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The problem is that Obama is in a Catch 22.

We need jobs.

But companies won't hire until they know exactly how much healthcare for their employees will cost them.

But the healthcare package keeps getting delayed.

Which means companies are still waiting to know how much employees will cost them before they hire any more.

Which means no jobs.

The American people need to realize that you need to finalize the healthcare issue first (whether or not there is a universal plan is irrelevent, the companies simply need to know what will happen) before they will consider hiring again.

The longer this drags out, the better it is, actually, for the Republicans, who want the Democrats to look bad to the American public. So it is actually in the Republican political interest to delay any healthcare reform for as long as possible until the November elections to keep the job pressure on the Democrats.

JohnHwangDD wrote:If we do national vaccinations, we cannot provide ANY Stage 3 Cancer care aside from end-of-life hospice, nor ANY Stage 2 for seniors. Not a happy message to send to the most selfish generation of seniors the world has ever seen (Boomer Seniors).

Call me selfish, but I'd kinda hate to get treatable stage II or III cancer and have to just watch it progress so that we can end chicken pox. Stages II and III aren't necessarily death sentences, you know.

It doesn't work like that in Britain.

People die from all sorts of causes, most of which are not very-expensive-to-sort-of-cure cancer, like strokes, heart attacks, dementia and

The full range of childhood vaccinations is available free to all infants. It's quite cheap to do and saves huge costs in preventable diseases later in life. Adult vaccinations are fairly cheap though not free, if you have a job.

gorgon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:If we do national vaccinations, we cannot provide ANY Stage 3 Cancer care aside from end-of-life hospice, nor ANY Stage 2 for seniors. Not a happy message to send to the most selfish generation of seniors the world has ever seen (Boomer Seniors).

Call me selfish, but I'd kinda hate to get treatable stage II or III cancer and have to just watch it progress so that we can end chicken pox. Stages II and III aren't necessarily death sentences, you know.

Stage II and Stage III Cancer can be death sentences for most people if you have to cover all the cost on your own and aren't independently wealthy. And that's the whole point of Death Panels - it's not treatment at any cost, it's weighing costs across the entire spectrum for everybody, and allocating a fixed pool of health dollars to specific, cost-effective courses of care. Expensive care simply isn't offered because there isn't money to give to everybody.


@KK, completely agreed. The cost of vaccination, vs care for full-blown whooping cough is a no-brainer.

And that's the whole point of Death Panels

Can we stop calling them death panels? It's not an accurate title and it carries a significant stigma.

ShumaGorath wrote:

And that's the whole point of Death Panels

Can we stop calling them death panels? It's not an accurate title and it carries a significant stigma.

I think you just named the two reasons why they will continue to be used.

ShumaGorath wrote:

And that's the whole point of Death Panels

Can we stop calling them death panels? It's not an accurate title and it carries a significant stigma.

Do they not (indirectly) choose who lives and who dies?

The only real way to cut cost to the customer is to cut the services - fewer expensive tests, fewer expensive services. Ultimately, it means that some people die sooner.

The sooner we face up to the fact that socialized medicine chooses who lives and who dies (based on the cost of treatment), the sooner we can move forward with health cost "reform". Pretending that there is any other outcome is disingenuous, as is any effort to try and sugar-coat things.

Don't insurance companies also choose who lives and who dies in practical terms?

Also a lot of criticism of 'socialised' medicine, neglects the fact that private options are still available for those who can afford them. In that respect, the choice isn't made for you.

Frazzled wrote:I am not saying that the current abomination is leftwing either-sorry if that came across. I am saying that its an abomination all its own making. its not a healthcare reform bill-its a horror show of special interest givebacks to pharma, AARP, and other special interests, bribes to various districts, no tort reform, and a robin hood method that eviserates Medicare. As I said here or another thread, show me a CD style system that everyone has to be in (no system for haves and have nots) adjusted to the lessons learned from the Canadians or others, and you've my vote. i;ve been through the current systems and know they are barely functional. But I want to fix it, not create a monster even worse.

But that would take time, and we had to rush out a plan...

Yeah, there's a lot in that bill that's just plain bad. Ultimately I think the bill would be better than the current situation as it would stop insurance companies rejecting people for pre-existing conditions. That said, it certainly isn't meaningful reform and won't address spiraling healthcare costs (though I suspect the only way to address that is to build a whole new model centred around a public system). Then you add in the retreat on generic drugs, the exemption for Nevada and all that, and I can certainly understand the mood of the electorate.


