While some conservatives claim that Obama wants to kill your granny I hesitate to accept that as Obamas sole reason for pushing the health care reform.
From the private insurers point of view it makes perfect sense to oppose the reform ... if they didn't, they'd face an immense decline in profits if either the government option provides better care or if regulations bar insurers from avoiding costs by their current methods.
But it's a bit too simplicistic to merely claim that one party acts out of altruism (or a loathing of old ladies) and the other out of greed.
So, what do you think are the driving motives in this dispute ?
(Note that I don't ask you what you think is the better solution.)
Pro (Motives of the health care reform advocates):
Con (Motives of the health care reform opponents):
Two key issues that make the health care reform necessary in the eyes of the proponents are quailty and cost.
Quality has been discussed to death and information (and misinformation) is freely available.
Cost is harder to estimate - one simply can't understand what estimated costs of trillions of dollars over decades means for your paycheck. So I started a different thread where I want to compare the personal average cost of health care in different countries.
For example: German average gross income is about €2,500. After deductions (including health insurance) a single person without kids gets to keep about €1,500.
And what can germans do with that money in germany? Why, buy beer, of course. €1,500 get you 1,200 litre of high quality Pilsener beer - twice as much if you don't care about quality and go for the cheap labels.
Health care costs: €185 per month (currently $264)
Cheers!
Yup. Definitely in the same League (LOL). You need to recheck the dosage or whatever.
Melchiz....you happen to be one of the few worth the effort.
You are a sweetie.
Also, here's something we should consider:
If this year's attempt at reform fails, what happens? What would a reform bill need to contain in order to pass? Keep in mind that the Democrats could easily pass reform themselves. This isn't a "Republicans aren't cooperating *grumble*" issue.
No, that's not ALL I'm saying. Although that part is true as well; until you've worked in a research environment you have no idea how expensive research is.
The European/Canadian style drug plans are based on extortion, pure and simple. A government enters "negotiations" with the drug companies in which the starting position is "We know what your drug is and how to make it. If you dont' agree with the price we are willing to pay for it, we simply won't respect the patent you have on the drug and we'll make our own."
As a result of this, the Europeans and Canadians pay about what Americans pay for the generic version of a drug; that is, what Americans pay for the drug after the patent runs out. This price never reflects R&D costs because the company making the generic never spent anything for R&D, and the company who *did* has to compete with the generic price.
This is why reimportation schemes scare the living shit out of drug companies, and any patient that can tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Canadians should be opposed to reimportation; if it passes, it will mean the end of all private drug research in the US. It will simply not be possible for research to *ever* turn a profit, because the company doing the research won't be able to set prices high enough to cover the expense. You benefit as much from US research as we do, you should be seeking to protect our industry as much as you can (while continuing to screw it as you currently are. Yeah, that makes no sense but it's the best course of action FOR YOU).
Then I think I'll just stay in San Francisco where I can get universal health care (provided my income is less than 52k if I'm single). Yeah, it's called Healthy San Francisco.
Oh, did I mention it only costs 3% of the cities annual expenditures, while covering 45k/60k uninsured people...regardless of immigrant status? (san francisco requires businesses with 20 or more employees to provide health care to their workers: an extra $1-2/hr -- assuming no health insurance is already being provided -- is payed by the employer to the city where the employee can then use that money on insurance, or buy into the healthy san francisco system at a 75% reduced cost) http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2009/03/19/simon.health.san.francisco.cnn?iref=videosearch
What's cooler than that? Oh, the fact that it has a 94% satisfaction rating. Contrast that with health insurance. It has a 64% satisfaction rating. (you can also look at is as health insurance having six times as many unsatisfied persons on a per person basis) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/26/BAB719DL29.DTL ; http://ifawebnews.com/2009/08/07/health-insurance-plans-rank-ahead-of-cable-tv-service-in-survey/
And of course, San Francisco is one of the most diverse cities in the country: http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/mocd/demoprofile.pdf (look at page 3)
Actually, nevermind, San Francisco is crazy, right?
What do you guys opposed to government control think of Healthy San Francsico? Is a government health care plan as a sub-national level acceptable?
Speculative or predictable, here's a guess; the already announced Federal Deficit will double up within the next 3_5 years... and unemployment rates should stagnate near 10_15% on average soon after that.
