What makes arguing with liberals so frustrating #1

[thereisnospoon]

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

You see, here is where your true ignorance is exposed. Medicare and private insurance companies use the SAME care providers. The SAME doctors, the SAME hospitals. But Medicare does it more efficiently than for profit cartels.

Medicare operates as a single-payer health care system with administrative costs of just 4 percent to 6 percent compared with for-profit health insurance administrative costs of between 16 percent and 26.5 percent. In a "Medicare for All" program, administrative savings would amount to about $400 billion each year by eliminating unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. That's enough to provide high-quality health care for every American and end co-pays and deductibles. Americans could go to any provider they wished to see. And, as with Medicare, the majority of health providers and hospitals would remain private and could receive fair reimbursements for their services.

AND, not only is Medicare MUCH more cost efficient, Medicare treats the elderly exclusively, and since they typically have more health problems than the general population, comparing costs per beneficiary is misleading and therefore percentage comparisons are more reliable.

Universal vs. Private Health Insurance

There is one factor common to the top 15 countries on the above list. They all have strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment. The bottom four countries – Germany, USA, Portugal and Switzerland – all depend more heavily on profit-based, private health insurance provided primarily through the employer/employee relationship.


Our private insurance industry was in no hurry to insure seniors before Medicare started. They are in no hurry now. Medicare revolutionized health care access for seniors.

Why is Medicare expensive? Simply, health care for seniors will always cost more than that of healthier, younger Americans. And costs are rising in every health care system around the world, not just Medicare. The United States is doubly cursed because our costs are rising faster and are already twice as expensive as other countries. Though hard to believe, Medicare is a leader in fighting cost increases. Private insurance industry costs are rising nearly twice as fast as those of Medicare. And when it comes to administrative expenses, private insurance is 10 times higher than Medicare. In fact, if the single payer financing of Medicare were applied to citizens of all ages, we would save $350 billion annually, more than enough to provide comprehensive health care to every American.

Medicare is good for our seniors and good for our country. It provides health care far more affordably and efficiently than our private insurance industry. It saves our country hundreds of billions of dollars in administrative overhead. And if we expand Medicare to cover younger, healthier Americans, we would all get more care at less cost.

Medicare: Celebrate it, protect it, improve it, and expand it. We need more Medicare, not less.

Portland physician Samuel Metz is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and a founding member of Mad As Hell Doctors.

And not a word you posted in this screed speaks to the specific issue I was discussing which is that the government is not providing healthcare to seniors or anybody else, nor is the government providing anything to anybody, in a more cost effective manner than what can be done in the private sector. When the government gets involved in anything, it will cost more.

WOW. you really are an ignorant one aren't you??? I just PROVED beyond a doubt with numerous sources that government IS providing health care, in a more cost effective manner than what can be done in the private sector. AND...by a wide margin. WTF is wrong with your brain?

If you are so fascinated with the anecdotal, read THIS. Then tell me why it is acceptable in this country Foxfyre. I want to hear you justify the premature and preventable death of fellow Americans. The first 50 year old woman in the story is probably dead from something that could have been prevented.


Health reform's human stories

New Orleans, La. — — It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. "She's decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances," the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: "It's stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors." I don't know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.

After watching for hours as the patients moved through the clinic, it was hard to believe that I was in America.

Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not "welfare queens" as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.

Ninety percent of the patients who came through Saturday's clinic had two or more diagnoses.

Eighty-two percent had a life-threatening condition such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or hypertension. They are victims of a system built with corporate profits at its center, which long ago forgot the moral imperative that should drive us to show compassion to our fellow men and women.

We have all made mistakes. But Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a party living in the spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a party frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
President John F. Kennedy

You proved nothing. You posted opinions and anecdotal stories told by people with self interests and jobs to save...Theirs.
The fact that many VA hosptals are understaffed and many buildings have entire sections that are not in use, thew fact that VA medical staff FREELY ADMITS they have to stretch their budgets, all of which indicate the VA system is far from perfect.
Obama care seeks to set up a socialized medicine system, In effect become the only health insurance carrier for all but 16 million of us....Ya know what , when the only federal medical system has staffing problems and must "stretch budgets" that is a red flag AGAINST Obamacare. Unless the federal government can do a near perfect job of insuring us, there is no way in hell we can trust the government with this gargantuan task.

