New, Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks

[Michael]

Incidentally, to get 'free' full coverage healthcare for a family in Japan, costs around 850 a month. Mind you, Japanese make almost everything they consume. They really don't need to import anything (as opposed to say, a place like AU or CA which have to import nearly everything, fMRI machines, EGC, etc.... ). Also, Japanese are relatively healthy. They're also relatively honest. You don't see many Japanese pretending to have neck pain to get a little kickback (like you see AU, CA or the USA). As soon as welfare and workman's comp ended, Americans suddenly had 'neck pain' and went onto disability - as an example. I personally know 3 people who worked for GM, retired on their sweet benefits, and then suddenly had 'shoulder' or 'neck' or whatever pain, and get a kickback. I've known Australians who'd 'hurt me thumb' and got on lifelong disability - which is insane, but whatever. Not so common now, but was more so during the 'free' money boom, mining boom.

So? How much for full coverage / free healthcare in the USA?

In our scammy multicultural obese drug-ridden society of mixed honest workers and sloth bullshitters, we'd probably have to double that to around 1500 a month. That'd probably be the equivalent price.

As in, it probably costs that much in real world production and service costs - given, in the real world, goods and services actually don't pop into existence from the ether - but need to be produced (and are purposefully limited by Givermint). Not to mention Japan has many more practitioners compared with the USA. More licensees per population. Oh, and in Japan it's not uncommon to have father-son private hospitals, which generally work better in terms of services provided when compared to just any old affirmative action licensee. I mean, it's a family business and if you suck, you'll bring shame on your father - who provided you with the hospital. Believe it or not, but in monocultureal societies, like Japan, social standing 'socialism' is enforced privately through voluntarism / social ostracism - a much much MUCH more effective means of 'regulating' behaviour when compared to a multiple choice test and tick in a box.



How does 'free' healthcare that costs around 1500 a month in forced taxation sound? Reasonable?

Not 'free' enough to vote for B.Sanders? I mean, he DID mention the middle class would have to have another tax hike, he just didn't mention the real amount all the 'free' ends up costing.

 

[iceaura]

Healthcare is anything but a free-market.

Of course - I've been telling you that for years now. It's like sewer systems - intrinsically incompatible with market allocation of delivery.

Sure, in a monoculture of hardworking, relatively honest, intelligent and genetically similar people - your immoral ideals of State Authoritarianism/Progressive Socialism, works well enough - for a time, perhaps across a couple generations.

Socialized medical insurance has worked everywhere it's been tried, for as long as it's been tried. There are good, sound economic reasons for that.

 

[Michael]

It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion - you know, like all the other 'services' Government provides for 'free'. Like our FREE never ending Wars. And our Free PIC keeping our streets safe from Drug Users in our free War on Drugs. Oh free Government Schools. And etc.....

 

[Michael]

Of course - I've been telling you that for years now. It's like sewer systems - intrinsically incompatible with market allocation of delivery.

Except it's not like a sewer system and is completely compatible with free-market allocation of delivery. As a matter of fact, we used to have free market medicine, and *GASP* the prices were going down, while the quality was going up. Mayo started out in a free-market. The Mayo Clinic, started by the Mayo family (father and sons) in NY were one of the first to start upping the ante so to speak. Their goal was to produce highly educated practitioners to go out and out-compete the lower quality bullshitters.

It was working. That's when Givermint does what it always does. Some douche politician jumps in front of the parade, half way through the march, and pretends he's been leading the thing the entire time, through inertia everything keeps moving, as he leads them off a f*cking cliff due to shear utter incompetence to the deafening cheers of the relativity stupid voting public, often given a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

The last place you'll want to be, is a Public Hospital in the USA - I can tell you that much right now. It'll be a useless a Givernmint High School Degree in the hands of a functional illiterate (whom will of course work in said Givermint Hospital - you know, affirmative action if fair, meritocracy is unfair) and as safe as a Givernmint Welfare Ghetto.

Luckily, Americans can open hospitals overseas - my guess is, these will service the middle class who can afford to avoid the 'free' healthcare.

