Conservapedia: The funniest site in the world
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...major dental work, like removing several teeth and getting a bridge--is considerably cheaper if you go...
I would definitely believe that. I'm a little ashamed to admit that one of my first thoughts was that those places might be doing something way outside of procedures as normally regulated in the US.
Interestingly enough, concierge medicine is putting the lie to that.
You're right. It's a new thing, and most people haven't encountered it (I've only read about it), but it sounds like an interesting innovation due to be crushed shortly.
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You're right. It's a new thing, and most people haven't encountered it (I've only read about it), but it sounds like an interesting innovation due to be crushed shortly.
I wonder what new regulation they'll come up with for that...or if they'll just say 'nope, you see a concierge provider, we can't insure you now because of $baloney_reason'.
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I would definitely believe that. I'm a little ashamed to admit that one of my first thoughts was that those places might be doing something way outside of procedures as normally regulated in the US.
I dunno. Anecdotes suggest that's generally not the case, barring the fact there's always counterexamples. Now, they may have different procedures, but I dunno.
You're right. [Concierge medicine is] a new thing, and most people haven't encountered it (I've only read about it), but it sounds like an interesting innovation due to be crushed shortly.
That's a depressing thought. It would have to be a regulatory thing because all the stories I have read indicate people love it. One key portion is that doctors who do it don't take insurance at all. It offers a lot of benefits, though, including longer visits, home visits, over-the-phone consultation, and so on. As it turns out, many of those things no longer happen primarily because ICD9 doesn't have codes that allow billing, showing again the drawbacks of excessive regulation.
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I dunno. Anecdotes suggest that's generally not the case, barring the fact there's always counterexamples. Now, they may have different procedures, but I dunno.
I'm sure it's the case, if only because I'm also fairly sure that it happens in the US, too, along the lines of, "We all commit 10 felonies a day" or whatever.
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I wonder what new regulation they'll come up with for that...or if they'll just say 'nope, you see a concierge provider, we can't insure you now because of $baloney_reason'.
I mentioned this in passing in my reply to boomzilla, but most concierge doctors/hospitals don't take insurance. There's several reasons for this and I don't remember specifics.
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You guys are in deep trouble.
You guys are too, partially for reasons boomzilla mentions in his reply to you. It's just that you won't see the fallout until what he says comes to pass.
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Ignoramuses like @tufty and @aapis think that a better solution is to hand everything over to the people who brought us the Veteran's Administration and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
And the Universal Service Fee levied on phone lines, that originated in a bill to pay for the Spanish-American war of 1898.
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I don't trust Cuban statistics. That's why I asked the CIA.
Well you're not going to get to the truth of the matter if you don't realize/won't admit that the infant mortality statistics, for example, aren't an apples-to-apples comparison between the US and other countries.
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I mentioned this in passing in my reply to boomzilla, but most concierge doctors/hospitals don't take insurance. There's several reasons for this and I don't remember specifics.
I'm not saying they do. What I'm saying is that the insurance companies, left to their own devices, will basically say 'nope, we cannot provide any level of coverage to you at all just because you used concierge care once'.
Also: my employer is dropping its PPO and leaving me stuck with two high-deductible options. Which is lovely, because a HDHP isn't a good fit for someone like me whose primary medical expenses are of a recurrent nature.
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>Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries
Not to say we don't have problems, but it's easy to be ranked "last overall" in anything if the study excludes all lower-ranking things.
Filed under: Lies, damned lies, and statistics
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Also: my employer is dropping its PPO and leaving me stuck with two high-deductible options. Which is lovely, because a HDHP isn't a good fit for someone like me whose primary medical expenses are of a recurrent nature.
We did something similar. Are they setting you up with a Health Savings Account? Our premiums went down, so the balance of my contributions (plus some, of course) went there.
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We did something similar. Are they setting you up with a Health Savings Account? Our premiums went down, so the balance of my contributions (plus some, of course) went there.
They are. But, it still isn't all that helpful AFAICT due to the caps placed on it.
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They are. But, it still isn't all that helpful AFAICT due to the caps placed on it.
Is that the Flexible Spending Account? I have one of those (capped at $2500/yr) and a Health Savings Account ($6500/year). How high is your deductible?
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I should also add, any study that says something like "the US does poorly, ranking last when it comes to infant mortality" instantly loses credibility. A lot of these studies end up being basically proxies for a government run / single payer / etc health system.