Um, isn't that supposed to happen, regardless? I'm sure more "stimulus" money or another healthcare bill will fix things. Yes, spend more and the deficit will decrease! How, you ask? Well, don't ask.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10521/08-25-BudgetUpdate.pdf
More like Bankrupt San Francisco. You guys were half a billion in the hole last year, nearly half of your total discretionary spending. Your two year old program is sitting on a shrinking tax base with expanding costs. Those aren't the right directions to be going. You'd be in the same condition the federal budget is in if it weren't for that pesky requirement that they balance it.
Irrelevant. This has dick to do with medicare. Medicare is for old people. Old retired people. The only fiscal impacts to be made are in the wrong direction.
Ignoring medicare, still utterly irrelevant. The hundreds of millions of dollars a year or whatever it is that we spend saving cancer patients under the age of 20 could have funded the educations of millions of college students every year. It could fund high quality monitoring so our absurd foster care system we shouldn't even have isn't breeding criminals. It could be loaned out as venture capital with a near inflation rate of return to spur enterprenureship. Pissing away money for the hope of a gain that will never outwiegh the cost is stupid. For every Gates, there are millions who would be a debt to society. You cannot justify spending massive amounts of money by pointing to inconsequential gains. It is purely a charitable act when you spend millions on someone that can't pay their own costs.
You've under-estimated his costs. There's surviving cancer, and barely surviving cancer on multiple occasions.
Multiple recurrences of lymphoma, all of them caught late because it mimics pneumonia, misdiagnosed limes disease(caused the lymphoma), irregular heart beat, multiple strokes, diabetes, low blood pressure, the list goes on. Combine all of those with the side effects and drug interaction problems and you've got a guy that blew a hundred thousand a year without even trying. He may have broke that every month for the first couple years. We expected him to die every time he got tagged with it, the dumb shit doctors down here do one hell of a bang up job spotting his variant. He was in the late stages with weeks to live every bloody time they started treatments. I remember getting told he was dying the first time he got hit with it, they didn't say anything till they were sure he wasn't getting better, and then it was months more before he started improving. All together, he spent months of his life in intensive care, months more hospitalized in general, and years of cancer treatments besides that, every bit government funded.
As far as his children goes, one of them died around 20, one of them has been on full disability since his mid 20's because of a particularly bad case of crones(he's an even bigger net loss if he lives long enough), the other two aren't finished making money. Part time occasionally working house wives aren't real big contributors to the money pool, so one kid is all he's got to make it up. He isn't finished working yet, but he sure as hell hasn't made the millions that got burned by my grandfather even if we don't subtract for uncle crones. Assuming he works till he drops, which is currently his plan, maybe we'll get close to breaking even, but I'd have to go tally the costs up to be sure, but rifling through several hundred bills isn't my idea of fun. More likely he'll kick the bucket via stress related heart attack and my uncle will take us further into the negative. Never mind that medicare contributions are a small fraction of income.
My family's contribution to society is a huge gaping hole in your wallet where money used to be. That and my acid tongue.
You didn't read my post. I said 3% of the total SF budget was spent on this system. Especially with a system that hopes to be a model for the rest of the country, it's not step one for budget cuts.
By the way, a quote from the SF Chronicle: "While San Francisco saw its employment rate shrink due to the struggling economy, it actually shrank less than other counties." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/21/BA8N19BES7.DTL#ixzz0PMQTz0Vs so we actually aren't doing as bad as some might think.
also, you need to keep in mind most of the money spent on the system was already being spent. San Francisco already had a series of health clinics and it already payed for the ER costs of the homeless and very poor. This system is just trying to divert that money to preventative care.
True but then I'd rather spend it on saving peoples loved ones than forking out millions every year to offer top notch medical care to inmates who wish to go out and actually detract from society intentionally. hard working people all over the US dieng with no med care but yet repeat offenders in prison get full meals,room and board, education,top medical care. All on our dime, including those very expensive cancer treatments etc. its sad but really in todays day and age that prison offers the majority a better life style than can be afforded other wise.
Medicare was to help older generations who put out the work, to have a cushion for retirement like social security was. But with the rising costs of treatment it has become more costly than it's capable of sustaining. I understand your thought on the costs of saving a life Vs the $$ worth of the life saved... But then Who Am I to decide who is worth saving and Who is not?
Maybe its not medicare that needs reform, but maybe the extreme costs of treatment that needs looking in to for reform.
I found this part of this article pretty interesting...
"John Sweeney, president of the National AFL-CIO, said that "despite all the hot air in Washington right now," he's confident real reform will pass soon. He said 250,000 union workers nationwide are being trained to advocate for reform to combat the right-wing push to fight it."
Wow. A quarter of a million union workers are being "trained".
Sit. Roll over. Play dead...
