26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
John
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26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by John »

26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike

Obama administration tries to stop Obamacare death spiral


** 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e160426



Contents:
Britain's NHS facing massive strike from 'junior doctors'
Britain's NHS financial crisis is being tied to the 'Brexit' debate
Obama administration tries to stop Obamacare death spiral


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Britain, National Health Service, NHS,
Jeremy Hunt, Department of Health, British Medical Association,
Brexit, European Union,
Obamacare, healthcare.gov, risk corridors, exchanges, reinsurance,
Blue Cross Blue Shield, Congressional Budget Office

Jack Edwards
Posts: 117
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:47 pm

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by Jack Edwards »

John wrote:
The junior doctors are demonstrating against the contract for the obvious reasons -- low pay, exhaustion, having little free time to spend with their families. A substantial number are considering leaving Britain to practice medicine in other countries
I am reminded of how fashionable it is now for presidential candidates to say that healthcare is a "right".

A former presidential candidate, Rand Paul, said something controversial regarding this "right".

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/st ... e-slavery/
"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

"Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services, do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? You’re basically saying you believe in slavery. You’re saying you believe in taking and extracting from another person. Our founding documents were very clear about this. You have a right to pursue happiness but there’s no guarantee of physical comfort. There’s no guarantee of concrete items. In order to give something concrete, you have to take it from someone. So there’s an implied threat of force.

"If I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care, do you have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be. If you believe in a right to health care, you’re believing in basically the use of force to conscript someone to do your bidding."
Sometimes the truth hurts..

The one about female physicians feeling discriminated against because they were being required to work so much was.. illuminating. Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

Regards,
Jack

MarvyGuy
Posts: 157
Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2015 5:33 pm

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by MarvyGuy »

I think Obamacare was designed to fail and do so in exactly this way as the entire concept was flawed from the start. Insurance was never meant to be like this and so it must be taken out and set aside for catastrophic care only and then let the free market come back. But I digress and once this runs its course the next step will be full nationalization. UK will look nice by comparison as the only way to handle US would be another Stalin or Mao.

Guest

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by Guest »

There is no justification for million dollar medical bills or medication that costs thousands of dollars a month. America's medical system is beyond a sick joke. It's an absolute nightmare. People have a right to affordable health care. You should hav to lose everything you own to stay alive.

Guest

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by Guest »

Guest said:
There is no justification for million dollar medical bills or medication that costs thousands of dollars a month. America's medical system is beyond a sick joke. It's an absolute nightmare.
You are absolutely right. The US medical system costs about 50% vs other countries in terms of % of expenditures on health care vs GDP. For that extra cost the US gets the benefit of responsiveness - kind of. In terms of actual results, most people don't live longer or I don't think are healthier, they just get treated faster. Any Republican politician that says the old way was just fine is an idiot. The old system was bloated, corrupt and overly expensive. The new obamacare is more bloated, more corrupt and more overly expensive. It benefits very few at the expense of very many.

Several years back (I think before obamacare was enacted, looked but couldn't find the original reference) John wrote an article saying that obamacare was a joke and if they were serious we would work on developing AI Dr's and nurses, which would drastically bring down health care costs. At the time, I was skeptical. Now I think "why not?" 50% of what happens at an urgent care facility could probably be figured out with a couple of diagnostic tests and a smart phone with a good camera and a well programmed app. Computers being able to classify based on pattern recognition will make this very likely to occur. Why do I go to the Dr now? pink eye (take a picture use pattern recognition - issue prescription), sinus infection (answer a couple questions, take a picture of the mucus, compare against other patterns), poison ivy (take a picture, use classification to diagnose). This will happen, because what idiot would go to the Dr. spend $120 to get 5 minutes of their time when they could pay a few dollars and get an equivalent diagnosis?

As to your other comment:
People have a right to affordable health care. You should have to lose everything you own to stay alive.
Beware the "right" word. A right means that it has to be fulfilled no matter the cost. The payment comes from somewhere. Despite what our modern day governments are presently doing, every price has to be paid. Where does the money come from to pay? you and me. How is it extracted? more and more taxes with little to no accountability. No thank you. You and many others claim you have a right to take my property or to spend money allocated for something else on something corrupt like the health care system. Personally I want to involved in that choice. I want to be able to order prescriptions without going through a pharmacist, I want to be able to self diagnose and procure the means to heal without spending $100's of dollars when $10's of dollars will do. When I go to a physician, I want them to tell me what things cost, not some corrupt system that modifies the cost based on whatever insurance I have. I want insurance to work like insurance. If I get in a car wreck and it costs millions of dollars, I want it to be covered. Everything else, I get to take care of.

I don't discount that good governance will look out for the health and welfare of it's less privileged. But that's not what we have now. And single payer will simply lower the bar for everyone and result in rationing. Personally I believe too much government and regulation is the problem, not too little.

