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Author Topic:   WHY MANDATES ARE MANDATORY
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


(1)
Message 10 of 58 (825548)
12-15-2017 8:06 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by New Cat's Eye
12-15-2017 2:59 PM


New Cat's Eye writes:
quote:
Healthcare requires another person's labor and you don't have a right to force people to work for you.
Libertarian claptrap alert!
Unless you are suggesting that a person's "right" to healthcare is some magic ability to point at some random yahoo and say, "You! Take out my appendix!" and expect them to scrub up, then your claim that healthcare "requires another person's labor" is nothing but a libertarian fantasy that has no basis in reality.
There are doctors. Their job is to provide healthcare. They voluntarily chose to engage in that profession. Nobody forced them. It's quite telling that you seem to think a customer asking a service provider to actually provide the service they are declaring to provide is somehow "forcing" anybody to do anything. Thus, libertarian claptrap.
No, the real question is, will you be able to avail yourself of healthcare when you need it?
Under our current system, no. You won't. We have tried to come up with a system that might allow for all people to have healthcare, but we do not have universal coverage in this country.
quote:
I agree that everyone ought to have access to healthcare, but we already have that because hospitals don't turn people away.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
How precious! I bet you truly believe that, don't you? Wait...let me guess: "You can always go to the ER," right? "They can't turn you away," right?
Oh, sweetie, honey, baby, pussycat, they don't treat cancer in the ER. They don't treat HIV in the ER. They don't manage your MS or asthma or autism or depression or any other long-term, chronic condition. You can't get your colonoscopy or mammogram to determine if you have cancer in the ER.
Those things require a different kind of doctor and those doctors turn people away all the time. If you can't pay, they don't have to see you.
And even when you can be seen in the ER, you're still on the hook for paying for it. If there is any amount of money that can be wrung out of you, you will be on the hook for it, even if it throws you into poverty. That's why half of all personal bankruptcies in the US were for medical expenses (until that pesky ACA came along).
And the majority of them were for people who had insurance.
quote:
I think that's a systemic problem and not something that needs a federal government solution.
You realize that the second half of that statement is trivially refuted by the first half, yes? Systemic problems are why we have government: They cannot be solved without regulation and oversight. Government is the only thing that can do this.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-15-2017 2:59 PM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


(3)
Message 11 of 58 (825550)
12-15-2017 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by New Cat's Eye
12-15-2017 2:59 PM


New Cat's Eye:
quote:
I also don't want the federal government involved in my healthcare. Take the DMV, Postal Service, and VAs as examples of how well they run things.
You realize that the examples you gave destroy your objection, yes?
The DMV does an amazing job. If you don't like the lines, perhaps you might consider a budget increase. Oh, wait...the Republicans just slashed those budgets in order to close the DMVs where Democrats live so that they won't be able to get their IDs and vote. That literally just happened in Alabama. The only place to get your voter ID was at specific DMVs...which were "closed due to budget cuts"...suspiciously only in neighborhoods where the population was primarily non-white and primarily Democratic.
So it would seem that you have given an example of what happens when government isn't sufficiently supported.
The Postal Service? It's amazing! The cheapest, most effective way of sending mail from one place to another. For less than a dollar, you can send a letter from anywhere in the country to anywhere else and it'll get there in a couple days. It's why even services like UPS and FedEx use the Post Office for their last-mile deliveries. Why? Because the Post Office has a mandate to service *everybody* and for-profit companies like UPS and FedEx don't want to have pay somebody to drive out to remote areas.
"But, they're going broke!" I hear you cry. Well, talk to the Republicans about that, too. They mandated that the Postal Service fund their pension for 75 years into the future...a requirement that no other company or government service is required to do. If you take away that single requirement, the Postal Service is doing quite well.
And the VA is another example of wonderful service that is being hamstrung by conservative/libertarians doing everything they can to stop it. Yes, it's a nightmare trying to get registered in the VA and into the system to start receiving healthcare...but once you do, that coverage is wonderful. The healthcare provided by the VA is tremendous. But the problems of getting into the system could be alleviated if they were funded properly...which tends to happen under liberals and gets slashed under conservatives. So much for actually caring about the military.
So all of your examples are shining examples of how government actually does things right, less expensively, more efficiently, and more effectively than the private market...if only conservatives and libertarians would get out of the way and let them do it.
But...but...TAXES!
Yes. You have to pay for it. But I'd rather pay 50 cents for a letter than 5 dollars. I'd rather pay less in "taxes" for better service than more in "premiums" or "fees" for worse.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-15-2017 2:59 PM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


