Sarah Palin: bat****, or howling-at-the-moon bat****?

[KrazyHorse]

No it doesn't, you ****wit.

[KrazyHorse]

Employers don't pay for health care, you ****ing idiot. Employees do. It doesn't matter who writes the cheques.

[notyoueither]

Yes, the government writes the cheques, but where does the government get the cash?

[Kidlicious]

Employers don't pay for health care, you ****ing idiot. Employees do. It doesn't matter who writes the cheques.

Employees work for money! Employers pay the employees. They pay for everything the employees consume.

You're getting stupider every ****ing time I talk to you.

[KrazyHorse]

NYE:

Sweetheart, I have no idea what you think you're responding to.

In the US employers largely "pay" for the health care of working individuals. In actuality, employees fully bear the costs of health care through lower wages. Businesses make hiring decisions based on the total cost of hiring. With or without employer based coverage the business has the same demand curve for total hiring cost.

[KrazyHorse]

Employees work for money! Employers pay the employees. They pay for everything the employees consume.

You're getting stupider every ****ing time I talk to you.

Is Kiddy a dl of the same person who did the zakudl?

[notyoueither]

I was responding to kid, snookums.

[KrazyHorse]

NYE: in that context your post wasn't quite on point, but it does bring up the interesting fact that lump sum disbursements like health care introduce (with a governmental budgetary constraint of some kind) an additional tax wedge between production and consumption. To this extent, government provided health care will REDUCE a country's exports.

[notyoueither]

Why does it matter to a business whether they are deducting charges for health insurance or they are deducting taxes that provide for a government managed system?

[RGBVideo]

how many threads were there about smearing john edwards in 2005?

This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between posts. Please try again in 4 seconds.

[KrazyHorse]

NYE, the point is a bit subtle but important.

When a business purchases its employee's health insurance for him then that health insurance has some value to the employee. When a business (or employee) pays the taxes that arise from his salary, the employee sees absolutely no value from that. If the employee values his health insurance at the same price that the business paid for it (which is at least true to a first approximation) then there is no "wedge" between the the two; it's just compensation in a different form. When the employee values the taxes paid at 0 then there is a tax "wedge"; the business is paying more to hire the employee than the employee is seeing in total compensation.

[Straybow]

[q=Kidicious;5663578]Straybow posted: "The only scarcity is in places like Canada and UK."

See Lori's post in the first thread. Scarcity for health care exists in every nation. Health care is one of the most important services produced. The problem is that resources are often diverted to less important areas of the economy.[/q] I did. What that site didn't address is the scarcity of assigned resources. For example, how many MRI or CAT machines per 100k population, or how funding for other laboratory analysis facilities per 100k population. See also Steyn's example of the British friend whose doctor was not allowed by policy to run routine tests that would easily have detected gout, and instead this poor woman suffered for nearly a decade with the pain.

"The rising cost of health care isn't a problem."

1) People are struggling to pay their bills.
2) Many people can't afford insurance.
3) People forgo recommended care.
4) Less employers offer health care benefits as the cost increases.
5) The federal and state governments have strained budgets due to healthcare costs.

You can't be serious dude.

We have a 19% death rate for prostate cancer, while UK has a 57% death rate and Canada a 35% death rate. We are getting what we pay for, and if someone you love died on a waiting list in CA or UK, or you were waiting on such a list yourself and facing the likelihood of death before your number were called, you'd agree. You'd have a point if we weren't getting measurably better results in many areas, and anecdotally better results like Steyn's friend.

Whether or not people can "afford" insurance is a matter of perspective. Many people don't understand the economics of insurance and think they should only pay out as much as the routine medical attention they receive, but that isn't the purpose of insurance. That's exactly how the Dems are trying to sell this crap, by preying on those who are ignorant of the economics.

As for employers providing insurance, my employer had to drop insurance. Instead he offers to cover a portion of premiums and co-payments on whatever policy we can get for ourselves. I'm paying $200/mo out of pocket to be on my wife's insurance. I don't do so because I expect to have $2400 in medical exams and tests this year.

"If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait 'til it's free from the government!"

