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Tags Affordable Care Act , AHCA , donald trump , health care issues , health insurance issues , obamacare , Trumpcare

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Old 25th January 2017, 09:28 PM   #361
xjx388
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Originally Posted by fromdownunder View Post
So, let's take a look at one example. You are responsible for your own lifestyle, are young, fit and well. You are doing your usual afternoon jog, when a driver loses control of his car, runs you over, and turns you into a quadriplegic.

You require medical care for the rest of your life. Under the USA system, who pays for the initial and on-going medical costs?

For the sake of this, I am assuming that the driver of the car has not got any money, so a law suit is useless.

Norm
The auto insurance of the driver, primarily. A catastrophic health insurance policy, could also pick up those costs. What you have described is an extremely rare occurance, at least as compared to the more common scenario: you eat a high-sugar, high-calorie diet that contains few fruits and veggies and lots of processed food and red meat. You inevitably develop health issues as a result. Who should bear the financial responsibility of your health care?
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Old 25th January 2017, 09:47 PM   #362
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Originally Posted by Shalamar View Post
"You can't be hungry, because I have a sandwich!"
It's more like "we could share a dollar to buy 2 sandwiches, but I will take that dollar and buy a burger because sandwiches are below par....and I'll eat the whole burger myself."
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Old 25th January 2017, 09:52 PM   #363
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
The auto insurance of the driver, primarily. A catastrophic health insurance policy, could also pick up those costs. What you have described is an extremely rare occurance, at least as compared to the more common scenario: you eat a high-sugar, high-calorie diet that contains few fruits and veggies and lots of processed food and red meat. You inevitably develop health issues as a result. Who should bear the financial responsibility of your health care?
Proctor and Gamble, maybe McDonalds.
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Old 26th January 2017, 12:30 AM   #364
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Police: Security is one of the primary roles of the government. We all benefit from a ready and able police force regardless if you personally ever use them or not.
I feel exactly the same way about healthcare.

It's almost incomprehensible to me that people can feel the opposite of this, but then I grew up in a world with UHC and it's just what happens here.

The nation as a whole benefits from a 'free at the point of use' healthcare system with the government running the system. Ours is very far from perfect, but I'll take what we have over the USA system hands down.

The single biggest benefit to UHC in my opinion is that it keeps the prices for healthcare in check. Anyone arguing that the "free market" is better at doing that needs to explain the discrepancy between healthcare costs in the USA and every other developed nation that has UHC available.
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Old 26th January 2017, 02:29 AM   #365
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and I largely feel that way about education. I'm glad that my tax contribution gets spent on education, but I don't have kids - I'm just glad that someone else's kids get the opportunity for an education.

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
let people spend that money for their own kid's education as they see fit.
Absolutely not. No child should be subjected to the whims of their parents. Not only does that model simply result in education for the rich and neglect for the poor, education can be the springboard to so many other things that should be possible for everyone, not just those that can afford it.

There is no doubt that state education systems can and must be improved, but you don't improve those systems by scrapping them. It's hard, but nobody said life was easy.
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Old 26th January 2017, 02:36 AM   #366
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Roads: You benefit from roads even if you don't personally drive. Without them, you couldn't get supplies to your home. Roads are essential for modern life and, as part of infrastructure is one of the primary roles of the government.

Schools: I'm with you on that. I think education should be privatized. Eliminate the property tax levies for school and let people spend that money for their own kid's education as they see fit. Government should have as little to do with education as possible because they aren't particularly good at it.

Police: Security is one of the primary roles of the government. We all benefit from a ready and able police force regardless if you personally ever use them or not.

None of these are a good comparison to health care. The need for health care is largely dictated by lifestyle choices and thus is highly personalized. You should pay for your own risks. I could get behind government funding of broad public health initiatives: immunizations, infectious disease control, etc. But it really has no place trying to dictate a cookie cutter approach to health care.
How do ill people build those roads?
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Old 26th January 2017, 06:09 AM   #367
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
I don't think you are interpreting these studies correctly. Sure, if we didn't treat the problems that arise with smoking, it might be cheaper. But we can't have it both ways: keep smoking, insist that smokers be treated for the inevitable problems that arise and then expect to save money. It makes no sense.
I know this is uncomfortable but you will die. It does not matter what life-style choices you make. We are all going to die.
You cannot chose to stay healthy forever. You can only chose to get different health problems later in life.
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Old 26th January 2017, 07:11 AM   #368
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Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
I feel exactly the same way about healthcare.

