Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil
In German folklore, Johann Faust was a physician who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge. Of course, the pact destroyed him. The American health insurance industry is on the verge of striking its own Faustian bargain with the U.S. government. But this bargain won’t just destroy the insurance industry; it will also drag 300 million Americans into the pit of government-run “single payer” socialized medicine.
Sensing the changing political winds favoring “universal health care,” the largest trade group for health insurers (American Health Insurance Plans) recently agreed to accept regulations requiring them to sell individual policies to all patients regardless of preexisting illnesses. In the past, they had opposed such requirements as too costly. However, they’ve now agreed to accept such regulations in exchange for a law requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance.
At first glance, this might look like a good deal for the insurance companies. They would receive a seemingly guaranteed market for their products (as if Congress had bailed out General Motors by requiring all Americans to purchase a new GM car every few years.) But this guaranteed market would come at a steep price. A “Federal Health Board” would impose onerous political controls on insurers, specifying which patients they must accept and which benefits they must offer. Insurers would be required to sell policies at prices the government deemed “affordable.” Private insurers would also have to compete with taxpayer-subsidized government insurance plans. As health costs continued to rise, such an arrangement would become unsustainable. No business can survive long when the government forces it to sell $2,000 worth of services, but only allows it to charge $1,000.
When South Dakota and Kentucky passed similar laws, many insurers left these states rather than operate at a loss. Similar laws at the national level would likely drive many insurers out of business altogether.
The inevitable collapse of the private insurance market would then leave millions of Americans without insurance coverage. Although this collapse would be caused by government regulations, pundits would undoubtedly portray this as a “failure of the free market.” Politicians would demand that the government “rescue” health care from “greedy capitalists.” The end result would be a “single payer” socialized medical system like Canada or Great Britain’s.
However, a “single payer” system would lead to misery and death for many Americans. Such systems control health costs through rationing. Canadian breast cancer patients often wait months until the government approves their surgery and chemotherapy. Canadian cardiac patients often die while waiting for surgery, unless they can use political clout to “jump the queue” ahead of others (or travel to the U.S. for care.) Great Britain’s National Health Service has paid bonuses to primary care physicians who have reduced their referrals to hospital specialists, forcing doctors to choose between their patients or their government paychecks. Do Americans really want a system in which their doctors can’t or won’t work for their best interests?
Health insurance companies should neither seek nor accept a Faustian bargain that will ultimately destroy them. Instead, they should support free-market reforms that correct the problems caused by existing government controls. One example would be repealing “community rating” laws that force insurers to charge the same prices for all patients in a community regardless of their individual medical histories. Another would be repealing “mandated benefit” laws that force insurers to offer (and patients to purchase) unwanted benefits such as in vitro fertilization coverage. A third would be repealing laws that forbid patients from purchasing health insurance across state lines. Such reforms could reduce insurance costs over 50%, making health insurance available to millions who cannot currently afford it.
Whether health insurance companies realize it or not, they are on the verge of selling themselves to the Devil — and taking the rest of us down with them. Whether we let them is up to us.
TO: Paul Hsieh, et al.
RE: It’s All Part….
….of the ‘Plan’.
Just a step through to the government doing the ‘insurance’.
How so?
The private companies will die and the government will have to step in to ‘take care’ of everyone.
A de facto coupe.
RE: Want To See the Future?
Read Joe Halderman’s The Forever War to get a good idea of how the ‘rationing’ will work. It will end up that ‘medicine’ is not for the ‘little people’. And that’s just PART of the problem. The book, written in the ’70s, does a good job of describing what happens to the ‘latter-day kulaks’, as well.
RE: What to Do?
I recommend you start boning up on things like homeopathy and natural herbal medicine. That along with learning how to do good first aid and possibly even minor surgery for yourself.
Regarding the treatment of cancer, I recommend looking into graviola and pawpaw.
Good Luck, America….
….you’re going to need it.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. What’s REALLY behind this? In MY honestly held opinion, it’s the AMA. They’re looking at soaking the taxpayers through the government to improve their financial picture.
They are, in my opinion, the latter-day Pharisees that Christ rebuked in the famous ‘Seven Woes’. (See Matthew 23:13-33)
Paul, you really need to wise up about Canadian health care system. Taxes collected by government assure base level universal health care (which you Americans consider crappy, but in reality it is quite decent, but by no means superb). For everything else there is MasterCard. Or more concrete, numerous quite affordable supplementary insurances (in many cases paid by employer), which guarantee superb services in private clinics (in some provinces, notably oil-rich Alberta), or just south of the border. We pay you hard cash for such services.
Keep up the good work, and please, do not socialize your health care. Please.
Once the government takes over health care, private industry will never get it back. As is done in Canada and GB, the well off will still have their private doctors. The rest of us will be at the mercy of government paper pushers for our life sustaining treatment. That thought causes a shudder!
Someone please show me a well run motor vehicle office, Post office, Medicare office… etc etc.
Can you imagine a hospital with the same feel?
I think I would rather find the local Witch Doctor and hope the chicken blood and leeches will do the trick.
Al in #2 needs to take a better look at Canadian health care.
Canada’s health care works well if you’re not sick. Like Australia and the UK, once you need real medical services (Eg: CAT scans/MRI, surgery, cancer treatments, etc) you can languish for months before seeing a doctor to be able to move to the next step. Many people die waiting for a doctor’s visit.
The other thing Al whitewashes is that using a MasterCard to buy healthcare in Canada is illegal. There is no private insurance or private medical care in Canada; you will be taken care of by the government at all times and Canadian residents will like it. If it wasn’t for the US on their southern border those who have the cash to buy private medical services would have no place to go without a plane trip across a large body of water.
We’ll ignore the issues of ambulance queuing, the inability to get rid of incompetent government doctors, and the poor financial state of the Canadian healthcare system for now. Maybe in the future Al and people who favor government owned healtcare will be more honest with the problems and issues. I’m not hopeful.
The best thing that the federal governments of the United States and Switzerland could do to help their medical providers make money off of rich scum from foreign countries with socialized health care is to make it national policy to allow outrageous prices. You’re a rich Canadian who wants access to free-market American health care? Fine, but the US Government will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to your cries of anguish while it allows our provides to drain every last penny they can from your bank accounts.
But Faust was able to bring his wife back from the dead for an unrequited night of love.
Please don’t sully the best romance ever made with Obamas drivel.
They understand very well the situation. What they don’t know is where the money will lay for them.
In an “Exclusive System”, like Canada where you cannot go outside of the government plan, they will try to “manage” the process much like the Medicaid HMOs now that pocket premiums without providing service or the Medicare Advantage programs that actually cost us more.
For an “Open System” where a patient can go outside the government system they will continue to sell insurance for those that don’t want to wait or be serviced in quality ghettos when they get there. In this scenario, there has to be a huge gap in quality and access to make the private medical practice attractive and profitable.
On balance I favor “community rating” since it reins in the ability of Insurers to “cherry pick” only the healthiest. I do suggest more “consumer directed” plans, allowing the insureds to pay only for the coverage that best fits their needs. I thought McCain’s idea to allow purchase of plans across state lines was a good one as well. Finally, removing the tax deductibility of insurance benefits will force the consumer rather than the employer to make those decisions and I think that needs to be explored as well.
The large Health Insurers have become Monopsonies – Reverse Monopolies – and their clout has become enormous. It’s time the DOJ looks long and hard at this as well.
The health insurance industry sold its soul to the devil a long time ago. Any industry that extracts outrageous profits from the suffering of others has clearly made a faustian bargain.
There really is nothing to fear from universal coverage. The most likely scenario is that all Americans will be guaranteed a basic level of health coverage, and will have the option to purchase any supplemental coverage on the free market.
Reducing the costs of health care while ensuring coverage for all is a very good idea for our economy and the health of our people. No other advanced economy allows so many to go without health care coverage, or wastes as much money as the US does on health care.
Even employers are beginning to see that the current system is broken, and calling for universal and portable coverage. Nobody benefits from our current system except for the insurance companies that inflate the cost of health care. The poor, the jobless, and the youth of our nation have been victimized for far too long.
Peace.
DS
If we get universal health care, where will our friends the Canadians go for treatment? Please don’t let this happen to those deserving people…
TO: David S
RE: Inappropriate Targeting
“The health insurance industry sold its soul to the devil a long time ago. Any industry that extracts outrageous profits from the suffering of others has clearly made a faustian bargain.” — David S
When was the last time YOU went into a hospital for an overnight stay?
Maybe YOU can explain why a quart of pure water with a pinch of salts in it costs over $200 there.
That’s NOT the ‘insurance companies’ doing that. That’s the so-called ‘non-profit’ hospitals.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I won’t hold my breath while waiting for your answer. Blue is not my color…..
@11. Chuck Pelto:
Being generally in good health, I have not had the pleasure.
If the hospitals did not have to deal with the overhead of insurance companies, or providing treatment to the indigent, their costs would be lower.
The more fundamental problem is that our current system has a negative impact on the health of our citizens, and costs more than superior care in other countries. Why should Americans not explore ways to improve our health care? Under universal coverage, the cost of your saline drip will no doubt be much more reasonable.
Peace.
DS
David S: Here is a little advice. While trying to make a point to a non-Marxist audience, do not use the phrase “outrageous profits.” Please define, by return on equity, what level of profit you consider to be “outrageous.”
Having worked for a health insurer at one point in life, I have seen first-hand what drives insurance costs. After actually paying medical expenses, compliance with state regulations is #2.
