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United States43964 Posts
On March 22 2017 11:54 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
Ayn Rand is like the secret. people like it because it affirms their beliefs and they think it will give them what they want. Unlike Peter Singer who argues much better but struggles to connect with a message of not going on vacation and instead using the money to keep kids in Africa alive (roughly).
If those kids wanted to live they wouldn't have been born in Africa.
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On March 22 2017 12:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 11:54 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
Ayn Rand is like the secret. people like it because it affirms their beliefs and they think it will give them what they want. Unlike Peter Singer who argues much better but struggles to connect with a message of not going on vacation and instead using the money to keep kids in Africa alive (roughly). If those kids wanted to live they wouldn't have been born in Africa.
there are actual arguments that can be made about responsibility and stuff (in terms of moral obligation and the like.
Personally my personal favorite philosophy is extreme utilitarianism. The answer to every moral problem is "do whatever gets you more money and then spend it all on Malaria nets for Africa."
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Wanting or not wanting a job is pretty damn irrelevant. What matters is if the job is done right.
And Tillerson has a pretty solid vision for how to run diplomacy so it's all well and good.
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Friend of Russia.
User was warned for this post
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On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:On March 22 2017 08:43 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view.
+ Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all.
Too true.
I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt.
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On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt.
Cool.
Remind me how this is relevant to the bill that's actually being voted on?
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tragedy of the commons only really applies if individuals benefit from collecting more and more of the good or service in question at the expense of others. This is inverse in the healthcare sector, you don't go and have 20 MRIs for fun because they're free. On the contrary, if expenses are shared everybody is interested in reducing unnecessary procedures. In a free market type system on the other hand it works in reverse. Doctors profit from selling you nonsensical treatment and do not want to reduce expenses. Same is true for say the prison system. You won't have a proliferation of prison usage just because prison is free either.
This scarecrow of social abuse only works if the service in question is desirable in the first place.
universal healthcare is more efficient at providing healthcare to everybody. Its cost per capita is lower and the outcome is better.
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United States43964 Posts
On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt.
The weird part about your religion of libertarianism is how it doesn't simply insist upon unproven and unprovable beliefs but also has verifiable falsehoods within the doctrine.
Single payer has been tested time and time again and it's always worked to lower costs for individuals. You can just check it. It's a fact. And this insistence that the poor were healthier in the time of polio and cholera is something that you can also disprove.
Most religions these days have the decency to at least try some kind of "God of the gaps" excuse where they argue that God exists in the areas outside of our knowledge. But not you libertarians. For you it exists almost exclusively in the areas that are directly contrary to established and verifiable facts.
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Heck in Japan it's so cheap they have to subsidize the system to make sure that doctors actually get paid.
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On March 22 2017 12:45 Nyxisto wrote:
In a free market type system on the other hand it works in reverse. Doctors profit from selling you nonsensical treatment and do not want to reduce expenses. Same is true for say the prison system. You won't have a proliferation of prison usage just because prison is free either.
this is how (for example) you get to male cicrumcision rate in the Usa
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On March 22 2017 12:42 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. Cool. Remind me how this is relevant to the bill that's actually being voted on?
See, sometimes we talk about the best plans we have to compromise down on because people like you hold to some very bad ideas. You know about the political divide, right? Well, just like we talk about political themes and ideologies, because the politicians pretending to espouse them will constantly disappoint (see: Hillary Clinton the Corrupt), sometimes you'll see ones that haven't been proposed in legislation ever or for many years.
On March 22 2017 12:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. The weird part about your religion of libertarianism is how it doesn't simply insist upon unproven and unprovable beliefs but also has verifiable falsehoods within the doctrine. Single payer has been tested time and time again and it's always worked to lower costs for individuals. You can just check it. It's a fact. And this insistence that the poor were healthier in the time of polio and cholera is something that you can also disprove. Most religions these days have the decency to at least try some kind of "God of the gaps" excuse where they argue that God exists in the areas outside of our knowledge. But not you libertarians. For you it exists almost exclusively in the areas that are directly contrary to established and verifiable facts.
