This may be true, but is a theoretical observation. Practical observation is that those without sufficient money are being failed routinely (real countries, real people, real cases can be seen). Government involvement in healthcare does in practice address that problem. If there are other schemes actually operational doing the same, that is good too, and we should compare these actual existing schemes, against each other.
No, it doesn’t. You pay your taxes, in part, because if you didn’t you may eventually be jailed. We call that “coercion”, as the dictionary has it.
As the commerce clause already enumerates it, this is irrelevant.
As your counters are non-real, I’m not sure what else to say.
To the contrary Jon. I’m merely forwarding the idea on the proven premise that “the invisible hand” can’t solve every problem; particularly in dealing with natural monopolies and industries that approach it.
True, when we removed “preexisting conditions” as a screener for who got insured, costs bloomed; as they logically would. People who were terribly sick (thus, were terribly expensive) got covered again.
Anecdotes are anecdotes, Jon. Others make it work. I’m sure we can too.
It blew my mind that medicare is just 3% overhead too.
Oh, Jon. :doh2:
In reality, we just don’t see it, Jon. It’s actually kinda HARD to get a Medicare claim denied for industry-standard treatment for a known disease…
I don’t think it s theoretical, I think it is human nature. But that said, I think it a mix result with government involvement in healthcare. The queuing often employed in government plans, such as Canada’s, is evidence.
Well, now your argument is about the type of taxation we have. I certainly would agree that the income tax is terribly immoral.
Regarding single-payer, I guess that test will come.
The Church is an invisible hand. St. Jude’s Hospital, the Shriners. I guess I simply hold a higher expectation of Americans.
and it didn’t have to be that way. Allowing for large associations that negotiate care for their members would automatically protect those with pre-existing conditions, as is often the case with employment-based healthcare.
ACA has been awful, and is getting worse.
Yeah, but it isn’t.
I was not aware that lobbyists now pass legislation.
You’re talking about NOW. Medicare for all is the start of eliminating the healthcare choices and rights people have.
that’s because we don’t yet have single payer, thankfully.
No, I was providing yet another example on how government coerces us into action as a matter of regular course.
All wonderful organizations. But if you’re not a child with a disease, two of these organizations don’t have much for you.
Here’s one of your irrationalities.
It hasn’t been perfect, no.
Concept of economic cost vs accounting cost is an interesting one.
Oh Jon, tell me you’re not this naive.I was not aware that lobbyists now pass legislation.
…another of your evil boogeymen fantasies. We just don’t see it elsewhere Jon. Your gremlin here isn’t real. It’s just not real.
Health insurance that few doctors accept does not expand health care. Forcing doctors to accept less does not sound particularly moral to me. Focusing on the incidence of health insurance instead of healthcare is a mistake. The former is merely an instrument to effect the latter as its end. Having health insurance, as many Medicare recipients have learned, is not the same as having health care. Medicare provides health insurance (not free in parts b, c and d) but finding doctors – PCP’s or specialists – who accept Medicare as a form of payment was and is getting more difficult. Here’s why.
It would be helpful if you provided authoritative sources for all you claims in this post. Please give your source for the statistics of 60% “medical” bankruptcies and 20% households carrying “medical” debt. I don’t believe it. And neither do other competent statisticians.
Sources! As others have pointed out, the 3% admin overhead is incorrect. 15% is CMS’s own 2017 actual reported admin rate. hhs.gov/about/budget/fy2018/budget-in-brief/cms/medicare/index.html
Your analysis, I fear, is flawed. Source! I think you’ll find that the data compared the drugs list price compared to, for instance, the UK’s National Health price. When was the last time you paid the sticker price for your car? A fair comparison would be say, Aetna’s negotiated price with the National Health price.- Fourth, single-payer systems get life-saving drugs to people for fairer prices.
In single-payer countries, most medications cost half of what they do in the US. Why? Individuals have no negotiating leverage with big-pharma. None. A single-payer healthcare system, on the other hand, negotiates price for that entire market. For the pharmaceutical company, it’s either “agree on a price” or “lose access to that market”. They don’t want to lose access to the market.
If you have others, please provide sources for claims.
As single-payer healthcare is already a reality for 1/3 of Americans, when we finish the job and make it the reality for 3/3 of Americans, there simply won’t be many doctors that don’t accept it.
As you’d be going to the same doctor, why would the quality drop?
I’ve played this game several times o_mlly. If I showed you a number I pulled from the Kaiser Foundation, you’d likely retort that their information isn’t worth very much because of all the California liberals that serve on the board of trustees.
I’ve even had a doctor friend of mine argue that the WHO rankings on quality and per capita cost are worthless because they don’t take sufficient consideration of the value of capitalism…:doh2:I’ve given 3% as a rough historical average, so I won’t defend it as an exact and current number. So let’s calculate what it is for 2017.
Nonsense. R&D is born by anyone that buys the finished product anywhere.