 

[Michael]

The AMA Monopoly

While most people believe that our healthcare industry is one comprised of free markets, it is anything but. The industry is completely distorted by government manipulation.

To start with, the American Medical Association (AMA) has had a government-granted monopoly on the healthcare system for over 100 years. It has intentionally restricted the number of doctors allowed to practice medicine so as to raise physician incomes artificially. The primary way it does this is by using the coercive power of the state to restrict the number of approved medical schools in operation. After the AMA created its Council on Medical Education in 1904, state medical boards complied with the AMA's recommendation to close down medical schools.

Within three years, 25 schools had been shut down, and the number of students at remaining schools was reduced by 50 percent. After three more years, 10 more schools were closed. Since that time, the US population has increased by 284 percent, while the number of medical schools has declined by 26 percent to 123. In 1996, the peak year for applications, only 16,500 candidates were accepted out of 47,000. While high rejection rates can be common in many schools, applicants to medical schools are usually among the brightest and highest-quality students and have put themselves through a very costly admissions process.

High rejection rates are why so many aspiring doctors attend medical schools in the Caribbean, where they are prepared to be American doctors. The medical monopoly also marginalizes or outlaws alternative or slightly alternative (i.e., competing) medical practices, along with nurses and midwives, who could perform many of the tasks doctors do today.

The AMA also has monopoly power over the state boards, which issue licenses. A physician can practice only by having a state license (licenses in general exist primarily to prevent competition). Each state has licensing boards consisting of AMA members who decide which applicants, according to them, are competent and morally fit. The boards also have police and enforcement powers to monitor their own kind and keep as many nasty incidents as possible out of the public eye.

The state medical boards masquerade as consumer-protection agencies. Instead of revealing competition to the public as something that lowers doctors' incomes, the AMA and medical boards present it as something that must be stopped in the name of keeping patients safe.

As a further understanding of the intertwining of government and our healthcare system, consider the following summary by Henry E. Jones, MD:

Most members of the state medical boards are appointed by the governor. State and county medical associations, medical specialty societies, large medical group practices, HMO's, health insurance companies, chain and wholesale pharmacies, and large hospital chains contribute heavily to the campaigns of candidates for governor and attorney general. Thus, the governor appoints to the state medical board those desired by the medical monopoly. Doctors selected by the medical monopoly for appointment to the state medical board can be counted on to cooperate. And it works the same way with the State Board of Pharmacy. The medical monopoly contributes heavily to congressmen and maintains one of the best-financed and most effective lobbying programs in Washington, D.C. It is important that the AMA, the state medical board, and the state attorney general in each state work hand-in-glove to further the interest of the medical monopoly.​

 

[Michael]

This would NEVER happen in a free market. Across 100 years the number of medical schools has actually SHRUNK! Worse still are the tens of thousands of excellent students who are not allowed acceptance into a program. This is akin to not teaching black American's to read or write. NO ONE should be excluded from knowledge by State force.

The source of our problems: Government.

The US Constitution was written to protect us FROM Government. And the reason why The Framers of said document, didn't trust democracy, and why we're a republic, is to protect innocent people from the voting mob. Essentially, protecting us FROM socialism (progressive, regressive, conservative, democratice, autocratic, etc...).

You claim insurance and healthcare cannot work in a free market with sound money acting as capital? Oh really? How would know? Magic? Sure it's not cognitive biases on your part? It's been over 100 years since we've had a free market in medicine. It's been over 100 years since we've used sound money derived through trade and competition. We're living IN your Progressive Socialistic utopia with a few vestiges of the free-market barely tacked on due to what's left on Constitutional protection.

No one knows what could or could not be possible in a free society that uses sound currency. All we do know is historically, when free societies arise from time to time, they become prosperous and generate a lot of wealth based on a sound pricing mechanism and competition allowing for meritocracy. This then leads to two things #1) jealousy from those who want more than the society around them has deemed they are worth. No one likes to think they're not as good as the next person - even when the free people they live around are telling them just that. Sometimes it's luck. Sometimes it's not luck. Which is why we need a free market, because a person who makes little as a teacher, may make a lot as a carpenter. #2) Those who do get rich, use the State to enshrine their power, often playing off the base desires from people in #1. Why? Because real competition will rip the rich down off the pedestals as quick as you can blink. You always come across as someone who fears the rich - rich people are some of the dumbest people around. Mostly made their wealth due to luck, and their kids are even dumber. Lucky for them the State is there to keep them rich. The State you place so much of your faith in.

