"Keep the guvmint out of my medicare!": Insurance Lobby Organizes Elderly Hecklers

Power does not have to be centralised for people to abuse it (or for it to corrupt people, make your pick). The only weapon against the abuse of power is accountability, and it is not at all wielded against those who have money/power. If you have enough wealth, you can hire the lawyers to fend off any accountability, and in the rare event that you are held accountable for failure, you get sent away with your pockets full of cash. Those in power of the large corporations (and indeed the government) are able to stay out of the public eye, and will never ever pay for any of the harm they cause. They have no incentive at all to care for anyone but themselves. Nobody even asks them, because nobody knows that they are in power.

So yes, i want names, dammit. Without names, there is no accountability.

 

People who invest in companies are not accountable to you. The company is accountable to them. They put their money at risk, under what justification do you demand them to account to you? You are right, people can abuse less centralized power, but when they do abuse it, it impacts much fewer people and still allows diversification and competition. All modern monopolies involved central controlling government being manipulated by a private company working it for their own interest. The politicians are working in their own interest as well. When both are allowed to do so everyone is effected negatively.

 

actually eddie subsidized housing is not the reason we are in this mess.. I was studying to be a loan officer during the housing boom- it was banks lending money to anyone and there was no ethics involved in loans- based on the bet that housing would always go up

a guy could work at mcdonalds, all you had to do as a loan officer was have a good relationship with the banks.. you didn't even have to talk to them on the phone- california only had 2 online tests to take a year which came out only recently.. before that you could be anybody and do housing loans

the banks actually preferred you talk to them by a email type of system, you didnt' even have to talk to them over the phone.. you could exaggerate the guys income by stated- then turn around and put the guy on what they referred to in the office a 'power loan' lol I've seen some pretty disgusting loans go through- noone was doing fixed loans at the time, so they could trick these poor *******s into a 300k home paying 900 dollars a month with no money down.. what saddle popper wouldn't jump all over that

then they'd say.. and in a year you can refinance your property, take 40k in profit and do another arm! boy does that make your head spin right there..

real estate finally crashed back to reality and all these burger flippers were in 300,000 dollar homes with no way to refinance living way over their means- reality sunk in.. those with fixed (non-idiots) just keep paying the same they always have and wonder why the neighborhood has gone to crack.. the banks were stuck with all these houses and no money- needed bailout money.. thats where we are today

 

Historically, banks have NEVER extended their credit as far as they have since the fed encourage looser behavior starting in the 90's. 15 years later, via Fanny and Freddy, some companies were extended 30-1. This is behavior private lenders would never do without government "guaranty" and, in some cases, threats of investigation if they were lending to certain groups of high-risk people.

 

I'm confused, you advocate a free market solution for all things, then when the free market collapses as it did in the case of housing/credit market you blame the federal government for freeing the banks up? Then suggest that these banks should be investigated for acting in there own greedy self interests, you know much like the insurance companies do.

 

They didn't "free up the banks" they underwrote additional risk based on a political ideal (more houses for more people regardless of their actual ability to pay) rather than based on fundamental and sound lending principles.

 

You would be naive to assume that Cuban health care would be the only reason why Cubans leave Cuba (or indeed stay there). As you yourself say: people have priorities and make compromises. Some Cubans have criminal records back home (Castro flushes his jails in the 80's and encouraged the inmates to leave for the US).

Yet 40% are Senators. Hmmm... something does not add up.

You tell me: highest levels of obesity, heart disease and cancer; higher child mortality rates than countries like the Czech Republic, Slovenia or the UK (or yes, even Cuba), health care that ranks 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health amongst 191 nations with health care industry profits accounting for 25% of health care costs. Oh, and then there is a massive national debt and a credit crunch catching up. Yup, it's doing OK from where I'm sitting.

Oh, and I myself denounced Communism as unrealistic as the American Dream.

Your logic is sound, yet the statistics stand: the UK NHS is doing better than the US.

