Health Care

[spike]

Then change companies.

They all have far more flaws.

As for flawed government programs...if they can't do them right, why do we keep adding new ones?

Cause the private option has more flaws and a lot of government programs are done well.

 

[Frodo]

Then promote a voluntary public insurance plan. I've already said, Co-ops are the way to go if you don't want to support big corp. Applying some focus to the actually source of the problem instead of whitewashing it will go far further than endorsing a new tax plan.

A true Co-op would be a great way to go. As long as it does not use our own tax money to compete in the market place and put the private companies out of business. However, that will never happen since it does not meet the number one goal of Notional Health care which is to empower the government. Any plan that does not meet this ultimate goal will not be considered.

 

[Gonz]

Cause the private option has more flaws and a lot of government programs are done well.

Have you always despised private industry?

Government control is communism.

Free enterprise is capitalism.

Which do you prefer?

 

[spike]

Have you always despised private industry?

No but I am able to recognize when it isn't doing a good job. Government run healthcare has proven to be better.

Government control is communism.

Free enterprise is capitalism.

Which do you prefer?

You can't just put try to force labels on shit and call it an argument. It doesn't work that way.

Healthcare should not be a for profit system. It takes the focus off treating people and puts it on profit. Fixing someones problem isn't as profitable as having them be repeat customers. Flawed from the start.

Fire departments, police, and the military also are also better as government run systems instead of for profit systems. That doesn't make them communist. Even if it did the label doesn't matter. You go with what works best.

 

[Gonz]

Healthcare should not be a for profit system.

So, doctors should be slaves then?

 

[randomJACKASS]

So, doctors should be slaves then?

Preposterous! Being in the health care field should not be a get rich quick scheme.

slave
  /sleɪv/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sleyv] Show IPA noun, verb, slaved, slav⋅ing.
Use slave in a Sentence
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–noun
1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.
3. a drudge: a housekeeping slave.
4. a slave ant.
5. Photography. a subsidiary flash lamp actuated through its photoelectric cell when the principal flash lamp is discharged.
6. Machinery. a mechanism under control of and repeating the actions of a similar mechanism. Compare master (def. 19).
–verb (used without object)
7. to work like a slave; drudge.
8. to engage in the slave trade; procure, transport, or sell slaves.
–verb (used with object)
9. to connect (a machine) to a master as its slave.
10. Archaic. to enslave.
Origin:
1250–1300; ME sclave < ML sclāvus (masc.), sclāva (fem.) slave, special use of Sclāvus Slav, so called because Slavs were commonly enslaved in the early Middle Ages; see Slav

Related forms:
slaveless, adjective
slavelike, adjective

Synonyms:
7. toil, labor, slog, grind.

Just more lies, and distortions, try again!

 

[spike]

So, doctors should be slaves then?

Really? Yes, chain them up.

Are doctors slaves in England, Canada, or France? Can we discuss some shit without all the drama?

Doctors are paid a nice salary. As should any job that takes that much work to get.

A lot of our doctors are paid per small job. An office visit for instance. They get paid for each office visit. So how do you make the most money? Cram as many office visits in every minute that you possibly can.

What does that motivate you to do? It encourages you to rush everything. I have met with tons of doctors and some of them are fanatics about moving on. It's hard even to get them to stop an extra minute or two and ask some questions about what's going on.

You have to get aggressive with some of them just to knock them off their routine and explain what the fuck is going on at the hospital.

Have some questions after the office visit or hospital? You can't get the doctor to call you. Need to go back in and pay. In the waiting room for a long ass time because they got people quadruple booked.

Some doctors resist the greed and are much better. A lot don't. If you're on your company's insurance you don't have much of a choice what doctor you see and sometimes you have to have an office visit and pay just to get referred.

How can you not see how logically fucked up this is? We have our doctors on a freakin' COMMISSION SYSTEM. Who else is on a commission system? Used car salesmen, lawyers, real estate agents. A commission system is about speed and money.

You think these doctors think about your problem when they go to sleep at night like I do with my work?

This shit is broken as hell. Why is it that you can't even buy insurance and have less access to health care when you're sick and really need it? Or you're too sick to work and you lose your insurance because you need it? It's for profit, you're not profitable.

Why does this have anything to do with my job? I have to see different doctors if I change jobs? What?

Pay them a salary so their motivation is to fix people and have them not come back. Maybe they would puzzle out your problem while they go to sleep.

