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Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy
jfruh writes "Larry Page revealed that he'd been suffering from a vocal cord ailment that impaired his ability to speak for more than a year. The positive feedback he got from opening up about it inspired him to tell attendees at Google I/O that we should all be less uptight about keeping our medical records private. As far as Page is concerned, pretty much the only legitimate reason for worry on this score is fear of being denied health insurance. 'Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,' he said."
... for some fishy reason if it gets out he has some "scary disease" or won't work as efficient anymore. Or might drop out at any time for a week.
And it is also not that his penis had a malfunction or something.
I think Larry Page generalises too much, has too much of an agenda, hasn't gotten that not everyone follows the same religion, needs to shut up and retire so he can spend his money on philantropy. I like Bill Gates much more since he stopped babbling his technology-and-business-bullshit and actually put the billions fate threw at him for something useful.
Larry Page isn't getting a third of what he thinks he got.
In the financial trading industry we have a term for those pundits who come on Bloomberg or CNBC and give advice on markets, stocks etc - they are talking their own book. So If they are extolling the virtues of a stock or a currency it usually means they are holding a large position in it themselves. Here we see Ole Larry talking his own book. These assholes would have you bare your entire life for them so they may sell you more shit you don't need. Fuck you Larry Page and Fuck you Google.
The only reason to worry is to be insured? How about not being discriminated against in all kinds of areas (namely job hunting)? How about not pissing off a girlfriend when you have to clear up a STD from an Ex or a bad decision? How about not wanting the family to know you have a terminal disease?
There are many reasons we want to keep our health issues private. I'm not going to discount that being able to talk to someone is helpful, but that is not even close to making them available to everyone all the time.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
just think rationally for a moment
if you insure everyone, why dont you just make sure everyone get health care.
big companies can make financial decisions about risk mitigation.
for the rest of us, the insurance companies are just parasites. they rig the game.
we need to stop discussing health, our health, in those terms
Sounds like someone who wasn't around for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic (or even the current state of the AIDS epidemic).
There are some health issues that society isn't mature enough to handle. Most of them are sexual in nature - do you really want your STD diagnosis to be water-cooler conversation (Hey, Frank, who'd you pick up that case of the clap from?)? If I had a diagnosis that gave me a 25% chance of dying in the next year, I believe that I have the right to decide who knows that. How about as a potential CEO, having your anxiety disorder (handled nicely with drugs, thank you) bandied about the boardroom?
There are other health issues that are a don't-care. Paralyzed vocal cords? Bummer, dude. Here, I'll tell you one about me - I have vitiligo. Bummer, dude. Exzema? Ingrown toenail? Bummer, dude. Hell, even erectile dysfunction is a prime-time advertising bonanza.
And the worms ate into his brain.
Man, all these stupid laws and restrictions!
Indeed "The only reason to worry about medical privacy is the GIANT FUCKING ELEPANT IN THE ROOM that can potentially TOTALLY SCREW OVER the vast majority of people in the country" And the rich wonder why people think they're out of touch.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Easy for him to say, he is a billionaire. He can say or do almost anything, and get away scot free.
Guess he won't have to apply for a job anytime soon, and have your prospective employer dig through your medical records.
And he probably does not have AIDS. Or had some STDs. You know, there are countries that deny entrance to anyone with those.
Or visited a psychiatrist (yes, in many parts of the world the psychiatrists notes are part of your medical records).
I already find goverment databases of everyones medical records creepy as hell, not to mention them for sale on the 'market'.
I must sincerely disagree with Larry Page on the subject of privacy of medical records. There are many medical conditions, that can be compromising or embarrassing for a patient. If someone has a congenital condition that affect their behavioral or physical condition, that is something they might want to manage privately for their own protection. Reproductive issues are very private issues, for obvious reasons. If someone has a undiagnosed condition that affects their ability to work or to engage in a social life, they deserve privacy while they work with a health provider to figure things out. I find Mr. Page's feelings very inconsiderate to other people. I respect Mr. Page's courage in dealing with his current vocal cord paralysis, which has been ongoing for sometime, and he has taken a very blunt way of dealing with it. Not everyone's condition affords them such candor.
Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people
That would be an improvement, but at the same time it creates another problem. Having an industry where only the buyer is allowed to use information is complete nonsense too. I know this opinion isn't popular around here, but for health insurance, the only thing that makes any sort of sense is a public system. It's just sad to see that the US is among the last to realize this.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Insurance is about risk management. Forcing a risk manager to ignore risk is about as dumb a suggestion as I've ever heard.
The problem lies elsewhere; the problem lies in the lack of a free market; the problem lies in crony capitalism: Big Business and Big Government using each other to fleece people through coercion.
"'Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,' he said."
Maybe the world *should* be a better place. But wishing for the best of all possible worlds is an idiotic basis for national health policy. Or privacy policy.
So Larry Page disclosed an ailment that quite frankly was new to me. But what are the implications of paralized vocal chords beyond being unable to speak?
Are the people surrounding him worried he may be contagoious? Is he in danger of being blamed for an unhealthy lifestyle causing his malaise? Does he face the prospect of losing his job, or being unable to find employment in the future? Is he likely to lose family or friends? I believe the answer is no to all the above questions.
But think of AIDS, certain cancers, heart disease, mental disorders and any number of afflictions that MAY be caused by personal choice. Or even if personal responsibility were not the cause, yet others would still discriminate the sufferer.
The choice of making one's problems public should ALWAYS rest with the individual. There are always reasons to shield yourself from others, and one billionaire cannot even begin to comprehend the complexity of the issue from his ivory tower.
Maybe there is some self serving to it, but I think he had a valid point...He's not saying for everyone to put everything out in the open, or to have insecure online records; merely that people are sometimes super private about health issues that there's no real reason to be. That when he stopped being private about his, he felt better, and the support he got made him wish he did it sooner. Even his jab at health care laws carries some weight; you can't fix healthcare without at least TRYING some new ideas. I'm not saying Google would've done it best, but at least it's better then no one trying.
'Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,' Larry Page said."
Yes, we can have the rules changed, but then, they too can change the rules
If we are too force the insurance to accept all people, they can make their insurance policy so expensive that only the rich can afford
After all, who is in business to make a lost ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
He goes into I/O and tells everyone that there's too much focus on competition and a "zero-sum" game. Meanwhile his company is doing everything is can to fight regulation, moving on any and every available market, clearly adopting innovation for market and platform advantage, and generally fighting to be the alpha wolf of the pack. Christ, you basically just duplicated the iphone and gave it away for free to build a market for your products... zero sum game my a$#, you're dealing the cards you half wit!
Then he goes out and talks about how we should be less uptight about our personal information... a guy with billions of dollars and no security issues whatsoever, tells folks who live and die on the edge of poverty where an employer will fire you for being fat, to "stop sweating the personal medical concerns." I can see the next one now... "gas? Let them drive Teslas."
I'm so sick of these "do no evil" bait and switch a$%holes. What on earth has Google actually ever created besides a search algorithm? CREATED... please, someone explain it to me, because I'm still trying to figure it out.
-rt
some medical problems are stigmatized, so it's best nobody knows about them.
His comment makes a lot of sense. In Australia, health insurance companies must charge every customer the same amount (for the same level of cover) and are required to provide coverage to anyone who signs up. It is illegal to deny a person insurance. Japan goes one step further and *requires* everyone to be insured. Everyone has the the same level of cover and no one is denied. Both of these countries have excellent medical outcomes and profitable medical insurance industries.
America, you are doing health insurance wrong. There are many examples of health insurance worldwide that are more equitable, more effective and far cheaper.
What about stock price on news the CIO has some serious health problems?
Vajk
No kidding. I'd love to see how little medical privacy meant to him if he had a mental illness and was looking for a job and housing. Medical privacy laws don't exist because we're all bashful. They exist because people have been persecuted and discriminated against for medical and mental health issues.
I don't want to come off as some tin-foil hat wearing nut-job, but one can't help making a connection between Google wanting to know as much information as possible about a person to influence search results and Page's comments.
I just think there's no good reason to open up if people don't want to. There are a lot of things that could be stigmatizing in a person's medical history and open them all to all kinds of forms of discrimination outside of being able to get health insurance. Things as simple as "Oh, you had an abortion once. You're not welcome here."
And for what it's worth, I'd like to see better privacy laws in place. The kind of data that companies are so easily able to gather these days is getting out of hand is probably going to lead to an entirely new set of problems in the future. For example, it's already been proven possible to out a gay person by analyzing their friends on social networks. If the world were a better place that wouldn't be a big deal, but it isn't. I'm reminded a short story where information gathering becomes so sophisticated that computers are able to generate targeted ads to influence a person in a single regard:
“Push combs the online footprint of our targets to determine everything we can about them,” said Yaroslava. “We use social networks, we use search histories, we use cell phone data, we use gaming protocols. All data is useful to us. Not only do we find out exactly what our target likes to consume, but we also find out how they like to consume it. We see how they browse to determine their specific attention spans and intelligence. We scan their pornography habits to learn about their libido, their obsessions, and their fears. We aggregate vast amounts of data about the way they use the internet to create a complete psychological profile of our targets, and then we use cognitive behavioral techniques to triangulate patterns in this profile. We make as robust a model of their operating intelligence as we possibly can. And then we make little movies meant only for our specific subjects. We make movies designed to steer them toward our products, whatever these products may be. These movies are designed to make each subject breathless, pliant, confused, over-stimulated, and highly amenable to suggestion.”
While it's generally true that people seem to be overprotective of their health... it's because illness can make one feel tremendously vulnerable. Having information about your vulnerabilities available for others only compounds the problem. Be assured that there are those who will take advantage of them! If policy can be put into effect that protects the vulnerable then I could support sharing health information... but I think the reality is that there is A LOT of money to be made exploiting peoples' fear.
Vote GOP and you may be denied health insurance.
As there plan is to repeal with no replace plan.
Starting in 2014 in the US, this will be the law of the land--companies will have to insure anyone, regardless of existing conditions. It is also the law in MA right now.
Gates' charitable projects work hand-in-glove with his business interests: all of the projects he funds require that recipients purchase Microsoft software. In a sense, he never did retire. It's hard to see him as a philantropist until he steps back and thinks about how the world might be a better place if organizations didn't have to put so much of their limited financial resources into software.
Big fucking deal. You had a vocal chord problem. Wow. How brave of you to come forward and how noble of you to now believe that we should all be open about our medical problems. There are soooooo many reasons why people prefer to keep that information private apart from being denied insurance.
If you think it's so safe then why don't you take all that google money and pay some of our medical bills? You can start with mine. Oh, wait, you don't want to? Shut the fuck up... I'm tired of you standing on a gilded soap box telling us how to fix the world.
Yes, but the poor have one final ace to play. If the rich go too far in trying to exploit the poor, the poor can rise up and put all of the rich assholes against the wall. While new rich assholes will invariably rise up again, the current crop would not have a very fun time. Google 'kulak' for an example.
Not just mental illness - which is already overly stigmatised. But what if you had early symptoms or markers for degenerative diseases such as early onset Alzheimer's or something similar.
I was recently diagnosed with cancer that was triggered by an auto immune disease. I've had surgery and my prognosis is extremely good, but there's lots of cancers out there with a high probability of reoccurring.
My sister has a related auto immune disease but got juvenile arthritis instead. MY husband suffers from extreme chronic obstructive sleep apnea which was initially mis-diagnosed as a mental illness and then epilepsy as his symptoms escalated while we searched for a correct treatment.
I'm not sure the first thing I would say to a prospective employer is that I've had cancer, anymore than they should be able to ask whether we intend to have kids.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Employers may not hire you if they think you will be sick a lot or may not survive long enough to pay for your training. Random people will shun you if they know you are HIV positive or schizophrenic even if there is no rational reason for their behavior. Few people will knowingly dance with a transsexual at a party. I say Larry Page is overstating how much we should worry about Google's business model. Opt- in web crawling by at least the big search engines visited by most people would do both individuals and content-based businesses lots of good.
and, as he points, out, the insurance will not be affordable and additionally many of the plans will actually end up being inferior to what many had before.
Let's see, your medical records show you to be at risk for losing your voice. Sorry, we do not think you would make a good spokesperson.
It's discrimination, plain and simple. I've a victim of it, many others have. The notion that what one shares with a doctor is private is enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath, no less.
"All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal."
The point of electronic health records is to actually improve the privacy of health information by enforcing auditing of all actions. Patients like being able to look at their record, and have their doctors share information with each other for their treatment with permission. Other than that, it's private and the idea that is protected by law, technology and culture is a good thing.
I'm glad Google Health died, given this. And I worry about the company as a whole when the founder makes statements like this, and their breakthrough hardware is a perfect tool for spying on people in public. It was bad enough that ad-supported technology is everywhere thanks to their success. Heck, remember when people just took your money and left you alone? I miss that.
MA is not doing anyone favoures.
Unless a company buys you health insurance you can only enroll in July. In the mean time they will penalize your already high state taxes for every month you do not have insurance. Keep in mind it's not a 'fine,' thatd be unconstitutional!
The logic behind this is people with no insurance avoid going to the dr, their ailments turn into bad conditions that they must get treated, then skip out on the bill. This money supposedly compensates for this.
Health insurance is, how ever, prohibitely expensive so they push high deductible plans for 300/month. High deductible plans... You mean the sort of insurance that causes people to avoid the dr?
The positive feedback he [Larry Page] got from opening up about it inspired him to tell attendees at Google I/O that we should all be less uptight about keeping our medical records private. As far as Page is concerned, pretty much the only legitimate reason for worry on this score is fear of being denied health insurance.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
kill yourself
This billionaire advertising executive is so totally disconnected from the issues facing real people in the real world that it boggles the mind.
"Why would anyone want privacy for their medical records? I don't get it. If that causes insurance problem then we should just change the insurance system. Why is this so hard for you people to understand?"
See, this is one of the reasons why we in Europe have public health care: your fate and health depends less on people that actually have an interest in not helping you when need it; ie, insurance companies.
I don't know about Larry Page - to me he is just another suit that got lucky. I have worked in software engineering for over 20 years, and I have never worked out why people like him are admired; they are always shallow, sometimes embarrasingly ignorant about things and a bit deficient, morally and otherwise. Which is why the got rich, really.
Mr. Wall I admire you and your accomplishments. But you are not a medical professional. There are many very good reasons why doctors try to practice confidentiality. Read up on the history bro.
Well, he's not afraid his company might fire him..
He is also in the data business. If the government started enforcing privacy regulations his company might end up liable. There is also a big potential profit in getting ever more specific information about you that can be used or sold. Getting medical data to mine is a huge win on many levels.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's the money, its gone to his head. Apparently he has enough money to buy a warped sense of reality.
http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Page
Has a severe god complex.
*this post is entirely fictional for those of you who have a hard time separating reality from bullshit.
This is why he wants to setup a regulation free experiment somewhere. He won't have to touch any of the poors by accident.
I have herpes, my girlfriend of the last 4 years knows.... who else needs to know.
Clearly paralyzed vocal cords correlate with being evil.
That is all.
Quoth: "After all, who is in business to make a lost ?" Buena Vista Television made 121 episodes. You're a touch audience...
The days of "the poor rising up against the rich" in a first world country are long over, because the rich now have the large middle class military and police forces to beat the poor back into submission whenever they get out of hand.
I hope they remember to put that antisocial personality disorder on your public record.
Or might stop him from driving in some states or countries because he had uncontrolled epilepsy (or similar feinting diseases) at some point in his life but is properly medicated now.
Medical privacy only helps those who want to con the system or hurt others. Unemployment is high enough as it is. It would be far lower if we cut free the freeloaders.
The freeloaders who just want to get treatment but get charged 5x what the insurance companies end up paying because they don't have the power to negotiate? The freeloaders who have paid thousands into private health insurance without taking any benefits and then lose their job, can't pay, and get NONE of that money back when they need it? Or the freeloaders who are completely avoiding doctor visits to avoid getting any preventative care or diagnoses they need in order to keep pre-existing conditions from appearing on their health records (and end up costing the insurance companies and/or the government 100x what it would have if they had dealt with their issues earlier)?
The fact is, healthcare costs would be far lower if we had a single payer system. Cover EVERYONE at a federal level, then none of your concerns about private corporate interest are relevant.
I find it very interesting that someone as intelligent as Larry Page could provide a statement so utterly disconnected from the reality of most people lives.
This is one more indication that in many cases, being separated from contact with ordinary people by richness of function actually affects your capacity to think "normally" or empathize.
This is one more element to show that letting these (otherwise perfectly respectable) people having too much influence on politics and government is extremely bad.
So, should Google jump back into the health data service market, who among you would use it, given a statement like this from Page?
I suspect Page believes Google should be able to analyze your health data and even sell you to advertisers.
No way no how.
killing Larry Page would be more productive.
