"This is ultimately asking the taxpayers to pay twice. Once for participation in the still relatively free market, and once again for the artificial one created by the government via the stimulus."
This is no such thing as a free market. 30% of our economy is based on government spending. But holding onto sound bites is something people lack on to for their own detriment.
As someone with a BS in economics, I am amused.
The details of the stimulus package break down into tax cuts, bailouts for the states and then the stimulus money. The actual stimulus portion is maybe 1/2 or 1/3 the $800 package.
Markets are all about psychology. Some believe that the stimulus was unnecessary, some believe that it was too small and too much was in tax breaks and some believed the government needed to do something in order to reassure investors and consumers. It can be argued a couple of ways. But our economy is not a pure free market.
On a GNP level, 8% of our economy is in finance where 5% is the historic norm. I believe health care is about 15%. This compares to about 10% or less in Western Europe.
So about 8% of our US output is being wasted. That's where we are now. This is a huge structural problem with our economy that will kill investment and growth. It is a bigger threat than the stimulus. It doesn't make for a good soundbite, though.
Back to the midwest, projects are starting to move forward.
make, i look around too, and see things starting to creep a bit more steadily.
what's funny is that if you look at the passed 100 years, with the exception of a few years in the mid to late 30's, the US has never experienced any "real" economic decline. this country has always seemed to be booming. i can't look at my situation and think that is moment is any real death knell. i think we'll all look back with some shame at all the fuss, and remember the difficulties our grandparents suffered and think of this period as The Great Shrug.
You guys should do some comparative economics. The threats to this country are healthcare and the finance industry's too large share of the GDP. It's a huge tax on everything we do and will bring down the economy because it's too expensive to do business here.
well yeah, i didnt say cause-effect... i didnt say the high spending on highways and public works caused the economic boom post wwII... but the two are coincidental, and you cant state as fact that the spending didnt in large part contribute to the subsequent boom
Post WW2 we boomed not because we spent, we boomed because we could spend. Being the only, repeat ONLY non-devistaed industrial power our currency became the foundation for the world's economy and infinately valuable. It still is however the stimulus spending bill will test that . We should be ok since everyone else is doing it to.
As for Japan, in the 1990s they were creating global concrete shortages because they were pouring so much of it for public works projects which had little to no impact on the deteriorating asset prices and currency. The more they poured the more things stayed the same. This new fasination with John Maynard Keynes is cute.
"As for Japan, in the 1990s they were creating global concrete shortages because they were pouring so much of it for public works projects which had little to no impact on the deteriorating asset prices and currency. The more they poured the more things stayed the same. This new fasination with John Maynard Keynes is cut"
Japan has a two-faced economy. There's the global juggernaut like Toyota and Mitsubishi and then there's the corrupt inefficient domestic industries that give the Cook County Board competition for waste. It's the latter and the real estate bubble that did them in. They have so much waste in these companies.
Japan isn't a good comparison because it's such a bizarre economy.
The reason we got out of the great depression was not because of spending and the New Deal, but because of WWII. What it did show was that government intervention, when done correctly, can be incredibly effective in production arguably more than a free market system. Also remember that for America that was a different time - our country was beginning to emerge as the number one economy in the global economy...now is the other way around.
Another large tax on our economy is the always overlooked military industrial complex, resources there could be used for other society needs. Afghanistan and Pakistan are not included please.
The economy remains fragile. But the fact that some Fed regions reported signs of activity beginning to level out raises hope that the recession, which started in December 2007, is drawing to a close.
Four Fed regions — New York, Cleveland, Kansas City and San Francisco— pointed to "signs of stabilization," the survey said. Two regions — Chicago and St. Louis — reported that the pace of economic declined appeared to be "moderating."
Five other regions — Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta and Dallas — described activity as "slow," "subdued" or "weak." Only one region — Minneapolis — indicated that its downward slide in economic activity had worsened.
My privately-purchased health insurance premium just went up by $130/month for a family of three. So now I'm paying about 25% a month more for the same shitty product.
i think that worsening has a lot, a lot, to do with most of the building going on here is healthcare related. that, and the fact that we have a shit head lameduck governor, looking to beat the Palinator for the GOP nod.
lb...that's just horrible - regardless of what type of reform takes place, the cost of healthcare is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately...i just found out my home insurance went up 15% for the next year...so, apparently, some out there is making money.
in terms of the so called recovery, flat is the new up...and here in detroit, it's not flat yet...(we've never bounced back from 2001)
The $130 extra that LB is paying is NOT going toward better care but going for bigger profits.
