The Affordable Healthcare Act in the U.S. Supreme Court -…

On March 23 2012 15:49 Mordanis wrote:

I think you might be oversimplifying the situation. This does not seem to me to be an either/or situation, where you must choose between a black and a white and your result is also in black and white. As I mentioned earlier, the US has an amazing insurance industry, and I think it could be modified to be about as efficient as totally controlled health-care without giving up the individuals' rights to control their own stuff. I'm not saying that its a sure thing, but it is another possiblility that has neither of the major negatives to either side.

On March 23 2012 15:57 Mr_Kzimir wrote:
Wait, Obama a socialist ?

Seriously guys , inform yourselves.

On March 23 2012 15:57 Introvert wrote:


I'm afraid I don't follow.

On March 23 2012 15:58 DannyJ wrote:


I actually heard on the TV that he's a genuine Marxist.

On March 23 2012 14:16 Kuja wrote:
If people are important to society they will be able to pay their medical bills. If they're not i don't want to pay them for them.

On March 23 2012 16:01 forgottendreams wrote:


I was just admiring your sig

On March 23 2012 15:30 Silidons wrote:

Because they listen to Faux news.



I want to smash my head against the wall rofl.

Try this on for size?

On March 23 2012 16:06 Cloud9157 wrote:
People can claim whatever they want about this health care system, but I know it helped my family GREATLY.

My 22 year old sister was out partying at a bar one night and was wandering towards the street for a taxi I believe. She ends up tripping over a parking curb and slams her head on the pavement, giving her a serious concussion.

Now, if this system were not intact, she would have been screwed, since she would be considered an independent adult in regards to health care. Instead, my parents plan covered her, saving us a ridiculous amount of money.

Honestly, with the way college students are going into debt to pay loans, this makes sense. God forbid anything bad happen to you and you have to go to the hospital. How in the hell are you supposed to pay it?

On March 23 2012 16:06 Cloud9157 wrote:
People can claim whatever they want about this health care system, but I know it helped my family GREATLY.

My 22 year old sister was out partying at a bar one night and was wandering towards the street for a taxi I believe. She ends up tripping over a parking curb and slams her head on the pavement, giving her a serious concussion.

Now, if this system were not intact, she would have been screwed, since she would be considered an independent adult in regards to health care. Instead, my parents plan covered her, saving us a ridiculous amount of money.

Honestly, with the way college students are going into debt to pay loans, this makes sense. God forbid anything bad happen to you and you have to go to the hospital. How in the hell are you supposed to pay it?

On March 23 2012 16:42 darkscream wrote:
As a canadian, what I know about obamacare is that it sucks shit. Everything about it was implemented poorly, IE, they didn't bother to mirror the canadian system. Also from what I understand, while everyone is forced to pay deductions in general, certain giant companies get exemptions (like McDonalds for example), and therefore, it causes a problem for smaller businesses who have to pay a health care portion that the larger, lobbying ones do not.

Also the marijuana regulation sucks. Then again the USA is a country that can force drug tests for employment and can force prison sentences for simple marijuana possession so I guess its not that out of character.


It would be better if it just came straight out of the tax pool, instead of jamming insurance companies in between. It just adds to the cost and doesn't improve the service. Where I live, I pay no particular "health care" fee, and I get 100% coverage no matter what the situation for all treatments. Still have to pay for drugs, but the big pharma companies are not allowed to charge ridiculous prices here either, everything is generic brand.

We also tax alcohol and cigarettes a lot more than you guys.

On March 23 2012 14:16 Kuja wrote:
The healthcare system is so broken; I for one am not in favor of obama-care. If people are important to society they will be able to pay their medical bills. If they're not i don't want to pay them for them. Seems to be moving closer to socialism everyday. Away from democracy.

On March 23 2012 16:42 darkscream wrote:
As a canadian, what I know about obamacare is that it sucks shit. Everything about it was implemented poorly, IE, they didn't bother to mirror the canadian system. Also from what I understand, while everyone is forced to pay deductions in general, certain giant companies get exemptions (like McDonalds for example), and therefore, it causes a problem for smaller businesses who have to pay a health care portion that the larger, lobbying ones do not.

Also the marijuana regulation sucks. Then again the USA is a country that can force drug tests for employment and can force prison sentences for simple marijuana possession so I guess its not that out of character.