"The costs rise because we're getting better diagnostics and treatments over time."

That's only a small part of the reason. But the increased cost of those treatments must be justified by both the benefit of them and the implications for the whole health care system and the economy. It's not enough to just say costs have increased because health care is now better than it was before.

Yes, it is.

If you want to forego the latest and greatest healthcare, you can. Just sign up for a cheap insurance policy that doesn't cover that kind of stuff, and shut your piehole when you don't get effective treatment.

If you want government to improve medicine and treat everything on somebody else's tab, you're in for a rude awakening when your diagnosis comes years down the road. "We'd have been able to treat you back in the day, but now everyone wants to save the taxpayers expenses. We don't have enough XYZ to do that now. You're on a waiting list, hope you live that long."

"More hospitals with MRI and CAT machines."

Again. Sure that's better because a patient doesn't have to travel as far to get to one of these machines, but does the increased cost justify this? And can we as a society afford these costs.

No, the limited number of machines means that they can't do all the tests really needed to care for the patients. Patients in the UK or Canada are simply denied the test if they fall outside the group judged to benefit the most from their artificially scarce resources. That those who are given the tests may have to travel to another hospital is not so big a deal, if that resource were sufficiently funded that it was more widely available. But it isn't, and even those who get the tests have waiting lists of months or years.

Again, if that's what you want, you can buy an insurance plan that doesn't cover those kinds of tests. Just don't complain when you don't get what you aren't paying for.

"More effective drugs."

Indeed. The inflation rate for prescription drugs far exceeds the general inflation rate. Same point does the benefit exceed the cost.

Once again, anyone can opt to make do with older drugs that are less effective but less costly.

Note also, anyone who has financial difficulty paying for drugs can apply and receive drugs steeply discounted from almost any manufacturer in the US.

"The most serious obstacle to availability in this country is the enormous tort insurance burden placed on doctors and hospitals, which none of the Dems are addressing."
Source?

Try KH's source: "Mr Baker calculates that this means an average annual premium (in 2003) of around $12,000 per doctor"

I dunno about you, but if my employer had to pay $12k per year for professional liability for my work, I'd be out of a job. He'd be out of a job, too.

[KrazyHorse]

We have a 19% death rate for prostate cancer, while UK has a 57% death rate and Canada a 35% death rate.

Are you seriously ****ing retarded? I've explained why this is ridiculous more than once.

[KrazyHorse]

****, it even has its own Wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_time_bias

[Straybow]

[q=Ramo;5663110] Dear lord, the 'tartitude here is epic. ...Jesus, I don't have the patience for this. At least Ben has a redeeming quality in being amiable. Have fun with your little paranoid fantasy.[/q] Yeah, that's being really amiable. So I guess you don't actually have a material response, and concede to my points? I'll repeat them here, since they're in the closed thread.

1. There is NO single payer in any of the pieces of legislation that might be passed.

Numerous Representatives, Senators and Mr. Pres himself have all stated that single payer is their goal, and whatever they pass will be an incremental application of that goal. The various drafts of the bill have included Procrustean means of virtually eliminating private insurance. Please take your head out of your nether orifice and smell the coffee.

2. The person in charge of the federal administration of health care is a gal. Her name is Kathleen Sebelius. The person in charge of getting health care through Congress is also a gal. Her name is Nancy-Ann DeParle. Zeke Emanuel is one of many advisers at the White House.

OK, I over-spoke his importance. Zeke is only an advisor to the Pres who says single payer is his goal. He advocates single-payer and portends a Malthusian "solution" to the economics of rationing and artificial scarcity of supply induced by single-payer.

3. Nowhere did Emanuel say anything about cutting services to downs syndrome kids. Money isn't infinite. Responsible people like Emanuel are interested in coming up with a fair and equitable way to distribute resources.

How 'bout leaving the market to find a way to meet the needs rather than trying to control the resources by command? Then he can use his great intellect to make sure the weakest members of society, like the Downs kids and the elderly, don't get left out. Instead he thinks he and other like himself are smart enough to control from afar how we spend our healthcare money. Such hubris is never rewarded.