America The Generous

[Mr. Deez]

Agree 100%. This was the exact motivation behind Obamacare. The architects knew it would implode, but would take a while to fall apart.

The years it lasted were meant to solidify universal access to healthcare as a norm and expectation of the public.

Now with universal access a must or people will supposedly 'die in the streets', reforms are doomed to fall short in some major aspect and face backlash.

Dems will promote single payer as the only workable option for everyone. And eventually the majority of the public will give in since reforms fell short.

It was a socialist scam from day one and unfortunately will likely accomplish its single payer mission at some point in the future.

I pretty much agree. The goal of Obamacare was to eventually force single payer. However, I can't blame everything on Obamacare because though it made the system significantly worse, it was far from being a free market system before. Medicare and Medicaid and other state healthcare systems had already injected government planners into the healthcare system long ago. Furthermore, the rise of employer-sponsored health insurance had already started insulating the healthcare market from competition.

 

[iatrogenic]

Following up on my last comment, iatrogenic would have you believe that first, the middle class is expanding, not shrinking, and second, if the middle class really is shrinking, it's exclusively the fault of too much liberal government.

I'm not going to defend liberal policies or even discuss everything from food stamps to social security here. I want instead to point out the function of government is to make and enforce law. That's true whether the government is far right, communist, socialist, or anywhere along the spectrum.

Politics is basically a competition to influence and control the governing apparatus. In the US, people mostly interpret this fight between liberals and conservatives. That's also the media interpretation. The bigger war that is largely unspoken is between corporatism and labor. The corporate interests won that battle a few decades past. For a while, all boats rose with the tide of corporate profits. Eventually, capital began moving production and even services from the US to newly open third world markets. Low interest rates made debt easier to finance and consumers in the US were able to substitute debt for stagnant income to maintain living standards. Meanwhile, the Democrat party joined the Republican Party in terms of backing corporations. The new left no longer represented labor, but instead championed social warriors (queers, race baiter, pro-abortion, etc.).

Finally debt has just about caught up to the consumer.
The government which has long ago been captured by corporatism has set the rules and enforces to their benefit. This is why the taxpayer backstops student loans; why hospitals don't have to post rates they charge for procedures and charge different prices for individuals who receive the same treatment.

Much of the current economic system is based on low interest rates, fraud, and collusion. If it were reformed now, the entire system would implode. Instead, the perversity continues at an ever accelerating rate. Military operations and hot spots now include the South China Sea, Africa. Syria, Yemen, Korea, the Baltics, and probably other places. Another trillion will be spent on nuclear upgrades. Health care costs continue rising and tuition rates go up. Leaders relax standards as the government has their back.

This is what Iatrogenic calls capitalism. It's nothing more than the latest model of fascism and it's where America currently stands.

You forgot to mention the current problems with kitchen sinks and pot holes. What a screwball.

 

[Musburger1]

You forgot to mention the current problems with kitchen sinks and pot holes. What a screwball.

If you are comparing the state of America's health care costs to potholes you are an idiot. And yes, I believe you are an idiot.

 

[Brad Austin]

Medicare and Medicaid and other state healthcare systems had already injected government planners into the healthcare system long ago.

On that note, Obama's massive Medicaid expansion is the main culprit preventing an effective reform that can withstand backlash.

"One of Obama's ideas was to expand eligibility for Medicaid, a public health insurance program primarily for pregnant women, children and the disabled. The House bill expands Medicaid eligibility to poor adults, which it defines as nondisabled, childless adults under age 65 with income at or below 133 percent of federal poverty level, about $14,400 per year for an individual."

Back in Sept 2016, Forbes put out a good article outlining the poor value and excessive waste of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion.

Now any plan Reps float that decreases Obamacare's projected growth rate of funding for future Medicaid expenses is portrayed as slashing Medicaid and killing people.

 

[I35]

Now any plan Reps float that decreases Obamacare's projected growth rate of funding for future Medicaid expenses is portrayed as slashing Medicaid and killing people.

The Dems know this themselves, but continue pushing that it's slashing it that results in killing people. It's aimed at the stupid that hear this and run with it. There is only one thing the Dems know how to do. That's spend, spend, and spend more money.

The entitlement mentality is what is killing people. We need to repeal right now. Don't worry about the replacement. If insurances aren't mandatory for the people, it will force insurances to bring down the prices to make sales. As long as it's mandatory and they know we are forced to buy it, they will keep the prices jacked up.

