patrick.net

FortWayne says

If it makes it cost more for me than I'll be selfish and oppose the idea naturally.

And that's why you vote Republican. They embody that philosophy.

Funny how the Jesus lovers turn out to be the least compassionate, the most cruel, unforgiving and selfish.

FP says

Funny how the Jesus lovers turn out to be the least compassionate, the most cruel, unforgiving and selfish.

Subjecting people to government run health care(ie single payer) is the most cruel punishment of all.

joeyjojojunior says

FortWayne says

If it makes it cost more for me than I'll be selfish and oppose the idea naturally.

And that's why you vote Republican. They embody that philosophy.

It's because I'm honest about it. You liberals aren't, you want a handout and you want someone else to pay for you. The typical case of have nots wanting the haves to share with them. Not my problem. Try North Korea, where everyone "shares" in sacrifice, if that's the bondage you are looking for.

FortWayne says

If it makes it cost more for me than I'll be selfish and oppose the idea naturally.

Exactly. You are basically a selfish person that does not have any compassion for other people. However, you want to be viewed as a morally outstanding person. This is an internal conflict of interest. You don't actually believe in the teachings of your false god, that you are your brother's keeper and responsible for his well-being, but you want to be perceived as charitable because your god and religion demands it. This is Christian hypocrisy. If your religion actually promoted real morality, you would gladly sacrifice your own wealth for your neighbor.

Not only do you fail to live up to the morality your religion claims to hold dearly, but you lack the wisdom to realize that the practical benefits of socialized medicine far outweigh the costs to you. Because of economies of scale, reduced waste and needless competition, better coordination, and elimination of redundancies, socialized medicine would provide better health care for you at a lower cost. However, because you view economics as a religion with dogma that is unanswerable to empirical testing, you cannot accept this fact.

Your combination of false virtual signally, failure to grasp the mathematical and engineering properties of socialized versus capitalized medicine, and disregard for empirical evidence is why you consistently make foolish and incorrect conclusions. And you will continue to make these mistakes for as long as you treat politics and economics like a religion instead of like a science. You base your entire world view on your emotions rather than on frontal lobe thinking, and that is a failing strategy.

Dan8267 says

You are basically a selfish person that does not have any compassion for other people. However, you want to be viewed as a morally outstanding person. This is an internal conflict of interest. You don't actually believe in the teachings of your false god, that you are your brother's keeper and responsible for his well-being, but you want to be perceived as charitable because your god and religion demands it. This is Christian hypocrisy. If your religion actually promoted real morality, you would gladly sacrifice your own wealth for your neighbor.

Selfish, hardly... I do charitable work. That's not selfish Dan, it's just not being naive like most liberals, about how the world works. God does not require one to blindly sacrifice, god teaches love. Sacrifice isn't the only solution, nor it's always the right one.

Every government imposed "shared sacrifice" society is complete crap hole (North Korea), or already fell apart and rebuilding Capitalism (USSR).

As I said Dan, I'm just honest with myself. You liberals pretend that you have "Virtue" on your side, but you don't.

FortWayne says

I do charitable work.

Hahaha. Yeah, I know.

www.youtube.com/embed/mcdtVD8X1-A

I shouldn't have to be responsible for taking care of any body else's skeevy piss poor DNA, but they should all be responsible for taking care of mine.

Ironman says

Actually Obama did do that in the device industry, my past career, and destroyed the industry. O'Bozo decided to go after the low hanging fruit that was maybe 5% of the Medicare budget because we didn't have a powerful lobby like the physicians and hospitals.

So O'Bozo allowed the hospitals and physicians to bill Medicare like drunken soldiers, but was able to say, "see I reduced costs on necessary medical equipment". What a fucking piker..

You are confused. An excise tax is to raise revenue plain and simple. There isn't any cost reduction involved. Maybe the industry shouldn't have spent $40 million a year lobbying against the tax if they were concerned about profits. So how many medical equipment makers went out of business? I haven't seen that number. How much have sales fallen?