You know, just the other day I was at the water cooler with my Google Glasses on. Janet's description showed that she was three months pregnant. She's unmarried and spends a lot of time with Bob.
Bob's description suggests he was tested for an STD just a couple months ago. I wonder if he told Janet.
Oops. Just got a popup that I can pay google $10 a month to keep my medical records from showing up on google glasses. What a steal!
all of the projects he funds require that recipients purchase Microsoft software
That is so idiotically wrong I'm not even sure what to say.
He's given $1.3 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria in 3rd world countries (and that's just 1 project of the dozens he is funding). So, what, the plan is a tribal African family with no running water (let alone Internet) buys a new copy of Windows 8 and gets their children vaccinated?
Probably because we realize that people don't always make rational decisions. Particularly when dealing with mental illness, irrational prejudices drive most decisions. It's pragmatically appropriate, in that case, to just remove that information from the decision-making process. Works better for everyone.
In the long-run, though, I kind of agree with Larry. If we had to face the fact that these conditions were so prevalent (a fact which is available in coded form in the profitability of pharmaceutical companies) even in the "productive class," maybe we'd get over the stupidity. But it has the same problem as the surveillance state: in reality it would be used only against the peasants.
captcha: "lobbying". lol.
Please, if you have uncontrolled epilepsy, GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD. Seriously.
Let's see ALL of your e-mail, text and phone logs first, Larry.
How is this "news"?
There are a ton of reasons for which people care about medical privacy. Here's one: If you're trans, and you're on hormones, then being "outed" can get you killed. Although, frankly, nothing Google's done has ever given me the impression that they care; the way G+ has handled "real" names suggests to me that, as a corporation, Google would be happiest if all those people just stopped existing and being complications. (Note: I know a bunch of people at Google who don't feel that way; Google the corporation has behaviors that, so far as I can tell, Google employees generally dislike, but the dysfunctional way they run the company makes things happen anyway.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
i don't want anyone seeing my medical history without my expressed consent.
While I agree in some respect he got lucky, I'm also pretty sure he knows a LOT more about the technology behind what his company does than you or I. He and Sergei Brin weren't "suits" who sold ads, they were Computer Science PhD students at Stanford who invented many of the early concepts behind Google's core search engine.
Sorry, but the broad generalizations and assumptions you just made about non-Europeans, successful businesspeople, and Larry Page in particular in your post are much more shallow, ignorant, and honestly just plain arrogant than anything Page said...
And they are trying to mandate everyone to have it to compensate for this ban. Unfortunately, the only consequence set out in the Act (and the only one constitutional according to the Supreme Court) is a financial penalty.
What part of "properly medicated now" did you not understand?
I don't mean to be offensive, I come from this background too, but the military are not middle class on average. The military is drawn from the ranks of the poor. That's why a lot of them join, no other options. The officers might be middle class, but even then there have been times when that didn't matter. They side with their soldiers or die along with the elites.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
"Not to sound harsh...."
Larry, you need to log in.
Nobody but Larry is affected by his reality distortion field.
After all, which of us standing upon this lofty digital soapbox would not like to proclaim proudly that we have contracted an STD^H^H^H^H^H particular disease that might be MOST embarrassing if our friends found out? What if our mother's found out?!?!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Every time uncle Larry speaks he soils himself and his brand. There needs to be PR people within google responsible for training him to keep his mouth shut.
Not offensive at all, it's an interesting perspective - but the fact is in a first world country as long as you are in the military you are housed, well fed, and you and your family get health care.
I know this is a recruiting site, but the Army claims the average total compensation package for a service member is about $99,000. That's solidly in the middle class.
http://www.goarmy.com/benefits/total-compensation.html
How hard and how long do you suppose they laugh over the crap they feed the public?
Proper medical care should not be subject to an insurance which the insurance companies could refuse to give you due to prior illness. What if someone grows up in a poor family without medical insurance and is diagnosed with a heart defect at a young age which may or may not manifest itself at an older age. If it does happen, they're practically screwed, even if the defect could be treated with proper medical care. The insurance companies could easily say that this is a prior condition that was diagnosed before the insurance was taken out.
We can argue about socialised medicine, which works pretty well in Europe, warts and all, but it baffles me that such a large portion of Americans are highly enthusiastic about a system where a large for-profit corporation with a huge profit motive can decide to screw you over, due to technicalities in your insurance contract, or because you got a test done when you where 13.
The rest of Larry Page's arguments seem nonsense to me. We, as a society, should be less judgemental and prickly or private about a lot of illnesses, but as an individual, you have to live in a society where people will judge you for your medical history. We are not ready for full disclosure and probably never will be.
He was probably suggesting that insurance would become like a public utility service where they are obliged to offer it to everyone at a reasonable cost, and wouldn't be able to withdraw it even if people are unable to pay.
I don't know about the US but the water company can't just cut off water to a home, even if the owner doesn't pay. They have to take them to court to make them pay up and can eventually get a court order to shut off supply, but only if the owner is being a dick about it and not simply because they are too poor to pay.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
actually, theres a well known fact, that not so long ago, some guy in germany had peoples killed because of their medical situation. i personally dont trust humanity far enough to letting them know about my health situation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4
I don't think Larry is suggesting that everyone should have access to your medical records, only that you shouldn't worry too much about sharing them with Google. Presumably Google would promise not to hand them over to employers or use them for targeted advertising. So the question is do you trust Google?
I can see the benefit of having control over my own medical records via a service provider. I can make corrections and don't have to rely on my useless GP to get them to specialists when I need to see them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You're very worried that you're going to be denied insurance. That makes no sense, so maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people
Morons.
Nationalized healthcare solves this problem. For-profit corporations have no business in health insurance.
"Presumably Google would promise not to hand them over to employers or use them for targeted advertising. So the question is do you trust Google?"
Hm. Tough question there. :P
Or you could use the system the rest of the civilised world has adopted: Screw the Medical insurance companies, provide universal healthcare and fund it from taxes, result is cheap healthcare that means everyone can work ...and pay taxes to fund it ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
but thats socialist, european model just doesnt fit with the american dream!!!
Fucktard.
Being forced to ensure people does not in any way force you to offer it in a price range "people" can afford. As long as there even is a business model around gambling with people's health, this problem is going to resurface over and over.
... whatever
So the question is do you trust Google?
Not even a little. Google is all about profits; profits do not generally go very well with trust, unless you are an investor.
I can see the benefit of having control over my own medical records via a service provider. I can make corrections and don't have to rely on my useless GP to get them to specialists when I need to see them.
Making corrections to medical records should only be allowed if you're a medical professional. What makes you think you know jack shit about medicine, that you have the knowledge to make such corrections? If your GP is useless, find a new one.
... whatever
After all, who is in business to make a lost ?
The government. Seriously, that is the definition of a public service.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Oh do shut the fuck up or get your facts straight you fucking ignorant moron.
... whatever
What a trusting soul. Such mystical faith in the State. Psssst ... the State has no power to overturn economic realities. Nationalized healthcare may indeed be morally and practically the best solution to health care, but it can't take a gigantic burden off everybody and make it magically go away. If you think corporate profits are the only reason, or even the major factor in the exorbitant expense of health care, you are naive. It's expensive because it takes vast resources to do the job.
While I agree in some respect he got lucky, I'm also pretty sure he knows a LOT more about the technology behind what his company does than you or I. He and Sergei Brin weren't "suits" who sold ads, they were Computer Science PhD students at Stanford who invented many of the early concepts behind Google's core search engine.
They invented Page Rank which is the only novel idea in Google's playbook. An idea they have since diluted to such a degree that in order to get 10 relevant hits on the front page, you'd have to be searching for porn or mainstream news items. Google has become such a nuisance with their "I know what you want" bullshit, that using Duck Duck Go is better, even though they serve raw search results and have a much smaller database.
... whatever
Says the guy who's been in hiding over his vocal chord paralysis for months.
With a spot of RSI he wouldn't be able to text, tweet or email either.
Then we wouldn't have to listen to him at all!
considering google shut down their own google health earlier this year, and all data "has been systematically destroyed".
captcha: erasable
The upper ranks of military service are pretty lucrative. I'm guessing they're factoring in Px as well
Nationalized healthcare solves this problem. For-profit corporations have no business in health insurance.
You're welcome to come to Canada or take a trip to the UK anytime you want to see the "benefits" of not-for-profit healthcare. Let me know when you feel like waiting a month or so for a MRI or longer, unless it's serious. Then it might only be 3-4 days, of and of course the UK actually *does* have death panels. Though technically they're not supposed to suggest people simply die off unless they're exceptionally infirm. They also did it to infants.
Om, nomnomnom...
You are referring to the fact that the people who created Danger and Palm took back what Apple had stolen from them?
A whole lot more than Apple over the last decade, that's for sure.
No, it means that the organizations that get funding to vaccinate children or providing running water, can only spend the money on Microsoft software, and cannot use the funds for other operating systems.
So in the U.S. it takes vastly more resources than everywhere else?
Isn't the free market supposed to boost efficiency?
How come US healthcare insurance is so much more expensive, covers less, is exclusionary and of similar or lower quality than pretty much most of the western and a large portion of the eastern world?
and of course the UK actually *does* have death panels.
"The Gateway Pundit" the name pretty much makes clear this is NOT objective news. Reading just the headers of their articles confirms it. How about a reliable source to support your incredible claims. Do you seriously think UK citizens would accept such "death panels" without atleast massive protests that would have hit reliable news outlets all over the world?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Yep, the UK system is a failure.
The Swiss sytem however works. There is mandatory non-discriminatory non-profit health insurance for everyone (i.e. multiple insurers, but non-profit). It is affordable; the costs for children are covered by child-benefit; special cases are also state-funded. The healthcare providers are still in competition with each other (you can go to whichever doctor/hospital you want) so they have to get their act together and provide the best healthcare service they can, but they aren't under undue pressure to save costs (unlike the NHS in the UK where doctors are under pressure to save costs whilst treating patients, which ends up in treatment being compromised). You have to decouple funding from treatment for a semi-non-profit system to work.
I run multiple companies, and have HIV; the stigma behind HIV alone would be enough to make various conservative clients take their business elsewhere. On top of that, depending on the level of publicity of said health information I can think of a number of communities that would salivate at the idea of committing various hate crimes against people in my position.
I'm no doubt one of dozens of cases where public medical records of that level would negatively impact their life, career, and/or physically endager them.
"It's expensive because it takes vast resources to do the job."
No it's not. We are speaking of the US no? It's expense due to decades and decades of big government statist meddling with what is supposed to be a free market. Central planning and statist control always raise the cost of, reduce the quality of and amount of a thing; this is exactly what has happened with healthcare. Employee based insurance plans were created after state wage controls coming from the depression; HMOs were created by Ted Kennedy; emergency rooms are required to treat patients without the ability to pay due to the state; do you want to produce a drug or a product that provides medical care to people? You must work with the state to obtain permission and these regulations result in long times to get your product to market and enormous costs, and those are just the basics, this topic deserves volumes be written about it and no doubt already has.
You have to understand how we got where we are before you understand the beauty of the ACA. After creating all this mess, headache and expense the state now tells us "ok fine, look we can fix all of that. We will just tax the shit out of everybody and take over the entire business, don't worry a bit." What a bunch of complete and utter bullshit. Oh and by the way this will all be managed and adjudicated by the enormously fair and impartial bastion of efficiency and the organization that everybody loves, ladies and gentlemen I give you the I R S.
Thanks ever so much you progressive shitbirds for voting for this tyranny. Welcome to the post-constitutional US 2.0. I just don't get you progressives, why do you hate the constitution so much, I mean the document talks all over the place about "we the people" "the right of the people", limits of state power are mandated left and right, individual liberties everywhere. The Obama administration has attacked for all intents and purposes the entirety of the bill of rights; freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to associate, equality under the law, the right to keep and bear arms, the federalist system of the 10th amendment. And on and on you drones pull the Democrat lever and say to us "where is my free shit, more please".
Statism destroys societies and grants more and more power to the elites trampling on the rights and lives of we the people, I just cannot fathom why you lot (and I am speaking in the general of course not directly to you fnj) do not see this and continue to support the statist in ever increasing numbers.
We are in deep doo doo by now and I fear there is no turning back, the country we had is gone and the country our children are going to grow up in is going to be very different and that's to no ones benefit. No one except the socialist of course, they will be fine, fat and happy, they, as we all know are exempted from Obamacare, didn't you ever wonder why they thought that to be important?
That's all.
"The Gateway Pundit" the name pretty much makes clear this is NOT objective news
What was that intellectual coward? Afraid of looking at a website that doesn't fit your view point? That's okay. The story itself was in the daily mail, and it was reported to parliament, by in an independent body, as to the massive failings of the NHS in the UK. Oh and there were protests, they simply weren't covered in the media in either Canada, the US, or most of Europe. Not forgetting that this has been the subject policy of the NHS since the 70's.
Well would you look at that? Just one of hundreds of others.
Or here, or here, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Om, nomnomnom...
So in the U.S. it takes vastly more resources than everywhere else?
Isn't the free market supposed to boost efficiency?
The US has not had anything even close to a "free market" for decades. Particularly regarding anything related to healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
The good news, however, is that there should be no worries about medical records being leaked and/or used against individuals or organizations since the IRS will keep those safe for all of us. They're so eager to begin, they simply walked in and seized without explanation approximately *sixty million* medical records in California that are reported to contain every California State Judge as well as many top Hollywood/media/news execs.
Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.
Maybe we can get the DoJ to seize the IRS's phone records to find out why, since the DoJ seems to be seizing phone records from everyone else these days, including the AP and phone records from the House of Representatives press gallery which journalists often use to call Congresspeople in their offices.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Gateway Pundit -> Daily Mail...
Come back when you've got an actual source, not some National Enquirer level BS. Your post is complete hyperbole, if you look at outcomes the NHS outperforms the US system on just about every measure, but I guess that's something that doesn't fit your viewpoint.
... you pay or you get the fuck out ...
I believe the last time some people tried to "get the fuck out" as you say, the United States paid Tonga to send the Tongan Navy to claim the land away from the Libertarians who had built the island in the first place and claim it for Tonga:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva
There was a "conference of neighboring states" which then rubber stamped the Tongan claim to the newly created island, afte which the ships sailed and the claim was officially made. There have been subsequent disputes with Fiji since then, when neither nation had bothered to claim the atoll until it was landfilled by the Libertarians to create the island which is now there.
With the existing Antarctic Treaty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System
there is nowhere for these people to "get the fuck out" [SIC] to any more, since every scrap of land is spoken for, and every scrap of land that gets created is immediately "foreclosed" upon by an existing nation which didn't bother to lay claim to the region until after the land came into existence.
The boot is firmly on the neck of the people who you are telling to "get the fuck out": if you won't actually let them out of the existing geopolitical system as it currently exists, then you are going to have to damn well come to some accommodation with them.
I'm really surprised that it isn't already obvious to everyone that most of the militant Islamists just want a territory that they can run the way they see fit (however incredibly objectionably run that would be to the sensibilities of the rest of us). The only difference between them and the people trying to build their own nation states by land-filling atolls is that they don't have enough money to do the same thing, and so instead they are trying to take of the geographic regions in which they are currently located.
Whether or not they are aware of the reality that the other nation states wouldn't permit them to actually create land and keep it - which the more radical Libertarians have been patiently banging their head against for a while - or they just realize that no women would come live there voluntarily and so their state would die out after one generation of an all-boys-club is unknown. But both are additional motivation for trying to take over the existing local geopolity, rather than building a new one somewhere else, and striking out at those polities who won't let them do so via acts of terrorism.
I expect that, should we ever be permitted to have cheap access to space without direct governmental control, we will quickly see the more radical Libertarians demonstrating that The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as quickly as they can manage to do so.
Until then: they are your citizens, by your choice, so deal with it.
What you're referring to is the Liverpool Care Pathway. Which is a mechanism for palliative care, which the patient can only be put onto voluntarily or in the event they are incapable (coma etc) their legal representative (spouse etc) can make the decision for them. Additionally the news article you link to, quotes a news article which was withdrawn as it was found to be grossly misleading/fabricated...
Larry Page's demonstrated acumen and record of success in his business endeavors do not necessarily equate to divinely-inspired wisdom on all things ethical and economic.
Based on his remarks in TFA, I can only wonder if his quaintly naive understanding of the insurance industry is born of true ignorance or is he just pretending to toe the public-perception mark so not to offend the bigger fish in the pond.
Insurance companies are owned by the same incestuous, anonymous equity holding consortiums that own the big banks, mass media, and energy companies. Nobody rocks the boat for long till he gets chucked overboard and drowned.
The same privacy and fairness issues that apply to medicine apply to employment, social reputation, and access to credit.
Sure, he made a lot of money compared to us plebeians, but on the grand scale he's a just a lucky amateur.
Hasn't Professor Irwin Corey already claimed the title of World's Foremost Authority?