 

[Seattle Husker]

This is what has worried me about the GOPs political dilemma on repealing Obamacare since the beginning. It's virtually impossible to transition from a government system to a private system without causing major calamity in the short term. The root of the problem is that in the context of healthcare, the public doesn't want to accept risk, which means it wants third party payers (government, insurance carriers, etc.) to pay the bills, and that means significant insulation from market forces and therefore high costs. You can't have low costs if you expect universal access to healthcare, and we pretty much expect that.

I've given up on having a free market system for healthcare. Over the next 10 - 20 years, both parties will screw around with crappy "reform" plans that try to be everything to everybody. Eventually, we'll settle on a single payer system or a public option (which is essentially single payer) basically out of political exhaustion.

This is an area where the developed world has pulled the US into the direction of healthcare being a right. Whether it is a right or not is inconsequential because in reality that society has evolved to believe it is. This is why it's now unconscionable to think an emergency room can turn away a badly injured person. Nobody but Ted Cruz has the intestinal fortitude to push us back to our previous healthcare system in which 10's of millions lacked insurance and access to healthcare other than emergency rooms. Like Deez, I suspect we'll gradually adopt the single-payer healthcare that the rest of the modernized world has adopted. Like UK, we'll still have options for private healthcare that is only available to the wealthy.

 

[Brad Austin]

The Dems know this themselves, but continue pushing that it's slashing it that results in killing people.

Yep. And again Left leaders are instigating violence through nasty, irresponsible rhetoric. Falsely portraying Reps as murdering monsters that must be stopped.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Yep. And again Left leaders are instigating violence through nasty, irresponsible rhetoric. Falsely portraying Reps as murdering monsters that must be stopped.

Not too dissimilar from "Death Panels", eh? The left is definitely practicing in hyperbole albeit slightly more based in reality than the previously mentioned Republican rhetorical tool.

 

[Mr. Deez]

This is an area where the developed world has pulled the US into the direction of healthcare being a right. Whether it is a right or not is inconsequential because in reality that society has evolved to believe it is. This is why it's now unconscionable to think an emergency room can turn away a badly injured person. Nobody but Ted Cruz has the intestinal fortitude to push us back to our previous healthcare system in which 10's of millions lacked insurance and access to healthcare other than emergency rooms. Like Deez, I suspect we'll gradually adopt the single-payer healthcare that the rest of the modernized world has adopted. Like UK, we'll still have options for private healthcare that is only available to the wealthy.

I don't think we'll adopt something that resembles the NHS in the UK. I think we'll do as little as possible, and creating a NHS in the United States would be overkill. The NHS was adopted by a Labour government after WWII, and it was and still is a pretty radical program even by European standards. I think we'll adopt something that resembles Germany's system (or the original Obamacare). It'll have a public health insurance option that covers the vast majority of citizens, and upper middle class and wealthy people will be able to buy private health insurance (if they want it). The public health insurance system will operate like a single payer. It'll be big enough to have massive leverage to negotiate pretty low reimbursement rates (like Medicare and Medicaid do), and the private system will be more generous, giving those who have it superior options.

 

[HornHuskerDad]

I've given up on having a free market system for healthcare. Over the next 10 - 20 years, both parties will screw around with crappy "reform" plans that try to be everything to everybody. Eventually, we'll settle on a single payer system or a public option (which is essentially single payer) basically out of political exhaustion.

Unfortunately correct. Obamacare was designed to fail and to destroy the insurance providers. When the system is totally screwed up (and we may not be far from that point already) the only available alternative will be a government takeover of medical care. You can't drop a frog into a pot of boiling water - but you can put him into a pot of cold water and increase the temp gradually so he won't realize he's being boiled until it's too late.

 

[Crockett]

Blaming Obamacare for America's outrageously expensive health care delivery mechanism is convenient, but it was experiencing inflation, pockets of corruption and failure to meet the needs of the most vulnerable since I've been sentinent.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Blaming Obamacare for America's outrageously expensive health care delivery mechanism is convenient, but it was experiencing inflation, pockets of corruption and failure to meet the needs of the most vulnerable since I've been sentinent.

This is true. To borrow from Billy Joel, Obamacare didn't "start the fire." It poured gasoline on it, but it was already burning.

