well, he presumably understands neurosurgery....

[vision]

“I would literally pay twice as much in taxes if it meant everyone had access to free heath care.”

I bet you can’t even find the error in that statement.

There is no error, I meant exactly what I wrote. If we had a system that provided free health care to everyone, but in return it meant paying twice as much in taxes I would do so without hesitation. What "error" do you see? And don't say "paying taxes makes it not free" because that's not true in a common sense. That's why we have free roads and toll roads.

[callmeslick]

It’s a Principle thing, I don’t expect you to understand.

no it isn't, it's a SELFISH thing. You seem to think that a society will work just fine when citizens can pick or choose what laws and programs to obey and participate in. Sorry, that isn't a society anymore. We are a collective entity, and have to support one another. I won't bore you with this again in any detail, but you benefit from everyone else, every day, for your very existence. Accept that, play by the common rules and if you don't like those rules, work within the system to change them, but NO, you don't get some moral right to opt out.

[callmeslick]

IMO, there should be a minimum level of healthcare provided for everyone through a single-payer system.

There is. It was called Medicaid or just go to the emergency room.

if you cannot see the obvious difference between what you wrote, and Vander suggested,heaven help you.

[Spidey]

It’s a Principle thing, I don’t expect you to understand.

no it isn't, it's a SELFISH thing. You seem to think that a society will work just fine when citizens can pick or choose what laws and programs to obey and participate in. Sorry, that isn't a society anymore. We are a collective entity, and have to support one another. I won't bore you with this again in any detail, but you benefit from everyone else, every day, for your very existence. Accept that, play by the common rules and if you don't like those rules, work within the system to change them, but NO, you don't get some moral right to opt out.

OMG…you are calling me selfish for “NOT” taking taxpayers money, you must be insane! My god, now I know what people mean by double speak.

And just for the record, I am not and have no intention of breaking the law, if my income exceeds some point and I get a penalty, I will pay it and move on.

[Vander]

There is. It was called Medicaid or just go to the emergency room.

Medicaid isn't everyone. If you're uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid, you can go to the emergency room and get fixed up, sure. But you get slapped with the bill based on the charge master. ($20 aspirin tablets, $5 tongue depressor, etc) Those prices have no basis in reality. Many hospitals will simply do an across the board raise in prices every year, even though most things get cheaper.

For example, a few years back, my father had a brain tumor removed. The bill included all the prices based on the charge master, and totaled over 1 million dollars. The insurance company paid the hospital a little less than $100,000 for it all. Now, my father's health insurance policy has a $2 million total lifetime payout. Does he have $1.9 million left now? Of course not, he's got a little less than $1million. (the surgeon, btw, billed around $6,500. Everyone in my family wrote him in during the 2008 presidential election. Sorry Obama)

It's a big money scam based on a dysfunctional market where the participants are captive and constantly fleeced. Why should the drug company make 50% profit on their drug when they can make 100% profit. What are you going to do, not buy it? You simply can't expect typical free market dynamics to drive the prices down.

Look at the long term price adjusted costs of healthcare over the decades. Now look at the long term price adjusted cost of automobiles over the decades. Healthcare is not a functional market, so why do we continue to treat it like one? Remember the California/Enron debacle? That's what happens when you try to coerce market forces onto something everyone needs. Everyone gets fleeced.

My father's doing great, btw.

[callmeslick]

OMG…you are calling me selfish for “NOT” taking taxpayers money, you must be insane! My god, now I know what people mean by double speak.

And just for the record, I am not and have no intention of breaking the law, if my income exceeds some point and I get a penalty, I will pay it and move on.

I'm calling you selfish for imagining that you can live free from participating in a society, whether you benefit or it costs you. If everyone did so, we would have both utter chaos, and healthcare ONLY for the extremely wealthy.That, apparently, doesn't either occur to you, or concern you.

[Spidey]

If you think I’m free from participating in this society, you're even more insane that I accused you of being.

