Obamacare, explained.

[PearlWatson]

Are we really innovating more than everyone else? I know it's common for people to say this, but then I see Kobe and other sports stars going to South Korea and other nations to get career extending surgeries and treatments that aren't available in the USA.

Plus our heart disease, cancer, and other numbers don't compare favorably with many other western nations.

They aren't available because of FDA regulations. You can ask Hunstman all about these, he complained about them in the debate he was in since he is in the medical/pharmaceutical industry:

The reason Kobe, A-Rod, and other athletes travel to Germany for their biologic treatments involves a vague FDA regulation that mandates that all human tissues (such as blood and bone marrow) can only be "minimally manipulated," or else they are classified as a drug and subject to much stricter governmental regulations. The problem, of course, is figuring out what "minimal" means in the context of biologics. Can the blood be heated to a higher temperature, as with Regenokine? Spun in a centrifuge? Can certain proteins be filtered out?2 Nobody knows the answer to these questions, and most American doctors are unwilling to risk the ire of regulators.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...knee-treatment

Are you talking our cancer/heart disease rates or successful treatments. I know cancer survival rates continue to go up.

[PearlWatson]

I don't necessarily disagree with this. I've already said that a happy (and healthy) employee is a better employee. That said, if the employer does not feel offering benefits do anything to move his business forward there is no obligation for him to offer them.

Hawaii is the only state that requires its employers to provide health insurance, but it is bunch of islands with an extremely high cost of living.

[NAOS]

I'm just shaking my head at so many that want to penalize entrepreneurs/job creators/growth-minded people. So, you get your way and employers are now responsible to take care of everyone else's problems .. thereby making it far better to be an employee than risking everything to grow your own business. Before long, we're Cuba.














I tried to type that last part without letting you know it's hyperbole, but I couldn't do it.

What could we learn from Cuban history? What have they done better than we have? What are we doing to stand in our own way of accomplishing these things?

hint: this has a lot to do with literacy and care giving--two things that employers have a lot of interest in.

[PKM]

What could we learn from Cuban history? What have they done better than we have? What are we doing to stand in our own way of accomplishing these things

hint: this has a lot to do with literacy and care giving--two things that employers have a lot of interest in.

I agree with this. I like to do more rather than less .. but as costs continue to rise there are fewer we can care for.

[Gameface]

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Above is an example of how capitalism radically reduces things to the exchange of money for labor. Three beautiful sentences. And, we have reached a point where we see no problem with capitalism coding the way people are cared for.

The true costs of production include the injuries and ailments that a laborer suffers. We are working more than any nation in the world, and spending the majority of the rest of our time commuting to work or in our homes, so I think there is a strong claim that could be made that our employers are becoming more and more responsible for our ailments rather than less.

It's getting harder and harder to take you seriously as you go on.

[One Brow]

Yes. It does. I would hire another 20 people, right now, if all I had was the salary. The matching funds/FICA, worker's comp, health .. it just makes employees way too expensive. I know that probably sounds harsh, but it's simply an economic reality.

If it weren't for the matching funds/FICA, etc. you'd probably have to put most of that cost into the employee's wages anyhow. I wouldn't work for 150% of my current salary if I had to pay for all of that (say, as an independent contractor).

[NAOS]

I agree with this. I like to do more rather than less .. but as costs continue to rise there are fewer we can care for.

Back to where we started.

We aren't stuck with these costs, these services, or these conceptions of care giving. In the end, this comes down to what we think medicine should do (preventive, etc.) and supporting those things collectively. Call that govt...or don't.

[bordelais7]

Wait...employers have a "responsibility" to provide health care to their employees? Says who?

[NAOS]

It's getting harder and harder to take you seriously as you go on.

I'm pretty confident that I'm being clear. Debating the true costs of production is important to both human health and environmental health. If you don't think so, then....

[One Brow]

There just doesn't seem to be many cost controls in the healthcare industry (that was too broad of stroke, but humor me) and it's a self-perpetuating problem that has the average American with burden of the result.

Health insurance companies negotiate fiercely to keep costs down. They negotiate (or dictate with smaller organizations) which treatments they will fund for which diagnoses. They negotiate which treatment plans will be suggested. They negotiate medicine recommendaitons with pharmacies. If yo ucan offer a family plan to an employer for $200 less per month, on the same coverage, you can make a lot of money.

[bordelais7]

If it weren't for the matching funds/FICA, etc. you'd probably have to put most of that cost into the employee's wages anyhow. I wouldn't work for 150% of my current salary if I had to pay for all of that (say, as an independent contractor).

Agreed -- shift these costs to the employee and you're right back where you started. I believe there IS something, however, to making these costs more transparent and tangible to the end user -- people would have probably been a lot pissier a lot sooner about the cost of healthcare were it not for employers shouldering the majority of the cost burden.

[One Brow]

Are we really innovating more than everyone else? I know it's common for people to say this, but then I see Kobe and other sports stars going to South Korea and other nations to get career extending surgeries and treatments that aren't available in the USA.

Plus our heart disease, cancer, and other numbers don't compare favorably with many other western nations.

I think we spend somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the world's budgeted medical research supply. Our health measures are poorer in amny ways because of our diet and excessive work hours.

[larryselbows]

now tell me why do people gotta pay healt insurance for people who smoke, people who eat unhealthy and people who are morbidly obese.
why should i pay for their bad habbits?
will they pay for sins? will they pay for my visits to the red light district.

mandatory health insurance is communism and a bad thing.

why the **** do i have to pay for a smokers cancer treatment.

there is a reason why my father never married a smoker. and i will not marry one. to minimize the pain of cancer and to minimize the risk of getting hospital bills.


screw communicstic socialistic health insurance.

this does not make sense.

i train reguraly, i have a healthy lifestyle, i dont smoke, i dont drink exsesivly, i eat kosher.

i visited the doctor twice in 8 years for minor ****(once was to get a deceleration of health. the other was some small thingy) with a total cost of about 80 euros.
yet i gotta pay monthly 130 euros for health insurance. so i paid almost 10.000 euros to cover the health cost of irresponsible people. **** Them!
because people live irresponsible and drive up the cost of health insurance...

in morgan freeman's voice:
this is wrong

You actually don't have to pay for any more to help those that smoke, eat poorly, and don't exercise.

As it said in the original post, Obamacare will cost $1.7 trillion to start out but the cost will be paid for by new taxes on people making more than $200k per year (a tax increase of 0.9% annually), insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and tanning salons. Then, because Obamacare puts such a premium on preventative care, it is estimated that $109 billion will be saved annually from the deficit because fewer people will be treated for serious illness. By the year 2021, Obamacare should pay for itself.

Hope this helps!

[NAOS]

I think we spend somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the world's budgeted medical research supply. Our health measures are poorer in amny ways because of our diet and excessive work hours.

Repped.

[bordelais7]

I'm predicting this thread will die down soon and have a hard time getting enough posts to push it past page 5.