New, Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks

[iceaura]

Here's the bottom line, SOME socialized systems work better than our Fascistic rent-seeking hyper-regulatory-captured disease care.

More than that: they all do, if they are First World. And on the flip side, every medical care system that works better than the US setup is both more regulated and more socialized.

We have the least regulated, least socialistic medical care system in the First World. And the worst performing, based on outcome stats. And the most expensive, by far.

As a matter of fact, back 80 years ago the USA understood this and NEVER promoted our system. We always promoted the English system minus the monarch - which is why there's so many Prime Ministers everywhere and never Presidents

Every political or historical assertion you make is not only false, but immediately and trivially shown to be so by a five minute net search. Why is that? It's weird. You never factcheck anything, apparently, but more than that you often hit exact and complete contradiction in the specific times, people, or places you emphasize. Remember when you picked the era of least Federal involvement in American life, and you chose the time of the Reconstruction of the Confederacy and the Homestead Act and the railroad expansions westward?

80 years ago was 1934. That by uncanny Michael coincidence is the exact year the US signed the agreement granting its largest Territory and major site of governmental promotion, the Philippine Islands, future independence under a US promoted governmental system featuring a President and a Vice President, division into Judicial/Executive/Legislative branches, a bicameral Legislature (eventually), and so forth. The US system, almost exactly. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/philippinestime1.html

 

[Michael]

CBS: "The stupidity of the American voter"

A new controversy is stirring over the Affordable Care Act, and this time it has nothing to do with the website.

One of the architects of the health care law was caught on camera saying the bill was written specifically so as not to be viewed as a tax. He then goes on to call American voters stupid, reports CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford.

He was one of the most senior advisers helping to create the health care law, and that's why people could not believe he said this:

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage, and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass," Jonathan Gruber said at the Annual Health Economics Conference.

Gruber was a key player in developing the law, and those remarks weren't the only time an Obama adviser suggested the administration had pulled a fast one with the law.

"They proposed it and that passed because the American voters are too stupid to understand the difference," he said.

The New York Times, in a glowing 2012 profile, said he not only "...put together the basic principles of the proposal..." but helped Congress, "...draft the specifics off the legislation."

As a consultant, the government paid Gruber -- an MIT economics professor -- nearly $400,000 [of Tax Chattels moneys] for that work.

Professor Gruber. Another economics 'scientist' who didn't see the GFC until AFTER it happened - yet, has the gall to refer to the general public as too stupid to vote correctly.
HAHAHAHA..... Yes, Democracy is a farce when you have a Government Schooled electorate so stupid 1 in 5 can barely read and write. Oh, but not him. He's actually quite clever. Peddling economic 'prognostication' models to a bunch of naive Government schooled imbeciles for a fat 6 each year while selling his 'expertise' to the Government for nearly half a million. Is it any wonder this con would happily lie to the Tax Chattel? Of course he would.

 

[Michael]

CNN: Obamacare architect discussed misleading public in 4th newly uncovered video

In this fourth video, Gruber's language is not as stark as in three previous instances, but his suggestion that Obamacare proponents engaged in less-than-honest salesmanship remains.

"Barack Obama's not a stupid man, okay?" Gruber said in his remarks at the College of the Holy Cross on March 11, 2010. "He knew when he was running for president that quite frankly the American public doesn't actually care that much about the uninsured....What the American public cares about is costs. And that's why even though the bill that they made is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it's going to lower the cost of health care, that's all they talk about. Why? Because that's what people want to hear about because a majority of American care about health care costs."

You can watch the speech on the C-SPAN website here

Gruber said the measures in the bill that attempt to lower costs constitute a "spaghetti approach" -- throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. And while preferable to the status quo, Gruber said he could offer no guarantee that any of the measures would work.

The only way we're going to stop our country from being a latter day Roman Empire and falling under its own weight is getting control of the growth rate of health care costs," he said. "The problem is we don't know how." Experts "know what the problem is," he said. "Our providers are paid enormously high. In the 1950s surgeons are middle class guys like professors...Now they live on the Hamptons, the Cape, they're like investment bankers.