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Frazzled wrote:Better idea. No health care until you're thirty. At that point your genes have proven themselves a little more and you're worth taking care of. Too many young punks trying to walk on my yard.

As a man who just turned thiry I wholly approve of this message.


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JohnHwangDD wrote:The only real way to cut cost to the customer is to cut the services - fewer expensive tests, fewer expensive services. Ultimately, it means that some people die sooner.

US healthcare has outrageous administration costs. Legal costs are an order of magnitude greater than anywhere else in the world (all those cases over whether a person is entitled to coverage or not add up big time). There is little use of generic drugs in the US system, which can be 10 times as cheap. Proper use of preventative care can save billions. There is also a basic market problem, where you have profit driven insurance companies that aren't selected by the consumer but by the consumer's employer - all the problems of a basic need provided by a private company with none of the benefits of market competition.


You certainly raise an important issue, we're finding more and more ways to extend life but these methods are increasingly expensive, so we are going to have to acknowledge at some point we simply can't do everything medically available to keep people alive. But that's a worldwide issue, while the terrible return on dollars invested is a US issue in particular.

Those "administration" costs are CYA legalities. If we simply absolve all providers of any risk of malpractice (even gross negligence and outright incompetence), along with denying all people the right to sue (except in the case of wilful misconduct with deliberately malicious intent), then *ALL* of those costs disappear, with or without socialized medicine.

More to the point, you need to stack the deck against the lawyers. Make it *crushingly* punitive to "gamble" with lawsuits, and expand the scope of legal, financially-sanctionable misconduct to the point at which people only sue in the most egregious of cases, rather than the sheer amount of BS currently clogging the courts. Give judges the leeway to completely drop the hammer on plaintiff counsel.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Those "administration" costs are CYA legalities.

Except they're not, not by a long way. The trail of paper in the US system is horrendous, as a bill moves from party to party, each with their own reasons to delay payment as long as possible. If you're not in finance it can be hard to understand how quickly AR/AP costs can mount up. Entering invoices, scheduling payment, recouping from third parties, engaging debt collectors... these are very expensive things.

Malpractice in the US is a problem, but if it is only a portion of the overblown admin costs.

If we simply absolve all providers of any risk of malpractice (even gross negligence and outright incompetence), along with denying all people the right to sue (except in the case of wilful misconduct with deliberately malicious intent), then *ALL* of those costs disappear, with or without socialized medicine.

More to the point, you need to stack the deck against the lawyers. Make it *crushingly* punitive to "gamble" with lawsuits, and expand the scope of legal, financially-sanctionable misconduct to the point at which people only sue in the most egregious of cases, rather than the sheer amount of BS currently clogging the courts. Give judges the leeway to completely drop the hammer on plaintiff counsel.

There's a lot to be said for reducing the costs of legal action by clarifying malpractice law and encouraging arbitration as a first step. There's a lot less to be said for saving costs by making doctor's immune to the consequences of their failings.

No, I understand how AP/AR accounting works. Or doesn't.

But that's a back office problem.


I still say that the thing that drives real time and cost is the extra stuff that creates more workon the AP/AR system. If you don't do a CAT scan in the first place, there's no CAT scan to bill, and no AP/AR cost for it.

Start at the source.

ShumaGorath wrote:

And that's the whole point of Death Panels

Can we stop calling them death panels? It's not an accurate title and it carries a significant stigma.

If they decide how much money to allocate to cancer, then its a highly accurate term. Thats what healthcare rationing is.

Which is again why there should be no healtchare until you're thirty. Cleanse the genepool a little bit and prove you're worthy of healthcare. Its what the ROmans would have done.


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Albatross wrote:Don't insurance companies also choose who lives and who dies in practical terms?

Often times yep.

Also a lot of criticism of 'socialised' medicine, neglects the fact that private options are still available for those who can afford them. In that respect, the choice isn't made for you.

This I am against actually. I want Bill Gates and Soros to be forced to have the same health care as me and my family. Else there's crap care and then there's RIchboy care (translation what we have now).


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JohnHwangDD wrote:Those "administration" costs are CYA legalities. If we simply absolve all providers of any risk of malpractice (even gross negligence and outright incompetence), along with denying all people the right to sue (except in the case of wilful misconduct with deliberately malicious intent), then *ALL* of those costs disappear, with or without socialized medicine.