Subsidized how? By greedy mortgage companies who underwrote and then sold on debts that they knew could not be paid off? It sounds to me that the problem here was a de facto privatisation of a social service, which is not the same thing. Once private companies have had their fill and leave the table, the tax payers always pick up the tab. This is also the problem with the current US health care model: the goverment subsidises it by 50% but because it is supposed to be a free market enterprise, it has no control over how that money is invested. But because health care is a necessary service it cannot afford to fail; when private companies screw up or bail out the tax payer has to pay regardless. Why not just cut out the middle man?

If you want to stop paying taxes go live totally self-sufficiently in the woods of Washington (State). There are people who do that. Presumably if their appendix bursts they either pay the doctor from their own pocket or cut it out with their own knife. Either way, complaining about taxes while living in suburbia is just whining.

 

They removed a lot of the restrictions on the banking sector both here and in US in the 90's thus freeing the banks to do as they please much more so than before. What ever the political motivations the removal of the restrictions highlighted the reason the free market isn't always the best solution.

 

Then, once again, why isn't all of the UK's property ownership not nationalized? If you are right, then isn't it the only solution that would work?

 

I'm not out to advocate for full socialisation of all services, indeed a quick look at the FSU would show that would daft, but you seem to be of the opinion that the free market has all the answers.

For the record we do have a fair amount of local authority run housing which while some of the housing stock has been sold to long term occupiers the council house is still very much a part of the UK property market.

 

I don't think it has all the answers, but I put more faith on the participants of the system to find answers , to adapt, succeed and prosper over a central government body, especially ours.

 

True, so do I, however they will invariable adapt, succeed and prosper to the detriment of the individual. I can see where your coming from, I wouldn't trust the government to run a tap in most circumstances but there are some where the market is not appropriate which leaves the government or charity to fill the gap.

 

Again, the logic is sound, but the practice is different. Consumers are not very informed. If they were we wouldn't have McDonalds, Coca Cola, GAP, cigarettes or brand-label products; we wouldn't have sports shoes that look like futuristic spaceships (but are proven to be worse than running barefoot) or a multitude of other crap, unhealthy, poor value-for-money products that the market is awash with.

When you buy, say, a crap MP3 player that is perhaps no great shakes --unless you paid a fortune for it. When you buy tainted foods or a dangerous car (Ford Pinto?) or bad over-the-counter meds then it definitely becomes an issue. And lo, the government steps in with rules and regulations on what manufacturers and advertisers can get away with and what they can't.

History shows that whenever the goverment has given industries the freedom to police themselves and manage their own products and processes responsibly, it has always turned to crap. There is no such thing as a working, truly free market economy because the consumer simply does not know as much about the product they are buying as the manufacturer does. There is an information asymmetry --which, in free market terms, is always bad news for the party that is not in possession of all the facts (this can work the other way too: banks can underwrite loans based on lies by the customer about how well they are able to manage their finances and repay the loan, for instance).

Now to health care. Consumers are not able to make fully informed decisions about their health care needs --unless they are doctors or nurses or pharmacists, possibly, and even then when they are ill, injured, worried and in pain they do not think too rationally. People have to be able to trust to a reasonable degree that whatever recommendations their doctor or hospital makes is the best one; that nobody is trying to persuade them to buy tests or treatments that they don't really need, do not work or that are more expensive than they need to be.

Let me re-iterate: at no other point in your life do you need to be able to just trust professionals as much as when you are ill or injured. You are not a consumer buying an MP3 player after a thorough week-long perusal of Which? Magazine and Trusted Reviews. You are a patient who is vulnerable, worried and a bit irrational, and feeling quite unwell. You know sweet F.A. about medicine; your doctor knows everything. Your life is quite literally at the mercy of his power and expertise. Sound like an informed, empowered consumer? I think not.

