Post: #1

http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/07/5-re...worthless/

This guy is pessimistic about Trump's plan, but if one were generous, one could interpret the plan more optimistically. It boils down to the same general problem with Trump: does he himself understand his own point of view? Probably not, but that doesn't matter, because Trump's instincts are good, and unlike the other wackos, he's not burdened by ideological wonkery. Assuming his advisors are smart, they won't let him get duped by smart lobbyists when he gets to DC.

Post: #2

Read this and largely, agreed.

There is no "solution" to the healthcare "problem".

Healthcare is a good like everything else. The very poorest cannot afford a car, and the very richest have much nicer cars than everyone else. That is not a problem, and if it were, it could not be solved without trampling on the basic rights of individuals.

Healthcare is just like cars, except people are on a moral crusade to turn it into a "human right." But that is a tyrannical premise, because there is no logical reason why everyone should have "equal" access to a good or service. Imagine if the goal was to ensure that everyone has "equal access" to cars, and how that would look like. Successful people would end up driving far shittier cars than what they earned, while the losers would end up having better cars than they deserve. Yet this is exactly what we are trying to push for people when it comes to healthcare.

We want a homeless bum to get the same standard of care when he gets cancer as a billionaire receives. But when a billionaire gets cancer, he is willing and able to spend unlimited amounts of money to receive the best care it is currently possible to deliver. In a quest to ensure that everyone has the same access to care, you either have to give everyone the same standard of care that a billionaire gets, which would cost infinite money, or forcibly deny billionaires the ability to use their own money to get the best care technology and providers can dispense.

I used "billionaire" to make a point but the same idea exists between all the strata of society. The overarching point here is that the goal of healthcare reform is doomed to failure, every single time, because it's a wish for the impossible: everyone should have access to the very best care.

Post: #3

(03-09-2016 07:45 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Read this and largely, agreed.

There is no "solution" to the healthcare "problem".

Healthcare is a good like everything else. The very poorest cannot afford a car, and the very richest have much nicer cars than everyone else. That is not a problem, and if it were, it could not be solved without trampling on the basic rights of individuals.

Healthcare is just like cars, except people are on a moral crusade to turn it into a "human right." But that is a tyrannical premise, because there is no logical reason why everyone should have "equal" access to a good or service. Imagine if the goal was to ensure that everyone has "equal access" to cars, and how that would look like. Successful people would end up driving far shittier cars than what they earned, while the losers would end up having better cars than they deserve. Yet this is exactly what we are trying to push for people when it comes to healthcare.

We want a homeless bum to get the same standard of care when he gets cancer as a billionaire receives. But when a billionaire gets cancer, he is willing and able to spend unlimited amounts of money to receive the best care it is currently possible to deliver. In a quest to ensure that everyone has the same access to care, you either have to give everyone the same standard of care that a billionaire gets, which would cost infinite money, or forcibly deny billionaires the ability to use their own money to get the best care technology and providers can dispense.

I used "billionaire" to make a point but the same idea exists between all the strata of society. The overarching point here is that the goal of healthcare reform is doomed to failure, every single time, because it's a wish for the impossible: everyone should have access to the very best care.

While certainly not everyone should have equal access to health care, just like not everyone should have equal access to a car, why is it a problem if people have some access to free health care, or free cars? Is it really that much of a burden on the taxpayer to do so?

Some things that can be made free to the public, at minimal cost, with huge benefits:

- Free trauma care (broken limbs, lacerations, concussions)
- Free STD checks
- Free vaccinations

All of these things are very cheap to provide and honestly society could train specialists and nurses just for these things at low cost to provide for the general public, in the same way we have pro-bono lawyers.

So while I agree that equal access is absurd, I disagree that providing some standard of minimum care isn't feasible, which is how I interpret Trump's comments.

Post: #4

You might keep in mind that Federalist is a shill website that's devoted most of its recent activity to attacking Trump, publishing gems such as "Considering The Alternative, I’ll Take The Establishment".

Post: #5

I'll read Salon if the article is written by someone who knows what they're talking about. This guy seems to understand health-care, even if he is negative.

