On Deck : Government Universal Health Care

[dude1394]

So our father in law has medicare. He also has an AARP and a Medicare supplemental policy. His total monthly policy is now approximately 350/month. So for 350/month he gets "free" healthcare from medicare.


what is shocking to me is the below statement that government-sponsored health insurance is ALREADY 60%, what exactly is the problem here?.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/89785/

TUNKU VARADRAJAN ON HEALTH CARE:

Medicare is not a bad thing, per se, but it is inefficient, costly, and fraud-ridden. If fully costed, no one would prefer a Medicare policy to a private plan. If subsidized, everyone would, and employers will tilt to make sure their employees subscribe to it. If so, this incremental Medicare approach would raise government-sponsored health insurance from about 60 percent (Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, and government employees) to 70 percent or more. So Republicans, libertarians, and others, beware: Much more than the camel’s nose in now under the tent.

This bill stinks. Kill it dead, and bury it at the crossroads with a stake through its heart.

[dude1394]

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/200...are/#more-1267

Obamanomics and Health Care

The point is that the more intertwined industry and government become, the harder it is to discern who’s “taking over” whom — and the less it matters, because the taxpayer is taking it on the chin either way. Or to put it another way: The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which …

[dude1394]

This is such a great health care bill, one that everyone can get behind...at least if you are a democrat and are getting some taxpayer dollars thrown your way you can. I wonder which democrat will get the most in the upcoming vote for the final product?? Maybe a pool could be started.

In the House, freshmen Democrats elected from conservative districts balked at voting for the most liberal bill to move in more than 40 years. They were bought off with promises of plum committee assignments or bullied into line by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with threats of burial in committee catacombs.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from conservative Louisiana, held out, citing the enormous costs. Ironically, she delivered her vote after getting a promise of $300 million for her pork-laden state.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., took up the torch lit by Michigan's Bart Stupak in the House and insisted that the Senate bill ban abortions from public funding. He didn't get his abortion amendment.
But he did win a promise from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to exempt Nebraska from the cost of the mandated Medicaid expansion.
Forty-nine other states will have to eat those costs, along with Nebraska's share. In Michigan, it could total $500 million the state doesn't have.
Send some love to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who has joined a handful of his colleagues from other states to challenge the constitutionality of the curious deal.

[dalmations202]

Clunker Math



Think of it this way:



A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.



A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.



So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline



consumption by 320 gallons per year.



They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year.







That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.



5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.



More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars



So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.



We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.







I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.

[GermanDunk]

Just asking.

15 mpg is 15 miles per gallon ?

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by dalmations202

Clunker Math


We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.
.

But think about how much happier a bunch of politically connected rich folk are now. Isn't it worth all the cash and hand-wringing when you think about the smiles that must have spread across their children's faces as they opened up all their extra Christmas presents a couple weeks ago?
It's for the children!

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by GermanDunk

Just asking.

15 mpg is 15 miles per gallon ?

yes

[alexamenos]

Anybody aware of any stories of high-falutin political advocates of socialized health care in the US going to Canada for medical services?

[mcsluggo]

I think everyone pretty much agrees that the current US system does a good job of providing excellent care to the top sectors.

the weakness in the US system are cost containment (something that was SUPPOSED to be key in this whole healthcare bill, but the wussy dems ran screaching from it after the disingenuous Reps started whining about "death panels") and breadth of coverage (which the current watered down, sickly, dem proposals address a little bit.. albeit weakly)

[aquaadverse]

The reason the current system cratered is from attempting to bolt a managed care kludge on a system that is still a structurally free market environment.

The reason you can see advertising from a half dozen auto insurance companies all begging for the chance to save you money and improve your service is because in that part of the market the government stayed on as a field leveler and didn't field a team. They compete for individual decisions in a national market that is regulated in each state separately and the competition works. Last time I checked they were all evilly driven by filthy profit.

The feds ruined the system. Watching what happened after the HMO act of 1973 and the use of the tax code to make a job=coverage and Medicare virtually killed the individual policy.

If you're younger than 40ish you have never seen a health care system that wasn't in decline and inflation is a dry term in a history book.

