The Truth About Ron Paul

deprave said:

Do I have an evidence, you mean like a blurry graph from the internet with 4 lines on it? or some whitehouse.gov statistics? I could tell you my personal story working in the healthcare field but you know - weed forums - don't want to get that personal.....I tried to give general examples - the healthcare system is behind in technology for one, Do you know what goes on at the nurses desk in a busy emergency room? I know this very well from several emergency rooms - when you visit the emergency room because you bumped your toe there is a stack of paper on you thousands of pages long, hundreds of faxes are sent out, enough legal paperwork to fill a small bath tub is written about your toe. Professionals are not able to give the best treatment possible often times.

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Okay, if all of this "red tape" of rules and regulations and paperwork is the problem than why is it that the countries who ALSO require the same paperwork, many of whom have more strict regulations and all of whom have more government intervention pay less?

This is why your argument makes no sense. If government bureaucracy was the source of all of our healthcare costs(and other factors like health are similar - which they are), than we as the nation with the least government intervention in the healthcare feild would have lower costs because of it, right? It's exactly the opposite; Our costs are higher despite less government intervention. How does it make sense to blame government intervention for the extra costs?

you need to look at the big picture - less people, better technology, progress and improvements are more rapid, or even the opposite - your taking a very narrow approach at this sorry, its not as cut and dry as they have more intervention and pay less therefore more intervention costs less, such simplification is disingenuous. I have witnessed with my own eyes how the government is ruining our healthcare system, I have witnessed with my own eyes the wasteful spending and lack of progress.

when you have a patient that takes 4 days to get the proper care he/she needs then you can tell me if the government is good for healthcare or not. When you see a good mother lose her child because she test postive for thc then you come tell us what you think. When you order $5,000 in paper reems and it last a week, let us know how we are saving money, when some pieces of wire attached to some pieces of metal cost $25,000 please let us know how we are saving money.

mame said:

Except that that's not true either. True it cost some money to start the program but sometimes you've got to spend money to make money - and in this case it's you've got to spend money to save money. The CBO released a report on the effects of repealing Obamacare and they found that doing so would actually increase the deficit. Remember, aside from the moral argument - the economic argument is that universal care, Obamacare, will save us all money over the long run. In economics we call it "bending the curve"...

So, any more objections?

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CBO. LOL.

[FONT=times new roman,times]The crucial thing to understand is that the CBO is just a calculator: It only adds and subtracts the numbers Congress gives it. For example, a bill -- to be called ObamaCare -- that has $857 billion in expenses over the first ten years; approximately $500 billion in tax increases, in addition to approximately $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the same period, will give you a savings of $143 billion. This is what the CBO tells you. However, the CBO will not be there to make sure that the planned Medicare cuts indeed take place or that the tax increases will be enacted.

Therefore, Democrats are ignorant about the workings of the CBO or are -- more likely -- blatantly misleading the public when they point to the CBO's estimates of costs and 'savings.' These very Democrats [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]voted[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] multiple times[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] -- after ObamaCare passed -- to push back until 2012 the 21% cut in pay for Medicare doctors which, according to ObamaCare, should have taken place in early 2010. The initial goal of letting the 21% cut take place was one of ObamaCare's money saving moves ($15 billion annually, according to [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]this[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] Reuters report). However, these ‘savings' (approximately $150 billion over ten years if the cuts never takes place), were dumped off the bus as a step one to go around ObamaCare, yet Democrats still wave the $143 billion in ‘saving' that the law will bring over the first ten years starting a year ago.[/FONT]

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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/01/democrats_and_the_cbos_obamaca.html

Again, look at what happened with Medicare. The actual costs were massively underestimated at the time it was being sold to the public.

My objection stands.

No more Federal entitlements.

deprave said:

you need to look at the big picture - less people, better technology, progress and improvements are more rapid, or even the opposite - your taking a very narrow approach at this sorry, its not as cut and dry as they have more intervention and pay less therefore more intervention costs less, such simplification is disingenuous.