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Of course, you realize there's a huge difference between allowing someone to die and a death panel taking their life? It's like the difference between not being able to pay the doctor and dying of a treatable cancer, and the doctor stabbing you in the street.
"You must insure Bob" is not the same as "You must offer insurance to Bob". If a company must insure Bob, then they necessarily must offer it at a price which Bob can pay.
Funny, but I think some time ago, a google's moto was "google is serious only about search" or something very similar. IIRC either Sergei or Larry had said this, in response to the unusually "relaxed/non-formal" working environment.
It can by definition vastly reduce the economic burden. For example in the USA more money is spent pushing paper around to pay for health care bills than the NHS in England spends in it's entirety (or was the case in 1996). Now yes the USA is larger than England, but if you are not madly pushing pieces of paper around and spending time accounting for everything you can save a shed load of administrative costs. These costs can then be spent treating actual patients for actual illnesses.
This is slightly off-topic but I'll post anyway.
I worry that our friends in Mountain View are starting to lose their grip on reality somewhat.
By this I mean that incidents of their senior staff saying or doing unusual things are getting more and more frequent. For example, this comment on medical -record privacy shows that Mr Page does not really understand that his Company's unquenchable thirst for information and data should indeed have limits.
Mr Schmidt's visit to North Korea, an attempt to ingratiate Google with NK's leadership so that when they decide to "open up" their Internet even a little, Google will be there to control most of it for them (come on, why the heck else would he go there? Peace envoy, FFS?)
Google Glass is another spent-too-much-time-in-the-Californian-sun moment. Google Glass does not scratch an itch, it's just daft and will probably die a swift death once they try to flog it elsewhere in the world.
Then at the I/O keynote all the talk about wanting to make great new things rather than being "negative" is just the usual peace and love BS that they spout whilst wanting to crush all their competitors (which is what they should be doing anyway).
I had a point but have forgotten it.
tl;dr - Google are starting to get on my nerves with useless new products and services, ever increasing creepiness, and smiling and whispering sweet nothings whilst they knife their competitors. Ahem.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Those are "benefits" of poor administration, not of nationally-owned healthcare. You can grind your political axe this way if you like but it has no basis in logic to look at flaws in a rival system and claim those flaws are inherent to that system, when they are clearly not. Medical outcomes in the UK are not substantially worse than in the US. Financial outcomes of serious illness in the US are substantially worse than in the UK.
Where you bank at places that GUARANTEE anonymity and secrecy. Just stop worrying about privacy about how much you own.
PS: the US has "death panels" too, except they decide based on how much money the person can afford, rather than based on ethical considerations of likely medical outcomes. Since they don't have to convene to decide on that basis, they are emergent systems and hence invisible. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
Larry says that he doesn't care but when his records show up on the internet with a history of crabs, herpes, and the incident of the Coke
bottle stuck in an orifice and a trip to the emergency room from his college days, I'm sure he'll change his voice a few octaves.
You count these as reliable? The Yahoo story in particular contains this gem:
"To date, the application in question has not been agreed as, crucially, insufficient supporting information has been provided to allow due consideration to take place.
"Any requested procedures must also fall in line with the provider trust's priorities for service development and delivery.
"The patient's clinician has been invited to provide the necessary clarification, receipt of which should enable the patient's case to be progressed within the PCT."
Translated into simple English, the agency is inviting Hargreaves to perform an unnatural act and then die.
Except that, translated into simple English, the agency is inviting Hargreaves' doctors to provide the necessary information for them to make a decision on the treatment. I mean, who is that author trying to fool? People who literally can't parse the first three sentences?
The fact that healthcare requires decisions to be made seems to be escaping you, as is the fact that the same decisions are made in the US, except where doctors make them here, in the US they are made by insurance executives.
Disclaimer: I live in Canada.
It's true what you said. However, you can have a MRI in a private clinic in the same day. It costs around 650$ CAD for a full scan on some area of body. More: it's usually covered by your employer's health insurance if scan isn't asked by your doctor OR, if you have a doctor's prescription, it will be covered by public funds.
Yes, in Canada.
What about employers who want to screen out employees with health issues. How about a possible mate who wants to be sure this new person in their life is healthy. Visas to a foreign country, permits to do certain things, etc. You might argue that people have a right to know these things - but what if the records are wrong and/or used as a weapon?
Greed is the root of all evil.
“Computer science has a marketing problem." That's what Larry said. And his presentation was about marketing more than anything. He was trying to sell the world view that works great for his company, and he certainly put his sour grapes on the table.
He talks of "resistance to technological change", which is code for Google Glasses and the glasshole syndrome. He talks of how people should should be more relaxed with their medical records, which is code for Google Health. They had a clear plan how they were going to make money with Google Health (selling user data). The problem was that, on the user side, they had a solution that was in search of an actual need. But Google has made it clear that they're not going to learn that lesson.
You know, I kind of like his idea of a mirror universe where more avant-garde ideas can be tested out, in small scale, in the real-world. He wanted a Burning Man type of environment for new technology. Actually, Eureka (the town from the TV show of the same name) might have been a closer fit (although the reference would have been lesser-known, and is almost synonymous with disaster). Being able to try things out (on the small scale and a limited geography) and work out the problems there is great for allowing a company to iterate on a product without the marketing backlash for failures.
In theory, I'd love to live in that Eureka town. But only if it was about the product and about the science. The only thing Google Health did for me was to convince me that Google's products and services aren't about what they deliver (search, ubiquitous health records). They are about Google's real customers (advertisers, health care industry) and Google's real problem is finding a way to get everyone to jump on board so they can make money. That's what he is saying, in code, when he says "computer science has a marketing problem".
Making corrections to medical records should only be allowed if you're a medical professional. What makes you think you know jack shit about medicine, that you have the knowledge to make such corrections?
There have been instances of this happening in the UK. The BBC reported on a woman whose GP wrote that she was depressed on her records, and then found it very difficult to get treatment for her actual condition because every doctor that subsequently looked at her assumed everything she said and felt was as a result of mental illness. Eventually she got it corrected and was treated.
Doctors make mistakes. A lot of medicine is making judgement calls, especially when it comes to mental health. Patients can legitimately disagree with their doctors, which is why we sometimes get second opinions or have to take steps like the ones I just mentioned.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Larry Page: I have no severe allergies and I have an empathy blind spot.
captcha: gigabyte
the insurance will not be affordable and additionally many of the plans will actually end up being inferior to what many had before.
So says the 'chicken little' AC. Next year we'll find out if everything the GOP has been claiming for the last 5 years is really true. I believe that they will be proven wrong while millions of Americans who had pre-existing conditions will be able to find coverage at normal cost and many thousands will not lose coverage in the middle of an illness. While many millions more American will find better coverage, many at significant savings than they would have paid previously.
Meanwhile, the medicare cuts made by the ACA (aka Obamacare) which the GOP claimed would kill, have contributed to a 5% savings in Medicare costs which has reduced the budget deficit even more than expected. Every year the Republicans have been claiming that we are at the doorstep of disaster, and seemingly despite their best efforts, it has not happened. The question is when the stop being pessimistic and start claiming 'victory', how do they claim Obamacare was their idea?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
The Daily Mail is also not an objective source, in fact it's infamous for making shit up in support of a rightist agenda. But that said, yes, from time to time the NHS is found to be deficient in some areas, there's a massive political scandal and the issues are fixed. In the mean time, 100% of the population are covered by a health system whose faults generally lie in long waiting times for non-urgent medical care and not a lot else.
I do suggest however that you ask Brits and Canadians the same question. Would they rather replace their healthcare system with the US version?
You also should also Medicare patients whether they'd rather stay on their terrible evil socialist system or be required to switch to private insurance.
The answers might surprise you.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
How long will the US go on denying that public health care isn't the better option. Face it, there is no good reason to have private health care, you either have people that can't afford to get sick, or you have people that just pray nothing serious happens or in the final level you have people that can flat out afford it. I can solve the first two problems quickly, easily and painlessly, just make the health care system public! Every other first world country has open health care and all of those countries are above the US in the standard of health care provided. So you want to know the solution, just make it public.
As for privacy, your kidding yourself if you think the health care system is private, it doesn't give a rats ass if your files are protected or even secure. Over the last 15 years I've had 5 MRI, digital and paper test results go missing, I've had other information just disappear from my file and the best part is no one seems to care. So apart from the health care system NOT being secure or private in anyway shape of form, private health care just makes no sense, you shouldn't be allowed to make health an exclusive club for the rich.
Nationalized healthcare solves this problem. For-profit corporations have no business in health insurance.
Actually it does not have to be nationalized.
Both Germany and Switzerland have universal health care, but it's basically non-profit. The government only gets involved with low-income people who can't afford the monthly premiums (i.e., the equivalent of Medicare/Medicaid in the US).
If distrust of government in the US is holding things back, there are ways around that concern.
Nationalized healthcare solves this problem. For-profit corporations have no business in health insurance.
In this case the decision of who to give the national medical record database is entirely in the hands of the currently elected politicians.
Single payer cheaper? Clueless twit! The costs are low because demand is low. Mostly healthy people avoid the doctor. When it is cheap/free, you get more demand. Demand causes prices to go up. If the government pushed down on doctor pay, they leave. Then you get long lines, even if you are really sick.
Yes, doctors make mistakes. That does not make everybody else qualified to make corrections to medical records. That there are examples of doctors making mistakes to the detriment of their patients just means there needs to be revisions in place.
The example you give could have been completely avoided if the woman could have had a second unbiased opinion. But it's a tall order to ask a doctor to diagnose a condition if denied the medical history of the patient. There will always be some who fall between the cracks, and the system needs to pick up on this rather than bouncing them around. Still, all this does not qualify anyone else to make corrections to medical records.
... whatever
Let me know when you feel like waiting a month or so for a MRI or longer, unless it's serious.
If it's not serious, what's the rush? Why do you need it immediately?
The US has the same problem Canada does, namely that more people want MRIs immediately than can get them. The Canadian's solution is to make those who don't need them right now hold off for a while until the resources our free. The US's solution is to tell approximately 15% of its citizens that they can't pay the exorbitant price for it, so screw 'em, they can drop dead for all we care. Since you're almost definitely not part of that 15%, you don't see that cost, only the benefits of faster service for you.
Alternately, you can look at any statistics from any international body that monitors health statistics, which will universally say that the British and Canadian population is healthier than the American population.
I am officially gone from
So do the decent thing America and get a socialized healthcare system
All of the commentary here completely misunderstands what Page said.
He wasn't suggesting that we ought to give up on medical privacy. He was saying that we'd be better off if we could do so -- if we chose to -- without fear of repercussions. He said that in some cases being more open might be beneficial... but he clearly chose to keep his condition secret for quite a long time, even though it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong, and he didn't say anything to imply that we shouldn't have the right to privacy.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'd like to see them. Or is only MY medical records that should be public?
One thing to keep in mind is that military benefits can be easily taken away... for a while, retirees and families were supposed to get free healthcare as part of compensation, salaries being notably lower than civilian's. Then they made them pay for tricare. And the costs for that (premiums) keep going up... those who retired in the late 80s early 90s are kind of getting the shaft...
It doesn't matter if it's true or not. What matters is companies use it as an excuse to fuck over their employees. My wife and a few of my friends have all seen their coverage decline over the last year to "get ready for expected increases in insurance costs". Companies see this as an excuse to fuck over their employees and employees blame it on obama.
excuse me while I laugh at this man's arrogance and lunacy.
... the broad generalizations and assumptions you just made ...
I was talking about my experience - rather than making sweeping generalisations. Here's an example: Not long ago I wrote a long report about some technical matters, 100 something pages. I used OpenOffice, and I always turn off spell check etc, because most of the words are not in the dictionary anyway. I handed it to a manager, who felt that he needed to put me down for whatever reason - so he ran a spell check and found 1 genuine spelling mistake. Just 1 - but this was apparently a major issue, and one of the brilliantly enlightening comment he made were "Surely you learned how to use a spell-checker when you wrote your thesis at uni?" - Except that when I did that, the IBM PC had only just come to market, and everybody wrote their theses by hand, using ink and paper. He would have realised if he had bothered with thinking, I'm sure.
I can of course shrug that sort of nonsense off, but it has done little to build confidence in the abilities of managers. I mean, one incident means he had a bad day, but this level of idiocy on an almost daily basis, what does that mean? It isn't just ignorance about technical matters - ignorance I can understand and tolerate, it's the scale of it combined with the bloated and mostly misplaced self-assurance, the "I'm richer than you, so I am evidently better and more intelligent".
Maybe it's time people realised that healthcare doesn't exist to make a profit? Not every aspect of society needs to be driven by the tedious desire to make money from it.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
And so companies can't fire or refuse to hire employees based on medical history, etc.
That actually sounds like a brilliant set of ideas. Now try to get it past the assholes in the GOP.
So you can just wait until one day you're diagnosed with cancer, then go and get yourself insurance so the insurance company can pay for your treatment? I don't think insurance works that way.
Insurance is all about probabilities, they take money from a lot of people who have a low (normal) probability of getting sick and use that money to pay the few of them who do get sick. If clients are more likely to get sick, they'll have to pay a higher premium or the maths simply don't add up. And if you already know someone is sick and is going to need treatment, how can you give this person "insurance"? "O, you're going to need a couple of million dollars for your treatment? Sure, join up and pay a monthly fee of a few hundred dollars and we'll pay for your treatment." That just doesn't make sense.
Obviously I do know that insurance companies are making way too much money and could certainly do with a bit less, but you have to remain reasonable.
I like your brand of Government scaremongering, Black helicopters are getting so passé. I'd be much more terrified about someone finding about the appendicitis I had back in 2001.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
In this state, they can and do shut off your water if you don't pay, especially if you only rent and not own your house. You miss a month of payment, you might not even get a warning, just notice one morning that you don't have water. Same goes for electricity. The utility companies here are extremely jumpy about people who don't pay.
We don't have to answer that question, because it's not actually against the law for private healthcare companies to run here, we have lots. How many people do you think pay for them when there's a very highly regarded (beyond the bizarro world of the Daily Mail) heathcare service free at the point of use? Most Brits love the heathcare service. Of course it's not perfect, but compared to the leech of a system that's present on your side of a pond, we'd take it any day.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
How times have changed.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Although it's possible some providers may try offering inferior plans, the fact that it is still a free market (contrary to the 'socialist' cries from the the fringe elements), any provider offering substandard plans would quickly find themselves left in the dust or heavily penalized if they tried to gouge customers. The affordable health care act requires that all applicants of the same general age and geographical location be offered the same premium costs, meaning any spikes due to pre-existing conditions will be averaged across a large number of individuals, which also includes a large number of health individuals which will balance out those spikes. Providers will also have to reinvest a set amount of profits into consumer benefits rather than profits, meaning the increased customer base doesn't necessarily mean they will get rich. There are indeed some good protections in the act that are consumer friendly.
Those who try to gouge customers will also be barred from getting into the healthcare exchanges and the customers that those exchange will provide. Such companies will also be monitored by the HHS, DOJ and FTC, who will in turn report such gouging to the local states to see if the price hikes were 'justified', and can have penalties levied against them if they are found to be gouging. The information will also be published to the public. Such information would create a very black eye for any reputable company. Pharma and medical equipment manufacturer's are also covered under that provision.
In short, gouging from the insurance industry is not very likely, and can be promptly addressed at the federal and state level if needed.
Those who fall into poverty ranges (up to 138% of the poverty level) will receive assistance in paying for premiums, although they will have to contribute within their means. It's a fair system IMO.
The act also makes it easier for smaller businesses (50 employees) to offer health care coverage via the same exchanges as well as help wit subsidies from the government to help reduce their premium costs), where previously they had no such option (all or nothing type of situation).
As to Larry, his statement speaks volumes about the disconnect of the rich from the poor. Prior to health care reform, admitting you had a pre-existing condition virtually guaranteed you would never find coverage, or that such coverage would be excluded with a rider to your policy, making coverage largely pointless for those with a condition requiring regular treatment.
Someone should tell their village idiot to wait till 2014 when insurance companies HAVE to insure. But then again, one will be able to file taxes, and pay for medical insurance in one billl.
Math question: if there are over 7 billion people, and one were to keep track of their medical history. How much disk space would be required?
There are plenty of reasons to not have medical records public.
I was diagnosed Asperger a few years ago and if it was to my sister-in-law, who happpens to be a psychologist, I should be hospitalised. She even challenged the expertise of those who did the diagnosis as they see no reason for any treatment. So she didn't doubt their expertise to diagnose Asperger to a grown up person, but she doubts their expertise in treatment. She does not treat people with Asperger.
I had to go to hospital a while ago. As they knew about this condition, they did think I wasn't ill at all only to find a serious condition that could have killed me within hours. If I hadn't insisted they would have send me home.
If professionals do not agree and treat people as a threat to society or don't take them for serious how should the public do any better?
