Anti-Neocons Forum

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Here is how I am looking at this forced healthcare insurance law (PPACA, Obamacare) at the moment. Insurance is just a line of credit. It's some rich dudes (privately run corporations) letting you use their credit for limited purposes, in exchange for charging you rent.

Welfare has a bad name, but it's really the same thing, but the credit is public and the government charges you rent (taxes). Call it something else, not welfare, if you like. Call it nonprofit credit. It's a social service, unlike the private credit which takes a percentage of your money to pay executive bonuses.

Single payer would take that money that people pay with their taxes and spend it on doctors and nurses, not IRS agents or executive bonuses. For a workable system, the country might need to make sacrifices, like dismantling its military, to spend tax money on helping people, but on the upside, that would mean more jobs saving lives and fewer jobs ending them.

This new health insurance law is private credit masquerading as public credit because the public is forced to pay but the profit is privatized. When profit is privatized but losses are socialized, that's literally fascism. The law merges private insurance corporations with the government, which is the definition of fascism.

Absolutely not.

All operations at hospitals cost too much that is the problem. On top of that insurance to pay for the operations at hospitals also cost too much. It has nothing to do with nurse or doctor pay. It has nothing to do with the IRS.

The government pays for healthcare for the poor and for illegals, and for people who lie and say they don't have a job or money when they actually do. Because the hospitals know the government is gonna pay the bill for the bottom 20% or so they simply jack up the prices. Insurance companies have regional monopolies so their prices are also high. They don't worry about the poor because the poor have medicaid anyway.

An MRI in America is about $1018
In Japan just $250

A sonogram in the US about $200
In Japan about $29

So it is easy for the japanese insurance to pay for this stuff when it only cost 29 dollars.
Guess how much car insurance is for me in Japan. In the US its over $200 a month over here its a whopping 30 bucks and it covers everything. Why?

Japan has a free market. The US doesn't. You do not live in a free country. They nickle and dime you to death. They rape you with car insurance, property insurance, property tax, income tax, sales tax, user fees, jacked up prices on utilities, jacked up prices on healthcare, jacked up proces on drugs, the only thing cheap in America is the fast food.

Ry wrote:Absolutely not.

All operations at hospitals cost too much that is the problem. On top of that insurance to pay for the operations at hospitals also cost too much. It has nothing to do with nurse or doctor pay. It has nothing to do with the IRS.

I'm just pointing out that insurance pays the middle man that we don't need. It's a racketeering operation. That "overhead" could go to pay for medicine, surgery, real services, pay real health care workers. Obamacare allocates more money for the IRS and bureaucrats instead of the people who deserve it.

Ry wrote: The government pays for healthcare for the poor and for illegals, and for people who lie and say they don't have a job or money when they actually do. Because the hospitals know the government is gonna pay the bill for the bottom 20% or so they simply jack up the prices. Insurance companies have regional monopolies so their prices are also high. They don't worry about the poor because the poor have medicaid anyway.

Is that an argument against Single Payer? So, are you saying hospitals are gong to jack up prices if everyone had Medicare?

But the insurance industry jacks up the prices now. If we cut out the middle man, why wouldn't prices become more reasonable?

Ry wrote: An MRI in America is about $1018
In Japan just $250

A sonogram in the US about $200
In Japan about $29

Agreed, prices in the US are inflated. But isn't that because all these middle men get to take their own cut? Surely it's not because health care professionals or hospitals in the US actually take home more of the money spent on their services. Or, do they?

Ry wrote: So it is easy for the japanese insurance to pay for this stuff when it only cost 29 dollars.
Guess how much car insurance is for me in Japan. In the US its over $200 a month over here its a whopping 30 bucks and it covers everything. Why?

Japan has a free market. The US doesn't. You do not live in a free country. They nickle and dime you to death. They rape you with car insurance, property insurance, property tax, income tax, sales tax, user fees, jacked up prices on utilities, jacked up prices on healthcare, jacked up proces on drugs, the only thing cheap in America is the fast food.

