You think that NOT pledging to bring about someone’s failure is the same as rooting for them to succeed?So…Democrats were rooting for Bush to succeed in all of his policy endeavors? I didn’t realize they supported him that much.
You really do need a “dazed and confused” smiley…
I just find it HILARIOUS that you credit MEDICAID with saving this child’s life. The Left worships bureaucracy over the people who actually do the work. AMAZING.“Pathetically low rates of pay” as compared to grossly inflated ones that force luxury-priced toothbrushes on unsuspecting consumers? I hate to break it to you, but nobody “pushes paper” at Medicaid anymore - not now that Obama has paid small fortunes to medical practices to go electronic (thereby also stimulating the IT industry).
Now patients’ information is better available to all their caregivers, lab results and prescriptions are more efficiently handled, the level of care people receive can be measured by indicators and unnecessary duplication of services or fraudulent billing patterns can be better detected. And that’s just the effect of ONE aspect of Obamacare’s cost-saving benefits.
I suppose you imagine there is a difference in how private companies treat members, as opposed to those you dismiss as “paper pushers”? In my experience, there is no difference. Most of these people are just making a living like the rest of us and in my interactions with them they have been uniformly professional. So even if dismissing people might be modeled in the video which is the topic of this thread, it should not be taken as literal instruction on how to regard people whose roles we take exception to.
Generally speaking, if the point is to convince people to a particular point of view, the way to achieve that is to avoid any impression of being supercilious or condescending…
No, I guess Harry Reid proclaiming “Iraq is lost” and calling him a loser was just constructive criticism? All of the Dems were predicting and I believe HOPING the surge would fail so they could lambast President Bush even more. I don’t know how many times Obama was confronted with his claims that “the Surge will fail” even after it was clear how successful it was. He would never admit he was wrong.
IOW…“I know you are but what am I?” Thanks, PeeWee seekerz HermanI disagree about the smiley…you seem to need it more than me
/
All of that to say what, that it is or is not okay to pledge one’s efforts toward a leader’s failure?
LisaA;9818269:
The above is just the payment to eligible medical professionals - hospitals are reimbursed differentlyWhat is amazing is the supporters of ‘medicine as a market’ representing medicine as a self-propelled charity!
Just to be sure, are you implying that all that technology and all those drugs could get to the hands of doctors and nurses if they tap their heels twice?
The team concept is based on the acknowledgment that a single hand cannot, however hard it tries, clap even faintly…
Did I imply that the administration invented anything? No, they simply took it to the next level. :extrahappy:
Forgive my terminology, but tens of thousands of dollars (see below) represents a small fortune to most people in my acquaintance - doctors included.
Source
I can see that you don’t. The inflated prices on hospital bills are sometimes reflected in ridiculous charges even for items of personal care that one could find in a dollar store. I’ll post the link if I find it, but CNN reported a couple yrs ago on a patient’s bill in which the tootbrush was charged at several dollars (six, I think).
I guess you didn’t notice that the word “CAN” was used to claim that doctors could receive up to $44,000…IOW that is the maximum but it’s a per patient payment and only for certain patients and only if you fill out certain forms and submit them.
As to the six dollar toothbrush, I assure you neither the patient nor the insurance company actually PAID that amount. Hospital bills have lists and lists of various charges but in reality only a small percentage are actually paid. For example a heart bypass bill (hospital) might be over $100,000 but Medicare pays the hospital a small fraction of that amount. Most cases are done as a flat charge depending on the patient’s diagnosis. The hospital could run up a million dollar bill for DRG 108 but they won’t get paid any more for that patient than the straightforward patient whose charges are more normal for that DRG.
This is what is so misleading when the media claims that so and so’s Medicaid bill was $100,000…yes maybe the BILL was that much but given Medicaid pays ten to fifteen cents on the dollar the hospital only gets paid $10,000. Unfortunately reality isn’t as interesting as some reporter trying to make a name for himself by omitting “the rest of the story.”