(1)
Message 12 of 58 (825551)
12-15-2017 8:32 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by New Cat's Eye
12-15-2017 4:49 PM


New Cat's Eye responds to Percy:
quote:
quote:
But it *does* need a solution. If not the federal government, who?
The entities that make up the system.
But they had the chance to do so for the past 70 years. They didn't come up with a solution then. What makes you think they'd do so now? What possible incentive do they have to change their business practice to treat more people for less money?
Remember, the ACA is not a governmental "solution." It simply allows people to buy into the current system either with their own money or with subsidies provided by the government. The only thing it "forces" on the insurance providers is to actually spend that premium money on healthcare rather than dividends to investors. It's why Medicare has an overhead rate of 2% compared to 25-30% for the average insurance company before the ACA.
So why are the insurance companies hesitating? If the problem can be solved by "the entities that make up the system," why have they been unable to do so? They've had literally decades to do so.
Why is it the poverty rate among the elderly was over 90% before Medicare and was cut in half right after? If "the entities that make up the system" could have solved it, why didn't they?

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-15-2017 4:49 PM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


(2)
Message 17 of 58 (825665)
12-16-2017 9:49 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by dwise1
12-16-2017 4:36 PM


dwise1 writes:
quote:
As for the level of care and having to wait? The girl's Irish fianc's father or uncle was diagnosed with cancer; the very next day he was on chemo-therapy.
This is one of those silly things that keeps coming up with regard to systems like Canada: "You have to wait to see your doctor!"
Well, yeah. You have to wait to see your doctor here in the US, too. It's known as "triage" and every single medical provider does it. There are only so many hours in the day and only so many patients a doctor can see. Thus, you need to make an appointment.
And like all triage, if your specific medical need at this moment is more urgent, you'll get bumped up. Even in the ER, the person having a heart attack is going to be seen before the person who needs a few stitches. Surely those who complain "You have to wait to see your doctor!" aren't saying that because the rich guy who needs stitches was here first, he should be seen before the poor guy whose leg was just cut off, are they?
Even here in the US, we make decisions about timing. Need surgery? Well, it depends upon what kind of surgery it is and how pressing the need is. Again, there's only so many hours in the day, so many operations that can be performed in any given period, and certain operations are more urgent than others. If your condition is such that you need it now, you'll be operated on first. If your condition can wait a bit (which means the doctors who actually know if your condition can wait have determined that it can), then you're going to be scheduled after. Yeah, it means you'll have to put up with your condition for more time than you might personally want, but the person who was diagnosed with the same thing before you was here first and you're both going to have to wait for the guy who needs the OR *right*now*.
I sorta understand why people make this claim, though: A combination of privilege and fear. Part of it is that they think they get to have complete control over their treatment. To take a superficial example, "I want to have my surgery done by the end of the month so I'll be recovered enough to do X in three months." OK...that's nice, but your convenience isn't the only thing we have to take into consideration. Nobody in the medical industry is going to withhold your treatment out of some malicious intent to stop you from doing what you want to do.
The other is fear that something will happen between the time the decision to have the treatment is made and the time that treatment is carried out. That is, indeed, a risk. But once again, that happens no matter what. Triage requires that we determine the risk of increasing that period. Many people don't understand the risk involved in delaying treatment. We very often think that if we are sick, we are going to have the worst outcome unless we do something right now, even though that isn't true. Even if doctors try to explain that to us, it's hard to overcome the sense of dread knowing that you are ill and won't be able to start curing it right away.
But again, our current system already forces us to wait. The only difference is how you wish to pay for that wait. There's good, cheap, and fast. Pick two. People are scared that if they don't pick fast, it can't be good.
But as the rest of the world has shown us, our decision to choose fast doesn't mean we get good...the use spends twice as much on healthcare and yet our outcomes are worse. We got fast and OK. I'd rather have good and cheap.
And for everybody who complains about "mandates," well, exactly how does one expect to pay for healthcare? Everybody needs it so everybody is on the hook for paying for it.
Are we having the same semantic argument? Are these people who are so upset over a "mandate" willing to have that coverage paid through "taxes"? It reminds me of this Tom Tomorrow cartoon:
Anybody who is against the "mandate" and then starts demanding a "solution that works" is simply being a fool.
You are going to need healthcare.
It needs to be paid for.
Congratulations: You are "mandated" to contribute.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by dwise1, posted 12-16-2017 4:36 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