That $200 bag of IV fluid is based upon the cost accounting of acquiring, storing and administering the bag of fluid to the patient. The labor of hospital supply, pharmacy, nursing and capital expenses of hospital overhead are all included in that $200. Same thing with the $6 aspirin–the hospital adds to their wholesale cost, the cost of labor and overhead for every item. It’s how every business operates. I’m not defending the high cost of healthcare but, too many people don’t understand cost accounting and assume most of the price on their hospital bill is pure profit and it is not.
Chuck Pelto (11):
1) Liability insurance – for the hospital, manufacturers, distributers, physicians, nurses, managers, etc, etc, etc. Tort reform is an absolute necessity if we’re ever going to bring medical costs under control.
2) The uninsured. Hospitals are mandated by government to give health care to anybody that shows up, but are not recompensed for for the expenses incurred. $30 aspirin and $200 saline-solution IV’s for everybody else are how they cover this.
3) The labor to put the IV in. Ever tried to put an IV in yourself?
TO: David S
RE: Obviously….
….you have absolutely NO CONCEPT of business.
Insurance companies do not set the pricing of consumables or services at hospitals. That is up to the Board of Directors at the ‘non-profit’ hospital.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Ignorance here is less than 'bliss'.]
DS
If the insurance company overhead is hurting medical prices, then the overhead of complying with government-controlled health care will kill medical prices. Taking Medicare as an example, the coding complexities involved in filing Medicare claims are so complex that expert systems must be used in order to avoid the inconsistencies inherent in that system. Even worse, most doctors expect to never see nearly 20% of their Medicare claims paid off because they cannot navigate the coding/approval system.
As usual, you comment on things about which you know nothing.
And here in Washington State we had an insurance commissioner who managed to force insurance companies to cover without regard to pre-existing conditions. The result was that individuals would only get coverage when they were ill and drop that coverage when they got better.
The result? Individual health insurance became impossible to purchase in Washington, since the state would not allow purchasing out of state insurance. Since then, pre-existing conditions were allowed to deny coverage to people without insurance and individual insurance has returned to WA state.
Of course, the price of our health insurance is high because our legislature has decided for us what health insurance will cover. So my health insurance–which covers my 21 year old son and myself–must cover pregnancy, mental health, and alternative health care. None of which we need or ever intend on using (I am hoping that at 58 I don’t get pregnant…).
TO: Paul in Alexandria
RE: Oh Boy!!!!
Another character heard from.
Okay….by the numbers.
RE: Liability Insurance
Yeah. Right. Show me the statistics about cost of a liter of physiological saline vis-a-vis ‘liability’ issues.
Go on. I defy you.
RE: The Uninsured
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with insurance companies.
RE: Labor Charges
MY WIFE had to show the nurse in the ER how to apply the nodes for the EKG. I think she could do the IV for me as well. And likely better than what I could expect of the ER staff.
Stupid people like David S think it’s all about ‘insurance’ when obviously, to anyone with more than two synapses to rub together, it’s much MUCH more.
The AMA is the high priesthood of medicine in America. And no one dares to defy them. They have a monopoly on the medical colleges and other institutions. And we all know what happens with unregulated monopolies. At least the intelligent people amongst us know.
Too bad about David S….and some others around here.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[All professions are conspiracies against the laity. -- George Bernard Shaw]
BTW, I have heard a rumor that private health insurance can now be purchased in Canada. A quick google seems to indicate that this is now the case–it is just characterized as “extended” insurance.
The story I heard was that people needing, for example, a CT or MRI scan could cut out months of waiting time if they had private insurance. So instead of jumping across the border to the USA to get quality health care, prudent individuals in Canada now can purchase their own health care insurance.
David S (12):
The problem is that going to a single-payer system will not improve our health care. As experienced by every other single-payer system out there, once the system is in place the bureaucrats realize that there is always more care required than the taxes collected will cover. Single-payer systems always ration care, and since the rationers are government bureaucrats they will always choose the most obvious, and least conscionable method.
The best fix to our health system is pretty simple, in theory anyways:
* Tort reform. A considerable chunk of our health-care doller goes to lawyers and liability insurance companies.
* Disconnect health insurance from employment. If I change jobs I can take my house insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, and property insurance with me. The “group” that shares risk is the entire customer base for the insurance company. I cannot – by law – take my health insurance with me. The “group” consists only of my company. The system was designed this way in order to help tie workers to their jobs.
* Make health insurance true catastrophic health insurance. Part of the problem is that what we consider as health insurance is actually a cost-spreading mechanism. True insurance covers only unexpected, but statistically predictable, costs – not routine maintenance costs. Health insurance should cover things like heart surgery and broken legs. Routine exams and maintenance medications should not be covered by insurance, they should be paid directly by the customer. One good compromise which the government could make would be a modification of the medical-flex spending account, which is a cost-leveling mechanism, allowing people to roll over unused funds from one year to the next.
* Finally, the U.S. government can and should pass policies that would encourage other countries to pay their share of medical development costs. One big problem with single-payer systems is that they discourage – on a cost-cutting basis – development of new medicines and treatments. These are almost always extremely expensive and take many years to bring to market. However, the cost-cutting policies of the governments that run the single-payer systems in Britain, Canada, France, et al, who mandate low prices which cannot support R&D, mean that almost all new medical developments on this planet are made in the United States and paid for by U.S. customers.
Dr. Hsieh, You are so right! This is the last safeguard we have to insure our guaranteed liberty under the Constitution. If we lose this war I believe it won’t be long before everyone is employed by the federal government.
“Sign here, a drop of blood will do!” says Mephisto.
Medical costs to tax payers are said to be about $2.5 trillion per year. This is a vast stage with numerous players and by no means a quick fix problem.
From one perspective, insurance companies are like casinos who calculate favorable house odds from the table of actuaries. They are designed to win while giving their clients a chance to not go broke. The standard bet is: We bet you that you won’t get sick, and the client bets that he will.
The only way for the insured to get back his premium is to get sick. Otherwise, the healthy guy pays the insurance casino until death do he part. The insured has already signed in, blood drop and all.
The insurance casino invests in real estate and financials. They have real wealth. There is little to wonder as to why the government wants in on that action beyond mere taxes and good deeds. Health care and medical costs are different subjects than insurance premiums, yet they are additive to total costs. Who gets screwed?
“Nobody benefits from our current system except for the insurance companies that inflate the cost of health care. The poor, the jobless, and the youth of our nation have been victimized for far too long.”
David, I don’t mean to sound harsh… but have you seen the insurance rates for a health policy for a “victimized youth”? Its less than $100 per month in most cases. Most college kids I know have weekly bar tabs far in excess of this!Or they elected to by that V8 powered sportscar… they are young and healthy and therefore not concerned about healthcare…. how many of the “40 million” uninsured are uninsured “BY CHOICE”.
Yes indeed, in a free country they have the choice.
Please dont talk about “victimized youth”
Have you ever seen a government system well operated David? Any branch? Medicare?
Even if I did go with your assumption that the greedy insurance companies were the problem… Would you rather trade that for an incompetitent government program?
Of course medical coverage in this country needs to be fixed… but government run healthcare IS NOT the answer!!!
Imagine a truly free market health system:
1) You could self-prescribe
2) You could have access to wonder drugs like Fen Phen which were banned because one in a million people got sick from them
3) You could go to an independent (even unlicenced) nurse instead of a doctor for most minor problems and save a lot of money (hopefully, after consulting an internet rating system like Amazon or EBay)
4) You could buy any kind of insurance coverage that anyone wants to sell (no expensive mandates for chiropractry/holistic medicine/etc.)
5) You could get valuable medical information from the internet because there would be no lawsuits to prevent dissemination of information that makes one in a million people sicker — WebMD is pretty staid
6) Or not — and just use the present system, or worse, socialized medicine.
Is unrestricted medicine less safe? YES, safety is the bitter enemy of freedom.
Chilloutyo – Slow Down! What you are describing could only happen in a free country of mature adults – certainly not here.
Let’s see, Wal-Mart bad, because people freely go to it.
Gooberment Epic Fail, high cost, low quality Health Care good, because they force you, one way or another.
Right.
Anyone who has served in the military – particularly those of us who have had to deal with ‘Flight Surgeons’ in the Air Force – already know why America should NOT go to a single-payer socialized medical system. It’s inherently defined by shortages (both in access and quality), dispensed by bureaucratic quacks who have all the arrogance of civillian doctors at a fraction of the talent and ethics, with little or no accountability.
I keep hearing everyone warn about how, if we get government funded health care, we will have to “wait months to receive treatment”…
But you people realize, of course, that for many people, getting treatment after only a few months wait would be a dream come true, since for many uninsured, their wait under current conditions is forever.
Before we complain about the shortcomings of goevernment health care, such as the VA, lets admit that the current syem just doesn’t work for anyone who isn’t covered by their employer or is independently wealthy, or plans on never getting old or sick.
And for what it is worth- if the VA system is so bad, does that mean we should privatize military care?
1) Hospital costs are so high because they have to treat all comers; in effect those who can pay subsidize those who can’t. Most hospitals are currently loosing money, except specality hospitals (ortho, heart) which can exclued the non-payers. Furthermore, as an MD who take call at a general hospital, I too, have to see whomever walks thru the ER doors and needs my service, without regard to getting paid.
2) Government run medicine in the US can currently be seen in any VA. They are frankly horror stories. Think of the US Postal Service at its most dysfunctional. Take a look at the Times of London; pretty much they have a weekly National Health Service horror story. My recent NHS favorite is saving money by turning sheets over rather than changing them for new patients. This is a typical, not exceptional story.