#2, only because this will draw in sick illegal immigrants to the hospital emergency wards, where ICE can set up vetting stations and intercept to deport. ( after treatment, of course)

Single payer which should provide basic medical care with catastrophic cost coverage.
Ability to "buy up" in quality and scheduling of care for those that can afford it. It is a bonus for those in society that produce vs those that don't do shit.
Do away with insurance companies and cap drug prices to pay for the whole goddamn thing.

Dan8267 says

cost savings of socialized medicine

The only reason this is a less than laughable point, is because we have destroyed our healthcare system w intervention already. We need far more free market spice in this soup, not less.

The free market fails miserably in markets with highly inelastic demand, such as health care.

Dan8267 says

Because of economies of scale, reduced waste and needless competition, better coordination, and elimination of redundancies, socialized

This is the promise of every socialized program. Its an evil lie.

joeyjojojunior says

The free market fails miserably in markets with highly inelastic demand, such as health care.

You can't blame free markets for healthcare destruction, given how there isn't anything close to a free market in healthcare.

"You can't blame free markets for healthcare destruction, given how there isn't anything close to a free market in healthcare."

I didn't. I said the free market does horribly in markets with highly inelastic demand, such as health care. So, it seems dubious to think that the free market will help things.

FortWayne says

Selfish, hardly... I do charitable work.

Use carrots to spread religious propaganda doesn't qualify as morality. Deep down in your heart, you hate people. Until you learn to empathize with other people, no virtue signally activity is going to change who you really are.

FortWayne says

You liberals pretend that you have "Virtue" on your side

True virtue comes from what you do, not what others think of you. What matter is what is virtuous, not who is virtuous. That's one point you keep missing.

FortWayne says

Sacrifice isn't the only solution, nor it's always the right one.

And the other point you are missing is that socialized medicine is not a sacrifice on your part. All empirical evidence demonstrates that socialized medicine is a cost savings to you while being more effective. It is in your own selfish interests and the interest of your family that health care is socialized. You just aren't wise enough to accept this despite all the evidence.

WOMEN CONSUME 30% MORE HEALTHCARE SERVICES THAN MEN

CBOEtrader says

The only reason this is a less than laughable point, is because we have destroyed our healthcare system w intervention already. We need far more free market spice in this soup, not less.

The military has fucked up many times. Does that mean we should disband the military?

The police have fucked up many times. Does that mean we should have no police?

This is a complete non-sequitur. The government implements some good polices and some bad policies; therefore, all polices that could possibly be enacted by the government must be bad. This is conservative right logic in a nutshell, and it's obviously wrong.

Instead of looking at whether or not a policy is implement by group A or group B, how about looking at the policy itself? The policy of socialized medicine has worked in other countries much better than the U.S. system. You statement that government policies must fail is empirically false. It is religious dogma, not engineering.

joeyjojojunior says

The free market fails miserably in markets with highly inelastic demand, such as health care.

Correct. The free market works in and only in situations where the following constraints are met.
1. Demand is highly elastic.
2. Substitute goods are readily available.
3. There are few barriers to entry.
4. There are many competitors.

Infrastructure and necessities never meet these constraints, and so free markets utterly fail at them. Free markets are best for luxury goods, electronics, software, low-skill services, restaurants, and similar things that the customer can simply walk away from if unpleased.

CBOEtrader says

You can't blame free markets for healthcare destruction, given how there isn't anything close to a free market in healthcare.

This is also true. We cannot blame free markets for the terrible healthcare system. We have to blame capitalism. The current health care system and the pre-ACA version are both the direct result of capitalism preventing free markets. Capitalists will always undermine free markets because rigged markets are more profitable and profit means everything. Capitalism and free markets are utterly mutually exclusive.

joeyjojojunior says

"You can't blame free markets for healthcare destruction, given how there isn't anything close to a free market in healthcare."

I didn't.

This is also true. Joey didn't make the claim that free markets caused this mess, but rather that free markets won't solve it, and he is correct.

