hustler

iTrader: (6)

Name a government program that works successfully and is not 10x bigger than it was initially designed to be and I might have more confidence in my federal government.

Also, now that an additional 10,000,000 people will have health coverage, where will the additional doctors come from?

bbundy

Think about 10,000,000 more people paying into the healthcare system, seems like it would have an effect on per capita cost. Also seems like reducing the number of un-insured going to emergency rooms for their general healthcare that they currently can’t pay for would reduce the rates for those that can currently pay.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

It takes me 4-weeks to get an appointment with a good gastroenterologist...will I still get to go to the same one and will the wait be just as long? Will I have to go back to a general practitioner to be incorrectly diagnosed, again?

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

It's not 10,000,000 more people "paying into" the healthcare system, it's 10,000,000 more people "joining into" the healthcare system. The percentage of new "payers" is going to be significantly lower than the current percentage of payers. Consider that people who can afford health insurance are probably already paying for that insurance.

People who chose not to be able to afford health insurance before are not going to make a decision to afford health insurance now that they're required to. We're simply going to increase the % of people with health insurance who can't pay for health insurance - I expect my premiums to increase - not decrease.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

yeah but for those 10,000,000 more people, ---- is going to be really cheap in comparison to before. stop being such a 1%er. share the wealth. good of the people.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Lazy poor people (I'm differentiating here from all poor people) are extremely good at evaluating incentives and costs. They aren't (necessarily) stupid, just lazy.

They will quickly realize that as long as the penalty/tax is less than the least expensive, easily available health insurance premium available to them, they benefit by electing to not purchase a health insurance plan, and instead, simply waiting until they need coverage, as they cannot be denied.

JasonC SBB

Do you think gov't cellphones would be better? How about gov't food? We can look how bad gov't housing and gov't schooling are.

The MYTH OF THE UNSEEN: How do you know what would have been invented if all those scientists and engineers were instead hired by private companies looking to make products with immediate demand? How do you know that the internet wouldn't have been invented in Bell labs just one year later? How do you know how much earlier the computer revolution would've happened if all the scientists paid by governments, were instead NOT hired to design weapons in the 50s and 60s? (This is an indictment of governments in general, before someone says the Soviets would have nuked us)

Have you tried looking at the total *cost* including to to the taxpayer, of internet connectivity in those countries?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

what does "second rate internet connectivity" even mean?

JasonC SBB

From this about Costa Rica's gov't health services:
http://www.scielosp.org/pdf/bwho/v81n8/v81n8a15.pdf
This is the hallmark of CENTRAL PLANNING and PRICE CONTROLS.

In a functioning free market, when demand increases, prices will go up and then NEW PROVIDERS will come in. In heavily regulated, semi-free markets, such as health care in the USA, gov't regulations have erected BARRIERS TO ENTRY for new providers, increasing the prices (and sometimes waiting time) of said goods/services. (See waiting list for Hustler's ---- fissure doc). The lack of barriers to entry in a functioning free market means that new competitors keep prices down in any given industry.

There was no waiting for any of the procedures my cat needed (which $20/mo cat-surance paid for)

I visited a poor country where the majority couldn't afford health care. Note, the poor productivity of the populace as a whole means you absolutely cannot take the money of the wealthy and give it to the poor and raise their standard of living. There isn't enough economic output to go around. I went to see an orthopedic surgeon to look at my tendinitis - his charge was $18, and 5 days of Celebrex was $15. He was in a very swanky hospital. I asked how much ACL surgery cost - $1,500 - that is <1/5th of here. MRI? $100, no waiting. Catastrophic private insurance? Between $50 and $100 per month. This is very affordable to the middle class person. I peeked into the ER - I didn't see a long waiting line.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

lol, the last thing I want is the government reviewing my browsing history.

bbundy

I currently don't have access to any high speed internet at my house other than Satellite $110 a month which pretty much sucks basically dialup speed from 4pm to 10pm daily and watching much YouTube will put it over the FCC limit and throttle it back to unusable speed for 24 hours. $6,500 will get me Cable. Phone Company won't upgrade switches to allow DSL. Cell phones have crummy signal that constantly drops off.

Bob

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

so you're the 5% of the country that has this issue...I understand.






this is exactly what I absolutely cringe at the idea of the gov't doing anything:

potentially dangerous ramp in highway. A few signs should do the job....

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

The countries with the best internet connectivity have population densities far exceeding that of the US. It's a hell of a lot cheaper per capita to build a network infrastructure at 3/feet per person than 120 feet per person, and if we all lived on top of each other in 800sq.ft. apartments in 30 story apartment buildings placed next to each other to form complexes of 10-50 buildings (Seoul comes to mind), it becomes a hell of a lot easier to amortize costs of a cellular network structure.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

That ramp is awesome. Poorly labeled but awesome.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

no. it was properly labled: two orange signs with flags on a 55mph highway directly at the point of doom. what could go wrong?!

it's pretty much gov't in a nutshell.



god it reminds me of all the traffic signs on the highway here that will say something like right lane blocked, when it isn't, or delay aheads.

people slow to read the signs, and it causes traffic, in which the delays begin. had the signs jus tnot been there in the first place, there's be no ------- traffic or delays. honestly I want to drive down 66 with a shotgun and permenately turn off all the warning signs.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Not that I really disagree but to be fair to the video you are only shown one angle of the ramp from a bridge that is very close. On the other side of the bridge there may have been ample warnings and that driver coud have just been retarded or considering it happened to be caught on camera it could have even been intentional. Again not saying that is the case but the perspective of the video is rather limited to pass any real judgement.

chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

Yahoo front page news!

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

whoa bro. even if it's easy to be free, what's your definition of freedom?

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

That'll teach her to text and drive...

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I bet the dumbass driving that SUV didn't complete the text message they were working on. It looks like they finally started braking about 15 ft before they hit it.

Y U no watch road?

The Autobahn was specifically designed to gracefully curve and to rise and fall with the hills instead of being dead straight and level because dead straight and level roads are dangerous. Their engineers knew roads that do not require constant attention and driver involvement lead to complacency, inattention, and boredom which can be deadly. Germans also don't like to build drive-thru restaurants because driving is an activity and eating is an activity and a person should only engage in one or the other at a time. Then they invented iDrive and threw paying attention to the road right out the effing window!

And it is lawyers that made healthcare expensive to patients for catastrophic care. Then the insurance companies came along to average out those costs. Then the gov't a-holes said they had to cover this and that until it wasn't catastrophic care insurance anymore. As was stated earlier, it was oil changes, gasoline fill ups, and washer fluid by the time the gov't had finished regulating it.