3) The actress who just died in Canada would not have died in the US. Her epidural hematoma was recoginzed (it’s an easy diagnosis), but no chopper. Choppers are deemed cost ineffective, like new hips in oldsters. So a few die or are crippled, the system doesn’t care. No one is responsible in a State or VA system, rather the system is God-like and we mortals simply suffer the slings and arrows.
Someone here made a really good point. The Euros have as much medicine as they do, because WE do the research. Just like Defense Spending, they rely on us to do the heavy lifting. Socialized medicine in other countries only works at all because our expensive private system exists.
If their rich could not come here for care, they would not have the system they do. Passing a law denying foreigners access to our system (except for a critical situation that developed while they were here) would go a long way towards reforming their systems and defraying our costs.
TO: ChipD
RE: The Joy of Waiting
Chip, those same people can and DO get treatment by showing up in any hospital emergency room. WithOUT insurance, even. No hospital can turn away someone who has an emergency situation.
RE: The VA vs. Military Hospitals
They are TWO DIFFERENT systems. If you’re not aware of that….maybe you shouldn’t bring them up as an example.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If laughter is the best medicine, shouldn't we be regulating it?]
The problem is that medical care is, or is perceived to be, expensive. The reason? The twin pillars of the FDA and the medical practice acts. As alluded to in a previous post, these entities limit availability and drive up costs. The beneficiaries: doctors (including myself; less comptetition; you could be brilliant, but if you practice medicine and don’t have gov’t permission, enjoy your prison stay), drug companies (less pesky competition), health insurers (expensive medical care means people buy insurance; if medical care cost what plumbing does, no one would buy insurance), hospitals (reduced competition; ever try to open up a hospital? Try it some day when you have time to be arrested for doing so w/o proper gov’t permission). All in the name of ‘protecting the public’…from their own incompetence at choosing a doctor/hospital/medicine. NOT exactly what gov’t was designed for, but hey, when has that stopped Congress?
Chuck-
Yes, I do realize the VA and military hospitals are different- but they are both government funded health care, which is apparently good enough for our soldiers- would they be better off with private sector health insurance?
And yes, anyone can go get free care at an emergency room- but only if they are in an emergency condition- if you have, say, cancer, you don’t get radiation on an emergency basis- which means you can die without care.
Which is absurd, isn’t it? We will gladly pay for a pound of cure, but refuse to pay for an ounce of prevention.
@13. Old Soldier:
Insurance companies add no value to our healthcare system, yet they consistently post higher profits than productive industries. It’s not strictly a matter of return on equity – it’s also a matter of utility.
The bottom line is that health insurance companies don’t add any value to healthcare. They are dead weight.
@16. Chuck Pelto:
Nice strawman, Chuck. Nobody said insurance companies were setting prices. Are you still drunk? The point is that health insurance companies are a waste of money.
@17. iconoclast:
Health care dollars spent on insurance companies are wasted. Compliance costs would be hugely reduced under a public, universal system.
I know it’s hard to look at the facts when they don’t agree with you. But try not to make it personal, thanks.
@18. Chuck Pelto:
It has everything to do with the lack of comprehensive health coverage for all.
You keep calling me names, Chuck, because your arguments are weak. I never claimed it was all about insurance. Universal coverage is a solution to many of the problems with our current system. Blaming the AMA for our health care system’s problems is one of the more ignorant assertions on this comment thread. So stop with the Bull Pucky, and put an end to the personal attacks. You are proving only your own lack of insight.
@20. Paul of Alexandria:
The more fundamental problem is that our current system has a negative impact on the health of our citizens, and costs more than superior care in other countries. Why should Americans not explore ways to improve our health care? Under universal coverage, the cost of your saline drip will no doubt be much more reasonable.
The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers.
Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.
The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way.
Why follow a for-profit insurance model when the evidence shows that this increases costs and reduces quality of care? It makes much more sense to learn from our failures, and the success of others, and craft a national single-payer system. It’s better for everyone.
Peace.
DS
I’d like to have the option to purchase auto insurance that covers “pre-existing accidents”. That way, I won’t purchase auto insurance until I actually have an accident. Sounds workable to me.
@31. Chuck Pelto:
Emergency care is the most expensive way to administer health care. Preventive care is much more cost-effective. Not to mention that what constitutes an “emergency” is less than obvious. Chronic conditions are the greatest threat to health, and emergency rooms do nothing for them.
The data and evidence are clear: to a scientific certainty, only a single-payer “Medicare-for-All” system of health care financing will solve the serious cost and access problems and achieve good, affordable health care for all in the United States.
Really, our current system is an embarrassment to every thinking person.
Peace.
DS
No, DS, socialistic ‘solutions’ to gov’t-induced problems are an embarrassment to every thinking person. Health care would be cheap if it weren’t for the medical practice acts and the FDA. One can only hope that the average US worker, who gets BC/BS thru his workplace, will wake up; if he, God forbid, should begin to have chest pain, he will see his physician, will have a stress test inside of a few days; if he flunks it, he’ll have a cath inside of a week or 2; if he flunks that, he’ll have bypass the next week if not the next day. In Canada or the UK, he’ll be lucky to have his stress test in a few months, from what I’ve heard. And his increased taxes are likely to equal what he would have paid for his insurance, all so that a few people he doesn’t know can get barebones hypertension and diabetes care. Socialists like that kind of outcome, most others don’t.
No matter what sewage-filled ditch this whole thing ends up in, one thing is as certain as sunrise: no one in Congress or the White House will be personally affected. They will all be the Little Stalins they so fervently wish to be: importing doctors, medicine, caviar and kobe beef while we stand in line waiting for the travelling government dentist to come to town this month.
Perhaps we can arrange buses through Acorn to take us to DC in protest. What say?
@35. 2klbofun:
You’ve stated succinctly why there are mandatory insurance laws for motor vehicles, and why there should be universal health coverage for all citizens. Bravo.
Peace.
DS
Why pay insurance? You will get sick; you will die. Pay doctors and hospitals directly and avoid the middleman who is making fistfuls of dollars “managing” your care. By paying the people who provide the service, consumers can shop around as they do for other personal services. Plus, it would be more incentive for people to get healthy and think before going to the emergency room for minor illnesses.
Insurance could be available for those who want protection for long term or major illnesses.
Long time reader, first time commenter.
Currently working in the insurance field (have a background in medical and financial benefit handling).
David S, I must say, that like a previous commenter, you really don’t know what you’re talking about in regards to insurance especially health insurance. Your welcome to your opinion even though your wrong, but that’s a different argument all together.
Paul of Alexandra makes some very valid points.
Tort reform is crucial in lowering insurance costs, which in turn would lower medical costs. The amount of money that doctors have to pay for insurance is staggering. Instead of blaming “insurance companies” try taking a look at the court system and the amount of lawsuits/awards. (Also, think of those who are scamming the system with fake injuries, collecting insurance money.)
The ability to break down the state barriers to purchase insurance nationwide would also help control, even lower costs.
I shudder having Government health care. The amount of red tape involved with the centers for Medicare/Medicaid (CMS) currently and the hoops,codes,forms..etc and they want to do this on a national level is just mindboggling with national health care.
Everybody wants a free lunch, but someone at the end of the day will have to pay for it. (I.e. higher taxes)
Try government housing. Want to live there? Why not?
Just a final thought,If government healthcare (ala Canada, U.K, Cuba (LOL)) was so great, why do the elitists (and their families) go to private clinics for treatments? Same goes with schooling and the public education system.
QUESTION: Among the three dozen advanced industrialized countries that offer some form of universal health care to their citizens, how many support healthy grassroots movements to DROP the benefit to their citizens?
ANSWER: Zero.
And isn’t that the real problem for conservatives? They can’t risk having another popular, beneficial government program in place. Especially now that that those glittering unfettered free markets are a bit of hard sell to people losing their homes, jobs, and pensions.
TO: David S
RE: Yeah….
But your ‘data and evidence’ are bs. Like your bs statement over on the thread about the media and Obama where you said that the press prostituted itself for Obama like it has for other presidential candidates. In that you seemed to have forgotten how the press treated Reagan, both the Bushs AND Palin.
In truth….you are a fool….and not worth listening too.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.....]
As a Canadian I’ll grant the point that sometimes there is a long wait for services. In fact, a friend of mine was very worried because he visited his doctor one day and was schedualed for surgery the very next day. Service that quick here is only if you’re in big trouble (he had a quadruple bypass and he’s just fine now).
But the thing I read from many people here seems to be “If only the government deregulated healthcare everything would be wonderful.” Isn’t that what you did with your economy?
Canadian banks are heavilly regulated and they aren’t begging for welfare like American banks are. If you deal with health like you did with your banking industry I suspect that the American people will become as healthy as the American economy.
@43. Chuck Pelto:
Aside from going off-topic, you are revealing your own preconceived notions. Media coverage in the USA has been biased against the left for a generation or more. Press treatment of Reagan and the Bushes was far from critical, particularly during the campaigns. Palin didn’t need any help from the media to make a mockery of herself – blaming the media is a cop-out.
Again, Chuck, you attack the messenger. The plain reality is that the USA has fallen behind other nations in health care. Single-payer is the best way to move toward parity. If you have a better idea, why not share it with your buddies here on PJM?
The truth is, you know that universal coverage means better care, lower costs, and less emergency trips to the hospital for otherwise preventable concerns. You also know well that media coverage in the USA has been biased against the left for decades. You just don’t have the guts to admit it in front of the PJM crowd. Only a coward like yourself persistently attacks the messenger when he can’t refute the message.
Peace.
DS
When we have a National Health care/single payer system,
the only ones who will get free care are the ones getting
it now…illegal aliens.
