Socialism One and All!

[cockerpunk]

Hey, we should all be a bit more friendly here regardless of our disagreements. After all, this is how democracy works. Let's be fair, NO ONE in this thread runs an insurance company, a hospital, or holds political office (that i know of). Not a one of us could even qualify as an expert in any one of these categories. My point is that no one here could solve this problem by themselves. There are far too many facets and if anyone thinks that know it all they're lying even to themselves. I suggest that we continue to educate each other with this in mind moving forward.

you know that's all fine and dandy, but simply understanding of how the healthcare system works should probably be a pre-requisite in forming an opinion on laws regarding it.

otherwise he really is just using the argument from ignorance that i spelled out before.

of course fox news doesn't follow that rule of thumb, so i guess its easy to see where the fundamentalist dogmatic rhetoric comes from.

[drg]

Sorry this is simply incorrect. I have health insurance through my place of employment (which offers 3 plans). Because health insurance is too much to cover my wife we pay cash for all of her medical needs. Trust me the cash rate in the three hospitals around me was significantly lower. Call me on it if you want as I will not share my medical records with you all (as much as I like you).

More than what? Most insurance statements contain both the normal cost and negotiated rate, which are very different (and sometimes costs are waived altogether).

If your hospital is actually charging you less for cash-and-carry than the insurance reimbursement rate, I would be very surprised. After all, why would insurance pay more than an individual, when it pays for many individuals? If this were actually the case then insurance would choose to have you billed cash rate, and pay that amount.

Either your billing is misleading or you're reading it wrong.

[secretweaponevan]

The U.S. National Debt is at $12.8 Trillion Dollars.
The U.S. Gross Domestic Product is at $14.2 Trillion Dollars.

We can't afford anything right now that doesn't improve the economy. I believe all of these new expenses/taxes are being done with definite purpose.

[drg]

The U.S. National Debt is at $12.8 Trillion Dollars.
The U.S. Gross Domestic Product is at $14.2 Trillion Dollars.

We can't afford anything right now that doesn't improve the economy. I believe all of these new expenses/taxes are being done with definite purpose.

In absolute terms, that's not actually true. That's like saying if you have a mortgage for ~90% of your yearly income, you can't afford anything. You can afford whatever you can get financing for, technically.

That said, and I'm not sure if this was your point, most of the spending expansion is in fact occurring to improve the economy. The problem is that so much spending was done in the Reagen through Bush years under Republican presidents that went to worsening the economy.

[DevilMan]

In absolute terms, that's not actually true. That's like saying if you have a mortgage for ~90% of your yearly income, you can't afford anything. You can afford whatever you can get financing for, technically.

That said, and I'm not sure if this was your point, most of the spending expansion is in fact occurring to improve the economy. The problem is that so much spending was done in the Reagen through Bush years under Republican presidents that went to worsening the economy.

So here we have it... An Obama supporter that can't stand for his man to be talked about like he don't have a clue...

DM

[cockerpunk]

The U.S. National Debt is at $12.8 Trillion Dollars.
The U.S. Gross Domestic Product is at $14.2 Trillion Dollars.

We can't afford anything right now that doesn't improve the economy. I believe all of these new expenses/taxes are being done with definite purpose.

say that to the what ... 3 trillion dumped into the worthless sands of foreign nations.

at least we saw SOME good come of the stimulus and back bailouts, even if they weren't perfect. also keep in mind tarp was signed into law by those ever so holy republicans.

[drg]

So here we have it... An Obama supporter that can't stand for his man to be talked about like he don't have a clue...

DM

Not sure how you figure that from what I posted.

[DevilMan]

Not sure how you figure that from what I posted.

I deduced it from the ANTI Republican notes that you and CP keep popping out there. If you notice there wasn't anything said about Dem/Rep for a good bit of this convo. This isn't about "how GW mucked it up" or how "Lincoln had it under control" this is about TODAY's issue with the healthcare bill.

