Healthcare should not be a PROFIT driven field

[Chris]

You understand that's not proof, right?

You understand that reading is fundamental, right?

Translation: No, I do not understand that. I think only Nobel Prize winners invent things.
You're a dolt. Next.

The strawman argument and then an insult.

Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

 

[earlycuyler]

Ok. Just to put it bluntly: The ability to save a human life, or vastly improve their life, should NOT be one that is driven by profit.

Whats the answer? Im not sure. People have to get paid for their work, yes. But the HUGE profits being raked in by the pharma companies, hospitals, doctors, etc, at the expense of what?

I recently read of a new pill that can literally cure Hepatitis C. But....the pills are $1,000 each, and a person would need many of them, making the cost prohibitive to insurance companies.

So you have a big pharma company who developed the very expensive pill; And hospitals who can give the very expensive pill; And insurance companies who may have to pay for the pill. And insurance companies don't wanna pay for it.

Just one of many countless examples of how we humans COULD save or help someone.....but, is it profitable? The profit seems to matter more than the end result lately, and it is a bunch of nonsense.

The pure greed of this nation's population is what will destroy us. Not some cavemen in the Middle East.

I can see where you are coming from BUT, pure greed by big pharmaceutical companies saved my life. Their huge profits made it possible for them to give my the drugs I needed to treat my condition. Even paid for my Dr. visits. Now, and around 2006 when it became fashionable to make pharmaceutical company's evil thugs most have stopped giving these drugs away. So I feel they should be rewarded for the efforts and success at saving human lives. And im 100% okay with them being greedy mother fuckers who dont know me from joe.

 

[Iceweasel]

1. Every major category of health care spending in Massachusetts grew significantly faster than the national average in the five years following health care reform: state spending, direct federal spending, and private insurance rates. Emergency room utilization increased, despite greater access to primary care physicians. Massachusetts is now one of the highest health care cost regions in the U.S.

...which was predictable and Romney's Achilles heel.

 

[kiwiman127]

As I stated earlier, the current healthcare costs scenario hurts our economy. It's clear that the costs in the US are by far the highest in the world.. The US has been experiencing a slower recovery from the Great Recession than other industrial nations. Is the high cost of healthcare a contributing reason?
Here's an interesting article from Forbes to consider:
The U.S. Does Not Have A Debt Problem ... It Has A Health Care Cost Problem
"That’s not my line, I took it from The Economist, but it’s a good one. If health care costs were under control, i.e. growing no faster than the economy, we could manage our debt. However, health care spending is growing at about 1.5x the rate of growth of GDP and is already close to 20% of the economy. In this post I will talk about the scary numbers. In the next post I will offer some thoughts on what we can do manage the situation.
If the trends of the last 20 years continue, health care spending will eat up U.S. GDP in our children’s lifetimes. See the first chart. The blue line is the federal government’s projection of health care spending. The red line projects spending at the trend growth rate of the last 20 years.
Health care spending will eat up the federal government’s budget even sooner, and that is the root cause of the U.S. sovereign debt problem. The second chart shows projected federal spending on health care as a percent of GDP rising from 5% today to about 18% of GDP, leaving no room for social security, defense, or any of the other federal government roles. In 2012 the entire federal budget is about 24% of GDP, up sharply from 20% before the financial crisis. If this forecast comes to pass, either taxes will rise to Swedish levels, or the U.S. will be a junk-quality sovereign credit like the European “PIGS”."
For more go to: The U.S. Does Not Have A Debt Problem ... It Has A Health Care Cost Problem - Forbes

From your own article:
What impact will the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act (the “ACA&#8221 have on this? Recent analysis of health care reform in Massachusetts reaches ominous conclusions. In 2006, Massachusetts adopted health care reform which strongly resembles the ACA: it created near universal insurance coverage, set minimum standards for health insurance, mandated that employers offer insurance and individuals must have it, and created a health care exchange. Mass health reform was “lite” on cost saving measures, however. It’s been a great success in bringing almost all residents of the Commonwealth into the health care system (>97%), and Governor Patrick, a close ally of President Obama, points out that the impact on the state budget has been a manageable 1 percent increase in spending.

The Beacon Hill Institute, an affiliate of Boston-based Suffolk University, examined the growth rate of total health care spending in Massachusetts since 2006 compared to the national trend. They included both the spending born by the state budget and other forms of spending: federal health care transfers to the state, direct federal spending (i.e., Medicare), and private insurance. This analysis developed a very different perspective:

1. Every major category of health care spending in Massachusetts grew significantly faster than the national average in the five years following health care reform: state spending, direct federal spending, and private insurance rates. Emergency room utilization increased, despite greater access to primary care physicians. Massachusetts is now one of the highest health care cost regions in the U.S.

