Conservatives and Empathy

[Bern80]

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." James Madison



I don't pretend to be an expert on thought in early America but I know your interpretation is way too simplistic and almost utopian. It would only take a few quotations from the time to contradict your assumptions. Here's one: "... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to James Madison 1785 [more quotes below]

The constitution and federation of America occurred because people ( and states ) don't get along, plain and simple, the idea today that government is the problem grows not out of our founding, but out of the oppositional rhetoric of power and money when faced with regulation and law. Plutocracy along with corporate power and big money are powerful forces today. (see book at bottom)

Unalienable rights, like freedom, are meaningless concepts outside of context and community. No one has unalienable rights as that is one enormous abstraction given everyone can only act within a time and a place. Empathy as I use it in this thread is not favorable opinions on concepts, I consider it about people. That is a consistent distinction between liberal thought and conservative thought: conservatives live by formula, liberals by utility. Read Tom Paine sometimes as he influneced our revolution.

If government were to leave people alone we'd have anarchy. Law and its consequence is the only thing that keeps some - many - most people honest in affairs of profit and property. Our recent real estate crash demonstrates this once more, but humans do not seem to learn. Just think if some regulator had done their job with Madoff?

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government." Thomas Jefferson

"Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came." Thomas Paine

"The republican [not party] ideology derives from a variety of sources, both ancient and early modern. Within the context of early American history, republican ideology usually refers to a strain of political thought that emphasized the need for the government to pursue the public good. Republican thinkers believed that liberty was a very fragile thing that had to be carefully guarded. In order to successfully protect liberty, politics had to be carried out by virtuous men who would protect the public good rather than seeking to benefit private interests." David J. Voelker http://www.uwgb.edu/voelkerd/handouts/republicanism-by-david-voelker.pdf


"Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books
.

Unfortunately that isn't true. Science has shown through social experiements time and time again that lack of some authority does not automatically lead to chaos. Not that I am advocating for no government but an anarchist would argue that anarchy is not chaos, simply a lack of central authority in the absence of which spontaneous order would come about.

It is ridiculous to believe that the founders were big government lovers given what they came from. You quote Jefferson, but cleary out of context. While he stating how something could be done he clearly not advocating it. No one is advocating for no regulation midcan. But to believe a central authority (government) with ever more power is not the greatest threat there is to one's freedom is to be about as blind as one can be.

Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

BLIND FAITH

The gap between rich and poor is now the widest in US history. This is disturbing, for if history is any guide we have unwittingly placed ourselves in grave danger.

Over the last millennium Europe has witnessed long cycles of widening and narrowing economic disparity. In each cycle, once the gap between the rich and the rest widened beyond a certain point, it presaged decline and disaster for all of society, the rich as well as the poor. Could we be seeing the first tremors of a new cycle, the outliers of the next menacing storm? In recent decades, many US citizens have come under increasing financial pressure. Since the 1970s, our number of working poor has increased sharply. Nearly all of our much-vaunted newly-created wealth has gone to the richest.

For a country that has prided itself on its resourcefulness, the inability to address such problems suggests something deeper at work. There is something, powerful but insidious, that blinds us to the causes of these problems and undermines our ability to respond. That something is a set of beliefs, comparable to religious beliefs in earlier ages, about the nature of economies and societies. These beliefs imply the impropriety of government intervention either in social contexts (libertarianism) or in economic affairs (laissez faire).

The faithful unquestioningly embrace the credo that the doctrine of nonintervention has generated our most venerated institutions: our democracy, the best possible political system; and our free market economy, the best possible economic system. But despite our devotion to the dogmas that libertarianism and free market economics are the foundation of all that we cherish most deeply, they have failed us and are responsible for our present malaise.

The pieties of libertarianism and free markets sound pretty, but they cannot withstand even a cursory inspection. Libertarianism does not support democracy; taken to an extreme, it entails the law of the jungle. If government never interferes, we could all get away with murder. Alternatively, if the libertarian position is not to be taken to an extreme, where should it stop? What is the difference between no government and minimal government? Attempts to justify libertarianism, even a less than extreme position, have failed. Laissez faire, or free market economics, characterized by minimal or no government intervention, has a history that is long but undistinguished. Just as the negative effects of a high fever do not certify the health benefits of the opposite extreme, hypothermia, the dismal failure of communism, seeking complete government control of the economy, does not certify the economic benefits of the opposite extreme, total economic non-intervention.

It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

How about you answer my last response to you before we start getting into new territory. But for the record it is the blind compassion of liberals via government that sounds nice on paper but does not pass even a cursory logistical inspection.

 

[Bfgrn]

Unfortunately that isn't true. Science has shown through social experiements time and time again that lack of some authority does not automatically lead to chaos. Not that I am advocating for no government but an anarchist would argue that anarchy is not chaos, simply a lack of central authority in the absence of which spontaneous order would come about.

It is ridiculous to believe that the founders were big government lovers given what they came from. You quote Jefferson, but cleary out of context. While he stating how something could be done he clearly not advocating it. No one is advocating for no regulation midcan. But to believe a central authority (government) with ever more power is not the greatest threat there is to one's freedom is to be about as blind as one can be.

Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

BLIND FAITH

The gap between rich and poor is now the widest in US history. This is disturbing, for if history is any guide we have unwittingly placed ourselves in grave danger.

Over the last millennium Europe has witnessed long cycles of widening and narrowing economic disparity. In each cycle, once the gap between the rich and the rest widened beyond a certain point, it presaged decline and disaster for all of society, the rich as well as the poor. Could we be seeing the first tremors of a new cycle, the outliers of the next menacing storm? In recent decades, many US citizens have come under increasing financial pressure. Since the 1970s, our number of working poor has increased sharply. Nearly all of our much-vaunted newly-created wealth has gone to the richest.

For a country that has prided itself on its resourcefulness, the inability to address such problems suggests something deeper at work. There is something, powerful but insidious, that blinds us to the causes of these problems and undermines our ability to respond. That something is a set of beliefs, comparable to religious beliefs in earlier ages, about the nature of economies and societies. These beliefs imply the impropriety of government intervention either in social contexts (libertarianism) or in economic affairs (laissez faire).

