CNN Poll: 3 of 4 Americans Say Stimulus Money Wasted

Chill out bro, I absolutely don't think I should decide who lives and dies. Learn to recognize hyperbole. What I do think is that the individual and the family should make that decision. This means if they want to keep the elderly person alive for another 6 months miserable and bedridden at the cost of $500k, they're free to do so if they can afford it. But they shouldn't expect taxpayers to do it if they can't afford it. The rhetoric I see sometimes that you "can't put a price on life" is ridiculous. Clearly 6 months of misery isn't worth 10 years of a middle class family's income. Society just doesn't have the resources to give everyone all the healthcare they want, and I don't think elderly people should get high cost state of the art procedures unless they can afford them. I'm more about bang for buck. If we can productively extend a life for a long time at little cost, go for it even if the government has to pay. In this respect I suppose I come down opposite of the Republican railing against "death panels." They do scare me, but not in the sense they were arguing. I'm all for the government allocating health dollars efficiently and deciding what it will cover. What scares me is a potential future where the government is the only game in town, and once they deny you there's nowhere else to buy it on your own if you can afford it.

I don't know if I want your mother to die or not since I don't know her. If she has the characteristics typical of the boomers I described, sorry bro. If she lived within her means, was charitable, etc, then obviously my criticisms don't apply to her. It's possible to criticize a group generally with the knowledge that there are many exceptions. You might recall from one of my earlier posts that my own parents are boomers, and I don't wish them any ill will because because they're the opposite of typical boomers: very prudent and responsible, always living with less material positions than they could have afforded.

When it's my time to go, my kids will be under specific instructions to pull the plug ASAP. I'm not going to wipe out their inheritance so I can sit around and drool in a bed for a while.

 

Be very careful how you choose your words, you often will come to regret them.

Wow...let's take the most extreme example you can find and act as though it were the norm. The type of health care that is assisting seniors in living longer are things like cancer screening and surgical techniques (ie bypass surgery and polyp removal). What you are talking about is largely somebody being a vegetable. That is not age specific. It happens to persons of all ages, usually due to stroke or accident. You attributed it to seniors. Your argument has zero basis in reality.

Where are you getting your numbers from? I would venture a guess to say thin air. Also, have you bothered to find out if people are truly in misery? I doubt it.

Could you possibly use a few more vague terms? What you are saying here is so vague it is stripped of any real meaning.

The problem with this theory is that if government is the primary source of health care dollars and this becomes law, only the very wealthy will be able to afford anything outside of that system since there would be no real insurance to rely upon.

My parents always did with less than what they could have had. My mother grew up in a lower middle class home (father worked the docks). My father was poor (father bounced from job to job). They were always afraid of what could happen next. They did reach pretty deep into their savings for one thing...to educate their children. I think that is very responsible.

My father recently had a cancer scare. He required two colonoscopies and a resectioning. There is no way that he could have afforded that all on his own. I wonder when I read your posts...since Dad is 72 years old, is that too much money for the system to bear in your opinion?

If so, you have much to learn about life.

 

Nope, I've never regretted a forum post I've made. There was one I was very very sorry for, but I'd do it all over again because I worked off the best information I had at the time.

I'm not sure what you think my "theory" is. I don't want the government to be a major player in health care precisely because of this. Getting government entirely out of healthcare is probably politically impossible, so the best I can hope for is that the dollars it does spend are allocated efficiently.

Your parents sound alright. That said, I don't know what is too much for the system to bear. At a minimum that type of calculation requires cost of care, percentage of success, expected extension of life. And it takes a detailed model based on tax rates, economic impact of tax rates, and aggregate nationwide estimates of cost/%/frequency/extension for all the various ailments that need to be funded. I could only perform a statistical analysis that DETAILED with the proper data set. Realistically building that model would take a large team and over a billion dollars. But that billion dollar model would pay for itself many times over in terms of the efficiency it would bring.

You're obviously close to your pop so you only see one side of the tradeoff being made. The other side is the economic damage caused by elder care. I know plenty of talented people who did everything right and are easily in the top 1% of Americans in terms of intelligence, but they will spend most of their lives in student loan prison just because of the years they were born in. They will be lucky to own houses before they are 45, and probably won't get to have kids. Should they be denied a shot at the American dream to fund entitlements for a generation that had more than they did?

