Brown says

[Irving]

I think the biggest problem with health care in this country is insurance. Why the hell is a fundamental service so unaffordable? Answer: Insurance.

Once people became insulated from the real costs of health care, they simply consumed without regard to the cost or need. For the privilege of not having to understand or be involved in the business aspect of your health care, you allow insurance companies to tack on a 30% fee. Hospitals and doctors in turn inflate their prices to protect their bottom lines from the encroachment of said fees. Since you don't see the bill, you don't care. Since you don't care there's no driving force for health care providers and insurance companies compete on pricing. End result is ever spiraling costs.

Could you imagine how expensive food would be if you had to pay food insurance and show an insurance card every time you went grocery shopping? Those with insurance would consume everything without regard to price. Grocery stores would spiral prices ever upward and those without insurance would starve because they couldn't afford the sticker price.

While I can understand the concept of 'catastrophic' health insurance to guard against the financial burden of an expensive illness (cancer, organ transplant, etc), I see no reason why normal day to day health care needs should require insurance. This concept is no different that having insurance on your house in case it burns down. That same insurance isn't required to go to Home Depot when you need to re-paint the exterior.

This is exactly it everyone. Like I've said before, "health care" and "insurance" are two completely different concepts that should not be mixed. This is exactly why Lasik is so cheap. No health insurance so people price shop.

[jake]

I remember reading on Slate a few months ago an article comparing two different markets. One was McAllen, Texas (I remember it because that's where my 360 went to be repaired and it pained me to imagine the woman I spoke to on the phone with the gorgeous accent was probably a chronically obese diabetic) which has the highest healthcare costs in the country and among the crappiest actual health in the country, and the other was somewhere (I forget where exactly because they had nothing to do with fixing my 360 so screw them) where it was all run by the Mayo Clinic and they got better treatment for less.

In Texas all the doctors were partners in the actual hospitals so they had a vested interest in ordering as many tests and treatments as possible.

Here's the article in question, from the New Yorker, via Slate. It's long, but fascinating.

http://tinyurl.com/qwh8yg

[sniper7]

Ok, but isn't the end result of that that we have 10-30 million Americans uninsured right now, and 20-40 thousand people dying every year because they can't afford health insurance? Or are you content with that (meant as an honest question rather than an attack on your character)?

I mean, one end result of people not having insurance is that it pushes our rates up anyway, which was one of the problems this bill was meant to address.

I will have to make a little interjection here. what about the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants here that come in and get free medical help?
That is a large part of the reason people can't afford insurance. when the hospitals have to sit on losses like these and can't deny saving a persons life or delivering a baby, that cost gets handled somewhere else...that being out of my insurance premiums.

I spent $1200 on health care coverage last year. I used all of maybe $250 for 2 dentist visits, and eye doctor visit and a medical required for flying.

Same with car insurance. I spent ~$900 last year, and didn't make a claim...same thing for the last 8 years or so, yet I am supposed to have coverage for un-insured motor vehicle? that doesn't make sense to me....maybe Stuart can clear that up for me.

I find it very unfortunate that people die due to health reasons, but we all go sometime. Even Kennedy who had the best health care of anyone out there couldn't be saved. 20-40 thousand, where did you get this number?
how many more die in auto accidents, or walking down the street, overeating causing diabetes or heart attacks, clogged arteries.

It is unfortunate that everyone can't be covered but there are more than likely a lot more underlying reasons than they just simply can't afford it.

Talk to doctors and they will confirm...one example: my moms boyfriend tells me he is always amazed the people who are welfare, getting disability checks stroll in with an "emergency" and he already knows the hospital will see little to no money for the visit yet this person has the newest cell phone and they can sit there and jab with friends or text till their fingers fall off. Do those people also deserve to live off my tax dollars to cover their insurance as well...seems like I am already doing that, so why raise my taxes further, somebody is going to get rich, those un-insured are still going to get covered by my pay is going to take a hit. I find that to be the most unfair and apparently so do most of the other tax payers out there...even the ones in MA.

[sniper7]

Simple enough, Get goverment out of private sector bussiness.. Lower taxes, get rid of HUD, EPA and a few other letters of the alphabet.. Make welfare leeches WORK for the money, plenty of trash along the hiways,, Keep them to tired to breed. Then maybe, I might be able to spend more time working than throwing the ball for the dog..

100% agree.

.gov in the private sector only means there is 1 more person to pay except the .gov makes sure you pay thanks to the IRS...there is another one we should eliminate.

