OT - Time to kill the insurance bailout!

[PST]

And above all......fear "lack of choice".....

The current U.S. system offers no realistic choice for most people. You take what your employer offers or you go without. I don't think I've ever talked to anyone who was eligible for group coverage, in which the employer pays part and the employee share is untaxed, who elected instead to buy private coverage using his own after-tax dollars. So for all practical purposes, it's take it or leave it with the company plan. And those folks are the lucky ones. An awful lot of people without the option of group coverage have only the choice of going bare. Their pre-existing state of health gives them no economically viable option, unless their state has a special program for them, in which case they again have one choice. Preserving choice is not a viable argument for rejecting the current health insurance proposals.

[Wulfman]

Fear Government-run health care!!

Fear Government-run _______________!! (fill in the blank)

(they screw up everything they touch)


Den


.

[DreamStalker]

Fear Government-run health care!!

Fear Government-run _______________!! (fill in the blank)

(they screw up everything they touch)


Den


.

I have to disagree with you both.

It is the legislative part of government and to a much lesser degree, the executive and maybe judicial branches of government that screw things up ... why? ... cuz corporate profits "run" this country.

Government-run does not always equal "fear" or incompetence, or ____________ (fill in the blank).

We have the best military on the planet, the best space program on the planet (even though it is a mere ghost of its former glory), the best weather agency, the best geological agency, the best crime investigation agencies, etc. etc. the list goes on and on. After all, I don't see Medicare patients trying dump their service. I don't see drivers avoiding our interstate highways. I don't see people risking their lives to illegally cross the border into Mexico.

The US government can run lots of things quite well for "some" services. And I know the current FOR-PROFIT health insurance does NOT run so well (well ok, it really sucks!). Other nations, under various systems, seem to have been able to make government-run health care work a lot better than ours ... from total government pay and health care service to private health care service with a government single payer system. THe US can do better than what we have now and we need to start by taking the profit motive out of catastrophic health insurance and then move on to preventative medicine.

There is no need to fear government ... only fear the legislative, and to a lesser degree, the executive branch(s) of government.


On a totally different topic, y'all need to check this video out ... http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/685
I don't have an Iphone or blackberry ... cuz I'm waiting for one of these

[LSAT]

Dreamstalker said..."The US government can run lots of things quite well for "some" services"

This may be true for "some" services, but, not healthcare or social programs. How do you explain the disasters of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? It has been reported that there is about $65-70 BILLION per year in fraudulant claims in Medicare. They have no handle on it...the program is too big. IF they could figure out how to stop the fraud they would have $65-70 BILLION to spend on the uninsured. We would not need any changes in healthcare.

[BleepingBeauty]

On a totally different topic, y'all need to check this video out ... http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/685
I don't have an Iphone or blackberry ... cuz I'm waiting for one of these

Wow, wow, wow! That was astounding! Talk about brilliant. Thanks for posting the link, DS.

[PST]

On a totally different topic, y'all need to check this video out ... http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/685
I don't have an Iphone or blackberry ... cuz I'm waiting for one of these

Wow, wow, wow! That was astounding! Talk about brilliant. Thanks for posting the link, DS.

And not just Mistry's lecture. The whole site is a real find.

[DreamStalker]

Dreamstalker said..."The US government can run lots of things quite well for "some" services"

This may be true for "some" services, but, not healthcare or social programs. How do you explain the disasters of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? It has been reported that there is about $65-70 BILLION per year in fraudulant claims in Medicare. They have no handle on it...the program is too big. IF they could figure out how to stop the fraud they would have $65-70 BILLION to spend on the uninsured. We would not need any changes in healthcare.

