Health bill will hold down costs for 20 years... What's the new excuse?

[Zorkorist]

Yes, when someone uses facts to prove you wrong they hate America.

When someone can admit America isn't the best at everything, they hate America.

Ah, to blinded by the trees and unable to see the forest, must be a nice life in the state of delusion.

Guess I'm done with you as you still have 0 facts and nothing but one line comments to support your matchbox house of lies.

No, you attacked America, which Liberals do often... see, they don't like America... They want to squash all that makes America great.

Saying you like America is like Ellesworth Toohey saying he likes architecture when it's just a means of squashing man.

 

[Zorkorist]

America was not built on the backs of Government, Lawyers, or Insurance Agents. It was built on the backs of entrenuers, business men, farmers,.

That Government, Lawyers and Insurance Agents think they can grab a huge portion of our income in the name of "health care" is outrageous.

It's not even our income they are after now, it's our children's.

 

[TruePaige]

No, you attacked America, which Liberals do often... see, they don't like America... They want to squash all that makes America great.

Saying you like America is like Ellesworth Toohey saying he likes architecture when it's just a means of squashing man.

I point out flaws that can be fixed with proper actions.

You wouldn't understand, being a proud supporter of the party of "NO" and all.

You people are dinosaurs, you can't even refute the facts and offer baseless statements that are clearly wrong.

People like ME believe that every American should have the same opportunities to make their lives better and to make the lives of their fellow countrymen better by providing for the basic public welfare and spurring small business.

You couldn't understand building from the ground up, with the trickle down economic theories that the party of "NO" has spoon fed you.

Let me ask you something, ever try to build a skyscraper from the 40th floor down?

Why don't you refute the facts and get a basic education in governmental policies of the last century before you run your mouth off. There is a reason that these topics are part of a general "LIBERAL arts" curriculum. :biggrin:

 

[charrison]

Their profits went up 1000% in 5 years.

And it appears before that profits went to almost nothing because of excessive regulation.

CEO proves correlation between denials and profit.

And I have stated some practises do you need some regulation.

There is no way to regulate the health insurance industry so that it isn't profit based... it is not an "industry" that should even exist. American health, like all other first world countries, should not be based around profit, it should be based around us helping our fellow citizen for once.

Profit is not evil and it should not be eliminated fromt any industry.

As it is, we pay double what everyone pays for far less. We already pay exorbitant ER fees for people that don't have insurance. Profit and American lives should not be intertwined.

Your right, because regulation has built a system that does not care about cost. The current bill being pushed though does not address this problem.

It is amazing how people could fight against their own best interests. The stupidity involved in rooting for a system where profit is determined by killing people, KNOWING that you are killing them... and still not caring... is barbaric and nauseating.

But what is being pushed though congress will do nothing to control cost or provide better quality fo care. So far the status quo appears better than what is pushed though congress.

 

[waggy]

I dont think anyone was argeuing that healthcare "prices" would be high. What most are complaining is that tax's are going to have to go up to pay for it. But the out of pocket expense for it is going to be low.

 

[shadow9d9]

And it appears before that profits went to almost nothing because of excessive regulation.


And I have stated some practises do you need some regulation.



Profit is not evil and it should not be eliminated fromt any industry.



Your right, because regulation has built a system that does not care about cost. The current bill being pushed though does not address this problem.



But what is being pushed though congress will do nothing to control cost or provide better quality fo care. So far the status quo appears better than what is pushed though congress.

Wrong on pretty much every point.

Not "some" practices, all practices. That is the entirety of the health insurance industry. Profit at the expense of lives. Not some, all.

They should have left insurances with no profit. They still pay huge to their employees.

Health insurance should not be an industry, just like our army and police should not be an industry. When profit controls all, ESPECIALLY HEALTH, no good can and does come.

The current plan provides 10s of millions more americans with insurance.. plus ensures no one is wrongfully denied coverage or insurance. That IS better care because you'll actually GET the care you deserve.

This bill is the first step to controlling costs. Government plan=actual competition.