 

[Ed Spacer]

Hey libassholes,let me point this out well and clear.
i pay,out of pocket,full,for any medical care i require.
i dont not burden others,as it is not their responsibility,its mine.
likewise,i will not pay for others.its personal responsibility.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Hey libassholes,let me point this out well and clear.
i pay,out of pocket,full,for any medical care i require.
i dont not burden others,as it is not their responsibility,its mine.
likewise,i will not pay for others.its personal responsibility.

Next we will see one of two classic lib hyperbole responses...Right out of the lib play book..
One...."you are selfish. We are sick of you 'CONS' and your 'I got mine and screw you' ideas"..
Two...."but what about...?"

 

[bripat9643]

Hey you welfare piece of trash. Give me ONE example of a successful 'free market' health care system...just ONE you hypocrite?

The American healthcare system, nimrod. It was the envy of the world before liberals started mucking it up.

 

[Foxfyre]

Hey you welfare piece of trash. Give me ONE example of a successful 'free market' health care system...just ONE you hypocrite?

The American healthcare system, nimrod. It was the envy of the world before liberals started mucking it up.

Yes, that is a pretty good example.

 

[IndependntLogic]

Those are OPINIONS, genius.
Plus, these places are not treating 300 million people.
Nice try though.
Now, back to finding evidence of ANY federal program or contract that operates within budget, with great efficiency and within time constraints.
Have at it.

Sweden. Oh yeah and Indonesia. Want more or want to address those two first?

Hey Toto, this ain't Sweden.
And just because you blurt out "Sweden" doesn't make it true..
Now, don't play stupid with me. You know God Damned well I was referring to US FEDERAL programs.
Now, you still have an assignment. Go find one US federal program that meets those standards mentioned above.
Oh...two plus two DOES NOT EQUAL five...Your outcome based education is a FAIL.
One other thing. Next time you answer a question, back it up with facts or your reply is no answer at all.

Look dickweed, I don't have to do squat. And yes, Sweden does operate an efficient health care system. So does Indoensia. Hell The Ukraine has a better system than we do. But backwoods gomers who have their every opinion fed to them by the RW media outlets and have never lived outside Pukewater, Iowa don't know a thing so they just think what they're told to think and parrot what they're told to say.
But hey, it's cool. Without ignorant ass wipes like you, who would vote Republican?

 

[francoHFW]

What makes arguing with liberals so frustrating #1

They have all the facts, and you have ridiculous Pub talking points and moronic anecdotes and insults?

 

[francoHFW]

Hey libassholes,let me point this out well and clear.
i pay,out of pocket,full,for any medical care i require.
i dont not burden others,as it is not their responsibility,its mine.
likewise,i will not pay for others.its personal responsibility.

So you'll go bankrupt and lose everything if anything happens? BRILLIANT. Much better than guaranteed, affordable health care...MORON.

 

[Bfgrn]

Hey you welfare piece of trash. Give me ONE example of a successful 'free market' health care system...just ONE you hypocrite?

The American healthcare system, nimrod. It was the envy of the world before liberals started mucking it up.

Yes, that is a pretty good example.

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
President John F. Kennedy

REALLY? By WHAT measure?? LOOK what counties are at the BOTTOM of the list in mortality rates, and what counties TOP the list in cost per person is spent.

They are the SAME counties and they all have one thing in common: Germany, USA, Portugal and Switzerland – all depend more heavily on profit-based, private health insurance provided primarily through the employer/employee relationship.

Our wealth care system puts all our businesses at a competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace. The cost of health insurance adds $1500 to the cost of every vehicle domestic automakers produce. Japanese manufacturers spend $200 per vehicle because Japan has universal health care.


America's health care is at the bottom of all industrialized countries.


A recent study reported in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine compared the amounts of money spent by nineteen Western countries on health care relative to their respective gross domestic product (GDP). The authors, Professor Colin Pritchard of the Bournemouth University School of Health and Social Care, and Dr. Mark Wallace of the Latymer School of London, ranked countries by the average percentage of GDP spent on health care between 1979 and 2005. They then looked at mortality rates for “all adults” (15-74 years old) and for just the “older” population (55-74) to determine a cost-effective ratio, i.e., how much “bang for the buck” each country has been getting for the money spent. The conclusions are striking.

Increasing Health Care Costs

It will come as no surprise that health care costs have gone up everywhere. In 1980, Sweden spent nine percent of its GDP on health care. The USA came in second at 8.8%. Most countries averaged about 7.1% of GDP. In 2005, the picture had changed. The United States was far in front of all other countries, spending an average of 12.2% of its GDP for all public and private health care costs. Germany was a somewhat distant second at 9.7%, with the average for all countries standing at 7.4%. In other words, while average health care expenditures increased from 7% to 7.4%, America’s costs jumped from 8.8% to 12.2% of GDP over the same span of time.