You may want to check your numbers again ... typical conservative spin lumps the entire US health insurance fraud numbers of $60 to $70 billion (perhaps even higher like 10% of $2 trillion national health care costs) and attributes it entirely to Medicare and Medicade fraud when the actual Medicare/Medicade fraud number is only about 3% of the $400 billion budget (I have heard the budget is closer to $700 billion, but what do I know, I'm an earth scientist, not a financial analyst) ... so M/M fraud is more like $10 to $20 billion for those non-financial analyst types. So it appears that it is the private health insurance that may have the greater fraud problem.
http://www.insurancefraud.org/healthinsurance.htm

Fraud and abuse is not limited to federal health insurance programs. Health care fraud is a national problem that requires collaboration among public and private health entities. While there is no hard number for the costs of health care fraud, the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association estimates that approximately 3 percent of total health care expenditures, or $60 billion, is lost to fraud by both the private and public sectors each year.

http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2009/10/t20091028a.html

I can't explain your said Medicare/Medicade disasters ... perhaps it is you that needs to do some splain'in.

As for social security, I agree it is indeed broken. Maybe we need Palin-style death panels to take care of the problem ... it could even be privatized to contractors like the Soylent Corporation, the processed food wafers could be rationed out in lieu of welfare benefits, and the money made by their greedy financial analysts could trickle down and fix the whole economy too and the whole world would be happy again. Only bean counters know how to break the fundamental laws of conservation

[DreamStalker]

On a totally different topic, y'all need to check this video out ... http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/685
I don't have an Iphone or blackberry ... cuz I'm waiting for one of these

Wow, wow, wow! That was astounding! Talk about brilliant. Thanks for posting the link, DS.

And not just Mistry's lecture. The whole site is a real find.

Yes ... very eye-opening/inspiring presentations. Helps me thaw my occasional brain freezes

[LSAT]

Dreamstalker...You are questioning my figures of $60-70 Billion a year in MEDICARE fraud. I got these numbers from an October..CBS 60 Minutes Special on that topic....In Fact...it is estimated to be as much as $90 Billion. Here is the web site.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/ ... 4390.shtml

[DreamStalker]

Dreamstalker...You are questioning my figures of $60-70 Billion a year in MEDICARE fraud. I got these numbers from an October..CBS 60 Minutes Special on that topic....In Fact...it is estimated to be as much as $90 Billion. Here is the web site.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/ ... 4390.shtml

I ain't saying that fraud isn't happening. $10 billion, $20 billion, $60 billion in federal healthcare fraud ... is a lot of fraud. In FACT, 10% of $2 trillion estimate of total (public and private) health insurance system fraud is $200 billion, also a lot of fraud ... more than twice $90 billion in FACT. My point was that federal health care fraud is not any worse than the fraud occurring within the private health insurance system. Criminal fraud is bad. Criminal fraud is everywhere from stone-age Afghanistan to modern-day Wall Street (let's not forget Madoff made off with nearly $20 billion all by himself). To imply that government run programs are the only entities subject to fraud (or source of fraud) is misleading and NOT in FACT.

In FACT ... I initiated this thread to point out that the current so-called "healthcare reform" bill is loaded with corporate fraud. The ink on that bill reeks of corporate lobbyists. Fraud occurs in both directions ... criminal people defrauding corporations and governments and criminal corporations and government (legislators and executives ... or let's just call 'em what they are, "politicians") defrauding people. This FACT proves nothing about whether "government" (or government agencies/workers) can run anything well. It only proves that fraud is prevalent in a civilized society (Oh there's that word "social" again, sorry) and those of us who are defrauded don't really like it (a brilliant proof wouldn't you agree).

If you insist on calling any and all federal healthcare a disaster of fraud ... then you may as well call civilization a fraudulent disaster and we should just blow the planet up before it burns up with fraudulent global warming.

[Slinky]

AARP, ADVOCATE FOR THOSE OVER 50, REFUSES TO INSURE 63 YEAR OLD W/MILD CROHN'S DISEASE!!

Read it for yourself:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... ull.column

And AARP wants those of us 50 and over to become members???

I wonder how much the upper echelon of AARP draw in salary, benefits and perks??
And, how ironic, right next to the article is an ad for AARP HealthCare insurance.