 

[shadow9d9]

I dont think anyone was argeuing that healthcare "prices" would be high. What most are complaining is that tax's are going to have to go up to pay for it. But the out of pocket expense for it is going to be low.

Like everyone was worried about the taxes to pay for 2 endless occupations, a corporate bailout, a tax reduction on the rich, the bush stimulus, or the obama stimulus?

 

[shadow9d9]

Shadow,

Nothing about America has ever been about helping a fellow citizen. It's been about (my) pursuit of life, health, and happiness.

This spirit, otherwise known as The American Dream, has resulted in the freest and most prospeous nation in the world.

It's people like you that expand Government, sucking up every ounce of life, health, and freedom, that We the People have to offer, that are killing us today.

And it is people like you that supported slavery for profit and opposed unions for the every man so big corporations could profit on their backs.

 

[waggy]

Like everyone was worried about the taxes to pay for 2 endless occupations, a corporate bailout, a tax reduction on the rich, the bush stimulus, or the obama stimulus?

pretty much. those that dares speak out about it were labeled "idiots", "tea baggers" etc. i really worry about what my kids are going to have to pay. All of this is going to come up sooner rather then latter.

 

[shadow9d9]

pretty much. those that dares speak out about it were labeled "idiots", "tea baggers" etc. i really worry about what my kids are going to have to pay. All of this is going to come up sooner rather then latter.

I remember the times in 2003-2008 that the tea baggers were concerned about too much spending without paying for it... good times...

 

[Pens1566]

Undereducated? The world sends their kids to our Colleges. Socially Backwards? I'd fuck you Paige... ya wanna? Unable to provide health care? When's the last time you saw a kid starve?

Overworked? Stress? Now you're just sounding like my Mommy.

Quoted for "What not to do in a debate 101" ...

Jesus, could you be more clueless?

 

[piasabird]

With medicare the cost was actually 9 times the official government estimate. So if the official estimate is actually 2-3 trillion then the real cost would be around 27 trillion. Try that on for size. Do we really think we want to repeat the same mistakes of the past?

Are you really that stupid?

 

[shadow9d9]

With medicare the cost was actually 9 times the official government estimate. So if the official estimate is actually 2-3 trillion then the real cost would be around 27 trillion. Try that on for size. Do we really think we want to repeat the same mistakes of the past?

Are you really that stupid?

Considering the seniors love medicare and even the Republicans hold Medicare sacred(they are currently "fighting" for it, I consider it a success.

Better to spend on our own people rather than empire building or corporate welfare for once.

 

[waggy]

With medicare the cost was actually 9 times the official government estimate. So if the official estimate is actually 2-3 trillion then the real cost would be around 27 trillion. Try that on for size. Do we really think we want to repeat the same mistakes of the past?

Are you really that stupid?

yes people do.

why? people realy think they are going to save money overall. many think that once the goverment takes over the cost of health care will drop (wich the out of pocket may). but they are nto looking at the fact to do it that money has to come from someplace. They don't think that tax's are going to HAVE to go up and not just by the "rich".

if they cut the curruption, greed and bullshit from it UHC would be great.

 

[Carmen813]

Oh, there absolutely is. Want proof? Here you go:


Potter, who spent 15 years at CIGNA, said health plans have a financial incentive to cancel the policies of their most costly members and have implemented strategies to do so. “They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy,” he testified. And canceling policies for even a small number of such members can have “a big effect” on the bottom line, he added. “Where is the logic and the humanity of having pre-existing conditions not covered in our society?” Potter asked. He noted that his testimony wasn’t aimed at CIGNA specifically, but rather at an industry that he said is “taking this country in the wrong direction.”

http://www.aishealth.com/Bnow/hbd070909.html

""They confuse their customers and dump the sick — all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," said Wendell Potter, who retired as CIGNA's vice president of corporate communications last year. He spent nearly 15 years at the company and four years at Humana."