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But you are the one who is simplifying, and what's worse is your simplification is full of asumptions. My simplification is merely to stamp out your assumption that more bureaucracy= more costs... Because if that were true that countries with universal care would cost more, right?

There is emprical evidence that shows that if everyone had insurance costs would go down because the insurance pool becomes less risky overall. There is emprical evidence showing that eliminating reasons for insurance companies to deny you claims reduces costs(a large portion of costs in the U.S. have actually gone towards finding ways to DENY you care, HC reform removed the incentive to do so by forcing companies to accept everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, etc). There is undeniable evidence showing that countries with universal systems pay less per person while ensuring everyone is insured and many of them do so while also managing better overall care than the U.S. system. These are facts.

We are the ONLY advanced nation without universal care. We are UNIQUE in that we pay at least TWICE as much as every other advanced nation for our care. This could be justified if our coverage was better than everyone else's - but it isn't. Can you justify the extra costs? Can you present any evidence showing that moving towards a universal healthcare system will not drive down costs? Do you have any alternatives to driving down costs?

mame said:

But you are the one who is simplifying, and what's worse is your simplification is full of asumptions. My simplification is merely to stamp out your assumption that more bureaucracy= more costs... Because if that were true that countries with universal care would cost more, right?

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wrong, I never said that nor would I ever believe that universal care would cost more or less, our system with or without Obamacare is full of wasteful spending. Sure, the alternative is to privatize medicaid and make it easier for new business to get started, to propser and progress in areas like medicine and medical equipment, Medicare is great however, many of the problems are with medicaid, the agencys contracted by medicaid, and other government contracted ventures int he field, now more people are going to be on this broken ass system, good one obama. Medicaid and the agency's it contracts are one the major driving forces behind the wasteful spending, poor care, and also behind the rogue dhs/cps.

Obamacare did a few things right, people with pre-existing conditions such as autism get more options, working class uninsured are now going to insured even if it is on the shitty ass medicaid system, and children can stay insured thru college all at the cost of liberty, freedom, and trillions of dollars....good one obama? I think not lol

Johnnyorganic said:

CBO. LOL.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/01/democrats_and_the_cbos_obamaca.html

Again, look at what happened with Medicare. The actual costs were massively underestimated at the time it was being sold to the public.

My objection stands.

No more Federal entitlements.

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Math has a liberal bias? That's your objection? The CBO is a non-partisan group created by congress to estimate the costs, benefits and other impacts of potential legislation... What they do is a bit more complicated than simply using a calculator. Seriously, if that's the best you can do is post a biased article claiming that the CBO is unreliable - than you've got a lot of work to do. If your argument is that Obamacare wont save us any money, than how do you explain the fact that countries with similar plans pay half as much as we do?

mame said:

There is emprical evidence that shows that if everyone had insurance costs would go down because the insurance pool becomes less risky overall.

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this right here. common sense. this is how insurance is supposed to work.

mame said:

Consider the following graph:
View attachment 1622545
It's a little fuzzy, but you can clearly see that our system is inferior to nations with "socialized" systems in terms of cost.

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Know what your graph proves? Nothing more than people in the USA spend more on healthcare than other westernized nations do. It doesn't prove a single thing, it doesn't prove that americans are less well off, or receive substandard care or anything other than they pay more.

Here is a Graph of the cost of Butterfinger candybars compared to Hershey kisses. You can clearly see that the Butterfinger costs more, laws need to be in place to ensure the Butterfinger manufacturer can compete on a even level with the Kisses company otherwise chocolate lovers around the world will miss their special treats and chaos will ensue, people will likely die as a result of not having Butterfinger candy bars.
As you can see the info I have laid out should compel everyone to jump on board the Government butterfinger takeover wagon. We will liberate cocoa around the globe for all to share, the dawning of a new age will begin.

mame said:

Math has a liberal bias? That's your objection? The CBO is a non-partisan group created by congress to estimate the costs, benefits and other impacts of potential legislation... What they do is a bit more complicated than simply using a calculator. Seriously, if that's the best you can do is post a biased article claiming that the CBO is unreliable - than you've got a lot of work to do. If your argument is that Obamacare wont save us any money, than how do you explain the fact that countries with similar plans pay half as much as we do?