As long as people try to harm others using anything they could find, it would be a threat to people who aren't normal, whatever that means.
One guy standing on a porch waving a sign around is not a newsworthy protest... unless he's a member of the WBC.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
As some one who has used by the US and the UK health care systems, I can say that the NHS is so much better not least because it isn't tired to employment.
As long as there is a 3rd party involved (ie. insurance companies) then the patient is at a disadvantage. The insurance companies take their profit.
Starting in 2014 in the US, this will be the law of the land--companies will have to insure anyone, regardless of existing conditions. It is also the law in MA right now.
Yeah right, tell that to the service industry. There are so many loopholes in Obama Care it's not funny, that's why greedy corporations are currently cutting worker's hours below 20 hrs/week and hiring additional temp workers for the other 20. Working less than 20 hrs/week means that the company IS NOT REQUIRED to supply health insurance under the law and still leaves the worker making too much money to qualify for state subsidies. They will still be without health care.
Most families can not survive on 20 hrs/week at near minimum wage. Obama Care was a scam from day one.
Larry Page revealed that he'd been suffering from an ivory tower up his asshole.
If you're rich then you have nothing to worry about from dissemination of your medical records. He can afford to buy a fucking hospital. The rest of us have ample reason to be concerned. But he has already forgotten (if he ever knew, I don't know his history) what it was like to be a normal person who has to live within normal means.
I guess this explains why Google has been turning up the evil. It's hard to see the forest from miles in the air. It just looks like a patch of green.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Eh, so people can make assumptions about conditions that they're not qualified to evaluate. What could possibly go wrong? I'm Larry Page, somehow my opinion trumps everyone else. It's really no surprise why our lives are increasingly controlled by tyranny.
The cost of medical services is not merely out of control. It's beyond comprehension.
Let's look at this from a consumer standpoint. Let's imagine you're a rich person and do not need insurance and will pay for everything in cash. You bought your last car with pocket change. In every case (with a minor exception of the mobile phone bill) you know exactly what you will be paying and why. It seems only the medical industry never tells you exactly how much everything costs along the way.
No one [normal] would go to a restaurant and order off the menu without knowing what the prices were, so imagine being unable to know what you will spend the next time you go to McDonald's... or the grocery store... or anywhere.
There is no negotiation and no fore knowledge of what the bill will cost. It's insanity. And the industry says "it's okay... don't worry about it... let the insurance company worry about that, you just pay the co-pay." Meanwhile, the insurance industry loves this because they get more and more customers. These two sytems are designed to abuse the ignorance of the consumer and to keep them blind. When you think about how unacceptable this would be anywhere else, you have to wonder how this insane system came to be as it is.
Complaining about other people's privacy in a post that's anonymous? Nice...
His perception on this is warped by his pile of money. Don't get me wrong i am sure he deserves it every dollar and more, but until you are out there doing job interviews and some "googles" and find out you are HIV+ , you will want more privacy.
The analogy with the car? Well just like concept cars, MAYBE in 100 years when things and people evolve you can think like that.
You're welcome to come to Canada or take a trip to the UK anytime you want to see the "benefits" of not-for-profit healthcare. Let me know when you feel like waiting a month or so for a MRI or longer
Well, part of the problem in the UK is successive governments with anti-national healthcare agendas trying to introduce half-cocked "internal markets" and other privatisation-by-stealth initiatives. Last time I had a MRI it was outsourced to a private contractor operating on the hospital grounds.
That's what the current restructuring is about - its supposedly about letting GPs (who aren't government employees) run the system, but since GPs have no idea how to manage a national healthcare system, the reality is that they'll outsource it to big multinational infrastructure companies. The result is a system that combines the efficiency and business sense of government with the humanitarian and social values of big business.
So, really, its a no-score draw: If you can't criticise private healthcare based on the US where its been corrupted by back-door nationalisation, then you can't criticise public healthcare based on the UK where its been corrupted by back-door privatisation.
Personally, on balance, I prefer to get my healthcare from a doctor rather than a salesman, without worrying about whether I can afford it, even if I have to wait a bit for non-urgent treatment.
...and yes, any healthcare system has to make sensible decisions about when to stop throwing money at dying patients. Its not a nice thing to have to do, but no healthcare system has infinite resources - either the money comes from taxpayers or peoples' insurance premiums. Part of the reason why you don't see "pure" free market healthcare systems is people get all upset if people are turfed out on the street to die when there is no longer a business case for treating them.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Depends on your perspective, I guess, what middle class means. When you're getting $1,600 a month housing allowance and earning $2,000 a month or better, which is what you get as an airman, not even talking non-com here, much less an officer, you're beating the pay I earn as a professor. If I were in the military, based on my friends with similar degrees, I'd be Navy rank of Lt. Commander. That rating makes 166% of my salary, not including the housing allowance and cheaper benefits. The US military pays pretty well. I'm not sure we can call non-coms and lower middle class, but then again, I'm not sure you can call college profs middle class anymore either. And I suspect that's true of many jobs. The US has been undergoing such a radical shift in income and class structure that I'm confused about what exactly constitutes a class, and I'm actually pretty darn persuaded that we need to come up with new terms because the middle class seems to be vanishing.
At least where I live, the utilities can and do shut you off if you don't pay. The local water company will shut you off if you're a month behind. The city, who manages the trash collection, will shut your water off if you're a month behind on your trash bill. You can get an exemption for medical reasons. It takes a good deal longer than a month to get an exemption.
Wouldn't the company just find another excuse to f'over the employees?
You're welcome to come to Canada or take a trip to the UK anytime you want to see the "benefits" of not-for-profit healthcare. Let me know when you feel like waiting a month or so for a MRI or longer, unless it's serious.
A relative of mine in the US currently has a 3-week wait just to get a physical from her primary care physician to get a knee operated on. I don't know if that's unusual, but that's my anecdote.
Yawn. Of course, the difference between "No MRI at all" and "Wait a bit to get one, when it really won't make much difference in your treatment" isn't important enough for you to consider.
What matters is companies use it as an excuse to fuck over their employees.
But if they didn't use this excuse, they'd just find another.
By the way, that's also why encryption (without a back door) should be offered in ALL email software.
I don't think Larry is suggesting that everyone should have access to your medical records, only that you shouldn't worry too much about sharing them with Google.
Which is completely self-serving and asinine, par for the course when it comes to bone-headed statements by Google execs and privacy.
So noble and courageous of you to come forward and speak out about your horrible medical condition.
If I had essentially unlimited wealth and didn't have to work another day in my life, or in Larry's case, a hundred lifetimes, if could pay for any medical procedure out of my pocket, and if could pay for an army of lawyers with my yearly dinner money, I wouldn't care what people knew about me either.
So do the decent thing America and get a socialized healthcare system
Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
You want to ruin your body, do it on your own dime. I shouldn't be penalized for your actions.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
No:
Doctor patient privilege per Larry
Lawyer client privilege
Spousal privilege
Confessional privilege
Self-incrimination exclusion
Public interest privilege
Accountant-client
Reporter's privilege
Right to silence
Larry, you are an idiot about social issues. Shut up.
The US has not had anything even close to a "free market" for decades. Particularly regarding anything related to healthcare and pharmaceuticals
You by defintion cannot have a "free market" in health care, because demand is completely inelastic. If I need dialysis to live, I'll agree to pay whatever you feel like charging me. The customer is not, and in most cases cannot be a free player.
Trying to have a "market" in health care is as silly as it would be for Police or Firefighting services.
Where the USA gets in trouble is that it refuses to acknowlege this fact, and tries to inject "free market" constructs into its system whereever possible. Sure enough, the inevitable happens, and the USA has ended up with most expensive health care system in the world (while getting mediocre results).
I'm not sure the first thing I would say to a prospective employer is that I've had cancer, anymore than they should be able to ask whether we intend to have kids.
...and since they can't ask, if you're a young female they just assume its a possibility, and devalue you accordingly. :-(
I'm glad someone else thinks MA's approach to insurance is flawed. To me, an outsider, it seems that all they did was to mandate everyone buy insurance. Well, they should have mandated that everyone buy a house and have a job, too. That way everything would be honky-dory.
As for the U.S. in general, I don't get the hesitation to nationalize healthcare. I would think that employers would love to put the cost of medical insurance on the backs of the taxpayer and get out from providing this to their employees as a benefit. Insurance companies might suffer a little, but they will always be able to sell gap insurance that lets you upgrade your hospital stay to, say, a private room.
Obamacare was their idea. How do you think it got passed? Especially the mandate part? Next to the bank heists, this is the biggest ripoff of the century.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
He should change his name to Jimmy and learn to play guitar.
The merchant class will never allow it. For the system to survive, all necessities must be commoditized and monetized.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers ...
I shouldn't have to pay to educate people who are determined to stay ignorant, but I do. The lifetime medical costs for smokers are lower than for non-smokers. Die at 67 of some smoking related ailment and Medicare won't have to pay for anymore medical care for you. Don't smoke, live to 87 and that's another 20 years of medical expenses. Even if you argue that the pre-retirement medical costs are higher for smokers, it's unreasonable to ask smokers to pay higher premiums unless you also reduce their Medicare taxes.
It's people like me that are going to cost you. Almost everyone in my family (both sides) lives at least into their 80's. I'm probably going to cost you a bundle. No apologies.
Furthermore, if your real concern is saving money rather than having some variety of "those people" to sanctimoniously complain about, what's really screwing you is living in the US. No other country in the world pays more than 2/3 of what we do (as %/GDP - at exchange rate or PPP the disparity is much greater), yet many such countries have medical care at least as good as ours and universal coverage.
The days of "the poor rising up against the rich" in a first world country are long over, because the rich now have the large middle class military and police forces to beat the poor back into submission whenever they get out of hand.
Drones. Don't forget the drones. Soon the rich will have fleets of drones in the air and on the streets to, "protect and serve." The sad part about this scenario is that the only thing that seems to keep the U.S. alive as an economic power is that it's still a really nice place to be rich. Relatively few kidnappings. The population still makes enough that if the rich lose any money by stupidly investing things like derivatives, the general population can be taxed enough to bail them out. Heck, look at how we trip over ourselves building multimillion dollar stadiums for professional sports.
I do suggest however that you ask Brits and Canadians the same question. Would they rather replace their healthcare system with the US version?
Many of the ones who have used both have then switched, only to see it being turned into an even more faulty version of what they left.
Asking those who have not used both is simply foolishness because they don't actually know which is better, all they know is the propaganda (most of which is aimed at convincing people that they have things better than others, it cuts down on riots).
I though ABC made Lost but maybe I'm mistaken
His view is fine if you are rich and famous, but the other 99% of us don't get the false sympathy poured out on us like they do. Thousands of women have had double mastectomies because they have the BRCA gene but none of them are fawned over like Angelina Jolie. Likewise, for most of us we wouldn't be afforded the medical treatment that Larry Page received nor would we been able to keep our jobs if we couldn't talk, assuming we had jobs that required public speaking. The people in the top 1% need to realize that the world doesn't work and respond for the rest of us like it does for them. Magic Johnson announces he has HIV the world reaches out to him. The guy in the next cubicle announces it, he is ostracized. Snookie has a baby, everybody fawns over her. The girl at the check-out at 7-11, she's accused of being a harlot and wanting a handout from taxpayers.
Maybe before another celebrity or 1%er tells the rest of the world how to live, they should give up all that they have and try living like the rest of the world.
Moreover, collective bargaining done for the healthcare products needed by a country of over 300 million should be able to get pretty beastly discounts.
Starting in 2014 in the US, this will be the law of the land--companies will have to insure anyone, regardless of existing conditions. It is also the law in MA right now.
That simply can't last - insurance prices will go through the roof.
Insurance works when you take a group of people and each person ends up paying the average cost (minus the insurers costs & overhead).
The penalties for not buying insurance are relatively small, and combined with this existing conditions rule is a recipe for disaster.
If you're really sick, you're going to buy the insurance.
If you are healthy, you're better off not being insured and paying the penalty. And if all of a sudden you develop serious cancer, then go buy the insurance after the fact - they can't deny you coverage because you have cancer.
Insurance only works if it is priced appropriately to the risk you are insuring.
Page and Brin were already part of the privileged. Did either of them have to hold down a job while they pursued an education?
many thousands will not lose coverage in the middle of an illness
How was this ever allowed to happen in the first place? If I have homeowner's insurance, and my house burns down, it doesn't matter if it takes three years to rebuild it, I can stop paying for the insurance the next day. Yet it seems insurance companies want it both ways -- they don't want to cover pre-existing conditions, nor do they want to cover post-existing conditions.
That still annoys me to this day. Huge health insurance debate, with all this talk of covering pre-existing conditions, and no one anywhere ever thought that maybe insurance companies should be required to pay for the treatment of any illness that begins during the coverage period regardless of whether premiums are paid after the diagnosis, as would be the case if health insurance worked like any other type of insurance. No, instead they want to make them cover pre-existing conditions, as if that's something that makes any financial sense at all.
It's no wonder our country is so fucked up. Virtually everyone is a complete fucking moron.
No, the ACA does not allow the IRS to access your medical records.
The allegation is that they exceeded the authority of a warrant and demanded copies of servers containing records for ten million people from an unnamed company. Is it true? Neither you nor I know. But the suit is unrelated to the ACA.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
if your current insurance company insures them then you already are paying for them.
the insurance company just has a simple formula...ok we insure Y people and we estimate it will cost us $X so to make $PROFIT we need to charge them ($X+$PROFIT)/Y well those smokers are going to cost us more...so we need to increase the premiums we are charging everyone because we certainly aren't going to let it cut into our $PROFIT
>> Even better, the IRS official that was in charge of the office targeting individuals and groups for IRS harassment that politically/ideologically oppose this administration has just been put in charge of the IRS's Obamacare office. Better hope your health remains good if you speak out against the government.
Do you have sources for this please?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Guess how long I had to wait for United Health to approve an MRI?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Interesting. Is there a source for this information?
'Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,' Larry Page said."
Yes, we can have the rules changed, but then, they too can change the rules
If we are too force the insurance to accept all people, they can make their insurance policy so expensive that only the rich can afford
After all, who is in business to make a lost ?
They are already changing the rules. I was diagnosed as being in the first stages of diabetes. I quickly found out that I was uninsurable, so I addressed the problem and my diabetes is now in remission because I did something about it, changed my diet, exercised etc... I won't say it was a waste of time, I am more healthy now, but I'm still uninsurable. What will happen in years to come is that diagnosis of genetically caused diseases is going to become very very easy. When you go to am insurance agent they will prick your finger, collect some blood, feed it into a machine which then spits out how likely you are to suffer a heart attack, get diabetes, get leukemia, ... the list goes on. You will then either be denied insurance coverage or you will find that on top of the attractive 'base insurance rate' they used to lure you into their office, you now have to pay a extra fee of $X because there is a 39% chance you might get diabetes, $Y because there is a %22 chance you could get a heart attack, $Z because there is 17% chance you might get leukemia ..... and so on. Another scenario is that you can get insurance but only with a tailor made contract that leaves you up shit creek without a paddle if you get one of the more diseases your genetic profile says are most likely. The ability to scan for genetic flaws in a very short time and on a large scale using off the shelf electronic devices is going to revolutionize the profitability of the insurance industry (read: enable them to screw you far more thoroughly than they are doing now).
Geez, Page is one of the 1% and he DOESN"T GET IT. If he comes down with some dread disease, the company will keep him on until he dies, like Apple with Steve Jobs. And hell, he's rich enough to afford resurrection, so of COURSE, medical privacy isn't a big deal. Loosing his insurance would mean that his pocket money would get a tiny amount smaller. This is the kind of bullshit that keeps this country from having a good for the populace health care system.
Around half the people in the US that are covered by health insurance are NOT covered by for-profits. If the non-profits suck any less, it is an incremental difference. For profit health insurance companies are not causing the problems in our system. Frankly, there is not a lot of profit to be had in the heath insurance business. The for-profit health insurance insurance industry has low profit margins.
The US's problem is complex with many causes and no clear solution. If anyone tells you otherwise, they are probably trying to get elected, sell you something, or don't really understand what they are talking about.
--ANON
I did an enlistment in the USAF between 2008 and 2012, and while I don't believe the $99,000 value is correct, it was certainly a middle class level of compensation that I received. Just looking at base pay, most enlisted members poor, but then you have to account for monthly non-taxed BAH (monthly money for rent), BAS (monthly money for food/hygienics), no healthcare premiums or deductibles for yourself, and very small premiums and deductibles for your family, cheap food at the commissary on base, non-taxed general goods at the PX/BX/NEX, free education (plus a significant amount of college credits for your training - I think I got 20-something), no life insurance costs, and yearly uniform allowances. I'm sure I'm missing some benefits, too. Overall, aside from deployments, it's a pretty comfortable lifestyle. And the idea that military is almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the poor is misleading. That's more true for services like the Army and the Marines. The Air Force provides extremely lucrative job training and experience, and tends to attract a lot of middle-class kids who don't want to go the college route (many of which have some college experience prior to enlisting).