What ever happened to people in prison making license plates, digging ditches, actually doing some work to repay.

I am sure there is some still going on, and I know there is because I used to have Trustees from the adams county detention facility work for me at the adams county parks, but it sure does seem like prison is more of a cake walk that a punishment for crimes.

[Colorado Luckydog]

Illegal immagrants, welfare abuse, and the government screwing it up is the problem with health care prices. A good start to repair the problem would be, open the state lines for competition, make welfare participants pass a drug test or deny coverage, and start arresting every illegal fuckstick and send them home.
We know the causes of the problem, we just gave the left wing suckers so much rope, they may hang us all. The problems may be to big to repair. It will take a fed up America, the firing of almost all of our politicians, and putting the right people in charge. Basically this country needs an enema!

[jake]

I will have to make a little interjection here. what about the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants here that come in and get free medical help?

It might surprise you, bearing in mind my political leanings (although I'm - for the sake of argument happy to identify myself as - a liberal and I own and shoot guns so that probably blows someone's mind) that I have no problem with the idea that if an illegal immigrant shows up at a hospital they can be patched up/made stable (basic human decency after all) and then returned to their country of citizenship.

20-40 thousand, where did you get this number?

Various studies put the number anywhere between 18-45 thousand a year. Same with the numbers of uninsured, various studies cite different numbers. Critics of those figures suggest that includes illegal immigrants and people who choose to go without insurance rather than can't afford/get which is why I said 10-30million.

[sniper7]

It might surprise you, bearing in mind my political leanings (although I'm - for the sake of argument happy to identify myself as - a liberal and I own and shoot guns so that probably blows someone's mind) that I have no problem with the idea that if an illegal immigrant shows up at a hospital they can be patched up/made stable (basic human decency after all) and then returned to their country of citizenship.


Various studies put the number anywhere between 18-45 thousand a year. Same with the numbers of uninsured, various studies cite different numbers. Critics of those figures suggest that includes illegal immigrants and people who choose to go without insurance rather than can't afford/get which is why I said 10-30million.

well your liberal thinking is off since illegal immigrants don't go home after them come get patched up. The have their kids here and then they end up in the public education system where they not only require special classes (ESL), but they also get free lunch on my tax dollars. Everyone in my family except me is a teacher. I substitute teach. I see it every day I sub and it pisses me off every day I sub because 90% of those little fuckers are the most disrespectful kids I have ever dealt with.

AND that still doesn't avoid the fact that my tax dollars are going freely to someone who broke the FUCKING LAW when they crossed the border illegally then took advantage of the insurance premiums I pay each month working in MY country. What gives them ANY right to come over here and take something from me. That is stealing, not getting "patched up". How could you possibly think that is okay....

You still haven't linked any of your "various studies". I can make up random numbers all day and tell you experts and critics put the number figure around this, but in the end it is like liberal thinking...all bullshit.
Illegal immigrants are criminals from the day they set foot on US soil, so they don't count as un-insured because they shouldn't be here in the first place.
People who CHOOSE not to have health insurance should have that right...not be fined for it like the dems want. If they feel they will be okay and live a safe enough or secluded enough life then fine, that is their choice but their numbers also don't get counted.

[jake]

well your liberal thinking is off since illegal immigrants don't go home after them come get patched up.

No, your conservative reading and comprehension is off because I didn't say that. I said patch them up and send them home. I don't mean cure them and point them in the direction of their home country and say "do you promise to go back there?"

AND that still doesn't avoid the fact that my tax dollars are going freely to someone who broke the FUCKING LAW when they crossed the border illegally then took advantage of the insurance premiums I pay each month working in MY country. What gives them ANY right to come over here and take something from me.

Agreed. I didn't say any different and I'm not sure where you got the idea that I did from anything I wrote.

That is stealing, not getting "patched up". How could you possibly think that is okay....

Again, nowhere did I say anything like that. What the hell do you teach?

You still haven't linked any of your "various studies". I can make up random numbers all day and tell you experts and critics put the number figure around this, but in the end it is like liberal thinking...all bullshit.

Obviously there's no point in linking to any of the studies, is there? One, I'm a liberal so I'm probably lying anyway. Two, even if I wasn't, you wouldn't read them. And three, if you did read them, you would just dismiss them as bullshit. After all, you can prove anything with facts.

Illegal immigrants are criminals from the day they set foot on US soil, so they don't count as un-insured because they shouldn't be here in the first place.

Agreed, didn't say anything different.

