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And yet one of the reasons given for why 'Medicare for all' is a bad idea is that the reimbursement rates providers get from government programs are lower than what private insurers will pay for a given action or procedure and doctors and hospitals wouldn't make enough money to want to remain as providers without the reimbursement rates they get from private insurers.
Can't have it both ways
BeachMouse, I haven't encountered any problem with Medicare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Supposn
Does Medicare compensate doctors better than Medicaid does?
States pay substantial, (If not the major) portions of payments to Medicaid service providers, while Medicare is a federal program. Do differences of allowable rates induce doctors to accept Medicare, but not Medicaid patients? Do any members know the answer to this? Is Medicaid more acceptable by doctors in some states than others?
Do any of this group's members actually know of this?
And what if modern medicine has peaked? At least temporarily.
The best contributors to first world health weren’t even medical advances; clean drinking water, climate control, sanitation services, antibacterials, antiseptics, pest control, etc ...
Ever since we achieved IV fluids, antibiotics, supplemental O2, antihistamines, laboratory & imaging diagnostics, prenatal care, sterile surgery, insulin, albuterol & a few others; it’s been nothing but politics & pharma fiddle-f****ng around. For a fee, of course.
Now we have a CDC using the playbook written by Big Tobacco & Cold War competition that outlasted the Cold War. It’s still about swagger, which has no place in medical science.
It seems our life expectancy has peaked as well
See, I don’t think the very recent demographic indicators of ‘the fittest’ are sustainable & if socio-economic status winds up having a detrimental impact on health & mortality; things could start looking very different, very soon.
Rest assured, advances are being made all of the time. As with anything, most are incremental, but they do add up. Of course, the innovators want to be paid as well. One of the more recent trends has been to take cures for diseases and find ways of creating cures for the pockets of people that this doesn't work for. As the pockets of people that get cured gets smaller, the price goes up.
When I was growing up, there were two diseases that would kill you. HIV/AIDS and Hep C. Gilead has made the former extremely manageable and the latter cured outright.
Growing up, getting cancer was generally a death sentence as well. It no longer is in many cases.
Now, the medical community can advance, but it doesn't change a world that's getting more obese, sedentary and is fine with drugs, alcohol and driving too fast.
Do you have a link to a coherent Economic Darwinism or Medical Darwinism website so we can read it, and come back to comment?
RationalExpectations, It's not unusual for my recall, particularly recall of names and dates) to be less than accurate.
I recall a speaker during a presidential election year describing a person that could have afforded but failed to purchase medical insurance. The person later came to a hospital with an uninsurable and life-threatening condition beyond the person's immediate and long term financial ability to fund.
The speaker's rhetorical question was, “What should the hospital do?”. The audience repeatedly chanted, “Let him die!!”. I believe the speaker was Ron Paul.
That's the Darwinist concept that you find throughout these internet discussion forums. You don't need links to find them.
The movie Idiocracy seems to be playing out in real time. There doesn't seem to be too many Nuclear Physicists having 4-6 children.
I spend ski season in Utah, and some of my neighbors have engineering degrees in EE, ME, BioEngineering, and tend to work in high tech or bio-tech companies located in Silicon Slopes. Many have 6+ children. But then again, its Utah.
RationalExpectations, It's not unusual for my recall, particularly recall of names and dates) to be less than accurate.
I recall a speaker during a presidential election year describing a person that could have afforded but failed to purchase medical insurance. The person later came to a hospital with an uninsurable and life-threatening condition beyond the person's immediate and long term financial ability to fund.
The speaker's rhetorical question was, “What should the hospital do?”. The audience repeatedly chanted, “Let him die!!”. I believe the speaker was Ron Paul.
That's the Darwinist concept that you find throughout these internet discussion forums. You don't need links to find them.
I don't find that anecdote particularly useful. What you describe is a conscious choice to be self-insured, and has nothing to do with Darwinism (survival of the fittest). I am self-insured against earthquake damage in my residence; it has nothing to do with Survival of the Fittest.
I don't find that anecdote particularly useful. What you describe is a conscious choice to be self-insured, and has nothing to do with Darwinism (survival of the fittest). I am self-insured against earthquake damage in my residence; it has nothing to do with Survival of the Fittest.
RationalExpectations, the speaker described an uninsured person, who in the speaker's opinion, could have afforded to purchase medical insurance. Regardless of if the speaker's assessment of another person's finances was correct or incorrect, that person couldn't afford to be self-insured, but at the time of need, that person was uninsured.
A liberal is likely to contend, that because almost all persons cannot afford to be medically self-insured, and a substantial portion of those same people cannot afford medical insurance, and peoples additional extents of illness, disabilities, and eventual deaths due to lack of medical care are detrimental to our nation's economic and social wellbeing, that's a strong argument in favor government subsidizing all basic medical coverages, and Medicaid for those that cannot afford even subsidized medical insurance.
Ron Paul and his audience of followers contended regardless if a why a person was uninsured, (regardless if it was due to foolishness, or stinginess, or unanticipated financial circumstances), our society should not be burdened.
They believe in survival of the fittest. It's economically imperative that our nation should "Let him die!! Let him die!! Let him die!!
That's the Darwinist concept I encounter throughout these internet discussion forums.
... I am self-insured against earthquake damage in my residence ...
RationalExpectations, I'd regret if the consequences of your decision to be self-insured against earthquake damage should become unfortunate for you. If you suffer a catastrophe, it would be of some detriment to your family, community, and our nation's economic and social wellbeing.
It's my opinion unless catastrophic insurance is really unaffordable, self-insurance is a poor decision. Wealthier people can better afford to be self-insured, and I suppose only financial advisors of the most extremely wealthy persons do not advise their clients to pay the costs for insurance.
Life comes at a price. In order for you to live and feel great, someone has to die and feel miserable.
Most Americans are shielded from the true costs of life and the real state of "humanity". Many U.S. Troops died in WWII but not nearly as many as from other countries. Homeland was barely scathed (Pearl Harbor) in comparison to the significant devastation to Europe and in Asia to civilian cities and towns.
We are brainwashed and distracted by the media and believe that if a person is not successful or tragedy of any kind befalls them (health, security, financial, etc.) it's their fault and there's something they could have done to mitigate exposure or risk. That could be true in many circumstances pertaining to the (now) optional choice of reproduction. But in other regards (aside from born in the "wrong place, wrong time") it comes down to circumstances potentially beyond one's individual control.
The best anyone can do is become a professional surfer and ride the waves as best as you can. But apart from a few levers, many folks are just born into disadvantageous circumstances and only a select few can buck that trend. As of 2014, about 150 million or 50% of all Americans are dependent on some form of Government assistance. That should tell you all you need to know about the state of humanity today. We're zombies being kept alive through artificial means in a self-created bubble that protects us from the natural culling of mother nature (disease, conflict/violence and lack of resources).
Through leaps and bounds in agricultural, medical and technological sciences we've been able to insulate the weakest of us from being exterminated. However, that in the end will come back to bite us as this evolution is not physical or mental, and will ultimately weaken our natural abilities as a species by handicapping us. The reality is if we don't cull and put our own selective pressure in, mother nature will do that for us and break through this bubble we've created. And we won't like the way that she does it. It will (and currently is through global warming) be far more devastating than any self-selection method we could come up with. And much less equitable or logical.
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