Health Care Reform - almost a done deal? DONE!

Angry Citizen

That is hardly fallacious. Countries with higher levels of centralized, governmental control of health care tend to have longer average lifespans and lower rates of infant mortality. I am eager to see how this correlation does not imply causation.

WhoWee

Thank you Angry Citizen - for once again - taking the focus off of the specifics of the debate.

If health care "reform" were a scientific problem, would ANY OF YOU look at it this way?

calculusrocks

..........

calculusrocks

You're the one that labels yourself as a libertarian in the first place. Nonsense.
Yup. It advocates the use of force and coercion.
Libertarianism is rooted in ideology. Here's a YouTube for those curious.

So in this paragraph you attack the socialists on economy, but yet you support the annexation of 1/6 of the US Economy. Really! I know a duck when I see a duck.

mheslep

These are all things that are to be avoided as much as possible as they have great carrying costs, are inefficient, and lead to abuses. However, most of them have no alternative and they are necessary. Or, per Washington,
Societal life requires we use the fearful master, but it should be as little as possible.

calculusrocks

I thought this was an excellent post.

Zefram

Yes, in place of. Auto-enrollment is in Ryan's bill for the same reason the mandate is in other bills: to achieve near-universal coverage and avoid adverse selection issues. They are two mechanisms with the same goal--getting as many people into the system as possible.

Ryan's exchanges:

• Certified by the Feds in accordance with federal rules ("In General- The Secretary of Health and Human Services (referred to in this title as the `Secretary') shall establish a process for the review of applications submitted by States for the establishment and implementation of State-based health care Exchanges (referred to in this title as a `State Exchange') and for the certification of such Exchanges. The Secretary shall certify a State Exchange if the Secretary determines that such Exchange meets the requirements of this title.)
• Participating plans required to have benefit parity with members of Congress
• Autoenrollment to facilitate universal coverage
• Guaranteed access ("The State Exchange shall ensure that, with respect to health insurance coverage offered through the Exchange, all eligible individuals are able to enroll in the coverage of their choice provided that such individuals agree to make applicable premium and cost sharing payments.")
• HIPAA limitations on pre-existing condition exclusions are applied to nongroup plans--i.e. in the Exchange--for the first time
• Risk adjustment mechanisms to provide a "limitation on exorbitant premiums" (i.e. a weak form of modified community rating)

Yes, philosophically very different from the state-based exchanges in the Democratic reform proposals. Except for the federal directives, I suppose.

Oh, HIE has strong bipartisan support (even the red states are gobbling up HIE Cooperative grants to build functioning HIEs in their states). But with these Republicans, that rarely translates into votes.

Angry Citizen

Of course. Socialist policies are not socialism. Socialism and social democracies are two very different things. 1/6 of the US economy has already been annexed. If legislation to pay for it and ensure it is universal are such terrifying concepts, then so be it. I'd rather have good health care than ascribe to an inflexible ideology. If you're against universal health care just because it's the evil guvmnt, then you're against it for all the wrong reasons. If there were an historical trend towards lower health standards and greater costs inherent in socialized medicine, naturally I would be against it. Unfortunately, the trend is against you here. You are, essentially, supporting the same thing the socialists support: a system that is proven to be ineffective and inefficient.

mheslep

Yes it is unless one shows the connection between the two, as you are now attempting to do here:
That's a Wikipedia level look at the topic. For instance, lifespans are obviously impacted by many things other than health care. If you want to know about quality health care, take a detailed look as I suggested above, at survival rates for cancer, heart disease, i.e. what happens to you if you actually get sick and see a doctor. You'll find most often the best place to be is in the US. If you want to know about lifespan causes start with McDonalds and car wrecks.

Angry Citizen

These statistics ignore the fact that the United States is known to have more specialists in these kinds of fields. If the United States' health care was so good, its average life span would be at or near the top spot, right? It's not.

Sure, other things could be affecting the statistic. But what? Average life span is a pretty huge indicator of public health, because it is a broad view of health that ignores focused studies on certain diseases. If the summary of American health care is, "We can treat your really bad diseases pretty darn well, but you're still not likely to outlive a Japanese or Norwegian", then American health care needs to change regardless.

mheslep

So? It is nonsensical to cite Ryan's auto-enrolment as an example of a Republican idea in the current Democratic bill. One might as well say the Republicans and Democrats both want 'good' things and that therefore all their particular methods for getting there are pretty much the same.

calculusrocks

Apparently this Canadian socialist was not so rooted in ideology as to get his heart surgery in the Canadian socialist system. If the US switches from mixed economy (gov't built HMOs in the 1970s) to total socialization the health care, where are Canadian politicians going to go for their health care?

mheslep

Diet. Crime. Average driving distance. Gene pool. If one controls life span for these causes of death, the US is close to or at the the top. For infant mortality, the US difference is about 0.6 deaths out of a 1000 from the top, if you believe the infant death rates are measured the same way everywhere.

The US health care system does need to change, but I advocate that along the way we not screw up the fact that we do indeed treat 'diseases pretty darn well'

mheslep

I find this line so tiresome. Some $850 billion (the stimulus bill) of our money is taken by force and spent. But since we may have vociferously opposed its authorization, it is somehow not appropriate to get in line and take our own money back. Or if we do, that demonstrates we really supported the idea all along and were just acting out of politics. Please.

hamster143

Yes, there was that famous article that claimed that crime and accidents accounted for most of the difference in life expectancies between the US and OECD ... unfortunately, it turned out to be fake. As you can easily calculate by yourself, crime effectively reduces the US life expectancy by something like 0.4 years compared to virtually crime-less countries like Japan. If you also account for traffic accidents, you can probably explain away some more. The US is 1 year behind UK/Germany, 2 years behind New Zealand & Italy, 4 years behind Iceland and Japan.

I find it doubtful that the US has the worst dietary habits of all major countries. New Zealand has worse gene pool than the US (as recently as 100 years ago, it was basically populated by cannibal natives and convicts). Iceland has a horrible climate, but people manage to live quite long over there.

Smoking is an important contributor to premature death, but it turns out that Americans smoke substantially less than, say, Japanese or Greeks.

The US infant mortality is twice that of Iceland or Japan, 25% higher than in New Zealand or Italy.

calculusrocks

hamster, do you have any sources at all? If so, what is your point?

hamster143

My source is Wikipedia. My point is that the claim that "If one controls life span for these causes of death, the US is close to or at the the top" is inaccurate. In fact, the US does have one of the lowest life expectancies and highest infant mortalities in the developed world. So, we do NOT treat 'diseases pretty darn well', and the worry that we might somehow "break" our treasured healthcare system by trying to set up universal healthcare may be overblown.