Sovereign debt resolution

[Core Imposter]

So why do other countries have a smaller healthcare budget as per capita than the USA if its all the gubbermint's fault?

I don't know. It is statistics. There can be a multitude of differences in the demographic profiles that lead to the per capita result. Differences in treatment regimens. Lots of apples and oranges have to be shoved into the same box to make such comparisons.

If we calculated the numbers for all 50 individual states in the US I'd bet you would see a very wide outcome too. Its not very instructive and doesn't prove anything. I could quote the correlation/causation thing here.

But I will give up one point. You can get some pretty clear efficiencies in a command economy but you have to give something back. Liberty being chief among the causualties. Hitler did an excellant job of running the trains. Do you really want a ticket.

I've been sick. Its not pleasant. It's not an easy thing to go through surgeries and invasive treatments. You want and need to have a good relationship with your doctors and care providers. I don't want to be forced, in my most vunerable moments, to be thrust into the hands of my enemies, at the mercy of the Federals, in truth, I might choose no treatment and just take my chances. Gonna die anyway so why not retain some dignity.

 

[Borachio]

Hitler did an excellant job of running the trains.

I sure ain't no historian, but do you want to bet? Anyway, I thought it was Mussolini who had the train reputation.

 

[Crezth]

He was making an oblique reference to the Holocaust because he has class like a penguin in a monocle.

 

[Leoreth]

No, Mussolini was the organic fuel guy.

 

[Core Imposter]

Just a personal antedote, I was hospitalized not that long ago and after recieving blood transfusions I was presented with a host of humiliating impositions including lectures from a nurse who couldn't speak English and several huffy administrators. For no particular reason I was denied the right to move about and threatened in various ways. I was then pressured to sign several release forms absolving the hospital from the consequences of a whole host of actions I had not taken. Just my complaint about wanting to walk down the hall had turned the entire place upside down. Staff became outright hostile to me. This went on till about 3am.

Fed up, I escaped. Had to bluster my way past two nurses and a security guard intent on stopping me. Crashed through a fire door having other exits blocked. Walked miles in the cold to find a phone to call for a ride.

My doctor was enraged. He had put no restriction on my movement. Staff had not called to consult him during this assault on my person. I asked him why this had happened. He explained that the hospitals have their own rules and regulations designed to protect them against litigation and to conform with emerging Federal guidelines.

With increasing Federal influence hospitals are morphing into concentration camps. We don't want to go there.

 

[WindFish]

MisterCooper, as an economist are you familiar with the concept of inelastic demand?

Do you accept that healthcare is an inelastic demand and the reason that other governments do it cheaper is because they force the health insurers to play by their rules or run the healthcare system?

The reason why healthcare is so expensive is because of the precious free market and the fact they worked out they could charge outrageous fees is because people need healthcare.

 

[Borachio]

Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time either.

Well, blow me down! That's another myth exploded. My world is beginning to fall apart.


Did I say "beginning"?

 

[Core Imposter]

MisterCooper, as an economist are you familiar with the concept of inelastic demand?

Do you accept that healthcare is an inelastic demand and the reason that other governments do it cheaper is because they force the health insurers to play by their rules or run the healthcare system?

The reason why healthcare is so expensive is because of the precious free market and the fact they worked out they could charge outrageous fees is because people need healthcare.

You have it absolutely backwards. The reason why healthcare is so expensive is because of the fact that healthcare providers have worked out they could charge outrageous fees because liberal big government has succesfully defined healthcare as a service that the people are entitled to, thus canceling out competion. The market is not free to act. It is hopelessly distorted.

If you fairly evaluate the factors that determine the inelasticity of demand you cannot possibily look past the role that government dictates have contributed.

 

[Core Imposter]

And I am not an economist. Nor alchemist, conman, politician or fraud.

 

[WindFish]

You have it absolutely backwards. The reason why healthcare is so expensive is because of the fact that healthcare providers have worked out they could charge outrageous fees because liberal big government has succesfully defined healthcare as a service that the people are entitled to, thus canceling out competion. The market is not free to act. It is hopelessly distorted.