It would be better if it just came straight out of the tax pool, instead of jamming insurance companies in between. It just adds to the cost and doesn't improve the service. Where I live, I pay no particular "health care" fee, and I get 100% coverage no matter what the situation for all treatments. Still have to pay for drugs, but the big pharma companies are not allowed to charge ridiculous prices here either, everything is generic brand.

We also tax alcohol and cigarettes a lot more than you guys.

On March 23 2012 16:30 Kuja wrote:
Thanks for quoting such a reliable source as /b/, with its highly esoteric standards, i guess i have no choice but to fall infront of your infallible reasoning.

On March 23 2012 17:35 Satire wrote:


I won't address your mix up of economic and political systems, as someone replied already, so we'll focus on the topic at hand...

While you might be right that the health care system is broken, it's not in the way that you think. The health care system is broken because in this day and age health care is still focused on individual health rather than population health. By this I mean there is still a prevalence of the medical health model where the focus is on treatment of disease, rather than health of population and disease prevention. Proactive programs which reduce inequity (do not read inequality - inequity takes into account individualized factors) would actually save the health care system an incredible amount of burden down the road. The current mechanism that is suggested by the World Health Organization is through the Social Determinants of Health:

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/129868/e94606.pdf

There is actually a ton of evidence (if you want I can link you 30+ peer-reviewed articles as this is part of my field of study right now (nursing in the context of population health) that show correlation between economic/social equity across populations and positive individual and group health outcomes. Equity in health refers to the absence of systematic disparities in health (or in the major social determinants of health) between social groups who have different levels of underlying social advantage/disadvantage - that is, different positions in a social hierarchy.

TLDR aka what this means is that increasing equity between groups by allocating and redistributing resources where it is needed the most increases the social capital of an entire population. So by this, I mean to say your "If people are important to society they will be able to pay their medical bills is non-sense. No man is an island - you should be concerned with the health of those around you, because it directly affects your social capital:

http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/5/1/3

Coincidentally, poorer socioeconomic status and failure to address equity in health leads to increased incidence of mental illness. Mental illness is an incredible burden on society and is most responsible for work productivity lost. Also, your taxes have to pay for the prisons and institutions which the lucky individuals who don't end up homeless will wind up in; therefore, addressing population health will actually save the health care system a great deal of money. There are also various trends that indicate this relationship in improved years of life lived, quality of life, decreased homicides, and increased income per capita:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw

Do I like Obama-care? Not really. Do I think it's a step in the right direction? Definitely. Still there are complex economic factors at play here that mean baby steps have to be taken. It's a shame that individual health is considered a commodity to generate currency rather than a "god-given" right. Health shouldn't be a business, but in our day and age, it is. Individuals of low socioeconomic standing don't generate income, thus, they're not good for business. Sickness on the other hand, is good for business. This creates a great deal of tension between addressing population health via equity, and continuing to focus on individual health in the biomedical model.

....

To use a simpler analogy: This is the equivalent of me not knowing what a hot stove was and putting my hand on the stove. There are two ways to address this problem:

The first is to go to the hospital and get my burns treated, and then dress my hand with bandages I buy from the store over the course of the week. In this scenario, myself and others like me, cost the health care system resources as we continue to go to the hospitals to treat our burns. Coincidentally, where I bought the bandages also gets income in this sense, so they are profiting economically from my knowledge deficit. This is the equivalent of our current system which is based upon the biomedical model. In the US this is more capitalistic, but all systems have some degree of economic interested here. There may be profits from both the hospital and from the store I bought the bandages. If an individual cannot afford the care, he does not have access to it.

The second way to address this issue, is to provide public education to the masses on the effects of hot stoves and create policies which allow easier access to said education. By doing this, the trips to both the hospital and the store are prevented, and the incidence of this particular health disparity causes actively goes down. This is a population health model. This is not economically adventitious in terms of profit generation as both the store and the hospital don't generate revenue, but this method increases health equity across a population and saves societal costs and money spent by the government on such issues or societal consequences related. It is for this reason that the first method will likely remain as policy, as there is more interest in treating a problem then there is in solving it at this time.

This is why capitalism and healthcare should not mix as there is far more potential for profit in treating problems than there is in preventing them.