Health care law changing behavior

[Scott_Lafrance]

Because everyone is not you and empowerment is not simply about quitting; its about helping people identify and take action regarding the things that make them start smoking (or doing whatever else they see as a problem) in the first place.

Oye, your post exemplifies why most people suffer from decision constipation and spend most of their productive lives doing nothing relevant. Empowerment enshmowerment. YOu make a decision and then you act on it. Its really not that complicated.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

I don’t have too much of a problem with the health care law other than the fact that they are now going to require health insurance to cover contraceptives and sterilization. I also am worried that they will eventually make health insurance cover abortion.

Kathleen Sebellius is already working on this “problem”. Don’t worry, your tax dollars will be paying to kill babies in short order.

 

[seekerz]

Oye, your post exemplifies why most people suffer from decision constipation and spend most of their productive lives doing nothing relevant. Empowerment enshmowerment. YOu make a decision and then you act on it. Its really not that complicated.

Really? Wow, you need to get a job advising our legislative bodies…

Seriously though, what is your concept of community - as in no man is an island?

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Really? Wow, you need to get a job advising our legislative bodies…

Seriously though, what is your concept of community - as in no man is an island?

Are you kidding me? My ideal concept of community is me and my family on a small island all by ourselves.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Oye, your post exemplifies why most people suffer from decision constipation and spend most of their productive lives doing nothing relevant. Empowerment enshmowerment. YOu make a decision and then you act on it. Its really not that complicated.

You see, according to Cocteau’s plan, I’m the enemy, 'cause I like to think; I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I’m the kind of guy who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, “Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?” I WANT high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-o all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, okay, pal? I’ve SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It’s a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing “I’m an Oscar Meyer Wiener”.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Demolition Man. One of my absolute favorite Dystopia movies. Great lines, and Sandra Bullock is way too cute.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The idea of empowerment is for solutions to be built from the bottom up, not top down. So, individuals and their communities could be tapped for their insights into the root causes of some of our medical problems and in turn could receive (name removed by moderator)ut from ‘experts’ regarding how to go about solving the issues that they have identified as priorities needing attention. So it’s not about telling people what they already know, it’s probing their thinking and their attitudes as to why for example, smoking is not a big deal for them. Is it a coping mechanism for overwhelming life stress, is it peer pressure or is it simply because they don’t envisage living long enough to develop lung cancer? Most people on reflection, can identify the reasons they engage in behavior - sometimes despite their desire to change…All empowerment is giving people the forum, the tools and the necessary knowledge to tackle problems which they identify as being central to their lives.

How, exactly, do you picture this concretely? let’s go through the mechanism, step by step and, if you will, tell us how Obamacare is going to implement each step.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

How, exactly, do you picture this concretely? let’s go through the mechanism, step by step and, if you will, tell us how Obamacare is going to implement each step.

I think Seekerz may be a little grandiose with those ideas. Obamacare has some very realistic goals:
Cause more people to obtain health insurance (and by proxy health care)
Reduce overall cost of health care in the US

Will those result in the “empowerment” (I dislike that word) he mentioned? Perhaps, but not directly. The more immediate effect will be to simply force the health care providers to be more responsive to the needs of their entire community, not just the community of those with health insurance. If it is more efficient for providers to attempt to prevent certain illnesses by having serious conversations with their patients, then that is what they will do.

 

[seekerz]

I think Seekerz may be a little grandiose with those ideas. Obamacare has some very realistic goals:
Cause more people to obtain health insurance (and by proxy health care)
Reduce overall cost of health care in the US

Will those result in the “empowerment” (I dislike that word) he mentioned? Perhaps, but not directly. The more immediate effect will be to simply force the health care providers to be more responsive to the needs of their entire community, not just the community of those with health insurance. If it is more efficient for providers to attempt to prevent certain illnesses by having serious conversations with their patients, then that is what they will do.

Not grandiose at all. This is just one approach that is slowly replacing the behavior-modification-by-scaring-people strategy, which has been to a large extent, less than successful in decreasing unhealthy behavior. I see the empowerment concept slowly being incorporated into health matters, not necessarily as a grand government plan (after all the whole idea is to get people moving themselves in the right direction). Recent TV ads encouraging Medicare pts to speak up in encounters with their providers, to know their conditions/meds, and to ask questions give a hint of how this strategy might be encouraged, though ideally community-based groups/organizations are the medium through which empowerment achieved.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Since when does buying health insurance foster better health care? In many cases, it fosters the opposite. I have the option of a gold plated health plan through my company, but I opt for a high deductible plan with an HSA. Because it is a high deductible plan, I have to pay out of pocket (well, out of my HSA) for most of our routine medical expenses. The plan primarily covers catastrophic injury and illness. What this forces us to do is first, maintain good health. When you go to the doctor every month for silly little things that you can take care of yourself or prevent through good choices and have to pay for it, a RESPONSIBLE citizen will learn to modify their own behaviors. When you have a plan that gives you unlimited $15 office visits, you don’t appreciate maintaining good health, because you can be irresponsible and it will only cost you $15. (Most people don’t know or don’t care that the increased costs to the insurance company is what causes them to raise their premiums).

