Terminalcoffee discussion
Helping You To Know The News
>
Midterm Elections Thread...
date
newest »
newest »
I'm not cool with Health care being mandatory. It's too "big brother".
I am cool with regulating insurance companies.
I am cool with regulating insurance companies.
Bill them. That's what they used to do in the old days, payment plans.
There are no realistic “billing plans” for people of modest incomes, or in some cases even high incomes who have medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s the reason the majority of personal bankruptcies in America are due to medical bills. And this includes many (if not most) who had health insurance, only to find the insurance company wouldn’t cover the bills for myriad convenient reasons, or simply rescinded the policy once the patient was sick.So the point of health reform is to restrain both the exorbitant costs of medical care and the skyrocketing (dwarfing inflation year after year) of premiums. America spends twice the amount of GDP than almost every other modern democracy on healthcare with demonstrably inferior health outcomes.
One reason so many in the medical field, as well as regular citizens promote a single-payer plan is that it creates a single bureaucracy as opposed to the countless overlapping ones we currently have. And in fact, administrative costs for our existing government health system, Medicare are well below those for the private system, often by as much as ten percent. Likewise, if we have the goal, or I should say the priority as a society of as healthy and productive citizens as we can possibly have, placing health care decisions in the hands of corporations whose financial incentive is to pay for as little health care as possible, and to whom go an enormous chunk of GDP for simply administering the system, strikes me as a conspicuous case of massive waste if there ever was one.
Obama’s health care plan addresses some of the most egregious deficiencies of the system, and some of the more insufferable abuses of the private health insurers. It’s quite evident by the Republicans’ failure even to address this glaring American challenge during the years they controlled the executive and legislative branches that for them the status quo was preferable. Whether the basis of this neglect was ideological purity or garden variety deference to the insurance giants, or more likely some of both (and I’ll put Connecticut Senator and insurance company hand puppet Joe Lieberman in with this group), their adamancy (that’s a euphemism by the way) in the recent effort to pass reform makes the result (essentially the Republican health plan from the Nineties or Romney’s Mass. plan) nearly miraculous. Let’s hope (and I believe this realization was reflected in the vehemence of the conservative opposition), as with Social Security and Medicare Americans will recognize the great improvement once the system is in place and they are utilizing it. And this will pave the way for further improvements.
Yeah, what he said (twice, in one case)!!
Phil wrote: "Yeah, what he said (twice, in one case)!!"Yikes. Well, I chose between editing out the duplicate paragraph or making it a three-peat, and settled on the former.
What a great discussion! I was coming on here to link to what O'Connell has written about the hobbits, but this discussion is much better.As someone who has a chronic illness and requires meds, I have a lot of experience with the pharma companies. And can easily tell you they are the ones who are running the whole shebang. Or at least play a very major part.
Re: insurance, mine is going up (again) 17% this year.
A major problem with our system is also how many expensive tests docs have to run in order to not be slapped with a law suit that can ruin them. Plus their own insurance premiums are reflected in their fees.
Dropping the options makes it seem like the reform is merely a carrot now, aside from the points that Bun makes.
Most bankruptcies in this country are due to medical reasons. Pretty pathetic that you can be homeless because you are unlucky enough to get sick and require health care to live.
It's a vicious cycle. Folks want to sue doctors for everything, they have huge insurance premiums to cover malpractice so they pass on the debt to you, the person in need of medical attention you can now no longer afford, so you have to have insurance...just in case, but somehow, the insurance companies are making billions. Hmmmmm.
Somewhere over the last 30+ years things got out of hand. My mom used to pay our medical and dental bills out over a monthly plan when I was a kid. We didn't have insurance. My mom was a grocery store checker and my dad a cement finisher. Not a lot of money there.
Lori, please! What did the crazy lady say about the Hobbits?
Somewhere over the last 30+ years things got out of hand. My mom used to pay our medical and dental bills out over a monthly plan when I was a kid. We didn't have insurance. My mom was a grocery store checker and my dad a cement finisher. Not a lot of money there.
Lori, please! What did the crazy lady say about the Hobbits?
She sees herself as more of an Eowyn than an Arwen.
In my own experience, it's not the doctors that are charging too much, it's the ancillary providers. For a friend's brain surgery, the surgical costs did not seem extreme. What blew our minds was the $9 band-aid for a scratch on his finger, and the $7 charge for a single aspirin. It's also the $535/month prescription cost for my wife's anti-depressants. Do you blame those on malpractice insurance costs?