Post: #6

Trumps ideas have some similarities with Singapore's system of healthcare which is one of the best in the world. Obviously two totally different countries though.

Post: #7

(03-09-2016 02:43 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  I'll read Salon if the article is written by someone who knows what they're talking about. This guy seems to understand health-care, even if he is negative.

This guy sounds like he writes for Salon.

Example:

Quote:5. Require price transparency from all health-care providers, especially doctors and health-care organizations like clinics and hospitals.

The desire for price transparency is understandable. As any economist will tell you, you can’t have a market without prices. But because prices in our health-care system are usually hidden, and as Steven Brill’s 2013 Time cover story chronicled, often outrageously high, we have huge costs and almost no competition. No one really knows what anything is worth, and consumers have no way of shopping around (although that is beginning to change with the development of medical apps).

A simple government mandate on providers to post their prices isn’t going to enable the kind of competitive shopping that Trump’s proposal tried to achieve.
Third-party payers, whether it’s the government or an employer, shield both patients and providers from costs. Since most providers have contractual arrangements with insurance companies to provide services at a discounted rate in exchange for a guaranteed volume of patients, many of them have no idea what the price of an individual procedure or service might be (and even if they did they don’t know how much any given patient would actually pay). The result is that billing and diagnostic codes have replaced simple pricing, and the cost of individual procedures and services are bundled into a patient’s insurance premium, which their employer pays and they never see.

But price transparency as a public policy is trickier than it sounds and, depending on how it’s implemented, could be indistinguishable from government price-fixing or could result in higher prices. As employers shift more costs to patients, and new technologies like telemedicine become more widespread, price transparency could happen organically. But a simple government mandate on providers to post their prices isn’t going to enable the kind of competitive shopping that Trump’s proposal tried to achieve.

This guy sounds like a women.

It's a problem...but...I don't know how to solve it...because I didn't try...so there's nothing we can do about it...so Trump's proposal won't work.

This is why Obamacare got passed in the first place, because normal, non autistic Americans, don't want their fellow Americans dying in the street. So Obama pushed it through in the most asinine way possible because the autists/libertarians/neo-cohens don't understand democracy.

And price transparency is one key to this. No reasonable person can determine how much their health care actually costs, because everything is hidden, and the only way to fix this is through legislation. The system won't magically change on its own.

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/h...are-reform

Post: #8

I think he goes with a Swiss style healthcare system. Highly competitive, but with government regulation and they cover 99% of people. Probably the best healthcare system in the world, but just "socialist" enough for the Cruz-bots and libertarians to freak out, so The Emperor avoids it.

Post: #9

Fuck the "Swiss System" or the "Singapore System" or any other "System" you care to throw out there. I do not want the government stealing huge chunks of my paycheck to pay for the healthcare of people I don't give two shits about. I also don't want the government having any influence whatsoever if god forbid I ever need medical intervention.

If you have your shit straight professionally and take care of your health, the pre-Obama paradigm was perfectly serviceable. If you don't, then that's your own damn problem and not anyone else's.

Post: #10

(06-21-2016 05:36 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Fuck the "Swiss System" or the "Singapore System" or any other "System" you care to throw out there. I do not want the government stealing huge chunks of my paycheck to pay for the healthcare of people I don't give two shits about. I also don't want the government having any influence whatsoever if god forbid I ever need medical intervention.

Taxes in Singapore are much lower than the US.

Post: #11

(06-21-2016 05:42 AM)Enigma Wrote:  

(06-21-2016 05:36 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Fuck the "Swiss System" or the "Singapore System" or any other "System" you care to throw out there. I do not want the government stealing huge chunks of my paycheck to pay for the healthcare of people I don't give two shits about. I also don't want the government having any influence whatsoever if god forbid I ever need medical intervention.

Taxes in Singapore are much lower than the US.

And they'd be even lower were it not for the involvement of the Singaporean government in healthcare.

To expand on my previous post: what we have in the US right now is an utter joke thanks to Obamacare. There are two major things Obamacare did: it made purchasing health insurance mandatory, and it made "discrimination" based on health status illegal for insurance companies.