2. The modest impact on the state budget is mostly due to the federal government’s decision to expand its Medicaid reimbursements in line with the expansion of coverage in Massachusetts; in other words, the federal government paid for almost all of the state’s increased cost. Kudos to the state’s politicians for bringing dollars home from DC. If the federal subsidy were to be reduced, however, the state would be in trouble, and I wonder if the federal government can be so generous on a national scale.

3. BHI attributes the surge in costs to several factors: more demand for medical services versus concentrated and slow-to-expand supply caused prices to rise; the law mandated additional coverages in private insurance; and the reform act lacked significant cost-containment features. There was significant savings in payments to hospitals for treatment of the uninsured, but this savings is overwhelmed by the other costs.


The problem is not health care spending. The problem is govt driving up costs. Obamacare will drive up csts exactly the same as every other system similar to it did.

I stated when Obamacare first included the mandate, that I was against Obamacare because I didn't think anybody should be forced to buy healthcare insurance. So your point is?
Secondly, healthcare prices/insurance has consistently risen much higher than the CPI.
The below graph shows historical data for you Rabbi. I hope you can understand it.
Graph from: 2012 - The Year In Healthcare Charts - Forbes

 

[Unkotare]

No, they all get better when people are seeking a profit. That's where competition and innovation come from.

And it's also where they don't bother with certain types of drugs because they're not profitable, even if they are necessary.
Also they might try out on patients who are vulnerable in order to save money, keep costs down.

If they are necessary for large numbers of people, they are profitable. And we have laws and regulations regarding the testing of new drugs. So many in fact, that quite a few life-saving drugs are kept from the public for decades - if not indefinitely - because of said regulations. So that argument falls completely flat.

 

[Unkotare]

Proof?

Nobel Laureates and Research Affiliations

You understand that's not proof, right?

Just what I was thinking...

 

[thereisnospoon]

For the past decade, social scientists and pollsters have given elaborate questionnaires to hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Two of the largest studies that rank the happiness of countries around the world are the World Map of Happiness from the University of Leiscester and the World Database of Happiness from Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University Rotterdam. All the happiness surveys ask people basically the same question: How happy are you?

"The answer you get is not only how they feel right now, but also how they feel about their entire life," explained Dan Buettner, who has studied happiness and longevity around the world through his Blue Zones project Buettner said that if you mine all the databases of universities and research centers, you'll find that the happiest place on earth is ? Denmark. Cold, dreary, unspectacular Denmark.

Could the Danes really be the happiest people in the world? When ABC News anchor Bill Weir traveled there to find out, he asked random Danes to rate themselves in terms of happiness, on a scale of one to 10. Many people rated themselves at least an eight, and there were several nines and 10s. Finally, one grouchy Dane came along who said she didn't believe Danes were so happy. But then she quickly conceded that she herself felt rather content with her life, and said Danes in general had very little to complain about.
Danes do have one potential complaint: high taxes. The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes. In exchange, the government covers all health care and education, and spends more on children and the elderly than any country in the world per capita. With just 5.5 million people, the system is efficient, and people feel "tryghed" -- the Danish word for "tucked in" -- like a snug child.
Those high taxes have another effect. Since a banker can end up taking home as much money as an artist, people don't chose careers based on income or status. "They have this thing called 'Jante-lov,' which essentially says, 'You're no better then anybody else,'" said Buettner. "A garbage man can live in a middle-class neighborhood and hold his head high."

Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth - ABC News

Denmark is a small country with an essentially homogeneous population.
And those high wages are eaten up by taxes.
"The government covers"....Gotta love this....Umm the Danish govt is funded by those high taxes.
And the system is not as simple as other are led to believe. As with any socialized country, medical care is heavily regulated and bureaucratically dispensed.
As far as happiness is concerned, happy is up the individual.

 

[kaz]

The pure greed of this nation's population is what will destroy us. Not some cavemen in the Middle East.

What you don't get is how private industry created a pill that cures Hepatitis-C, not government, and all you do is lament that you don't want to pay for it, and call people greedy for not giving it to you. You may want to re-think your thought of where the greed lies in your scenario...

 

[thereisnospoon]

Ok. Just to put it bluntly: The ability to save a human life, or vastly improve their life, should NOT be one that is driven by profit..

So you don't want health care, medical technology, and pharmaceuticals to improve? Why not?

You sound as if healthcare, medical technology and pharmaceutical improvements can only be had by people seeing to make a profit. I don't get it.

