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Thread: The health care debate thread.

  1. #91
    Administrator U-Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GarthUte View Post
    I wonder if we're going to see more doctors do what this doctor has done in Maine.

    Prices for services provided.

    Of course, if one needs major surgery, is there some sort of catastrophic insurance to cover that kind of care available? I'm not familiar enough with all of this to know the answer, but I will admit that I like the idea of paying the doc out of pocket for services rendered.
    The problem isn't the doctors. Its the hospitals.

  2. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    The problem isn't the doctors. Its the hospitals.
    How about the 30% for administrative and general expenses and profits?

  3. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    The problem isn't the doctors. Its the hospitals.
    the problem is the whole system. for starters 85 - 90% of all health care is not an "insurable" event meaning that you pay your premium to insure against a catastrophic event.
    "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

    "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

  4. #94
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Oh, brother. Many congressional aides and even some members of Congress may leave because they're going to have to get health insurance the same way everyone else will - under the Affordable Care Act. There's even some talk about fixing this "problem" so they can keep their generous health bennies under the FEHP. I like to think they wouldn't dare do that, but that would be naive.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...nce-92691.html

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  5. #95
    "Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection." - Red Smith

  6. #96
    Anybody know when the 'affordable' part of the Affordable Care Act is going to kick in? Another near 20% premium hike for a group of essentially non-users. We are up about 78% from 5 years ago when I started my business. WSJ has an article today about individual low-utilizers on the health exchange programs will likely be hit hard, with high risk seeing decreased rates. We're seeing it on a group plan today. Oh, did I mention our insurance sucks too, with an extremely high deductible?

    This recent rate increase actually probably priced us out of hiring another person in the near term that we desperately need. Maybe we'll have to see how desperate we are for them.

    The cold realization of the effects of this plan are coming to life for a lot of people. A good friend of mine and an avid Obama supporter is looking for work and can only find jobs hiring for less than 29 hours and no benefits. She admits that she would happily like the choice to take a full-time job and feed her family instead. It sucks when the effects of this stuff start hitting real people on the street.

    While I get that costs are going to go up as the risk pool gets riskier, and while I'm for them having access to care, it all seems bass-ackwards to me.

  7. #97
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rocker Ute View Post
    Anybody know when the 'affordable' part of the Affordable Care Act is going to kick in? Another near 20% premium hike for a group of essentially non-users. We are up about 78% from 5 years ago when I started my business. WSJ has an article today about individual low-utilizers on the health exchange programs will likely be hit hard, with high risk seeing decreased rates. We're seeing it on a group plan today. Oh, did I mention our insurance sucks too, with an extremely high deductible?

    This recent rate increase actually probably priced us out of hiring another person in the near term that we desperately need. Maybe we'll have to see how desperate we are for them.

    The cold realization of the effects of this plan are coming to life for a lot of people. A good friend of mine and an avid Obama supporter is looking for work and can only find jobs hiring for less than 29 hours and no benefits. She admits that she would happily like the choice to take a full-time job and feed her family instead. It sucks when the effects of this stuff start hitting real people on the street.

    While I get that costs are going to go up as the risk pool gets riskier, and while I'm for them having access to care, it all seems bass-ackwards to me.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  8. #98
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    http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/...dfK/story.html

    It seems like the biggest problem is cost transparency with anything hospital related.

  9. #99
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    http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/201...-of-obamacare/

