Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Lightbringer
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

Post by Lightbringer »

Hullu Hevonen wrote:Why, couldn't the US gov sponsor a cheap state insurance that all people can afford (those that can't afford the standard insurence prize would get it cheaper or free(eg. small children) and that covers all aspect. The medical doctor or who ever in the health care system would not be allowed to charge more then x amount of tests on the insurance cost unless he can personally motivate to a representant of the state incurance that the patient really need it. And under the insurance the doctor would also have to write percriptions to cheaper meds, but he may motivate a more costly option to the patient.
Actually it sounds like you are describing what we already have with CHIP (children's health insurance program), Medicaid (poor people), and Medicare (old people). The Democrats will not be satisfied until we have a single payer system with total government control. 1/2 isn't good enough for them. A large chunk of rising medical costs is the system trying to compensate for the drain on resources these programs represent. Doctors and hospitals are paid below cost by the government, and "pass the savings" on to those of us who are paying our own bills (and paying for the programs with our taxes).

Our system has some major problems to fix. One of the main reasons I oppose the "socialism" fix, is because we are already going broke paying for that 1/2. We can debate how much ebil control the government would exert over our lives, or whether quality would drop. But the inescapable fact is we can't afford this program as the Democrats envision it.

-Light
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

Post by Balthagor »

So if you propose doing away with the services that cover the poor, the old and the children, I'm curious what you're proposed direction for fixing it is?
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tkobo
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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First step would be to be realistic.
There is NO utopian solution.You cant save everyone.

If you look at a medicare bill, and a medical insurance bill, and a bill given to someone who doesnt have any coverage,you'll notice something very odd.

The medicare bill is the worst offender.It only pays a fraction of what the bill is supposed to be.Then comes a bill paid thru insurance,it also pays only a portion of what the total is.Both of these systems have caps and limits on how much the medical system can charge for a given service thru them.
This results in doctors and hospitals getting short changed.

Now that lost money has to be tried to be made up.Otherwise the doctor and hopistal either stop taking people with those programs ,or goes out of business.

Enter the people who have no coverage.Looking at their bill for the same service,you will see a HUGE difference.My bill for an xray for instance,is like 3x the amount my dad get billed for (in his case private insurance AND medicare)

The government is a large part of the problem causing costs to go up, as they force the medical system to accept less for a service than it should be paid.This is known as the reimbursemen rate.AND thats before the claims medicare (and other government services) refuse to honor are taken into account.

Right now many doctors refuse people on government plans becuase, as one doctor said,the reimbursement rate came out to about the equivilant of $9 hour for him.Minimum wage is about $7.25 an hour.His freaking receptionist costs him more than that.

Right now medicare is on a government enforced two week NO payment period.That means doctors will get ZERO reinbursement during this period.This is becuase like most (if not all ) of the gov medical programs,its going broke.Now the governments solution is what its done for many years now.They will reduce the reimbursement rate even farther.

Government plans are ALREADY killing off the medical industry in the US.And the party in charge at the moment,is saying "but the solution is to make the government system bigger".Which is like thinking to save caesar by handing brutus a bigger dagger......

Sooooo.... The REAL solution ? Save as many as you can WITHOUT putting everyone else in the same rising water.

Seperate the government system from the public one.Cap the government one,and incorporate all the non-profits into it and run them under government control.
Help the goverment controlled non-profits by requiring doctors do part of their residency in them .Medical schools receive federal funding,so even IF the medical student pays all of his tuition himself,his education still used government funds.Only seems fair the gov gets some of that back directly.