Nice dodge. You ran out of the baseline.
The OP refers to those who invent and create the technology and medicines.

 

[bripat9643]

The pure greed of this nation's population is what will destroy us. Not some cavemen in the Middle East.

What you don't get is how private industry created a pill that cures Hepatitis-C, not government, and all you do is lament that you don't want to pay for it, and call people greedy for not giving it to you. You may want to re-think your thought of where the greed lies in your scenario...

To the liberal, "greed" means the act of not giving them what they want for free. Libturds operate on the moral code of a 5-year-old.

 

[Iceweasel]

To the liberal, "greed" means the act of not giving them what they want for free. Libturds operate on the moral code of a 5-year-old.

That's basically it. Mom doesn't give junior another cookie, he cries, so mom gives in and gives him another cookie. And they never grow up.

 

[alan1]

Healthcare should not be a PROFIT driven field

Ok. Just to put it bluntly: The ability to save a human life, or vastly improve their life, should NOT be one that is driven by profit.

Whats the answer? Im not sure. People have to get paid for their work, yes. But the HUGE profits being raked in by the pharma companies, hospitals, doctors, etc, at the expense of what?

I recently read of a new pill that can literally cure Hepatitis C. But....the pills are $1,000 each, and a person would need many of them, making the cost prohibitive to insurance companies.

So you have a big pharma company who developed the very expensive pill; And hospitals who can give the very expensive pill; And insurance companies who may have to pay for the pill. And insurance companies don't wanna pay for it.

Just one of many countless examples of how we humans COULD save or help someone.....but, is it profitable? The profit seems to matter more than the end result lately, and it is a bunch of nonsense.

The pure greed of this nation's population is what will destroy us. Not some cavemen in the Middle East.

Nobody survives without food. NOBODY.
Do you think everybody involved in the food industry should do it without making a profit?

 

[dblack]

Healthcare should not be a PROFIT driven field

Ok. Just to put it bluntly: The ability to save a human life, or vastly improve their life, should NOT be one that is driven by profit.

Whats the answer? Im not sure. People have to get paid for their work, yes. But the HUGE profits being raked in by the pharma companies, hospitals, doctors, etc, at the expense of what?

I recently read of a new pill that can literally cure Hepatitis C. But....the pills are $1,000 each, and a person would need many of them, making the cost prohibitive to insurance companies.

So you have a big pharma company who developed the very expensive pill; And hospitals who can give the very expensive pill; And insurance companies who may have to pay for the pill. And insurance companies don't wanna pay for it.

Just one of many countless examples of how we humans COULD save or help someone.....but, is it profitable? The profit seems to matter more than the end result lately, and it is a bunch of nonsense.

The pure greed of this nation's population is what will destroy us. Not some cavemen in the Middle East.

Nobody survives without food. NOBODY.
Do you think everybody involved in the food industry should do it without making a profit?

That's next.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Nobody survives without food. NOBODY.
Do you think everybody involved in the food industry should do it without making a profit?

Here we go again.


How often do you need food?

How often do you need expensive treatment like cancer treatment?

 

[Redfish]

Nobody survives without food. NOBODY.
Do you think everybody involved in the food industry should do it without making a profit?

Here we go again.


How often do you need food?

How often do you need expensive treatment like cancer treatment?

we need food every day, we may never need cancer treatment------Soooooo, food profit free, cancer treatment profit free-----deal?

 

[kiwiman127]

So despite that economist warn that the cost of healthcare is a threat to our economy, people favor keeping the status quo? Profits are what is contributing to the fact the US easily has the most expensive healthcare in the world. Unbridled rising costs are already hurting this country's economy and it going to get much worse.
Keeping the status quo is an invitation to the furthering decline of the US. This runaway train has to be stopped before it's too late.

 

[Redfish]

Nobody survives without food. NOBODY.
Do you think everybody involved in the food industry should do it without making a profit?

Here we go again.


How often do you need food?

How often do you need expensive treatment like cancer treatment?

we need food every day, we may never need cancer treatment------Soooooo, food profit free, cancer treatment profit free-----deal?

only one question, why would the food industry exist if it could not make a profit?

 

[Redfish]

So despite that economist warn that the cost of healthcare is a threat to our economy, people favor keeping the status quo? Profits are what is contributing to the fact the US easily has the most expensive healthcare in the world. Unbridled rising costs are already hurting this country's economy and it going to get much worse.
Keeping the status quo is an invitation to the furthering decline of the US. This runaway train has to be stopped before it's too late.

NO, its not. that is one of the dumbest posts yet.