Prior to the late '70's there weren't many countries with universal care that didn't find the care here superior in both access and consistency. That's not to say if you were rich you didn't get better care or there weren't areas like Appalachia or some inner cities lacking good care, but you didn't see middle class level families going bankrupt in large numbers because of it.

I have no love for health insurance providers, but all the figures I've been able to dig up show a profit margin of 3-6%.

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/...ank-88-by.html

Not chump change, but driving a stake through their hearts isn't the answer.

The only way I can see making it work is if we either go totally VA with the Government pulling the entire process out of what remains of the free market or to dismantle the system to bring true competition back in a meaningful way. How anyone could watch what's gone on in the last year and still think giving the feds even more things that fall under the "third rail" category is the answer is beyond me.

[mcsluggo]

THere is some truth to what you say there... but I would argue that health care/health insurance has NEVER approximated a normal market (ie meets the requirements in your micro-economics 1a class for a functioning "perfect competiton" market). Health care is, by its nature, perverse. Lots of things have changed over the last 50 years, and adherents to one side of the debate, or the other, often want to throw it all on the doorstep of the OTHER side... but it just simply isn't that easy.

the damning feature of healthcare is that expense for it are so lumpy--- and what makes that lumpiness even worse, is that it is by no means "evenly spread" across the population. Old people need more health expenditure, as do people that know that THEY are chronically ill. AND perhaps most importanly, adequate healtchare is viewed as a semi "basic right".

the health inflation that took place over the last 50 years wasn't just it getting more expensive to provide basic serices (although some of that took place) but much more it was what people EXPECT (and get) from the system. EVERYBODY dies, and in most situations, the last year before you die is when 90% of the spending on healthcare takes place (before anyone challenges me to cite that figure, i just made it up--- !) Most people, even those with significant financial means, are not equipped to suddenly pay such huge lumpy expenses at one sudden point, and so we have "insurance" to pay for it, and smooth the expenses... but health insurance doesn't look much like any other "insurance" we purchase: largely BECAUSE we view health coverage as a "basic right" AND because people's health care needs ARE fairly easy to predict, statistically, but in the end prices paid for insurance bear very little relation to the prices that are actually paid out for the underlying healthcare--- which we as the consumers basically never see, or are completely indifferent to because we never have to pay THAT bill.

Auto insurance companies are able to jack up the prices for young kids, particularly those that have DUIs and have been busted for drag racing. As a society we don''t think it looks appropriate to jack up the prices of insurance for grandma just because we KNOW that the mere fact that she is 85 means it can't be long before she is going to kick it and is going to cost the system a boatload. Or likewise, cuting off Tiny Tim's coverage because, duh--- he is revealed to be sickly and will need lots of care.

Healthcare just, plain and simple is NOT a normal market. THe normal price and competition mechanisms just do not function very well here. IN order for it to start to look more like a real market, there would have to more freedom for prices to actually reflect services--- but the implications from that are not concequences that i think your average joe blow would be willing to stomache if they actually took place: each granny getting a $200,000 death bed bill, or alternatively having her coverage yanked because that type of bill is coming, or kicking the tiny tims out of the system, or whatever other slightly cartoonish over-dramatic characterizations of the very real underlying problem--- prices (of insurance) are too divorced from actual costs (of actual services) to provide any of the miraculous services the market/price mechanism USUALLY plays to ensure efficiency, and we aren't prepared to actually come to grips with what a truly price based system would look like...

[dalmations202]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

THere is some truth to what you say there... but I would argue that health care/health insurance has NEVER approximated a normal market (ie meets the requirements in your micro-economics 1a class for a functioning "perfect competiton" market). Health care is, by its nature, perverse. Lots of things have changed over the last 50 years, and adherents to one side of the debate, or the other, often want to throw it all on the doorstep of the OTHER side... but it just simply isn't that easy.

the damning feature of healthcare is that expense for it are so lumpy--- and what makes that lumpiness even worse, is that it is by no means "evenly spread" across the population. Old people need more health expenditure, as do people that know that THEY are chronically ill. AND perhaps most importanly, adequate healtchare is viewed as a semi "basic right".