Yes, and as the good Professor knows, it's called rent-seeking and regulatory capture. And that's exactly what Amoorikkans like - being regulated by the State, spied on by the State, taxed by the State, told what jobs they can do by the State, and even jailed by the State for consuming substances the State's Nanny's deem 'wrong'. Hell, some States (see Australia) even tell their tax chattel which video games they're allowed to play.

An estimated 480,000 Americans are killed due to medical error and millions other seriously injured. You want the State to regulate your life for you. Well, this is what it looks like - expect more of it in the decades to come.

 

[joepistole]

CBS: "The stupidity of the American voter"

Professor Gruber. Another economics 'scientist' who didn't see the GFC until AFTER it happened - yet, has the gall to refer to the general public as too stupid to vote correctly.
HAHAHAHA..... Yes, Democracy is a farce when you have a Government Schooled electorate so stupid 1 in 5 can barely read and write. Oh, but not him. He's actually quite clever. Peddling economic 'prognostication' models to a bunch of naive Government schooled imbeciles for a fat 6 each year while selling his 'expertise' to the Government for nearly half a million. Is it any wonder this con would happily lie to the Tax Chattel? Of course he would.

Well it is difficult to get the full feel of what he was saying when you only have a few seconds of clip. This kind of thing is often exploited and misused and misrepresented. And it is true that American voters are very poorly informed. A recent Ipsos MORI survey found the US was the second most ignorant out of 14 wealthy countries. Voter ignorance is a problem and we should deal with it and you my friend have exhibited that ignorance too on multiple occasions. That is one reason we need serious electoral reform. We need a better more informed voters and spending more money on deceptive advertising isn't going to get us where we need to be.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102132770#.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/11/why-the-ignorance-index-matters/

 

[Michael]

And it is true that American voters are very poorly informed.

In Government School dominated Amoorica 1 in 5 Government School graduates are functionally illiterate. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, which was the most comprehensive study of literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government, involved lengthy interviews of over 90,700 adults statistically balanced for age, gender, ethnicity, education level, and location (urban, suburban, or rural) in 12 states across the U.S. and was designed to represent the U.S. population as a whole. This government study showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information."

And we let these idiots vote?! And people wonder why America was set up as a Republic and not a Democracy. Only in Amoorika does Dear Leader wet his cigar by sticking it up his student-intern's vagina and have he and his wife run as Progressive Feminists to the cheers of dumb-arse America! Only in Amoorika does a coke-head moron lie the public into two wars and get REelected.

Don't worry, our Chicago no-body, with zero experience doing anything of significant note, who just appointed Al Gore's election finance manager as Ebola “czar” as political payback, is going to fix 80 years of rent-seeking in the healthcare industry.

What a f*cking joke.

Tyranny of the far far less-than mediocrity. Government Schooling, creating low-thinking labor-cogs, easily led around by the nose and still able to fulfill their role as cannon fodder in the State's pretend Wars when needed - one graduate ceremony at a time.

Don't worry, we're getting GovernmentCare, and it'll be as safe as Government Housing and as useful as a Government "High" school degree.

"Barack Obama's not a stupid man, okay?" Gruber said in his remarks at the College of the Holy Cross on March 11, 2010. "He knew when he was running for president that quite frankly the American public doesn't actually care that much about the uninsured....What the American public cares about is costs. And that's why even though the bill that they made is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it's going to lower the cost of health care, that's all they talk about. Why? Because that's what people want to hear about because a majority of American care about health care costs."

Welcome to Amoorika.

 

[Michael]

Ronald A. "Ron" Klain
American lawyer, zero experience in the medical field, named by our Dear CON-mander in Chief to the newly created position of "Ebola Czar" .....as pay back for serving as Chief of Bundler to two Vice presidents – Al Gore(1995–99) and Joseph Biden (2009–11) of the Left wing of The Party.