    Four points. First, no mother or child should be put in this position by a government ostensibly trying to improve their lives. Second, everyone in America knows health care is a complicated and complex subject, that a national bill will have 10 million moving parts, and that when a government far away—that would be Washington, D.C.—decides to take greater control of the nation’s health care it will likely get many, maybe a majority, of the moving parts wrong. A bill that is passed and is meant to do A will become Law U—a law of unforeseen, unplanned and unexpected consequences. And that’s giving Washington the benefit of the doubt, and assuming they really meant to honestly produce Law A. Third, because health-care legislation is so complex, it is almost impossible for people to understand it, to get their arms around what may be a given bill’s inadequacies and structural flaws. Stories of those inadequacies and flaws dribble out day by day, in stories like this one. They produce a large negative blur, and a feeling of public anxiety: What will we find out tomorrow? The administration reacts, as the president has, with protestations about how every large, life-enhancing bill has hitches and bumps along the way. But this thing looks now like one large hitch, one big and never ending bump. Fourth, when a thousand things have to be changed about a law to make it workable, some politician is going to stand up and say: “This was a noble effort in the right direction but let’s do the right thing and simplify everything, with a transparent and understandable plan: single payer.” Will that be Mrs. Clinton’s theme in 2016?

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  10. #100
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  11. #101
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    10 Ways Obamacare Isn’t Working

    1. WAIVERS: The Administration established a legally questionable program of temporary waivers when firms announced they were considering dropping coverage rather than comply with the law’s costly requirements. Even though more than half of the recipients of these waivers were members of union plans, many union leaders are still not satisfied—they want another waiver, to receive taxpayer-funded subsidies for their employer-provided coverage.


    2. ILLEGAL TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES FOR CONGRESS: Last month, following heavy lobbying from leaders in both parties—and an intervention from President Obama himself—the Administration issued a rule regarding coverage for Members of Congress and their staffs, who will retain their taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies in the exchanges. Unfortunately, as previous research has documented, the Administration had no legal basis on which to make this ruling.


    3. EMPLOYER MANDATE: In July, the Administration announced it would not enforce Obamacare’s employer mandate until 2015, effectively granting big business a one-year delay. This action came despite language in Section 1514(d) of the law requiring employers to act “beginning after December 31, 2013,” and despite the fact that hard-working Americans are not getting a delay from the other harmful effects of Obamacare.


    4. PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: Immediately after Obamacare was signed, Democratic staffers admitted that under the law as written, insurers “still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem.” The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took it upon itself to issue regulations prohibiting plans from turning down such applicants three years earlier than the law required. As a result, insurers stopped offering child-only plans in 17 states, fearing that only parents of sick children would apply for insurance coverage.


    5. OUT-OF-POCKET CAPS: Section 1302(c)(1) of the law includes caps on out-of-pocket expenses and explicitly states they are to take effect “beginning in 2014.” But earlier this year, the Administration delayed these new caps from taking effect as scheduled. What’s more, as The New York Times reported, the Administration made this unilateral change not by issuing rules subject to public comment, but by posting a series of questions and answers on an obscure website.


    6. BASIC HEALTH PLAN: This government-run health plan for people above the Medicaid income level was created in Section 1331 of Obamacare as a way to promote “state flexibility,” but the Administration unilaterally delayed it for one year. One Democratic Senator criticized the Administration for this move, saying it does not “live up” to the law as written.


    7. TAX DISCLOSURES: Section 9002 of Obamacare requires employers to report the value of workers’ health insurance on W-2 filings, effective for all “taxable years after December 31, 2010.” But the Administration unilaterally delayed this requirement, and employers did not have to report these data until after the 2012 presidential election.


    8. HONOR SYSTEM: In July, the Administration announced it was placing most Americans on the “honor system” when it came to verifying their income and access to employer-provided health coverage. As prior research has documented, this move, coupled with loopholes written into the law, gives many Americans a strong incentive to “game the system” and obtain more in taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies than they should actually receive.


    9. PRIVACY: Former HHS General Counsel Michael Astrue, when serving as Commissioner of Social Security earlier this year, complained strongly within the Administration about the security risks posed by Obamacare’s new data hub. However, the Administration overrode his objections, using what Astrue called “an absurdly broad interpretation of the Privacy Act’s ‘routine use’ exemption.”


