And as long as everyone just assumes that healthcare must be harder than *everything else*, just because it is healthcare and not big-screen TVs, we will continue to have a healthcare problem. Which is one of the points I repeatedly try to make -- obviously unsuccessfully.

Maybe it's not, but until someone makes what, how and why of it and how to fix it into a presentable format, the average non medical and pharmaceutical system educated person can follow and get behind, not much will be gained.

I know you feel strongly about the topics and most here also have valid reason to feel similar but as of the moment most of us do not have any working knowledge of the overall problem and system that perpetuates it. Just bits and pieces of a big puzzle.

Rather why I, and likely others here, would like to see an open unbiased and somewhat more in depth explanation from you on what you claim to know and understand about what is wrong and what maybe some ways to improve it.
Basically, We need a schematic and technical write up, so to speak, that doesn't come off as appearing to be little more than someone pounding on a piece paper with a angry fist full of crayons or palm slapping their keyboard in frustration over why no one gets what they are saying.

 

Maybe it's not, but until someone makes what, how and why of it and how to fix it into a presentable format, the average non medical and pharmaceutical system educated person can follow and get behind, not much will be gained.

I know you feel strongly about the topics and most here also have valid reason to feel similar but as of the moment most of us do not have any working knowledge of the overall problem and system that perpetuates it. Just bits and pieces of a big puzzle.

Rather why I, and likely other here, would like to see a open unbiased and somewhat more in depth explanation from you on what you claim to know and understand about what is wrong and what may be a way to improve it. We need a schematic and technical write up, so to speak, that does come off as appearing to be little more than someone pounding on a piece paper with a angry fist full of crayons or palm slapping their keyboard in frustration over why no one gets what they are saying.

I am not an expert in healthcare -- and I never said I was. But I am an expert in some things and when there are problems with those things I, as an expert, come up with ways to solve those problems. Simply because a) I desire to, b) I am free to, and c) I profit from the endeavor.

Architects design buildings;
Civil engineers design bridges;
Electrical engineers design big-screen TVs;
Bartenders serve beer;

and...

Governments supply healthcare?????

You don't see a problem with that picture?

 

As @ronv pointed out we have two "government run" healthcare systems in the U.S. One was funded by the employers and employees while the other relies on taxpayer funding.

Medicare is funded, much like one's healthcare insurance. In fact a standard value is added to everyone's SSA 1099 to show how much was deducted from your benefits for medicare part A.

The other is the Veterans Administration. This is funded fully by tax dollars. If you want to see what government healthcare looks like, check out the VA. Did you know the VA isn't allowed to make an appointment more than 90 days out? If your primary care physician said for you to come back in six months, they can not make that appointment. An appointment a year out is they will send you a letter, maybe, to remind you to schedule an appointment. If they are filled up for the next 90 days, they would ask you to call back in a month.

To see what government run heath care looks like, look at the VA. Their budget is at the whim of Congress, more so than the Medicare budget.

 

As @ronv pointed out we have two "government run" healthcare systems in the U.S. One was funded by the employers and employees while the other relies on taxpayer funding.

Medicare is funded, much like one's healthcare insurance. In fact a standard value is added to everyone's SSA 1099 to show how much was deducted from your benefits for medicare part A.

The other is the Veterans Administration. This is funded fully by tax dollars. If you want to see what government healthcare looks like, check out the VA. Did you know the VA isn't allowed to make an appointment more than 90 days out? If your primary care physician said for you to come back in six months, they can not make that appointment. An appointment a year out is they will send you a letter, maybe, to remind you to schedule an appointment. If they are filled up for the next 90 days, they would ask you to call back in a month.

To see what government run heath care looks like, look at the VA. Their budget is at the whim of Congress, more so than the Medicare budget.

Yes indeed. My vote goes to a Medicare type system. You have to lock in those congress critters, just like we need to lock in the medical/pharmaceutical industry.

 

I am not an expert in healthcare -- and I never said I was. But I am an expert in some things and when there are problems with those things I, as an expert, come up with ways to solve those problems. Simply because a) I desire to, b) I am free to, and c) I profit from the endeavor.

Architects design buildings;
Civil engineers design bridges;
Electrical engineers design big-screen TVs;
Bartenders serve beer;

and...

Governments supply healthcare?????

You don't see a problem with that picture?

Well that's the problem. As of now hospitals and the health care system doesn't really serve health issues either. It serves itself.

It's no different than any of your examples . If any other industry or service prices themselves so high no one can afford them someone or something displaces them and they go out of business.

As far as the government goes, at one time their job was to protect the people from monopolies and extortionist business entities by breaking them up and setting limits to how big any one corporate entity can get before they have to split into separate smaller competing entities just so they can't create a monopoly and force extortionist prices for basic services.

