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The Wicked Witch of the West and Obamacare

Upchurch said:
And yet, somehow, they can't accept the fact that they already do at an elevated expense than they might otherwise need to.
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No, they don't. They whine constantly about the peasants ripping them off to take care of their malnousrished, sickly offspring.

Like it is the inverstor class' fasult that the parents of those sick kids were poor.:rolleyes:

The investors need that extra money to invest in creating jobs.

What? Who cares if the jobs are created in China?
 
Robert Prey said:
From Las Vegas Businessman Steve Wynn:

"I supported a Democratic Congresswoman named Shelley Berkley. I called her during Obamacare. I said, 'Shelly, what are you doing? How do you do this? This is killing unions and all of us supplying health care to our employees,'" Wynn recalled. "She said to me, quote, this is not hearsay — Shelly said to me — and she is running for the Senate — ‘Steve, I know it's terrible. My husband's a doctor, and he hates it, too. If I don't vote for it, she will punish me,' she being Nancy Pelosi."

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...e-for-it-pelosi-would-have-punished-me-video/
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Fascinating. Please continue.



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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.953434,-90.068264
 
Robert Prey said:
That letter delivered 3000 miles away costs somebody a lot more than 44 cents. It probably should cost more like 44 dollars. And that's what's wrong with the Post Office.
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Concerning the hilited ara, what is your evidence? Of course, if it cost $44.00 to send a letter, the entire postal system would crash.
 
Robert Prey said:
Government did not get involved in healthcare until 1965, when Medicare and Medicaid were passed by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. Costs immediately begin to accelerate.
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The US stopped being a free market system in 1965?
 
Robert Prey said:
Government did not get involved in healthcare until 1965, when Medicare and Medicaid were passed by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. Costs immediately begin to accelerate.
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I remember when Medicare took effect. At the time I was working part time as an orderly in a hospital to help pay the cost of college. I was able to get that job because I had been a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy. I remember everyone griping about how the hospital was now going to fill up with freeloaders, etc. Well, initially the hospital did fill up - with people with broken hips, bed sores and other severe ailments. They were hardly free loaders. This was one of the first of many reality shocks that turned me from an Ayn Rand fan who had voted for Goldwater in 1964, into, eventually, a flaming liberal.

As to medical costs, a lot of these are generated by overcharging by the hospitals and other medical servers. Here are two examples. When I had Motion Picture Health - Blue Cross, I had a prudent buyer program, that would only pay hospitals a certain amount. So, when I had to have hernia surgery, the hospital tried to charge me $200.00 for a screening chest x-ray. This is routine for all surgeries. It takes a doctor about two seconds to look at the x-ray and declare, "Okay, this one's clear." Also, as a corpsman stationed at Moffat Field Naval Air Station, I often took chest x-rays, even though I wasn't an x-ray technician. Thus, it didn't surprise me when my Prudent Buyer plan only paid $50.00 to the hospital for the screening chest x-ray. The hospital, then, was routinely charging four times what the cost of taking and reading the x-ray warranted. Imagine what an extra $150.00 for each hospital admission does to drive up costs.

Some time later, when I was taking coumadin and wasn't able to get my routine bleeding and clotting time blood test at my doctor's office, I had to use a lab, which tired to charge me $30.00 for "venipuncture," i.e. drawing my blood. Again, as a corpsman, I routinely drew blood. It takes little skill and less time. Again, the Prudent Buyer clause wouldn't pay for that, and the lab had to be content not to get that extra bit of money. Imagine as few as 20 people getting their blood drawn at that lab each day. At $30.00 a pop, that's an extra $600.00 a day padding for every lab across the country.
 
TimCallahan said:
I remember when Medicare took effect. At the time I was working part time as an orderly in a hospital to help pay the cost of college. I was able to get that job because I had been a hospital corpsman in the U.S. Navy. I remember everyone griping about how the hospital was now going to fill up with freeloaders, etc. Well, initially the hospital did fill up - with people with broken hips, bed sores and other severe ailments. They were hardly free loaders. This was one of the first of many reality shocks that turned me from an Ayn Rand fan who had voted for Goldwater in 1964, into, eventually, a flaming liberal.

