Thanks Gris, it was a great read and very true to the point. You can also include rat and bug infested hospitals in GB as well.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
If a broken leg cost an american $20,000 to 100,000, not counting hospital stays, or meds, then heart surgery will wipe out anyone. The problem is health care in america is unafordable. Way over priced, kind of like .....Oil.
If a broken leg cost an american $20,000 to 100,000, not counting hospital stays, or meds, then heart surgery will wipe out anyone. The problem is health care in america is unafordable. Way over priced, kind of like .....Oil.
So whats your solution?
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I love Christmas lights. They remind me of the people who voted for Obama. They all hang together; half of them don't work, and the ones that do, aren't that bright.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do
not understand, no explanation is possible.
A golf course is a willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range.
If a broken leg cost an american $20,000 to 100,000, not counting hospital stays, or meds, then heart surgery will wipe out anyone. The problem is health care in america is unafordable. Way over priced, kind of like .....Oil.
So whats your solution?
His numbers are out of wack in the first place. How could he have a solution? I bet he doesn't know that government regulation adds 1/2 trillion dollars in cost to our medical system. Malpractice also adds billions more directly on the bottomline. I bet he doesn't even know their are doctors out there that refuse to take insurance anymore and now are a cash only business at 2/3rds the price.
__________________
John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
__________________
I love Christmas lights. They remind me of the people who voted for Obama. They all hang together; half of them don't work, and the ones that do, aren't that bright.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do
not understand, no explanation is possible.
A golf course is a willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range.
Conservatives like to point to the "law of unintended consequences." What this is may be articulated by different people in different ways, but they all focus on the same thing. One articulation is that the unintended consequences of new litigation or new regulation generally are larger in magnitude than the intended consequences.
What could be the unintended consequences of revamping our healthcare system? I can tell you one thing that is already happening-- becoming a doctor is becoming less attractive to bright young people. My son just entered college (Texas A&M) and is majoring in Biology with the intention of taking the pre-Med requirements and making a run at getting into medical school to be a doctor. I talked to my doctor about this, and my doctor had interesting things to say. First, the profession does not pay nearly as well as it used to. He said if you take too many medicare/medicaid patients per day you simply won't make it. Additionally, HMOs are keeping prices low on procedures. On the assumption you borrowed money to attend medical school, you are leasing an office, you have leased/purchased expensive medical equipment, you are paying malpractice insurance premiums -- as in any business there is a break even point. Too many low dollar medicare/medicaid patients and you don't get over that break even point. My doctor says that the most capable -- the students with the highest GPAs and entrance exam scores -- are migrating to other more lucrative professions such as dentistry, oral surgery, etc. If you think that young college students are incapable of analyzing dynamic situations and changing their choices based on a changed context, you are mistaken. In many cases these kids are assisted by motivated, shrewd parents doing the investigative work and counseling their kids. So one unintended consequence may be that the best and the brightest move away from the practice of medicine with some pretty obvious consequences for the quality of our medical care.
The article suggests another. Ratchet down thepricesof pharmaceuticals, and you can bet that the pharmaceutical companies will be less motivated to invest as much in researching and developing new drugs.
If you listen to the Democrats tell it, you would think that no one gets medical care in this country or only the rich get medical care in this country. But I don't see people suffering from lack of medical care. Where are these people? Are we talking about 1% of our population that lack access to antibiotics, X-ray diagnosis of trauma, skilled personnel to set bones, vaccinations? 0.1%? 0.01%? What is the issue? I've got a sister who is a nurse who gets health insurance. I've got a sister -- no college education -- who works at a food distribution company, pretty low tech, blue collar kind of place, who gets health insurance. What does it take not to get health insurance? I've got a niece who works in a fake marble fabrication/installation business who has health insurance for her, her husband, and her two kids. I'm not denying that some people may have difficulties and problems, but people sling around numbers like 45 million Americans and "healthcare crisis." I don't get it.
I do know one family that doesn't have health insurance. The mother is a single mother who is an alcoholic and will not exercise enough self-discipline to get and hold a job. She is a liar and a manipulator. She snuggles up to a series of men, trading on her meagre attractions for financial assistance from these men. Sure . .. she has a health insurance crisis, but it is a crisis of her own making. I don't think the federal government ought to be on the hook to solve that woman's health insurance crisis and I shouldn't have to pay for it.