It's almost incomprehensible to me that people can feel the opposite of this, but then I grew up in a world with UHC and it's just what happens here.
The reason it is incomprehensible to you is because you can't comprehend the American attitude: better that 99 deserving and needy people go without than to let one undeserving person have anything.

Using a self-serving definition of "deserving"
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Old 26th January 2017, 07:20 AM   #369
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Originally Posted by Worm View Post
and I largely feel that way about education. I'm glad that my tax contribution gets spent on education, but I don't have kids - I'm just glad that someone else's kids get the opportunity for an education.



Absolutely not. No child should be subjected to the whims of their parents. Not only does that model simply result in education for the rich and neglect for the poor, education can be the springboard to so many other things that should be possible for everyone, not just those that can afford it.
You highlight exactly the objection to school vouchers. Our taxes do not go toward any single student, but pay for the system.

Just to throw out hypothetical numbers: suppose you pay $1000 in taxes to support the school, and the school has 2000 students total. Now, if you don't have any kids in the school, where does that money go to? Certainly not toward the education of any single individual student. Basically, you are paying $.50 toward each student.

That doesn't change when you have kids in the school. Your tax dollars do not only pay for your child, but pay equally for everyone else. So if I also pay $1000 but have a child in the school, that $1000 still does not go toward my own child, it is distributed among all 2000. My child gets 50 cents of it.

Another reason we know that our money does not go toward the education of our child is because you don't pay more if you have more kids. If I have two kids in school, one, or none, I still pay the same tax. I don't have to pay more with more kids. Because I am not paying for my kids' schooling.

So if you want a voucher, I'm happy to give you a voucher for that 50 cents that you are providing to pay for each of your children. But don't you don't get the full value, not at all. The rest of the education is being paid by everyone else, not by you. We aren't just going to give you that money.
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Old 26th January 2017, 07:30 AM   #370
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Roads: You benefit from roads even if you don't personally drive. Without them, you couldn't get supplies to your home. Roads are essential for modern life and, as part of infrastructure is one of the primary roles of the government.
The shops that I buy things from should pay for that. They're using the roads, not me.

Quote:
Schools: I'm with you on that. I think education should be privatized. Eliminate the property tax levies for school and let people spend that money for their own kid's education as they see fit. Government should have as little to do with education as possible because they aren't particularly good at it.
That's awesome. It'll stop those pesky poor people from thinking they deserve to go to college - they'll never be able to get the high school education that's a prerequisite. Society as a whole will definitely be better off once they really know their place.

Quote:
Police: Security is one of the primary roles of the government. We all benefit from a ready and able police force regardless if you personally ever use them or not.
No, it's fine. I'd rather have a gun and a pitbull.

Quote:
You should pay for your own risks.
You should pay for your own road usage, education and security.
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Old 26th January 2017, 07:41 AM   #371
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
It's not exactly a straight-forward calculation. I don't really fault anyone for getting it wrong. But hey - if he thinks it's going to be a $5000 penalty, then he's more likely to buy insurance. It'll likely be in his best interests in the long run. And if he lives in my state, there's some small chance it might benefit my company
If you were without healthcare for the whole year, it is a fairly straightforward calculation.

You either are charged 2.5% of your AGI ($1200 for a person with an AGI of $48000) up to the value of the average bronze plan.
OR you are charged on a per person basis - $695 per adult and $347.50 for each child not to exceed $2085.

You get charged whichever value is higher. So based on this person's income, the absolute worst case scenario is $2085.

If you were only without healthcare for part of the year, you take that value and multiply it by X/12 where X is the number of months you were without insurance (granted it gets a bit more complicated if different people in the household were without insurance for different periods of time).

Last edited by bonzombiekitty; 26th January 2017 at 07:50 AM.
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Old 26th January 2017, 07:57 AM   #372
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Is it a uniquely US thing to talk of provision of health insurance like that's the point and not simply a tool to achieve healthcare?
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Old 26th January 2017, 09:48 AM   #373
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Originally Posted by bonzombiekitty View Post
If you were without healthcare for the whole year, it is a fairly straightforward calculation.

You either are charged 2.5% of your AGI ($1200 for a person with an AGI of $48000) up to the value of the average bronze plan.
OR you are charged on a per person basis - $695 per adult and $347.50 for each child not to exceed $2085.

You get charged whichever value is higher. So based on this person's income, the absolute worst case scenario is $2085.