In effect, we no longer have health insurance in this country, despite it still being referred to as such. You as a private citizen have no choice but to purchase the "insurance," while the "insurance" company has no choice but to charge the 20 year old athlete and the 40 year old diabetic fatass the same rates.

What we have, in other words, is a mandatory wealth redistribution system. It is a tax by any other name. The only difference is that instead of being collected by the IRS, it is collected by Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna. Consider that in Canada, the 20 year old athlete pays for the healthcare of the 40 year old diabetic via direct taxation to the Single Payer system. In America, the 20 year old still pays that tax, but it's in the form of a (mandatory) monthly insurance premium that is no longer the $60 appropriate for a healthy young male, but the $300 that insurance needs to charge everyone in order to make up for having to offer equal rates to everyone regardless of their health status.

We have, in effect, already socialized medicine in this country, with the added bonus that the plutocrats get a share of it via insurance companies. But the answer is not to apply the coupe de grace by instituting single payer, but by going back to what we had before Butt Naked pushed through his abomination. There is no reason whatsoever why a healthy young man should have to pay the same premium as a sickly old cunt, any more than car insurance for a clean-rap man driving a Civic should cost as much as for a 20 year old Saudi national with 3 DUIs driving a Lambo.

Post: #12

^ Singapore does not have single payer. The government spends less than 25% of what the US does on healthcare.

And people don't receive the same healthcare service regardless of income. They also allow higher income people to purchase private insurance for better care.

Post: #13

(06-21-2016 06:30 AM)Enigma Wrote:  ^ Singapore does not have single payer. The government spends less than 25% of what the US does on healthcare.

And people don't receive the same healthcare service regardless of income. They also allow higher income people to purchase private insurance for better care.

I didn't say Singapore has single payer, only that its government's meddling in healthcare isn't the enabling factor behind their low tax rates.

At the end of the day, Singapore is an island City State with an exclusively urban, high IQ population that is controlled so tightly on every level that it borders on totalitarian. What works in Singapore is almost completely inapplicable to the United States.

Post: #14

(06-21-2016 06:01 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  And they'd be even lower were it not for the involvement of the Singaporean government in healthcare.

To expand on my previous post: what we have in the US right now is an utter joke thanks to Obamacare. There are two major things Obamacare did: it made purchasing health insurance mandatory, and it made "discrimination" based on health status illegal for insurance companies.

In effect, we no longer have health insurance in this country, despite it still being referred to as such. You as a private citizen have no choice but to purchase the "insurance," while the "insurance" company has no choice but to charge the 20 year old athlete and the 40 year old diabetic fatass the same rates.

What we have, in other words, is a mandatory wealth redistribution system. It is a tax by any other name. The only difference is that instead of being collected by the IRS, it is collected by Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna. Consider that in Canada, the 20 year old athlete pays for the healthcare of the 40 year old diabetic via direct taxation to the Single Payer system. In America, the 20 year old still pays that tax, but it's in the form of a (mandatory) monthly insurance premium that is no longer the $60 appropriate for a healthy young male, but the $300 that insurance needs to charge everyone in order to make up for having to offer equal rates to everyone regardless of their health status.

We have, in effect, already socialized medicine in this country, with the added bonus that the plutocrats get a share of it via insurance companies. But the answer is not to apply the coupe de grace by instituting single payer, but by going back to what we had before Butt Naked pushed through his abomination. There is no reason whatsoever why a healthy young man should have to pay the same premium as a sickly old cunt, any more than car insurance for a clean-rap man driving a Civic should cost as much as for a 20 year old Saudi national with 3 DUIs driving a Lambo.

This is why you need to pull the insurance companies out of the equation, the system pays for itself by trimming waste from the military budget, problem solved, US companies becomes more competitive because health insurance is something they don't need to deal with. Time to get modern, if Germany can do it, do can we.

Post: #15

(06-21-2016 07:56 AM)BassPlayaYo Wrote:  

(06-21-2016 06:01 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  SNIP

This is why you need to pull the insurance companies out of the equation, the system pays for itself by trimming waste from the military budget, problem solved, US companies becomes more competitive because health insurance is something they don't need to deal with. Time to get modern, if Germany can do it, do can we.

