Health Care Thread

TJT_sl said:

I am quite indifferent to Obamacare. My current employer's plan is far superior to anything they offer and significantly cheaper ($42/mo including dental/no deductible and HSA compared to $168 a month and a deductible of like $5k). I would never switch unless legally forced to do so. But if it helps some people whatever. I'm 26.

Alternatively, my parents were able to save $500 a month on their insurance while some friends in my hometown (26/married/2 kids) were forced to pay significantly more. I guess it really depends on which side of the spectrum you fall on.

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Obamacare helps you if: old, pre-existing condition, live in state with already high health care costs

Obamacare kicks you in the dick(or vagina) if: young + healthy, (2x) young + healthy + family

Take my case. Healthy, under 30, male. A few years ago I bought the best plan available in my state. It had 0% co-insurance and $1500 deductible, same deductible for healthcare and rx; comprehensive insurance. Cost me under $150 / mo. When ACA started to kick in, I got a letter stating my premium was going up 20-30% attached to a list of women's health services now covered by my plan.

The best plan on healthcare.gov in my state: same deductible, double yearly out of pocket maximum, and 20% coinsurance. The cost? $350 / mo. Less coverage, over double the price. Don't touch my Obamacare!

Despite being better than and equally comprehensve to every healthcare.gov plan, my policy was canceled due to non-compliance with ACA. Remember, these people who told us to pass the law before we read it, and promise we can keep our plans if we like them, really can be trusted. This time is different.

I am not heartless. I know a man who, through no fault of his own, is disabled and cannot access healthcare. I would gladly pay more in taxes to help people like him. But, we don't need Obamacare to do it - medicaid expansion alone takes care of it. We could have helped those uninsured with no possibility to access healthcare without giving the federal gov so much control.

Every single healthy person I have spoken to in my state who purchases their own insurance has gotten fucked by Obamacare, including small business owners. The only Obamacare supporters I meet are those who get insurance through their workplace and probably don't know what a deductible is.

TJT gives more evidence for my case: he gets better health insurance from work, so is not opposed to Obamacare personally. His young/healthy friends get kicked in the balls/vagina, and his elderly parents save $500 / mo. Notice the direct wealth transfer from people trying to raise children to the elderly.

The fact that ACA helps some and hurts some is a given. Ask, then, what effects can we expect from this wealth transfer from healthy, middle class, successful, reproductive age people to elderly and poor? The current middle class was vanishing already before ACA due to job losses - under this new system, the future middle class will not even be born, as more and more middle class parents decide it is not economically viable to reproduce at replacement rate.

If the US wasn't run like shit with its massive corruption and lack of social responsibility you could have universal healthcare while paying a smaller percent of your GDP towards healthcare than you were spending before obamacare, like literally every other civilized country in the world. But enjoy the for-profit kleptocracy, and the fact that you spend almost as much on medicare + medicaid as less corrupt countries spend on insuring the entire population cradle to grave.

Creslin_sl said:

If the US wasn't run like shit with its massive corruption and lack of social responsibility you could have universal healthcare while paying a smaller percent of your GDP towards healthcare than you were spending before obamacare, like literally every other civilized country in the world. But enjoy the for-profit kleptocracy, and the fact that you spend almost as much on medicare + medicaid as less corrupt countries spend on insuring the entire population cradle to grave.

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Is this a joke? If you're American you will understand this: quality of socialized healthcare in ANY nation is equivalent to Medicaid, which is the lowest level of service. Medicaid is so bad that most doctors will not take patients with this coverage - they actually lose money on office visits.

The result of socializing healthcare is not allowing everyone access to the highest quality services; rather, the result is mandating that nearly everyone only has access to the lowest quality services.

Exhibit A:
Doctors barred from using new cancer treatment equipment | UK news | The Observer

Cyberknife is not new technology - is has been available for quite some time. It is available at my local hospitals; not special cancer treatment centers only for the rich, no, just normal hospitals in my city. If need this treatment, my insurance will pay for it. Unlike in the UK, where you better have $20,000+ to pay private treatment centers; they have only two in the entire country. I bet there's more in my smallish home city than the entire UK.

I bet you would going to use the UK system as an example of how much better socialized healthcare is?

You seem to equate being for-profit with corruption. This is socialist sheep thinking. For-profit is only corruption in a slave society. In free societies, where men exchange goods and services in the market according to their ability, kept orderly with minimal government regulation, the highest quality services will be found at the lowest possible price.

In socialist slave societies, government bureaucrats ration healthcare services to the masses. Their incentive is to reduce costs; quality of service is a secondary concern; there is no financial incentive to provide a high quality service.