 

[I35]

Not too dissimilar from "Death Panels", eh?

I've put my personal story out here on one thread a while back with my experience with Obamacare. Death Panels is very accurate. If my polyps was cancer I'd be dead right now. I dealt with the exchange for 6 months trying to get something done on my vocal cords and finally lied to a doctor in Austin that I had no insurance to get treatment paid out of my pocket. I couldn't speak and my surgery came 2 weeks later after Joan Rivers died from the exact same surgery. It was hell not knowing. Luckily for me it was benign.

Oh, and out of the 17 doctor names that were on the list in SA area, only 8 or so we're names of real doctors. Out of those 8, seven didn't know what I was talking about and said they aren't a part of the exchange. The one doctor that was real and listed on the exchange took a look at my throat. Scheduled surgery several weeks away and the day before the surgery I got a call from a nurse in that office stating he couldn't do the surgery. When I asked the nurse why, she said he has never performed that surgery before and didn't feel comfortable. So not only is it a crappy insurance I had, but also a death panel. I had two things that workout out for me. I had the money to pay out of pocket and it was benign. Too bad for the people that can't afford to pay out of pocket. I had just been paying high premiums for something I couldn't use. Now my premiums went from $521 in 2007 to $1496 in 2016 or maybe in Jan 17 (I can't remember the time frame that I looked those numbers up. )

 

[Monahorns]

Charlie Gard's parents know all about death panels.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I don't think we'll adopt something that resembles the NHS in the UK. I think we'll do as little as possible, and creating a NHS in the United States would be overkill. The NHS was adopted by a Labour government after WWII, and it was and still is a pretty radical program even by European standards. I think we'll adopt something that resembles Germany's system (or the original Obamacare). It'll have a public health insurance option that covers the vast majority of citizens, and upper middle class and wealthy people will be able to buy private health insurance (if they want it). The public health insurance system will operate like a single payer. It'll be big enough to have massive leverage to negotiate pretty low reimbursement rates (like Medicare and Medicaid do), and the private system will be more generous, giving those who have it superior options.

I think we'll evolve to a public base level of healthcare and the private insurance options for wealthy. The simplest way this occurs is the continual expansion of Medicare/Medicaid. Of course, Insurance companies will go kicking and screaming towards that end.

 

[mchammer]

I think we'll evolve to a public base level of healthcare and the private insurance options for wealthy. The simplest way this occurs is the continual expansion of Medicare/Medicaid. Of course, Insurance companies will go kicking and screaming towards that end.

No, the only answer is technology that reduce the cost of basic health care for the poor

 

[Musburger1]

No, the only answer is technology that reduce the cost of basic health care for the poor

Technology has already lowered the cost in counties where cartels and monopolies haven't rigged the system. That's why EKGs, surgeries, and the like can be done for 20% of the cost in Japan or India than in the US using the same equipment. Technology can only lower costs when laws are enforced and monopolies aren't protected.

 

[Phil Elliott]

No, the only answer is technology that reduce the cost of basic health care for the poor

You gotta get the gov't out of the market before that will do any good. Unfortunately, they already got the taste of the power in their mouths, they are not going to give that up.

Unfortunately, the point of this thread has been totally lost by now.

 

[Seattle Husker]

No, the only answer is technology that reduce the cost of basic health care for the poor

That assumes "technology" has an end point because right now the US is funding the majority of medical R&D for the world. The US healthcare consumer is paying the cost.

 

[4th_floor]

...... Technology can only lower costs when laws are enforced and monopolies aren't protected.

OK, so I guess we should thank the government for creating and enforcing laws to force lowering of costs in electronics, oil, chemicals, and food. I think I'll forget to thank the government.

 

[Musburger1]

OK, so I guess we should thank the government for creating and enforcing laws to force lowering of costs in electronics, oil, chemicals, and food. I think I'll forget to thank the government.

You've missed the point. Where there is open competition without collusion, prices tend to fall when technology advances. Think HD TVs falling from $2000 to $250. When there is no competition or collusion you get $600 epi-pins, double digit percent tuition increases, and $1000 toilet seats for no bid contracts.

If I have the only air condition business in Texas, I don't care how much more efficient my units work with technology improvements. I'm gonna charge you as much as you can pay. If technology improves, I'll make more profit, but I'm not coming down on price until someone else offers a better deal.