If you were only without healthcare for part of the year, you take that value and multiply it by X/12 where X is the number of months you were without insurance (granted it gets a bit more complicated if different people in the household were without insurance for different periods of time).
Oh I understand the calculation - I don't need it explained to me

The majority of people, however, aren't really all that good at max, and nested max/min functions are often confusing to a large number of people.
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Old 26th January 2017, 09:52 AM   #374
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
Is it a uniquely US thing to talk of provision of health insurance like that's the point and not simply a tool to achieve healthcare?
I think it is, more or less. There's a historical evolution in there that makes it a different discussion. At a minimum (setting aside all the various small influences that come in to play), Other countries decided that health care should be a social program a long time ago - long before insurance gained solid footing. It didn't get roots in, it didn't grow as a large industry, and it didn't employ hundreds of thousands of people. In the US, we missed that memo. If we'd been paying attention back in the 40s, or heck even the 60s, we wouldn't be in this boat today. We would have been ahead of the majority of technological improvements that have skyrocketed the underlying cost of care. We would have been ahead of the drug innovations that have compounded that cost. And we would have been ahead of comprehensive medical coverage (including routine maintenance and actual insurable events) becoming de rigeur as an employment benefit.

No we have to figure out a way to unravel that knot that doesn't crash the whole thing.
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Old 26th January 2017, 09:56 AM   #375
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Originally Posted by blutoski View Post
Health is like education: the rising water lifts all boats and pays dividends in excess of the original investment. This makes is a good model for a public service, which most countries have figured out.
Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Roads: You benefit from roads even if you don't personally drive. Without them, you couldn't get supplies to your home. Roads are essential for modern life and, as part of infrastructure is one of the primary roles of the government.

Schools: I'm with you on that. I think education should be privatized. Eliminate the property tax levies for school and let people spend that money for their own kid's education as they see fit. Government should have as little to do with education as possible because they aren't particularly good at it.

Police: Security is one of the primary roles of the government. We all benefit from a ready and able police force regardless if you personally ever use them or not.

None of these are a good comparison to health care. The need for health care is largely dictated by lifestyle choices and thus is highly personalized. You should pay for your own risks. I could get behind government funding of broad public health initiatives: immunizations, infectious disease control, etc. But it really has no place trying to dictate a cookie cutter approach to health care.
Funny how someone who benefits form public health care being widely available is better able to see that benefit than you are.
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Old 26th January 2017, 09:57 AM   #376
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
No we have to figure out a way to unravel that knot that doesn't crash the whole thing.
I used to think that, but I'm taking on a Trumpian view now. If it doesn't work why shouldn't we just crash the whole thing?
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Old 26th January 2017, 10:05 AM   #377
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Originally Posted by Dr. Keith View Post
I used to think that, but I'm taking on a Trumpian view now. If it doesn't work why shouldn't we just crash the whole thing?
I've sort of wondered the same thing. What percentage of the population has to be uninsured or with very insecure health care before there is a more comprehensive push to deal with coverage and cost issues?

Or is a comprehensive solution a gordian knot that cannot be solved in American culture and political climate?
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Old 26th January 2017, 10:42 AM   #378
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You guys consistently overlook one of the benefits of our patchwork system vs. universal health-care: more people end up dying.
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Old 26th January 2017, 10:44 AM   #379
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Originally Posted by Dr. Keith View Post
I used to think that, but I'm taking on a Trumpian view now. If it doesn't work why shouldn't we just crash the whole thing?
Wait. If what doesn't work? And if it doesn't work perfectly, is that a reason to crash it? Something like 22 million people got health insurance coverage under the ACA that they couldn't get previously. They might not be happy about their premiums and deductibles, and that should be dealt with, but "crashing" it takes them all back to ground zero. One of the premises of the ACA was that state Medicaid programs would be expanded, but a majority of Republican governors refused to allow it in their states. So a lot of people didn't get lower-cost coverage that should have been available. And there are no controls on the prices providers can charge. Etc.

If you crash it, you need to come up with an alternative, or a lot of people will die, literally. The Repubs have only gotten to the first step and don't really have much interest in the second.
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Old 26th January 2017, 10:46 AM   #380
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Originally Posted by Cain View Post
You guys consistently overlook one of the benefits of our patchwork system vs. universal health-care: more people end up dying.
That's right, its all part of the leftists plan. Pass the ACA to get the republicans to repeal coverage and argue against health care for real red blooded Americans and leave them die so the swarms of foreigners can take over the country filling the voide left behind by overweight diabetic dead americans.