No, you do not need to pull insurance companies out of the equation. You just need to let insurance companies go back to offering insurance, rather than serving as a proxy for government dictated socialized healthcare.

That last sentence in your post was just painful, sorry to say. It's like a foul, bastard child of "Yes We Can!" and "It's the Current Year."

As for taking lessons from Germany these days:

Post: #16

(06-21-2016 08:15 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

(06-21-2016 07:56 AM)BassPlayaYo Wrote:  

(06-21-2016 06:01 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  SNIP

This is why you need to pull the insurance companies out of the equation, the system pays for itself by trimming waste from the military budget, problem solved, US companies becomes more competitive because health insurance is something they don't need to deal with. Time to get modern, if Germany can do it, do can we.

No, you do not need to pull insurance companies out of the equation. You just need to let insurance companies go back to offering insurance, rather than serving as a proxy for socialized healthcare.

That last sentence in your post was just painful, sorry to say. Yes You Can! go to Germany and enjoy their 50% taxes and rapefugees. Just stay away from my paycheck.

So much money, lots of money can be saved by eliminating the insurance companies (middle men).

Post: #17

Why stop with health insurance then? Get rid of Ford and Boeing and just have the government build all cars and planes, selling them at break-even and reducing costs for everyone. Collectivize agriculture and end the brutal cycle of greedy k̶u̶l̶a̶k̶s̶ farmers profiting from the suffering of hungry children. Wow, so many savings to be had everywhere by "cutting out the middleman" and putting the government in charge of everything! It's such a revolutionary, wonderful idea that it's a mystery nobody tried it yet except for the Soviets, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Cubans...

Post: #18

(06-21-2016 08:27 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Why stop with health insurance then? Get rid of Ford and Boeing and just have the government build all cars and planes, selling them at break-even and reducing costs for everyone. Collectivize agriculture and end the brutal cycle of greedy k̶u̶l̶a̶k̶s̶ farmers profiting from the suffering of hungry children. Wow, so many savings to be had everywhere by "cutting out the middleman" and putting the government in charge of everything! It's such a revolutionary, wonderful idea that it's a mystery nobody tried it yet except for the Soviets, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Cubans...

We are talking about health insurance? Aren't we?

Post: #19

(06-21-2016 08:35 AM)BassPlayaYo Wrote:  

(06-21-2016 08:27 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Why stop with health insurance then? Get rid of Ford and Boeing and just have the government build all cars and planes, selling them at break-even and reducing costs for everyone. Collectivize agriculture and end the brutal cycle of greedy k̶u̶l̶a̶k̶s̶ farmers profiting from the suffering of hungry children. Wow, so many savings to be had everywhere by "cutting out the middleman" and putting the government in charge of everything! It's such a revolutionary, wonderful idea that it's a mystery nobody tried it yet except for the Soviets, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Cubans...

We are talking about health insurance? Aren't we?

You claimed eliminating health insurance is a good idea because it cuts out the middle man. I was disproving the notion that cutting out the middle man is necessarily a good thing. What are you confused about?

Post: #20

(06-21-2016 05:36 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Fuck the "Swiss System" or the "Singapore System" or any other "System" you care to throw out there. I do not want the government stealing huge chunks of my paycheck to pay for the healthcare of people I don't give two shits about. I also don't want the government having any influence whatsoever if god forbid I ever need medical intervention.

If you have your shit straight professionally and take care of your health, the pre-Obama paradigm was perfectly serviceable. If you don't, then that's your own damn problem and not anyone else's.

I'm with fast eddie. I don't want any government involved in my healthcare. Just look at the mess it creates. At Universities for example, now their insurance policies cover gender reassignment surgery.

For those who say "What about the children? What about the poor?" I say Charities. There are many medical charities out there. Shriners hospitals, Remote Area Medical, innumerable christian charities. What I like about charities is that they are not mandatory. If someone feels bad for sick children, they can contribute as much money as they'd like to save them and get a tax break. I am all for volunteering my dollars or time, not having it mandated.