The faithful unquestioningly embrace the credo that the doctrine of nonintervention has generated our most venerated institutions: our democracy, the best possible political system; and our free market economy, the best possible economic system. But despite our devotion to the dogmas that libertarianism and free market economics are the foundation of all that we cherish most deeply, they have failed us and are responsible for our present malaise.

The pieties of libertarianism and free markets sound pretty, but they cannot withstand even a cursory inspection. Libertarianism does not support democracy; taken to an extreme, it entails the law of the jungle. If government never interferes, we could all get away with murder. Alternatively, if the libertarian position is not to be taken to an extreme, where should it stop? What is the difference between no government and minimal government? Attempts to justify libertarianism, even a less than extreme position, have failed. Laissez faire, or free market economics, characterized by minimal or no government intervention, has a history that is long but undistinguished. Just as the negative effects of a high fever do not certify the health benefits of the opposite extreme, hypothermia, the dismal failure of communism, seeking complete government control of the economy, does not certify the economic benefits of the opposite extreme, total economic non-intervention.

It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

How about you answer my last response to you before we start getting into new territory. But for the record it is the blind compassion of liberals via government that sounds nice on paper but does not pass even a cursory logistical inspection.

This is not 'new' territory Bern. My post does address your response. As we moved toward an ideology driven 'free market' ONLY belief economically, and away from a mixed economy, the results have been disastrous.

Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade/Average Real GNP/per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%
(Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992 p. .183, 197)

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century.

Free market apologists contend the closer we come to pure laissez faire, the better. But there is little evidence for even this position. The U.S. has come closer to laissez faire than most other countries, especially since the Reagan Administration. If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.

 

[Skull Pilot]

You want empathy from me?

Look in the dictionary between eczema and enema. That's where you'll find my empathy.

 

[Bfgrn]

You want empathy from me?

Look in the dictionary between eczema and enema. That's where you'll find my empathy.

Thank you for adding proof...

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history. The first democrats, the classical Athenians, had a word for the ideal free marketer, the homo economicus, working for his own economic gain but unconcerned with the community. It was not particularly complimentary, the ancestor of our word “idiot.” Pericles expressed the sentiment underlying this: “We regard the citizen who takes no part in these [public] duties not as unambitious but as useless…”

 

[Skull Pilot]

You want empathy from me?

Look in the dictionary between eczema and enema. That's where you'll find my empathy.

Thank you for adding proof...

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history. The first democrats, the classical Athenians, had a word for the ideal free marketer, the homo economicus, working for his own economic gain but unconcerned with the community. It was not particularly complimentary, the ancestor of our word “idiot.” Pericles expressed the sentiment underlying this: “We regard the citizen who takes no part in these [public] duties not as unambitious but as useless…”

Proof of what?

All you hand wringers who sit around and empathize don't usually do anything to rectify a problem.

I can empathize all you want but I'd rather do something about what I see as wrong.

 

[Bern80]

Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

BLIND FAITH

The gap between rich and poor is now the widest in US history. This is disturbing, for if history is any guide we have unwittingly placed ourselves in grave danger.

Over the last millennium Europe has witnessed long cycles of widening and narrowing economic disparity. In each cycle, once the gap between the rich and the rest widened beyond a certain point, it presaged decline and disaster for all of society, the rich as well as the poor. Could we be seeing the first tremors of a new cycle, the outliers of the next menacing storm? In recent decades, many US citizens have come under increasing financial pressure. Since the 1970s, our number of working poor has increased sharply. Nearly all of our much-vaunted newly-created wealth has gone to the richest.

For a country that has prided itself on its resourcefulness, the inability to address such problems suggests something deeper at work. There is something, powerful but insidious, that blinds us to the causes of these problems and undermines our ability to respond. That something is a set of beliefs, comparable to religious beliefs in earlier ages, about the nature of economies and societies. These beliefs imply the impropriety of government intervention either in social contexts (libertarianism) or in economic affairs (laissez faire).

The faithful unquestioningly embrace the credo that the doctrine of nonintervention has generated our most venerated institutions: our democracy, the best possible political system; and our free market economy, the best possible economic system. But despite our devotion to the dogmas that libertarianism and free market economics are the foundation of all that we cherish most deeply, they have failed us and are responsible for our present malaise.

The pieties of libertarianism and free markets sound pretty, but they cannot withstand even a cursory inspection. Libertarianism does not support democracy; taken to an extreme, it entails the law of the jungle. If government never interferes, we could all get away with murder. Alternatively, if the libertarian position is not to be taken to an extreme, where should it stop? What is the difference between no government and minimal government? Attempts to justify libertarianism, even a less than extreme position, have failed. Laissez faire, or free market economics, characterized by minimal or no government intervention, has a history that is long but undistinguished. Just as the negative effects of a high fever do not certify the health benefits of the opposite extreme, hypothermia, the dismal failure of communism, seeking complete government control of the economy, does not certify the economic benefits of the opposite extreme, total economic non-intervention.

It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

How about you answer my last response to you before we start getting into new territory. But for the record it is the blind compassion of liberals via government that sounds nice on paper but does not pass even a cursory logistical inspection.

This is not 'new' territory Bern. My post does address your response. As we moved toward an ideology driven 'free market' ONLY belief economically, and away from a mixed economy, the results have been disastrous.

Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade/Average Real GNP/per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%
(Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992 p. .183, 197)

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century.

Free market apologists contend the closer we come to pure laissez faire, the better. But there is little evidence for even this position. The U.S. has come closer to laissez faire than most other countries, especially since the Reagan Administration. If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.

Correlation is not causation Bf. What else has happened in that time? Government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger requiring more and more of people's money, so much more that what they spend outstrips what they collect which has caused us to go into debt which has devalued the dollar....but of course that can't possibly have anything to do with it right?

P.S. the post I am asking you to repond to is this one.

