President Obama's Healthcare Speech

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 4:46 pm

I'm not quite sure I understand what Tzor is saying here. He seems to be saying that his concern with the health care proposals are that:
[*]They won't be done properly- they'll end up really shit and be a lot worse than the current system.
[*]Improving the country will make more illegal immigrants want to enter the country.
Those seem to be it. He doesn't say anything about health care with general practitioners, dentists or similar non-emergency care. Or rather, what he says is that the current situation is fucked up and then suggests nothing to improve the situation.

His suggestion seems to be that taxes slightly increase and go towards paying for emergency services for everyone. Which at a high level is pretty much nationalisation of emergency services. Or am I being too simplistic?

If I'm not being simplistic then your stance can be summed as as b):

Koumei wrote: In regards to giving everyone health care

b) that's a good idea, you don't disagree with that particular thing, but you view the majority of his stance as bullshit,

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 4:48 pm

So... d) ?

edit
Yeah, b) might be a better summation of that.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 4:57 pm

tzor wrote:Speaking of emergency rooms, I have a radical idea that no one will like. I believe that since it is a reasonable argument that we should provide such services to everyone that the costs for emergency room services should not be considered a cost of “health insurance” but paid by general funds (since you get the treatment policy or not). Health insurance premiums will be reduced because of the lack of expense; general taxes (mostly income) would increase as a result (no free lunch here) but at least it would be a more equitable distribution and not cause an undue burden to people trying to purchase their own policies.

The same would be true for health clinics; places where you can go when you have the flu. Since there are always concerns about treating potential sources of contagion and since combining such treatment with normal health care treatment could scare those who should be receiving normal health care (people are often uncomfortable going into a waiting room full of people with the flu when they are only getting their sugar / blood pressure / cholesterol checked), it also makes sense for them to be general funded as well.

If you do this right; not only illegal immigrants but legal ones could benefit. Tourism might actually increase because people will know, even though they may never have to use it, if they get sick or hurt here they have access to the finest health system in the world. (But we are paying for this … some complain as they collect tourism revenue.)

Tzor, I think that's a wonderful idea. Fully socialized emergency and preventative care would be a huge step in the right direction, and as you say might put our heath care system up near the top where it belongs.

Once we've determined whether it results in a massive influx of Canadian and Mexican ambulances, we'll have a much stronger basis for deciding whether further socialization of health care is a good idea. We'll also have a much better understanding of the costs and benefits of, for example, vaccinating people for free before they get sick or giving them antibiotics or antivirals for free when their sickness becomes life threatening.

violence in the media · Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:29 pm

Your primary opposition to (near) universal health care coverage/access is that foreigners might use or abuse it? Seriously?

And then you cite Canadians, of all North Americans, as the ones most likely to do this? Did Glenn Beck tell you guys to back off the Mexicans for PR purposes?

As a secondary concern, you're afraid that the Democrats will "convert the nation into a crappy nationalized health care system" and that this will be a step backward from the system we already have? Is there a country with a nationalized health care system that ranks lower than the US according to the WHO? I'm guessing there must be, as I'm not really familiar with the health care systems of places like Senegal and Bangladesh. Still, looking at that list, I'm not seeing a lot of countries ranked worse that you patriots can honestly pull a fist-pumping "U.S.A.! U.S.A!" chant to. We barely beat out New Zealand, and most of their health care involves veterinarians. Fuck, Iceland has a better healthcare system and that country is insolvent.

I guess that's where the disconnect on the issue is though. I can't even pretend to care about the impact of foreigners on our system and I have enough faith in our elected officials to not somehow lock us into a shittier system than we currently have. If that inexplicably does happen, at least on the plus side we'll have more options of places to go for superior care than just Europe.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:53 pm

The Right wing does not actually accept the health care rankings, because the WHO weighs things such as "average healthcare" and "accessibility." The people who I have seen argue seriously say that only the absolute best instance of healthcare in the country should be measured. They claim our system is perfect because "foreign leaders come to America for care." No, sorry-our system has too much government regulation, and needs to be more Free.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:51 pm

Bush made more specific lies in state of the union speeches than I have fingers. He was re-elected and lives free to this day. That's 'getting away with'.

No funding bill has enforcement regulations in it. Really. Does Medicare part D have it in it? What does?

'Joe' Wilson is flat wrong, tzor. Agreeing with him just makes you look stupid. The bills on the table say in them 'no disbursements to those in the country illegally'.

Ugh.

Yes, your idea about funding clinics is a good one. However, your brethren would never pay for it.

-Crissa

PS, did you know Ayn Rand was an illegal immigrant?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:34 pm

violence in the media wrote:Your primary opposition to (near) universal health care coverage/access is that foreigners might use or abuse it? Seriously? And then you cite Canadians, of all North Americans, as the ones most likely to do this? Did Glenn Beck tell you guys to back off the Mexicans for PR purposes?

