DescentBB

dissent wrote:And the 800 pound gorilla in the room that distorts the market and causes increases to both health insurance and health care is the effect of governments (state and federal) and their mandates for coverage and service.

so, when uninsured folks show up at the hospital, just let them suffer and/or die, right? Heck, that idea drew applause at a GOP debate, but really, I suspect VERY,VERY few Americans hold such a callous position.

These are the reasons why your aspirin costs $35. One of the main problems for cost control as an issue is that there are few true price signals, where supply and demand operate normally, in the health care or insurance marketplaces. Politicians just love this crap, because they can dump these mandates onto others, claim credit for doing something good for the people, leave others in the marketplaces to clean up the mess, and then whine and moan at election time about how bad all the other actors are in health care after the politicians did all these good things for you.

actually, you are priviliged to live in one of the few civilized societies that views healthcare as a profit center, and therein you will find your problem. Japan has mandates, their cost per capita is around half of ours. Likewise, Canada, France, England, Norway and a ton of other nations have 'mandates', and their costs are lower, their populace healthier. That political crap you spout is just that: crap. It's about how our nation views healthcare as a society, and how we integrate it into the economy, all the while trying to maintain a minimum of access for the uninsured. Note, I say the uninsured as opposed to 'the poor'. The truly poor get coverage, the folks that are pushing those hospital costs sky-high(which I gave examples of earlier) are generally younger working people with no coverage.

You know someone is full of it, when they try to tell you “HEALTHY” people are the blame for high health care costs.

callmeslick wrote:

dissent wrote:And the 800 pound gorilla in the room that distorts the market and causes increases to both health insurance and health care is the effect of governments (state and federal) and their mandates for coverage and service.

so, when uninsured folks show up at the hospital, just let them suffer and/or die, right? Heck, that idea drew applause at a GOP debate, but really, I suspect VERY,VERY few Americans hold such a callous position.

y'know, you really have to go through some serious verbal gymnastics to get from what I said to be equivalent to what you said.

These are the reasons why your aspirin costs $35. One of the main problems for cost control as an issue is that there are few true price signals, where supply and demand operate normally, in the health care or insurance marketplaces. Politicians just love this crap, because they can dump these mandates onto others, claim credit for doing something good for the people, leave others in the marketplaces to clean up the mess, and then whine and moan at election time about how bad all the other actors are in health care after the politicians did all these good things for you.

actually, you are priviliged to live in one of the few civilized societies that views healthcare as a profit center, and therein you will find your problem. Japan has mandates, their cost per capita is around half of ours. Likewise, Canada, France, England, Norway and a ton of other nations have 'mandates', and their costs are lower, their populace healthier. That political crap you spout is just that: crap. It's about how our nation views healthcare as a society, and how we integrate it into the economy, all the while trying to maintain a minimum of access for the uninsured. Note, I say the uninsured as opposed to 'the poor'. The truly poor get coverage, the folks that are pushing those hospital costs sky-high(which I gave examples of earlier) are generally younger working people with no coverage.

yeah, and I'm still waiting for your references on that. By the way, you have two things to demonstrate in your references, (1) that their costs are lower for equivalent coverage, and (2) that they are healthier because of the system that they've set up, and not because there are others aspects (cultural, dietary, etc) that are responsible for some, most or all of the "better health" outcomes for their society. Correlation does not prove causation.

Yes, I've seen any number of articles that claim Japan as a health care nirvana. I can go to lots of places on the left and find people that will tell me that I can get something for nothing. Sure, we could slam price controls on health care and get any kind of cost structure we wanted. I got an idea - why don't we just make everything free. Whatever you want from somebody, you can just take it, or compel anyone to perform any service you want. Let's see, compelling people to perform activities against their will .... yeah, I think there's a name for that ...... what is it ..... hmmmm....................

Somehow I think the optimal answer is somewhere in the middle. Serious people will have to look for it and debate the issues. I have precious little faith in most members of our political class being among those people.