Exactly. And I would prefer that their greedy assholiness be regulated to some degree, quite possibly as part of a SINGLE PAYER plan.
I'm afraid it's going to end up in socialized medicine...
British National Health. Because, I've already lived with it, under it, and I wouldn't want that any more than no health insurance and future bankruptcy if something really serious ever happened to me!
For every day use, it was fine. But, if I get cancer I don't want to wait three months (or more) to start my treatment, because the government's red tape can't move any faster than that and there's a line of folks in front of me waiting for the same thing.
I have a heart condition. The cardiologist listed to my heart beat in my foot and then just kinda shrugged. Nice.
Regular GP stuff, it was fine and the prescription meds thing was way better. But real, life threatening health care...not good. I'd rather file for bankruptcy than die.
I have a heart condition. The cardiologist listed to my heart beat in my foot and then just kinda shrugged. Nice.
Regular GP stuff, it was fine and the prescription meds thing was way better. But real, life threatening health care...not good. I'd rather file for bankruptcy than die.
Responsibility for soaring medical costs and premium hikes can’t be blamed on medical malpractice suits. Including legal fees, insurance costs and payouts, the cost of malpractice suits constitute one-half of one percent of health care spending. And for that matter, states with the strictest tort limits on malpractice awards have some of the highest numbers of uninsured, and hence least affordable health insurance. Besides that, a study at Harvard determined that one out of every twenty-five patients is injured by doctors, and only four percent of the injured sued. So scapegoating those horrible, horrible patients for exorbitant health care costs is baseless.
The claim that care for serious medical problems in countries with universal systems is lacking or slow is a false one. Elective surgeries and some non-critical care involve longer waits in places like the UK because successive governments and British citizens apparently accept those waits as preferable to spending a larger percentage of GDP on health costs. If funding for the NHS in Britain were increased, those waits could be eliminated. But there’s nothing intrinsic in the universal system that creates waits. Here, many folks die from lack of preventive care or access to any medical attention at all, which is reflected in our lower longevity numbers, higher infant mortality rates, and higher numbers of preventable deaths due to ailments such as untreated diabetes. Anyone who has spent any time in a doctor’s waiting room unable to avoid hearing the back and forth between front office medical folks and patients, or anyone in the medical profession who deals with the various medical bureaucracies and multiple insurance companies on a daily basis, or anyone who has considered how much time, energy and money are sapped in the haggling between insurance companies and medical providers surely understands that if there’s one thing our current system has an extraordinary amount of compared to other systems. it’s red tape.
Mod
No. The overcharging on hospital and doctors' bills is to subsidize the people who do not have insurance, but still receive care.
The costs of prescription drugs - hard to say exactly, but depending on what drug, a high cost might be to recover the costs of research and development, and make a big profit before the drug goes generic.
The claim that care for serious medical problems in countries with universal systems is lacking or slow is a false one
I lived there, I was treated by them...whatever.
I lived there, I was treated by them...whatever.
Mod
Here ya go, Amelia - O'Donnell on hobbit women. :D http://gawker.com/5639945/christine-o...Every single Canadian I know is happy with their health care system.
As for Big Pharma having to recoup their R&D, they seem to be doing it all in the US. No where else are drugs so formidably expensive. In addition, it's interesting to note that only drugs they can make a killing on are the ones that are researched and developed. There are so many promising treatments that are never explored because Pharma refuses to explore them. And many many doctors get kickbacks from Pharma and will push those drugs on people.
So both Pharma and the insurance companies need to be regulated.
Well, the example of a choice between filing for bankruptcy here and living, or dying in Britain certainly isn’t very useful and not very persuasive. Here, one’s death is likeliest to be due to a failure to receive timely diagnosis and treatment for a disease from which premature death is preventable, due to a lack of access to affordable health care or lack of insurance. One may have to wait an extra two weeks for gall bladder surgery in Britain (because Brits prefer to wait than fund NHS at higher levels), while critical coronary care or cancer treatment is going to be prompt. And common sense instructs one that if Brits and citizens of other nations with universal care have longer life expectancies than Americans do, those folks aren't dropping like flies due to long waits for critical treatments.