"Potter, for instance, recalled a trip on a corporate jet from Philadelphia, where CIGNA is headquartered, to Connecticut, where the company's health insurance business is based in Bloomfield. During the flight, he was served lunch on gold-rimmed china with a gold-plated knife and fork.

"I realized for the first time that someone's insurance premiums were paying for me to travel in such luxury," he said on his blog."

"He condemned insurers' efforts to get rid of unprofitable customers, sell policies that can mislead consumers and offer very limited coverage, and pay out as small a portion of premiums as possible for claims in order to boost profits and please Wall Street."

"Potter described in written testimony how insurers use "purging" — unrealistic rate increases — to drive off less profitable employers. Citing a USA Today report, he recalled how CIGNA boosted rates in 2006 for the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust so much that for some family plans, premiums would have topped $44,000 a year."

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-cigna-potter.artjun25,0,4107201.story


Oh, and profit is cool.. just not at the expense of american lives for american profits, which this clearly is.

Keep trying to dodge that fact though.

Let me explanation the problems with assuming that correlation = causation. You run into potential third variable and directionality problems (wikipedia it).

Third variable problem: Is is that insurers started using pre-existing conditions clauses because profits were too low? Or is it that an external factor that drove down profits caused them to seek ways to increase profits? For example, maybe a lot of people retired in the past 8 years as baby boomers aged, leaving the private market with a smaller pool (since they all went on Medicare). Or perhaps a culture of never ending profit increases drove insurance company employees too look for the easiest way to maximize profit? Perhaps government regulation is too strict...or perhaps all three are true.

Directionality problem: Do low profits cause abuse of pre-existing conditions? Or does abuse of pre-existing conditions cause low profits? Taken to an extreme either could be true.

The fact is that profits are not high enough that if we simply eliminated them everyone would have insurance. Percentages are misleading. If I make $1 this year and next year I make $10, then I've had a 1000% increase in profit. The problem in my eyes is not a profit driven health care driven system. The problem is lack of competition. We have an oligarchy, we need some good old fashioned trust busting. A public option is one way to achieve help improve competition, but it could also easily be structured in a way that destroys all competition.

Don't make the assumption I am anti-heathcare reform, or even against the current bill, you can easily do a search of my posts to see where I stand. I'm simply trying to help you strengthen your argument. If you want to be able to effectively argue against a Conservative position on health care, you need to first understand it. You can take the moral stance that profits = evil, and I wouldn't really staunchly disagree with you (though I believe its the mentality that profits must forever increase that is the cause of the problem)

 

[xj0hnx]

Not "some" practices, all practices. That is the entirety of the health insurance industry. Profit at the expense of lives. Not some, all.

You are so fucking delusional it's scary. Besides the fact that health insurance is a business, and the point of business is to make money, that is not the "entirety" of it, and if you think that people aren't going to be denied life saving procedures under government run health insurance you are even more delusional than I thought. I've had great experiences with my health insurance having been hospitalized twice on my current plan, they have paid out a LOT more than I have paid in, and after 6 months they even covered [whisper]preexisting conditions[/whisper].

 

[xj0hnx]

I remember the times in 2003-2008 that the tea baggers were concerned about too much spending without paying for it... good times...

Right, because now that it's something you personally support it's all good huh? The loony left with spittle flying out of their mouths for 8 years about wreckless spending, too much government and wars all of a sudden become so quiet when it's their agenda, pathetic hypocrites.

 

[charrison]

Wrong on pretty much every point.

Not "some" practices, all practices. That is the entirety of the health insurance industry. Profit at the expense of lives. Not some, all.

Insurance is all wrong, yet most people are satisfied with their current insurance. Quite a paradox.

They should have left insurances with no profit. They still pay huge to their employees.

maybe everyone should just work for free then.

Health insurance should not be an industry, just like our army and police should not be an industry. When profit controls all, ESPECIALLY HEALTH, no good can and does come.

Overall the results are not bad. Far better than a govt monopoly of healthcare would be.

The current plan provides 10s of millions more americans with insurance.. plus ensures no one is wrongfully denied coverage or insurance. That IS better care because you'll actually GET the care you deserve.