    10. TOBACCO PENALTIES: Section 1201 of the law allows insurance companies to charge smokers up to 50 percent more in premiums. But due to a “computer glitch,” those penalties will be limited for “at least a year”—meaning non-smokers may have to pay more as a result.


    In the end, Nancy Pelosi was wrong. Congress passed the bill, but we still don’t know what’s in it—because the Obama Administration keeps changing rules and ignoring the law. That’s why Congress should use its power of the purse and stop a single dime from being spent on this unworkable, unfair, and unpopular measure.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  12. #102
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  13. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    I eagerly await this unbiased institution'a follow up article on 10 ways it is helping.

  14. #104
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Ain't no such thing as an unbiased person when it comes to Obamacare. I don't necessarily agree with Heritage on everything said there. I can tell you that virtually everyone in the healthcare industry that has to implement the new law recognizes that it simply won't work as structured and it will be revised extensively. All this trouble, IMO, results from the disgraceful way Congress passed Obamacare.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  15. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    I eagerly await this unbiased institution'a follow up article on 10 ways it is helping.
    Is there even a single way this horrendous law is helping? If it's so damn terrific, why does Obama keep postponing bits and pieces of it - which he has no constitutional power to do - rather than sing its praises in its entirety?
    "Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection." - Red Smith

  16. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Ain't no such thing as an unbiased person when it comes to Obamacare. I don't necessarily agree with Heritage on everything said there. I can tell you that virtually everyone in the healthcare industry that has to implement the new law recognizes that it simply won't work as structured and it will be revised extensively. All this trouble, IMO, results from the disgraceful way Congress passed Obamacare.
    for personal reasons I hope the states let the federal government run how claims will be reimbursed with the exchanges. Its is is insane how messed up each state reimburses their providers with Medicaid.
    "Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum

    "And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla

  17. #107
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    Quote Originally Posted by GarthUte View Post
    Is there even a single way this horrendous law is helping? If it's so damn terrific, why does Obama keep postponing bits and pieces of it - which he has no constitutional power to do - rather than sing its praises in its entirety?
    Millions of people having health insurance and not going to emergency rooms for health care is a great start.

    Politically he has to because he is getting zero help from the Republican Party and their minions. Maybe if they shifted their position to worrying about their country over worrying about their party, we would have a better solution.

  18. #108
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    Millions of people having health insurance and not going to emergency rooms for health care is a great start.

    Politically he has to because he is getting zero help from the Republican Party and their minions. Maybe if they shifted their position to worrying about their country over worrying about their party, we would have a better solution.
    Do you really think the ACA will provide universal coverage? I don't.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  19. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Do you really think the ACA will provide universal coverage? I don't.
    No. I don't know that it is designed to. But it is designed to give people opportunities to be insured that they may not normally have.

  20. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    Millions of people having health insurance and not going to emergency rooms for health care is a great start.

    Politically he has to because he is getting zero help from the Republican Party and their minions. Maybe if they shifted their position to worrying about their country over worrying about their party, we would have a better solution.
    This is the thing I don't understand. We pay for those without insurance one way or another. Paying for healthcare via the emergency room seems like the least efficient option, and is one of the factors that has heavily contributed to spiraling healthcare costs. I understand the so-called 'capitalist' position on this, but the markets didn't resolve the issue before the spiraling costs of healthcare forced the nation to do address the problem. This debate has been going on for longer than most of us have lived, yet there were no signs that a purely market-based solution was ever going to come to the table. So here we are, with an imperfect plan, but one that can be slowly fixed into something workable.

    And the government shutdown is just going to hurt the GOP. Have fun with that.
    (thank you, Jarid, for paying for the server space to host this post. Love, Robin)

  21. #111
    Have people seen the video at this link which has been making the rounds? It certainly paints a very complex picture of the problem.

    http://www.upworthy.com/his-first-4-...-little-sick-2
    “The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
    Carl Sagan

  22. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    Millions of people having health insurance and not going to emergency rooms for health care is a great start.

