Quote: Original post by LessBread

Yes. And building new hospitals will be good for the economy. Far better than building thousands of nuclear weapons, jets meant to fight the latest MiG's from the Soviet Union, or aircraft carriers meant to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy...

To be fair, we haven't been building "thousands of nuclear weapons" for decades. The F-22 program was recently canceled. Our military remains a costly drain on the treasury because of our foreign bases and pointless excursions. The military-industrial-congressional complex is the direct result of our silly representative democratic system, which pretends that arbitrary regional divisions represent political realities. Instead, they at best loosely represent economic communities, not political ones, which is exactly what the complex needs in order to exploit the system.

Quote: Original post by trzy
But then again, obviously many people are able to obtain the treatments your government denies otherwise you wouldn't have raised the issue.

What makes you think this? I just wanted a answer to the already overused in this thread alone government == evil company == good rhetoric.

Quote: Original post by trzy
And despite the well-known horrors of the American health insurance system, our cancer survival rates are remarkably better than Britain's. You guys are doing a hell of a job over there!

I've never been to the UK.

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote: Original post by LessBread
What exactly is wrong with that?

One prediction, which I already mentioned, is that this will open the door to taxpayer-funded shysters.

Jewish lawyers? Public defenders? What are you talking about?

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
Are you worried you won't be assigned a "culturally-aware" communications consultant yourself?

Maybe I am. Nobody ever catered to my parents' cultural requirements, I doubt they would now because they don't have powerful special interest groups working in their favor.

Are you sure about that? There are no special interest groups promoting their cultural issues? Really?

Quote: Original post by trzy
On the plus side, I might be able to start a business providing "cultural and linguistic" services to the government and charging a pretty penny for it -- we'll have to wait and see until the bill is passed and then observe how the bureaucrats go about implementing these provisions.

Do you mean the private health insurance company bureaucrats?

Quote: Original post by trzy

Quote:
Here's a thought. How about we have a government system where people who despise government systems for cultural reasons are hired to provide services to other people who despise government systems for cultural reasons? Sounds great don't it?

No way. That's already inherently too statist-authoritarian for my liking. You're implying some overarching power must decide what services are to be provided, and to whom, and is responsible (and what's more, authorized) to do the hiring.

I'm just saying that it's only fair that people who hate government should get their government services provided to them by other people who hate government. That way both the beneficiary and the bureaucrat are working from the same book, playing the same game and so on. I'm saying that people who want to spoil it for everyone else deserve spoiled benefits. Furthermore, would it be too much to ask people on medicare in the mobs disrupting townhall meeting and denouncing these health care reform proposals as socialist and government run to put their money were their mouths are and leave medicare for private insurance? Imo, those idiots don't seem to realize they are being suckered into demanding less service for themselves. All they are doing is pushing themselves deeper into the arms of the private health insurance company bureaucrats, who would gladly deny them care. Profits have to come from somewhere...

Quote: Original post by trzy
To be fair, we haven't been building "thousands of nuclear weapons" for decades.

No, but you have been maintaining the existing ones at an eleven-figure annual cost.

Quote: Original post by Eelco

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse
A quote from an author of a reform proposal:
http://dodd.senate.gov/?q=node/5066
"The overwhelming majority of people in this country want options. I think having a public option, that is not subsidized by taxpayers, but can compete as part of the options available to the general public, is healthy," Dodd said.

Ofcource. The US seems to be pretty much the only country in the world honoring medical patents. Which is very generous of them, paying for the world's drugs, but anyway. Agressive price-controls on other things the government likes, such as the labor of doctors, is another universal of government run healthcare.

I'm not sure that it's a "universal." The U.S.'s own Medicare system has no such price-controls, nor does the government take over the healthcare provider industry for Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare is government run healthcare, and it's pretty much limited to insurance. People who don't like Medicare are free to decline it and pursue private options.

