China unveils massive health care plan.

[ccbatson]

Many things...most likely opportunity costs, loss of employment, COBRA payments, noncovered medical needs, and on, and on. The copays are the least of the worries.

[ccbatson]

Insurance companies always work out copays if the subscriber has a hard time with them. Via a payment plan, or waivers. People do not go bankrupt from the copays [[once again).

[d.mcc]

Insurance companies always work out copays if the subscriber has a hard time with them. Via a payment plan, or waivers. People do not go bankrupt from the copays [[once again).

False...they certainly do, I have personal experience with such cases. And then, try getting insured again after the fact for a decent amount. Think before you open your mouth. Or did your mother never teach you that?

[ccbatson]

I didn't not make the original claim, the burden of proof falls to those who did.

Yes, it is true that getting insurance after allowing a lapse will garner exclusions based on pre existing conditions. Don't lapse is the lesson there.

[rid0617]

Some are going to get a cheaper price [[as in India on their black market).

The prices are high here because of partial socialization [[Medicare/Medicaid).

The WHO survey was/is, first a survey, and second weak as well as biased.

Try this litmus test: You have an elevated Alkaline Phosphatase on screening by your PCP because you have been fatigued, do you:

a. Go to Canada and wait several months for follow up test?
b. Go to Europe and, as in Canada, wait, but then find that you are ineligible for the workup?
c. Go to Cuba with Michael Moore and have a "Doctor" that you are unsure of being a Doctor take over with some voodoo?
d. Go to Russia and wait at the end of the fast food drive through for your Doctor to finish his/her shift to take care of it?
e. Stay here in the US and receive good [[but not free) care in a timely fashion?

Or do without and hope it don't kill you because you can't afford insurance, make too much for medicaid and have no cash because your job was outsourced to India.

[ccbatson]

The workup, paid for privately, and done efficiently, would cost much less than 1000 dollars. Depending on the findings, treatment could cost much much more. However, there is the gamble in risk in choosing to forgo the cost of insurance.

If it turned out to be serious, and you had no choice but a, b, c, or d...it will have been too late [[and likely a terminal condition). So what choice is left? Remember, these are the only choices available...the United states health care system as it exists today will not be an option in this scenario, and it is unlikely that a do over would be possible.

[ccbatson]

All relative...average new car=30K, average running used car=5-6K, average TV=500 dollars. The cost of a person's health [[and possibly their life)=1K...A BARGAIN.

[oladub]

Back to China-

China has decided that there are better things to do with its accumulated dollars than invest them in US treasuries. Besides investing in healthcare, China is purchasing commodities around the world, and has a stimulus package that actually emphasizes infrastructure improvements. Just one high speed train will cost China $24B - almost twice what Obama has budgeted for all high speed rail improvements.

The bad news for the US is that without China purchasing treasuries, our inflationary reckoning will happen sooner making it more difficult to ever reform our own healthcare program.

[oladub]

Except there is no inflation.

I used future tense as it is almost inevitable if China and other nations stop using dollars as a reserve currency. All those dollars will come home and flood the markets along with all the dollars the Fed is printing and even buying treeasuries with for lack of other buyers. It might just be me but I think I do detect rising prices in the grocery store, doctors office, tax envelopes and some other places.

The Bush/Obama/bankers economic plan will only work if China cooperates. China has decided that there are better investments than US treasuries. Its all over for the dollar.

[Detroitej72]

We all better start buying up gold!!!

[rb336]

I didn't not make the original claim, the burden of proof falls to those who did.

Yes, it is true that getting insurance after allowing a lapse will garner exclusions based on pre existing conditions. Don't lapse is the lesson there.

when an original claim HAS been backed up by a fairly large amount of proof, as this has, it then is up to those contradicting the claim to provide proof. Basic science, bats. basic forensics

[ccbatson]

What proof? The vague anecdotal story of one person's financial problems not accounting for any confounding factors?

[Detroitej72]

What proof? The vague anecdotal story of one person's financial problems not accounting for any confounding factors?

So what do you propose as a solution to all who cannot afford their own healthcare, just sit back and wait to die?