As a small business person, I would rather have medicaire open to adults in 6 months and be able to join it. Medicaire works and there's an opportunity to go in and fight the waste that exists in it.
The insurance companies are trying to push any changes back to 2013 and keep people with pre-existing conditions from joining the government plan.
It's really disgusting.
Obama is NOT doing a good job communicating with people.
Beta is there a reason you always sound so angry? The Minneapolis Fed covers an area far larger than the state of Minnesota alone. It also includes about 1/2 of Wisconsin, Michigan UP, North & South Dakota and Montana. Only about half of the economic activity in the fed region come from the state of MN.
Remember that the Cleveland fed region has been hit harder and fallen further in recent history than the Mpls fed. Overall the Mpls fed region has done well given still strong economic activity in the western states when compared to regions absorbing the rust belt shocks in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
Exactly, make. I'm not getting anything for the extra money, but someone's profits are going up. I'm considering calling the customer service line with random questions every month until I've spent $130 of their employees' time. But that would be counterproductive, wouldn't it?
I know we're way, way off topic here, but I have to ask again: how is linking health insurance to employment in any way "pro-business" as so many politicians claim to be? As a small business owner, insurance is a big part of my monthly budget. If I had halfway decent insurance, like I had when I was an employee, I'd be paying half of my salary every month for insurance!
So, back to Midwestern economy: I had a meeting this morning for a small, independent retail-ish project. I still believe there are a lot of small entrepreneurs out here - and elsewhere, too - who are moving forward with small projects. I don't see any big work happening, though.
Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled? Congressional comittees and appointees set the rates the insurers can charge for products and procedures. Navigating the regulation is estimated to be as high as 1/3 the total cost we now pay. All government healthcare is leading to is relieving the insurance copanies of their least profitable customers making their business even more profitable at the exspense of everyone else paying higher taxes. The true solution in my opinion is to get rid of managed care and force everyone to pay their own way for the majority of doctors visits. Insurance should only be for catastrophic illnesses, not sore throats and sniffles. This is where we went off track in the late 70's with the invention of "managed care", which was created to comabat the inflation problem at the time. It was a good idea that has outlived it's usefulness by 25 years and is now just being exploited and expanded under the Obama plan.
Actually, Jack, I agree with you that the majority of health care purchases should be paid for by the receiver, with the exception of catastrophic care. The problem is, how does one define "catastrophic"? It's easy enough to say "car crash" or "cancer", but what about diabetes that comes on slowly due to obesity and crappy diet, or chronic pain due to nerve damage from a routine wisdom teeth extraction?
I believe Oregon experimented years ago with a ranking system of every health-related procedure for what would be covered or not by a single-payer system, and where it all gets bogged down is when one small issue leads to another small issue then another small issue arises from that and suddenly you're unable to work - which would then be "catastrophic".
No attitude here, this is meant as a serious discussion. Though sorry, chicagoarchitect, we're way afield.
We are afield but it is germane to the discussion of the midwest economy. Afterall the midwest economy is heavily agro-industrial and benefit costs can make or break large scale laborious operations.
I think the key is going back to find out what went wrong with managed care. HMOs helped reduce costs in the 70s and early 80s when prices where climbing at accelerating rates. Then it seemed everyone got their hands in it and the problem now is managed care raises costs both in terms of product and cost for premiums.
One big area of all of this debate has to be tort reform. A suspect a large portion of the regulatory burden is born of costs associated with legal overhead and litigation prevention. Not only are the lawsuits expensive but so is the preventative measures to avoid them. But thats only one part of the problem. Theres a whole other side to this about the practice of medicine. We all know it would probably be best to scan us all every couple years to look for signs of underlying illness, but this wont happen and I've never understood why. Wouldn’t you think it to be less expensive to find a tumor in it's infancy than full blown chemo treatments and rehab? Yet much preventative measures are not insured. Why?
"Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled?"
Health insurance should NOT be a for-profit industry where people die because the investors want higher returns. That's what we have.
"Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled?"
LB, I know this site is monolithically liberal, but Jack has sparked some dialogue from the other side.... like me. I'm assuming you're in support of Obama, if that's wrong, forgive me.
