the H1N1 vaccination and then couldn't even deliver 1/8 of the vaccines it promised are now going to run our health care system. Of course, liberals love free things. They love when someone else has to pay for their problems and they certainly couldn't care less about quality as long as everyone gets something. Something is better than nothing, right?? It's better that all 300 million citizens end up with crap than $270 million end up with good health care. Who cares that no one has read all 2,000 pages of this bill? Who cares if good doctors can't make a living and are forced to find other lines of work? Who cares if Big Pharm can't create life saving drugs because they can't fund research? Who cares if taxes go way up? Just as long as we have Hope & Change. Because without Hope & Change there is no reason to go on living.
Welcome to socialism my friends. Enjoy. :-)
Congress is neither qualified nor empowered to decide the constitutionality of the bill. Nor are we Slashdot commenters. It's the duty of the Supreme Court to decide that.
We already impose many conditional taxes that vary depending on whether you're married, have children, or own a house. It's not such an astounding stretch to impose a tax that depends on whether you have health insurance. And imposing a tax on those without health insurance so that everyone has access to affordable health insurance could be construed as providing for the general welfare of the United States.
With the US gov't becoming more involved in health care, the US is becoming more like a 11th province of Canada.
As I read many of these comments, I am struck by the almost pathological and paranoid fear of government displayed by their writers. It doesn't seem to have any real intellectual basis. It feels like someone has been reading stories about "the government BOOGEEEMAAAN" to these people, and they have internalized it, and don't question it anymore.
Say this after me: "Every major industrialized country in the world has some significant government role in their health care system." And they end up with better health outcomes for LESS MONEY!!
Health care bureaucracies will always exist. In America, our health care bureaucracies are privately run and largely unregulated. The mission statement of our private bureaucracies is to maximize profit. Period. Actual health outcomes are largely irrelevant if they do not overlap with the main purpose of the organization. And so our health bureaucracies will use every trick they can to deny people coverage. They employ some very smart people, whose sole purpose is to deny coverage.
When bureaucracies are government run, or are more tightly regulated, the mission statement changes. It becomes something similar to "maximize patient health". The government bureaucracies can actually become more efficient, because they are given a fixed amount of money, and are then told to maximize health as much as possible. This becomes the main purpose of the organization, and employees know it. They focus their attention on health outcomes. They feel that it is their duty to the public. They will often make due with less pay because they feel their job is so important.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
My understanding is that inflation was caused in the 1970s because of the United States rampant spending in Vietnam and subsequent dropping of the gold standard. Not the Europeans "Socialism". In fact there seems to be a direct correlation between most problems in the world and the U.S. Speaking on behalf of the rest of the world, we'd like to say thank you for all the insight and entertainment this issue has raised about your country. Reagan a good President ... indeed! We don't want health care for our children! Hilarious, just hilarious. Keep up the good work.
So the US is responsible for European inflation? And your acne? Near zero dating? And the fact that your cellar dwelling hasn't been cleaned in two years? As a US citizen, I feel so empowered by that. It's such a heady feeling knowing that I've helped to fuck up so many peoples' lives for the better.
Can ANYONE show me a SINGLE multi-trillion or even multi-billion dollar government program in ANY sector which has been run efficiently, without corruption, or fraud, instituted by either party, that has not had it's costs explode over time?
This will be like every other big government program. The costs will spiral upwards, and if anything is done about them, they will be dealt with just like high costs in any other program, by trimming services or raising taxes, not by fixing the inefficiencies. And once it is in place we will never be able to get rid of it or change it!
This health care reform is also a massive breeding ground for unintended consequences. If anyone thinks this has been thought through in the short amount of time it took to put this monstrosity together, pass me the crack pipe.
-Future Serf in servitude of the US Government.
Rather useless article from the AP, there. It doesn't cite enough numbers to determine insurance co. income versus what they arbitrarily call "expenses". I.e., if the base pay for a manager in the insurance co's HQ is $1 million, and you ramp that up the closer you approach the C-level suite, those are "expenses" that make apparent profit decline rapidly. And there are many, many more ways to redistribute income so as to make what you report as "profit" shrink without ever revealing your true margins.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
It's funny because it's true. And no you are not responsible personally as I am quite sure that nobody with any power, influence or self respect would respond in the manner you did. You're probably more reponsible for Jerry Springer's high ratings. By the way I HAVE free health care, and it's great.
For a car, failing to buy gas or get an oil change won't increase the chance of an expensive accident. For a human, failing to get an EKG or an X-ray can leave that human at higher risk for a heart attack or metastatic cancer. So it's wise economics for a health insurer to pay for those little things when the insured might say "I feel fine. Why should I pay $200 for a silly test?" otherwise.
Also, the liability on a car is limited to the replacement cost. What's the replacement cost for your own body? The cost of health care over your entire life is so unpredictable that it's wise to pay into a pool of coverage even if it means that for most of your life you'll be paying for some other guy's health care. Because someday you might find yourself with an expensive chronic condition like diabetes that's not just a single catastrophic event and can't be fixed by just buying a new body.
My view is that the real problem with US health care is not the coverage. It is the cost. This plan adds roughly a trillion dollars in cost even under the highly unrealistic projections of the Congressional Budget Office. That is in the neighborhood of $3,000 per person. That means down the road, when costs continue to climb and the trillion dollar estimate is shown to be incorrect, then we'll have another health care reform to fix the fundamental cost problem that is aggravated here. I imagine the cycle will continue for some time, unless an economic collapse of the US brings that to an end.
Second, we're imposing a variety of taxes on rich people (I suppose just for the principle of it), and people and businesses that don't knuckle under and comply with the demands of the bill. Yes, that latter bit means not only do we keep the mandates on employers, but now everyone will suffer under a similar mandate. Insurers get massively screwed. Sure, they might get more customers (assuming the lost business to the public option doesn't offset the gain in customer base), but they lose most of their cost saving tools (such as charging old people more for health insurance and not having to insure preexisting conditions). Fraud will increase as will overall costs. I doubt the CBO even glanced at these issues.
