patrick.net

Nope the plan is to create a Citizens style insurance where 10 fold premium are the norm in an insurance monopoly called a "Single Payer" system.

Just because there's one insurance company in town, doesn't mean they like to pay either. Don't worry about the Insurance execs they are all going to do just fine working in the Obamacare corporate office. I hear they will all have profit sharing.

Obamacare is just an evil plot to give free healthcare to welfare Negros and wetbacks who snuck over the border to rape white women. Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya, and this is his way of getting back at white people for slavery.

Obamacare is a token reform that gives a single Mom with two kids and two shitty P/T jobs a $5000 deductible health plan she pays $6000/year for (maybe $4000 after subsidies) on an income of $33k. About 20% of her pre-subsidy income.

Or making a single healthy 22-year old pay $4000/year for a $5000 deductible health care plan he'll hardly use.

It's utterly useless for 95% of health care, which is non-terminal, non-life threatening stuff like the flu, broken leg, etc. since the deductibles are astronomical.

Despite the US having the least efficient, most expensive, least transparent healthcare system in the industrialized world, somehow expanding it to more people will help.

It's simply a mandatory, corporate subsidy for powerful financial interests.

thunderlips11 says

Despite the US having the least efficient, most expensive, least transparent healthcare system in the industrialized world, somehow expanding it to more people will help.

Indeed extending it helps.

One of the reason cares are expensive is that currently people without insurance show up at emergencies and dump their costs on the rest of us. They should be made to pay for it.

It also helps because you can't prevent insurance from denying care for pre-existing conditions unless everyone (or at least a large majority) is insured.

It helps finally because people who are not sick pay for people who are sick. That's the basis of any insurance. It's a given in any modern country that people can't pay for extended hospitalization and intensive care, but everyone has this risk, and should pay for it.

The question is not whether extending it is a bad thing. It is not.

The question is whether it is extended in a way that creates price competition. And we will see about that.

Heraclitusstudent says

One of the reason [sic] cares [sic]....

If you are going to keep repeating that myth, can you please put in some numbers? Hint: most of the numbers you'll find are around 2% of total spending, and Obamacare won't even stop it.

Heraclitusstudent says

It helps finally because people who are not sick pay for people who are sick.

Do you notice that you've just contradicted yourself? In your first reason, you claimed it's good because it reduces cost shifting. Then you go on to claim it's good because it increases cost shifting. Do you even notice that you're saying cost shifting becomes suddenly good when the corporate sponsors of the legislation get a cut? I ask because I see this contradiction repeatedly; people don't seem to hear themselves or read their own comments.

Heraclitusstudent says

It's a given in any modern country....

No, it isn't. Even if you increase artificially the cost of water or air, that does not make it "a given" that no one can afford them. It might be an imposed consequence of lobbying, but it is not an intrinsic fact.

curious2 says

Do you notice that you've just contradicted yourself?

I didn't. In the first reason I said everyone should contribute something. In the second I said spreading the cost lowers the cost for everyone. I don't think this is contradictory.

curious2 says

No, it isn't. [...]

If healthcare costs in countries like France or Germany are about half the cost in the US, let's say even a third, then a 7 days hospitalization including surgery is more than the average person can pay in the US or Europe.

So you want this to be affordable, either you spread the cost, or you cut the care to sub-standards level. I don't think this is much of a choice.

Heraclitusstudent says

everyone should contribute something.

Everyone pays taxes, except the "charity" hospitals that complain about EMTALA cost shifting (which they could opt out of by opting out of Medicare, but they don't, because they collect so much tax $$$ via Medicare). In California, "charity" hospitals devote around 2% of their revenue to "charity care;" in exchange, they receive tax exemptions worth much more.

Heraclitusstudent says

spreading the cost lowers the cost

Obamacare shifts the cost, which you can call "spreading" if you want, but it does not reduce the cost; to the contrary, it increases the cost. Even the federal government's own projections show Obamacare increases spending even above prior law. Your chart of OECD per capita spending shows the USA spends the most of any country on the list, but your favored "solution" is to spend even more. That doesn't make sense to anyone other than the revenue recipients.

Heraclitusstudent says

7 days hospitalization

Check prices in Tokyo, you might be very surprised. Obamacare was enacted largely to stop Americans going to Mexico for lower prices.

Your thinking seems locked into a false frame. You mistake insurance for "care," and elevate "care" above health. Your conclusions therefore don't follow. As the head of CBO observed, much current medical spending contributes little if anything to people's health. Obamacare increases spending (which the recipients experience as revenues), but that isn't help except from the perspective of the revenue recipients.

curious2 says

Everyone pays taxes, except the "charity" hospitals

And the church. So what?

curious2 says

Obamacare shifts the cost, which you can call "spreading" if you want, but it does not reduce the cost; to the contrary, it increases the cost.

If you still care for the same sick people, so with the same costs, and spread that cost to more people then it is a mathematical fact that more coverage leads to less cost by person.

Now of course if you keep a structure where insurances/hospitals/doctors have not real competition, and keep the same prices for each person regardless of their costs then you have a problem.

But there are at least efforts on that side too.

curious2 says

but your favored "solution" is to spend even more.

No. I just said that spreading the costs would help.

curious2 says

largely to stop Americans going to Mexico for lower prices

I doubt people who have medical emergencies go to Mexico.

Heraclitusstudent says

And the church. So what?

So, taxpayers are contributing to "charity" hospitals, whether they also buy insurance or not. If you object to churches claiming tax exemption, that isn't a reason to require everyone to tithe, even though spreading the cost of churches would (in your view) reduce the cost per person. I doubt whether mandatory tithing would reduce the cost of churches, even on a per capita basis; more likely it would lead to more gold plated steeples, along the lines the NY Times wrote about when describing CPMC.

Heraclitusstudent says

medical emergencies....

account for a tiny fraction of medical spending, for example hospital emergency departments are less than 5%. Even if you add in urgent care clinics, you're still in single digits. The big $$$ is in "chronic care," including Homefool's toxic SSRI placebos. Putting more people on toxic placebos, and spreading the cost, doesn't help anyone other than the revenue recipients.