Passage of the ACHA Lays Bare The Hatred and Contempt in The Hearts of GOP Voters

[woolfe9998]

What I don't get about her is that she's old enough to remember when people said the exact same thing about Bush and Gore. Some people are just too stupid to ever learn I guess.

Then again because she's rich and famous she's largely insulated from the consequences of people voting for Stein over Clinton. I'm sure that must be nice.

Sarandon was being an idiot. She got schooled by Chris Hayes and others over this:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...nfronted-about-president-trump-by-chris-hayes

You can tell from her comments that she knows she was wrong, which is why she thinks that "blaming people" is a waste of time.

 

[zinfamous]

I fully expect any failure in the Senate to be framed as obstruction by the Ds. House GOP will thump their chest and scream victory. Their somewhat under informed voting base will believe that passing in the house means it's actually law.

Yep. This bill will likely fail and be completely abandoned in the end, but with Strumpf's grandstanding yesterday at the WH, essentially claiming that the bill is already law, I bet that at least 15-25% of idiot Trump voters will believe that, from this day on, they now have Trump care. They will continue to reap the services of the ACA, but with the removal of blackie's name from the bill (in their minds only), they will suddenly love it, because they think it is Trumpcare. Remember: these are the same fleshbags that claimed to hate "Obamacare" but love the ACA.

And these supporters are the ones that Repubs seek to screw first. I mean, why not? Why not keep screwing people if they keep voting for more of the same? I think the message is clear: "Hey, this class of voters really likes to have the weight of the world firmly pressed against them, until not a penny that would be better off in corporate America's hands remains in these voters' pockets. So, let's keep fucking them over because they keep coming for more! Yay!" You know--convince people that no one should have the power "to protect you from your own stupidity," you have a loyal, mewling class of deplorable idiots that complain about their sad, decrepit state in life, but damned if anyone dare give them a solution!

See, Dem's will never have that kind of base support. Dems actually try to help people, misguided though some policies may be. At least they provide workable solutions.

 

[Fern]

-snip-

Second, if your friend is losing literally a million dollars a year by taking Medicare and Medicaid patients why is he doing it? It seems the choices are one of two things: 1) He's just really nice. 2) You don't know what you're talking about. I've seen this 'reimbursement is below the cost of care' many times from conservatives. It is almost universally from either a very poor understanding of health care that ignores fixed costs and idle staff/equipment opportunity costs or deliberate cherry picking of certain procedures.

JFC you're an arrogant jackass.

When a physician, pharmacy, durable medical supply company (wheelchairs, oxygen etc.) wants to be a Medicare provider they must agree to be 'all in or all out'. Meaning you can't pick and choose which Medicare claims you'll handle.

E.g., I had part ownership of a durable medical company some years ago. Under medicare pricing selling a wheelchair was a loss for us. The Medicare reimbursement rate the the wheelchair was less than our cost. Now, if the customer wanted to rent the wheelchair we made money. After 6 months (a guess because I can longer remember the exact period, and believe me we all knew) the chair was almost paid for a we got the wheelchair back at the end of the period and we could rent it out again. Now the obvious answer is to refuse to sell wheelchairs under Medicare and only rent them. You can't do that; you lose your Medicare credentials . You can't pick and choose.

The physician I referred to above is likewise stuck. If he wants to continue to be able to treat any patients under Medicare he must take the loss on that medicine, at least until such time as it becomes so large he cannot continue to see Medicare patients.

From this we see two things:

1. The federal gov is extremely crappy at price fixing. You shouldn't have one thing that results in a loss and another that results in a nice profit. The profit percentage should be as uniform as possible, a big (-) and a big (+) is not uniform.

2. As you suggest, physician and HC providers will end up simply dumping Medicare. Those on Medicare are already having great difficulty finding a physician to see. If we carry this out to single payer we'll have abig problem.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

JFC you're an arrogant jackass.

When a physician, pharmacy, durable medical supply company (wheelchairs, oxygen etc.) wants to be a Medicare provider they must agree to be 'all in or all out'. Meaning you can't pick and choose which Medicare claims you'll handle.