    Politically he has to because he is getting zero help from the Republican Party and their minions. Maybe if they shifted their position to worrying about their country over worrying about their party, we would have a better solution.
    Obama doesn't have the power to do what he wants with the law. But then, he hasn't ever shown much respect for the Constitution, so I don't know why I would expect anything different from him.

    And do you really think that Obama was worrying about the country when he pushed this POS law? Remember his words to the GOP? I paraphrase "elections have consequences. I won. You lost."

    Again, if this thing is so great, why has Obama exempted himself, Congress, his union pals, etc., from it?
    "Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection." - Red Smith

  23. #113
    Sam the Sheepdog LA Ute's Avatar
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    In my opinion, Robin, a purely market-based system will never work and wouldn't be acceptable anyway, because as a USA society we've decided we're going to find a way to put a buffer between people and the harsh realities of the marketplace, at least as far as healthcare is concerned. We do that very imperfectly, to say the least. So our system is a hybrid that runs on a mix of free market principles and social welfare principles. The debate is really over what that mix should be. Obamacare leans heavily away from the free market and that's what has conservatives riled up.

    There's no magic solution. What we want in America is a high-end BMW ("the ultimate healthcare machine") for the price of a low-end Hyundai. It can't be done, but I think a mix that leans more towards market principles can get us closer, would provide more and better choices for consumers and would keep our world-leading innovation going. (The Swiss healthcare system is a good model, IMO.)

    And when you get right down to it that is the essence of the healthcare debate, at least in my view.
    Last edited by LA Ute; 09-28-2013 at 03:34 PM.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  24. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    Ain't no such thing as an unbiased person when it comes to Obamacare. I don't necessarily agree with Heritage on everything said there. I can tell you that virtually everyone in the healthcare industry that has to implement the new law recognizes that it simply won't work as structured and it will be revised extensively. All this trouble, IMO, results from the disgraceful way Congress passed Obamacare.
    One could also argue that the problems with Obamacare stem from the fact that Congress wasted all that time pushing bills to repeal it, which they knew would never pass the Senate and absolutely would not be signed into law by Obama. They could and should have been voting on changes to the law which would fix the problems in the existing law.

  25. #115
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    Quote Originally Posted by GarthUte View Post
    Obama doesn't have the power to do what he wants with the law. But then, he hasn't ever shown much respect for the Constitution, so I don't know why I would expect anything different from him.

    And do you really think that Obama was worrying about the country when he pushed this POS law? Remember his words to the GOP? I paraphrase "elections have consequences. I won. You lost."

    Again, if this thing is so great, why has Obama exempted himself, Congress, his union pals, etc., from it?
    None of this is about the law itself. Do you have anything constructive to add?

  26. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by U-Ute View Post
    None of this is about the law itself. Do you have anything constructive to add?
    Probably not.

    Tell me how Obama delaying so much of the law and exempting himself and his acolytes is not about the law?
    "Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection." - Red Smith

  27. #117
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    Quote Originally Posted by utefan View Post
    One could also argue that the problems with Obamacare stem from the fact that Congress wasted all that time pushing bills to repeal it, which they knew would never pass the Senate and absolutely would not be signed into law by Obama. They could and should have been voting on changes to the law which would fix the problems in the existing law.
    That's what they'll end up doing anyway, and they all know it. What we are seeing is all political theater. I still blame Obama and the Democrats for cramming down on us all a deeply flawed law. We could have had the Wyden-Bennett bill, a truly bipartisan proposal that would have given some people on both the left and the right something to hate. I think it would have been better and much less controversial.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act
    Last edited by LA Ute; 09-28-2013 at 04:31 PM.

    "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
    --Yeats

    “True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”

    --John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell

  28. #118
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    Quote Originally Posted by GarthUte View Post
    Obama doesn't have the power to do what he wants with the law. But then, he hasn't ever shown much respect for the Constitution, so I don't know why I would expect anything different from him.