There are huge costs to free markets, which is why we don't use them for sewers, the police, highways, traffic lights, the military, and lots of other things that fall into the categories of infrastructure or necessity. Hell, we don't even use free markets for agriculture. If you wanted more free markets, you should start there by revoking the farm bill and ending all farm subsidies. It's funny how republicans love to subsidize farms.

That's true. Jojo did...

Dan8267 says

This is also true. Joey didn't make the claim that free markets caused this mess,

BlueSardine says

That's true. Jojo did...

You cannot simply assert that. You must show it because it's quite clear to the rest of us that he did not say or even imply that. As such, you are making a straw man.

I said she said it.
You need to read the fine print...

Dan8267 says

You cannot simply assert that. You must show it because it's quite clear to the rest of us that he did not say or even imply that.

Dan8267 says

CBOEtrader says

The only reason this is a less than laughable point, is because we have destroyed our healthcare system w intervention already. We need far more free market spice in this soup, not less.

The military has fucked up many times. Does that mean we should disband the military?

The police have fucked up many times. Does that mean we should have no police?

This is a complete non-sequitur. The government implements some good polices and some bad policies; therefore, all polices that could possibly be enacted by the government must be bad. This is conservative right logic in a nutshell, and it's obviously wrong.

Instead of looking at whether or not a policy is implement by group A or group B, how about looking at the policy itself? The policy of socialized medicine has worked in other countries much better than the U.S. system. You statement that gove...

Straw man much? You consistently take concepts to the extreme. I never said any of this.

You claimed that government could lower healthcare costs. Our empirical evidence suggests the opposite.

CBOEtrader says

Our empirical evidence suggests the opposite.

what??

see any other developed country in the world

"Our empirical evidence suggests the opposite."

Yes, please show that empirical evidence. Because I can show a buttload of evidence that government run health care is orders of magnitude cheaper than the US cluster of a system.

You are just yourself responsible? This aregument put the nail on the coffin on this guy:

https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/5/4/15547364/baumol-cost-disease-explained

joeyjojojunior says

Because I can show a buttload of evidence that government run health care is orders of magnitude cheaper than the US cluster of a system.

Yes, please share. We already have government run healthcare in the US. Our government spends more than per capita on healthcare than all but a tiny handfull of countries. Our current cluster of a system is a perfect example of the mess caused by a lack of a free market.

FP says

see any other developed country in the world

you are mistaken, but please give it a try and show us.

CBOEtrader says

Straw man much? You consistently take concepts to the extreme. I never said any of this.

This is not a straw man A straw man is a fallacy in which a person misrepresents the argument of his opponent. What I did was showed the logical consequence of your reasoning. If your reasoning leads to five conclusions and you disagree with four of them, why should I accept your reasoning?
CBOEtrader says

You claimed that government could lower healthcare costs. Our empirical evidence suggests the opposite.

Socialized medicine empirically provides better health care at lower cost. Here's the evidence.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edwin-g-dolan/bernie-health-care-europe_b_9387966.html

Now present your evidence. This is going to be fun. People evidently haven't learned the most important lessons of PatNet, the most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this. Never go in against Dan in an evidence war.

Ironman says

So, how come it works fine for other markets like auto insurance, life insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance, business insurance?

It doesn't. You get ripped off in all those businesses.

Ironman says

Once you do your research and educate yourself, you can make that statement.

I'm sorry I didn't graduate from the University of Dumbassery like you with a degrees in animal husbandry and wifery.

Ironman says

Please do... I'll wait....

No need to wait.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-system-cost

#rechargeableBatteriesDumbass

1. Obesity rates are low in Switzerland, relative to most OECD countries (Figure 1). 9% of adults are obese in Switzerland, while nearly 38% are overweight (including obesity). The latest data show that the prevalence of overweight (including obesity) has increased by 3 percentage points from 2007 to 2012.

https://www.oecd.org/switzerland/Obesity-Update-2014-SWITZERLAND.pdf

Link compares obesity rates in Switzerland with USA (eye opening) as well as with other countries.

Ironman says

Yeah, you graduated from the University of Gay Fat Nerds that Fuck Goats.