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Many other people have chimed in about how it isn't just insurance matters make it important to keep medical issues private. Here's an issue that's close to my heart: Asperger's/Autism. My son was diagnosed with Asperger's last year and, while I haven't been formally diagnosed (mainly because that would require spending money we don't have and wouldn't help my son or me), it's pretty clear I'm an Aspie too.
Now, towards the end of last year, there was that horrible shooting in Newtown. One of the first things that the press did was seize on one statement from the gunman's brother about how he thought the gunman had Asperger's. It was completely irrelevant to why he shot those people, but the media put them together because it made for a nice scare story. "Is that person with Asperger's next to you going to kill you? Tune in at 11 to find out!"
Needless to say, some panic erupted. People formed "kill Asperger's" groups on Facebook. One teen, known to have Asperger's, was assaulted in a store because he had his hands in his pockets. (He was using something that helps him stay calm in social situations. He didn't show any signs of having a weapon but they beat him up nonetheless.) Thankfully, the Asperger's/Autism community reacted quickly to get the message out that Asperger's had NOTHING to do with the shooting. Still, some people still think that the Newtown shooter did what he did because he was on the Autism Spectrum. Similar acts of violence/prejudice have happened in the past (the 80's and AIDS) and will likely happen in the future.
Now, my wife and I are pretty open about our son having Asperger's, but I don't want that to be public information. I don't want someone to go to MedicalMaps.Google.Com, search for "Asperger's" and get a map with markers - one of which is my son and where he lives. This should be up to my wife, my son, and I who we disclose it to. Not some big company who sees my son's (and my) medical information as a pathway to profit.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
...who has nothing to worry about when it comes to losing his job, not getting a promotion, paying his medical bills, or having his identity stollen.
I'm not sure we can call non-coms and lower middle class
As a married Senior Airman (E-4), I was probably making a bit over $40k per year after base pay and allowances. Taking into account a lack of healthcare premiums, free tuition for my college courses, and the fact that my wife worked nearly full-time as a waitress, and we were definitely in the middle class. Neither of us had second jobs, and we always had money to blow foolishly on entertainment.
My salary as a civilian in the private sector is amazingly better when you just look at the raw numbers, but it's not that much better once you account for all of the things I pay for now that I didn't have to pay for in the military. There are a lot of overlooked benefits in the military that allow you to stretch out a dollar much further than you can as a civilian.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
That's because you don't realize you ALREADY pay for everyone else. The problem with the existing system of "we have to cover you if you go to the ER, sorry you could afford coverage yourself for preventative visits" is that ER's cost more and the hospitals bill us indirectly for those visits.
Even if all you're talking about is writing off the debt, they get to write that out of what they pay back to the government. So in the very least of terms, you're talking about paying for others health care through tax dollars at whatever cost the hospital decides. At worst, you help pay for the loss of profit by paying higher medical costs, at whatever cost the hospital decides.
The question here isn't whether you want to help pay for health care, it's how much. Would you rather pay $10/mo more or $1000/visit more? Sounds good if you don't visit the doc often, but that one time you do, it'll crush your bank account.
Some time I think the people in this country are so blinded by our brilliance that we fail to see that all the "lesser" countries around us are beating us.
You've obviously never joined the military. Don't get all your information from advertising.
Wait, what? Since when does a product have to be optional for life to be tradable in a free market? Are you saying that it's impossible to have a free market for food, shelter, and water, too?
If there is more than one provider of dialysis then presto, you have potential for a market.
The USA has been doing the exact opposite of injecting "free market" into the health care system for decades and that is precisely the problem.
Exactly. The fear is actually quite justified too. Do we really think that, just because we eventually got over our fear of people with HIV, that there will never again be a disease that imparts significant social stigma? Not only that, but, if people have access to our records, they can make decisions behind our back.
Didn't get that job? Was it because of your medical record? They aren't going to tell you. If they did give you a reason, you would be daft to believe they told the truth.
Lets also not forget, a lot of this is similar to the FISA courts: it doesn't exist because some academic had an argument....it came about because of abuses. My mother and I both have worked at a major hospital; her in a clinical setting, me in IT.
The SINGLE most common reason for a person to get fired, not 20 years ago, but TODAY, is still unauthorized access to medical records. People look up celebrities, people look up their friends, look up their family members, look up their neighbors....and these are trained professionals with access to the system who have been told not to do it; and warned that the system is being audited.
Thing is, the audits came about because they found this was rampant. Princess Di came in for treatment once. The number of people who looked up her records just for their own curiosity was alarming. That is the sort of thing that started it, not just that but, people have lost jobs over illnesses. People have felt violated when their private medical details ended up the gossip of the town.
Sure, thats the real problem. Nobody should have to be ashamed of their medical condition, no condition really deserves stigma. Until that stigma is gone and people feel safe talking voluntarily, I am very much against taking their choice as to whether they let the world know away.
I talk freely about my own medical issues, but.... thats my choice. I will tell you I sleep with a CPAP machine, or about the lump I just had removed from my face. I feel no shame either. However, if you came up to me and told me that you read it in my medical records, you had better be my doctor, or else you better hope I can compose myself before I punch you.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well, why not nationalize food care, and housing care, and transportation care? How are those so much less important than medical care?
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
By and large most of the objections to government-provided healthcare on this side of the Atlantic (and this side of the Canadian border ;-) really come down to prejudice against government provided services in general, coupled with well funded anti-government propaganda from the Healthcare industry, right wing think tanks and lobby groups, inflating stories of failure in foreign single-payer systems while ignoring the severe problems with the current system.
The funny thing is that the US government does provide general healthcare services to certain groups, such as the elderly and the military, which are well run and immensely popular with those who eligable to receive treatment.
Unfortunately, the entire issue is so toxic that even with a Democratic majority on both houses, the last Health Care Reform push was little more than a tinkering with the current system, providing some subsidies to people who couldn't otherwise afford private insurance, while striking a deal with insurers that the industry would cover pre-existing conditions in exchange for everyone being pressured to get insurance. Not only was single payer not brought to the floor, but in the congressional hearings to discuss the nature of HCR that lead to Obamacare, single payer was banned from discussion.
We're governed by terrible, terrible, people.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Should people be open about their mental issues then? No, people are strongly biased against it. What if you've got AIDS? Or terminal cancer? What if you want to live out your remaining days with a sense of normalcy? No Larry, you're wrong.
-Bob-
Yes, but another aspect of the law is that insurance companies(as of late 2012) have to submit explanations to the feds for every increase in premiums. And(in 2013) they cannot make more than 20% profit. And their overhead has to come out of that same 20%. 80 cents out of every dollar you pay for insurance has to go to actual medical providers or medicine.
What that does incentivize is really high premiums, and insurers choosing expensive procedures in order to maximize how big that 20%. What the whole package is predicated on is that the buyers will choose a different plan if insurance companies go too far in that regard(hence the exchanges). It's not perfect, but it's the best we could manage in the political situation.
Lets just Nationalize Healthcare. Force Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics to give away free services. Provide incentives for 46% of the population to accept government aid. Force people to disclose there medical records to there employers who are now only huge corporations given exclusive privellage by government backed monopolies through campaign finance and lobbyist. Create entrance barriers for individuals, mom and pops to create private sector businesses. Lets create a tip line so neighbors can report suspicious activity on each other to the Defense Department. Lets control the money supply and print more money to create a hidden tax system so we can spend as much as we want take more of what we like without telling anyone. Lets monopolize the irs and have them block any party that opposes ours and the national socialist movement. Lets actively surveillance the medias phone calls for national security.
It is only when these things are accomplished that we can achieve total victory for the national socialist movement.
We are the intelligent, We are the educated, We are right , Let us help you
Hail Obama
So do the decent thing America and get a socialized healthcare system
Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
You want to ruin your body, do it on your own dime. I shouldn't be penalized for your actions.
LOL yep, except... you do that now. Very few corporate insurance plans (the ones that cover the vast majority of the insured) penalize users for unhealthy behavior. And if their insurance does lapse for some reason, they will still turn up at the ER when they get pneumonia or cirrhosis, and your medical dollars will pay for that, too. The only way to avoid being penalize for the unsafe actions of others is to live your entire life without one single health malady... Good luck with that.
So do the decent thing America and get a socialized healthcare system
Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
You want to ruin your body, do it on your own dime. I shouldn't be penalized for your actions.
What makes you think that socialized/national health insurance system is any different from any other health insurance mechanism? If you have private health insurance, and this insurance company does not explicitly state in it's insurance agreements that alcoholism, smoking, drug use and the afflictions these things cause are not covered by the insurance policy then you are already paying for the treatment of people who wilfully ruined their body. Sometimes it can also be difficult to prove that a disease was caused by some habit rather than by something else and totally unrelated. Many health insurance policies cover at least some form of treatment for things like this, for example, for addicts to help them quit the habit. Of course this varies between companies and countries. The question of whether alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver, drug addicts or smokers with terminal lung cancer should get medical care in a socialized system is a difficult topic. Are we really comfortable with people like this being thrown into the street to die? There is a question here about compassion and basic human decency, you might want to consult your bible on that subject. I'm an atheist myself but as I recall Jesus Christ had some very thought provoking and insightful things to say about compassion.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Oh, you're one of those people who don't understand how insurance works. Let me help you out.
I'm one of those people who pays every year and gets virtually no medical treatment. Healthy as a horse. I should absolutely get my money back. Right?
Wrong. Here's a simplified example for you. There are 10 people in my fictional world. There's only one malady: heart attack. It strikes 10% of the people per year, and costs $100k to treat. Mere mortals like you and I can't just absorb a $100k hit, but we can absorb $10k/year in insurance costs. Everybody throws $10k/year in a bucket and the one guy per year (on average) who has a heart attack gets to take the money out of the bucket and use it for his treatment.
The bucket is an insurance company. You should see that the money that the 9 of us put in there who were healthy that year isn't still sitting there. It got paid out to the guy who wasn't healthy.
There's this notion of freedom. It's not all about saving money. If I don't want to go to the doctor, that's really none of your business. Now, should I bear the costs of not getting preventive care? Sure! I used to have a dental plan like that. Get your twice a year routine cleaning and exam and everything is covered 100%. Don't, and you pay a percentage of the cost of fixing the teeth you didn't take care of.
No, that's just a claim backed up by no evidence you've presented.
And that, regrettably, is the typical appeal to authority that harkens back to the days when mommy and daddy could make everything all better. The federal government is just a collection of people like me and you. Some of them are very good at their jobs. Some of them are very bad. Most of them are average. You know, just like the rest of us.
The problem with federalizing it is that you get just one option. You get saddled with the choices that are made by a set of bureaucrats at the top. You naively assume they'll be the right choices for you, but that's not necessarily true. Many like to point at countries like Canada as a claim that it works fine. Well, I have family in Canada and they don't think it works fine. Canadians also have an exercise another option when they need better or faster treatment: they come to the US.
There are definitely things we should reform about the healthcare industry. Pre-existing conditions is part of it, but Obamacare did that already. Separating health insurance from employment should happen. Some sort of incentive to get us to stop being a nation that eats and couch surfs itself to death would go a long way to bringing costs down. There are lots more.
Nationalized healthcare may indeed be morally and practically the best solution to health care, but it can't take a gigantic burden off everybody and make it magically go away.
Nobody is saying that it would. What nationalized healthcare would do is take the gigantic burden off of individuals who are unlucky enough to have serious health problems and distributes it among everyone.
In 2011, three trillion dollars was spent on health care in the US. Divided among the 313 million people in the country, that's less than $10 per person per year. It's simple math and there's no magic, but I'll bet that reducing everyone's health care costs to $10.year would feel pretty fucking magical to most people.
I hope you don't get cancer, MS, or some other disease that you can't afford the treatment for and causes you to declare bankruptcy, or you avoid getting treatment for because you can't afford it. Dumbass.
So, you happen to have any history of cancer in your family? Other congenital diseases? You take part in any risky activities or behaviors? Do you maintain an optimal BMI and eat only nutritious foods, while getting the proper amounts and types of exercise?
I shouldn't have to support your bad genetic heritage or poor life choices. If you can't afford any and all future medical costs out of your own pocket, well then, you can just go off and die in a gutter. Or do you prefer the current system, where instead of paying a little extra in your insurance bill to assist in getting all of "those" folks pre-treatment, or preventative care and counseling, instead you pay a huge amount in property taxes each year to treat them as emergencies in your local county hospital? You DO realize that you pay for it either way, right? Even if you don't own property, your rent is based, in part, on the property taxes your landlord has to pay. The prices you pay for groceries, gas, clothes, are in part determined by the property taxes each of the shops has to pay, etc. Multiple studies have show 15-1 or better returns on investment by having preventative care available. Even the much quoted recent Oregon study, if you look at the data and include ALL patients showed significant benefits from preventative care for folks that otherwise would have to rely on only emergency care.
The result of your attitude is either 1) Insurance should be banned totally and everyone should have to pay out of pocket, or 2) Insurance companies, backed by the force of law, should be able to force each and every one who wants pooled protection to live a monitored and restricted life according to the companies actuaries that result in the highest profit to the insurance company.
How about we recognize that we don't want people dying in the gutter around us, that we would prefer to protect children and others who are reliant on guardians from their guardian's poor choices, and that if we are going to end up paying for it anyway, we'd rather pay a lesser amount for better outcomes rather than more for expensive, morally superior, less desirable outcomes.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Oh $LC_DEITY no. It's bad enought that there's this giant push to privatize everything, because pretty much every function that has been privatized has degenerated into crap. Thankfully, cleaning operating rooms hasn't yet been put on the outsourcing block so companies can charge the government twice for paying staff minimum wage, but I won't be surprised when some asshole suggests it.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Insurance needs to be decoupled from industry. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage and it makes coverage worthless when you really need it, since you can't work when you are in the hospital.
Single payer is the only system that makes sense, even discounting the huge savings inherent in such a system compared to our current system.
Cheap storage VM.
Funny, my company is actually being forced to provide MUCH better coverage than we've ever had before. Yes, our premium is going up by 10%, but pretty much across the board, when the employees hear all the extra benefits we are getting that were mandated by the new laws, most of them are OK with the slight increase.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
If your rich Like Larry you don't have to worry about it if your an average person like me who has just been put onto the Kidney transplant list in the UK - Id nevver get employed in the USA under the current regime.
Well shit. I confused confused billions and trillions. This is why I shouldn't post when I'm drunk.
It's $1,000, not $10. Please disregard everything I just posted.
But people should be allowed to work for whatever wage they want, minimum wage is communism. Why is minimum hours any different? People will just decline those jobs and the market will fix it?
Wait, are you saying we need to improve our regulations, or are you advocating single payer?
Cheap storage VM.
Erm, $3 trillion/year into 313 million people = $9585 per person per year. So not quite as magical.
Yes, it takes vast resources. Why do we need to pay a middle man on top of that? Why do we each have to pay a different middle man with different rules and complicate things for both the provider and the patient? I have no problem paying for healthcare. I just think we need a national pool. That would truly equalize costs.
Cheap storage VM.
Wait, what? Since when does a product have to be optional for life to be tradable in a free market? Are you saying that it's impossible to have a free market for food, shelter, and water, too?
You're correct here, fellow AC. Anything can have a market, whether it is necessary or optional.
The USA has been doing the exact opposite of injecting "free market" into the health care system for decades and that is precisely the problem.
You're incorrect here though. Health care is just a low level symptom. The USA is injecting free market at a higher level: your RIGHTS and FREEDOMS have been put on sale on the free market.
Similar to what you said, just because freedom isn't optional, doesn't mean you (your representative/government) cannot put it on the market to the highest bidder.
There is no "problem" here. This is simply the market equilibrium you (not you specifically, but you the people in general) arrived at. Turns out the market equilibrium for freedom isn't one where everybody has equal amounts of it. But hey, you (again not you specifically) choose this path.
For-profit corporations have no business in health insurance.
Neither does the federal government, unless I missed that clause.
I'll take a Death Panel over one guy reviewing and denying my claim, or a hospital admin tossing me in a cab or refusing to admit.
Cheap storage VM.
Also, theres the whole "our poverty line is generally above the median income of poorer countries" thing-- in other words, our poor arent really "poor" by anyone's standards except ours.
It might be good to research how well "the poor rising up" turned out the last several times it was tried this century, and whether you really think thats preferable to what we have.
After all, who is in business to make a lost ?
Liebler, Abrams and Lindeloff?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That theory that going to the Dr. will avoid serious ailments however, is not the best assumption.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/business/study-finds-health-care-use-rises-with-expanded-medicaid.html?_r=0
Right. And one of those economic realities is that health care is not an area where a "free market" can efficiently allocate resources. Buyers and sellers do not meet in the marketplace with equal power and full knowledge.