Ultimately, I just don't see the point. The insurance companies are a big part of the current problem, but this bill just takes money from them in a way that I think is fundamentally unfair. It might address the problem of free emergency room care. It doesn't address the many other sources of cost in the US system: excessive malpractice liability, excessive restrictions on who can do medical work and training requirements, state level obstacles to providing health insurance by companies from outside the state, and the mandate that the employer has to pony up insurance of a certain mandated level (and hence, driving up labor costs and spurring enormous demand for health care services). It forces insurance companies to pay for nonessential health care like abortions. It completely ignores the democratic principle that the citizen is capable of providing for their own needs and acting responsibly. I mean, why let some sap vote when they can't even figure out how to get the "right level" of health care?
By the way I HAVE free health care, and it's great.
If you do have "free" health care (free as in beer, that is), then that makes you the only person on the planet. Everyone else has costly health care that someone somewhere paid for.
Are the remaining 4% REALLY, REALLY wealthy?
Or is it me, someone unemployed for over 2 years.
Once I am employed, will my premiums/taxes raise? Thanks Democrats. Good job.
I'll go further -
- If I see an illegal, and I'm jobless, I'll shoot the illegal in the head and take the job for myself. Illegals should not have jobs when Actual citizens are unemployed.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Just as "someone" had to pay for that free beer, someone of course, must pay for the health care. In Canada (yes, that one) I can go in to see the doctor or if I were to break my arm go to the hospital with no money,no deductible,no up front cost,nothing. Consequently our taxes are higher than yours, but we haven't been brainwashed to hate them as much as you have. As a result,overall our health costs are much lower per person than in the "free market" medical system. Try it, you'll like it.
Subsidizing some insurance and requiring ineffective insurance is an economic disaster. Rates or costs will rise, with no effective economic mechanism to prevent it or improve it. Good doctors that successfully break out of the current system's many ruts will be even more (over)regulated, stifled as "alternative".
This virtually guarantees the destruction of a large fraction of people who have, or are developing, chronic illness where insured, "standard medicine" does not have good, straight treatments or cures, but others do. Hence, such chronic illness sufferers will have an even greater economic barrier to survive and thrive. Obamacare virtually guarantees a deeper, more profound bankruptcy of the country, more quickly passing economic power to Asia, especially China.
Obamacare does not effectively cover me or my parent, and is a threat to doctors that do know what biochemically works - in this case, advanced, "alternative" therapeutic nutrition. I am moving to Asia to get the 4% solution, this month. The current medical system failed both my parents, one painfully long dead, the other balked and iatrogenically damaged many times. "Standard medicine" failed me, too, finally recognizing even part the problem *after* being solved.
This year, my remaining parent had multiple iatrogenic miseries, was dying and giving up. Since I took over the nursing supervision, medical literature search, consulted "alternative" doctors (MD+DO), integrated their advice, things have gotten much, much better for my remaining parent. I consider ordinary geriatric medicine and nutrition in hospitals and nursing homes barbaric. Their "standard practices" are generally so dangerous and miserable, I can't even call them "euth centers".
I pay over $8200 a month to keep my last parent alive, healthy and happy here, after a lot of medical interference. Medicare has been largely a waste of money the last 12 months. In Asia, my bills drop to under $2000 a month with superior nursing, and even house calls. I am dumping subsidized Medicare Part B & D "insurance" (outside coverage area). Asia is cheaper than any co-pay in most cases, if Medicare even covered it.
I never played doctor as a kid. A National Merit Scholar and off to an uber university at 16 where most valedictorians can't get in, then grad school, I had no interest in medicine. Circumstances have forced me to confront it, to research 75 years of massive literature, to figure out some of its errors, and to overcome these errors in real life, several years investment. I think our current medical system already has as much corruption and problems as Soviet history had in 1990. Pelosi-Obamacare will be raise the temperature and pressure of the core like a late stage, giant star progressing toward supernova.
Is that that really you? Well, your Slashdot UID is low enough...
I'm puzzled by all these arguments about the cost of health insurance. The $1.2 trillion is over a ten year period making it $120 billion per year of costs.
For comparison:
$3,000 BILLION ($3 Trillion) was the handout we gave the bankers, insurance companies, investors and automakers. Free money but only for the rich.
$300 BILLION a year is what we've been spending on average fighting the non-war in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Free money but only for the big corporations who supply weapons.
$16 BILLION dollars a year in subsidies are given to Big Ag to over produce corn and a few other commodities. Free money but only for corporations big enough to qualify and eat up their competition.
$400 per citizen per year is what this will cost those who can afford health insurance. That means that EVERYONE has insurance creating a pleasant cycle where the cost of care goes down because less emergency room primary care is done and people work more raising the tide that all boats float upon. If you buy $1.10 of coffee a day you too can provide health insurance for someone. Imagine that.
Nobody wants to pay higher taxes but an awful lot of people, and the corporations they control, seem to want free handouts. I'm not particularly fond of creating new entitlements however the cost of universal healthcare is minimal and the benefit is great. The trick is there must be some rationing. There is room for universal basic health care and private insurance for higher level healthcare.
Capitalism isn't about compassion.
Neither is the Constitution, thankfully. There's still a chance we can kill this monster in its cradle.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
You're right on the money, but what happens when you get cancer and have to pony up $500k for cancer treatments?
Easy. First pay most medical costs out of pocket, most doctors are willing to reduce their prices if the person is paying out of pocket, after all filing and waiting for medical reimbursements fro insurance cost money. Next buy catastrophic health insurance. I know GP said he doesn't have insurance, but catastrophic health insurance pays for cancer treatments and such. Such policies are cheaper than insurance policies that only require a co-payment and cover the rest of the medical bill.
That's the kind of thing health insurance should be for, the catastrophic events that there is no way the average joe would be able to pay for.
You're right in part. Catastrophic expenses, not everyday expenses which is how most health insurance is today, should be paid for with insurance. Actually it should be up to the individuals who pay, if one person wants full coverage then they should be able to buy it, and pay the associated high premiums, whereas someone else who is willing and can pay out of pocket for most expenses should be able to buy catastrophic coverage with lower premiums.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Consequently our taxes are higher than yours, but we haven't been brainwashed to hate them as much as you have.
