On December 14 2011 11:20 Probulous wrote: To be fair what is he was trying to say was that the government is supposed to responsible to the people whilst coporations are responsible to their shareholders. They exist for different purposes. One is to reflect the will of society whilst the other is to make a profit.
In something like health care the objectives of the company are not likely to align with those of the population. I am not saying that a consumer has power in either situation. That's the problem with democracy, it doesn't exist. However the corporation is most certainly not working in the consumer's favour, whilst in some cases the government can.
but businesses still COMPETE for their customer-base. Shareholders are appeased through rise in profits and profits can only rise through out-competing the competitors.
But then this becomes a debate about competition as a method for controlling health expenditure. Is the healthcare industry competitive? Big call if you ask me. Health providers have a huge information advantage over patients, they have actuaries who can provide far more accurate predictions of health expenditure than your average citizen. How do you know if you are paying too much for your insurance? This is just one example of information assymtery that is rife in this environment. At least with a single payer system you can dedicated experts evaluate whether a treatment provies value for money.
Sorry no, share holders can gain above normal profits byt methods other than out-competing, collusion is one such example. Bare in mind most treatments have few if any competitors, so monopoly is also a problem. The whole model assumes that the industry is competitive, I have a big problem with that.
Anyway, this has been covered in this thread before, perhaps we should get back on topic.
because if they're charging you too much a different company can make a HUGE profit by charging just a tiny bit less...
During free market competition marginal profit is minimized, this is like economics 101.
Also, collusion costs money, and no monopoly or trust has ever survived without being propped up by the government so..
Or, you know, through cheating the customers and denying care to neutral, risky or negative profit cases.
That's fraud then, and they get the shit sued out of them along with a ton of bad publicity.
Since you are determined to follow this line of reasoning. I will work it through for you.
because if they're charging you too much a different company can make a HUGE profit by charging just a tiny bit less...
Again, this is based on a competitive market model. I am positing that the health care market is not competitive. If you there are few companies, providing different services you can at best achieve a monopolistic market. In this environment it pays for companies to keep prices similar, but above what a perfectly competitive market would provide. Now, the more that companies can separate themselves from the competition the more profits they can make. They, in effect, create small sub markets with higher prices. Unfortunately for consumers, health providers works in different environments. Private hospitals only compete with those nearby. Insurance companies, only compete with those providing very similar packages.
My point is that the barriers to entry, and the ability for companies to separate themselves from the market, means the market is very non-competitive. Thus charging a higher price does not mean you immediately lose customers.
Hell, you can gain customers. Charging higher prices can indicate to consumers that your product is superior, even if it isn't. How is your average Joe supposed to know whether their local hospital is better at heart transplants than the public option? They charge higher prices and the place looks nice? The whole model is predicated on consumers being able to not only tell which option is better, but also by how much. I would state this is not the case for healthcare.
During free market competition marginal profit is minimized, this is like economics 101.
Indeed, and the free market is predicated on? Rational, fully informed participants and no barriers to entry. How likely is that? The competitive model is a tool, unfortunately it does not do well in the healthcare sector.
Also, collusion costs money, and no monopoly or trust has ever survived without being propped up by the government so..
See my first point. There is a natural monopoly in healthcare. It comes from simple things like geography.
That's fraud then, and they get the shit sued out of them along with a ton of bad publicity.
This is always the fall back position for people advocating the use of the standard model. The problem is that people need to know they have been swindled. Again, patients are at an information disadvantage due to the nature of the transaction. You might get one fraud out of twenty, or more. Does that act as a disincentive? I would say it just raises insurance rates. A cost which is passed onto the consumer.
I am not saying that the standard model has no place in health care. I am simply stating that it has serious issues because it is based on assumptions that are impossible in this sector. There are alternative setups that deal with these problems. Again, lets get back to discussing republicans.
Are most Americans in the position to just up and drop their current health insurance plan, and easily acquire a new one? Most people get insurance through their employer, and so don't have the option to just "swap to a better company that offers lower rates free market etc huehue" without quitting their job and searching for work elsewhere.
On December 14 2011 11:20 Probulous wrote: To be fair what is he was trying to say was that the government is supposed to responsible to the people whilst coporations are responsible to their shareholders. They exist for different purposes. One is to reflect the will of society whilst the other is to make a profit.
In something like health care the objectives of the company are not likely to align with those of the population. I am not saying that a consumer has power in either situation. That's the problem with democracy, it doesn't exist. However the corporation is most certainly not working in the consumer's favour, whilst in some cases the government can.
but businesses still COMPETE for their customer-base. Shareholders are appeased through rise in profits and profits can only rise through out-competing the competitors.
Changing private healthcare providers is not as easy as changing where you shop for groceries. If your work organises your cover it may not even be an option. If it is, the new insurer must approve you before they will consider offering you a policy - and assuming you are considering changing due to poor services you are probably in worse health than the last time you were assessed.
If you do get approved, even if your premiums are not higher due to the health problems whose mismanagement led to your change, there is often a delay of several months before many services become available to you.
