I could live without healthcare reform! How about you?

And why did all the above happen?? Because Clinton ...

Well, I'm no Clinton fan but when I think "deregulation", when I think "privatization", or when I think "business friendly", Clinton really isn't the first character that comes to mind.

In fact I think most people would identify that trait with our recently departed MBA President and his much anticipated "run like a business government".

And we all saw how well that went.

You ignore the fact that the system you are protecting is the very same one that spent, lobbied and pushed to get it exactly where it is today. Politicians didn't just pull out all the stops for grins.

Whatever. I'm coming to the conclusion that this subject is more closely related to faith than reason anyway.

the issue of "preexisting conditions" . This is about people who have never bought insurance when they where healthy, never paid a premium and are now sick. Now they want someone to pay their bills. Why should i who has never used healthcare and has paid my premiums for most of my adult life just in case i get sick pay for people who want a free ride?

I was staying out of this one until I read this. For me the inaccuracy of this statement pretty much invalidates anything else you might have said....

For those using France as an example:
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/14/health-care-around-the-world-france/

"Private Insurance. “More than 92% of French residents have complementary private insurance.” This insurance pays for additional fees in order to access higher quality providers. Private health insurances makes up 12.7% of French health care spending. These complementary private insurance funds are very loosely regulated (less than in the U.S.) and the only stringent requirement is guaranteed renewability. Private insurance benefits are not equally distributed so there is, in essence, a two-tier system."

They have universal basic care that is so basic that 92% of the population purchases supplemental care in a market that is more free than in the US.  That's very different from what's being proposed here, mandated, highly regulated, high-quality care.  

I completely countered the consumer bankruptcy angle and pointed to numbers with citations to original sources.
...
Warren's study simply does not support the notion that medical bills are causing more bankruptcies in 2007 than they did in 2001.  That isn't suspicion, that is fact.  And I showed my work.

Citations to what original sources? You didn't cite anything but the study we're talking about. And your "work" was two lines of math whose base numbers I couldn't find in the study.

I can appreciate your suspicion of numbers being manipulated. And I'll be the first to admit that my eyes start to glaze over when reading this sort of thing. But, unless I'm mistaken, articles published in the American Journal of Medicine are peer reviewed. Further, a lot of people smarter than both of us would like to discredit this, if possible, but I've not heard of that happening.

Ben

I cited to the statistics kept by the US court on the government website.

The numbers you can't find were the basis of the study, you didn't look very hard.

I don't know how many bankruptcy specialists are members of the AMA and reviewed the article published - an article with no medical findings, but what was essentially a position piece on insurance reform.  Hard to offer a peer review on a position piece.

I am smarter than you give me credit for.  Don't worry, I'm used to it.

They have universal basic care that is so basic that 92% of the population purchases supplemental care in a market that is more free than in the US. 

Japan has a similar system. Being a past user I can say it worked really well. The national system took care of about 95% of costs. Then you'd have a supplemental insurance that took care of the leftover 5%. The supplemental cost about $200 per year. A visit would cost $10 so not much different than many co-pays we have here but it would be covered by your supplemental insurance.

Z

Gentlemen,

I truly appreciate the tone of civility in this discussion. This is an issue where people are easily angered, and where emotional, and often ridiculous arguments dominate productive thinking.

If we can try to neutralize the fear mongering, and point out the bullshit when it surfaces, and keep our  composure despite our strong feelings, we may get somewhere. And we need to get somewhere.

One more thing: I hear too many people see no need for change because they are happy with the coverage that they have now. We need to think bigger, to look at the way the system works overall, and see the shortcomings on that scale.

If you're alarmed by the phrase "socialized medicine", consider this:

Imagine you witness a stranger collapse with a heart attack, render what aid you can, and take the stranger to the ER. Imagine that he is unconscious and has no ID. John Doe. We cannot imagine living in a society where this man is turned away because of his inability to pay. He is treated and survives. And if he is without money or insurance, the costs are spread among us all, through our higher insurance payments, and higher costs for treatment. This we accept because there is no clear alternative. It is what we have now, and it IS socialized medicine. It's just not well planned, comprehensive, and affordable.

Let's try for well planned, comprehensive, and affordable.

Regards,

Paul

I appreciate the levelheaded discussions as well.  This is a hot button issue, one that I might have though Goodwin's law would have been invoked by page 5.  Lets keep it going folks.

At the end of the day, I don't think that anyone is arguing that the system isn't broken in some respect.  Ultimately what we do to address those issues will be a function of who frames the better argument, and who is more persuasive in their approach.  

For those using France as an example:

You assume that the private insurance in France is structuraly identical to ours.

NOT TRUE.

the issue of "preexisting conditions" . This is about people who have never bought insurance when they where healthy, never paid a premium and are now sick. Now they want someone to pay their bills. Why should i who has never used healthcare and has paid my premiums for most of my adult life just in case i get sick pay for people who want a free ride?

I was staying out of this one until I read this. For me the inaccuracy of this statement pretty much invalidates anything else you might have said....

Yeah, it makes rational discussion pretty much impossible.

the issue of "preexisting conditions" . This is about people who have never bought insurance when they where healthy, never paid a premium and are now sick. Now they want someone to pay their bills. Why should i who has never used healthcare and has paid my premiums for most of my adult life just in case i get sick pay for people who want a free ride?

I was staying out of this one until I read this. For me the inaccuracy of this statement pretty much invalidates anything else you might have said....

Yeah, it makes rational discussion pretty much impossible.

No, it doesn't.  It presents a teaching opportunity.  This type of reaction to a statement that you disagree with is more detrimental to the discussion than the original statement, however wrong that statement may have been.

There is no reason to devolve into ad hominem attacks.