Nevertheless, there is always the return of State Authoritarianism. Which always leads to a dictator, then war, and then the end of the State. Only to start over again.

My advice: Vote Warharpy. Who knows? We may get all the free healthcare we could ever wish for - and then some.

 

[Write4U]

michael said:
Healthcare is anything but a free-market.

It should be a non-profit health insurance market. That does not mean it's free . It means that all administrative functions are not-for-profit and all revenues are applied to the patient's health needs, the health providers, and a single non profit administration.

Health care and for-profit health insurance are incompatible.
Incarceration and for-profit penitentiaries are incompatible.
Education and for-profit schools are incompatible.

 

[iceaura]

Except it's not like a sewer system and is completely compatible with free-market allocation of delivery.

No, it isn't. In particular, "free-market" health insurance will not deliver medical care to poor people.

As a matter of fact, we used to have free market medicine,

1) It didn't work very well - certainly not up to modern standards. For one thing, there were many fewer doctors per capita (less than half as many as now) and they were able to treat many fewer patients each.
2) Not according to your criteria - there was no free market, remember, with government issued currency and central banking.

and *GASP* the prices were going down, while the quality was going up.

Prices were not going down. Government funded research was supporting the rise in quality.

Mayo started out in a free-market. The Mayo Clinic, started by the Mayo family (father and sons) in NY were one of the first to start upping the ante so to speak. Their goal was to produce highly educated practitioners to go out and out-compete the lower quality bullshitters.

The Mayo Clinic was established - based on the existing private practice of the Mayo brothers and a couple of other important doctors - in Minnesota, as a non-profit corporation, after the invention of central banking and after the establishment of the income tax. The founders included not only the Government educated sons of the original Government army doctor with Civil War experience who set up the original private practice (and his partner), but subsequent doctors and others educated in the early State universities - a major source of trained personnel, since in their remote location they had less than ideal access to the Eastern medical schools. Mayo's relationship with the University of Minnesota, in particular- a State land-grant university - was key from the beginning.

Their primary innovation, aside from a cooperative and team-based organization of care delivery, was architectural (a brilliant hospital design, first ever to incorporate the new medical knowledge), in cooperation with local churches and the local city government - a government/non-profit cooperation that has been important ever since.

Since patients were required to come to them instead of vice versa they of course were not devoted to primary care other than very local, and did not treat poor people in their homes (the bulk of medical care at the time in their area). They remain mostly a tertiary care facility to this day.

Also, btw: Mayo Clinic doctors are paid salaries, rather than fee for service, as the Clinic has always felt that such market forces interfere with medical care.

And so forth.

You claim insurance and healthcare cannot work in a free market with sound money acting as capital? Oh really? How would know? Magic? Sure it's not cognitive biases on your part?

I'm just going by standard economic theory - Adam Smith stuff. Here is a synopsis of the basic situation: The recipients of medical care are the young, the old, the injured, and the sick. The payers for medical care are the middle-aged and the healthy. A large share of the benefits of medical care accrue to parties not involved in the transaction. None of these parties - the payers, recipients, or beneficiaries - are capable of evaluating the care delivered at the time of the transaction. And in most cases none of them are realistically able to refuse the transaction.

So you can't set up an efficient market. Econ 101. If you have found a flaw in this reasoning, feel free to point it out.

 

[Michael]

It should be a non-profit health insurance market. That does not mean it's free . It means that all administrative functions are not-for-profit and all revenues are applied to the patient's health needs, the health providers, and a single non profit administration.

Health care and for-profit health insurance are incompatible.
Incarceration and for-profit penitentiaries are incompatible.
Education and for-profit schools are incompatible.

