Obamacare has resulted in better overall health... Go figure

sourtwist · 07-28-15, 02:37 PM

Retard should be your name

rkelly110 · 07-28-15, 05:07 PM

Did you know the senate tried to repeal the law recently? The house tried 50 fukking failed times.
Guess what, the senate failed too.

raydog · 07-28-15, 06:03 PM

rkelly, i know you have a point, i just cant see it yet

The Kraken · 07-28-15, 08:29 PM

Doctors and hospitals HATE the ACA because it's actually forcing them to make decisions that no longer add to their bottom dollar.

As with most everything in life, it's like a pendulum. The caring aspect of medicine and the business aspect of medicine are no different. And for the last decade, maybe two, the pendulum had swung very far to the business side of the medical model. A lot of fraud took place. A lot of useless tests were ordered, interventions performed, surgeries done, all so someone could make a few more bucks.

I read an article recently some cancer doctor was lying to his patients and telling them they had cancer, ordering all these expensive ass tests and then actually going through with the the chemo. All on healthy patients. He did this dozens of times, if not more. Racking up millions and millions of dollars, maybe over 10 or 20 million dollars.

I worked with multiple cardiologists making nice into the seven figures salaries because of the volume of procedures they did. It only stopped when medicare took a look at the data and realized a large portion of these procedures were worthless, never needed in the first place.

And people wonder why medical care is fukked up?

The doctors fukked it up, not just the insurance companies.

If nothing else, the ACA has made doctors more accountable for their actions, possibly for the first time.

Triple_D_Bet · 07-28-15, 08:55 PM

That's an awful lot of numbers to say nothing more than 1) more people have insurance now that someone else is paying for it and 2) people think they're doing better. I don't think the first was ever in dispute, and the second is anything but scientific.

Originally posted by The Kraken

Doctors and hospitals HATE the ACA because it's actually forcing them to make decisions that no longer add to their bottom dollar.

As with most everything in life, it's like a pendulum. The caring aspect of medicine and the business aspect of medicine are no different. And for the last decade, maybe two, the pendulum had swung very far to the business side of the medical model. A lot of fraud took place. A lot of useless tests were ordered, interventions performed, surgeries done, all so someone could make a few more bucks.

I read an article recently some cancer doctor was lying to his patients and telling them they had cancer, ordering all these expensive ass tests and then actually going through with the the chemo. All on healthy patients. He did this dozens of times, if not more. Racking up millions and millions of dollars, maybe over 10 or 20 million dollars.

I worked with multiple cardiologists making nice into the seven figures salaries because of the volume of procedures they did. It only stopped when medicare took a look at the data and realized a large portion of these procedures were worthless, never needed in the first place.

And people wonder why medical care is fukked up?

The doctors fukked it up, not just the insurance companies.

If nothing else, the ACA has made doctors more accountable for their actions, possibly for the first time.

There are a lot of unnecessary medical procedures being performed, but the underlying cause is more accurately assessed as taking the accountability for peoples' health out of their own hands. Money is shuffled around so much (taxes to subsidize coverage, insurance shuffling resources around) that there's a very weak link between what people pay and most of the services they get. In such a scheme, is it any surprise that consumption is out of control, and there's little to no incentive for healthy living?

Solution's not complicated: get the government out of the business of "guaranteeing" insurances, which makes them anything but insurance. Let consumers bear the costs associated with their actions (subsidized voluntarily if people are so inclined) and just like anything else, watch people become more health conscious. Or maybe they won't, and will eat themselves into an early grave...their right to do so, but trying to save someone against their will is not only foolish, but unethical to the people whose money you're stealing to do it.

The Kraken · 07-28-15, 08:59 PM

Are you proposing that we deregulate the medical insurance industry?

Triple_D_Bet · 07-28-15, 09:02 PM

Originally posted by The Kraken

Are you proposing that we deregulate the medical insurance industry?

Yes.

Possibly shortest post ever from me, until I ruined it with this disclaimer!

The Kraken · 07-28-15, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Triple_D_Bet

Yes.

