House GOP on health care: For repeal, not replace

[Rolyo85]

Wait, you are kidding, right? Results are completely irrelevant if healthcare is not affordable for the majority of Americans. It's like saying an African dictatorship has the best standard of living in the world because the despot lives in a fabulous castle with slaves and has his every whim catered to.

And yeah, let's get government out of it. Because it's always LACK of regulation that makes things cheaper and more affordable for the average Joe. Just ask the 1930s...

 

[Kulindahr]

Wrong, yet again. The post he responded to with all that useless verbiage was about results. Period.

If it's so-called affordability that interests you, perhaps if we could get the government uninvolved, healthcare would become more affordable. As it is, it isn't bad. The group practice my doctor is a part of has their fees posted on the wall for all to see, and they are quite reasonable. For that matter, there are always places that serve the medically indigent. The system is far from broken.

Affordability IS a result.

When I was teaching, I didn't have the option of rating how well I did just on the students who bothered to do the assignment, I had to count everyone in my results. If you're grading a system for a country, you have to do the same thing: you have to count the outcome for everyone.

So for those who can't afford medical care, the system has to record a big fat zero for results.


BTW, the government isn't the biggest problem in medical care, the AMA is -- they're a guild restricting the number of doctors so they can keep their fees high and services limited.

And the system is only not broken if you consider a car with one tire flat and the opposite wheel missing completely "drivable".

 

[HenryReardon]

Affordability IS a result.

When I was teaching, I didn't have the option of rating how well I did just on the students who bothered to do the assignment, I had to count everyone in my results. If you're grading a system for a country, you have to do the same thing: you have to count the outcome for everyone.

So for those who can't afford medical care, the system has to record a big fat zero for results.


BTW, the government isn't the biggest problem in medical care, the AMA is -- they're a guild restricting the number of doctors so they can keep their fees high and services limited.

And the system is only not broken if you consider a car with one tire flat and the opposite wheel missing completely "drivable".

You're trying much too hard to defend an indefensible position.

The system is just fine. A bit fucked up due to government meddling, but just fine--for now.

 

[HenryReardon]

Wait, you are kidding, right? Results are completely irrelevant if healthcare is not affordable for the majority of Americans. It's like saying an African dictatorship has the best standard of living in the world because the despot lives in a fabulous castle with slaves and has his every whim catered to.

And yeah, let's get government out of it. Because it's always LACK of regulation that makes things cheaper and more affordable for the average Joe. Just ask the 1930s...

A majority of Americans are happy with their healthcare already.


http://www.gallup.com/poll/159455/americans-satisfaction-health-coverage-slips-slightly.aspx

 

[Benvolio]

Affordability IS a result.

When I was teaching, I didn't have the option of rating how well I did just on the students who bothered to do the assignment, I had to count everyone in my results. If you're grading a system for a country, you have to do the same thing: you have to count the outcome for everyone.

So for those who can't afford medical care, the system has to record a big fat zero for results.


BTW, the government isn't the biggest problem in medical care, the AMA is -- they're a guild restricting the number of doctors so they can keep their fees high and services limited.

And the system is only not broken if you consider a car with one tire flat and the opposite wheel missing completely "drivable".

That is a prescription for communism, isn't it? The system is no good unless everyone is held down to a poition of equality.

 

[rareboy]

Oh don't be ridiculous. You make yourself seem like an uneducated fool when you prattle like this.

See how the US fares against the 'socialist' countries you seem to fear the most when it comes to health and education.

Seriously.

You don't even understand communism...what gives you the right to even discuss it?

 

[Benvolio]

You obviously did not read Kulindhar's post to which I was responding.

 

[Rolyo85]

You're trying much too hard to defend an indefensible position.

The system is just fine. A bit fucked up due to government meddling, but just fine--for now.

Say that in an actual room full of people, and you'd be laughed out of it. People travel to Eastern Europe from the US for dental work, because it is cheaper to buy the plane ticket and do it there (with exactly the same quality of work btw) than pay here. And this is only one example.

 

[Rolyo85]

You obviously did not read Kulindhar's post to which I was responding.

He did. You apparently didn't get it, even though you reading. This is not about lowering quality so everyone can afford it. It's about making it cheap enough without lowering the quality. Which - refer to Canada. They're healthier and happier than you. While you cringe in your ignorant fear of "communism", they are treating their citizens with dignity and care that the Republican party wouldn't even be able to compute...

