The Affordable Care Act II - Because Mr. Obama Loves You All

[unbillievable]

 

That tells me little as 42 states have a population less than Los Angeles County. What's more interesting to me is what states rely the most on federal government assistance by their population %. The best study I could find methodology wise was from Wallethub (using data from 2014 and 2015) which showed 8 of the top 10 states who rely on federal assistance were traditionally red states (Maine and New Mexico were the exception). Kentucky and Mississippi took the top two spots. California was 46th and New York was 34th. The methodology appears pretty sound, but no study is perfect.

 

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/#dependency-and-state-taxes

 

The federal funding myth has already been debunked numerous times. (blue states subsidizing red states lie).

 

These studies use the metric of % of federal funds that constitute a state's budget. This means that red states (low state taxes) have a higher proportion of their budget tied to federal funds than blue states (high state taxes) along with large disparities in population density that leads to higher infrastructure costs (roads) per capita.

 

Like the wage gap myth, it's about looking into how the numbers were gathered.

 

The best way to see who are the freeloaders is looking at welfare costs per capita, and 9/10 states are all blue, with NY and California leading the way (because cost of living is so high). Which makes sense.

 

-when something looks wrong, you should always ask yourself why.

Edited June 29, 2017 by unbillievable

[Nanker]

 

 

stop replying to Tiberius you twats.

 

Alf is gatorgal? Hoo new?

[B-Man]

[Tiberius]

This was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on April 16, 2015.

 

 

No single fact can settle the long-running debate of whether public or private health insurance is preferable. But by one basic metric, the rate of increase in per capita spending, public insurance has an edge.

 

The Federal Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has charted the annual rate of increase in spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance. As the chart above shows, by cumulative growth in per capita spending, Medicare and Medicaid have generally grown more slowly than private insurance and are projected to continue doing so through 2023. Per capita spending is an especially useful measure for comparing public and private health insurance spending because it shows how much Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers spend on each person irrespective of the number of people covered.

 

Advocates of public coverage tend to like its relative simplicity, uniform guaranteed benefits, and lower overhead costs, as well as the ability of large public insurance programs to use their purchasing power to leverage changes in the health-care system. Advocates of private coverage favor the greater choice it can offer consumers and the competition that can foster in the marketplace. For some people, preferences for public or private coverage are largely ideological.

 

When it comes to analyzing health spending, there are always multiple factors at play. Sometimes changing demographics can have a role. As younger baby boomers join Medicare, the average amount that the program spends per beneficiary will be slightly reduced over the next decade. Overall, however, it appears that public programs control per capita spending somewhat more effectively than private coverage does. That may be just the opposite of what many would presume in a country where the private market is generally expected to outperform the public sector.

*****

 

Private vs public insurance costs

 

http://www.kff.org/health-costs/perspective/public-vs-private-health-insurance-on-controlling-spending/

The federal funding myth has already been debunked numerous times. (blue states subsidizing red states lie).

 

These studies use the metric of % of federal funds that constitute a state's budget. This means that red states (low state taxes) have a higher proportion of their budget tied to federal funds than blue states (high state taxes) along with large disparities in population density that leads to higher infrastructure costs (roads) per capita.

 

Like the wage gap myth, it's about looking into how the numbers were gathered.

 

The best way to see who are the freeloaders is looking at welfare costs per capita, and 9/10 states are all blue, with NY and California leading the way (because cost of living is so high). Which makes sense.

 

-when something looks wrong, you should always ask yourself why.

 

Link to back this up? Those red state politicians like bringing home the pork as much as anyone but also complain about it out of the other side of their mouths

[B-Man]

Don't just read the headline.............

 

 

 

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON: Let’s Stop Pretending Medicaid Saves Lives.

 

Remember Deamonte Driver? He was the 12-year-old who died of a toothache in 2007. The boy lived in Maryland and was enrolled in that state’s Medicaid program, which covers dental care for children, as all Medicaid programs are required to do.

 

But Deamonte’s mother

couldn’t find a dentist who would take Medicaid

. At the time, only about 16 percent of Maryland dentists accepted Medicaid patients, and Deamonte was in dire need of basic dental care—as was his younger brother, DaShawn, who had six rotted teeth.

