RCP/The Health Care Mess In Massachusetts.

[ABQCOWBOY]

If it were really 13%, I'd tend to agree, but since it isn't.

No, I have a feeling the old people will scream and yell for their medicare even after the US goverment runs out of money.

Did I miss something? Is Canada on the verge of running out of money?

They seem way down on the list of countries with debt as a % of GDP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt

And I know they have some of the slowest raising health care costs in the world.

So far as I can tell, it is 13% or near, according to your own posts. Canada budgets annually for health care cost as I understand it. So yeah, there is a possibility that they could run out of funds on an annual basis. There health care does seem to be affordable but they do have to buy private health care for certain things so I have no idea how that matches up. Not enough info to say one way or the other.

---------- Post added July-20th-2011 at 12:12 PM ----------

DO you have an example of any province running out of money and not covering patient costs?

I honestly have no idea DR. I am trying to understand the process of how Canada handles Health Care. I am simply reading what I can find on how the process works. If it has happened, I have no information on that, one way or the other.

[PeterMP]

So far as I can tell, it is 13% or near, according to your own posts. Canada budgets annually for health care cost as I understand it. So yeah, there is a possibility that they could run out of funds on an annual basis. There health care does seem to be affordable but they do have to buy private health care for certain things so I have no idea how that matches up. Not enough info to say one way or the other.

It is only 13% if you ignore the fact that there are high income people in the US that don't pay income taxes because their income comes from things that aren't considered income in the US, but are considered income in Canada.

I'm pretty sure that total health care costs in Canada are lower than here and slower more slowly.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Yes -- your research on the Canadian health care system. :-)

America is good at high-end treatment, if you can afford it. But, by the numbers and in wellness, the Canadian system provides a more extensive, more comprehensive health care provisioning for its citizens compared to the U.S., at a lower cost.

Health care is a public issue, which is why many people support universal health care (and which is the government has worked on major health threats). You don't want a sick population.

BTW, as a note, the government has been long involved in health care, dating back to the 19th century, when health care was mandated for merchant marines:

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

I think your statement on Health Care being a public issue is at the heart of the issue. Not all in America believe that it is. That's part of the problem.

[Baculus]

Entirely reasonable, I agree.

---------- Post added July-19th-2011 at 02:12 PM ----------

I don't agree with this. I think a few years ago, this might be a more accurate statement but in light of the President's passing of his Health Care Plan and the debt issues associated with that plan. GOP can't afford to not be serious about that issue. I think Ryan's plan is a serious plan. I know that there are other ideas out there but I don't know the level to which those plans have been developed or scored. The question I would have is if the President's plan is ruled unconstitutional, defunded or simply scrapped in part because of debt considerations, what then does the President have to consider? Not saying this would happen but I think it's a possibility that would need to be accounted for.

OK, so who, in the modern GOP, has made health care reform a major issue? Who on the right is championing this cause?

I can't think of a single person -- can you?

If you go to the website of high profile Republicans, they usually don't even list health care as one of their platform issues, unlike the Democrats, whose made it a major issue for the last century.

The Ryan plan is a budgetary plan: it is NOT a health care reform plan. It's an effort to privitize medicare, which the GOP has long opposed as "socialism," and dismantling it in its current form has long been a right-wing holy grail. It has nothing to do with public or private wellness, especially when you consider that Medicare recipients would pay more, for less services, under the Ryan plan.

The individual mandate is the most contentious part of the ACA ("ObamaCare'), which, BTW, was a Republican supported concept. If it the mandate, though, is throne out of court, then ObamaCare still functions, but you will have smaller risk pools, which means that insurance premiums may rise at a steeper curve. If that's the case, I would either (1) reintroduce the public mandate, or (2) go hog-out for a national single-payer program.

Again, I disagree. If you are in this country, by and large, you have an opportunity.

That is a slogan, and it doesn't have anything to do with the reality of health care. "Opportunity" means nothing to those denied treatment, to those who can't afford insurance. Many, many people go without such treatment because they have no money, and unless you go to a hospital room, a free clinic, or you can qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, a lack of money = a lack of opportunity. The same thing goes for education, too. This is why some people believe in positive rights, to balance the imbalances caused by lack of opportunity due to fiscal barriers.

That is not to say that you will be wildly successful but the opportunity is there. As to what happens if you face one of the situations you describe, well, I would say you do what we have done since the country started. You make due until you can improve your situation. There will be winners and losers with this but that would be the case anyway. There will be winners and losers in the Presidents plan as well. I don't think you can plan for a full proof system.

No system is full proof, but you can certainly design systems which reduce error, and we have a lot of errors in today's American health care system, which the GOP seem reluctant or unwilling to address. I despise the term "winners and losers" when it comes to health care, because "losers" mean the thousands of people who die each year due to a lack of health care treatment. We aren't talking about abstracts here, but real people, which the GOP don't seem to understand.