Ofc people are entited to healthcare, in fact a modern economy can't function if people are getting sick

Are you honestly that heartless that you would rather keep all your money that to help contribute to society?

Again, other countries have bigger liberaler goverments than your small and very conservative US gubbermint yet they dont pay as much.

But dont be absurd, the US healthcare insurer market is very free to act, thats why the premiums are too damm high.

If you fairly evaluate the factors that determine the inelasticity of demand you cannot possibily look past the role that government dictates have contributed.

What role?

The USA government pays market rate for Medicare and Medicaid.

 

[Cutlass]

Actually, I'll agree with you partially on tort reform.

Why? As demonstrated above, there's no money to be saved there. "Defensive medicine" is a myth. And at most 0.5% of total health care costs could be shifted from doctors who screwed up or recklessly harmed people onto their victims. What the tort reform movement really is is rent seeking by those who want to outlaw personal responsibility.

MC's other arguments would also make the system worse. Like in many other areas, the federal government just happens to be the most efficient player in the game when it comes to health care. So if you want to increase efficiency, then it is the feds you want running it, and remove all the other players. As for the other, that just excluded 10s of millions of Americans from the opportunity to see doctors while being a vast welfare benefit for insurance companies. No good is even intended to come of it.

 

[Core Imposter]

I am not giving the free market/capitalists/global freeetraders a free pass in all of this. I am not a sycophant. The mad rush to engage in gobal commerce had, irrespective of its benefits, the cost and conseqence of decimating domestic manufacturing and the middle class with it. Thus, with large segments of the population suddenly unable to shoulder the costs of health care, government stepped in and tried to compensate with ever larger Federal programs and more and more Federal dollars which has quite predictably fed the bubble in health care costs.

As with most of our misery, the government is the problem, not the solution.

 

[WindFish]

A quote from another forum

Yeah, charity exists because SOME people are willing to donate. Welfare exists because most aren't.

 

[WindFish]

I am not giving the free market/capitalists/global freeetraders a free pass in all of this.

You lying smeghead, you've been practically fellatioing the free market since I arrived here. You would like nothing more than to see Atlas Shrugged come true. Guess what, I hope you don't get old,young,poor or sick because you would so screwed.

I am not a sycophant. The mad rush to engage in gobal commerce had, irrespective of its benefits, the cost and conseqence of decimating domestic manufacturing and the middle class with it.

So why are you so pro laissez-faire then?

Thus, with large segments of the population suddenly unable to shoulder the costs of health care, government stepped in and tried to compensate with ever larger Federal programs and more and more Federal dollars which has quite predictably fed the bubble in health care costs.

You're actually right about that. What they should have done was dismantle the health insurance industry and ran the US healthcare system as a single payer.

As with most of our misery, the government that has sold out to corporate interests is the problem, not the solution.

FTFY

 

[El_Machinae]

There is costs being driven by an aging population. And that is going to be similar in developed nations with similar demographics. However the US is in a unique position of having a horribly inefficient system outside of medical and demographic trends. Depending on who's numbers you want to look at, we're pushing at 17-18% of GDP, and that is for outcomes worse than nations that are spending less than 10% of GDP.

The two choices are to let the costs remain out of control, and simply exclude more and more people from health services until some equilibrium is reached, or take more control and squeeze out the waste, fraud, and abuse. Which, contrary to political rhetoric, is primarily on the side of doctors and hospitals.

That's true when discussing healthcare costs in general, but the majority of the Federal portion is medicare, right? I'm under the impression that Medicare is reasonably efficient compared to the private market.

 

[Cutlass]

I am not giving the free market/capitalists/global freeetraders a free pass in all of this. I am not a sycophant. The mad rush to engage in gobal commerce had, irrespective of its benefits, the cost and conseqence of decimating domestic manufacturing and the middle class with it. Thus, with large segments of the population suddenly unable to shoulder the costs of health care, government stepped in and tried to compensate with ever larger Federal programs and more and more Federal dollars which has quite predictably fed the bubble in health care costs.