People who CHOOSE not to have health insurance should have that right...not be fined for it like the dems want. If they feel they will be okay and live a safe enough or secluded enough life then fine, that is their choice but their numbers also don't get counted.

Meh, whatever. You seem so angry, all the time.

[MuzzleFlash]

Speaking of liberal bogeymen, have you seen the Bamster on TV now? Suddenly he's Teddy Rosevelt taking on the banks and insurance companies like they're choking us to death.

If the insurance companies are doing so well, why is their average return on capital around 5%? Shit, that's barely better than a federally insured CD which is a helluva lot less risky than underwriting medical bills of an aging obese population of couch potatoes (like me).

That evil Goldman Sachs just put down a big compensation package for their employees after a banner quarter. But they took TARP money. So what? Once its paid back with interest, our interest in this company doesn't matter anymore. Don't get me wrong, I wish we'd never bailed out Wall Street, Chrysler or GM because losses and failure teach lasting lessons that bailouts do not. Nothing should be too big to fail. Obama wants to ensure this by overregulating and downsizing banks because he's a socialist. I want to let them fail because I'm a capitalist.

Why is it that people just go off on corporations without researching what the hell they are talking about? Why should I give a shit what a CEO gets paid if the company never took TARP money or if they did, paid it back with interest?

What a CEO gets paid is up to the stock holders of their company. Steve Jobs may be a liberal narcissist asshole that I couldn't even stomach an elevator ride with, but who can deny the billions of market cap he's brought home for Apple shareholders? Is he worth a big fat paycheck? Hell yes.

Instead of taxing outsized executive bonuses 75% as the socialists in the White House want to do, we should be ensuring that shareholders have a bill of rights allowing them to discover and call into question the compensation practices of the company without having to wage a proxy war.

[sniper7]

No, your conservative reading and comprehension is off because I didn't say that. I said patch them up and send them home. I don't mean cure them and point them in the direction of their home country and say "do you promise to go back there?"

Agreed. I didn't say any different and I'm not sure where you got the idea that I did from anything I wrote.

Again, nowhere did I say anything like that. What the hell do you teach?

Obviously there's no point in linking to any of the studies, is there? One, I'm a liberal so I'm probably lying anyway. Two, even if I wasn't, you wouldn't read them. And three, if you did read them, you would just dismiss them as bullshit. After all, you can prove anything with facts.

Agreed, didn't say anything different.

Meh, whatever. You seem so angry, all the time.

patch them up and send them home can have a lot of meaning. when you send kids to school that means they can walk, drive, ride the bus. even then they don't have to go. so why not say exactly what you mean. I don't speak liberal, I don't think liberal. I can't understand bullshit speak.

This still doesn't get by the fact that in your mind you want to still give them free health care. that still comes with a price. there should be NO price, NO help, NO anything for illegals. The only money I want spent on illegals is fingerprints, photos and a bus ride to the border where they WILL work to build a giant wall, not get paid, get fed only what is necessary and once they repay for their trespasses, drop them in the middle of southern mexico.

You said you agree with the idea they could be patched up/made stable then sent home, so if they aren't going to pay anything and live off my tax dollars, they are stealing...which you agreed with...more failed liberal logic. obviously that is not what I teach because we would end up with more morons running around costing me money with failed thinking.

I read links, I look at things to have some kind of basis for believability when there is a reliable source... not word of word of mouth. I can sit here and tell you all day that I am Al Gore but I have had a change of heart. There isn't anything to back that up no is there? Same with your random numbers that are pulled from your ass. Show some links, bring out some of the studies and that gets somewhere. random shit written on the internet has no meaning if you are trying to show facts when you have no proof. more failed liberal logic. where did you go to school?

That is my typical response from liberals. they finally realize they spouted out bullshit from their mouths, they got caught and they give up.
oh, and yes I am angry. I am tired of getting fucked all the time thanks to liberal minded morons who think everyone should be handed everything that I work for. My tax dollars are not out there to make illegals lives better. They are supposed to be used to make my life better and to help those who truly need it that also pay their taxes.
And I am not talking about the welfare babies, the ones who live off welfare and don't try to get a job, yet still have the latest and greatest cell phone, 24" rims on their car they bought since they get assisted living, food stamps, a welfare check, possibly some payment for a disabled child (which they don't use that money for) so now they can afford a new vehicle payment.

That is why i am angry. And liberals like you want to say that is okay.
THAT SHIT OS NOT OKAY, ITS A FUCKING OUTRAGE