Bush does it again....

[Albinonewt]

Originally posted by Vash02
^ I swear to god... what the hell is your problem with all of our government programs? First you say that welfare is for scum and now you dont even think our senior citizens should recieve HELP with paying for the medication to keep them alive. You really are a piece of work...

Not all senior citizens should. Senior citizens are the most affluent group in America. There's no reason for 2/3 of them to receive help.

Plus, while everyone complains about the costs being higher they leave out a very important point.

ITS BECAUSE WE CAN SURE THINGS WE COULD NEVER CURE BEFORE

20 years ago you didn't pay for pills to beat some of these diseases, you just DIED.

[Albinonewt]

Originally posted by Vash02
Haha, lohman, oddly enough communism was supposed to provide exactly that. Everyone gets food, a house, all the clothes they need but, unfortunatly we havnt seen a true communism.

I love liberals that say that.

"Communism would work, but the right person hasn't tried it yet"

EVERY experiment with communism has failed, but its still the best system.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Rooster]

"If the extreme goes too far one way then the little guys become slaves. They work their butts off for just to eek out a living and never can get ahead. The guys on top make sure no one gets out of line to compete with them (rise up to their level)."

This isn't true. It is true people would be paid less for the lowest level jobs. That is the incentive to rise out of that existance. However manufacturing costs would go down, and end consumer prices would go down. They would have to, to keep demand for their products. However our economy would stabilize and grow at a steady pace, instead of surging and then retreating. Our economic (the so called business) cycle happens for one reason, government involvement. A truely free-market works well, as long as no one cheats. That is the only reason the government should be involved, to keep people from doing illegal mafia-type things, and allowing the market to function.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by Rooster
[BThanks to the stupidty of having the government involved in health care. Medication cost are high becuase we got the government invloved. Now people want more government becuase health care costs are high. Face facts, there is no right to live. If you can't afford to live, you die. Fewer old people means less demand for drugs. Less demand means lower prices. [/B]

Umm. No Rooster. You don't have even a glimmer of a clue about health care costs.

Paperwork is a result of a plethora of PRIVATE insurance companies each demanding multitudes of different forms. In Canada the beurocratic/paperwork costs of dealing with insurance is MUCH lower. As the government is the major payer, all forms are standardised making reporting and making claims easier.

And having a giant negotiator makes medication far cheaper. That's why so many Americans are cross-border shopping for the medications these days.

And your pathetic little foray into supply and demand economics and whether people should live or not, well it just don't work that way. As most medications are made by one company, do you think supply would stay high because demand dropped? No way. The manufacturers would just cut production and charge whatever they want.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by Albinonewt
I love liberals that say that.
"Communism would work, but the right person hasn't tried it yet"
EVERY experiment with communism has failed, but its still the best system.

You're right it is laughable. Communism will never work because you can never get a large civilian population of perfect communists. Human nature is that we will always covet what our neighour has.

The only place you can approach workable communism is on military bases. And military life, no matter for which contry, is the most succesful application of communism on the planet.

Most of us however, and even a large number of the military, like to have a bit of life that isn't "on base".

[Rooster]

"Paperwork is a result of a plethora of PRIVATE insurance companies each demanding multitudes of different forms. In Canada the beurocratic/paperwork costs of dealing with insurance is MUCH lower. As the government is the major payer, all forms are standardised making reporting and making claims easier."

Paperwork due to government intervention. If you make health care a business, then the businesses will compete. Health know that the government is going to foot the bill, so they can charge whatever they like. Then you have to introduce more government control to keep costs down, which spirals the cost of government further out of the norm.

You can try to justify keeping bags of bones alive indeffinately economically, but you will always fall short. There is no economic justification for socialized health care. It is purely a matter of whether or not a person feels that they should be entitled to something merely for having been born, or if a person should earn whatever they recieve.

[SlartyBartFast]

http://www.hms.harvard.edu/news/rele...oolhimmel.html
health care bureaucracy cost Americans $294.3 billion in 1999. The $1,059 per capita spent on health care administration was more than three times the $307 per capita in paperwork costs under Canada's national health insurance system. Cutting U.S. health bureaucracy costs to the Canadian level would have saved $209 billion in 1999.