A recent study showed that any results that end up at the far end of what you'd expect are completely valid.
Study paid for by the IPCC
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No, AFAICT = As Far As I Can Tell
I kid
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That's a depressing thought. It would have to be a regulatory thing because all the stories I have read indicate people love it. One key portion is that doctors who do it don't take insurance at all. It offers a lot of benefits, though, including longer visits, home visits, over-the-phone consultation, and so on. As it turns out, many of those things no longer happen primarily because ICD9 doesn't have codes that allow billing, showing again the drawbacks of excessive regulation.
ICD10 to the rescue!!!!!
(much later than originally planned)
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Interestingly enough, concierge medicine is putting the lie to that. There's a surgery center in Oklahoma that has posted prices for something like 70 relatively common surgeries like hernia repair, with a breakdown like "costs cover the surgery, doctor's fees, a set number of pre- and post-operative visits." The article I read about this particular place points out that some of the surgeons there also work at regular hospitals, and managed to get some price comparison. A surgery that might cost $2500, say, at this place, would be billed to insurance as $10000 or more at the regular hospital. (Now we all know the insurance companies will reimburse far less than that, and the hospitals take what they get, but the quoted price, not the discounted one is what you'd pay if you were a cash customer.)
One of my favorite articles.
Oklahoma City hospital posts surgery prices online; creates bidding war
OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma City surgery center is offering a new kind of price transparency, posting guaranteed all-inclusive surgery prices online. The move is revolutionizing medical billi…
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What I'm saying is that the insurance companies, left to their own devices, will basically say 'nope, we cannot provide any level of coverage to you at all just because you used concierge care once'.
Maybe, maybe not, but with ObamaCare it's likely moot.
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What I'm saying is that the insurance companies, left to their own devices, will basically say 'nope, we cannot provide any level of coverage to you at all just because you used concierge care once'.
oh they'll let you pay for their coverage. they just won't actually cover anything and claim that your problems are all clearly due to your use of the concierge care.
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There is no "payer problem". The rest of the world already solved that decades ago.
@boomzilla I probably read that wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that you have literally no argument other than "NUH UH". You're in the against camp because you need to be against something. Yawn.
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There is no "payer problem". The rest of the world already solved that decades ago.
Sure, we'll just magic away the laws of economics and physics like the rest of you, then. Are you trying to claim that there are no drawbacks to letting the government run healthcare? That seems to be your basic argument.
@boomzilla I probably read that wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that you have literally no argument other than "NUH UH". You're in the against camp because you need to be against something. Yawn.
Yes, I think you "read that wrong." I'm not sure how you could read what I wrote and come to that conclusion. You might disagree with me (and you obviously do), but this is just silliness.
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you have literally no argument other than "NUH UH"
Well, the first requirement of a debate is the ability to accurately describe your opponent's position. Without that requirement, any arguments are ultimately wasted.
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Well, the first requirement of a debate is the ability to accurately describe your opponent's position. Without that requirement, any arguments are ultimately wasted.
Wisdom.
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letting the government run healthcare?
I do not think anyone is arguing for "the government to run healthcare" any more than you're arguing for "the insurance companies to run healthcare."
Unless that really is what you're arguing, that insurance companies decide who, what, when, and where and you have zero choices but what they tell you to do.
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I do not think anyone is arguing for "the government to run healthcare" any more than you're arguing for "the insurance companies to run healthcare."
That seems to me to be @aapis position, though he has not clearly come forth and said it. He has used stuff like "Universal Healthcare" and talked about a "public healthcare system." He's also shown breathtaking ignorance of the US and how healthcare works and is financed here.
But at least he's a better troll than he is an advocate for whatever it is he's advocating.
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Unless that really is what you're arguing, that insurance companies decide who, what, when, and where and you have zero choices but what they tell you to do.
Now that is something no one is arguing. Did something I wrote give you that impression? Because I can't imagine writing anything like that. I'm interested to know what it was?
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Did something I wrote give you that impression? Because I can't imagine writing anything like that. I'm interested to know what it was?
Nothing gave me that impression, that's why I made the comparison. I was just further qualifying how absurd it would be.
The places I've been that have "universal health care" do not use whatever "governmentonlyzomg" rule you are applying to the definition. And I think @aapis is arguing for the same thing as what other countries have actually implemented, not arguing for the FUD propaganda version of universal health care that all the republicans want America to think it is.