the health inflation that took place over the last 50 years wasn't just it getting more expensive to provide basic serices (although some of that took place) but much more it was what people EXPECT (and get) from the system. EVERYBODY dies, and in most situations, the last year before you die is when 90% of the spending on healthcare takes place (before anyone challenges me to cite that figure, i just made it up--- !) Most people, even those with significant financial means, are not equipped to suddenly pay such huge lumpy expenses at one sudden point, and so we have "insurance" to pay for it, and smooth the expenses... but health insurance doesn't look much like any other "insurance" we purchase: largely BECAUSE we view health coverage as a "basic right" AND because people's health care needs ARE fairly easy to predict, statistically, but in the end prices paid for insurance bear very little relation to the prices that are actually paid out for the underlying healthcare--- which we as the consumers basically never see, or are completely indifferent to because we never have to pay THAT bill.

Auto insurance companies are able to jack up the prices for young kids, particularly those that have DUIs and have been busted for drag racing. As a society we don''t think it looks appropriate to jack up the prices of insurance for grandma just because we KNOW that the mere fact that she is 85 means it can't be long before she is going to kick it and is going to cost the system a boatload. Or likewise, cuting off Tiny Tim's coverage because, duh--- he is revealed to be sickly and will need lots of care.

Healthcare just, plain and simple is NOT a normal market. THe normal price and competition mechanisms just do not function very well here. IN order for it to start to look more like a real market, there would have to more freedom for prices to actually reflect services--- but the implications from that are not concequences that i think your average joe blow would be willing to stomache if they actually took place: each granny getting a $200,000 death bed bill, or alternatively having her coverage yanked because that type of bill is coming, or kicking the tiny tims out of the system, or whatever other slightly cartoonish over-dramatic characterizations of the very real underlying problem--- prices (of insurance) are too divorced from actual costs (of actual services) to provide any of the miraculous services the market/price mechanism USUALLY plays to ensure efficiency, and we aren't prepared to actually come to grips with what a truly price based system would look like...

It isn't the same because people have to have healthcare -- else they die.
It is the same though because the more $$$$ you have - the better you get.

In education -- who score historically better private schools or public ones?
In sports -- who historically are better paid coaches or rec league coaches?
It goes on and on -- money buys better everything.

Free market says that if what I sell is in demand -- I make more. Since we know that dying and injury will happen -- then if I become a Dr. I will be in demand. If I am liable for everything, and it will take me years for education and training, then I expect to be paid handsomely. Of course in this country everyone is looking for the quick payday without putting in the effort -- look at the lottery, using natural ability/looks to get into the entertainment field, and all the lawsuits.

This country has a master and it is called the Dollar.

From the perspective of medical costs, most people don't realize that they have caused the medical costs to rise because of lawsuits, and expectations.

If you stay at a hospital, you more or less expect it to be like a fancy hotel. Good food brought. Someone to check on you. Proper medication and timeliness. The nice things that you have already. Hospitals have to hire and train many people for the around the clock stuff. They pay outrageous expenses to people who sell to medical because these people try to make their money off places that have the money. No doctor wants the liability outside of their exact specialty because someone else will sue and try to win the lawsuit lottery. That means more highly paid and trained personnel, to which comes more expense. Then come the support personnel just to support what all is being done by the clinical staff. Do you think the Administration of hospitals, etc don't want paid like most CEO's and administration? How about the record keepers, maintenance, IT, billing departments, and janitors?

Then you have to deal with the fact that just because you billed for this amount -- you may not actually get it. The government and insurance companies decide what they will pay - regardless of what is billed by the medical institution. Many people are indigent and cannot pay. This means that all medical automatically charge higher than they should, in order to make up for the ones that are not paying.

You are so correct that something needs to be done. Make it public/socialized though, and you will be like public schools -- just not producing what the others do. Make it totally private, and the monetary challenged will be dying at a much high rate.

If you want to keep costs lower on medical though, then you need to limit the lawsuit lottery, and fix the expectations. Outside of this, radical changes will only hurt one way or another way. The US has the best healthcare in the world -- and there is a reason for that.

[mcsluggo]

the public school versus private school one is both a bit misleading AND very illustrative to this discussion.

First, comparing public school achievement to private school achievement is incredibly difficult, because of self selection process. By definition private schools have students (parents) that are willing to put more into something that they clearly find important. Public schools have the mission to educate EVERYBODY, whether they give a shit or not. Academic studies that try to control for this self selection bias have had a very hard time showing a statistically significant difference in achievement.

