President Obama's Extended Health Care Chat on ABC

Yeah gee derivatives are really hard n stuff!

Would love to continue but I have a scrum at 11.

 

When I saw moes claiming the CaseyH and fmullegun were the same person I thought he was just taking a wild guess. But after a quick search I see they both use that really irritating .gov abreviation for government. The plot sickens.

 

by scrum do you mean remedial economics I hope?

 

I watched this yesterday, and I was impressed, for the most part. It sounded a lot like my suggestion a while back, which is to make people pay for little stuff, and have major stuff covered, much like Medicare. Then people could supplement that coverage if they wanted to.

If everyone has coverage with a $10k or so deductible (which would be dismissed on the indigent) that is a plan I'd get behind.

 

How about people actually use the health care system the way it was intended instead of abusing it for every little ailment.

The original idea behind health insurance was for critical care benefits. Lets say cancer or a heart attack as an example. Nowadays people get a paper cut and they are running to the doctor and getting meds from the pharmacy; all the while oblivious to the costs being exacted by the providers. Then these same people sit around and complain about why the co-pay went up, or why their employer had to raise the employee contribution.

If people would actually pay attention to and see the cost of medical care they would shop around and compare prices for treatments, meds, etc.

What we don't need is government trying to run our medical system. Has anyone seen medicare or medicaid? hello? multiply those debacles times 1,000 and you get the picture.

 

Umm, if you believe that, you can't do algebra, which explains the whole problem:

5 / 10 = 0.5

3 / 8 = 0.375

And that assumes everyone has maxed out all their spending and doesn't trust banks - and not a single dollar saved in insurance spending goes back to the economy in any way. Even in that bizarre scenario, your suggestion about health care spending to GDP is *still* wrong.

 

Ignoring the fallacy of blaming medicare, this is a weird criticism. You want the free market to run it, but then you complain we that we insurance to cover every little ailment, which is something that the free market created as a means of competitive advantage.

 

I coordinated my mom's health care for the last 2 years of her life and she was on Medicare. I found the program to be excellent. She suffered from a number of serious medical conditions. Her major expenses were covered, she was able to chose her own doctors, and was treated by the most respected gerontologist at Johns Hopkins. Most importantly, the existence of Medicare allowed her to live out her last years with a degree of dignity and peace that would have not been possible if she had to go bankrupt and or scramble around to patch together health care.

 

Well, apparently you can't do algebra. Let's just look at some simple numbers for illustrative purposes. Let's say that the current GDP is $12 trillion and that 25% of that ($3 trillion) is health care costs:

3 trillion/12 trillion = 25%

Let's then say that health care costs rise by $100 billion. In your fantasy world, this is not money taken from elsewhere, but instead adds to the GDP. So the cost/GDP ratio is now:

3.1 trillion/12 trillion = 25.6%

Which, believe it or not is actually higher than 25%. That means that the ratio does increase! Alternatively, if costs were to fall by $100 billion, and the GDP also fell by exactly $100 billion because everyone spends that money vacationing in China:

2.9 trillion/11.9 trillion = 24.4%

The cost/GDP ratio has fallen!

 

This line should read 3.1 trillion/12.1 trillion = 25.6%

 

She could have gotten the same benefits from a health care plan purchased on the free market. Its a program that is riddled with abuse, fraud and is run in a deficit spending mentality.

I will tell you what, when all the politicians drop their current health care plans and agree to use the "government plan" proposed for the pleebs then I will consider it more openly; until then just fix the current laws to open up the free market.

Nobody talks about the fact that you cannot shop for insurance across state lines. This is a huge reason why the costs are fixed the way they are.

If the people choose to make bad choices then its their God give right. But the rest of us should not be shouldered with the burden of bailing them out. The costs are something that shoud be discussed and pointed out to people. When given a choice people will shop and compare prices for goods and services. People spend more time shopping for cell phone plans then health plans, there in lies the problem.

What I can't stand for is the politicians using this as a political ploy. They won't even be using this system that is supposed to save us from something that they are making out to be a problem.

 

There is this sytem known as mail that seems to be a competitive market that has both private and a public service. Private systems can compete with the government. That is the conservative argument. The private industry is better and more efficient than the government. It could be unfair if the government system is heavily subsidized by taxpayers, which is what I actually expect, but if they set it up as a non-profit sytem, then it would be competitive.

 

Why? It's not designed to be the best plan - it's designed to be a cheap plan for those that can't afford something more. The politicians can afford more.

The free market is essentially what created the system we have now.

 

What is the point of a post like this, exactly?

 

to inform people that conservative group thought says this is impossible as medicare is the gubmint and many of the posters are too young to have life experiences that might question the group thought.

 

The reason the healthcare system is in its current miserable state is because of the "free" market.

 

If anything I think the situation is the opposite of how you describe it. One problem with our health care system is that it does a terrible job of preventive care so when people do go to the hospital it is for something serious and expensive. Also because so many people don't have a regular doctor they rely upon the emergency room for health care than cheaper options.

 

I just read the entire thread from beginning to end. That debate was both a beat-down and dismemberment. Major, big props for the way you conducted yourself. Most of the time in D&D, when someone steamrolls an opponent so convincingly, they rub it in and gloat. Instead, you blew every nonsensical argument he made out of the sky and just waited for more target practice. At the end when he faked not understanding your simple point about the result of reduced spending on health-care, you pretty much let it go without kicking him in the behind too hard. "I can do algebra...."

Solid. Way to be a good winner.