2041

Now, to be fair, you’re skipping a lot of internal links here. Single payer got dropped because the public doesn’t like it. They don’t like the way that it feels when they hear about it and it’s virtually impossible to get a large crowd of apathetic individuals to sit down long enough to hear the explanation of why it’s a proper idea. It might be brought up more because conservatives oppose it on general principles, and they’re happy it’s gone, but I don’t think there’s a universe where that was ever going to happen in the first wave of legislation. I can’t think of an argument that would persuade lots of people to go with it, and I endorse the freaking idea.

2042

It’s not expensive b/c of the rules CBO had to score the legislation by. CBO doesn’t think it’s a realistic scoring, which it points out everytime it scores the bill.

The bill comes in under the deficit b/c Medicare payments are capped very tightly. They grow less than inflation which means they’ll be worth less in real terms in the future. No thinks this is going to happen in reality so no one things the bill is deficit neutral.

2043

I don’t see how that invalidates my point - the opposition, as you say, comes largely from misinformation. This is largely the result of apathy combined with GOP fear-mongering. Result, the GOP got something they wanted before the bills even hit the committees.

2044

It refutes the point in that they didn’t lose anything, except the illusion that they were going to get a thing that they were never, ever going to get. America isn’t there yet. You can’t lose what you don’t have in the first place.

2045

Sigh. I’m really starting to wonder why I bother with you Andy, when you cherry pick the posts you reply to. That’s like P&R douchebaggery 101.

2046

O rly?

2047

I guess I disagree that single payer was never possible. It certainly seemed like something that could have been accomplished. It would have required a different Democratic party than the one we currently have, though, I suppose.

In any case, it was merely an example of the things that simply weren’t considered because of expected conservative opposition. I’m sure there are other examples if we care to explore it.

2048

Yeeeesh. Okay, there’s a few things going on in there that are a little disingenuous. First off, they’re assuming savings to Medicare - that’s not saving money. That’s moving debt from one pocket to another. Second, they’re assuming an increase in pay along with a decrease in medical benefits spending on the part of employers. That’s…an entirely unfounded assumption. I would call its inclusion optimistic at best. If I’m scoring the cost of the bill, I would not include any potential gains on that end, because they’re effectively out of your control to capture and highly vulnerable to outside effects, and in this case theoretical (we know that as health care costs go up, pay goes down, but we do not know that it works in reverse, which is one reason why unions have been bucking the Cadillac Tax).

The central problem you have with this is that you’re making an incredible, exceptional claim. Saying that we can insure more people for less money than we currently spend is like me saying that I can shove my hand into a tub of liquid lead and not get burned at all. You’ve got to provide some pretty exceptional evidence. I think that you can probably pitch a health care bill as a good idea without having to establish that it costs negative dollars. I honestly wouldn’t waste time arguing the point. Making people healthy is worth something.

I’m really thinking more that the American public would have never gone along with it. Americans in general tend to be more skeptical of having the government run things than other populations. Every major move that the government has made to expand benefits has been accompanied with a social revolution or an economic catastrophe. We don’t have that right now. My suspicion is that even if the Republicans in the Senate had gone all Barney Frank on their constituents, the whole teasucking thing would have still gone down and people would still have felt uncomfortable with it going in. It feels like a big thing, and America doesn’t do lots of big things in my experience unless there’s something seriously, seriously wrong, and I don’t think that enough Americans perceive anything as being seriously wrong with this scenario. At any rate, they’re still satisfied enough with the status quo that they would rather do nothing than do something potentially dangerous.

2049

I’m not letting you get away that easy with a campaign speech. This has jack fucking shit to do with your objection to the Democratic health care plan because back in 2003 Obama said he’d like to move in the direction of single payer. Please explain why Obama’s previous statement means the current health care bill should not pass and thousands of people should continue to die early or go bankrupt as a result.

You can’t complain it won’t work, sure. But sliding between “it won’t work” and “we must protect America from the hidden radical agenda” in Ronald Reagan warning about Medicare destroying the country territory.

2050

Man, I’m gone for a couple months and even more conservatives are jumping into the P&R fun. Where did this Andy Bates dude come from?

2051

Between Sarah Palin’s legs where other retards spawn from? (I kid. I couldn’t pass up that set up.)

2052

I was really just posting that to debunk the claim that “no one” thinks it’s going to be cheaper. Clearly some do.

The central problem you have with this is that you’re making an incredible, exceptional claim. Saying that we can insure more people for less money than we currently spend is like me saying that I can shove my hand into a tub of liquid lead and not get burned at all.
I don’t see why that’s so exceptional. That’s how insurance works. Bigger pool, less risk per person, cheaper per person. But I would agree that I don’t think cost should be the focus. But that’s what the GOP focuses on

I’m really thinking more that the American public would have never gone along with it. Americans in general tend to be more skeptical of having the government run things than other populations.
I think it could have been sold to them, but obviously this is just a matter of opinion.

