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I've had years of experience with the so-called conservative viewpoint and consider it classist and elitist, Wall St vs. Main St, corrupt big business running everything for their profit and the GOP lap dogs lapping it up.
To the point about "bipartisanship" I hope the Dems use the reconciliation process so a majority is enough. Screw this "super majority rule". It's a recipe for stalemate and stagnation. The party of NO will not let anything get done at all because they want Obama to fail, meaning they want him to be unable to deal with any of our pressing issues so he'll appear ineffective. Enough of their obstruction.
Exactly. They had 8 long years to address a growing problem, but instead sold out to big insurance and helped preserve the status quo. The health insurance industry wants expensive, inefficient healthcare that maximizes their profits, and they can afford to pump a lot of money into campaigns, lobbying, and bogus PR, but the Dems need to show some backbone here. Trying to appease those who either don't understand or don't care what is in the best interest of the American people ain't the way.
http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/Europe/Unite...
example The London Radiosurgical Centre - http://www.radiosurgery.co.uk/
Radiotherapy treatment, both NHS and private, for malignant or benign brain tumours, blood vessel abnormalities, acoustic neuroma, trigeminal neuralgia and other brain disorders.
Another:
The entrepreneur who relaunched Pizza Express has been asked to run a chain of NHS cancer clinics. Luke Johnson is in talks with one of Britain's leading cancer specialists to set up a string of "cancer express" centres that will offer patients every aspect of care from initial screening to chemotherapy
and another
On the Waiting List in Malta ? Not Insured ?
No Problem - We will try to help
Day Care Surgery at St. Philip’s Hospital
St Philip’s Hospital will be offering Special Prices for Day Care Surgery whilst obviously maintaining our traditional Quality Surgery in a Safe Environment at less than Day Care Clinic Prices !
Here's a CNBC video on a European conference on health care innovation. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=113525383...
Unfortunately, since "socialized medicine" kills innovation, they didn't have anything to talk about. Just kidding of course. How arrogant Americans are to think they are the only innovators because of the profit motive. Open heart surgery, heart transplants, lasik and lots of other cutting edge medical breakthroughs happened not here, because of profit motive, but abroad because just like here, doctors (maybe Dr. J excluded?) are dedicated to advancing the practice of medicine because they happen to like using their brains and skills to advance their field, medicine.
Besides, name a single innovation of private insurance companies that has improved the practice of medicine. Their "innovations" are new products, essentially new ways to market a plan to reduce the risk that you won't suffer the fate of other Americans and have your finances destroyed by unexpected medical costs. That doesn't happen in single payer systems. Medical related bankruptcy is an American phenomenon.
I'm sorry you feel I'm being unreasonable, but here's the honest truth: the notion that government marshals innovation, customer focus, or cost accountability comparable to private industry simply goes against my experience. I'm used to lines at the DMV, security theater from TSA, an absurd tax code, an FAA that will be taking 50 years to upgrade its computer systems, a drug war that has brought decades of failure at the expense of our most disadvantaged citizens but can't be stopped, legislation that reliably sells out the public interest (to the extent such a thing exists) to one interest group or another, a space agency that blows things up, a state government that is now minting its own currency (the IOU), a city government that spends money so foolishly it has to pass bond measures to raise enough cash to fix potholes, school systems that live at the mercy of teachers' unions and turn out students that can't read...doo dah, doo dah.
I could go on and on, but what frosts me the most is that while companies are held to account by courts, consumers, and ultimately accountants, government is basically not accountable. Books need not balance, policies need not work. Politicians' jobs depend entirely on the sound bites by which voters judge them, not on genuine results.
You're welcome to call this bias, but it feels to me like simple data points. I used to work for the federal government, so perhaps that was my first mistake. You seem to have a different experience of government; perhaps you're from Canada?
As for the rest of your post, well, I can't help you out. You've managed to interpret "our health care system [is] too expensive, leaves too many people uncovered, and...needs reform" as "Dr J is claiming there's no problem." And you've brought up insurance yet again, as if I'd said something about it, or as if medical related bankruptcy was caused by insurance bills. Perhaps you're one of those Chinese contortionist chicks I saw in the Cirque du Soleil?
Actually based on your photo, my money is on you being a Scottish golf nut. You're probably peeved that I'm casting aspersions on the Hebrides. Sorry about that.
I've always admired in a weird way, your way of framing the public good as "buying votes." Pandering to the majority, buddy, is called democracy. Who will pay for health care? For crying out loud, we all will, just as we do now. Man, you can't scare us by saying we're going to have to pay for what we're already paying too much for. Besides, those of us who don't have employer-paid, tax exempt, government subsidized insurance have been footing part of the bill for the tiny (about 25%) of those who do have that. Plus those on government plans like military and veterans, medicare and medicaid, Indian health service and all government employees. I don't mind at all if everyone gets to pay into what I've personally subsidized for nearly my entire life.
