Right. Only now you'll have to buy the expensive plan for yourself. And it'll be more expensive than now, because the insurance company won't be able to give you a break for being healthy (that's the down side of eliminating preexisting condition requirements.)
Ah, I see the point you are making. Tough situation. I guess for now I will just sit in a padded room.:lol:
so the insurance co.'s are going to get 40 million more customers, but they will charge more...? that just sounds like the fear-mongering special of the week. i haven't heard anybody credible--much less beck/limbaugh--even suggest that. food for thought: Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance Study: Lack of insurance leads to death every 12 minutes By Susan Heavey Thu Sep 17, 6:01 pm ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday. "We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters. Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage. The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats' efforts to reform the nation's $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs. President Barack Obama's has made the overhaul a top domestic policy priority, but his plan has been besieged by critics and slowed by intense political battles in Congress, with the insurance and healthcare industries fighting some parts of the plan. The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance. An similar study in 1993 found those without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death, according to the Harvard group. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage. Part of the increased risk now is due to the growing ranks of the uninsured, Himmelstein said. Roughly 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, up from 45.7 million in 2007. Another factor is that there are fewer places for the uninsured to get good care. Public hospitals and clinics are shuttering or scaling back across the country in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and others, he said. Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler said the findings show that without proper care, uninsured people are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Some critics called the study flawed. The National Center for Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank that backs a free-market approach to health care, said researchers overstated the death risk and did not track how long subjects were uninsured. Woolhandler said that while Physicians for a National Health Program supports government-backed coverage, the Harvard study's six researchers closely followed the methodology used in the 1993 study conducted by researchers in the federal government as well as the University of Rochester in New York. The Harvard researchers analyzed data on about 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics through the year 2000. They excluded older Americans because those aged 65 or older are covered by the U.S. Medicare insurance program. "For any doctor ... it's completely a no-brainer that people who can't get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1.“This makes absolutely no sense. Do you really believe that the "boss" does nothing to earn the profit on goods 16-20?” Sometimes bosses are as useless as the machine, and should be paid like the machine. Nothing! (the same could be said for languid workers) Sometimes worker-control and/or management are all that is needed, bosses optional. Like I said, worker B did the work. Why should a non-worker get money for 16-20? You said due to “risk” (see #2). I think the workers should own the means of production. That’s socialism. At what time does the capitalist get paid back for capital investment? When they are paid back how long should they exploit the worker and by how much? “Bosses” often monopolize the wealth created by workers and the decisions made in a company. This is a form of taxation without representation, and the business itself becomes statist. 2.“What about the financial risk he/she assumes in starting the business to produce the goods in the first place?” a) The worker takes a risk too when they chose to work there, and without a worker a boss has no choice but to work themselves. The need AND RISK are mutual, why should the “boss” exclusively gain from it? b) The returns on capital are independent of the amount of risk involved, but not the work of the workers. c) non-labor “risk” plays no part in aiding production. d) Due to state intervention (bailouts etc.), and bankruptcy options, what’s a risk? e) Could it be that risk is a luxury of the wealthy, and a worker may have no choice but to work rather than own? That’s why I think workers should always own a part of the company they work and take risks for. f) see #3 below 3.“If the business fails, Worker B goes and finds a new job - no risk of loss to him. However, if the business fails, the boss loses his entire investment. It's this basic risk vs. reward analysis that drives capitalism and is what made the US so prosperous.” Like I said, they both take a risk. If the workers own the company they all take the risk equally and there is no theft. I am not saying some people shouldn’t make more than others, just that theft should not occur. f) from above… Only business risks that don’t go under are deemed a “success,” and the success is again mutual (or maybe not if the bosses are useless). And often “success” is counted in reaching the production of 16-20…theft. The prosperity of capitalism is based on theft, this is not justice, its slavery. By the way, our “prosperity” comes to a screeching halt every decade or so when we get bilked by capitalists that privatize the profits and socialize the bail-out. 4.What would be the boss' incentive to take on such risk if he was only going to make either the same or marginally more than Worker B who has absolutely no risk? Again, they both take risks. The idea of exploiting someone is not appealing to me. How much money someone should make is totally subjective according to some, and to others labor input determines value. How do you put a value on breaking a sweat versus pushing papers, or using a clever or scapula for that matter? I’m not about to go down this road here except to say I think “all costs and benefits of an action should be internalized in the actor responsible for it…the person consuming goods and services should pay the full cost of producing them. The cost principle does not require an authoritarian government [or boss] to apportion costs in accordance with benefits. It requires only a non-coercive marketplace, in which all transactions are voluntary.” Kevin A. Carson 5. How does all this fit into the health care issue? Some people feel they should be able to form contracts with insurance companies, or bypass them and form contracts directly with the health care provider. Go for it. Some may prefer the latter because they feel insurance companies are (capitalist) middle men (and perhaps robbing doctors and patients without doing any really necessary work, especially investors). Others think these private methods are for those that can afford it or are lucky enough to find a job that provides it. Luck is not fair, nor just. A person’s right to life, liberty, equality, and respect should not depend on income, or luck. The current capitalist set-up tends to drop or pillage the neediest (so we subsidize/socialize the cost). I don't have The Answer, but I know I want something that is just.