2053

Yes, I was clearly delineating a complete list of the only reasons people can’t afford health insurance: because they spent all their money on a new car, or video games, or bad investments. That’s it. No other reasons whatsoever.

2054

The Cutler study also states that it omits anything that could raise costs. So yeah, if you don’t look at the cost increases everything magically goes down!

For example: they ignore the increae in mandated benefits. Compare that to CBO which says this raises premiums (as does anyone else in the health care fight. Cutler just blithely assumes that benefit increases are too complicated to be meaured). Cutler also doesn’t look at any tax increases, which most economiss/analysts say will be passed on.

Then of course you get magical admin savings from Cutler where they just assume there will be savings.

So to recapL Magical savings lower costs. And anything that raises costs such as mandated higher benefits gets left out of the study. Very disappointing from Cutler.

the MAgic quote: “For purposes of this analysis, we exclude changes in premiums associated with better coverage, since one would need to consider the impacts of the enhanced coverage and correspondingly lower
out-of-pocket spending to gauge accurately the impact of the changes.” Page 8. Now compare this to any other analysis of health care such as CBO, Lewin, Rand or whoever you like.

2055

No, I understand how insurance works: You’re basically betting against yourself.

That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? It is possible to go without health insurance, get sick, and not die or go bankrupt. Some people may visit the doctor less often, or will spend more money in months when they get sick. Saying that they will “die or go bankrupt” is a little ridiculous.

Stop. How do you conclude that the only people who want medical coverage are sick people?

And yet, we have auto insurance, and homeowner’s insurance, and electronics insurance, and earthquake insurance, and pet insurance. For all of those, people are free not to take it if they don’t want it. When I go to Best Buy, the guy doesn’t make me take the mandated replacement insurance on my game. So why doesn’t the Best Buy insurance plan fall apart?

You are only required to have liability coverage, which covers damage to other people and property. You are not required to have car insurance for your own person and vehicle. And yet, the auto-insurance industry doesn’t fall apart.

Also note that car insurance covers major catastrophic damage and usually has a high deductible, which is why it is more affordable than health insurance. Health insurance, on the other hand, has to cover doctor’s visits, and prescriptions, and many other minor issues that could be paid out of pocket. That is one reason why medical insurance costs so much. It would be like buying auto insurance that covered gas, and oil changes, and getting your car washed.

2056

My friggin’ brain just melted.

2057

This isn’t a good road to go down. A Best Buy warranty isn’t even close to comparable with the other insurance forms you mentioned.

They are 100% unregulated (in most states and barely regulated in states that restrict that warranty language).

There is an absolute cap on possible damages. The cost of the television. There is no liability involved.

Even then they are very low-risk for the retailer and are a huge ripoff. They tend to be ridiculously priced compared to their value.

You are only required to have liability coverage, which covers damage to other people and property. You are not required to have car insurance for your own person and vehicle. And yet, the auto-insurance industry doesn’t fall apart.

Also note that car insurance covers major catastrophic damage and usually has a high deductible, which is why it is more affordable than health insurance. Health insurance, on the other hand, has to cover doctor’s visits, and prescriptions, and many other minor issues that could be paid out of pocket. That is one reason why medical insurance costs so much. It would be like buying auto insurance that covered gas, and oil changes, and getting your car washed.

You’re working against yourself here, because as you’ve pointed out the auto industry is completely different. The liability structures are completely different and the facts are usually more concrete. There are no defensive costs in auto insurance as compared to medicine.

You are correct that there is no mandatory insurance outside of liability, but like an electronics warranty the other options are value added with capped costs (the value of the car usually). They are completely different beasts.

Price structures are far more controlled as the price of cars is relatively stable. Comprehensive insurance is usually the more expensive part of a policy, and that’s because it’s a big profit center for insurance companies.

In comparison, the price of health care is seemingly unbounded in the up direction right now, and a large portion of it is because of the insurance picture.

2058

Grraaaaaggghhhhh…I have the acid reflux in my esophagus. This makes me angry. You have been warned. Of course, I’m about to leave for the day, so that doesn’t matter, but still.

What in the holy hell are you talking about? Your insurance isn’t an HSA. You don’t keep the money that you put in and you don’t get paid off with the money that you’ve sent in in the past. You’re buying peace of mind that if you get trampled by a herd of wild bison, you’ll be able to get your arms and legs reattached to the right spots on your mangled torso without having to take out a second mortgage. Given the fact that somebody is getting trampled by wild bison pretty much every second of the day (as far as this analogy goes), what you’re doing is putting money onto the pile that then gets moved over to people who need their legs put back on. That’s social security - not a gambling model.

