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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Two thirds, to override a presidential veto. Why are we assuming Trump would veto it? He loves putting his name on poo poo, he already said he'd like to cover everyone in some fashion by "making a deal" during the campaign, and if he managed to actually do medicare-for-all, he'd be remembered extremely fondly by pretty much everyone. I think he could be tempted into it. Getting it past his handlers, and also Congress... those would be the difficult parts.
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Mar 8, 2017 04:51
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Confounding Factor posted:I can agree with that and one of the problems I see in healthcare debates is that its so focused on "who pays?" rather than focusing on why healthcare costs so much in America. We spend the most per capita and get the least benefit, in fact we spend far and away more than other developed countries. Not really the point of the thread, but how the gently caress is Spain so far above the curve? The only place I've seen that's more in love with smoking tobacco is Cuba.
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Mar 20, 2017 23:47
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Confounding Factor posted:The problem with adopting that diet in America is you need to also adopt their culture ie it's impossible. I'd actually say adopting the culture around food (not eating so loving much, and eating slower in general) is the most important change that could be made. God knows the French aren't avoiding butter or cream, and the Spanish are not avoiding red meats and/or cured meats, as we are commonly advised -- they just eat far less of it. The only other thing I notice is that Europe is much less fond of putting sugar in loving everything. Why do American breads and bagels taste like cake? It's gross as gently caress to me, even though Canadian bread is still well higher in sugar than most European bread.
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Mar 21, 2017 05:58
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Ze Pollack posted:there is a long version of this story, and a short version of this story, and one of the two of them is "corn subsidies". See, I don't understand that. Sure, corn syrup is cheap as gently caress, but it's still more expensive than not putting corn syrup in at all. Unless they're literally being paid to add corn syrup to things?
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Mar 21, 2017 06:06
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Brainiac Five posted:Why does all this poo poo focus entirely on single-payer, which a) has historically been a massive initial expenditure, destroying the entire sovereign wealth fund of the UK when the NHS was established, and this with highly inadequate levels of care (very limited dental and optical options, for one thing), b) is by no means the only option to deliver universal healthcare, nor is it noticeably better at doing so than various multipayer healthcare systems c) runs up against the issue that the majority of insured Americans are satisfied with the insurance they receive through their employer, d) doesn't even deal with two-thirds of the reasons why healthcare costs have been spiraling, and e) is an extremely liberal policy. As far as I can tell, because people on the left are by and large just as ignorant as people on the right, and healthcare is an incredibly complex problem with no obvious perfect solution. "Single-payer" was a term that got batted around a bunch, and described a system people thought they would like, so they've latched onto it without a deep investigation of suitable alternatives, because not everyone wants to bother doing that level of research -- least of all progressive politicians who will then be faced with the unenviable task of selling a new system to conservatives, but also to progressives who have convinced themselves it's single-payer or the highway.
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Mar 30, 2017 03:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:They were not necessarily wrong if you calculate based on voting likelihood. The difference is this has.made left wingers active in a way they haven't been historically. Maybe this time people will realize that, given the choice between the lesser of two evils and the greater of two evils, you ought pick the least evil one! We can hope...
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May 12, 2017 03:25
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Yeah, there's a lot of poo poo wrong with various healthcare systems. I bitch about the Canadian system all the time and I think it could and should be improved. I even considered going to the US for an operation that wasn't strictly medically necessary, to avoid the wait time it would've taken in Canada (I eventually got it done in one of the rare private hospitals in Canada itself, mostly covered by my province's healthcare). That being said, no loving way would I ever consider taking the US system over what I have now. Those who point to the problems that our system has, and how people sometimes go to the States or elsewhere for quicker treatment, are missing the larger point that 95% of the time it works extremely well, and I never, ever have to worry about choosing between healthcare and solvency.
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May 16, 2017 20:04
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It doesn't matter because people will blame whoever the gently caress they want to blame, and absolve of all sins whoever they like. My cousin was pissed off at Obama because the federal government, with all of its REGULATIONS that HURT SMALL BUSINESSES, was apparently responsible for a Florida state regulation that he didn't like. Thinking about the issue for even three seconds would tell you there is no possible way this is Obama's fault on any level, but he was loving pissed at him! So he voted Republican -- the party actually responsible for instituting the law he hated so much in Florida. If it were actually possible to beat sense into someone, I would've tried it after hearing that rant -- I was loving tempted as it was.
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Jun 20, 2017 01:21
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:There was a nice poll that showed that the majority of people will blame Republicans for the failure of Obamacare. So, Yeah, that obviously worked a treat, what with the giant backlash against Republicans that cost them several branches of government and also a few governorships and state houses.
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Jun 20, 2017 01:46
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Gumbel2Gumbel posted:They're hiding their constituent reactions from senators who are too dumb to realize the severity of the beating they're going to take at the polls. Yeah but they were hosed no matter what. The base wanted a repeal without realizing what it would mean. No one wants to deal with the consequences of a repeal, but they still fervently want to get out of all the "bad parts" of the ACA that they don't like. Trump specifically, and the republican party more generally, promised a thing they could never possibly deliver, and on the off chance they could, they'd piss off their donors bigly. Perhaps this will end up being a lesson to them, but in the short term they're hosed no matter what they do electorally speaking, so you might as well keep the donors happy.
