hector

Joe there are other issues with the health system than just insurance costs and collusion with hospitals. Simply put, they can charge whatever they want for what most people agree to be a basic human right. Just because you can save my life doesn't mean that I owe you my life.

But as far as insurance goes, here is one issue I have with this system that we have in place and is just fucked up. If health care is supposed to be a business then we have a problem. There is no competition; what happened to capitalism? If every provider is going to give me the same thing for the same price, what's the point? You seem about the same age as me. Remember the 80's movie "Moon Over Parador"? "Which Simms will you vote for, the blue Simms or the white?" "Vote for whoever you want, this is a free dictatorship!"

Then lets move on to this. I got rid of our health insurance as it was over $7,000 annually and $13,000 deductible before we paid nothing and benefits kept dropping, etc. Our son was put on the state health insurance for kids. Because of income, we paid $300 a month. His healthcare cost us nothing more than that. Co-pays? Like $10 for a hospital visit. Deductible=$0. Shortly after getting it we get this letter in the mail that due to the coverage we have being outside of the ACA guidelines we will now have our child's plan changed to comply. Sure the monthly payment goes down to $230 or so but...... I give you this:



So for $800 less a year I get to pay up to $3,000 and plus 25% in some cases. Why couldn't it just stay as it was? ******* bullshit!

Now I will admit I am ignorant on the subject of health care costs so I might be coming across as some kind of nut that just likes to shoot his mouth off or howl at the moon. But I get irritated when my family is expected to give up to 10% of its income to the insurance company and then have to pay more if we have to use it! If the family is lucky and healthy we give away 10% but if we get sick/hurt we pay 20% before the bills stop coming in. That's just ******* crazy! How well versed do I have to be in the field of health care costs to see that there is something definitely wrong with that?

And health care costs supposedly total $3 trillion, 17% of GDP. Now the gov't paid $1 trillion of that through Medicare/caid so supposedly the rest of the working/non-disabled Americans (I estimate about 250 million) would have paid the other $2 trillion. If the 250 million number is accurate and every one of those people had insurance, that means every American would cost the insurance companies $8,000. If that were true and we all had insurance, how much would the insurance companies have to charge per person in order to turn a profit? Something is wrong with my math or something is wrong with what the health care industry is charging.

And to the example you gave you mention that having insurance at least saves you some money. Well for me it would cost me $7,000/year minimum to $20,000/year to save how much? It sounds like these made up savings don't really work all that great for everyone. Just charge me what it actually costs and not the contrived cost and I can forgo the racketeering charge. But how do you get rid of the racketeer-er when it's gov't sponsored?

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

by "coverage discrimination", I mean discriminating against patients based on their health insurance coverage. If one patient's financial burden is 10,000 without insurance and the second patient's financial burden is 3,000 because he has insurance which has negotiated lower rates (regardless of how much the covered patient is going to pay out of pocket) then the healthcare provider is discriminating against the uncovered patient based on healthcare coverage.

Obviously, if a healthcare provider has agreed to perform X procedure for 3,000 for the insured patient, then he can afford to perform procedure X for 3,000 for the uninsured patient.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I absolutely, completely, 100% agree. Eliminating the disparity between the actual cost borne by and revenue derived from patients whose payment is negotiated by a third party vs. those who participate directly and without external intervention in an otherwise free-market economic transaction is the key to creating a fair healthcare system and decreasing economic inefficiency by disincentivizing patients to reward an essentially useless financial-services company whose involvement imposes needless overhead on matters of routine, maintenance-level healthcare.


So, how do we cause that to happen without enacting legal requirements upon insurers and hospitals?

triple88a

iTrader: (2)

adryargument

iTrader: (1)

Y'all need to vote for Obama.

I just broke 2 ribs and xray, ultrasound. 4 doctors visits and a stack of opiates was $18. That's the us equivalent of $13?
Didn't even use my healthcare.

Just saying.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Pepe, help us!

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

The single payer system here is WHY healthcare is so expensive, not the solution to lowering costs.

If you were a doctor (who starts out their careers in incredible amounts of debt/investment), and you knew if you could continually charge more and more for the same procedure, and it was always going to be paid regardless, why would you lower costs?

And since the passing of the ACA, healthcare costs have gone up substantially. And we've forced a consumer in the market, who doesn't need the service/product, in order to pay for those who use it. That's typically called robbery/extortion.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

stratosteve

iTrader: (1)

James O'keefe needs our help getting this video out. It is being blacklisted. I believe part II comes out tomorrow?

njn63

iTrader: (4)

Can't imagine why.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

That's an interesting perspective.

I wasn't aware that most people agreed that unrestricted access to the fruits of someone else's labor was considered to be a basic human right. I mean, I understand that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Sandra Fluke, and a number of other individuals feel this way, but I've always assumed it to be a minority opinion in western culture.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

No, you don't owe them your life. You just owe them money.