E.g., I had part ownership of a durable medical company some years ago. Under medicare pricing selling a wheelchair was a loss for us. The Medicare reimbursement rate the the wheelchair was less than our cost. Now, if the customer wanted to rent the wheelchair we made money. After 6 months (a guess because I can longer remember the exact period, and believe me we all knew) the chair was almost paid for a we got the wheelchair back at the end of the period and we could rent it out again. Now the obvious answer is to refuse to sell wheelchairs under Medicare and only rent them. You can't do that; you lose your Medicare credentials . You can't pick and choose.

The physician I referred to above is likewise stuck. If he wants to continue to be able to treat any patients under Medicare he must take the loss on that medicine, at least until such time as it becomes so large he cannot continue to see Medicare patients.

From this we see two things:

1. The federal gov is extremely crappy at price fixing. You shouldn't have one thing that results in a loss and another that results in a nice profit. The profit percentage should be as uniform as possible, a big (-) and a big (+) is not uniform.

2. As you suggest, physician and HC providers will end up simply dumping Medicare. Those on Medicare are already having great difficulty finding a physician to see. If we carry this out to single payer we'll have abig problem.

Fern

So in other words you WERE cherry picking certain procedures by highlighting specific ones he was losing money on while ignoring the fact that he was making money on the whole. (if he's losing money then we just get back to what a nice guy he is!) This is a remarkably silly argument when you're talking about the sustainability of the whole system for reasons that should be obvious. If you look back at my original reply I totally called this as what you were doing.

Either you knew this was the case and you were trying to deceive people or you didn't know this was the case and so you shouldn't be talking about things you don't understand.

EDIT: Also, you're still misusing the term 'price fixing'.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I was going to ask the liberals what they think of figures like Susan Sarandon who suggested Trump presidency would be preferable to Clinton presidency because the former would "shake things up." (paraphrased)

Sarandon appears to be a rather ignorant twit when it comes to American politics and social issues. Damned good actor though. I love most of her body of work.

 

[Blackjack200]

So in other words you WERE cherry picking certain procedures by highlighting specific ones he was losing money on while ignoring the fact that he was making money on the whole. (if he's losing money then we just get back to what a nice guy he is!) This is a remarkably silly argument when you're talking about the sustainability of the whole system for reasons that should be obvious. If you look back at my original reply I totally called this as what you were doing.

Either you knew this was the case and you were trying to deceive people or you didn't know this was the case and so you shouldn't be talking about things you don't understand.

And it's very common in the business world to make money off of some products and services and lose money on others.

JFC you're an arrogant jackass.

You gave us a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit about how price fixing would turn the country into Venezuela because reimbursement rates would not pay for services, and then it turned out that on a whole, they are high enough. That's pretty jackassy to me.

 

[Fern]

We can disagree on what drove the failure of UHC in 2009, but there's no excuse for Democratic Party leadership to not be supporting UHC now, the polling I'm seeing is showing massive support, even among Republican voters.

Is there any way to explain this other than complete corruption of Pelosi and Schumer by the healthcare industry?

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.

Next you have our actual health care providers. That industry is huge universe of small businesses. Doctors, PA's and their clinics, pharmacies etc will all be subject to price fixing by gov.; Gov management of their revenue, but not their expenses, is a terrifying prospect. As we can see from this thread Progressives are supremely confident of those subjects they have experience, can't wait until they start trying micromanage all these small business. People think it frightening when they hear "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help" but that will pale compared to "Hi, I'm a Progressive and I'm here to give you the answers".

Fern

 

[cliftonite]

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.

Next you have our actual health care providers. That industry is huge universe of small businesses. Doctors, PA's and their clinics, pharmacies etc will all be subject to price fixing by gov.; Gov management of their revenue, but not their expenses, is a terrifying prospect. As we can see from this thread Progressives are supremely confident of those subjects they have experience, can't wait until they start trying micromanage all these small business. People think it frightening when they hear "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help" but that will pale compared to "Hi, I'm a Progressive and I'm here to give you the answers".

Fern

Sounds like a bunch of doom and gloom bs.