A huge pile of bullshit. Health insurance will NEVER, EVER be a fit for the private sector. The 'free market' model CANNOT work for both the consumer and the insurance corporations. Are you folks on the right so thoroughly indoctrinated that you can't see the built in conflicts?

Why not? It works for the consumer and every other type of corporation that produces good or services for consumption. What is this conflict you speak of that ONLY exists in the health insurance industry?

You REALLY can't see the problem?

OK, let's take buying a car. You buy a Chevy and you are not satisfied with the car, what are your options?

Pretty sure I know where you're going to try to go with this, but I'll play along for the moment. If you buy a new car and aren't satisfied with it, your options depend on the situation. My parents just happened to have bought a new car and weren't competely satisified with a few things. Had a spot on the interior roof or something and the dealership fixed it for them. If you are talking about it just not being the car you want or something like that, then I would imagine you could return the car for refund if you're within the exchange period. So I'm guessing this is the part where you explain to me why it is not possible for the free market to provide a similar level of service where health insurance is concerned.........

 

[Bfgrn]

How about you answer my last response to you before we start getting into new territory. But for the record it is the blind compassion of liberals via government that sounds nice on paper but does not pass even a cursory logistical inspection.

This is not 'new' territory Bern. My post does address your response. As we moved toward an ideology driven 'free market' ONLY belief economically, and away from a mixed economy, the results have been disastrous.

Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade/Average Real GNP/per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%
(Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992 p. .183, 197)

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century.

Free market apologists contend the closer we come to pure laissez faire, the better. But there is little evidence for even this position. The U.S. has come closer to laissez faire than most other countries, especially since the Reagan Administration. If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.

Correlation is not causation Bf. What else has happened in that time? Government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger requiring more and more of people's money, so much more that what they spend outstrips what they collect which has caused us to go into debt which has devalued the dollar....but of course that can't possibly have anything to do with it right?

P.S. the post I am asking you to repond to is this one.

Why not? It works for the consumer and every other type of corporation that produces good or services for consumption. What is this conflict you speak of that ONLY exists in the health insurance industry?

You REALLY can't see the problem?

OK, let's take buying a car. You buy a Chevy and you are not satisfied with the car, what are your options?

Pretty sure I know where you're going to try to go with this, but I'll play along for the moment. If you buy a new car and aren't satisfied with it, your options depend on the situation. My parents just happened to have bought a new car and weren't competely satisified with a few things. Had a spot on the interior roof or something and the dealership fixed it for them. If you are talking about it just not being the car you want or something like that, then I would imagine you could return the car for refund if you're within the exchange period. So I'm guessing this is the part where you explain to me why it is not possible for the free market to provide a similar level of service where health insurance is concerned.........

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

 

[Foxfyre]

This is not 'new' territory Bern. My post does address your response. As we moved toward an ideology driven 'free market' ONLY belief economically, and away from a mixed economy, the results have been disastrous.

Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade/Average Real GNP/per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%
(Maddison, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992 p. .183, 197)

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century.

Free market apologists contend the closer we come to pure laissez faire, the better. But there is little evidence for even this position. The U.S. has come closer to laissez faire than most other countries, especially since the Reagan Administration. If free market policies are the best economic policies then we should have experienced the most robust growth in the world during this period. But this has not happened. We have been outstripped by our trading partners.

Correlation is not causation Bf. What else has happened in that time? Government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger requiring more and more of people's money, so much more that what they spend outstrips what they collect which has caused us to go into debt which has devalued the dollar....but of course that can't possibly have anything to do with it right?

P.S. the post I am asking you to repond to is this one.

You REALLY can't see the problem?

OK, let's take buying a car. You buy a Chevy and you are not satisfied with the car, what are your options?

Pretty sure I know where you're going to try to go with this, but I'll play along for the moment. If you buy a new car and aren't satisfied with it, your options depend on the situation. My parents just happened to have bought a new car and weren't competely satisified with a few things. Had a spot on the interior roof or something and the dealership fixed it for them. If you are talking about it just not being the car you want or something like that, then I would imagine you could return the car for refund if you're within the exchange period. So I'm guessing this is the part where you explain to me why it is not possible for the free market to provide a similar level of service where health insurance is concerned.........

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

The options are to sue for breach of contract if the policy specified coverage and the insurance company refused to pay. The options are to appeal for help from a benevolent organization. I have a friend who, through no fault of her own, was fairly indigent and received all her cancer treatment free at Bellevue in NYC--a state run hospital. That is the alternative if the people support it--set up a state or city hospital to serve the very poor and indigent.

Alternatively, if the government takes over and controls all healthcare in the country and they decide your mother isn't worth the cancer treatment and send her home to die, THEN what would your options be? Our fearless leader actually suggested that scenario would be possible when he was selling his healthcare overhaul.

 

[Bfgrn]

Correlation is not causation Bf. What else has happened in that time? Government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger requiring more and more of people's money, so much more that what they spend outstrips what they collect which has caused us to go into debt which has devalued the dollar....but of course that can't possibly have anything to do with it right?

P.S. the post I am asking you to repond to is this one.

Pretty sure I know where you're going to try to go with this, but I'll play along for the moment. If you buy a new car and aren't satisfied with it, your options depend on the situation. My parents just happened to have bought a new car and weren't competely satisified with a few things. Had a spot on the interior roof or something and the dealership fixed it for them. If you are talking about it just not being the car you want or something like that, then I would imagine you could return the car for refund if you're within the exchange period. So I'm guessing this is the part where you explain to me why it is not possible for the free market to provide a similar level of service where health insurance is concerned.........

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

The options are to sue for breach of contract if the policy specified coverage and the insurance company refused to pay. The options are to appeal for help from a benevolent organization. I have a friend who, through no fault of her own, was fairly indigent and received all her cancer treatment free at Bellevue in NYC--a state run hospital. That is the alternative if the people support it--set up a state or city hospital to serve the very poor and indigent.

Alternatively, if the government takes over and controls all healthcare in the country and they decide your mother isn't worth the cancer treatment and send her home to die, THEN what would your options be? Our fearless leader actually suggested that scenario would be possible when he was selling his healthcare overhaul.