On a similar line, I bet the public schools in my district are better than more than 95% of the private schools in the dallas/fw area. The magnet school flip-flops with soem school in marin county, CA as the top public school in the country, and the standard (non-magnet) "line" (ie elementary/middle/high school line) for my neighborhood is in the top 25 of all lines in the country... you have the self-selection bias going on with people's feet-- good school districts attract families that are willing to pay a significant real estate premium to live in those districts, and we end up with a hyper-involved pta.
(and our real estate taxes are a real bitch!)

would you be in favor of a similar system for healthcare? the government commits to pay for some basic level of healthcare for all that want it (poor/old/young/rich whatever) and then you can also have your premium services that you pay yourself, or through some job's plans or what not....? It is what we have in education. you pay for public schools whether you use them or not, for the right to having a population that has at least some basic level of eduation (ad keeps kids occupied at least some of the time, rather than stealing your car stereo)

[bernardos70]

The USA Has The Best Healthcare In The World

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by bernardos70

The USA Has The Best Healthcare In The World

3 points that jump out:

1) how much more the US spends compared to all other countries (we have the highest GDP per capita in that list as well, so it is scewed even WORSE)

2) this little piece completly shoots its credibility in the foot by throwing in the statistic:
"Percent of population covered by public health care:"
it should be percent of population with HEALTH CARE COVERAGE, who cares if it is public or not for those comparative purposes? I imagine the US would rate pretty damn bad in TAHT comparison as well... why throw in a bogus stat to falsely fluf up things that need no fluffing?

3) Is that study saying that Sweden is the ONE country with more obese people than the US? Really? wtf?? the swedes must have the world's best PR firm... (responsible for 4 decades worth of Swedish erotica educational dramas...)
or... alternatively... one half of swedish woman are considered abnormally slender, once you discount the boobs.

[aquaadverse]

Taking away the ability for people to vote with their premium dollars to punish bad service and reward good service has been an utter failure. All the posturing and yelling about people who have lost their coverage because they lost their jobs fails to point out it was Congress that artificially brought it about. And this attempt to force everyone into the pool by making it mandatory only reinforces what a bad thing it was.

You want to believe that Geico writing policies in San Francisco and Corn Husk BFE isn't the same, fine. But it doesn't change the inconvenient fact that we had a long history of decent care with routine care that was affordable for most people and didn't force them to use the ER for simple care. It did work and the spiraling out of control of expense didn't exist until they decided to muck with it.

Did people who couldn't afford expensive care suffer relatively speaking, from the affluent in certain cases? Yes, but nothing like we see now. My Dad was a Controller at a medium size hospital that had been around for 80 years. He took the job in the early 70's and watched it close despite always running at near capacity in the late eighties.

Health insurance is the same as other insurance. From my Dads point of view they cratered simply because the old model of limited capacity based on likely need got blown up by the artificial limits and increased administration of the managed care model.

It was like forcing the corner Jiffy Lube to suddenly have tire mounting and rebuilding transmissions because unlike individual policies that would pay a certain amount if you went to any licensed provider, out of network meant they wanted to penalize the patient because none of the healthy premiums went into their coffers.

The managed care theory that was supposed take the expenses of new tech and treatment fails because it made every group duplicate capacity and liability exposure resulted in needing to have little used equipment on hand or pay the much higher premiums. There are parts of the country with no obstetricians, not because of too few babies to catch for the MD to make a living but because there is no way under the current structure of liability and the artificial carving out of groups makes it a loser.

We shouldn't be discussing people dying because they don't have coverage. We shouldn't be looking at a shortage of MDs, let alone GPs, right before the biggest lump of geezers is poised to slide down feeble-hood. This is the worst way to fix the problem.

All of a sudden Pops hospital needed to have an assload of equipment and hire additional administrative help because it was no longer about x number of people they needed to serve. Even though there was enough need for the hospital my Dad was head bean counter for and the similar scope facility 40 miles the other way under the fee for service individual perspective, simply because the area's largest employer's parent company had an agreement with the corporation that owned the other hospital. While it wasn't the only reason, it did contribute to to his facility closing and a bunch of people had to go a long distance and wait longer for treatment.