And run this new non-profit conglomerate with the simple unfortunate truth always in mind,theres a limit to what you can do,and you cant cross that limit without puting the entire system at risk.So when its funding for the year is all used,be it day 200 of that year,or day 364..Then services that would require more funding shut down til the next funding year.
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w00tang
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Lightbringer wrote:
w00tang wrote:Call me insane, delirious (maybe from a lack of water [_]O ) or just downright stupid; but I'd prefer not to go bankrupt having to pay for extensive surgery.
You would rather just die waiting in line for extensive surgery? :wink:
-Light
Correction:Die in a Government Subsidised line!

tkobo wrote:And you think going bankrupt paying for someone elses surgey would be the answer ....... OR becuase you were forced to pay for insurance you couldnt afford .....OR pay a fine becuase you used your right of self determination to say no to owning insurance... OR becuase the "new" government program performed just like the ones of the past,and went broke themselves,but not before taxing you into the poor house......

On the positive side, i hear the govs got some other bridges to sell....
Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but wouldn't being forced to pay insurance be my situation if there was no government healthcare scheme? Plus, I'm sure I could just stop paying for such overpriced internet to pay an extra 1% tax, and If I'm to poor to pay this tax, wouldn't I not have to pay for it?
As for the fine, well, if I earn over $100,000 a year, I have to pay an extra 1% income tax, O NOES! HOW WILL I LIVE!?
NEVER go to Canberra.
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fool
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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I'd imagine more like 7-8%.
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Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."

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Lea
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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I consider that people should be equal for health care and doctors irrespective of the income and health. That principle demands the state payment of base medical services. The Hippocratic Oath should be observed. The life and health should not depend on business profit. Businessmen should leave in additional medical services and development of new technologies.
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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All the communist and socialist supporters who want amercia to be more like them,ignore some very important things.

America isnt supposed to be more like them.We actually want to succeed here,not be dragged down to their level.
The times america has moved in that direction,it caused the same failures here, history is ripe with in countries that went that way.

America already HAS part of its medical system working on a socialist scheme.Its failing HUGELY.Its constantly unable to pay it bills,its constantly lowering the amount its even required to pay, its killing the non-socialist part of the medical system, and the "care" under it is lessened.

Now while those who would just love to see , and revel in any difficulty or failure on americas part, have no problem with such occuring.We here would prefer it didnt happen.We simply dont think "crap for all" is the way to go.
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Now while those who would just love to see , and revel in any difficulty or failure on americas part, have no problem with such occuring
Misery loves company.
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fool
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

Post by fool »

All the communist and socialist supporters who want amercia to be more like them,ignore some very important things.
8_
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Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."

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Lea
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Only very uninformed people can consider that the American health care are similar on socialist or communistic. In USSR were no insurance companies which gobble all U.S. like bloodsuckers. Medical services were practically free for the population. Foreigners came to the USSR to get Soviet experience in health care service. Also there was no sponsoring of doctors by pharmaceutic companies.
Unfortunately it has been destroyed. Capitalist units have been inserted in the Russian health care and have transformed it into Frankenstein.
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Hahhaha, yup.That killer health insurance living off the "blood profits" of those "poor proletarian serfs".Imagine their gall ! They place circa 87th in profit margin as an industry ,with depending on the health care insurer,making a whooping 2% to 7% profit !

The absolute gall i tell you !A profit ! AND up to 7% ! Why cant they turn a loss like government healthcare does !

Where oh where is our own little stalin to bring us eugenics and political purges so that we can be FREE of those blood sucking insurers !Where oh where is our own little Chavez to destroy our industry,cripple our economy,and reduce us to yet another failed socialist regime !

Surely some socialist will save us by killing off a few million of us [_]O So that those who survive can have a FREE lunch
of scraps scavaged from the great leaders leavings,when our turn in line comes !

Oh the inhumanity !7% !
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Lightbringer
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Oh Tkobo! Don't be so hard on Lea. Russians have never, in their entire history, had any human rights. So you can't blame them for falling for that communist claptrap. It sounds pretty good when the best system you knew of was serfdom. Lea, I was going to use this quote in our other thread, but here is a basic primer on "Rights"...
True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of non-interference. If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.

For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.

If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
-Dr. Walter Williams
@Balthagor Actually Tkobo stole my thunder with the separate, government run system using new Doctors working off their medical school loans. I never said that we should just toss all the poor in the ovens. But providing health care for the poor should not be a suicide mission either.

