[Obamacare] Blue Cross to pull PPO Product from marketplace

The Economist, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Bloomberg View is the considered "right wing DC establishment" and "the usual collection of Koch-brother owned & controlled mags"? That's news to me.

 

No - she went to those other platforms as a right wing after & inbetween doing her time at the usual Koch-run think tanks & programs like the Institute for Humane Studies (one of hte all-time misleading names, but whatever) contributing to Reason mag, Cato and the rest.

Are you really such a dip**** that you think that somebody who got their start blogging as "Jane Galt" and the first line of whose wiki bio is "Megan McArdle (born January 29, 1973) is a Washington, D.C.-based blogger and journalist. She writes mostly about economics, finance and government policy from a right-libertarian perspective.[1]" should be described "hardly right wing"

Why don't you just admit error? Is it that difficult?

 

Sadly you are probably right. Obamacare was designed to eventually lead us to single payer. No system will be sustainable, including single payer, without meaningful tort reform. There will eventually be consequences for all this debt we are accumulating.

 

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/new-study-tort-reform-has-not-reduced-health-care-/nRpcp/

 

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When drug companies spend exorbitant amounts of money pushing drug treatments "that they know have marginal to no benefit" that cost as much as "more than the average annual income of the average American" - drugs that "might keep you alive for a few months but can wipe out 50 years of savings" - is it any wonder that costs are out of control.

[rquoter]
TEFFERI: Here is a typical scenario. Cancer is a very scary word, so whenever I tell them that they have some form of cancer, that's a catastrophe. That's devastation. Everybody's shocked. But they don't know about the second shock that's coming, and that is the financial destruction that's coming with it. That comes during the course of treatment. That comes after the patient dies. All of a sudden, they see that their lifelong savings is being given to drug companies.

SIEGEL: Have you had patients who, faced with the cost of cancer drugs and other parts of the therapies, would - have sold off the farm or the house or...

TEFFERI: Many.

SIEGEL: Many.

TEFFERI: Many. And most patients don't even tell you. They think they're wasting your time. They think that that's their problem, not your problem. They suffer quietly.

SIEGEL: The numbers are such here that drugs that might keep a cancer patient alive for a few months might wipe out 50 years worth of savings and retirement resources, reserves.

TEFFERI: Absolutely. If I may, there's a lot of very expensive concept drugs that have either no or marginal benefit. But there's a huge marketing effort from drug companies to push for the utilization of this drug even though they know very well that there is really marginal benefit or no benefit. I mean, there are examples over examples over examples. And that's why I say their responsibility does not only lie in the drug companies, but the doctors that prescribe this drug.

[/rquoter]

 

You do realize tort reform has been shown to not lower prices of healthcare right?

 

I second this and I have a PPO plan through BCBS MN.

 

I'm surprised you are taking such an alarmist tone when you have been a fairly level headed poster.

I will defer to your knowledge of what's going on in TX but I can tell you that the ACA is hardly turning into the nightmare that was predicted by opponents. As geeimsobored noted things are going relatively well in MN. This doesn't mean there haven't been problems but the ACA isn't driving the health insurance or health care industries into collapse.

 

I can guarantee you he has no idea.

 

If it makes you happy, I'll admit error. Especially since she formerly had an affiliation with the dreaded George Mason University.

Of course, Megan McArdle being right wing is still not a legitimate counter-argument to any point mentioned in the piece I posted. Or am I supposed to read through the entire publication history of Kenneth Arrow and Uwe Reinhardt to get that?

 

Reading the main players of the debate, understanding their biases and then coming to your own conclusions is generally the way for being informed in a discussion and as a voter.

 

I guess it is better that we pay for stuff like this:


DD

 

Wow...that picture .

 

Est of 650 Billion in Military anual.
Est of 3.8 Trillion in Medical. (altogether)

Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and market place subsidies: 836 Billion.

Your pretty little liberal picture is a misleading lie.

 

Terrifying isn't it, Dwight D. Eisenhower talked about letting the military complex run away - that WW2 started something that would be hard to stop, and that is exactly where we are today.

We should drastically cut the military, stop spending to protect other countries, and start investing into our own country, roads, people, healthcare, technology - let's INVEST in the USA - and not in killing.

DD

 

Space Ghost is right about this one, you can do better than PSLweb.org DD. Overall federal healthcare spending is 25%, defense is 18%. Education, transportation and the other stuff is still a pathetic 1% to 2%:

CBPP (progressive think tank):


Heritage Foundation (conservative think thank):

 

Re-quoted for truth.

 

What is so sad about it. Everyone has insurance and the vast majority are pretty happy with it. Those who are very well off can purchase extra policies if they want to.

It is only sad if you are a right wing heartless or a right wing ideologue who has drunk the kool-aid.

 

Correction. Not everyone has it.

It greatly rewarded the poor and those with pre-exisiting conditions.

It punished those who are in good health and middle class.

A few thousand dollars extra to the wealthy doesnt hurt them.

As a socialist, I know you find this a complete win situation. But in the same breath, people like you are completely baffled on the diminishing middle class and can't understand why the poor can't escape the poverty.

Quit punishing the middle class.

 

I bet it helped profits alot

Rocket River