You just like to Google and find weird little stories as if this is what is really happening in medical care. This is what I do every day and since reality doesn’t comport with your internet searches there is little I can do to convince you that there is theory and there is punditry and there is real life. Enjoy life on the internet…it’s a lot less expensive than the real thing
Lisa
seekerz;9818741:
The upper limit is 63,750 - and yes, you do have to fill out forms, so what? You were wrong on that detail and there’s no shame in admitting it…
Oh I know how it works. Do you? Newsflash: there ARE people who get charged that full, inflated amount: THE UNINSURED. Remember them? They’re who Obamacare is trying to make like easier for. Some of the uninsured are able to get comparatively small discounts (making that $6 instead $3 or $4), some ignore the bills altogether, and some who value their credit score and who can’t pay the whole discounted amount at once get a payment plan in which THEY PAY THE FULL INFLATED AMOUNT in small payments that extend over years.
Yes, facts can be misleading if you don’t know all the details. Medicaid/Medicare or private insurance bills are just numbers on a page until the discounts are applied. The uninsured who have a sense of responsibility are the ones who get held to ransom…
I’m sorry if the plight of the uninsured (and underinsured, I might add, since their discounts from original charges are pitiful too) seem like “weird little stories”. Hmm, I starting to understand WHY Romney seems so out of touch…perhaps he doesn’t get around much in that real world you mention.
Oops. I was asking if you would educate me on why American capitalism relies on cheap labor from communist China.
I’m an american capitalist and i do not rely on cheap labor from communist china. One has to ask the question, however, as to why it is cheaper for manufacturing companies to build goods in china when they then have to pay to ship it united states over manufacturing it in the united states. Since wages only account for a small portion of the goods produced you have to wonder if a lot of the problem is overregulation by an overzealous United States government. for example if apple wanted to build an IPhone factory in california i suspect it would take years and years before they even broke ground. In china it’s probably a matter of months
Because cheap labor always was, is, and always will be the mother’s milk of American capitalism.
I wouldn’t be surprised if ground-breaking takes months in China. Regulations are so lax there (and in much of Asia) that people are sometimes afraid to eat the food they buy. I was once told that some factories in Asia specialize in manufacturing materials for adulterating food - you know, inedible stuff that may or may not be harmless, looks like real food, and can be mixed into it.
When it would take years to build a factory in the USA, then yes, the problem is the goverment.I wouldn’t be surprised if ground-breaking takes months in China. Regulations are so lax there (and in much of Asia) that people are sometimes afraid to eat the food they buy. I was once told that some factories in Asia specialize in manufacturing materials for adulterating food - you know, inedible stuff that may or may not be harmless, looks like real food, and can be mixed into it.
Obama doesn’t know a thing about creating jobs…nobody does ‘brand name’ imitations, caters to industrial workers’ ‘comfort’ and safety, or produces more creatively contaminated food…than our ‘most favored (outsourcing) nation’. That’s why their cheap labor is important. Nothing to do with ideology - everything to do with government regulations.
I’m afraid neither the words ‘happy’ nor ‘medium’ automatically conjure up images of China, but US companies seem to favor it anyway…
Much of “American capitalism” does not rely on cheap labor from China. We have a service economy to a great extent and good, bad or indifferent, these are businesses that don’t use Chinese to staff their hotels or hospitals or restaurants or department stores. OTOH the manufacturing sector has to a great extent relocated to other lands with lower costs and less regulation. So that’s why…the retailer or distributor can provide goods at a lower price because of the lower costs and standards of living in these countries. If the American people would prefer to pay the cost of buying American manufactured products then we wouldn’t rely on a lower cost country. It’s one of those do the math answers.
It was the consumers idea to move manufacturing overseas? Surely anybody who can get a decent product for a lower price will take it, but how did after the fact choices by consumers lead to China becoming the US’ manufacturing base?
No it was consumers’ demands for lower prices that moved manufacturing overseas. Use Walmart as an example. If they can buy products for lower prices and then pass on the savings to their customers, voila, more customers buy from Walmart than from the store that is purchasing higher priced goods either from American manufacturers or other countries that are higher than the Asian countries.It was the consumers idea to move manufacturing overseas? Surely anybody who can get a decent product for a lower price will take it, but how did after the fact choices by consumers lead to China becoming the US’ manufacturing base?
The companies went overseas because they wanted to maintain or increase profits by selling cheaper than their competitors. People have always wanted lower prices, but until the whole ‘globalization’ thing, they did not always (or even generally) get what they demanded.
