Health Care Bennies
Now interaction can make you sick sometimes. Just hearing certain voices can make me want to throw up,
and we may need clinics for obsessive watchers
[or cross-watchers] of Fox or CNBC
--Frontline, Digital Nation (2.2.10)
If 50 people tell you that you're dead, lay down
--Southern saying
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow
--Lord Byron
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Now that the vaunted Health Care Reform behemoth has slouched its way into law, will it be a New Day for America? Does this cryptic 1,000+ page document usher a new democratic reality for the citizens whose lives it claims to enhance?
We at ranger ask the simple question, "What does health care reform NOT mean?":
- Do the troops come home from two elective wars?
- Do disabled vets get better treatment and benefits?
- Will the unemployed find employment?
- Will the national debt decrease?
- Will energy dependence be lessened?
- Will industry return to America?
- Will the will of the people ever be translated into law?
- Will illegal immigration be solved?
- Will the rate of home foreclosures be staunched?
- Will bankers be regulated more closely?
You can tune in tomorrow for the answers to the Days of Our Lives, but we bet that you will meet with the same "no" you did the day before health care passed.
posted by rangeragainstwar at 1:58 PM
14 Comments:
at least Liberals have the idea that our tax money maybe could, or even should actually help somebody or something other than a corporate profit margin. this Country has become so proto-fascist that Republicans, Teabags and their supporters actually scoff at the idea altruism should even be part of the the public discourse. total social darwinism at all levels.
G.D.,
We believe tax money should go to helping the constituents. However, this bill seems overwhelmingly to support the corporation behemoth.
That said, we also understand that bureaucratic change, inasmuch as it is possible, takes place with Brownian movement speed, with some often very ugly intermediate stages.
Ghost Dansing,
I reckon i fall on the populist side of the fence, but i just can't convince myself that this bill is populism. I can't figure out what it is or isn't.
As for spending tax money- nobody has really explained where this money is coming from, or where it'll end up. Your theory is sound , but lets see how it plays out.
It's strangeness indeed when Congressmen vote for a bill that most agree is lacking.
jim
Ghost Dansing,
I reckon i fall on the populist side of the fence, but i just can't convince myself that this bill is populism. I can't figure out what it is or isn't.
As for spending tax money- nobody has really explained where this money is coming from, or where it'll end up. Your theory is sound , but lets see how it plays out.
It's strangeness indeed when Congressmen vote for a bill that most agree is lacking.
jim
The thing I can't seem get an answer to, is what (after the mandatory coverage goes into effect), happens to people who already had government health coverage... you know, like vets?
Anyone want to bet that the VA won't be phased out in order to give veterans the 'freedom' to deal with an even more byzantine bureaucracy?
actually have no theory. my opinion is the entire health care system is based on collective monies. whether you pay premiums or taxes, doesn't matter... collective monies.
nothing inherently profitable in delivering health care. entire system is designed to exclude population, prevent delivery of services, and underpay the actual health care providers, including doctors and nurses in order to maximize corporate profit.
the entire system is based on non-delivery of service. the idea that this can be stretched into an architecture for universal health care accessibility is absurd.
you have a crazy quilt of private corporations going through all kinds of machinations to make a profit.
they all have overhead. they all make rules to stack the deck in their favor... a game of chance, if you will where the insurance company is the "house" and everybody else is the chump that has to pay-to-play by their rules.
i think what i'd like to see is single-payer, non-profit.
i couldn't even get a public option.
what i got, i think, is some major regulations on the insurance industry that act as kind of a "trust busting" operation, limits their ability to make rules for exclusion, and forces them to make insurance more available... hopefully more affordable.
there is a massive amount of money flowing in the system that doesn't translate into service. they've got themselves a racket. a self-licking ice cream cone.
there will be Federal monies flowing in that direction.... however, if i read Krugman correctly, we've been subsidizing this racket with Federal monies for some time... apparently only a small percentage is truly "private, and independent of government largess. and that apparently is the part where you lose your insurance when you lose your job.