You also owe money to the farmers and grocers who prevent you from starving to death. Or are you arguing that groceries should be free as well?

What about the clothing store? I mean, if you walk around in public naked, you'll be arrested and deprived of your liberty. Since liberty is a guaranteed fundamental right of all Americans, I guess clothing should be free as well.


Simply put, after establishing that you have a basic right not to be stabbed / robbed / subjected to warrantless search and imprisonment without due process, etc., how much more extra baggage do you want to pile on, and where do you draw the line? How much free (or artificially price-controlled) stuff is a "basic human right?"

triple88a

iTrader: (2)

Thats not how it works. Do you really think in a single payer system one hospital would be allowed to charge 10k for a blood test that costs 10 bucks?

Let me give you 1 example.. i went to a dr few weeks ago.. bill for the first visit was 700 bucks before insurance. FIRST VISIT. No they didnt do ****, it was just the consultation. 150 bucks of that charge was "first time visit charge"

hector

Joe, your arguments go off on tangents because you always bring in these stupid analogies. Talk about healthcare. Don't talk about food, don't talk about clothes, don't talk about getting jailed.

And don't you ******* dare compare me to a communist. That **** right there is uncalled for. If you made that assumption from just reading those two sentences then you are quick to judge and you are probably wrong at it most times.

Now, if you want to argue on the topic of a corrupt healthcare system, let's argue. Otherwise, keep going off on tangents. That's how my wife wins every argument, by never talking about the actual subject at hand and instead bringing some up **** that I did two years ago or some way that the neighbor who she despises agrees with her on. We can all cherry pick our arguments. I hope you are better than that.

So, you don't agree that health care is overpriced? Please explain. And don't bring up Perry Ellis, don't bring up chitterlings. For example, try to explain how American made drugs are cheaper in other countries than they are in America.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Hector, Joe is using a standard debate and logic technique. He is not off on tangents. He is comparing purchasing services and goods to purchasing services and goods. Either way you are consuming the labor and products of labor that belong to someone else. You cannot simply take it and not pay. If you feel the price is more than the goods are worth then do not buy. Contrary to what may believe, we are not entitled to whatever new and expensive procedure may be developed. We are not even entitled to basic lifesaving techniques under the constitution, or even food and water for that matter. Our constitutional right to our life simply prevents our lives from being unduly taken from us by our government. You are permitted to care for your body or not care for it as you see fit. That is a liberty we enjoy. Some people want to take that freedom away, too.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

absolutely. they can charge whatever they want, and so long if someone's going to pay them regardless, why wouldn't they?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Maybe Joe just writes for the NYtimes?

Football Team at the Buffet: Why Obamacare Markets Are in Crisis

hector

Six, do you guys even read or just skim and respond to what you feel is important to your argument? Read what I wrote entirely and then tell me where I wrote that the services should be given away.

But you want to go with Joe's argument because you think it is all well and good then fine. What if all the clothes manufacturers got together and said they were going to charge whatever they want for clothes because well...... people have to wear them to survive? How's that for an argument? And it's the same thing the health care industry is doing. No mater how shitty the clothes (health care), you have to pay the same price for it. And the gov't says that's OK. Matter of fact, the gov't forces you to buy these clothes as if you don't you will have to pay a penalty. Of course you and Joe would be good to go with that. Hey, we are all in the same predicament right? If we all pay for the same thing good or bad it's OK because it's fair? BULLSHIT! THAT MY FRIEND IS THE MEANING OF THE WORD COMMUNISM!

But just one post below yours, Brain chimed in with what I've been saying. They can charge whatever they want. It's not about saving your life or even making it better. It's about making as much money as you can on a service that everybody needs and the gov't is making you pay for whether you use it or not.

Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

I'm going to scatter a bit because I don't have time before I clock in to really flesh this out but...

Developing drugs is expensive both in the R&D to develop them and in getting them to market. There are many courses of research that are dead ends.

In Canada as I understand it, there is a governmental agency that determines the comparative efficacy of one drug vs another drug. If drug A is 20% more effective than drug B, but Drug A costs 50% more, drug A won't be approved for use. It would then be legally impossible to get a more effective drug. Isn't this a degree of depriving you of a basic human right?

If all countries do the same math and say that drug A is not a good enough improvement over drug B, then drug A, even though it is better by a significant amount (price not withstanding) becomes a dead end, or they have to sell it for such a low price that they don't have economic incentive to develop the next drug that may be 25% or 30% better than the original. Without someone paying for drug research and the required costs to market, drug development will stagnate, or at least that is my understanding. If there was no profit motive in developing drugs, would we be better or worse off?

57% of all new drugs are created in the United States. When countries are outsourcing labor all over the world and Americans are continually told that their education system is sub-par, why are drugs created here?
Which Countries Excel in Creating New Drugs? It?s Complicated | Xconomy