Keep praying to the State to fix healthcare. State violence to bring Health. Let's see how that oxymoron works out for us. We can all see how well it's worked out for all the other Public "Services" the State has provided to the poor and needy.

 

[Michael]

Yet another video from the "Most Transparent NSA spying Administration Evah"
Obamacare architect in 6th video: 'Mislabeling' helped us get rid of tax breaks

Washington (CNN) -- In a 2011 conversation about the Affordable Care Act, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the law more commonly known as Obamacare, talked about how the bill would get rid of all tax credits for employer-based health insurance through "mislabeling" what the tax is and who it would hit.

The issue at hand in this sixth video is known as the "Cadillac tax," which was represented as a tax on employers' expensive health insurance plans. While employers do not currently have to pay taxes on health insurance plans they provide employees, starting in 2018, companies that provide health insurance that costs more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family will have to pay a 40 percent tax.

"Economists have called for 40 years to get rid of the regressive, inefficient and expensive tax subsidy provided for employer provider health insurance," Gruber said at the Pioneer Institute for public policy research in Boston. The subsidy is "terrible policy," Gruber said.

"It turns out politically it's really hard to get rid of," Gruber said. "And the only way we could get rid of it was first by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know it's a tax on people who hold those insurance plans."

LOL... well, if 'Economists' have called for .... what a f*cking joke. The same "Economists" referred to Bubbles as The Maestro and couldn't see the GFC until AFTER it took down the entire world economy. You want to know when your field of study sucks? When it can't predict the total collapse of the world economy until after it happens - and then sets about bailing out the 0.1% richest Oligarchs WHO CAUSED the GFC in a farcical series of QE1, QE2, QE3 Operation Twist, and etc....

These people are a f*cking joke. Of course they lie and mislabel ObamaCare .... you know, for the "Good of Society". Of course, these same sociopaths put nonviolent offenders in rape cages for the "Good of Society", murder women and children in countries that literally did nothing to us, for the "Good of Society". I'm wondering just how they'll treat the Baby Generation in the next 15 years - for the "Good of Society"? Let's watch and see.



Government legalizes rent-seeking, gives the entire medical industry over to a Private Cartel of Doctors who have every incentive to use regulatory capture to maximize their profit, turns most Universities into Licensing Factors - utterly destroys the fabric of society with their Rx monopoly and Drug War and what's this douche's solution? MORE GOVERNMENT!!

AAAAHHHHHHahahahahahahahaa.......

You'll see, as safe as Public Slum Housing and as Useless as a Government High School diploma.

 

[Michael]

The CBO projections for the net cost of ObamaCare is over 1.4 trillion across 10 years (Obama said it would cost less than 1 trillion) In order to pay for this, ObamaCare has added more than 20 new taxes totaling over 500 billion.
Full List of ObamaCare Taxes

ObamaCare is a Job Creator - 159 new boards and agencies will "Regulate" and "Govern" you and your health care choices.

In 2014 Citizens OF the State were 'taxed' $95 (or 1% of income), that's rising with inflation to $325 (or 2% of income - whichever pays the State more moneys).

CBS: Obamacare 2015 - Higher costs, higher penalties
- Bronze plans increase 7 % (on average)
- Silver plan goes up by 9%
- Catastrophic policy is up 18 percent on average.
Also, expect double digit rate hikes depending on your state and how many Baby's inhabit it.

Oh, and expect unemplyment to go down as large businesses with 100 or more employees (in 2015) and 50 or more (in 2016) are required to offer affordable (and subsidized) health plans to at least 70 percent of their full time employees or face a $2,000-$3,000 penalty per employee.... why down? Because those full-time will soon be part-time.


Thank you 100 years of Progressive Socialism, Progressive Income Tax, Progressive Central Banking, Progressive MASSIVE Government and Progressive Warfare/Welfare State.

