EPTI think the uninsured, who suddenly needed health care, can fairly be classified as being "unbearably miserable" in the old system.
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Acrofales
Spain18286 Posts
I think the uninsured, who suddenly needed health care, can fairly be classified as being "unbearably miserable" in the old system. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:05 KwarK wrote: I have been criticising it? + Show Spoiler + On November 04 2013 08:19 KwarK wrote: Obamacare is a shitty idea. A comprehensive nationalised system along with death panels and a tax to fund it is the right idea. You can have a private insurance running parallel with it if you like, most countries do, those who can afford it still get to pay extra to have extra if they want but it provides a simple minimum standard of healthcare for everyone. Suggesting that healthcare decisions are somewhat comparable to buying a car is really, really dumb. Buying a car is pretty fucking simple, you have a few basic parameters (where you wanna go, how cool you wanna look, how much money you wanna spend etc) and you measure it against those. Assessing health insurance is mind boggling complicated. You can know your life intimately but you don't know what your statistically biggest health risks are, nor what the biggest financial risks (risk of incident multiplied by cost of it is), you don't know if your co-pay is a lot compared to your likely costs or not much, you don't know if you're overpaying or underpaying, you don't know if there is a bunch of other shit that could happen that isn't covered because it'd be too expensive and a billion other variables. Healthcare is really fucking complicated, which phone you want isn't. You've been one of the good boys. =) | ||
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Rob Ford
Canada6 Posts
Sure, there is the desire for luxuries. I'd like a broadband connection and a computer, but it doesn't take much work to afford such things. So how do you keep me providing goods for society and not just leeching my whole life? | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:06 Falling wrote: Probably little incentive. Which is why more than ever, I like the idea of majority rule in a Parliamentary democracy with the occasional minority government when party support is too even. There doesn't seem much incentive these days to be altruistic and help out the other side. Often you'll find, certain positions are critiqued in Opposition because in Opposition, they had zero reason to cooperate, but once in government turns out they actually agreed. The way it works now it seems to incentivize sabotaging the other side. Sure, politics is jaded, which is why Obamacare was passed without a single republican vote in the first place. My point is really this: given how bad and (more importantly) unpopular Obamacare is turning out to be, why exactly should republicans agree to work with democrats to "fix" Obamacare when they have a very good shot at actually repealing it now? Politically, the smart thing to do is obviously to let the Obamacare stink continue to grow. It's obviously going to be an ever-growing albatross for the democrat party. Like I suggested before, the republicans might as well just grab the popcorn. On more substantive grounds (ie, what's good for the US), I don't think that the republicans have any incentive to try to "fix" Obamacare over outright repealing it anyway. As I mentioned before, the key components of Obamacare that people are bitching about are critical to Obamacare functioning as a system. You can't just pick and choose which features you want to keep and expect everything else to remain the same. Healthcare simply doesn't function like that. There are always tradeoffs. Trying to "fix" Obamacare probably will only screw things up more or in other unintended and unexpected ways. In the end, repeal and replacement is really the only viable option. | ||
KwarK
United States43971 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:31 Rob Ford wrote: Once every need is a guaranteed human right, what exactly is my incentive to work? If housing and clothing and food and health care and education and transportation and retirement are all human rights provided by the government, why should I work? Why should I invest the time or money to learn marketable skills? Why should I struggle or strive to produce or advance? Sure, there is the desire for luxuries. I'd like a broadband connection and a computer, but it doesn't take much work to afford such things. So how do you keep me providing goods for society and not just leeching my whole life? You realise in the western world at the moment there really isn't all that much work that actually needs doing. The reason we're able to decide all these things are rights is because we live in a society that has an insane amount of surplus and can actually provide these things with a relatively low (historically) amount of labour per person. But I wouldn't be happy with just the basics (roof, food, health) and I wouldn't be happy doing nothing all day every day. I want that other stuff, I want the internet, I want the luxuries. But to suggest that because it doesn't take much to afford them means you're a leech is just not understanding how ridiculously productive our society is (or, if you want to be more cynical, how imbalanced our trade with China is). It doesn't take much to afford them because your labour is valued pretty highly against the things. | ||
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Kaitlin
United States2958 Posts