I tend not to write 40 page posts (and I simply don’t have the time) so in general I respond to the question or the issue of the moment. My “primary opposition” to “(near) universal health care” is not the threat of more illegal immigration. That was a “concern” for me. My primary opposition to a single payer state controlled universal healthcare system is that, first and foremost, the state simply sucks. Medicare only gets away with it by letting doctors and hospitals to recover their losses incurred by underpayment from those paying private health insurance. Once you remove that source of revenue and have the underpaying government be the only source of revenue, the system will simply collapse. Medical shortages will occur because there is simply no longer an incentive to become or remain a doctor or even a nurse and this will hit exactly when the need becomes the most, the aging of the baby boomer generation.

There are problems with most if not all of the current universal health care systems throughout the world; situations that will cause different nations significant problems in the decades to come. I didn’t hear that from Glenn Beck; I heard that from NPR from a study they did on the problems of universal coverage world wide they did last year.

As for Canada (OMG Tzor’s going to cite the Wall Street Journal again) I would cite the following I just found through Google, In Canada, Doctors Use Lottery to Drop Patients “Some five million Canadians don’t have a primary care doctor, the article says.”

My executive summary for how I would solve the health care problem is both vertical and horizontal. We need to divide this “Gaul” into parts; emergencies, general health care and elective health care. We then need to handle each separately. Emergencies should be taken care of through general funds. General health should be covered by insurance; the horizontal part here is that the system should rely on the fully functioning free market as opposed to a highly regulated system that favors the government. We need more competition not less; the ability to sell insurance directly to the consumer and not to a “corporation,” the ability to keep your insurance for life, the ability to have a large pool of potential sellers by allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines (like you can purchase auto insurance or life insurance). Elective health care should be funded as a regular expense for the patient perhaps through some interesting funding techniques.

One last thought; I really believe we are asking the wrong question. The question is not per se expense. Some expenses are worth the cost. Air bags in cars cost money, but the expense is well worth it. We have the best system in the world; it is neither perfect nor universal. In order to make the system better and better cover the people we need to look at what works and what does not. We need to look at what the goals of the system should be; long and healthy lives and the elimination of major causes of death. We need to ask ourselves, in an informed manner, “how much is that worth to you,” and by showing the benefits verses the costs convince others that it is worth the expense. Once we establish that understanding of the costs and benefits can we then move on to the question of how can we extend that charity to all.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:42 pm

I have a genuine question about the "best healthcare in the world" thing Conservatives rave about.

What makes our system the best in the world?

Can people get care whenever they need it?
No.

Do people live longer?
No.

Is care efficient?
No.

Is care affordable?
No.

About the only thing I can think of is that we have better 5 year cancer survival rates-but that doesn't make our system the best, it makes our cancer survival rates the best.

Is it really just a case of "AMURKA! FUCK YEAH!" that you've bought into?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:57 pm

c-cat...

...Our cancer survivor rates don't really count those who just up and die of cancer or related deaths.

Ten times more people die in this country by not receiving care than children are killed as pedestrians each year.

Tzor, I think we've pretty much proven that general health care cannot be taken care of by insurance. They save money by not doing the care, and not allowing those who need care to sign up. Which just shoves the cost into your other two camps.

-Crissa

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:02 pm

I sympathize with the people who say the health care system could use some changes. It totally could. Now, it's not as bad as the raving ultraliberals like to claim it is, because there's a lot of things that go into health outcomes (that is to say, those life expectancy stats that people parade around at every conceivable opportunity) other than health care. For example, an American is twelve times more likely to die in an accident or homicide than someone in Japan. This has literally nothing to do with our health care system. Similarly, Americans are extremely prone to conditions like diabetes, which are not just major strains on our health care budgets, but also preventable. So anyone who wants to reform the health care system should be happy to kick ass on, say, the corn farmers who get massive subsidies to poison us with high fructose corn syrup. And, of course, let's not forget our tremendous quantities of ambient pollution, which significantly reduce life expectancy and have not a fucking thing to do with health care.

But, that wasn't my point. My point was to say, yes, the health care system can be improved. But what exactly makes people think that the present government action will, in fact, improve it, instead of just funnel money to people who made campaign contributions?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:05 pm

Can people get care whenever they need it?

Health care is more generally available. The ability to get it for anyone whenever they needed is something no system can do effectively in the long term. Most tend to hide this problem under the covers.

Do people live longer?

Since total age is based on a number of lifestyle choices as well as environmental factors this question is moot. There are simply too many variables to be able to make a comparison on a single one (the specifics of the health care system).

Is care efficient?

Yes. (For the most part.)

Is care affordable?

Since we do not have free market forces working at the moment; since we hide costs from those who are involved in the process; since we push expenses from those who cannot pay to those who can pay (making it too expensive for those who can pay) I would say definitely NO.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:09 pm

Crissa wrote:Tzor, I think we've pretty much proven that general health care cannot be taken care of by insurance. They save money by not doing the care, and not allowing those who need care to sign up. Which just shoves the cost into your other two camps.

