Infrastructure Reforms

[Skipjack]

and its all legal under the new Obama care laws

Well Obamacare really is Romneycare. Obama's plan was much different, but did not make it past congress...
I think that the current solution is less than ideal. Of course the insurance companies are playing the asshole card and try everything to torpedo the legislation. I hope it backfires at them!

[paperburn1]

and its all legal under the new Obama care laws

Well Obamacare really is Romneycare. Obama's plan was much different, but did not make it past congress...
I think that the current solution is less than ideal. Of course the insurance companies are playing the asshole card and try everything to torpedo the legislation. I hope it backfires at them!

And it looks like corporate america is jumping on the save our money bandwagon and not caring about screwing the worker as long as the profit is there. The founding father of the company belief that health care was part of the deal for the workers. His motto was "treat your works how you want to be treated." He just died 3 months ago at 90 something. He still came to work every day until three weeks before his death.

[paperburn1]

I am going to go outside and stand in the rain until I feel better or use up my lifetime limit................

[ladajo]

So if you get too sick to drive yourself to the ER, can you claim the Cab Ride?

You might want to rethink the standing in the rain thing.

[seedload]

I just believe that if there is no free market, and demand is controlled with price fixing, then eventually the state will need to take control of supply.

Why do you think that? You do not understand how this works.

Look. I do understand how this works. I even accept that it may be currently working. That wasn't my point. My point was about innovation. If there isn't a huge private healthcare system, then I believe that innovation will die, because the incentive to innovate goes away. When you control the demand in such as way as to not be organic then the incentive for innovating on the supply side goes away. Eventually, the state will need to take control of supply in order to regulate what companies develop so as to fulfill specific needs. At that point, whatever you are left with stops being Socialism and starts being something else.

Yes, I understand that your system may be currently working for your wealthy small country that gets to pick and choose what new treatments, developed for other massive free markets, it will integrate into its system. But, would it work if that free market didn't exist anymore? I don't think so, and you haven't provided any arguments as to why it would. You continue to just explain why you think what you have is working right now, and I don't even deny that it may be.

As an aside, I think the main problem with most socialist programs is that they do work. They work right out of the shoot. It is their extended legacy where things fall apart.

[Skipjack]

But you have equally not provided any arguments why it would go away. And it is NOT socialism. The development of treatments and devices is still done by private companies that do get paid good money (at or close to the market value). It is just that nobody can go completely overboard with what they ask just because they can, like e.g. thousands for an operating room, or a hospital bed. It is disproportional and that wont affect innovation one way or the other.
I think another cost driving factor in the US is the high cost of the education. This requires medical doctors to make more money and that means higher cost. MDs in Austria dont make that much, but they also havent spent hundreds of thousands of USDs on their education.

[ladajo]

and that wont affect innovation one way or the other

Dude. One of the primary benefits of a free market is innovation. Mess with the market, you mess with incentive to innovate.

As for Education costs. Yes they are high. I would posit it is education with a more than healthy dose of indemnity costs. Medical Practice Insurance is simply silly these days. It is also a result of the "Free Stuff" mentality. After all, lawsuits are free! "We can take them for millions..."
Just ask the stupid ghit who sued McDonald's over spilling hot coffee in the drive through. Or the families of the LA Bank Robbers who sued the city for letting the police shoot their men but not run out and provide medical care or pick them up during the machine gun fight where multiple cops had been shot. Idiocy. All of it.

And it all comes down to the "I want my Free Stuff mentality" which is funded by Socialist Minded Power Seekers using other people's money.

I am fed up with the entire parasite mindset. Contribute you friggin slackers. Work for your life like I have. The worst part I think is that once it has all tumbled down, and the parasites all look around at the nothing they have, they will still blame the now non-existing "haves" even though they took every thing from them and the ones left alive are now have-nots as well. Idiots.

Friggin "Free Stuff" stupidity.

<Rant over, thank you for your indulgence>

[Skipjack]

One of the primary benefits of a free market is innovation. Mess with the market, you mess with incentive to innovate.

But the free market is not really messed with where the innovation is made!!

I would posit it is education with a more than healthy dose of indemnity costs. Medical Practice Insurance is simply silly these days. It is also a result of the "Free Stuff" mentality. After all, lawsuits are free! "We can take them for millions..."

Absolutely agree with that.
But, in Austria we have very few lawsuits like that. In the US a lot of people sue in order to get out of their impossible to pay healthcare bills and there is a no market for all these (disgusting) lawyers that make money out of this. You wont see "injured?" adds anywhere.
People dont feel the incentive to sue since their costs are covered anyway and there is very little value to be had beyond that. I think that this allone saves the system billions in court costs and unnecessary insurances, etc.