Proof???

 

[Bern80]

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

Yes, Bf. You really are blind if you think otherwise. Government takes in more money than it ever has, spends more than it ever has and it still isn't enough. As far as expansion of social services you may be right, but what matters to the citizens you claim to care so much about is their pocket book and government's runaway spending is having the biggest impact on it. I am all for severing the ties that currently exist between government and business. How that is going to help the pocket book of the poor and middle class I'm really not sure.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

Whether your plan covers the costs of cancer treatment or not would the responsibility of you, the consumer, to know before you purchase your plan. The typical argument over the cost of health care is that people can't foresee and prepare for their health care eventualities even that isnt completely true, but even if it were, just because a problem is out of your control does not automatically absolve you of responsibility for it and/or obligate someone else to fix it. But let's stick with this scenario a second. Ma's insurance won't cover cancer? What are her options? Find another isurance plan that will would be one. There isn't any reason there can't exist an insurance company that say only takes preexisting conditions. Think outside the box for a second instead of always running to mommy government's tit. Or how about loans for healthcare costs. We do it for cars all the time. Most people don't have the cost of a car on them so they get a loan and pay it back. In the end your 35k car ends up costing you maybe 38k once you're done paying it off with interest. Why can't a similar product be offered for health care. If you have a 100k in health care costs you take out loan for it at some percentage rate and pay it back or x amount of time. I just don't get why health care is viewed as this service that we shouldn't have to compensate providers for like any other service we don't think twice about paying for. De-regulate the industry so that insurance companies can find tune plans to what people actually want. If you purchase a plan then that doesn't cover your condition that isn't anyone's fault but your own and you need to find alternative means of dealing with it.

Of course insurance companies care about the health of their customers. The healthier they are the less they have to pay out, so it is in their best interests to make sure they are healthy and guess what? Insurance companies are doing just that. My cousin was recently hired by Medica as health advocate. Know what her job is. She talks on the phone all day trying to help Medica customers live healthier lives. She said a single mother called her and didn't know where she was going to get the money to pay for her premiums so she spent an hour on the phone with the lady go over her grocery bills showing her where she could not only save money but purchase things that improve her diet. There is one bottom line to a business making money in the long term Bf. Do right by your customers. There is a very obvious (one you fail to see though) incentive for a business, health insurance companies included, to do so. There are very, very few businesses that have such a monopoly that they can afford to screw over their customers and expect them to keep coming back. Admittedly health insurance is pretty close, but it is government regulations that have resulted in that, requiring employers to provide health care, and what plans must cover, that have caused that. NOT the insruance companies. The fact that government has dictated that people have little choice in insurance providers keeps them from having to know anythig about the plans they have. What difference does it make when you're employer can only provide one option, right? As always Bf, TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT has created our insurance problem not the insurance companies, but an idiot like you that doesn't know thing one about running a business clearly isnt going to get that.

 

[Foxfyre]

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

The options are to sue for breach of contract if the policy specified coverage and the insurance company refused to pay. The options are to appeal for help from a benevolent organization. I have a friend who, through no fault of her own, was fairly indigent and received all her cancer treatment free at Bellevue in NYC--a state run hospital. That is the alternative if the people support it--set up a state or city hospital to serve the very poor and indigent.

Alternatively, if the government takes over and controls all healthcare in the country and they decide your mother isn't worth the cancer treatment and send her home to die, THEN what would your options be? Our fearless leader actually suggested that scenario would be possible when he was selling his healthcare overhaul.

Proof???

Here's just one of several statements he made along these lines:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-dQfb8WQvo[/ame]

Note he did suggest that families would participate in the decision, but the obvious intent was that ultimately it would be the government who would decide. The point is, if I want to buy additional coverage for catastophic insurance now, I have that option and I or my loved one decides whether it is worth going through the treatment. Once the government is in control of who gets paid and how much, however, that option is no longer mine. The government decides for me.

And I'm sorry. But I prefer to make that choice myself and, based on its track record over many decades now, I do not trust government to have the best interests of anybody at heart.

 

[editec]

The healthcare system has needed to be reformed for many decades. This healthcare bill does not go far enough, but it's a good first step. Private and individual acts of kindness are all well and good, but they don't address the needs of the populace well.

Again, this notion that it does not go far enough only assumes that a role of government is to meet people's needs. If there is a need to be meat the private sector will, and far more efficiently, meet those needs. Just perhaps, the founders were smart enough to figure out what government was best able to do and what givernment would not be so suited to doing.

A huge pile of bullshit. Health insurance will NEVER, EVER be a fit for the private sector. The 'free market' model CANNOT work for both the consumer and the insurance corporations. Are you folks on the right so thoroughly indoctrinated that you can't see the built in conflicts?

They cannot see that it is in the best interests of for profit HC insurance companies that the cost of HC continues to rise.

They cannot understand that, although for the life of me, I cannot see how they can miss something so obvious as that.

 

[Bfgrn]

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

Yes, Bf. You really are blind if you think otherwise. Government takes in more money than it ever has, spends more than it ever has and it still isn't enough. As far as expansion of social services you may be right, but what matters to the citizens you claim to care so much about is their pocket book and government's runaway spending is having the biggest impact on it. I am all for severing the ties that currently exist between government and business. How that is going to help the pocket book of the poor and middle class I'm really not sure.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

Whether your plan covers the costs of cancer treatment or not would the responsibility of you, the consumer, to know before you purchase your plan. The typical argument over the cost of health care is that people can't foresee and prepare for their health care eventualities even that isnt completely true, but even if it were, just because a problem is out of your control does not automatically absolve you of responsibility for it and/or obligate someone else to fix it. But let's stick with this scenario a second. Ma's insurance won't cover cancer? What are her options? Find another isurance plan that will would be one. There isn't any reason there can't exist an insurance company that say only takes preexisting conditions. Think outside the box for a second instead of always running to mommy government's tit. Or how about loans for healthcare costs. We do it for cars all the time. Most people don't have the cost of a car on them so they get a loan and pay it back. In the end your 35k car ends up costing you maybe 38k once you're done paying it off with interest. Why can't a similar product be offered for health care. If you have a 100k in health care costs you take out loan for it at some percentage rate and pay it back or x amount of time. I just don't get why health care is viewed as this service that we shouldn't have to compensate providers for like any other service we don't think twice about paying for. De-regulate the industry so that insurance companies can find tune plans to what people actually want. If you purchase a plan then that doesn't cover your condition that isn't anyone's fault but your own and you need to find alternative means of dealing with it.