As with most of our misery, the government is the problem, not the solution.

So we should just make the United States a third world country and let innocent people die because the greedy and selfish don't give a crap about the country? The problem was not caused by the government. The problem was caused by the private sector. The extent to which the problem has been fixed at all, the government did it.

This entire debate is nothing more than a demand for free ponies by the rich and selfish.

 

[Cutlass]

That's true when discussing healthcare costs in general, but the majority of the Federal portion is medicare, right? I'm under the impression that Medicare is reasonably efficient compared to the private market.

Estimates of Medicare overhead costs range from 1/3 the costs of private health insurance to 1/10 the costs. Now neither is a direct provider of health services, just different forms of insurance. So it is by far the most efficient provider of health insurance in the country, and the low hanging fruit in the health sector of the economy is the excessive costs of the health insurers. This is important to note in the Ryan voucher plan: In addition to all other considerations on a voucher plan, it has to be understood that vouchers would increase administrative costs from 3x to 10x what they are under Medicare. And that means that much less money to provide health services.

 

[Farm Boy]

Why? As demonstrated above, there's no money to be saved there. "Defensive medicine" is a myth. And at most 0.5% of total health care costs could be shifted from doctors who screwed up or recklessly harmed people onto their victims. What the tort reform movement really is is rent seeking by those who want to outlaw personal responsibility.

MC's other arguments would also make the system worse. Like in many other areas, the federal government just happens to be the most efficient player in the game when it comes to health care. So if you want to increase efficiency, then it is the feds you want running it, and remove all the other players. As for the other, that just excluded 10s of millions of Americans from the opportunity to see doctors while being a vast welfare benefit for insurance companies. No good is even intended to come of it.

Partially agree. Partially partially partially! With one point. And I would only support caps on "pain and suffering" liability. I wouldn't support limits on putative punishment. And heavens I'm not saying this would move the whole ship, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make smaller changes to the system when they may be warranted.

 

[Core Imposter]

The problem with having a conversation here is that people just fill in the blanks in what they actually know about other's positions with their own prejudiced sterotypical images of them.

The other problem with having a conversation here is that people think in different ways. We see things in different ways. We define and solve problems in different ways.

And its just not limited to conversations here. Take Romney's assertion that he is going to cut taxes twenty percent, offset it with changes in the tax code and with growth, it will reduce the deficit.

Obama rejects that and offers math as proof. Demands that Romney use liberal equations to solve the problem.

But what Romney is proposing could work. It could work if we allow ourselves to move outside the box in which we have trapped ourselves.

However it is stupid to think that even if it does work that their wouldn't be casualites. Market forces always destroy someone somewhere. Is that a reason not to go there? No, because command economies have their own costs. We have zillions of casualties right here in America. Walking dead welfare zombies wandering hopelessly trapped and entangled under the saftey net that has been deployed over their heads denying them the freedom to even make the attempt to either succeed or to fail.

 

[Cutlass]

Partially agree. Partially partially partially! With one point. And I would only support caps on "pain and suffering" liability. I wouldn't support limits on putative punishment. And heavens I'm not saying this would move the whole ship, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make smaller changes to the system when they may be warranted.

You have to consider the danger of the door you are opening. While pain and suffering are indeed intangible, you have to understand that in most respects everything in the requested and awarded settlement are also intangibles. The problem comes through that if you roll back the settlements too much, then the accused has no incentive to modify their behavior. The famous McDonalds coffee case was not a large settlement because they got an over sympathetic jury, but because it was shown that McDonalds knew that they were hurting people repeatedly, and chose to continue to do so rather than incur the cost of not hurting people.

The settlements have to be substantial enough not just to compensate victims, but to change the behavior of the victimizers. Otherwise the system fails.