 

By the time Deamonte’s toothache got attention, bacteria from an abscessed tooth had spread to his brain. He underwent two emergency operations and six weeks of hospital care that cost more than $250,000. But it was too late, and Deamonte died. A routine, $80 tooth extraction could have saved his life.

 

Deamonte’s case prompted a national conversation about Medicaid. How had Maryland’s Medicaid program so thoroughly failed the Driver family? Why hadn’t they been able to find a dentist?

 

And what is the point of being enrolled in Medicaid if there are no doctors or dentists willing to treat you?

 

Those questions were never really answered, but they’re as pertinent today as they were a decade ago—arguably more so, since we’re once again engaged in a national debate over health care reform and the fate of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Then as now, the reality is that Medicaid doesn’t save lives. In some cases, like Deamonte Driver’s, it bars access to basic life-saving treatments.

 

 

 

 

It isn’t just that Medicaid doesn’t save lives, it’s that it has put Washington on a course to bankrupt the nation.

 

But if you think of it as the world’s most expensive example of virtue signaling, it all makes sense.

[DC Tom]

And what is the point of being enrolled in Medicaid if there are no doctors or dentists willing to treat you?

 

This happens a hell of a lot. I know of no person on Medicaid who hasn't had trouble with lack of access to care.

[Tiberius]

A doctors shortage only means there is increased demand that will work itself out over time through market forces

[grinreaper]

Medicaid reimbursements are so low that it is not worth it for a doctor to spend the money to become a doctor. Fixed prices and market forces are not compatible.

[DC Tom]

Medicaid reimbursements are so low that it is not worth it for a doctor to spend the money to become a doctor. Fixed prices and market forces are not compatible.

 

American socialists are the dumbest socialists on the planet.

[Capco]

Medicaid reimbursements are so low that it is not worth it for a doctor to spend the money to become a doctor. Fixed prices and market forces are not compatible.

 

Should markets determine who receives healthcare and who doesn't though? Incorporated insurance companies are required by law to make as much money as possible, and the less care they give, the bigger their profits are. That's a great system for making money, but a poor system for providing healthcare.

 

As far as doctor shortages, the answer to that is to subsidize the higher education disciplines that are in demand (and also to think twice about giving money to people getting a communications degree).

[Tiberius]

Medicaid reimbursements are so low that it is not worth it for a doctor to spend the money to become a doctor. Fixed prices and market forces are not compatible.

Horse crap. The extra money put into health care by the government actually increases the number of medical professionals below doctors who can take care of many things with actually having to see a doctor. So it helps there, also.

[IDBillzFan]

European Healthcare.

 

The US should definitely follow this model.

[GG]

 

This happens a hell of a lot. I know of no person on Medicaid who hasn't had trouble with lack of access to care.

 

Welcome to socialist medicine.

 

What angers me the most about the idiots who are the biggest proponents of socialized medicine (like our buddy baskin) is that they all forget the HMO experiments 30 years ago, which were universally reviled and thankfully killed.

 

People don't appreciate that the biggest reason US healthcare costs so much is because US healthcare employs so many specialists and has many more state of the art facilities, which happen to cost a hell of a lot of money.

 

So if our resident idiot shouters are so keen on 100% coverage, they should be honest with their proposal and ask the 85% of Americans who currently have comprehensive coverage if they're willing to give that up to go to a full HMO model, with much less specialists and medical access, in exchange for providing coverage for the 15% (many of whom don't want medical insurance)

 

It's not a question of who pays for what, but a question of losing your doctor.

[Benjamin Franklin]

European Healthcare.

 

The US should definitely follow this model.

That's not a health care issue. It's a legal one.

[GG]

That's not a health care issue. It's a legal one.

How is this not a healthcare issue? It goes straight to the heart of differences between US healthcare and socialized healthcare and why US healthcare costs so damned much.

[row_33]

Hospitals determine all the time that patients are better off dying for tough matters.

 

It's no fun to tell the parents this about their child.

[B-Man]

Hospitals determine all the time that patients are better off dying for tough matters.

 

It's no fun to tell the parents this about their child.

 

 

I've been that person many times in my career,

 

but you lay out the facts and convince them.

 

You don't take away their parental rights and make the State the ultimate power.

