Greenspan Chides Republicans For Pushing To Extend Bush Tax

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number5
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11 Nov 2010, 10:08 am

psychohist wrote:

number5 wrote:

Doctors and hospitals have to charge rediculous amounts because for every patient that doesn't pay, they are forced to eat the cost. This is a large part of the reason why the current system is completely unsustainable. Uninsured people cost the system dearly.

Uncompensated care is part of the reason for high medical costs, but not that large a part. It was only 11.5% in 2005, and the trend was declining.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... n18744951/

Your source is a bit outdated.

US hospitals stay tight-fisted to offset bad debt

While there weren't any exact percentages given, there was no mention of lawsuits at all. You'll also notice how they give credit to the cobra government subsides as to why there hasn't been a large spike in hospital debt. A gentle upward trend (not downward) in debt was observed.

psychohist
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11 Nov 2010, 10:38 am

marshall wrote:

I would expect the administrative costs to be higher for people on medicare because the people on medicare are older and less healthy than the people on private insurance.

"Older and less healthy" means you need more doctors, not more insurance administrators. Administrative costs like figuring out what rates should be paid and what treatments should be reimbursible for which conditions should actually be lower per person on medicare, since it's a bigger program. That they aren't is a tribute to government inefficiency.

psychohist
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11 Nov 2010, 10:52 am

number5 wrote:

Your source is a bit outdated.

US hospitals stay tight-fisted to offset bad debt

The conclusion is the same. Bad debt may be "creeping up" recently due to the recession as your source says, but even if it's climbed to 12% or slightly higher, it's not that big a part of the problem. It's still tiny compared to the medicare shortfall of 30-40%.

Quote:

While there weren't any exact percentages given, there was no mention of lawsuits at all.

Why would you expect a discussion of lawsuits in an article on bad debt?

Quote:

You'll also notice how they give credit to the cobra government subsides as to why there hasn't been a large spike in hospital debt.

I'm not sure how this is relevnt. COBRA is a subsidy to the recently unemployed to allow them to keep their previous health coverage until they find a new job; as far as I know, no one is blaming it for increasing health costs or suggesting changing it as part of health reform.

ruveyn
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11 Nov 2010, 10:56 am

psychohist wrote:

number5 wrote:

This is a collectivization or, if you will, a socialization of the costs of providing the service. It is an informal mode of "socialist" medicine. The many pay and the few get benefits for which they do not pay.

ruveyn

psychohist
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11 Nov 2010, 11:08 am

number5 wrote:

And remind me again why health insurance should at all be tied to employment?

I didn't answer this earlier because it wasn't really relevant to the original topic, but now that the topic has drifted squarely to health care, let me answer it now.

Tying health care to the employer is indeed the biggest problem with the present health care system, because it puts the incentives in the wrong place. Health insurance is sold to employers, so it is designed to benefit the employers. That means it's designed to push off problems for a few years, when the employee will be at another job, rather than being designed to make the best choices over the employee's lifetime. In the meantime, the problems get worse.

That's my biggest objection to Obamacare: it does nothing about this problem, and in fact makes it worse because Obama, bowing to union demands, made continued employer payment of health insurance a nonnegotiable part of his changes.

What's needed is a system where the individual makes the choices about his own health care, because it's only the individual that has an incentive to help himself over his entire life.

ruveyn
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11 Nov 2010, 11:21 am

marshall wrote:

Usually the poor and starving "losers" alone are not violent. However, when the situation gets bad enough there will always be political opportunists who will be willing to use the desperate starving underclass to do their bidding. All the opportunists have to do is offer the "loser" class something marginally better than the status-quo. A banana republic with no social safety net will always be prone to Marxist takeovers. It's really an unavoidable reality that violence will ensue.

When was the last "Marxist Takeover" in Banana Republic Land? None since the Soviet Union collapsed in a pile of ruin. Some unavoidable that is.

ruveyn

aamj50
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11 Nov 2010, 11:49 am

ruveyn wrote:

Is that a threat? The unruly mob can be mowed down by machine gun fire.

ruveyn

Oh, you mean like they do in Burma and China and like they used to do in Cambodia? Is that your America? Who would be doing the mowing down? This government you hate so much? Blackwater? Dick Cheney? Barack Obama? Who?
I hope what follows doesn't put my status here in jeopardy and I dont think I'll be visiting this particular side of the forum anymore, but you f*****g suck.

