FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Topper, you are schizo.
The current plan is a rude goldberg device that has most of the benefits of a nationalized system without actually being nationalized.
For Health Care Reform to Succeed
- Thread starter Mott the Hoople
- Start date
Topper, you are schizo.
The current plan is a rude goldberg device that has most of the benefits of a nationalized system without actually being nationalized.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I'm sorry but that is simply ideological free market claptrap. Market failures is one of the biggest cuase of spiraling health care costs and one of the biggest source of regulatory costs is not from the goverment but from the byzantine and excessive administrative costs of the myriad health insurance providers. In one fell swoop a national health insurance program would eliminate most of that excessive beaurocratic costs and that's a huge reason why most modern nations have a national health care system. Financing health care is the first and most important step in controlling cost. The market alone, as is well documented, just simply cannot do this with out limits being placed upon that market and it must have a system for financing that health care.
The most important factors impacting health care costs in the US are;
Market failure - In health care the free market system has not lead to an efficient allocation of our health care resources. Five factors have lead to this market failure.
1. Suppliers often influence demand.
2. Health care consumers in the US are not cost conscience when using medical care.
3. Workers are shielded from the true costs of health care.
4. Uncertainty for the services needed in treating individuals leads to fee-for-service reimbursement.
5. Information is lacking as to what actually works.
Technology - The development and implementation of new technologies and their corresponding cost often leads to a broadening of their intended scope of use. This often leads to excess capacity with an attendant incentive to increase their use. This often leads to misuse and over use of these technologies which drives up costs. I can give you an example of this from my own experience. My wife had a bicycling accident. The ambulance trip cost $450. The emergency room services cost $1,500. The MRI fees cost $8,000. In her case a simple A-P and Lateral X-ray costing a few hundred dollars would have rulled out bone fractures. MRI was over kill and I paid dearly for that. In short because of the over use of technology what should have cost $2,000 cost me and my insurance provider $10,000.
Administration - This is one of the biggest areas in which cost savings can occur. It is estimated that 25% of our nations annual health care costs come from administration. Government has very little responsibility for this cost. Most of this costs is due to the multitudes of Insurance companies and the variety of methods in which they process claims, market their services, enrollment and eligibility determinations (including risk profiling) and equity disparity (administrative costs for small companies are around 35% higher than for large companies). All this administrative cost can be hugely reduced via a national health care insurance system and its corresponding administrative standardization which should have electronic records.
Unnecessary Care and Defensive Medicine - How many of us have had a relative who had a toneselectomy or a hystorectomy that were told it was "preventaive"? In most cases these were probably unnecessary care. Defensive medicine, though exagerated by those advocationg tort reform has a significant impact on cost in that it incentivizes the over use of technology and studies have shown that increases in malpractice premiums costs consumers and annual 1% increase in the cost of physician services. Though this pales compared to other cost factors it is certainly a significant factor.
Excess Capacity - He have both an excess of hospitals and physicians which drive up costs. Though hospital occupancy varied from region to region between 45 and 65% of hospital beds remain unoccupied. We also have more physicians per capita then any nation.
Productivity - Health care, as an industry, has been slow to adopt modern productivity management, such as, electronic forms, total quality management, continous measurable improvement management, etc. The end result is that Health Care, as an industry, is task centered in its management and is not process centered. This, again, drives up cost.
Of these six factors, the first three have the biggest impact on cost management (Market Failure, Technology and Administration).
Most of these can be corrected by implementing the three principles I stated earlier.
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Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Really? What about Japan, Tawain, Germany and Switzerland?
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Well you wouldn't but that's not the issue here. We're not concerned about maximizing profits for insurance companies and that's not what a national health care system should be about. It should be about providing a cost affective and accesible health care system for our nation. Profits for the insurance industry are a secondary consideration. If insurance companies don't like the reforms being made for the best interest of the American public then they can quite simply get out of the market. That's not going to happen though, is it? They will stay in the business even if they have to operate as a non-profit organization.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Not only is that an irrelevent question it's utterly stupid. If there system is so much better then ours why can't we do as they do to improve our system?
SmarterthanYou
rebel
you're assuming that most people here think their system is better. I'm going off of the declaration that you say it is. If you approve of their system more than ours, why not declare your allegiance and become one of their citizens to partake in it?
