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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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Considering these tens of millions and the 50 million completely uninsured, as I said in response to Eli's post, if meaningful health reform is killed, the people who did it will be responsible for more premature deaths over the next 10-20 years than the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust.
That's another thing the Democrats need to emphasize: just because you're paying through taxation rather than premiums doesn't mean you're paying more money. With an increase in taxes, but a decrease in premiums (that may or may not get you care), you actually save money. AND everyone gets covered. Only a group as corrupt and batshit crazy as the Republicans can think this is a bad thing.
Godwin already? No comparison to the Nazis gets to leave out the millions upon millions they killed in WWII.
But it's kind of like pulling a gun on someone over a property line disagreement. It will definitely get everyone's attention, and no one will want to argue. However, it still makes you an asshole, and if you were right, pulling the gun was unnecessary and actually hurts your case.
So, you know, stop that shit.
The insurance companies have only two goals: one, never pay out if at all possible, and two, provide employment for millions of paper-pushers to keep track of it all (not just at the insurance companies, but for health care providers and company HR departments.
It's that last item, especially, that is KILLING American business competitiveness on the global market. No other country has to pay several thousand dollars a year (or more) per employee for health insurance, above and beyond wages.
As long as health insurance is tied to employment, it is not a competitive industry. As much as people may complain about their automotive insurance, no one complains that they don't have a choice. With health, only a select few actually do have a choice, and it's not enough to make the industry competitive.
The bottom line is that, yes, insurance needs to be decoupled from employment, and we need to get rid of the silliness that is "you can only be covered by an in-state provider" - then you would be well on your way to having a market. As it stands now, health insurance is one of the most tightly regulated markets ever, and that's why it's failing.
Raise your hand if you've ever had big problems with your car insurance? didn't think so.
Putting government in charge of your health care...you want the same people who fight the drug war and still cannot get around to treating everybody equally to manage your health? OK, guys.
Reforming health insurance policies won't fix the problem, because the medical side's rising costs (whether self-caused or not), and the general health of the populace producing a skyrocketing demand, are all contributing factors to rising costs.
Secondly, government-run health care is going to absolutely kill the pharmaceutical industry. And before everyone rears their ugly heads about how EEEVIL "Big Pharma" is, just remember who it is who made your AZTs, and your Viagaras, and your blood-pressure medications, and your cholesterol pills, and asthma treatments...
A lot of the "costs" that we talk about in health care costs go towards R&D; those are costs that other countries don't have because they free-ride from American expenditures in that area.
How do you discourage costochondritis? The risk factor is slightly increased by having a respiratory infection, but most people with respiratory infections will not get costochondritis.
The problem is not regulation, but the nature of the beast. Health insurance is inherently unsuited to private enterprise.
All you are saying, really, is that taxes are better when they are imposed by people we didn't elect, and who are not accountable to us directly.
My opinion of you is appropriately low.
And, no, car insurance companies frequently declare "no fault" in many claims rather than investigate because it's cheaper to just pay to fix a car than it is to investigate and pursue liability in civil court.
And what makes you think you're "entitled" to the labors of anybody? On your say so?
My point was that when you're talking about comparing American health expenditures with other Western countries' government-run healthcare plans, you cannot discount the amount spent on R&D in this nation, because other countries' are able to manage costs by free-riding on the investments made in the market in America. In other words, it costs Merck 200 million dollars in America to make a drug; it costs the British government a few cents to buy one pill of that drug. But we lump the R&D expense into "healthcare expenses", which is an unfair way of accounting.
Yes, there are many no-fault decisions in every field of insurance, but with health insurance there is virtually never an at-fault party, unless you're talking about malpractice insurance. My point is that health care is particularly bad at meshing with the rules that make other types of private insurance work reasonably well.
And, no, I do not discount the amount of my money that is being spent on R&D. Part of the problem is that the lack of regulation here results in our being "charged" to death for R&D because we have one of the least regulated health care systems on the planet. As it stands, our system benefits everyone but Americans. If you can stand behind that, I encourage you to contact your local Al Qaeda chapter.
I'm entitled to other people's labors? What the *fuck* does that have to do with anything I said? Even you are saying that Americans pay more than their share for health care because other nations are allegedly mooching off our R&D -- my acknowledgement that the costs in the US are greater than the real expenses is evidence of me feeling entitled to other people's money?
I think you have problems that would be better addressed by a qualified psychiatrist.
you have a problem with being charged for R&D, but you must think that R&D comes from Magical Sky Fairies and that people will just do R&D out of the goodness of their hearts.
Would you please disclose the health benefits provided to employees of the Stranger?
You talk about your kid, you sex life and everything else under the sun, so sharing this info can't be a stretch, can it lover?
And I have no problem with being charged for R&D, just dislike being charged far more than my fair share due to lack of reasonable regulations. I do not think that R&D comes from magical sky fairies: I *know* that it comes out of my paycheck, every other week.
Do you hear what I'm saying, AR? I'm tired of paying for other people getting a better deal than I have. Nothing about me getting a free ride. All this is about me and my fellow (non America-hating) Americans getting a fair shake. Because we're not getting a fair shake when we're paying a lot more for far less health care than everyone else.
Got that, Osama?
If you are arguing that American pharmaceuticals cost so much because no nation other than America makes them of sufficient quality or quantity, support that.
That sounds naively jingoistic.
It is my understanding that drugs are cheaper outside the U.S. only because the drug companies can't fix prices outside our borders. If I have oversimplified, feel free to correct.
I chuckled at the part where you implied the American people owe the pharmaceutical industry gratitude or loyalty for Viagra. If that was just a personal confession, I can't sympathize.