Spidey wrote:You know someone is full of it, when they try to tell you “HEALTHY” people are the blame for high health care costs.

nonsense, it is people who think themselves too healthy to need health insurance and are proven incorrect. A bus can run over anyone, folks get into car accidents all the time, cancer is a tricky business, etc. Of course, I would have assumed anyone intelligent enough to participate in this discussion would get that obvious difference.......

dissent wrote:[yeah, and I'm still waiting for your references on that. By the way, you have two things to demonstrate in your references, (1) that their costs are lower for equivalent coverage, and (2) that they are healthier because of the system that they've set up, and not because there are others aspects (cultural, dietary, etc) that are responsible for some, most or all of the "better health" outcomes for their society. Correlation does not prove causation.

but you would place no such hoops to jump through to argue the converse. Look, all that matters is a consistent pattern of lowered cost and equivalent outcome, and I'll be back with references in a few moments.

Somehow I think the optimal answer is somewhere in the middle. Serious people will have to look for it and debate the issues. I have precious little faith in most members of our political class being among those people.

how exactly do you see 'somewhere in the middle'?


Linkage:let's start with cost:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934556.html

now, a look at outcomes with a decent overview and summation acknowledging how one can play with numbers, and weighting,
but, conceding that the overall picture isn't pretty:

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordp ... y-country/

callmeslick wrote:

dissent wrote:[yeah, and I'm still waiting for your references on that. By the way, you have two things to demonstrate in your references, (1) that their costs are lower for equivalent coverage, and (2) that they are healthier because of the system that they've set up, and not because there are others aspects (cultural, dietary, etc) that are responsible for some, most or all of the "better health" outcomes for their society. Correlation does not prove causation.

but you would place no such hoops to jump through to argue the converse. Look, all that matters is a consistent pattern of lowered cost and equivalent outcome, and I'll be back with references in a few moments.

How do you know what hoops I would place where? Upthread you made the following claims -

slick wrote:What I stated was that for years, in poll after poll, when the pros and cons of Single Payer(National health plan, cradle to grave Medicare, whatever variation, public or pooled private funding) are presented, over 65% of all citizens of this fair land support Single Payer. Why not?
it seems to result in a 30% reduction in percapita costs in every efficiently run system.

… but the facts are this: Single payer plans with very generous coverage(ex. Japan) result in a per capita healthcare expense of more than 30% less than the US pays, and everyone is covered.

I simply asked for references. I think that's a reasonable request. If somebody's doing a better job at health care and/or at health insurance, I think we'd all like to know about it. But the devil's always in the details. You do really have to compare apples with apples. (see below)

Somehow I think the optimal answer is somewhere in the middle. Serious people will have to look for it and debate the issues. I have precious little faith in most members of our political class being among those people.

how exactly do you see 'somewhere in the middle'?

Linkage:let's start with cost:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934556.html

now, a look at outcomes with a decent overview and summation acknowledging how one can play with numbers, and weighting,
but, conceding that the overall picture isn't pretty:

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordp ... y-country/

I'm not sure that your statistics linkages help me very well to understand your argument. Like I said, the devil's in the details. Your stats don't give me any framework for understanding what parameters permit other countries to have lower per capita costs than the US. The table in your first link shows extremely low per capita health care costs in most of Africa, but I'd be willing to bet were not talking about the same health issues or aspects of care there as we are in the US. So yeah, we do need to have some data to assure that comparable health care issues and health insurance issues are compared head to head.

And the "middle" is somewhere between health "care" for all that pays no heed to economic reality and health care for the privileged few and to hell with everyone else.

It's a big middle.

callmeslick wrote:

Spidey wrote:You know someone is full of it, when they try to tell you “HEALTHY” people are the blame for high health care costs.

nonsense, it is people who think themselves too healthy to need health insurance and are proven incorrect. A bus can run over anyone, folks get into car accidents all the time, cancer is a tricky business, etc. Of course, I would have assumed anyone intelligent enough to participate in this discussion would get that obvious difference.......