Compare the service you receive in any for-profit store/restaurant, or even private hospital, against what you receive in government offices. If you cannot see it, your mind has rotted too far for saving.

wormie_sl said:

First, everyone's health services were always included in the cost of health care insurance. yes even women's services. Second, My insurance premium went up similar amounts every year before obamacare. Third, why did a federal law in my state have a different impact than the federal law in your state and if you cant answer that, ask yourself if that is due to obamacare or some state laws.

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That weak objection is all you've got?

Maybe I confused you with too many words. Here is the main point:
Please explain:
before ACA the best plan in my state: 0% coinsurance $1500 deductible, comprehensive, $150ish /mo.
post ACA the best plan in my state: 20% coinsurance, $1500 deductible, $350ish

ACA is a wealth transfer from healthy reproductive age middle class to elderly and poor. Get it?

Oh look a new dumb fuck has arisen.

BurnemWizfyre_sl said:

Oh look a new dumb fuck has arisen.

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I'm wondering, myself, or the guy who responded thusly:
"that's how the society worked from the stone age, u faggot. u breed younglings, so they can take care of you if you get old and shit. "

If refering to myself, then you think I am ignorant. If so, please respond:

Given the conditions I outlined, based on my personal experience with ACA, how is ACA not a wealth transfer from healthy, middle class, reproductive age people to the poor and elderly?

Trollface:
I agree, we must care for the elderly. In fact, thoughout most of history, the elderly have NOT been cared for by socialism/forced wealth transfers. Rather, they have been cared for by 1) family and 2)use of personal savings / wealth.

I don't think you read my post. Specifically, ACA is de-incentivizing successful middle class people from having children. If you can, consider the consequences.

**evidence beyond my own: TJT wrote:
"Alternatively, my parents were able to save $500 a month on their insurance while some friends in my hometown (26/married/2 kids) were forced to pay significantly more. I guess it really depends on which side of the spectrum you fall on."

frqkjt_sl said:

Specifically, ACA is de-incentivizing successful middle class people from having children. If you can, consider the consequences.

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I'd love to see the empirical evidence on this. Are you saying that in the past four years, decline in reproduction (if it did decline any significant amount past what has historically been seen) is due to the ACA?

I just don't see it.

It's weird that the healthcare outcomes in all these awful, socialist slave countries are still so much better than what the US manages to achieve spending 50-100% more of it's GDP on it's amazing private system.

Really weird.

Probably safe to blame that on the blacks and mexicans, amirite?

Trollface_sl said:

that's how the society worked from the stone age, u faggot. u breed younglings, so they can take care of you if you get old and shit.

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Not commenting on the ACA; but we, as a society, do actually need to look at this now. This is the first time in history (literally history) that the oldest generation is going to be vastly more wealthy than the generation raising children. Before Grandmom and Grandpop became poor from not working and had their children take care of them. Now the children are relatively poor and Grandmom and Grandpop are continuing to siphon funds through Medicare/Social Security(Long long after what they paid in has paid out again, with interest and growth)--which are now being layered on preexisting fat retirement packs, built off of collapsing, unsustainable, synthetic markets, for Grandma and Grandpops yacht vacations.

So we can't just say "business as usual"--because unlike the elderly, there isn't a shit ton of programs really to aid the young and able bodied, but ironically, they are the ones that are going to be the poorest soon. Which is why the largest voting bloc being fucking selfish old retards, and grumbling for everyone to pull their bootstraps up; while simultaneously sleeping on beds of cash created from shitting on American production through outsourcing and synthetic markets AND, in retirement, reaping some of the most progressive retirement institutions in the world, which lowers their cost of living at every turn, is so damn infuriating.

Trollface_sl said:

If family did not have a young, you got old, you become a fucking begger. if you are a woman, you become a nun or work for some lord in some kitchen until you die.

middle class don't even have children anyways. they are too busy making careers and "fuck families"

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Uhh, yeah, that happened 80 years ago. People are still thinking by standards that have existed in almost three generations now. It's unbelievable. And you don't see ANY correlation between "fuck families" and the massive change in wealth accumulation and disparities (Which the elderly are a component of)? Of course it's going to be "fuck families" when your career doesn't pay over the poverty line until you're over 30 now--way back when? People had jobs that could build real wealth in their early 20's. Families are a much easier thing to think about when you're not wondering if your boss is going to downsize you.

Eomer_sl said:

It's weird that the healthcare outcomes in all these awful, socialist slave countries are still so much better than what the US manages to achieve spending 50-100% more of it's GDP on it's amazing private system.

Really weird.

Probably safe to blame that on the blacks and mexicans, amirite?

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Let me get this straight: I provide my personal experience of being hurt by the ACA as a young health person, connect to testimony of another who saw young, healthy families being hurt by ACA in favor of the poor and elderly, and conclude that ACA hurts reproductive age, healthy people, especially those in the middle incomes who do not receive ACA subsidies.