As for insurance, it should be allowed to be more discriminatory. Anyone who has complained about insurance before is probably someone who never took the time to read the fine print about lifetime limits etc. I am part of a 'health care sharing ministry' which is essentially un-regulated insurance that uses a religious loophole. Its cost is incredibly low because it can discriminate and use a low risk pool of members. For example, the criteria for membership are:

1. Regular church attendance/membership
2. No smoking
3. No alchohol/Drug abuse
4. No pregnancy care for un-married women (slut detterence)
5. No homosexuals

People who go to church on a regular basis and don't abuse substances are safe, boring people who are probably only going to have obesity and cancer risks. I don't have to pay for anyone's transgender surgery, Xanax, drunk driving car crashes, lung cancer, abortions, ass Aids and on top of it all they have a charitable arm to pay for people that have pre-existing conditions before joining. Donations into that charity from individual insurance members have covered every person in need so far.

Imagine if people could create their own discriminatory pools? How cheap would your insurance be if your requirements were:

1. Gym 3x week
2. BMI of less than X

But you can't do that, because thats "against the rules" that the government has set up.

The government does not need to be in healthcare, and it barely needs to be in insurance regulation. Let voluntary contributions to charities take care of those who can't take care of themselves. Forcing people to care for others through taxes and mandatory regulations (see auto insurance) creates entitlements, fraud and systemic abuse because no one feels any responsibility to the payers in the system.

Post: #21

(06-21-2016 05:36 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  If you have your shit straight professionally and take care of your health, the pre-Obama paradigm was perfectly serviceable. If you don't, then that's your own damn problem and not anyone else's.

You can't honestly believe this. The pre-Obama system was a disaster.

Sure, it was great if you had a big employer who would pick up most of the healthcare costs but it was horrible if you were self-employed, a small business owner, a unemployed/underemployed single person without children, or worked for an employer who didn't pick up enough of the tab. Insurance companies had full and complete leverage over you (as in, buying insurance as an individual) to basically charge whatever they felt like it while they had to at least entertain the idea of negotiating with organizations with a lot of employees.

And even if if you worked for an employer who picked up a large part of healthcare costs, the lack of basic regulations and protections allowed insurance companies to drop people for the most bullshit of things; often during critical times.

Finally, the pre-Obama system was not even fiscally sound or efficient in any capacity.

I'm not speaking academically here by the way; I know from direct and very painful experience how fucked up the pre-Obama system was. Myself and many others could share very tragic personal stories highlighting how the "perfectly serviceable" system operated.

You honestly sound like many intelligent people I knew back in the day (and even today) who were just simply ignorant of how broken things really were; usually due to lack of exposure or direct experience. I understand it but you really should try to take a step back for a minute and try to see things from a different perspective.

Fast Eddie Wrote:Healthcare is a good like everything else. The very poorest cannot afford a car, and the very richest have much nicer cars than everyone else. That is not a problem, and if it were, it could not be solved without trampling on the basic rights of individual.

Healthcare is just like cars, except people are on a moral crusade to turn it into a "human right."

Come on Fast Eddie, I thought you were in a top tier MBA program if I recall correctly? You had to learn about elastic and inelastic demand at some point and the difference between the two. Healthcare is NOT like most goods and it is certainly not "just like cars." That's ridiculous.

There are alternatives to cars:
-Walk
-Scooter
-Live closer to work
-Bus
-Train
-Bike
-Motorcycle
-Boosted board (electric skateboard)
-Work from home
-Uber/taxi
-Carpool

What are the alternatives in healthcare if you need emergency surgery:
-Go die
-Go to ER and be at the complete mercy of the nearest hospital and a insurance company.

You don't have the option nor the time to shop around, check out different hospitals, talk to different doctors, get prices, and negotiate.

Having said all that: I'm mostly in agreement with your other viewpoints.

Should a homeless bum have same access as a billionaire? No, I don't think so.

Is Obamacare a disaster of a program? Yes, it is. Very much so. Mostly due to how it doesn't help keep expenses reasonable.