[Teahive]

As for Education costs. Yes they are high. I would posit it is education with a more than healthy dose of indemnity costs. Medical Practice Insurance is simply silly these days. It is also a result of the "Free Stuff" mentality. After all, lawsuits are free! "We can take them for millions..."
Just ask the stupid ghit who sued McDonald's over spilling hot coffee in the drive through. Or the families of the LA Bank Robbers who sued the city for letting the police shoot their men but not run out and provide medical care or pick them up during the machine gun fight where multiple cops had been shot. Idiocy. All of it.

Idiocy indeed, but it doesn't make sense to blame the failings of a flawed/gamed legal system on "free stuff mentality".

[Skipjack]

Here is a story about the flaws of this system. A friend of my wife is 30 weeks pregnant but still working at a nursing home in order to have health insurance for herself and her two other children. She has had two premature births before already and just had to go to the hospital because she started having contractions. They are giving her medication now to ensure the baby stays "in" for a bit longer. She will be released tomorrow after a 3 pretty scary days. She is of course going back to work right away.
Now her bosses want to fire her because she is a "liability" as they are affraid that she will loose the baby at work and then sue them. What then? She will be without health insurance and wont have the medication that she needs to prevent a premature birth. Something like this is completely unheard of in Austria. If your doctor says that you stay home, you stay home and your are protected by several savety nets.
That is the way it should be.
Anyway, since this is the US, I suggested to her that if she got fired to sue her bosses anyway for discrimination. I will get her a good lawyer. Its worth that to me. Just because I am fracking annoyed with this!

[ladajo]

The company is screwed either way. They will opt (probably) for the path of least exposure, which in my opinon is keeping her on. If they let her go, and she still loses the baby, that is the worst of all worlds for them. They can be hunted for wrongful dismissal, wrongful death, and all the medical costs.
If they keep her on, and she loses the baby, they have much better ground to stand on, especially if they argue that they kept her on at her discretion, but with an understanding she needs the health coverage.

In any event, I do agree that the does need to be some rebalancing in the way folks in need of care are handled in the job place and by the larger system. As I said above, can you claim the cab ride if you can't take yourself? Do you get paid while you are at the Doctor's office? If you miss a certain number of hours in a week/month, what impact does that have on your employment status and associated health coverage?

[ladajo]

As for Education costs. Yes they are high. I would posit it is education with a more than healthy dose of indemnity costs. Medical Practice Insurance is simply silly these days. It is also a result of the "Free Stuff" mentality. After all, lawsuits are free! "We can take them for millions..."
Just ask the stupid ghit who sued McDonald's over spilling hot coffee in the drive through. Or the families of the LA Bank Robbers who sued the city for letting the police shoot their men but not run out and provide medical care or pick them up during the machine gun fight where multiple cops had been shot. Idiocy. All of it.

Idiocy indeed, but it doesn't make sense to blame the failings of a flawed/gamed legal system on "free stuff mentality".

I am arguing that it is the "Free Stuff" mentality that creates the market for the Lawyers. The gaming of the system is predicated on the desire to game, and the ability to do so. Those that design the rules have a tendancy to build in "Free Stuff" based thinking for clauses and exceptions. It all amounts to providing the ability to take money from others, not necessarily those responsible for wrong doing. "Go ahead and sue, I am insured"
I have concerns and issues with the entire insurance industry and what it has become in regards to being another social wealth redistribution tool.

[Betruger]

Teahive - "A republic, if you can keep it."

[Stubby]

As for Education costs. Yes they are high. I would posit it is education with a more than healthy dose of indemnity costs. Medical Practice Insurance is simply silly these days. It is also a result of the "Free Stuff" mentality. After all, lawsuits are free! "We can take them for millions..."
Just ask the stupid ghit who sued McDonald's over spilling hot coffee in the drive through. Or the families of the LA Bank Robbers who sued the city for letting the police shoot their men but not run out and provide medical care or pick them up during the machine gun fight where multiple cops had been shot. Idiocy. All of it.

Idiocy indeed, but it doesn't make sense to blame the failings of a flawed/gamed legal system on "free stuff mentality".

I am arguing that it is the "Free Stuff" mentality that creates the market for the Lawyers. The gaming of the system is predicated on the desire to game, and the ability to do so. Those that design the rules have a tendancy to build in "Free Stuff" based thinking for clauses and exceptions. It all amounts to providing the ability to take money from others, not necessarily those responsible for wrong doing. "Go ahead and sue, I am insured"
I have concerns and issues with the entire insurance industry and what it has become in regards to being another social wealth redistribution tool.

I don't know how true that the free stuff mentality creates a market for lawyers. Our system is free but we don't have the lawsuits or the very amusing ambulance chaser TV ads.
That is not to say there are not lawsuits here. But IIRC the malpractice insurance is very different.

[Diogenes]

Teahive - "A republic, if you can keep it."

Well we now know the answer to that.