Mitt "No insurance for uninsured with pre-existing conditions"

[kochman]

If you have to spend money researching the drug, and then can produce it with the cheapest possible, bulk purchased ingredients...
But, I can produce it with the cheapest possible, bulk purchased ingredients... I win, I can charge less, because I have less to recoup... you go out of business.

What's there to investigate?

 

[El_Machinae]

Cutlass and I were discussing off-patent medicine , anyway

 

[Tani Coyote]

I think the appeal to personal responsibility actually would assist mandatory healthcare. While one argument is, "Why should I have to get insurance?," there's an easy retort: Why should I have to pay the extra costs for your lack of insurance?

Hospitals will want to make a profit. Ergo they will raise prices on everyone else to cover the deficit. Those who have insurance and were responsible with finances will have to pay for those who did not. And the only way to eliminate this problem would be to make it so you can die on the operating table, and how many can honestly find that morally consiconable?

Those who are bankrupted by lack of insurance will most likely end up taking welfare or charity payments that could have gone to someone else if they had simply had insurance. We can drastically reduce the amount of less fortunate individuals simply by mandating insurance, and save our social services and charitable donations for people who were genuinely screwed over by fate.

It's a fallacy to assume we're all perfectly isolated; we all have duties to society. It is why I cannot murder someone, it is why you cannot steal from someone, it is why we must inevitably put into the society will all take from.

===

As for Romney himself. He is against national healthcare policy, so his opinions quite frankly do not matter, unless you want national healthcare policy.

Personally I'm of the camp that keeping conservative restrictions out of the federal government is a good idea since it means the states can decide. Federal action can come later once a consensus has been reached, rather than playing this all-or-nothing game we do now.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I think the appeal to personal responsibility actually would assist mandatory healthcare. While one argument is, "Why should I have to get insurance?," there's an easy retort: Why should I have to pay the extra costs for your lack of insurance?

You pay insurance if you want better healthcare than the rest of society. (UK anyway).

Hospitals will want to make a profit. Ergo they will raise prices on everyone else to cover the deficit. Those who have insurance and were responsible with finances will have to pay for those who did not. And the only way to eliminate this problem would be to make it so you can die on the operating table, and how many can honestly find that morally consiconable?

Hospitals want to make a profit? What about healing the sick?

Those who are bankrupted by lack of insurance will most likely end up taking welfare or charity payments that could have gone to someone else if they had simply had insurance. We can drastically reduce the amount of less fortunate individuals simply by mandating insurance, and save our social services and charitable donations for people who were genuinely screwed over by fate.

It's a fallacy to assume we're all perfectly isolated; we all have duties to society. It is why I cannot murder someone, it is why you cannot steal from someone, it is why we must inevitably put into the society will all take from.

===

As for Romney himself. He is against national healthcare policy, so his opinions quite frankly do not matter, unless you want national healthcare policy.

Personally I'm of the camp that keeping conservative restrictions out of the federal government is a good idea since it means the states can decide. Federal action can come later once a consensus has been reached, rather than playing this all-or-nothing game we do now.

tl;dr. Try universal healthcare.

 

[peter grimes]

Hospitals want to make a profit? What about healing the sick?

Here in the US, many hospitals are run as non-profit corporations. This doesn't mean that they can't take in more money in a year than they spend, but any excess money can only be used in certain regulated ways - reinvesting in capital improvements, expansions, etc.

Nowadays, more so than 25 years ago, there are for-profit hospitals owned by very large corporations. They do indeed seek a profit, which means they are trying to provide the bare minimum level of service required by law at the highest price they can squeeze out of the payers (HMOs, Insurance companies, Medicare & Medicaid).

Makes me sick.

 

[luiz]

Here in the US, many hospitals are run as non-profit corporations. This doesn't mean that they can't take in more money in a year than they spend, but any excess money can only be used in certain regulated ways - reinvesting in capital improvements, expansions, etc.

Nowadays, more so than 25 years ago, there are for-profit hospitals owned by very large corporations. They do indeed seek a profit, which means they are trying to provide the bare minimum level of service required by law at the highest price they can squeeze out of the payers (HMOs, Insurance companies, Medicare & Medicaid).

Makes me sick.

This makes no sense. Why can't hospitals make a profit but food producers can? We all need food, even more than we need hospitals. In cold countries people need heating in order to stay alive. Does this means that oil companies should not be able to make a profit?

