Goodbye public option, we hardly knew ya

[woolfe9999]

For what it's worth, in the only two successful medical malpractice suites I've been close to (not a party to, thankfully) substantial punitive damages were awarded. Plaintiff's attorneys argued that a big punitive judgment would encourage doctors to take more care to avoid such damages in the future. It's quite an odd departure from the norm, where the lawyer argues that there is a "habit and pattern" of behavior that must be punished with a big judgment. In both cases no other behavior came to light, which led to the lawyer arguing that such behavior, although not documented to be habitual, must be discouraged with a big judgment.

One thing about tort reform that often escapes notice is that bad doctors today have the option of settlement, with the obligatory nondisclosure agreement. Thus habitually bad doctors (alcoholics, for example) pay huge insurance premiums, but that still makes being a doctor more profitable than not being a doctor. By concealing malfeasance, it becomes more likely to recur. I would much prefer a system where all claims of malpractice or malfeasance must be reported to a government oversight for adjudication, so that bad doctors or nurses were prohibited from practicing (at least until the problem is remedied, with continuing oversight) rather than punishing them (and good doctors and nurses) with high insurance premiums. And I would restrict cases to be heard by judges or panels of judges, not twelve idiots with nothing better to do than jury duty.

That may be, anecdotally, but med mal cases are no different than any other kinds of personal injury cases in this respect: punitive damages are the rare exception, not the rule. In fact, most personal injury complaints filed in civil court by plaintiffs do not even request punitive damages because their attorneys know the claim would not be credible and isn't worth the resources to pursue. And juries are not big on awarding them, especially against doctors.

Not going to disagree with what you've said in the second paragraph. Actually it is a good point. I will point out that NDA's in med mal settlements are negotiated by the parties, and plaintiffs often feel so strongly about the doctor's negligence that they do not agree to them. However, doctors DO tend to continue practicing even after settling with no NDA, or getting a public verdict against them, and sometimes even after multiple cases.

- wolf

 

[IronWing]

There's some truth in that, although the Democrats in Congress (and the White House) today are unquestionably liberal compared to any previous occupants. But certainly there are other, more pure liberals, mostly those who don't have to worry about getting reelected. For my part though I think a right is an opportunity; it might cost money to preserve it or defend it, but not to provide it. (For instance, the government is not expected to buy you time on a radio station or a gun for your First or Second Amendment rights.) What the liberals (and Democrats) are pushing are not rights, but entitlements. They are not saying that you have the right to health care (meaning that no one is allowed to keep your from pursuing it), but rather that you are entitled to it. Entitlements don't require you to pursue or earn anything, but rather the government must actively remove wealth from one person and chase you down to transfer it to you.

The modern Democratic Party is a center-right party. The policies proposed by the current Dem leadership aren't too far off of the policies of the Nixon administration. The few liberals left in the Democratic Party (Kucinich) have no clout to move a liberal agenda. In the current health care debate, the Dems aren't pushing an entitlement for anyone but the insurance industry. They are telling Americans "You must buy what these private interests are selling or the government will levy fines on you." Liberals remain in the political wilderness.

 

[ebaycj]

COBRA premiums are less than $550per month and COBRA lasts 3 years. This doesn't account for the 66% discount Obama gave us in the "stimulus" package.

Yet another reason you save money instead to buying things one doesn't need or cannot afford.

Call us when you get out of college. Or don't, because you probably won't be able to afford a phone with no job.

Also, for the record, COBRA premiums vary from person-to-person, and ex-company to ex-company. Basically what "COBRA premium" represents is your personal contributions plus your company's contributions are to your healthcare plan. So if you have a platinum plan, and get laid off, your premiums are higher. If you have a crappy plan, and get laid off, your premiums are lower.

Speaking from experience in the past year, my plan, for a single healthy male in his twenties, (no wife, no kids, no other dependents), was $528 per month. I was contributing $20 per month towards my insurance when I was employed. Yes, I had a platinum plan (Financial company). Others who had the same coverage, but had spouses / dependents were as follows: (couple, no kids, $975) (couple with kids, $1700ish). Yes, those figures are PER MONTH. So my net outlay every month was over Five Hundred Dollars.