There are lots of difficult decisions of when and how we need to limit the most expensive procedures. The decision to save 31% (12% excess overhead, 19% overpayment of doctors) is low hanging fruit. We're stupid if we don't take it, and sorry Blue Cross. You suck anyway.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/...
I'd point out that even discounting Franken's gasket-blowing vulgar in-the-media liberalism, he is probably a reliable (normally lock-step partisan as well as ordinary to leftish) reliable Democratic vote. It's not naive but safe at this time to assume Franken won't be the "defector" in the less-than-sixty-Dem-votes scenarios to envision for the future.
I doubt the "public option" Trojan-Horse-with-klaxons-and-neon-warning-signs will be removed from any compromise legislation, but that more attention will be paid to the more obvious defect in this initiative, the (almost criminal as well as cynical, not merely deceptive) negligence paid to raising taxes to pay for it.
Yes -- especially in cases where the public is obviously starting to be concerned about spending and fiscal displine or the lack thereof by the Dems, or with not only the cost of any federal health care initiative but the lack to date of progress in planning to pay for it. (The most cynical view is that some Dems are not merely clueless but at their worst, planning to pass the initiatives without any taxes and just keep on adding to the debt, or making it "mandatory" spending without enacting any accompanying new taxes at the same time, the classic deferral, and waiting until after the next elections to levy the needed taxes.)
"going from 59 to 60 means that 'Republicans are blocking us' becomes much less effective "
That never has been the case this year, the GOP isn't anywhere as obstructionist as some would dishonestly portray them, and the Dems have been running rampant and deliberately overrunning any opposition, no matter how reasonable. What concerns me is how many exploitable Dem voters may believe the "blocking" dishonesty nevertheless, in addition to those in and outside the USA who utter it.
I think you're giving the public too much credit. What they want is wonderful government services for free. Being concerned about fiscal discipline is really nice, but just watch what happens when you suggest solutions. (See California for further examples of this. They want the expensive programs, they don't want to pay for them, hence a massive budget gap.)
Rent a huge sound system with super speakers. Rent a flat bed truck. Wake up every politician that ever even dreamed of voting against single payer every morning with the sound system cranked to 10 and someone with a really irritating voice screaming, "single payer you shithead."
Nobody drafted these shits. They are whores. Fucking up relations with the neighbors would be much more effective. They move somewhere else, you can buy a cellphone with satellite tracking for less than $100 and since the GSA just proved that getting explosives into Federal buildings is a snap, (I already knew that, the last three times I was in a VA hospital I had a .38 special in an ankle holster) tape it to their vehicle. You can, also, stake out their boyfriend or girlfriends residence with remote video cameras for blackmail.
Fuck nice.
But much of the public is concerned, in general And as for specific examples in adddition: What do you think is one reason that the fools in Washington trying their incremental moves toward federal health care are avoiding the cost issue, which itself makes them look bad except to the worst something-for-nothing fools? (They want "single-payer" [sic; WHO'S THE PAYER?] health care without paying -- for Free [tm].)
Again you miss the reality. They're trying at this point to _preserve_ profits for as long as they can retain at least some; they are in a position of an ice climber sliding down ice (toward government control and even direct provision of health care ultimately, by Washington) and using their ice pick or ax not to arrest but merely to brake or retard their descent. They're losing any fight for the status quo, and that's why they're willing to be co-opted by Team Obama and the Congre-Dems and be part of the result for now (a newer, shiner fascist example than Hillary Clinton's in 1993 with the HMO "alliances") rather than be excluded sooner rather than later. They can buy time by reminding people they are in the private sector, which normally knows better than any government that regulates it from outside, and which is normally superior to an all-public alternative.
The entire health care idiocy we see now is rushed as well as disingenuous and it would have been better for Obama to have simply folded Medicaid into Medicare as a "stimulus" measure (obviating much or all need for additional work and legislation currently begun, as well as finding at least initially some of the money to pay for it) while relieving states of a burden they've longed to discard. Talk about quick good PR as opposed to this health care nonsense we now are getting, which only appeals to the exploitable!
It is stupid Not to have National Healthcare. We have the most expensive healthcare on the planet and by no means is it the best. Not even close.
Supply and Demand has caused these inhumane costs and NOTHING will bring them down except nationalization of all medical services within the United States. Sorry, but the situation is extreme and extreme measures must be taken.
Cost Cost Cost! NO insurance plan, scheme, coverage, partial coverage, customary coverage, or, imaginary coverage will address the ORIGINAL and ONGOING PROBLEM OF rising Costs. Insurance companies simply raise their premiums to protect their business while fewer and fewer people can afford to pay those premiums.