It takes no more resources to provide an American citizen with health care than a German or a Japanese one. Yet every other developed nation has better outcome at less cost. The difference is the obscene profits realized by companies like United Health.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So do the decent thing America and get a socialized healthcare system
Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
You want to ruin your body, do it on your own dime. I shouldn't be penalized for your actions.
What makes you think that socialized/national health insurance system is any different from any other health insurance mechanism?
GGP didn't say socialized health insurance system, he said socialized healthcare system.
The difference is that insurance is about converting a chance of a large cost to a certainty of a small cost (where the smaller cost is just over the product of the risk and large cost) -- so if you can't afford to pay that small cost, or it's not a chance but a certainty, insurance is the wrong answer. You're just paying someone with deep enough pockets and enough clients to average that risk out; a single claim won't bankrupt them, and there's virtually no chance of enough expensive claims coming in at once to do so.
For example, if I have diabetes and need regular insulin injections, I can't expect insurance to cover my certain (not chance) of insulin use without charging me more than the cost of the insulin, but could still get insurance to cover the risk of losing toes as diabetics do -- but I'd expect to pay a higher premium than a non-diabetic because they have lower risk. The idea is I'd rather come up a few dollars behind if I'm lucky and dodge the risk, instead of taking the chance of being bankrupt if I am unlucky.
Americans as a group simply don't understand this, so when they want everyone to have access to healthcare, their "solution" is to make the insurance company charge "reasonable" rates to everybody (i.e. not increasing rates to reflect increased risks), and to pay for everything, including pre-existing conditions that now have a certain cost, not risk. A more rational solution is socialized healthcare, where the government taxes people (according to their means) and covers all healthcare expenses. Involving insurance companies in any way is stupid -- because of the size of the population, the risk is already averaged out (i.e. there's essentially zero probability that we randomly see 5 times as many heart attacks this year and bankrupt the treasury), so the only conceivable role of an insurance company is to skim some money for doing nothing.
this is ludicrous. you can certainly have a more free market for health _insurance_. instead of the current system which is slanted toward health care provided by employers. Many other markets with inelastic demand manage to work it out so that consumers have more power.
I wish people would stop repeating this bullshit. That's not true.
The insurance companies are required to issue rebates for any money they take in over the limits. They have to spend at least 85% of the premiums on actual health care related activities. And since they will no longer be able to refuse to accept individuals for service, people can just shop for the policy which best covers their needs.
And they won't be losing money, they just will have to figure out how to provide the service as efficiently as possible.
They always use the federal poverty level for these calculations which doesn't make any sense. Around here you have to make substantially more than the poverty level to have a simple apartment. At $11k you're rent alone is going to take up more than half of that, and ultimately you're going to be lucky to be living paycheck to paycheck.
Even as a single making $27k a year, that's not enough to have your own place and save for retirement.
Both things have no relation at all. Of course you can have a free market in health care, the same way you can have a free market in food or transportation.
And, yeah, the demand is very inelastic. That means that in a free market, companies will compete to get market share, and not cooperate to increase the market. That makes it a brutal market for companies, but doesn't change things very much for consumers.
Rethinking email
The reason my health information is private is because it is none of anyone elses damn business. Insurance is not the issue, employment is not the issue, my fundamental right to privacy is the issue.
Guy whose company makes money off data suggest people should freely share more data.
Next story: Supermarket CEO thinks people should keep more groceries on hand.
And what time was this when the rich didn't control the military and the police?
The poor aren't rising now against the rich because if they did that, they'd become poorer, not richer. Things are that simple.
Rethinking email
Negative health information makes you an untouchable in employers eyes, and various others, Larry has too much money to be aware of this.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Wait, MA doesn't have a concept of a life changing event for their enrollement process? That doesn't sound right. If you move into the state or have a baby or something you should be eligible to join regardless of what month it is.
I read the internet for the articles.
The facts on healthcare costs are just not with you in this one. Insurance increases price pressures by more than 100% over government run healthcare. Look up what it costs to deliver equivalent care around the world.
I'm sure you're a big fan of education and municipal funding too.
Insurance is privatized "optional" socialism (is health insurance, REALLY optional?)
Government socialism is public socialism.
Which one would you rather have? Certain things make more sense to be socialized- the question is do you trust shareholders voting against you, or someone voting against you you can vote out to dispense the service. Clearly the best answer in this dillema is a public model.
Its not just straight up math, its pretty damn logical too. I'm sure though, when you're dying (hint everyone gets sick and dies, everyone needs an education, and everyone needs protection from fire and police, even if they think they don't) in a hospice somewhere you will wish you had public insurance.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
>everyone needs protection from fire and police,
not what I meant clearly, but some places you do need protection from the police apparently :D
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Government aid isn't meant to help you save for retirement. It is meant to help you survive. That said, they government is painfully aware that geographic location data is needed for cost of living adjustments, but they haven't found a reliable way to do that as of yet.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/povmeas/methodology/supplemental/research/Renwick_SGE2011.pdf
You are also thinking of this as a person who is not currently below poverty. They receive a range of aid for basics which you pay for out of pocket. Food, utilities, housing. All of these are can be made available as additional aid depending on the income level, which reduces the burden on the poor. Someone who isn't below that level wouldn't qualify for most of these benefits, and they often don't factor that into their calculations.
Although it may seem impossible for someone to 'get by' on 11K a year, the additional aid they receive does soften that burden and make it possible, although most would not want to live that like if they had the means not to.
They aren't. Moot of those are addressed by welfare for people who can otherwise not afford such necessities
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Please don't discourage Mashiki, I got a good chuckle out of that.
While it is true the supply of patients with serious diseases that need to be treated is inelastic as you claim, the supply of doctors isn't.
If you have an abundance of doctors, then they will undercut themselves to stay in business. If you have a shortage... well, you're in trouble.
As for your results being mediocre... keep in mind that when Canadians have a serious and they don't want to die on a waiting list, they go to the US.
Ever since I started working in '95, insurance has always differentiated between smokers and non-smokers. Other issues start to be hard to judge. How many cupcakes is "too many"? Insurance companies could just arbitrarily decide who's got healthy habits and who doesn't, but i'm betting that would quickly boil down to just how much people cost, regardless of why. If there is a standard, there has to be a way to measure it. Smoking is pretty easy, 'cause smokers have a hard time doing without for very long, and it's a very visible and distinct activity that goes with it.
"Unsafe actions of others" is pretty broad too - does that include bicycling (one of the more dangerous sporting activities)? Most things people do are less safe than taking a 1hr walk/day and spending the rest of your time eating oatmeal, reading, and sleeping. Most of us want more of a life than that. So, which "less safe" activities do you want to punish? Most people seem to say "all the ones I don't do".
Further, the time I got pneumonia, i did go straight to the ER - because it can kill pretty quickly if not treated. Pneumonia needs ER treatment. Perhaps you meant influenza, which sometimes does and sometimes does not. Neither is going to be absolutely prevented by regular doctors visits. Exposure and age are your two big risk multipliers there - not readily adjustable by government action. My pneumonia seems to have stemmed from a very small amount of aspirated vomit (side-effect of yet another problem), so again, doctors visits (there were many) did not prevent it.
Cirrhosis, you will get treatment for. Treatment effectiveness is limited so you'll need to be off the drugs/alcohol for a while to get on a transplant list, these days. And they blood test to make sure. So, yeah, they will let you die rather than give you the best treatment.
Pointed out in another comment - in the US, drinking alcohol or active recreational drug use will keep you off transplant lists. There will always be another candidate better than you, if you are still in the process of wrecking your organs. I suppose it is this way in most countries.
Generally, in the US, we go to extremes at end-of-life (regardless of cause) rather than spend the money up front. There is always another treatment, and doctors here are pretty aggressive at using them. I sometimes think people die simply from being worn out by treatments.
Yeah that seems pretty reasonable to me. Having the organization paying for Apple products out of the Microsoft founders funds seems like bad publicity. Get other funding or divert funding that you now don't have to put into other operations because of the donation into software if you need to. It's also not like the vast majority of opensource software costs money in the first place. Now if you are saying they can't buy anything but windows even from other funds not from the Gates foundation that's a bit more heavy handed but still might be understandable.
thats not how it works here. don't pay your electric or water bill, they shut it off. not instantly mind you, they give you warnings. and usually have a grace period of about 1 month. but if you're payment is due june 1st, and its now july 15th, you probably don't have water/electricity anymore.
Except for emphysema treatment...and cancer treatment. Cancer treated with the specially grown proteins at a grand a pill. His death is more expensive than your life. My problem with socialized medicine: it gives them legitimate claim to regulate our lives. At least what we put into our bodies. "Trans fats are illegal because we foot the bill for your healthcare...we shouldn't have to pay for your obesity. Or your alcohol, or any number of unhealthy things. Even without that they've done ridiculous things (eg illegalization of pot.) Don't worry the healthcare lobby will destroy anything beneficial in the ada anyways
1) HMO resolves to reinvest 80% of premiums into "benefits"
2) HMO also owns a hospital that charges $500 for an aspirin.
3) $400 in benefits, $100 in profits.
I'd like to get a basic $200/month catastrophic care policy with a $10K deductible, and now I can't even buy that, because those plans are going away in favor of $500/month "better" policies with $5K deductibles. I wanted catastrophic care because in the unlikely event that anything went expensively ($100-500K) wrong with me, the insurance might cover most of that cost. Now I'm paying an extra $3K/year to hedge $3-5K risks that I don't even give a damn about.
Car analogy: I drive a beater; I don't want a $100 deductible because I don't make comprehensive claims for door dings, I just want to insure against the risk that my brakes fail and I T-boning a busload of millionaires' kids.
I shouldn't have to pay to educate people who are determined to stay ignorant, but I do. The lifetime medical costs for smokers are lower than for non-smokers. Die at 67 of some smoking related ailment and Medicare won't have to pay for anymore medical care for you. Don't smoke, live to 87 and that's another 20 years of medical expenses. Even if you argue that the pre-retirement medical costs are higher for smokers, it's unreasonable to ask smokers to pay higher premiums unless you also reduce their Medicare taxes.
One might argue that there could be other costs of smoking. Does smoking significantly either increase your chance of dying before retiring, or decrease your lifetime work productivity, or both? If so, your contributions are going to decrease, while the investments of the parents and the state into safely bringing you into the world in a productive state are going to stay the same.
Ezekiel 23:20
Insurance needs to be decoupled from industry.
Bingo. There is no logical reason that people should get their health insurance from their employer. I makes no sense. We do it that way for quirky historical reasons (wage controls during WWII), and not for any rational reason.
In communist China, employers provided education to their workers' children. Each factory ran a school. So if you switched jobs, your kids had to switch to a different school. That seems (and is) stupid, but it is no stupider than what we do with health care.
Single payer is the only system that makes sense
Well, I will admit that if you look at all the different systems in use around the world, single payer seems to work the best.
I'm essentially of the belief that the universe is a quantum computer of infinite complexity (sounds like divinity to me). As insane as my religious beliefs are...I know compassion ought transcend the "isms." There is no good way to make that decision, so I think we just need modification of the current system
Wrong. Here's a simplified example for you. There are 10 people in my fictional world. There's only one malady: heart attack. It strikes 10% of the people per year, and costs $100k to treat. Mere mortals like you and I can't just absorb a $100k hit, but we can absorb $10k/year in insurance costs. Everybody throws $10k/year in a bucket and the one guy per year (on average) who has a heart attack gets to take the money out of the bucket and use it for his treatment.
The bucket is an insurance company. You should see that the money that the 9 of us put in there who were healthy that year isn't still sitting there. It got paid out to the guy who wasn't healthy.
That is your fiction. Here is reality: you pay $10k/year and each person has an average of a 10% chance of a heart attack. The problem is that nine people are physically fit and take care of themselves while one asshole is a smoker who eats butter from a jar. Congratulations on spreading out the cost and making sure everybody pays the same.
Have you considered doing the same with car insurance? It would make just as much sense since everybody has on average a 20% chance of getting in a car wreck per year. Just pay your insurance premium and don't complain when that bucket is empty each year. Heck, you don't even have to worry about driving safely anymore.
To summarize: cut free the freeloaders. Those with serious ailments need to learn to live better (stop smoking and eating lard). And those who have legitimate psychological problems shouldn't be out with the general public anyways. Reopen the asylums. This will give motivation to the 'depressed' to go get a job.
I went blind in one eye, lost feeling in my shoulders and neck and by the time I finally had my first MRI, it was about 4 months later and everything was back to normal. Ended up diagnosed with MS when it happened again.
If I remember correctly, I had Aetna at the time.
See this is what I don't get about you progressive douchebags (and I am speaking in the general of course not directly to you BlueStrat). "Question Authority", isn't that what you hippies all called for?
As the conservatives said, after 9/11 "everything changed".
With us or against us, comrade!
Ask and you shall receive.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-official-in-charge-during-tea-party-targeting-now-runs-health-care-office/
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yah, well this broken system of yours is the reward for this your way of thinking.
There is no way you can live your life without someone sanctimoniosuly condemning your lifestyle. Do you drink? Do you go outside? Do you drive? Is there any violent crime where you live? Any factories or chemical plants?
Did any of your ancestors fall ill of any sort of disease or weakness I can hold against you? Do you drive a motorbike? Moped? Bicycle? Walk without a helmet?
Do you sit too near the motor of the subway carriage? Use perfumed deodorants? Ever washed your hands with WD-40 after tinkering with a dirty engine? Do you live in the city where the air is less than pristine? Do you have a pound of overweight? Underweight?
I live in Sweden. I happily pay for smokers, alcoholics and drug users because it means that whenever I have a problem, I get it fixed for free with no questions asked, no opinions formed.
And funny thing: our health care cost one third of yours for the same treatments, so in actual reality I pay less than you do now.
I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers
You don't subsidize them. They subsidize you. Do you know how high cigarette taxes are? They are more than high enough to cover the expected additional health care costs of smoking. Much of this is because many smoking related diseases, such as lung cancer, are not that expensive because they kill fairly quickly and there are no good treatments. Additionally, smokers pay into social security and medicare just like everyone else, but they are more likely to die before they collect their share of the benefits.
alcoholics
Alcohol is trickier than tobacco, because in moderation it is actually good for you. But alcohol taxes hit everyone, whether they drink to excess or not.
or drug users.
If you want drug users to pay their own way, then you should support legalization and taxation.
and get NONE of that money back when they need it?
Yes, you just described how insurance works. The idea isnt that "you get your money back" (it only works financially when people statistically do NOT get their money back, after all), its that youre reducing the risk of a gigantic lump sum cost that you cannot pay.
If your goal is to make sure "everyone gets their money back", sorry, thats not possible without a non-profit 100% efficient system. Good luck setting that up. Good luck especially if you intend to try to have government do it at 100% efficiency.
If I could change one thing about the health care industry, it would be this. We need price transparency.
If an MRI costs an insurance company $1000, it should cost $1000 to an uninsured person. If I knew that, I could make an informed decision as to what sort of insurance coverage to buy. Now I need to pay $500/month, so that if I need a $1000 MRI, the bill says "$1000", not "$12,345 because you're uninsured."
My mechanic charges $100/hour for skilled labor and double the retail rates on parts. Why can't a doctor/surgical team charge $200/hour and double the retail rates on hospital gowns, surgical tubing, etc?
With socialized health care, it's in the government's best interest to keep their population healthy. So dangerous things can be taxed. Also, government funds are more readily available to investigate causality (rather than insurance guessing or drug companies rushing out the next symptom-reducing pill).
The effects are felt all the way to city planning: visit Canada & you'll see their cities are friendlier for walking.
I doubt that's all legislated, but it changes the mindset of the people b/c someone in every planning will ask about the health impact, if at-least to keep up with the neighbors or to toe the line.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
All she asked for (and got) was to put a note next to his stating that she did not agree with his diagnosis and explaining her reasons. Her main reason was that he didn't know enough about her case and was simply dismissing her symptoms. Others seemed to agree.
We can't be at the mercy of doctors, we have to have input into our treatment.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Fuck that. I shouldn't have to pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
If you have insurance you pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users.
After all, who is in business to make a lost ?
Not that it's relevant, but since you asked, here's (among other info) a list of the producers of Lost.
A little more on-topic, in other countries that have private insurance (rather than a public, single-payer system), notably Germany, health insurance companies are required, by law, to be not-for-profit entities.
According to the UN/WHO Germany ranks 20th in life expectancy, while the US is 40th.
Just sayin'...
Yes, Larry, it's easy to do for you - no one minds that you weren't able to speak for a while. But for the 99.9% of us who have to look for and hold jobs, it might not be a good idea if the employer knows everything about our health. Same goes for insurance companies which will use any excuse not to cover you if given a chance.
What a dumb fuck.