I'm not sure how Japan is against Single payer. They have a public option: According to the dreaded Wiki, "People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance programme administered by local governments. Patients are free to select physicians or facilities of their choice and cannot be denied coverage. Hospitals, by law, must be run as non-profit and be managed by physicians. For-profit corporations are not allowed to own or operate hospitals. Clinics must be owned and operated by physicians."

I like that last part too, if they did that in the US - made hospitals not for profit and run by physicians - I would be happy. In the US every industry including health care is a for-profit business concerned more about the bottom line than people's health.

I guess I am counting the public option as single payer. That's how 'Medicare for all' would function. But it doesn't have to exclude private insurance, it could work like the public health insurance in Costa Rica, side by side with private insurance and the same doctors working for both programs.

My analogy above might be flawed but, my main point is that Obamacare rewards and protects the same private insurance industry that has been screwing the US people, denying care, and inflating prices since before the law. It doesn't change that and it doesn't have a public option. It's fascism because profits are still privatized but the costs are socialized (forced upon everybody).

I guess I do not have a problem with taxing everybody for health care the way Costa Rica does it. But I wouldn't want that to be an additional income tax. More income tax for health care would only be acceptable if there was less taxes paying for war and corporate welfare at the same time. Costa Rica disbanded their army which helped pay for their public health care.

I guess Japan isn't quite like that and their public option is run by "local governments," not the central government. That could work too. It's not quite single payer but its also not for profit.

I'm advocating some kind of not for profit public heath insurance. I don't know how else it could be paid for besides taxes. But, are you saying that would cause hospitals, etc. to raise their prices? I would rather think it would bring prices to a reasonable level like in Japan and most other places.

It's probably better termed the "Obamafare", since it sounds like just another fee for living outside of the penal (physical slavery) system.

I'm just pointing out that insurance pays the middle man that we don't need. It's a racketeering operation. That "overhead" could go to pay for medicine, surgery, real services, pay real health care workers

Its a silly assumption, and also you move more money from government into any area and it will just cause price inflation. In Japan you can buy insurance from any prefecture you want and drugs from where ever you want. In the US you can only buy from your state and the companies work in collusion.

Ry wrote:

I'm just pointing out that insurance pays the middle man that we don't need. It's a racketeering operation. That "overhead" could go to pay for medicine, surgery, real services, pay real health care workers

Its a silly assumption,

But why? Isn't that the whole idea behind Single Payer? To bypass the for-profit insurance industry. Those companies are just arms of the pharmaceutical-educational-prison-military-industrial complex anyway.

Ry wrote: and also you move more money from government into any area and it will just cause price inflation. In Japan you can buy insurance from any prefecture you want and drugs from where ever you want. In the US you can only buy from your state and the companies work in collusion.

I see, what you're saying is that competition will drive down prices. You are probably right about that.

But, why should we pay as much as 20% (what is allowed by Obamacare) of medical costs to be taken for profit, and for what, those private insurance companies just extort people, and their profits are I would guess a big reason for the inflated prices.

Medicare seems to work fine for people over 65 and it has only a 1.3% overhead cost. Single payer advocates are saying all you need to do is extend that to cover everybody else. Then, why do we need a (what it really is) private pharamceutical drug insurance industry at all?

If they dont make a profit they are not going to be an insurance company. That stuff is minor. the major problem is the total cost. Even if I had to pay 99% of my bill and my insurance covered only 1% in Japan it would still be cheaper than in America with insurance paying 80%.

99.99% of 30 bucks is 29.99
20% of 300 bucks is still 60 bucks 3 times the cost of japan even if you paid 100% of the bill in japan with no insurance at all. plus you have to buy your insurance too which is whatever a month. those are two separate problems.

Cost of medical service is high in the US. The cost of college, food, living is high too.
The US has one of the longest most expensive patent processes in the world. I'm not sure that it is the truly free market issue. America is greedy. Healthy competition is good. Dog eat dog is not.

i forgot to mention college is free here