So, this is what passes for leadership, now?

[westwall]

His Name is Dr. Chapman from Carson Tahoe Cardiology, call his office and ask what the cash rate is for open heart surgery. Go ahead, I dare you. And no, it doesn't make your case. It destroys your case, most operating expenses are defensive in nature for doctors. That's absurd.

Operating expenses are defensive in nature? What do those "Operational expenses" entail? Do you even know? I find it hard to believe that $15K in paperwork is required to perform a $5K procedure. That sounds made up.

What does that have to do with health insurance, which is what we are talking about? First you said it was the administrative expenses, now you're saying it's operational expenses. Well those are two different things. How does the operating expenses amount to $15K above the $4,800 you claimed you paid. And you didn't negotiate with the doctor, you negotiated with the billing department. Also, who has $5K just lying around for medical expenses? No one in the middle class because they're all in debt.

Doctors do procedures they otherwise would not have to counter any potential lawsuit. That is a well known fact. Furthermore, the documentation required to SUPPORT those procedures is mind numbing in its precision. Miss a crossed "T" and it costs you 500,000 bucks. This too is well known. I'm an Expert Witness and have seen many judgments greatly increased not due to negligence on the part of the defendant, but simply due to paperwork errors.

ALL of that costs you, me , everybody, thousands of dollars every year.

 

[The Derp]

A gall bladder does not produce kidney stones. A kidney produces kidney stones. A gall bladder produces gall stones.

Fine. Point taken.

Now I have a problem with you twisting what I post. I said "other people" get stones daily. I don't.

OK, so if someone is getting kidney stones daily, how do you expect them to pay to treat those chronic conditions if they don't have the cash?? This is what I'm talking about. A chronic condition, one that requires management, isn't something you can just pay out of pocket for, is it? You said there were all these drips and drugs that someone suffering from the chronic condition of Cystinuria has to take, so how do they afford those drugs and treatment without insurance? Swap schizophrenia in for cystinuria. Or heart disease. Or bipolar disorder. Or asthma. Or whatever chronic condition you can imagine and the same question arises...how do you pay for this treatment using just cash and/or catastrophic plans? Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's called empathy, and if you don't have it, chances are you're a sociopath at best, a psychopath at worst.

Nowhere did I post otherwise, so either post that is said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. I am not going to continue speaking with you when you can't understand simple posts and sentences.

Sigh...so OK, so you don't have chronic kidney stones...so then why the fuck are you even talking about it when we're talking about paying for treating chronic conditions? You said your kidney stones were chronic. If you didn't say it outright, you implied it pretty heavily. You said now that you don't get them chronically, which would mean you don't have cystinuria. Which would make your experience completely irrelevant to what we're talking about, which is how do you afford treatment for chronic conditions in a world with no health insurance, or in a world with catastrophic insurance only unless you barter? And that's where the whole "chicken" thing comes in. If someone doesn't have the cash, how else are they supposed to pay for the care? These questions Conservatives couldn't answer in 2010 with any seriousness or thought, nor can they answer it 7 years later.

 

[The Derp]

Doctors do procedures they otherwise would not have to counter any potential lawsuit.

Yeah, that's a bit of an overstatement. You're saying people are receiving health care they don't need? Would that apply to everyone else except you? You know, you could say that you have a medical need, but I could say that need doesn't need to be addressed. So, I don't understand...you are against preventative care, why? And how does that translate to a 200% inflation on the cost of a surgery? You gotta connect those dots, because you haven't. You said "operational expenses". Yet you seem to be wiggling around the parameters of what that means, so let's get it clear now; by "operational expenses" are you referring to the processes and procedures of processing claims? Because that's "operations", or more commonly known, "administration". So you, like the other turd on this thread, keep jumping around from non-sequitur to non-sequitur in the hopes (?) that it will just fatigue the conversation and I'll leave. But I'm not doing that. So now we have to deal with inconsistency on your part, when all I want to do is talk policy. You are preventing that from happening because you don't know what the fuck you're saying half the time!