Your religion has more practitioners and more preachers in power, that's for sure. As Wegandi so well put it, "I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government" is one of the core commandments printed in your Bible. Later chapters talk about injecting polio and cholera to try and tarnish policies by association, probably printed alongside passages denigrating concepts established at the foundation of America to the practice of slavery amongst the founders. The gods of your religion say the government has done it and shown success in this or that area for this or that state/people, therefore it is heresy to claim there's alternatives, by order of the Prophet, may peace be upon him.
I've seen enough similarities to know both sides have religious fervor and pretend to be the common-sense path forward. I'm very disinterested in expounding on the whys and hows because every fifty pages, someone claims once again that nobody has ideas except for their side. Maybe hell will freeze over and we'll get a full Obamacare repeal and once again the replace measures will be proferred again, but otherwise, we have a big government type on the throne and enough RINOs in the legislature to give conservative ideas no purchase for the foreseeable future.
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On March 22 2017 15:05 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:42 WolfintheSheep wrote:On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. Cool. Remind me how this is relevant to the bill that's actually being voted on? See, sometimes we talk about the best plans we have to compromise down on because people like you hold to some very bad ideas. You know about the political divide, right? Well, just like we talk about political themes and ideologies, because the politicians pretending to espouse them will constantly disappoint (see: Hillary Clinton the Corrupt), sometimes you'll see ones that haven't been proposed in legislation ever or for many years. Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:46 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. The weird part about your religion of libertarianism is how it doesn't simply insist upon unproven and unprovable beliefs but also has verifiable falsehoods within the doctrine. Single payer has been tested time and time again and it's always worked to lower costs for individuals. You can just check it. It's a fact. And this insistence that the poor were healthier in the time of polio and cholera is something that you can also disprove. Most religions these days have the decency to at least try some kind of "God of the gaps" excuse where they argue that God exists in the areas outside of our knowledge. But not you libertarians. For you it exists almost exclusively in the areas that are directly contrary to established and verifiable facts. Your religion has more practitioners and more preachers in power, that's for sure. As Wegandi so well put it, "I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government" is one of the core commandments printed in your Bible. Later chapters talk about injecting polio and cholera to try and tarnish policies by association, probably printed alongside passages denigrating concepts established at the foundation of America to the practice of slavery amongst the founders. The gods of your religion say the government has done it and shown success in this or that area for this or that state/people, therefore it is heresy to claim there's alternatives, by order of the Prophet, may peace be upon him. I've seen enough similarities to know both sides have religious fervor and pretend to be the common-sense path forward. I'm very disinterested in expounding on the whys and hows because every fifty pages, someone claims once again that nobody has ideas except for their side. Maybe hell will freeze over and we'll get a full Obamacare repeal and once again the replace measures will be proferred again, but otherwise, we have a big government type on the throne and enough RINOs in the legislature to give conservative ideas no purchase for the foreseeable future.
Danglar, have you ever lived abroad?
There no rational argument against universal healthcare. It works VERY WELL in a shotload of countries. It's cheaper than the US system, everyone is very well covered, and you don't have to worry about anything. Everyone pays a fixed price every month and no one ever has to worry about medical bills. Period.
You say people here are religious because the State is supposed to solve everything. I say you are religious because you just refuse to admit that the state is horrible at some stuff and great at others. For you it's black and white, not for us. You are the one who discard all evidence based on ideological dogma.
