Gov healthcare

[klein]

I have no way to varify this,but on a local talk show,a few people questioned if it was cheaper or not.One lady with a proclaimed clean driving record said it cost $2200 to insure her '06 cavalier in BC ,in Ont she is paying $1400...and if you have gov ins ,you can't sue because its all considered no fault...correct me if I'm wrong

I cannot answer those questions either. I don't know if they go by regions either.
(like if this lady lived in metro Vancouver ,(highest rate), to somewhere rural in Ontario) ?
I'm not even sure it's a no fault clause... doesn't make sense to me, someone can have 10 accidents within a year and pays the same?
I doubt that.
I know, Klein (our last premier) implemented a $5000.00 maximum pain and suffering amount. But, that was turned down in the provincal court.
And sure enough insurance rates went back up again.

Maybe BC has that ? No pain and suffering at all ? I do not know, either.

But, if Alberta ever wanted to start a govermnet auto-insurance, I surely would promote it.
Give the others a run for the money !
And if those companies don't smarten up soon, we might just get one.

Ontario is cheaper then western Canada on many things, booze, cigs, maybe insurance too.

But, what I do know, we pay more then our neighbors. Thats what started Klein making changes to that , too.

Vancouver is a hot spot for stolen cars.. within minutes on the boat, overseas.

But, your right, now this topic doesn't belong on this board.

Because, I really thought goverment insurance worked very well.
Who would trust a private company with goverment pension ?
Or with goverment Unemployment funds ?

Atleast we know the goverment backs it up at all times.
Private ones can go under any minute of the day.

US banking and housing system should have proved that. (first sign of recession).
Now, failed pensionplans at the big 3 Automobile companies.
Still not good enough to convince goverment back up is best.

So, wait till what happens next, I guess. Maybe total failure of Medicare to wake them up ?

 

[ups1990]

What is their to discuss, Obama said, Health care reform will not change our current coverage, so it's settled.

He also said, our economy is on the right track, so this also is settled.
I can finally have a nice relaxing week now that these two issues are settled.

 

[Catatonic]

What is their to discuss, Obama said, Health care reform will not change our current coverage, so it's settled.

He also said, our economy is on the right track, so this also is settled.
I can finally have a nice relaxing week now that these two issues are settled.

... so it's settled.

Is that like "End of Discussion"?

 

[ups1990]

... so it's settled.

Is that like "End of Discussion"?

Discussion settled.

 

[av8torntn]

Since someone brought up Medicare.

John Stossel - MEDI-CARE Cheats the Young

 

[klein]

Since someone brought up Medicare.

Thats what I have been saying all along. Greed ! Spend, spend, spend, until it's all gone.

It really needs to be addressed and taken care of, before the next generation is left empty handed.
Atleast have some form of a user fee, (based upon income).
Free Viagra ! ? Not even our UPS plan gives that.
Go to a doc, just to socialize, thats crap!

 

[av8torntn]

It really needs to be addressed and taken care of, before the next generation is left empty handed.
Atleast have some form of a user fee, (based upon income).
Free Viagra ! ? Not even our UPS plan gives that.
Go to a doc, just to socialize, thats crap!

So if you are saying that when everything else remains the same and price is lowered demand tends to rise then how in world can you support your "free" system? Could this be the reason that one of the Canadians posted that they had to schedule an MRI test so far in advance that they did not even bother to make the appointment? I think they said some absurd length of time like six months.


There needs to be a penalty for consumption and in my opinion that penalty should be that the consumer is responsible for payment either by purchasing insurance or any other means acceptable to the buyer and seller.

 

[av8torntn]

From the Cato Institute.



"Although “rationing” of health care, like any scarce resource, is inevitable, there are a lot of good reasons for notallowing government to decide who gets what. First among them is the fact that individuals have a basic right to make basic life choices themselves.
Moreover, irrespective of the rhetoric of self-interested politicians seeking votes, government does not have the interest of patients first and foremost in mind. Indeed, inGreat Britain the primary interest of the National Health Service these days appears to be saving money by reducing care.
Reports the Daily Telegraph:

The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.
Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.
The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.
But the British Pain Society, which represents specialists in the field, has written to NICE calling for the guidelines to be withdrawn after its members warned that they would lead to many patients having to undergo unnecessary and high-risk spinal surgery.
​

Somehow this doesn’t look like the sort of “change” most Americans were voting for last November."
(H/t Matthew Vadum.)

