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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 18:01:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Cassandra Beckinsale
I want to make here a petition to help the poor americans that are dying every day because they have no medical insurance, cause there is no public (communist) medical system in USA.
/signed
We are not the United States Congress. 
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 20:39:00 -
[2]
Originally by: Fenderson
Originally by: Zephyr Rengate
<3 NHS 
no fair. gimme.
Take it from your government.
Originally by: Fenderson
edit: i would love to see some criticism of other countries' universal healthcare systems that comes from someone who is actually a part of those systems. It seems to me that all the criticism is drummed up by American conservatives, and if you ask anyone from England or Canada or any other country with universal healthcare you will find that they are generally quite happy with the system.
I'm in the UK, I pay my taxes, I just looked it up, 26% of last month's wage straight out before it even hit my bank account, and then I'm paying 17.5% VAT on everything I buy.
Waiting times for an appointment if I need to see a doctor - "...we have a couple of slots next week?" - enough said. Mind you, that was several years ago, though I doubt it has changed.
But you know, it's nice to know I won't be facing bankruptcy if something stupid happens, like I get appendicitis or I break a leg doing sports. I have seen things happen to people at random, and they do suddenly happen one day, and it should not mean the end of the line. I think I am getting pretty good value insurance against economic demise over here, and frankly it would not help the economy at all to have guys like me get their labour forcibly reallocated to service a debt for years just because they tripped over something while out walking.
Reading the stories people tell, I think the US healthcare industry doesn't realise and doesn't care what it is costing the rest of the economy. Never mind the people, the business community over there should be up in arms over it, that's money being taken out of their pockets.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 21:18:00 -
[3]
Originally by: Ademaro Imre
You will more problems in the future. The UK and the other government provided healthcare are beginning to ration healthcare. It has already started with the most evil people in the world - smokers. If you smoke, you are denied may services outright now, or treatment is made a low priority because "smokers take longer to recover." You are missing a dangerous trend in your healthcare system - which is morphing into a health care system, for the healthy. A recent example was New Zealand. Someone became a citizen there, but was obese. No heathcare for her - because she might need it - but she will still pay her share of taxes for it. Next up - the obese of course in the UK. And it will just continue from there. Them people have have "dangerous lifestyles" will have to pay extra.
Good thing I don't smoke. All my risk factors are quite low actually, and I am very fit.
People should meet the system halfway. Smoking 20 a day and then complaining the waiting list for lung operations is too long is pretty arrogant, but it does happen. It is not unreasonable to discourage it.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 21:46:00 -
[4]
Uh-huh. Mighty high oxygen level during WW2 there. 
Look, it isn't happening to anyone. Mostly because that entire post has no conceivable basis in financial motivation, to say nothing of the numerous factual errors.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 21:57:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Sephra Star
The financial motivation is far outweiged by insuring you have a slot in one of the underground bases when the shiiit hits the fan during what should be and has been referred to in the past as THE FINAL SOLUTION
Do you have your slot?
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 23:20:00 -
[6]
OK, you keep us safe from the hobgoblins, but please do it in secret from now on. You are only attracting Their attention, and spamming up the forum.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.25 23:50:00 -
[7]
Is a conspiracy still a conspiracy if it's on Google Video and YouTube?
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.26 00:15:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Sephra Star
It is carved in stone to reduce the population to 500 million.
See, that's the problem I am having with all this. You decide to destroy the planet, and you carve your plans into stone tablets for people to find? It seems a bit sloppy.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.26 17:43:00 -
[9]
Originally by: Sephra Star
Originally by: Cmdr Sy
Do you have your slot?
The question for YOU is do you have yours.
Yes.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.27 18:46:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Rialtor
Again if a private company wants to offer a service there's really no need for these regulations, the solution I'd like to see is something that gets to the heart of the issue. What is driving medical costs up? ... Why are costs so high?
Insurance.
The medical service provision companies too, but a large part of it is insurance.
Walking into an emergency room instantly makes you a thousand dollars lighter not because that is the cost price, but because the bid price is set by risk arbitrage. In the US healthcare market, an individual whose ability to pay is based on the Matlab games of a mathematics Ph.D will outbid an own cash bidder every time, and likely by an order of magnitude.
Naturally the highest bidder sets the price - the ask just shoots up in response to proven ability to pay. No-one but the very wealthy can compete against a bidder with a multi-billion-dollar pot and risk management models.
A taxpayer-funded national healthcare system moderates this discrepancy by introducing a competitor that lowers the market price back down to somewhere near cost price. It is then not economically viable for the private complex to price their services ten times higher, but they can justifiably charge perhaps twice as much on the grounds of zero waiting time.
Thus in Europe we have a thriving private healthcare sector working in parallel with the state counterpart. This model is arguably closer to a free market than the US model, in which the price and cost are separated by a black box trading machine.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.27 22:14:00 -
[11]
Edited by: Cmdr Sy on 27/03/2008 22:15:47
Guys, arguing over who insurance companies accept is beside the point. The real point is an insurance company cannot be the intermediary for the purchase of ANY essential service unless you want to pay way over the odds.
Allow me to illustrate.
100 people pay a premium representing half the cost of treatment for some ailment to a health insurer. The health insurer can now pay for 50 lots of treatment if at cost.
One policy holder is struck by the ailment in the interval. No-one else is struck down in the interval as the risk model performs as intended.
The health insurer pays the hospital bill, but the price for one patient is equivalent to 10 lots of treatment at cost.
- The hospital knows it's a rip-off but knows the insurer is good for the money.
- The insurer is happy to pay 10 times over the odds because the profit is insane.
- The patient thinks he got a deal because his premium was only 1/20th the price.
- The other policy holders bought peace of mind - it could be them next.
Now let us introduce a person who cannot afford to pay the insurance premium regularly, but is able to maintain some savings equivalent to three times the cost of treatment. Perhaps this is because he is self-employed, a contractor, a low-paid worker with an inheritance or one-off savings pot, or otherwise has insufficient or unpredictable income.
The price set by the market is still more than three times what he can afford.
Sucks to be him. Owned. Does not get to play.
What incentive is there for either the hospital or the insurer to make allowances for such an individual when they have the market carved up?
None.
It is a cartel using a business model as an enabler.
They can exclude a quarter of the population of a country using such a business model, even allowing for genuine competition within it, without harming their profits at all. If the fancy algorithms in their proprietary black box allow it, they can exlude a third, or half. Whatever maximises profit while staying within the boundaries of whatever regulation exists.
What is interesting is it remains a free market, with a price set by bids and asks. The unfortunate feature is the price is levered up by virtue of the fact that most policies expire unused! This is an intrinsic property of a system that uses an insurer as an intermediary!
The strength of a taxpayer-funded system is it does not undermine the viability of this business model at all, but it does give those other people somewhere to go if they can survive the wait, at the expense of trimming the inflated market price and margins.
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.03.30 11:06:00 -
[12]
Edited by: Cmdr Sy on 30/03/2008 11:07:35
Maybe Sephra Star is an agent provocateur designed to lure all the forum users who commit politics out into the open, so they can be identified for more intensive monitoring. 
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Cmdr Sy
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Posted - 2008.04.02 17:38:00 -
[13]
It borrows $60bn per month, so there is a lot of fat that needs trimming. A slash and burn approach towards ALL spending would work wonders, unless the primary role of the federal government in a few years is to be tax collection for foreign debt service.
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