I think at this point, the REAL problem is can we afford this? I don't think anybody is ignoring that. If you feel like this is just a slogan, so be it. I can assure you that I take it very seriously indeed. I think that everybody involved in this thing is taking it seriously right about now. JMO

We could afford it if you removed the profit margin from the equation. Literally billions of dollars could be freed with a single-payer system, all of which could go back into the system itself.

I see no seriousness from the Right, because (1) either they say health care reform isn't need, "We have the best health care system in the world!" or (2) they oppose any attempts at health care reform due to ideology. Case in point, health care exchanges. They were supported by the GOP, opposed by the GOP when it became a part of the ObamaCare, and now exchanges are back in the Ryan plan (as part of the Medicare privatization) and supported by some Republicans again.

That sort of inconsistency is not a serious approach. It's a "put your finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing" opportunist approach, while the Democrats have been pushing for health care reform for decades (though some Republicans, Nixon, for example, who would now be condemned as "progressives," have supported it, too).

[ABQCOWBOY]

It is only 13% if you ignore the fact that there are high income people in the US that don't pay income taxes because their income comes from things that aren't considered income in the US, but are considered income in Canada.

I'm pretty sure that total health care costs in Canada are lower than here and slower more slowly.

I think we may be talking apples and oranges here. The 13% i am referring to is the difference in percentage of population, as reported, that pay into the Federal Income Tax pool for each Nations. In Canada, I believe the percentage is 67% who pay and 33% who do not. In the U.S., it is 54% who do and 46% who do not. The difference between 46 and 33 would be the 13% I am talking about in my post. Not the actual percentage of cost.

[PeterMP]

I think we may be talking apples and oranges here. The 13% i am referring to is the difference in percentage of population, as reported, that pay into the Federal Income Tax pool for each Nations. In Canada, I believe the percentage is 67% who pay and 33% who do not. In the U.S., it is 54% who do and 46% who do not. The difference between 46 and 33 would be the 13% I am talking about in my post. Not the actual percentage of cost.

No, that's right, but what you seemed to have missed is that the US defines income differently than Canada and things like bonds aren't income in the US and so if you have substantial income from bonds in the US, you can still avoid paying income taxes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/28/46-percent-of-americans-e_n_886293.html

"All in all, according to the Tax Policy Center, there will be 76 million nonpaying “tax units” in 2011. The Center defines a tax unit as “an individual, or a married couple who file a tax return jointly, along with all dependents of that individual or married couple.”

And not all of those tax units represent the working class.

Nine million nonpayers, or 12.8 percent of the total, are in the middle income quintile. Another 1.9 million -- 2.6 percent of the total -- are in the second-highest quintile, and some 443,000, or 0.6 percent of the total, are in the top quintile.

The Tax Policy Center breaks down that last number a bit further: There are 78,000 non-paying units in the top 95th to 99th income percentile, 24,000 in the top 1 percentile, and 3,000 in the top tenth of a percentile.

This group has a nickname, too: they're the HINTs, for high income, no taxes.

These might be people who get their income from tax-exempt bonds or overseas sources, as CNN reported last year.

Or they might be people who have incurred losses from partnerships or S Corporations. Or people who have run up "extraordinary" medical or dental bills. As The Fiscal Times noted in December, these are other ways to realize one's HINT status.

And as The Fiscal Times points out, they're all "perfectly legal.""

Assuming I've done my math right, only about 39% of the people that don't pay incomes fall below the middle income quantile so now you are talking about a much smaller difference of 6% (33 to 39%). Now, I'll admit that isn't really an apples-to-apples comparision to the numbers I gave you for Canada so it probably is more than 6%, but I'd be willing to bet the difference is under 10%.

[Baculus]

I think your statement on Health Care being a public issue is at the heart of the issue. Not all in America believe that it is. That's part of the problem.

And that is why we have systemic problems in this nation: People seem to forget about the days when millions of Americans were affected by rampant illnesses which were attacked, and cured, as part of a federal health care public policy, with polio being one of the best known examples. Believing that wellness is not a public issues is historical ignorance based upon ideology, because you can go as far as back as the Romans to see government efforts to control epidemics and other health care challenges.

[ABQCOWBOY]

OK, so who, in the modern GOP, has made health care reform a major issue? Who on the right is championing this cause?

I can't think of a single person -- can you?

Yes I can and I already told you, Ryan has put together a plan. Let's not do this if we are just going to circle back on what has already been discussed. It just is a waste of both our time.

If you go to the website of high profile Republicans, they usually don't even list health care as one of their platform issues, unlike the Democrats, whose made it a major issue for the last century.

Who are the high profile Republicans you speak off?