[callmeslick]

If you think I’m free from participating in this society, you're even more insane that I accused you of being.

you think you're free from a system which has thus far saved hospitals alone over 8 billion dollars, and somehow think you repay society fairly
with some little fine(ought to be 20 times as much, IMHO)? Really? Of course, I'm aware you participate in society, it's simply your feeling that you can pick or choose the extents to which you do, as I'm reading you. That attitude, if taken by all of society, just would not work in a modern, highly interconnected world. It sounds good, sounds really fair and evenhanded, if you say it. However, the time in which that worked MIGHT have been pre-1830s or so, over here. Since then, the limitations and need for a cooperative society based on shared burdens became a reality, and frankly a practical necessity. Thus, in 2015, to say, as you seem to, that you'll just go it alone without insurance, given that catostrophic situations will likely fall upon the rest of us to pay in full(the stuff that gets you to 80 buck aspirins, etc)....and, I sincerely hope no such befalls you. That is, as I called it, selfish, or more charitably blissfully unaware how your choices affect the rest of us. There is a reason that hospital costs are down by $8 billion since the ACA fully kicked in with mandates. That is evidence of how a society works more efficiently for all. As Vander, I think it was, suggested, the sensible approach would be cradle to grave Medicare for all, the right to buy up to deluxe care and lower deducatables or such and absolutely free care for the provably indigent of any age. Yes, that will likely cost a raise in taxes close to what Vision spoke of, but every calculation ever published shows that despite the initial costs, over a normal lifespan, the average citizen would save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Ferno]

If you think I’m free from participating in this society, you're even more insane that I accused you of being.

He called you selfish for giving that impression. And like it or not, we all have to pay for stuff that we don't necessarily want to pay for. Sometimes, I get the feeling I'm talking to a child who tries to get out of something by yelling 'I don't want to and they can't make me.'. I'm not saying you're being a child spidey; what i'm saying is this is the impression that I'm getting.

[Spidey]

And what are you accusing me of not paying for?

[Spidey]

You know…I don’t know how to break this to you guys but…there are millions of people in this society that pick and choose which parts they will and will not participate in.

The only parts of the society that are mandatory are the laws, and I’m not breaking any of them.

Until then….STFU

Debate….over.

[Ferno]

And what are you accusing me of not paying for?

I'm not accusing you of anything. dammit spidey, you're not seeing things clearly.

and no. we won't "stfu". okay? you can either throw a tantrum or you can get ahold of your ★■◆●, calm down and be an adult here. you choose.

[Top Gun]

It’s a Principle thing, I don’t expect you to understand.

No, I don't understand, because if a principle is actively harming you, then it should be discarded without question. You have a simple solution right in front of your face, and you're actively refusing to accept it for no logical reason whatsoever. That's the very definition of insanity, and I hope you find the help you need to overcome it before it's too late for you.

[woodchip]

There is. It was called Medicaid or just go to the emergency room.

Medicaid isn't everyone. If you're uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid, you can go to the emergency room and get fixed up, sure. But you get slapped with the bill based on the charge master. ($20 aspirin tablets, $5 tongue depressor, etc) Those prices have no basis in reality. Many hospitals will simply do an across the board raise in prices every year, even though most things get cheaper.

For example, a few years back, my father had a brain tumor removed. The bill included all the prices based on the charge master, and totaled over 1 million dollars. The insurance company paid the hospital a little less than $100,000 for it all. Now, my father's health insurance policy has a $2 million total lifetime payout. Does he have $1.9 million left now? Of course not, he's got a little less than $1million. (the surgeon, btw, billed around $6,500. Everyone in my family wrote him in during the 2008 presidential election. Sorry Obama)

It's a big money scam based on a dysfunctional market where the participants are captive and constantly fleeced. Why should the drug company make 50% profit on their drug when they can make 100% profit. What are you going to do, not buy it? You simply can't expect typical free market dynamics to drive the prices down.

Look at the long term price adjusted costs of healthcare over the decades. Now look at the long term price adjusted cost of automobiles over the decades. Healthcare is not a functional market, so why do we continue to treat it like one? Remember the California/Enron debacle? That's what happens when you try to coerce market forces onto something everyone needs. Everyone gets fleeced.

My father's doing great, btw.

Perhaps you misconstrued. Regarding Medicaid I meant the govt. could of expanded that instead of turning the whole system on its ear. The uninsured could of more easily been covered and not have everybody lose their insurance (contrary to the Great Lie given before ACA went into effect. In my case prior to Obamacare, I had to have heart surgery. My Blue Cross plan was a 80-20 plan. My deductible limits max at 5000 so that is all I paid for the operation. Cost of my plan was 230 a month. Since I don't fall into the subsidy range under Obamacare, my payments would of jumped to 600+ a month for the same coverage. I would still have the 5000 in deductibles (which have to be paid up front).