And they are compensated for those risks by selling the product; generally for substantially less outside of the US where they hold less lobbying power. bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/
By the time nation-wide class-actions show up on your television, a court has already shown that a pharma company has messed up hugely in a grossly negligent way. The notion that they shouldn’t have to pay for that is ridiculous…
You’re welcome to your opinion, but the fact is that the proper means as set out in the constitution provide the people and the states the best way to change the level of power government has.
And if government got out of the way, groups such as these, consumer associations, state and local government, could do a far better vehicle for helping those who have needs than a federal bureaucracy.
Don’t look to the general government for that.
Perhaps, but the ability of large groups to negotiate spreads those costs out. The government has proven over the last few decades that it only drives costs up.
the associations do exist, but only in small numbers because of government restrictions.
Understatement of the century. It is an unmitigated disaster.
And again,with astronomical co-pays, premiums, and deductibles.
No, it is not. If all that was done was to reduce health insurance ability for the unisured, that could have been done without ever interfering with the insurance plans already in place for those who were quite happy with them. But the law drove prices up and plans to the curb by adding regulations and forcing people to buy coverage that they didn’t want. The plan tries to force Christians to pay for medicines and practices that are contrary to our faith. So, no, it isn’t wonderful for Christians at all.
Yeah, I have a hard time dealing with falsehoods.Nonetheless, admin cost divided by total expenditures is roughly 3%. It’s math. Deal with it.
If the government did not have the power to hand out favors, the money wouldn’t be spent on the legislators. Let’s remember who here is in favor of increasing government power (hint: it isn’t me). When you increase government power, you increase attempts to curry favorable legislation that blocks and limits competition. Crony capitalism is a result of more and more centralization of power. Adding to it makes the problem worse.
“Peace in our time!”
It is amazing, isn’t it, how people will choose a bit of security over liberty.
Jon, there is no “government” in the sense of a self-feeding bureaucracy that independently exists to serve its own ends.
Do you have an example of this? Easy ones like the F-22 Raptor program continued to bloat as a result of effective lobbying and spin on the part of Boeing and Lockheed. They were the engines that drove that fiscal nightmare, not some generic boogeyman called “government”.
Which is basically an HSA.
Certainly not. If it were as objectively bad as you say, the Republican charge to repeal it once Trump was in office wouldn’t have failed so spectacularly and repeatedly…
It did get more expensive. Your provider now has to cover previously rejected, sick people in addition to funding executive and shareholder earnings.
Then we disagree. I think a man with cancer that couldn’t get treatment suddenly getting care for his sickness is a tremendously wonderful thing.
(in millions) (9,346 admin+13,140 related)/609,541 net outlay= 3.6%
As long as the government has to spend money on something, people are going to lobby to be the one that receives the work-contract. It’s literally always been this way, Jon. Even in Washington’s day.
When you’re talking about the “liberty” to indirectly die from poverty, it’s not amazing at all.
I have never seen a lobbyist on the floor of the House voting for a bill. Lobbyists have influence, sure, as the represent the interests of a specific group of people. It is protected in the constitution.
So, Boeing and Lockheed passed that spending bill. Got it.
Seems you didn’t read the plan. That’s okay. It is much more than HSA.
“Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes truth.” Look at the increase in premiums last year. Wait for the increase at the end of this year for next. It is a spectacular failure.
Understatement.
True. They also had to cover the government dictated regulations are required coverages now applied to everyone. We all want to make sure that those who have special circumstances are covered. They didn’t need to touch anyone else’s plans to do that.
Again, when it is convenient for you, you conflate insurance with care. Just because he has an ACA plan with premiums, co-pays and deductibles he can’t afford, doesn’t mean he gets better care.Then we disagree. I think a man with cancer that couldn’t get treatment suddenly getting care for his sickness is a tremendously wonderful thing.
The falsehood is in the exclusion of costs that are necessary for the operation of the program, but not included, as pointed out in the article I posted. the cost of collecting the money for the program, for instance. Is that included in the number?
Non-responsive. You’re saying, “since they’re doing it anyway, let’s just increase the problem.” Then, as above, you complain about the wasted spending.
I consider the claim that the repeal of ACA will cause people to die to be an insidious, slanderous attack on the American people. We see just this week how Americans, the most generous people in the world, step up to help their neighbor. To say that Americans will die without ACA is saying that Americans, even those who support ACA, will refuse to help their neighbors. I reject that without qualification.
Of course you didn’t. You find them chatting with the congressman in his office just before it’s time to vote.
Indeed. As I’ve said earlier, I’ve done this once or twice.
Talking about this one, right?
Because it is the means to care. But I do apologize for not being sufficiently distinctive.
So some of the IRS’s budget should be rolled in, eh?
This was in response to your complaint “if the government didn’t have the power to hand out favors…” It does and must in order to simply do its business, as a “favor” is simply the awarding of a contract.
You are a minority. This is why the attempts to repeal have stalled and failed to a magnitude that’s almost comical. Best the reps can do is tinker with it, which is what good legislative bodies should continually do to the laws they create.