The brainwashing has gone the other way, I see. "Free health care that you pay for!" What about that belief doesn't scream "Brainwashed!"?
As a result,overall our health costs are much lower per person than in the "free market" medical system. Try it, you'll like it.
That may well be true. But decades ago, the US has a health care system that worked. Maybe it'd be better to go back to that system.
Is why the insurance companies, and all the representatives that they contributed heavily to, didn't put more support behind this bill. In the end, this is a massive handout for for-profit insurance. The "public option" is a joke; it will end up just being assistance in buying insurance that is already in existence. Meanwhile more people who don't currently have insurance will be forced into buying insurance from the big companies that we already have.
What congress has done is given us penicillin for a gigantic gushing head wound. Sure, there is a chance of infection but this does nothing to stop the bleeding.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
My dental insurance covered root canals! Nice. Except... when I called them to get the name of a local specialist that could perform the procedure they told me, "Oh, #4 tooth? We don't cover root canals on that tooth. Sorry." This is a direct quote.
There I was riding my bike after my classes in college when I was hit by a moving van. I was flown, yes flown by helicopter, to a hospital where I was treated while I was in a coma. What was the total in medical bills? More than $120,000. Did I have any insurance at all? No, not working and being a college student I could not afford health insurance. I still got the medical care I needed to save my life, though I'd rather have died.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Wouldn't it be nice to go back decades ago, perhaps doctors could start making housecalls again and we can all drive Pontiac Catalinas. You're better off hoping that you don't get sick. Or shipped off to Afghanistan.
That's right.
I'd like a reason to oppose things
How about the Constitution of the USA? Can you point to one place in there where the federal government is given the power control health care and medicine? And remember if it does not give a power then government does not have that power, it is a document limiting what government can do.
Now if you believe the government should do something the Constitution provides a way for it to do that, via amending it. Amazingly it has been amended 27 tymes already.
I personally like our parks, roads, fire/police/military, medicare, public educational finding/grants,
First, the Constitution gives the federal government the power to build and maintain roads. It also gives the power to defend the people and nation. Next there is nothing in the Constitution preventing state and local government from providing all these other things. And generally they have been pretty good at it. Actually with the feds into so much it can dictate to states what they must do. No Child Left Behind ring a bell? If a school doesn't meet federal requirements it can lose funding. Now if the feds did not have as high of taxes as it does then states and local governments could raise their own taxes and spend it on what they want instead of the feds dictating to them. Another example is Real ID. The feds want to tell the states they either have an ID that meets federal guidelines or they lose road funding. That's what they did with the minimum drinking age.
Anyone who believes in the purity of their ideals is suspect.
Then apply that to government as well. I have never ever heard of businesses exterminating and massacring millions of people but governments have a history of doing exactly that. Yes, even the government of the US.
if the private path went further towards these goals I'd vouch for it instead. Right now the private path seems to be a complete failure, individual greed and the general well being seem to be diametrically opposed.
You're assuming that the private path has been tried when in fact it has not been tried in more than 60 years. Instead government has been interfering with medicine and health care all this tyme.
Your statement is against the text of the bill, so the burden of proof is upon you.
You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not the responsibility if citizens to prove someone is not needed, it's the responsibility of government to prove that something is needed and that it has the power. Governments exist for the people, not the people existing for the government.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Let me put it this way. Have you seen the Berlin Wall? I have. In some places there were actually two walls, with a no-man's land in between. In that space were machine-gun towers, spaced so close that the guards could kill each other.
And people were willing to sprint through a machine-gun killing ground, just to escape from communism. That's how horrible it is when you let arrogant statists take over your life. Nor is East Germany unique. Cubans flee their country on deathtrap rafts so they can go clean toilets in America. The "national socialists" who let private property and corporations continue to exist were at least as evil as the outright communists, and the half-capitalist Chinese today continue to oppress their own people.
Arrogant, all-powerful governments abuse and murder their own people. There's no denying that. We don't want even a halfway, happy-faced version of that, thank you very much.
Revive the Constitution.
Correction, it's like the Roman Empire's government opertated after things started going to hell. After centuries of relative personal freedom and stability (as best one could find it in the ancient world), by about 250AD, thanks to new policies functionally identical to those being pushed by modern liberals, Rome was right where we are now: swamped by fast-growing public assistance costs; citizens' freedoms being negated by invasive regulations; gov't services awash in corruption; rising taxes and expanding government.
And I'd like to shake your mom's hand for raising a kid with the sense to recognise what's going on in America today, cuz otherwise your post is dead-on.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
We are in two wars that we can't get out of and can't pay for. Medicare and Social Security are two huge bills from generations past that we can't pay for. We have a financial system that is on an unsustainable course and the viability of our currency is in question. The numbers used to estimate the costs of this health bill came from the very people who promote it. It is most likely the same type of bill that we have seen for at least since the DMCA was passed with a voice vote in the House and unanimous consent in the Senate.
If anyone really thinks this bill is going to benefit people beyond big pharma, unions, lawyers, Wall Street, K Street, banks, and insurance companies, they're high on crack. It's the same game, same players, bigger steaks.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
The bill has a special cluase allowing them to sign up for the public option- section 330. The oridnary public cannot sign up unless they are not covered by employer insurnce for at least six months.
Our introduction to the "20th century" will be paid for primarily on the backs of two groups. First anyone with the temerity to earn more that 500k a year will be rightfully punished with a fat new tax. Second, anyone that has foregone buying insurance for whatever reason (can't get it, don't "need" it, etc.) will be forced, on pain of criminal prosecution, to buy into the system.
The later group are primarily the young; 20-30 somethings. It is worth noting that we have a novel new definition of "child" for the purposes of health insurance. You are a "child" until your 27th birthday, before which you may leech off your parents insurance, whether they want you to or not. No mention of whether the children of these newly minted "children" (the parents grandchildren) must also be included.
In any case these "children" will have to buy insurance, either via their parents or all by their precious selves. It won't be cheap because it is "one size fits all" and include lots of mandated goodies they won't need in the next 20 years, if ever. The system needs them to pay in. There are votes to buy using their money to subsidize people that vote reliably.