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Again I will qualify that statement like I did for you (also because I don't want to put words in peoples mouths), but if he IS arguing for Government-Only-Run-Healthcare, then I am as opposed to that as I would be to an Insurance-Company-Only-Run-Healthcare system.
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The places I've been that have "universal health care" do not use whatever "governmentonlyzomg" rule you are applying to the definition. And I think @aapis is arguing for the same thing as what other countries have actually implemented, not arguing for the FUD propaganda version of universal health care that all the republicans want America to think it is.
I don't know what is in your head for Republican FUD, but I think you have to be ignoring @aapis' posts to come to your conclusion.
but if he IS arguing for Government-Only-Run-Healthcare
It's not totally clear what he is arguing for, aside from reflexive anti-Americanism. He made statements about mixed government and private systems, but hasn't clarified with an example. And he keeps talking about how "the rest of the world" has figured something out. Yeah, and they say Americans don't know much about the rest of the world.
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##"Healthcare regulation" bug
Expected behavior: regulating health providers
Actual behavior: regulating health consumersRepro: quit your job and try to get "affordable" healthcare*
* need to be US citizen, or non-resident alien, since they get it, too
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You want an example of a public/private system? Ok, look at Canada. Private insurance exists, and most people have it, but only to cover extra things that the public system doesn't cover. This is pretty basic stuff, not sure why it requires an example. I guess it's not so basic when you're Talking To Americans. Literally just imagine a system where private and public insurance exist at the same time. @darkmatter is correct.
See? You completely reject the idea of universal healthcare entirely. You don't even know, or can't even spend any mental effort, imagining WHAT the rest of the world has already solved when it comes to proper medicare services. Who pays for it, how to pay those working within the system, how to build and maintain facilities, proper regulations.. it's all done, it isn't a secret. You, and many Americans like you, just refuse to accept it because your political system is one right wing party yelling at the other right wing party in a competition to see who is louder.
My favourite part of your posts is that you refuse to address me directly, yet you still manage to add absolutely nothing of value beyond "NUH UH" to the discussion. You can't even converse NEAR other people with opposing opinions, let alone WITH them. This isn't even for you, your leaders are the ones who need to hear about the success stories from countries like Sweden, the UK and Canada (to name a few). You are entirely unimportant here.
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they just won't actually cover anything and claim that your problems are all clearly due to your use of the concierge care.
Normally I'd use the phrase "I'd be willing to bet..." but not with Obama"Care". I suspect any such attempt will be problematic as long as you're going to accredited doctors.
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See? You completely reject the idea of universal healthcare entirely. You don't even know, or can't even spend any mental effort, imagining WHAT the rest of the world has already "solved" when it comes to proper medicare services.
FTFY. Just out of curiosity, let's say the drug companies decide to stop letting you have a free ride and fire their R&D departments. What do you predict will happen?
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Literally just imagine a system where private and public insurance exist at the same time.
We have this already.
See? You completely reject the idea of universal healthcare entirely. You don't even know, or can't even spend any mental effort, imagining WHAT the rest of the world has already solved when it comes to proper medicare services.
I'm aware that different systems exist. What do you mean by "universal healthcare" anyways? That's not clear to me.
Who pays for it, how to pay those working within the system, how to build and maintain facilities, proper regulations.. it's all done, it isn't a secret.
At least you've pointed to Canada. Which is different than, say, France. It's not clear you're aware of the tradeoffs involved in any of these systems, though.
You, and many Americans like you, just refuse to accept it because your political system is one right wing party yelling at the other right wing party in a competition to see who is louder.
You guys are so fucked. I mean, we're fucked, too, but we're not completely delusional about it.
My favourite part of your posts is that you refuse to address me directly, yet you still manage to add absolutely nothing of value beyond "NUH UH" to the discussion. You can't even converse NEAR other people with opposing opinions, let alone WITH them.
How does one address you directly? I thought I had been doing it. I'm certainly not the poster in the thread making obviously wrong posts.
This isn't even for you, your leaders are the ones who need to hear about the success stories from countries like Sweden, the UK and Canada (to name a few). You are entirely unimportant here.
Not entirely, but yeah, less important than elected leaders. Are they allowed to hear about the things that aren't so great, too?