That is a well known fact. Furthermore, the documentation required to SUPPORT those procedures is mind numbing in its precision. Miss a crossed "T" and it costs you 500,000 bucks. This too is well known. I'm an Expert Witness and have seen many judgments greatly increased not due to negligence on the part of the defendant, but simply due to paperwork errors.

I don't believe anything any Conservative says about themselves on a message board, so you need to do better. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I was Tom Brady, so why the fuck should I believe anything you say about yourself? Why should I take your word for it? What have you done to establish that level of trust? Nothing. You've argued very dishonestly about Obamacare, about what Nancy Pelosi said, about yourself...etc. It's tiring and boring. I feel like all you right-wingers are crafted from the same, broken mold. I swear I've had this conversation hundreds of times and it always results in the same thing;

Your arguments are devoid of facts, so you bolster them with "take my word for it". Why should I?

ALL of that costs you, me , everybody, thousands of dollars every year.

I don't think you'll get any argument from me that Americans are largely over-medicated. But that's got little to do with actual processes and procedures, and more to do with prescription drug costs, which Conservatives caused to spike with their Medicare Part-D from 2003 that Obamacare corrected.

 

[The Derp]

Doctors do procedures they otherwise would not have to counter any potential lawsuit. That is a well known fact. Furthermore, the documentation required to SUPPORT those procedures is mind numbing in its precision. Miss a crossed "T" and it costs you 500,000 bucks. This too is well known. I'm an Expert Witness and have seen many judgments greatly increased not due to negligence on the part of the defendant, but simply due to paperwork errors.

Furthermore, this sounds to me like a backdoor argument to Tort Reform, which TX and FL did about a decade ago on their own and the result was that their health care costs rose faster than the rest of the country. So if it didn't work in TX and FL, why would it magically start working now?

Oh and also, I think it's easy for someone to say they think medical malpractice payoffs are excessive until they become the victim of malpractice. Would you be satisfied with, say, $100K if the doctor accidentally sterilized you? Or removed an organ by mistake? Or sterilized your child? You think a low six-figure payout is fair if a doctor accidentally performed a mastectomy on you instead of exploratory surgery? Or if they injected you with the wrong drug that caused chronic medical problems? $100K would be good for you? Somehow, I doubt that.

 

[westwall]

Doctors do procedures they otherwise would not have to counter any potential lawsuit.

Yeah, that's a bit of an overstatement. You're saying people are receiving health care they don't need? Would that apply to everyone else except you? You know, you could say that you have a medical need, but I could say that need doesn't need to be addressed. So, I don't understand...you are against preventative care, why? And how does that translate to a 200% inflation on the cost of a surgery? You gotta connect those dots, because you haven't. You said "operational expenses". Yet you seem to be wiggling around the parameters of what that means, so let's get it clear now; by "operational expenses" are you referring to the processes and procedures of processing claims? Because that's "operations", or more commonly known, "administration". So you, like the other turd on this thread, keep jumping around from non-sequitur to non-sequitur in the hopes (?) that it will just fatigue the conversation and I'll leave. But I'm not doing that. So now we have to deal with inconsistency on your part, when all I want to do is talk policy. You are preventing that from happening because you don't know what the fuck you're saying half the time!

That is a well known fact. Furthermore, the documentation required to SUPPORT those procedures is mind numbing in its precision. Miss a crossed "T" and it costs you 500,000 bucks. This too is well known. I'm an Expert Witness and have seen many judgments greatly increased not due to negligence on the part of the defendant, but simply due to paperwork errors.

I don't believe anything any Conservative says about themselves on a message board, so you need to do better. You wouldn't believe me if I told you I was Tom Brady, so why the fuck should I believe anything you say about yourself? Why should I take your word for it? What have you done to establish that level of trust? Nothing. You've argued very dishonestly about Obamacare, about what Nancy Pelosi said, about yourself...etc. It's tiring and boring. I feel like all you right-wingers are crafted from the same, broken mold. I swear I've had this conversation hundreds of times and it always results in the same thing;

Your arguments are devoid of facts, so you bolster them with "take my word for it". Why should I?