 

[Anew]

twitter mentioned about 3billion dollars being dedicated to some matter. I like the 'ole verse that government is created for people. I have wondered about ideas concerning perhaps progress into a world peace representative government panel, relative to the integrity of The United Nations, of acceptance of there being also nation central government for nation,, I pay my taxes, and it's o.k.for me to have a passing thought that perhaps tax will be abolished someday, with integrity that I honor that government is necessary for structure, safety, wellfaire of people and peace and economy.

 

[joepistole]

The CBO projections for the net cost of ObamaCare is over 1.4 trillion across 10 years (Obama said it would cost less than 1 trillion) In order to pay for this, ObamaCare has added more than 20 new taxes totaling over 500 billion.
Full List of ObamaCare Taxes

ObamaCare is a Job Creator - 159 new boards and agencies will "Regulate" and "Govern" you and your health care choices.

In 2014 Citizens OF the State were 'taxed' $95 (or 1% of income), that's rising with inflation to $325 (or 2% of income - whichever pays the State more moneys).

CBS: Obamacare 2015 - Higher costs, higher penalties
- Bronze plans increase 7 % (on average)
- Silver plan goes up by 9%
- Catastrophic policy is up 18 percent on average.
Also, expect double digit rate hikes depending on your state and how many Baby's inhabit it.

Oh, and expect unemplyment to go down as large businesses with 100 or more employees (in 2015) and 50 or more (in 2016) are required to offer affordable (and subsidized) health plans to at least 70 percent of their full time employees or face a $2,000-$3,000 penalty per employee.... why down? Because those full-time will soon be part-time.


Thank you 100 years of Progressive Socialism, Progressive Income Tax, Progressive Central Banking, Progressive MASSIVE Government and Progressive Warfare/Welfare State.

Except as usual you are wrong and are being deceitful again. First, the CBO found the ACA would save taxpayers more than 100 billion dollars - not cost a trillion dollars. Two, the CBI has already lowered Medicare cost projections twice citing changes brought about by the ACA.

Unemployment is indeed down and down dramatically. Healthcare cost increases vary this year. Some states are up, some are down and most are the same. And healthcare price increases occurred before ACA. Healthcare price increases in the US have been running at twice the inflation rate for decades. ACA is moderating those increases.

 

[Michael]

From: ZeroHedge

My wife and I own a small business and we had previously (in 2013) been buying health insurance on our own for ourselves and our two kids. The cost was about six hundred per month with a $5200 deductible, $6800 total out of pocket exposure for the family of four.

After spending months trying to register for the ACA in late 2013 and early 2014 my kids got put on our state's insurance (at "no cost") and my wife and I bagged an ACA policy at a subsidized cost of $281 per month with a total out of pocket of about $6500 (just for the two of us).

Attached is the ACA notification of next year's price increase. As you can see the cost goes from $281 to $555, a monthly increase of $274, a percentage increase of 97%.

Basically we are now paying the same amount for the two of us that we paid for all four of us one year ago.

How can that increase occur in a "free market" economy? Did I miss something? Has some input cost leaped exponentially in order to double the price I pay? Or has private industry colluded with government to rig the markets (again) in their favor?

How much longer will the American people allow corporations to rip them off in collusion with the government? Fuck this bogus economy and government captured by corporations. Where is the leader who will rise up from the masses and snuff out the corp/govt nexus before it imprisons us all in debt serfdom police state?

Do you think for one minute that freaking Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner or anyone newly elected or previously elected cares one shit about my wife and kids or what we pay for crappy health care that we cannot afford to access due to high deductibles? Those fucks cannot see beyond the next donor phone call, and only come clucking out of the hen house in order to give voice to the latest party certified political meme, be it 'freedom', 'liberty', 'security" or some other hollowed out focus group tested bullshit sound bite.