Of course insurance companies care about the health of their customers. The healthier they are the less they have to pay out, so it is in their best interests to make sure they are healthy and guess what? Insurance companies are doing just that. My cousin was recently hired by Medica as health advocate. Know what her job is. She talks on the phone all day trying to help Medica customers live healthier lives. She said a single mother called her and didn't know where she was going to get the money to pay for her premiums so she spent an hour on the phone with the lady go over her grocery bills showing her where she could not only save money but purchase things that improve her diet. There is one bottom line to a business making money in the long term Bf. Do right by your customers. There is a very obvious (one you fail to see though) incentive for a business, health insurance companies included, to do so. There are very, very few businesses that have such a monopoly that they can afford to screw over their customers and expect them to keep coming back. Admittedly health insurance is pretty close, but it is government regulations that have resulted in that, requiring employers to provide health care, and what plans must cover, that have caused that. NOT the insruance companies. The fact that government has dictated that people have little choice in insurance providers keeps them from having to know anythig about the plans they have. What difference does it make when you're employer can only provide one option, right? As always Bf, TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT has created our insurance problem not the insurance companies, but an idiot like you that doesn't know thing one about running a business clearly isnt going to get that.

I will provide some enlightenment, but view it at your own risk, it might open your eyes.

Wendell Potter, who retired last April from his job as head of communications for the CIGNA health insurance company, has been in the news since then as a whistle-blowing critic of the insurance industry. Today I belatedly read his June 24 testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (see here) watched his July 10 interview with Bill Moyers (see here).

Potter is especially clear about the way short term considerations drive the behavior of for-profit insurers:

The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock. Stocks fluctuate based on companies’ quarterly reports, which are discussed every three months in conference calls with investors and analysts. On these calls, Wall Street investors and analysts look for two key figures: earnings per share and the "medical-loss" ratio - the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits.

To win the favor of powerful analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier and that the portion of the premium going to medical costs is falling. Even very profitable companies can see sharp declines in stock prices moments after admitting they’ve failed to trim medical costs. I have seen an insurer’s stock price fall 20 percent or more in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had to spend a slightly higher percentage of premiums on medical claims during the quarter than it did during a previous period. The smoking gun was the company’s first-quarter medical loss ratio, which had increased from 77.9% to 79.4% a year later.

Health Care Organizational Ethics: Wendell Potter on For-Profit Health Insurance

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QwX_soZ1GI]BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Wendell Potter | PBS - YouTube[/ame]

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
Albert Camus

 

[Bern80]

Again, this notion that it does not go far enough only assumes that a role of government is to meet people's needs. If there is a need to be meat the private sector will, and far more efficiently, meet those needs. Just perhaps, the founders were smart enough to figure out what government was best able to do and what givernment would not be so suited to doing.

A huge pile of bullshit. Health insurance will NEVER, EVER be a fit for the private sector. The 'free market' model CANNOT work for both the consumer and the insurance corporations. Are you folks on the right so thoroughly indoctrinated that you can't see the built in conflicts?

They cannot see that it is in the best interests of for profit HC insurance companies that the cost of HC continues to rise.

They cannot understand that, although for the life of me, I cannot see how they can miss something so obvious as that.

Read my last post ed.

 

[Foxfyre]

The free market worked quite nicely for healthcare insurance prior to the advent of Medicare in 1966 (when it first went into effect) followed by Medicaid followed by government mandates to private hospitals that they MUST treat the poor and indigent for free, etc. The very day that such government healthcare and interference went into effect, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

Those who sanctimoniously say that the free market doesn't work in insurance as it does in everything else simply have never lived at a time in which it did.

 

[Bfgrn]

The free market worked quite nicely for healthcare insurance prior to the advent of Medicare in 1966 (when it first went into effect) followed by Medicaid followed by government mandates to private hospitals that they MUST treat the poor and indigent for free, etc. The very day that such government healthcare and interference went into effect, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

Those who sanctimoniously say that the free market doesn't work in insurance as it does in everything else simply have never lived at a time in which it did.

FALSE...

Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid

Most people have never known our country before Medicare and Medicaid, which was enacted 46 years ago. Those of us who were practicing medicine before 1965 knew it well.

About half of older people did not have health insurance. Only unionized or government employees whose employment contracts provided for retirement health insurance were so lucky. But there weren't many such people in small-town Kansas.

Then, just as today, many seniors were living at or below the poverty line. Half of Medicare recipients today are living on $28,000 a year or less. But they do have Medicare Part A for hospital services.

To have Part B, physician services, and Part D, the drug benefit, they must buy them. Also, they must pay deductibles and co-pays unless they purchase an insurance policy that pays for what Medicare doesn't cover.

It costs a Medicare recipient $7,000 to $10,000 a year for complete coverage. That's a lot for someone whose income is $28,000.

But that's so much better than before Medicare. If you were among those without insurance, you either delayed care for as long as you could or you asked for charity — never a pleasant task for elderly people who always have taken pride in paying their bills.

Many died from delaying care. For those who finally sought care and were treatable, getting hospital care went something like this:

"Sister Kathleen, I have a woman with large uterine fibroids who is almost bleeding to death each month. Neither she nor anyone in the family has any money. Can you help her?"

Sometimes the sister would suggest we admit the woman next month when the census would be down. Or she would say to admit her Sunday for Monday surgery.

I also could call Carl Lamley, the former administrator at Stormont-Vail Hospital in Topeka, and get the same result.

Both knew that I was not charging these patients a penny. Nor were other doctors in our fine medical community. They took special pride in providing care for anyone who needed it, in contrast to physicians today who will not accept Medicare patients.