“More than 92% of French residents have complementary private insurance.”

This is not unlike our medicare. A New Zealander I know describes supplementary (to state run health care) coverage people buy there, though he doesn't bother. I don't see anything wrong with this, in fact, it is my personal preference. Make sure everyone has the basics covered and allow individuals to construct, at their own expense, something more like "Cadillac plans".

That's very different from what's being proposed here, mandated, highly regulated, high-quality care.

What is being mandated is insurance, not care. Added to that would be a "public option" to compete with commercial insurance coverage. It's not the boogie man people make it out to be. We already do it via medicare, medicaid and veteran's medical coverage.

Ben

Interesting, how can someone who has been covered by insurance be denied anything because after all that time that person is covered by Medicare not private insurance.

the preexisting conditions issue, is very simple. If you have health insurance and you read the policy it will say what is covered. If you don't like it you buy a different policy.
One of the things my wife does is testify in court as a expert in issues concerning insurance fraud and the recision issues. Most of her mortality work is purchased by the insurance industry and government so both these areas are very much a part of our lives.

Most people who don't have insurance don't buy insurance when they are healthy. they wait until they are having medical problems then try to buy insurance. Much of the insurance fraud is people lying on their insurance applications trying to get covered for whatever medical issues they have.  The huge problem with forcing these people onto the insurance companies are two fold.

1. these people pay in 800 per month like a healthy person and draw out 100,000 or more per month for treatment of their medical condition(s). Because they have never paid a dime in insurance premiums before this time all it would take is a couple of thousand people like this to bankrupt any healthinsurnce company...and all of us responsible people get screwed. Now i have paid in at least 120,000 in my health insurance premiums over the years and never used them except when my wife had babies so i lose all that money. While someone who has paid nothing in premiums gets to have hundreds of thousands of free care.

2. Myself and everyone who is responsible and paying our premiums will get very very pissed off and stop paying them, because why should we? We know that the insurance company will be driven into bankruptcy and if they survive then we can wait until we are sick and then buy insurance.

Now to the issues of caps on what the insurance company pays out. Technology is increasing at a very rapid rate. Its very expensive. A machine that came out last year does brain surgery without cutting into someones head. The machine costs 10 million and needs three specialists to run it. How can an insurance company  factor in the added costs of treatment by this machine? They don't know it exists until it comes online. This is one of the many new machines and treatments that are introduced every year...just think of the work Ganetec Corp is doing. If stem cells life up to half their hype, the billions invested in that will cost huge money when its ready to be used in treatment.

The only way a health insurance comany can not go bankrupt with all of this new technology constantly coming out is by putting caps on what they will pay out. Its usually 5 million that's a lot of medicine.

FYI all insurance companies are heavily regulated by the states. A health insurance doesn't sneeze without state approval. There are some bad insurance companies out there, my wife worked on the Pasty Bates case but one case like this and that insurance company had to deal with the state coming down on them like a ton of bricks.

the costs of technology is what is making it rough on the countries that have government medicine, even those with a healthy fit population and no malpractice lawsuits.

And why did all the above happen?? Because Clinton ...

Well, I'm no Clinton fan but when I think "deregulation", when I think "privatization", or when I think "business friendly", Clinton really isn't the first character that comes to mind.

In fact I think most people would identify that trait with our recently departed MBA President and his much anticipated "run like a business government".

And we all saw how well that went.

You ignore the fact that the system you are protecting is the very same one that spent, lobbied and pushed to get it exactly where it is today. Politicians didn't just pull out all the stops for grins.

Whatever. I'm coming to the conclusion that this subject is more closely related to faith than reason anyway.

I am not talking about deregulation. when Clinton came to power he put all of his people in the heads of all the gov agency's and then told them not to enforce any business laws. This refusal to enforce any business laws led to the asset bubbles that we have all experienced over the last 15 years. The first one was the dot com bubble, as this started to fizzle the rules came off of housing leading to the housing bubble and then last but not least the rules came off of the commodity markets in 2000 leading to the run up in oil and other commodities.

Bernie Madoff and the other hedge funds got away with their ponzie schemes because the SEC wouldn't investagate them, not because they where brillant people. Bush never had the votes to put the rules back on the mortgage industry the banks or do much of anything. He was also trying to keep our country safe after 9/11 which was what defined his presidency.

I had a food manufacturing plant in the 90's. In the food business the big boys in each food category bought all of the self space in the supermarkets nationwide, destroying their competitors by not allowing them selfspace to sell their products, this is illegal but Clinton's people didn't give a damn. this put me out of business along with thousands of other small and medium food manufactures. If you wonder why food is so expensive its because on a few big companies control all the supermarket shelf space in this country.

Yeah, it makes rational discussion pretty much impossible.

No, it doesn't.  It presents a teaching opportunity.  This type of reaction to a statement that you disagree with is more detrimental to the discussion than the original statement, however wrong that statement may have been.

If people err honestly, that may represent a "teaching moment".

When someone's argument is disingenuous, sophist or simply a lie, that derails what might have otherwise been a productive conversation.

Yeah, it makes rational discussion pretty much impossible.

No, it doesn't.  It presents a teaching opportunity.  This type of reaction to a statement that you disagree with is more detrimental to the discussion than the original statement, however wrong that statement may have been.

If people err honestly, that may represent a "teaching moment".

When someone's argument is disingenuous, sophist or simply a lie, that derails what might have otherwise been a productive conversation.

So you jump straight to the assumption that ocean_314 is lying or has ulterior motives?  Geez, rough crowd.  He seems alright to me.

How can pointing out the facts of the issues of the health insurance industry be lying?
Please stop the hysterics and point out where i am factually wrong.

Do you really think that the health insurance companies operate in a regulatory vaccum and are some evil enity?