man it doesn't require immersion in impersonal and general statistics, it just requires awareness of a simple principle: just because something is true for me (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't mean it has to be true for you.Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Libertarianism is supposed to be about honoring the individual, and recognizing the myriad that exists in its diversity.
Some people are just narcissists who want to call everything individualism. Maybe that's the definition of shallow greed?
Corporacracy is individualism to the extreme.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Public roads increase the infrastructure. I’m not an anarchist, I’m for limited government. As far as your electricity comment, and your internet comment, while everyeone already has access to the internet for free (via the public library), I’m actually a supporter of making broadband a utility…..
How’s that for throwing you a loop.
As far as taxpayers subsidizing airlines, I’m 100% against it. But you did. So thank you for letting your tax dollars pay for my salary. I think it’s time to go burn some more money in the fireplace.
I’ve been an analysis for long enough to know that numbers can tell be massaged to tell any story, and they can even be made up as well. But what I do know to be true is what I see with my own eyes.
Nice Sara Palin comment there. While I wouldn’t throw her out of bed, I don’t follow her ideology either.
Thanks for the laugh. As the majority of Americans are overweight, that means I’ll be taxes with approximately ½ the cost of their surgery. Again, nice of you to be generous with my money.
Lucky breaks? Got a job. Worked my ass off. Why do you find it so hard to think that if someone works hard, they can make something of themselves? It’s the American Dream. No, I’m not filthy rich, but I make a damn good living, doing a job I like, because I worked my ass off.
Just because you may have been born with a silver spoon, doesn’t mean everyone born without one can’t work there way to the top.
As far as your kids comments go, I can’t think of anything to respond but bullshit. There are plenty of single moms out there I would consider a MILF. Hell, I’m dating one. ( I can show you the pics again!!! She’s a hottie)
I am greedy. Greed is a powerful force. If it drives someone to excel, then more power to them.
and there are plenty of single moms who are overweight so what's your point?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
ps. i'm not saying that you didn't work your ass off, i'm saying that working your ass off doesn't guarantee success. eg. all the non-MILF unsuccessful single moms
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Froot Loops.
My public library won't let me conduct personal business on-line, like banking or buying plane tickets. But nice try.
I did what? I said your airline employer should reconsider subsidizing your perks and health benefits package, so I could pay less as a consumer to fly, and you came back with "you don't have to fly".As far as taxpayers subsidizing airlines, I’m 100% against it. But you did. So thank you for letting your tax dollars pay for my salary. I think it’s time to go burn some more money in the fireplace.
Must be some awesome boots you've got there, cowboy......
Lucky breaks? Got a job. Worked my ass off. Why do you find it so hard to think that if someone works hard, they can make something of themselves? It’s the American Dream. No, I’m not filthy rich, but I make a damn good living, doing a job I like, because I worked my ass off.
Who the hell are you talking to there?Just because you may have been born with a silver spoon, doesn’t mean everyone born without one can’t work there way to the top.
As far as your kids comments go, I can’t think of anything to respond but bullshit. There are plenty of single moms out there I would consider a MILF. Hell, I’m dating one. ( I can show you the pics again!!! She’s a hottie)
I see. Greed is Good, says Gecko. Greed is really the ONLY motivator in life, and that means keeping a limited pie to yourself, instead of making more pies or bigger pies for others? Dogs eat dogs in the concrete jungle, power to the fittest, crumbs to everyone else.I am greedy. Greed is a powerful force. If it drives someone to excel, then more power to them.
Should Humans eat Humans on their way to the top, just like wolves?
I'm going to bet, and this could just be me, but working your ass off probably has something to do with where you are at in society.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm going to guess you've spent quite a lot of time both working and studying. How long did you work in a hospital again?
I work in a country where there are more then a few lazy people. Hell, I worked with a ton of lazy individuals when I first started at my current employer. Most of them are still where they were to begin with; At an entry level position.
The beauty of this country is, if you don't like your current lifestyle, you can make it better. You can rely on you alone to do so.