Lol, you can’t get ongoing cancer treatments at the ER, I’m going to bet most people without insurance go without treatment…using myself as the example.

Or you could always work the system, as some people do.

It’s very easy to know what makes health insurance expensive, the answers are obvious, but when it comes to health care, the answer is something that people don’t want to believe, because people don’t want to believe the problem is caused by something they want.

Health care is expensive because the health care industry does not have the same market pressure that most other businesses have, that being having to sell their goods and services at a price people are willing and able to afford.

Instead the health industry sells its services at what the insurance industry will bear, see what a simple cataract surgery would cost if they had to charge an elderly person what they could afford, instead of what Medicare will pay.

Earlier it was stated that if the Supremes throw out the "Affordable" Care Act, then Single Payer would end up being the solution. Well, Peter Suderman doesn't think so. YMMV.

Then there's this, also from Reason. There are a number of interesting nuggets here -

But any reform has to be based on the correct diagnosis of the problem. The administration's main argument for ObamaCare's mandate—that unless every freeloader is forced to buy coverage, we won’t be able to control spiraling health care costs—is a total red herring. The cost of uncompensated emergency care in America adds up to only about $40.7 billion annually, less than 3 percent of the country’s total health care spending.

and

The act’s supporters insist that even though a majority of Americans view the overall law unfavorably, many of its specific provisions are quite popular. But the problem is that most polls pose questions in a vacuum, without actually confronting Americans with the consequences of their choices. The Reason-Rupe poll was among the few to do so systematically, and it found that although Americans do want equity and coverage for all, they want control, choice and quality for themselves even more.

As they say, read the whole thing.

good read, Dissent. I think, personally, that any political storm with the voters could be overcome by effective presentation, and I think most businesses would absolutely love to get out of providing heathcare in their benefits package, if only to eliminate a massive uncertainty. However, the writer of the one article is dead on when stating that the push from the healthcare profit takers will be massive, and I suspect the GOP will take their money and provide the legislative muscle. One of these days, a critical mass of the population will realize that Single Payer saves virtually everyone money over the course of a lifetime, and that no bigger single boost could be given to both US employers and workers simultaneously. How long it will take to get to that point is anyone's guess.

Virtually everyone? Yeah. Sell that bridge somewhere else.

Even if it were somehow the cheaper option, there is more to consider than money. If money were the only concern we would take all currency digital, put a tracking device up everyone's ass, and skip the election.

callmeslick wrote:I think, personally, that any political storm with the voters could be overcome by effective presentation

As true for politics as it is in business. The truth is another matter...

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Virtually everyone? Yeah. Sell that bridge somewhere else.

let's just think about the basics and look at 4 classes of people:

1. independently supported, paying premiums for top end care. Going to the tax rate for basic care(eg Medicare) and then paying for the supplemental to make up the difference is going to be vastly cheaper than the current tag of around $30K for a couple. Bear in mind, Medicare admin costs are a fraction of those of insurers, and fraud rates are equivalent.

2. The largest group, employer insured, with copays and employee contributions. These folks will lose the contribution part, copays
will remain, unless they get supplemental coverage. Their employers will save a ton, and both be able to keep a higher level of
employment, but pass a chunk back to the employees, which should cover the taxation rate.

3. Working poor. Should see a low tax rate, and will get coverage when many have none. Thus, they save on costly stuff, and get
to live life without fear of absolute financial wipeout in a traumatic injury or severe illness.

4. The truly indigent--no real change here, but we're talking less than 10% of the total population.

Now, Thorne, tell me where this assessment fails.........and, then we can work on that bridge you mention..

Even if it were somehow the cheaper option, there is more to consider than money. If money were the only concern we would take all currency digital, put a tracking device up everyone's ass, and skip the election.

weak argument. We're discussing the health of your entire society, which impacts far more than your wallet.