dmagicglock

You're right....start by revamping the judicial system so that frivolous cases against medical practitioners doesn't get a chance to get started. There, you just reduced practitioners malpractice costs by millions in turn reducing the fees they charge to us and the ins. companies in turn reducing the premiums you and I have to pay.

ahh thank you, someone agrees with me on tort reform!

I edited my post after you quoted it so it didn't capture everything, but profit doesn't always equal success.

Is the goal of health care to make people healthy (I think Inya posted that in one of the initial posts), or is the goal to profit from you?

If profit = success, then we should pay a lot more for taxes, so the military can post profits, the infrastructure and highway services can post profits. Every road would be a toll road.... profit shouldn't always be the goal, especially in the healthcare field. The goal should be HEALTHY citizens.

The goal of healthcare is to make us better, the goal of INSURANCE is to make a profit or at least prevent financial loss in the event of a major disaster or crisis, event, etc. The military's goal is to protect us, yet the current administration continues to cut missile defense spending, and the president is threatening to veto a bill with funding for F22's and F35 engines right now. Efficiency, and efficacy should be the goals of a lot of things but spending has to be curtailed at some point?

Anything we do can be great if we continue to pour in an endless amount of money. But when do the excessive costs impeded on our quality of life and insurance/healthcare becomes so effective that its cost are so high that it actually has a reverse effect?

ahh sweet redemption, found the link to ad the poll the right way. Boo Yah

Then there's nothing to worry about. That's a fallback argument. And there's at least a few examples there regulation works MUCH better, and I've posted those in other political threads, I'm just too lazy to dig them up right now.

Regardless, with no profit motive. It's going to be cheaper.

Seriously, if all business models didn't have to worry about posting profits, you know how much debt we would be in? I'd still own stock in worldcomm and enron. The great thing about having to make a profit, is that it ensures your business is successful and that only successful businesses continue to proliferate and prosper. How do we judge the success of a public healthcare option versus a private plan if they can just continue to work and not have to worry about being in the "red". I'm sure with an infinite amount of money they can be more successful than the private industry, but at what financial cost to the tax payer?

okay got tagged back into the sand box...

Name one thing the government has ever done more efficiently and cheaper than private industry? ... crickets... crickets Anyone?

Secondly, the government can't invest into money market funds, hedge funds, etc to make interest on their money. It's illegal. If that was the case then we could have a bigger push for privatization of social security.

Oh...sorry to step into the sandbox with the big kids.

But, privatized healthcare can continue to work just fine if...

...awe never mind.

I just stepped out of the sandbox, my play time is over, have at it bro!

So you're saying the government is going to pay 98% of my medical costs on a bill that large? I just don't see it happening... And I'm not sure I would have got all the necessary tests or the follow up care as I did on the private system. Unfortunately a lot of the medical bill isn't even written yet, so only time will tell. I hope we don't have a public healthcare system, but if we do, I hope its as good as you say it is!

I vote yes,

My new motto is: "Socialism, what's the worst that could happen?"

I will leave it ambiguous

Literally LOL'd when I read that

Justin, we agree on something!!! I didn't want it to be a partisan debate, granted I quoted limbaugh and karl rove, but thats because they had made comments regarding the side of the issue that I was trying to present. Unfortunately because our country only has two major political parties, right now the bill is being pushed by the democrats and opposed by the republicans.

I don't get the rush story you posted? They interpreted his words, he didn't actually say Obama is the reason why he cheated on his wife. The huffington post, please...