Brilliant!
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Old 26th January 2017, 12:46 PM   #381
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Originally Posted by Dr. Keith View Post
I used to think that, but I'm taking on a Trumpian view now. If it doesn't work why shouldn't we just crash the whole thing?
Because we're compassionate humans whose empathy emerged at the proper stage of cognitive development?
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Old 26th January 2017, 12:47 PM   #382
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Originally Posted by seayakin View Post
Or is a comprehensive solution a gordian knot that cannot be solved in American culture and political climate?
The political climate aside, it can be solved in American culture... but just copying what a different country did without consideration for the actual industry and environment isn't the best solution.
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Old 27th January 2017, 08:49 PM   #383
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Color me not surprised. The Republicans admit they have no way to replace the ACA in conversation behind closed doors secretly recorded.

Behind closed doors, Republican lawmakers fret about how to repeal Obamacare
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The recording reveals a GOP that appears to be filled with doubts about how to make good on a long-standing promise to get rid of Obamacare without explicit guidance from President Trump or his administration.
I think I posted that somewhere, the fools never had a plan, and now they think Trump has one.
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Senators and House members expressed a range of concerns about the task ahead: how to prepare a replacement plan that can be ready to launch at the time of repeal; how to avoid deep damage to the health insurance market; how to keep premiums affordable for middle-class families; even how to avoid the political consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood, the women’s health-care organization, as many Republicans hope to do with the repeal of the ACA.
They just lie lie lie, say repeal Obamacare, say defund Planned Parenthood over and over until the masses believe the ACA and PP are evils the US must be rid of.
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Old 27th January 2017, 10:01 PM   #384
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Originally Posted by Cain View Post
I love how people say Trump can't provide health-care for everyone. These are the same naysayers who said he "couldn't" win. He's going to prove so many of you wrong again and again and again that eventually you're going to get tired of being proven wrong.
I have given up asking you people for proof of your statements. I now ask that you provide proof you are not posting from a mental institution.
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Old 29th January 2017, 05:15 AM   #385
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Originally Posted by pgwenthold View Post
Yeah, that's the odd thing about it. We understand for car insurance that our goal is to never use it. But when it comes to health insurance, we feel we have to "win" and get more out of it than we put in. We understand other insurance, but don't treat health insurance that way.
I think it's more that some people don't want to see other people 'win' ("I've paid in but never been ill but that person paid the same as me and got $100,000s in cancer treatment! I want my money back.").
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Old 29th January 2017, 05:18 AM   #386
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Originally Posted by paiute View Post
I have given up asking you people for proof of your statements. I now ask that you provide proof you are not posting from a mental institution.

'ware the Poe...
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Old 29th January 2017, 12:06 PM   #387
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Originally Posted by Tsukasa Buddha View Post
Why is dental separate anyway? In the veterinary field, there is no distinction. Dental health is absolutely part of, well, health.
I've never understood that myself (UK).
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Old 29th January 2017, 03:15 PM   #388
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Originally Posted by P.J. Denyer View Post
I've never understood that myself (UK).
A dentist once talked to me about that. Apparently until the '50s or so, most Americans didn't have health insurance, and health care wasn't as complex or expensive as it is today. You paid your doctor or dentist or hospital bill yourself if you could, or depended on charity otherwise. But as insurance became more common, doctors associated themselves with each other and with hospitals as part of one health care system. But dentists had always functioned basically as proprietors of small, independent businesses, and they elected to keep doing so. They didn't want to give up their independence to contract with insurance companies. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but it sounds like it makes sense.

And in the U.S., unless your employer provides it as a benefit, dental insurance isn't a very good buy. Coverage limits are low, and premiums are usually pretty high for what you get.

Some history here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...bodies/380703/

Last edited by Bob001; 29th January 2017 at 03:20 PM. Reason: to add link
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Old 29th January 2017, 03:33 PM   #389
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This article is ancient (2008), which puts it right at the start of the reform that became Obamacare. It's a pretty good explanation, or starting point.

How the American Health Care System Got That Way
Quote:
In 1942, the US set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering "fringe benefits" - notably, health insurance. The fringe benefits created a huge tax subsidy; they were treated as tax-deductible expenses for corporations, but not as taxable income for workers.
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Old 29th January 2017, 06:21 PM   #390
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
How would it be cheaper to just provide the health care?
This link provides the relevant data. It's got nothing to do with whether prevention is cheaper than a cure. Other developed countries have universal health care, spend far less on health care and have better outcomes. It's flat-out cheaper to just take care of everybody. The data is with me.