Possibly shortest post ever from me, until I ruined it with this disclaimer!

We'll never agree about deregulation, for me there are simply too many cons and history tells me deregulation cannot work. Enron is an example of an industry attempting deregulation that ended with massive fraud and many people losing it all.

Airline deregulation has had it's cons. Banking deregulation as well.

Basically, you know my spill, I'm going to save you the time to read it and me the time to write it because we both know how this post is going to turn out.

We simply will not see eye to eye on deregulation. For me personally, especially with the medical insurance industry.

And this may be my shortest post ever

Admittedly, my degree is not in economics so my knowledge here is limited. But a lot of smart people think deregulations is a good idea and a lot of smart people think it's a bad idea. Amazing

Triple_D_Bet · 07-28-15, 09:26 PM

Originally posted by The Kraken

We'll never agree about deregulation, for me there are simply too many cons and history tells me deregulation cannot work. Enron is an example of an industry attempting deregulation that ended with massive fraud and many people losing it all.

Airline deregulation has had it's cons. Banking deregulation as well.

Basically, you know my spill, I'm going to save you the time to read it and me the time to write it because we both know how this post is going to turn out.

We simply will not see eye to eye on deregulation. For me personally, especially with the medical insurance industry.

And this may be my shortest post ever

Admittedly, my degree is not in economics so my knowledge here is limited. But a lot of smart people think deregulations is a good idea and a lot of smart people think it's a bad idea. Amazing

You're right, we'll probably not agree. Have to say though, the examples you give aren't examples of deregulation; their examples of partial regulation which was exploited, and which couldn't have been exploited if the artificial barrier of regulation wasn't in place. Instead of trying in vain to create regulations preventing the exploitation (won't happen), let consumers regulate it with choice and these problems simply aren't problems.

Intelligence and ability to remain open to new concepts and data don't go hand in hand unfortunately; would be a much easier time if they did for all of us!

The Kraken · 07-29-15, 12:43 AM

Originally posted by Triple_D_Bet

You're right, we'll probably not agree. Have to say though, the examples you give aren't examples of deregulation; their examples of partial regulation which was exploited, and which couldn't have been exploited if the artificial barrier of regulation wasn't in place. Instead of trying in vain to create regulations preventing the exploitation (won't happen), let consumers regulate it with choice and these problems simply aren't problems.

Intelligence and ability to remain open to new concepts and data don't go hand in hand unfortunately; would be a much easier time if they did for all of us!

This is where it gets hard for me to decipher what's what. I read that Enron was fraud and the most likely culprit was deregulation. I did a bit of research into regulation into the energy sector and how regulated they were in the 70's and 80's but that slowly began to reverse course, maybe during the Reagan and Bush years, I don't know. Either way, beyond that, I can't say for certain deregulation was the actual cause of the Enron scandal and I should've been more clear in my previous post, even though that's what I've read. I just don't know enough about it. Thanks for the insight.

Triple_D_Bet · 07-29-15, 02:32 AM

Originally posted by The Kraken

This is where it gets hard for me to decipher what's what. I read that Enron was fraud and the most likely culprit was deregulation. I did a bit of research into regulation into the energy sector and how regulated they were in the 70's and 80's but that slowly began to reverse course, maybe during the Reagan and Bush years, I don't know. Either way, beyond that, I can't say for certain deregulation was the actual cause of the Enron scandal and I should've been more clear in my previous post, even though that's what I've read. I just don't know enough about it. Thanks for the insight.

With the level of complexity involved, it's difficult for anyone to figure out the whole story without a good deal of effort. For Enron, depends what you're referring to; the released energy trading practices rubbed the public the wrong way, but was just Enron exploiting a heavily regulated market structure. Their financial meltdown was fraudulent accounting, with multiple failures to recognize flawed and fraudulent accounting by the government regulatory bodies which were supposed to protect investors, which undoubtedly led to investor overconfidence and bigger losses than would have occurred otherwise. In all this, what was the great evil which needed to be regulated and for which we had to restrict freedoms? Investors made a bad bet, and whoever was holding the stock was out of luck when their pyramid scheme accounting was revealed...but all this was the result of voluntary, inevitable risks assumed by investors. Trying to regulate these things doesn't prevent risk; it simply leads to inefficiencies and loss of freedom.