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On March 22 2017 15:05 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:42 WolfintheSheep wrote:On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. Cool. Remind me how this is relevant to the bill that's actually being voted on? See, sometimes we talk about the best plans we have to compromise down on because people like you hold to some very bad ideas. You know about the political divide, right? Well, just like we talk about political themes and ideologies, because the politicians pretending to espouse them will constantly disappoint (see: Hillary Clinton the Corrupt), sometimes you'll see ones that haven't been proposed in legislation ever or for many years. Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 12:46 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 12:17 Danglars wrote:On March 22 2017 10:33 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 10:26 KwarK wrote:On March 22 2017 10:12 Wegandi wrote:On March 22 2017 08:48 Gorsameth wrote:Because the 2 sides, even within the Republican party are to opposed to eachother. The Freedom Caucus where never going to vote for a health care system that brings affordable care for the poor/chronically ill. And the other side cannot vote for a plan that does not provide their constitutions with adequate healthcare. There is no acceptable solution for the Republican Party as a whole, thats why they didn't make an alternative during the last 6 years. Edit: The best shot they probably had was making an actual working improvement and going for the Democrats + decent Republicans. And it would have been a really really long shot to begin with. I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government...obviously in double speak land, being against Government healthcare means you're for higher prices. (if you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes really strenuously) I mean it is. Insurance can't fix prices being too high, that's literally not a thing that insurance does. Insurance turns irregular high prices into regular low prices through spreading risk. But if the problem is that the risk and the cost are both too high, ie you have a preexisting condition, you cannot lower the cost with insurance. The only way to lower the cost is through forced redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the unhealthy. That's the unavoidable truth. No, that is not the only way. People have become so accustomed to the current quagmire that they can't even fathom a time when you didn't need insurance except for catastrophic injury due to how cheap healthcare was. The healthcare system wasn't always 90% controlled by the Government via mandates, requirements, impositions, rules and regulations, licensing, etc. Now, is healthcare going to be cheap for everyone (much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo)? No, but getting rid of IP/Patent, licensing, mandates (so you know...insurance does what it is supposed to do - evaluate actuarial risk), allowing tax credits for HSA's, allowing people to pool together to buy insurance as a group outside of employment, buying across state lines/more competition, making it easier to build and run hospitals (regulations/rules/etc.) so that there is more competition, etc. Lots of stuff can be done outside of your narrow view. + Show Spoiler [reference] +On March 22 2017 10:41 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2017 10:34 Plansix wrote:
Health insurance does not function in a free market. It is the opposite of a free market, since the consumer is under duress and cannot compare prices. Also the free market requires failure to function. Lot of it. No one is interested in failing health insurance providers or emergency rooms.
Also we don't let people die because they are poor. The free market ship sailed when the nation decided we were not monsters. Now its just a question of how we pay for it. Luckily we have all these totally functional nations with great blueprints to follow. And they all pay less than the US for health coverage due to the entire population funding the coverage. Yes, because insurance has never been a model in any market (/snark). Insurance is fine, when it is supposed to do what its intended purpose is (as I said before). The idea that you need insurance for everything under the sun is anathema, you're right, and that's the problem. The idea that either you subsidize and mandate insurance, or you nationalize healthcare is a false dichotomy. If your only retort to that is - poor people will die, that's never happened. Poor people actually had better care in mutual organizations because they could negotiate cheaper prices by virtue of population. Prices were so depressed between 1900 and 1920 that you had healthcare workers writing editorials in papers decrying how low their salaries were. The government stepped in and fixed that and now were in the extreme side of that scale, and that's me saying that as a healthcare worker. Government collusion in the healthcare market and its interference has created the situation we're in today. Advocating for more of the same is not a good solution. I can only imagine the disaster that would be medicare for all. Too true. I'd take you to task if "much cheaper than any Government solution and the status-quo" is truly and deeply believed by you. Government solutions spread the burden, not the cost, in the pure sense, and bring up their own issues with tragedy of the commons-type adverse decision making. The status quo is part of the reason health costs are being driven up, for the reasons you