Republican ideas, are, as usual, "more of the same".... figure out how to send more money into Corporate coffers with as little oversight as possible so "the market fairy" can do its magic (thanks penguin).
i thinked the Dems just f*cked the #GOP and their corporate buddies. and that's what the real stink is about.
market fairy ain't never gonna deliver a universal system, 'cause universal ain't profitable.
the largest number of people who need health care most can afford it the least.
people are popping their entire life's savings and selling the farm 'cause somebody in the family got old and/or sick.
that's BS. the entire system depends on collective monies... and it might as well be the govt that manages it, like Social Security and Medicare. (Just have to keep the politicians from raiding the cookie jar for other things).
the market ain't gonna fix it 'cause there ain't no f*cking market. the whole damn thing is unprofitable if you have to care for everybody, and the docs would still be accepting chickens as barter for services if there was not this insurance racket going on.
how's that for a diatribe. :)
the market ain't gonna fix it 'cause there ain't no f*cking market. the whole damn thing is unprofitable if you have to care for everybody... you got to....
G.D.,
A perfect summation: There is no market, so the market won't fix it.
It is a cobbled together behemoth of profiteers that needs to be dismantled. Instead, we've just gained more layers, needing more tape.
GD...
You are Da Man!
the whole damn thing is unprofitable
This is why we have governments in the first place! To do what needs to be done when there is no profit in doing so!
Thanks for your diatribe.
SP
I can't make heads or tails out of the bill either.
A couple of facts for what they're worth.
I think a fair industry average is that about 90 cents (90%) of every dollar you pay in premiums to healthcare insurance goes right out the door to pay for medical services. I know this is a fact for the big non-profit Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans.
So, contrary to torch and pitchfork waving mob mentality, it isn't insurance co. profits that are responsible for the high cost of coverage. It is the high cost of doctors, hospitals and drugs.
Breaking it down further, drugs are not - again contrary to popular opinion - a major driver of cost. Yes, we spend a lot on them. Yes, they should be cheaper, but they are not, on a per member per month basis, what causes your insurance to cost so much.
What drives cost is a small percent of the insured population that is vert sick and experiences a disproportionate number of inpatient admits. Hospitals stays are hugely expensive.
In any insured population (known as a risk pool) it is typically 3% to 5% of the insured members who incur 50% of all costs. In other words, without this small percent of members, the cost of insurance would be cut in half. Your $800 premium would become $400 a month.
So healthcare insurance costs are largely driven by a small number of very sick (usually chronically ill) people who incur expensive services.
I don't have a solution to this, but I think it's important to understand the facts.
avedis
"Why are we so sick? -- Bill Maher
Cholo,
My reply is OT at 1ST glance, but it really is pertinent.
The insurance companies will always come out on top.Here's a way we vets are screwed in Fl. and i suspect other states also.
We have reqd PIP auto insurance. Mandatory. It is for 10K$ medical coverage in case of medical damage in a wreck.Well we vets have Tricare, DVA, and medicare, so why do we have to pay for insurance that is nothing but tits on a bullfrog.?Imagine how much money the insurance companies make just on that little legality.
This is one little example of whose pulling the cart.
jim-ps -i'm writing from the Blackdog.
GD,
I can't see how the Dems screwed anybody except themselves.
How did they hurt any corporate interests?
I want to add a personal note.
I don't know what we did to attract you to our site, but i'm proud to have you as a daily member of our thinking and writings.
You are a real part of the Ranger community.
That is my Ranger community.
jim
Jim,
I've looked this bill over, searching in vain for some semblance of the health care systems touted in Sweden, England, or even Canada.
All I see is a blueprint for those already profiteering to switch from shovels to bulldozers.
And I can't help but think of Patrick Henry when I try to imagine the future for folks who currently get a substantial portion of their health care outside the current private system.
Hope it is a nice sunny day on the deck.
Paul
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