--
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan
- Obama (2009)

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragging about deceiving the American people, who he thinks are stupid.
- Gruber (2013)

--
Thank the GODS we gave the AMA a State-backed monopoly over Rx and over our disease-care system. Yup, that's worked out swell for us. Only half a million or so Amoorikkkans killed off each year due to medical error, medical graduates who can't find a liver on an x-ray (personal observation) and a hyper-regulated unfree-market where everything from the number of Hospitals allowed to open, number of fMRI clinics allowed to offer services, number of doctors, number of insurance providers are all determined by our Central Planners and various crooked special interest groups / 'experts'.

Yup, give all your power over to the State, let it sell bonds on your children's future labor, let it spy on you, let the State determine who can sell flowers and then wonder why there's a shortage of everything except prisoners, welfare recipients, homeless children and never-ending-war.

You wanted a hyper-regulated Progressive Nanny State - well, here it is. Hope you're enjoying the New Economy, because it's here to stay.

 

[joepistole]

From: ZeroHedge

My wife and I own a small business and we had previously (in 2013) been buying health insurance on our own for ourselves and our two kids. The cost was about six hundred per month with a $5200 deductible, $6800 total out of pocket exposure for the family of four.

After spending months trying to register for the ACA in late 2013 and early 2014 my kids got put on our state's insurance (at "no cost") and my wife and I bagged an ACA policy at a subsidized cost of $281 per month with a total out of pocket of about $6500 (just for the two of us).

Attached is the ACA notification of next year's price increase. As you can see the cost goes from $281 to $555, a monthly increase of $274, a percentage increase of 97%.

Basically we are now paying the same amount for the two of us that we paid for all four of us one year ago.

How can that increase occur in a "free market" economy? Did I miss something? Has some input cost leaped exponentially in order to double the price I pay? Or has private industry colluded with government to rig the markets (again) in their favor?

How much longer will the American people allow corporations to rip them off in collusion with the government? Fuck this bogus economy and government captured by corporations. Where is the leader who will rise up from the masses and snuff out the corp/govt nexus before it imprisons us all in debt serfdom police state?

Do you think for one minute that freaking Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner or anyone newly elected or previously elected cares one shit about my wife and kids or what we pay for crappy health care that we cannot afford to access due to high deductibles? Those fucks cannot see beyond the next donor phone call, and only come clucking out of the hen house in order to give voice to the latest party certified political meme, be it 'freedom', 'liberty', 'security" or some other hollowed out focus group tested bullshit sound bite.


--
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan
- Obama (2009)

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragging about deceiving the American people, who he thinks are stupid.
- Gruber (2013)

--
Thank the GODS we gave the AMA a State-backed monopoly over Rx and over our disease-care system. Yup, that's worked out swell for us. Only half a million or so Amoorikkkans killed off each year due to medical error, medical graduates who can't find a liver on an x-ray (personal observation) and a hyper-regulated unfree-market where everything from the number of Hospitals allowed to open, number of fMRI clinics allowed to offer services, number of doctors, number of insurance providers are all determined by our Central Planners and various crooked special interest groups / 'experts'.

Yup, give all your power over to the State, let it sell bonds on your children's future labor, let it spy on you, let the State determine who can sell flowers and then wonder why there's a shortage of everything except prisoners, welfare recipients, homeless children and never-ending-war.

You wanted a hyper-regulated Progressive Nanny State - well, here it is. Hope you're enjoying the New Economy, because it's here to stay.

Except your story is blatantly bogus, that isn't an ACA notice. That might be a letter from Humana trying to get people to renew. But it has nothing to do with ACA.


Given most of these stories have proven to be false and given the sources are unnamed and therefore cannot be validated, your story is highly suspect.

 

[iceaura]

Posted by Michael:

How much longer will the American people allow corporations to rip them off in collusion with the government?

So what's your answer?

The problem is that private, for-profit insurance corporations are ripping off the American health insurance customer. That has been the common pattern in medical care industries for as long as modern medicine has existed - every other country with modern medical care has reacted to such inevitable abuses by getting rid of private, for-profit medical insurance.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=92913&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1987252

As you can see here: http://www1.salary.com/HUMANA-INC-Executive-Salaries.html and here: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/AG0Q.html the insurance industry's abetting of waste and profligate expenditure on rich men's perquisites did not begin with the ACA.