Do you have ANY idea of the cost it takes to bring a drug to market? It requires *GASP* profit to reinvest in new medicine.

Here, I'll toss out some numbers.
1 million
10 million
50 million
100 million
250 million
500 million
1000 million

How much?
Pick.

Oh, that's right, the number is around 3 - 5 BILLION. Why? Because drug companies have to work on numerous drugs, many of which will NOT go to market. At best, if you happened to stumble over a drug, you'd spend at least 300 million - minimum. This would be like hitting the lotto. It doesn't happen. Cannot happen. Because in the real world, many drugs are being investigated concurrently.


So, you tell me, where does that 5 billion dollars come from? Where in your non-profit magic world? Oh, that's right, it just pops into existence magically.

Incidentally, this happens to be the one area where the USA actually excels. We are a pharmaceutical powerhouse - for now. Japan and Germany are working hard to end that. Just something to bare in mind as you let B.Sanders et.al. tinker with healthcare.

Go ahead and ask the Japanese and Germans to make your drugs and provide them to you without a profit - I think you'll find them telling you to f*ck off.

Look, you people live in La La land. You have no idea what profit is, why it's a virtue and how it is different from spoils. Honestly, you probably shouldn't be allowed to vote on anything. But, as it is, you are. So, vote WarHarpy so we can get this story moving.

 

[Michael]

No, it isn't. In particular, "free-market" health insurance will not deliver medical care to poor people.

You people are insane. You understand that even the poor carry around smart phones that, only a couple decades ago, were like science fiction. The poor toss them into the trash because they can get better super computers that fit in your pocket.

Further, you have no idea what is possible in a free market. In a free market, there'd be a lot less poor people for one. AND a lot more wealth. And wealthy people, generally like helping the poor - which is why even today, in Government ruined economy, billions and billions are donated to the poor.

Even in our Government-ruined healthcare system, catastrophic healthcare insurance only used to cost $700 a year. And, incidentally, many people didn't have healthcare and paid out of pocket - medical treatment used to be reasonable. Even surgery is relatively cheap - in a free-market.

 

[Michael]

A number of doctors are leaving the AMA and opening up independent surgery in their own hospitals, unlike many public hospitals, you'll find the price listed what it actually costs, as is, and it's usually much MUCH cheaper with superior quality.

As an example: Surgery Center of OK.

Note the pricing, sometimes a tenth of the cost if you go through insurance. And, again, this is in our Government ruined healthcare system. I know a Canadian who got sick of waiting in line in CA and went here to have a lump biopsied. He had a 8 month wait in CA. He was in, within 2 weeks here. And guess what? He had cancer. Luckily he had the motivation to fly down to the States - where was also treated and cured. He paid OUT OF HIS POCKET. It wasn't that expensive.

Again, it is Government that ruined our healthcare, the prices would be even cheaper and technology even better if we had an actual free market.

 

[Michael]

in Minnesota,

This much I do agree.

Also, I don't disagree that at the very very very beginning, the first notes the Central Bank issued, year 1 - no, I'm sure these didn't dramatically affect behaviour. Behaviours that were born out of the freest society to exist in 2 millennia. You don't go from free-market education to the shit Government schools we have overnight. You have an entire working age generation to play with. It takes at least a decade or more before things go belly up (see: The Great Depression).

 

[iceaura]

"No, it isn't. In particular, "free-market" health insurance will not deliver medical care to poor people."
You people are insane. You understand that even the poor carry around smart phones that, only a couple decades ago, were like science fiction. The poor toss them into the trash because they can get better super computers that fit in your pocket.

Living and learning about different kinds of goods and services - the ones you can set up a market for, like phones, and the ones you can't, like sewer systems. It's part of growing up.

btw: In my town minimum phone service (what you now need to obtain and keep a job), even corrected for inflation, costs at least five times as much as it used to , in the bad old days of government-regulated monopoly (fifteen or twenty times uncorrected). Most people i know pay more for phone batteries and charging, these days, than I paid for the entire phone and the service complete.

Note the pricing, sometimes a tenth of the cost if you go through insurance. And, again, this is in our Government ruined healthcare system.