Mortality Rates

The study then looked at trends in mortality rates for both the entire adult population (15-74) and for older people (55-74). Deaths per million population were looked at, and the authors found that mortality rates had declined in segments of this population in every country, an indication that medical science has indeed improved over the past few decades.

Utilizing standard statistical tools and analysis, the authors then ranked the same 19 countries according to their effectiveness in reducing the mortality rate for the elderly populace ages 55 to 74. Comparing the amount of money spent by each country on health care and the reduced mortality rates, the countries fell into the following ranking:

1 Ireland
2 United Kingdom
3 New Zealand
4 Austria
5 Australia
6 Italy
7 Finland
8 Japan
9 Spain
10 Sweden
11 Canada
12 Netherlands
13 France
14 Norway
15 Greece
16 Germany
17 USA
18 Portugal
19 Switzerland

Conclusions

Take a look. America outspends everyone else by far on health care, and has shown the least amount of improvement on mortality rates, with the exception of Portugal and Switzerland. Why does the United States do such a poor job?

The authors give several potential reasons, including regional disparities in health care availability in a country as large as the US, the much higher rate of firearms-related homicides here, and the higher number of un-insureds we have. The study is, however, consistent with other reports that show the USA is doing a poor job of health care for its citizens. A recent UNICEF report looked at “well-being” of children among major industrialized countries (e.g. material wealth, family relationships, health care), and found the United States ranking 23rd of 24 countries reviewed.

Universal vs. Private Health Insurance

There is one factor common to the top 15 countries on the above list. They all have strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment. The bottom four countries – Germany, USA, Portugal and Switzerland – all depend more heavily on profit-based, private health insurance provided primarily through the employer/employee relationship.

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More money per person is spent on health care in the USA than in any other nation in the world, and a greater percentage of total income in the nation is spent on health care in the USA than in any United Nations member state except for East Timor. Although not all people are insured, the USA has the third highest public healthcare expenditure per capita, because of the high cost of medical care in the country. A 2001 study in five states found that medical debt contributed to 46.2% of all personal bankruptcies and in 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcies claimed high medical expenses. Since then, health costs and the numbers of uninsured and underinsured have increased.

The USA pays twice as much yet lags behind other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy, though the relation between these statistics to the system itself is debated. Currently, the USA has a higher infant mortality rate than most of the world's industrialized nations. In the United States life expectancy is 42nd in the world, after some other industrialized nations, lagging the other nations of the G5 (Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA) and just after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th).

Life expectancy in the USA is 42nd in the world, below most developed nations and some developing nations. It is below the average life expectancy for the European Union. The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study). The Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last in the quality of health care among similar countries, and notes U.S. care costs the most.

The USA is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage" (i.e., some kind of private or public health insurance). In 2004, the Institute of Medicine report observed "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States." while a 2009 Harvard study estimated that 44,800 excess deaths occurred annually due to lack of health insurance.
wiki

 

[FA_Q2]

So, what are the top causes of death in the united states then?

 

[koshergrl]

Boo FUCKING hoo, you right wing scum bag. You absolutely love the private insurance cartels, so... go out and BUY private insurance, you welfare scum of a person. HOW DARE YOU ask me to subsidize your Medicare. It is time for you to reap what you sow.

Actually I wish folks like you would go find some other country more in tune with your way of thinking and leave this one to the conservatives to fix. It would take awhile since Medicare has been festering for going on five decades now, but with some work, inspiration, and creativity we can re-establish the free market and sanity into the healthcare system and a lot of other things that would greatly benefit from it.

But thanks for your post. It illustrates in spades the disconnect, ignorance, and misconceptions that make arguing with liberals so damn frustrating.

Hey you welfare piece of trash. Give me ONE example of a successful 'free market' health care system...just ONE you hypocrite?

Meltdown alert.

I take it Foxfyre won this debate.

 

[koshergrl]

What makes arguing with liberals so frustrating #1

They have all the facts, and you have ridiculous Pub talking points and moronic anecdotes and insults?

No, bfgrn isn't a rightwinger. So the obscene rants and incoherent sputterings are coming from the left, yet again.

What makes arguing with liberals so frutrating is that when one of the melts down, an asslicker will come along and proclaim victory by pretending the person who won the debate is the one melting down.