-Light
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
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Lea
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Tkobo, you have a very-very-very huge knowledge in finance, I see it.
But you do not understand my words completely. The profit is that partly comes back to people. E.g. you must look for insurance's OPEX.
It may seem to Americans that U.S.-style free enterprise — private-sector, for-profit health insurance — is naturally the most cost-effective way to pay for health care. But in fact, all the other payment systems are more efficient than ours. U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing.

France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent.

On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_13265319

I'm sorry to say that other Tkobo's phrases is logorrhea. Let them rest in peace.
Lightbringer wrote:Don't be so hard on Lea. Russians have never, in their entire history, had any human rights.
Lightbringer, your knowledge in Russian history has even more impressed me than Tkobo's words.
Lightbringer wrote:For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American.

If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
-Dr. Walter Williams
That logic demands total reject from taxes. Taxes annihilate "rights to their earnings". Or do you defend voluntary payment of taxes?
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tkobo
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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ALOT of that paperwork expense IS THE GOVERNMENT.ALOT of it IS the "TPS" reports equivilant forced on the medical industry BY government.Healthcare is as mired in bureaucracy,as politics and law is now adays.Theres a reason why one of the fastest growing industries is healthcare advocacy,which is of course adding more expense to the health industry.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01630.html

Half a world away from the U.S. health-care debate, Japan has a system that costs half as much and often achieves better medical outcomes than its American counterpart. It does so by banning insurance company profits, limiting doctor fees and accepting shortcomings in care that many well-insured Americans would find intolerable.
Japan has a stagnant economy, with a shortage of young people that hobbles prospects for growth and strangles the capacity of the debt-strapped government to increase health-care spending. Without reform, costs are projected to double, reaching current U.S. levels in a decade, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Japanese hospitals experience a "crowding out" effect, with space for emergency care and serious medical conditions sometimes overwhelmed by a flood of patients seeking routine treatment, said Naohiro Yashiro, a professor of economics and health-care expert at International Christian University in Tokyo.

"Patients are treated too equally," he said. "Beds are occupied by less-urgent cases, and there are no penalties for those who over-use the system."
etc...

Yup, thats just soooooo impressive :roll: .A system doomed to fail unless it cuts back even more, that already has its own glaring holes to begin with,that will soon go bankrupt unless drastically changed....I know it might be hard for socialists and communists to understand, as failure and mediocracy is the accepted standard for those types of government,but that failure is NOT something rational others want to emulate.

While we are willing to a point,to keep handing out food and assistance to the failed countries of the world, while they try to grow up and mature.
We in NO way want to become yet another of them.But thanks for offering us a route should we ever change our mind about it :P We are after all sure you offer it only in emulation of stalins well known great love for the west .
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Lightbringer
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Re: Great Moments in Nationalized Health Care...

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Lea wrote:That logic demands total reject from taxes. Taxes annihilate "rights to their earnings". Or do you defend voluntary payment of taxes?
Save your straw man "all or nothing" arguments for the other thread. When tax dollars are collected and spent on legitimate government responsibilities that can not be handled by individuals, such as national defense, then no person's Rights are being infringed to benefit one citizen over another. All benefit. Nationalized Health Care benefits some and infringes upon others, hence the concept is flawed.
Lea wrote:Lightbringer, your knowledge in Russian history has even more impressed me than Tkobo's words.
Please prove to me that Russians have ever had any Rights that were not begrudgingly bestowed by your various tyrannical, authoritarian dictatorships? Did the Serfs have rights under the Czars? Perhaps the Komrades did under Stalin et al.? Any rights that your government can take away on a whim are not rights, they are no different than a slave master giving his slaves some extra food and short work on Sunday. Has any Russian ever successfully sued the government for violating his/her rights? This is why you glibly chatter about giving them up like throwing away an old shirt, because you have no true understanding of them.

-Light
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill
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