[ccbatson]

False premise...most can afford quality healthcare based on their needs. As an example, a 35 year old man would normal expect to spend no more than 500 dollars a year for garden variety common occurances and check-ups/preventative medicine.

[Stosh]

False premise...most can afford quality healthcare based on their needs. As an example, a 35 year old man would normal expect to spend no more than 500 dollars a year for garden variety common occurances and check-ups/preventative medicine.

And yet a single occurance of a serious illness that requires hospitalization will bankrupt him if he has no insurance. No job? How then does this man afford that medical insurance?

[Detroitej72]

False premise...most can afford quality healthcare based on their needs. As an example, a 35 year old man would normal expect to spend no more than 500 dollars a year for garden variety common occurances and check-ups/preventative medicine.

I'm not sure where you pulled those numbers from. Two years ago, I was 35, and in between coverage. I shopped around and found nothing close to that, the closest I found was about $450/ month for hospitalization only with a $500 co-pay to boot.

[Stosh]

I'm not sure where you pulled those numbers from. Two years ago, I was 35, and in between coverage. I shopped around and found nothing close to that, the closest I found was about $450/ month for hospitalization only with a $500 co-pay to boot.

He's just talking about walking around see the doctor health care. Not coverages.

[ccbatson]

That is what I was referring to....and it is also where we are headed by way of socialized medicine crippling the mainstream system and access to it...leaving people the choice of indefinite waiting or a few dollars for care now.

[Detroitej72]

Maybe we should hold all those doctors accountable for the high price of medicine, just like the neo-cons hold labor responsible for all the auto companies ills.

By the way, you never answered my question, have you no sourse, or was that a random number you threw out?

[ccbatson]

European socialist countries are very much in decline. One measurable indicator is the birth rates [[below replacement levels)...check them out.

[mjs]

A quick google search found a 2005 article in the Washington Post where Harvard Medical School says that half of bankruptcies are from medical bills and that 3/4 of those had medical insurance at the onset. 56% owned a home and 56% attended college. Counting dependants, it says the 730,000 filings per year affect $2 Million people per year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Feb8.html

If you prefer to use only Fox for your news, they report some of the same basic facts, but they spread little pieces out across numerous stories and I didn't want to cite them all so I'll just list the one that gets closest to a report. I couldn't find Fox News refuting that most bankruptcies are medical or supporting that insurance is a big factor in avoiding medical bankruptcy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146157,00.html

[ccbatson]

As you are an amateur Slimshady, I will graciously point out that the birth rate that I refffered to was for Europe [[not Sweden). The source you quoted put Sweden at the third highest IN EUROPE, and exceeding replacement rates... prior to 1993, when the results were published. Look at the trends, and something a bit more current than 15 years ago next time.

Not a bad try, still very easy to debunk though.

[ccbatson]

Jumped from?? Too??? Conveniently absent statistics.

http://www.indexmundi.com/sweden/birth_rate.html

http://reason.com/news/show/126855.html

http://www.forsakringskassan.se/file...df/sfr0815.pdf

About 1.8, with a replacement level of 2.1 needed.

Oops, selective research bother you much Slim?

[ccbatson]

It is a relative number. Compared to the rest of Europe, it is a success. However, given that the rest of Europe is rapidly depopulating and that, at 1.8 for a peak, Sweden is less rapidly depopulating, the news is not good at all.

Given the global economy, it will get worse for them as well.

Here is your error by an analogy. John Smith is doing fantastically with his alcoholism....he is down from 2 quarts of vodka a day, to 2 pints. He will still be dead in under a year given his cirrhosis, but, isn't that wonderful? Do you think he will get a liver transplant now that he is down too 2 pints a day?

[Detroitej72]

It is a relative number. Compared to the rest of Europe, it is a success. However, given that the rest of Europe is rapidly depopulating and that, at 1.8 for a peak, Sweden is less rapidly depopulating, the news is not good at all.

Again, this has nothing to do with health care.

This is a classic example of the tactics the right uses when they have no argument, throw out irrelevant information.