Read more: Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid | Wichita Eagle

 

[Bern80]

Government has gotten bigger than during the New Deal? No Bern, the government has become less and less an advocate for all it's citizens, and MUCH more an advocate for extremely well funded special interests, corporations and Wall Street.

Yes, Bf. You really are blind if you think otherwise. Government takes in more money than it ever has, spends more than it ever has and it still isn't enough. As far as expansion of social services you may be right, but what matters to the citizens you claim to care so much about is their pocket book and government's runaway spending is having the biggest impact on it. I am all for severing the ties that currently exist between government and business. How that is going to help the pocket book of the poor and middle class I'm really not sure.

On the healthcare question...your parents were not satisfied with a car. If they were unable to gain satisfaction, they can take their business elsewhere. A car (current of next car) is their leverage in the transaction.

If your mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her insurance refused to pay for life saving treatments and medications, what are her options? Choose a different insurance company IN THE NEXT LIFE???

The patient pays a monthly premium for health insurance, to cover illness and injury. And when they do face an illness or injury, the patient wants a healthy outcome.

The 'for profit' insurance corporations only seek profit. They gladly accept those monthly premiums, but payout for illness and injury REDUCES profit. The insurance corporations are not concerned with patient outcomes.

Whether your plan covers the costs of cancer treatment or not would the responsibility of you, the consumer, to know before you purchase your plan. The typical argument over the cost of health care is that people can't foresee and prepare for their health care eventualities even that isnt completely true, but even if it were, just because a problem is out of your control does not automatically absolve you of responsibility for it and/or obligate someone else to fix it. But let's stick with this scenario a second. Ma's insurance won't cover cancer? What are her options? Find another isurance plan that will would be one. There isn't any reason there can't exist an insurance company that say only takes preexisting conditions. Think outside the box for a second instead of always running to mommy government's tit. Or how about loans for healthcare costs. We do it for cars all the time. Most people don't have the cost of a car on them so they get a loan and pay it back. In the end your 35k car ends up costing you maybe 38k once you're done paying it off with interest. Why can't a similar product be offered for health care. If you have a 100k in health care costs you take out loan for it at some percentage rate and pay it back or x amount of time. I just don't get why health care is viewed as this service that we shouldn't have to compensate providers for like any other service we don't think twice about paying for. De-regulate the industry so that insurance companies can find tune plans to what people actually want. If you purchase a plan then that doesn't cover your condition that isn't anyone's fault but your own and you need to find alternative means of dealing with it.

Of course insurance companies care about the health of their customers. The healthier they are the less they have to pay out, so it is in their best interests to make sure they are healthy and guess what? Insurance companies are doing just that. My cousin was recently hired by Medica as health advocate. Know what her job is. She talks on the phone all day trying to help Medica customers live healthier lives. She said a single mother called her and didn't know where she was going to get the money to pay for her premiums so she spent an hour on the phone with the lady go over her grocery bills showing her where she could not only save money but purchase things that improve her diet. There is one bottom line to a business making money in the long term Bf. Do right by your customers. There is a very obvious (one you fail to see though) incentive for a business, health insurance companies included, to do so. There are very, very few businesses that have such a monopoly that they can afford to screw over their customers and expect them to keep coming back. Admittedly health insurance is pretty close, but it is government regulations that have resulted in that, requiring employers to provide health care, and what plans must cover, that have caused that. NOT the insruance companies. The fact that government has dictated that people have little choice in insurance providers keeps them from having to know anythig about the plans they have. What difference does it make when you're employer can only provide one option, right? As always Bf, TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT has created our insurance problem not the insurance companies, but an idiot like you that doesn't know thing one about running a business clearly isnt going to get that.

I will provide some enlightenment, but view it at your own risk, it might open your eyes.

Wendell Potter, who retired last April from his job as head of communications for the CIGNA health insurance company, has been in the news since then as a whistle-blowing critic of the insurance industry. Today I belatedly read his June 24 testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (see here) watched his July 10 interview with Bill Moyers (see here).

Potter is especially clear about the way short term considerations drive the behavior of for-profit insurers:

The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock. Stocks fluctuate based on companies’ quarterly reports, which are discussed every three months in conference calls with investors and analysts. On these calls, Wall Street investors and analysts look for two key figures: earnings per share and the "medical-loss" ratio - the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits.

To win the favor of powerful analysts, for-profit insurers must prove that they made more money during the previous quarter than a year earlier and that the portion of the premium going to medical costs is falling. Even very profitable companies can see sharp declines in stock prices moments after admitting they’ve failed to trim medical costs. I have seen an insurer’s stock price fall 20 percent or more in a single day after executives disclosed that the company had to spend a slightly higher percentage of premiums on medical claims during the quarter than it did during a previous period. The smoking gun was the company’s first-quarter medical loss ratio, which had increased from 77.9% to 79.4% a year later.

Health Care Organizational Ethics: Wendell Potter on For-Profit Health Insurance

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QwX_soZ1GI]BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Wendell Potter | PBS - YouTube[/ame]

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
Albert Camus

It is the goal of any for profit company to keep costs down. Paying out claims is one of those costs. An insurance company can not deny a claim that it is contracutally obligated to pay. But maybe that is something you lefties don't get. I imagine it is because you, like most people, don't realy know a whole lot about the specifics of your insurance plan. You don't know much about it because, due to government regs, you really don't need to. If you're employer provides health insurance your 'choice' of plan is whatever they pick so what difference does it make what's on it right? The realty is an insurance plan is not a service that covers any and all health care costs for a person. It is a plan, much like an auto insurance policies that says we will cover x costs under x conditions. At some point you whiners need to start taking personal responsibility. You need to know what your plan does and does not cover and quit pissing and moaning when you have to pay for something that your plan has no obligation to cover. People are so used to costs of their health care being an out of sight out of mind thing and you idiots wonder why the cost of something that most consumers don't have to deal with is going up. You remove a market force that keeps prices down and wonder why prices are going up. Are you people for real?