 

[theeedude]

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.
Fern

That's a good thing, IMO. Dead weight will be eliminated, costs to health care consumers decreased. Stock ownership is concentrated with the wealthy, whereas health cost is shouldered by everyone. Investors will learn to not invest in industries who are rent-seeking and gate-keeping and not creating actual value. As a health care consumer, I don't want to employ insurance company employees or support their shareholders.

 

[fskimospy]

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.

Next you have our actual health care providers. That industry is huge universe of small businesses. Doctors, PA's and their clinics, pharmacies etc will all be subject to price fixing by gov.; Gov management of their revenue, but not their expenses, is a terrifying prospect. As we can see from this thread Progressives are supremely confident of those subjects they have experience, can't wait until they start trying micromanage all these small business. People think it frightening when they hear "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help" but that will pale compared to "Hi, I'm a Progressive and I'm here to give you the answers".

Fern

Man that all sure sounds bad. I wonder how literally every other industrialized nation on earth was able to accomplish this feat considering all the dire consequences?

The answer can't be that you don't know what you're talking about and are making things up so it must be something else. What?

 

[LPCTech]

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.

Next you have our actual health care providers. That industry is huge universe of small businesses. Doctors, PA's and their clinics, pharmacies etc will all be subject to price fixing by gov.; Gov management of their revenue, but not their expenses, is a terrifying prospect. As we can see from this thread Progressives are supremely confident of those subjects they have experience, can't wait until they start trying micromanage all these small business. People think it frightening when they hear "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help" but that will pale compared to "Hi, I'm a Progressive and I'm here to give you the answers".

Fern

The vultures preying upon the sick and dying will be hurt by their corrupt industry crumbling? Good. EXCELLENT! WONDERFUL!

We will take the economic hit and recover.
Like we do after every republican president.

 

[Blackjack200]

That's a good thing, IMO. Dead weight will be eliminated, costs to health care consumers decreased. Stock ownership is concentrated with the wealthy, whereas health cost is shouldered by everyone. Investors will learn to not invest in industries who are rent-seeking and gate-keeping and not creating actual value. As a health care consumer, I don't want to employ insurance company employees or support their shareholders.

I had this argument with a co-worker the other day. He asked me what would happen to all the insurance workers. I swear, health care arguments are the only time I've actually heard Republicans defend bureaucratic waste.

They complain about costs, and then you tell them how to control costs and they're like BUT SOME PEOPLE WILL GET LESS MONEY.

Haha.

 

[Fern]

So in other words you WERE cherry picking certain procedures by highlighting specific ones he was losing money on while ignoring the fact that he was making money on the whole. -snip-

No, it's not cherry picking. It's a real example. Nor did I ignore that he was making money on the whole. I thought I made that relatively clear.

You're misusing the term "cherry picking".

Simply put, and as real life examples demonstrate, the gov is horrible at determining prices. Those were just 2 examples of many. The problem s/b obvious as everyone knows many doctors have ceased treating Medicare/Medicaid patients because they can't afford to.

Fern

 

[Blackjack200]

Yeah, I'd say that they don't want to destroy our health care industry, economy and put a ton of people out-of-work.

Single payer would likely decimate the HI industry. The stock value will be wiped out. Retirement plans and other investors in those stocks will take big fat loss. People will be unemployed and all the cascading problems that will flow from this.

Next you have our actual health care providers. That industry is huge universe of small businesses. Doctors, PA's and their clinics, pharmacies etc will all be subject to price fixing by gov.; Gov management of their revenue, but not their expenses, is a terrifying prospect. As we can see from this thread Progressives are supremely confident of those subjects they have experience, can't wait until they start trying micromanage all these small business. People think it frightening when they hear "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help" but that will pale compared to "Hi, I'm a Progressive and I'm here to give you the answers".

Fern

You know, the problem is that we've tried your way and it fucking sucks. We spend the most for health care for terrible outcomes compared to other countries. So you've had your chance ("you" meaning the free market advocates). You failed spectacularly.

 

[Jaskalas]

So in other words you WERE cherry picking certain procedures by highlighting specific ones he was losing money on while ignoring the fact that he was making money on the whole. (if he's losing money then we just get back to what a nice guy he is!) This is a remarkably silly argument when you're talking about the sustainability of the whole system for reasons that should be obvious. If you look back at my original reply I totally called this as what you were doing.