The Ryan plan is a budgetary plan: it is NOT a health care reform plan. It's an effort to privitize medicare, which the GOP has long opposed as "socialism," and dismantling it in its current form has long been a right-wing holy grail. It has nothing to do with public or private wellness, especially when you consider that Medicare recipients would pay more, for less services, under the Ryan plan

.

The Ryan plan is both. It was scored as such. I don't agree with your view here. Under the Presidents plan, they would not pay more for less? Under that plan, 500 Billion is cut from Medicare and services are phased out. This is a talking point discussion. Do you really want to do that?

The individual mandate is the most contentious part of the ACA ("ObamaCare'), which, BTW, was a Republican supported concept. If it the mandate, though, is throne out of court, then ObamaCare still functions, but you will have smaller risk pools, which means that insurance premiums may rise at a steeper curve. If that's the case, I would either (1) reintroduce the public mandate, or (2) go hog-out for a national single-payer program.

So then, if it were a Republican concept, why didn't the GOP vote for it? Why did the Democratic Party vote against it if it is basically a Republican Plan recycled by this Administration? That doesn't make sense to me. As for a court ruling, Obama Care hinges on a mandate that makes you purchase it. If that is found to be unconstitutional, then there is no Obama Care. It's done and we would likely have to find another plan. I agree with that.

That is a slogan, and it doesn't have anything to do with the reality of health care. "Opportunity" means nothing to those denied treatment, to those who can't afford insurance. Many, many people go without such treatment because they have no money, and unless you go to a hospital room, a free clinic, or you can qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, a lack of money = a lack of opportunity. The same thing goes for education, too. This is why some people believe in positive rights, to balance the imbalances caused by lack of opportunity due to fiscal barriers.

Perhaps for you but not for my family. We have all had an opportunity to rise out of poverty and the large majority of us have. If it's a slogan, then it's a true one so while you make the point that some people believe in positive rights, some people believe in that slogan as well.

No system is full proof, but you can certainly design systems which reduce error, and we have a lot of errors in today's American health care system, which the GOP seem reluctant or unwilling to address. I despise the term "winners and losers" when it comes to health care, because "losers" mean the thousands of people who die each year due to a lack of health care treatment. We aren't talking about abstracts here, but real people, which the GOP don't seem to understand.

I understand this, I understand that adopting a Government run, Health Care system will also produce errors and it may even be more error ridden. I am not sure where you are going with the whole winners and losers thing. I don't think that ties back to the GOP but if you believe this, that is your right. I will say this though. We already know that the President's system will dictate winners and losers in this. We have states that are exempt, we have unions who are exempt and we have large corporations who are exempt. I have no such exemption so I am pretty sure that I have already lost.

We could afford it if you removed the profit margin from the equation. Literally billions of dollars could be freed with a single-payer system, all of which could go back into the system itself.

I don't agree.

I see no seriousness from the Right, because (1) either they say health care reform isn't need, "We have the best health care system in the world!" or (2) they oppose any attempts at health care reform due to ideology. Case in point, health care exchanges. They were supported by the GOP, opposed by the GOP when it became a part of the ObamaCare, and now exchanges are back in the Ryan plan (as part of the Medicare privatization) and supported by some Republicans again.

Who, on the right is saying this? I have heard no such thing and I pay pretty good attention to what the right is saying. If you have heard this, I would be interested to know exactly who is saying they don't believe reform isn't needed. As far as Health Exchanges, I guess I would have to see what exactly you are referring to in the way of Health Exchanges. The right is not going to favor that because in the President's plan outlines numbers that the GOP does not believe are real. They believe it will suffer cost overruns and eventually create more debt. In the Presidents plan, I believe that the plan calls for the Government to turn the responsibility of these exchanges over to the states for long term stewardship. Many of the states have already said that they could not sustain this plan. Yeah, the GOP is against it in the way the President's plan intends to run it. No big surprise their. Each party his major philosophical differences about how this should work.

That sort of inconsistency is not a serious approach. It's a "put your finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing" opportunist approach, while the Democrats have been pushing for health care reform for decades (though some Republicans, Nixon, for example, who would now be condemned as "progressives," have supported it, too).

I think the GOP has been pretty consistent on this. They don't believe the numbers are going to work. They are serious about the issue, they just don't believe that what you support is the right way to go. That doesn't translate into inconsistent. That translates into a difference of opinion.

---------- Post added July-20th-2011 at 01:03 PM ----------

And that is why we have systemic problems in this nation: People seem to forget about the days when millions of Americans were affected by rampant illnesses which were attacked, and cured, as part of a federal health care public policy, with polio being one of the best known examples. Believing that wellness is not a public issues is historical ignorance based upon ideology, because you can go as far as back as the Romans to see government efforts to control epidemics and other health care challenges.

There is a difference between a national epidemic and providing health care for you and your family. Not every issue is a national security issue, thou I can see how it can be confused. " Never let a good crises go to waste ."

No, that dog don't hunt IMO.