Obamacare
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
I'm just gonna duck and cover from the oncoming shitstorm.
You mean the people who have had half a dozen kids and think everyone else is driving up their insurance costs?
I've been without internet all weekend. I love when people get mad about facts. Of course, facts may vary depending on whether you buy the crap either party is spewing at us.
Been pretty crazy here lately, I won't lie. The old art museum building across the street from our library is now the building for Delta Defense LLC. Look it up if you are curious what that's all about.
Actually, the proposal was already pulled anyway as of thursday.
GasBandit
Staff member
That was a good primer for how to shop for insurance that people should be shown in home ec, though it talks about how expensive health care is while not mentioning at all how the whole insurance paradigm keeps the prices high. Remember that article I linked about the guy who got surgery with no insurance for $20,000 less than he would have had to pay WITH insurance?
GasBandit
Staff member
So it turns out 3 guys fixed healthcare.gov in their garage.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/11/three-guys-built-better-healthcaregov/71195/
Wonder where all those millions of government dollars are REALLY going?
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/11/three-guys-built-better-healthcaregov/71195/
Wonder where all those millions of government dollars are REALLY going?
Since https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-estimates/ already did almost all of that (including phone numbers is all that's missing), and it worked flawlessly when I tried it out two days after launch, I'm guessing the millions are going towards building the actual network infrastructure to share account information and calculate individual subsidies according to both federal and state laws. Still a giant mess, but this particular story is mostly a non-story.
Not to surprised this is being glossed over here.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...zes-for-americans-losing-health-coverage?lite
Love the apology and the moving of the goal posts at the same time.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...zes-for-americans-losing-health-coverage?lite
Love the apology and the moving of the goal posts at the same time.
I don't buy the "Government bad" argument. You get what you elect, and I hate to say it, but we're all responsible for what has occurred.
GasBandit
Staff member
Mostly the ones who championed/voted for this abomination, I'd say.
my issue with all the "this is proof healthcare was broken and why we should go with a single payer system" is that the very same people were the ones championing the ACA. The argument is pretty much the second half of a protection racket.
Funny, I thought they were championing single payer, not the ACA. Look back and you'll find just about everyone who supported the ACA doing so reluctantly because the current system is failing millions of people, either through dropping people when they get sick or bankruptcy's number one cause being medical bills.
It's almost like they had to make a payment into the system with every single paycheck earned throughout their lives.
This was my take on it too. It reformed some of the things that HAD to change (namely the preexisting condition shit), but virtually all of my liberal friends wanted and still want a single payer system. We all knew bending over backwards to accommodate big business was going to ruin it in the short term but now it's pretty much a sure thing that we will have single payer in our lifetimes. Just have to survive until then.
"They didn't want this to happen, but if congress had just passed a single payer system we could have avoided this and all future unpleasantness."
Or we could, you know... maybe be like England or Japan where they have both? Shocking, I know.
I'm not actually in favor of single-payer, and would prefer something more like Switzerland, universal and compulsory for basics, risk-based and optional for additional. Taxes are, of course, higher, but out-of-pocket averages much lower. Granted, the logistical differences by region in the US vary considerably more, which would make it harder to implement here.
That's not single-payer then. It's "the government will pay for you, unless you have the means to do so yourself" or something else. Short lines for those who pay, long for everybody else. Then that will be seen as unfair, and then there will be long lines for everybody (that's what happened in Canada). Single-payer is what Canada has. And you're right to be very very afraid of that.
Except if you're extremely powerful (we're talking national-party-leader-or-close-to-it powerful), then there's a couple of private clinics for you that don't get shut down. But very few others are ever allowed in those.
Insurance companies (all sorts, including health ones) are scheming lying bastards who want to take your money and give you nothing in return. But at least you know that going into it. Governments should be there to keep them in check, not to show how worse a job they can do when you take profit motive out.
GasBandit
Staff member
Everything worthwhile is for profit. Without personal incentive, there's no reason to strive. Quality of care will suffer. Would you rather go into debt to get the life saving surgery, or be able to easily afford the painkiller they'll provide you to comfortably wait until your end?
Necronic
Staff member
Charities and churches would suggest otherwise.[DOUBLEPOST=1384381586,1384381475][/DOUBLEPOST]
I don't think this is true. Pretty sure you can have private supplemental insurance in Canada.
This is completely false. There will always be an incentive in medical advances, if only because of the completely indiscriminate nature of illness and injury. A cure for HIV, Aids, and Cancer will be found not because whoever finds it first will become rich (though they will, no matter what they charge) but because virtually everyone knows and cares about someone that is suffering from these... even the rich. Life expectancy will continue to extend because people are afraid of dying. Replacement limbs will become better and better (and cheaper) because ANYONE can involved in an accident that causes them to lose a limb. Polio treatments were devised because even people like a Roosevelt could get it. There is simply too much self incentive in ensuring that medical technology is the latest and greatest for people to stop making just because they aren't making as much money off of it.
Medicine for profit is the reason you can't watch football with a kid in the room any longer.
Uncle [me]? what is a four hour erection?
Uncle [me]? what is a four hour erection?
GasBandit
Staff member
It doesn't take 8+ years of study, tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, and mandatory continuing education to run a charity. Or a church, for that matter. Though both do often seem to enrich their management quite a bit.
He's talking about Shriner's and Saint Jude's Hospitals etc.