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The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

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Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#51

Post by robbiep »

dnautics wrote: post #38
robbiep wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As we move into an era of personalized medicine, we'll be subsidizing better healthcare and better outcomes for some ethnic groups over others. I think you miss the point of universal healthcare. It is not that one group has a higher utilisation of the healthcare system and therefore should pay more - the principle is that everyone is guaranteed the same provisions for healthcare, regardless of their risk factors…

>is that everyone is guaranteed the same provisions for healthcare You're missing my point. If those provisions are the same, that's exactly the problem. It's only worse if they aren't the same (because who chooses?) CK levels warnings are only triggered when you are having a serious complication from the statin. When you have a lesser complication, like, "going to the gym sucks instead of making you feel good", and…

Again i'll have to insist you are missing the point. Not my point, although I am advocating it; but the point of universal healthcare is to enable everyone access to the same level of healthcare for free. (Or, paid for by the taxpayers if you insist).

The principle is not about ensuring that someone with a specific amino acid substitution receives a specific drug, because this is an example of the specific medical management of a specific patient. If you are going to continue to insist that your dad was treated inappropriately, and I have no reason to be able to assume one way or the other from my current position on the other side of the planet without a through examination of your father and his medical results, then what you are complaining about is not universal healthcare per se but in fact poor care by the treating physician. Which could happen under any system, anywhere.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#52

Post by Frozenlock »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

Can I be the first non-US citizen to say that universal health care is, by definition barbaric?

Adjective Savagely cruel; exceedingly brutal. Primitive; unsophisticated.

I fail to see how, when a group decide to take from the minority, it could be seen as anything else than barbaric.

It saddens me to see one of the last first world country coming closer to the universal health care trap. Sure, the US medical fees are insanely overpriced, but you don't solve a problem like this just by hiding the costs in a social program.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#53

Post by hsitz »

coryrc wrote: post #8

> They also enter a social contract that promises to provide them affordable coverage when they’re older and no longer healthy, as a form of back payment for cross-subsidizing today’s aged and ill. This is only true if the law requires younger people to pay more than their cohort consumes on an average basis, so as to transfer even more wealth from the working young to the retired, wealthy elderly. Hmmm http://www.fo…

I'm not clear on to what extent the mandatory coverage requires young people to pay more than the expected cost of their cohort, or if it simply requires them to carry their own expected cost so that the older insured people (or, perhaps, simply the taxpaying citizenry) don't have to pay health care costs of the younger uninsured generation.

The author of the article also says, "Young people are typically healthy. On average, they incur very low medical costs each year. In any social insurance system, most of them will end up paying in more than they get out during their early years"

It's not just the early years, it's all years. The way insurance works is that most people pay in more than they ever get out. You're insured so that in the unhappy event that you end up with a huge, abnormal, way above average expense, insurance will cover it. This is possible because, on average, most people pay in more than they ever get out. This fact in itself is not anything specific to insuring the youngest and healthiest people. The value of insurance is not measured by how much you "get out". It's measured by how much coverage you had, regardless of whether you used it.

I hope to never use my health insurance, or to use it (i.e., "get out of it") as little as possible. So far I've done great at that. Does not "getting out" what I've paid make me think I've been paying without getting value? Hardly. And my belief in that value is not conditioned on my expecting to get payments out of it in the future, any more than my belief in the value of my auto insurance is. I hope also to never get any money out of my auto insurance policy, this year or in any future years, yet it will still be worth every penny I pay.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#54

Post by dnautics »

robbiep wrote: post #51
dnautics wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>is that everyone is guaranteed the same provisions for healthcare You're missing my point. If those provisions are the same, that's exactly the problem. It's only worse if they aren't the same (because who chooses?) CK levels warnings are only triggered when you are having a serious complication from the statin. When you have a lesser complication, like, "going to the gym sucks instead of making you feel good", and…

Again i'll have to insist you are missing the point. Not my point, although I am advocating it; but the point of universal healthcare is to enable everyone access to the same level of healthcare for free . (Or, paid for by the taxpayers if you insist). The principle is not about ensuring that someone with a specific amino acid substitution receives a specific drug, because this is an example of the specific medical m…

can you define for me what you mean by "the same level of healthcare"?