Quote: Original post by Eelco
When Dodd says 'not subsidized by taxpayers', what exactly does he mean? Without further qualification, I am going to have to assume this is the usual political doublespeak.

A string of assumptions is what got a lot of people to the point where they've been talking out of their nether-regions and/or just parroting the anti-Democrat talking points.
A better idea would be to get a good handle on the facts of the US debate, for anyone who's going to try to levy any credible opinion on the subject.....

Quote: Original post by Eelco
A public insurer as a private insurer minus a profit motive would be a disaster, and i think everyone knows it.

GREAT! The public option will then burn in flames, and no one will sign up. As I've already stated, people with your mindset should have all of ZERO opposition to a public-option of this sort... obviously, that's not the case, so there must another REAL rationale hiding under the faux outrage about government inefficiency.

[Edited by - HostileExpanse on August 9, 2009 6:08:42 PM]

Quote: Original post by Eelco
The only 'extra' the public option can offer are various forms of redistributionism, either by taking money at gunpoint, or by spending less money at gunpoint, in the form of the government forcing favorable deals upon itself.

Did you pull that rather bold assertion from the same place you've pulled the rest of your opinions on this subject?

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
In order to facilitate a more informed discussion, here are a list of the points the Republicans are making along with the respective pages from the actual health care bill.

Was it Hannity, Limbaugh, or just a random teabagger that finally put up a list that could be copied-and-pasted?



Even from just casually skimming that list, I see bullshit items picked out with the attempt to frame them as "scary," when it's almost certain that the author of the list has little understanding of insurance. With that being evident, I'll wait until you're able to cite A SPECIFIC CLAUSE of a bill and tell us what problems you have with it. Unlike reposting e-mail forwards, THAT would actually facilitate an informed discussion.

Quote: Original post by trzy
Emergency care is one thing, what about diagnostics and long-term care? Or issues that may not appear immediately life threatening? On the one hand, the high cost of doctor visits, diagnostic procedures, and the like work to discourage Americans from seeking treatment. This high cost is a real problem. On the other hand, allowing everyone essentially free medical procedures would definitely lead to a spike in patient visits for all manner of frivolous reasons perhaps leading to the much-feared rationing we see in the UK.

I'm sorry, where did we agree that patients will determine what medical procedures they receive by themselves? I believe the sequence is:

1. individual concocts frivolous reason why he/she is sick;


2. individual visits doctor, who examines and determines nothing is wrong and at worst prescribes a placebo;


3. no costly procedures are performed.

I didn't realize that we'd decided that a patient's subjective impressions compel us to immediately fly in expert neurosurgeons at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

OR:

Please stop bullshitting.

Quote: If I want to get a balltrasound right now, or an MRI, I can get it within days to a couple weeks tops. My understanding is that this is not always the case in the UK and Canada.

Why do you want to get a "balltrasound"? On what basis? Isn't an ultrasound of the testicles a diagnostic tool that should be ordered by a qualified physician who has performed preliminary examination of the patient and determined that it is necessary? These are the unnecessary and wasteful expenditures that a public system will eliminate, as opposed to our current system where doctors order test batteries (most unnecessary) simply as a precaution due to fear of litigation.

OR:

Please stop bullshitting.

Quote: Original post by Zahlman

Quote: Original post by trzy
To be fair, we haven't been building "thousands of nuclear weapons" for decades.

No, but you have been maintaining the existing ones at an eleven-figure annual cost.

This is the price of peace. Disarmament requires cooperation from all other nuclear powers. Maintaining our strategic warfare capability is not an enormous fraction of our military budget.

Quote: Original post by trzy
...allowing everyone essentially free medical procedures would definitely lead to a spike in patient visits for all manner of frivolous reasons perhaps leading to the much-feared rationing we see in the UK.

I, too, am interested to know what reform proposal is generally going to encourage and also compensate doctors for performing frivolous procedures.

[Edited by - HostileExpanse on August 9, 2009 6:23:34 PM]