The government is ultimately ALREADY controlling SOOOO much of the healthcare industry, and is on the delivering end of the pain you are receiving to the tune of the 130 bucks.
You already seem to find it at least a bit odd that you can suddenly pay 25% extra, but receive no additional services. Why do you suppose that your insurance company can work that way? Perhaps inflation accounted for 3 or 4 percent of the 25. But what about the rest, hm?
Could you similarly charge your clients 25 percent for the same service? Of course not, the market would not bear the increase since your client could simply go elsewhere.
So why can the insurance companies do that?
As with most anything the government attempts to control, the law of unintended consequences ultimately takes over. Insurance companies simply learn to "manage" the government system itself that "controls" them, and learn use every trick possible to work the system that the government put in place.
So, at this point, many are thinking "Yeah, those thieving insurance companies"... and, yes, they probably are. But's it's an artificial market that the government created, and the insurance companies are legally working that system.
Well... how on earth would you suppose that even MORE regulation is going to relieve that situation? Which, is, ultimately what Obama is proposing in some much-argued fashion.
As you're directly experiencing, the government runs nothing efficiently -- do you disagree with that? So, well-intentioned or not, here's the problem with Obama Care: How would the governement, the historically undisputed highest of the high kingpins of waste and mismanagement, somehow suddenly solve the healthcare mess of their own creation? Why would any rational person assume that the government can set up a better and cheaper healthcare system via EVEN MORE CONTROL????
Dontlethtebastardsgetyoudown (that's what illegitimi's name means, for those of you who don't know): I'm asking, in all naivete, how is it then that we keep hearing statistics about the governments of France/Canada etc. spending half what the US spends on health care and getting better care than we do? As Jack said, certainly part of the problem is that we treat big problems when they become an emergency rather than try to avoid them in the first place.
I have no idea how health care should be dealt with, but I don't think it should be a for-profit business, I don't think it should be tied to employment, and I think the current proposals are probably not going to make things any better for the majority of the middle class. I guess I think a complete health care revolution needs to happen - which would be pretty dang disruptive not only to receivers of health care but to all of those employed in the industry as well.
Also, yeah, I tend left but I'm more of a supporter of smart decisions than any single ideology.
1. In private health care right now the person who stands between you and your
doctor is a person who gets a percentage of the cost of all the care that they deny you.
2. If government is so bad at everything why do we trust them with our national defense? Shouldn't we be hiring mercenaries who would be much much cheaper and better that our army?
I've been an architect for the VA and I can assure you they are not a model of efficiency. They do provide a large number of Vets great care yes, but with an inexhaustable supply of funds.
I'd be curious to see what their preventative policies are for vets and if they manage to detect illness earlier.
The even more surprising finding—given the national rhetoric—is that medical malpractice payments have grown at about the same rate as health-care costs overall.
Insurers though are making a lot more money.
And the other study done in Texas, showed that the better entrepreneurs the doctors were, the more unnecessary and expensive care the patients received. They were no more healthy than patients who spent less.
That was in the New Yorker article.
I do a lot of hospital work and talk with a lot of doctors who all have great theories and insights into the problems we face. I've heard from general practitioners that 20% of their overhead is paperwork and dealing with the insurance companies. I've heard of hospital takeover groups reducing as much as 50% of Obstetrician’s salary when they buy a hospital from a single ownership and then requiring the doctors to deliver a quota of poverty level babies out of the doctor's own pocket. I've watched a corrupt public hospital in Chicago ( go figure ) throw out a contract worth over $100million dollars for equipment to award it to another company for 15% more after work had already started on the original equipment layouts. The overwhelming theme among doctors and surgeons I deal with is that drug costs are too high ( regulation is a major factor here and doctors would like more freedom to "practice" medicine and experiment with treatments without threat of leagal action), administration costs are too high, too many people are simply unhealthy in their lifestyles and are often the ones least able to pay and lastly tort reform is desperately needed to reduce the threat of lawsuits for malpractice ro neglegance ie not prescribing a test that could have detected something. All this leads to higher costs and I doubt adding another layer of paper pushers will solve it.
"If government is so bad at everything why do we trust them with our national defense? Shouldn't we be hiring mercenaries who would be much much cheaper and better that our army?"
