Highways & Healthcare

[Mxylplyx]

But single payer would probably come with regulations on how much can be charged like they do in places like Japan.

When we pay twice as much for healthcare here in the US as a share of GDP, why would anyone have a problem with this?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

When we pay twice as much for healthcare here in the US as a share of GDP, why would anyone have a problem with this?

Simple just copy what one of these countries do. Honestly it can't get any worse than what we are doing.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Simple just copy what one of these countries do. Honestly it can't get any worse than what we are doing.

Given the expected profits, it's going to be kind of hard to scrap what we have without a ton of top tier companies crumbling and falling over like tripping a giant.

I simply don't think it's possible. Everyone on down the line would have to take SEVERE paycuts.
1. Doctors themselves
2. Typical Employer Medical Insurance companies would cease to exist?
3. Big Pharma companies would fall over

Just my predictions if you were to try to quickly implement something. How do you propose making such changes?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Given the expected profits, it's going to be kind of hard to scrap what we have without a ton of top tier companies crumbling and falling over like tripping a giant.

I simply don't think it's possible. Everyone on down the line would have to take SEVERE paycuts.
1. Doctors themselves
2. Typical Employer Medical Insurance companies would cease to exist?
3. Big Pharma companies would fall over

Just my predictions if you were to try to quickly implement something. How do you propose making such changes?

I just figure a government buy out on the big insurers yes it would be an expensive start and you are correct there would be pay cuts for people. I unfortunately agree that too much money is at stake for us to see any real change.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Given the expected profits, it's going to be kind of hard to scrap what we have without a ton of top tier companies crumbling and falling over like tripping a giant.

I simply don't think it's possible. Everyone on down the line would have to take SEVERE paycuts.
1. Doctors themselves
2. Typical Employer Medical Insurance companies would cease to exist?
3. Big Pharma companies would fall over

Just my predictions if you were to try to quickly implement something. How do you propose making such changes?

Yes, you are correct. When a sector of our economy has become so fattened by out-sized profits and inefficiency, such a thing is inevitable. These entities don't have a right to continue to exist in their current form simply because they already exist, no more than a buggy whip manufacturer had a right to exist after the invention of the automobile. Just above every player in healthcare will have to survive on lower profits. Some, ie insurance companies, should not exist at all.

 

[Mxylplyx]

I just figure a government buy out on the big insurers yes it would be an expensive start and you are correct there would be pay cuts for people. I unfortunately agree that too much money is at stake for us to see any real change.

No reason to buy out big insurers. The medicare reimbursement system in place now could be scaled up in a single payer model. Big insurers are nothing more than profiteering middle men standing between providers and patients. The whole industry needs to cease to exist.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

No reason to buy out big insurers. The medicare reimbursement system in place now could be scaled up in a single payer model. Big insurers are nothing more than profiteering middle men standing between providers and patients. The whole industry needs to cease to exist.

You'd still need the appropriate staff levels and people with experience. The record keeping would have value too.
More importantly to get people (not lobbyists) to support it you'd need to give some kind of employment offer to people already working in the insurance industry. Who would support a measure that would put them out of work?

 

[shira]

I know exactly who these plans are for. You are tossing in $6-20k of debt as opposed to $60k-$100k of debt. It's simple math.



OK so when? It's been about a year and a half now. When can we expect this failure? Be specific.



Ahh, so even though you only selected bronze plan people your cherry picked number is still close to 20℅ lower than your original claim.

How about you go look at the average deductible for ALL ACA plan owners?

One of us is clueless about this but it isn't me.

Righties (including most on ATPN) continually labeled Obamacare a "disaster" and a "train wreck." I really, really, really want to know where the train wreck is hiding. Can ATPN righties please enlighten us?

 

[Mxylplyx]

You'd still need the appropriate staff levels and people with experience. The record keeping would have value too.
More importantly to get people (not lobbyists) to support it you'd need to give some kind of employment offer to people already working in the insurance industry. Who would support a measure that would put them out of work?

Countless people throughout our nations history have been displaced from their careers due to social progress or market innovation. If the government felt the need to offer them job training or whatever then so be it, but the government certainly does not owe employment to an entire industry that is a casualty of social progress.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Countless people throughout our nations history have been displaced from their careers due to social progress or market innovation. If the government felt the need to offer them job training or whatever then so be it, but the government certainly does not owe employment to an entire industry that is a casualty of social progress.

Keep telling yourself that. No Politician would allow tens of thousands of people to lose employment over a health care solution. None of them would. Ever.

 

[Sonikku]

Who needs infrastructure? It's socialist!
Republicans added defunding Planned Parenthood to female soldier health bill and got that killed too.

Democrats voted against female soldiers! Why do Democrats hate female soldiers so much?!