 

[Michael]

Posted by Michael: So what's your answer?

The problem is that private, for-profit insurance corporations are ripping off the American health insurance customer. That has been the common pattern in medical care industries for as long as modern medicine has existed - every other country with modern medical care has reacted to such inevitable abuses by getting rid of private, for-profit medical insurance.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=92913&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1987252

As you can see here: http://www1.salary.com/HUMANA-INC-Executive-Salaries.html and here: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/AG0Q.html the insurance industry's abetting of waste and profligate expenditure on rich men's perquisites did not begin with the ACA.

Are private for-profit software programmers ripping off the public? How about private for-profit car manufacturers? How about private for-profit apple orchards? How about private for-profit cafe's? What about private for-profit homeowners insurance companies? What about Veterinarians? Orthodontists? Smart phone producers? Restaurants? etc....

How do you 'KNOW' insurance companies are 'ripping' people off? If they're making money hand-over-fist, then why aren't other players entering those markets and undercutting them? What? The other big health insurance providers don't want all that sweet easy money? It should be noted, ALL companies must make a profit or go bankrupt. In a free-market, making a ton of profit signals an efficient high-quality product people WANT. An example could be the iPhone6. Or PewDeePie's multi-million dollar a year Youtube channel. Is he 'ripping' people off? Given the Youtube channel is free to watch, I suppose he's what? Ripping off .... Google? Surely he can't be making multi-millions of dollar a year and not be ripping people off - isn't that right iceaura? He's like a fat executive of his greedy little Youtube channel raking in millions and millions a year.

Did you know Australia age of retirement is 70 (sorry Joe, but in the land of the Progressive Socialism - you won't be retiring early - if ever).
Oh, and AU also "generously" and "magnanimously" offers it's Tax Chattel vouchers to put their children into day supervision centers at age 3 weeks as well.... how nice.
Oh, and AU is looking towards PRIVATE healthcare to pick up the mess that is public healthcare.
Not to mention, because AU doesn't have the luxury of the world's reserve currency and actually have to pay their bills - they've tripled the output of MDs in recent years. There's been an explosion in medical schools and they're pumping out 'licensed' State 'qualified' "physicians" - some of whom are even doctors as that sells better to the overseas students.
The AU government is also tightening the screws on the medical doctors it does fund.
Oh, and if you don't like the idea of dying due to medical error - you'll probably want to find a private insurance company and you'll go to a private hospital.

Isn't that interesting, no matter where you go, when there's both private and public - private is always of much higher quality and people are always willing to pay a premium to access it. So, even when healthcare is 'free' - it's still shit. Worse than in the USSA - which is saying something. Which is why the State (see: Canada) generally has to outlaw private so that everyone is stuck with shitty public. Maybe the State should control housing for everyone too? Make sure everyone gets to live in the same Public Housing slum. Because that's pretty much what you're proposing we do to medicine.

The reason why healthcare is f*cked - is because the State gave the AMA a near monopoly over Rx, then it started promising everyone and their uncle all sorts of free medical treatments. They also make sure insurance companies must take everyone - no matter if they have a known preexisting condition or otherwise.

As I said, if you think it's so easy to fund medical insurance, simply go open up an insurance company. I mean, given the existing ones are making money hand over fist, I'm sure you'll have no problem at all turning a profit.

IF we had remained in, and lived in, a free- society/free-market, then we'd know the price of medical care in OUR society because people would continue to enter the market and compete with one another until people decided it wasn't worth their time as the hand-over-fist money wasn't enticing enough to put up with the shitty attitude of people who are sick. I'm quite sure it'd be 1/10000th of what we pay now. But, we're not going to get a free market/society - because people hate being free, they always have, and always will. Instead we're going to get more Fascism. And that's just the way it's going to go. Medicine is going to cost a lot more and it'll probably be the thing that kills you.