ALL of that costs you, me , everybody, thousands of dollars every year.

I don't think you'll get any argument from me that Americans are largely over-medicated. But that's got little to do with actual processes and procedures, and more to do with prescription drug costs, which Conservatives caused to spike with their Medicare Part-D from 2003 that Obamacare corrected.

I'm a liberal dude. I just also am against laws that fuck over the middle class. The middle class has always born the brunt of every bit of legislation that is passed. It would do you a great service to research some of the positions that you support and actually LOOK at what the unintended consequences are. The devil is always in the details.

 

[westwall]

Doctors do procedures they otherwise would not have to counter any potential lawsuit. That is a well known fact. Furthermore, the documentation required to SUPPORT those procedures is mind numbing in its precision. Miss a crossed "T" and it costs you 500,000 bucks. This too is well known. I'm an Expert Witness and have seen many judgments greatly increased not due to negligence on the part of the defendant, but simply due to paperwork errors.

Furthermore, this sounds to me like a backdoor argument to Tort Reform, which TX and FL did about a decade ago on their own and the result was that their health care costs rose faster than the rest of the country. So if it didn't work in TX and FL, why would it magically start working now?

Yes, we need tort reform. Go to the Bahamas some day and you will see loads of mega yachts all owned by lawyers who have made hundreds of millions of dollars through raping the medical system of the US. Want to lower medical costs in a hurry? Enact "loser pays". That single action would lower healthcare costs by 25% as the frivolous bullshit lawsuits would disappear.

 

[The Derp]

I'm a liberal dude. I just also am against laws that fuck over the middle class. The middle class has always born the brunt of every bit of legislation that is passed. It would do you a great service to research some of the positions that you support and actually LOOK at what the unintended consequences are. The devil is always in the details.

Ummm, OK...I don't know very many liberals who oppose single-payer or who don't understand what single-payer is, and how it reduces costs.

The devil is in the details, which I try to drag out of people on these boards but they refuse to do so. So all I can do is argue within the parameters of what everyone can see for themselves, and that usually comes in the form of data and science.

The data and science shows that single payer is far more cost-effective and produces better outcomes than the system we have now, the system we had pre-ACA, and the system we had pre-Medicare. There is absolutely no debate that single payer nations, on average, produce much better outcomes at nearly half the cost per patient our system does. And before you invoke that "cancer survival rate" argument, my preemptive question to that is, what is the cancer survival rate for someone with no insurance? 0%. There are roughly 24,000,000 people whose cancer survival rate is 0% that aren't included in those rosy cancer survival rates some loons like to pass around, absent of context.

 

[The Derp]

Yes, we need tort reform.

Why? They did strict tort reform in TX and FL last decade and both those states saw their health care costs rise faster than the national average. So if it didn't work in TX or FL, why the fuck would it work anywhere else????? Furthermore, what if you were the victim of medical malpractice? Would you be content with a very low, six-figure settlement if your doctor, say, accidentally sterilized your child? Somehow, I doubt it very much.

Go to the Bahamas some day and you will see loads of mega yachts all owned by lawyers who have made hundreds of millions of dollars through raping the medical system of the US. Want to lower medical costs in a hurry? Enact "loser pays". That single action would lower healthcare costs by 25% as the frivolous bullshit lawsuits would disappear.

The only way to lower medical costs is to abolish private health insurance. So long as for-profit private insurance exists, health care costs will never decline.

 

[Papageorgio]

A gall bladder does not produce kidney stones. A kidney produces kidney stones. A gall bladder produces gall stones.

Fine. Point taken.

Now I have a problem with you twisting what I post. I said "other people" get stones daily. I don't.