Maybe in your country. In mine, it's more like 9 out of 10 eat butter from a jar. That's not really the point, though. Yes, we could very significantly reduce our overall healthcare spending if people actually took care of themselves. Even if we did, random disease strikes. A young friend of mine survived brain cancer. A 20-year-old friend of mine didn't survive a different cancer. Both endured lengthy and expensive treatments. Neither were linked to particular behaviors, they just drew the short straw. THAT is what insurance is for, and no matter how much you pare down the waste and cost, if it's done right, the bucket is still empty at the end of the year (on average, and hand waving a bit about cash reserves for exceptionally bad years).
Once people have serious ailments is the wrong time to intervene. If granny's 150 pounds overweight, good luck getting her to adopt an exercise regime. Really, we need to look in elementary schools and ask why so many kids are chubby and can't run. Some of them are your future 40 year olds in mart carts, and it's truly a crying shame. It doesn't have to be this way.
What a trusting soul. Such mystical faith in the State. Psssst ... the State has no power to overturn economic realities. Nationalized healthcare may indeed be morally and practically the best solution to health care, but it can't take a gigantic burden off everybody and make it magically go away. If you think corporate profits are the only reason, or even the major factor in the exorbitant expense of health care, you are naive. It's expensive because it takes vast resources to do the job.
According to The World Bank, only Palau and Liberia spend a larger proportion of their GDP on healthcare than the United States. Note that according to the UN/WHO, the US ranks 40th in life expectancy, Palau ranks 99th and Liberia 171st.
The top ten countries in the UN/WHO rankings of life expectancy either have public, single-payer systems or heavily regulated and/or not-for-profit healthcare systems.
Someone's been lying to you and a lot of other people. Why lie to yourself and others as well?
Posting anonymously as I don't want to blow the mods I've already made on this thread.
Why would recreational drugs that don't wreck organs or that organ be included?
Do they also exclude people who partake in high risk exercise?
So remind me again... Why should I have to pay for your medical bills?
Just ask Kyle Love.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Starting in 2014 in the US, this will be the law of the land--companies will have to insure anyone, regardless of existing conditions. It is also the law in MA right now.
the problem with MA is that it appears not to be the wealthy subsidizing the sick, but the healthy who subsidize them. one need only compare insurance rates between MA and other states for younger people to get the idea that universal coverage has become another means of wealth transfer from the young to the old. as with crumbling infrastructure, ballooning debt, and an underfunded social security program, we're sticking future generations with the bill because they can't stop us.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
I don't know about the US but the water company can't just cut off water to a home, even if the owner doesn't pay. They have to take them to court to make them pay up and can eventually get a court order to shut off supply, but only if the owner is being a dick about it and not simply because they are too poor to pay.
Here in the US, in my village in Nebraska, if the water bill is not paid by the 10th of each month, they WILL shut off your water on the 15th. They won't turn it back on until the bill is paid in full, plus a $50 re-connection fee. No court order is required for this.
Wrong. Here's a simplified example for you. There are 10 people in my fictional world. There's only one malady: heart attack. It strikes 10% of the people per year, and costs $100k to treat. Mere mortals like you and I can't just absorb a $100k hit, but we can absorb $10k/year in insurance costs. Everybody throws $10k/year in a bucket and the one guy per year (on average) who has a heart attack gets to take the money out of the bucket and use it for his treatment. The bucket is an insurance company. You should see that the money that the 9 of us put in there who were healthy that year isn't still sitting there. It got paid out to the guy who wasn't healthy.
In reality, before the reforms passed, many insurance companies were sitting on a loss ratio of 60% all the way up to 110% - which means you were actually paying well under 10k/year (a good deal for you, but probably not going to last long) all the way up to 16k/year (your company is being run inefficiently) for that "10k worth" of insurance, with the rest going to their other expenses, including executive compensation, marketing, fraud prevention, and all of the other extras that aren't directly your health care costs, whether they're necessary or excessive. As it stands, in many other developed countries, the overhead ratio is hovers between 5 and 10%. The fact that many companies in the US had up to 40% of their revenue go out as overhead costs and profits instead of healthcare costs was atrocious, and needed to be fixed. That kind of massive inefficiency can't exist in a system that's clearly broken at least in part because of those high overhead costs. It's not the only problem with the healthcare system, but it's one step in the right direction.
It's my data, and I should be able to keep it private if I want, even if you think that's silly, immaterial, paranoid, or whatever.
of course they want your information. They want to control everything.
I don't disagree. My simple example was intended just as barebones "here's how insurance works".
The US system has a terrible pricing disconnect from healthcare consumer to healthcare payor, and consequently consumers have very little pricing power.
"...while getting mediocre results..."
Your utterance of this phrase tells me immediately that you're full of shit. Walk into any hospital ER in the US, and by law they have to treat you, regardless of where you're from or your ability to pay. The signage posted in every ER confirms this basic fact.
Furthermore, the US is a world leader in medical research. Many cities around the country have one or more teaching hospitals, where doctors are trained by leading experts in their field. People come from all over the world to cities like Houston to receive treatment for any number of severe and / or rare medical conditions.
High risk exercise, not sure what that would include. I've never heard of a case so no, but most people sick enough to need a transplant are not doing a lot of exercise, high risk or otherwise. Doesn't come up.
If it makes you feel the system is more fair, they do not do transplants for overweight people. Weight under control is a pre-condition for transplant, both for health and for the do-ability of the surgery.
The perceived problems with recreational drugs:
1) in a lot of cases, dietary/drugs/alcohol caused the problem that requires the transplant. there are generally moral qualms about giving an unrepentant person a transplant for a condition they themselves caused and show every sign of causing again. there are always better candidates.
1) impairs ability/discipline to manage a transplant regimine
2) represents a willingness to disregard medical opinion of the transplant team (e.g. doctor shopping). given that you can find a doctor to tell you anything is ok, doctor shopping represents a risk to the organ, and the organ are in extremely limited supply. (as a practical matter, post-transplant, there isn't anything they can do about your drug/alcohol issues, so they're extra diligent on the upstream side). if you're going to make up your own mind on the safety of recreational drugs, you'll make up your own mind on diet, exercise, prescribed drug use, etc. Given that your going to be part of how the transplant regimine is evaluated for other patients, they want to know that you're at least doing what they have you down on paper as doing.
3) some drugs popularly assumed to be harmless are not (mj particularly carries a fungus that can be deadly in an immunosuppressive environment). anything intravenous is a source for hepatitis, of course. and most of them affect your judgement.
4) there is some value judgement going on with non-kidney transplants particularly. The supply is extremely limited, so there is always a number of candidates for any given organ. They have to choose. You want to be the more attractive candidate, not the jackass telling them where to stuff their book learn'n about drugs.
Its not just recreational drug impairment that gets you off the list. I knew a young woman who'd had a stroke, and the resulting mental impairment rendered her unable to follow a drug regimine on her own, and she was off the list as a result.
The drug regimine is pretty demanding. I'm taking 7 different drugs plus 2 vitamin supplements at 4 times of the day, with another drug on a periodic/as needed basis. That's a maintenence regimine - the "right out of the hospital" schedule was more like 14 drugs. Right out of the hospital, there may be dietary restrictions as well (I had a low potassium restriction for a while). Gotta have enough mental wherewithal and discipline to follow that.
The point of the parent post being: you can debate the efficiency or the cost of the US healthcare system, but to claim that it is mediocre is pure liberal fantasy designed to scare everyone into allowing the government to shove their fist even further up our collective asses.
Who does all of the heavy R&D lifting for developing new lifesaving drugs? US pharmaceutical companies. You douche bags want everything for free, but at the end of the day, the people who develop and deliver that care want to get paid a salary commensurate with the level of training and expertise they possess.
I don't understand why some people thinks it makes sense to force insurance companies to insure everybody and do away with pre-existing conditions clauses. An insurance company is a business. To exist, the business has to turn a profit. Turning a profit is based on managing the probability that a person will get sick and require a large cash outlay based on their coverage. It has to be balance with the amount all clients pay in premiums, such that cash in from all clients remains above cash out for the ones that get sick. By telling an insurance company that they have to insure everyone that wants a policy, regardless of the fact that they already have issues that which will require a payout, you are effectively destroying them. Simply put, you are saying the following somehow makes sense to you:
Sick Person: "Hey, Insurer, I have cancer and need treatment. How about I give you $1000 and you give me $500,000."
Insurer: "That's a solid business proposition. Let's do it."
I mean, I sorry Obama's mom got cancer, but to hear him lament that no one would insure her AFTER she already had cancer was one of the most painfully asinine things I've ever witnesses from a public official. She should have been paying into an insurance policy long before she got cancer. For those who say "but insurance is sooo expensive she probably couldn't afford it," I say BS.
When I was a poor college student, I worked a part time job with no benefits. I enjoyed some pretty physically risky hobbies, so thought it might be good to have some insurance. I got on the BCBS website and shopped around. Found a "catastrohpic" insurance policy that worked for me. It basically carried a low cost premium I could afford, but I would be on the hook for the first $5000 of anything I needed medical treatment for. The policy would then cover 70%-80% of additional costs. Less than a year later I have a massive spine injury that required surgery and this policy saved my ass. Sure, I was out of pocket $5k and in debt another $3k or so when all was said and done, but the policy saved me a whopping $118k.
A funny thing about insurance companies is that they like to manage their risk. They don't pay your bills out of the goodness of their hearts. They do this by charging you more if you're more likely to cost them money. It's how insurance works. If you take that away we will all become unable to afford insurance. It's fairly amusing that people like him who have lots of money don't worry about little details like that.
1) since when does a right include automatic access to another's labor? Speech, privacy, and all the fun rights listed in the US Constitution don't require another's labor, time, or money.
Right to a trial by jury (requires jurors to attend jury instead of working).
Grand jury requirement (requires a grand jury to approve charges before indictment).
Right to confrontation of witnesses (requires witness to respond to defense).
Right to an attorney (public defender must be provided).
Habeas corpus (requires government to respond).
All of these require access to another's labor for free.
In addition, many of the enumerated powers of Congress have an implicit promise of labors provided for "free" (i.e. paid by taxes & tariffs) -- protection by the Army and Navy, the creation and maintenance of standard currency, patents & trademarks, federal courts, etc. Public healthcare would be no different in that regard (and would certainly fall under the General Welfare clause).
Someone realises all his pretty pennies won't fixed his throat so he expects everyone else to give up their privacy in hopes that it helps him somehow. Like we should all work together. Unfortuantely we already have a plan to work together and accomplish things. It's called paying taxes and he doesn't want to participate in that so he sit their quietly cry himself to sleep.
> the fact that it is still a free market
It's not a free market as long as the government can tell me what I am allowed to buy.
Obamacare is nothing resembling socialized medicine. It's more like a big fat gift to the insurance industry. It's corporate welfare at it's worst.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They aren't telling you want to buy, they are just requiring you to buy it. You can also refuse and just pay the penalty, and let everyone else foot your bill when you get sick.
Doctors are no more expensive than many of the purely discretionary things that many people engage in. Yet because it is medical care, people get this idea into their head that they should not directly pay for anything. They have this idea that things should just be given to them.
Insurance is not for low cost routine things. All you are doing is taking something and making it more expensive by adding a transaction cost to it.
It's like you're using a high interest rate credit card but paying before you use services rather than after.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No risk of Larry Page sounding harsh, with those partially paralyzed vocal cords of his.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Kaiser Hospital is a prime example of what healthcare is going to look like 2-3 years from now. Go to the hospital and it's packed with people (most of whom don't need to be there) and wait 4-5 hours to spend 10 minutes with a doctor. I will readily concede that healthcare in America has many problems, but obamacare was not the solution. It does nothing to reduce cost for services, it does nothing to control hypochondriacs who visit the hospital 10 times / month, it does nothing to mitigate the malpractice legal gravy train, and I don't see it bringing any kind of solution to the real problems.
I'm not a politician, I'm not a doctor, and I have no real medical background beyond writing some software for a cardiologist, but I can tell you how to make healthcare better in this country:
1) End malpractice. If a patient thinks their treatment was incorrect resulting in permanent damage it goes before a board. If the board decides the doctor was negligent, it's a violation. Get three and we've determined that you're not very good at this and need to go find a different profession.
2) Limit R&D recovery to the cost of the research, and then limit the profit to 10% of cost. Both for prescriptions as well as equipment and processes.
3) Limit salaries for doctors, administrators, nurses, etc to be commensurate with average professional income levels.
That's how you make it affordable for everyone to have healthcare. But then the politicians and big business don't make as much money off of it, so you can bet you'll never see a solution that will actually solve the problem.
Demand for catastrophic care is very inelastic. Demand for anything else can be shopped for like anything else including fancy new mobile devices. Hospital care in the US is the real problem. The prices are all a work of fiction. So it's really hard to get a handle on the problem. You can also find yourself in a bad position if you have to pay strictly as an individual (rather than an insured). Although that's unpredictable and that too is part of the problem.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Did you watch the keynote? Page made a big point out of how lucky he was - how a parent was an early computer scientist, how they convinced arrangers to let him attend a robotics conference even though he was underage etc. and how he wants kids to get the chances he got.
He may come across as a bit naive, yes. But I'm sure he knows that, and it's probably somewhat deliberate (I mean, a QA session? When you've just admitted on Google+ that you're pathologically soft-spoken?)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
If you have insurance you pay the medical expenses for smokers, alcoholics or drug users . . . who are presumably WORKING, and on an employer-provided plan.
It's the NON-WORKING drug-users that I have a problem with. Gee, I wish I had the luxury to sit around all day, play video games, smoke crack, and have someone else work their ass off to pay for it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If only we had some sort of "Affordable Health Care Act" that would require insurance to not exclude people based on prior conditions.
I bet we could even get the President of the U.S. in on it--we could even name it after him! I bet he cares!
That number could easily be inflated by 10x or more. Billed hospital expenses are generally not paid out at rates anywhere near the "suggested retail price". That's yet another problem with the current system in the US. Prices are opaque and largely fictional.
If you said that $250K was spent to keep some kid alive during a really bad infection, it's hard to know how seriously to take that number.
The fact that people don't seem to think they are on the hook for anything helps add to the problem. It's treated like it's someone elses money.
You can't necessarily transplant a social welfare system. It won't work the same in another culture and will likely not allowed to be implemented intact.
So trying to pretend that we can replicate the NHS or something else is just a really out of touch fantasy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If I need an MRI, I get an MRI. That stuff is serious and is nothing to procrastinate about. If you can't afford one RIGHT NOW then perhaps you need to readjust your economic priorities. All of these social welfare programs tend to make people think that they don't have to take care of themselves.
All you're doing is abdicating responsibility for yourself and giving it to someone else like a civil servant.
Even the best do-gooder doesn't have to worry about the long term consequences of you putting off that MRI.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...Tories trying to sabotage social welfare programs in the UK just like the Republicans try to do in the US.
Imagine that...
This is something that you have to account for when you make policy arguments. You can't just assume that we all live in a idealized world populated by rainbow unicorns. You have to consider that perhaps a third or a half of the population will be highly motivated to oppose what you're trying to do.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No, the ACA does not allow the IRS to access your medical records.
It's also against the law for the IRS to selectively harass people & organizations based on politics/ideology, too.
That's why the people who wrote the US Constitution put strict limits on government power. They understood that any power government has which is possible to abuse as such *will* eventually be used to attack political/ideological opponents to the incumbent political/ideological powers regardless of any restrictions.
This administration in particular has already thoroughly demonstrated an almost complete disregard for the Rule of Law, innocent lives, and individual freedom in pursuit of their political & ideological agendas (Fast & Furious, Benghazi missile-running-to-Syrian-rebels/Muslim Brotherhood cover-up, AP/Congressional phone record seizures, IRS political/ideological-based targeting, etc etc etc).
What makes you think they'd suddenly change? Or is the (Stockholm) Force strong with you?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Even $1,000 is hardly a burden compared to how much you might have to pay if you can't afford insurance. I have a friend who had to pay $2200 for one asthma attack that landed him in the ER, triggered by the cleaning agents his near-minimum-wage job mandated that he use.
Plus, I pay around $400 annually for basic medical insurance (just me), with a $500 deductible, my employer puts in another $600, and on top of that I still have to pay a percentage of costs. So, if I'm healthy, we're paying $1000 for zero product. It doesn't start to break even until after... I believe it was around $3000 in annual medical costs. And I'm a healthy non-smoking 20-something.
Really, any sort of predictable fixed cost is preferable to the "anti-lottery" our health care system is now.
I think what you are saying is that her work is worth more than they are now compensating her for. If that is the case, she should quit and find a company that does. Complaining about the government when a company has made a decision is stupid. The government didn't say she was worth less, the company did.