I have a question, a man walked into a clinic a while back - this is following his third heart attach. He was 'advised' by the clinician (my friend) that he needs to diet and stop drinking. Particularly because he's morbidly obese - like much of the rest of society. His reply? I pay me f*cking taxes so piss-off. I get sick. You fix me. So? What's your option iceaura? This man is going to cost the State around $1 million dollars (or more) - do you know how much research that could be used to complete?! Or how many school children could be sent overseas on school trips? Or how many homeless children could be fed? This one man - and he doesn't even have a god damn job. Couldn't be f*cked. So, what's your option? Because there's an ocean of this man right outside. What are you going to do?



PS: I don't disagree that crony insurance companies, CEOs, etc... are raking in the money (much of it through sticking their nose into the public trough) through rent-seeking and regulatory capture (and outright bribery). And so are medical doctors, pharmacists, drug companies and etc... (Rx monopoly). And so are Universities (licencing schemes, undergraduate feeder programs). And so are prisons (war on drugs). And so are Police districts (was on drugs). Hell, and this is discounting the effect Income tax and a State Central Bank with fiat currency is doing to our unfree-market society.

They all stand lose out HUGE if we don't maintain the statuesque. And so we will. If someone did stand up, say a medical doctor - and call for free market reform, why, he'd be labeled a crazy old kook! Doesn't that old white male racist-pig know the Central Bankers saved the world!!?? What? He think the 'free markets' is going save us!? Is he insane?!?! Just look at how deregulation caused the GFC!!! And he uses the roads! F*cking Paul-tard. AAAhhhhhahahaha Lib-tard! ...LOL.... Ahhhh.... that's funny.

Yeah, expect more of same only worse. There's no turning this ship around. Next stop: more "Executive" power, less privacy. Yes, let's normalize to that a little while longer. Maybe you'll even get some 'free' healthcare. Probably from the GOP to boot.

 

[iceaura]

In a free-market, making a ton of profit signals an efficient high-quality product people WANT.

But in this case we see lousy efficiency and low quality compared with many other setups. So there is no free market in health care - that's old news. We've known that for decades. We've known that ever since the first theoretical analyses of market economics - the necessary conditions are not met.

How do you 'KNOW' insurance companies are 'ripping' people off?

Because they are paying their CEOs four million dollars a year, and raising their premiums by 97% from one year to the next, and denying people health care on technicalities, and so forth and so on - remember your OP post?

Isn't that interesting, no matter where you go, when there's both private and public - private is always of much higher quality and people are always willing to pay a premium to access it

Not in the US, not in schools or roads or health care or sewer systems or postal service or the like.

But you do make a good point: one of the ways to force private corporations in intrinsically distorted markets to raise the quality of their services and compete for business rather than collude for mutual profit is to establish a public option - a low cost bottom level of public service, so people can walk away from the kind of gouging and extortion we see in US private health insurance.

So? What's your option iceaura? This man is going to cost the State around $1 million dollars (or more) - do you know how much research that could be used to complete?! Or how many school children could be sent overseas on school trips? Or how many homeless children could be fed? This one man - and he doesn't even have a god damn job. Couldn't be f*cked. So, what's your option? Because there's an ocean of this man right outside. What are you going to do?

Whatever France is doing. Or Denmark. Or Germany. Or fucking Estonia.

Other people have figured this out. We're the only people on the planet willing to put up with this bs. And it's because of morons like you, who want to pretend there is some kind of competitive market possible in medical care.

 

[Michael]

Updates:

New York Times: Health Insurance Companies Seek Big Rate Increases for 2016
JULY 3, 2015

WASHINGTON — Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. Federal officials say they are determined to see that the requests are scaled back.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.

The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.

WSJ: The Unaffordable Care Act
WSJ: ObamaCare’s Prices Will Keep Surging

After this year’s spike, the average family plan will go up another 11.2% in 2016.

Americans who purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges should buckle up. Within the month, state regulators will begin approving premium hikes for plans sold in every state. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has already released the premium increases that health insurers have requested for their 2016 plans. By law, insurers must receive regulatory approval for any increase more than 10%—and more than 10% is what many of them want.