Additionally, healthcare providers have on several occasions found it to be mutually beneficial for all providers to reduce the quality of the service provided to customers in certain areas (orthodontic care in the US takes years longer than care of the same quality in the UK*, where it is provided publicly).
In the US, the insurance companies essentially have a captive consumer base so competition does not function well to maximise quality, or minimise cost to consumer.
* Despite the stereotype, dental care is available throughout the UK on the NHS. People in the UK who have bad teeth through not taking advantage of this have only themselves to blame.
Mitt Romney described his views as "progressive" at a 2002 campaign stop in Worcester, Mass., while running for governor.
"I think the old standby definitions of who votes for which party have been blown away in this campaign," said Romney to New England Cable News. "I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican; that I'm someone who is moderate; and that my views are progressive," he continued. "They're going to vote for me regardless of the party label," he added.
Andrew Kaczynski, a 22-year-old student, uploaded the video Tuesday to YouTube. Kaczynski has uploaded dozens of archival videos of politicians to YouTube revealing their past positions, sometimes to embarrassment.
Romney has been unable to spark large-scale enthusiasm among GOP voters during his campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, and faces a strong challenge from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who says he is more conservative.
Mitt Romney described his views as "progressive" at a 2002 campaign stop in Worcester, Mass., while running for governor.
"I think the old standby definitions of who votes for which party have been blown away in this campaign," said Romney to New England Cable News. "I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican; that I'm someone who is moderate; and that my views are progressive," he continued. "They're going to vote for me regardless of the party label," he added.
Andrew Kaczynski, a 22-year-old student, uploaded the video Tuesday to YouTube. Kaczynski has uploaded dozens of archival videos of politicians to YouTube revealing their past positions, sometimes to embarrassment.
Romney has been unable to spark large-scale enthusiasm among GOP voters during his campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, and faces a strong challenge from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who says he is more conservative.
On December 14 2011 12:10 Honeybadger wrote: I'm going to miss Herman Cain. Any many that quotes the Pokemon Movie 2000 on a serious political podium is, in my opinion, a perfect representative of the republican party.
It's too bad that Ron Paul is completely ignored by the media. He's far and away the only republican that has more than a snowball's chance in hell of beating Obama.
That said, I'm sick and tired of political parties. George Washington himself warned us of the dangers of partisan politics in his farewell speech. Partisanship is human nature, and it is the cause for all of our problems these days. Laws have been passed due to popular vote simply because the law was attached to the right party, not because of any merit it may contain. I've historically voted Democrat, but since GWB all the way through Obama, I've taken the stance of non-voting. I don't consider either party worthy of my vote nowadays.
Blame the Democrat party. They formed one first in order to maintain slavery.
Winning those two states could be exactly what Ron Paul needs to lock up the nomination, just a little momentum. If he can dispel this common narrative that he's unelectable, primary voters in other states might take him seriously and judge him on the merits of his positions and voting record.
On December 14 2011 12:35 Haemonculus wrote: Are most Americans in the position to just up and drop their current health insurance plan, and easily acquire a new one? Most people get insurance through their employer, and so don't have the option to just "swap to a better company that offers lower rates free market etc huehue" without quitting their job and searching for work elsewhere.
It's a false sense of choice really. Having multiple possible options is meaningless if the vast majority does not have the means to exercise the possibility of having a choice. In the practical sense, it's just meaningless hand waving.
On December 14 2011 11:20 Probulous wrote: To be fair what is he was trying to say was that the government is supposed to responsible to the people whilst coporations are responsible to their shareholders. They exist for different purposes. One is to reflect the will of society whilst the other is to make a profit.
In something like health care the objectives of the company are not likely to align with those of the population. I am not saying that a consumer has power in either situation. That's the problem with democracy, it doesn't exist. However the corporation is most certainly not working in the consumer's favour, whilst in some cases the government can.
but businesses still COMPETE for their customer-base. Shareholders are appeased through rise in profits and profits can only rise through out-competing the competitors.
And the way they compete is by giving minimum care at the lowest price possible. In addition they tell their workers they are not employees, but contractors until their bluff is called when the nurse regulating body comes to check up on the details of contracting (much more rigorous). Then suddenly you were an employee all along despite all that crap they fed you before to avoid paying for transportation costs between clients and a variety of other corners they were cutting to get around labour laws. (They didn't have to pay, because you were supposedly a contractor.) In the mean time they try and over-work you without paying any form of overtime, try and guilt trip you into take the most ridiculous shifts with the most amount of commuting between cities and the list goes on.
Yeah, no competition results in both increased quality AND lowest price. "Minimum care" is determined by the plan you sign up with so I don't see how that's even relevant.
The labor laws is what makes healthcare so damn expensive. So of course they try to cut around it, they're trying to make delivering healthcare cheaper, because if they don't make it cheaper then the quality needs to go down to compensate.
In theory such a crap company like that would lose to a better company, but in practice the company can drive their employees to quit and there isn't a better company waiting in the wings. There is a place for private companies, but there can be some real losers running some of those those companies like in-home care. And while competition can create better products for the least price, I'm not convinced it is necessarily so. Public spending is generally wasteful, but private spending tends to cut way to many corners. If not in cutting into customer satisfaction then the corners are cut at the expense of employee.