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ruveyn
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11 Nov 2010, 11:58 am

aamj50 wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Is that a threat? The unruly mob can be mowed down by machine gun fire.

ruveyn

Excuse me. I was not advocating gunning down the unruly mode. I was merely indicating that the unruly mob could be gunned down.

I suggest you review what happened at Tieniman Square. Did the death and maiming of all those Democracy Loving young Chinese students change anything in China? I doubt it.

You have to make a distinction between expressing an opinion many find distasteful and violating forum rules.

I have a very dim view of the human race. Should I be kicked off this forum because I do?

Should only cheerful agreeable postings be made here?

And if you can't develop the ability to ignore opinions you don't like then perhaps you should not be posting here. In this particular forum, Free Speech (actually Free Posting) is reasonably well practiced here.

ruveyn

aamj50
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11 Nov 2010, 1:36 pm

ruveyn wrote:

You have to make a distinction between expressing an opinion many find distasteful and violating forum rules.
ruveyn

You're right. I apologize for breaking forum rules (not for the sentiment, just for expressing it in an improper fashion). I love WP and respect it's intent and the community. I come here to escape from discussions like this so in the future I will stick to the parts of the site that cheer me up and make me feel less crazy, not this one which has the opposite effect.

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marshall
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11 Nov 2010, 2:40 pm

ruveyn wrote:

aamj50 wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Is that a threat? The unruly mob can be mowed down by machine gun fire.

ruveyn

Well your opinions are extremely hurtful. I have a dim opinion of you. Thankfully you don't have too many years left on this planet.

ruveyn
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11 Nov 2010, 5:26 pm

marshall wrote:

Well your opinions are extremely hurtful. I have a dim opinion of you. Thankfully you don't have too many years left on this planet.

As do we all have a limited life-span. However my children and older grandchildren think a great deal like I do. So after I am gone, the songs will still be sung, the poems recited and the essays posted.

There are more people who think like I do and every year more and more are learning how to speak up and be heard.

tomorrow belongs to me.

ruveyn

marshall
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11 Nov 2010, 10:21 pm

ruveyn wrote:

marshall wrote:

Well your opinions are extremely hurtful. I have a dim opinion of you. Thankfully you don't have too many years left on this planet.

Your future is one in which needy masses are mowed down by machine gun toting elites protecting their wealth. You once indicated that you have an autistic granddaughter. Will she be one of the ones mowing down others, or will she be one of the ones being mowed down?

auntblabby
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11 Nov 2010, 10:25 pm

number5 wrote:

US hospitals stay tight-fisted to offset bad debt

"tightfisted"? the street-definition of "tightfisted" would have to include the common gouging practice of charging patients $10 for a single tablet of aspirin.

auntblabby
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11 Nov 2010, 10:36 pm

aamj50 wrote:

I love WP and respect it's intent and the community. I come here to escape from discussions like this so in the future I will stick to the parts of the site that cheer me up and make me feel less crazy, not this one which has the opposite effect.

if you avoid PPR, you won't be missing much other than abundantly self-impressed intellectual showboating, gain-saying and fruitless contention among the cognitive elites and their wannabes - the human version of dogs growling and yanking on the same doggytoy. i must be a glutton for punishment, otherwise i'd avoid this forum also. but the persistently decent [and educational] outliers on this forum keep me interested.

auntblabby
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11 Nov 2010, 10:42 pm

psychohist wrote:

my biggest objection to Obamacare: it does nothing about this problem, and in fact makes it worse because Obama, bowing to union demands, made continued employer payment of health insurance a nonnegotiable part of his changes.
What's needed is a system where the individual makes the choices about his own health care, because it's only the individual that has an incentive to help himself over his entire life.

if employers are not to pay for employee healthcare, and the government is prevented from paying for health care, and the employees are paid insufficiently richly to afford the exorbitant premiums of real [read: actually covers the costs of routine acute/chronic care] health insurance, then what? chickens aren't the solution. :roll:

auntblabby
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11 Nov 2010, 10:44 pm

ruveyn wrote:

tomorrow belongs to me.

you are welcome to your hobbsian tomorrow.

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