Click pic to embiggin into a large PDF
This is on the website of Republican Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas who, oddly enough, is running for reelection shortly. It’s one of the milder anti-Dem, anti-Obama things I have a feeling we’re going to be pummeled with in the coming months. Personally, I’d rather hear Repubs present positive, constructive plans for doing something (anything?) rather than ‘Party of No’, negative attacks on Obama.
As for health care, I wonder if we’ll see this sort of thing here.
#32 tcc
“I say again: if tort reform is part of the solution, its a small part.
This is a distraction from a larger, more complicated issue.”
Completely agree. Take anybody’s numbers on the tort reform savings and apply it to the overall cost of health care, and it’s a tiny drop in the ocean.
So lets accept that although it may be a good thing to do – its not going to come close to solving the array of problems, which are at root due to perverse incentives. Current health care reform keeps that structure whilst making it yet more complicated.
The aversion to simplicity is something to behold.
tc3,
Yes, doctors do have some vested interest in tort reform, as lawyers to at preventing it. The fact that both have such an interest in it proves there is big money to be made, and big money to be saved. For lawyers, it is potential lost revenue. But in the case of doctors, most of this cost just gets passed on to the consumer. They sure aren’t paying for the extra tests themselves are they?
You provided some good links on studies that conclude tort reform do will not end up giving much premium savings. I don’t have time to read every word, but what I saw from cursory looks is that they are very specific and are looking at it only with respect to lawsuit limits effecting premiums with everything else left as-is. There is a lot more to comprehensive reform than that, and in your second link, it seems to imply that interstate competition would greatly increase the effectiveness of tort reform. You can argue this point all day based on what which side you believe, but I tend to trust the words and actions of those in the medical profession more than those hypothesizing from the sidelines.
You are right in saying there is no magic bullet. The ideas that #10 proposed can help reduce costs significantly, but health care will still be expensive. But the reality is that Obama’s plan will not save any costs – it only re-distributes who is paying for the costs. You know the plan was run with the actual numbers after the bill was passed, and is going to cost way more than the Dems claimed, right? This was never about cutting costs it was about expanding health coverage and government control.
If you want to do more to severely cut costs you have to make tough decisions about what your length and quality of life is going to be. Nobody wants to talk about that point – people want to believe they can get something for free. I would rather make those decisions myself. I understand the current situation is having insurance companies making the decisions, and many people have not choice. (Some people are in that situation because of other choices they have made, but that is a separate debate.) Why not actually try some ideas to fix that without giving the same power to a government that is already almost bankrupt and will need to be cutting costs wherever it can? You can bet once the government fully takes over health care, they will care much more about actually cutting costs, and you will see them making the decisions for you.
Nice thread. Both sides laid out. Manufactured BS talking points vs reality.
Yep, the sooner the current system is seen as a failure, then we can bring on single payer. Somewhere in all this I’d like to see neighborhood clinics openned up so that real access could be provided.
I love JB: “I had cancer, so I know all about the healthcare structure/financing/alternatives.” Ha, ha. Meanwhile, national statistical outcomes regarding healthcare are ignored because “who needs facts” when party politics is what matters?
Pure ideology there. Make the system worse so that your preferred ideological solution is implemented. Who cares what happens to others in the meantime.
WE should also be aware that fears of getting sued are a primary motivator for corporate reform. Being able to pay a small fine and keep operating without change would happen in healthcare, as it has already occured in other industries where legal action has been curtailed.
Mike==pure drivel. Under Obamacare as currently conceived, more people get healthcare and at reduced cost to the taxpayer. Not as good, not as cheap, as single payer will bring us, so as usual, your post is simply wrong.
Want to rephrase?
Possible benefits of certain plans:
#1 Money saved because insurance company profits are taken away.
#2 Money saved because doctor payments are reduced. Really the same as #1
#3 Money saved in the long run by paying for more preventive health care.
#4 No insurance companies refusing to cover an expensive treatment
#5 No insurance companies refusing to cover you or dropping you from coverage
#6 Everyone’s health care is paid for
Is that about it?
Bobbo and Freddybob will eventually get their wish in the end, as The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is designed to kill the private insurance model for primary care, due to adverse selection, anyway.
SL==adverse selection is an issue in the competition between ins co’s and government programs but single payer is necessary because thats where the cost savings come from. Just and only THAT simple and why all other systems not basically single payer fail by costing too much. “For Profit” is removing money from the system without providing healthcare.
Healthcare is NOT a basic right. It is a privilege provided by advanced societies that can tell what’s in their own best interests. USA is a bit late to the party but hopefully can catch up.
