Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

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Kizyr
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Kizyr »

Werefrog wrote:If you can't afford health insurance, you better learn to die without it.
I don't think you're going to convince him. exigence is in the group of people who believe they're invincible, and so don't get coverage because they think they don't need it. I'm presuming that, because of his age, he's still on his parents' coverage, though, so he may not be uninsured yet. Of course, it doesn't make sense why he thinks that everyone else can get by without healthcare, but hey, I don't credit him with an abundance of logic. We're talking about the same guy who actually believes that people go to jail in the UK if they don't see a doctor.

The abundance of stupid arguments against universal health care, by the way, is really drowning out all the legitimate ones... It's getting damned irritating. KF
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Werefrog »

Yeah, you're right about the amount of dumb arguments. I would prefer to have universal health care, but I wouldn't mind having some sort of compromise if the other side would actually engage in honest discourse discussing the pros and cons.

Instead, we just get Sarah Palin talking about how she's afraid that the government will kill Trig, her kid with Downs Syndrome. Frankly, the American people deserve a lot better, in my opinion.

I came up with what I consider a fairly decent compromise. I think the government should focus on creating community health centers where people of a certain income could go to receive annual check-ups and maybe even meet with a nutritionist (people in low incomes suffer particularly hard from the obesity epidemic). The biggest problem would be making it attractive to doctors. I think we should try to create a Peace Corp. model where if they work for so long at the free clinic, a percentage of their student loans are forgiven. Of course, we would also have people screaming about how this was socialism and discriminates against the rich. We would also have Republicans scoff about Obama being a community organizer.

I think that a government has a moral obligation to provide citizens with a certain level of health care, and we're not there yet. I think that creating community health centers like this would go a long way to meeting this obligation.

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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by exigence »

Kizyr wrote:
Werefrog wrote: We're talking about the same guy who actually believes that people go to jail in the UK if they don't see a doctor.
When you check yourself into a hospital, that means your sick right, well when your not very sick you get low priority, when you have low priority you wait a long time to see a doctor. You can't leave because you checked yourself into a hospital which means your sick, and you can't have sick people out on the streets spreading disease now can you? I don't know how well its enforced but im pretty sure it is part of the law over there.

and I did have a crappy health insurance that my college requires everyone to have, but i never had much use for it obviously.
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Werefrog »

Anyone watch the Daily Show last night? They showed a comparison between Obama's town hall meetings and W.'s town hall meetings in regards to social security reform (which is to say privitazation). At the W. town hall meetings everyone was polite and thanked him for his great job. And I think we know what's happened at Obama's town hall meetings (loud disruptive behavior).

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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Kizyr »

exigence wrote:When you check yourself into a hospital, that means your sick right, well when your not very sick you get low priority, when you have low priority you wait a long time to see a doctor. You can't leave because you checked yourself into a hospital which means your sick, and you can't have sick people out on the streets spreading disease now can you? I don't know how well its enforced but im pretty sure it is part of the law over there.
No, it doesn't mean you're sick. The rest of your argument makes no sense after that.

Checking yourself into a hospital isn't a legal arrangement (in the UK or the US). Leaving at any time isn't a crime. It's not even a law, so obviously it isn't enforced. You're making this up as you go along, right? I'm really curious now: where did you get the idea that you can be arrested for leaving a hospital?
Werefrog wrote:I came up with what I consider a fairly decent compromise. I think the government should focus on creating community health centers where people of a certain income could go to receive annual check-ups and maybe even meet with a nutritionist (people in low incomes suffer particularly hard from the obesity epidemic). The biggest problem would be making it attractive to doctors. I think we should try to create a Peace Corp. model where if they work for so long at the free clinic, a percentage of their student loans are forgiven. Of course, we would also have people screaming about how this was socialism and discriminates against the rich. We would also have Republicans scoff about Obama being a community organizer.
Actually... that's not a bad idea at all. There are already very similar setups like that (AmeriCorps and Teach for America, for example). You already have free clinics, but if you had something more low-level (for regular checkups and advice) it could go a long way towards reducing the need for intensive healthcare from low-income groups. KF
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by exigence »

You do realize that I'm talking about hospitals in England, right? If you check into a hospital you must see a doctor, this isn't a difficult concept to understand.
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

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exigence wrote:You do realize that I'm talking about hospitals in England, right? If you check into a hospital you must see a doctor, this isn't a difficult concept to understand.
...England is in the UK. I'm referring to hospitals in England. How is it so difficult to understand? The idea that you can be arrested for not seeing a doctor in England once you've entered a hospital is false. Entirely false. That means it's wrong.