Stop fucking lying to everyone. "COBRA Premiums are only $550 per month". What a load of shit. You know you couldn't afford an ADDITIONAL $1700 per month, on top of your regular expenses, when you just lost your job, and likely would have a tough time paying your regular expenses. And even if you could, good for you, but MOST people can't (and will never be able to).

 

[ebaycj]

No, my solution is to let the free market do its thing.

Government intervention in the free market has done nothing but cause problems. Our current economic situation should be all the evidence you need to convince yourself of that.

The free market working perfectly is a fucking myth. Always has been, always will be, due to simple human greed.

 

[Zebo]

This 1/2 price thing keeps getting brought up over and over again.

So someone explain how we get health care for 1/2 off? If you eliminated the insurance companies you would get maybe 5%.

You could reimburse below cost and bankrupt the providers, or you could severely ration health care.

Just how is this magic to be done and please don't say "Private insurance sucks..." because they are a very small part of the two trillion paid each year. You might as well say that that ten dollar raise a week will allow you to go from a Geo Metro to a Mercedes.

So how precisely does this work?

Not that hard. How about we just take one of those systems and adopt it 100%?

-How is by paying what Canada does for drugs in medical devices instead of US prices.
-Not doing CAT scans for headaches
-Paying professionals the same not millions for specialists and low balling GPs
-Single payer eliminating overhead(s) of thousands of ins companies and doctors offices
get everyone on so they can go to Doctor for cheap treatment instead of catastrophic treatment when things go really south EMTALA already forces treatment of emergencies why not get to to them before they get to that stage.
-More schools whens the last med school open? 20 years ago with our aging population...
-Torts, malpractice, lawyers all need to go

and so on

It can be done just look accorss both ponds where they are doing it instead of some Byzantine reinventing the wheel we are trying to do which will ruin HC.

 

[Zebo]

You're looking at health care as a percentage of GDP, and want to lower it. There are two ways to go about it, either (1) reduce medical costs while keeping GDP the same, or (2) keep medical costs the same while raising GDP. Frankly, I'd rather we raise GDP, giving us the same end result, but with a much better economy and much better quality care.

But "progressives" don't like manufacturing jobs, because manufacturing creates wealth, and wealth is bad for some reason. We have among the highest corporate tax rates in the world, perhaps we should lower that, spur on some better global competitiveness, create some wealth, and that in turn lowers the percentage health care is of GDP.

Germany and Taiwan are a lower percentage, because they actually manufacture things. They actually create wealth. It's not that their health care is cheaper, it's that the rest of their economy is stronger.

I am looking at per capita spending has nothing to do with GDP. We pay $8000 per person per year in medical costs. They pay ~$4000 per person per year. We insure 80% They insure 100%. Seems like a no brainer to adopt a system like they got. (in this case Canada)

 

[Zebo]

How are you going to compete with Mexico, China, etc when they make a fraction of what our minimum wage workers get?

Work smarter higher end stuff. We still do lots of manufacturing. ACOGs, phamacuticals, Medical devices etc etc... We need engineers though instead of lawyers and taxes. Corp tax should be abolished and national HC so companies want to be here.

 

[Zebo]

The singular cause of our economic situation is government intervention.

The rising costs in our economy, from food to gas to houses to medicine to toilet paper to christmas tree lights, are all a result of government intervention.

The introduction of Medicare/Medicaid set maximum possible payouts for Medicare/Medicaid patients for doctors and forced doctors to accept Medicare/Medicaid. Because there was a maximum, the doctors charged the maximum...for ALL their patients. Systemic price inflation ensued.

Food prices could point to subsidies by the government to farmers to NOT grow food or to grow food for food-based ethanol programs, lowering the supply of food.

The housing bubble has been well explained, but we'll rehash it briefly: artificial credit created by the government allowed banks to lend beyond their means combined with government regulations requiring banks to maintain a certain number of sub-prime loans combined with government guarantee of Fannie and Freddie, all lead to an increase in the number of homes able to be financed and an increase in the number of undesirable loan customers. Yes, the banks engaged in some nefarious lending practices, but they would not have been able to had the government not guaranteed them and provided the artificial credit with which they could play.

All major contributors to the hard times most people are seeing. All government intervention.