Pretty familiar pattern throughout last 100 years or so: politicians introduce regulatory framework and bureaucracy for oversight, claiming it will prevent fraud or market busts. Investors and the public rely upon the regulation as proof everything is good (either because forced to by regulations removing/hampering market forces which act as a check upon the industry, or because they're happy to give the regulatory agency the responsibility). Regulations fail to achieve desired effect, due to regulatory capture, exploitation of unforeseen loopholes or just straight-up economic impossibility. Scams and busts eventually happen in a big way, and in the fallout, people become convinced that somehow, more regulation will solve the problem....and politicians are happy to deliver something that patches over a specific loophole while opening another.

The failure of most market regulation to achieve the desired goal is utterly predictable, but wishful thinking instead of simple logic leads us to keep heaping it on, somehow convinced that the resulting failures are worse than the smaller losses that occur as the market sorts itself out naturally. Along the way, the drastically increased power of government to pick winners and losers leads to the corruption and conflict of interest we see today, as should be anticipated; businesses being in the business of making a profit, they will continue to buy politicians (regardless of what safeguards we ask for) so long as it's profitable. Remove government's power to provide artificial barriers of regulation (which usually do nothing but protect the larger companies instead of protecting us), and you'll remove a lot of the incentive for politicians to be bought, and it will decrease as a result, as well as return to a country where people have the freedom to exercise their rights (including the right to enter into contracts or associate with whomever they please).

Bottom line: the most effective (perhaps only effective) way to ensure companies behave the way you want them to is to foster a competitive environment, with consumer choice guiding the market. Regulations do the opposite. I'm sure you've seen this in cardiology, as I have; medical devices sell at ridiculous markups because of the painful regulatory environment both adding unnecessary costs and providing a massive barrier to entry for any would-be competitors. The regulations are claimed as necessary for safety, but that's absurd; if consumers demand reliability and validation, it can be performed just as easily (and cheaper) by third parties (as it has been historically and still is for several markets), with the advantage that when better methodology comes along, those third parties can innovate quicker. For example, instead of demanding a bypass pump has a tested minuscule failure rate and a resulting $25k price tag, giving hospitals the choice to use $2,5000 pumps without minimal testing would let them have numerous backups and achieve the same overall failure rate at a far lower cost, while offering the freedom for consumers to spend more for better services and less for lesser. It's nice in theory to insist that the minimum standard for devices and care be so high, but the reality is that it drives the price up so high as to put it out of reach of many without forced subsidies and violations of rights that go along with procuring those subsidies; a procedure with a 1% chance of mortality which a patient can afford is preferable to the 100% mortality when they can't afford the higher quality procedure! Innovations are buried under paperwork and the length validation process constantly; in the medical device field alone, the lives lost while products are led through a tortuous validation process is an undoubtedly staggering cost of the regulatory bureaucracy

There's just no talking about this stuff in short posts is there? Sorry for the length, but if this stuff was simple enough to discuss in a couple sentences, it's not likely there'd be much disagreement over it

Itsamazing777 · 07-29-15, 11:17 AM

Tell that to the middle class family that pays 1k a month for insurance. Stop reading biased websites and educate yourself.

jjgold · 07-29-15, 11:53 AM

It's going to bankrupt America it was the worst decision a history of mankind

gauchojake · 07-29-15, 12:14 PM

Coordination of care, reduction/elimination of fee for service, and price transparency are all good things for healthcare. The ACA does those.

downsouth · 07-29-15, 01:34 PM

And meanwhile, my families insurance that is not subsidized by the taxpayers continues to increase in cost substantially.

scumbag · 07-29-15, 02:05 PM

Originally posted by downsouth

And meanwhile, my families insurance that is not subsidized by the taxpayers continues to increase in cost substantially.

