Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I want to know why it is that everyone thinks that the insurance companies are worth keeping? They didn't get the smack down that they needed. In fact, they will profit from this. Every media conglemerate has people on the board that also sit or formerly sat on the board of a hospital,insurance company or medical something. So the spin on this being a communist deal was just way out there.
It pisses me off. These bastards are still in there. Because for some reason, insurance companies represent capitalism at its finest.
I have watched a hospital refuse to give someone a heart surgery for someone that didn't have insurance. I have watched two hospitals refuse to deal or rather, treat and release for any damn reason a kid that has seizures. I think to myself, my god, could you exploit medical care anymore? But hell no, because health care is not a right. We have mental health facilities that treat and release. So, the homicidal/psychotic kids go in and are heavily medicated and tossed ou the door because "that is the way they are". A heart pace maker costs over 80K? Health care reform doesn't stifle creativity or competition for quality care. The only thing that was supposed to be stifled was the ability to creatively or competively scam the people.
But, can't have that now.
A. Insurance companies are a reflection of the skyrocketing costs of health care. What caused the price to buy care to skyrocket in the first place?
B. Insurance companies are "for profit". Thanks to national socialism (1935), the real charitable institutions were driven out of service (the many charitable organizations that operated hospitals BEFORE costs skyrocketed).
C. Capitalism, as defined, only means private ownership. It has nothing to do with limited liability, usury and gambling (corporations and investing at interest).
D. Health care is NOT a right - BECAUSE Government criminalized the unlicensed trade. No one has the right to buy and sell health care without government permission. The real cause for our misery is the government.
Why is government to blame for our inability to buy health care?
1. There is no right to health care because government criminalized the unlicensed trade. That instituted scarcity. That created a monopoly.
2. You cannot buy nor sell health care without license (permission). Not only that, you have to buy permission (prescription) from one licensed person to buy medicine from another licensed person, who gets his supplies from other licensed entities. Think about it.
3. Inflation (debasement of the money) is entirely the fault of government.
4. Administrative bloat. Again, the result of government meddling in the industry.
5. Taxation. The payer inevitably pays the taxes of the health care professional or supplier, hidden in the retail price.
Remember - no matter how bad it gets - government caused it. And their solution is to give the government even more control over health care.
The benefits of the new HC Law won't be realized for several years. The Repubs were free to lie and misrepresent. Basically, they can say anything until the reality proves the assertions wrong. Pretty much like the Bush tax cuts. It took about 10 years for them to be proven very detrimental. The new Health Care Law, will very likely prove very beneficial. But it will take time.
Any perceived "free benefit" will be overconsumed, creating rationing, delay, and eventually stagnation.
Furthermore, the government was the cause of skyrocketing costs, in the first place.
There is no way government will cause prices to fall - unless government gets out of the way - entirely.
It would have also significantly reduced quality of care. As it is, quality of care and patient-doctor relationships will be negatively affected. Do you think the government, inserting itself between patient and doctor, will be concerned with how you feel about having your care regulated and restricted according to some formula they come up with (that will not have your welfare in mind). Let's see how you like being just a number.
Ehm - that is exactly how insurers work today. With the added bonus, of course, that insurers have a direct monetary interest in "regulating and restricting" care. Lifetime ceiling ring a bell?
I want to know why it is that everyone thinks that the insurance companies are worth keeping? They didn't get the smack down that they needed. In fact, they will profit from this. Every media conglemerate has people on the board that also sit or formerly sat on the board of a hospital,insurance company or medical something. So the spin on this being a communist deal was just way out there.
It pisses me off. These bastards are still in there. Because for some reason, insurance companies represent capitalism at its finest.
I have watched a hospital refuse to give someone a heart surgery for someone that didn't have insurance. I have watched two hospitals refuse to deal or rather, treat and release for any damn reason a kid that has seizures. I think to myself, my god, could you exploit medical care anymore? But hell no, because health care is not a right. We have mental health facilities that treat and release. So, the homicidal/psychotic kids go in and are heavily medicated and tossed ou the door because "that is the way they are". A heart pace maker costs over 80K? Health care reform doesn't stifle creativity or competition for quality care. The only thing that was supposed to be stifled was the ability to creatively or competively scam the people.
But, can't have that now.
So, you think any business that makes a profit is evil?
You buy a car from a company that makes a profit. Oh, wait, maybe they put inferior brakes on it and they may fail. Let's get the government to build cars. I trust them more.
Have you read any data on the waiting lists in countries that have universal health care. I had a good friend in canada DENIED cancer treatments because she was too old, 63.
If you want UNIVERSAL health care, you have to get government out of the way. And slap down the AMA. Both are responsible for the scarcity of practitioners "allowed" to treat us.
Medical licensure is a grant of government privilege. Like all such interventions, it harms consumers and would-be competitors. It is a cartelizing device incompatible with the free market. It ought to be abolished.