 

[Kulindahr]

You're trying much too hard to defend an indefensible position.

The system is just fine. A bit fucked up due to government meddling, but just fine--for now.

How can you call a system that a huge portion of the country can't afford to use "just fine"?

Often I can't afford to use the system, and I have insurance!

 

[Kulindahr]

That is a prescription for communism, isn't it? The system is no good unless everyone is held down to a poition of equality.

1. You obviously didn't actually read my post -- there's no way in any realm of logic that your statement has any relation to what I said.

2. You clearly don't understand communism when you describe free market reforms with that term.

 

[frankfrank]

they were getting this specific drug at a specific price, so thy were denying prescriptions for other cholesterol drugs. If you wanted the prescription covered prescribe the drug they wanted to sell.

Sounds like ILLEGAL RESTRAINT-OF-TRADE, if you ask me.

A majority of Americans are happy with their healthcare already.

I am basically happy with my health care now, but that had NOT BEEN TRUE IN MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS. Medicare is actually allowing me SOME coverage on prescriptions, office visits, and tests - *NONE* of this was covered for me over a period of more than thirty years, though at the end I was spending close to $10,000 per year on insurance.

Under the old rules pre-Obamacare, insurance companies were allowed to rescind coverage of their own free will: "Oh, we're sorry to see you've contracted ALS and need around-the-clock care. We're canceling your ass. Now, just please GO AWAY AND DIE." In 2003 when I had my cancer surgery, I feared rescission more than ALL other things put together (the cancer, the surgery, and possible infections), because I realized if that happened I would absolutely never, ever be able to get insurance again because of "pre-existing conditions." I was kept on the policy, but I fought the goddam insurance company for more than six months to pay anything and, in the end, they paid slightly LESS THAN ONE-HALF of all my bills. I got left to fend for myself on a good Five-Figure amount otherwise unpaid, because of the insurance company's capricious and illogical determination of what to pay and not to pay.

I estimate that the insurance company, over the years, MADE SIX FIGURES in profit off of me, by almost never, ever, paying for ANYTHING.

Much later, I ran into testing where I needed to have nearly $7,000 of testing done, and the same damned company (which I couldn't leave, because pre-existing conditions meant no other alternative existed) covered only $100 of it, and I had to come up with all the rest.

THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN SO *FUCKED* for so long.

He did. You apparently didn't get it, even though you reading. This is not about lowering quality so everyone can afford it. It's about making it cheap enough without lowering the quality. Which - refer to Canada. They're healthier and happier than you. While you cringe in your ignorant fear of "communism", they are treating their citizens with dignity and care that the Republican party wouldn't even be able to compute...

If health care pricing and quality was simply "in the same ballpark" as any other "westernized" country, the outcomes would be MUCH better than they are.

No, the Republicans want you to JUST. DIE. RIGHT. NOW. PLEASE. if you're poor and happen to get sick.

THE REPUBLICANS WILL NEVER SAY IT, but I feel 100% convinced (UNDERSTATEMENT, I'm actually BEYOND 100% convinced) that if the Republicans really get absolute power after 2016 (i.e. President, House, and non-filibuster Senate), they are eager and all-anxious to repeal the federal law requiring healthcare for the indigent. The United States may be a Zimbabwe-in-the-making.

 

[Kulindahr]

You obviously did not read Kulindhar's post to which I was responding.

LOL

As I already noted... neither did you.

 

[Kulindahr]

Say that in an actual room full of people, and you'd be laughed out of it. People travel to Eastern Europe from the US for dental work, because it is cheaper to buy the plane ticket and do it there (with exactly the same quality of work btw) than pay here. And this is only one example.

And to Latin America for surgery.

 

[T-Rexx]

You're trying much too hard to defend an indefensible position.

The system is just fine. A bit fucked up due to government meddling, but just fine--for now.

The system is most emphatically NOT "just fine."

America has by far the most expensive health care in the world. It is twice as expensive (on a per capita basis) as the second most-expensive system, Switzerland. Calculated as a percentage of GDP, the USA spends 17.9% of its GDP on health care (and rising). Compare that with Switzerland's 10.9%, the UK's 9.3%, or Japan's 9.3%. And all of those countries have comprehensive health care that cover every expense, every diagnosis, and every person in the country! The USA does not even come close to that.

