China unveils massive health care plan.

[ccbatson]

You can't legally waive liability and practice medicine. It is window dressing at best giving a false sense of security. That kind of mistrust up front invites suits

[oladub]

rb, Although Obama campaigned that his health care plan would save the average American family $2,500/year, his administration now claims it will cost an extra $50B/year. Economists are predicting it will cost up to $1.5T over ten years. Actually, just $1T is what its promoters said on CNN tonight. Medicare was supposed to be much less expensive than it has turned out. It continues to be underfunded and either tax increases or Medicare cuts are forthcoming. I suggest funding Medicare before opening up a new program.

"Today’s proposals for a universal national health-care policy typically divide into either a government-run "single-payer" system like Canada’s or a "play or pay" scheme that would require employers to provide health insurance for every worker or pay a payroll tax into a government insurance program. Advocates of such policies claim these programs won’t cost much because significant savings can be had through cost containment and other efficiencies of scale. The experience of 25 years of Medicare says otherwise.

The cost of Medicare is a good place to begin. At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 [[a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly "conservative" estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion" -Reason online




mjs, I did read about a Tennessee clinic that offered half price care in return for waivering the option of lawsuits. Sounds like the best of two worlds if some cash free clinics cut costs in half and don't require a waiver of liability. You would only pay half as much and still be able to sue for fun and profit.

[ccbatson]

They don't hold up in court. You can't waive malpractice

[mjs]

I never thought I'd say this, but ccbatson is right.

Nobody can sue for fun and profit. What do you base this crap on? Go to a court house, talk to a few attorneys, quit taking what you see in frickin TV dramas as reality. Its not the real world. I hate those damned shows because people like you think they're possible. Why do you have such disdain for a jury of your peers? If you sue for medical malpractice, you have meet a statutory requirement of serious injury. If you think trading your ability to have sex for a new car is fun and profitable, you need a shrink. The big money cases involve somebody that has a diminished lifestyle. If you think it would be fun to have a doctor make a mistake so you can avoid working by becoming paraplegic or you can get your car modified to accommodate your missing limb, you have some real issues. You're spitting in the face of the vast majority of the lawsuit victors who would be overwhelmed for any opportunity to trade the money they got for the things they lost.

This is a thread on health insurance. I'm done addressing your unbelievable ignorance on the subject of malpractice litigation and its affect on health care costs.

[ccbatson]

Although legitimate claims don't validate the frivolous stuff either

[rb336]

The cost of Medicare is a good place to begin. At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 [[a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly "conservative" estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion" -Reason online

Just adjusting for inflation, that 12 billion would equal around 78 billion. when you consider that medical costs have skyrocketed compared to overall inflation rates over the last quarter century, medicare actually comes off as a bargain

[oladub]

rb, The Reason article noted that the quadrupling in price of Medicare was including inflation. The federal government's own CPI index says that the CPI has increased 5.63 times between January 1970 and April 2009. Medicare costs have increased about 70 times in the same time period. Ooops. Not to worry. President Obama's corporatist health care proposal isn't expected to cost more than an extra $1.5T.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/C..._currentPage=0

As to your comment that no one sues for fun and profit, just look back at this thread in which the idiot McDonald's lady and revenge were mentioned. I've read that the U.S. has 20 times as many lawyers, per capita, as Japan but Japan produces more engineers per capita. What is Japan missing? The poor Canadians don't make as much money suing doctors for malpractice and the Japanese hardly have any lawyers to sue doctors.Yet both countries have longer life expectancies than the U.S.. Canadians and the Japanese also seem to be "unbelievable ignorance on the subject of malpractice litigation and its affect on health care costs". Its a crying shame that they can't also have high health care costs and more malpractice litigation. On the other hand, maybe some Porkulus money could still be diverted to retrain lawyers to engineer sellable cars.

[rb336]

a non-government figure i saw was over 8, so i sorta split the difference. I think i agree with you on this, for the most part. Corporate health care systems have gone up how many percent in the last few years?

i want dennis' plan

[mjs]

I once heard that Marilyn Manson is the kid that played Paul on the Wonders Years and that Elvis lives in Kalamazoo. Who cares what you once heard from a friend's ex-boyfriend's second cousin? I care more about why you think a jury of your peers can't come to the right decision.