The point is that the “insurance” industry and the government are the ones responsible for the skyrocketing costs of routine health care. Obamacare does NOTHING to address the issues of healthcare costs, and most respectable analysis says that it will increase the cost of care, not decrease it.

 

[SamH]

I think Seekerz may be a little grandiose with those ideas. Obamacare has some very realistic goals:
Cause more people to obtain health insurance (and by proxy health care)
Reduce overall cost of health care in the US

While those were the stated goals it is actually doing the opposite.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think Seekerz may be a little grandiose with those ideas. Obamacare has some very realistic goals:
Cause more people to obtain health insurance (and by proxy health care)
Reduce overall cost of health care in the US

Will those result in the “empowerment” (I dislike that word) he mentioned? Perhaps, but not directly. The more immediate effect will be to simply force the health care providers to be more responsive to the needs of their entire community, not just the community of those with health insurance. If it is more efficient for providers to attempt to prevent certain illnesses by having serious conversations with their patients, then that is what they will do.

As to the goals of Obamacare:

-There is no reason at all to believe it will cause more people to obtain health insurance. Obama himself admitted that something on the order of 20% of the populace would not be covered. That’s about the middle of the various numbers alleged not to have health coverage, for which the whole thing was initiated. Likely, those on actual private insurance would reduce, which is suggested by the increased eligibility for Medicaid. It seems they anticipated fewer people having insurance, not more.

-Nor is anything in Obamacare designed to reduce healthcare costs except perhaps the vague exclusionary promises. Some talk (with some irony intended) of “death panels” which will exclude reimbursement for treatment of the elderly if the treatment’s effects would outlive the patient. (indirectly attested by Obama himself) It could simply be that the administration intends to reduce treatment of the ill by so altering reimbursement rates that providers will increasingly exclude patients with chronic illnesses…something that appears to be going on right now. And current reimbursement also encourages discharging the noncompliant. “I told you to lose 50 lb and you didn’t. Here’s your chart, and goodbye.”

There is certainly no reason to expect that increasing coverage and reimbursement for well patient “care” will, in itself, result in decreased medical costs for other things, except to the extent that it encourages providers to concentrate on examining the well instead of treating the sick.

Well, I’ll admit it, excluding treatment for sick patients might reduce healthcare costs in a sense. The least expensive car to me is, after all, the one I can’t buy. But all of this talk about “empowerment” is nothing but sloganeering…like “power to the people”. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, it’s the very same thing, isn’t it?

Are we really foolish enough to buy that empty slogan AGAIN?

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

As to the goals of Obamacare:

-There is no reason at all to believe it will cause more people to obtain health insurance. Obama himself admitted that something on the order of 20% of the populace would not be covered. That’s about the middle of the various numbers alleged not to have health coverage, for which the whole thing was initiated. Likely, those on actual private insurance would reduce, which is suggested by the increased eligibility for Medicaid. It seems they anticipated fewer people having insurance, not more.

-Nor is anything in Obamacare designed to reduce healthcare costs except perhaps the vague exclusionary promises. Some talk (with some irony intended) of “death panels” which will exclude reimbursement for treatment of the elderly if the treatment’s effects would outlive the patient. (indirectly attested by Obama himself) It could simply be that the administration intends to reduce treatment of the ill by so altering reimbursement rates that providers will increasingly exclude patients with chronic illnesses…something that appears to be going on right now. And current reimbursement also encourages discharging the noncompliant. “I told you to lose 50 lb and you didn’t. Here’s your chart, and goodbye.”

There is certainly no reason to expect that increasing coverage and reimbursement for well patient “care” will, in itself, result in decreased medical costs for other things, except to the extent that it encourages providers to concentrate on examining the well instead of treating the sick.

Well, I’ll admit it, excluding treatment for sick patients might reduce healthcare costs in a sense. The least expensive car to me is, after all, the one I can’t buy. But all of this talk about “empowerment” is nothing but sloganeering…like “power to the people”. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, it’s the very same thing, isn’t it?

Are we really foolish enough to buy that empty slogan AGAIN?

Lets see how it turns out then. Preliminary reports, such as this one, seem promising.