People are acting just like religious extremists about evolving the US healthcare system into something better. But it's Obama so you need to find some self defeating reason to oppose anything and everything he does. Politics are sick too. Disgusting really. Fear mongering is especially disgusting. We should change the motivation there.

 

[Professur]

Really? Yes, chain them up.

Are doctors slaves in England, Canada, or France? Can we discuss some shit without all the drama?

In Quebec, newly minted doctors were told where they can practice for the first years, literally forcing them out into the boondocks because noone wanted to work out in 'the regions' (Bish, if you can confirm or deny that this is still the case)

Doctors are paid a nice salary. As should any job that takes that much work to get.

So lawyers are next? The education is similar

A lot of our doctors are paid per small job. An office visit for instance. They get paid for each office visit. So how do you make the most money? Cram as many office visits in every minute that you possibly can.

Just like an automechanic. Or a plumber. Or any other profession, including my own. Repeat customers make money. I've known techs guilty of deliberately not completing a job just to make the extra dispatch fees. I've known other techs to rush jobs either because of a crush of jobs to get done or simply to get more in. I charged far more than any of them for a job, and was still up to my neck in calls ... fixing their fuckups. My customers were the dissatisfied remnants of their client lists. As a Level 3, I wasn't triaging, nor was I a super-specialist. I was the top GP of the region. But all that constant reeducation didn't come cheap, or easy. Am I supposed to charge the same rates as Bozo the fucking Clown who hasn't re certified in three years?

Have some questions after the office visit or hospital? You can't get the doctor to call you. Need to go back in and pay. In the waiting room for a long ass time because they got people quadruple booked.

Some doctors resist the greed and are much better. A lot don't. If you're on your company's insurance you don't have much of a choice what doctor you see and sometimes you have to have an office visit and pay just to get referred.

I'm dealing with this now, trying to get the info out of my kid's doctor. Since he's not getting paid anything extra, I guess there's another reason why he's not returning my calls, eh?

How can you not see how logically fucked up this is? We have our doctors on a freakin' COMMISSION SYSTEM. Who else is on a commission system? Used car salesmen, lawyers, real estate agents. A commission system is about speed and money.

politicians added to the mix won't change that. You're a fool if you think it will

You think these doctors think about your problem when they go to sleep at night like I do with my work?

I know many people who take their work home with them. Most of them have serious stress issues. I make a point of leaving my job at the office. In fact, it's one of the first things I tell my new bosses about myself, immediately between telling them that A) my family comes first. If I get a call that they need me, I'm gone. And B) I'm not interested in advancing beyond my present position, not interested in management beyond team leader.

This shit is broken as hell. Why is it that you can't even buy insurance and have less access to health care when you're sick and really need it? Or you're too sick to work and you lose your insurance because you need it? It's for profit, you're not profitable.

Because you've allowed it to become this way. It didn't happen overnight, y'know.

Pay them a salary so their motivation is to fix people and have them not come back.

Motivated our doctors right out of the country.

People are acting just like religious extremists about evolving the US healthcare system into something better. But it's Obama so you need to find some self defeating reason to oppose anything and everything he does. Politics are sick too. Disgusting really. Fear mongering is especially disgusting. We should change the motivation there.

Frankly, I'd be hard pressed to give a damn about who you folk are letting tell you what to do. I just try to give you Americans a bit of perspective. In fact, if you go back on this site, and others, you'd find that my opinions haven't changed in the last three administrations. If you've issues with how the system works, consider addressing those specific issues yourself, instead of always crawling back to Papa gov't to solve your problems for you.

 

[Professur]

Here's a flashback for ya

Social Security History


The 1936 Government Pamphlet on Social Security

title bar from 1936 pamphlet

To Employees of Industrial and Business Establishments

FACTORIES-SHOPS-MINES-MILLS-STORES-OFFICES AND OTHER PLACES OF BUSINESS

Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account for you, if you are eligible. To understand your obligations, rights, and benefits you should read the following general explanation.

THERE is now a law in this country which will give about 26 million working people something to live on when they are old and have stopped working. This law, which gives other benefits, too, was passed last year by Congress and is called the Social Security Act.

Under this law the United States Government will send checks every month to retired workers, both men and women, after they have passed their 65th birthday and have met a few simple requirements of the law.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU

THIS means that if you work in some factory, shop, mine, mill, store, office, or almost any other kind of business or industry, you will be earning benefits that will come to you later on. From the time you are 65 years old, or more, and stop working, you will get a Government check every month of your life, if you have worked some time (one day or more) in each of any 5 years after 1936, and have earned during that time a total of $2,000 or more.