Between 1969 and 1999, administrative and clerical personnel in the U.S. grew from 18.2% to 27.3% of the health work force. In contrast, the administrative/clerical share of Canada's health labor force rose modestly, from 16.0% in 1971 to 19.1% in 1996. These labor force figures exclude the 1.65 million employees at U.S. insurance companies and agencies, as well as the small number of private insurance employees in Canada.

Overhead in Canada's provincial insurance plans, which provide most coverage, averaged 1.3% vs. 11.7% for private insurers in the U.S. and 3.6% for U.S. Medicare. Bureaucratic costs were also far higher for U.S. doctors and hospitals than for their Canadian counterparts.

[mcveighr]

SBF is a smart man, listen to him.

I guarantee that I would take up arms against those responsible for denying that care. (I believe there was a movie on exactly that subject.)

It was called John Q, it was pretty good.

[aaron_mag]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast

Very well said. Deserve the chance to earn it later...I like that.....

[Rooster]

"health care bureaucracy cost Americans $294.3 billion in 1999. The $1,059 per capita spent on health care administration was more than three times the $307 per capita in paperwork costs under Canada's national health insurance system. Cutting U.S. health bureaucracy costs to the Canadian level would have saved $209 billion in 1999."

I've already explained this. Bureaucracy is the exact opposite of business. Business gains effeciency with size, government bureaucray loses it. Compare health care, welfare, even military or infrastructure spending. The US's will always be higher per capita. That is the inefficiency inherent to big government. You saying well if the US did what canada does for the price canada pays, it would be less than we are paying now is like me saying if every person on this planet gave me a dollar, I would be a billionare. Sure it makes perfect mathematical sense, but its never going to happen. The gross ineffeciency of a big government that oversees hundreds of millions of people insures this.

And for the record, I'm not against government health care for children and the handicapped, if their parents can not provide it. Its not their fault their parents are morons. I am against government run health care for anyone able to work and the elderly. If you would have thought ahead, health care would not be a problem.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by Rooster
I've already explained this. Bureaucracy is the exact opposite of business. Business gains effeciency with size, government bureaucray loses it.

Good god Rooster. Open up your head and let some light and air into there.

What you just said is absolutely nonsence.

Firstly, bureaucray and paperwork exist everywhere. In government and business. Any company with more than two people requires paperwork and even with two people you start to have policies and procedures.

Secondly, the study was comparing the mostly PRIVATE US system with the mostly PUBLIC Canadian system.

It's pure private business that's generating much of the bureaucratic overhead between hospitals, HMOs, and insurers.

The workforce in private US healthcare (18-27) grew more rapidly than the workforce in public Canadian healthcare (16-19).

The overhead in private US insurance firms (11.9%!!) is huge compared to public insurance overhead in Canada (1.3%).

Originally posted by Rooster
If you would have thought ahead, health care would not be a problem.

Yup, sure.

Because when someone gets hit by some unforseable disease the family deserves to be uninsured (and unemployed because employers won't want them on their health plan) and in debt for the rest of their life. And that's even if they were insured and the initial treatment was covered.

Or when the minimum wage job that barely pays for your subsistence maims you or gives you an horrible disease because of exposure to noxious chemicals or bad working conditions, you should just suck it up because you somehow deserved it.

And before you say "insurance", there's two problems. One, you have to be able to afford it. Second, when the insurance company is there to make a buck the last thing they want to do is pay out. So what do they do? Just keep refusing treatment until the patient dies and the liability dies with them.

[shartley]

I like pie.

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by shartley
I like pie.

Mmmmm pie.

But it's UNAMERICAN to not like apple pie! All those cherry pie loving traitors have to be first against the wall when the revolution comes!

[Mateo]

What bothers me is this 11.9% number. Isn't competition between insurance companies supposed to keep prices low? Why isn't this the case?

Also on the 1.3% exactly how much money is your government losing with this plan?

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by Mateo
What bothers me is this 11.9% number. Isn't competition between insurance companies supposed to keep prices low? Why isn't this the case?

Also on the 1.3% exactly how much money is your government losing with this plan?

Overhead is a reality that no-one can avoid. So it's not a question of "losing" money. A service is just more efficient the lower the overhead is.

But, of the three snippets I quoted, I would like to see more about how they defined and tabulated "overhead".