Stealing more of my jokes? Clearly, you know who's your superior.
Ironman says

Trying to compare single payer in Europe to our fucked up system is like comparing apples to horseshoes or comparing your gay fat ass to Mr. Universe.

Yeah, because cancer is different in Europe as are the laws of physics and mathematics.

Yet, somehow you have no problem using a very specific implementation of socialism in Venezuela for making a universal generalization that socialism is always bad. What hypocrisy.

CBOEtrader says

 

Dan8267 says

Because of economies of scale, reduced waste and needless competition, better coordination, and elimination of redundancies, socialized

This is the promise of every socialized program. Its an evil lie.

It's not like we don't have proof. Look at all the countries that don't practice, "oh, you want to continue living ? How much will you willing to pay for that ?"

Good incomes for services provided have a place in health care, but not the profit motive to the degree it does. It's a service, and those providing it should be paid very well becasue of the amount of training involved. Big pharma ? Providing cheap drugs to Canada ? What's up with that ?

I wonder how much drug research is heavily subsidized by the govt at the University level. Then when they're hot and on the verge of a breakthrough, they go to work for a drug company.

I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. I think a bunch of you are making valid points. Here is my research and conclusions up to this point:

- Our population is fatter, unhealthier, larger and more diverse than most every other developed nation, so you can't compare healthcare administration costs as apples to apples.
- We have a lot of poor, illegal immigrants who use our healthcare system because we don't really check citizenship and have IDs like other countries do.
- The US produces the most medical innovation than any other country in the world by far. We end up subsidizing the generics and copy-cats deployed elsewhere. If the US innovation didn't exist, our healthcare options would be much more antiquated. Leftists, be careful what you wish for if you do "too much" price fixing; will get to this later. The HepC cure may have never even existed had it not been for capitalism.

What Do We Do? (my opinion only obviously)
- WE HAVE TO FIX OUR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROBLEM.
- If a life-saving drug is invented, we can't let capitalism reign. We must have some level of price fixing to allow Gilead, for example, to make money but not let people die. I'm not saying this will be easy, but an independent third party (i.e., government) would need to facilitate price-setting.
- I don't think we should get rid of gov't-paid healthcare for the poor and elderly. However, Medicare/Medicaid should be 1970s level of healthcare. In other words, procedures paid for by the government shouldn't be cutting edge or uber expensive.
- Most healthcare costs come from a small percentage of the population, and from the elderly in the last years of life. That small percentage needs to pay more via cost sharing than they are today. For the elderly, we need to make more forceful decisions about providing quality of life in the their last years, vs extending their life unnaturally.
- The Right will hate this, but we need more price fixing, period. There's too much subsidy by those who pay, vs those you can't, so you end up with people paying $1500 for stitches. HOWEVER, I don't think single payer is the answer because gov't is so fucking inefficient and corrupt. Just set price ranges for procedures and drugs (by region) and let the free market deal with out claims are adjudicated, etc., and technology and automation will drive down the cost of administration. Medical device companies will have to change their cost/pricing structures to match the cost of procedures.

So, I see this as a CAREFUL balance of free market and gov't intervention. If we lose too much free market, we lose innovation and increase gov't corruption and inefficiency. If we allow too much free market, we get outrageous pricing and certain portions of the population left out to die.

just any guy says

- Our population is fatter, unhealthier, larger and more diverse than most every other developed nation, so you can't compare healthcare administration costs as apples to apples.

- We have a lot of poor, illegal immigrants who use our healthcare system because we don't really check citizenship and have IDs like other countries do.

- The US produces the most medical innovation than any other country in the world by far. We end up subsidizing the generics and copy-cats deployed elsewhere. If the US innovation didn't exist, our healthcare options would be much more antiquated. Leftists, be careful what you wish for if you do "too much" price fixing; will get to this later. The HepC cure may have never even existed had it not been for capitalism.

just any guy says

What Do We Do? (my opinion only obviously)

- WE HAVE TO FIX OUR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROBLEM.

A brilliant observation and one that could tantalizingly get enough bipartisanship support.