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Nobody is getting a free ride. Not from drug companies, not from doctors, not from hospitals. Universal healthcare systems are paid for 100% by the people who use them. Your premise is invalid.
I guess if we were to pretend that your premise is accurate, there would be fewer new drugs?
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Nobody is getting a free ride. Not from drug companies, not from doctors, not from hospitals.
Really. Really? So I guess those stories about, for example, countries threatening to bust drug patents to extort lower prices from the drug companies because they don't want to pay the market price, thus causing US consumers to subsidize everyone else, aren't something you've heard of?
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Nobody is getting a free ride. Not from drug companies, not from doctors, not from hospitals. Universal healthcare systems are paid for 100% by the people who use them. Your premise is invalid.
Here's the thing. US drug companies are told something like, "That's a nice patent you have there. It'd be terrible if something happened to it." And have to lower prices. Guess who picks up the tab? It's not the people living in the People's Republics of Universal Healthcare.
Once again, you're posting about things you don't know enough about. I'll grant that you guys pay 100% your doctors and nurses and for the services they provide. But you also do a certain amount of free riding when it comes to drugs.
And then, of course, you laugh at us Americans for allowing you to do it, which is correct behavior on your part, because we ain't gonna level the Champs-Elysees over cholesterol medication.
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1: You don't have a public system at all, by anyone's definition.
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care I know, that's kind of my point.
3: The only "tradeoffs" are things invented by American politicians in order to scare other Americans into hating the idea.
4: This doesn't even make sense. I'm going to assume you felt like you had to say something?
5: You've ignored my posts entirely and, instead, responded to what others are saying about my posts.
6: And you claim to not be completely delusional?But hurray, you've at least provided more than "NUH UH"!
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You guys are too, partially for reasons boomzilla mentions in his reply to you. It's just that you won't see the fallout until what he says comes to pass.
Which specific one are you referring to? @boomzilla writes a lot and I've been a little distracted over the past few days with work, so it would genuinely help if you linked…
@FrostCat said:Well you're not going to get to the truth of the matter if you don't realize/won't admit that the infant mortality statistics, for example, aren't an apples-to-apples comparison between the US and other countries.
That statistic is usually converted to a per-100k-inhabitants or per-100k-live-births figure (100k because a straight reciprocal would scare the innumerate throng with fractions?!) to factor out the general size of the population, otherwise you wouldn't be able to compare it at all. What other factors are you claiming ought to be accounted for?In terms of general mortality and ill-health, it's probably best to look at a figure something like expected-QALY-at-age-5. Don't know if anyone's collected that systematically yet; the concept of QALY is pretty new in itself.
gif....
That's a crappy graphic except for the expenditures. The issue is that there's damn little actual hard data other than the rankings. This means that we don't know how large the variation is relative to the absolute score, so we don't know how to evaluate how much the rankings in a particular area matter. Chalk another one up to “How to Lie with Statistics!” (not that I claim its wrong; just impossible to evaluate accurately).accredited doctors.
Non-accredited “doctors” are usually referred to as “charlatans” and “quacks” with good reason. There might be a few who are OK, but they tend to be drowned out by the vast sea of quantum psychic healers, crystal vibration therapists and other sorts of snake oil salesmen. There is a vast amount of experience that tells us this is true, including lots in the US.
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That's a crappy graphic except for the expenditures.
Not my gif, it was linked by someone else - put their name by it in the quote not mine. I was pointing out the WTF of labeling it as a Powerpoint Slide when it's a GIF.
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etc.Lazy ass numbering instead of quote responding, it's way too much work to stitch those responses back to what @boomzilla said, so I'm totally not bothering with it.
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I've never heard of whatever you're talking about. You must be confusing regional news with international problems.
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That's ok, the response was directed at @boomzilla anyways.
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1: You don't have a public system at all, by anyone's definition.
Medicare, medicaid, VA insurance (all government run) don't count then?
6: And you claim to not be completely delusional?
His point was: the voting public (such as @boomzilla) is not unimportant. Our political leaders have to make decisions which will appeal to the majority of their constituents, or they won't get reelected. So, @boomzilla's opinions and education do still matter, though not nearly as much as those of the elected officials.
Can't be bothered to stitch the rest back together for a coherent response.
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You don't have a public system at all, by anyone's definition.