Back in the 80's the huge monopolistic phone and communications company known as 'Ma Bell' got broken up for that very reason. They had too much control and power over too much of the national communications systems and everyone knew it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

That's where I see our healthcare and pharmaceutical system now. Way too big and controlling to be good for the country's best public and private interests and it needs to be broken up plus put under a far more realistic regulatory system as well.

As for who runs it, I really don't care at this point just as long as it's not who is running it now.
To me it's like the clinton Vs Trump election issue. The government may not be the best option but it's clearly better than the other thing we have now. I'm not voting for government healthcare because it will be great. I'm voting for it because it won't be as bad as what we have now.

 

As @ronv pointed out we have two "government run" healthcare systems in the U.S. One was funded by the employers and employees while the other relies on taxpayer funding.

Medicare is funded, much like one's healthcare insurance. In fact a standard value is added to everyone's SSA 1099 to show how much was deducted from your benefits for medicare part A.

The other is the Veterans Administration. This is funded fully by tax dollars. If you want to see what government healthcare looks like, check out the VA. Did you know the VA isn't allowed to make an appointment more than 90 days out? If your primary care physician said for you to come back in six months, they can not make that appointment. An appointment a year out is they will send you a letter, maybe, to remind you to schedule an appointment. If they are filled up for the next 90 days, they would ask you to call back in a month.

To see what government run heath care looks like, look at the VA. Their budget is at the whim of Congress, more so than the Medicare budget.

That's what I see too and it makes me think that the government has let the big medical and pharmaceutical industry grow to the extortionistic mess it is because it makes them look like a better controlling option.

 

@JoeJester
Part of the problem with the VA, besides funding, in my opinion, is that there aren't enough customers to make a VA system work. It's similar to living is a little town. You are not going to get the best of care because the size of the community can't support all the best "stuff."
To me that is also why medicare works pretty good. It has enough members that "they" can demand some price concessions.

 

Well that's the problem. As of now hospitals and the health care system doesn't really serve health issues either. It serves itself.

It's no different than any of your examples . If any other price themselves ohigh no one can afford them someone or some thing displaces them and they go out of business.

As far as the government goes at one time their job was to protect the people from monopolies and extortionist business entities by breaking them up and setting limits to how big any one corporate entity can get before they have to split into separate smaller competing entities just so they can't create a monopoly and force extortionist prices for basic services.

Back in the 80's they huge monopolistic phone and communications company known as 'Ma Bell' got broken up for that very reason. They had too much contorl and power over too much of the national communications systems and everyone knew it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

That's where I see our healthcare and pharmaceutical system now. Way too big and controlling to be good for the country's best public and private interests and it needs to be broken up plus put under a far more realistic regulatory system as well.

As for who runs it, I really don't care at this point just as long as it not who is ruining it now. To me it's like the clinton Vs Trump election issue. The government may not be the best option but it's clearly better than the other thing we have now.

Well, now I'm really going to make all your heads explode.

https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly

When monopoly did appear, it was solely because of government intervention.

I reject your conclusion that lack of government regulation is the problem, and that more guns (i.e. your proposed threat of force to break up the "monopolies") will only exasperate things.

I believe more freedom and fewer regulations will lower the cost of entry for smaller competitors, create more competition, and lower prices.

You cannot imagine the world without force. I can.

 

I believe more freedom and fewer regulations will lower the cost of entry for smaller competitors, create more competition, and lower prices.

You cannot imagine the world without force. I can.

I can easily imagine it but I realistically know it doesn't work that way and thusly don't try to fool myself into thinking anything otherwise. I may be many things I but I am not that idealistic, naive or out of touch with reality to think that's how life is or could ever be. A perfect world as you imply you think things should be as is an absurd fantasy reserved for children's fairytales.

The reality is that too often it does take putting a gun to some people's heads and pulling the trigger to get things done for the greater good and to keep the overall functioning and general civility of the populace decent and respectable to and for the individual. Not everyone gets or deserves equal rights and treatment unless they provide solid justifiable reason to deserve the compensation from everyone else.

If life was perfect we would not have to have the the military capacities we do just to keep the other idiots of the world on their side of whatever line we drew. We also would not need a law enforcement system or legal system or much of anything in terms of defensive and self protection based systems but the reality is we have to have them and spend a large part of our resources keeping them up to an ever changing and often escalating functioning capacity just to keep what levels of civility and courtesy we have in place now.

So, yea. I do see your fantasy but I know it's stupid to expect it to come true or be true unless huge amount of very real sacrifices are made to get it and keep it that way which then again, with those sacrifices that too rather undoes the idealist fantasy anyway , doesn't it?

 

The reality is that too often it does take putting a gun to some people's heads and pulling the trigger to get things done for the greater good and to keep the overall functioning and general civility of the populace decent and respectable to and for the individual. Not everyone gets or deserves equal rights and treatment unless they provide solid justifiable reason to deserve the compensation from everyone else.