Outside of Dr. Hsieh and a few like minded in his field, I’m willing to bet a week’s salary that the political contribution behavior of the majority of AMA members and hospital administrators – as well as that of most comprehensive insurance company executives – follows the pattern I recently found among pharmaceutical company executives. That is, they are completely supportive of so-called “universal” health care… at least as measured by their overwhelming support of BHO’s blatantly socialist policies over McCain’s slightly-less-socialist ones.
One wonders why.
The answer, it would seem, is that the comprehensive health insurance companies – which are the primary cause of skyrocketing health care costs – can see the writing on the wall, just like the pharmaceutical companies. The entrenched media and politicians have trained them to believe so-called “universal” health care is inevitable. Blue Lemmings with a sense of infinite entitlement, and moral adolescents with no life experience – like David S – see it as conventional wisdom. If the insurance companies don’t get in on that, they’ll be left completely out in the cold.
The question here is not whether so-called “universal” health care will work. We already know, based on experiences of far smaller countries with even less of an illegal immigrant problem, and based on the results of just this sort of legislation in Massachusetts, that it won’t.
We already know, based on common sense and the language used by this administration so far, that there will be nothing “universal” about health care once the federal government controls it. Rather, costs will far exceed the government’s nonexistent ability to estimate them, and care will be doled out based on actuarial rationalizations, not based on the Hippocratic Oath. This is to say nothing of the raft of “we-know-what’s-best-for-you” laws we’ll get once the federal government dubs itself the guarantor of your health which, by the way, it has no Constitutional authority to do (in case anyone was fuzzy on that point).
No, the real question here is why every single conversation on this topic – including this one – completely misses the single most important aspect of the issue: the vast majority of quotidian health care is a commodity, and its pricing should reflect that. We should not be aimlessly groping for ways to “cover the costs”. We need to look at how to get the costs back under control so we don’t need to flash an insurance policy every time we go to the frakking doctor!
There is absolutely no reason on earth for any country to allow itself to be bankrupted by skyrocketing commodity costs, yet we have allowed that situation for decades with respect to health care – encouraged it, in fact. The culprit is comprehensive health insurance which, when combined with ill-conceived federal (HIPAA) regulations, has essentially forced health care costs to skyrocket at multiple times that of inflation.
Nationalizing an economic cancer like comprehensive health insurance and then turning it over to the federal government – which has done such a stellar job as steward of our economy – is social and cultural suicide, make no mistake. If you thought CRA’s “affordable” mortgages did some damage, wait until you see what the federal government’s version of “affordable” health care does to us. I’ve already seen the preview of that stinker up in MA, and I’ll pass, thanks.
This is 180 degrees opposite of what we need to be doing. Comprehensive health insurance needs to be OUTLAWED and the companies that make up AHIP need to be put out of business – or at least scaled back through legislation to providing only catastrophic policies, as they did back before they caused health care costs to skyrocket out of control. The destructive effect they have had on our economy is leading to extortion, in the form of so-called “universal” health care. There are sane alternatives – the most critical of which is to allow commodity economics – NOT the government – to force health care goods and service providers to follow the same rules other commodities must live with: consumer-driven, free market cost controls.
@22 JED
Whoa someone other than me has read The Tragic Tale of Dr. Johann D. Faustus?
AWSOMEA!
The truth is, you know that universal coverage means better care, lower costs, and less emergency trips to the hospital for otherwise preventable concerns. You also know well that media coverage in the USA has been biased against the left for decades. You just don’t have the guts to admit it in front of the PJM crowd. Only a coward like yourself persistently attacks the messenger when he can’t refute the message.
In all honesty, there is not a single shred of evidence that shows there is any way to “refute” your line of thinking IN YOUR MIND. Your mind is shut tighter than a nun’s legs. Anyone can see that. You’ve got people who work in the industry calling you out as a fool and know-nothing, yet you persist as though their testimony means nothing. You’re like one of those zombies in a movie, only instead of human flesh, your one desire is single payer health care.
“Insurance companies add no value” The purpose of insurance companies is to manage risk, not add value.
I would like to see laws that require doctors and hospitals to post their prices – the same prices for everyone. That way, people who would rather self-insure can shop.
Beyond the bascis of national defense, court administration, and interstate law enforcement, the Federal government adds no value at all.
Oh yes Davis S, PLEASE give me medicare!!!!! I too want incompetence and indifference to be the passwords of my healthcare. I too want to be sent to a major trauma center to wait 4 days to have a rotten tooth pulled. Everyone currently on medicaid and medicare is so happy with the level of care they get, we should make every American accept it.
If we want to fix our system we need to 1) stop providing free care to millions of illegal aliens each year 2) tort reform to lower liability. OB’s are getting hard to find as it is, because they can pay $1 million or more a year in insurance alone 3) loosen up access to nurse practitioners and midwives and other low-cost providers for low-risk situations. I don’t need an MD giving my kid shots and weighing them. I do need one if we get cancer or other serious illnesses 4) make people carry insurance for their health just like we do for cars. The truly poor are already covered via medicaid, the rest are choosing to spend their money on other things instead of healthcare. Boo-hoo, I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who drive nicer cars than me but “can’t afford” a few hundred a month for health insurance? Nah, I think not.
When I was in college I paid for independent health insurance, $89 a month. My college roommate stayed on the plan, and now pays $225 for the full-coverage, cancer-rider deluxe plan. This is unaffordable how? And yes, my weekly bartab WAS higher than that!
And who, exactly, is going to pay for new medicines? Besides rationing health care, Socialized Medicine will cause health care advances to stagnate.
Insurance companies absolutely do add value to the system- they allow people to avoid bankruptcy in the event of a catastrophic event.
As for Car Insurance, it should not be required for anyone, but if you cause an accident and you don’t have insurance, nothing should be off limits from lawsuit. Go ahead and self-insure if you dare, but you have no right to bail out on your liability if you do cause an accident.
As for why there aren’t massive grassroots efforts to repeal the Socialist Systems in Europe- far from being a reason to switch to that system, it is in fact a reason not to touch it with a ten-foot pole. They all know the system sucks, but no one wants to do away with it. That is the death knell of a republic- socialism creates dependancy on the government to the point that people forget how to get by on their own.
And who, exactly, is going to pay for new medicines? Besides rationing health care, Socialized Medicine will cause health care advances to stagnate.
I was reading something the other day about the impact on pharma R&D of having the government be such a major buyer of drugs:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mpr_01.htm
“Using the predicted trend in pharmaceutical prices without government influence and an established elasticity of R&D spending with respect to drug prices from prior research, we determined that the resulting government-induced loss of capitalized pharmaceutical R&D expenditures was $188 billion (in 2000 dollars) from 1960 to 2001. This “lost” R&D may be translated into human life years “lost”—literally, increased pain and suffering and shorter lives caused by the absence of new medicines and future research—by using results from recent econometric work on the productivity of pharmaceutical R&D in the U.S. over the same period. We conclude that the federal government’s influence on real drug prices cost the U.S. economy approximately 140 million life years between 1960 and 2001.”
People like David S are so attracted to the “shiny object” called “single payer health care”, they forget about the unseen impact that occurs over time.
Watch, he’ll come back and sputter something about the Manhattan Institute having an “agenda”.
“I would like to see laws that require doctors and hospitals to post their prices – the same prices for everyone. That way, people who would rather self-insure can shop.”
They NEED to do that. I work for a health insurance company and watching this little bastard in MT charge five times the amount he should for his services makes me absolutely ill. (just fyi – he does it because he likes money, not for supposed overhead and junk as alleged by some people). Seriously $7,000 for care he doesn’t actually do is just nauseating.
They also need to be more open with the complaints and concerns that people have with facilities and MD’s. That way, customers can be more affordable.
To see wait times for medical treatment in Ontario, Canada, use link below:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/wait_mn.html
Check out the wait times along the Niagara frontier, US border using the map. But a half mile across the river on the US side in Buffalo there aren’t significant waiting times. But the Ontario suckers can’t pay use their health care system to go there….
@50. Old Soldier: The purpose of insurance companies is to manage risk, …
Precisely, Old Soldier. This standard retort is accurate as far as it goes, but it misses the point. That is this: the vast majority of health care should not involve any risk at all! And the rest should be managed by responsible financial planning and/or catastrophic, “major medical” policies administered locally through one’s municipality, NOT by comp. health ins. policies at work or (god forbid) socialized medicine.
Your next point, well-taken but similarly constrained by inside-the-box thinking, tells the tale.
I would like to see laws that require doctors and hospitals to post their prices – the same prices for everyone. That way, people who would rather self-insure can shop.
Get used to the fact that this is never, ever going to happen as long as there is comp. health ins. Effectively, most comp. ins. companies provide this information in the form of EOBs – notably after the fact. EOBs give us the information we need to see how broken the system is.
This might be considered ‘gross’ to some folks, so you may wish to skip this paragraph. A month ago I literally had a near-death experience – that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been posting here much during the last month. I had a duodenal bleed that caused no symptoms – at first – other than mild darkening of stools, which had happened before for other reasons and which I’d made a mental note to monitor. It’s lucky that I can’t sleep well in a hotel, because on 2/18, about 125 miles from home, I was laying awake at 3am and decided to get up to go to the bathroom. While in there I experienced the sudden sensation that I was dying, and assumed I’d gotten food poisoning – the feeling was that intense. When I saw the bowlful of red molasses, however, I realized that something else was very, very wrong. I chugged a pint of Gatorade, drove home and went to the ER, where I received what I would consider – contrary to Dave S’ imbecilic suggestions – the very best possible health care. This hospital is in a small town in CT.