We have more than one. There's the VA, the BIA's stuff for Indians, Medicare and various forms of Medicaid.
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care I know, that's kind of my point.
We have some aspects of that stuff.
3: The only "tradeoffs" are things invented by American politicians in order to scare other Americans into hating the idea.
Congratulations on saying the stupidest thing in this thread.
4: This doesn't even make sense. I'm going to assume you felt like you had to say something?
Anyone who thinks our Democrat party is right wing is hopelessly fucked and too deluded to know it.
5: You've ignored my posts entirely and, instead, responded to what others are saying about my posts.
I haven't ignored your posts. I replied to several of them. Most of the early ones were just content light trolls that got other people discussing things a little more substantively, and I responded in kind.
But hurray, you've at least provided more than "NUH UH"!
NUH UH. Well, I did that multiple times. How much substance should be wasted on silly and obviously wrong statements of fact?
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That statistic is usually converted to a per-100k-inhabitants or per-100k-live-births figure (100k because a straight reciprocal would scare the innumerate throng with fractions?!) to factor out the general size of the population, otherwise you wouldn't be able to compare it at all. What other factors are you claiming ought to be accounted for?
I'm asserting that the statistic doesn't measure the same thing in the US as it does in other countries. Without trying to track it down, it goes something like, sometimes a baby is born and dies almost immediately. In the US, that's counted as a live birth, and thus it affects the infant mortality rates. In other places, it's called a stillbirth, i.e., born dead, and doesn't affect the infant mortality rate--instead, I believe it's considered a miscarriage.
Now you can argue about which system is better or "right" or whatever. I'm not interested in that argument. I'm pointing out that if you try to compare the "percentage of babies who were born and then died," you cannot meaningfully do that when one country uses one definition and the other country uses the other definition...but that's what people do anyway. It's not a principled argument, though, if you know that you're not comparing two numbers that were arrived at the same way. I bet if you were to use the same statistical method in all cases--and it doesn't matter which one you use as long as you use it universally--you'd find the supposed US lag disappears.
There's a bunch of other places where similar sorts of things happen, and in many of them, when you control for that, the statistic that "the US is wildly behind country x" falls apart.
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That statistic is usually converted to a per-100k-inhabitants or per-100k-live-births figure (100k because a straight reciprocal would scare the innumerate throng with fractions?!) to factor out the general size of the population, otherwise you wouldn't be able to compare it at all. What other factors are you claiming ought to be accounted for?
In case you didn't actually read some of those other posts: the point is that those numbers are generally reported by the government of each country, with no guarantee that the data is collected the same way. Also, there is no guarantee that all countries are collecting accurate data. Whether or not these claims are valid, IDK.
Edit: Damn, Hanzo'd!
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That statistic (infant mortality) is usually converted to a per-100k-inhabitants or per-100k-live-births figure (100k because a straight reciprocal would scare the innumerate throng with fractions?!)
And there's the first problem. The US classifies things as live births when the child is born alive. Pretty much regardless of how close to term or other things. Many (most) other countries don't consider those live births and I believe also do not have as good a record at those kids surviving. But it really fucks the comparative statistics.
I've read that Japanese police forces only ever classify things as homicides if they can actually close the case. Cultural thing, or something. Anyways, that's another example of shit statistics.
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Right, your current system is broken. We all agree there. I don't really care what US drug companies are being told now, today, in this current reality because this is a discussion about a system which has not yet been implemented (and never will be). Broken today does not mean broken tomorrow/forever/always.
There is literally no free ride for anyone in the system because we all pay for it (well, except children I suppose). Classic right wing propaganda. But even if there was a free ride (there isn't), YOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE PEOPLE GETTING A FREE RIDE.
An American telling me I don't know enough about universal healthcare? I have now literally heard everything.
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Non-accredited “doctors” are usually referred to as “charlatans” and “quacks” with good reason.
Well, yeah. My point was that a concierge doctor is obviously best understood as "an out of network physician," not someone an insurance company should be able to say "we won't pay this guy" to. I have no idea how to try to determine if that's already law or not, but I bet it is.
Having said that, most concierge doctors I've heard of simply don't accept health insurance. AFAIK, though, you can pay out of pocket and then submit a claim to your insurance company. Presumably they'd apply their regular formulas and reimburse you a percentage, after your out-of-network deductible.
Because you're dealing with doctors, not quacks.