That’s correct and that type of government coercion in Catholic thinking is clearly immoral.
We remember this falsehood: ”If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” Many did not.
Again: Source? Most countries, as previously noted, are not single-payer. However, you cite Canada as your preferred single payer system. Why are sick Canadians increasingly coming to the USA for treatment?
One should not post statistics as matters-of-fact if one already suspects the data is manipulated. The problem is you give no authoritative sources for your claims. Hard to argue with an unsupported number. What is given gratuitously may be gratuitously dismissed.I’ve played this game several times o_mlly. If I showed you a number I pulled from the Kaiser Foundation, you’d likely retort that their information isn’t worth very much because of all the California liberals that serve on the board of trustees.
Since the exercise is to compare the government admin costs to private health insurance companies, the numbers above lack admin costs equivalent to a finance department (IRS), an accounting department (OMB), corporate oversight (HHS and WH) and others indirect costs buried somewhere else in the federal budget.
That’s wrong All indirect costs are by definition unassigned. The point is that R&D costs must be paid by someone or the company will stop spending for R&D. No new drugs. In the case of Merck, for example, R&D is 30% of total costs.
Think macro rather than parochial. We all pay. Businessmen pass all costs through to buyers. If you want lower drug prices then you should work to lower drug development, manufacture and distribution costs – not increase them.
It is remarkable how you cam to this faulty conclusion. I am quite aware of the influence lobbyists have on Washington. that’s one reason why I oppose at every turn attempts to increase the power of the general government. With more power comes more attempts to influence. ACA, and its attempted repeal are excellent examples. In both instances, insurance companies and others have exercised strong influence. If the general government was not interfering healthcare, the insurance companies would have no need to exert influence.
And a market based system would improve care, and lower prices. It might even move us towards universality. With government, we might get universality, but not lower prices, and certainly not good care.
it certainly can be. As can other approaches, like IHP’s and medi-share approaches.
Absolutely. Does not BCBS have to have an accounts receivable department that adds to administrative costs?So some of the IRS’s budget should be rolled in, eh?
The DoD also provides security to these offices while they function. How much of the military’s budget should also be allocated?
And so we have to maintain the fact that the government that governs least governs best. The fact that government has to simply do its business is not a reason for centralizing greater and greater power in Washington.
Sadly, you may be right. It seems more and more Americans are quite content to give up their rights for tentative security. Honestly, I do not understand why progressives want Donald Trump in charge of their healthcare. I sure don’t, and I absolutely don’t want a progressive in charge of mine.
Tragic, indeed. To see them turn their backs on good healthcare and individual rights is sad.
“Health is not a consumer good but a universal right, so access to health services cannot be a privilege…” Pope Francis, May 7, 2016
I completely agree. That was a lie on the part of Barack. How could you add the chronically ill to the insurance pool and not rationally expect costs to go up?
For that one, CIA factbook.
Here’s an passage from “Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States”:
I can’t make people accept sources like the Kaiser Family Foundation, CIA and WHO, even as they’re obviously reputable sources to most.
I studied accounting in school. Almost finished another degree in it. You simply don’t know what you’re talking about here…
The cost of R&D, again, is met from sales of the product.
These are always worthy aims!
You also need to include “increase your negotiating power as the purchaser”. Currently, as an individual you have approximately none.Insolvency is what happens to anything that is underfunded.
…Jon. Most of the restrictions you rail against as being passed by some thing called “government” was, in reality, log-rolling politicians in the service of those very same companies. The insurance companies actually created them as a hedge for their profitability. Not some abstract boogeyman called “government”.
We’ve been over this ad nauseam. Healthcare does not follow a classic market model. You don’t/can’t shop in emergencies and the chronically ill cannot widely travel.
Yeah. Primary vehicle there is HSAs…
So then Somalia has the best government in the world?
What right are they trading away? The right to die via poverty?
They don’t. Just as with the other countries mentioned, the responsibility for healthcare rests between you and your doctor. Put away the boogeymen, Jon.
Yeah. Those tragic souls want people to actually have access to healthcare.
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Yes, because people walk to the hospital.
Yeah, you’re misrepresenting the document and I encourage people to read it.
There’s that accusation against the American people again, the falsehood that if government doesn’t help people, nobody will. It is insidious and slanderous. Those who favor government healthcare do not have a moral high ground on the issue. The implication that those who favor free market solutions don’t care about people and want people to die false.
“If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.”
If they wanted people to have access to quality affordable healthcare they would have repealed ACA.
If you define socialism as government owned and controlled enterprises then all three are examples of socialism. Can you name someone who does not “use” the interstate highway system? I think not. If they consume anything other than products from their home state then they use the interstate highways. Why federal? Arguably, only a federal system is practical if the system is to be continuous throughout the contiguous states. Unless you prefer toll booths every 10 miles or so.
Why theoretically and not really? The reality is that one always works for the ones who pay them. If I pack your groceries at the end of the checkout lane then I do you a service but I do not work for you. I work for the one whose name is on my paycheck.