No, I think we can prove that health care cannot be taken care of by insurance as it is now, corporate based, where free market competition can’t allow you to change to the ones who provide the best service. With corporate level health insurance, where policies are purchased based on who can provide the lowest cost to the bottom line, everyone looses.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:35 pm

[*]Health care is not generally available for a fifth of the nation.

If you don't have insurance, you get charged more. If you get charged more, care has to be rationed.

That's like saying we don't have any people in the US who go hungry because 'food' is generally 'available'.

[*]People might not live longer with better care.

However, the US used to have longer expected lives, why is that different than today?

PS, we don't have higher pollution than well, lots of places. We have higher than other non-urban small countries, but we have lower than many urban countries... But are seriously behind Europe in urban technology.

[*]Is care efficient?

No. It's delayed repeatedly for requests for financial support, unless it's emergency care. Even then, it may be delayed, resulting in higher costs later.

Health care cannot be called 'efficient' if most people wait in line even while there's five empty lanes next to them.

[*]Is it affordable?

We pay more than anyone by a large margin. 50% or more, depending upon estimates. Is that affordable?

Lastly... Yeah, lots of Canadians and those in the UK don't have a primary physician. In Canada, much of the nation is rural or served by small clinics which don't have regular doctors. That's a known problem with having a rural country. Guess what? We may have more per-capita doctors than Canada, but less of ours are general practitioners. More Americans than Canadians don't have a primary care physician.

-Crissa

Shiritai · Post by **Shiritai** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:04 pm

tzor wrote: As for Canada (OMG Tzor’s going to cite the Wall Street Journal again) I would cite the following I just found through Google, In Canada, Doctors Use Lottery to Drop Patients “Some five million Canadians don’t have a primary care doctor, the article says.”

Huh. So that was your take on the article? I thought these two quotes were more informative, myself:

Canada’s medical system is radically different from ours, but there’s at least one thing we have in common: a shortage of primary care doctors.

Bonus Drawing: Health lotteries aren’t uniquely Canadian. Oregon recently held a lottery to determine which lucky residents would win state-subsidized insurance.

Anyways, who pays for healthcare has little to do with the number of primary doctors, so I'm not quite sure why you brought that up.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:12 pm

Shiritai wrote:Anyways, who pays for healthcare has little to do with the number of primary doctors,

It sort of does.

Training doctors is sort of like shared infrastructure investment.

And private industry doesn't like to do that sort of shit.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:46 pm

I'm constantly surprised by how much Americans hate/distrust their government.

That's the issue at play here. Not if state sponsored medical care is a good idea. The 'right wing' is unprepared to accept the idea of state sponsored anything is a good idea.

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:57 pm

cthulhu wrote:The 'right wing' is unprepared to accept the idea of state sponsored anything is a good idea.

But that's not even true. They love the U.S. military, and the big government infrastructure that supports it, and the health care it provides for soldiers.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:34 am

Isn't the U.S. military sponsored at the federal level primarily?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:39 am

So aside from being two-faced about state secrets, what are some examples of Obama lying?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:48 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So aside from being two-faced about state secrets, what are some examples of Obama lying?

Glenn Greenwald has a lot of material about his broken promises on transparency and 'enemy combatants.'

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:23 am

But Glen Greenwald is a leftist source and therefore cannot be trusted...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:30 am

Well, allright, decided to put this here rather than the News thread, since this thread is more specialized.

http://sickforprofit.com/

A film maker's doing little documentaries about people who got deliberately screwed by the insurance companies, so the insurance companies could keep their costs down.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:28 am

Public Campaign Action Fund, found that in the first part of 2009, the industries were spending money at nearly a $700,000 a day clip to influence the political process and that the monthly pace of political spending this year has increased by nearly $400,000 over the average spent per month in the previous two years.

...nice to know where those premiums are going, right? Instead of paying for actual health care.

I wonder how many of those dollars come from denying claims because domestic violence is a pre-existing condition?

I may vomit.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:54 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
cthulhu wrote:The 'right wing' is unprepared to accept the idea of state sponsored anything is a good idea.
But that's not even true. They love the U.S. military, and the big government infrastructure that supports it, and the health care it provides for soldiers.

Actually despite the fact that the veterans get some of the best healthcare in the US, and the VA has the world's most advance EHR, the right wing thinks that the VA is bad. Probably because through the 70s and 80s they were unbelievably bad. Only decent in the GWI wrap up.

Fair point ability the military though. Applies to the police as well.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Sep 16, 2009 12:42 pm

tzor wrote: Since we do not have free market forces working at the moment;

Free market forces would drive prices for medical care up, not down.

Tzor, you're a legitimately nice guy, and I do like you, but much like Crissa you obviously have never been poor once in your entire life and have no clue what we go through. Your fight to raise medical expenses (Don't act like that you're not fighting for that, you are smart enough to realize that allowing free market forces to act on the medical care industry will only be bad for people like me. Good for the extremely wealthy like yourself, but it spells death for me personally.)