You and CP can't seem to leave the politics out of it in the sense of name calling and finger pointing.

DM

[DevilMan]

Hey DRG and CP....

Why don't you do this... Look up the local hospital/ER services in your area... call em up and tell them the same thing...

Say I just cut my arm real bad and need to see about getting stitches maybe.

Keep track of what the first words they say are.

You can even go so far as to ask them what it would cost roughly to get 10 stitches if paying out of pocket, and then call back the next day and ask them the same thing only tell them you have insurance and want to know what the price would be because you have to pay the deductible.

Tell me what you come up with...

Since you are calling Chaf on his bills and telling him that he can't read....

Why don't you prove it?

DM

[drg]

I deduced it from the ANTI Republican notes that you and CP keep popping out there. If you notice there wasn't anything said about Dem/Rep for a good bit of this convo. This isn't about "how GW mucked it up" or how "Lincoln had it under control" this is about TODAY's issue with the healthcare bill.

Being that the deficit issue was brought up, it is entirely germane. My statement was anti-Republican inasmuch as the facts are anti-Republican; I just stated what happened. Do note that we have had only one Democratic president before this one, since Reagan. Republican presidents are responsible for about 10 trillion of our 12 trillion dollar debt, and their corporate-friendly policies have hurt the middle class.

Why don't you prove it?

Don't have to do any of that to prove it. On your statement is your charge, the insurance rate and the insurance payment. Your non-insurance charge is NEVER less than the insurance rate.

This is a very typical situation:

http://www.cohospitalprices.org/prices/index.html

What you will see is that on a per-treatment basis, cost to insurers is WAY lower. The only time it is higher is for complicated illnesses that require a lot of care -- without insurance, people simply opt for less care (and of course suffer the consequences).

Now hospitals do offer cash discounts, but these discounts will almost never exceed the insurance discount rate for payors who can afford the charge. Again if it did, insurance companies would leverage them. Need-based discounts are invariably tied to government subsidies, so that doesn't go very far to prove any case against government intervention.

[teufelhunden]

bwahahahaa.... You are right... So I guess there is no real reason as to why they run it every time you apply for a loan, go and get insurance, apply for a job, or any other reason is there? I know it don't say what you make! But man... to explain things.. I swear.... Let me put it in baby steps....

I have a car.... It's one of the 3 primary colors. It's not Red or Green.

What color is it?

DM

Have you ever seen a credit report? Either your own or one that you as an interested party can run?

I guess not.

Credit reports are exactly that - reports of your current and prior financing arrangements (credit cards, mortgages, car notes, leases, consumer loans, yadda yadda). They're run when you get a loan or when you get insurance because the lender and insurer want to determine the risk of you not paying. So they look into the history of just such a thing.

Employers look at credit reports for a couple of reasons. Someone with huge debts outstanding will be more subject to pressures to "do bad" - embezzle company funds, take bribes, whatever it is. They want to avoid that. They also want someone who has demonstrated personal responsibility, especially in decision making roles.

If you can back into how much I make by whats on my credit report, I'll poop my pants. There is absolutely zero correlation. I work with people and their money every day of my life (well, every work day, which this time of year is every day of my life). There are rich people with zero debt, rich people with obscene amounts of debt, poor people with big debt, and poor people with no debt. So please, explain to me how you could divine someone's income from their credit report?

You may be able to determine "rich" if you see a $10,000,000 note to "Big-f'in-yachts, Inc." but even that is only a guess.

I'm with you a lot of the way on health care, government spending, taxation, yadda yadda. But people like you do the right a disservice. Same way people see Cindy Sheehan or one of the other fringe lefties and laugh at them (vocal minority type of deal), they do the same with the right. There's a growing perception in this country that the right is a bunch of lunatic confederates with 400 guns, 4 teeth, and 4,000 bible verses ready to be spouted at a moment's notice. Don't feed into it. Gotta reverse that, or no matter how bad Obama and his crew does, we're going to be stuck, because nobody wants to vote for Pat Buchanan and his militia. At least, not enough people to do anything about it.