 

[iatrogenic]

The only monopolies that exist are due to government intervention. Phil Elliot is right, until the government is removed from the market, nothing will change.

 

[Musburger1]

The only monopolies that exist are due to government intervention. Phil Elliot is right, until the government is removed from the market, nothing will change.

What you fail to understand is that government intervention occurs because private business purchases government intervention. Congressmen don't just intervene in the market because they think its a great idea. They intervene in the market because they are influenced (paid) to do so by their funders. This is crony-capitalism.

You can't remove government from the market as long as politicians can be purchased. To deny that today's politicians have been purchased is to deny reality.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Capitalism without any government moderation or assistance? Fantasy.

 

[iatrogenic]

Agreed. There are too many people in the system looking for handouts, and too many politicians willing to provide those handouts in exchange for votes.

My previous statement is correct because of this.

 

[Musburger1]

Corporate influence goes beyond money. For example, you've got Goldman-Sachs personnel filling high level positions in bureaucracies ostensibly to regulate the financial industry. Of course government moderation and assistance is necessary for capitalism to function. The problem is that our representative government no longer represents the general population to any significant degree. They represent the powerful. Corporate lobbyists literally write legislation and tell Congressmen what to do. And then corporate operatives run government agencies and shape policy from inside the agency.

 

[Monahorns]

Deep State and Revolving Door are 2 huge issues in our country today.

 

[Musburger1]

Deep State and Revolving Door are 2 huge issues in our country today.

That's a succinct way to put it. But yes, that's exactly right.

 

[iatrogenic]

Corporate influence goes beyond money. For example, you've got Goldman-Sachs personnel filling high level positions in bureaucracies ostensibly to regulate the financial industry. Of course government moderation and assistance is necessary for capitalism to function. The problem is that our representative government no longer represents the general population to any significant degree. They represent the powerful. Corporate lobbyists literally write legislation and tell Congressmen what to do. And then corporate operatives run government agencies and shape policy from inside the agency.

What exactly defines the "general population"? Who is "the powerful"? That is like a Democrat saying "society demands X", or "Americans don't want y". Such terminology is horse___t. You were saying the same things about corporations causing the housing bubble, which was caused by the "general population" benefitting from government regulations forcing banks to provide them mortgage loans despite them not being qualified borrowers.

Were corporate shills writing the regulation that told Boeing they couldn't move one of their plants to a non-union state? How about OSHA regulations? Were the corporations all-in for Obamacare? You act as if all corporations act in unison as opposed to entities that have competing interests just as individuals do.

 

[Musburger1]

What exactly defines the "general population"? Who is "the powerful"? That is like a Democrat saying "society demands X", or "Americans don't want y". Such terminology is horse___t. You were saying the same things about corporations causing the housing bubble, which was caused by the "general population" benefitting from government regulations forcing banks to provide them mortgage loans despite them not being qualified borrowers.

Were corporate shills writing the regulation that told Boeing they couldn't move one of their plants to a non-union state? How about OSHA regulations? Were the corporations all-in for Obamacare? You act as if all corporations act in unison as opposed to entities that have competing interests just as individuals do.

Let's take two of your topics; the housing bubble and Obamacare.

The impetus for the housing bubble was deregulation of the banking industry. This is what made possible securitization and massive leveraging. The push for deregulation was made under the Clinton administration and pushed by Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, among others. The Federal Reserve drove interest rates low which increased demand. It resulted in massive profits for the financial industry. Property values soared, fraud permeated throughout the period with bogus appraisals, liar loans enabled unqualified buyers to make purchases, rating agencies fudged numbers, and banks sold securities to duped investors. The "boom" was basically built on fraud. Just like any ponzi, it eventually collapsed when the number of buyers became too low to support the bubble.

But nobody important went to jail, the top executives got to keep their millions, the taxpayer bailed out the banks that were impaired (except Lehman), and the combination of QE and zero interest policy continues to this day robbing savers of interest in order to keep the FIRE economy propped up. If I recall, the polls showed the public opposed the bailout by a whopping majority but the bailout passed regardless. Who has the power?

Obamacare was written by lobbyists representing the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The bill was written so that the government would backstop any losses that might occur to insurance companies. How have stock prices performed for these companies since Obamacare was passed? Their profits? Pretty damn good. Who's interest was really served, the corporate or that of the public?