>universal healthcare ... poor care by the treating physician

These issues are entangled. I should let you know, that despite being in the US, my father is effectively being treated by a "universal healthcare" system - the VA.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#55

Post by nknighthb »

dnautics wrote: post #41
nknighthb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your misunderstanding of the equal protection clause has no basis in reality. The government is absolutely allowed to treat different situations differently. There is no legally recognized interpretation of the constitution -- none -- that would require the government to give person A a treatment inappropriate for A just because it gave person B the same treatment which was appropriate for B.

of course, the government SHOULDN'T give person A an inappropriate treatment just because it's what it would give to person B. Becuase that would be stupid. But what does it give person A? Perhaps it can offer person A nothing. Then, how is that fair and equal? that's exactly why the only solution is the null solution. Bottom line: we need to live in a society where people actually help each other and actually show c…

It is fair and equal under the law because the government is offering what it can to whom it can. If there is no treatment for person A, there's no requirement -- legal, moral, or ethical -- that one be given.

The "null solution" is absurd. It simply provides that the rich get treatment and the poor do not. That would be "fair and equal" only to a barbarian.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#56

Post by taylodl »

dnautics wrote: post #35
taylodl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently the insurance company does, and since they were most likely selected by your employer whose objective was to hold down costs, what do you think that insurer's priorities are going to be? Plus, who's the customer in this situation? For whose business is the insurance company really working for?

no doubt having your employment being tied to your insurance is a really, really bad idea, but may I remind that state of affairs is because of a government incentive put into place by FDR.

You failed to mention the context of that government incentive - World War II. And the incentive you're referring to was put in place by the War Labor Board in 1942, during FDR's presidency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Labor_Board

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#57

Post by dnautics »

nknighthb wrote: post #55
dnautics wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course, the government SHOULDN'T give person A an inappropriate treatment just because it's what it would give to person B. Becuase that would be stupid. But what does it give person A? Perhaps it can offer person A nothing. Then, how is that fair and equal? that's exactly why the only solution is the null solution. Bottom line: we need to live in a society where people actually help each other and actually show c…

It is fair and equal under the law because the government is offering what it can to whom it can. If there is no treatment for person A, there's no requirement -- legal, moral, or ethical -- that one be given. The "null solution" is absurd. It simply provides that the rich get treatment and the poor do not. That would be "fair and equal" only to a barbarian.

>It simply provides that the rich get treatment and the poor do not

You're projecting. If you were rich, would you help pay for the healthcare of the poor? Because I'm very much poor, and I give two hours a week towards helping feed people who are sick.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#58

Post by dnautics »

taylodl wrote: post #56
dnautics wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no doubt having your employment being tied to your insurance is a really, really bad idea, but may I remind that state of affairs is because of a government incentive put into place by FDR.

You failed to mention the context of that government incentive - World War II. And the incentive you're referring to was put in place by the War Labor Board in 1942, during FDR's presidency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Labor_Board

you'd think that with the end of the war, the incentive would have been removed.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#59

Post by krapp »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

The rationale makes a twisted sort of sense when you realize that, to the people in power in the US, access to healthcare is no more a 'right' than is access to a luxury car. It's just another good, and suggesting otherwise is tantamount to legalizing theft.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#60

Post by taylodl »

dnautics wrote: post #58
taylodl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You failed to mention the context of that government incentive - World War II. And the incentive you're referring to was put in place by the War Labor Board in 1942, during FDR's presidency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Labor_Board

you'd think that with the end of the war, the incentive would have been removed.

It was. But perqs proved popular with employers because their value were hidden from the employees. Thus large employers could use their negotiating power to procure health insurance for their employees at a relatively low cost. They were effectively getting cheaper labor, a huge competitive advantage. The ruse was up once health insurance costs started skyrocketing.
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