And will this change, in any way, with this new 'health care/insurance' reform?
No. The new stuff will only add to the cost overall.
But, if you can point me to the part(s) of the bill(s) being pushed forward that would refute that opinion - please do so.
Is there something in there that would divert current funds from inmates to 'peoples loved ones'?
(As a side question. Can no inmate be considered a 'loved one', by someone?)
OK what part of I dont think the gov getting involved will be a good thing did you not understand? wow keep up please...
First of all we should try to fix what is already fubared with the Gov medical system before trying to add more on top of it.
The portion you pasted I was refering to medicare and the inmate Healthcare systems both of which are already inplace. So were already spending the cash on either medicare or inmates, and to me I'd rather spend the majority of the already allocated funds on those who are atleast trying to be a contribution to society no mater how small the contribution is, over those who choose to repeatedly detract from society intentionally..
Sure an inmate can be a loved one, and I should have worded it as above instead of loved ones Vs inmates. "" I'd rather spend the majority of the funds on those who are atleast trying to be a contribution to society no mater how small the contribution is, over those who choose to repeatedly detract from society intentionally.""
Still, you attribute those that are in jail are those that "choose to repeatedly detract from society intentionally."
Many are not.
I don't "choose to repeatedly detract from society intentionally.", but I may be in jail soon because I can not afford to pay past child support for children (one of whom is not mine) who are all now in their 30's.
Would I deserve proper medical care if I go to jail?
Or do I deserve to simply suffer and die in jail because she decided to cast me out, after getting pregnant by another guy, and sending my name to the county Child Support authorities and enforcing it to even today?
I never stated that all who are in jail are repeat offendors, I stated those in prison who choose to repeatedly detract from society intentionally.. should not get the best care possible while the working stiff goes without. Also in your scenario you did not "choose to be a repeat offender" so you would not fit in to the statement I made.
You just assume that I mean all inmates. But if that was the case I would have said "all funds to go to the contributors of society and none to inmates." But I did not as I realize there are non repeat offendors.
I love how some miss the point and feel the need to get picky over the semantics of a post. Even tho the semantics they argue about are simply assumptions they have made.
And here it is:
Predictable appeals to emotion as members of Congress become more desperate to pass a reform bill: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26471.html
I support local communities getting together and deciding what they want to do as a community. What I object to is doing things on a national level.
If I like what my local community is doing, I can actively participate. If I don't like it, I can move.
Much harder to move out of your country (or even state) than it is to move to a different town.
Country governments are, by definition, monopolies within a country. They should be subject to at least the same checks and controls as other monopolies and trusts within the borders.
Oh'com'on -- Stop the sarcasm... this mess is outa control and if they wait much longer, private insurers and the health *INDUSTRY* will increase the expenses sooooo much that people (as in active populations, including government, btw) will keep on losing taxable incomes, houses and their minimal means of living. Fiscality - 101.
Bailouts for the banks & car manufacturers, reasonable costs for the sustainable workforce when premiums fail to absorb its mandate; medical interventions priced to profit rather than cure.
At least they can negotiate a contract & its fairplay conditions. But everyone knows how tough it is to have some leverage on performance, quality, reliability, capacity, productivity at work without standards & open-minded collaboration within ANY industries in the UnitedSA.
Unions or Syndicates invest in workforce progress despite your local WallyMartys invasion by throatcut enslavering of staff... for shareholders who wouldn't be able to stock cheap products on shelves even if they knew how. Price tag me an inventory of abuses and smile, yo'goin'down.
10 year deficit is at $9 Trillion dollars as of yesterday, we cannot afford another entitlement program just to satisfy a small part of society.
Thanks for the update ID, can it be managed efficiently for the benefit of ALL americans, kept under rational limits, maintained innovative, reasonably progressive? Such as the upcoming strategic pullouts from Iraq & Afghanistan?
Now. Today. Evolution is revolution.
When it counts.
No it can't. Look at social security and Medicare who are going broke. It's even said social security payment will not rise to reflect cost of living. I could sit here for hours and cite examples like this, but the bottom line is the government is not efficient.
I wonder when someone gets unrealistic ideas like "Cut down on military spending to pay off debt and produce thingies again to sell stuff" and gets elected into a position of political power.
Oh wait, I think there's a colored gentleman ... whathsisname...
Cutting military spending is not a brilliant idea in the middle of a war, especially when the military is the most visible advantage. Must be a confused person.
And I have never seen a politician "produce" anything.
Based on your logic, that would be Hillary Clinton.
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