Part of the reason American pharmaceuticals cost so much is because of the stringent requirements placed on your average drug by the FDA. But it's the private profit motive that allows the 11 of 20 of the most profitable pharma companies to operate in the U.S., and even companies that are ostensibly HQ'd in foreign nations have significant presence in America (GSK, LaRoche, AstraZeneca).
That's absolutely, 100% correct. But ask yourself this: if the United States implements price controls...where are the drugs that European countries currently use price controls against going to come from? you'd basically be saying "this is the last place where the profit motive allows significant R&D - say goodbye to that shit!"
I thought I'd give you a chance, but that shit made even less sense than the other shit you said. Where do you GET these arguments you're putting forth? I must do some reading.
Do you work for the pharmaceutical industry? Barring that, I will be left with the impression you're just an idiot.
America FUCK YEAH!!!
Did I get it? Were you going to China with this?
Seriously, post some fucking sources. This shit I GOTTA read up on.
I'm not yet insured here (if you come from outside the EU you -must- go private, and they are giving me a hard time)... so I've been out-of-pocket for office visits. A BIG ouchie! 21 euros! ( 30 bucks ).
No dental coverage though.
More than two thirds of health care spending treats easily preventable disease caused by alcohol, smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and- gosh! - irresponsible sexual behavior.
The current system does not reward prudent lifestyle choices, it actually penalizes them. You live like a slob and everyone else gets to pick up the tab for your care, you live wisely and you get to pick up the tab for slobs.
Until people's lifestyle choices and health care decisions start to impact their own wallet costs will continue to spiral up.
All Obama is proposing is throwing more people into the "oh goody, someone else is going to pay for this now!" pool of health care consumers.
Where do you get your health insurance, Dan?
Seriously, I just can't even wrap my head around how hard this is. It's astonishing to me that we even have a debate about fixing health care. I can think of no other case where our government fails us so profoundly, and yet the terms of the debate have been established by madmen, and we're all arguing about something that doesn't even merit a fucking argument.
Health care is a public good. Governments are established to be custodians of the public good. If a government can't do that, why the fuck do they people even let it exist? Seriously, why isn't our government terrified of us over this issue? Seems to me 50 million pissed off people without health insurance could go a long way toward starting a revolution.
Public Good on Wikipedia
If you want to say that government-run healthcare is "good for the public", that's an entirely different animal, but it isn't a "public good", anymore than food or clothing are "public goods".
Also, the fuckin CDC funded the development of AZT and then only after years and years and years of protesting from groups like ACT-UP. Learn your history, asshole.
I just got diagnosed with a basketball sized ovarian cyst. I am 30. I have private health insurance i pay 230 a month for. I made about $900 a month until I quit my job a month ago because of pain. I have surgery on wednesday and my premium is $400 a day to be checked into the hospital. They say they will have to keep me in for 3 days.
Thank goodness I have health insurance, but I'm still financially fucked even if they cover everything they say they will and don't drop me. I'm going to be borrowing a lot of money to continue to live for the next while. I am scared.
Does The Stranger provide Health Insurance for employees, interns and their families?
Without insurance, it would have cost around $30,000. With full health insurance, I still owed over $10,000. At this time I was making around $8.50 an hour. It basically de-railed me going to college, and since most of it went into collections, my credit is shit now. I paid most of it over time, but it was horrendously expensive. where most people had a car payment, I had my medical debt payments.
And really, it wasn't even that bad of an illness. I can only imagine what would happen if I got cancer.
@ everybody else: please ignore the following rant as it only concerns Karlheiz Arschbomber and other people who might consider living in Germany for long or short periods of time
So, when the KassenƤrztliche Vereinigung first started staging these protests I was honestly angry at the idea that the poor doctors had to work their ass off without adequate pay and that some even had to shut their practice down...
A bit of research later I found that the number of practices having to shut down was comically low (165 in 2008, even less than in 2007 - compared to all other branches or industries this is like..want a super safe job?) and that even the LOWEST average annual income going to dermatologists and psychiatrists (cleared of all costs including wages and leasing for medical devices) is 65 666 Euro (91 407 Dollar) and 65 575 Euro (91 280 Dollar) respectively through public insured patients only (for private insured patients they get an addictional average turnover of 33 000 Euro (45 936 Dollar) annually.
That is of course nothing compared to radiologists who make an average profit of 116 566 Euro (162 259 Dollar) plus turnover from private patients but nothing to cry bitter tears over either.
So there are only three kinds of people in Germanys Health Care who might have reasons to complain; doctors in rural areas (distribution of the public health care billions is, you might have guessed ist, the task of the KassenƤrztliche Vereinigung - and though they claim such dire financial worries of doctors in general (their battlecry is more money! More money!, after all) they refuse to lay open exactly how they distribute the money even though it would help their case... wouldn't it?), nurses and assistant doctors (politics already cleared money for hospitals - their reaction? Reducing the personnel costs further to maximize the profit of the hospital - no kidding) and, last but not least, the patients (if you want some truly brazen stories - one through personal expirience even - of what some doctors get up to to rip off their patients just tell me, there are tons of them.
Sorry for ranting at you, but the last thing we need is another person the KassenƤrztliche Vereinigung can bullshit the hell out of.
~Alice
In fact, it's really fun to google up a page that ranks nations in terms of health care quality, and another that ranks them according to money spent on health care per capita, and look at them side by side. Do that, and look at where the US ranks on each one, and then tell me that the status quo is just fabulous.
If we pay less to private companies than we would to government (which would only fulfill its function), then where do they get all that extra money for marketing, high executive salaries, and lawyers? Magic Sky Fairies? Or maybe private-sector bureaucrats have superpowers?