(5)
Message 30 of 58 (825954)
12-19-2017 7:49 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by New Cat's Eye
12-19-2017 10:44 AM


New Cat's Eye writes:
quote:
That's all I was saying.
If all you were saying is that sometimes people die, then what was the point of you saying it? We all know that. The doctors know that.
Don't you think that we should look to the people involved in a medical decision to make the decision?
See, this is the whole "death panel" argument, dressed up pretty. Let us not pretend for one moment that you aren't pulling the libertarian monstrosity: "I got mine. Screw you." You simply refuse to recognize the reality that you are not the island you think you are. You did not pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you did not get where you are "without any help." So for you to complain about other people's healthcare being paid for by you, you show the monstrosity that is libertarianism.
You want to be on that death panel, deciding who lives and who dies based solely on whether or not it affects your pocketbook, completely oblivious to how much your own actions have plucked from others'.
Now, we need to have a conversation about what we're going to spend money on. If we are going to have a national health service (the British NHS is one of the best healthcare systems in the world, by the way), then we need to have a standard as to what will be paid for and what won't. There is only so much money in the world and treatment can be expensive. We went through this all before with Faith. Should the government pay for Opdivo? It's a treatment for lung cancer. And it does seem to have a benefit in that those who were put on Opdivo lived longer than those who weren't.
By about three months (more accurately, half the patients were dead three months earlier for those on chemotherapy with docetaxel than those taking Opdivo, and all that was within a year of treatment...lung cancer is a bitch.)
Should we pay for that? At what cost? And this doesn't even get into experimental drugs.
Insurance companies do this sort of butcher's bill calculus all the time. It's why people very often hate their insurance company: They are in a life-threatening situation and the insurance refuses to pay for treatment they think could be life-saving.
Why should your life be based upon the lottery of what insurance was available to you at the time? We still need to have this conversation. We still need to do the calculus to determine what we'll pay for and what we won't.
But shouldn't everybody get to benefit from that?
Only government can do that.
quote:
But I don't want the feds in charge of my healthcare, or anywhere near it really. They suck.
I see.
So you'll ignore reality to suit your political agenda. Not surprising.
You've been shown that the feds actually do large-scale projects better than private corporations. And that includes healthcare. Around the world, government-regulated healthcare provides better care for less money than the US does. But because you see the word "government" in it, you automatically assume it's horrendous regardless of any facts to the contrary.
We've been through this before. Medicare, for example, is not "government" healthcare. It's an insurance system that pays for 80% of certain costs.
That's why there's a thriving private market for Medicare co-insurance that will cover the 20% that Medicare doesn't cover. And because it's such a large insurance pool, it has the ability to drive prices down. Under Medicare, there is a schedule for which a doctor will be paid for a certain procedure. They may charge the non-Medicare person $X for a certain procedure, but Medicare will only pay $Y, of which you as the person covered by Medicare are only on the hook for 20% of Y, not X.
Imagine if everybody were on Medicare, like it was originally intended to be. That's the power of a single-payer system. Something that no private "solution" can ever achieve. Note that there is still a place for private entities to play a part in the governmental solution...co-insurance does exist...but private entities are simply incapable of solving a national problem that affects the entire population.
Only government can do that.
That's why we have government.

Rrhain

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-19-2017 10:44 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-20-2017 10:25 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
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