More and more people in America need healthcare and less and less people can afford it. In light of the fact that every modern nation on earth, (and some not-so-modern), can provide national healthcare for their people, healthcare in the United States is the Laughing Stock of the planet.
Ask not what yer country can do for you...Ask....hey FU!
HOW ABOUT ADDRESSING THE REAL HEALTHCARE PROBLEM PLEASE! I'M FRIGGEN PAYING YOUR SALARY!
Over the weekend my cousin was telling me about his recent European travels, during which he got sick. Scotland has this amazing national health service, and he was treated free (well, at the expense of the Scots). Problem was, the treatment involved just sending him home with antibiotics. After those hadn't helped for two weeks, they said okay, it must be viral, we'll run some tests. Problem was, though they could take blood samples or whatever, they had to send them to Glasgow for analysis, which would take a week or two.
By that time, he'd gotten back home and took his issue to an American doctor. They ran tests and emailed him the results the next day. He had mono. He's better now.
I'm deeply concerned about our health care system. It's too expensive, leaves too many people uncovered, and it needs reform. On the other hand, trading it for a system that controls costs by rationing and compromising in every direction, that takes a month to diagnose mono, strikes me as a horrible mistake.
Choices are valuable. People put different values on money, quality, and time, and a system that's always free but often slow isn't the right answer for everyone all the time. I see a ton of benefit in giving people more than one choice, and in having a system that's free to invent new choices. I don't want to lose these things.
The retail health clinics are an interesting example of companies inventing new ways to give consumers cheaper, simpler, faster choices. The clinics cut into doctors' 200-bucks-for-10-minutes office business, so the AMA is predictably negative on them. They're not a cure-all, but they're a useful option, and one that could never be invented in a socialized system.
I know people complain about government running things, but when you look at it objectively, there's plenty of evidence that allowing industry to run things only brings ruin and wrong.
The problem with getting something done is that everyone wants to fix things all at once. I'm willing to see several measures that provide small amounts of improvement. We don't need to do something perfect, but we do need to do something. Provide an automatic sunset and if it doesn't work, it'll go away with a whimper.
actually, private clinics and hospitals are available in "socialized systems". So is private insurance.
And since your objection didn't quite speak to my point, let me repeat it. The advantage I don't want to lose is not the clinic but the ability to invent a new kind of clinic. Please show me a socialized system that can do that.
*plus any other similar program, and if needed boosted to make up for shortcomings in the programs.
However, in the case of health care REIMBURSEMENT (remember, we're not talking about government doctors or hospitals), government already covers more people than any insurance company, or all of them combined. This isn't an experiment; there are decades of data from all over the world that single payer health care for all works, works at least as well as our system and for much lower cost.
Heehee, Scottish golf nut. Love it (I don't golf, but do like Scotch). I don't think I'm off base in characterizing your opposition to a public option as a preference for the current model. You have suggested HSAs as a solution and that patients can bring down costs by negotiating prices with providers, but I consider that unrealistic. Besides, it requires coverage for catastrophic or emergency spending beyond what's in the HSA, which must be provided either by the predatory insurance industry or the government, which choice I would leave to each individual American. As for spending a lot of time finding private health care options in Europe, it took seconds on the Google.
1. The whole thing is about a weird corner of the economy. Goldman Sachs is a speculator, and their customers are speculators. I'm certainly against fraud and market manipulation, but many, many people were involved in overvaluing dot-com IPOs in full knowledge of their fundamentals. The people who lost money fair and square speculating on them aren't going to keep me up at night.
2. Even as slanted as the article is, one theme keeps emerging from it: government failure. It loosened commodities regulations, it failed to impose meaningful fines on corporate abuses, it implemented policies to encourage wider homeownership that helped fuel the housing bubble.
Absurdly, the author tries to blame Goldman for lobbying for looser rules, as if maintaining a balanced regulatory structure were Goldman's job rather than the government's. Congress eased oversight of default swaps, but Congress shouldn't be held responsible because the Treasury department lobbied them. But Treasury shouldn't be held responsible because it was run by Robert Rubin. But Rubin shouldn't be held responsible because he had come from Goldman Sachs. It's Goldman's fault, you see? Even in this telling, government is a zero-accountability zone.
3. Companies, though, do get called to account. In all these examples, within just a few years inflated asset values are corrected, fraud punished and stopped. In the grand scheme of things that's pretty darn quick. How long has the drug war been with us?
4. The millions pocketed by executives of insolvent financial firms make my blood boil too, and I'd like to see more downward pressure on those bonuses. But we should optimize toward helping the many forward rather than holding the few back. The few thousand people getting more than we feel they deserve distract from the big question: what will do best by the many? A government-heavy system that betrays them whenever the few come a-lobbying is the wrong answer.