OK, so if someone is getting kidney stones daily, how do you expect them to pay to treat those chronic conditions if they don't have the cash?? This is what I'm talking about. A chronic condition, one that requires management, isn't something you can just pay out of pocket for, is it? You said there were all these drips and drugs that someone suffering from the chronic condition of Cystinuria has to take, so how do they afford those drugs and treatment without insurance? Swap schizophrenia in for cystinuria. Or heart disease. Or bipolar disorder. Or asthma. Or whatever chronic condition you can imagine and the same question arises...how do you pay for this treatment using just cash and/or catastrophic plans? Try putting yourself in someone else's shoes. It's called empathy, and if you don't have it, chances are you're a sociopath at best, a psychopath at worst.

Nowhere did I post otherwise, so either post that is said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. I am not going to continue speaking with you when you can't understand simple posts and sentences.

Sigh...so OK, so you don't have chronic kidney stones...so then why the fuck are you even talking about it when we're talking about paying for treating chronic conditions? You said your kidney stones were chronic. If you didn't say it outright, you implied it pretty heavily. You said now that you don't get them chronically, which would mean you don't have cystinuria. Which would make your experience completely irrelevant to what we're talking about, which is how do you afford treatment for chronic conditions in a world with no health insurance, or in a world with catastrophic insurance only unless you barter? And that's where the whole "chicken" thing comes in. If someone doesn't have the cash, how else are they supposed to pay for the care? These questions Conservatives couldn't answer in 2010 with any seriousness or thought, nor can they answer it 7 years later.

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. You are now being blatantly dishonest.

 

[The Derp]

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. You are now being blatantly dishonest.

WTF? I just accepted this, so what's the problem? Seems to me like you're looking for any red herring you can to avoid having a substantive discussion about this. Look at the fucking third response in my post that you fucking quoted! I don't think you even read the post. You're so desperate you have to make it all about you. Then when it is made about you, you cry about it like a fucking baby.

So, I apologize if I misread your post where I thought you implied you have cysturnia. So why did you bring your kidney stones up if they're not a chronic condition, which is what we're talking about? We are talking about how someone with a chronic conditions pays in cash for treatment if they don't have the cash?

In a catastrophic plan, they still have to pay cash and they are subject to lifetime caps, which would mean anyone buying a catastrophic plan couldn't have a chronic condition. Duh. It's these people, who number in the hundreds of millions, that you haven't even given a single thought towards, either because you're incredibly lazy, or incredibly clueless.

 

[Papageorgio]

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. You are now being blatantly dishonest.

WTF? I just accepted this, so what's the problem? Seems to me like you're looking for any red herring you can to avoid having a substantive discussion about this. Look at the fucking third response in my post that you fucking quoted! I don't think you even read the post. You're so desperate you have to make it all about you. Then when it is made about you, you cry about it like a fucking baby.

So, I apologize if I misread your post where I thought you implied you have cysturnia. So why did you bring your kidney stones up if they're not a chronic condition, which is what we're talking about? We are talking about how someone with a chronic conditions pays in cash for treatment if they don't have the cash?

In a catastrophic plan, they still have to pay cash and they are subject to lifetime caps, which would mean anyone buying a catastrophic plan couldn't have a chronic condition. Duh. It's these people, who number in the hundreds of millions, that you haven't even given a single thought towards, either because you're incredibly lazy, or incredibly clueless.

Again you are being dishonest. I never said I didn't have cysturnia, you don't have to have kidney stones daily to have cysturnia and you misread nothing. You can say that at first but now?

Again, either post where I said I got kidney stones daily or apologize.

 

[The Derp]

I never said I didn't have cysturnia, you don't have to have kidney stones daily to have cysturnia and you misread nothing. You can say that at first but now?

This is fucking golden! I love how you guys completely flip-flop on these claims you make about yourselves the minute they are subject to any kind of scrutiny.

So OK...so now you are claiming you have a light case of cysturnia. One that isn't severe enough to require chronic care, but is severe enough that you go to the doctor once for surgery for...something...I don't know what.