 

[buckeye45_73]

You mean like the way anyone receiving public assistance is a welfare cheat and all union workers are lazy, overpaid slobs?

not really, the issue is when we try to reform those, liberals want none of that. Voter IDs for example, what is so hard about that? Seems like common sense to me, yet libtards just cant have it, might slow their dead vote or people voting 85 times.

 

[Foxfyre]

What makes arguing with liberals so frustrating #1

They have all the facts, and you have ridiculous Pub talking points and moronic anecdotes and insults?

No, bfgrn isn't a rightwinger. So the obscene rants and incoherent sputterings are coming from the left, yet again.

What makes arguing with liberals so frutrating is that when one of the melts down, an asslicker will come along and proclaim victory by pretending the person who won the debate is the one melting down.

But once they are reduced to a babbling, profanity spewing bunch of pure nonsense, all the intelligent people do know who won the argument. If you have a winning argument there is no melt down

The frustration comes in finding intelligent people on the left who can actually debate a concept. Most can only cut and paste or attack someobdy and we've witnessed that in spades. But when that happens and they've exposed themselves for the empty heads that they are, we can reduce the frustration by going back to a policy of don't feed the trolls, argue with idiots, or engage in exercises of futility

 

[Uncensored2008]

Look dickweed, I don't have to do squat. And yes, Sweden does operate an efficient health care system. So does Indoensia. Hell The Ukraine has a better system than we do. But backwoods gomers who have their every opinion fed to them by the RW media outlets and have never lived outside Pukewater, Iowa don't know a thing so they just think what they're told to think and parrot what they're told to say.
But hey, it's cool. Without ignorant ass wipes like you, who would vote Republican?

Yep, people are packing up and flying to the Ukrain every day to get care.

You leftists sure are smart, and honest.....

 

[koshergrl]

What makes arguing with liberals so frustrating #1

They have all the facts, and you have ridiculous Pub talking points and moronic anecdotes and insults?

No, bfgrn isn't a rightwinger. So the obscene rants and incoherent sputterings are coming from the left, yet again.

What makes arguing with liberals so frutrating is that when one of the melts down, an asslicker will come along and proclaim victory by pretending the person who won the debate is the one melting down.

But once they are reduced to a babbling, profanity spewing bunch of pure nonsense, all the intelligent people do know who won the argument. If you have a winning argument there is no melt down

The frustration comes in finding intelligent people on the left who can actually debate a concept. Most can only cut and paste or attack someobdy and we've witnessed that in spades. But when that happens and they've exposed themselves for the empty heads that they are, we can reduce the frustration by going back to a policy of don't feed the trolls, argue with idiots, or engage in exercises of futility

I'm not sure they have the cut and paste thing down though. They certainly never cite anything except complete and absolute fluff. And they usually can't even get that right.

 

[Foxfyre]

Look dickweed, I don't have to do squat. And yes, Sweden does operate an efficient health care system. So does Indoensia. Hell The Ukraine has a better system than we do. But backwoods gomers who have their every opinion fed to them by the RW media outlets and have never lived outside Pukewater, Iowa don't know a thing so they just think what they're told to think and parrot what they're told to say.
But hey, it's cool. Without ignorant ass wipes like you, who would vote Republican?

Yep, people are packing up and flying to the Ukrain every day to get care.

You leftists sure are smart, and honest.....

Sweden and Indonesia too.

All you have to look at are the growing number of Canadians and Brits who are 'visiting' the USA in order to access our healthcare system when the waiting lists in their own countries become intolerably long. Even in Germany that has one of the better government healthcare systems, the taxes go ever higher and folks aren't flying there to access their system either.

The idea of healthcare for everybody is a wonderful, practical, benevolent concept. But it cannot hold a candle to the innovations, broad advances, new technoglogies, and brilliance that emerges in a free market system.

How much better and more practical would it have been for the federal government to focus on helping the free market system work more efficiently, effectively, and economically instead of attempting to dismantle it in favor of bureaucrats and politicians running it.

But try to get a liberal to discuss that! It is frustrating.

 

[Vast LWC]

Sweden and Indonesia too.

All you have to look at are the growing number of Canadians and Brits who are 'visiting' the USA in order to access our healthcare system when the waiting lists in their own countries become intolerably long. Even in Germany that has one of the better government healthcare systems, the taxes go ever higher and folks aren't flying there to access their system either.

The idea of healthcare for everybody is a wonderful, practical, benevolent concept. But it cannot hold a candle to the innovations, broad advances, new technoglogies, and brilliance that emerges in a free market system.