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Jun 20, 2017 02:26
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Azathoth posted:I think they're betting that the 2018 Senate election landscape being so favorable for Republicans will allow them to largely escape consequences in the Senate. A best case scenario is that, and then Ted Cruz is arrested whilst smoking meth and being dominated by a prostitute. But I'll take what I can get.
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Jun 20, 2017 03:17
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If there's a big problem with insurers not participating in non-group markets in some states, wouldn't that be the easiest way to slide in the public option as a compromise? Just say it can only operate where there are no other options under a certain price and, voila, I'm sure private insurers will begin offering plans just to preclude the public option gaining a viable toehold.
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Jun 27, 2017 03:53
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So? Let the government subsidize it then, and pay for it with progressive taxation until solvent. I bet if that happens suddenly all the rich Republican donors will have a sudden change of heart about whether young, healthy people should be forced into the general risk pool.
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Jul 18, 2017 21:21
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Fulchrum posted:They can opt out of coverage, they can't opt out of paying. Same way anyone can opt out of flying, but can't opt out of paying for the FAA Yeah, as I see it, people would pay a standard rate for a "healthy person" to buy into government healthcare, and then general revenue from taxes would make up whatever shortfall. A few years of that and the billionaire cunts will be pleading on bended knee for the return of the Obamacare mandate.
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Jul 19, 2017 05:46
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Yeah, willful ignorance combined with extreme selfishness and spite. The thought of paying for some stranger's hospital bill enrages them, especially if they make the lazy assumption that most medical expenses are due to individual irresponsibility. I've seen people who benefit from the ACA, whether they realize it or not, bitch about it. My cousin comes to mind: yeah, I get that your insurance is expensive and it pisses you off, but what kind of coverage do you think you're going to get for your autistic son when you're self-employed, the mandate is repealed, and pre-existing conditions cost a mint to insure? He was also wont to blame Obama for, among other things, Florida state regulations that bothered him. I'm just an ignorant Canadian, but would I be correct in saying that the President is not responsible for state-level regulations  ?His wife was surprised that Trump was anti-abortion, among other things. Some people are just really, really fuckin' ignorant. They don't pay attention to things, and they fail to reason with the information they do have to draw sensible conclusions.
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Jul 20, 2017 00:12
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VitalSigns posted:Everyone eventually goes on Medicare, everyone, and it's the most popular program in America. And in Canada, for the most part, the same can be said. There's a vanishingly small portion of people who would do away with public healthcare -- the "extreme right" position in Canada is "what if we allowed some private doctors/hospitals?" Like, the only real point of debate is "should rich people be able to purchase healthcare privately?" and I've seen no proposal for US healthcare that would in any way forbid that.
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Jul 20, 2017 01:15
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jivjov posted:McCain's got a brain tumor That explains the Comey hearing. Seriously, though, that's not good. I don't care for him as a politician, but no one "deserves" a brain tumor.
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Jul 20, 2017 01:16
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I will be glad when McCain ceases to be of any political consequence, because he's a man in a position of power with poo poo opinions who is actively promoting the deterioration of the United States and its citizens. I will not, however, take any particular pleasure in his illness or death beyond that, because he's fundamentally a human being, and I've come to believe it's simply not right to take pleasure in another's illness or death, no matter what they've done. This is no different than when a bunch of ghoulish cocksuckers were dancing on Calle Ocho when Castro died. Yeah, he did a lot of bad poo poo, but, as with McCain, I believe he did what he thought was right. Though I believe both of them were wrong and wrought terrible harm upon people in between periods of decency, I cannot believe they were so bad as to deserve to suffer and die for it without empathy. Maybe one man in a half billion is so terrible as to deserve that.
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Jul 20, 2017 04:22
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Mulaney Power Move posted:Most services in Canada are private, they just have a single payer system with the option for supplemental private insurance. This might seem pedantic, but it's an important point because so many people think Canada has a socialized health system when they just have public healthcare. Correct, I should've said "what if we allow people to purchase covered services directly?"
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Jul 20, 2017 17:20
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Mr. Nice! posted:That was Joe Liberman, not centrist dems. PPACA had a government option included originally. Lieberman killed that provision. Just like Marco Rubio killed risk corridor payments by kneecapping CMS with bullshit budget riders in subsequent years. And yet that still wouldn't be single-payer. Why do people treat single-payer and UHC as if they are synonyms?
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Jun 10, 2018 15:34
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Mr. Nice! posted:I will admit I hadn't actually looked into what the public option that he killed was, and it wasn't a single payer option but rather a government ran health insurance that would compete on all of the marketplaces. That's actually really dumb, but it would have actually kept costs down. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a universal healthcare system that's not single-payer -- such as a government-backed public option -- and given the way healthcare is currently structured in the US, it might be the best chance of achieving UHC in the short term, it's just a pet peeve of mine when people treat all possible UHC systems as interchangeable.
