Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

It's easily fixed. Make it actual insurance instead of a TPA. And mandate medical costs be published by providers.

Right now, we have a TPA paying (or maybe not) for people's elective care. This naturally inflates prices, as the purchaser doesn't know the cost and has no incentive to learn it. It also screws the poor consumer who only finds out after the fact that his care wasn't covered!

Could you imagine going to your mechanic and having him say, "I'll do the work, and maybe you'll have to pay for it, or maybe not. By the way, I have no idea what it'll cost until it's done." That's our "health insurance" system.

And why do we have this, rather than actual insurance, that only pays for necessary non-elective care? Because brilliant policy-heads decided the average person is not sophisticated enough to purchase elective healthcare on his own. It's too complicated for him, so he needs a TPA.

Nevermind that the only real way to drive down costs would be to put elective care on the patient. Let the patient and doctor negotiate on price directly and you'll see the unit price drop like a stone.

Let me guess the rebuttal: "Oh, but then we'd have less consumption of preventative care, and people would be sicker!" Bullshit. Entirely speculative bullshit.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Speculation is fact in these here parts! Look at Ty: people who have seen rates, co-pays and deductibles spike up under ACA aren't getting more expensive, worse, coverage. BECAUSE if not for ACA HC would have gotten more expensive anyway. See?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You don't stand for nothing, Sebby.

You stand for sitting by doing nothing while the house burns.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Fuck you.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Oh come on. It's a clever bit of prose.

ETA: You stand for further testing the law of unintended consequences. Health care should be like anything else. People can buy it like they buy anything else, and get insurance to cover services to cover expensive acute or chronic care. But no. We can't have that. We have to have a TPA system, and tie it to employment. The system's a three dollar bill from the start. Because, as always, some well intentioned policy-heads decided they knew what was best.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This is why Trump voters didn't like the ACA. People like you would rather talk about the giving-other-people-stuff-they-might-or-might-not-deserve stuff in the ACA than about the making-health-care-work-better stuff in the ACA. They're both in there, but only one part of it interests you.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

SMH. That you have been put in a position of major responsibility is actually more concerning to me than some of Trump's cabinet choices..

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Not to mention all the employers who shitcanned better policies when the ACA gave them cover for putting in the Walmart-level of benefits.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I agree with you that ACA may have provided an improvement for people who are hit with catastrophic health issues in some cases. But the vast majority of people don't get those sort of catastrophic illnesses and if they do, they die long before they get any benefits because they can't afford to pay for care to keep them alive until they meet a $5000 deductible.

So you get people who are forced to choose between losing their job or spending all day in a clinic if they get pancreatitis or have an arrhythmia. The clinic is packed with people who are suffering from everything between diabetes, heart disease, and allergies and morphine withdrawal. So everybody gets a minimal look-see and a scrip for extra-strength Tylenol, a set of x-rays, and an order to make another appointment, which they may or may not get because the clinic hits capacity for the day by 8:00 so the appointment gets canceled.

If I have $30/week in income after rent, day care, almost enough food, and utilities, how am I going to pull together the $125 a real doctor will require to see me, let alone pay for the $175 prescription? I'm dead long before I ever make the $5000 deductible.

I agree you can't make the perfect the enemy of the better. But if poor people still can't see a doctor, can't get basic wellness care or care for a chronic disease, and can't pay for the drugs they need to manage disease, where is this "better" of which you speak?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Which, if you read back, is something Hank told you would happen. perfect cover: Obama says this is good so that's what we are going to!

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Just another rich white man thinking he's cute because he's never met a single person who had to put their kid to bed hungry. Fuck him and his smug bullshit.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You don't see who it is who is really the one full of smug bullshit?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

What Trump voters think or don't think has nothing to do with this discussion. What I wrote is a fact.

They are both in there. But one's there a whole lot more than the other. Which is all I said.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

He grew up poor in Ohio, and endorsed Hillary this election, on the basis she was more Republican than Trump.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

The ACA was at best a thing that might work while acting as a door opener to single payer, at worst a thing the failure of which would create a situation where single payer became a politically possible solution. The former didn't happen and the latter is now impossible, as it required a single-payer-friendly political climate.