Wow. That's a hell of a manifesto.

I guess we'll just leave it at that.

 

This is getting too Nietzsche-like for my taste...

 

@tcmtech , I guess I'll have to live with myself being on your 'ignore list', don't know how I'll ever get to sleep tonight. All you have said boils down to, "your stupid for not agreeing with me". But It does seem strange that all of the old forums you belong to(8 if I remember correctly) and left seem to have the same problem as me, ronv, gopher and a few others have on this one. You seem to have a history of meeting many stupid people online and in life. Sorry I don't seem to meet your standards. I wish you well in finding people that do. I guess I've just been lucky to make it all of these years (69 and counting) with my mental deficiency.

 

And as long as everyone just assumes that healthcare must be harder than *everything else*, just because it is healthcare and not big-screen TVs, we will continue to have a healthcare problem

Maybe we should all go to China to get our health care. It worked for big screen TVs.

 

Hey, lets go back to the good old out house and the pump in the kitchen.
Or maybe @shortbus can build a waste treatment plant so all that "stuff" doesn't flow into Joey's lake.

 

Wow. That's a hell of a manifesto.

I wasn't aware a paragraph or a few of them counted as a manifesto now. Standards of expectation for what defines everything are really falling off.

At least I explain myself and my views.
So far most of us here are still guessing at what you are standing for since it seems there is no single definable stance you have other than everyone but you is wrong no matter what they say for or against anything or even if they agree with you.

So far I get you love/hate big healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
You feel they should operate exactly as they do and yet not.
Someone should do something about them but leave them as is.
Any of us who have absolutely zero capacity should do it but still leave it be.
Extortion under the name of capitalism is good but rational regulated control for fair competition is bad because it's socialism.

If I didn't know better I would be half tempted speculate you had a stroke and have lost a moderate part of your mental capacity to reason and rationalize your own thoughts.
That or you had a recent medication change and don't realize what it's doing to your cognitive capacities.

Whatever it is it's really starting to look rather unpredictably bizarre to say the least. You claim to know something everyone else doesn't yet when pressed to reveal it you can't put anything is words that makes any coherent sense other than everyone's guess is wrong by some absurd comparison to something totally unrelated to what they said.

I admit I totally don't get what you're going for here.

 

Part of the problem with the VA, besides funding, in my opinion, is that there aren't enough customers to make a VA system work. It's similar to living is a little town. You are not going to get the best of care because the size of the community can't support all the best "stuff."
To me that is also why medicare works pretty good. It has enough members that "they" can demand some price concessions.

They can't handle the "customers" they have now, and that's the one's willing to drive. The nearest clinic to me when I was in western oklahoma was 40 miles. The nearest hospital was 120 miles. In Michigan, the two hospitals were over an hour away, but the clinic was only a half hour away.

Of course that was over a decade ago with those driving distances. Now it's 30 min to the VAMC and 20 min to the VA Clinic.

They have made some strides. At one time they talked about giving those who travel great distances a card to visit their local doctors. I don't know if that is working or not.

I'm not asking for the best stuff.

SNAFU comes to mind.

I was in the hospital once and when it came to the DNR letter, I told them to give it their best shot, but don't make a career of it.

 

They can't handle the "customers" they have now, and that's the one's willing to drive. The nearest clinic to me when I was in western oklahoma was 40 miles. The nearest hospital was 120 miles. In Michigan, the two hospitals were over an hour away, but the clinic was only a half hour away.

Of course that was over a decade ago with those driving distances. Now it's 30 min to the VAMC and 20 min to the VA Clinic.

They have made some strides. At one time they talked about giving those who travel great distances a card to visit their local doctors. I don't know if that is working or not.

I'm not asking for the best stuff.

SNAFU comes to mind.

I was in the hospital once and when it came to the DNR letter, I told them to give it their best shot, but don't make a career of it.

Yea, I think we are saying the same thing. There are only 150 VA hospitals and it's a big country. But then they have 1700 patients per doctor vs 1400 in the private sector. But they are very good at treating war injuries which I think is part of why they were created.

 

I can tell you my primary care doctor has two full time nurses. Who the hell knows how many patients he sees.

So far I've only had routine services at the VA. I'm down to seeing the cardiologist only if I'm having trouble and not annually anymore. I see the primary care when I need prescriptions refilled or annually. I haven't developed any symptoms of radiation poisoning, so I haven't had to fight that battle yet.

There are hundreds of VA clinics that are tied to those hospitals. There are millions of veterans out there.

 

Anybody here actually on Obama care?

 

Anybody here actually on Obama care?

A friend of mine is. She's a widow and qualified for nearly complete subsidies. I think she has to pay a little. Of course she's thrilled to get something for nothing. She doesn't expect it to last, so is getting everything done this year. Dental, vision, hearing aids, physicals, chiropractic, the works.