Our "children" may find simultaneously paying for their education dept and their mandated health insurance a challenge. They may have to forego accumulating a down-payment on property or financing any tolerable vehicles.
I'd like to thank our youth for their newly mandated wisdom in obtaining health insurance they probably don't need; I'm well past my 20s and you can bet I'm going to take full advantage of their generosity as they and their kids subsidize my price-capped, uncancellable insurance for the rest of my life. I'll be sure (using my reliable vote) to prevent too much intervention regarding rationing; much easier to make them pay for what I "need."
ROCK THE VOTE Slashdot.
But this do not explain maternal mortality
Maybe in some places they do what you say, but I can tell you for a fact that in Australia any baby born after 21 weeks is considered a live birth regardless of circumstance - eg: even if as a result of a termination procedure. Thus the Australian statistics are considerably inflated by abortions and even then, they still fare much much better than the US (something like a 50% lower rate).
Seriously, how do you figure that?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Instead focus singly on the FLOOD of people coming in from fairly weak borders with Mexico and Canada,
I can't speak to Mexico, but in Canada, they've got great public health care. I know a lot of Canadians, and they don't understand this debate; many of them would never consider living here solely because of the crappy health care.
The CB App. What's your 20?
And don't try to tell me that Government health care is going to suddenly start covering midwives, especially when the plan is so well supported by big pharma and the AMA. You should watch The Business of Being Born.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
We rank 37th in infant mortality
The US ranks 37th in *reported* infant mortality. The main difference is what is considered a live birth vs. still birth. Most countries don't count it as an infant death if the baby dies within 24 hours of birth, and in countries with less capable neonatal intensive care that happens a lot. Premies simply die and don't get counted, except in the US.
Citation needed. GP gave sources. Parent hasn't.
Yup - I'm not a big fan of this.
However, it really is the only option if you're going to force coverage of pre-existing conditions. Otherwise people will just wait until they're sick to sign up for insurance. That would bankrupt any insurance company, since they'd have only sick customers and couldn't share the costs with the healthy. Why have insurance if you can just sign up from the hospital lobby and emergency care is otherwise guaranteed?
If you're going to require coverage for pre-existing conditions then coverage has to be mandatory. That's how every other government on the planet effectively does it...
I bet you loathe all those wheelchair ramps in front of restaurants.
Hey, at least we don't have a President renaming all the months of the year after himself. Yet.
Slashdot is a for-profit website. They make money from advertisements and subscriptions. If you bought the company, you'd be able to remove articles like this easily. As it is, this is a posted article and will stay that way. Turns out, you can also comment on why it shouldn't be posted (you seem to have figured this out)--this does not require buying Slashdot.
Sorry if that disturbs your view of what Slashdot should be. Better save up before something like this gets posted again.
Thing is that you can go back. Unlike say medical technology and drugs, there hasn't been serious innovation in the actual infrastructure of providing health care since the early 20th century.
...lawsuits only acount for 0.75 % (yes, 3/4 of 1%) of the costs of Health Care in this country.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Maybe it's because 40-60% of their wages go to paying taxes, and prices have risen precipitously from all the Government and Federal Reserve manipulations of the markets.
Raising a child is a full time job, and thus requires someone to be on call, full time, to manage. Two parents working 60 hours per week to pay their various debts cannot make up for the lack of not being around.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
what pisses me off about the whole illegal imigration issue
What pisses me off about the whole "illegal immigration" issue is that those who have pushed it are the ones left after the native population was massacred. The conquerors used laws to bar others from immigrating as well. The Know Nothings in the 1840s and '50s tried to make it illegal for Irish Catholics to immigrate to the US. The Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese from immigrating in the 1880s. Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and Africans have been discriminated against. Now it's Central and South Americans, some who's ancestors have been here longer than the European immigrants who settled in the New World.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Especially interesting when you discover Maslow's theory is false. It's perfectly logical .. but it's not what drives people.
This is why nationalized healthcare works.
Again, perfectly logical, but .. well not false, but highly misleading. Nationalized health care provides service, but it's poor quality or to a limited percentage of the people, or both. Most, if not all, NHC plans impose both high taxes and long lines. American nationalized plans fail particularly badly.
... socialism is not all bad. Military, fire, police, community centres, libraries: all of these are iconic images of American life, and all of them are funded by the idea that collective payment benefits everyone eventually, if not immediately.
True, but again misleading. These services are all well defined. A fire is a fire, you dump water on it til it's out. There's a little research here (jaws of life, chemical foams) but not much has changed in the past 100 years.
This is not true of health care: almost everything has changed in the past 100 years. And yet there are many diseases that cannot be cured. Nationalized systems are not very good at dealing with things that need to change rapidly.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
I want to know on what planet Keynes is considered a "Lysenko". Not the same planet that noted Chicago school economist and judge, Richard Posner, lives on: http://www.tnr.com/article/how-i-became-keynesian . Nor the planet that Milton Friedman lives on, the man who said that, in a certain sense, "we are all Keynesians now." Certain elements of Keynes's theory are the standard ways of approaching economics, used by everyone. That you think otherwise suggests you are profoundly profoundly profoundly ignorant of economics.
Though, I suppose, if you want to be an anti-Keynesian, I suppose you would accept Friedman's opinion that monetary contraction was the main cause of the recession, a point upon which most economists currently agree. What's that? You think HOOVER caused the recession? Oh, that's right, you know nothing about economics, but you insist on talking about anyway. For a second I forgot about that...
Finally, you claim that Hoover, of all people, was the source of depression-causing progressivism. This claim is too ridiculous to be believed. It's like blaming Democrats for the expansionary federal budget during 2000-2006. They didn't do anything! They were never given the chance!
It sickens me the ass-talking ignorance that passes for economic knowledge on Slashdot. It's not that people like you don't bother to do the research, but rather there is this pervasive sense of anti-government pseudo-Austiran countercultural conspiratorism that makes enema-bags like you think you are too good for economic knowledge. "Keynes is just another Lysenko!" If you had taken any intro to econ course, or read any intro to econ books, ever, you would not think this. Shut up.