Confirm you claims. My research says you're just making up statistics. I even know the sources of the statistics I found and they are not talking about litigation attorneys. The high number of DC attorneys they cite are legal advisors in the government and lobbyists and politicians. Their source even counts me as an attorney and I haven't touched a legal document in over three years. I'm licensed if a friend needs something or if I want an attorney job again and thats about where it ends. I agree that we can use more engineers. Its why I've been getting paid as an engineer for those last three years. But, having spent years in the courtroom and having no personal gain in the outcome of any cases, I can assure you the system works.

http://www.averyindex.com/lawyers_per_capita.php
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_count...ers_per_capita
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...7594_db039.htm

[Linda from Detroit]

For those that don't believe copays can cause bankruptcy: Try being a disabled vet who uses the VA system of "sit and wait...maybe we'll take care of you" for himself and has a spouse and/or child that is stuck in CHAMPVA. There is a 3,000 cat cap per year on CHAMPVA. Not too horrible if the spouse/child is able to work...if not, because of being too ill you are in serious trouble. The vet isn't allowed to make even a dime on a paper route or the dependent loses the coverage. Many docs won't accept the CHAMPVA. So, not only do you often get no or crappy health care, you are paying a bit under $300 a month on a fixed income in order to get it. Then lets look at the horrible price increases in gas, etc last year....do you still doubt that some went bankrupt because of the situation? Don't doubt it, I know of several families like that where it happened. If that is what is given to totally disabled vets and their families, do you really think you and your family will have it better with the governments fingers in the health care pie?

[oladub]

mjs, Your second link says,
"Among the Top 7 "lawyerly countries" listed above, the US has about 50% of the lawyers, with 37 percent of the population of this group. There is a myth that the US has seventy percent of the world's lawyers, but the numbers above show that this is wrong."

No, the 'numbers above' show that of the "Top 7 "lawyerly countries"", the United States leads in the number of attorneys per capita. The average per capita of lawyers in the rest of the world is , by definition , even lower. Even France , the 7th most lawyerly country in the world, has only one-fifth the number of lawyers, per capita, as the US.

I never said anything about juries of peers not being able to come the 'right ' decision. Sometimes the laws they are required to enforce are a bit ditsy though. Also, Los Angeles juries, in particular, seem to think that 'billion' is almost the as a 'million'. I wonder about that. Maybe public schools should teach math too. Of course, that isn't as bad as politicians who confuse 'billion' with 'trillion'.

rb, Medicare is a bargain as long as can stick the next generation with its cost.

[rb336]

rb, Medicare is a bargain as long as can stick the next generation with its cost.

it is far cheaper and more efficient than the current corporate plans

[ccbatson]

You omitted my second paragraph which nullifies your point Rb. Too bad it wasn't distant from your reply so readers couldn't easily look up one post and see the error of your selective and out of context ploy.

[mjs]

. . . of the "Top 7 "lawyerly countries"", the United States leads in the number of attorneys per capita. . . Even France , the 7th most lawyerly country in the world, has only one-fifth the number of lawyers, per capita, as the US.

I told you most American attorneys do not become involved in medical malpractice, torts, or even appearing in court. American attorneys do a much wider range of work than other countries. Since it most certainly does not show the US has more medical malpractice attorneys or even more tort attorneys, it definently does not support your claims of excess medical malpractice litigation. I told you that situations where individuals and insurance companies don't have to pay for mistakes leads to less ability to file a claim.

Both the GAO and OCB have found medical malpractice is not a significant health care cost or a significant reason for the rise in medical malpractice insurance premiums. Why do you insist you know more than non-partisan government entities that perform accounting for a living? They say less than 2% of total health care costs.

http://www.usaction.org/site/pp.asp.179.html
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/49xx/doc4...alpractice.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03836.pdf

I never said anything about juries of peers not being able to come the 'right ' decision. Sometimes the laws they are required to enforce are a bit ditsy though.