There is little in these proposals that make the cost of medical schools less, it maintains the need for huge duplications and inefficiencies and shoves more vital services into the area of "Third rail". Social Security reform has been shoved off into a corner despite the acknowledged need by everyone. Even worse, during the same period, FICA was dumped into the general fund and spent.

Exactly how does that run through any lumpy, wrinkled, micro, macro or telescopic model of economics fit and, with expanding coverage by 30 million with no more caregivers and no plan to do anything about it?

[aquaadverse]

In education -- who score historically better private schools or public ones?

I received a very good education in a class of 50+ primarily because the nuns installed discipline and the parents were aware and agreed with it. We spend more per student than many countries that are kicking our ass in math and science proficiency.

It isn't the same because people have to have healthcare -- else they die. It is the same though because the more $$$$ you have - the better you get.

Nonsense. The BS additional overhead in administration adds nothing to care levels because most care people get in their life is not administered by a Doctor. They don't take your blood pressure, shoot the xrays, do the blood work etc...Now we have a system so fractured and messed up because after laws were passed that forced a series of procedures to be offered at the same price with no allowance for risk factors adjustments were made elsewhere.

Most dental plans still work like medical insurance used to. People without it will still go in for the cleanings and if you have a toothache likewise. You might have straighter or more cosmetically pleasing chompers but routine care is still out of pocket affordable. Dentists are still competing for my business. I have Dental insurance but the choices I have compared to my PPO are huge compared to my PPO. I probably see 5 pieces of junk mail per week because the business from uninsured is still substantial and I can haul ass with my insured business easily.

[chumdawg]

Outside of tort reform, which surely we are in dire need of, these two ideas I've heard make a lot of sense to me:

1) More readily license people to practice medicine. My guess is that a good nursing school education is more than enough to handle a quite significant amount of what passes for health care these days.

2) Instead of giving people insurance that they can use (and if they wish, abuse) all they want, just give them some money instead. Let them use it for health care or put it in their pocket, their choice. My guess is that demand for services would go way down.

[dalmations202]

Originally Posted by aquaadverse

I received a very good education in a class of 50+ primarily because the nuns installed discipline and the parents were aware and agreed with it. We spend more per student than many countries that are kicking our ass in math and science proficiency.

I agree with discipline, but that is an education issue, and not one of medical. And even if all of this is true -- you are the exception, and not the norm. In normal situations, around most of the country -- more money equals higher scores. The schools in Plano score higher on average than the schools in Dallas, etc. The expectations are higher, the money is there, and the scores are there. Much like in the medical field. Presently in Texas it is exactly the same way. You can get basic life saving medical at any hospital. You can not pay the bill, and they cannot touch your credit or anything else. Basic lifesaving is required by all hospitals in the state of Texas. I know because I worked for a county hospital which turned into a private hospital, and I had to go through all the differing state rules. If they see our ER, we have to stabilize. If they come in with the flu, and are not deathly ill yet, then they better have insurance, medicaid, medicare, or proof of the ability to pay. If not, then they wait till the county clinic opens the next day.

They can get life saving care. They just don't get the nicer, right now care, unless they have the ability to pay.

Nonsense. The BS additional overhead in administration adds nothing to care levels because most care people get in their life is not administered by a Doctor. They don't take your blood pressure, shoot the xrays, do the blood work etc...Now we have a system so fractured and messed up because after laws were passed that forced a series of procedures to be offered at the same price with no allowance for risk factors adjustments were made elsewhere.

Most dental plans still work like medical insurance used to. People without it will still go in for the cleanings and if you have a toothache likewise. You might have straighter or more cosmetically pleasing chompers but routine care is still out of pocket affordable. Dentists are still competing for my business. I have Dental insurance but the choices I have compared to my PPO are huge compared to my PPO. I probably see 5 pieces of junk mail per week because the business from uninsured is still substantial and I can haul ass with my insured business easily.

I know at the hospital where I work, we spend lots of money on marketing. We are outside the Metroplex, but close enough that many of our clients go to the bigger hospitals there. We have to keep our numbers up above the ones in the Metroplex in order to get all the "extras" headed our way, instead of going somewhere else. While doing this we have to limit indigent care because we just do not have the beds.