Furthermore, I link a news article from the Guardian, which gives evidence of this world class socialist health care: people in the UK do not have access to cancer treatment technology widely available in the US (2 in the entire UK vs at least that number in my small city). The point being, the quality of healthcare services is lower under socialist systems. There are many factors going into healthcare outcomes, only one of which is quality of healthcare services. Americans, for example, are relativey unhealthy due to diet and exercise, which can negatively impact healthcare outcomes despite higher quality service.

You reply by calling me a racist. Really? Who is more reasonable? Perhaps I am wrong, but at least I provide limited evidence and attempt to use logic.

By the way, I work in inner city schools, and support allowing immigration of hard working hispanics to the united states, hopefully displacing a bunch of lazy fucks of all colors already here. So go fuck yourself.

Lithose_sl said:

Not commenting on the ACA; but we, as a society, do actually need to look at this now. This is the first time in history (literally history) that the oldest generation is going to be vastly more wealthy than the generation raising children. ...

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Lithose, let's consider those who are just barely middle class. They can barely afford the cars, the house, and their 1-2 children. Now, you implement ACA and take more money from them, and transfer this to elderly and poor. Will they have another child and thus face the possibility of poverty, or will they stop having children, thus not maintaining replacement rate.

Let's consider the children of middle class baby boomers. They finish college, and the only jobs available pay less than the average college graduate earned in 1995, but they have 2014 prices. To maintain their lifestyle, the move in with parents. Finally at at 30-35, the student loans are paid off, and they can afford a family. Even if they can work their way up to 2014 middle class incomes, how many children will they have starting so late?

In the future, who will pay ACA subsidies? It's not even a question of "is it fair to force the young to pay for the lavish retirement of baby boomers." It's more a question of 'will we be serfs.'

Mentioning what state you are derping about makes a big difference in whatever you are trying to say.

And medicare is "bad" because it pays doctors less. And clearly they are only in it for the money.

frqkjt_sl said:

Let me get this straight: I provide my personal experience of being hurt by the ACA as a young health person, connect to testimony of another who saw young, healthy families being hurt by ACA in favor of the poor and elderly, and conclude that ACA hurts reproductive age, healthy people, especially those in the middle incomes who do not receive ACA subsidies.

Furthermore, I link a news article from the Guardian, which gives evidence of this world class socialist health care: people in the UK do not have access to cancer treatment technology widely available in the US (2 in the entire UK vs at least that number in my small city). The point being, the quality of healthcare services is lower under socialist systems. There are many factors going into healthcare outcomes, only one of which is quality of healthcare services. Americans, for example, are relativey unhealthy due to diet and exercise, which can negatively impact healthcare outcomes despite higher quality service.

You reply by calling me a racist. Really? Who is more reasonable? Perhaps I am wrong, but at least I provide limited evidence and attempt to use logic.

By the way, I work in inner city schools, and support allowing immigration of hard working hispanics to the united states, hopefully displacing a bunch of lazy fucks of all colors already here. So go fuck yourself.

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http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf

Scroll down to page 18. The US ranks 37th, behind a whole shitload of "socialist slave" nations, and in fact a lot of developing countries.

This source may be more to your liking:US health outcomes far worse than other comparable nations, report finds | Fox News

So you can keep your anecdotal evidence to yourself, the fact is that the US in basically any study on the matter has one of the worst health care systems on the planet, despite spending 50-100% more of it's GDP on the system. And keep in mind that US GDP per capita is much higher than many of the countries it is compared to, so in nominal terms the US is often spending 2-4 times as much on health care per citizen as the countries it's being compared to.

So prattle on as much as you want about "socialist slave nations", the facts don't change: the US health care system sucks fucking balls, and it's basically the only advanced nation on the planet that has that type of a system. Meanwhile all the nations that you denigrate have better health outcomes for a fraction of the dollars spent.

As far as unhealthy lifestyles, both the UK and Canada have pretty much identical statistics for obesity and other similar problems, and yet they manage to have better outcomes for far less dollars with the "socialist slave" systems.

Eomer_sl said:

It's weird that the healthcare outcomes in all these awful, socialist slave countries are still so much better than what the US manages to achieve spending 50-100% more of it's GDP on it's amazing private system.

Really weird.

Probably safe to blame that on the blacks and mexicans, amirite?

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No dude you heard him. Here in the UK my healthcare is worse than Medicaid. Oh damn I hear a dog barking let me grab my shovel if I'm fast it's meat for dinner tonight!

Seriously tho I have personally experienced both systems. Until I moved to the uk for my post grad I worked in the us. I paid for shit healthcare from my employer. The UK system isn't perfect but it is atleast as good as the average care offered in the US.