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Do you smoke? Are you obese? Do you use abuse drugs/alcohol?
How 'bout one from Column A, two from Column B?

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Those questions are much better predictors of an individual's risk for future health problems than genetics.
Are they, though? Can you provide data? Also, what about my questions re: genetics? Why is it OK to ignore genetic components in obesity, alcoholism, cancer and heart disease?

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
We know that abuse of alcohol can lead to liver problems, cancer, etc.
And so how much of a person's cancer treatment should be covered if they have also abused alcohol? Does that apply to all cancers, or just certain ones? Do they get a credit if they got sober before they got cancer? Etc.

Look: "Nothing we can do" is pretty cheap. Lung cancer used to be pretty cheap! And, blaming people for pigging out, it's just not that simple. People seek solace where they can find it, and in the U.S. that often means grease, sugar, salt and starch. Most of us get sick and all of us die. I don't see the utility of blaming the patients.
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:09 AM   #391
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
Removing the state boundaries and the independent regulations within each state actually would help.
Yep then we can get rid of terrible regulations like no preexisting conditions as no state would be able to implement it after the ACA is pulled. A race to the bottom in terms of what counts and how easy it is to get rid of sick people.
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:12 AM   #392
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
[actuarial lecture]

Actually, preventive care is only less expensive when you're looking post-hoc at a person who contracted the condition. That is to say, the cost of a colonoscopy is less than the cost of chemotherapy and surgery for colon cancer. The problem is in the aggregations, and colonoscopies are a really good example.

These are made up numbers - I don't have real numbers easily accessible without having to do a lot of work AND there's a degree of confidentiality involved. The made up numbers are illustrative and directionally appropriate. appropriate.

Let's say that an average colonoscopy costs $250, and is recommended to all men age 50 and older, every 5 years. That equates to about 20% of men in that age range per year. Let's say that works out to 10,000 men in that risk pool. So that's a cost of $2,500,000 per year in colonoscopy costs.

Let's say colon cancer has an incident rate of 1 in 100,000. If colon cancer is identified early, it costs $250,000 to treat. If it is not identified early, it has a cost of $500,000 to treat. For the moment, we're going to ignore the survival rates - they add a high degree of computational complexity that is irrelevant to the pint I'm demonstrating.

The expected cost of early-diagnosis colon cancer treatment in a group that is all receiving preventive care is (incidence rate) * (number of people) * (cost to treat) = (1/100,000) * (10,000) * ($250,000) = $25,000.

The expected cost of late-diagnosis colon cancer treatment us (1/100,000) * (10,000) * ($500,000) = $50,000.

So even though the cost to treat is much higher than the cost to screen for an individual who is identified with colon cancer... the cost to screen everyone is massively higher.

Most preventive care is covered by insurers as goodwill. It's expected, it's the right thing to do, and it makes policyholders feel safer. But it's very rarely financially sound.

Childhood vaccinations, flu shots, and a handful of other immunizations are an exception. These are things that actually *prevent* an illness, and are generally low-cost to administer. Most of the other things that we call "preventive care" don't prevent anything, they're just early detection... and they're often not at all cost-effective.

[/actuarial lecture]
Exactly killing people is far more profitable, but by their good graces they refrain from doing that too much.
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:14 AM   #393
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
Thalidomide is a lot more complicated than that. This off topic, I know, but thalidomide's right-handed isomer was tested, was safe, and was very good at controlling morning sickness. At that point in time we didn't even know that chirality *could* be a problem. It wasn't until the left-handed isomers got in the mix that we saw problems.

Yes, 100% testing is important. But you can't test for a thing you don't know is a thing.
So keeping it out of the US really was an abuse of governmental oversight then?
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:16 AM   #394
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
Hey! Here's a novel idea! Why don't we take a look at the profit margins being made by those doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and device manufacturers? Maybe we take a step back and question whether it's ethical for a medical supply company to make 40% profit year over year on something that can save lives. Maybe instead of just pumping more and more money into the system, maybe we take a look at whether or not the costs are reasonable. I mean, yes, medical school is expensive, but I'm not really convinced that my neurologist needs to me to pay the $800 per hour "protection" money to get her to write the Rx I need so I don't fry my brain in an epileptic seizure. Maybe she could get by with one fewer Mercedes and only a 3600 sf house... Worth a thought maybe?
How dare you question the free market!
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:18 AM   #395
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
In my view, the challenge in the US is one of infrastructure. It's that the industry itself has evolved in a for-profit environment, and the insurance mechanism evolved with it. Insurance invariably disrupts the supply-demand curve, because the financial intermediary explicitly protects the consumer of the good from the true cost of the good. The net effect of this is that the presence of a protective financial intermediary invariably increases the cost of the good sold. What we've ended up with is a highly entwined system. The number of people working in the medical industry (not just nurses and doctors, but the encompassing system of devices, orderlies, drug chemists, insurance agents, etc.) is very large, because the cost of the product is high... which is high because the industry exists in the form it does.