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Has the CBO estimates EVER BEEN RIGHT?

Find some examples of the CBO estimating the cost of certain things and then compare them to the actual cost. CBO is never even close, in fact they are so far off a monkey which flings shit would be able to guess better.

UncleBuck said:

this right here. common sense. this is how insurance is supposed to work.

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about the only common sense in that entire post and the two previous posts he made. So insurance will be cheaper? so fucking what?

NoDrama said:

Has the CBO estimates EVER BEEN RIGHT?

Find some examples of the CBO estimating the cost of certain things and then compare them to the actual cost. CBO is never even close, in fact they are so far off a monkey which flings shit would be able to guess better.

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The important thing to realize is that the CBO recognizes trends sort of like a weatherman. Just because the weatherman said the high would be 66 and it was 64 doesn't mean you should stop listening to what the weatherman has to say...

The CBO has actually been close several times. Off the top of my head I can remember, for example, that when examining medicare part D they were able to estimate costs so closely that the only reason their numbers were even remotely off was that less people used the benefit than they thought - resulting in less costs than originally projected; Their cost per person measure was almost spot on though, which was the most important part of their calculations... I am not, however, going to sit here going through case by case examples.

Know what your graph proves? Nothing more than people in the USA spend more on healthcare than other westernized nations do. It doesn't prove a single thing, it doesn't prove that americans are less well off, or receive substandard care or anything other than they pay more.

Here is a Graph of the cost of Butterfinger candybars compared to Hershey kisses. You can clearly see that the Butterfinger costs more, laws need to be in place to ensure the Butterfinger manufacturer can compete on a even level with the Kisses company otherwise chocolate lovers around the world will miss their special treats and chaos will ensue, people will likely die as a result of not having Butterfinger candy bars.
As you can see the info I have laid out should compel everyone to jump on board the Government butterfinger takeover wagon. We will liberate cocoa around the globe for all to share, the dawning of a new age will begin.

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You see, it's like you ignore my argument completely. If other advanced nations pay half as much as we do, and it's not because we have any major differences in our health (our higher obesity rate, for example, accounts for ~ 1/30th of the extra costs we pay... so not much), what do you want me to believe it is? Is there a possibility that extra costs might have something to do with the fact that our system is not universal like all of those other advanced nations?

deprave said:

about the only common sense in that entire post and the two previous posts he made. So insurance will be cheaper? so fucking what?

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cheaper = more affordable = more people covered = less costs passed on to the population by those who can't pay = lower overall costs

so fucking what? i guess you don't mind paying more for the same service. that seems against your rational self interest, but that is your prerogative.

i would personally prefer to pay less for the same service.

mame said:

There is emprical evidence showing that eliminating reasons for insurance companies to deny you claims reduces costs(a large portion of costs in the U.S. have actually gone towards finding ways to DENY you care, HC reform removed the incentive to do so by forcing companies to accept everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions, etc).

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this too.

when you don't have a team of scumbags looking for ways to deny insurance claims, administrative costs go down.

do you have any idea what americans and our for-profit system spend on administrative costs versus countries with universal coverage and not for profit systems?

americans pay about 20-25% administrative costs (i am unable to remember the actual number, i think it is 23%). taiwan, germany, switzerland, japan....they are all about 1/3 or 1/2 this number. taiwan is especially good.

the patient protection and affordable care act addresses this by mandating insurers spend 80% (and eventually 85%) of costs on actual care, not administrative costs and other BS. that is a step in the right direction.

updating and modernizing medical records will help us towards this and create many jobs along the way. i considered going back to school to get into this racket. taiwan has an especially good system of doing this and consequently spends exceedingly little on administrative costs.

if you have an hour, there is a good documentary to check out: "sick around the world" on pbs. it examines how england, germany, switzerland, taiwan, and japan insure all of their citizens for about 1/2 the cost that we spend to let our citizens die in the street and go bankrupt due to medical bills. one of the best parts in that documentary is where the host acts the other countries how many citizens went bankrupt and lost their house due to medical bills. that concept is ABSURD to them!

mame said:

Math has a liberal bias? That's your objection?