It's very clear that you don't understand how healthcare, hospitals, or health insurance works in England. It's also clear that you don't understand how those concepts work in the United States. KF
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Werefrog »

Exigence, please provide a citation. I'm inclined to believe Kizyr because what he's saying doesn't sound like insane propaganda. If you want anyone that thinks critically about healthcare to believe you, you're going to have to provide evidence.

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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Sonic# »

Though Yahoo answers is perhaps not the most quotable source...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 746AAyQJmE
ONLY if you are at immediate risk to yourself, such as suicide, would they ring the police on you. Or if you were critically ill and left the ward/ER, because of confusion and such.
This is to do with their duty of care because you would be at risk.

BUT it is NOT legal to treat you WITHOUT your permission.
They CAN'T force you to stay and get treatment.
So they can threaten but not do anything.
In fact they would be in deep do-do with the Medical Board if they rung the police without the above conditions.
That makes much more sense. After all, if you were critically ill or suicidal anywhere, you would get a visit from the police for your own safety. Not if you go in for a scratch or a broken bone and decide not to stay.
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Werefrog »

Well, okay. I'm pretty sure that's the same as in the US. Suicidal patients are forced to stay in the hospital in the US as well.

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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

Post by Kizyr »

Werefrog wrote:Well, okay. I'm pretty sure that's the same as in the US. Suicidal patients are forced to stay in the hospital in the US as well.
I'm rather familiar with the way healthcare works in the US (and the UK--which includes England--as well). The above is true of both the United States and England.

I'm up for a realistic healthcare debate, though. As in, based in sound arguments rather than batshit scare-tactics.

Werefrog/Sonic#, are you familiar with the arguments behind a government-based healthcare provider not being a fair competitor? That's probably my #2 reservation behind universal health care in the US. #1 would be that moving to a single-payer system would require tax rates higher than is comfortable for most Americans, although one that would still be lower than most European countries. Both those reasons are closely interrelated, though, since a single-payer system would be the only way to circumvent the unfair competition problem. KF
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

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Werefrog/Sonic#, are you familiar with the arguments behind a government-based healthcare provider not being a fair competitor? That's probably my #2 reservation behind universal health care in the US. #1 would be that moving to a single-payer system would require tax rates higher than is comfortable for most Americans, although one that would still be lower than most European countries. Both those reasons are closely interrelated, though, since a single-payer system would be the only way to circumvent the unfair competition problem. KF
When I was using the word sustainable, you were right about its use. I meant it, not as a buzz word, but as a budgeting principle. The #1 reservation is similar to one of my own, because I don't see how it is feasible to have a national health insurance system without either accruing more debt or taxing at an uncomfortably higher rate.

As for #2, I've heard some of those arguments before. Admittedly, I need to refresh myself, so I'm trying to read some policy summaries and a couple of arguments. It is tricky when the gov't can set the terms of competition to a certain extent, by prescribing what coverage is sufficient and insufficient, potentially invalidating a whole class of insurance that the consumer might be satisfied with. Also, the gov't plan would have more spending resources and the status as a default that other companies would somehow have to compete with. You probably have other reasons.

I find it difficult to decide one way or the other on this issue, hence the research I'll be doing. I think steps towards universal coverage (in either a hybrid or single-payer format) would be good, provided that it improved people's access to health care without either burgeoning costs or a drop in health care efficacy. I just don't know, in this case, whether those requirements are met.
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a -Plantella-.

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What worries me is the fact that health care costs are rising as such a rapid speed that I worry that it could bankrupt our country.

And if I have to chose bankruptcy or debt, I'll take debt. Debt sucks, but it'll eventually end if the money is properly managed.