This position of vulnerability, trust and power is universally recognised in health care, in that health professionals need professional qualifications, licences to practice, police checks, demonstration of continued professional development and liability insurance coming out the yazoo. As a patient, you'd expect nothing less --you are putting your life in their hands, after all. So why should health insurance and health industry be held to any other standard?

There need to be controls, checks and balances on health care. Consumers can't do it alone; the companies shouldn't be left to do it alone. Which leaves the government to step in and do what it is supposed to: to govern.

 

yeah nexxo but that's what I'm talking about.. on medicare that's exactly the kinds of doctors you meet- the really good ones are in the better hospitals under private insurance.. trust me I see them all the time- I'm a skeptic too when it comes to someone pushing bad drugs off, or just being a moron- I've met some that were really uneducated quacks.. it's probably the same where your at

from what I've seen that doesn't happen if you have the right doctors.. like my pops was recently diagnosed with lupus by a hillbilly- he decided to get a second opinion, so he we to kalamazoo, mi (he lives in a little hick town.. that was the local doctor who was all on the lupus bit) and they found he just needs to cut out salt in his diet, no lupus!

same with my girlfriend.. first doctor mutombo or whatever the fack his name was- could barely speak english told her she had 3 months to a year to live.. you know what that did to the savings account? sure we had alot of fun in that time but I find out there's awesome drugs out there and she's doing just fine today with regular checkups, she doesn't need flolan, just takes tracleer once a day- most people with her condition have a cath going strait ot the heart and carry a device that feeds med in.. she lives just like a normal person and still teaches 3rd-4th grade classes

under a nhs, there would be no meds like that- there's just not enough people with ph for it to be profitable under government.. plus I will have to find another good doctor in a sea of crap.. and I really doubt under nhs I'd be able to go to standford just to get a second opinion like I can now, not to harp on the r&d thing.. but they do have some really passionate people working on ph there along with the drug companies to come up with even better meds than tracleer

I don't see why you guys in the uk really care so much about our healthcare system.. you benefit indirectly from the drugs that come out of our 'crappy' system anyways! I know it sounds selfish but we do have medicare, and it's broken.. maybe something to control costs to employers would be a better solution

 

I don't get your argument, its just plain misinformed, if i've missed the point please elaborate.

 

the point is steve.. in simple terms our r&d is > yours.. these evil drug companies made the medication that saved my girlfriends life.. did the uk make the drugs that ph patients use today?

I wonder what ph patients in europe have to say- oh yeah they would be dead by now or had to get a heart and lung transplant

 

aye maybe I shouldn't post to baiters.. I just get worked up cause it's so personal to me

 

Where does the government paying for your treatment effect your R&D, The NHS spent ten BILLION pounds buying medicine from the free market, some of those would have been developed in the UK and some in the US.

To suggest that US R&D is ">*" is fairly nonsensical. The US doesn't have a R&D department its out sourced to private companies for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlaxoSmithKline. You'll note where its head quartered of course.

I'm neither trolling nor baiting you i'm trying make sense of your point. Eddies I get he doesn't trust the government fair enough nor do many, but yours seems to revolve around the fact that the insurance companies make big bucks and you spend more buying drugs there for people with minority conditions receive care that they wouldn't get in social health care. Is that the crux of your point?

 

I'm not sure that's really relevant, just because 'the uk' didn't invent drug X doesn't mean it's a 3rd world country. Penecillin was invented in the UK if you want some drugs-one-up-manship. The NHS can buy in drugs invented else-where...

Just as a side note:



Now I'm not sure if that's entirely true...?

 

hippoz I just reread your post referring to your gf condition and look what is available on the NHS,
http://nhs.medguides.medicines.org.uk/nhs/medicine.aspx?name=Tracleer&use=
http://nhs.medguides.medicines.org.uk/nhs/medicine.aspx?name=bosentan monohydrate&use=

And look it's used to treat more that just one condition....


And wait there's more traceleer developed by Actelion and they're based??

emphasis added...