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My objection is that the CBO is limited in the scope of its projections. And virually always low-balls the cost of proposed legislation.

mame said:

The CBO is a non-partisan group created by congress to estimate the costs, benefits and other impacts of potential legislation... What they do is a bit more complicated than simply using a calculator. Seriously, if that's the best you can do is post a biased article claiming that the CBO is unreliable - than you've got a lot of work to do.

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If the best you can do is focus on the source rather than the information presented by said source, you have a lot of work to do as well.

mame said:

If your argument is that Obamacare wont save us any money, than how do you explain the fact that countries with similar plans pay half as much as we do?

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Rationing.

Long wait times for serious procedures.

The fact that affluent citizens of those very same countries come to the U.S. for treatment.

Once again.

A point mame persists in ignoring: Medicare.

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

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http://reason.com/archives/1993/01/01/the-medicare-monster

That article is from 1993, by the way. Dating back to the HillaryCare brouhaha.

Johnnyorganic said:

Rationing.

Long wait times for serious procedures.

The fact that affluent citizens of those very same countries come to the U.S. for treatment.

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fear mongering will not cut the costs of health care.

if anything, your analysis is what i experienced with my private, for profit insurance.

the government run health care i utilized was far more efficient, nevermind the cost difference.

johnny, if your only argument is that we have the best care for the affluent who can afford it, then i have no objection.

if your contention is that we have the best system for insuring your average citizen, then i would strenuously disagree.

UncleBuck said:

fear mongering will not cut the costs of health care.

if anything, your analysis is what i experienced with my private, for profit insurance.

the government run health care i utilized was far more efficient, nevermind the cost difference.

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That dog won't hunt.

Nothing is going to cut the costs of quality health care.

Only the quality will be reduced. Ironically, by introducing government into the equation, costs will continue to rise.

I believe I have stated before that I have no problem with your government health care because it is limited to your state.

Is that so hard to fathom?

Also, thanks for jumping in UB... I was starting to feel like Donnie Yen when he fought all those blackbelts at once LOL:
[video=youtube;SXXEnDLShz0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXXEnDLShz0[/video]

UncleBuck said:

johnny, if your only argument is that we have the best care for the affluent who can afford it, then i have no objection.

if your contention is that we have the best system for insuring your average citizen, then i would strenuously disagree.

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Buck, you are addressing two separate topics.

We do have the best health CARE in the world. That's one reason why it is so expensive. By law, no one can be turned away.

As far as health INSURANCE is concerned: WHO GIVES A FAT RAT'S ASS?

Want health insurance? Buy it. Or move to state that offers it for 'free.'

But, do not force me to pay for it for you.

Johnnyorganic said:

That dog won't hunt.

Nothing is going to cut the costs of quality health care.

Only the quality will be reduced. Ironically, by introducing government into the equation, costs will continue to rise.

I believe I have stated before that I have no problem with your government health care because it is limited to your state.

Is that so hard to fathom?

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it is hard to fathom that "nothing" will reduce the costs of quality care, especially in the face of empirical evidence that proves otherwise.

for empirical evidence, see every other wealthy, industrialized nation on earth that insures all and pays less.

costs will continue to rise whether it is private or public, profit or not for profit. the question is which system has costs going up less steeply?

i understand that you don't want the fed in charge of anything, but we've tried that. the articles of confederation failed. there is a place for a strong central government.

and it is our duty to reign them in when they inevitably overstep their boundaries. i would not classify looking after the welfare of the citizenry to be an overstep.