ya... costs go up every year. you're probably ignorant to the fact that thanks to aca it's increased at historically lower rates.

i don't support ACA as the solution to fix our healthcare system. it was a huge giveaway to for-profit insurers.

the only way to fix our healthcare system is to go single payer and tell all for-profit insurers to get ******. we could cover every american at a fraction cost.

scumbag · 07-29-15, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by Itsamazing777

Tell that to the middle class family that pays 1k a month for insurance. Stop reading biased websites and educate yourself.

somebody tell this penetrating retard that a gallup poll of 500k americans isn't a "biased website".

rkelly110 · 07-29-15, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by scumbag

ya... costs go up every year. you're probably ignorant to the fact that thanks to aca it's increased at historically lower rates.

i don't support ACA as the solution to fix our healthcare system. it was a huge giveaway to for-profit insurers.

the only way to fix our healthcare system is to go single payer and tell all for-profit insurers to get ******. we could cover every american at a fraction cost.

I'm up in the air about that. Who would be the single payer, will a single payer do away with 100's of thousands
of health insurance jobs and their industries? Health insurance stocks have never been higher with plenty of room
for more. Single payer would be like socialism. If we get a socialist single payer, what will be next?

gauchojake · 07-29-15, 03:59 PM

Originally posted by rkelly110

I'm up in the air about that. Who would be the single payer, will a single payer do away with 100's of thousands
of health insurance jobs and their industries? Health insurance stocks have never been higher with plenty of room
for more. Single payer would be like socialism. If we get a socialist single payer, what will be next?

It's pretty unlikely you will ever see a "single payer" in your lifetime. If it happened it would be the federal govt as the payer with the various health plans administrating the benefits.

scumbag · 07-29-15, 04:03 PM

single payer isn't "socialism". it simply fires for profit insurers and makes the government the insurer. you still get to choose what private sector doctor you want to go to.

it's more simply understood as medicare for all. it's wildly popular with the majority of voters. as evidenced by the rest of the world: we would cut the cost in half and cover everyone. that way tens of thousands of people per/year weren't dying from preventable shit just because they can't go to a doctor.

Health insurance stocks have never been higher with plenty of room
for more.

who cares? i'm sure prison industrial complex has stock has been increasing. that doesn't matter. some industries should not have a profit motive.

Single payer would be like socialism. If we get a socialist single payer, what will be next?

um............ no. i'll tell you what would be next: we'd spend less on health care, have better outcomes, and spur a ton of entrepreneurship.

single payer isn't "socialism".

Single-payer isn't socialism

Letter to the Editor
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
February 27, 2008
As a long-time Seattle physician, I was pleased that the P-I supports health care reform toward a single-payer system (Opinion, Wednesday). Most Americans now fully understand that our health care delivery system is too expensive, too complex, too fragmented and overwhelmingly frustrating. Although some still believe that America has the best health care in the world, the truth is that our reimbursement system is killing us. The “health” of a country’s healthcare system can be inferred by looking at how we treat our most precious citizens: our children. International ranking of infant mortality by our own CIA now places the United States at 42 out of 222 countries, behind Hong Kong, Portugal, Korea, Macau, most of Europe and Cuba! In 1989, the United States was ranked at 19th. To allow this decline to continue is a moral outrage.
Many fear that a single-payer model is “Socialized Medicine.” In fact, a single simplified health care finance system is good for business. Our employment-linked health insurance system may have worked fine during the Cold War era, but today it is crippling American business. Businesses leaders and labor unions understand that shifting to a government-sponsored single-payer system isn’t a form of socialism. It is a more cost-effective, fair and universal system that can help restore our ability to compete in today’s international market place. This will preserve American business and American jobs.
Lastly, some fear universal healthcare would lead to rationing of benefits. But rationing is already being done by our insurance industry disguised under the euphemism of “medical necessity” or “covered service.” I am outraged when my patients tell me they can not get the medication or treatment they need because their insurance company will not cover it and they can not afford to pay out of pocket. It is time for our leaders to put aside fear and radically transform our healthcare finance system toward a single-payer system for our children and our future. It is economically and morally the healthy step to take.
B. Jason MacLurg, M.D.