 

[tieguy]

Great Britain resemmbles GWB's vision of what America should be like than BHO's.

Ayn Rand gone wild.

A boy said that.

 

[shortfuse]

Why then, if this socialized medicine is soooo ggooooodd in Canada and elswhere why do these misled people from all across the globe come here for their healthcare if they can afford it?

I don't mean to sound insensitive,or manly about this,but,gee wiz,golly wally waz up wif dat?

 

[klein]

Why then, if this socialized medicine is soooo ggooooodd in Canada and elswhere why do these misled people from all across the globe come here for their healthcare if they can afford it?

I don't mean to sound insensitive,or manly about this,but,gee wiz,golly wally waz up wif dat?

I just searched google (using these words) "number of Canadians to US for medical "

You will be surprised. The number of Canadians seeking medical in the states can be counted as a handful per year.
Besides that, the newest US commercials are getting out of control, and lying about our system in Canada, and sooner or later one of our goverment officials will have to respond to that.

What you see in your commercials is basically the same as " I can't believe it's not butter" !

I lived here for 34 years, I don't know of anyone that went to the states for treatment.
Also lived in Germany, worked and lived with the german public, also don't know of anyone going to the US for treatment there.

This is a headline of one of our newspapers today (also available online using same search words)

Canadians cry foul over U.S. healthcare attacks

Wed Jul 29, 2009 8:50am EDT

And this is what the IMF (International Monetary Fund) thinks about the US reforming healthcare:

Directors underscored that addressing soaring entitlement costs remains the critical medium-term fiscal challenge. They welcomed the Administration’s focus on health care reform, emphasizing that the ultimate package should include substantial measures to reduce health care costs over the longer term, while aiming at budget neutrality in the short term. Directors underscored that the impact of cost control measures will need to be carefully monitored, and that additional measures should be taken promptly as needed. Directors also welcomed the Administration’s intention to work towards developing a political consensus for social security reform.

 

[Babagounj]

I just searched google (using these words) "number of Canadians to US for medical "
So you believe that everyone would publish their medical history for the world to see it ?

You will be surprised.
I lived here for 34 years, I don't know of anyone that went to the states for treatment.
So how is it living in that cave by yourself ?

 

[klein]

Baba:

No, but US hospitals do keep track of who pays for services.
In any case the Canadian goverment does get a bill, and what exceeds the amount allowed for a certain procedure... the individual will need to pay out of pocket.

Atleast our Caves don't have Gettos or Slums.
Any major City in the USA has that problem.
I urge you to visit one of our caves, even if it's just online.
Another thing we are very proud of, the cleaningness of our cities.
Large or small.
IT's ok, make fun of Canada... we are used to it. But once you get better educated, you might just find out how good we have it here.
And, one of the richest countries in the world. Yes, richer then the states ! Your broke, living on chinese money now. Hopefully, they don't cut it off for you.

 

[Babagounj]

The last thing China want is to stop the flow. It would cripple their economy & make their stockpiled money worthless.

NO ghettos or slums. WOW I'm impressed.
I watch a Canadian show called " Holmes on Homes", very interesting. Your laws require home builders be very strict about constructing buildings, yet this guy finds a lot of new construction is actually crap.

 

[wkmac]

March 28th 2008, press release from US HHS website

In their annual report, the Medicare Trustees today announced that both the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund and the Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund expenditures are growing faster than the rest of the economy. The Trustees report expenditures were $432 billion in 2007, or 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and are projected to increase to nearly 11 percent of GDP in 75 years.

Let's make note, this coming out as it was also coming out that the economy was going bad. This would mean that the picture painted from 2007' hindsight would get much worse than the 75 year prediction then saw looking now from reality of 2009'. At least IMO anyway. Stands to reason with tax revenue drops from slowing economy coupling with not a cut in spending but vastly accelerated spending when tax revs dropping. Imagine UPS cutting your hours (less pay) and instead of reducing household expeditures, you hit the credit cards and open up a line of credit on you house at a point when before your hours were cut you were living paycheck to paycheck. As a individual, you know where this is headed so why is gov't any different?