The Flexner Report of 1910, which Murray N. Rothbard discusses elsewhere in this issue, further restricted entry into the profession, as legislatures closed non-AMA-approved medical schools. In 1906, there were 163 medical schools; in 1920, 85; in 1930, 76; and in 1944, 69. The relative number of physicians dropped 25%, but AMA membership zoomed almost 900%.
WAKE UP.
You're all fighting about the WRONG THING.
Skyrocketing health care costs are the consequence of letting government create a protected monopoly and then when things go wrong - let it meddle even more.
If you want costs to fall, you have to decriminalize health care, break the monopoly, expand opportunities for medical education... so that anyone can treat everyone... that's the only way you'll have UNIVERSAL health care.
So, you think any business that makes a profit is evil?
Strawman, nobody said that. But there are human endeavors that just don't work very well when profit is the motivation - and going by pure efficiency, risk-pooling in modern medicine is one of them. In Florida, right now, health insurers are not obliged to pay out more than 65% of their premium income in reimbursements. Now, I'm not an insurance professional, but it seems to me that you should be able to pool risk and handle payouts for less than 35 cents on the dollar.
Quote:
You buy a car from a company that makes a profit. Oh, wait, maybe they put inferior brakes on it and they may fail. Let's get the government to build cars. I trust them more.
Good example. What entity makes and enforces rules for car safety? The government. The cheapest car you can legally put on the road is still reasonably safe, thanks in no little part to the government doing the incredibly boring sh.t involved in specifying the exact requirements for making sure that the brake hoses on your car live up to requirements such as:
"The maximum expansion of a hydraulic brake hose assembly at 1,000 psi, 1,500 psi and 2,900 psi shall not exceed the values specified in Table I (S6.1), except that a brake hose larger than 3/16 inch or 5 mm is not subject to the 2,900 psi expansion test requirements. The hydraulic brake hose assembly shall then withstand water pressure of 4,000 psi for 2 minutes without rupture, and then shall not rupture at less than 7,000 psi for a 1/8 inch, 3 mm, or smaller diameter hose, or at less than 5,000 psi for a hose with a diameter larger than 1/8 inch or 3 mm (S6.2). "
You don't think The Market came up with that, do you?
If health insurance products were under the same amount of scrutiny, control and regulatory oversight as vehicles, we'd be making progress. (In effect, we'd be looking at the German model.)
Quote:
Have you read any data on the waiting lists in countries that have universal health care.
I lived in two of those - Denmark and Germany - for decades. The waiting lists there were for elective procedures, not critical treatment. And you could still open the checkbook and go to a private practice, if that was what you wanted.
If you want costs to fall, you have to decriminalize health care, break the monopoly, expand opportunities for medical education... so that anyone can treat everyone... that's the only way you'll have UNIVERSAL health care.
Feel free to have your neighbor take out your appendix on his kitchen table. I, for one, rather like the idea of only board-certified, licensed professionals having the right to mess around with my insides.
jetgraphicsIf you want costs to fall, you have to decriminalize health care, break the monopoly, expand opportunities for medical education... so that anyone can treat everyone... that's the only way you'll have UNIVERSAL health care.
Feel free to have your neighbor take out your appendix on his kitchen table. I, for one, rather like the idea of only board-certified, licensed professionals having the right to mess around with my insides.
Ah, but you used the WRONG WORD.
A licensed party has a PRIVILEGE to mess around with your insides.
And if he KILLS YOU he's not held criminally liable.
So why do you think a licensed individual is therefore a superior choice?
The license is not to prevent idiots, scoundrels or buffoons from practicing medicine - just read the news. Or witness a malpractice trial.
Licensure only created a MONOPOLY - scarcity - and expensive misery.
Your objection omits the folly of failure to investigate the credentials and past performance of one's choice for medical treatment.
Universal Health care coupled with universal access to medical education, without the monopoly of the AMA, would allow free enterprise to treat the suffering at the lowest cost.
I have no objection to a government providing a public access credentials bank, where one can verify the education, skills, training, and experience of a care giver. I only object to the government criminalizing the practice of medicine and the possession of medicine.
It would have also significantly reduced quality of care. As it is, quality of care and patient-doctor relationships will be negatively affected. Do you think the government, inserting itself between patient and doctor, will be concerned with how you feel about having your care regulated and restricted according to some formula they come up with (that will not have your welfare in mind). Let's see how you like being just a number.
They will see that the American public cannot be manipulated as they thought.
I work in a doctor's office, and I have related a number of "horror stories" about insurance companies on this forum. If you think they are not inserting themselves between doctor and patient, you obviously have another think coming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jetgraphics
A. Insurance companies are a reflection of the skyrocketing costs of health care. What caused the price to buy care to skyrocket in the first place?
B. Insurance companies are "for profit". Thanks to national socialism (1935), the real charitable institutions were driven out of service (the many charitable organizations that operated hospitals BEFORE costs skyrocketed).
<snip>
And do you know how these so-called charities did the above? They basically used unpaid labor, nuns who had taken a vow of poverty, and/or student nurses who were actually paying for the priviledge of working. Student nurses were often left in charge of a ward, especially at night, and so forth.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