"How can it be optional if they are going to fine you when you say no???" She comes from the World War 2 generation, when freedom actually meant something.
How ironic you say this. The problem with health insurance got it's start in WWII. Government passed wage control laws, employers weren't allowed to pay employees more. Because this made it hard to hire people the government later allowed employers to offer insurance and other benefits to employees. For doing so they were given tax deductions. People who bought their own insurance didn't then and don't now get those deductions though. It tremendously distorted the market for health insurance.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I care about my life expectancy. Does that sound selfish? It shouldn't. It should sound familiar. Every poor, unemployed, and bleeding heart individual clamoring for this has exactly the same objective. The difference is that I work my ass off to beat the averages, and I intend to reap the rewards of my hard work in better than average outcomes. My position is no more selfish than theirs. The difference is that they stand to gain at my loss, and I will not accept this outcome.
If this bill becomes law, within 10 years, a majority of posters on this forum will have reduced access to care and lower relative quality of care, while paying higher taxes to support it. The least well off may be slightly better off, but you will pay the price for it, not only in taxes, but also in your own health.
This bill will substantially increase the demand on our health care providers. At the same time this bill restricts the ability of health care providers to fund increases in capacity, and does nothing of substance to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, or productivity of health care providers.
The only way to increase quality of and access to care, while reducing costs, is to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity of health care providers. This means public investment in science and technology, coupled with reduction in regulations on new medical treatments and devices.
All they have to do is extend Medicare to cover everyone.
Medicare is not a single payer system. I know, being on disability I am on Medicare and it does not cover all my medical expenses.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Everyone making over 500,000/yr.
If you make substantially less you can be granted a waiver.
If Democrats were a center leaning group the bill they passed would not have passed.
it was really Medicare/Medicaid that was the first ventures towards that direction, so i guess this is the getting in the first few feet phase when everyone else is already well in and not complaining about it the way we are.
Nobody complains about Medicare? Are you really that far out of reality? Googling complaints about medicare returns more than 2 million results. Putting it in parentheses, "complaints about medicare", still results in more than 60,000. I am one of those that complains.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm sure it'll be extra fun using his leaf blower to blow his brain bits off someone's lawn.
Self awareness - try it!
That is because there is little to no competition, nor is there a free market.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
All I ever here from people here, is how insurance companies deny claims and the huge amounts of co-pays
That is because there is no competition. In this post of yours you say you had employer provided health insurance. Guess what? Your employer got a tax deduction for offering the insurance. On the other hand if you, I, or almost anyone else goes and buys their own health insurance then we not get a tax deduction. That is a distortion of the market.
Also I have to pay $50 in co-pays for my meds every month while in Germany it would be capped at 10 euros irrespective of total amount.
Guess what? I am on Medicare right now and if it weren't for Walmart's commitment to offer thousands of drugs for $4 I couldn't afford my prescriptions, not that I can now.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What about nuclear, you never hear about state wide blackouts in France.
You don't hear about how nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies either. Or how "Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Sure you'll need a non-retarded grid to get that power everywhere but it seams like your grid is in need of a rework anyway
It's estimated that because of the poor condition of the electrical grid in the US it costs up to $83 billion a year in loses to business. No matter what generation technology is used the grid still has to be upgraded. That was one of the few things I agreed with Obama on, however he hasn't done anything about it yet. Like so many of his other promises.
do you really have DC power lines in places?
In Europe too. High Voltage DC current is terrific for transmitting electricity long distances, there is less loss of power with DC over long distances than with AC. DC is used widely by off gridders. If the electricity is generated as DC why convert it to AC?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
On the scale of the USA mass transit will cost more. The density of population is too low.
Nationwide yes but most people in the US live in cities.
Another issue with mass transit is that it only carries people.
Mass transit also carries cargo, depending on how you define "mass transit".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The link you posted doesn't work when followed directly. What people must do is:
Go to http://thomas.loc.gov. The bill, HR3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act, should be clearly linked in the homepage, but if it isn't just search for bill number HR3962. From there, follow the link "Text of Legislation". That takes you to the table of contents, where getting to Title III, Subsection C, Section 347 is straightforward.
Yeah, coz the US is the only country in the OECD with "capable neonatal intensive care"? Get the fuck over yourselves! If you want to compare the figures with, say, the Philippines or Turkey on that basis, then go ahead. You'll be wrong, because infant mortality is recorded as a rate per 1,000 live births, but you can try and pretend all the same. However, don't try and pretend that your system is in any way superior to Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Japan... The simple truth is that your system is broken, and no amount of massaging of statistics will change that. You lead the world on cost, unquestionably, but the outcomes that are bought with that money are worse than the outcomes bought by all those nasty, socialist healthcare systems in other countries.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
The last I heard is that everyone would be forced to buy in, or be fined or face jail time. Some option that is.
It beats having you skip buying insurance, then get in a car wreck and expect the rest of us to pay for your care out of our pockets. Anyone who can afford health insurance and chooses not to buy it is freeloading by making the rest of the country shoulder their share of the risk.
(And no, you don't have the option of simply promising to forego medical care if you get badly hurt -- when the accident came, you'd change your mind, and even if you didn't it would be unethical to leave you untreated)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
In other words "you forgot Poland".
The point still stands: US health care is by far the most expensive in the world, and we get very little for our money by most measures of patient outcomes.
the USA
So does Cuba, does that mean we should follow Cuba's lead?
There are waits for some procedures for stuff that won't kill you. If you have a serious illness you get to see a doctor and whatever specialist is required within hours in most cases.
Canada has no rationing? None at all? Waiting for surgery isn't as bad in Canada? Wait tymes weren't at an all-time high in Canada? Average waiting tymes in Canada for surgery isn't 16 weeks?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You sound like my 80-something mother.
"How can it be optional if they are going to fine you when you say no???" She comes from the World War 2 generation, when freedom actually meant something. I don't think today's Generation Hippy, Generation X, or Generation Me have any idea of the concept. Many of them think if they want something, it's okay to ask the government to raid their neighbors' wallets and get it.