If you change that structure too quickly (a sudden shift to single-payer universal health care) without due consideration of the intricacies... you create many other subsidiary problems. How much of a spike in unemployment is acceptable in order to reduce the health care cost burden? If we switch it all to single-payer, how many people will be out of work, and how much will that increase the financial burden in other areas?

Intellectually I can argue for single-payer universal coverage... but only if I compartmentalize it and ignore all of the secondary impacts.
Exactly we are stuck with these massive and increasing costs because the pain of switching to a more efficient system is too high.

Though of course as your job is an example of one that going to universal health care would like drive out of the job market you are not exactly an unbiased individual.
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:20 AM   #396
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Originally Posted by Emily's Cat View Post
You snipped everything include the thread linky button. I'm not sure which post you're referring to. I'm guessing you're referring to the preventive care one?

The positive externalizes still don't outweigh the cost for most early-detection screenings. The incidence rate is still very low for the things being screened for, and the prevalence of screening is very high.

It unquestionably has high value to the individuals impacted. That's obvious. But taken from a policy perspective, it's not effective and the externalizes don't offset the increased cost burden.

But as I said, it's goodwill and it's the right thing to do. It's just not at all cost effective, no matter how you slice it up.
Yep the ideal customer is healthy until they suddenly drop dead. Like how smoking lowers health care costs and so really insurance companies should be encouraging their customers to smoke.
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Old 30th January 2017, 08:33 AM   #397
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Yep the ideal customer is healthy until they suddenly drop dead.
In a way that's the ideal life. Though a brief illness is sometimes desirable.
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Old 30th January 2017, 09:02 AM   #398
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Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Schools: I'm with you on that. I think education should be privatized. Eliminate the property tax levies for school and let people spend that money for their own kid's education as they see fit. Government.
It’s not just the individuals that benefit, employers also benefit greatly from having a large pool of qualified individuals. We have no examples of a high wealth nation that doesn’t first provide education to its citizens so it’s actually pretty reasonable to attribute all the benefits of living in a wealthy country in part to the cost of education so there is a real and significant benefit to everyone.

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
Police: Security is one of the primary roles of the government. We all benefit from a ready and able police force regardless if you personally ever use them or not.
Police – There are significant segments of American society that do get much of a sense of security from current policing. There is also a big difference in the value of property protected, so someone with $1 billion in property being protected is receiving a much greater benefit than someone with $20 in their pocket.
Military – US military spending is vastly greater than security requires. The US spends as much as everyone else in the world combined and the US and it’s direct allies are responsible for about 85% of all global military spending. Like law enforcement, even the security benefits inherently skew towards those with more valuable property to protect.

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
None of these are a good comparison to health care. The need for health care is largely dictated by lifestyle choices and thus is highly personalized.
While there is some lifestyle component, the largest part of healthcare cost is luck of the draw. There are also large society wide benefits in having a more mobile work force not ties in place due to healthcare reasons. There is also a large benefit to employers in having less to worry about wrt loosing man hours for health reasons.

Originally Posted by xjx388 View Post
You should pay for your own risks.
The largest risks are already socialized either from medical bankruptcy, Medicare, “free” care in emergency rooms that need to be passed on to other patients, or care provided by charitable contribution.
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Old 30th January 2017, 09:34 AM   #399
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Exactly killing people is far more profitable, but by their good graces they refrain from doing that too much.
I'm frequently surprised by your ability to read a comprehensive post and walk away with nothing but a cynical misrepresentation of it. I suppose I should get used to it at some point.
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Old 30th January 2017, 09:35 AM   #400
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Originally Posted by ponderingturtle View Post
Exactly we are stuck with these massive and increasing costs because the pain of switching to a more efficient system is too high.

Though of course as your job is an example of one that going to universal health care would like drive out of the job market you are not exactly an unbiased individual.


I've never claimed to be unbiased, but the content of my many, many, many posts on this topic should demonstrate that I am objective.
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