Seattle, WA

capone1899 · 07-29-15, 04:08 PM

Originally posted by jjgold

It's going to bankrupt America it was the worst decision a history of mankind

Could you possibly be any dumber? Insurance is costing $168 billion per year in tax dollars. The welfare programs spend $668 billion a year for lazy POS's to sit on their ass and pop out kids they don't need.

$169 vs $668. Which on is bankrupting the country?

scumbag · 07-29-15, 04:21 PM

i somehow doubt that idiot capone is consistent in his critique of "handouts". something tells me this drooler demonizes poor people, but has no problem with corporate welfare, which is far more burdensome to the taxpayer.

ByeShea · 07-29-15, 04:26 PM

Originally posted by scumbag

i somehow doubt that idiot capone is consistent in his critique of "handouts". something tells me this drooler demonizes poor people, but has no problem with corporate welfare, which is far more burdensome to the taxpayer.

Shut your balls already. Obamacare is a total fail - and you might know this if you knew anybody with a job.

scumbag · 07-29-15, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by ByeShea

Shut your balls already. Obamacare is a total fail - and you might know this if you knew anybody with a job.

you must lack the ability to read. all the empirical evidence show that obamacare is a considerable upgrade over what we had.

if you even have the intellect to explain this: i'd like to know why conservatives burden businesses with the hassle of insuring their employees when we could "unburden" business to "create jobs" if the government handled insurance? why do you insist on unnecessary burdens to business?

Itsamazing777 · 07-29-15, 06:34 PM

Gallup pole? Lollllll. I guess you ignore the million of legitimate ones that show most people hate it. But you know this. You just can't admit your party is wrong

Keep spewing your agenda. It isnt fooling anyone

DwightShrute · 07-29-15, 06:44 PM

...

Attached Files

muldoon · 07-29-15, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by Itsamazing777

I guess you ignore the million of legitimate ones that show most people hate it.

10-20% difference in opinion polls when it's referred to as the Affordable Care Act vs. Obamacare.

Even greater % when people are polled on specifics of the act vs. the name of it.

scumbag · 07-29-15, 07:21 PM

Originally posted by Itsamazing777

Gallup pole? Lollllll. I guess you ignore the million of legitimate ones that show most people hate it. But you know this. You just can't admit your party is wrong

Keep spewing your agenda. It isnt fooling anyone

we've all read the headlines "polls show obamacare unpopular." anyone with any ounce of reading comprehension can put together that if you add up the people who like it, with the people who don't think it's liberal enough, you get a over well over 50% of the public either like ACA, as is, or want even more "government involvement".

The Kraken · 07-29-15, 08:59 PM

Originally posted by muldoon

10-20% difference in opinion polls when it's referred to as the Affordable Care Act vs. Obamacare.

Even greater % when people are polled on specifics of the act vs. the name of it.

This post actually says a lot

The Kraken · 07-29-15, 09:02 PM

Originally posted by Triple_D_Bet

With the level of complexity involved, it's difficult for anyone to figure out the whole story without a good deal of effort. For Enron, depends what you're referring to; the released energy trading practices rubbed the public the wrong way, but was just Enron exploiting a heavily regulated market structure. Their financial meltdown was fraudulent accounting, with multiple failures to recognize flawed and fraudulent accounting by the government regulatory bodies which were supposed to protect investors, which undoubtedly led to investor overconfidence and bigger losses than would have occurred otherwise. In all this, what was the great evil which needed to be regulated and for which we had to restrict freedoms? Investors made a bad bet, and whoever was holding the stock was out of luck when their pyramid scheme accounting was revealed...but all this was the result of voluntary, inevitable risks assumed by investors. Trying to regulate these things doesn't prevent risk; it simply leads to inefficiencies and loss of freedom.