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On November 22 2013 07:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Yes I remember like it was yesterday people complementing the system that prevented them from getting insurance due to preexisting conditions. Such as acne, or diabetes. The vast majority of Americans don't have that problem. On November 22 2013 08:01 farvacola wrote: Establishing that the majority of Americans are "very happy" with the previous iteration of the US healthcare system is an incredibly problematic undertaking, both in terms of going about it soundly and in terms of demonstrating the impact of such a statement. Let's suppose that an aggregate of "good" polls on the topic of Pre-Obamacare satisfaction, both historically and contemporaneously, sufficiently point to approval enough to legitimize the notion that a majority of Americans were very happy with the previous system. What does this really tell us? The majority of Americans have been very wrong about a fair number of things in the past, and given the incredibly nebulous nature of healthcare pricing and market facade, it would seem an awful leap of faith to make in supposing that the majority of Americans can even name a single alternative to their current health insurance plan, not to mention whether or not they know enough of the entire system to say whether or not it is "good", which is in itself a shorthand term more useful in attempting to legitimize polling than in accurately reflecting the state of healthcare in the United States. The below is from a case study on healthcare as a market good published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that I've posted on occasion. Health Care as a “Market Good”? Appendicitis as a Case Study That last paragraph is very important, as it speaks to just how opaque the health insurance market truly is. Granted, some of the distortion that takes place is due to Medicare and its ubiquity, but the point is that, in general economic terms aimed towards establishing whether or not a given commodity or service is free market apropos, the consumer is simply unable to gather enough information, act in enough time, or make salient enough choices when searching for both preventative and palliative healthcare to make good "rational" choices enough of the time. (I won't even go into the US systems problem with preventative medicine :D) Accordingly, the opinion of the majority of Americans (which is, I'll remind you, incredibly difficult to establish in the first place) when it comes to healthcare becomes quite a bit more complicated in terms of how we are to act on it from a public policy standpoint, as it is rather clear, given what we know of how insurance markets work and how people come upon their plans, that many people have very little idea what is going on when they say that they are happy with their employee insurance plan that is, in the background, pushing the costs of those less fortunate exponentially higher. Edit: You are right in describing Obamacare as a bad tip-toe though, that much we agree on  Whether or not Americans like their healthcare has huge political consequences. If they like shit, they won't want to change their shit, since they like it. If we're concerned as to whether or not the healthcare is shit or not (looking beyond the politics) then we need good objective measures of quality, which are hard to come by. Country comparisons are difficult. I'm not sure what your point about healthcare as a market good is. The paragraph you highlighted states that healthcare isn't a market, not that it can't be. | ||
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Rob Ford
Canada6 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:37 KwarK wrote: You realise in the western world at the moment there really isn't all that much work that actually needs doing. The reason we're able to decide all these things are rights is because we live in a society that has an insane amount of surplus and can actually provide these things with a relatively low (historically) amount of labour per person. But I wouldn't be happy with just the basics (roof, food, health) and I wouldn't be happy doing nothing all day every day. I want that other stuff, I want the internet, I want the luxuries. But to suggest that because it doesn't take much to afford them means you're a leech is just not understanding how ridiculously productive our society is (or, if you want to be more cynical, who imbalanced our trade with China is). It doesn't take much to afford them because your labour is valued pretty highly against the things. But the labor I need to pay for the luxuries I want will never be sufficiently productive to equal the housing/health care/education/retirement/food/etc. that is a guaranteed right. Also, part of the reason our society is insanely productive is because there are still significant incentives to work. For example, the fear of homelessness. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:31 Rob Ford wrote: Once every need is a guaranteed human right, what exactly is my incentive to work? If housing and clothing and food and health care and education and transportation and retirement are all human rights provided by the government, why should I work? Why should I invest the time or money to learn marketable skills? Why should I struggle or strive to produce or advance? Sure, there is the desire for luxuries. I'd like a broadband connection and a computer, but it doesn't take much work to afford such things. So how do you keep me providing goods for society and not just leeching my whole life? And yet in countries where those things are guaranteed (except maybe transportation) people still work, and not just few, but overwhelming majority. On November 22 2013 08:50 Rob Ford wrote: That doesn't really answer my question though. Not as to the mechanism, just to the fact that there is one. It tells you that such motivation exists, the specifics are hard question, but nearly irrelevant as far as policy goes. | ||