The checks will come to you as a right. You will get them regardless of the amount of property or income you may have. They are what the law calls "Old-Age Benefits" under the Social Security Act. If you prefer to keep on working after you are 65, the monthly checks from the Government will begin coming to you whenever you decide to retire.

The Amount of Your Checks

How much you will get when you are 65 years old will depend entirely on how much you earn in wages from your industrial or business employment between January 1, 1937, and your 65th birthday. A man or woman who gets good wages and has a steady job most of his or her life can get as much as $85 a month for life after are 65. The least you can get in monthly benefits, if you come under the law at all, is $10 a month.

IF YOU ARE NOW YOUNG

Suppose you are making $25 a week and are young enough now to go on working for 40 years. If you make an average of $25 a week for 52 weeks in each year, your check when you are 65 years old will be $53 a month for the rest of your life. If you make $50 a week, you will get $74.50 a month for the rest of your life after age 65.

IF YOU ARE NOW MIDDLE-AGED

But suppose you are about 55 years old now and have 10 years to work before you are 65. Suppose you make only $15 a week on the average. When you stop work at age 65 you will get a check for $19 each month for the rest of your life. If you make $25 a week for 10 years, you will get a little over $23 a month from the Government as long as you live after your 65th birthday.

IF YOU SHOULD DIE BEFORE AGE 65

If you should die before you begin to get your monthly checks, your family will get a payment in cash, amounting to 3.5 cents on every dollar of wages you have earned after 1936. If, for example, you should die at age 64, and if you had earned $25 a week for 10 years before that time, your family would receive $455. On tile other hand, if you have not worked enough to get the regular monthly checks by the time you are 65, you will get a lump sum, or if you should die your family or estate would get a lump sum. The amount of this, too, will be 3.5 cents on every dollar of wages you earn after 1936.

TAXES

THE same law that provides these old-age benefits for you and other workers, sets up certain new taxes to be paid to the United States Government. These taxes are collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue of the U. S. Treasury Department, and inquiries concerning them should be addressed to that bureau. The law also creates an "Old-Age Reserve Account" in the United States Treasury, and Congress is authorized to put into this reserve account each year enough money to provide for the monthly payments you and other workers are to receive when you are 65.

YOUR PART OF THE TAX

The taxes called for in this law will be paid both by your employer and by you. For the next 3 years you will pay maybe 15 cents a week, maybe 25 cents a week, maybe 30 cents or more, according to what you earn. That is to say, during the next 3 years, beginning January 1, 1937, you will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, and at the same time your employer will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. Twenty-six million other workers and their employers will be paying at the same time.

After the first 3 year--that is to say, beginning in 1940--you will pay, and your employer will pay, 1.5 cents for each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. This will be the tax for 3 years, and then, beginning in 1943, you will pay 2 cents, and so will your employer, for every dollar you earn for the next 3 years. After that, you and your employer will each pay half a cent more for 3 years, and finally, beginning in 1949, twelve years from now, you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay.

YOUR EMPLOYER'S PART OF THE TAX

The Government will collect both of these taxes from your employer. Your part of the tax will be taken out of your pay. The Government will collect from your employer an equal amount out of his own funds.

This will go on just the same if you go to work for another employer, so long as you work in a factory, shop, mine, mill, office, store, or other such place of business. (Wages earned in employment as farm workers, domestic workers in private homes, Government workers, and on a few other kinds of jobs are not subject to this tax.)

OLD-AGE RESERVE ACCOUNT

Meanwhile, the Old-Age Reserve fund in the United States Treasury is drawing interest, and the Government guarantees it will never earn less than 3 percent. This means that 3 cents will be added to every dollar in the fund each year.

Maybe your employer has an old-age pension plan for his employees. If so, the Government's old-age benefit plan will not have to interfere with that. The employer can fit his plan into the Government plan.

What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.

Note.--"Wages" and "employment" wherever used in the foregoing mean wages and employment as defined in the Social Security Act.

source

know anyone who's gotten those lump sum payments recently? Better yet, how many people do you know who are obliged (on pain of prison) to pay into this plan, yet still feel it necessary to maintain a private retirement plan as well? After all ...

What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.

This is how gov't works. Even when they give you exactly what you've asked for, they'll slowly change it into what they want when you're not looking. Slowly, a tiny brick at a time until it no longer reads what you thought it did.