As to the guy in your clip. I don't disagree with much of what he had to say. One way a health insurance company reduce its medical loss ratio is by keeping the people paying premiums healthy, which as mentioned earlier many major insurance companies are already doing through various means.

 

[Foxfyre]

The free market worked quite nicely for healthcare insurance prior to the advent of Medicare in 1966 (when it first went into effect) followed by Medicaid followed by government mandates to private hospitals that they MUST treat the poor and indigent for free, etc. The very day that such government healthcare and interference went into effect, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

Those who sanctimoniously say that the free market doesn't work in insurance as it does in everything else simply have never lived at a time in which it did.

FALSE...

Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid

Most people have never known our country before Medicare and Medicaid, which was enacted 46 years ago. Those of us who were practicing medicine before 1965 knew it well.

About half of older people did not have health insurance. Only unionized or government employees whose employment contracts provided for retirement health insurance were so lucky. But there weren't many such people in small-town Kansas.

Then, just as today, many seniors were living at or below the poverty line. Half of Medicare recipients today are living on $28,000 a year or less. But they do have Medicare Part A for hospital services.

To have Part B, physician services, and Part D, the drug benefit, they must buy them. Also, they must pay deductibles and co-pays unless they purchase an insurance policy that pays for what Medicare doesn't cover.

It costs a Medicare recipient $7,000 to $10,000 a year for complete coverage. That's a lot for someone whose income is $28,000.

But that's so much better than before Medicare. If you were among those without insurance, you either delayed care for as long as you could or you asked for charity — never a pleasant task for elderly people who always have taken pride in paying their bills.

Many died from delaying care. For those who finally sought care and were treatable, getting hospital care went something like this:

"Sister Kathleen, I have a woman with large uterine fibroids who is almost bleeding to death each month. Neither she nor anyone in the family has any money. Can you help her?"

Sometimes the sister would suggest we admit the woman next month when the census would be down. Or she would say to admit her Sunday for Monday surgery.

I also could call Carl Lamley, the former administrator at Stormont-Vail Hospital in Topeka, and get the same result.

Both knew that I was not charging these patients a penny. Nor were other doctors in our fine medical community. They took special pride in providing care for anyone who needed it, in contrast to physicians today who will not accept Medicare patients.

Read more: Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid | Wichita Eagle

Sorry but I WAS working in the industry when Medicare went into effect and saw first hand the results of that. I KNOW how we handled the poor and indigent at that time because it was my job. Nobody was turned away from necessary care, but they were expected to pay what they could to get it even if they could pay no more than $1/week. $10/month payments for a hospital stay to have a baby was quite common. But knowing there would be a bill prevented people from using the emergency room instead of a personal physician who would charge much less. That was the free market at work.

And if somebody needed an expensive operation and couldn't afford it, the local community took up collections or held fund raisers, the surgeon took a discount, the hospital set up time payments for any unpaid portion of the bill, and it was taken care of. That was America at its best at work.

Government healthcare has resulted in making insurance unaffordable for many and healthcare impossible for many unless it is provided to them free which costs everybody else much more. That is not the way it should be.

A pregnancy and hospitalization to have a baby before Medicare involved three or four days of hospitalization for mom and baby and ran about $2,200 total. My husband recently had some minor outpatient surgery utilizing the hospital for about six hours and his bill was almost $12,000. Medicare paid most of it, but that was ridiculous.

THAT is what government interference in the free market does for us.

 

[Bfgrn]

The free market worked quite nicely for healthcare insurance prior to the advent of Medicare in 1966 (when it first went into effect) followed by Medicaid followed by government mandates to private hospitals that they MUST treat the poor and indigent for free, etc. The very day that such government healthcare and interference went into effect, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

Those who sanctimoniously say that the free market doesn't work in insurance as it does in everything else simply have never lived at a time in which it did.

FALSE...

Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid

Most people have never known our country before Medicare and Medicaid, which was enacted 46 years ago. Those of us who were practicing medicine before 1965 knew it well.

About half of older people did not have health insurance. Only unionized or government employees whose employment contracts provided for retirement health insurance were so lucky. But there weren't many such people in small-town Kansas.

Then, just as today, many seniors were living at or below the poverty line. Half of Medicare recipients today are living on $28,000 a year or less. But they do have Medicare Part A for hospital services.

To have Part B, physician services, and Part D, the drug benefit, they must buy them. Also, they must pay deductibles and co-pays unless they purchase an insurance policy that pays for what Medicare doesn't cover.

It costs a Medicare recipient $7,000 to $10,000 a year for complete coverage. That's a lot for someone whose income is $28,000.

But that's so much better than before Medicare. If you were among those without insurance, you either delayed care for as long as you could or you asked for charity — never a pleasant task for elderly people who always have taken pride in paying their bills.

Many died from delaying care. For those who finally sought care and were treatable, getting hospital care went something like this:

"Sister Kathleen, I have a woman with large uterine fibroids who is almost bleeding to death each month. Neither she nor anyone in the family has any money. Can you help her?"

Sometimes the sister would suggest we admit the woman next month when the census would be down. Or she would say to admit her Sunday for Monday surgery.

I also could call Carl Lamley, the former administrator at Stormont-Vail Hospital in Topeka, and get the same result.

Both knew that I was not charging these patients a penny. Nor were other doctors in our fine medical community. They took special pride in providing care for anyone who needed it, in contrast to physicians today who will not accept Medicare patients.

Read more: Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid | Wichita Eagle

Sorry but I WAS working in the industry when Medicare went into effect and saw first hand the results of that. I KNOW how we handled the poor and indigent at that time because it was my job. Nobody was turned away from necessary care, but they were expected to pay what they could to get it even if they could pay no more than $1/week. $10/month payments for a hospital stay to have a baby was quite common. But knowing there would be a bill prevented people from using the emergency room instead of a personal physician who would charge much less. That was the free market at work.

And if somebody needed an expensive operation and couldn't afford it, the local community took up collections or held fund raisers, the surgeon took a discount, the hospital set up time payments for any unpaid portion of the bill, and it was taken care of. That was America at its best at work.