cite (and thanks), as well as giving employers preferential tax treatment for their plans compared to individuals and non-employment group (cited by you, and thanks). But this is anathema to idiots with their fingers in their ears chanting universal health care or single payer as the case may be ... government is the solution to our problems because government is the solution to our problems. But umm that's the thread and I'd sooner try to get a lib to dissociate xenophobia with immigration debate than bring up another three reforms to hear nobody's got any ideas besides big govt. The weird part about your religion of libertarianism is how it doesn't simply insist upon unproven and unprovable beliefs but also has verifiable falsehoods within the doctrine. Single payer has been tested time and time again and it's always worked to lower costs for individuals. You can just check it. It's a fact. And this insistence that the poor were healthier in the time of polio and cholera is something that you can also disprove. Most religions these days have the decency to at least try some kind of "God of the gaps" excuse where they argue that God exists in the areas outside of our knowledge. But not you libertarians. For you it exists almost exclusively in the areas that are directly contrary to established and verifiable facts. Your religion has more practitioners and more preachers in power, that's for sure. As Wegandi so well put it, "I forgot, the only solution to the issue of price is Government" is one of the core commandments printed in your Bible. Later chapters talk about injecting polio and cholera to try and tarnish policies by association, probably printed alongside passages denigrating concepts established at the foundation of America to the practice of slavery amongst the founders. The gods of your religion say the government has done it and shown success in this or that area for this or that state/people, therefore it is heresy to claim there's alternatives, by order of the Prophet, may peace be upon him. I've seen enough similarities to know both sides have religious fervor and pretend to be the common-sense path forward. I'm very disinterested in expounding on the whys and hows because every fifty pages, someone claims once again that nobody has ideas except for their side. Maybe hell will freeze over and we'll get a full Obamacare repeal and once again the replace measures will be proferred again, but otherwise, we have a big government type on the throne and enough RINOs in the legislature to give conservative ideas no purchase for the foreseeable future.
According to the CBO, the American people would be better off with a full repeal over the AHCA. The AHCA being a 24m insured loss with an ACA repeal being "just" 23m. That would be some air conditioning.
Source: NYT
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United States43964 Posts
I mean this really isn't that complicated Wegandi/Danglars. The problem is that the average American is broke and that medical care is intrinsically expensive, anarchic Mad Max style wasteland or no. The government doesn't make healthcare intrinsically expensive, the fact that it takes an awful lot of highly skilled and highly trained professionals to keep people alive the way we want makes it expensive. If we wanted to massively lower the standard of care we could make it cheap, hell, homeopathy comes out of the tap, but if we want actual medicine then we have to pay and the average person cannot afford it.
The free market offers no solution to things being unaffordable. If I wanted a cubic metre of gold and I had $5 in my pocket the invisible hand isn't going to suddenly invent $5 gold, the invisible hand is going to say "this is a finite resource and other people want it more so fuck off". Insurance is a red herring, insurance turns unpredictable high costs into predictable low costs which is great if you're healthy and want to insure yourself against getting sick but is completely worthless if you're predictably sick in an expensive way. The insurance company will quote you an unaffordable premium and you're still fucked.
The only possible solutions to sick people being unable to afford healthcare which is intrinsically expensive beyond their means is to either deny them healthcare or have the healthy people pay for them. And if you want the latter then you have to include government. Not because government is magical, but because government is coercive and when you want to make someone pay for something you need coercion. There is simply no way to do healthcare without the healthy paying for the unhealthy and there is no way to make the healthy pay for the unhealthy without government. It's that simple. A child could understand it. It requires no leap of faith, it can be derived a priori from a basic understanding of the facts. Or it can be observed in any of the places it has been tried and has worked if evidence is your thing.
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I look at healthcare in the same was as how we got the highways in America. The government just made it happen. They didn't ask. And we benefited from it for better or worse. Healthcare that we all duly vote on with what we as a society deem as sufficient care and payment methods/prices, makes the most sense. I feel KwarK is biting back a lot of scathing words, but you cannot argue against him in this arena. Government subsidized healthcare with each citizen participating is the best way forward. We cannot faithfully and realistically call ourselves a first-world, industrialized nation without this simple staple.