By 10:30 that morning I’d had an endoscopy that revealed the source of the problem, which was fixed. The doctor put it thus: “You were about ‘three cans short of a sixpack’. If you’d slept through the night instead of getting up to pee, you’d be dead now. No question.” I was in the hospital for about 36 hours total, during which I also experienced a period of mild shock due to blood loss and four hours of tachycardia, both of which were very closely monitored, but not treated, thankfully. I went home after a full, normal meal and have been fine – though weak – since.
I’ve received a paper trail of EOBs from our very efficient comp. health ins. company since then. Each and every one shows a “billed” amount, followed by a “paid” amount that is typically half that, or less. It’s amazing how the ins. company is able to control the amount the service provider receives. They’ve obviously already agreed on an amount for each and every billable product or service, yet the provider bills N dollars, and the ins. company pays N/2. This is not to say that the insurance company keeps the cost down, only that service providers are now forced to bill exorbitant amounts in order to receive what they feel they can live with.
Comprehensive health insurance companies control prices in this way for ALL health care goods and services they “cover”. In effect, they act as an unwelcome, proxy monopoly for health care. Service providers ask for ridiculous amounts for most services – especially for quotidian care and drugs – just so that they receive the sums they’re looking for. The important point here is that the sums ultimately paid are far higher than if consumers – not ins. companies – had any say in controlling them. Insurance companies have no real motivation to hold costs down the way consumers would, since they can simply raise their rates and we have no choice but to pay them. Note that the government is now looking at forcing you to pay these rates – as they have done in Massachusetts – whether you want insurance or not.
Consumers have been trained to never, ever look at these costs. All they care about is the co-pay and/or the contribution they make toward their policy, which is typically through where they work – a huge mistake. The amounts paid out for quotidian goods and services – which constitute the bulk of health care costs – is excessive. Notably, costs for the most popular cholesterol, hypertension, psychotropic, diabetes and sleep-aid medications are insane – typically running anywhere from $100 to $500 per month if they’re not on Wal-Mart’s $4 list. These are the kinds of prices that lead to $80 billion in drug company profits in 2006 (and you thought the oil companies were price-gouging!). Also, I’ve seen visits to my cardiologist run up to $480 for a twenty minute consult. Our (former) GP billed $390 for the last short visit (also twenty minutes) and ran up over $5000 worth of diagnostic tests last time my wife went for a check-up. He claimed these were “routine” tests, then proceeded to prescribe six medications, most of them “preventative”, for ailments she didn’t have.
The postscript to the tale above is equally troubling. The bleed I experienced was due to a torn adhesion from a gall bladder operation I had 15 years ago. My father-in-law died ten years ago from an almost identical event, caused by an adhesion after a similar surgery performed by the same surgeon. Unfortunately, he bled internally, not into his gut, and was too far gone to be saved when the problem was discovered. My gall bladder surgery was necessitated by liver malfunction, due to years of statin drugs prescribed by doctors who were duped by drug companies – lacking any solid evidence and ignoring evidence to the contrary – that there’s some causal link between cholesterol and heart disease. They tried in vain to bring my 480+ cholesterol down using these drugs. All they did was make me sick and, ultimately, contribute indirectly to my near-death.
This system is truly broken, with (some) service providers, drug companies and insurance companies all making out extremely well while the health insurance premium payer is effectively out of the loop, and screwed. It will get much, much worse if it’s turned over to the inept federal government, who hasn’t been able to manage its way out of a mild recession without turning it into Great Depression II. Make no mistake: health care will be completely politicized if this happens. This is made clear by the political campaign contribution behavior we see among those in the pharmaceutical industry.
This is a topic that’s been near-and-dear to my heart for over ten years now. I’ve consulted with a range of insurance actuaries, medical professionals, ins. premium payers, employers, psychiatrists and drug company researchers during that time. The conclusion is inescapable: the comp. health ins. scam has forced itself into position as a proxy monopoly for the health care industry, and the economic model it imposes is the major cause of skyrocketing health care costs. It must be done away with or radically changed, or we face bankruptcy-by-health-care in most of our lifetimes.
Tristan:
Get frigging real, or at least Google the web for “Canada supplementary health insurance”
For a fast pick take a look here:
“Supplementary health plans for individuals, families, seniors and employers of all sizes continue to be the specialty of the Blue Cross Member Plans. The plans provide supplementary health and dental benefits, including prescription drugs, vision care, semi-private & private hospital rooms, short and long term disability, emergency medical travel, ambulance, home nursing, chiropractic and life insurance.”
http://relocatecanada.com/health/healthcareinspriv.html
Canada universal health care provides better coverage than 70% of US discount health care insurances.
For everything else, as I said, there is Mastercard.
Mark Malone:
You are 100% right. You Americans pay big bucks for advancement of medical science, which benefits all people around the world. That’s why I have uppermost respect for American People, who sacrifice and pay for advancement, security, and well-being of all of us around your great country. Despite 50+% of retards who voted for Barry.
So how does the market work for someone who has cancer, and has been dropped by their health insurance, or who gets a new job?
It doesn’t. The market fails when it comes to healthcare, because it is extortionate by its very nature.
@Donnie, you’ve just demonstrated how our nation’s thinking is irrationally constrained on this topic. You can’t conceive of health care without health insurance. This is exactly what comp. health ins. companies have worked to achieve for decades. It’s also why politicians can sling around the term “universal” health care, when they’re really just talking about universal, compulsory health care insurance, which is a very different thing.
The market never ‘fails’, since it is self-regulating. It’s the misguided “good intentions” of our meddling government that fail, and spectacularly so in the area of health care.
Before the advent of comp. health ins. people really did get cancer, believe it or not. The difference was that the cost of treatment had to be constrained to within the health care consumers’ (i.e., the patients’) ability to pay for it – either directly, or through major medical (i.e., ‘catastrophic’) health insurance plans.
If one is unlucky enough to contract a major illness, and one hasn’t planned for the unexpected, a purely market-driven health economy says that person might have to go into hock – or go bankrupt – from treatment. Or perhaps they simply can’t afford treatment at all. Individual liberty also means individual responsibility and the purist might simply say to this, “them’s the breaks,” noting that nowhere in our Constitution is the government given the authority to tax (read: rob) me to pay (read: provide government welfare) for your health care treatment, no matter how sad your situation may be. There’s no “right” to health care guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
A more enlightened society, however, sees this differently and that’s where the market comes in. This is precisely why catastrophic health insurance plans emerged, which were intended to ease the burden of the costs of major illness. This could be done, back then, because at that time the costs of health care hadn’t spent thirty years skyrocketing at several times that of inflation.
The problem we face today exists because insurance company executives, in an effort to expand their business market, strayed into the area of comprehensive health insurance. The result was (is) an economic model that actively drives up health care costs, due to the disconnect between the pricing of goods and services, and the consumer’s perceived value of those goods and services. That disconnect is caused by the proxy monopoly imposed by comprehensive health insurance companies, as well as many health professionals’ wildly inflated notion of how much their services are worth.
A secondary monopoly is imposed upon employees by their employers, which forces employees to live with whatever their employer determines is the “right” plan for their company. That’s one reason we desperately need to disconnect how we pay for health care from employment benefits. Again, in Massachusetts, such benefits have been transformed into a compulsory entitlement – employers are taxed (read: fined) if they don’t provide it and self-employed individuals are taxed (read: fined) if they don’t purchase health insurance on their own. This, of course, only works to the benefit of health insurance companies.
So right now, you’re correct – the system doesn’t work for a person in the case you describe. But it’s not the market that has failed them. The health care market has been distorted by a system that spreads costs for all goods and services over the entire insured population. As such, costs constantly increase with little direct effect on any one individual, and thus the market that would normally keep costs down no longer functions as it should. This is in fact socialized medicine – it’s just not run by the government (yet).
Notably, this is analogous to the manner in which our Republican Form of Government – the one guaranteed to these United States by our Constitution – has been distorted by creeping socialism and no longer functions as it should. Handing our utterly broken health care economics over to an utterly broken government will not correct the problem, it will only make it much worse. That’s already been demonstrated up in Massachusetts.
TO: David S
RE: Off-Topic?
Since when is pointing out to others your obvious cluelessness….and that’s putting it mildly….’off-topic’? Rather it is an indication of your proclivity to lie.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. As I stated over there….
…End of discussion….liar…..
TO: All
RE: David S
As suggested over there….on that thread about Obama and the ‘media’….
….one begins to get the impression that David S is paid to be an idiot on this site.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....]
@47. goy:
Medical professionals support universal coverage because they see daily the carnage caused by a health care system that fails to cover a large portion of the population, and leaves the poor and those with chronic illness unable to afford needed care. Universal health care is the answer to our health care problems. Your assertion that it won’t work is truly ignorant, as it works much better than our current system in all other industrialized nations, providing equivalent or superior care for less than half the cost. Our money is wasted on administration and advertising which does nothing for our health.
Health care costs are out of control, but much of the cost is currently paying the salaries of insurance executives – Medicare has administration costs an order of magnitude lower than private insurance. Medical bankruptcy is now a part of American life – something unheard of in other advanced nations. Commodity economics is the worst possible solution one could propose to fixing this system, as it addresses none of the problems, and would leave millions with no medical care at all.
Doctors want the best care for their fellow citizens – that’s why they support universal health coverage.
Peace.
DS
@60. Chuck Pelto:
Again, Chuck, pull your head out. If you think you’ve caught me lying – give an example. The truth is that you can’t. Universal health care works better than our current system.
It’s only because you can’t handle the truth that you label it a lie.
@61. Chuck Pelto:
Really? So citing factual information and correcting the bald-faced lies of others makes me an idiot? And you actually think someone would pay for this? Pajamasmedia is not nearly important enough for that.