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Jun 10, 2018 15:59
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Willa Rogers posted:People on Medicaid now outnumber those in the private-insurance ACA marketplace by a factor of three to one--so yes, tens of millions of people have benefitted by the closest the ACA had to a single-payer program. It's not the closest thing to a single-payer program, it's government-funded health insurance. Why do people want to conflate single-payer with government health insurance or UHC in general so very, very badly all the time? Granted your point is still very valid, but if we're ever going to have a proper debate on healthcare policy, we need to have some sort of common understanding of what words mean.
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Jun 10, 2018 21:27
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Willa Rogers posted:The government pays for Medicaid and Medicare healthcare by paying for the insurance, regulating the insurance rates, and requiring uniform coverage. It also sets rates on providers. By that logic, every insurer is a single-payer system unto itself, at which point the term loses meaning.
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Jun 10, 2018 23:49
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Willa Rogers posted:Not at all; private insurers do not have to abide by government controls on premium or provider pricing (beyond the weaksauce regulations within the ACA). They can set their own limits on premiums and provider pricing through negotiation (and they do). That's what Medicare and Medicaid do, as far as I can tell -- it's the provision of health insurance through the government, instead of through a private company. There are still multiple payers in the overall system, and Medicare/Medicaid is one of the possible payers for those that qualify for it. That's completely different from a single-payer system like Medicare-For-All (Bernie's version) which isn't structurally related to what Medicare currently is, or the single-payer systems that exist in other countries, where only the government can pay for covered services. I think single payer is the best way to go in order to provide universal healthcare, for the reasons Ytlaya outlines, but it's not a synonym for any system in which the government pays for healthcare in some cases.
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Jun 11, 2018 01:51
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On the other hand, you can have public funding with private providers who are presumably driven by the profit motive, and it's not a huge problem. That's what Canada does, there's nothing terrible about it. The important bit is strictly controlling the amount people are allowed to charge, and making sure access is not constrained based on the ability of the patient to pay.
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Jun 12, 2018 04:07
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Gunshow Poophole posted:This is still intercession based and utterly unnecessary, why doesn't the government just compensate the people providing the care directly? Well, they do in a sense. If I go to the doctor, they take my provincial healthcare card, provide me whatever service I need, and then the government pays them out for that at whatever the rate is for whatever they did for me. If my doctor says, "right, you need to get an ultrasound," they fill out a form, I take it to an ultrasound clinic, and again, somehow that clinic gets paid out by the government in a way that's completely invisible to me. I suppose the government could buy out a whole bunch of practices and compensate everyone involved directly, but provided there are no problems with the current system, what benefit would it provide? The government would all of a sudden be dealing with a massively increased number of direct employees and would be sitting on a whole pile of illiquid assets all over the place for no particular reason. Privatization isn't inherently bad -- the problem is privatization without adequate governmental control. In Canada, we also have privatized air traffic control (for a completely nonmedical example) and it works fine, because it's very strictly regulated by the government even though it's not actually owned by the government. It's not just some for-profit business that's been turned loose to maximize profit, though -- that's a very important distinction when we're talking about privatization.
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Jun 12, 2018 13:58
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Malcolm XML posted:LMAO at thinking a privatized industry won't immediately turn to profit maximization in a capitalist society with a weak government like the US. Is a single-payer structure with private providers inherently less likely than a trillion-dollar capital investment by the federal government to buy all medical infrastructure and employ everyone in the medical field directly? I'm just pointing out that there are many different ways that have been used to achieve the end goal of universal healthcare. Meanwhile everyone here in sitting in complete surrender to American exceptionalism: "it just can't work here!!!!"
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Jun 12, 2018 14:20
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It never fails to amaze me how much ACA coverage sounds like some strange RPG with a bunch of arcane, barely understandable rules twisted up in a fuckload of jargon. It's bizarre, why would anyone come up with that poo poo? 
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Sep 25, 2018 16:27
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Coming from a completely different industry, but one that is similarly built on a sort of apprenticeship model, I think it comes down to the fact that knowledge, skill and experience are three related but distinct concepts, and doing anything sufficiently complicated means that you need all three. There's no way to get around that, as tempting as it may be.
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Nov 11, 2018 17:06
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Whether you have the profit motive of private research, or the efficiency goals of public research, I think people with particularly rare diseases that are expensive to treat are always going to get the shaft. It's not wrong to say that spending public funds on a drug that can treat/cure 40 people is less desirable than spending it on something that can help many more people. In either case, there are motives that work against people with rare and expensive diseases, which is why I don't think this is a great example case to determine the relative efficacy of public vs. private research. What this does reveal, however, is a fundamental flaw in the way pharmaceutical patents are handled. Drug production should be nationalized, and any pharmaceutical patent which is not being actively used should be taken out of effect until such time as the rights-holder wishes to use it again, removing such a circumstance where a pharmaceutical is taken out of production because it's not generating enough profit.
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Nov 20, 2018 15:11
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