No. That's not what I said. You're accusing me of engaging in fearmongering, when I was just doing math. The millions of new customers would be required to buy insurance that they don't now buy, in order to cut the rates for others. Even the supporters of the bill agree with that much. It's the way the plan is designed to work. If you eliminate things like pre-existing condition requirements, etc, then you'll be shifting more costs from sick people to healthy people. The whole idea of insurance is to use the healthy folks money to take care of the sick folks. When you change the rules to let more sick folks come in, the money's got to come out of the healthy folks' pockets. It's just how it works. Whether it's the right thing to do is a different discussion. Obviously you think it is, and I don't. I'm not going to change your mind about that, because it's obviously a value you hold dear. I'm only going to try to convince you that folks who disagree with you are basing that opposition on sound values, not just selfishness.
I don't know what insurance you have but that's not how it works. You get canceled once you get sick, how is that fair? If there was some other option the health care companies would have no choice but do drop rates. The majority of what your premium goes to are admin costs and red tape. Not to mention that the insurance company execs get bonuses for canceling people.
sorry. i didn't mean to imply that you were fear-mongering. it just sounds like the type of faux information that has been coming--pretty much weekly--from the extreme right: death panels, funding abortion, pulling the plug on granny, insurance for illegals, etc. i'd just like to see facts from a credible non-partisan group that says that the public option will be more expensive than what exists now. and i'm willing to put up ONE MILLION DOLLARS of my own money to the first person that can produce it. :lol: :cheers:
Courtesy the Congressional Budget Office The Baucus Plan (no public option): http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10572/09-16-Proposal_SFC_Chairman.pdf With the Public Option: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10553/09-10-Response_to_Enzi_for_Web.pdf Read the last line of page 6 of the second link. I'll take my million via PayPal.
What we need is a free market system- with slight oversight from an informed leadership solely for the purpose of stopping abuses form either side of the equation. We don't currently have that. (and we probably never will) Our markets have not been free for a long time. "Capitalists" as you put it have been manipulating the market through monopolization, lobbying etc. for many years. This has created the system we currently have were health care is extremely expensive, medical education is extremely expensive, our health care is marginal, and yet insurance companies and drug companies are dripping in profit(and college professors for that matter). In the mean time, good health care has gotten out of reach for most people. The factor that has contributed to this situation is health care is not optional- everyone needs medical assistance at sometime in there life. If it was optional- people would just walk away and the market would be forced to correct. Unfortunately that is not the case and is why this market needs a little oversight. We can agree that health care can get a lot better, but the current "overhall" being offered will fail even more miserably as it takes what is bad with our system now and reinforces it. To put our health care in the hands of our current(and when I say current- I mean the last 50 or more years- this not a partisan issue to me) leadership would be deadly- literally. Physics and sociological laws dictate this. Everyone points to Canada and England etc. And these systems have worked to a degree(but no better than ours if you look at overall care). The bottom line is though, these system will not last in the long run. Any system that forces people to pay for the care of others without making people responsible for their own life's decision will eventually fail because the money will eventually run out. Look at our current state budget if you need an example of this. We need a panel of people (who have not sold their souls to get elected) with actual experience in medicine to analyze the market, simplify it, and roll it back to a usable system where everyone gets care at a fair price- something a free market and only a free market can make a reality. The question is, how are we going to get the powers that be to let this happen?
Dangit people! I was hoping that linking to the Congressional Budget Office would be the last straw that would force the mods to shut this thread down! Where's Gabe and his icky pictures when you need him?
do you mean "...the bill would probably increase the national spending on health care modestly." you gotta be kidding. first of all, the baucus plan is a weak attempt at compromise. and it's dead-on-arrival. and most experts agree that costs will go down, with competition, in the short term and costs will go down in the long term after preventative care kicks in. as it is now, the insurance companies are monopolistic in many states and can pretty much charge what they want. and not insure anybody that could ding their profits. but still, until you find facts that individual policies will go up under a public option, the money stays with me...
Nope. Unless I'm mistaken, re-education camps really weren't commonly associated with post-war Russia but instead communist countries in Southeast Asia. They are still found in North Korea. However, I wasn't specifically referring to either of them. I was simply using hyperbole, sprinkled with a dash of sarcasm, to state that this is a pointless argument. If you wish to flame me, however, go on with your bad self.
Go figure. No need to over explain. To many different opinions. Gots to stay away from this stuff until I meet people in person.
No problem here. Its sometimes hard to convey sarcasm and humor on a forum and I can see how my post may have raised some eyebrows. Obviously, I have a completely different opinion than Erik MM but I respect his right to disagree.