The truth is that you are so used to living in an echo chamber that the voice of reason drives you nuts.
Peace.
DS
Paul,
With all due respect, this is all your fault. See your own article “How the GOP lost my vote”. What did you think would happen?
The person who sold his soul to the devil was you.
Dave S – your baseless, inaccurate, sweeping generalization fallacies and your serial claims of being a mindreader don’t impress anyone here. You should find another gig, seriously.
Health insurance companies have souls? In what universe?
TO: david
RE: Indeed
As some old guy put it….
And, I do believe that hospitals, of the ‘non-profit’ [he-he-he....] persuasion are ‘corporations’ too. Certainly the one across the way from me behaves like they have no soul.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak. -- John Adams]
#11
That $200.00 salt water had to be gamma irradiated in order to be sterile to prevent you from getting a potentially life threatening infection. Wise up before you run your mouth (or fingers for that matter).
Mike T.
Take it back. You imply a rich man is immoral for being rich. A rich man is moral if he got his money through production and trade. A rich man is immoral if he got it by robbing a bank or from the public coffers. It would be right for doctors to charge as much as people would pay. If all doctors could charge what they wanted, we would have high quality and inexpensive medicine, precicly because it would be profitable. When an industry is profitable it becomes highly competive. Competition improves efficientcy. Improved efficiency lowers costs. Lower costs reduce prices. It is in that order. Low costs are the result of a profitable business. It is abstract, but true. Just follow the chain, like algebra or calculus. You can’t defend captalism by undercutting it’s selfish persuit of profit. It’s selfish nature is the motor.
TO: Dan G
RE: Yeah….Right….
….look who’s talk’n trash.
I could do the same with a pot on my kitchen range and 30 minutes of boiling and then poor it into a fresh Ziplock. [Note: One of the nice things about a pre-Med microbiology undergrad program.]
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. What’s your degree in, anyway? BS?
P.P.S. Another nice thing about such an education, I make my own wine and cheeses.
David S.
It does not matter if socialized medicine is better for society. The betterment of sociaty is no excuse to violate human rights. Patiants, doctors, and insurance companies have a right to contract with one another for whatever price they deem fair. No body is a slave to anybody else. Slavery lasted so long in the south, because people thought that society couldn’t be fed without slaves working the fields. That falsehood was proven wrong by the industrial revolution which mechanized farming when slaves were no longer available. Let each man figure out how he should live his life. That includes doctors choosing medicines and prices for services and patients figuring out what knind of lifestyle and work will allow them to obtain the healthcare they want.
TO: Talamanca
RE: Better Things Through ‘Manipulation’
These people care about ‘human rights’ as much as Pol Pot did.
This is just another ‘tool’ with which they intend to control human beings.
If you want to get a preview of the outcome, read some of Jerry Pournelle’s Falkenberg’s Legion series. Pay particular attention to the concept of ‘citizen’ vs. ‘taxpayer’. Oh….and the ‘welfare islands’.
Oddly enough, Jerry has posted an item, linked to by the Blogfather at THIS point.
It’s an interesting read, as he wrote it in 1983, as a forward to a novel he was working on. But brought it up this morning.
I think he’s getting the same idea I’ve had for the last couple of months.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Men must live under the law. Or they will live under tyranny and call it law.]
@72. Talamanca:
Nobody is proposing slavery. You can still contract for whatever you want in private. What is being proposed is a safety net. It’s not going to hurt anything but insurance executives’ compensation.
Peace.
DS
TO: All
RE: David S, Devil’s Advocate
I wish he’d show US that in the details of the bill. Along with the powers of this proposed committee that will ‘approve’ who gets what treatment and how they can modify ‘who gets what treatment’.
If he does, I’ll show you how it can manipulated to make everyone a ‘slave’. Case in point, look at the results of the alleged Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). See THIS!
Intended to protect infants from ‘lead paint poisoning’ it is being turned against used book stores.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed. -- Oaks' Laws]
@Talamanca: - It would be right for doctors to charge as much as people would pay.
I think you’re right, Talamanca. This is precisely the point I’ve been trying to get across to people for years. The critical aspect, however, is that each side of this economic equation must have direct access to bargain with the other for this model to work.
The problem we have today, however, is that comp. health ins. companies interpose between the provider and the consumer.
The interposition of comprehensive insurance confounds and corrupts the economic model with respect to the vast majority of quotidian, commodity health care goods and services, ultimately driving costs higher. Simply put, what an insurance company thinks is a fair price – based on the actuarial model it uses to balance income and payments – is very different from what the average end consumer might think is fair.
This resulting broken system also falls victim to conflicts of interest inherent in the insurance company’s need for profitability which, again, drives costs to the consumer higher.
For all these reasons, and more, health care costs have risen at rates multiple times that of inflation for years, to the point where many folks can’t afford health care without insurance. Insurance companies have worked their way into a position of selling risk-management – at a hefty profit – for situations where there would BE no risk if the provider/consumer relationship had not been corrupted by them in the first place. That has to change, IMHO.
@75. Chuck Pelto:
How about you point to a provision that prohibits private transactions for any and all health care services?
Yep – another strawman from Mr. Pelto. Par for the course.
Universal health care is a safety net – nobody is going to burst your private health care balloon.
Peace.
DS
How about you point to a provision that prohibits private transactions for any and all health care services?
Would you be so sanguine about a law proposing to ban bestiality porn that didn’t have any provisions for banning “regular” porn or would you scream “slippery slope”?
As I recall, there were “no provisions” for euthanasia in the original universal health care laws in Europe, yet here we are and there is clearly euthanasia going on.
Naive or disingenuous, which is it?
@78. venividivici:
What kind of analogy is this? There is no parallel at all. Nothing is being banned – a safety net is being built. Try again with a workable analogy…
Again – what kind of analogy is this? There is no parallel at all. Maybe you can try once more? Third time’s the charm, or so I’ve heard.
In your case, it appears to be both. And that’s being generous.
Peace.
DS
What kind of analogy is this? There is no parallel at all. Nothing is being banned – a safety net is being built. Try again with a workable analogy…
Actually, the choice not to pay for government-provided insurance is being banned and eventually the “private transactions” you say won’t be banned will be. Look at what is happening in the UK where if you go outside of the NHS you are shut out from the NHS in the future.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1016262/Grandmother-dies-NHS-cancer-treatment-withdrawn-paid-privately-life-extending-drug.html
Again – what kind of analogy is this? There is no parallel at all. Maybe you can try once more? Third time’s the charm, or so I’ve heard.
Look, if, like many other things, you can’t understand analogies don’t blame me. You seem to imply that the initial form of legislation providing a “safety net” is etched in stone and that the exigencies of government incompetence won’t force the government to make far uglier choices than those made today, such as the choice to implement policies that in all but word amount to euthanasia. That’s how the situation evolved in Europe and there is every rational reason to believe it will evolve that way here.
In your case, it appears to be both. And that’s being generous.
I don’t want your generosity. I want you to get a clue.
For anyone who wants facts on health care costs. Turns out “free” health care isn’t free. Who knew?
http://www.biggovhealth.org/resource/myths-facts/cost-of-health-care/
United States: In the U.S., a family of four with an employer-based PPO will have around $15,609 total this year in health care costs. Of this amount, $9,442 will be paid by the employer and the employee will contribute $3,492 in premiums and $2,675 on co-payments, equivalent to about 6 percent of average family income. 1
Canada: In Canada, while the percentage of taxes used to provide health care varies, it is estimated that 22 percent of taxes collected went to the health system in 2004. Several provinces, including Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, also charge additional premiums. 2 Canadians also may spend money to receive private treatment for procedures or drugs that are not covered by the government system.
United Kingdom: Citizens of the U.K. pay 11 percent of each pound they make in weekly income (£100 – £670) for the NHS, plus an additional 1 percent for income over £670 a week. 3 Copayments for drugs are low, but many drugs are not covered, often because they are not considered cost efficient. In addition, anyone who uses their own money to buy powerful but expensive drugs not paid for by the NHS finds him or herself shut out of the system. According to BBC News, the NHS has imposed a policy that denies treatments to patients if they exceed £30,000 a year.
Germany: In Germany, coverage from a public sickness fund ranges significantly in cost, from around 12.2 to 16.7 percent of income, with the employee paying a bit under half. This year, premiums are to be standardized from the federal level and health care experts anticipate that they will be set to around 15.5 percent. 4
France: According to the OECD, the French pay 20 percent more in taxes than Americans. In France, employees contribute only to 0.75 percent of their salaries towards medical care, but also pay a 7.5 percent General Social Contribution, the majority of which is earmarked for the health system. This base coverage reimburses people for the majority of costs for doctor visits and for a portion of the costs of medications. On top of the government coverage, almost all French residents have supplementary coverage from a “mutuelle”, costing approximately 2.5 percent of salary.5
Netherlands: It is too early to reach firm conclusions on the cost of the Dutch health care system since it has been in place only two and a half years. In 2006, it cost approximately $2,590 for a family of four (children are free) to obtain mandatory coverage. However, 90 percent of Dutch people buy supplementary coverage from private insurers. Costs have increased since 2006 and may have been artificially low. Only time will show what the new system really costs.
Switzerland: Switzerland is one of the world’s most expensive systems and cost is a common complaint. The Swiss pay an average of $680 per month or around $8,167 annually for four people on the basic plan.6 Total health costs can add up to around 16 percent of income.7 Those who want supplementary coverage must pay more and costs can exceed $1,000 a month. Costs are rising at a steady pace and are not indexed to income, a burden for those in lower pay brackets.8
@80. venividivici:
Not true – you can opt out of payments, and nobody has proposed banning private transactions – I’m not going to be your strawman. Again – how does your bestiality porn analogy apply? Or do you just enjoy the mental imagery?