One thing I will tell you though. Insurance has screwed up the system bad. My mother went to the dentist without insurance. She had her work done for $1200. I needed the same thing done, I go to the same dentist - only I have dental insurance. My insurance would pay $2800 for this procedure. So he bills me $2800 - only my insurance only pays 50%. So for $200 more dollars than she paid, for exactly the same procedure -- I pay for dental insurance as well.

Those who pay for insurance -- pay extra to make up for those who don't have it.

I work in the medical field, and see this all the time.

The system may be broke, but it is still based on $$$$ and who has the ability to pay.

[GermanDunk]

Uhm Bernado !

Death rate of 15-to-24 year olds (per community of 200,000 per year):

#2 Switzerland 175

What is the reason here ? Skiing ?

[aquaadverse]

Originally Posted by dalmations202

I agree with discipline, but that is an education issue, and not one of medical. And even if all of this is true -- you are the exception, and not the norm.

Not really. It wasn't all that unusual back in the 1960s. Now you have a lot of skinner box socialization activity where the traditional roles of how to push constructively against the social goo traps got shoved to schools without any way to discipline the kids and we are now a couple of generations deep into it.

My job has required me to spend a lot of time in schools since 1980 including the Windham School District which is TDC, a few years in the Caribbean and more recently here in South Florida. While money has a definite influence, it isn't as important as the roll of parents. Crack has decimated the inner city and created a new class of addicts. A huge increase in female addiction that you just didn't see before. It was also pretty rare for parents to bring lawsuits. We lost a lot of good teachers because of all the BS. The Countries kicking our ass in education are the ones that focus on clear goals and expectations and the culture backs them up. Even if the parents are morons they aren't going to sue the school because the kid gets booted for a discipline issue. I'm not as convinced the money is as important as having successful adults involved in the process.

One thing I will tell you though. Insurance has screwed up the system bad. My mother went to the dentist without insurance. She had her work done for $1200. I needed the same thing done, I go to the same dentist - only I have dental insurance. My insurance would pay $2800 for this procedure. So he bills me $2800 - only my insurance only pays 50%. So for $200 more dollars than she paid, for exactly the same procedure -- I pay for dental insurance as well.

That really doesn't change the fact the opportunity for fraud happens when the claim is filed. I never said the process prior to the establishment of HMOs was perfect. But the theory behind establishing managed groups was to force pooling of resources and have basic care extended to a bigger group from mandating set costs of certain procedures. When Nixon did it we were in a period of strengthening inflation, and like the other steps being done during that attempt of wage and price control basically failed. Shifting the cost to employers while letting the other side of the equation proceed unabated has only made the situation a crises.

I'm far from convinced this tactic of making the insurance companies the whipping boy isn't going to make things worse. Unless the invoices being presented to them for payment are a lot less important than common sense would seem to indicate or there is a much greater system to lower same than I've seen so far, moving the burden that is bankrupting families and individuals to government will have the same result.

[Mavericks Rockets Fan]

Originally Posted by dalmations202

Clunker Math



Think of it this way:



A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.



A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.



So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline



consumption by 320 gallons per year.



They claim 700,000 vehicles so that's 224 million gallons saved per year.







That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.



5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.



More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars



So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.



We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.







I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.

But it is 350 million dollars saved every year. In other words, it would pay for itself in 9 years. Just thought I would point that out...

[mcsluggo]

everyone will see exactly what they WANT to see in this article, but here it is :

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...0032321836.htm

$680,000 spent to die

[dude1394]

This is a good thing...
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-88458137.html

New tax mandates and penalties included in Obamacare will cause the greatest expansion of the Internal Revenue Service since World War II, according to a release from Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend. ...
Scores of new federal mandates and fifteen different tax increases totaling $400 billion are imposed under the Democratic House bill. In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of ‘government approved’ health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes.