But this doesn't answer the question that pulls at the thread of everything you're saying; what do you do if you have a chronic condition in a world with no insurance, and can't afford the cash? This question I have posed to you half a dozen times and half a dozen times you've avoided it. Which means one of three things:

1) You haven't given any thought to it.

2) You don't know what you're talking about.

3) You recognize I am right, but don't want to admit it because of your fragile ego.

So which is it? Are you lazy, clueless, or insecure?

 

[Papageorgio]

I never said I didn't have cysturnia, you don't have to have kidney stones daily to have cysturnia and you misread nothing. You can say that at first but now?

This is fucking golden! I love how you guys completely flip-flop on these claims you make about yourselves the minute they are subject to any kind of scrutiny.

So OK...so now you are claiming you have a light case of cysturnia. One that isn't severe enough to require chronic care, but is severe enough that you go to the doctor once for surgery for...something...I don't know what.

But this doesn't answer the question that pulls at the thread of everything you're saying; what do you do if you have a chronic condition in a world with no insurance, and can't afford the cash? This question I have posed to you half a dozen times and half a dozen times you've avoided it. Which means one of three things:

1) You haven't given any thought to it.

2) You don't know what you're talking about.

3) You recognize I am right, but don't want to admit it because of your fragile ego.

So which is it? Are you lazy, clueless, or insecure?

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. I am not going any further. You flat out lied and now you need to come clean, the same thing you are doing with my illness, cysturnia.

I am not going to let you get away with lying about me anymore.

You are lying left and right and I'm calling you on it.

I haven't flip flopped, either post your proof or apologize.

 

[The Derp]

I never said I didn't have cysturnia

LOL! Look at this fucking bullshit. Well do you have it or don't you? Enough with this coy bullshit. The problem is you dug a deep hole for yourself and you can't get out of it, so you're lashing out at me for pointing out the inconsistencies and irrelevance of your personal experience as we discuss how people who cannot afford to pay out of pocket for health care are supposed to do that in the system you want.

So basically, you get kidney stones, kinda sorta often, which may or may not be caused by cysturnia, which is usually a chronic condition, but apparently you have a "light case" of it, that doesn't require chronic doctor visits, except when it does, even though it doesn't. And that for these maybe-they're-chronic-maybe-they're-not treatments, you pay cash out of pocket. Or at least you did, until Obamacare, or after Obamacare, because your *catastrophic plan* worked fine for you, even though getting a catastrophic plan makes no sense if you have a chronic condition because catastrophic plans have lifetime caps.

So you can see how fucking stupid this is, debating something with someone who uses exclusively personal anecdotal experiences as the basis of support for your confused position.

I gotta ask; are you some Conservative researcher who has to do this kind of bullshit because of the fraudster you work for? Man, that's gotta suck.

 

[Papageorgio]

I never said I didn't have cysturnia

LOL! Look at this fucking bullshit. Well do you have it or don't you? Enough with this coy bullshit. The problem is you dug a deep hole for yourself and you can't get out of it, so you're lashing out at me for pointing out the inconsistencies and irrelevance of your personal experience as we discuss how people who cannot afford to pay out of pocket for health care are supposed to do that in the system you want.

So basically, you get kidney stones, kinda sorta often, which may or may not be caused by cysturnia, which is usually a chronic condition, but apparently you have a "light case" of it, that doesn't require chronic doctor visits, except when it does, even though it doesn't. And that for these maybe-they're-chronic-maybe-they're-not treatments, you pay cash out of pocket. Or at least you did, until Obamacare, or after Obamacare, because your *catastrophic plan* worked fine for you, even though getting a catastrophic plan makes no sense if you have a chronic condition because catastrophic plans have lifetime caps.

So you can see how fucking stupid this is, debating something with someone who uses exclusively personal anecdotal experiences as the basis of support for your confused position.

I gotta ask; are you some Conservative researcher who has to do this kind of bullshit because of the fraudster you work for? Man, that's gotta suck.

Go back and look it up. Now either post where I said I got kidney stones daily or apologize.