You know I would never knock your intelligence, or your book smarts Minxie... but there's also a lot that can be gained by streetsmarts too.
I've always wondered, if we cut off welfare, how many people would get a job..... necessity if the mother of invention... I'm betting the necessity to eat is the father of getting your ass off the couch and getting a job.
Yeah let's try that real life experiment, cut off welfare. Where's the line you draw? Is corporate welfare in there too, or just any safety nets you deem mooching lazy ass choice?
You do realize that in the US there are around 6 people vying for every open job position, and there are about 15 million people unemployed (even more are underemployed) but they're not necessarily sitting on their fat asses on the couch and eating KFC.
You are wrong on both counts.
"From a business standpoint the pool should be comprised of people who pay and don't file claims. That maximizes profit without incurring risk."
That's like saying that "from a business standpoint, Microsoft should be charging $10000 per computer." That's simply not what happens in a free market.
"From an insurance standpoint the pool should include everybody because that minimizes the risk."
That's again wrong, in three respects.
First, a insurance company's payout variability will disappear after several thousand customers.
Second, as I said before, insurance companies will charge a customer for his average cost plus a fee in a free market. Forcing an enormous pool of people with random health needs places a burden on healthier customers (whether they choose to be healthy or not), and gives an incentive for customers to NOT be healthy (since they are automatically in the same pool by definition).
Third, I don't think Democrats are even suggesting to force insurance companies to pool everyone into the same mess.
Microsoft doesn't sell computers.
If insurance isn't a business then there would be no insurance companies.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I'm talking about their software charge for computers that other companies sell.Microsoft doesn't sell computers.
Er.... which is why the health care bill is bad.If insurance isn't a business then there would be no insurance companies.
Spit it out then aggie. Can you really put peoples' health (and lives) in the same category as any other commodity, and treat it like other profit-driven businesses, or is it something different?I'm talking about their software charge for computers that other companies sell.
Er.... which is why the health care bill is bad.
I'm gonna pull a Republican move in the middle of the discussion and say, "Let's start over".....
Who wants healthcare Reform, and who wants Insurance reform?
RightEr.... which is why the health care bill is bad.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
This is where you go wrong.
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
Actually you are wrong on all counts; if there is no regulation of cherry-picking and lemon-dropping then the government might just as well not bother at all with healthcare reform.
In which case the costs for all who can't afford will be a burden on the tax-payers, or as IAO seems to want, on nobody at all, which roughly is the case in the average third world country, where 'society' also doesn't mean anything to anybody with some money. People die in the streets in those places, very often of diseases for which there are cures.
A real free health market that some people in this thread seem to deem feasable, is a health market that is unsustainable. Because let there be no doubt about that; the bulk of the money isn't in those perky little policies that private insurers offer but in the money that gets sloshed into medicare and medicaid.
Congratulations America
Perky Policies.
Costs to society by doing nothing are huge, like you said about third world countries Hazir--all we have to do is go next door to Mexico where barefoot kids sell Chiclets in front of luxury hotels, to see how we don't want to become.
True about the Medicare/Medicaid.
The reason unregulated, for-profit health care markets can't work is because the way to make profit in this industry is to collect premiums and pay as little benefit as possible. That means people get left out or they get tricked with hidden provisions. Markets can do some wonderful things, but not everything.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Blah, blah, blah. Nowhere did I advocate zero regulation, and you are also forgetting that the industry is not a free market; it is limited by myriad state laws that prevent inter-state competition.
I already addressed this fallacy directly in a response to you. Some people just can't learn...Right
Ok. I'm up for trying a well regulated interstate market so long as A. costs get controlled in line with other modern industrial nations, one way or another, and B. everyone gets the coverage they need.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
A: The gap isn't as big as you might think. Sure, we pay incredibly more for prescription pills and medications (patent laws, formerly lax antitrust, no caps on prices for patent-protected products, etc.) and the inefficiency of lacking real competition among health insurers has hurt us a lot. BUT:
It's common knowledge that the United States has the best and most high-tech medicine in the world (surgery, various diagnostic procedures): that costs a lot of money, and people willingly pay for that via their employer's insurance. Also, the cost gap you often see in newspapers doesn't take into account the factor of extra taxes for health care which European countries impose. Because of Europe's subsidies and their accompanying restrictions, there just isn't enough profit in it for hospitals to actually buy very expensive machines or hire expensive surgeons. There's a reason all those Saudi Sheikhs come to the US for treatment: they can actually buy the treatment they want.