Cite the law outside of California that you refer to. In saying there's alot of lawsuits, you have to be saying Plaintiffs sue and win. It doesn't make sense for an attorney to pay thousands to hundreds of thousands in costs just to lose. Juries decide if a Plaintiff wins. Specifically, they determine if the defendant failed to exercise a reasonable standard of care. I swear to god I'm not making it up, that is the question they are asked. If they say the doctor and hospital exercised reasonable care, even if they believe a tragedy happened, even if they feel sympathy for a paraplegic, even if they award an amount, even if they feel the insurance company can afford to pay, the Judge directs that the Plaintiff gets zero.

I realize thats not what they said on "The Practice", but I can't think of one time I saw the law or the ethics standards shown on "The Practice" to be correct. The reason they kept getting burned on their bending of their ethics was the exact reason they would get disbarred for practicing like they did.

[mjs]

A surgeon gets on a plane and asks the passenger next to him what he does for a living. When the passenger replies he's an attorney, the surgeon rolls his eyes and sighs. So, the attorney gets up and offers to buy the guy a drink as a peace offering. However, while the attorney is getting the drink, the surgeon spits in the attorney's shoes. At the end of the flight, the attorney puts his shoes back on and upon realizing what happened shouts out, "When is all of this going to end? This spitting in the shoes and pissing in the drinks!"

[ccbatson]

Medicare is no bargain...NOW..it is bleeding money and in the red...NOW. The future estimated obligations are staggering and enough to take down the entire economy unless, as it will happen, severe cuts in benefits are rapidly put in place AND unheard of tax hikes are put in place. All for naught as the end point, and even the time frame will be unchanged....62 Trillion in debt over 25 years [[by current and conservative estimates) JUST TO MEDICARE. The patient is dead, we just refuse to accept that and continue to keep it on life support, even though it will infect the rest of the economy to do so. Social security is not far behind it and of a similar scale.

All entitlements follow this path.

[Lorax]

Alot of Battflappin' going on here-

China will have a better system in a shorter length of time than we will, guaranteed.

They don't have the constant lobbying efforts of billion dollar drug/pharmaceutical companies greasing the path to favorable legislation.

Why do you think single payer health care is "off the table" right now?

The hill is too high to climb, and even with healthcare reform, it will be a pallid shadow of what it could be with a single payer system, which we already have with Medicare, but Washington is too in love with Bill Frist's United Health Care-

Fristing America One Patient at a Time!

[ccbatson]

Single payer is off the table? Says who? Obama is likely to get it through which will further the populaces' misery exponentially.

China will have a better system? Communist China? Where it is illegal to have more than 1 child? Where wages are so low that they are irresistible to businesses to exploit? Where they don't have plumbing and have dirt floors for hundreds of millions of people?

[Lorax]

Obama said single payer is off the table.

Perhaps you should "payer" attention to the administration's dialogue.

The big pharma lobby was prominent in the meetings held thus far, and will figure prominently in any new legislation, meaning, we will not have a Medicare sponsored single payer system, and China will have the kind of coverage only a Communist society can provide.

Taking the Bill Frists of the world out of the equation is the only way to a single payer system.

Perhaps you should read what Dennis Kucinich has written on the subject- the best and most comprehensive of all the plans out there.

[ccbatson]

Medicare insures all those over 65...However, since our wise government never tied the funding to the utilization, the concept of profitability is rendered moot. If they cut off the delivery of all services tomorrow, they would still be in financial trouble because it is all lumped together in the budget. No specific entitlements are "funded" individually.

[ccbatson]

Obama lies as much as Clinton, but is more elegant about it [[elegant being the nice way of putting it...sneaky/cryptic, and manipulative are more accurate).

[rb336]

Medicare is no bargain...NOW..it is bleeding money and in the red...NOW. .

please provide a link to actual sources to back this up

[jams]

Obama lies as much as Clinton, but is more elegant about it [[elegant being the nice way of putting it...sneaky/cryptic, and manipulative are more accurate).

From another thread:

ccbatson | Today, 12:14 AM | Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 1,411 #24


My G-d the libs here have been thoroughly brainwashed...the man is out of office, and you still talk about his personality and style as if he were still President.

We on the right occasionally harken back and criticise THE POLICIES of former liberals as they relate to current conditions, a much more effective style of debate.

Draw your own conclusion.

[Lorax]

From another thread:


Draw your own conclusion.

Exposing Batcrap's hypocricy: Priceless.

[ccbatson]

Yep...you are definitely guilty of name calling Lorax.