The Trustees report that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will become insolvent earlier in 2019 than reported last year. HI expenditure growth is estimated to average 7.4 percent each year over the next 10 years, a higher rate than either Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Consumer Price Index (CPI) growth. This year the HI Trust Fund will spend more than its income, and from 2009 through 2017, about $342 billion will need to be transferred from the Federal treasury to cover beneficiaries’ hospital insurance costs.

My guess is also that 2019' date has moved up as well as this picture was based on 2007' numbers from a 1Q 2008' looking forward vision.

“Although Congress has never allowed a Medicare trust fund to become exhausted, under the current payment structure, a person who is 54 years old today can not be assured that Medicare hospital insurance benefits will be there when he or she turns 65 and first becomes eligible for Medicare,” said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Kerry Weems. “That’s why we are already beginning to implement steps to make health care services under Medicare as effective and efficient as possible for beneficiaries.”

Since I am of that 50 something age group, appears on the above they are trying to tell me something. It's not something I wasn't expecting anyway so OK, they admit the obvious.

The Medicare funding warning was first triggered by the 2007 report and is triggered again with the 2008 report. The funding warning requires the President to propose legislation to respond to the issue within 15 days following the release of the next fiscal year’s budget and the Congress is required to expeditiously consider the President’s proposals. President Bush submitted legislation in February 2008 in response to the 2007 Medicare funding warning and Congress has taken no action. As a result of the new funding warning, the President must again submit to Congress proposed legislation to respond to the warning within 15 days of the release of the next fiscal year’s budget.

Regardless of the past, IMO this above at least suggests to me that the healthcare plan being debated may in fact be more about saving Medicare than anything else. Based on the timeline of past reports and actions, it seems about the same time as before (latter spring/early summer) this was why the healthcare thing took on a crisis appearance with an almost "we gotta do something,anything, even wrong or else" attitude coupled with a "we don't have time to dibble on details, just do something yesterday" approach to it all. That's when self serving, self interests step in and hide the devil in the details that give us those infamous "unintended consequenses" down the road that cause another crisis which leads to another panic and we do this all over again. Hegelian dialectics it would seem and the synthesis always making it worse.

I don't/won't argue there is or may be a problem and regardless that I don't believe in a centralized state solution (monopolies are wrong even if they are the gov't or not and the non free market cartel/state alliance actually created the problem) to panic and go rushing in without true transparency and forthright public explaination of what is going to happen is another matter and not the right course.

People can argue that folks are disrupting Town Hall meetings, etc. and I've no doubt this is true (God bless em' for having the guts to disrupt something gov't!)but this also doesn't negate the fact that Congress and the President have failed to give details and good specific details at that (some even admitted there's to much there to even read)and has come out with the same notion as Bush and republicans did with Iraq and Afghanistan and that is, "Just Trust Us!" Now the door is wide open for all kinds of allegations from anything close to truth to as out there as the space ET now doing the most plastic surgery business in Hollywood. Considering Hollywood, that last one might be true!


When it comes to the gov't and political opperatives, Trust no one, make them prove everything and every detail. They are all liars and nothing but and that is a proven fact over time. They only seek their own power and glory too your downfall and expense. Getting your vote and their agenda through is all that matters.

 

[Babagounj]

Do you think bho gave his grandmother "end of life counseling " ?

 

[wkmac]

As a former spelunker (from the vertical stuff) whose done "a few" vertical drops I can appreciate a good rope!


Something I ran across from Nobel Economist Paul Krugman who is a dedicated Keynesian and defender of all things "liberal" as skewed as that word is (same for conservative) but Krugman wrote recently on the Healthcare debate in the NY Times.

Op-Ed Columnist
Health Care Realities

By PAUL KRUGMAN


Published: July 30, 2009
At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”
It’s a funny story — but it illustrates the extent to which health reform must climb a wall of misinformation. It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now. They don’t understand, in particular, that getting the government involved in health care wouldn’t be a radical step: the government is already deeply involved, even in private insurance.
And that government involvement is the only reason our system works at all.

I love it when they slip up and tell the truth. Even in the "Disinformation" Youtube video you posted in another thread, Congressman Mike Pence who has some good qualities again makes the fatal error of his own disinformation in taking about the so-called "free market" in health care. Krugman is correct but would he go the next step and admit the interventionism of the gov't in the market has actually led to the current crisis and not the erruption of the often evil portrayed "free market". In defense of Pence (hey were rapping!) his "mistake" is a often easily repeated one but in so doing IMO it only fuels the confusion and makes it easy for the Krugmans of the world to malign Laissez Faire while worshipping Keynes.