Also, it's hypocrisy denounce hospital profits while ignoring that nothing is preventing a doctor working for a nonprofit to make say 500K dollars a year, and the general manager to make even more. You can have zero profits and still charge a fortune from the patients in order to make management rich.

It's a silly critique. You want public healthcare, fine. But there's no reason why for-profit hospitals shouldn't exist, unless you are against the whole concept of profit (Ie, you are a communist).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

This makes no sense. Why can't hospitals make a profit but food producers can? We all need food, even more than we need hospitals. In cold countries people need heating in order to stay alive. Does this means that oil companies should not be able to make a profit?

Also, it's hypocrisy denounce hospital profits while ignoring that nothing is preventing a doctor working for a nonprofit to make say 500K dollars a year, and the general manager to make even more. You can have zero profits and still charge a fortune from the patients in order to make management rich.

It's a silly critique. You want public healthcare, fine. But there's no reason why for-profit hospitals shouldn't exist, unless you are against the whole concept of profit (Ie, you are a communist).

So much to unpack here. I don't even know where to begin. The short-sighted comparison between food companies and hospitals. The claim of hypocrisy. The claim there are "no reasons". Or the claim that recognising the slings and arrows of a profit based hospital makes one against the complete concept of profit, which makes you a communist.

 

[Crezth]

This makes no sense. Why can't hospitals make a profit but food producers can? We all need food, even more than we need hospitals. In cold countries people need heating in order to stay alive. Does this means that oil companies should not be able to make a profit?

Also, it's hypocrisy denounce hospital profits while ignoring that nothing is preventing a doctor working for a nonprofit to make say 500K dollars a year, and the general manager to make even more. You can have zero profits and still charge a fortune from the patients in order to make management rich.

It's a silly critique. You want public healthcare, fine. But there's no reason why for-profit hospitals shouldn't exist, unless you are against the whole concept of profit (Ie, you are a communist).

Because, unlike profit in other industries, profit in healthcare does not raise the general value of the service provided nor does it make it better for the greater good. Profit in healthcare makes it more expensive, more litigious, and available to fewer people.

 

[luiz]

So much to unpack here. I don't even know where to begin. The short-sighted comparison between food companies and hospitals. The claim of hypocrisy. The claim there are "no reasons". Or the claim that recognising the slings and arrows of a profit based hospital makes one against the complete concept of profit, which makes you a communist.

Then please begin. Why can some vital sectors (and I define "vital" as "necessary for human survival") make a profit but others not? Why accept charging patients a lot to pay huge amounts to doctors and managers but not to make a profit for the controlling corporation?

I didn't say anything about "recognizing slings and arrows of a profit based hospital". I questioned how can one be opposed to hospitals being allowed to make a profit without being opposed to the concept of profit in general.

 

[luiz]

Because, unlike profit in other industries, profit in healthcare does not raise the general value of the service provided nor does it make it better for the greater good. Profit in healthcare makes it more expensive, more litigious, and available to fewer people.

That's a tall claim to prove, because it's completely false.

Profit in the broad healthcare industry has allowed us to make tremendous advances in sophisticated treatments of diseases such as cancer.

 

[Leoreth]

In many healthcare situations there doesn't even exist a proper market for hospitals.

 

[luiz]

In many healthcare situations there doesn't even exist a proper market for hospitals.

So what?
Lets not shift the discussion. I am not claiming there is no place for a public healthcare system. I am not denying there might be problems with the quality and cost of the service provided by private hospitals. I am not even claiming they are inherently more efficient than their public counterparts.

I am just questioning the moral opposition of profit in hospitals but not in other vital sectors.

 

[Crezth]

That's a tall claim to prove, because it's completely false.

Profit in the broad healthcare industry has allowed us to make tremendous advances in sophisticated treatments of diseases such as cancer.

I'm talking on a case basis in terms of direct patient care. You can have your tremendous advancements in sophisticated treatments of whatever, those are not necessarily predicated on a system that benefits off of people's not getting medical care.

Or do you have some other reason why the US' healthcare is consistently ranked just barely above Cuba's, and why it's the most expensive on a per-capita basis?

 

[luiz]

I'm talking on a case basis in terms of direct patient care. You can have your tremendous advancements in sophisticated treatments of whatever, those are not necessarily predicated on a system that benefits off of people's not getting medical care.

Or do you have some other reason why the US' healthcare is consistently ranked just barely above Cuba's, and why it's the most expensive on a per-capita basis?

I am not arguing about the efficiency of any system, I am arguing that there's nothing any more immoral in profit in healthcare than in many other sectors. You seem not be replying to my post at all.