Now as I read about ACA it has a problem that some say is causing it to go into a death spiral. This is brought about by the exclusion of the existing conditions controls that was part of the prior insurance. In other words now you can get a policy even if you have a pre-existing condition. The problem? The young healthy people are not getting insurance because why get a policy unless you need it. Thus the only people who do get it are the older people who use the insurance. As such there is a drain on the system that is not being filled at the front end (healthy younger people paying in). System will not survive under those conditions.

Glad to hear your father is doing well. Mine died about ten years ago. Enjoy him while you can.

[Vander]

You'll get no argument from me that ACA isn't flawed. I would've gone with Medicare for everyone. If only so that there would be less commercials for hospitals. Commercials. For hospitals.

[Will Robinson]

You'll get no argument from me that ACA isn't flawed. I would've gone with Medicare for everyone. If only so that there would be less commercials for hospitals. Commercials. For hospitals.

Exactly. But the people that run Medicare etc. don't fund Senators, Representatives and the One-Party-disguised-as two. Insurance companies and Banks do. So that is where the money trickled up...

Which was better planned and executed, Bush going into Iraq or the ACA? The answer is, who cares, both were planned by the same self serving group of people for the same motive.

[callmeslick]

so, if I get you right, Will, you WOULD support cradle to grave Medicare and support paying for it(via Medicare taxes at a much higher rate, as one possibility)? If so, kudos. Now, if we can get a critical mass of both conservative and liberal voters to make that point to the elected officials, it wouldn't matter WHO is paying the tab, they either do it or lose the seat.

[Will Robinson]

Ive always said that *if* we are going to have taxpayer revenue spent on some kind of health care solution (and I'm open to that) then we shouldn't be involving middle men like insurance companies and especially since we already have the whole infrastructure/bureaucracy in place to deliver it.

The "shovel ready" scam could have been a real thing creating medical care facilities in empty commercial store fronts across the country, employing doctors, nurses, office clerks, janitors, day care workers for patients children, construction jobs to renovate, grants and scholarships to train medical and office workers to man the locations....etc. etc. et...frikken...cetra.

Turn america into the planets most sought after medical and health related mecca.

This isn't the first time I've pointed this out....not the second or third either. Instead we have partnered with insurance companies...evil big business that the left usually rails against...
Evil 'Romney-like' creatures abound, like vampires conjured up by Obama sucking the life blood out of the revenue stream.
Meanwhile the same number of people are un-insured and insurance companies are posting record profits while local economies dry up and blow away.

[callmeslick]

actually, although I agree the ACA is far from as good an option as is Single Payer, 8 million MORE people have insurance today, and the rates of premium increases is dramatically lower. Ideal? No. About 10% of the nation a wee bit more secure around medical expenses? Yes.

[Ferno]

Commercials. For hospitals.

Wow, really? Now THAT is stupid.

[Top Gun]

Heh, that's nothing compared to our drug commercials. Thanks to the Baby Boomers, we have a terrific slate of them, and recently they're even going more gender-equal: now we have erectile dysfunction AND vaginal lubrication ads back-to-back!

[Ferno]

Yeah we get our share of ED commercials here, but no VL commercials yet. We're also being drowned in allergy pill ads, heart condition pill ads, the lot.

So who do we have to blame for our health being open to the highest bidder, huh?

[Vander]

I almost wish they would kill that law that makes them state the side effects if they say what the drug does. I saw this one last year and was gobsmacked.

[Ferno]

"adding abilify has made a difference for me" *jumps off cliff*

[Top Gun]

Not to derail too much, but unfortunately suicidal thoughts/actions are a possible side-effect of pretty much every antidepressant out there. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the gist of it is that many people suffering from severe depression simply don't have the energy to carry out a legitimate suicide attempt. Starting on an antidepressant can provide an initial energy boost, but alleviation of the underlying depression usually takes some time. That period can prove dangerous for some individuals, as they may direct that excess energy towards fulfilling previously-distant thoughts. Dealing with something as complex as malfunctioning brain chemistry is a much tougher issue than chucking antibiotics at a simple infection.

[Tunnelcat]

Makes one wonder if that Germanwings co-pilot who killed all those people crashing his airplane into a mountain was on any antidepressants. If he was, I'm sure that any drug company who made those drugs wouldn't want anyone to know that this pilot was using them, which may have contributed to him committing mass murder in the process of taking his own life.