Regards,
Jack

gerald
Posts: 1681
Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 10:34 pm

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by gerald »

Guest wrote:
Guest said:
There is no justification for million dollar medical bills or medication that costs thousands of dollars a month. America's medical system is beyond a sick joke. It's an absolute nightmare.
You are absolutely right. The US medical system costs about 50% vs other countries in terms of % of expenditures on health care vs GDP. For that extra cost the US gets the benefit of responsiveness - kind of. In terms of actual results, most people don't live longer or I don't think are healthier, they just get treated faster. Any Republican politician that says the old way was just fine is an idiot. The old system was bloated, corrupt and overly expensive. The new obamacare is more bloated, more corrupt and more overly expensive. It benefits very few at the expense of very many.

Several years back (I think before obamacare was enacted, looked but couldn't find the original reference) John wrote an article saying that obamacare was a joke and if they were serious we would work on developing AI Dr's and nurses, which would drastically bring down health care costs. At the time, I was skeptical. Now I think "why not?" 50% of what happens at an urgent care facility could probably be figured out with a couple of diagnostic tests and a smart phone with a good camera and a well programmed app. Computers being able to classify based on pattern recognition will make this very likely to occur. Why do I go to the Dr now? pink eye (take a picture use pattern recognition - issue prescription), sinus infection (answer a couple questions, take a picture of the mucus, compare against other patterns), poison ivy (take a picture, use classification to diagnose). This will happen, because what idiot would go to the Dr. spend $120 to get 5 minutes of their time when they could pay a few dollars and get an equivalent diagnosis?

As to your other comment:
People have a right to affordable health care. You should have to lose everything you own to stay alive.
Beware the "right" word. A right means that it has to be fulfilled no matter the cost. The payment comes from somewhere. Despite what our modern day governments are presently doing, every price has to be paid. Where does the money come from to pay? you and me. How is it extracted? more and more taxes with little to no accountability. No thank you. You and many others claim you have a right to take my property or to spend money allocated for something else on something corrupt like the health care system. Personally I want to involved in that choice. I want to be able to order prescriptions without going through a pharmacist, I want to be able to self diagnose and procure the means to heal without spending $100's of dollars when $10's of dollars will do. When I go to a physician, I want them to tell me what things cost, not some corrupt system that modifies the cost based on whatever insurance I have. I want insurance to work like insurance. If I get in a car wreck and it costs millions of dollars, I want it to be covered. Everything else, I get to take care of.

I don't discount that good governance will look out for the health and welfare of it's less privileged. But that's not what we have now. And single payer will simply lower the bar for everyone and result in rationing. Personally I believe too much government and regulation is the problem, not too little.

Regards,
Jack
As they say, there are many ways to skin a cat. But if you are allowed only "one way" it will be expensive.

Guest

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by Guest »

I'm an American living overseas, and I have had surgery twice-both operations cost less than $4000, and my local private insurance covered 90% of the costs. In America the same surgical procedure would have cost over $80,000 (not including hospitalization and after care). I stayed five days in the hospital both times when I had surgery.

The use of the word "right" can indeed be dangerous; however, the day one of my children dies because I can't afford medical care is the same day I kill a few local doctors. It won't bring my children back, but it will make me feel a whole lot better. Beware.

Jack Edwards
Posts: 117
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:47 pm

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by Jack Edwards »

Guest said:
I'm an American living overseas, and I have had surgery twice-both operations cost less than $4000, and my local private insurance covered 90% of the costs. In America the same surgical procedure would have cost over $80,000 (not including hospitalization and after care). I stayed five days in the hospital both times when I had surgery.
Once, many years ago I lived in Nevada and a new congressman came to someplace I was at and talked to us of politics for a bit. Prior to becoming a congressman, he was a veterinarian. He made an interesting statement along the lines of: "I can spay a dog (do a hysterectomy) for $75 but it costs $3000 to do the procedure on a human woman. Why? it's the same exact surgical procedure. " He talked about a lot of other common sense things that could be done to get costs down for various things. Of course, years later he became a senator, had an affair with a staffers wife, used campaign funds to hush up the situation and ended up resigning in disgrace - but I digress. The point is, that the US medical system takes risk management to the point that everything is ridiculous in cost. And this was 20 years ago! it's worse now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ensign
Guest said:
the day one of my children dies because I can't afford medical care is the same day I kill a few local doctors.
I think it more likely that state managed healthcare with enact rationing to control costs and the elderly will end up being the ones that don't get timely health care. Structurally, nations with too many retired old people will simply not have enough young workers to provide money into the social support systems. Politicians won't want to admit it (because old people do vote), but it will become inevitable that older sick people will be encouraged to just go die and save the system money. Macabre, but true. It won't be pretty, but I think it's inevitable.
the same day I kill a few local doctors. It won't bring my children back, but it will make me feel a whole lot better. Beware.
Serious anger management issues. Serious anger management issues.

Regards,
Jack

gerald
Posts: 1681
Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 10:34 pm

Re: 26-Apr-16 World View -- Obamacare continues death spiral as Britain's NHS faces strike / Obamacare spirals

Post by gerald »

When times get tough -- http://www.theinitialjourney.com/featur ... s-old-age/

Some groups of Eskimos, mainly Inuit in northern Alaska, did practice senilicide (the killing of the elderly), as well as infanticide (killing babies, especially with female babies), and even invalidicide (killing the irrecoverably sick or disabled). However, these were not widespread practices, and while adopted under extreme circumstances by some groups, they were seen as grotesque by others.

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