The American system of private corporate health insurance sucks, I agree. As you point out, if we can figure out a way to get capitalist insurance corporations out of the picture, it looks like we can save big money from that alone.

And it looks like the AMA isn't quite the overwhelming monopoly you present it as, eh? This OK surgical center seems to have been open for business, nobody arrested, nobody in trouble, since 1998. And similar boutique medical services for rich people are a very old tradition - they long predate the modern First World medical care setups.

Also, I don't disagree that at the very very very beginning, the first notes the Central Bank issued, year 1 - no, I'm sure these didn't dramatically affect behaviour. Behaviours that were born out of the freest society to exist in 2 millennia.

Your blind spot for social, racial, and workplace oppression is one of the most obvious features of your historical fantasy life.

In a free market, there'd be a lot less poor people for one. AND a lot more wealth. And wealthy people, generally like helping the poor - which is why even today, in Government ruined economy, billions and billions are donated to the poor.

We saw how that worked - even just in Western society after the industrial revolution started breaking up the aristocracy we had a couple of centuries to observe the benevolence of the wealthy. At one point the US itself - even with its enormous wealth of resources unexploited and unencumbered by past inheritance , even with its frontier regions available to those fleeing the big city rich and powerful - had a serious communist movement going, large enough to threaten those rich and powerful.

You don't go from free-market education to the shit Government schools we have overnight. You have an entire working age generation to play with. It takes at least a decade or more before things go belly up (see: The Great Depression).

The time you are referring to was the beginning of the Mayo Clinic, and the early days of the University of Minnesota research programs.

Yes, it took a couple of decades to get rolling - you don't go from elitist private medical colleges that few except the children of the wealthy attend, to public State-supported land grant research universities that change the face of medicine and medical care worldwide, in just a couple of years. The quadrupling of the per capita availability of doctors in US society, for example, took a full generation or more.

 

[Michael]

LOL

 

[iceaura]

LOL

? So you publish proof, years later, that Obama was speaking the simple truth while being called a liar by some wingnut. We knew that - we've always known that Bob Dole's and Mitt Romney's medical insurance programs - adopted by Obama - are a major area of confusion among wingnuts.

What's your point?

 

[Michael]

Now, this is real simple. It’s a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans, side-by-side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak -- (laughter) -- same way you shop for a TV on Amazon. You just go on and you start looking, and here are all the options. It’s buying insurance on the private market, but because now you’re part of a big group plan -- everybody in Maryland is all logging in and taking a look at the prices -- you’ve got new choices. Now you've got new competition, because insurers want your business. And that means you will have cheaper prices. (Applause.)​

-- Obama, Prince George's Community College (9/26/13)

--o--
Notice how there's all this applause. That's the free-shit army thinking it's going to get some free shit. They don't know what a 'private market' is, nor how the AMA dominated medical licensing scam runs, or what rent-seeking is, or how insurance companies act hand in glove with government through regulatory capture.

They're University students - of course, they've graduated from a Government School and can barely read and write. ALL they know, is they want some free-shit and they expect that when they pulled the magic Left/Right lever someone would deliver on that desire. THAT is how you get elected in the USA. Which, sure, means completely destroying the entire society - but, whatever. Free Free Free Free!!!!

2017 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplaces

Oops!

As it turns out, pretty much nothing that Obama and his healthcare "experts" predicted about Obamacare actually came true. With 2017 rates now finalized across the country, in fact, Obamacare premiums are expected to increase an average of 25% nationally according to data from the Kaiser Foundation. Meanwhile, the 10 hardest hit states will see premiums increase an average of 62% while Arizona is officially the biggest loser with rates in Phoenix soaring 145%

 

[iceaura]

As it turns out, pretty much nothing that Obama and his healthcare "experts" predicted about Obamacare actually came true.

Almost everything they predicted came true.

The thing that didn't come true was their prediction that market forces would hold down prices - they had a naive (or possibly convenient) faith in market competition, that all of us single payer folks told them was not going to work.