This bill is the first step to controlling costs. Government plan=actual competition.

The problem is there is nothing in this bill that will control costs. OF course it appears they now can save $5billion a year by not letting women have mammograms. I am sure they can come up with other things to ration as well.

If you want to control costs, you have stop letting a 3rd party(govt or insurance) pay for every transaction. As long as someone else is paying the bill, the end consumer will care about the cost.

 

[shadow9d9]

You are so fucking delusional it's scary. Besides the fact that health insurance is a business, and the point of business is to make money, that is not the "entirety" of it, and if you think that people aren't going to be denied life saving procedures under government run health insurance you are even more delusional than I thought. I've had great experiences with my health insurance having been hospitalized twice on my current plan, they have paid out a LOT more than I have paid in, and after 6 months they even covered [whisper]preexisting conditions[/whisper].

American's health should not be a business. I've already stated why.

 

[shadow9d9]

Insurance is all wrong, yet most people are satisfied with their current insurance. Quite a paradox.



maybe everyone should just work for free then.



Overall the results are not bad. Far better than a govt monopoly of healthcare would be.



The problem is there is nothing in this bill that will control costs. OF course it appears they now can save $5billion a year by not letting women have mammograms. I am sure they can come up with other things to ration as well.

If you want to control costs, you have stop letting a 3rd party(govt or insurance) pay for every transaction. As long as someone else is paying the bill, the end consumer will care about the cost.

I've already answered all these and you insist on repeating what I've already debunked with evidence as if I hadn't already answered.

 

[shadow9d9]

Right, because now that it's something you personally support it's all good huh? The loony left with spittle flying out of their mouths for 8 years about wreckless spending, too much government and wars all of a sudden become so quiet when it's their agenda, pathetic hypocrites.

There is no left in this country, so there can't be some made up faction. There are moderates and there is right. The public option as the first step, to be watered down, should be obvious of that. Single payer as a starting position might support there being a left... but it was never on the table because the country is only moderate and right.

You make an assumption about my position based on what the "left" has done.. however, it doesn't apply to me.

 

[shadow9d9]

Let me explanation the problems with assuming that correlation = causation. You run into potential third variable and directionality problems (wikipedia it).

Third variable problem: Is is that insurers started using pre-existing conditions clauses because profits were too low? Or is it that an external factor that drove down profits caused them to seek ways to increase profits? For example, maybe a lot of people retired in the past 8 years as baby boomers aged, leaving the private market with a smaller pool (since they all went on Medicare). Or perhaps a culture of never ending profit increases drove insurance company employees too look for the easiest way to maximize profit? Perhaps government regulation is too strict...or perhaps all three are true.

Directionality problem: Do low profits cause abuse of pre-existing conditions? Or does abuse of pre-existing conditions cause low profits? Taken to an extreme either could be true.

The fact is that profits are not high enough that if we simply eliminated them everyone would have insurance. Percentages are misleading. If I make $1 this year and next year I make $10, then I've had a 1000% increase in profit. The problem in my eyes is not a profit driven health care driven system. The problem is lack of competition. We have an oligarchy, we need some good old fashioned trust busting. A public option is one way to achieve help improve competition, but it could also easily be structured in a way that destroys all competition.

Don't make the assumption I am anti-heathcare reform, or even against the current bill, you can easily do a search of my posts to see where I stand. I'm simply trying to help you strengthen your argument. If you want to be able to effectively argue against a Conservative position on health care, you need to first understand it. You can take the moral stance that profits = evil, and I wouldn't really staunchly disagree with you (though I believe its the mentality that profits must forever increase that is the cause of the problem)

I didn't make an assumption about correlation = causation. As you can see by the quotes, it is a proven fact.

 

[charrison]

I've already answered all these and you insist on repeating what I've already debunked with evidence as if I hadn't already answered.

So far you have debunked nothing.

 

[shadow9d9]

So far you have debunked nothing.

Exactly.

 

[charrison]

Exactly.

At least we finally agree on sometime.