As far as Ingenix goes, let me give you some better background information. Me in motorcycle accident: 10K in hospital bills... I pay for insurance through my work and my wife's work to eliminate costs. I know I know, whoa you have two insurances? The difference between two private insurances and a private and public insurance is that a primary and secondary private insurance, BOTH pay for the cost of my medical bills, not one or the other. So after 10k in medical bills, you know what I paid out of pocket? Roughly $200 bones. Tell me the government is going to do a better job than that? I'm sure I wouldn't have received a contrast IV immediately to check for internal bleeding and hemorrhaging... Ingenix in their form was acting as an arbitrator for the insurance company trying to see if some other insurance company should be responsible for paying out my bills, i.e. my auto policy. So I would have been covered either way, but it was proven that it was their responsibility to pay for the medical damages. I didn't want my autopolicy to pay for it, because my rates would most likely go up if I have a claim there, where as my rates for healthcare stay the same if I make a claim.

As I'm sure some of you have seen we've had a serious debate in another thread on public healthcare. Please feel free to read the opposing views as there is a lot of good info from both sides available. Just curious to see how Ohio Riders feel about this issue... Should we have government provided health insurance?

yes? no?

haha I posted a link to a ron paul video on healthcare and his views on the system some 40 posts ago? He had some good points on why the system is broken, and I think he knows well because he was a doctor for quite some time before becoming a politician.

You're about as Christian as the Pope is Muslim. Just cause you have two wheels doesn't mean you're a motorcycle.

I don't get your link to the new york times article? it wasn't a misquote and the full article did nothing to recant anything that I posted, just had some political jargon from Obama.

If you can quote Obama who's more vested in this than anyone I can quote Limbaugh. I'm pretty sure he's more educated on the issue than both of us. And I don't let Limbaugh speak for me, he just happens to agree with a lot of my opinions, not the other way around. Also I referenced the NEW YORK TIMES one of the most liberal papers in the U.S. I didn't see you referencing any conservative view points supporting your argument?

Algebra: I'm not sure where you gather your algebraic equation but it doesn't add up. Right now, my private option costs me less than the estimated tax option plus my private option or minus my private option. I also like the idea of paying my private option to receive better care than purported holier than tho' government option. Your argument is the system is broken so we must have progress for the sake of progress? Sometimes progression can be a step backwards.

Seriously tho', I'm done... I'm not going to waste any more time on this argument, we've both supplied endless amounts of information for people on this forum to read and I'll allow them to form their own opinions.

Final Arguments and I rest my case:

Unemployment: I’m not pissed that everyone’s collecting it, I’m just pissed you’re collecting it, because you seem to have an affinity for wanting things handed to you. Maybe if you spent as much time and effort into researching universal handouts, as you did into finding a job... You wouldn't be unemployed and then you could enjoy paying taxes like I do. You have “great” philanthropic ideas, but those ideas don’t fit with our economic model. Our country was founded on small government, not a big government that provided everything for everyone. It’s like you were the little kid in kindergarten that tried to put the square peg through the round hole.

Japan: re-read on that, many studies I found said that the current system is delaying the inevitable and it will go bankrupt and if not, the cost to taxpayers will be overwhelming.

“As the Japanese population structure changes, health care and long-term care costs will steadily increase. The current style of financing (pay-as-you-go) will create a large increase in future burden of these costs. This paper studies an alternative policy that prefunds the social insurance benefits for the elderly.

During a transition process, the proposed scheme maintains a higher contribution rate in order to accumulate sufficient funds. Under our baseline scenario, the sum of the contribution rates toward health insurance and long-term care insurance increases from 5.06 percent of earnings to 12.41 percent of the same. The rate of increase in overall burdens, including taxes and subsidies, is 63 percent.

Our sensitivity analysis has shown that the quantitative implications of the increase in total burdens depend on social cost scenarios, the labor force, and the interest rate. However, labor force scenarios do not have a considerable impact on the rate of burden. As against this, the setting of social costs has a significant impact on the same.