The fundamental problem is that there ARE too many middle men in the process already who basically add no value AND game the system to get their unfair cut; usually at the expense of the patient AND provider. The cost of the product is already pretty high naturally and the demand is essentially inelastic while also being unpredictable (do you know when you are gonna get cancer?), meaning everyone needs it and has very little room to negotiate. The only fixes to this are:

1) Eliminate the middle-man via single-payer

or

2) Create a regulated private market of some variety where insurers can compete on minor stuff but can't gouge the fuck out of of people.

I suppose you could do a two-tier system where you have government cover emergency/basic stuff and let private insurers pick up rest as well.

That all said: I ask everyone to please look at things objectively and not come to quick conclusions base on pre-defined ideologies. Healthcare and providing it effectively in a fiscally sustainable manner DOES NOT operate like the vast majority of goods/services. It is a unique product with unique challenges.

The US back in the day and currently has one of the most inefficient, broken, and fiscally unsound healthcare systems in the modern world. We need something better and that is going to require everyone to look at things with a very objective eye.

Post: #22

The healthcare system before and after Obama is horrible, and this is really the primary reason I left the U.S.

I honestly don't know what the solution is. If the country was full of normal people, I'd be for universal healthcare 100%. It's insane and just sick that people can work 6-7 days a week and then can't go to the doctor. Guess they deserve to die?

Or if your employer decides to not pay your premium, you suddenly have to handle the bill (which can be tens of thousands of dollars). Or the fact most insurance is insanely expensive and doesn't cover most of anything without you footing some of the bill.

I have so many personal horror stories involving healthcare in the US, I'm afraid for my life every time I go over there, no joke. Mainly I fear having to go to the hospital and getting taken care of by board-certified retards while my pockets are pillaged.

Every day I wake up in Poland I'm grateful for the simple fact I can go to see my doctor any time, sometimes within minutes, and don't have to worry about cost or anything else. It's literally a life saver.

On the other hand, there are tens (hundreds?) of millions of incredibly obese, abhuman creatures inhabiting the U.S. People who won't exercise a day in their lives, and eat fake garbage and fast food all day until their internal organs or legs give out. Combine that with the fact that the number of hard-working taxpayers is shrinking, and a NHS would quickly bankrupt the country and collapse on itself.

Post: #23

(06-21-2016 06:57 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  I didn't say Singapore has single payer, only that its government's meddling in healthcare isn't the enabling factor behind their low tax rates.

At the end of the day, Singapore is an island City State with an exclusively urban, high IQ population that is controlled so tightly on every level that it borders on totalitarian. What works in Singapore is almost completely inapplicable to the United States.

You said fuck the Singapore system, along with explaining what you didn't want:

- higher taxes
- everyone receiving the same care
- single payer

I was simply pointing out that Singapore has none of those things, since you're the one who mentioned Singapore in the first place.

They have lower taxes, the government spends less on healthcare, and there are very distinct service tiers based on how much money you pay.

Trump's reform plan, which is the topic of this thread and is clearly influenced by Singapore's, also has none of those things.

Post: #24

Quote:Trump's reform plan, which is the topic of this thread and is clearly influenced by Singapore's, also has none of those things.

The entire basis of this thread is "fixing" health care. Honestly ask yourself, no matter what policy is implemented, is the "Health care is broken" debate ever going to end? Did the "what to do with poor people/welfare" debate end with social security and Medicaid? If anyone is from Britain, did their "The Health Care Problem" debate end with the NHS?

Post: #25

(06-21-2016 04:42 PM)Different T Wrote:  

Quote:Trump's reform plan, which is the topic of this thread and is clearly influenced by Singapore's, also has none of those things.

The entire basis of this thread is "fixing" health care. Honestly ask yourself, no matter what policy is implemented, is the "Health care is broken" debate ever going to end? Did the "what to do with poor people/welfare" debate end with social security and Medicaid? If anyone is from Britain, did their "The Health Care Problem" debate end with the NHS?

The title of the thread is "Trump's Health-Care Plan" and refers to an article specifically critiquing Trump's healthcare plan.

If you want to argue about a healthcare plan that no candidate is actually arguing for, feel free. But I personally don't see the point of debating something that's not even up for debate in the first place, i.e., single payer healthcare.

All I did was point out that Singapore has low taxes and doesn't use single payer.