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
No. Most people think our health care system is way to expensive for the level of quality it provides. Other wealthy nations deliever a higher quality of health care then ours and substantially lower cost. We spend a greater percent of GNP on health care (a whopping 16%) compared to other wealthy nations who spend around 6 to 8% of GNP and they obtain better measurable results then we do. They must be doing something right and to suggest that wanting to learn from them is somehow treasonable is "I-FAILED-MY-GED LEVEL OF STUPID!!!"
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
but for God's sakes don't try to fix it.
Exactly; can't imagine where we'd be today if we always thought every idea we had was the best & that nothing could be improved on using other ideas...
SmarterthanYou
rebel
gonna disagree with part of this. all too often I see or read about some higher up government official from one of these so called high quality healthcare nations coming to the USA for some highly developed and very intricate procedure because either there isn't a doctor in their nation able to do it or the wait to have it done is longer than they care to wait, so they use their own money from their millions to obtain the care they feel they need. No, I cannot buy that other nations healthcare systems are higher quality. I will buy that it's less expensive than ours, but that appears to be the tradeoff.
With attempting to fix the problem of expensive healthcare from the wrong end of the animal, they've handcuffed themselves in to a poorer state of health care services. Why should we follow that path?
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
"All too often" you read?
I'm sorry, that is not a good substitute for evidence.
Good Luck
New member
You keep making a lot of unsupported claims about the cause of increasing prices being due to the market system. Prove it. For instance, try showing that profit margins and ROI figures are substantially higher than in other industries. If you cannot do that, show that supply is purposely withheld to increase prices or other factor proving your assertions.
Or you could quit with the mindless rhetoric and look at the real situation, such as the average costs of bringing a new drug onto the market, including the amount of money spent in basic research, the amount spent pursuing dead ends, and especially the amount spent meeting the innumerable demands of federal regulations.
Maybe you could look into the federal regulations governing the manufacture and operation of MRI equipment, since you had to deal with the costs of having one. While you're at it, look into the number of lawsuits - and how much they cost the hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies - resulting from undiagnosed soft tissue injuries in accidents.
You keep sounding off like the medical market is a free market. Do you deny the fact that no drug may be introduced into the market without first meeting federal regulations and requirements clinical trials? Do you deny that ultimately the FDA can withhold the introduction of a new drug or treatment indefinitely, even if the drug meets all federal requirements? How the HELL can you keep a straight face when labeling "free market" an industry which must receive approval from government agencies for every step they take in the research, development, and application of medical treatments, procedures and equipment? Your rhetoric just shows blind partisan parroting, rather than genuine free thinking analysis.
Face it, it is your beloved federal governmental interference and thousands of pages of overlapping, redundant, conflicting, and EXPENSIVE regulations doing more to harm our health care system than any greed factor.
Or you could quit with the mindless rhetoric and look at the real situation, such as the average costs of bringing a new drug onto the market, including the amount of money spent in basic research, the amount spent pursuing dead ends, and especially the amount spent meeting the innumerable demands of federal regulations.
Maybe you could look into the federal regulations governing the manufacture and operation of MRI equipment, since you had to deal with the costs of having one. While you're at it, look into the number of lawsuits - and how much they cost the hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies - resulting from undiagnosed soft tissue injuries in accidents.
You keep sounding off like the medical market is a free market. Do you deny the fact that no drug may be introduced into the market without first meeting federal regulations and requirements clinical trials? Do you deny that ultimately the FDA can withhold the introduction of a new drug or treatment indefinitely, even if the drug meets all federal requirements? How the HELL can you keep a straight face when labeling "free market" an industry which must receive approval from government agencies for every step they take in the research, development, and application of medical treatments, procedures and equipment? Your rhetoric just shows blind partisan parroting, rather than genuine free thinking analysis.
Face it, it is your beloved federal governmental interference and thousands of pages of overlapping, redundant, conflicting, and EXPENSIVE regulations doing more to harm our health care system than any greed factor.
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FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Ah, regulation. You don't understand it, and it takes a lot work in the field to understand it, and therefore it is infinitely open to description as the source of all evils.
Just more blah blah blah blah blah from Good Luck.
Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
There are several problems with Mott's assertions, as well as this whole Health Care Reform debate. First of all, it is not written anywhere in the Constitution, where it is government's job, or the taxpayer's duty, to take care of everyone's health care needs. Sorry, but it's just not there. That said, the United States goes above and beyond the call of duty to provide top quality health care to more people than any other country on the planet. Indigent care laws were enacted in the 1980s, which mandate every hospital and medical center in the country, to provide emergency care for people regardless of ability to pay. Every major city in America has a Public Health Clinic, funded and operated by the state, in order to provide health care at little to no cost for the individual.