Why would anyone count on market competition to hold down medical care prices? You have to have a market, and medical care doesn't set up that way. But they did.

 

[Michael]

And the saga continues......POTUS Trump (lol

......wasting precious little time, The Trump returned from the evening's inaugural ceremonies and got stuck into it. Working late into the night, in the Oval Office / Fortress of Solitude, SuperTrump immediately signed his first executive order: To roll back Obamacare.

He said (Via Tweet?) that this POTUS action was meant "to ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition from repeal and replace."

I personally believe, Trump (being a Progressive Socialist), will implement GovernmentCare.



Didn't THAT feel good. The ease and speed at which executive orders can be implemented. Nice huh? If this helps lift the burden on those Americans without healthcare, I imagine Americans would LOVE to see many many MANY more 'executive orders' ordained by Emperor Trump.... and his lovely daughter Ivanka.


And that's the dander of expecting Government To Fix Things. For, you see, the cost will be paid twice - we just don't know how or where. Perhaps the old will get their very own Government Welfare Village, you know, once their private property is 'taxed' to pay for the free stuff. And ALL of the other organic, ground up solutions - they just never materialized. That American doesn't exist. The one where you can walk into the mall and get a complementary MRI scan with your fries.

Next stop: Free University K-24

 

[Michael]

Why would anyone count on market competition to hold down medical care prices? You have to have a market, and medical care doesn't set up that way. But they did.

Why would anyone count on [a hyper regulated] market [with almost zero] competition [thanks to rent-seeking] to hold down medical care priced [in fiat currency units]?

Of course, they wouldn't. Which is why we need to return to the following:
1. Free markets / free people.
2. Sound money (derived from 1.).
3. Laws that protect private property and uphold contract.

Everyone wants affordable healthcare.


As to #2, I see one of the Federal Reserve board members is calling for another housing bubble. You know, where the rich and slumlords are lifted, and the poor are pushed down. Because then people can return to using their houses as ATMs and we all know never ending over consumption in an exponentially expanding population base (see: refugees) is the only thing keeping the ponzi scam / Western Society afloat. One wonders, how many of Earth's ecosystems will be scarified on the pyre of GovernmentCare?

 

[Michael]

Forbes: Trump stated his replacement plan will provide "insurance for everybody," and he said in a Jan. 11 news conference that he wanted repeal and a replacement policy to be passed "essentially simultaneously." Changes to the structure of health plans under the law, such as what benefits insurers are required to offer or how much they can charge, could be made through administrative actions at the Department of Health and Human Services or by rewriting regulations.

Trump’s emphasis on universal coverage shouldn’t be surprising to those who have followed his policy pronouncements; he repeatedly described his support for universal coverage during the campaign. And he’s not new to the issue; here he is writing about universal coverage in his 2000 book The America We Deserve:

I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses. We must not allow citizens with medical problems to go untreated because of financial problems or red tape. It is an unacceptable but accurate fact that the number of uninsured Americans has risen to forty-two million.​

Working out detailed plans will take time. But the goal should be clear: Our people are our greatest asset. We must take care of our own. We must have universal healthcare.

Just imagine the improved quality of life for our society as a whole if the issue of access to healthcare were dealt with imaginatively. With more than forty million Americans living day to day in the fear that an illness or injury will wipe out their savings or drag them into bankruptcy, how can we truly engage in the “pursuit of happiness” as our Founders intended?
​

“It’s not going to be their plan,” Trump [stated], referring to President Obama and his acolytes. “It’ll be another plan. But they’ll be beautifully covered. I don’t want single payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people.”


--o--
This sounds insane. Trump wants to 'take care of people'? Are you kidding me? What? Is he going to volunteer at the hospital? Anyway, now that healthcare is a total mess - thanks to GiverMint, I don't really see much turning it around. We will eventually have GovernmentCare, and the price will be paid by a twice. How that is paid no one can know. Things simply won't occur, and therefor are unmeasurable. Perhaps the Baby Generation will be asked to finally start paying back? That sounds reasonable, they have most of the wealth, they will have to be taxed (I'd suggest 19.6 trillion as a start).