Mod
Absolutely. Big Pharma owns our leaders...
To give a little credit to the pharmaceuticals while acknowledging that the system is ridiculous, they do have to shoulder the cost of research & development, including all the drugs that never reach us but help them eventually find the better one. For my clients with epilepsy, I often have an easier time getting prescriptions paid for or largely subsidized by the pharm. companies than getting them insurance or social services.
The under-mentioned story when it comes to pharmaceutical companies is that they tend to come into the drug development process rather late, with most of the actual development taking place in government-funded university labs (iow, paid for by taxpayers, and the big, bad government). They then pay part of the expenses for drug trials, in exchange for which they win exclusive rights to manufacture the drugs, and to collect the profits that accrue from doing so for many years to come. Some estimates have the percentage of drug company spending on drug development as low as 14%, with the rest consumed by marketing and other costs.Furthermore, much of that development money is not spent on research to produce medicines used to treat ailments that kill a lot of Americans, but rather other more profitable drugs (say, Viagra…not that there’s anything wrong with that). But the biggest scandal is that these companies with their deep pockets own enough of our elected officials that laws remain in place (see: 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Act) preventing Medicare, or the American government generally from the luxury other nations enjoy (and these are AMERICAN companies) of negotiating prices as a single, large entity. That’s a helluva way to run a railroad.
while critical coronary care or cancer treatment is going to be prompt
I LIVED there, I just moved back to the states in 2002 and this is often NOT the case.
I LIVED there, I just moved back to the states in 2002 and this is often NOT the case.
Lori wrote: "As for Big Pharma having to recoup their R&D, they seem to be doing it all in the US. No where else are drugs so formidably expensive..."Lori, you and LG are right on this, but what right does the government have to decide how much a company should charge for a company's product? I agree that medicine should be considered part of the basic good and a common need, but if a Pharma company can't recoup their R&D AND make a profit, why would they continue to research?
It is a tough situation because of the rise and power of generic firms. Companies that spend the time and effort patenting drugs have a very small window to get their drugs to market, after trials and FDA approval process are considered. With the rising clout of generics, Big Pharma aren't getting their exclusivity renewed as often or for as long.
Like it or not, Big Pharma are businesses, and businesses need to turn a profit to expand and to hire new minds. Unless the government wants to either take over Pharma, or force them all to become Non-Profits, there really isn't much to be done. It is a tough place for all parties involved. One possibility would be to allow more competition from Pharma in developing countries, but Big Pharma has lobbyists who work to prevent that.
R. C. wrote: "Lori you are LG are right on this, but what right does the government have to decide how much a company should charge for a company's product?"As I understood it, they're not championing having the gov't set the price. Rather, the gov't, as represented by Medicare, should be allowed to negotiate a price. Not at all the same thing.
I’ve had tactical quibbles with this administration, beginning with its inexplicable removal of single payer healthcare from the table from the beginning of the negotiations. There’s a reason every other modern democracy has some form of universal care: it’s more efficient, not simply on its merits as a healthcare system, but also in terms of retaining a healthier and more productive citizenry and work force. Likewise, the administration continued to cling to its expectation of compromise from Republicans well beyond any justifiable point for doing so.
I’m wary of second-guessing the administration on my largest quibble, given that I believe Obama has a top-flight mind and rare political gifts. His inner circle has demonstrated they’re no slouches politically either. The administration’s legislative successes are truly historical, piecemeal as some are, and ugly as the process was to achieve them. So perhaps those folks are remaining cool as cucumbers and waiting for a more propitious time to do what I’m hoping they will.
Still, my hope was that Obama would present a holistic, positive and accurate articulation of American progressivism and pragmatic liberalism as a stark contrast to thirty odd years or so of conservative mythology, propaganda, economic voodoo and undue influence on the American polity. Indeed, Obama has a factual basis on which to assail conservatism for its myriad failures culminating in this economic breakdown: ever-increasing deregulation; the results of American productivity in the way of expanded GDP accruing only to America’s wealthiest classes, to the degree that wealth inequality and its social consequences surpass the Gilded Age; a shifting of economic burdens, and a shifting of tax accountability downward to the middle class.
Rather than hating politics I have always found it fascinating, though were it not accompanied by the other bountiful pleasures of life: books, film, music, sports, and every form of hedonism known to human kind, it’s possible I might have slit my own throat.