The numbers are staggering. According to the rate requests posted on Healthcare.gov, nearly every state has multiple plans that are facing a more than 10% premium increase. Many plans—including some offered by state-market leaders—could see hikes of more than 30%, 40% or even 50%. Though most of these requests have not been approved, nor have all of the rate hikes that are less than 10% been unveiled, it is undeniable that millions of Americans are facing double-digit premium increases for health insurance next year.

Don't worry, soon it's going to be FREEEEE......
LOL

2014: Deaths by medical mistakes hit records

It's a chilling reality – one often overlooked in annual mortality statistics: Preventable medical errors persist as the No. 3 killer in the U.S. – third only to heart disease and cancer – claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year. At a Senate hearing Thursday, patient safety officials put their best ideas forward on how to solve the crisis, with IT often at the center of discussions.

Hearing members, who spoke before the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, not only underscored the devastating loss of human life – more than 1,000 people each day – but also called attention to the fact that these medical errors cost the nation a colossal $1 trillion each year.

Unsurprisingly, medicine is the most STATE regulated industry in the world. Loaded to the brim with both State regulations and their accompanying rent-seekers taking financial advantage of the regulatory capture. So what's the Statists solution? MOAR regulation! MOAR government! MOAR freeeeee.........


As a side note, a little side effect of the Rx monoply was the Statist's War on Drugs, you know, because shooting kids in the head for selling drugs is all about protecting kids from drugs. Not only has this turned the USSA into a Prison State (and the State can't even keep drugs out of SuperMax Prisons) but it costs us both our Civil Liberties and costs us about $51,000,000,000 (in T-bond sales) - thank you Progressive Income Tax.

 

[Michael]

Whatever France is doing. Or Denmark. Or Germany. Or fucking Estonia.

We are not French or Danish or Estonian. What works there, does not work here. What you need to find is a country with Ghettos littering all of their cities making many areas no-man's land where even the police don't patrol. Maybe you're looking for Iraq or Greece? Yes, the European country you're looking for is Greece (France probably isn't far behind, if that's of any consolation).

 

[Michael]

As an aside, did I mention the conversation I had with a medical student a couple months back? So, a patient goes to see his doctor for a 'kink in the neck'. One (unnecessary) simple spinal decompressive laminectomy later and he's paraplegic and expected to die before the end of the year. Surgical notes: Patient entered with neck pain. Patient existed paraplegic. That is all that was written.

I wonder, do you think he'll show up as a medical error related death or just a death due to natural causes?

 

[paddoboy]

I wonder, do you think he'll show up as a medical error related death or just a death due to natural causes?

Nothing except nothing is perfect and without fault or problems.
Perhaps one day when the masses finally speak in the US, they may have a system of health insurance and coverage that we do in Australia.
In time, I'm sure it will come about.
Although Michael no amount of time will ever see any thing like what you preach as a political system. That's something you're just going to have to grin and bear.

 

[Write4U]

Governments are completely 100% necessary, otherwise we would have complete and utter anarchy.
Whether a governemnt is corrupt or not, depends on the diligence and participation of the people in general.

I see a day in the future when we may have a world government and complete International co-oporation.
It is something we will need to facilitate our path to inter-stellar space and beyond.

Careful Paddo, you'll give a heartattack to those who see a world government as the ultimate insult to our "exceptionalism".

As for the rest posted by our "Liberatarian" friend, all I can say that he is "not even wrong"

The phrase "not even wrong" describes any argument that purports to be scientific but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it contains a terminal logical fallacy or it cannot be falsified by experiment (i.e. tested with the possibility of being rejected), or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

20-30 milliom people without health insurance in the richest country of the world is "unacceptable" in human terms. We may as well go back to no healthcare at all and let nature decide who lives or dies through natural selection. That is a proven functional solution to health problems and longevity, where only the wealthy survive.