Either you knew this was the case and you were trying to deceive people or you didn't know this was the case and so you shouldn't be talking about things you don't understand.

EDIT: Also, you're still misusing the term 'price fixing'.

And on this day, fskimospy scores a touch down.

The problem s/b obvious as everyone knows many doctors have ceased treating Medicare/Medicaid patients because they can't afford to.

Isn't that due to the programs having funding cut?

 

[fskimospy]

No, it's not cherry picking. It's a real example. Nor did I ignore that he was making money on the whole. I thought I made that relatively clear.

You're misusing the term "cherry picking".

Simply put, and as real life examples demonstrate, the gov is horrible at determining prices. Those were just 2 examples of many. The problem s/b obvious as everyone knows many doctors have ceased treating Medicare/Medicaid patients because they can't afford to.

Fern

Can you quote me the part of your post where you thought it was clear he was making money on the whole from Medicare?

 

[Blackjack200]

We will take the economic hit and recover.
Like we do after every republican president.

Oof.

 

[Fern]

Man that all sure sounds bad. I wonder how literally every other industrialized nation on earth was able to accomplish this feat considering all the dire consequences?

The answer can't be that you don't know what you're talking about and are making things up so it must be something else. What?

Show us a large Western country that has made a transition from a system like our to single payer recently and we can talk about it.

Ignoring the obvious problems from such a transition by getting all emo and hating on workers in the HI and HC industries is stupid as well as immature.

Fern

 

[Younigue]

Man that all sure sounds bad. I wonder how literally every other industrialized nation on earth was able to accomplish this feat considering all the dire consequences?

The answer can't be that you don't know what you're talking about and are making things up so it must be something else. What?

MmmHmm!

This fear is misplaced, ill-informed and counter-productive. Shoot your own self in the damn foot mentality but careful now it would likely be considered a pre-existing condition under The Uninformed Make It Look Congenital clause surely built in to AHCA.

 

[LPCTech]

I'm not going to have surgery that will save my life cuz it will hurt in the short term.

 

[Blackjack200]

Isn't that due to the programs having funding cut?

I think it's more that Medicare and Medicaid aren't perfect. They can be tweaked. Reimbursements for some things probably are too low. On a whole they could deliver tons of savings though.

Show us a large Western country that has made a transition from a system like our to single payer recently and we can talk about it.

Ignoring the obvious problems from such a transition by getting all emo and hating on workers in the Hi and HC is stupid as well as immature.

Fern

Other large Westerns counties moved to UHC decades ago and never implemented the employer based care that we have, so that's not a good argument.

Doctors can make less money here just like they do in other countries, I'm fine with that. We transition workers out of dead industries all the time. Ran into any typists recently? How about telephone operators? Health Insurance workers are part of a wasteful system, lowering costs inevitably involves reducing their numbers. That's not hating on them, that's being honest.

 

[Younigue]

Show us a large Western country that has made a transition from a system like our to single payer recently and we can talk about it.

Ignoring the obvious problems from such a transition by getting all emo and hating on workers in the HI and HC industries is stupid as well as immature.

Fern

So you're saying the fear of the change is worth...?

 

[LPCTech]

We should abandon the internet cuz its hurting the Postal system.

 

[Younigue]

I think it's more that Medicare and Medicaid aren't perfect. They can be tweaked. Reimbursements for some things probably are too low. On a whole they could deliver tons of savings though.



Other large Westerns counties moved to UHC decades ago and never implemented the employer based care that we have, so that's not a good argument.

Doctors can make less money here just like they do in other countries, I'm fine with that. We transition workers out of dead industries all the time. Ran into any typists recently? How about telephone operators? Health Insurance workers are part of a wasteful system, lowering costs inevitably involves reducing their numbers. That's not hating on them, that's being honest.

Wasteful, for ridiculous profit, uncaring, heinous, manipulative, deceptive....

 

[ivwshane]

Show us a large Western country that has made a transition from a system like our to single payer recently and we can talk about it.

Ignoring the obvious problems from such a transition by getting all emo and hating on workers in the HI and HC industries is stupid as well as immature.

Fern

Mexico.