Or do you prefer the current system, where instead of paying a little extra in your insurance bill to assist in getting all of "those" folks pre-treatment, or preventative care and counseling, instead you pay a huge amount in property taxes each year to treat them as emergencies in your local county hospital? You DO realize that you pay for it either way, right?
Agreed, except that the property tax will not be lowered if we don't need the money to pay for emergency room visits. The money will just be repurposed by the local government. I would like to repurpose it to paying off debt and saving for future expenses for my household. Selfish, I know.
Let's play video games with mailmanZERO
Less people getting screened (or at least less often), because they don't want it showing up on their medical records.
We should give Larry the clap and then advertise the fact widely.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
How is that relevant to quoting numbers from a web site (that at least provided a lot more insight into compensation levels than your useless snarky comment)?
I see some of your recent posts were about healthcare and electric cars. You obviously are not a doctor or work for Tesla, so if you think being an expert in the field is necessary to post on slashdot why did you even bother commenting on either of those topics?
The thing about health insurance is that it isn't really insurance in the traditional sense.
Traditional insurance is something like "just in case something bad happens while you are covered, we will pay for it."
But that's not how our healthcare system works. People get sick while they are unemployed, they get sick while they are employed, they may stay sick after losing their job. Healthcare costs are exceptionally expensive, so it is unrealistic to expect ANYBODY short of multi-millionaires to be able to afford to cover their own healthcare costs in the event of a serious illness. Therefore the only solution is socialism, and our socialist system is referred to as "health insurance". Health insurance MUST be structured such that everybody, healthy and sick, pays into the system to one extent or another through premiums, so that there are enough cash reserves in the system to pay for the care of people who get seriously ill.
The alternative would be that everybody who isn't EXTREMELY rich has to lead their life in fear that if they ever get cancer they will have to guaranteed to die through lack of care, but not until they first go bankrupt exhausting all of their financial resources. Even if they do have a few million in the bank due to hard work and careful savings, it might not be enough.
Society at large has decided that socialism or health insurance (which is rather socialist in nature) is vastly preferable to the alternative.
Now the fact that the medical industry is corrupt and dramatically overcharges for things that could be cheap, just because the insurance company is paying and can afford it... that's a serious matter that should be dealt with somehow.
My point is, denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions is ludicrous in a world where insurance is necessary for survival, but not everyone who is capable and hardworking can always have insurance, all it takes is a few months of unemployment in a tough economy. But then when they get a job with good coverage... sorry, you got sick in between jobs, we'll just let you die!
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
> Starting in 2014 in the US, this will be the law of the land--companies will have to insure anyone, regardless of existing conditions.
Well, companies will only have to insure their employees. And if companies have access to their employees' medical records, and can make determinations about which employees' health issues are racking up their medical records...
While smokers may take less out of Medicare, they will instead cost others in higher insurance premiums before they retire. I'll admit them dying early may result in greater savings than the additional costs in treating lung cancer, I don't have numbers handy either way.
I realize your probably trolling, but which kid should skip eating? More realistically, which month should I skip rent, because that's probably in the MRI cost range.
Cheap storage VM.
My girlfriend's dad was a JAG in the USAF (man, does he have some interesting stories... I think my favorite was defending a guy who decided he was going to get a dishonorable discharge by sitting on top of a Minuteman silo in Montana and lighting up a joint...), and then later became a public defender. His total compensation in the Air Force was higher than what he made as a public defender in a rural county.
Then again, being a rural area their 4 bedroom house cost about 1/10 of it would in somewhere like California, so they were still solidly in the middle class. I guess my point being, $99k (or even somewhere in that general ballpark) is actually way more than the national average (which is what, something like $49k for a family?) and in many parts of the country that does afford, like you said, a pretty comfortable lifestyle.
Yes, actually. As PhD students they worked a TAs and research assistants for the cost of their tuition. Besides the fact that you don't get accepted as a CS PhD student at Stanford just because you "are privileged".
"...while getting mediocre results..."
Your utterance of this phrase tells me immediately that you're full of ...
Actually, that was probably the most well-sourced part of my statement. If anything, I was being generous. Just go check out any comparative survey of health care quality or results. For example, this survey from the World Health Organization in 2000 ranked the USA 37th of 191 (but we were #1 in % of GDP spent on it!): decidely mediocre. This one from The Commonwealth Fund in 2010 ranked the USA dead last of the 7 nations studied (but again, first in expense!).
Definitely sounds like your manager had inferiority (and other) issues to insult you for a typo - and your spell checker conclusion was too reasonable, I'd have just told him to piss off ;)
But I really wouldn't try to extend his defective personality to anyone who has ever managed personnel and/or built a successful business - many of them actually do care about their employees. I have come across the occasional bad manager in my career, but also a few who have been great mentors and friends. And I have several friends and former colleagues who work or have worked for Larry and Sergei (one of them now reports to him directly at Google X), and they generally sound like great bosses to work for.
Yes, you just described how insurance works. The idea isnt that "you get your money back" (it only works financially when people statistically do NOT get their money back, after all), its that youre reducing the risk of a gigantic lump sum cost that you cannot pay.
Yeah, you are not the first person to reply with that but I can say is, DUUUH... :) I know how insurance works. The point was with single-payer that sudden cutoff doesn't happen - it's still a shared risk model, but it's now shared over 100% of the population and shared over your entire life, regardless of your short term circumstances. Since it's so widely shared and non-profit, you will tend to get more efficiency (and before you go saying "government efficiency, hah!" - go look at the numbers first - the overhead costs of single payer countries are for the most part WAY lower than the overhead of US private healthcare insurance).
And to go one further, with single payer you don't have for-profit insurance companies dropping you on a technicality or raising your premium beyond a level you can afford once they do have to provide a large payout after your years of previous unused coverage.
You do have the potential for more bureaucracy, sure. But to be honest the last time I had to go to the emergency room it took over 6 months (and numerous threats made to me for collection, even though my liability was clearly stated up front as a $150 copay) before the various incompetent departments at the hospital were able to recover their fees from the incompetent private insurance company. The government does not have a monopoly on inefficiency and mismanagement.
There are two different issues with pre-existing conditions, and you're only dealing with one of them. Waiting until you're diagnosed with an illness generally does not -prevent- you from being able to get health insurance, though it does mean that the insurance company will likely not cover that -specific- condition. When people talk about insurance companies denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions they're also talking about situations where you have condition X so they think that you're too high of a risk for developing -other- conditions and thus won't insure you at all. It's still an issue of probabilities and not guaranteed need.
I completely agree with what you're saying here, but I find it highly unlikely that the insurance companies will not immediately twist this to their benefit using Congress (and I firmly expect both parties to screw us over). It may work briefly, but they will find ways to force this to their benefit and our harm, while our government gladly helps them.
Perhaps that's a jaded view, but I cannot think of a singular example of government involvement, no matter how noble in intent, that has not ended this way. Can you?
Just another ignorant American.
I think I'm more interested in what will happen with the quality of care received. Presently the US is THE destination of the world for nearly all forms of specialty care, such as e.g. cancer, cardiac, and neurology. It often happens that somebody in Europe or Canada needs care that simply isn't offered there, or the physicians there say that the person stands a much better chance of survival at X hospital in the US, so their country pays to send them here to be cared for.
I really don't want to see that go away.
A Stanford researcher examined the issue of why in spite of this, the US ranks low in outcome of care compared to many other first world countries, and it turns out that this is due to poor lifestyle habits:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/15/facts-about-americas-health-care-quality-that-world-doesnt-know/
(I know, the source is fox news, so most of slashdot will simply dismiss it outright, but it's merely a summary of what somebody else found)
This also explains why, for example, that the claim that our lifespans are shorter than most first world countries because we don't have free health care is a false one. Denmark for example as as free health care as you can get, is a first world country, and yet their lifespans are within a margin of error of ours.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
So, do they vaccinate the children with ground up copies of Windows DVDs, or are they in fact using the VAST MAJORITY of the money to buy, oh, I don't know... vaccines?
And actually - could you provide any reputable citation that a charity receiving funds from the Gates Foundation is prohibited from buying any non-Microsoft computer products? I have seen a few case of donating Microsoft software, but nothing requiring purchases. Honestly, though, in the end who gives a shit? If you give someone money to buy software or give them free software to help run their charity operations, either way it's still CHARITY.
We can't be at the mercy of doctors, we have to have input into our treatment.
I agree. That is almost spot on. I would add that we cannot be at the mercy of one single doctor. However, that is a far cry from having editorial rights to your own journal. Granted, I don't know of the case you're referring, but it sounds like the doctor wasn't competent; giving the woman in the example editorial rights to her journal does not solve the problem for the next poor sod who walks into his office. I would like to advocate that we try to solve the actual problem instead of trying to patch it to work for a single case.
... whatever
What part of "uncontrolled" did you not understand?
But an MRI costs $8000. A lot of honest hardworking people don't have that money RIGHT NOW. So they should just be left to die?
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
When you're talking about office visits, even specialists, I fully agree. People put off automotive work for the same reason, but the chances of that widowing a wife are slimmer than procrastinating the cost of a scan for an abdominal pain.
At present I pay $140usd/mo for a low dosage of dextroamphetamine, something that could be made by a high schooler with Google and given proper lab access. I do not mind paying a man for his skill, but that I do find insulting.
> To summarize: cut free the freeloaders. Those with serious ailments need to learn to live better (stop smoking and eating lard). And those who have legitimate > psychological problems shouldn't be out with the general public anyways. Reopen the asylums. This will give motivation to the 'depressed' to go get a job.
What about the "Freeloaders" with serious ailments are not caused by smoking and lard, but actually struck them at random? What if YOU developed MS? Are you prepared to just lay down and die because the cost of treatment is more than your annual income?
What about the "freeloaders" with genuine psychiatric problems that are FULLY TREATABLE with medication and therapy. Some of these people will go on to hold important jobs and create critical innovations in science and technology that will improve the world for everyone. You think the world would be a better place if they were just thrown in an asylum?
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
I think the point about "getting the money back" was misinterpreted.
Obviously when you pay into insurance and then you leave the insurance plan for whatever reason, you don't get your premiums returned to you.
If that were the case, then there would be no money to pay the claims for other people.
No, the point is, if you have been paying premiums into your health insurance for 30 years, then one day you go a two month stretch of unemployment, and you get hit by a serious random illness in that interim, then you are not insured and those 30 years of payments won't do a thing to help you. The idea is that you shouldn't lose your insurance just because you lose your job, and paying in for 30 years should have invested you into the insurance system enough that you still have coverage even if you have to go a month or two where your premiums don't get paid.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
The point is that $11k alone is barely any more money that rent is around here.
And of course, the aid should permit you to save for retirement. At some point these people need to be able to get off the government dole, and bottom line is that means saving money for the future.
That doesn't mean th discrimination is fair, nor should it be tolerated. People have also been persecuted and discriminated against because of their race, gender, and sexual orientation. Instead of fearing such discrimination, a more productive solution is to stand boldly against it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Glad to see you haven't had expensive illnesses, where you spent more than a few days in a hospital, you know some of the best 'insurance' plans only pay 80% and have a maximum expenditure both yearly and for your entire lifespan. Imagine if you had to spend $10 per pill on a pill you had to take 3 times a day for the rest of your life, or you will be living in extreme pain the rest of your life, while on a social security budget. Those cuts you are boasting about are ruining the quality of life for many people. There are even extreme cases like my little sister, who died in the hospital with a bill of over 1 million, my family is still fighting the insurance companies over 10 years later as to how much and which parts were covered.
Now your telling me that everyone is going to be forced into a medical plan, out of our own pocket, or we get taxed for it. Now my sister had insurance, imagine if there are now millions of people like my sister. Where do you think that money is going to come from? You really expect rates to go down, coverages to continue when it gets expensive, contracts that don't have more exceptions than they have coverage, and doctors forced to cut corners like in the case of HMO's? The only way to handle this is with government help. But wait then the government is adsorbing the costs, guess what that will raise your taxes. About the only positive outcome is that hospital bills "might" go down due to higher rates of payment. But even then my recent kidney stone still cost me $1,500 and I had insurance, why because i have to pay 20%, that seems to be the norm in my area. Just because you are making $80+ grand a year and can live comfortably doesn't mean those of us who are barely managing $20 grand or less can. Why not try living like us for a while stick all but 20 grand a year in a savings account, and don't touch it. If you can manage the whole year like that then kudos, but many people on that budget also have to manage spouses, children, and family members who have lost jobs due to the depression. Just be honest and admit that there is no fair way to implement the program and stop it.
Also Obama's statistics of actively seeking a job are total bull s***, people are not going to do something that waists their time and gives them no benefit, like keeping up with those job seeking form at DES when DES is providing them nothing at all. I know my wife didn't, she just kept searching, putting her time into more productive activities like filling out more applications, that did eventually land her a job. If properly measured the true unemployment would be closer to that of the great depression. How about this offer us $10 a week if we keep on filling out those weekly forms, and I'll bet those statistics jump dramatically. (something Obama is probably scared of right now.)
And before you call me a something winged or republican, i am neither. I just follow the logic, I don't take anything anyone says at face value unless the logic is sound. Heck I even voted for Obama for his first term, however I expected him to be much smarter/better than this, and I am very disappointed with the results. (heck I wonder what would happen if the job was treated like a real job, and he was not guaranteed 4 years in office, and the people could fire him at any time if he truly screwed up?)
When you think about how unacceptable this would be anywhere else, you have to wonder how this insane system came to be as it is.
Here is the in-depth answer if you're interested. I usually get shot down for posting this link here on Slashdot because it doesn't comport well with the groupthink on health care, but if you honestly want to hear a good economic argument explaining why health care in the United States is so expensive instead of the same old "greedy insurance company" canards, it's probably worth your time.
Insurance is not an investment. It is risk protection,nothing more. Whether or not you have paid in for 30 years is financially irrelevant once you hit year 31 .
I just told my wife about this story, her response:
"What kind of idiot said that...the whole reason for privacy is so people feel comfortable telling their doctor anything and everything that may be relevant...there has to be trust and doctor/patient confidentiality is crucial to that trust"
(I worked in this exact area for a good many years.)
People have a concern about the privacy of their medical data that is not associated with payment. They just want to know that their data is only 'public' as much as needed to give them the care they need and fulfill the administrative requirements for payment. This is a moving target depending on the kind of data that is collected and just how sick they are. I used to call this 'the arrow in the butt' syndrome.
If you have an arrow in your butt, you'll gladly submit to surgery in a department store window to relieve the pain; thoughts about shame and publicity fall way. If, however, you have a painful rash on your genitals and the dermatologist takes a picture to document treatment success, most people would rather that the image or the textual details not be public.
Many people, particularly here on this site, seem to think that medical data is rather sterile recitation of lab values along with casual admin note. Health data can be that, but in many cases, it is infinitely more revealing - and potentially embarrassing - that a full body screen at tsa and certainly more capable of being dispersed.
So there is not easy way to draw a line that satisfies everyones' concerns and Page's opinion is silly and short-sighted.
There are 16 TRILLION reasons why we can't afford it. And the retribution from insurance carriers has already begun.
i am inspired to tell you about my hemorrhoids. where shall i begin?
I've seen a negative impact of Obamacare already. It has affected full-time vs. part-time employment opportunities. All the major retailers, such as Walmart, Lowes, Meijer, Kohls, etc., are now hiring mostly part-time employees, maxing out at 30 hours per week. This is a direct result of Obamacare requirements. So now, not only do these people not get the health coverage, their income is also limited. Overtime used to be the way that these jobs provided some decent income, but now that's completely out of the picture.
So because of Obamacare, people will have to start working 2 part time jobs to make ends meet. They will be working more hours for the same amount of money and still not get full-time company benefits. Obamacare is making life harder for the very people it was supposed to help the most.
My problem with socialized medicine: it gives them legitimate claim to regulate our lives. At least what we put into our bodies. "Trans fats are illegal because we foot the bill for your healthcare...we shouldn't have to pay for your obesity. Or your alcohol, or any number of unhealthy things. Even without that they've done ridiculous things (eg illegalization of pot.) Don't worry the healthcare lobby will destroy anything beneficial in the ada anyways
Which is also complete bullshit. I've lived in two countries with socialized healthcare, neither of which makes tobacco, trans fats or any of the other unhealthy things illegal. You're living in a paranoid fantasy world.
Assuming you are part of the insurance system in America - you're already paying for other people's healthcare. That's the way insurance works. And you're a retard if you don't realize that.
two things not generally known about romney care in the State of MA
1) before romney care, we had about 90% coverage, so the change to ~!00% wasn't that much. In some states, like TX, the % of people without insurance is much higher, so I think that the shift to obamacare will be a bigger deal.
2) we can't pay for romney care; at least untill the Tsunami of the 2008 great recession, one of the major points in MA state polictics was, how on earth are we gonna pay for romney care ?
Which is exactly what happened. She just put in her two weeks and found a new employer who pays better and hasn't neutered their health insurance.