[GoBills808]

 

This happens a hell of a lot. I know of no person on Medicaid who hasn't had trouble with lack of access to care.

Triple negative...head hurts...

[DC Tom]

Triple negative...head hurts...

 

Yeah, I know...I tried to rephrase it, but it was most accurate as written.

[row_33]

I don't trust the media to present objective facts when taking the side of fully understandable emotional parents. There's at least five angles to this story...

[B-Man]

GOOD LORD: Terminally ill baby Charlie Gard’s parents ‘utterly distraught’ after losing final appeal in European court – meaning their son’s life support WILL be switched off.

 

It gets worse:

 

Chris Gard, 32, and Connie Yates, 31, wanted to take their 10-month-old son – who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage – to the US to undergo a therapy trial.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, where Charlie is being cared for, said they wanted him to be able to ‘die with dignity’.

But the couple, from Bedfont, west London, raised almost £1.4million so they could take their son to America but a series of courts ruled in favour of the British doctors.

It comes after specialists at Great Ormond Street said therapy in the US is experimental and will not help and added that life support should stop.

And after losing legal battles in the UK, Charlie’s parents were hoping judges in Strasbourg, France, would come to their aid.

But on Tuesday afternoon, the ECHR rejected a last-ditch plea and their ‘final’ decision means the baby’s life support machine will be switched off.

The ECHR announced the application to the court by the parents was ‘inadmissible’ and added that

their decision was ‘final’.

 

 

 

The single payer calls the shots.

[row_33]

That's how it goes. Canada never legalized the use of Thalidomide... quite fortunately. Terrible tragedies make for very harsh decisions. We've rejected a few contoversial US treatments in Canada recently, who knows how it would have gone.

[HappyDays]

European Healthcare.

 

The US should definitely follow this model.

Terri Schiavo was an American.

[IDBillzFan]

Terri Schiavo was an American.

 

Explain to us how the Schiavo case is related to this case.

[Doc Brown]

 

The federal funding myth has already been debunked numerous times. (blue states subsidizing red states lie).

 

These studies use the metric of % of federal funds that constitute a state's budget. This means that red states (low state taxes) have a higher proportion of their budget tied to federal funds than blue states (high state taxes) along with large disparities in population density that leads to higher infrastructure costs (roads) per capita.

 

Like the wage gap myth, it's about looking into how the numbers were gathered.

 

The best way to see who are the freeloaders is looking at welfare costs per capita, and 9/10 states are all blue, with NY and California leading the way (because cost of living is so high). Which makes sense.

 

-when something looks wrong, you should always ask yourself why.

 

That makes sense and I appreciate the clarification. Is their a link you used to get those stats? Basically, poorer deep red states keep their costs of living down making consumption standards higher for the poor and middle class while it's the opposite in the "richer" deep blue states where income and consumption inequality is higher.

[B-Man]

Terri Schiavo was an American.

 

Completely different.

 

Single payer and Charlie Gard: When euthanasia becomes a duty

 

FTA:

 

The couple had raised nearly £1.4 million for that effort, which would have ended NHS involvement in the case, but the courts decided that they — and not the parents — were in position to decide that death rather than potential treatment was what was best for the child. Now the parents cannot even take the baby home to allow him to die there rather than in hospital, even though they pledged to cover all the costs:

 

Note that there was no disagreement between the parents over the course of care they wanted for Charlie. The two of them have lived at the hospital with their baby, and have been equally united in their desire to try anything to save his life. This is not a dispute between relatives over who should have control over care (as was the issue in the Terri Schiavo case) but whether the state or the parents should have the final say. In a single-payer system such as NHS, the courts have clearly ruled that the state has more standing on whether to allow someone to die than the person or his/her nearest relations. And now, the state — through its socialized-medicine providers — refuse to even allow the death to take place under the circumstances desired by the family.

 

Critics have long warned that the embrace of euthanasia would eventually transform it from a choice to a duty, and that certainly seems to be what happened in the tragic case of Charlie Gard.