The constitution says that it's the job of the Federal government to maintain a force able to protect the country. There is certainly waste and fraud in our military. But our military is also a volunteer force. I doubt we would find much of a volunteer force for the medical field. Ironically however, this is how Catholic hospitals got to be so prevalent in the old days. A large number of volunteers.
I've heard from general practitioners that 20% of their overhead is paperwork and dealing with the insurance companies.
at least a third of my day is spent dealing with the building code, i.e. regulation, but i don't hear many architects out there complaining about the building code. regulation is not merely red tape that needlessly adds cost; it is there for a reason. the two dimensional thinking of most conservatives boggles my mind.
But fidler, part of your job is to know the codes, just as a doctor's job is to know the contraindications of different treatments. What you don't need to know, or spend time on, is determining how your client is going to pay you, or how much it will be when you do get paid by a third party, right? I see what you're after, but I don't think it's quite an appropriate analogy.
The Constitution says we also have a right to habeus corpus and the bill of rights is supposed to keep us free from things like warrantless wiretaps. I'm just pointing out that since when has that stopped us? By your reasoning The free market should be a better way to defend outselves and we should just get blackwater to defend us since they're doing so well in places like Iraq.
Everyone complains that governments are corrupt and inefficient, but the ones reaping the benifits are companies.
if government is inherently inefficient and should never be in charge of something so massive and crucial as health care, how is it that virtually every nation ahead of us in terms of quality of care (of which there are many) has a single payer, government run system?
id preface that by saying there is probably no historical precedent in THIS country (though many would argue medicare is very succesfull and quite popular)... but that doesnt mean it cant be done
I went into the Doug Garofolo-designed Japanese Tea House on Fullerton and had my morning rice bowl and hojicha. The owner is from Japan and she explained to me that everyone in Japan is covered.
A check online says the Japanese spend 8% of their GDP on health care (2005). We're about 15.2%. That's why every Japanese made car has an advantage. (Maybe we can get jobs in insurance offices?)
Where's all this money going?
That's why Republican senators are saying that Obama is for euthanasia. Big Insurance is frightened and will say anything to keep a single payer program that works in every other industrial nation from killing their profit centers here in the United States.
A recovery in the midwest will be difficult and much slower without serious health car reform. The auto industry will never be as competitive without this reform.
im saying that, beyond research and development or highly specialized procedures, our health care system is WORSE than most western nations though we spend significantly more. Our life expectancies are lower, our infant mortality rates are significantly higher, our obesity and diabetes rates are higher... etc etc...
according to the world health organizations rankings of the best overall health care systems in the world, the US is number 37 behind such jugarnauts as Oman, Columbia, Chile and Costa Rica
For the people that can afford it, the QUALITY of care in this country is unmatched by any. But for everyone else that is not the case.
The key is going to be whatever work can be done to encourage people to seek preventative care and to improve the way they treat their bodies. A low fat, low cholesterol diet and the right prescription will be significantly cheaper for everyone than any surgeries done around the heart.
Recession Recovery - Any Signs in Midwest?
Japan did it half right as lletdown notes.
"This is ultimately asking the taxpayers to pay twice. Once for participation in the still relatively free market, and once again for the artificial one created by the government via the stimulus."
This is no such thing as a free market. 30% of our economy is based on government spending. But holding onto sound bites is something people lack on to for their own detriment.
As someone with a BS in economics, I am amused.
The details of the stimulus package break down into tax cuts, bailouts for the states and then the stimulus money. The actual stimulus portion is maybe 1/2 or 1/3 the $800 package.
Markets are all about psychology. Some believe that the stimulus was unnecessary, some believe that it was too small and too much was in tax breaks and some believed the government needed to do something in order to reassure investors and consumers. It can be argued a couple of ways. But our economy is not a pure free market.
On a GNP level, 8% of our economy is in finance where 5% is the historic norm. I believe health care is about 15%. This compares to about 10% or less in Western Europe.
So about 8% of our US output is being wasted. That's where we are now. This is a huge structural problem with our economy that will kill investment and growth. It is a bigger threat than the stimulus. It doesn't make for a good soundbite, though.
Back to the midwest, projects are starting to move forward.
lletdown -- I'd be careful about equating the high debt you see around WWII as somehow contributory toward prosperity...
Also, those charts don't show most of the depressionyears...