Again, if you want to argue against a strawman, look elsewhere. I’m advocating a safety net – not your imaginary euthanasia program.
Now you’ve given up on the analogies in favor of strawman arguments.
If you can’t even stand by your own analogies, why should I buy into your strawmen?
The plain truth is that in the USA care is more expensive, and less effective, which you have helped demonstrate by posting the costs for universal care in other countries. Care to try again?
Peace.
DS
“Safety net”: a laughable, contorted, doublespeak term, describing a slush fund made up of wealth stolen from taxpayers for the benefit of those incapable of being – or unwilling to be – responsible for their own health care.
The federal government has no Constitutional authority to build a “safety net” for the purpose of providing health care. The government’s Constitutional mandate is clear, and it doesn’t include spreading the wealth around, i.e., stealing from the productive members of society for the benefit of those who can’t, or won’t take care of themselves. If this is your goal, use the ‘living’ facet of the Constitution and get an Amendment passed. Short of that, kindly STFU – the government has no authority to manage, fund or provide for individual citizens’ health care.
Compulsory insurance is tantamount to slavery. That goes for auto liability insurance as well. The government has no authority – let alone the collective intellectual wherewithal – to dictate to citizens the manner in which they should manage their own risk.
Not true – you can opt out of payments, and nobody has proposed banning private transactions – I’m not going to be your strawman. Again – how does your bestiality porn analogy apply?
It applies as an example of the type of thing that gets descried as a “slippery slope”, which I doubt will be avoidable in any universal health care system. Do you need to go back to the original documentation for the NHS to show that private transactions weren’t banned, but they later came to be cause for being booted from the system? That’s how this program will evolve. Some of us aren’t limited to thinking in terms of one step at a time. You don’t want to debate “strawmen”, well I don’t want to debate someone ignorant of the empirical facts of the evolution of universal health insurance restrictions in the countries where it’s already been implemented. Look up the chess term “endgame” if you need some help conceptualizing what I’m saying.
Again, if you want to argue against a strawman, look elsewhere. I’m advocating a safety net – not your imaginary euthanasia program.
Again, also, “endgame”. The Dutch didn’t start with euthanasia on day 1, either. They started with a “safety net”.
The plain truth is that in the USA care is more expensive, and less effective, which you have helped demonstrate by posting the costs for universal care in other countries. Care to try again?
Another perfect example of why debating you with facts is a useless exercise. Only someone whose mind was completely shut down would say that 6% of income (cost in US) is more expensive than 15.5% (cost in Germany). Nor did the sample data I posted address “effectiveness”, but you somehow took it to show that US care was less effective. Again, a great example that I’m not dealing with someone whose approach to this question is empirical.
So, the time for debate is over now. I don’t do non-empirical debates.
Goy,
Insurance is expensive because governemnt forces insurance companies to provide services withpout allowing for background checks. Insurance is expensive because government limits the prurchase of insurance to regional areas. Insurance is expensive becauses government forces companies to coverage for things most people don’t need, in vitro, chiropractor, and acu-puncture. Government does all this in the name of fairness.
Insurance is profitable and in a free market people love profit. New companies would enter the feild and old companies would lower their prices. Government should allow doctors and patients to contract with any insurance company they want to. They should allow insurance companies to provide any coverage they deem to be profitable.
@83. goy:
Your claim that compulsory insurance is tantamount to slavery makes me wonder who pays your unemployment insurance premiums. You claim the government has no authority to perform these tasks, but decades of jurisprudence make clear that it can and does. I understand you hold a different view of the government’s authority – but that doesn’t change the facts on the ground.
And if you are going to talk about slavery – stop-loss and selective service really are tantamount to slavery. Taxes alone are not. There is a distinction.
Asking me to STFU because I don’t agree with your narrow view is just rude – didn’t we cover the issue of profanity already? That’s not the moral high ground you are standing in, sir.
84. venividivici:
Slippery slope arguments are lazy and meaningless. Legislation is not a natural process – it is a human activity that involves compromise and accommodation, and does not follow any predetermined path. Go ahead and ban kiddy porn – I’m not really very concerned that you will drive Playboy and Sports Illustrated out of business by doing so.
As far as your euthanasia worries, I live in a state where physician assisted suicide is safe, legal and rare, and I like the idea. So you won’t scare me much by claiming that the government is willing to foot the bill.
When it comes to the numbers, it’s funny how you can’t count. Please compare like with like. We’re talking about the whole cost – not just the employee portion. If you can’t understand that, let me know – heck, the numbers are yours!
As far as effectiveness, you are right, I didn’t cite any numbers – I figured you knew how to do research since you came up with a cost breakdown for the countries in question. But given your inability to parse your own post, here’s a link for you. And here’s some empirical data:
#37 – USA
#30 – Canada
#18 – UK
#25 – Germany
#1 – France
#17 – Netherlands
#20 – Switzerland
How convenient for you that you declare your own word the last. Wake up and smell the data.
Peace.
DS
Talamanca,
You may have overlooked the point. It’s not about the ‘expense’ of insurance.
By setting up a proxy monopoly that fixes prices based on criteria other than their value as perceived by the ultimate consumer, comprehensive health insurance companies have destroyed the economic model that used to keep the vast majority of health care affordable. The history of health care costs skyrocketing at multiple times that of inflation is ample demonstration of the damage that has resulted.
No other critical commodity has experienced the rate of cost increase that health care has seen. That’s because the ‘risk’ of purchasing other commodities is not ‘managed’ by insurance. The fact is that getting basic health care wouldn’t pose any risk at all if costs hadn’t been forced to skyrocket by the corrupted economic model we have now.
The solution to this problem is NOT to find a different insurance mechanism. Insurance is what caused most of the increase in the first place. The solution to this problem is to get the costs back under control so that there’s no longer any ‘risk’ involved in getting basic health care. The way to do that is to go back to an economic model that supports a direct relationship between the provider and the consumer, and which eliminates the insurance company that has corrupted their economic relationship.
So no, I don’t think the government should allow insurance companies to provide any coverage they deem to be profitable. Monopolies, ‘Ponzi’ schemes and protection rackets were outlawed decades ago. Comprehensive health insurance has evolved into nothing less than a tidy combination of these. Like our bloated government, it’s an evil we’ve become so accustomed to, and upon which we rely so thoughtlessly, that we can’t see how it’s destroying our way of life. As long as we keep thinking inside that box, we’ll never actually reach a viable solution.
- Your claim that compulsory insurance is tantamount to slavery makes me wonder who pays your unemployment insurance premiums.
Clearly you don’t understand stop-loss. That’s likely because you’ve never served your country in any capacity. And last I checked the draft was only being pushed by leftist ideologues in an intellectually dishonest pretense aimed at demonizing military action in Iraq.
Your choice to deflect with irrelevant thesis fallacy here makes me wonder what you know of my thoughts on unemployment insurance. Oh wait… that would be – nothing whatsoever.
OTOH, no one needs to wonder about the appeal to authority fallacy you’ve used to pretend the government has authority not expressly specified in the Constitution. Many of FDR’s destructive New Deal programs were deemed fine, legally… until they were deemed unconstitutional. So until you’ve secured a Constitutional Amendment that expressly gives the government authority over the People’s health care, do kindly STFU.
@88. goy:
Really? Is that why you couldn’t even articulate a rebuttal? Face it – involuntary service is slavery, regardless of whether it is stop-loss or the draft. The draft is not active at this moment – but it is a form of slavery, it is legal, and pretending that it’s merely a political ploy is irresponsible.
As soon as the SCOTUS outlaws Medicare, you can try that argument again. Until then, why not take your own advice? Thanks.
Peace.
DS
Really?
Yes, really.
- The draft is not active at this moment…
Precisely, aside from the fact that it’s still an irrelevant deflection.
Regarding stop-loss, obligations freely entered into by contractual agreement are not ‘slavery’, Zippy. Since you’re so enamored of ‘jurisprudence’, maybe you should go look up the court decisions regarding legal challenges to stop-loss.
goy,
On the surface it seems as though insurance companies play role in current rising medical costs. If one looks deeper, you will find that government force and favor have caused the insurance companies to raise their rates.
Insurance companies are monopolistic because of their relationship to government. When the governement favors certain companies over others it causes a monopoly. For example only allowing one regional railroad, electric company or insurance company. Regulations of prices and services leads to the monopolistic qualities of our insurance companies. All companies charge the same for the same service. In a free market I could potentially start an insurance company that could easily undercut the current price. Insurance companies are a great value to our lifestyles, but only in free market. By fighting insuance companies in general, you are fighting capitalism. It is vital to distiguish force and fraud from voluntary contractual agreements.
The fraudulent type of insurance companies of which you speak are a dangerous element. It is the purpose of government to use objective evidence and punish fraud. Eleminating freedom because sometimes fraud is committed is incorrect. Freedom and prosperity are married.
“”Monopolies, ‘Ponzi’ schemes and protection” rackets were outlawed decades ago”
I think you have grouped several unrelated concepts together. Coercive monopolies can only exist if a company is the beneficiary of government favor and or force. In actuallity an uncoercievie monopoly such as standard oil (1870-1890 80% market share) can exist only if the company provides supirior service at a superior price. Anti-trust laws are arbitrary and vague in that they require companies to minimize their market share and at the same time they can’t divide themselves up into separate entities due to conspiracy laws. They can’t charge too much because they are taking advantage of the monopoly and they can’t charge too little because they outprice newcomers. Anti-trust laws are non sense. Just because something is illegal doesn’t make it wrong.