Free market healthcare takes care of one thing and that is the insurance companies bottom line. No one reaps the benefits more than them if they can charge whatever they want. There is no competition in healthcare for the simple fact that most visits to the Dr are minor things. And even the most devastating illness can be treated or softened without needing to pay your first born child's third grandson's pet pigeon.
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On March 22 2017 16:01 KwarK wrote:
I mean this really isn't that complicated Wegandi/Danglars. The problem is that the average American is broke and that medical care is intrinsically expensive, anarchic Mad Max style wasteland or no. The government doesn't make healthcare intrinsically expensive, the fact that it takes an awful lot of highly skilled and highly trained professionals to keep people alive the way we want makes it expensive. If we wanted to massively lower the standard of care we could make it cheap, hell, homeopathy comes out of the tap, but if we want actual medicine then we have to pay and the average person cannot afford it.
The free market offers no solution to things being unaffordable. If I wanted a cubic metre of gold and I had $5 in my pocket the invisible hand isn't going to suddenly invent $5 gold, the invisible hand is going to say "this is a finite resource and other people want it more so fuck off". Insurance is a red herring, insurance turns unpredictable high costs into predictable low costs which is great if you're healthy and want to insure yourself against getting sick but is completely worthless if you're predictably sick in an expensive way. The insurance company will quote you an unaffordable premium and you're still fucked.
The only possible solutions to sick people being unable to afford healthcare which is intrinsically expensive beyond their means is to either deny them healthcare or have the healthy people pay for them. And if you want the latter then you have to include government. Not because government is magical, but because government is coercive and when you want to make someone pay for something you need coercion. There is simply no way to do healthcare without the healthy paying for the unhealthy and there is no way to make the healthy pay for the unhealthy without government. It's that simple. A child could understand it. It requires no leap of faith, it can be derived a priori from a basic understanding of the facts. Or it can be observed in any of the places it has been tried and has worked if evidence is your thing.
You talk a lot about how expensive health care is... Healthcare is extraordinarily expensive in the US for some reason though, and the commonplace arguments of 'we have the best health care' or 'we pay for all the research' don't really seem justified in my eyes. Russian propaganda told me for example that Hillary Clinton once spoke about a case where the cost of a certain drug went up in price from $180 for 10 shots in the 1980s to $14,700 for the same quantity today. They go on to say that Americans spend twice as much on health care compared to other developed countries. The Kremlin-sponsored TV channel said it was because the US doesn't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies as a single market and lets them charge predatory prices.
I'd say that, aside from providing health care to more citizens (which would be step 1, I suppose), there should be a concentrated effort in the US to make it less expensive in general, so that richer people don't have to pay through their nose to provide health care for poorer people. I've seen people cite numbers of paying more than 1000 dollars/month for health insurance and averages of over $300 for young people. That is mind boggling. I was just listening to Larry King and his guest spread Russian propaganda as well, and representative Cheri Bustos from Illinois corroborated this idea. But you know, I'm sure that's all just Russian brainwashing getting to me.
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Who wants to bet he just learned this?
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Hahaha, I'll take 20 bucks on that one, easily. That guy is so fucking stupid and transparent in his idiocy, he would never bring it up unless he found out that very same day. Even I knew Lincoln was a Republican and I never studied American history.
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I can't even bring myself to play the tweet. Taking a stab in the dark, which part of Lincoln was he referencing? The Civil War he oversaw? The black balling of congress to free slaves so that the North could gather more troops to keep the Union as one? Or that he was a gifted orator? Maybe it was the fact that Lincoln started from nothing and grew into one of the most respected presidents of this nation? So many thoughts pass through my head at that tweet.
Maybe he was referring to the numerous lawsuits Lincoln faced as a lawyer before assuming public service?
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EPT