[dude1394]

Sounds spot on.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...th-care/37760/

I don't want to be overconfident in my predictions, as obviously I'm rather invested in the health care issue. I don't know what's going to happen in November, and to the extent that I do know, it's because I think the broad macro forces simply aren't going to improve much in the next six months. Maybe Obama will even get a bump out of the polls--and maybe Republicans will unleash their publicity push, and the tea party will go nuts, and he'll fall (a possibility progressives seem curiously unwilling to entertain, even to dismiss it). I think the latter is more likely than the former, but I just don't know; we're in uncharted territory.

But this I am confident of: they're not going to "pass this bill and then fix it," and the people saying that this should be the priority of people who are against the bill--including people like Rep. Lynch--seems borderline delusional. You think the Democrats are going to take up health care again this term? Given that they look more likely than not to lose the House, you think Democrats are going to take it up again before these laws go into effect?


Those like my colleague Andrew, who want Republicans to turn to the task of improving this monstrous bill--how is that going to happen? The "fixes" are all the unpopular stuff: the taxes, the spending cuts. You think that now that Democrats got to hand out the goodies, Republicans are going to be the nasty folks who volunteer to hand around the bill for a law they didn't even want to pass?


Every time I hear comments on this sort of thing, I want to say, "And what other things have you been wondering during your visit to our planet?" I am not perfectly confident about much in regards to this bill. Maybe I'm wrong and politicians won't step in to stop the unpopular stuff already in the bill from happening. Maybe they'll actually bend the curve. Maybe this won't impact innovation (I don't see how that could possibly be, but whatevs, maybe my imagination is limited).


But there is one thing of which I am nearly perfectly certain: If we pass this thing, no American politician, left or right, is going to cut any of these programs, or raise the broad-based taxes necessary to pay for them, without any compensating goodies to offer the public . . . until the crisis is almost upon us. I can think of no situation, other than impending crisis, in which such a thing has been done--and usually, as with Social Security, they have done just little enough to kick the problem down the road. The idea that you pass a program of dubious sustainability because you can always make it sustainable later, seems borderline insane. I can't think of a single major entitlement that has become more sustainable over time. Why is this one supposed to be different?

[dude1394]

That damn pesky reality creeping in.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-a-diet/37764/

Arizona Kills SCHIP, Puts Medicaid on a Diet

Mar 19 2010, 2:51 PM ET
On the eve of the possible passage of a health care bill, Arizona has provided a glimpse of our possible future by shutting down its SCHIP program and booting a bunch of people out of Medicaid:

The Arizona budget is a vivid reflection of how the fiscal crisis afflicting state governments is cutting deeply into health care. The state also will roll back Medicaid coverage for childless adults in a move that is expected to eventually drop 310,000 people from the rolls.

The reason this is so troubling, of course, is that the new proposed health care plan gets about half of its coverage expansion through adding people to Medicaid. The state side of this expense doesn't show up on the books as a government expenditure (neatly enabling the bill to get a lower CBO score), but someone in America has to be taxed to pay for it, and there is a big problem when tax revenues fall short of the required expenditure.


There are two frightening possibilities, for people who support this bill (and the rest of us, as well . . . but we've been frightened for a while)


1) States pull out, and coverage drops
2) States don't pull out, and they go bankrupt.


The third, and to me the most likely scenario, is that the Federal government basically bails out the states, perhaps taking over Medicaid. But that's its own problem, because taking over the Medicaid obligations is not going to come attached to any revenue stream to pay for it. Where are we going to get the money?


Of course, that's what I want to know about the whole thing. But this makes the problem much more vivid.

[AngieO41]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

everyone will see exactly what they WANT to see in this article, but here it is :

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...0032321836.htm

$680,000 spent to die

My boyfriend sent me this article and I thought he had sent it to me because I've been researching a bunch of things for a presentation I am doing on assisted suicide for one of my classes. Anyway, reading it again, I interpreted some things a little differently than I had before.

First, I have to say that I'm one of the few democrats that doesn't want this healthcare bill to pass and this article pretty much gives a reason why I don't want it to pass. These people had a bill of $600K plus to keep this guy alive for TWO years. Two. Obviously a lot of people have had to absorb that cost for this one guy to stay alive for those two years. What happens when this healthcare thing passes? Are we gonna have to do that with everyone who is terminally ill? My thinking on this may be wrong because I'm not fully understanding what is all in this healthcare bill.

