Unelected

#176
#176
milohimself said:
IMO the ACA started off a worthwhile endeavor; I don't actually believe that most Republicans are cool with just going back to how things were, most of them recognize that health care is a significant issue that needs to be addressed immediately. Not that it will get addressed.

The bill wound up turning into a cluster-eff of concessions to and between special interests.
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totally agree. I also think it failed to address the cost of health care. Insuring 300 million people is an interesting exercise, but it is irrelevant to bending the cost curve.
 
#177
#177
dreVol said:
totally agree. I also think it failed to address the cost of health care. Insuring 300 million people is an interesting exercise, but it is irrelevant to bending the cost curve.
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There are a number of indirect but still very significant cost controls and a set of carrots and sticks to reduce administrative costs. They're not ideal, but it was the only real possibility.

As for controlling the cost in a much more effective way, I don't think this country has the political will to pull it off. Even if the ACA gets fully enacted, literally every other first world country on the planet will have magnitudes greater degree of government intervention and/or control of health care than we would. And the ACA is already among the most embattled pieces of legislation since the Civil War.
 
#178
#178
Healthcare costs are not going to decrease until there is some form of direct payment from the customer to the provider.
 
#179
#179
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching BO get his Egotistical, socialist arse handed too him, and being lectured to like he tries, hypocritically, to do to us. Seems he may have "acted stupidly".
 
#180
#180
MUR73 said:
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching BO get his Egotistical, socialist arse handed too him, and being lectured to like he tries, hypocritically, to do to us. Seems he may have "acted stupidly".
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obviously, you are a racist
 
#181
#181
PKT_VOL said:
Healthcare costs are not going to decrease until there is some form of direct payment from the customer to the provider.
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The system in most other countries still uses an intermediary in one form or another, but we have by far the highest administrative costs from a combination of poor bookkeeping and record keeping and relatively arcane medical tracking technology.

MUR73 said:
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching BO get his Egotistical, socialist arse handed too him, and being lectured to like he tries, hypocritically, to do to us. Seems he may have "acted stupidly".
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Just can't please everybody.
 
#182
#182
milohimself said:
The system in most other countries still uses an intermediary in one form or another, but we have by far the highest administrative costs from a combination of poor bookkeeping and record keeping and relatively arcane medical tracking technology.
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That is definitely a part of it. However, when the customer and the producer do not interface with some sort of monetary exchange, the normal laws of economics go out the window. Any viable long term solution will have to remedy this predicament.
 
#183
#183
PKT_VOL said:
That is definitely a part of it. However, when the customer and the producer do not interface with some sort of monetary exchange, the normal laws of economics go out the window. Any viable long term solution will have to remedy this predicament.
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That generally means paying one of two ways: Out of pocket or with an HSA. That brings up a whole new host of issues. To name a few:

- Health care is one of the few markets in which the price of services can frequently go up with innovation.

- That market, like the one we've currently got, is still based on a fee for service system of exchange. That becomes an issue in cases with fixed, large levels of asymmetrical information; doctors almost always know more than patients. Doctors are incentivized to sell services beyond the point of diminished utility to the patient. Most health care practice is either emergency or urgent care, in which case shopping around isn't going to occur.

- The other issue that comes up with this kind of information asymmetry is an effective degree of the lemon market phenomenon.

Lastly, and this is a guess based on what I know prices of health services to roughly be and taking a cursory look at incomes and budgets of most people, my guess is that funding for both an HSA and catastrophic health insurance is likely well beyond the reach of the majority of Americans.
 
#184
#184
Basically, something in the neighborhood of perfect information on the part of both buyer and seller is required in achieving something close to Pareto-efficiency (an efficient market outcome), and health care might be the one large-scale market where that has never been and likely never will be the case.
 
#185
#185
milohimself said:
That generally means paying one of two ways: Out of pocket or with an HSA. That brings up a whole new host of issues. To name a few:

- Health care is one of the few markets in which the price of services can frequently go up with innovation.

- That market, like the one we've currently got, is still based on a fee for service system of exchange. That becomes an issue in cases with fixed, large levels of asymmetrical information; doctors almost always know more than patients. Doctors are incentivized to sell services beyond the point of diminished utility to the patient. Most health care practice is either emergency or urgent care, in which case shopping around isn't going to occur.

- The other issue that comes up with this kind of information asymmetry is an effective degree of the lemon market phenomenon.

Lastly, and this is a guess based on what I know prices of health services to roughly be and taking a cursory look at incomes and budgets of most people, my guess is that funding for both an HSA and catastrophic health insurance is likely well beyond the reach of the majority of Americans.
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Your post takes it to the extreme. I am not saying there isn't a role for insurance, but there should be a bigger role for straight cash homey.

Everything is relative. I think there is a happy median. The insurance side of the solution should be more transparent, include the Obamacare mandates (preexisting conditions and such), and should be competitive across state lines or national boundaries for that matter.
 