 

[The Rabbi]

As I stated earlier, the current healthcare costs scenario hurts our economy. It's clear that the costs in the US are by far the highest in the world.. The US has been experiencing a slower recovery from the Great Recession than other industrial nations. Is the high cost of healthcare a contributing reason?
Here's an interesting article from Forbes to consider:
The U.S. Does Not Have A Debt Problem ... It Has A Health Care Cost Problem
"That’s not my line, I took it from The Economist, but it’s a good one. If health care costs were under control, i.e. growing no faster than the economy, we could manage our debt. However, health care spending is growing at about 1.5x the rate of growth of GDP and is already close to 20% of the economy. In this post I will talk about the scary numbers. In the next post I will offer some thoughts on what we can do manage the situation.
If the trends of the last 20 years continue, health care spending will eat up U.S. GDP in our children’s lifetimes. See the first chart. The blue line is the federal government’s projection of health care spending. The red line projects spending at the trend growth rate of the last 20 years.
Health care spending will eat up the federal government’s budget even sooner, and that is the root cause of the U.S. sovereign debt problem. The second chart shows projected federal spending on health care as a percent of GDP rising from 5% today to about 18% of GDP, leaving no room for social security, defense, or any of the other federal government roles. In 2012 the entire federal budget is about 24% of GDP, up sharply from 20% before the financial crisis. If this forecast comes to pass, either taxes will rise to Swedish levels, or the U.S. will be a junk-quality sovereign credit like the European “PIGS”."
For more go to: The U.S. Does Not Have A Debt Problem ... It Has A Health Care Cost Problem - Forbes

From your own article:
What impact will the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”) have on this? Recent analysis of health care reform in Massachusetts reaches ominous conclusions. In 2006, Massachusetts adopted health care reform which strongly resembles the ACA: it created near universal insurance coverage, set minimum standards for health insurance, mandated that employers offer insurance and individuals must have it, and created a health care exchange. Mass health reform was “lite” on cost saving measures, however. It’s been a great success in bringing almost all residents of the Commonwealth into the health care system (>97%), and Governor Patrick, a close ally of President Obama, points out that the impact on the state budget has been a manageable 1 percent increase in spending.

The Beacon Hill Institute, an affiliate of Boston-based Suffolk University, examined the growth rate of total health care spending in Massachusetts since 2006 compared to the national trend. They included both the spending born by the state budget and other forms of spending: federal health care transfers to the state, direct federal spending (i.e., Medicare), and private insurance. This analysis developed a very different perspective:

1. Every major category of health care spending in Massachusetts grew significantly faster than the national average in the five years following health care reform: state spending, direct federal spending, and private insurance rates. Emergency room utilization increased, despite greater access to primary care physicians. Massachusetts is now one of the highest health care cost regions in the U.S.

2. The modest impact on the state budget is mostly due to the federal government’s decision to expand its Medicaid reimbursements in line with the expansion of coverage in Massachusetts; in other words, the federal government paid for almost all of the state’s increased cost. Kudos to the state’s politicians for bringing dollars home from DC. If the federal subsidy were to be reduced, however, the state would be in trouble, and I wonder if the federal government can be so generous on a national scale.

3. BHI attributes the surge in costs to several factors: more demand for medical services versus concentrated and slow-to-expand supply caused prices to rise; the law mandated additional coverages in private insurance; and the reform act lacked significant cost-containment features. There was significant savings in payments to hospitals for treatment of the uninsured, but this savings is overwhelmed by the other costs.


The problem is not health care spending. The problem is govt driving up costs. Obamacare will drive up csts exactly the same as every other system similar to it did.

I stated when Obamacare first included the mandate, that I was against Obamacare because I didn't think anybody should be forced to buy healthcare insurance. So your point is?
Secondly, healthcare prices/insurance has consistently risen much higher than the CPI.
The below graph shows historical data for you Rabbi. I hope you can understand it.
Graph from: 2012 - The Year In Healthcare Charts - Forbes

I dont recall saying you were for it or against it. It is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that government is driving up costs. Your own article states as much. So dont pretend that isn't somehow happening.

 

[thereisnospoon]

So despite that economist warn that the cost of healthcare is a threat to our economy, people favor keeping the status quo? Profits are what is contributing to the fact the US easily has the most expensive healthcare in the world. Unbridled rising costs are already hurting this country's economy and it going to get much worse.
Keeping the status quo is an invitation to the furthering decline of the US. This runaway train has to be stopped before it's too late.

Sure.
However, the answer is NOT giving over control of medical care to the central government.
Washington has been involved for decades. Most of the damage seen to the field of medical are is as a result of government interference and control of certain aspects of medicine, insurance and research.