Second, I may get a lot of crap for this, but I find it extremely selfish of the family to keep doing all of this stuff to keep him alive as long as they could KNOWING that he was going to die anyway. It's a completely different story if there was an actual chance this guy would survive. I guess I'm just not sure that $600K was really worth him having to go through all of these treatments and new drugs and having the hospitals absorb a lot of these costs just because the family couldn't let go. That is selfish.

Also, I'd like to add, for $600,000 all of these people managed to keep this guy alive for two years. What did he do for most of those two years? Stay in hospitals, go for tests, be a guinea pig for new drugs, go for some more tests.... doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. How is that living?


I know we all have to pay for a lot of people now who don't have insurance, but I really feel that this healthcare bill is going to open a lot of flood gates and it's not going to be pretty. I really don't see how this can help a nation of some 300 million people. This isn't England or Canada who have like 60 million, if that. We have 300 MILLION people. We have a huge obesity problem. I certainly don't want to have to help pay for the fatass who can't stop eating McDonalds. As mean as it sounds, I certainly don't want to have to help pay for terminally ill people to live an extra two years either.


Just so I don't sound like I'm an evil person, my dad died when I was 11. He had a heart attack at work, and since he worked in a warehouse it took about 5 minutes for someone to reach him in order to do CPR. By this time he was already brain dead. When I saw him in the hospital that night, he couldn't talk, move anything- basically he was already gone. Thankfully he passed on his own the next morning. I think about what if he had survived and ended up being in a vegatative state for the rest of his life. We certainly couldn't have afforded all of the medical costs that comes with that. I wouldn't expect the rest of the nation to help pay for someone they don't even know.



I guess I just have a bad feeling about this. I think that there needs to some kind of overhaul on healthcare, just not this.

[dude1394]

Uh-oh...You've passed over to the dark, evil, racist, mass murderer side. Don't let your friends know.

[AngieO41]

http://www.wesh.com/health/22908933/detail.html


hmmm.. this sounds interesting.

You know, I was really bummed at a few things. The representative for my district, who is a democrat that I voted for, was going to vote no on this, and then a few days ago decided to change her vote. Which is odd to me because she's big on the NASA program and Obama isn't really giving too much care about that. Also, this thing wouldn't have passed if it wasn't for that stupid Executive order about not using federal funding for abortions.

Ughhh this is a bummer.

[Flacolaco]

I think we should mandate that all U.S. citizens purchase a bag of potatoes every month. You know, just in case they should decide at a later date that they want them.

It would be just as constitutional as the health care bill. Which is to say, not.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by AngieO41

The representative for my district, who is a democrat that I voted for, was going to vote no on this, and then a few days ago decided to change her vote. Which is odd to me because she's big on the NASA program ....

The only thing you can trust politicians to do is to be political.

[dalmations202]

Bend over and crack a smile America -- you got what you voted for............

[u2sarajevo]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

I think we should mandate that all U.S. citizens purchase a bag of potatoes every month. You know, just in case they should decide at a later date that they want them.

And get fined if you don't. So should you decide that you don't want to eat you either spend money for something useless or get fined for not spending money on something useless.

Makes sense!

[chumdawg]

I don't think we should have to buy car insurance, either.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

And get fined if you don't. So should you decide that you don't want to eat you either spend money for something useless or get fined for not spending money on something useless.

Left, meet right...

Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Buck Ofama.

[u2sarajevo]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

I don't think we should have to buy car insurance, either.

Me getting sick and dying is not equal to me running into your car and you having to pay for the damage yourself.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by u2sarajevo

Me getting sick and dying is not equal to me running into your car and you having to pay for the damage yourself.

If you don't have insurance and you go to Parkland for treatment, it's closer to the same thing than you think.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

I don't think we should have to buy car insurance, either.

People that don't own cars aren't required. A completely illogical counterpoint.

[u2sarajevo]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

If you don't have insurance and you go to Parkland for treatment, it's closer to the same thing than you think.

I agree! So let's stop the free flowing health handouts at Parkland that I end up paying for, and the other medical establishments across the country as well! We DO agree!

Awesome.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

If you don't have insurance and you go to Parkland for treatment, it's closer to the same thing than you think.

Something being a good idea doesn't mean it's ok to make it a government requirement.