Government healthcare has resulted in making insurance unaffordable for many and healthcare impossible for many unless it is provided to them free which costs everybody else much more. That is not the way it should be.

A pregnancy and hospitalization to have a baby before Medicare involved three or four days of hospitalization for mom and baby and ran about $2,200 total. My husband recently had some minor outpatient surgery utilizing the hospital for about six hours and his bill was almost $12,000. Medicare paid most of it, but that was ridiculous.

THAT is what government interference in the free market does for us.

WTF is wrong with you? I didn't just fall off the back of a turnip truck, I've been around since Harry Truman was President.

In 1965 doctors were middle class practitioners who came to your house. In 1965 a house cost $15,000, a car cost $2,500, a gallon of gas was 31 cents and a pound of ground beef was 35 cents.

You need to join reality and stop spreading your ideology driven ditzy boloney...

Here is some REAL external forces that can help explain skyrocketing medical costs.

Medical care costs in the U.S. have not always been this excessive. This year, we will spend more than $2.5 trillion on medical care. But in 1950, five years before Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant, Americans only spent $8.4 billion ($70 billion in today's dollars). Even after adjusting for inflation, we now spend as much on health care every 10 days as we did in the entire year of 1950.

Has this enormous increase in spending made us healthier? Earlier this year, when the World Health Organization assessed the overall health outcomes of different nations, it placed 36 other nations ahead of the United States.

Today, we have an epidemic of largely preventable diseases. To these illnesses, Americans are losing not only their health but also their life savings. Meanwhile, the evidence keeps growing that the path to improved health lies in eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, and eating far less processed foods, sugars and animal products.

 

[Foxfyre]

FALSE...

Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid

Most people have never known our country before Medicare and Medicaid, which was enacted 46 years ago. Those of us who were practicing medicine before 1965 knew it well.

About half of older people did not have health insurance. Only unionized or government employees whose employment contracts provided for retirement health insurance were so lucky. But there weren't many such people in small-town Kansas.

Then, just as today, many seniors were living at or below the poverty line. Half of Medicare recipients today are living on $28,000 a year or less. But they do have Medicare Part A for hospital services.

To have Part B, physician services, and Part D, the drug benefit, they must buy them. Also, they must pay deductibles and co-pays unless they purchase an insurance policy that pays for what Medicare doesn't cover.

It costs a Medicare recipient $7,000 to $10,000 a year for complete coverage. That's a lot for someone whose income is $28,000.

But that's so much better than before Medicare. If you were among those without insurance, you either delayed care for as long as you could or you asked for charity — never a pleasant task for elderly people who always have taken pride in paying their bills.

Many died from delaying care. For those who finally sought care and were treatable, getting hospital care went something like this:

"Sister Kathleen, I have a woman with large uterine fibroids who is almost bleeding to death each month. Neither she nor anyone in the family has any money. Can you help her?"

Sometimes the sister would suggest we admit the woman next month when the census would be down. Or she would say to admit her Sunday for Monday surgery.

I also could call Carl Lamley, the former administrator at Stormont-Vail Hospital in Topeka, and get the same result.

Both knew that I was not charging these patients a penny. Nor were other doctors in our fine medical community. They took special pride in providing care for anyone who needed it, in contrast to physicians today who will not accept Medicare patients.

Read more: Dr. Bill Roy: Don't return to life before Medicare, Medicaid | Wichita Eagle

Sorry but I WAS working in the industry when Medicare went into effect and saw first hand the results of that. I KNOW how we handled the poor and indigent at that time because it was my job. Nobody was turned away from necessary care, but they were expected to pay what they could to get it even if they could pay no more than $1/week. $10/month payments for a hospital stay to have a baby was quite common. But knowing there would be a bill prevented people from using the emergency room instead of a personal physician who would charge much less. That was the free market at work.

And if somebody needed an expensive operation and couldn't afford it, the local community took up collections or held fund raisers, the surgeon took a discount, the hospital set up time payments for any unpaid portion of the bill, and it was taken care of. That was America at its best at work.

Government healthcare has resulted in making insurance unaffordable for many and healthcare impossible for many unless it is provided to them free which costs everybody else much more. That is not the way it should be.

A pregnancy and hospitalization to have a baby before Medicare involved three or four days of hospitalization for mom and baby and ran about $2,200 total. My husband recently had some minor outpatient surgery utilizing the hospital for about six hours and his bill was almost $12,000. Medicare paid most of it, but that was ridiculous.

THAT is what government interference in the free market does for us.

WTF is wrong with you? I didn't just fall off the back of a turnip truck, I've been around since Harry Truman was President.

In 1965 doctors were middle class practitioners who came to your house. In 1965 a house cost $15,000, a car cost $2,500, a gallon of gas was 31 cents and a pound of ground beef was 35 cents.

You need to join reality and stop spreading your ideology driven ditzy boloney...

Here is some REAL external forces that can help explain skyrocketing medical costs.

Medical care costs in the U.S. have not always been this excessive. This year, we will spend more than $2.5 trillion on medical care. But in 1950, five years before Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald's restaurant, Americans only spent $8.4 billion ($70 billion in today's dollars). Even after adjusting for inflation, we now spend as much on health care every 10 days as we did in the entire year of 1950.

Has this enormous increase in spending made us healthier? Earlier this year, when the World Health Organization assessed the overall health outcomes of different nations, it placed 36 other nations ahead of the United States.

Today, we have an epidemic of largely preventable diseases. To these illnesses, Americans are losing not only their health but also their life savings. Meanwhile, the evidence keeps growing that the path to improved health lies in eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, and eating far less processed foods, sugars and animal products.

So with all this wonderful government healthcare, free to the poor, subsidized by the government for the elderly and low income folks, etc. etc. etc., the USA spends the most on healthcare and ranks 37th in effectivenes? Doesn't that at least give you pause for thought??????????

Yes everything was cheaper in the 1950s and 60s, but healthcare was also affordable then and available to pretty much everybody. And I'm pretty sure the USA was also ranked in at least the top two to five nations in the world in quality of healthcare.