However I do not have a source for this, just informed opinions from various news stations/news sites etc.

Is my worry unfounded?
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a

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... I do not know how Healthcare works in the US either. I do not know how Healthcare Works in the US because it DOESN'T work. It just -Fatal Hopper- you. So, instead I know that no one is immune to accidents and that, if an accident happens and you do not have health insurance, you are -Fatal Hopper- for the rest of your life. Inversely, if an accident happens and you do have health insurance they still may not cover it, and they will go to amazing lengths NOT to cover it.

When I was 16 I was hit by a car, I was covered by my mother's insurance at the time but because the police man who came to the scene cited neither of us as 'at fault' my mother's insurance would not pay for the the drugs, and surgical procedures they had to use to put my arm back together. Procedures, I assure you, that were extremely expensive, and the check ups and follow up appointments for removing the pins and braces after the healing was also expensive. At 16 years of age, at no fault of my own, I found myself saddled with a medical bill debt of $17,000. A debt I will be paying on for the rest of my life. Today, I am STILL making payments, I have defaulted and let it incrue miss payment fees and interest in the past when money got tight. And the health industry is completely happy with this, THEY want me in debt. They want us ALL in debt, because it's more money for them. They want us to not have insurance, they want us to have low/no income, they want us to miss payments. It has been eleven years since I had my arm shattered, I still owe 10k to the hospital. If I manage to continue to make the payments every month I will have this debt paid off when I am forty-three years old. I will have paid $31,000 for my $17,000 procedure. This is at my current rate and working on the assumption that I do not default or that they do not raise the interest on me. This is if I have no more accidents between now and then. By disenfranchising the uninsured the health care industry makes so much more money. Because not only will they collect more than they ever paid the doctors to fix you, but they will also bundle up your debt with other uninsured Americans debt and sell it to investors at a premium.

The health care industry is not the only industry doing this. Right now more than 50% of the revenue generated by the biggest leading banks comes in the form of fees. Fees such as the ones generated from bounced checks, ATM withdraws, late payments, overdraft fees and low account balance fees. (Yes, they actually FINE you for not maintaining a minimum balance in your bank account.) They bundle up your debt and sell it for even more profit. They play around with your interest rates just to kick you while your down. In the past, banks would take the money deposited in them and they would invest that money in the market, they would also collect interest from loans and other such. That was how the banks made money in the past, by selling loans and collecting interest and investing the money in markets. Slowly they realized that hammering people with fees was just as profitable. And now that the market is down and they cannot rely on brokerage it is the way they've chosen to make the bulk of their profits now. Stacking fees are applied retroactively, you find yourself making a payment on your debt, not on your account, and still getting billed a late fee. Less ethical banks and credit companies actually change your billing date on you every billing cycle with the intent of invoking missed payments.

This is not just angry accusations, this is TRUTH. I'm not even bringing up the brutalizing of home-owners, because I do not own a home and I do not know what that is like. Many of these issues were brought up in the bill that tried to go against these industries for their predatory behavior. THE BILLS OBAMA LET SLIDE SO THESE COMPANIES COULD BLEED WORKING AMERICANS MORE.

Even if you are insured, your insurer will do everything they can to weasel out of paying as much as they can weasel out of. Also, let us not forget that if you have a "pre-existing condition" you cannot get health care. (My Costochondritis prevents me from getting health care without ridiculous premiums, co pays, and monthly payments.) With obesity now being seen by many insurance companies now as a pre-existing condition even fewer Americans will have the ability to purchase health care as it exists today, let alone apply for it. And that is just the way the health care industry wants it. Because these people STILL have accidents, and these people will default on payments.