 

[The Derp]

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize. I am not going any further. You flat out lied and now you need to come clean, the same thing you are doing with my illness, cysturnia.

OK, so now you're claiming you have cysturnia, even though you said that people with cysturnia have to get chronic medical care. So, what, is your cysturnia not as severe as usual? It would be the height of stupidity to get a catastrophic plan if you have a chronic condition because once you hit your lifetime cap, you pay for everything. But if this cysturnia isn't a chronic condition where you, personally, seek treatment daily or chronically, why the fuck are you paying cash? Sigh. This is stupid. You said you also are a diabetic which makes your insistence that you had a catastrophic plan even less believable. So right now, we're up to two chronic illnesses you claim to have that you pay cash to treat, even though you're also saying you don't go to the doctor unless you have to. So how often do you go to the doctor? every week? every month? every two months? If you're going as infrequently as that, then I don't really believe you have either of these conditions.

I am not going to let you get away with lying about me anymore.

Why don't you get your story straight first before coming on the boards and vomiting it up?

 

[The Derp]

Go back and look it up. Now either post where I said I got kidney stones daily or apologize.

Ummm...I fully acknowledged this, you stupid fucking twat. Right here, asshole. You missed it because you don't read posts thoroughly or carefully. Because you do rushed, sloppy work. Because you're a lying sack of crap.

Your problem is that you run your mouth and don't bother to think of the details. Then you start changing your story in the hopes you can fatigue the conversation or latch onto inconsequential bullshit like this so you don't have to answer the tough questions.

Fine, I apologize for saying that you said you get kidney stones daily. So now that I've apologized for that, explain to me how people pay for chronic treatment of chronic conditions if they have no insurance and can't afford to pay in cash? Because we're talking hundreds of millions of people.

 

[Papageorgio]

Go back and look it up. Now either post where I said I got kidney stones daily or apologize.

Ummm...I fully acknowledged this, you stupid fucking twat. Right here, asshole. You missed it because you don't read posts thoroughly or carefully. Because you do rushed, sloppy work. Because you're a lying sack of crap.

Your problem is that you run your mouth and don't bother to think of the details. Then you start changing your story in the hopes you can fatigue the conversation or latch onto inconsequential bullshit like this so you don't have to answer the tough questions.

Fine, I apologize for saying that you said you get kidney stones daily. So now that I've apologized for that, explain to me how people pay for chronic treatment of chronic conditions if they have no insurance and can't afford to pay in cash? Because we're talking hundreds of millions of people.

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize you lying piece of shit!

 

[The Derp]

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize you lying piece of shit!

LEARN HOW TO READ A POST YOU FUCKING NUMBSKULL:

"Fine, I apologize for saying that you said you get kidney stones daily. "

It was literally in the post you quoted in your stupid reply.

Jesus tap-dancing Christ...right-wingers are so insecure!

 

[The Derp]

Go back and look it up. Now either post where I said I got kidney stones daily or apologize.

Ummm...I fully acknowledged this, you stupid fucking twat. Right here, asshole. You missed it because you don't read posts thoroughly or carefully. Because you do rushed, sloppy work. Because you're a lying sack of crap.

Your problem is that you run your mouth and don't bother to think of the details. Then you start changing your story in the hopes you can fatigue the conversation or latch onto inconsequential bullshit like this so you don't have to answer the tough questions.

Fine, I apologize for saying that you said you get kidney stones daily. So now that I've apologized for that, explain to me how people pay for chronic treatment of chronic conditions if they have no insurance and can't afford to pay in cash? Because we're talking hundreds of millions of people.

Either post where I said I get kidney stones daily or apologize you lying piece of shit!

Fucking idiot. I can tell that I've really struck a nerve because now you're in post-bot mode where you don't even read the posts, you just post the same stupid thing over and over and over.

Again, because I know reading is hard for you:

Fine, I apologize for saying that you said you get kidney stones daily.

Now you need to apologize for not reading posts. And since you barely read that post, what makes me think you've read any of the other ones?