Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Who's the man we hired in this analogy?

The portion of FICA that's dedicated to SS

Great post, Neeek, but you should make a fresh thread for this. No one is going to care about this thread anymore, and what you post merits a serious discussion.

 

Originally Posted by Magnet Steve

Great post, Neeek, but you should make a fresh thread for this. No one is going to care about this thread anymore, and what you post merits a serious discussion.

agreed.

 

Originally Posted by Neeek

After a while, I get really sick of discussing the theoretical liberties of various healthcare models after a while, and the ideologies of what we should do. i would prefer to talk about what we know works. There is a system developing in various places across the country that is proving to work - a system that is improving access and quality AND decreasing costs. It is a system that increased primary care access for EVERYONE (honestly the only way it can work), and expands the meaning of healthcare to include determinants of poverty.

For those of you interested in how we can fix things (and not just what is the most free market, or the most lovey dovey socialist, or the most beneficial to your pocket), consider the facts/links below.

1) 33% of our healthcare costs come from hospitals. Admission to a hospital, in and of itself, is almost always a failure of the healthcare system. People are admitted to the hospital when they don't get the outpatient care they need, and thus end up too sick to be treated from home. Pneumosepsis doesn't develop in the person that gets proper antibiotics. end stage liver disease doesn't result in vomiting blood when resources to treat depression and alcohol abuse are used aggressively and brought to the individual. decompensate heart failure doesn't end up in the ER when medications are taken properly and patients are weighing themselves daily and understand how diet affects their illness.

2) 1% of the population is responsible for 30% of health care utilization/costs. 10% is responsible for 70%. These people are mostly the socioconomically marginalized. People will get care in this country, and ignoring them only makes the problem worse. We pretty much have to do whatever it takes to improve their health. this means active pursuit of the ill in the community (as opposed for waiting for them to show up in the ER), and a system that addresses what makes them sick (namely poverty).

These two facts are the most important in understanding/explaining why our costs are out of control. They are realities created by a system that focuses on specialized, fragemented, fee-for-service care that is drive by doctors and hospitals instead of communities and patients.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...a_fact_gawande

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/en...alth_with_care



there is a model that is accomplishing this task, and those links explain it (if you have an hour to kill, they are WELL worth the read/listen). It is used by Paul Farmer of PIH, and is providing better care to the poor of rural Haiti than people are getting in Urban Boston. It is the model that Jeff Brenner is proving will cut hospital costs by up to 60% in the sickest paitents in Camden, NJ. Its the only and best solution for people that actually want a solution that works, as opposed to one that fits their ideology (unfortuantely, for most of the US, the latter is more important at this time).

Locally drive, community-based approaches at meeting the needs of the constituents by actively engaging the community is the answer. Government mandates are not the solution. Health care as a free-market service isn't either. when we can get past our silly ideologies, we can find something that works.

Commie!

 

Originally Posted by pistol45

Free Market Medicine...

You don't even get it. If we could sell organs then more people could get transplants and less people would die. Such a horrible outcome...

Who decides if the law is invalid?



And i think a lot of employers see 2k as a lot cheaper than paying for health ins for workers

Strange how some lowly market reporter from Fox picked up on this rather than a frothing right wing politician or pundit.

Oh, I guess I didn't recognize the awesomeness that is Ben Swann. I had never heard or seen him before that video.

WP though... very clever.

I'm pretty sure that once he was blackmailed into not striking it down, Judge Roberts made sure to include all these sneaky ways to undermine Obamacare.

Prop 8 and other anti-gay marriage statutes are coming through the pipeline. Judicial restraint on Obamacare = Judicial Restraint on gay marriage statutes. Easy game. Roberts just picking his spots IMO.

No way prop 8 is upheld imo (that's the ban on gay marriage right?)

 

Originally Posted by norcaljeff

No way prop 8 is upheld imo (that's the ban on gay marriage right?)

I agree - but only because Teddy Olson and David Boies are speaking directly to Justice Kennedy with their arguments. I think Roberts will take the Judicial Restraint route in hopes of swaying others. Just my opinion.

 

Originally Posted by p00pymcp00perton

Do you really think Roberts was Blackmailed? Just lol.

Not reallly, more of an agnostic whim.

 

Originally Posted by p00pymcp00perton

Only liberals should recuse themselves. A financial stake n the outcome of the case is the Amercan way. Why do you hate America?

looooooooooooool spitcoffeeonscreen.gif

 

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Didn't all the justices have a financial stake in the Constitutionality of Obamacare? Should they all have recused themselves?

I really need to smoke with you one of these days. Our medical grade shit probably has nothing on the stuff you're puffin on.

it affects them the same as anyone else, more or less. if not them then no one. c'mon, you can't see the difference between that and having a financial stake that others don't have?

post #807: not your best work