With Bush's changes to the Bankruptcy law in 2002, these companies can continue to bleed out and disenfranchise working Americans until the day they die. AND THEN TRANSFER THAT DEBT TO THEIR RELATIVES. (Who may I add, are statistically just as likely to be in the same financial situation as their predecessors)

This is also why they want you to have babies, so they can roll your debt onto them and their debt onto you. And by the way, they won't pay for you to have that baby unless you jump through hoops and follow their rules about how/when to get pregnant stated in your insurance policy. What? You want us to pay for birth control procedures? Why, that would be completely OPPOSITE of what we want to happen to you. Oh my, you accidentally got pregnant? What a surprise! HERE'S A BUNCH OF FEES AND AN INCREASE IN YOUR PREMIUMS FOR NOT OBEYING OUR POLICY ABOUT THIS. Oh, also, you're birthing it on your own dime. Please continue to make monthly payment to us for nothing, God Bless. (And pregnancy is just one of the many normal things that people do that insurance companies have ridiculous rules on)

Creating competition for these heartless industries gives us an option, an option we really do not have right now because, regardless of the name they call themselves, all health care insurers are the same in mentality. What we have now is the ILLUSION of choice, and NO ESCAPE. NO OPTIONS other than death.

A government owned system would still be suspectable to the same lobbyists and special interests that made sure the credit bills did not even get looked at by congress. That means, even with a government system the people with no money and little money would still get ass raped by the people who HAVE money.

It's just another -Fatal Hopper- illusion, but maybe we'd have a year or two before the greedy bureaucrats really let the special interests get their suckers on it where we would actually be able to afford to make mistakes and have accidents.

The true solution to this is for the people who are in charge of us to stop caring about their pocket book and start caring about everyone. For the people who are in charge of reform to actually care about what they're reforming. And for there to be ACTUAL REFORM, OVERSIGHT and PUNISHMENT for the industries that decide to ignore government standards. That the companies who do get marked out for corruption cannot escape making these fines and paying their dues to society by breaking up their companies and just reforming under a new name. (EXXON, BLACKWATER, ETC) That ethical companies that support their communities actually get support and reward, that we, the people, with government support make supporting the community and your employees and customers more worthwhile than exploiting them.

A nice man just came in and gave me $150,000 to stop telling you what the real problem with the system is, so I'm going to go pay off my debts and move to a nice gated community and turn a blind eye to society's ills.

In short, we're all -Fatal Hopper- and humanity needs to be burned from the earth.
Last edited by Jenner on Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Obama needs to stop being such a

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Jenner wrote:stuff
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Re: Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

Post by Kizyr »

Good post. A+++. Would read again.
I still don't think universal coverage is feasible in the US, but that doesn't mean that I'm satisfied with the way things are, and that doesn't mean I don't think there are some things we could do to greatly expand coverage.
Jenner wrote:So, instead I know that no one is immune to accidents and that, if an accident happens and you do not have health insurance, you are -Fatal Hopper- for the rest of your life. Inversely, if an accident happens and you do have health insurance they still may not cover it, and they will go to amazing lengths NOT to cover it.
Yes. The incentive system is completely screwy for insurance. I'm going to give an economist's answer a little later on that. For now, I'll note that the number-one problem with the health insurance setup is that profitability is directly related to providing an inferior service (through denying claims).
And now that the market is down and they cannot rely on brokerage it is the way they've chosen to make the bulk of their profits now. Stacking fees are applied retroactively, you find yourself making a payment on your debt, not on your account, and still getting billed a late fee. Less ethical banks and credit companies actually change your billing date on you every billing cycle with the intent of invoking missed payments.
Fees in and of themselves aren't bad--as long as they're clear and up-front, and you know what you're paying, why you're paying it, and how much it is. Minimum account balances (which is the setup I have, because it's easier than worrying about monthly deposits) isn't unusual. The problem is with hidden fees and stacking fees (negative/minimum balances can be the worst, actually, since they can take you below the minimum and incur another fine in a weird vicious cycle). Most banks you can negotiate with to actually get all those fees taken off, but, well, it requires you going out of your way to do it. I've known this happening to a lot of folks, and all of them were able to get it taken off (after some negotiation); several of them switched banks thereafter.