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Rob Ford
Canada6 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:49 mcc wrote: And yet in countries where those things are guaranteed (except maybe transportation) people still work, and not just few, but overwhelming majority. That doesn't really answer my question though. User was banned for this post. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:47 Rob Ford wrote: But the labor I need to pay for the luxuries I want will never be sufficiently productive to equal the housing/health care/education/retirement/food/etc. that is a guaranteed right. Also, part of the reason our society is insanely productive is because there are still significant incentives to work. For example, the fear of homelessness. If you are a citizen of most European countries homelessness is not a consequence of not working. I would guess that Canada would be in the same category ? | ||
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Rob Ford
Canada6 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:42 Kaitlin wrote: What Republicans consider "fixing Obamacare" is much different than what Democrats consider it to be. So, why should Republicans just go along with what the Democrats see as the solution ? Democrats certainly aren't considering going along with what the Republicans see as the solution. Fact is, many Republicans see this entire thing as a giant hunk of shit that is going to be problem after problem and is better off being scrapped entirely. The best way bring about the best outcome (repeal) is to allow this 100% Democrat created and owned piece of shit explode on its own. But when Obamacare does explode, they will tell the public: "See, the market just doesn't work for health care." And the people will buy it. | ||
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Roe
Canada6002 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:47 Rob Ford wrote: But the labor I need to pay for the luxuries I want will never be sufficiently productive to equal the housing/health care/education/retirement/food/etc. that is a guaranteed right. Also, part of the reason our society is insanely productive is because there are still significant incentives to work. For example, the fear of homelessness. What's your reasoning behind this? What could lead to such exponential production due to simply the fear of being homeless? Surely one could get a simple, minimum wage job that doesn't produce much and still have a home. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On November 22 2013 08:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote: The vast majority of Americans don't have that problem. Whether or not Americans like their healthcare has huge political consequences. If they like shit, they won't want to change their shit, since they like it. If we're concerned as to whether or not the healthcare is shit or not (looking beyond the politics) then we need good objective measures of quality, which are hard to come by. Country comparisons are difficult. I'm not sure what your point about healthcare as a market good is. The paragraph you highlighted states that healthcare isn't a market, not that it can't be. There are some pretty good measures on outcomes that cross national boundaries. Things like treatment and detection rates for diseases, and average doctor visits per year per person. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
As the Texas State Board of Education nears a vote on which science textbooks it will recommend to schools, a watchdog group is calling out advocates for the oil and gas industry for disrupting the process with what it says are attacks on accurate science. For months, the SBOE has been weighing which textbooks to put on a classroom “approved” list. While previous debates have centered on whether or not the books would include references to creationism, on Wednesday -- just two days before the board’s final vote -- oil and gas industry advocates pushed the board to abandon the only environmental science book up for approval, according to the Texas Freedom Network, a nonpartisan watchdog group that focuses on civil liberties. The SBOE expressed concern over an environmental science textbook from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt after Becky Berger, a geologist and oil and gas professional, testified at a textbook hearing Wednesday evening. Berger reportedly told the board that the textbook contained factual errors on topics such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the causes of climate change. Due to the board’s visible "shock" over the testimony, the episode "showed just how easy it is for special interests, at the last minute, to hijack the textbook adoption process in Texas," Texas Freedom Network said. The group also noted that previous review panels had not taken issue with the book. Berger is running for Texas Railroad Commissioner, and if elected would help regulate the state’s oil and gas industry. Josh Rosenau, the programs and policy director at the National Center for Science Education, told The Huffington Post that Berger's testimony sounded like a “campaign speech.” "She's running for the Texas Railroad Commission ... so she's running on a platform ... [that says] 'I've worked in this industry, I'm not going to do anything to this industry,'" Rosenau told HuffPost over the phone. Berger said she was merely trying to point out what she sees as inaccuracies in the textbook, and that her testimony was not politically motivated. Source | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
Uhh... so? Unless SBOE is being bribed or incompetent, Berger's opinion shouldn't be a big deal. | ||
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