More Obamacare fuckups

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

What about murder rates? Pollution? I hear the US produces the second most pollution in the world by quite a margin compared to the third most.

Car accidents? Accidents in general? Obesity? Diabetes due to poor nutrition?

What about record keeping? Maybe France just sucks at keeping proper track of how old their citizens die at and the US is (as usual) perfect at it? Maybe countries like Japan don't count still born births as a life/death and that skews their numbers? Maybe the US does keep track of those and that skews their numbers in the other direction?

Maybe there are far too many variables to possibly tie life expectancy and healthcare spending together and try to compare different countries based on this?

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These are all good questions, but before I dig into them I have one question for you:

How many variables would it take where it turned out the US was actually at less risk before you agreed that it was? I feel pretty confident I have demonstrated 2. What's your number?

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Originally Posted by Latrinsorm

These are all good questions, but before I dig into them I have one question for you:

How many variables would it take where it turned out the US was actually at less risk before you agreed that it was? I feel pretty confident I have demonstrated 2. What's your number?

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24 billion.

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Originally Posted by Jarvan

Direct comparison of % doesn't apply to healthcare costs, since it is the SHEER number of people that impact it.

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This would be a great point except the graph explicitly states "healthcare costs per capita".

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Less % wise of our people smoke, but they are smoking significantly more cigarettes.

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854 cigarettes per French adult / .3 French smokers per French adult = 2847 cigarettes per French smoker

While you are correct that the American figure is higher (5411), smoking 8 cigarettes a day is very clearly a major health risk. 30% of the population or 20% of the population with lung cancer, which is more expensive per capita?

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Originally Posted by Jeril

The way I see some of this is that the huge chunk of money that was spent on the computer system could have easily been used to pay every ones premiums and the deductibles of all the people who couldn't afford it.

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Somehow I doubt that your premium was $2 for life.

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

24 billion.

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I accept this challenge. Please cite the 23 billion 999 million 999 thousand 999 cases that led you to believe in the first place that the US was more at risk, that my response may be Taylor Swift made to your position.

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Originally Posted by Latrinsorm

I accept this challenge. Please cite the 23 billion 999 million 999 thousand 999 cases that led you to believe in the first place that the US was more at risk, that my response may be Taylor Swift made to your position.

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You want me to refute my own point? That's your job buddy. Once I say something it is fact until someone proves otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Latrinsorm

Somehow I doubt that your premium was $2 for life.

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Certainly not but as was pointed out, that money could have been used to pay the premiums with ease this year and any extra could be put to making more money as it is just sitting there not being used. And how do you get 2$? Or just a random number?

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Originally Posted by Tgo01

You want me to refute my own point? That's your job buddy. Once I say something it is fact until someone proves otherwise.

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No, I merely want you to elaborate upon your own point. Why has no one ever asked me to do that???

Oh... right.

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Originally Posted by Jeril

Certainly not but as was pointed out, that money could have been used to pay the premiums with ease this year and any extra could be put to making more money as it is just sitting there not being used. And how do you get 2$? Or just a random number?

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$600m by 300m people = $2 per person.

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Originally Posted by Jeril

I am saying there is a better way to do it. What that is is probably better left up to the 'experts', maybe. The way I see some of this is that the huge chunk of money that was spent on the computer system could have easily been used to pay every ones premiums and the deductibles of all the people who couldn't afford it. You take that a step further and if the government is paying for all that why do we need the insurance companies? But then you run into two problems, what to do with all the people who work in the health insurance industry and government inefficiency. The answer to the first is likely to make them government employees filling similar roles. The second would be a harder one to solve because we the people by and large expect and accept that our government is that way.

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I win. Guess what you just advocated?

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Originally Posted by Latrinsorm

$600m by 300m people = $2 per person.

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No idea why but I needed to see that for some things to make sense. Maybe too long mentally staring at the same numbers without a new perspective. So, we as a country spend somewhere north of 5 trillion dollars a year on health care. There are obviously several things we could do to reduce that, but at the moment our government doesn't seem interested in them.

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Originally Posted by Warriorbird

I win. Guess what you just advocated?

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Hey, when you give me a horribly designed computer system and I say, "No, that is bad, it needs to be better", doesn't mean I think the idea is bad. Government healthcare does have the potential to save us money.

Single-payer health care is a system in which the government, rather than private insurers, pays for all health care costs.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom). The term "single-payer" thus only describes the funding mechanism—referring to health care financed by a single public body from a single fund—and does not specify the type of delivery, or for whom doctors work. Although the fund holder is usually the state, some forms of single-payer use a mixed public-private system.

And I'd say that is what I was advocating, Obamacare isn't this. And who knows how much over hauling it would take to become such a system. You might be able to claim that it is the aim of Obamacare to become that, but would it really be so hard for our government to get something right the first time instead of spending countless hours and dollars fixing something screwed up that they created?

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Originally Posted by Jeril

No idea why but I needed to see that for some things to make sense. Maybe too long mentally staring at the same numbers without a new perspective. So, we as a country spend somewhere north of 5 trillion dollars a year on health care. There are obviously several things we could do to reduce that, but at the moment our government doesn't seem interested in them.



Hey, when you give me a horribly designed computer system and I say, "No, that is bad, it needs to be better", doesn't mean I think the idea is bad. Government healthcare does have the potential to save us money.

Single-payer health care is a system in which the government, rather than private insurers, pays for all health care costs.[1] Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom). The term "single-payer" thus only describes the funding mechanism—referring to health care financed by a single public body from a single fund—and does not specify the type of delivery, or for whom doctors work. Although the fund holder is usually the state, some forms of single-payer use a mixed public-private system.

And I'd say that is what I was advocating, Obamacare isn't this. And who knows how much over hauling it would take to become such a system. You might be able to claim that it is the aim of Obamacare to become that, but would it really be so hard for our government to get something right the first time instead of spending countless hours and dollars fixing something screwed up that they created?

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I think most Democrats would rather have had that. Obama went with what to me, still, is a Republican concept, because, truth is, one half of Congress doesn't actually want to do anything for citizens to the point that a Republican plan is now considered "Radical Socialism!" He naively thought they'd work with him. They didn't so he worked with insurance industry until they liked it.