 

You’ll see it a lot, and eventually not just in Europe, either. Socialized medicine requires rationing by the state rather than by private-market forces, and that will be true in the US if we continue to go down the single-payer sinkhole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Medicaid Spending Caps Are More Complex Than They Seem

 

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/449054/senate-health-care-bills-medicaid-caps-are-more-complicated-you-think

 

Much has been said about the per capita spending caps on Medicaid in the Senate health-care bill. But little attention has been paid to the fact that the spending caps are not uniform. Most importantly, there are special rules for the disabled and the elderly, who together account for about one-quarter of Medicaid enrollment.

 

 

[grinreaper]

 

Should markets determine who receives healthcare and who doesn't though? Incorporated insurance companies are required by law to make as much money as possible, and the less care they give, the bigger their profits are. That's a great system for making money, but a poor system for providing healthcare.

 

As far as doctor shortages, the answer to that is to subsidize the higher education disciplines that are in demand (and also to think twice about giving money to people getting a communications degree).

Uh, can you show me where this law is?

[Capco]

Uh, can you show me where this law is?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_true_that_corporations_are_legally/

 

It's all laid out there better than I have the time to write about.

[GG]

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_true_that_corporations_are_legally/

 

It's all laid out there better than I have the time to write about.

 

moronic link. No need to read further than this - No statute, but there is case law

[B-Man]

As in the earlier pieces I linked to, we are seeing anti-single-payer people say, “this is what happens when government takes over,” and others criticize insurance companies..................

 

But Charlie Gard is not being denied resources. In fact, his parents have raised money for treatment in the U.S. This is about *power*.

 

 

 

 

Specifically this is about who makes the medical decision to give up: the state or his parents. State says he must die—for his own good.

 

 

Again, it’s not that the state is saying, “we won’t provide more help.” It’s actively saying he has to die. *That* is the problem here

[row_33]

It's a very sad situation.

[Capco]

 

moronic link. No need to read further than this - No statute, but there is case law

 

Any excuse not to read is a good one.

[Benjamin Franklin]

 

moronic link. No need to read further than this - No statute, but there is case law

We follow common law.

[GG]

We follow common law.

 

Why don't you ask a lawyer that you may know in how the Newmark decision codifies the common law that corporations are required by law to make as much money as possible.

[grinreaper]

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/is_it_really_true_that_corporations_are_legally/

 

It's all laid out there better than I have the time to write about.

I stupidly ignored GG's advice and read your link and it does not back up your claims. You basically said that insurance companies are required to charge as much as they can and give out as little as they can. That's why capitalism and competition are so great. It keeps those big bad corporations in check. The only time things get out of whack is when the government steps in and tries to upend market forces.

[TakeYouToTasker]

I stupidly ignored GG's advice and read your link and it does not back up your claims. You basically said that insurance companies are required to charge as much as they can and give out as little as they can. That's why capitalism and competition are so great. It keeps those big bad corporations in check. The only time things get out of whack is when the government steps in and tries to upend market forces.

Or when the government effectively creates and sanctions monopoly via regulation.

[row_33]

We follow common law.

 

In 1999, Justice Stephen Breyer protested the Court’s refusal to hear the appeal of a prisoner who argued that spending more than two decades on death row amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and thus violated the Eighth Amendment. Quoting legal opinions from Jamaica, India, Zimbabwe, and the European Court of Human Rights, Breyer observed in a dissenting opinion in Knight v. Florida that “a growing number of courts outside the United States . . . have held that lengthy delay in administering a lawful death penalty renders ultimate execution inhuman, degrading or unusually cruel.”

 

More recently, in an opinion concurring with the Court’s decision to uphold the affirmative-action program at the University of Michigan Law School, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg relied on the United Nations’ International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

[DC Tom]

 

Any excuse not to read is a good one.

 

I read it. It's still moronic.

 

I also read eBay v Newmark. It doesn't say anything about "corporations must make as much money as possible." It does say that corporations should maximize shareholder benefit, which is not even remotely the same thing.

 

But you're going to claim it is the same thing, I'm sure.

[Capco]

 

I read it. It's still moronic.

 

I also read eBay v Newmark. It doesn't say anything about "corporations must make as much money as possible." It does say that corporations should maximize shareholder benefit, which is not even remotely the same thing.

 

But you're going to claim it is the same thing, I'm sure.

 

When the corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (as is the case for insurance companies), it is the same thing.

[GG]

 

When the corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (as is the case for insurance companies), it is the same thing.

Things that are different are not the same.