You see, LONG ago, the collective voice of the people decided to take care of this problem, precisely because it was deplorable to have people getting sick without any means of health care. This is the primary reason we adopted Medicare and Medicaid, to provide health care to those who couldn't afford it. To hear liberals tell it, these programs do not exist and we have never addressed this problem, but the facts and history tell another story. We've probably already spent more money than most countries spend on total health care, just for freebie programs to benefit the poor and elderly.
Next is Mott's insidious attacks on the greedy capitalist pigs who run the health insurance companies. Did you know, the average health insurance company makes only about 4% net profit? In fact, health insurance companies are historically among the worst stock investments, because there is such little profit (or growth) in the industry. Hospitals do not fair much better, many of them are having to close their doors because they are bankrupt. Forced to eat the cost of indigent care in most cases, the hospitals struggle to stay in the black, largely depending on municipalities helping with the burden, or private contributions.
Next, there is Mott's ignorance of how insurance works, and how capitalism works for that matter. The health insurance companies, like every business, are there to make a profit... as I mentioned earlier, not a large profit, just a profit. They charge a "premium" based on the likelihood of a possible claim, it's like a bet. Insurance bets you will not get sick, while you wager you will get sick. The odds of you getting sick will determine risk for the insurance company. If you are a healthy person who hasn't had any major medical issues in the past 10 years, your "premium" may not be very much, while someone with a history of being sick, can expect to pay more, because there is more of a risk being taken by the insurance company. Some people are simply uninsurable! Yeah, I know that comes as a shocker to the pie-in-the-sky liberals like Mott, but it's just the plain old truth of the matter. Someone who has, say, AIDS... has what is called a "pre-existing condition" and this particular condition is known to cause all kinds of related health issues because it destroys the immune system. These people have a difficult time obtaining insurance at any cost, because the risk of them getting sick is almost 100% guaranteed, and insurance doesn't work like that. Imagine what would happen if you totaled your uninsured car, and then went to State Farm and said... I don't have insurance but I just totaled my car, I demand to be covered! Insurance companies would go broke because no one would buy insurance until they had an accident and needed it.
So this whole notion that we can insure everyone, is silly. IF we tried to do this, the inherent cost to insure the highest risk individuals, would make the overall cost of insurance astronomically higher for everyone else. Perhaps this is why the Democratic plan currently on the table, does NOT insure every American, and still leaves over 26 million uninsured.
Finally, I would like to address Mott's incompetent understanding of how the real world works. He may THINK he can mandate what doctors will have to accept, or that our government can appoint a czar to regulate how much they make.... but the reality is, a doctor doesn't have to practice medicine to make a living. He can give lectures and seminars, he can write a book, he can teach, he can do research, or he can work on his golf handicap. There are a whole bunch of things a doctor CAN do, besides going along with Mott's government mandates. Doctors make a lot of money because they went to school over half their life, studied their asses off, worked hard to get that title and the prestige which accompanies it. But Mott thinks it's unfair that they have so much while others have so little, so he wants to steal their wealth and give it to the poor, like a modern-day Robin Hood. The biggest problem Mott will have is, the doctors are far smarter than Mott.
Do we have some problems with our health care system? Sure we do! No one is claiming we have a perfect system, and there are some changes which should be made, to make things better across the board. But dismantling the entire system to replace it with government-run health care, is far too drastic and extreme, and will destroy the best health care in the world in the process. And it's not like we have some shining example of how great and wonderful government-run health care is in America... The VA, Medicare, Medicaid, all broke, all inefficient, all delivering sub-par results.
You see, LONG ago, the collective voice of the people decided to take care of this problem, precisely because it was deplorable to have people getting sick without any means of health care. This is the primary reason we adopted Medicare and Medicaid, to provide health care to those who couldn't afford it. To hear liberals tell it, these programs do not exist and we have never addressed this problem, but the facts and history tell another story. We've probably already spent more money than most countries spend on total health care, just for freebie programs to benefit the poor and elderly.