The money has to come from somewhere, and by shifting it from productive to unproductive endeavors, we end up with this:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/06/25/70788/recessions-toll-most-recent-college.html

Over half of recent grads working low-skill jobs. I'd rather live 10 years less in a nation of opportunity than be cared for cradle to the grave in mediocrity.

 

Was this the same post in which you promised to go away forever if you were proven wrong (which, of course, you were)?

 

Actually fairly often. The last three major changes to medicare all cost less than originally estimated.

Pretty much any legislation of this kind will have redistributive effects. Why is this an issue? It makes sense that the 10-30 percentiles gain the most, since the expansion of medicaid and other tax offsets would affect those areas most. As it turned out, ensuring that all citizens have access to affordable insurance was the biggest goal of the reform, and people in those percentiles were most likely to not have access to affordable insurance before the law, so I don't understand why this is worth mentioning.

The data I've seen don't show anything significant, certainly not significant enough to be upset about. Again, of course there will be winners and losers. This type of thing must have tradeoffs. The question is whether the tradeoffs are worth it.

 

Yeah, I issued a very heartfelt apology. Even if it's impossible, I strive to be right on every single issue, every single time. That one post knocked me down to 99.8%. Sucks, and I'll need to be perfectly accurate 1000 times just to get back to 99.9%. Such is the life of a master statistician.

 

On what grounds do you base your claim to be a master statistician? And why didn't you leave when you promised to?

 

I think it is really cute that some folks around here dont know better than to waste their time arguing with a troll.


Dont feed the troll folks, he is fat enough already

 

Is it true that if we hit the troll really hard with a stick that candy will pop out?

I call dibs on the Butterfinger.

 

You actually raised a very intriguing point but it gets lost in your partisan dribble. It's not easy to apologize - that's a good first step. But if you don't change or grow from your mistakes, your apology is hallow.

The point I was intrigued by was that how much should insurance spend to preserve life? We hold life as being precious and worth extending at all costs. Who's to put a price on 6 months or a year.

But is this what is driving up costs to some degree? Health care for the aging is definitely more expensive than for the young...and as people live longer and the boomers hit 70, where is all the money going to come from to provide for all the doctor appointments, surgeries, chemo, and more to extend their lives?

By no means do advocate rationing or devaluing the lives of anyone. But it's a real problem. HOw will the insurance companies pay for it? Who will bear the cost?

Will it be the hospitals? The insurance companies? The elderly themselves, or all of us in terms of higher premiums.

Is this the issue no one wants to talk about because it turns our stomach and invokes our worst fears - about our parents and perhaps our own future.

Makes ya wonder.

Too bad your point gets lost in the muck of the other junk.

 

I was with you until you said you're all for the government allocating resources efficiently. I understand that "death panels" scare you, and they do me, but fundamentally it's not the government's right to do s**t when it comes to my life or my family's life and I don't give a s**t how much it costs, that's a family choice, not the governments. I will never agree for a system that gives the damn govt an inkling of say as to who will live or die according to budget constraints, b**ls**t, that was never supposed to be any of your business in the first place.

 

Of course the Health Care Reform bill at no point gave the govt. that kind of say.

Though I hate the idea of profit oriented corporations having a say in my life or death, but unfortunately they do right now.

 

You are thinking of a pinata, but feel free to try anyway.

:grin:

 

Are you lost R2K? This is the D&D.

Basso thrives in here for a reason.

Make a left when you see the Hangout and don't look back.

 

I'm guessing JCDenton's grandparents got him socks for Christmas every year.

Taking a cue from his past charting acumen, I have charted the chances of his grandparents' getting good medical care if significant expense is expected.

 

It's the government's right if the government is paying for it. It's your right if you pay for it. I don't want to see the government take away your right to make your own choice with your own money, but I don't think you have a right to make your own choice with other people's money.

 

This is flawed on sooooo many levels when you start talking about a single payer system.

If I pay into the system my entire adult life, then whose money am I spending again?

 

More hilarious hypocrisy re: the stimulus.