Even under the most optimistic scenario, the rate of increase in total burden is 34 percent. Even though we cannot predict the exact amount of the necessary contribution rate that is capable enough to transfer the funded system, what we are sure of is that a significant increase in the contribution rate is inevitable. “

Tadashi Fukui, Yasushi Iwamoto

NBER Working Paper No. 12427
Issued in August 2006

McDonalds: You’re wrong, because you’re model assumes they have an endless supply of food and an endless supply of workers to support the demand. Nope instead, some people die of starvation waiting in line for food. And others when they get their food, it looks NOTHING like it did in the picture because they put it together so quick it and smashed it all around. Better yet, they didn’t even have enough time to cook it and so even more people die, this time of E. Coli poisoning.

Some people without insurance can already get it, they’re just too apathetic to do so:

"You talk about the 46, 47 million uninsured. Fourteen million of them are already eligible for other government programs and haven’t signed up. Ten million are in households with household incomes of $75,000 a year and could afford it if they wanted to. Furthermore, an enormous number in that 47 million are not American citizens. Sixty percent of the uninsured in San Francisco are not citizens." So this 47 million uninsured number that the left and the media is always throwing around is disingenuous, it's largely irrelevant. They portray this number and it's grown from 42 to 43 million during the Clinton days, now it's magically up to 47 million and is just as accurate as their homeless number was inaccurate. So of the 47 million, they try to paint this picture that the system is so unfair and so mean that it's leaving 47 million Americans out, and it is not doing so.” - Rush Limbaugh

And why don’t we turn to the AMA, the biggest doctor’s association that I know if in America, consisting of 250,000 members… lets see what they had to say about Obama Care:

"The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs," read an organizational statement to the Senate Finance Committee. "The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans."

Without private insurers in the market, the statement added, "the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers."

How are you going to feel about paying for people's healthcare who are drug addicts? People who smoke? How about obese people who refuse to diet? Should we still pay for their bad choices? What about the squids who don't wear helmets or jackets, you want to pay for their skin grafts? The great thing about our system now is that 99% of the time, if someone makes bad choices, they have to pay for them... Not me.

what statistics and figures have you given from these so called "industrialized nations" that prove your point? Why do sheiks from the middle east come to the United States for high profile medical procedures? Why does America have the best treatment rate for 14 of the top 16 cancers? I'm confused... I dont see anyone from the U.S. going to Canada to get radiation or chemotherapy?

And you can't just stop paying taxes? unless I just stop working, and then I'd be just like everyone else with a hand out? Nah, I'd rather work harder so other people don't have to.

I like McDonalds... who doesn't, right? Lets say you go to McDonalds and you want to order a big mac... BUT we gotta feed everyone, and the government option means you can walk in and get a quarter pounder for free, but you just don't like the quarter pounder, the onions don't sit well with your stomach and you want that special sauce. So you HAVE a choice to get the big mac, you just gotta pay for a quarter pounder for the schmuck behind you in line. BUT i mean Yeah. YOU STILL HAVE A CHOICE right? You got your Big Mac, you just had to pay for two sandwiches in the process

Lets say you see a homeless guy on the street and I give him 5 dollars to help him out, is that okay?

Now what if I put a gun to your head and tell you to give him 5 dollars too, is that still okay?

The governments healthcare option isn't much different.

You still don't get it... its not an option if i'm paying for both. My treatment may be an option on which one i want to use, but i'm still paying for two insurances. If you want to let people pay into a public option that requires ZERO tax dollars from people who use a private option, then go for it! And providing insurance to people that contribute nothing to our economy hardly equates to your something is better than nothing policy.

And also from that article is this statement " Vets still gripe about wading through red tape for treatment. Some 11,000 have been waiting 30 days or more for their first appointment."

So not quite check mate there buddy

I’d like to break the argument down even further. On basic economic principles…

Prices are typically driven by two basic things.

1. Supply

2. Demand

Nationalizing healthcare is essentially putting at least a 20% increase on the demand for healthcare, because it’s now provided to essentially everyone. However to be provided it has to be supplied. Yet we’re not going to increase our medical professionals by 20%.

So when you have an increase in demand but lack in supply, you get shortages. You also get an increase in price when demand is greater than supply. Look at gas shortages, or opec cuts that drove gas to over 4 dollars a gallon last year.