Changing billing dates on the billing cycle... Yeah, that -Dragon Diamond- does happen. "Hidden" fees also happen because most people don't closely monitor their account activity. Variable interest, same deal, but that's more due to the bank doing what it needs to to remain profitable. Banks are in a better situation, though, since they still rely on individual customers. If enough people are irritated with a particular bank (BoA is often a target) then you'll find rival companies getting better business on the premise of little or no fees (Wachovia, PNC). There's still an incentive structure to provide good service there. That's not the case for HMOs, though (reasons later).
Even if you are insured, your insurer will do everything they can to weasel out of paying as much as they can weasel out of. Also, let us not forget that if you have a "pre-existing condition" you cannot get health care. (My Costochondritis prevents me from getting health care without ridiculous premiums, co pays, and monthly payments.)
Yeah, I couldn't get my own insurance either due to a pre-existing condition. Funny thing is, what's "pre-existing" isn't determined by doctors, but by an HMO who doesn't know -Dragon Diamond- about medicine. Given the methods they use to determine individual premiums, well, they'd charge higher rates to Blacks and women if there weren't legal means blocking them (and even then, there are some ways of getting around it).

That relates to the number-two problem with health insurance's setup, that they get business from employers rather than individual customers (unlike banks).
This is also why they want you to have babies, so they can roll your debt onto them and their debt onto you. And by the way, they won't pay for you to have that baby unless you jump through hoops and follow their rules about how/when to get pregnant stated in your insurance policy.
There's a point there about generally trying to deny coverage by any means necessary, but, "they want you to have babies" gets clear into conspiracy theory territory. It's the same deal as any other claim: their incentive is not to provide you coverage. The only unique aspect about pregnancy is that it's something that normally happens (as opposed to appendicities, e.g., which is not a condition anyone wants to get).

====================

Anyway, recall that I already pointed out the two fundamental problems with how healthcare is set up in this country, that is:
1) Profitability is based on denying coverage to your customers. A customer is anyone who is already paying the company for coverage; the extent to which an insurance company can deny claims to existing customers determines how profitable they are. In other words, they're rewarded for providing you a product, but providing a very poor product.
2) The choice of which insurer you go to is rarely made by an individual. It's usually made by your employer, meaning that an individual dissatisfied with the service of his/her insurer has very limited options for switching to a competitor.
There's also a third, related to item 1:
3) The final decision of accepting a claim, or providing coverage in the first place, is often not made by someone with a background in medicine. (This is the only part that gets personal to me, since I get really irritated at people playing doctor when they're uneducated.)

That means that the healthcare insurance industry is not a competitive one. It functions more like a series of separate monopolies in which poor service is rewarded. There is still some competition (to mitigate poor service) since employers can still choose to go with another insurer, if their present one isn't providing good enough coverage to their employers (remember, an employer has an incentive to make sure his/her employees are healthy)--but this functions much more slowly than if individuals had complete free range. And there still is some regulation of the industry, which helps to keep it from being a complete mess--but regulation can't accomplish everything, and it's highly vulnerable to political pressure.

Even given all that, government-provided universal health care as an option still poses some risks for making the entire situation worse, and it could be impossible to implement, depending on the form it takes.

As a preview of the next post, my main two issues are:
1) Any hybrid system could (could, not would) be untenable since the government would be an unfair competitor. This could (could, not would) draw enough people away from existing insurers to where private insurance is no longer possible to maintain.
2) Americans have a stronger aversion to higher taxes than most other places--it'd be easier to convince the average person to sacrifice 20% of their paycheck for healthcare than it would be to convince him/her to pay 10% more in taxes to fund universal health care. So, it'd be really difficult to get publicly-funded healthcare to be well-funded healthcare.

I'll get more to this in a later post. KF
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Re: Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

Post by Jenner »

I would just like to point out, while Kizyr is composing the rest of his post, that some of the posts in this thread have come from the batshit righter talking points, much like NallOne has said. I acknowledge my statements on medical services WANTING families to get pregnant and have their babies and not have ready options to the contrary, like Kizyr stated, is probably a little out there. It does not take away from the point that all health care insurers do have these ridiculous rules about pregnancy and even have policies and punishments for unexpected pregnancies built into their coverage. If you give me some time I'll try and post up some links to some PDFs when I Google them later. Pregnancy is not the only thing that all insurers here in the US have ridiculous convoluted rules and regulations about and I'll try and see if I can find other examples as well, it's these contraception/baby rules that I hear the most about, being a woman.