There is no logical reason to take one half-baked system (US) and replace it with another half-baked system (Europe's). The first things I mentioned in the first paragraph are the things Republicans would mostly support and the things that should happen to bring our health care cost down. What I mentioned in the second paragraph is something that we should NOT do.
B: "Need" is a very subjective term. I'd like my health care coverage to include a giant air filter around the house so that my neighbors don't pollute their clogged chimney's exhaust into my body. But that ain't gonna happen, jack...
it's because those saudi sheikhs are 1. idiots blinded by money and 2. they think they can (and should) buy everything. i understand not wanting to have to wait, of course
truth is that your healthcare system isn't seeing much benefit from all these super-fancy-high-tech gizmos you guys keep bringing up. if your costs are high due to fancy-pants diagnostics using expensive methods and expensive equipment then it's more often than not about defensive medicine in which doctors use unnecessarily expensive methods and equipment just to cover their asses.
but sure, hey, let's focus on the stuff that is relevant to like 0.0000001% of the population
ps. i saw a great deal on a gamma knife on e-bay the other day would you like to buy one??
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Good, then it should be an easy goal to achieve.
Except that by all metrics many European countries have much better, fully baked systems. (And no, I'm not going to post the common life expectancy, infant mortality, etc etc stats. We've all seen them. If you have truthful stats that somehow disprove the rankings that show the US way down the list in quality of health care system, please post.)There is no logical reason to take one half-baked system (US) and replace it with another half-baked system (Europe's).
I think what people reasonably need won't be that difficult to figure out. Those superior European systems did it. Why can't we?B: "Need" is a very subjective term. I'd like my health care coverage to include a giant air filter around the house so that my neighbors don't pollute their clogged chimney's exhaust into my body. But that ain't gonna happen, jack...
(The lack of faith so many conservatives have in their own country just boggles my mind.)
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
You couldn't even start to talk about a 'European' system as there is no such system. Every EU state has its own independent system and they all work in ways that have very little in common with eachother. But for one important element and that is the freedom of the consumer to choose. Even people who are locked in a state-run system in principle like the people in the UK in the end have the possibility to benefit from the superb French private healthcare if they put a little effort into it. It is not the interest of the NHS in Britain to see their clients cross the Channel, but the only way they can prevent it (and the costs that come with it) is by improving their own service.
What I see in Europe is a situation where not only health care providers (private and state) and health care insurers (private and state) but even the systems in which they operate (private or state) have to compete on a level playing field. We have little chances for complacency to claim that we're the best anywhere in Europe, we actually have to work to be the best, because otherwise the clients will drain out of our national systems.
Congratulations America
What reason does Britain's NHS have for keeping people on its plan(s)?
If people go, for example to France, for treatment, the costs for this treatment will still have to come out of the NHS budget. Every procedure done in France means less money for the NHS back in the UK.
There are some brakes on the possibilities to take your 'business' out of the NHS, but it can be done. The way things work in the UK, the state puts a budget for your healthcare in the hands of the NHS administrators. EU rules enables you to take that money from their hands and spend it somewhere else inside the EU.
Congratulations America
....sounds a bit like what might happen with single payer and interstate competition....?
Actually sounds like how school vouchers are supposed to work. So it wont happen here.
I can tell you t, he British government wasn't happy with it. But they can't cut the competition out just because the state delivers the service.Actually sounds like how school vouchers are supposed to work. So it wont happen here.
Anyway, reconcilliation it is then? Anybody who cares to explain what it entails ?
Congratulations America
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