[cockerpunk]

someone in the right wing with sense!

i praise you man, you are the future of the republican party, it will just take another 5 years for them to figure that out. right now they have a big "no moderates allowed" sign on the door. and that is going to cost them big time in the next elections.

[teufelhunden]

someone in the right wing with sense!

i praise you man, you are the future of the republican party, it will just take another 5 years for them to figure that out. right now they have a big "no moderates allowed" sign on the door. and that is going to cost them big time in the next elections.

I don't actually think they do - look who they sent up in 2008. In 2000, McCain was derided as being a leftist in right wing clothes (which I think he is to an extent - some of his voting history treads well past moderate/centrist). I think the party at a national level understands it. I think it's the message board/on the street/whatever bullies of the right that don't get it. I went to a tea party last year and it was pretty much a bunch of normal, levelheaded people... except for the few screaming nutjobs. I don't listen to talk radio much anymore, but what I have it still seems like the hosts are somewhat accepting of moderates, but you will have a psychopath caller get past the screener from time to time. Those are the people that are going to screw us. As I said, the vocal minority.

DevilMan and your ilk: A lot of us are just as conservative as you. But we have all figured out that we can't go from a country that elected Barack HUSSEIN (lol) Obama/Barry Sotero (lol) in 2008 to a country that is disbanding government in 2012. You guys need to realize the following: if we want to get any of what we want, we need to do it in steps. I don't see 2010 as another 1994, and I don't see 2012 as another 1980 (quite yet). We will need both to actually do anything, and we will need to support candidates that are in the fight to win, not in the fight to stay in the fight after the next election.

We need you to temper your rhetoric and make our side accepting of whomever wishes to support it. Stop doing stuff like screaming about how public schooling should be pay to play. That's moronic and you make us all look like idiots. You're pushing votes to the left... even you guys can realize that's counter productive. Right?

[DevilMan]

What's funny is I'm more of a liberal and Dem than a Rep... bwahahahaa.... So you talking about how RIGHT I am, is just hilarious.

I say I'm more Dem... means I'm middle of the road with a left lean. I think we can all agree that extreme one way or the other is the issue here. Middle of the road has been and always will be the best way to go. You will never be able to please everyone. But that's not what this is about. It's about pleasing the majority.

I feel that the way they are trying to do this health care crap is just that... CRAP! Of course I also feel that bailing out PRIVATE companies like banks and insurance and car companies with OUR tax money is wrong! If a company wants to fleece it's customers for 20 years, make BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of PROFIT! (Note this is CLEARED money) and then have a few bad years and OUR tax money goes bailing them out just to save the company, jobs, etc I find that wrong! You know what could have happened? They could have REDUCED COSTS! They could have SOLD PROPERTY LIKE AIRPLANES!

I know that the "bailout" saved lots of jobs and what not... but there is more to the problem than just that. If they overall costs could be reduced as in how much people were paid, how much the company had to pay OSHA every day, how much union dues/fees are and the like, then it would have been loads better. And it would help bring industry back to US soil.

I mean I'm a "private" individual. Where's my bailout when I lose my job, my truck, my house? Why is it special treatment for one big company with thousands of employees and yet nothing for thousands more individuals?

And if you care to know I'm not Right Or Left! I'm more for liberty and freedom of choice. I think that making laws EITHER way is incorrect.

DM

[BigEvil]

someone in the right wing with sense!

i praise you man, you are the future of the republican party, it will just take another 5 years for them to figure that out. right now they have a big "no moderates allowed" sign on the door. and that is going to cost them big time in the next elections.

They ran the biggest moderate on the planet in the last presidential election, and that worked out well didn't it?

Please, we have enough outsiders trying to determine our candidates as it is.