As to medical costs, a lot of these are generated by overcharging by the hospitals and other medical servers. Here are two examples. When I had Motion Picture Health - Blue Cross, I had a prudent buyer program, that would only pay hospitals a certain amount. So, when I had to have hernia surgery, the hospital tried to charge me $200.00 for a screening chest x-ray. This is routine for all surgeries. It takes a doctor about two seconds to look at the x-ray and declare, "Okay, this one's clear." Also, as a corpsman stationed at Moffat Field Naval Air Station, I often took chest x-rays, even though I wasn't an x-ray technician. Thus, it didn't surprise me when my Prudent Buyer plan only paid $50.00 to the hospital for the screening chest x-ray. The hospital, then, was routinely charging four times what the cost of taking and reading the x-ray warranted. Imagine what an extra $150.00 for each hospital admission does to drive up costs.

Some time later, when I was taking coumadin and wasn't able to get my routine bleeding and clotting time blood test at my doctor's office, I had to use a lab, which tired to charge me $30.00 for "venipuncture," i.e. drawing my blood. Again, as a corpsman, I routinely drew blood. It takes little skill and less time. Again, the Prudent Buyer clause wouldn't pay for that, and the lab had to be content not to get that extra bit of money. Imagine as few as 20 people getting their blood drawn at that lab each day. At $30.00 a pop, that's an extra $600.00 a day padding for every lab across the country.
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So what is the cause of 'overcharging? I suggest it is lack of market discipline which includes government subsidies and the requirement to treat all patients -- even illegal aliens. No, we don't and never heve let them die in the street, but today ER rooms are filled with non-emergencies and loaded with illegal aliens, just like our schools and our jails.
 
Robert Prey said:
So what is the cause of 'overcharging? I suggest it is lack of market discipline which includes government subsidies and the requirement to treat all patients -- even illegal aliens. No, we don't and never heve let them die in the street, but today ER rooms are filled with non-emergencies and loaded with illegal aliens, just like our schools and our jails.
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So you completely ignore what TimCallahan says and replace it with your own fantasies? Why are you even responding to him then?
 
Robert Prey said:
So what is the cause of 'overcharging? I suggest it is lack of market discipline which includes government subsidies and the requirement to treat all patients -- even illegal aliens. No, we don't and never heve let them die in the street, but today ER rooms are filled with non-emergencies and loaded with illegal aliens, just like our schools and our jails.
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Bullflops a friend of mine was shot when we were kids and was in an ambulance on his way to a hospital that turned him away for not having health insurance....he died.
 
keale said:
Bullflops a friend of mine was shot when we were kids and was in an ambulance on his way to a hospital that turned him away for not having health insurance....he died.
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That would violate current laws.
 
Robert Prey said:
So what is the cause of 'overcharging? I suggest it is lack of market discipline which includes government subsidies and the requirement to treat all patients -- even illegal aliens. No, we don't and never heve let them die in the street, but today ER rooms are filled with non-emergencies and loaded with illegal aliens, just like our schools and our jails.
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When I was a Navy corpsman, the dependent wives of servicemen regularly abused the emergency hours at the dispensary at Moffat Field, bringing their kids in with colds and other minor stuff. They were required to sign a statement that, in their belief, if the patient they were bringing in were not treated immediately, it would result in death, permanent injury or serious illness. These statements they signed without batting an eye. The doctors made them wait for long hours, even if there were no real emergencies to be dealt with. Despite the long wait and the generally contemptuous treatment they got, thy still came in during emergency hours. These dependent wives were not illegal aliens. The reason the doctors had to treat them on an emergency basis had more to do with possible legal ramifications should they refuse treatment than anything else. So, blame either the ambulance chasers or the irresponsible patients who abuse the system.

As to our schools being filled with illegal aliens. As one who has done substitute teaching in Southern California, and put up with abusive treatment from the brats I was trying to teach, I can tell you that they were all homegrown.

So, yes, there will be abuses - and are already. Educating people about the costs of such behavior might help; or it might be just like the abuses stemming from insurance claims in traffic accidents. As an example of the latter, consider that when my wife and I were involved in an accident that was totally the other party's fault. They sued us. Our insurance company easily defended against the suit, and it came to nothing. However, the fact that the company has to maintain a legal office full time to defend against such nuisance suits must account for a hefty portion of our premium. None of this has anything to do with government involvement, just human anture.
 
Robert Prey said:
Loser pays would be a boon to societycorporations, and a tragedy for lawyers would still get paid.
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The average citizen would never be able to take the risk of losing and corporations would have more incentive to fight.
 
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