Want proof? Your Constitution is supposedly the root of all law in your country. How many presidents so far have treated it like toilet paper? Rep or Dem? I believe Bush Jr called it "that damn paper". It specifically lists silver and gold as the only legal currency of the country. Spent any recently? It specifically lists the right of every citizen to be armed ... yet how many places have slapped restrictions on that? This is supposedly the highest law of the land, yet it's ignored every time it's inconvenient. These are the people who are supposed to be so much more trustworthy than Big Corp? Wake up and smell the coffee. .... They are Big Corp.

But I don't expect you to see this clearly, looking through the filter of your own needs. But I do wonder how many doctors are going to stay in Calif. when they start getting paid in IOUs. And I wonder how many employed people are going to stand for yet another fraction of their pay going to pay the bills for someone not pulling their own weight.


Hell, I'm curious. Anyone here have their tax declaration handy? How much does the average american pay into welfare, unemployment and other 'public insurances'?

 

[MrBishop]

God save the Queen

 

[Professur]

At least with royalty, you know where you stand. They're not trying to pass themselves off as a local boy done good.

 

[Mirlyn]

Hell, I'm curious. Anyone here have their tax declaration handy? How much does the average american pay into welfare, unemployment and other 'public insurances'?

From a recent paystub, 23%. 40% after adding private insurance.

About what you pay, eh?

 

[Professur]

I think you're including your entire tax load there, Mir. I mean just the social insurance portions, if you've got detail at that level.

 

[Professur]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Idw-CzHwgc


These are the people you want in charge of your health care ... because Big Corp is corrupt?

 

[spike]

The Awful Truth About The Public Option
is that it will save the taxpayer $400 billion and force private health insurance companies to compete in markets they monopolize.

Nobel prizewinning economist Paul Krugman calls the arguments against the public option "sheer nonsense:"



Writing at his blog, he adds:
(T)he argument against the public option boils down to the fact that it’s bad because it is, horrors, a government program. And sooner or later Democrats have to take a stand against Reaganism — against the presumption that if the government does it, it’s bad. (Emphasis mine)
Meanwhile, the $900 billion figure being bandied about in the village media -- the total cost of reform without the public option -- is still smaller than the Bush tax cuts:

Enacted in 2001 and 2003, the Bush tax cuts are projected to cost about $2.1 trillion in lost revenue in the 10 years since they were first passed, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal-leaning research group in Washington, D.C. About $979 billion of that would have come from the richest five percent of taxpayers.

By comparison, the health care plan advocated by House Democrats is projected to cost about $1 trillion through its first decade (2010-2019), according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

Let's admit the only reason not to have a public option is to make sure corporate profits remain high. Which brings up that same nagging question: if private insurers keep raising rates and denying claims, what good are they? And how could government possibly do any worse?

http://www.osborneink.com/2009/09/awful-truth-about-public-option.html

 

[Professur]

Is that the same Nobel group that awarded Gore a prize for a movie that's been debunked so hard it bounces?

But then, if it remains an OPTION, I'm all for it. OPTION means you have the choice to embark or not. It's MANDATORY public that I'm concerning myself with. If you have the right to tell them to fuck off and go private, by all means.

And for an economist, he's got a peculiarly skewed point of financial view. $900 billion might appear nothing ... by comparison to yada yada yada (odd that they picked a Bush article and not the trillions in bailout Barry spent) but it's still $900 billion THAT YOU DON'T HAVE

 

[Mirlyn]

I think you're including your entire tax load there, Mir. I mean just the social insurance portions, if you've got detail at that level.

Hidden little bastards...8% for just SS and Medicare.


Edit: Heard the chair of the finance committee say today that any public option is not likely to pass.

 

[Professur]

Spike, I'm trying to find the costs of the Canuck gov't run Gun Registry. Initially budgeted at $50 million, it inflated to over $2 billion .. but that was more than a few years back and it's dropped off the radar so I haven't found any more recent costs ... but somehow I don't think they actually blew the budget that badly, do you? After all, how could 'professional economists and accountants' go so wide of the mark on so simple a project? Either they hadn't a clue, or they damn well knew it was going to be more and falsified the numbers to make it pass more easily. Perhaps they don't do it in Calif. but it's understood that any gov't budget for any project is BS.

 

[catocom]

well crap, I had to renew with aarp anyway.
nobody else would call me back, or email me back

I paid up through dec for ~70

 

[MrBishop]

Here's a document that's worth the read..straight from a former Insurace mogel