One can only enter the healthcare "free market" only after getting the "State Required" educational background, pass "State Required" certification and testing and then obtain other appropiate State license and pay certain State fees, then one can hang out the shingle. And who spearheaded this gov't intervention? Why don't you start with the American Medical Association and work from there. For the last century or so, there's not been a true free market in medical care in this country and it's pure fantasy to even say so. Now the pressures of intervention in so many areas are coming into play and like the interventions of the economic bubble, the good ole' free market provides a perfect scapegoat while allows the real culprit to lay in the shadows to strike it's victims again and again.

Cudos to Krugman for being truthful in this case because in others he's been just as fast to ignore the footprint of gov't and blame the illusion of "free market". Then again, even the Statist can't be depended on to follow the script as written all the time!

 

[wkmac]

Opps! I think someone assumed and got caught looking bad!



Did the matrix just loose another

 

[wkmac]

AV,

Here's you a goodie and another reason I disagree with corporate favoritism from gov't just as much as I disagree with public favoritism otherwise called public welfare.

THE ORIGINS OF CORPORATE SOCIALISM
Old John D. Rockefeller and his 19th century fellow-capitalists were convinced of one absolute truth: that no great monetary wealth could be accumulated under the impartial rules of a competitive laissez faire society. The only sure road to the acquisition of massive wealth was monopoly: drive out your competitors, reduce competition, eliminate laissez-faire, and above all get state protection for your industry through compliant politicians and government regulation. This last avenue yields a legal monopoly, and a legal monopoly always leads to wealth.

From Anthony Sutton's "Wall Street and FDR" under Part 2 "Genesis of Corporate Socialism, Chapter 5 Making Society Work for the Few"
The entire book is online at the link and worth reading I might add.

Lincoln's War killed any remaining crumbs of gov't limitation after they killed the Articles of Confederation and between Wilson's "Global Democracy" construct coupled with FDR's own social version in grips of fear of the so-called "crisis" of economic trouble otherwise known as the Great Depression. The FDR construct has been the social governance model for both democrat and republican parties since those days with differences only superficial when one delves into the meat and potatoes of them.

The late Anthony Sutton has written numerous works but his resume is rather impressive to say the least. (his wiki bio too) As I've said before, ignore the rest, just follow the money because that's what it's really all about!

BTW: As a result of understanding that 19th century absolutism Sutton quoted above is the reason I've gone to the darkside to Free Market Anarchism. As Thoreau said, "Strike the Root!"

 

[av8torntn]

lets see.....Gov't run....Cash for Clunkers, bet you guys are dissappointed this program is working.....

Yet another view of the failures of this Government welfare program for you from Cato.org.


"Jerry Taylor and I published an op-ed criticizing the Cash for Clunkers program on Friday. We weren’t alone in our evaluation of the program.
Two interesting critical analyses of the Cash for Clunkers program were published over the weekend.The first by New York Times reporter Matt Wald examines the energy savings that would result from the program. If a clunker traveling 12,000 miles at 16 miles per gallon (consuming 750 gallons per year) were traded in for a new car getting 25 mpg while traveling the same distance (480 gallons a year), thethe trade-in would savethe driver 270 gallons per year. Multiply that bythe roughly 245,000 vehiclesthat had been traded in under the program as of last Friday, before Congressextended the program,and you get1.6 million barrels saved each year. Thatsounds great until you realize it’s onlyabouttwo hours’ worth of our daily consumption, which is about 18.6 million barrels per day so far in 2009. But the savings is probably much less than that because old cars are not driven 12,000 miles per year.
The second critical analysis, examining the program’s effect on carbon emissions, appeared as a figurein theOutlook section of this weekend’s Washington Post.Over 10 years, the new cars will reduce emissions by 7 million metric tons, which is about 0.04%of the 16 billion metric tons that U.S. cars will produce over that time. That is, taxpayers will pay$147 per ton of CO2 reduction ($1.03 billion dollars divided by 7 million tons). In comparison, the economic literature estimates thatthe costof the marginal damages of carbon emissions is between $15 and$50 per ton (see, e.g., this and this)."