Nor do they show (nor can they yet) the results of Obama's spending, which are projected to surpass everything you've presented.
Beta has characterized phrases I've used like "historically unprecendented" histrionic. Don't think so.
Kurt, your commentary on Fallows as "theory" when he bases it on history, is empty.
and your comment above is reading tea leaves.
make, i look around too, and see things starting to creep a bit more steadily.
what's funny is that if you look at the passed 100 years, with the exception of a few years in the mid to late 30's, the US has never experienced any "real" economic decline. this country has always seemed to be booming. i can't look at my situation and think that is moment is any real death knell. i think we'll all look back with some shame at all the fuss, and remember the difficulties our grandparents suffered and think of this period as The Great Shrug.
You guys should do some comparative economics. The threats to this country are healthcare and the finance industry's too large share of the GDP. It's a huge tax on everything we do and will bring down the economy because it's too expensive to do business here.
well yeah, i didnt say cause-effect... i didnt say the high spending on highways and public works caused the economic boom post wwII... but the two are coincidental, and you cant state as fact that the spending didnt in large part contribute to the subsequent boom
Post WW2 we boomed not because we spent, we boomed because we could spend. Being the only, repeat ONLY non-devistaed industrial power our currency became the foundation for the world's economy and infinately valuable. It still is however the stimulus spending bill will test that . We should be ok since everyone else is doing it to.
As for Japan, in the 1990s they were creating global concrete shortages because they were pouring so much of it for public works projects which had little to no impact on the deteriorating asset prices and currency. The more they poured the more things stayed the same. This new fasination with John Maynard Keynes is cute.
"As for Japan, in the 1990s they were creating global concrete shortages because they were pouring so much of it for public works projects which had little to no impact on the deteriorating asset prices and currency. The more they poured the more things stayed the same. This new fasination with John Maynard Keynes is cut"
Japan has a two-faced economy. There's the global juggernaut like Toyota and Mitsubishi and then there's the corrupt inefficient domestic industries that give the Cook County Board competition for waste. It's the latter and the real estate bubble that did them in. They have so much waste in these companies.
Japan isn't a good comparison because it's such a bizarre economy.
The reason we got out of the great depression was not because of spending and the New Deal, but because of WWII. What it did show was that government intervention, when done correctly, can be incredibly effective in production arguably more than a free market system. Also remember that for America that was a different time - our country was beginning to emerge as the number one economy in the global economy...now is the other way around.
Beta, did I even comment on fallows? I barely know who he is.
Tea leaves, maybe to some extent. But the arithmetic describing the projections does not look good by comparison.
I gottat quit this -- Beta and lletdownl, thanks -- reasonable disagreement has actually occurred!
Another large tax on our economy is the always overlooked military industrial complex, resources there could be used for other society needs. Afghanistan and Pakistan are not included please.
Federal Reserve Statement released today:
The economy remains fragile. But the fact that some Fed regions reported signs of activity beginning to level out raises hope that the recession, which started in December 2007, is drawing to a close.
Four Fed regions — New York, Cleveland, Kansas City and San Francisco— pointed to "signs of stabilization," the survey said. Two regions — Chicago and St. Louis — reported that the pace of economic declined appeared to be "moderating."
Five other regions — Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta and Dallas — described activity as "slow," "subdued" or "weak." Only one region — Minneapolis — indicated that its downward slide in economic activity had worsened.
It's funny because the Chicago region includes Michigan.
My privately-purchased health insurance premium just went up by $130/month for a family of three. So now I'm paying about 25% a month more for the same shitty product.
That's inflation, right?
"As someone with a BS in economics, I am amused."
Well, Make, that is quite impressive. Be sure to let us know when that big brain is gonna kick in.
How's that for a "sound bite"? Catchy enough?
way to go Minneapolis!
i think that worsening has a lot, a lot, to do with most of the building going on here is healthcare related. that, and the fact that we have a shit head lameduck governor, looking to beat the Palinator for the GOP nod.
lb...that's just horrible - regardless of what type of reform takes place, the cost of healthcare is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately...i just found out my home insurance went up 15% for the next year...so, apparently, some out there is making money.
in terms of the so called recovery, flat is the new up...and here in detroit, it's not flat yet...(we've never bounced back from 2001)
BS aside, there's some things to think about.