Quality:

Quality of healthcare will decrease because you will have fewer doctors doing more work. If you think a doctor doesn’t spend enough time with you now, increase their patient load and lower the amount of time they can spend on diagnosing and treatment and see how the quality is affected. I know some people think less is more, but not in the case with doctors.

At the end of the Day, you’re going to have lower quality healthcare, longer waits, and an increase in the cost of healthcare.

You're comparing apples to oranges... A government system doesn't need to operate to make a profit. And if it's just another option, just like the private sector, why do we need it? why should we spend a trillion dollars to replace or imitate something that is provided by 1300 different companies or options. And why should we allow government officials decide which healthcare procedures are covered? And what treatment we should get? Just as you think there shouldn't be limit on tort reform, why should there be limits on healthcare procedures? Even obama didn't answer that question... You failed to quote this question from a neurosurgeon from obama's infomercial:

A neurosurgeon asked Obama: "Okay, you've got the healthcare plan that you're going to prescribe for everybody else. Your wife or your daughter comes down with a major illness. Your plan goes through the diagnosis. And then you find out that there's some other doctor out there somewhere with another procedure and another form of treatment, another opinion, but your plan doesn't cover it. Are you going to stick with the plan you forced on everybody else, or are you going to use your wealth and go outside the plan to get the treatment for your wife and daughter that other people are not going to be able to do because they don't have the money?'' That's the question. He did not answer it. Obama: "You're absolutely right. That if it's my family member, uh, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."

I don't need to explain his reply I think it speaks for itself...

Is V.A. care good? I hope so... these men and women devoted their lives to our country and in their case, I'm okay with them receiving healthcare, because in exchange for our sovereignty they offered up their lives and limbs, and families to make sure we're safe. So yes they should have quality care and money well spent on healthcare. The problem is those satisfaction rates don't mention the amount of time it takes for these veterans to receive care because of the influx of patients.

"Private hospitals, which make their money treating people who come to them sick, don't profit from heavy investments in preventive care... But the VA, which is funded by tax dollars, "has its patients for life," notes Kizer... So to keep government spending down, "it makes economic sense to keep them healthy and out of the hospital." Kizer eliminated more than half the system's 52,000 hospital beds and plowed the money saved into opening 300 new community clinics so vets could have easier access to family-practice-style doctors. He set strict performance standards that graded physicians on health promotion. As the reforms produced results, veterans began "voting with their feet," says Dr. Jonathan Perlin... Hundreds of thousands abandoned private physicians and enrolled in the lower-cost and higher-quality VA care. But that created a new problem. The VA's budget from Congress (currently about $30 billion annually) couldn't cover the influx. By January 2003, with hundreds of thousands waiting six months or more for their first appointment, the VA began limiting access to only vets with service-related injuries or illness or those with low income.

" - Mark Thoma Economists View

Your Figures: I addressed them extensively… and debunked them and the basis of their statistical analysis on how their studies only encompass lifespan and how that doesn’t necessarily correlate to good medicine. Liars figure and figures lie.

Solution: Tort reform... it lowers malpractice insurance costs, it lowers defensive medicine costs, and lowers the bottom line of costs to consumers.

This is the same answer I’ve given previously, so maybe you’re the one not reading my posts?

Public Health Option: it’s not an option if you still have to pay for it, yeah I can still pay for private insurance if my job allows it, or I can pay for insurance through a private insurance corporation out of my own pocket… But I’m still paying for other people’s “public option” through my tax dollars. And why would my company want to subsidize a health insurance option if the government is going to offer it? I’m supposing many small businesses will no longer do that and drop employee coverage, increasing the amount of people insured on the government option. Don’t believe me… believe the Hawaiian children’s healthcare plan that went bankrupt. So many people dropped their kids off their employer based healthcare coverage, because they could get it for “free” through the state. Why should I have to pay for something twice over method, led to bankrupting the system in less than a few years. Or look at Medicare and Medicaid... they’re the only FICA tax deduction that isn’t capped. Yet with uncapped tax deductions on payroll earnings, those systems are set to be bankrupt or taking in less than they dole out by 2017? Everyone that works pays into that system and it only supports the elderly.