It's a lot like how the Roman Empire's government operated.
Generation Hippy is asking the government to do things? Gen. Hippy and the government are on speaking terms?? STOP THE PRESSES!!! HIPPIES AREN'T HIPPIES ANYMORE!
$ make available
the proposed legislature is good enough to be worth passing
I couldn't disagree more.
There is a school of economic thought that says when the economy is bad, the best thing for the government to do is spend money to stimulate the economy. The Great Depression lasted for as long as it did in part because the US government did the "responsible thing"
There's a school of thought which says the Great Depression lasted as long as it did because the government interfered.
which it didn't do until World War II forced the US government to begin spending on materiel
Actually the nation was recovering from the Great Depression before WWII. The recovery started before the Recession of 1937-1938, which as the wiki article says "was a temporary reversal of the pre-war 1933 to 1941 economic recovery from the Great Depression in the United States."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
why is this flagged science?
It needs to be noted, however, that the Federal Reserve is a private, not a public institution.
person
When you mandate a check for status when someone is injured before treatment is given you mandate citizens' death.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Allow people to go across state lines to buy insurance. Right now each state can say who can and can not sell insurance in that state, I can not go across a state line and buy insurance in another state which may have lower insurance premiums. In other words there is no competition.
This isn't the reason there's no competition. There *might* be a brief increase in competition if you were to remove individual state's rights to regulate and create a national market, but it's pretty likely what would happen before too long would be the same thing that's happened in telecom, broadcast, newspapers, and a bunch of other industries: we'll consolidate nationally to 2-3 players. If anything, it'll happen faster: profitability as an insurance company depends strongly on what you can negotiate with providers, and when it comes to that, bigger is better.
Tweet, tweet.
If people can't get support when they need it, then it becomes practically impossible for them to dig themselves out of their slump, during which they will inevitably consume more than they produce.
Even a most theoretically callous government, extending exactly zero support to these people, even to the point of letting them die, couldn't prevent charity and humanitarian work, which distributes the costs over other channels, all which add to a significant impact on the economy.
The point is that there needs to be a balance. There's no point in saying "social welfare is bad". The fact is, without social welfare, you unavoidably do considerably worse economically.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Most people get treated.
There are certain circumstances were it is simply not cost effective, but even then you would be offer pain control or other paliative measures.
And under all circumstances you can still contract private insurance if you can afford it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The US will collapse economically if something is not done.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
200 mg Irony, 3 times a day before meals.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In the UK people are as capitalistic as anywhere else and dislike too much government intervention in many parts of their life, and at some points they will push very hard back, much more than US people ever would.
And nevertheless, it is pretty much a national consensus that socialized health care is the best, fairer solution for all the inhabitants of this country.
I have known of people in the US that where all gun-ho about socialized medicine, until their first insurance claim was rejected.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Racist drivel.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For bunnies sakes, please move.
Modern medicine and research is what has increased life expectancy and quality of life everywhere, including Asia, even those parts where they will rip you off offering "alternative medicine" (i.e. not peer reviewed).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Okay, point, but ....
The problem is that social welfare never stops at giving 'em a *hand up*, "get people started on a better road" stage. It invariably becomes a *handout* instead -- "depend on us for everything", which has precisely the opposite effect -- it enforces poverty, because otherwise you don't get your handout. (The American deep south has been demonstrating this for 150 years -- if handouts worked so well, why is it still the poorest part of the country??)
It's like digging a ditch FOR someone, when instead you should have just loaned them a shovel.
Methinks required reading for all social welfare advocates should be Booker T. Washington's UP FROM SLAVERY, which is largely about this very issue.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Sorry to inform you, but this is the same old "Don't ask, don't tell" that has been the norm for years in most Federal programs. Seriously, as long as there is no specific requirement to verify citizenship, illegals will get benefits. That's the way it works in social security. That is the way it works with food stamps and housing subsidies. Get the forms and look at them. It states that it is unlawful for any aid worker to even ASK about an applicant's citizenship. Sure, the laws state that these benefits are not supposed to go to illegals, but it also prohibits verification.
This is a Catch22 that could easily be solved IF congress wanted to solve it. Obviously, they don't. They do not want the political damage that would ensue if they actually required some verification. So, once again the US taxpayer is going to foot the bills of freeloaders.
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
There's no denying that some people leech from social welfare. The real question is, what can we realistically do differently? We've established that there is such thing as too little welfare, so the game is optimisation. It's not so much about minimising welfare as it is about minimising impact on the economy.
That is, of course, leaving out morality issues about making life unbearably hard on the bottom line. I know that it's supposed to be hard, but there is such a thing as making too hard to be humane.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
There goes our chance as a nation to pay off our debt, there goes many private-sector jobs, there goes a lot of freedom and liberty from a nanny-state government. This is a sad-sad day. Instead of reforming healthcare with more government, why not look at tort-reform, getting rid of old and silly regulations in the industry, getting rid of the unfair tax credit towards companies providing health insurance, and many other things. Democrats are such a populist-kissing re-elect me at any cost party. It's really sad. And no, Republicans suck as well.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
Ah, RoadID "was born in the fall of 1999". My accident was in 1996. A lot of good it would do for me.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
>>>It beats having you skip buying insurance, then get in a car wreck and expect the rest of us to pay for your care out of our pocket
I have car insurance dipshit.
Try again with a different example.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>Gen. Hippy and the government are on speaking terms??
The hippies grew-up and found the government to be useful in getting free handouts like social security and medicare, and also useful for preserving the status quo (i.e. bailouts for companies that would otherwise go bankrupt; i.e. saved baby boomer jobs). Basically the 60s/70s-era hippies turned into pro-government sellouts.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If you didn't mean what I said then I apologize.
However I see a problem with your post I replied to.
ANY reform on medical costs is worth it. several OB-GYN and and an anesthesiologist that I know (none with any previous issues) are paying over 100K/year for malpractice. That is outrageous.
According to more than one study medical malpractice adds little to the cost of health care, .5% is sited.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Self-preservation is a right. Carrying out self-preservation may require you to seek care from others.