Pretty much agree with all this. But there are some things worth doing like making sure grandma get her pills. They protected us with their tax dollars, raised us, put us in school usually with their tax dollars I don't think it's too much to help them out at end of life when weak and unable to produce. Course we could just off them like Japanese did.

 

[IronWing]

The singular cause of our economic situation is government intervention.

The rising costs in our economy, from food to gas to houses to medicine to toilet paper to christmas tree lights, are all a result of government intervention.

The introduction of Medicare/Medicaid set maximum possible payouts for Medicare/Medicaid patients for doctors and forced doctors to accept Medicare/Medicaid. Because there was a maximum, the doctors charged the maximum...for ALL their patients. Systemic price inflation ensued.

Food prices could point to subsidies by the government to farmers to NOT grow food or to grow food for food-based ethanol programs, lowering the supply of food.

The housing bubble has been well explained, but we'll rehash it briefly: artificial credit created by the government allowed banks to lend beyond their means combined with government regulations requiring banks to maintain a certain number of sub-prime loans combined with government guarantee of Fannie and Freddie, all lead to an increase in the number of homes able to be financed and an increase in the number of undesirable loan customers. Yes, the banks engaged in some nefarious lending practices, but they would not have been able to had the government not guaranteed them and provided the artificial credit with which they could play.

All major contributors to the hard times most people are seeing. All government intervention.

So much bullshit in such a small space, I can't help but compliment you on brevity and conciseness.

1) No doctor is forced to accept Medicare or Medicaid. Not one single doctor so the your point is invalid.

2) Government subsidies of food production grossly outweigh any effect from conservation subsidies. We pay farmers less at the grocery store and make up for it in transfer payments. It is an inefficient system but one that leads to price stability for farmers and, more importantly, supply stability for all of us

3) Government never forced any bank to make a sub-prime loan. Greed and stupidity did that. Lenders were just as convinced as borrowers that house prices would climb forever so there would be no downside to making stupid loans. If the borrower defaulted, the banks could foreclose and sell the house at a profit. Until the tail end of the bubble, Fannie and Freddie weren't in the sub-prime game. They jumped on the band wagon just in time to lose. The private banks with the backing of greedy private investors led the sub-prime charge.

So basically, the only accurate statement in your screed is that credit was too loose, too cheap, and for too long, a point which just about every thinking person understood by 2003. Thinking people watched in disgust and then in horror as the bubble kept getting bigger and neither the Fed nor the banks showed any inclination to put on the brakes.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

So the whole effort has been a waste of time. Actually worse than a waste of time as the current bill is worse than doing nothing. Congratulations to the insurance lobbyists. Their greed has trumped common sense and the common good yet again.

This comes as no surprise. It's all just a dog 'n' pony show in an attempt to assuage the public. We all knew that no real meaningful reform was going to occur as soon as they failed to even suggest the possibility of adopting some form of real socialized national health care.

Perhaps a lack of health care will be part of impetus that drives Americans into a frenzy that will result in the execution of the politicians and the extermination of the wealthy class.

 

[werepossum]

The modern Democratic Party is a center-right party. The policies proposed by the current Dem leadership aren't too far off of the policies of the Nixon administration. The few liberals left in the Democratic Party (Kucinich) have no clout to move a liberal agenda. In the current health care debate, the Dems aren't pushing an entitlement for anyone but the insurance industry. They are telling Americans "You must buy what these private interests are selling or the government will levy fines on you." Liberals remain in the political wilderness.

Good lord, you must really be ticked that we're surrounded by raging right wing extremists like Castro and Chavez if you think the Democrats are a center right party. Democrats are pushing to use taxes to buy health insurance for at least 15 million people and that's not enough? Wow.

Nixon was pretty far left himself. He intentionally lost Viet Nam after Kennedy committed troops there, used government power to freeze and control wages and prices, founded the EPA and a bunch more federal bureaucracies, even had an enemies list. It wasn't until Reagan that the Republicans successfully moved to the right of the Democrats*; witness the failure of Goldwater or the massive tax cuts (by today's standards anyway) of Kennedy.

* Excluding Eisenhower as opposed to Roosevelt - but not as opposed to Truman.