81–90 of 100 posts
I can't help but relate the entire industry to a ponzi scheme.
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> For example, the main, perhaps only reason the ACA didn't include a public option is because Joe Lieberman, Senator from a state where the health insurance industry is huge, refused to vote for a bill that included it and his vote was required for passage. ...there were 40 other senators who were not voting for the ACA. The bill didn't, and still doesn't, have enough popular support. You can't blame one play on a l…
> you can't blame one voter for a lost ballot You can't do this in popular elections but you can absolutely do it in the legislature where everyone has a different constituency, policy portfolio, campaign contribution history, etc. Lieberman wouldn't vote for a bill with a public option, full stop. The math worked out such that Lieberman was necessary. Ergo, Lieberman killed the public option if there was no other Se…
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> you can't blame one voter for a lost ballot You can't do this in popular elections but you can absolutely do it in the legislature where everyone has a different constituency, policy portfolio, campaign contribution history, etc. Lieberman wouldn't vote for a bill with a public option, full stop. The math worked out such that Lieberman was necessary. Ergo, Lieberman killed the public option if there was no other Se…
I think you're letting Congress as a whole off to easy by scapegoating one senator. A more bipartisan bill that included a few Republicans could have been passed instead.
Assumes facts not in evidence, notably that there is any bill oriented to the policy objectives the ACA sought to acheive that Republican Senators would have supported at that time, and (for relevance regarding the responsibility for the absence of a public option in the ACA) that such a bill would include a public option of the type Lieberman opposed.
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> you can't blame one voter for a lost ballot You can't do this in popular elections but you can absolutely do it in the legislature where everyone has a different constituency, policy portfolio, campaign contribution history, etc. Lieberman wouldn't vote for a bill with a public option, full stop. The math worked out such that Lieberman was necessary. Ergo, Lieberman killed the public option if there was no other Se…
I think you're letting Congress as a whole off to easy by scapegoating one senator. A more bipartisan bill that included a few Republicans could have been passed instead.
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How exactly do you run a $1 million/month health bill? In EU that would mean one open heart surgery/heart/lung transplant done by world class specialists flown from all over the place every single month. This sounds like a scam.
Apparently the patient is a teenage boy with hemophilia. I'm fairly confident that it isn't a scam. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/01/io...
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Apparently the patient is a teenage boy with hemophilia. I'm fairly confident that it isn't a scam. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/01/io...
Hemophilia Federation of America: "A million dollars per month is something we've never heard of," sure makes it sound like a scam, maybe by hospital?
It's worth noting that Iowa is in particular trouble because of a single patient that costs ~1M a month[1]. In a relatively small market you end up with an unstable situation when there are more than 1 insurers because none of them know if they will have to take on this very expensive patient in any given year. 1. https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/04/21/catching-the-fallin...
How exactly do you run a $1 million/month health bill? In EU that would mean one open heart surgery/heart/lung transplant done by world class specialists flown from all over the place every single month. This sounds like a scam.
> Iowa’s largest health insurer, Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield, has cited the case as an extreme example of exploding health care costs.
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I can and will blame one voter for a lost ballot. Republicans controlled 40 seats. Democrats controlled 58 and had two independents who mostly leaned their way. They needed all 60 of those votes to pass something. Lieberman was one of those independents, and he explicitly threatened to filibuster any bill that included a public option, while the other 59 accepted it. Republicans were going to vote against the ACA no…
No faction should force through a marginally popular, sweeping change by the skin of it's teeth. This is one of the reasons why the Constitution and amendment process exist. The Supreme Court ruled that the passage of the ACA was technically OK (I disagree, but that's moot I guess) but they didn't rule whether it was wise. I'm saying given the political and practical mess on this issue, it was unwise. I think partisa…
I don't see how it's "partisan finger pointing" to explain why the lack of a public option is the responsibility of a single independent senator. It vaguely fits for stating that the 40 Republicans were never going to vote for any form of the ACA, but that's really just a statement of fact.
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Single payer has been proposed many times and works well in the rest of the first world. Edit: Don't forget to vote every November.
What about drug R&D in those countries? For all the issues of the US healthcare system, one thing it has going for it is most of the new developments in medicine comes from the US.
Outside of niche drugs for rare diseases, what has R&D done to reduce costs?
Iowa has only one ACA insurer left and they are raising their rates 43.5%. Basically providing Obamacare was hemorrhaging so much money that Wellmark and BCBS left, leaving a single payer, that ACA users are forced to use. http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/health/medica-to-stay...
Knowing that insurance companies can willingly just abandon the market makes the ACA even more of a joke than one would have originally thought.
And no, before anyone tries to suggest it, temporarily insuring a few million poor people and people in poor health (at the cost of fucking over young and healthy people) is not a success.