I will say, though, that the US healthcare industry is by far the most innovative in the world, and the whole planet benefits from advances that are discovered there. The US is the place where sick canadian ministers go for their treatment, after all.

 

[El_Machinae]

Honestly, I don't mind profits. My tongue clucking is based entirely upon how those profits are spent.

I think the main intuition about why people 'mind' profits from hospitals but not from food suppliers is that we perceive that there's a lot more competition and a lot less (de facto) coercion in food delivery. We rarely hear about people being bankrupted by food bills, for example. We associate 'greed' with that bankruptcy, instead of having poor access to good planning. Bad decisions regarding food purchases are survivable and give ample feedback. Bad decisions regarding healthcare are brutal and sudden

 

[Crezth]

I am not arguing about the efficiency of any system, I am arguing that there's nothing any more immoral in profit in healthcare than in many other sectors. You seem not be replying to my post at all.

I am arguing that efficiency alone is a basis for rejecting profit in healthcare. Why can't efficiency be a moral basis?

I will say, though, that the US healthcare industry is by far the most innovative in the world, and the whole planet benefits from advances that are discovered there. The US is the place where sick canadian ministers go for their treatment, after all.

It is true that the US healthcare system benefits the upper class more, no doubt that is why they seek to keep it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Keep in mind that, given NAFTA, rich Canadians going to the US for medical therapy is no more special than rich New Yorkers going to California for medical therapy. It's the nature of specialised services, and open borders. The rich New Yorker decides he's underserved by NY healthcare systems, and spends his own money to travel and get treatment.

 

[Leoreth]

So what?
Lets not shift the discussion.

Oh, but that's an integral part of the discussion. If you argue that striving for profit produces better care for their patients, then it's only true if hospitals are competing.

 

[peter grimes]

I am arguing that there's nothing any more immoral in profit in healthcare than in many other sectors. You seem not be replying to my post at all.

But with it's usually the case that the customer / client / patient doesn't have a choice as to which hospital to do business with. In most places in the US, (outside of major cities), there is only 1 hospital in the area. Any other hospital may be unreasonably far away. In fact, there are millions of people who live more than an hour away from a hospital already.

This is not an area where profit acts like grease in the gears, making the machine work better. It's quite the opposite. Which is why your comparison with food production / delivery fails. Profit in the food distribution chain brings more food to the consumer at a cheap price.

Also, the profit-driven area isn't where medical innovation comes from. That comes from University and government research programs. Pharmaceutical research is also very reliant on public funding.

 

[luiz]

I am arguing that efficiency alone is a basis for rejecting profit in healthcare. Why can't efficiency be a moral basis?

Because the existence of for profit healthcare does not stops the existence of the supposedly more efficient public healthcare. Many (most?) countries have both. So the moral case here is non-existing.

It is true that the US healthcare system benefits the upper class more, no doubt that is why they seek to keep it.

It benefits everyone in the long run, the rich more in the short run. My dad benefited from techniques and drugs developed in the US while undergoing an operation in Brazil. The doctor responsible for his procedure had nearly daily exchanges with american institutions. Anyone who denies the fantastic innovation of American healthcare is completely ignorant on the subject.

Oh, but that's an integral part of the discussion. If you argue that striving for profit produces better care for their patients, then it's only true if hospitals are competing.

But that's not what I am arguing.

But with it's usually the case that the customer / client / patient doesn't have a choice as to which hospital to do business with. In most places in the US, (outside of major cities), there is only 1 hospital in the area. Any other hospital may be unreasonably far away. In fact, there are millions of people who live more than an hour away from a hospital already.

This is not an area where profit acts like grease in the gears, making the machine work better. It's quite the opposite. Which is why your comparison with food production / delivery fails. Profit in the food distribution chain brings more food to the consumer at a cheap price.

I don't see how the existence of for-profit hospitals prevents the emergence of non-profits or public hospitals. The reverse would be more logical.

If there's only one hospital in the area and it happens to be a for-profit, that seems to prove the point that they serve a good purpose. If it were not for that hospital there would be no hospital in said region. And if there's plenty of demand in the region, nothing is stopping the emergence of a public or non-profit additional hospital.

Also, the profit-driven area isn't where medical innovation comes from. That comes from University and government research programs. Pharmaceutical research is also very reliant on public funding.

There's public funding, yes, but pharmaceutical companies are private giants by and large market funded. You might ask yourself why most medical innovation comes from the US and not any other country.