But there is no right to force others to care for you. If you are forcing people to care for you, you are enslaving them.
There is no right to violate the rights of others
Maybe it would work if the whole world privatized...so royalty would stop coming to the US when they need some special treatment and raise the price for everyone here.
But really, you only have to look at college tuition. When the government provided loans (I think it was Reagan, actually) for students, suddenly college tuition went up because any student could get a loan. The more the government subsidized the more those greedy liberal colleges jacked up their prices. Remove the subsidy, remove the guaranteed loans, and in a few years, when the student applications dry up because no one can afford 100,000 a year for school without a government loan, colleges will have to lower their prices if they want to get any tuition money.
This is a good example why government should stay out of health care. Medicare fraud is bad enough. Imagine what crooks will do when no one has any other choice. I really doubt this is going to bring down any "cost" at all...
Seems to me once social welfare becomes comfortable, it has gone too far. It needs to be UNcomfortable by design, so people do their damnedest to get up, out of, and beyond it, rather than slouching into it as a permanent way of life. It also needs to stop penalizing people who DO save and work to get out of it. (Frex, stuff like the limit on savings, commonly just $500, which isn't even a month's unsubsidized rent most places -- how the hell can you get out of public housing if you're not allowed to build up the funds to do so??)
In one of his books, Larry Elder writes of a Catholic mission that has a huge success rate on relatively little money, by requiring full effort from everyone in the program (pretty similar to how Booker T. ran Tuskegee back in the early days). Slackers get dumped, which is as it should be.
We can't save everyone, it's just not practical; and not everyone is worth saving, even from that standpoint of best net economic benefit to society. There's never been a perfect answer, at least not so long as there remains any personal choice, personal freedom, or fairness of impact. Egalitarian solutions just drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Come on, man up and accept that you didn't even know that the article was there in the text of the bill, and that the first time you heard about it was from the GP post. You are just trying to rationalize because that post exposed your ignorance on the topic.
But all those laws did not. Just like then right now I can not go buy my own health insurance and get the same tax deductions employers get for offering their employees insurance. Government giving employers tax deductions but not giving individuals the same deductions is a distortion of the market.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
>>>It beats having you skip buying insurance, then get in a car wreck and expect the rest of us to pay for your care out of our pocket
I have car insurance dipshit.
Try again with a different example.
The GP means skipping-out on MEDICAL insurance! See below:
(And no, you don't have the option of simply promising to forego medical care if you get badly hurt -- when the accident came, you'd change your mind, and even if you didn't it would be unethical to leave you untreated)
Or do you think your auto insurance will pay your medical bills?
Your history is a little off. The business of offering employees insurance instead of wages did indeed originate during WW II, but the tax-free aspect came later. This was done to undercut proposals for a government-run health plan.
Anyway, you're strawmanning my argument. I did not say there was no government interference in the health marketplace. Obviously that's not true (for any marketplace!). I did say that the marketplace had no incentive to solve the problem of people who can't buy insurance because there's no room for them in the insurance business model. And forcing people to pay taxes on their workplace insurance benefits wouldn't change that. Requiring everybody to buy insurance would.
Anyway, you're strawmanning my argument. I did not say there was no government interference in the health marketplace
Right here you said "Part of the problem here is that U.S. public policy since Reagan is dominated by the mantra, 'The marketplace can handle the problem'" as if a free market was given a chance when it has not. You're the one using a straw man argument and when that doesn't work you switch tactics.
And forcing people to pay taxes on their workplace insurance benefits wouldn't change that.
Did I say that? Hell NO!!! I did not. I said I can not get the same deductions when I buy my own insurance as employers get for offering it to employees. Straw man.
If you force everybody to buy insurance,
And where does the Constitution of the USA give the federal government the power to mandate everyone pay for health insurance? Hint, it doesn't. "Health" is found nowhere in it. And using the "General Welfare" clause does not work as has been pointed out already.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Does that make nuclear powerplants unconstitutional?
No, the plants themselves aren't unconstitutional, there's nothing in it to make them so. However now that you brought it up and I'm thinking about it I personally consider the massive subsides unconstitutional. As I do most subsides, including those for Water, Wind, and Solar (WWS). I have repeatedly railed against all sorts of subsidies, they distort the markets. I would let them all compeat on equal footings, no government subsidies. It's pretty likely the subsidies the various energy sources get can put a dent in health care costs. Alone coal, nuclear power, and petroleum each get billions of dollars in subsidies. Biomass, fuel biofuels, get billions more.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Right here you said "Part of the problem here is that U.S. public policy since Reagan is dominated by the mantra, 'The marketplace can handle the problem'" as if a free market was given a chance when it has not. You're the one using a straw man argument and when that doesn't work you switch tactics.
I don't follow your logic. You seem to be assuming that any government interference in the marketplace is the cause of all failures of the marketplace to do what you want. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My argument is that the business model of the health insurance industry has no place in it for most of the individuals seeking individual health insurance, and that removing the tax benefits for insurance sold to a completely separate group of people would not change that. If you think I'm wrong, then you must think there's some mechanism by which eliminating that tax break would solve the problem. So what's the mechanism?
And forcing people to pay taxes on their workplace insurance benefits wouldn't change that.
Did I say that? Hell NO!!! I did not. I said I can not get the same deductions when I buy my own insurance as employers get for offering it to employees. Straw man.
OK, I misunderstood you. And here's the reason I got your argument wrong: I assumed it was somehow relevant to my argument. You're not arguing with statement, you're just complaining about the unfairness of the current tax code.
I think I might agree with you on that point. I happen to think most tax deductions are unfair to those not eligible for them. So let's just say you've convinced me on this point. It still has nothing to do with the inability of the marketplace to meet the needs of most individuals seeking health insurance.
If you force everybody to buy insurance,
And where does the Constitution of the USA give the federal government the power to mandate everyone pay for health insurance?
Sigh. Neither of us is a constitutional lawyer. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not. (Though if you're right, why hasn't anybody challenged the mandatory coverage laws in Massachusetts and Hawaii?) Lets just assume you're right. Does the unconstitutionality of mandatory health coverage mean that it is economic to sell health insurance to individuals? Because that's the only argument I'm making.