The $130 extra that LB is paying is NOT going toward better care but going for bigger profits.
As a small business person, I would rather have medicaire open to adults in 6 months and be able to join it. Medicaire works and there's an opportunity to go in and fight the waste that exists in it.
The insurance companies are trying to push any changes back to 2013 and keep people with pre-existing conditions from joining the government plan.
It's really disgusting.
Obama is NOT doing a good job communicating with people.
Beta is there a reason you always sound so angry? The Minneapolis Fed covers an area far larger than the state of Minnesota alone. It also includes about 1/2 of Wisconsin, Michigan UP, North & South Dakota and Montana. Only about half of the economic activity in the fed region come from the state of MN.
Remember that the Cleveland fed region has been hit harder and fallen further in recent history than the Mpls fed. Overall the Mpls fed region has done well given still strong economic activity in the western states when compared to regions absorbing the rust belt shocks in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.
Exactly, make. I'm not getting anything for the extra money, but someone's profits are going up. I'm considering calling the customer service line with random questions every month until I've spent $130 of their employees' time. But that would be counterproductive, wouldn't it?
I know we're way, way off topic here, but I have to ask again: how is linking health insurance to employment in any way "pro-business" as so many politicians claim to be? As a small business owner, insurance is a big part of my monthly budget. If I had halfway decent insurance, like I had when I was an employee, I'd be paying half of my salary every month for insurance!
So, back to Midwestern economy: I had a meeting this morning for a small, independent retail-ish project. I still believe there are a lot of small entrepreneurs out here - and elsewhere, too - who are moving forward with small projects. I don't see any big work happening, though.
Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled? Congressional comittees and appointees set the rates the insurers can charge for products and procedures. Navigating the regulation is estimated to be as high as 1/3 the total cost we now pay. All government healthcare is leading to is relieving the insurance copanies of their least profitable customers making their business even more profitable at the exspense of everyone else paying higher taxes. The true solution in my opinion is to get rid of managed care and force everyone to pay their own way for the majority of doctors visits. Insurance should only be for catastrophic illnesses, not sore throats and sniffles. This is where we went off track in the late 70's with the invention of "managed care", which was created to comabat the inflation problem at the time. It was a good idea that has outlived it's usefulness by 25 years and is now just being exploited and expanded under the Obama plan.
Actually, Jack, I agree with you that the majority of health care purchases should be paid for by the receiver, with the exception of catastrophic care. The problem is, how does one define "catastrophic"? It's easy enough to say "car crash" or "cancer", but what about diabetes that comes on slowly due to obesity and crappy diet, or chronic pain due to nerve damage from a routine wisdom teeth extraction?
I believe Oregon experimented years ago with a ranking system of every health-related procedure for what would be covered or not by a single-payer system, and where it all gets bogged down is when one small issue leads to another small issue then another small issue arises from that and suddenly you're unable to work - which would then be "catastrophic".
No attitude here, this is meant as a serious discussion. Though sorry, chicagoarchitect, we're way afield.
We are afield but it is germane to the discussion of the midwest economy. Afterall the midwest economy is heavily agro-industrial and benefit costs can make or break large scale laborious operations.
I think the key is going back to find out what went wrong with managed care. HMOs helped reduce costs in the 70s and early 80s when prices where climbing at accelerating rates. Then it seemed everyone got their hands in it and the problem now is managed care raises costs both in terms of product and cost for premiums.
One big area of all of this debate has to be tort reform. A suspect a large portion of the regulatory burden is born of costs associated with legal overhead and litigation prevention. Not only are the lawsuits expensive but so is the preventative measures to avoid them. But thats only one part of the problem. Theres a whole other side to this about the practice of medicine. We all know it would probably be best to scan us all every couple years to look for signs of underlying illness, but this wont happen and I've never understood why. Wouldn’t you think it to be less expensive to find a tumor in it's infancy than full blown chemo treatments and rehab? Yet much preventative measures are not insured. Why?
"Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled?"
Health insurance should NOT be a for-profit industry where people die because the investors want higher returns. That's what we have.
"Has it occured to anyone that health insurance is possibly the most regulated industry on earth already and that the "business model" is already government controled?"
LB, I know this site is monolithically liberal, but Jack has sparked some dialogue from the other side.... like me. I'm assuming you're in support of Obama, if that's wrong, forgive me.