#186
#186
milohimself said:
In no way does that fit the definition of socialism. From 100+ years ago, I'm talking full-on nationalization of major industries. Steel, agriculture, etc. etc.
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German national socialism didn't nationalize major industries, they just told the privately owned industries what to do, using the regulatory process.




milohimself said:
Socialism is not re-distribution of wealth.
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What is socialism as you understand it?



MUR73 said:
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching BO get his Egotistical, socialist arse handed too him, and being lectured to like he tries, hypocritically, to do to us. Seems he may have "acted stupidly".
Click to expand...

Professor1.jpg
 
#188
#188
PKT_VOL said:
Your post takes it to the extreme. I am not saying there isn't a role for insurance, but there should be a bigger role for straight cash homey.

Everything is relative. I think there is a happy median. The insurance side of the solution should be more transparent, include the Obamacare mandates (preexisting conditions and such), and should be competitive across state lines or national boundaries for that matter.
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Just pointing out the underlying principles.

As for the parts of Obamacare that most people actually like (coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, as you pointed out, as well as prohibition of lifetime benefit limits), they are unfortunately unfeasible unless the buyer's market is much larger than it would be naturally.
 
#189
#189
gsvol said:
German national socialism didn't nationalize major industries, they just told the privately owned industries what to do, using the regulatory process.
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Socialist in name only. The Nazis were far less so than the Weimar government -- Fascist, autarkic and Keynesian. Health care was nationalized, but that practice in Germany goes back to Bismarck. The early traces of the Nazis were anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist, but that had basically flipped by the time Hitler took power. If the Third Reich was actually socialist, that would have made them the only socialist group ever in power, that I'm aware of, that wasn't at least sympathetic to Marxism. Instead, they were extremely hostile; being a communist in 1930's Germany was as bad as being a Jew or a gypsy.
 
#190
#190
milohimself said:
Socialist in name only. The Nazis were far less so than the Weimar government -- Fascist, autarkic and Keynesian. Health care was nationalized, but that practice in Germany goes back to Bismarck. The early traces of the Nazis were anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist, but that had basically flipped by the time Hitler took power. If the Third Reich was actually socialist, that would have made them the only socialist group ever in power, that I'm aware of, that wasn't at least sympathetic to Marxism. Instead, they were extremely hostile; being a communist in 1930's Germany was as bad as being a Jew or a gypsy.
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It's amazing to me how many people don't know this. The whole war with Communist Russia was based on differences in ideaology as much as anything else (natural resources, land expansion, etc).
 
#191
#191
milohimself said:
IMO the ACA started off a worthwhile endeavor; I don't actually believe that most Republicans are cool with just going back to how things were, most of them recognize that health care is a significant issue that needs to be addressed immediately. Not that it will get addressed.

The bill wound up turning into a cluster-eff of concessions to and between special interests.
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Agree with this.

75 % of GOP criticism of the ACA is political, to portray Obama as overreaching.

25 % is real policy disagreement.

And of that 25 %, big part is grudging acknowledgment he has advanced the conversation.
 
#192
#192
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. The republican party that originally brought the individual mandate to the table (and they did) isn't around anymore. It's legit policy beef.

Politics is a wash; this forum is great place to find out what dumb thing obama said lately. I could do the same for any number of republicans, but in the end it's worthless to quibble over.
 
#193
#193
milohimself said:
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. The republican party that originally brought the individual mandate to the table (and they did) isn't around anymore. It's legit policy beef.

Politics is a wash; this forum is great place to find out what dumb thing obama said lately. I could do the same for any number of republicans, but in the end it's worthless to quibble over.
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Did the Republican Party actually push the individual mandate (during Hillarycare)? My impression was that the individual mandate was floated by prominent conservative think tanks, like Heritage, as a counter to Hillarycare. I didn't think it was actually advanced by the party. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
#194
#194
It was reactive to the Clinton administration, and again during the early stages of the recent healthcare debate while it still looked like a public option was a real possibility. Just because the idea was reactive doesn't change where the idea originated, or that some who are now criticizing the idea after promoting it as recent as three years ago *cough*Mitt*cough*
 
#195
#195
Hitler was not trying to create a socialist nation nor wanted one.

I agree with this.

Hitler wanted world domination and used a "crisis" as a way to gather many "poor people" into backing "ideas" that they normally would not have backed due to "fear" and "doubts" in the economy.

Hitler( a man with no real professional background other than painter and community organizer of NSDAP) seized an opportunity and ran with it.
 
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#196
#196
by the way milo, obama is not a socialist and I have never said he is.

he is though all for totalitarianism.
 
#200
#200
milohimself said:
Just pointing out the underlying principles.

As for the parts of Obamacare that most people actually like (coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, as you pointed out, as well as prohibition of lifetime benefit limits), they are unfortunately unfeasible unless the buyer's market is much larger than it would be naturally.
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What exactly do you mean by this? I can interrupt it a couple different ways.
 
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