More to the point, you need to stack the deck against the lawyers. Make it *crushingly* punitive to "gamble" with lawsuits, and expand the scope of legal, financially-sanctionable misconduct to the point at which people only sue in the most egregious of cases, rather than the sheer amount of BS currently clogging the courts. Give judges the leeway to completely drop the hammer on plaintiff counsel.

The blood sucking lawyer has a point here. Texas has lower costs (and beaucoup more docs) in comparison because we limited malpractice awards.

Its what the ROmans would have done.

Before or after they all got lead poisoning, split up the empire, then died to the mongolians?

If before then it's quite comparable, dying of poor health, experience an intense divide within the state, then losing badly to a resurgent asian superpower. Glad we're still emulating them.

The Mongolians never touched them. You're a thousand years wrong.

You're thinking of the Huns.

^Uhh...

The Allies fought the Huns in WWI, not the Romans.

avantgarde wrote:^Uhh...

The Allies fought the Huns in WWI, not the Romans.

Wrong again. They fought the Bosch. It wasn't a fight. We kicked the crap out of the Huns in football when our team came on the field. After we snapped the neck of the QB, we put like 47 points on the board.

Frazzled wrote:This I am against actually. I want Bill Gates and Soros to be forced to have the same health care as me and my family. Else there's crap care and then there's RIchboy care (translation what we have now).

Communist!

sebster wrote:

Frazzled wrote:This I am against actually. I want Bill Gates and Soros to be forced to have the same health care as me and my family. Else there's crap care and then there's RIchboy care (translation what we have now).

Communist!

The Huns may have been from Mongolia, but no one's sure. At any rate, wasn't it the Goths and Vandals who were hitting the Romans? (Running away from the Huns, granted.)

Orkeosaurus wrote:The Huns may have been from Mongolia, but no one's sure. At any rate, wasn't it the Goths and Vandals who were hitting the Romans? (Running away from the Huns, granted.)

Huns as well. Who do you think were pushing the Goths southwest?

Lots of other tribes towards the end as well Saxons, early Franks etc.

Rome was getting sucker punched by all sorts of villains and blackguards near the end. Though even after the collapse of the West, the glory of Rome lived on for another 1000 years in the form of the Byzantine Empire.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Rome was getting sucker punched by all sorts of villains and blackguards near the end. Though even after the collapse of the West, the glory of Rome lived on for another 1000 years in the form of the Byzantine Empire.

True that, even creating the largest church (which also was the largest cement dome) in Christendom. Still may be.

Frazzled wrote:True that, even creating the largest church (which also was the largest cement dome) in Christendom. Still may be.

Nah, not anymore. The Hagia Sophia may be huge, but it is a shadow of its former self. I can never feel good will towards the Turks because of what they have done to something so wonderful. Besides, St Peter's in Rome is now the largest church in Christendom.

Its still the Sophia to me...

Actually there's a church just down the way that took over the old Summit stadium where the Rockets used to play, and converted it. I wonder if thats bigger?

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Frazzled wrote:True that, even creating the largest church (which also was the largest cement dome) in Christendom. Still may be.

Nah, not anymore. The Hagia Sophia may be huge, but it is a shadow of its former self. I can never feel good will towards the Turks because of what they have done to something so wonderful. Besides, St Peter's in Rome is now the largest church in Christendom.

Should they have left it as a dilapidated mess?

Meh that's unfair of me to say, I guess you're talking about the Islamic imagery.

But they hardly behaved like barbarians in Constantinople...

Henners91 wrote:Should they have left it as a dilapidated mess?

Some parts of Constantinople were undoubtedly dilapidated, brought on by the constant wars the muslims had waged against Byzantium, but the Hagia Sophia was not so.

Henners91 wrote:Meh that's unfair of me to say, I guess you're talking about the Islamic imagery.

They literally cast down the works and symbols of Christians and converted the church to a mosque. Such priceless artifacts and relics of Christianity as they destroyed, the world will never see again. Whats more, they have now turned the church into a museum of Turkish culture, and long refused to return it to the governance of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Even more, they treat the Patriarch of Constantinople as a dog, and deny him his rightful authority within the Church. As you can tell, I have no fondness for the Turks...

Frazzled wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: ....

The blood sucking lawyer has a point here.

I AM *NOT* A LAWYER!

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: ....

The blood sucking lawyer has a point here.

I AM *NOT* A LAWYER!

Wait, what? I thought you were. I mean all the signs were there-bloodlust, chest scar where your heart was removed, inability to do math...

Hey, I can do math.

2 plus 2 is FIVE!