The government is ultimately ALREADY controlling SOOOO much of the healthcare industry, and is on the delivering end of the pain you are receiving to the tune of the 130 bucks.
You already seem to find it at least a bit odd that you can suddenly pay 25% extra, but receive no additional services. Why do you suppose that your insurance company can work that way? Perhaps inflation accounted for 3 or 4 percent of the 25. But what about the rest, hm?
Could you similarly charge your clients 25 percent for the same service? Of course not, the market would not bear the increase since your client could simply go elsewhere.
So why can the insurance companies do that?
As with most anything the government attempts to control, the law of unintended consequences ultimately takes over. Insurance companies simply learn to "manage" the government system itself that "controls" them, and learn use every trick possible to work the system that the government put in place.
So, at this point, many are thinking "Yeah, those thieving insurance companies"... and, yes, they probably are. But's it's an artificial market that the government created, and the insurance companies are legally working that system.
Well... how on earth would you suppose that even MORE regulation is going to relieve that situation? Which, is, ultimately what Obama is proposing in some much-argued fashion.
As you're directly experiencing, the government runs nothing efficiently -- do you disagree with that? So, well-intentioned or not, here's the problem with Obama Care: How would the governement, the historically undisputed highest of the high kingpins of waste and mismanagement, somehow suddenly solve the healthcare mess of their own creation? Why would any rational person assume that the government can set up a better and cheaper healthcare system via EVEN MORE CONTROL????
There is no historical precedent.
"As you're directly experiencing, the government runs nothing efficiently -- do you disagree with that?"
The VA runs their health care system more efficiently than any private health insurer.
The VA?
Seriously?
Make, step away from the keyboard.
Dontlethtebastardsgetyoudown (that's what illegitimi's name means, for those of you who don't know): I'm asking, in all naivete, how is it then that we keep hearing statistics about the governments of France/Canada etc. spending half what the US spends on health care and getting better care than we do? As Jack said, certainly part of the problem is that we treat big problems when they become an emergency rather than try to avoid them in the first place.
I have no idea how health care should be dealt with, but I don't think it should be a for-profit business, I don't think it should be tied to employment, and I think the current proposals are probably not going to make things any better for the majority of the middle class. I guess I think a complete health care revolution needs to happen - which would be pretty dang disruptive not only to receivers of health care but to all of those employed in the industry as well.
Also, yeah, I tend left but I'm more of a supporter of smart decisions than any single ideology.
1. In private health care right now the person who stands between you and your
doctor is a person who gets a percentage of the cost of all the care that they deny you.
2. If government is so bad at everything why do we trust them with our national defense? Shouldn't we be hiring mercenaries who would be much much cheaper and better that our army?
I've been an architect for the VA and I can assure you they are not a model of efficiency. They do provide a large number of Vets great care yes, but with an inexhaustable supply of funds.
I'd be curious to see what their preventative policies are for vets and if they manage to detect illness earlier.
Crowbert, are you and Make the same person?
The Dartmouht study that medical malpractice settlements has NOT accounted for the increase in insurance rates.
http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/fall05/html/disc_myth.php
The even more surprising finding—given the national rhetoric—is that medical malpractice payments have grown at about the same rate as health-care costs overall.
Insurers though are making a lot more money.
And the other study done in Texas, showed that the better entrepreneurs the doctors were, the more unnecessary and expensive care the patients received. They were no more healthy than patients who spent less.
That was in the New Yorker article.
http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/
I am for something that works. More of the same won't do it.
Japan spends about 1/2 as much per capita as we do to insure everyone. The Japanese also live longer.
I do a lot of hospital work and talk with a lot of doctors who all have great theories and insights into the problems we face. I've heard from general practitioners that 20% of their overhead is paperwork and dealing with the insurance companies. I've heard of hospital takeover groups reducing as much as 50% of Obstetrician’s salary when they buy a hospital from a single ownership and then requiring the doctors to deliver a quota of poverty level babies out of the doctor's own pocket. I've watched a corrupt public hospital in Chicago ( go figure ) throw out a contract worth over $100million dollars for equipment to award it to another company for 15% more after work had already started on the original equipment layouts. The overwhelming theme among doctors and surgeons I deal with is that drug costs are too high ( regulation is a major factor here and doctors would like more freedom to "practice" medicine and experiment with treatments without threat of leagal action), administration costs are too high, too many people are simply unhealthy in their lifestyles and are often the ones least able to pay and lastly tort reform is desperately needed to reduce the threat of lawsuits for malpractice ro neglegance ie not prescribing a test that could have detected something. All this leads to higher costs and I doubt adding another layer of paper pushers will solve it.