Referencing terrorism and the bush administration: Typical liberal dialogue, when the going gets tough and the argument isn’t making sense, reference the bush administration and get them off track. But since we’re there... maybe you should check out this website… http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ and see if you can youtube the videos of the airplanes crashing into the twin towers on 9/11 and people jumping out of windows hundreds of feet so they wouldn’t be burned alive, ask their daughters, brothers, parents… if “water boarding or wiretapping suspected al qaeda members phone calls” is “okay” But I digress…

the difference between my argument and yours, is that I provide figures and references, where as you provide empty rhetoric with baseless arguments. And your WHO study that you quoted, if the United States removed accidental deaths (i.e. car accidents, motorcycle accidents, etc) and homicides we would be ranked far ahead of any country based on "WHO's statistical formula.

I guess we can just agree to disagree, I'm clearly not going to change your mind on this. Even if I got miss f'ing cleo out of jail and brought her and her magic crystal ball to you and she said "eh man, this public althcar plan is bogus, i'd ratha po' jerk sauce on mah wounds dan go wit dis system man" you still wouldn't believe me.

So you can keep your unions, your government bailouts, your Government Motors, and nationalized healthcare and I'll continue to write my congressman and fight for little things like capitalism and free enterprise and less government constraint.

By the way you haven't started a thread yet on the Cap and Trade bill thats probably going to pass through the house today? I suppose imposing fuel and energy restrictions on us is something you support too, because it only adds to more government control... lets see what Obama and his cronies now control:

Car Industry

Housing Industry

Bank Industry

and possibly...

Energy & Healthcare....

And the worst part is he has appointed "Czars" to oversee all these pet projects. These Czars report directly to him... So that means the executive branch is overstepping it's boundaries and has direct control over many things, that when the legislation was enacted, should've have stopped with senate or house committees...

How do you figure your taxes will cost more? You're making a bunch of assumptions. And if those 46M uninsured people get sick... tax payers STILL foot the bill, so that reasoning is a wash. The bottom line is right now, we're on an unsustainable path of health spending. So, why would we keep things the same? That's like seeing the edge of the cliff and deciding your best strategy is to do nothing. Maybe attempt to hit the brakes? Attempt to dive out of the car? Attempt to steer away? SOMETHING other than 'do nothing'. That's illogical.

Increasing costs is a logical argument, when you add to the price of something, and the president says its a government funded incentive that means "tax dollars". The government is funded by tax money.

Also... If people don't have insurance, it doesn't mean they go to the doctor and we still cover it for free, yes we can't refuse them healthcare services but it doesn't mean we give it for free. Some people will not go to the doctor for a "common cold" that they might otherwise go for if they had a government insurance. I'm not asking that we keep things the same, we can make changes to the current system without replacing it. Creating nationalized healthcare is like taking that car and driving it off the edge of the cliff. Ask the people in Canada who come to the United States for cancer treatments how good their health care system is? Or the people there who have higher rates of colon cancer, because their system doesn't afford the frequent colonoscopies that our system allows. Listen, on paper communism is a great idea... Thats why its called a utopian society. I would love for everybody to live in peace and have free healthcare, but the fact of the matter is when actually put into action, its a terrible idea and doesn't work.

read this in its entirety, it explains that bold question with multiple points.

..."the first is it's unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That's competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 -- nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition's benefits.

Second, a public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs. For example, Medicare pays hospitals 71% and doctors 81% of what private insurers pay.