What is not flaky conspiracy theory, however, is that the Teabagging groups out there right now protesting the health care plan are ALL BEING ORGANIZED AND FUNDED BY THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY.No, seriously, I wish I was exaggerating.

Every minute that passes that America does not have an alternative the health care industry makes approximately 21 billion dollars (this is the low-end estimate by the way, meaning it's probably more than this.) They then invest only a small quantity of that money BUYING OUR LEGISLATORS so we can all continue to suffer and die making them fat and rich. Factcheck.org has already made a point of investigating and disproving the fear-mongering claims of these groups.

The health care industry as it stands today is the one with, what are they calling them? Death Panels? I don't know what the buzz word for it is. Bad care is just as bad as no care, sometimes WORSE. Even in hospitals the goal is to do as many procedures and tests as possible on someone, it's no longer about curing them. You are rewarded for BEING WRONG and making INCORRECT DIAGNOSES and PRESCRIBING CERTAIN PILLS. You are rewarded because by being wrong, and making things worse and keeping people sick and miserable you are making your employer more money as your patients keep coming to the hospital wanting to get better. (Obama actually mentions this problem verbatim in this clip of his Montana meeting.)

On that note, want to know why all the pens in your doctors office have pill names on them? Because pharmaceutical lobbyists have come to your hospital and told its board and your doctor that if he/she prescribes and sells X number of their product they will give him/her some sum of money. To seal the deal, they give them a bunch of cheap free stuff, like pens, pencils, and notepads, shake hands, butt elbows, waggle eyebrows, and skip off to have hedonistic money baths. The hospital makes money from your treatment, and from the revenue the generate for selling and prescribing one type of medicine over another. Sometimes they even have quotas and selling competitions. It's like working for commission. Ritalin much?

In senior centers the goal is to provide as little care as possible to make as much money as you can. Geriatric care centers are ALWAYS understaffed, there are never enough nurses and there are never enough aides. My mother works in geriatrics and has worked there as an LPN for almost 20 years. There has never been a time when they actually had the legal number of nurses required to care for the number of elderly in the center unless it was the day of a State inspection. (In fact, all last year Mom's work didn't even have the right number of nurses to pass state inspection. However, her employer still passed it because it was cheaper for her employer to bribe the inspectors than to take care of their patients.) I assure all of you, with elderly parents, (unless you are ridiculously wealthy) that this is the case in your senior home too.

More tangent later. Glad I got the Kizyr seal of approval.

Some more sauce:
Who's behind attacks on healthcare overhaul.
The brutal truth about America's healthcare.
Income inequality today, worse than is was during the depression.
Last edited by Jenner on Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
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still adore you Kiz.

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Werefrog
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Re: Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

Post by Werefrog »

Kizyr is right about Americans having a strong aversion towards taxes (which is my biggest concern about the "public option"). I always thought that this would go away if Americans received a tangible service. But I think that may be naive of me.

It looks like public schools may be having some real problems in Indiana. The governor has apparently made it clear that he wants to privatize the educational system. If we can't even have government-sponsored education, I somehow doubt that we'll be able to have a government-sponsored health care system.

This is really too bad though. Obviously, having a healthy and educated citizenry is essential for a functional country. Sometimes Americans can take the concept of "rugged individualism" to an extreme.

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Nobiyuki77
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Re: Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

Post by Nobiyuki77 »

Werefrog wrote:Kizyr is right about Americans having a strong aversion towards taxes (which is my biggest concern about the "public option"). I always thought that this would go away if Americans received a tangible service. But I think that may be naive of me.

It looks like public schools may be having some real problems in Indiana. The governor has apparently made it clear that he wants to privatize the educational system. If we can't even have government-sponsored education, I somehow doubt that we'll be able to have a government-sponsored health care system.

This is really too bad though. Obviously, having a healthy and educated citizenry is essential for a functional country. Sometimes Americans can take the concept of "rugged individualism" to an extreme.
I swear, not that I want the government to control every aspect of my life, but man some people are so distrustful they may as well leave. I'd actually be happier if they did.
-Nobi


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