Not really. Eventually you’re going to hit old age, you’re not going to want to die, and you’re going to start doing stupid shit to stave off that prospect. This, of course, ignores the fact that you’re probably going to cock up the general process of being alive long before you reach that point and require some kind of immediate and intensive medical care. Medical care costs a lot of money and, although it’s ticked up in the past year, Americans don’t save.

The only people for whom medical coverage is a desirable expense are sick people, if we’re carving it up rationally. If you knew for a fact that you weren’t going to get sick this year at all, you would have to be an idiot to continue to maintain your health insurance. It makes no sense. Further, the goal here is to get health care to people who can’t get it - people like me, who wouldn’t be able to pick up a policy on their own because they are a walking, talking medical disaster. I used to carry around hazardous waste - I’ll be surprised if I don’t grow a second dick that wants to host puppet shows when it grows up before I keel over. If the goal is to include those people in the health care system (hint: it is, otherwise you’re going to be labeled a monster, very shortly, by a lot of people who might possibly invite you to expire in a conflagration), they’re going to be a net expense.

The Best Buy insurance plan doesn’t fall apart because virtually nobody uses the damn thing. That’s the point. They offer you a dramatically overpriced plan to cover something you don’t need coverage on. Same thing for pet insurance. Homeowner’s insurance, I hate to tell you, IS required by law in some locations, as is the primary product of the automotive insurance industry (liability insurance). I don’t live in an earthquake zone, so I can’t speak to that one, but you’re pulling the rest of your examples directly out of your ass here. What you’re nosing around is the fact that we PROBABLY SHOULDN’T BE INSURING HEALTH CARE. Well yeah, no joke. It’s basically a public utility that we all have to use at some point. Maybe we should be providing it that way. You know, kind of like by having one entity manage all the costs and shit and put the bill together and make sure everybody gets paid and figure out what should be covered and what shouldn’t. You know, like that single payer system? I totally agree with you - that would be better. That doesn’t change the fact that trying to finance sick people on the money of other sick people is like trying to build a sand castle in a bog.

First off, liability coverage is the primary product of the automotive insurance industry. It’s what they sell. There are whole agencies that revolve around just selling you the bare essentials to get certified to drive. Those are profitable ventures. There’s no such thing right now as liability coverage for health. That, in essence, would be a health care plan that only covered emergency room expenses, only long enough to get you stitched up and out the door, and only for the amount that you’d be stiffing the state when you didn’t pay your bill. What moron is going to sign up for that insurance? We could condition filing your tax return on proving you have it, but the insurance itself would be almost useless as a practical matter, and would be subsumed by any kind of useful plan that any individual offered. We could mandate JUST that and we could remove the bums-showing-up-in-emergency-rooms part of the health care problem (not particularly significant, but I kind of know somebody who’s done that, so I can guarantee it’s not a totally empty set), but that doesn’t provide any benefits to people, which makes you an ogre. Again.

Also, you’re wrong - health insurance doesn’t HAVE to cover any of those things. Health insurance does cover those things in most cases because that’s what it takes to be competitive in the market, because costs are high, because health insurance covers so many things. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that private insurance is the whole of the problem - the doctors and hospitals are doing more than their part in driving up costs - but just the way that insurance works right now helps to drive costs up. Do you know what happens when you end recission? COSTS GO UP. That’s how insurance companies are saving money right now. I don’t like the practice and I think it should be outlawed as post-betting, but you can’t eliminate recission without introducing a new cashflow source without increasing the cost of insurance and making it that much harder for people to get it.

2059

Of the six things that you listed, Republicans didn’t get anything that they wanted! First you said that Democrats are compromising because they gave the Republicans those six things, and when I point out that none of them are actually the same, you say, well, it’s a compromise, so of course they’re not exactly the same. Now who’s moving the goalposts?

They removed the single-player system because it is opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. You can say that those Democrats happen to be conservative, but the fact remains that if single-payer were in, the bill probably wouldn’t have gotten fifty votes, much less sixty.

And of course, the Democrats are still trying. Obama’s set up this summit to try and find middle ground! But no, clearly the Democrats are to blame for the complete absence of GOP support.

Have you read the CBO report? There are a ton of caveats in there, including doubts that costs can actually be kept down without introducing rationing or a reduction in the quality of care.

The Democratic bill has an estimated cost of $1.3 trillion; the GOP bill has an estimated cost of $61 billion. That should give you an idea of where to start looking.

You are deluded if you think that the Republicans were the only ones opposed to the public option.

2060

I can’t reply to everything, and I don’t think anyone wants to see me try. It’s difficult enough when I post something, and three people respond to that, so I try to respond to each of them individually. If there is something you wanted me to respond to, tell me and I’ll try to address it.