How much better and more practical would it have been for the federal government to focus on helping the free market system work more efficiently, effectively, and economically instead of attempting to dismantle it in favor of bureaucrats and politicians running it.

But try to get a liberal to discuss that! It is frustrating.

Got some statistics, from a reliable source, on how many people from Canada and the UK make the trip to the US every year to receive supposedly superior care?

Got some statistics as to how many people make the trip the other way around?

There are a whole load of statistics that show that the US health care system is less effective than any of the nations you mentioned, and that it costs more per capita.

I can provide a wide variety of links and source information to support this, if you'd like.

In fact, the only health problem that the US excels in more than other countries is cancer. Perhaps that's where you get your idea that people are flocking to the US for health care. Where cancer is concerned, it is true.

However, for just about every other medical condition under the sun, the opposite is true.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Sweden and Indonesia too.

All you have to look at are the growing number of Canadians and Brits who are 'visiting' the USA in order to access our healthcare system when the waiting lists in their own countries become intolerably long. Even in Germany that has one of the better government healthcare systems, the taxes go ever higher and folks aren't flying there to access their system either.

The idea of healthcare for everybody is a wonderful, practical, benevolent concept. But it cannot hold a candle to the innovations, broad advances, new technoglogies, and brilliance that emerges in a free market system.

How much better and more practical would it have been for the federal government to focus on helping the free market system work more efficiently, effectively, and economically instead of attempting to dismantle it in favor of bureaucrats and politicians running it.

But try to get a liberal to discuss that! It is frustrating.

Leftists claim that leftist nations offer routine health services at a lower cost than the USA does. But once beyond the most basic of services, the USA is far beyond other nations. In areas like heart and brain surgery, there isn't even a close second. Need a stint, valve or especially a transplant? Then America is really the only choice. Same thing with neurosurgery.

However, the claims may not be true. U.S. healthcare costs are presented on a per-capita basis dividing the entire costs among the population, including procedures that costs millions of dollars that few people get.

These procedures don't impact the costs of medical care in Sweden or Indonesia, simply because the procedures are not performed there. Need a bioplasmic valve procedure in Indonesia? Your choices are fly to America, or die.

IF all exotic treatments are removed, is American medical care actually more costly than the socialist utopias that the left hold forth?

Probably not. We know that after demagogue Michael Moore did "Sicko," that the Cuban health care system, rather than being the nirvana that scumbag more presented, is a disaster that doesn't even provide basic pain medications such as aspirin, for patients. Much less things like clean bandages. Yet this is what the left holds up as superior.

 

[Foxfyre]

Sweden and Indonesia too.

All you have to look at are the growing number of Canadians and Brits who are 'visiting' the USA in order to access our healthcare system when the waiting lists in their own countries become intolerably long. Even in Germany that has one of the better government healthcare systems, the taxes go ever higher and folks aren't flying there to access their system either.

The idea of healthcare for everybody is a wonderful, practical, benevolent concept. But it cannot hold a candle to the innovations, broad advances, new technoglogies, and brilliance that emerges in a free market system.

How much better and more practical would it have been for the federal government to focus on helping the free market system work more efficiently, effectively, and economically instead of attempting to dismantle it in favor of bureaucrats and politicians running it.

But try to get a liberal to discuss that! It is frustrating.

Got some statistics, from a reliable source, on how many people from Canada and the UK make the trip to the US every year to receive supposedly superior care?

Got some statistics as to how many people make the trip the other way around?

There are a whole load of statistics that show that the US health care system is less effective than any of the nations you mentioned, and that it costs more per capita.

I can provide a wide variety of links and source information to support this, if you'd like.

In fact, the only health problem that the US excels in more than other countries is cancer. Perhaps that's where you get your idea that people are flocking to the US for health care. Where cancer is concerned, it is true.

However, for just about every other medical condition under the sun, the opposite is true.

And I am going to make a wild guess here that you aren't referring to ANY statistics for comparison from a country as large and as racially diverse as the USA or with comparable lifestyles.

I am going to make a wild guess that you aren't showing ANY statistics for comparison of the U.S. healthcare system with those in other countries prior to the U.S. government taking over large chunks of that healthcare.

I am going to make a wild guess that you didn't look for anything to challenge or qualify the implications in the statistics that you think makes your case.

I am going to make a wild guess that you have never sat down with excellent medical professionals and discussed with them how govvernment and legal interference makes litle sense in many cases and how it has made the U.S. healthcare system worse, not better.

I don't even have to make a wild guess that anybody can find any statistics or 'evidence' they want to 'prove' just about anything on the internet.