I see problems with both methods. As such, I see value in a mixed solution of public-private, but I don't think I would support an either/or solution.
A lot of corners are being cut because lobbyists have convinced the government to create loopholes with which companies can void litigation when customers suffer as a result of cut corners.
Companies are allowed to cut all the corners they want. But saying that they're doing something they're not or vice versa is Fraud, and SHOULD get you sued. Of course the government has been given the power to regulate, which they always do in favor of who has more money, so yeah the end result is private companies cutting corners, and people getting hurt with no repercussions.
Are most Americans in the position to just up and drop their current health insurance plan, and easily acquire a new one? Most people get insurance through their employer, and so don't have the option to just "swap to a better company that offers lower rates free market etc huehue" without quitting their job and searching for work elsewhere.
yeah but there's a reason why it's the jobs the provide most current health insurance plans... Because the government legislates in favor subsidies for corporations that do this, it makes healthcare more "affordable" if it's provided by your company, but the reason it's not affordable to begin with is the regulation.
yeah but there's a reason why it's the jobs the provide most current health insurance plans... Because the government legislates in favor subsidies for corporations that do this, it makes healthcare more "affordable" if it's provided by your company, but the reason it's not affordable to begin with is the regulation.
Wrong. The reason why health care is more affordable in employee group plans is because of adverse selection that happens under individual plans. Young and healthy adults lower the risk when they enter a group plan. However, in an individual plan, young and healthy adults also don't see the need for buying health insurance and so they decide to opt out. This raises the risk for other, older adults. Group plans minimize this risk, and the socialized systems minimize this risk even further. There is never a way for a individual plan to be more efficient than a group plan. The socialized systems are able to reduce costs even further because doctors and hospitals only have to deal with one insurer, the government, and they get more efficient (learning by doing) when they don't end up having to deal with multiple insurers. The government doesn't need to provide a marketing campaign either.
Can you provide citations for your claims? There was a previous health care thread on this board, but the conservatives in that thread were never capable of citing evidence to back up their claims. You seem to be theory crafting again like the conservatives in that thread.
Winning those two states could be exactly what Ron Paul needs to lock up the nomination, just a little momentum. If he can dispel this common narrative that he's unelectable, primary voters in other states might take him seriously and judge him on the merits of his positions and voting record.
If by "lock up" you mean "become viable," then yes. I believe a win in any early primary state would do him a lot better than the other candidates, but he still has a long way to go before becoming a "likely" nominee.
Mitt Romney today announced the support of conservative activist Christine O’Donnell.
“Christine has been a leader in the conservative movement for many years,” said Mitt Romney. “Christine recognizes that excessive government threatens us now and threatens future generations, and I am pleased to have her on my team.”
Announcing her support, Christine O’Donnell said, “For me, this endorsement comes down to trust. I am endorsing Governor Romney because I trust him to do the right thing. He has the strength of conviction to do the right thing regardless of opposition. America needs a president who is not a Washington Insider. America needs a president who hasn't been playing the game for the last three decades. America needs a president who can turn our economy around, put Americans back to work, and will lead with stability, integrity and the values that we hold dear. I am confident Mitt Romney will be that president.”
Mitt Romney today announced the support of conservative activist Christine O’Donnell.
“Christine has been a leader in the conservative movement for many years,” said Mitt Romney. “Christine recognizes that excessive government threatens us now and threatens future generations, and I am pleased to have her on my team.”
Announcing her support, Christine O’Donnell said, “For me, this endorsement comes down to trust. I am endorsing Governor Romney because I trust him to do the right thing. He has the strength of conviction to do the right thing regardless of opposition. America needs a president who is not a Washington Insider. America needs a president who hasn't been playing the game for the last three decades. America needs a president who can turn our economy around, put Americans back to work, and will lead with stability, integrity and the values that we hold dear. I am confident Mitt Romney will be that president.”
On December 15 2011 04:15 koreasilver wrote: ... what is Romney doing? I just don't understand.
Really? I love how everyone plays themselves the ignorant fool in order to amp up pretend exasperation with politics they dont like.
Durrrr christine odonnel is known as very right wing, durrerprpyderrpydurrr romney has questions over his conservative principles, durrrr odonnel is helpful in shoring that up.
On December 15 2011 04:15 koreasilver wrote: ... what is Romney doing? I just don't understand.
Really? I love how everyone plays themselves the ignorant fool in order to amp up pretend exasperation with politics they dont like.
Durrrr christine odonnel is known as very right wing, durrerprpyderrpydurrr romney has questions over his conservative principles, durrrr odonnel is helpful in shoring that up.
Idiot.
In reality it is quite confusing, with an almost arrogant stance Romney would stay neutral in almost everything with a slip here and there, Corporations are people my friend, but at the end of the day he was still unscathed. But with the rise of Gingrich he is stumbling and making the most idiotic mistakes, a 10k bet when he proclaims he's middle class, using Ann Coulter as a example of conservatism?! He looks like an idiot when he tries to deny a gay Vietnam vet equal rights, now he proudly proclaims the endorsement of O'Donnell who is a walking talking punchline.
EPT