From what I understand, a pozi scheme involves useing money money borrwed from one person to pay another, like our social security system.
I am not sure what you mean by a protection racket, if you mean moblike interference then criminals should be treated as such. If you mean companies that band together in order to peacefully increase their profitability, you have to let them alone, our else you violate their right to contract. If their intentions are to corner the market, let them try. They will still have to compete with new comers and new ideas.
I agree that today’s insurance companies are crooked as hell, but I don’t think insurance companies as such are crooked. A crooked company can only exist long term with the help of government favor and force.
While fraud is illegal and immoral. Contractual agreements and large efficient companies are desirable. Current insurance is monopoly-like only because they are in bed with congress. What we need is a separation of state and economics.
David S.
Why is it right to violate the rights of executives?
- … government force and favor have caused the insurance companies to raise their rates.
No, the only favor comprehensive health insurance companies receive from government is being allowed to remain in business, despite the fact that they force us into bankruptcy and social discord due to the skyrocketing health care costs they promote.
You seem fixated on insurance rates. Insurance rates are NOT a valid excuse to foist ‘universal’ health care onto the people. No one purchases insurance to cover the costs of food, utilities, gas, clothing or other commodities. If health care costs themselves weren’t through the roof, the average person could forgo insurance altogether and pay for health care out-of-pocket just like we do everything else – just like we used to when I was a kid, with no undue financial hardship. But these days most people can’t justify paying $200-300 for a twenty minute physical for each member of their family, plus hundreds of dollars for standard diagnostic blood tests, etc., let alone twice as much for any sort of specialized health care. And the costs of prescription medicine is correspondingly exorbitant.
- I agree that today’s insurance companies are crooked as hell…
?? I’m not sure what you’re agreeing with regarding insurance companies being “crooked” – I never claimed they were. What they often are – at least based on my experience having worked for them – is enormously inefficient. Also, like other large businesses, they’re adversely affected by government regulations – specifically HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, both of which impose enormous costs on business. Insurance companies simply pass the costs of this inefficiency and regulation overhead on to the premium payer, which is a captive customer (thus the monopoly aspect). They also completely distort the pricing control model, as I’ve pointed out, which would normally keep the vast majority of health care costs affordable. In distorting that model, they’ve caused those costs to skyrocket.
The ‘Ponzi’ nature of the comprehensive insurance scam involves the fact that enormous sums of money are paid into the system by the consumer, who receives no real value in return. The argument that this sort of insurance offers the value of “managing risk” falls flat when we realize that the vast majority of “covered” medical services would not entail any risk if the costs had not been driven so high due to the broken economics in the first place.
We cannot overlook the basic facts of this issue. The United States has a population of around 305 million people, meaning that a socialist health care system (let’s not kid ourselves, we all know this is the proper title) would cost billions upon billions of dollars…money which the government sure as hell doesn’t have in light of Obama’s 2 trillion dollar addition to our already soaring debt. Thus, the government will need a large increase in taxation to cover the costs…or just screw the value of the dollar into nothingness, which they already did when they printed over 1 trillion dollars last week. However, Obama promised he would not raise taxes on the middle class, making a socialist health care system impossible, if not improbable.
Regardless of the inhumane costs of such a proposal, proponents of socialist health care would like us all to believe that their system will be much more effective than our current system without harmful effects on incentive and innovation. I guess this would explain why the US has created more cures, technology, and theories to help advance the medical field…however we should destroy our system for a slower Canadian-like system which is bankrupting the country? Need proof that such a system is harmful…note that California’s economy is larger than that of Canada on the whole…Cali’s medical expenditures are less but they provide faster and more efficient health care while simultaneously having a much larger GDP and average income. Way to fail, Canada
TO: All
RE: Strawmen & David S
I find it an interesting indicator that David S can claim people prop up strawmen and yet he cannot cite the provisions to support his claims.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Prevaricator, n., a liar in the maggot stage of development.]
TO: All
RE: We’re Talk’n About REAL ‘Stupid’ Here
This character has absolutely no clue about military service and probably is as ignorant about ‘slavery’ too.
It becomes more and more apparent that he IS a paid mouth-piece for the ‘progressive’ agenda as he is here so frequently and spouts such interesting mis/dis-information. As exemplified by his comments here.
Case in point….
….since when have ‘press-gangs’ roamed the streets to drag the unsuspecting/unwitting into military service in this country? Go on. Tell me…..I defy you. And yet David S[tupid]…or much worse….makes statements like….
This guy is not here for debate. He’s here to spout the most outrageous lies I’ve seen posted in this venue.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he is in the direct employ of the White House.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I know ALL about the selective service and stop-loss. I’ve trained for it for 10 years of my 27 years of military service. I even exercised stop-loss and Operation CERTAIN SAGE for JCS exercises.
- This guy is not here for debate.
Yeah, he’s made that pretty clear. And his site makes no bones about where he’s coming from, either.
I’m sure this short respite from his drivel is because he’s either canvassing as part of OFA or still hunting for ‘jurisprudence’ that supports his idiocy about stop-loss and slavery. That’ll take a while.
Or… maybe his boss got wind he was spending all day posting here – I just noticed that his name’s been completely removed from his (former?) employer’s list of Account Managers.
@97. goy:
I disagree with you – so you presume I am not interested in debate. That’s the old Bush doctrine of “with us or against us” rearing its ugly head. I’m most certainly here for debate – but your refusal to support your arguments indicates that you don’t understand what debate is, so your confusion is understandable. Much like Bush’s.
My absences here result from the fact that I have a life – I snowboard regularly, have musical rehearsals, an active social life with my partner, etc. Your comments on my personal life only demonstrate your lack of same.
I need not cite jurisprudence regarding stop-loss – I never claimed it was slavery, just much more like slavery than universal health care – a point which you can’t refute, because it is true.
As far as my employment – I’ve never posted here on anybody’s clock but my own. The fact that my previous employer took months to remove my name from their website is a consequence of the fact that I was the corporate webmaster before I left the company.
But go ahead and keep jumping to unjustified conclusions. After all, that’s what you are best at.
Peace.
DS
TO: All
RE: David S[tupid] vs. goy
More projection. And little substance to back up any and, apparently, all claims on his part.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Regarding employment….
…all attorneys, not directly employed by a corporate or government agency, ‘clock’ their own time….
….and bill it to someone else, e.g., a client.
David S comes across as an attorney to me, i.e., able to twist English into anything he wishes to, for the unwary to swallow.
[Lawyer, n., One skilled at circumventing the law. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary]
P.P.S. The usually use confusing words as ‘smoke and mirrors’ to accomplish their nefarious tricks.
TO: All
RE: Getting a ‘Clue’
Just so those of us here who are unfamiliar with the willy ways of lawyers, I sat in on a monthly meeting of the Denver chapter of Mensa some years ago. At the meeting a professor of Constitutional Law from Denver University came and addressed us on various matters.
The most interesting ‘matter’ she discussed was her idea that there are “no such things as constitutional rights”. They, in her opinion, are just ‘textual rights’.
You change the ‘text’ and you change the ‘right’.
From there you get the idea that people like her and, as I see him, David S are quite adept at screwing things up. Especially the way the lawyers in Congress are making ‘law’ with THIS administration.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves. -- George Washington]
Poor Zippy – guess we hit a nerve…
- I disagree with you …
You don’t even comprehend half of what’s written here. The notion that you could “disagree” is laughable.
– … so you presume I am not interested in debate.
No, I observe – as others have – that you are incapable of debate. Therefore you can not possibly be posting here to engage in same.
- That’s the old Bush doctrine …
Ah… what would a Zippy comment be without a desperate, pathetic deflection to his arch-Nemesis… Evil W. Bush! Funny how Clueless Blue Lemmings™ seem so utterly obsessed with Bush. It’ll no doubt continue long after he’s gone.
Oh… wait! HE IS GONE!
- … of “with us or against us” rearing its ugly head.
LOL!!!! You can’t even get basic facts straight, Zippy. Bush didn’t say “with us or against us”. I’m pretty sure I’ve schooled you on this before. That was Hillary Clinton – days before GWB uttered the famous words…
On that day, truer words were not spoken. Don’t feel so bad – no doubt it was the rough, grammatical similitude that fooled you. Again.
- I’m most certainly here for debate …
Lie.
– … but your refusal to support your arguments …
Projection, unsupported (ironically, to boot). #1.
- … indicates that you don’t understand what debate is, …
More projection, still no support. #2.
- … so your confusion is understandable.
Still more projection, no support again. #3!
Damn – three for three! Talk to a mirror, Zippy – you’ll reduce your carbon footprint from all this useless posting.
- Much like Bush’s.
More deflection. When you can fly an F-102 without killing yourself and anyone within a square mile of the crash site, get back to us, Zippy. Just take off and land safely. We look forward to your report.
- I need not cite jurisprudence regarding stop-loss …
No. You CAN not cite such jurisprudence, Zippy. It doesn’t exist.
- I never claimed it was slavery, …
Congratulations! You’re full of sh!t again, Zippy!
You obviously don’t have any idea WHAT you claimed and didn’t even bother to look back at what you posted. Here’s a quote from your #89: “… involuntary service is slavery, regardless of whether it is stop-loss or the draft.”
I’m sure two days of partying simply dulled your memory. Next you’ll write that you never claimed tyranny was right-wing by nature.
Oh wait… I thought I heard something else. Yes… it was…
“… leftist ≠ authoritarian … Tyranny is, by nature, a right-wing, top-down system.“.
Bwaaahaaahaaaaaahahahahaha!!!
Excellent points altogether, you just gained a new reader. What would you suggest about your publish that you just made a few days ago? Any positive?
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