    And do you really think that Obama was worrying about the country when he pushed this POS law? Remember his words to the GOP? I paraphrase "elections have consequences. I won. You lost."

    Again, if this thing is so great, why has Obama exempted himself, Congress, his union pals, etc., from it?
    The problem is this law did nothing to reform health care. All it did was change how we pay for it. It accomplished this by spreading the costs around a bit more. Consequently, people are using their influence to exclude themselves from the increased costs.

  29. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    In my opinion, Robin, a purely market-based system will never work and wouldn't be acceptable anyway, because as a USA society we've decided we're going to find a way to put a buffer between people and the harsh realities of the marketplace, at least as far as healthcare is concerned. We do that very imperfectly, to say the least. So our system is a hybrid that runs on a mix of free market principles and social welfare principles. The debate is really over what that mix should be. Obamacare leans heavily away from the free market and that's what has conservatives riled up.

    There's no magic solution. What we want in America is a high-end BMW ("the ultimate healthcare machine") for the price of a low-end Hyundai. It can't be done, but I think a mix that leans more towards market principles can get us closer, would provide more and better choices for consumers and would keep our world-leading innovation going. (The Swiss healthcare system is a good model, IMO.)

    And when you get right down to it that is the essence of the healthcare debate, at least in my view.
    I agree with the bolded point. But that is exactly what the Right has argued (at least they did on CUF) whenever anyone tried to make the point that the market hadn't corrected the healthcare cost spiral, the Right would respond, "But we haven't really tried a TRUE market-based solution." But as you point out, a true market-based solution (whatever that would mean) isn't ever going to happen, so we can't continue to wait for it, when spiraling healthcare cost have come to threaten so much that is so important to so many.

    How does Obamacare not lean heavily toward free market principles? People will still get their insurance from private companies, and the government is only going to subsidize the cost of insurance for the relatively poor. Where Obamacare seems to have some promise is in precisely how it leverages market principles -- private insurance companies will compete to get their piece of Obamacare subsidies, which means that market forces will drive down the cost of insurance. Meanwhile, the government defines what minimum care must be covered, in order to sell a product as 'insurance,' meaning that consumers have a better sense of what they are getting for their healthcare dollar. Increased consumer understanding of the purchased product + an increase in competition both seem like the essence of free market principles.

    Regarding innovation, it hasn't been the needs of poor people that has driven innovation in the healthcare industry (though we may see an increase of innovation in the market for basic services, now that the market for routine maintenance and preventative care is being expanded). The innovation that was driven by the most privileged healthcare consumers in the past will continue, because those people will continue to enjoy access to privileged care, because they will continue to have the ability to pay for it. Healthcare catastrophes leave the poor and middle classes in economic ruin, sometimes even when they have insurance, whereas the wealthy have the means to absorb a catastrophe without losing a life's savings. So I am not sure what you are talking about... unless you are suggesting that the whole healthcare industry is going to go John Galt, leaving behind no one to care for any of us bottom-feeders.
    Last edited by RobinFinderson; 09-28-2013 at 10:12 PM.
    (thank you, Jarid, for paying for the server space to host this post. Love, Robin)

  30. #120
    Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
    That's what they'll end up doing anyway, and they all know it. What we are seeing is all political theater. I still blame Obama and the Democrats for cramming down on us all a deeply flawed law. We could have had the Wyden-Bennett bill, a truly bipartisan proposal that would have given some people on both the left and the right something to hate. I think it would have been better and much less controversial.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act
    I think the left and the right both have plenty to hate in the current Obamacare law. I just wish they'd start fixing the things we all hate about it instead of crying about it. They could easily tweak that existing law into something we all like.

    We all know it's not going to get repealed. How many times have they voted to repeal it already, like 40? And they know the Senate will never repeal it. And even if the Senate did repeal it, Obama would absolutely not sign it.

    We paid them their high salaries for this waste of time?

    This is the absolute worst Congress ever.

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