"If government is so bad at everything why do we trust them with our national defense? Shouldn't we be hiring mercenaries who would be much much cheaper and better that our army?"
The constitution says that it's the job of the Federal government to maintain a force able to protect the country. There is certainly waste and fraud in our military. But our military is also a volunteer force. I doubt we would find much of a volunteer force for the medical field. Ironically however, this is how Catholic hospitals got to be so prevalent in the old days. A large number of volunteers.
I would read this with an open mind:
http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/topics/agenda_for_change.pdf
at least a third of my day is spent dealing with the building code, i.e. regulation, but i don't hear many architects out there complaining about the building code. regulation is not merely red tape that needlessly adds cost; it is there for a reason. the two dimensional thinking of most conservatives boggles my mind.
But fidler, part of your job is to know the codes, just as a doctor's job is to know the contraindications of different treatments. What you don't need to know, or spend time on, is determining how your client is going to pay you, or how much it will be when you do get paid by a third party, right? I see what you're after, but I don't think it's quite an appropriate analogy.
"the two dimensional thinking of most conservatives boggles my mind."
Another statement DRIPPING with presumption and condescension.
Sound a lot more like you have no tolerance for disagreement.
The Constitution says we also have a right to habeus corpus and the bill of rights is supposed to keep us free from things like warrantless wiretaps. I'm just pointing out that since when has that stopped us? By your reasoning The free market should be a better way to defend outselves and we should just get blackwater to defend us since they're doing so well in places like Iraq.
Everyone complains that governments are corrupt and inefficient, but the ones reaping the benifits are companies.
I second LB's question...
if government is inherently inefficient and should never be in charge of something so massive and crucial as health care, how is it that virtually every nation ahead of us in terms of quality of care (of which there are many) has a single payer, government run system?
Thanks for asking exactly what I meant but so much more clearly, lletdownl!
no prob LB! im very curious about that as well... there seems to be some major cognitive dissonance when Illegitiminoncarborundum says...
Why would any rational person assume that the government can set up a better and cheaper healthcare system via EVEN MORE CONTROL????
There is no historical precedent.
i wonder how you explain the dozens of nations which have done exactly that...
id preface that by saying there is probably no historical precedent in THIS country (though many would argue medicare is very succesfull and quite popular)... but that doesnt mean it cant be done
I went into the Doug Garofolo-designed Japanese Tea House on Fullerton and had my morning rice bowl and hojicha. The owner is from Japan and she explained to me that everyone in Japan is covered.
A check online says the Japanese spend 8% of their GDP on health care (2005). We're about 15.2%. That's why every Japanese made car has an advantage. (Maybe we can get jobs in insurance offices?)
Where's all this money going?
That's why Republican senators are saying that Obama is for euthanasia. Big Insurance is frightened and will say anything to keep a single payer program that works in every other industrial nation from killing their profit centers here in the United States.
A recovery in the midwest will be difficult and much slower without serious health car reform. The auto industry will never be as competitive without this reform.
"how is it that virtually every nation ahead of us in terms of quality of care"
Oooh, I'll check in later, but that part is not correct --
im looking forward to youre response cause we much have conflicting facts if its in correct
Are you saying the QUALITY is inferior to nearly every other nation?
Maybe i'm imsunderstanding?
im saying that, beyond research and development or highly specialized procedures, our health care system is WORSE than most western nations though we spend significantly more. Our life expectancies are lower, our infant mortality rates are significantly higher, our obesity and diabetes rates are higher... etc etc...
according to the world health organizations rankings of the best overall health care systems in the world, the US is number 37 behind such jugarnauts as Oman, Columbia, Chile and Costa Rica
For the people that can afford it, the QUALITY of care in this country is unmatched by any. But for everyone else that is not the case.
The key is going to be whatever work can be done to encourage people to seek preventative care and to improve the way they treat their bodies. A low fat, low cholesterol diet and the right prescription will be significantly cheaper for everyone than any surgeries done around the heart.
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