Pretty familiar pattern throughout last 100 years or so: politicians introduce regulatory framework and bureaucracy for oversight, claiming it will prevent fraud or market busts. Investors and the public rely upon the regulation as proof everything is good (either because forced to by regulations removing/hampering market forces which act as a check upon the industry, or because they're happy to give the regulatory agency the responsibility). Regulations fail to achieve desired effect, due to regulatory capture, exploitation of unforeseen loopholes or just straight-up economic impossibility. Scams and busts eventually happen in a big way, and in the fallout, people become convinced that somehow, more regulation will solve the problem....and politicians are happy to deliver something that patches over a specific loophole while opening another.

The failure of most market regulation to achieve the desired goal is utterly predictable, but wishful thinking instead of simple logic leads us to keep heaping it on, somehow convinced that the resulting failures are worse than the smaller losses that occur as the market sorts itself out naturally. Along the way, the drastically increased power of government to pick winners and losers leads to the corruption and conflict of interest we see today, as should be anticipated; businesses being in the business of making a profit, they will continue to buy politicians (regardless of what safeguards we ask for) so long as it's profitable. Remove government's power to provide artificial barriers of regulation (which usually do nothing but protect the larger companies instead of protecting us), and you'll remove a lot of the incentive for politicians to be bought, and it will decrease as a result, as well as return to a country where people have the freedom to exercise their rights (including the right to enter into contracts or associate with whomever they please).

Bottom line: the most effective (perhaps only effective) way to ensure companies behave the way you want them to is to foster a competitive environment, with consumer choice guiding the market. Regulations do the opposite. I'm sure you've seen this in cardiology, as I have; medical devices sell at ridiculous markups because of the painful regulatory environment both adding unnecessary costs and providing a massive barrier to entry for any would-be competitors. The regulations are claimed as necessary for safety, but that's absurd; if consumers demand reliability and validation, it can be performed just as easily (and cheaper) by third parties (as it has been historically and still is for several markets), with the advantage that when better methodology comes along, those third parties can innovate quicker. For example, instead of demanding a bypass pump has a tested minuscule failure rate and a resulting $25k price tag, giving hospitals the choice to use $2,5000 pumps without minimal testing would let them have numerous backups and achieve the same overall failure rate at a far lower cost, while offering the freedom for consumers to spend more for better services and less for lesser. It's nice in theory to insist that the minimum standard for devices and care be so high, but the reality is that it drives the price up so high as to put it out of reach of many without forced subsidies and violations of rights that go along with procuring those subsidies; a procedure with a 1% chance of mortality which a patient can afford is preferable to the 100% mortality when they can't afford the higher quality procedure! Innovations are buried under paperwork and the length validation process constantly; in the medical device field alone, the lives lost while products are led through a tortuous validation process is an undoubtedly staggering cost of the regulatory bureaucracy

There's just no talking about this stuff in short posts is there? Sorry for the length, but if this stuff was simple enough to discuss in a couple sentences, it's not likely there'd be much disagreement over it

No, you're correct, nothing worth discussing is usually over with in a few sentences. Otherwise, what's the point?

At some point, in anything whether it's economics and welfare, science and global warming, regulation and Enron, Medical Care and ACA, it's going to result in long posts or deep discussion. And that's not a bad thing in fact, it's a great thing. Everything just previously mentioned is very complex and there are multitude upon multitude of variables that make possibilities with each nearly endless, there's just a lot to cover. And you probably just scratched the surface.

ANyways, thanks for the insight and effort, I for one appreciate it.

jayfly · 07-29-15, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by downsouth

And meanwhile, my families insurance that is not subsidized by the taxpayers continues to increase in cost substantially.

which is exactly what it was doing before the ACA

capone1899 · 07-29-15, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by jayfly

which is exactly what it was doing before the ACA

+1.

scumbag · 07-30-15, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by sourtwist

Retard should be your name

stevenash · 07-30-15, 12:39 AM

Originally posted by Itsamazing777

Tell that to the middle class family that pays 1k a month for insurance. Stop reading biased websites and educate yourself.

He does it all the time, cherry picks left leaning rags, fact of the matter is Americans hate ACA