Bobbo, I’m not following your first sentance.
SL==hah, hah. Fair enough as I actually didn’t get your use of it. My understanding of adverse selection is that term applies to a government program that says we will pay $xx per month for medicare patients signed up in your program. The Ins Co’s go out and open up offices on the second floor of buildings thereby getting a disproportionate number of old people who can walk up a flight of stairs==ie, the younger and healthier of the group that use healthcare less because they are younger and healthier than the other end of the spectrum. In such cases, the Ins Co have “adversely selected” a subgroup of the entire covered class to the detriment of the Government who then must find coverage for the sickest of the sick.
I’m sure there are other takes on it?
#43, no, that’s not what it means at all. It has nothing to do with government vs. private.
All insurance systems are designed around the idea that you have many more people paying into the system than you have taking out at any given time. Adverse selection, as it would be used when discussing insurance, is when you have more participants with high risk (sick people) than you have low risk (healthy people) because people with low risk are incentivized to stay out.
By 2015, insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, or charge different rates based on health status. More sick people will be withdrawing from the system, rates will need to increase (across the board due to the rules), and eventually healthy people will find it cheaper to pay the tax than to buy the insurance, creating a cycle of increasing rates. In the extreme case, the model just collapses on itself.
Correct, and people are “incentivized out” by such techniques as I mentioned. Parts of the same whole. Pre-existing conditions is another as you mention. Living alone is another. Being overweight. Not having supplemental insurance. Not having sued in the past or going bankrupt. All kinds of things that ins co’s were allowed to “consider” in the past to make participant selection adverse to a plan of general insurance.
The nice thing about a definitional dispute is that as long as one can define what one is talking about, one is free to hold whatever position to that regard as they wish.
Well done.
Let’s see, no job, no payroll deduction, no funding for single payer. Just another patchouli oil scented pipe dream.
This is just the beginning.
Social Security Benefits Not Expected to Rise in ’10
http://tinyurl.com/dnz77j
This problem will be solved with a VAT because all bureaucracies have one trait in common, an insatiable appetite for your money.
haha, and to further your point – if two people insist on using the same term to refer to opposite ends of a stick, then they should look for different terms.
And your little takeaway line there? Nobody ever waits in an American emergency room.
http://bit.ly/bvXcGH
You yourself say that the sooner people see the current system as a failure, the sooner we can get to single payer. You have previously said you don’t think the passed reforms will do much.
As bad as this chart looks, the currents conservative health care system is even more complicated and convoluted.
We liberals BEGGED for “Medicare for All”.
But conservatives threatened violence and BLOCKED this super simple solution.
49…
really???
REALLY???
This PARTLY religious zealots, that ARENT supposed to be tainted by CORPS…BLOCKED IT..]
YOU UNDERSTAND…They are ALL corrupt.
“As for health care, I wonder if we’ll see this sort of thing here.”
You may well be right. Obama care is not free medical care. It is a form of insurance and everything I hear and read suggests that more and more health care providers are going to insist on cash first, then they treat you, then _you_ can collect from the government if you can.
To many Drs. have decided they don’t want to hire extra book keepers to do the work and maybe not even collect on a case or not get what they want.
Now that’s change you can believe in because it’s already happening.
If you try to control prices, you get less of the service being offered. Pretty basic economics. If you want to lower prices, you need to get more suppliers.
I think states should try giving licenses to foreign doctors directly, leave the national pool if they have to, break the AMA stranglehold.
Can I suggest something REALLY BAD??
That Obama care will not take Affect, until 2014..
2 YEARS after they elect him OUT.
AND at anytime, they can CANCEL THIS.
This IS NOT obama care.
THIS IS CONGRESS CARE.
THIS is PORK BARREL CARE.
YOU WILL PAY..
PERSONALLY, or the COMPANY will be FORCED to PAY.
when a SMALL company HAS TO PAY for medical, its BAD.
This DOES NOT take into account, STATE COVER MEDICAL, WORKMENS COMP, or any OTHER coverage REQUIRED for you to work.
THIS makes your $7 per hour..NOT equal to STANDARD 40 HOUR BENEFITS of $15 per hour..THIS makes it $16.50 passed to the EMPLOYER.
FOR those of you that understand that FULL time employees, get MATCHING funds in many benefits from the EMPLOYER.
You may have missed this nugget from last year, entitled,
“Do not fuck with graphic designers” –
it’s enlightening.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertpalmer/3743826461/
or in other words, anyone can make any complex system look intentionally more complex than it is to suit their narrative.