I don't follow your logic. You seem to be assuming that any government interference in the marketplace is the cause of all failures of the marketplace to do what you want. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're wrong. Government interference in the markets make those market unfree. Blaming failures on markets when there is government interference isn't right. Blaming the government interference instead would be the correct thing most of the tyme. Not all but most of the tyme. When the markets fail it's because they don't pay external costs when others have to pay them. For instance when a company pollutes and it does not pay for cleanup others have to pay. But guess what? Guess who's the biggest polluter, at least in the US? The US government is. The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world.
OK, I misunderstood you. And here's the reason I got your argument wrong: I assumed it was somehow relevant to my argument. You're not arguing with statement, you're just complaining about the unfairness of the current tax code.
No, No, and again NO! You argued the market can not handle the problem, Part of the problem here is that U.S. public policy since Reagan is dominated by the mantra, "The marketplace can handle the problem." I even provide the same link, using the same text for the link. I am saying the market was never given a change to handle the problem. Are you really that lacking in comprehension? This is the third tyme I've had to explain it.
Troll
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
This is getting tiresome. Instead of responding to my argument, you keep trying to find technical reasons why I'm contradicting myself. Your reasons don't make sense, but you don't want to hear that. So fine, whatever, I don't care.
My argument is extremely simple: I'm saying that making workplace insurance benefits taxable does not provide any incentive for insurers to offer individual insurance to everybody. That's what I'm saying, and that's all that I'm saying. If you can suggest a mechanism by which such a change would actually provide an incentive, let's hear it. If you don't know of such a mechanism, then you're just imitating that guy in the Monty Python parrot sketch.
I saw Cleese and Palin on Saturday Night Live. They did that sketch for what must have been the millionth time, and were obviously very bored with it. As am I.
I'm saying that making workplace insurance benefits taxable does not provide any incentive for insurers to offer individual insurance to everybody.
That's it!! I never ever said that!!! TROLL!!!
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
1. Please cite your references as to why you say Maslow's theory is false. I'm not an expert in it, but I can't find any valid opinions to the contrary.
2. Canadians pay only marginally more than Americans in taxes, but yet their health care system works. It has it's flaws, yes, but it's not as bad as the Americans seem to think it is. It's not of poor quality, it's universal, and waiting a month or two for a non life-threatening operation is much better, in the long run, than paying it off over several years.
3. The military certainly has changed over the last 100 years. Libraries have as well (the first public library wasn't until the late 1800s). Complexity of the task is not an argument against this.
There are many things in health care that have changed, but in the vast majority of cases that need a health care professional, it's issues that humans have been dealing with for thousands of years: broken bones, births, flu, injuries, etc. These need very little research, and what research does come out of a health care system is usually limited to a few institutions - not the majority of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers.
Let's take a step back for a minute. Imagine that I don't. Explain to me what a competitive free market it is
A free market "describes a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud."
and how the competition within it produces companies that provide effective services to their customers.
If those who are in a market do not make a product or provide a service people are willing to pay for somone will introduce competition and do so themselves. That applies whether it is profitable or not. Since the original post is about health insurance, let's use that. During the debate up to the House's vote on their bill there was mention of health co-ops. I didn't know it but not far from me there is a Health insurance coop. Health Partners has existed for almost 50 years.
Being a member, willingly and voluntarily, of 2 coops though neither being a health coop I know how they work. The members, owners, set the policy of the coop. Now there are three main types of coops I know of. One type is the employee or worker owned coop. Basque coops in Spain like the Mondragon Corporation are huge employers. A second type is the supplier owned coop. An example of it in the US is the Organic Valley Coop. The dairy farmers who supply dairy products to the coop are the owners. And the third type is the buyer owned coop such as the two I'm a member of, Lakewinds coop and The Wedge.
All of these types of coops meet the requirements of the free market, a willing and voluntary exchange.
Should there be a Law?
But... nobody's forced to be a doctor. This isn't even like Britain's National Health Service, where doctors are employed by the state. (Even Britain may have doctors who work for themselves.)
Doctor's aren't forced to work for the government. I'm not aware of any requirement for doctors to see patients on government insurance. How on earth is anyone forced to do something by a government-run health insurance plan that they aren't forced to do by government establishment of firefighting services?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I agree that social welfare can't be made comfortable, but there's a limit as to how uncomfortable it should be that transcends economic concerns. We can set minimum conditions of living to be so cheap, yet so unbearable, that it becomes cruel to force people to live by them, even if they are only enduring a temporary setback. Social welfare is our lifestyle insurance. It makes sure that we don't have to suffer unbearably from a setback.
Besides, the same problems with no welfare scale to cruel welfare. If welfare becomes cruel, then charity will pick up the slack, and the economy will be drained all the same.
And, of course, as you say, we have invest enough to make it useful to those trying to get back on their feet.
We absolutely can't save everyone, but we can keep everyone living. I hope you realise that, even those who squander benefits, we can't allow to simply crawl into a gutter and die, right? Sure it costs us, but gives us a sense of security, and, by the same reasoning I've used over and over, letting them die won't actually positively impact on the economy. It certainly won't impact positively on our consciences.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Textbook "Fundamentals of Management: Essential Concepts and Applications", 5th edition, by Stephen P. Robbins and David A. DeCenzo. ISBN 0-13-148736-1. From page 322:
[6] See, for instance, E. E. Lawler III and J. L. Suttle, "A Causal Correlational Test of the Need Hierarchy Concept," Organizational Behavior and Human Performance (April 1972), pp. 265-87; and D. T. Hall and K. E. Nongaim, "An Examination of Maslow's Need Hierarchy in an Organizational Setting," Organizational Behavior and Human Performance (February 1968), pp. 12-35.
Now would you kindly provides some support for your own claims? We're under the impression that part of the Canadian success is due to American drugs. This may or may not be true, but I can't find anyone on either side of the argument willing to provide references. All we have is a government with a proven record of poorly managed social systems trying to grab control of health care as well, replacing broken socialism with more broken socialism.
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.