Who covers the rest? Government passes the bill for the outstanding balance to providers and families not covered by government programs. This cost-shifting amounts to a forced subsidy. Families pay about $1,800 more a year for someone else's health care as a result, according to a recent study by Milliman Inc. It's also why many doctors limit how many Medicare patients they take: They can afford only so much charity care.

Fixing prices at less than market rates will continue under any public option. Sen. Edward Kennedy's proposal, for example, has Washington paying providers what Medicare does plus 10%. That will lead to health providers offering less care.

Third, government-run health insurance would crater the private insurance market, forcing most Americans onto the government plan. The Lewin Group estimates 70% of people with private insurance -- 120 million Americans -- will quickly lose what they now get from private companies and be forced onto the government-run rolls as businesses decide it is more cost-effective for them to drop coverage. They'd be happy to shift some of the expense -- and all of the administration headaches -- to Washington. And once the private insurance market has been dismantled it will be gone.

Fourth, the public option is far too expensive. The cost of Medicare -- the purest form of a government-run "public choice" for seniors -- will start exceeding its payroll-tax "trust fund" in 2017. The Obama administration estimates its health reforms will cost as much as $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. It is no coincidence the Obama budget nearly triples the national debt over that same period.

Medicare and Medicaid cost much more than estimated when they were adopted. One reason is there's no competition for these government-run insurance programs. In the same way, Americans can expect a public option to cost far more than the Obama administration's rosy estimates.

Fifth, the public option puts government firmly in the middle of the relationship between patients and their doctors. If you think insurance companies are bad, imagine what happens when government is the insurance carrier, with little or no competition and no concern you'll change to another company.

In other words, the public option is just phony. It's a bait-and-switch tactic meant to reassure people that the president's goals are less radical than they are. Mr. Obama's real aim, as some candid Democrats admit, is a single-payer, government-run health-care system.

Health care desperately needs far-reaching reforms that put patients and their doctors in charge, bring the benefits of competition and market forces to bear, and ensure access to affordable and portable health care for every American. Republicans have plans to achieve this, and they must make their case for reform in every available forum.

Defeating the public option should be a top priority for the GOP this year. Otherwise, our nation will be changed in damaging ways almost impossible to reverse." - WSJ

Ingenix is the devil, when I got in a motorcycle accident, they tried to subrogate my hospital bills claim to my autopolicy (no other parties were involved in the accident), needless to say with my clear documentation and persistence, they were unsuccessful in their attempt to screw me.

That being said, I don't think the government can run healthcare better than private industry, because they don't have to run with a business model that requires a profit. So if they continually lose money, its just going to cost us more in tax dollars than the private option costs me on my weekly paycheck. Not too mention adding 46 plus million people to medical care without increasing the amount of medical staff. Even if you give incentives for medical jobs, college loan forgiveness for family practice doctors as obama mentioned on his infomercial, you still have a good 15 year turn around before you make even a dent, in the patient to doctor ratio. Then you also have tax payers footing the bill for doctors medical schooling... which ... yep drives up taxes.

I grew up in fairborn, the cops there (sorry to generalize but never had a good experience with their police) are usually on power trips. They abuse their authority and pull people over for stupid stuff all the time. I remember being a teenager growing up there, and having cops pull friends over for window tint violations, or being pulled over because I didn't use a turn signal (I did, i saw the cop tailing me for a few miles...) I mean just any excuse they can pull you over for to write you a ticket or make sure you're not doing something you shouldn't be... they will. I remember when I was a teenager and they raided the ol' foys breakfast bar and grill before it was owned by mike foy (can't remember the name). Anyways, it was basically a bunch of old timers playing poker in the back. Long story short the police show up in swat gear and semi automatic rifles and about give all these old guys heart attacks. Needless to say the community wasn't happy about the excessive force used to bust a so called "gambling ring". So don't take it personally, be glad he gave you a warning, and just smile on the inside because that city has gone to hell in a handbag and they just don't get enough revenue from all the WT that now lives/breeds there so they target innocent motorists like yourself to increase revenue.