 

[TheSlamma]

When we pay twice as much for healthcare here in the US as a share of GDP, why would anyone have a problem with this?

I don't know, why would they?

 

[Jhhnn]

Countless people throughout our nations history have been displaced from their careers due to social progress or market innovation. If the government felt the need to offer them job training or whatever then so be it, but the government certainly does not owe employment to an entire industry that is a casualty of social progress.

OTOH, we have this "get a job, work for a living" model of how to distribute goods & services. We're already having trouble squaring that with the market innovations of offshoring, automation & the shifting of income from work to investment.

 

[Sonikku]

Countless people throughout our nations history have been displaced from their careers due to social progress or market innovation.

But none of them had the pull or political clout that the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry has.

 

[Dannar26]

Democrats voted against female soldiers! Why do Democrats hate female soldiers so much?!

But that's nothing compared to the hateful ideology that is conservatism.

Imagine! Those jerks want everybody's rights to be equal! The nerve. They clearly hate minorities and women because they don't want to warp society around those special groups!

 

[Meghan54]

But that's nothing compared to the hateful ideology that is conservatism.

Imagine! Those jerks want everybody's rights to be equal! The nerve. They clearly hate minorities and women because they don't want to warp society around those special groups!

LOL!

Guess you've forgotten how much conservatives wanted everyone to be treated equally when they voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc., etc.

 

[TheSlamma]

LOL!

Guess you've forgotten how much conservatives wanted everyone to be treated equally when they voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc., etc.

Lets go back 101 years before that. Both of your parties have dark times.

 

[fskimospy]

LOL!

Guess you've forgotten how much conservatives wanted everyone to be treated equally when they voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, etc., etc.

You realize that conservatives DID vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, etc, right? Go look into 'Southern Democrats'. You'll see they were extraordinarily conservative on civil rights issues.

The real divide was North/South. In both cases, democrats from each region voted for them at higher rates, but since Republicans basically didn't exist in the south at the time there were of course far fewer southern Republicans voting against it.

 

[Strk]

No reason to buy out big insurers. The medicare reimbursement system in place now could be scaled up in a single payer model. Big insurers are nothing more than profiteering middle men standing between providers and patients. The whole industry needs to cease to exist.

True, but it doesn't even have to be that. Germany has a system that mixes public and private plans. It could help transition us to a more single-payer system. We have many problems in this country. The cost of [medical] school, malpractice insurance rates, the AMA and plenty of other things and not just the crappy insurance system. We need such a huge overhaul.

 

[senseamp]

We are going to have single payer soon, Anthem

 

[Mxylplyx]

We are going to have single payer soon, Anthem

Any reasonable person knows that it's coming, because health spending can only increase above the level of inflation for so long. Treating healthcare as a public utility and implementing cost controls, as anathema as that is to some people, is the only way to truly get it under control. It's eventually coming to higher education as well.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Any reasonable person knows that it's coming, because health spending can only increase above the level of inflation for so long. Treating healthcare as a public utility and implementing cost controls, as anathema as that is to some people, is the only way to truly get it under control. It's eventually coming to higher education as well.

Keep in mind people were saying this in the 80's too.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Perhaps repeal is the right plan, lets set up proper national health care like 100% of all other civilized countries in the world. ACA is much better than nothing, but, its a far cry from ideal.

 

[uclaLabrat]

It's conflicting, because you have to have SOME type of drive for R&D the next drug. How else do you expect to find cures for cancer and such? It's all profit driven. There is a reason why (as insane as our healthcare system is) we still pump out the newest cures before everyone else.

So there has to be an incentive - A 50 year exclusive patent is way too damn much. But say... 5 years of being able to charge higher costs would be some what reasonable. If all medicines have to be sold at a certain price, why toss any money into R&D when it won't be sold any higher than one that is 100 years old and still going strong?

Patent protection is already 20 years, but since it takes 12-15 years these days to get a drug through the approvals process, that nets 5-8 years of actual sales to recoup costs. In addition, if going through trials demonstrates that a new drug is only as good as something already on the market, it won't be approved, period.

This doesn't touch on biosimilars, however, which are just starting to crack the market in the US after some hemming and hawing about the regulatory aspects from the FDA.

 

[senseamp]

Perhaps repeal is the right plan, lets set up proper national health care like 100% of all other civilized countries in the world. ACA is much better than nothing, but, its a far cry from ideal.

There are countries like Switzerland, Israel, Germany, etc, that use a multi-payer system of highly regulated private insurers with individual mandate and subsidies like Obamacare. The devil is in the details. I think Obamcare sets up the right framework that can be fine tuned with proper rules and regulations. You can't throw things out all the time, and hope that something perfect is going to show up, sometimes it's just hard work of improving things step by step.