Additionally, HMOs are keeping prices low on procedures.
Is this bad? If we want private healthcare and not a national program we should be grateful that there is competition out there that might keep costs down. There are many health insurance options out there for people, yet costs are still going up and up. Very few people would be able to afford any sort of healthcare if it wasn't for health insurance helping us out. If anyone thinks those private health savings plans are a better solution, they are dreaming. You can save for years in one of those plans and you would hardly have enough saved for a few days in the hospital, and this doesn't include the costs of doctors, surgery, etc. I doubt a national health system would be the answer, but no one should think that the system, the way it is now, isn't screwed up big time because it surely is.
Additionally, HMOs are keeping prices low on procedures.
Is this bad?
I doubt a national health system would be the answer, but no one should think that the system, the way it is now, isn't screwed up big time because it surely is.
No, HMO's keeping costs down is not bad. I was speaking of the effect of unintended consequences. While the intended consequence of keeping costs down is desirable, the unintended consequence of driving the best and the brightest away from becoming doctors is NOT desirable. I'm not saying the sky is falling, I'm saying that the trend in this direction -- HMO negotiating prices for procedures, Medicare/Medicaid freezing prices for procedures for many years (in June there was a congressional vote to roll back prices for procedures about 9% -- that is a 9% pay cut -- which failed to pass), etc. -- is having an unintended consequence. And my main point is not this, but rather that we need to consider the unintended consequences that would necessarily flow from massively rearchitecting our healthcare system, even if only in how money flows through the system (accompanied by the concommittent federal regulations, oversight, etc., that would no doubt be attached -- it would be naieve to think otherwise).
Why is the system as it stands now screwed up big time? I just stated in my post that I don't know anyone who isn't getting medical care under the existing system, other than the alcoholic woman who will not obtain and keep a job. So what is screwed up? You vaguely alluded to some sort of operation that would drain one's saving account, but I don't know anyone who had an operation that drained their savings account. Are you talking about something that happens to 1 person out of 1,000; 1 person out of 10,000; 1 person out of 100,000; 1 person out of 1,000,000? My point is that you don't dramatically change a system that is providing good service to 99.9% of the users of the system. I want to have some information on what ratio or proportion of users of the system who the system lets down.
Back on the price control versus unintended consequences bit. For many years salaries of engineers have been stagnant. I remember attending a meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1995 where the speaker made a very cogent, well supported argument that salaries of engineers had been frozen or had declined for many years. The consequence of this is that the best and brightest American students do not choose to pursue engineering careers. We have often heard -- or at least I have -- that it is a mark of the failure of our educational system that so few of our high school students study engineering at University and we are going to lose our competitive edge. I think there is another explanation. The skilled, self-disciplined, smart kids can see the writing on the wall and choose not to go into engineering. I suppose it is a good thing, for this quarter and next quarter, for Corporation X to keep engineering salaries low, but an unintended consequence of this strategy over the long haul is people are going to say, what the heck, why bust my butt studying Engineering only to get a stagnant wage after 5 years of experience, be subject to drastic employment swings up and down, be subject to off-shoring of my work, and subject to uncompensated overtime as a common part of the job? Screw this.
Why is the system as it stands now screwed up big time?Â* I just stated in my post that I don't know anyone who isn't getting medical care under the existing system, other than the alcoholic woman who will not obtain and keep a job.Â* So what is screwed up?Â*
More and more employers are cutting back on healthcare benefits they are providing employees because it's becoming way too costly. In most places there is NO law to say that employers must provide it at all. Who is to say that in 10 or 20 years employers won't be providing it at all? Then what? It won't be only the alcoholic mother who won't have health coverage. Do you think people will be able to pay for insurance on their own at the rate it's been going up each year? Do you think doctors and hospitals will keep absorbing all these costs for the many more that will no doubt be uninsured? You think people don't want to become doctors anymore, why would anyone want to keep a hospital running under such conditions? The system will self-destruct in my opinion. I surely don't have the solutions on how it could be fixed, and I don't know if anyone wants to even try to figure any of it out. But to say that the system is fine just the way it is is a joke in my opinion.
Healthcare op-ed that's hit out of the park
If a broken leg cost an american $20,000 to 100,000, not counting hospital stays, or meds, then heart surgery will wipe out anyone. The problem is health care in america is unafordable. Way over priced, kind of like .....Oil.