Despite America's enormous investment in health care, it has the lowest life expectancy of any country in the developed world. It has the 50th best infant survival rate in the world.

70% of all bankruptcies in America happen because somebody without insurance (or without enough insurance) got sick. 25% of America's elderly will declare bankruptcy because of health care expenses. 43% of the elderly will be forced to mortgage or sell their homes because of health care expenses. Nearly 50,000 people die every year in the USA not because they suffer untreatable disease, but because they lack the financial resources to obtain treatment.

To describe such a system as "just fine" is like describing Rick Santorum as "socially liberal."

Healthcare in America is a disaster. It is not economically sustainable. It gets worse every year. If something isn't done, it will lead to permanent American recession or depression.

Obamacare is a terrible plan. But it is orders of magnitude better than doing nothing.

 

[Benvolio]

1. You obviously didn't actually read my post -- there's no way in any realm of logic that your statement has any relation to what I said.

2. You clearly don't understand communism when you describe free market reforms with that term.

IF you expect a system to provide and equal "outcome for everyone". It is indeed a prescription for communism. From everyone according to ability to everyone according to need. In any non communist system, people with different abilities and success will achieve different outcomes.

 

[frankfrank]

Thank you, T-Rexx, for summarizing the problem so well. Excellent post.

Links? I don't need no stinkin' links! LOL (Everything you mention, I've read before - some of it repeatedly - in various places. What you're saying is true, and I've SEEN it in action, believe me.)

Oh, on second thought, you'd maybe better put in some links, or at least one of the guys who has a number of posts in this thread is going to have a big fit...

 

[HenryReardon]

The system is most emphatically NOT "just fine."

America has by far the most expensive health care in the world. It is twice as expensive (on a per capita basis) as the second most-expensive system, Switzerland. Calculated as a percentage of GDP, the USA spends 17.9% of its GDP on health care (and rising). Compare that with Switzerland's 10.9%, the UK's 9.3%, or Japan's 9.3%. And all of those countries have comprehensive health care that cover every expense, every diagnosis, and every person in the country! The USA does not even come close to that.

Despite America's enormous investment in health care, it has the lowest life expectancy of any country in the developed world. It has the 50th best infant survival rate in the world.

70% of all bankruptcies in America happen because somebody without insurance (or without enough insurance) got sick. 25% of America's elderly will declare bankruptcy because of health care expenses. 43% of the elderly will be forced to mortgage or sell their homes because of health care expenses. Nearly 50,000 people die every year in the USA not because they suffer untreatable disease, but because they lack the financial resources to obtain treatment.

To describe such a system as "just fine" is like describing Rick Santorum as "socially liberal."

Healthcare in America is a disaster. It is not economically sustainable. It gets worse every year. If something isn't done, it will lead to permanent American recession or depression.

Obamacare is a terrible plan. But it is orders of magnitude better than doing nothing.

You're sounding more than a bit desperate—dredging up all of the pointless arguments.

Cost per capita is irrelevant. Results are what count. Our five-year cancer survival rate speaks for itself (link posted earlier).
Longevity is not a measure of healthcare. It is more affected by lifestyle, diet, and a host of other factors.
Infant mortality rates are not measured the same way in every country. The WHO has a multi-point system for defining it, but not all countries use all of those points. Yet you continue your anti-American blather.
Obamacare is a disaster, and all it will do in the end is raise costs for everybody.

 

[Rolyo85]

IF you expect a system to provide and equal "outcome for everyone". It is indeed a prescription for communism. From everyone according to ability to everyone according to need. In any non communist system, people with different abilities and success will achieve different outcomes.

Actually, that shouldn't apply to things like healthcare because that's not a benefit but a SERVICE, and one that every first world country should provide EQUALLY to ALL of its citizens. Health is not a privilege and it is monstrous that the US considers it to be such.

There are no communist countries in the first world, yet there are many countries with universal healthcare.

 

[HenryReardon]

Actually, that shouldn't apply to things like healthcare because that's not a benefit but a SERVICE, and one that every first world country should provide EQUALLY to ALL of its citizens. Health is not a privilege and it is monstrous that the US considers it to be such.

There are no communist countries in the first world, yet there are many countries with universal healthcare.

Yes, and the system is crumbling in most of them as news accounts show, time and time again.

Americans don't want to live in a nanny state and suck at the government teat from cradle to grave—it goes against everything we stand for and believe in.