Next is Mott's insidious attacks on the greedy capitalist pigs who run the health insurance companies. Did you know, the average health insurance company makes only about 4% net profit? In fact, health insurance companies are historically among the worst stock investments, because there is such little profit (or growth) in the industry. Hospitals do not fair much better, many of them are having to close their doors because they are bankrupt. Forced to eat the cost of indigent care in most cases, the hospitals struggle to stay in the black, largely depending on municipalities helping with the burden, or private contributions.
Next, there is Mott's ignorance of how insurance works, and how capitalism works for that matter. The health insurance companies, like every business, are there to make a profit... as I mentioned earlier, not a large profit, just a profit. They charge a "premium" based on the likelihood of a possible claim, it's like a bet. Insurance bets you will not get sick, while you wager you will get sick. The odds of you getting sick will determine risk for the insurance company. If you are a healthy person who hasn't had any major medical issues in the past 10 years, your "premium" may not be very much, while someone with a history of being sick, can expect to pay more, because there is more of a risk being taken by the insurance company. Some people are simply uninsurable! Yeah, I know that comes as a shocker to the pie-in-the-sky liberals like Mott, but it's just the plain old truth of the matter. Someone who has, say, AIDS... has what is called a "pre-existing condition" and this particular condition is known to cause all kinds of related health issues because it destroys the immune system. These people have a difficult time obtaining insurance at any cost, because the risk of them getting sick is almost 100% guaranteed, and insurance doesn't work like that. Imagine what would happen if you totaled your uninsured car, and then went to State Farm and said... I don't have insurance but I just totaled my car, I demand to be covered! Insurance companies would go broke because no one would buy insurance until they had an accident and needed it.
So this whole notion that we can insure everyone, is silly. IF we tried to do this, the inherent cost to insure the highest risk individuals, would make the overall cost of insurance astronomically higher for everyone else. Perhaps this is why the Democratic plan currently on the table, does NOT insure every American, and still leaves over 26 million uninsured.
Finally, I would like to address Mott's incompetent understanding of how the real world works. He may THINK he can mandate what doctors will have to accept, or that our government can appoint a czar to regulate how much they make.... but the reality is, a doctor doesn't have to practice medicine to make a living. He can give lectures and seminars, he can write a book, he can teach, he can do research, or he can work on his golf handicap. There are a whole bunch of things a doctor CAN do, besides going along with Mott's government mandates. Doctors make a lot of money because they went to school over half their life, studied their asses off, worked hard to get that title and the prestige which accompanies it. But Mott thinks it's unfair that they have so much while others have so little, so he wants to steal their wealth and give it to the poor, like a modern-day Robin Hood. The biggest problem Mott will have is, the doctors are far smarter than Mott.
Do we have some problems with our health care system? Sure we do! No one is claiming we have a perfect system, and there are some changes which should be made, to make things better across the board. But dismantling the entire system to replace it with government-run health care, is far too drastic and extreme, and will destroy the best health care in the world in the process. And it's not like we have some shining example of how great and wonderful government-run health care is in America... The VA, Medicare, Medicaid, all broke, all inefficient, all delivering sub-par results.
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Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Clearly you didn't read the definition of "Market Failure" that I provided for you. It's not the failure of a company to make a profit or realize a profit. It's the inability for that market to efficiently allocate a resource to meet public demand. Using that definition I've clearly listed the reasons why market failure has occured in the US health care system.
You also didn't read the section in which I stated technology is one of the big factors affecting cost. Does regulation impact the cost of technology? Yes but it's not the only factor and you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. Those regulations are in place to protect the public from illegitimate medical practices, bogus technologies and snake oil peddlars. All modern nations have such regulatory systems, the US is in no way unique there. If those modern nations can address the issue of the cost of technology with out undermining consumer and public protections then so can we. In other words, your argument is with out merit.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Dixie....you didn't read my post did you? I'd call your post here one great big strawman but how can one misrperesent someting someone never said?
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
You miss the point. The debate in health care is not about quality of health care service. The quality of health care service in the US quite possibly the best in the world. That's not the issue. The issue in the US about health care is availability, access and cost.
Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
No, I read your post and responded in total. I didn't break it down into individual parts and address it point by point, because frankly, you didn't make any points. All I read was a bunch of unfounded blather and your opinion based on how you view the real world.
For health care reform to work, first there must be reform! Presently, we don't have reform, we have a complete dismantling of an entire capitalist system and replacing it with a socialist system. We already know from past history, this will not ever work, and can only lead to worse health care quality for every American. Still, you press forward with your Fascist ideas and philosophies of how you would make this work, even when the majority of America is in total disagreement with you.