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935 Comments
- redcolumbine, on 06/23/2009, -70/+425Don't create competition, it'll ruin the free market!
- DangerCollie, on 06/23/2009, -77/+288I think the government can run a more efficient health care plan than the insurance companies. 75% of America agrees.
Okay, so the government plan can't fail. So what? If the service is so terrible, people will opt for a private plan. If your office doesn't want to provide a private plan, then exercise your freedom to walk out the door and find a job somewhere that does.
What a bunch of fraidy cat whiners. Nothing could be worse than what we have now, unless we all move to Nigeria. Then we'd be worse off. Cubans are more satisfied with their health care than we are.
It's a losing argument, give it up. - Pyehole, on 06/23/2009, -36/+224So how did FedEX and UPS become so successful while competing against the postal service?
- Razzajazz, on 06/23/2009, -7/+138I'm from the UK, and I genuinely don't understand the arguments against having social healthcare. We have private health insurance over here, and if you can afford it, you get a better standard of healthcare. If you can't, then at least you have the NHS to fall back on. And fair enough, it might not be the greatest system, but it does enough to keep the general population healthy.
I would believe that it would be better generally to have the vast majority of your population healthy and hopefully more productive, so I just don't understand how people can say it's a bad idea. It wouldn't change the system for anyone who can afford private care, so please, someone tell me what the opposing argument is. Thanks! - imric, on 06/23/2009, -10/+104Yeah because the Post Office has put all other competition out of business. It's all those cops forcing you to send letters on threat of jail-time... /s
- luke374, on 06/23/2009, -7/+94“I get three letters a day from people who don’t have health insurance,” Obama told reporters.
Haha, I love that. Alright guys, if we want marijuana legalized we need to up our letter-to-the-president count to three! - lhbaker, on 06/23/2009, -44/+130Right. Obama doesn't understand. But you do.
- zbeast, on 06/23/2009, -7/+85Every time I hear someone bitch about trying to fix the health care system it makes me nuts.
I'm a consultant, I have to pay for my own healthcare.
Cost Almost $700.00 a month and even with that high cost.
If my doctor wants to do something to possibly keep me from dieing..
It has to be "approved".. What the hell am i paying for?
My doctor not me say's I need this checks. what's with this approval process.
If your work for a company right now part of that health insurance is paid by you and
some is paid by the company your working for. But even thats going away as
these new "Health savings accounts" start getting picked up by more and more company's.
Now you can even get less health care and spend even more money. - ClosedCaption, on 06/23/2009, -10/+85Which one is it the govt is so bad at providing services that everyone will be rationed healthcare or is the govt so great that private companies can't compete?
- Pyehole, on 06/23/2009, -10/+76True, they don't compete on the least profitable sector of the business but the most definitely do compete as far as package delivery goes. Why hasn't the postal service used it's unfair advantage to run them out of business?
- mnocket, on 06/23/2009, -26/+85These are very different businesses. UPS and FedEx do not compete with USPS on mail delivery.
- lhbaker, on 06/23/2009, -36/+93I'm not sure what my opinion on this is. What does Rush say?
/idiots - inactive, on 06/23/2009, -4/+56All insurance is a scam.
Any adult who has insurance and has actually used it can attest to this, too. Whether it's car, home, medical... you name it... scam. I'm not talking about the typical BS co-pay for standard checkups or dental visits. I'm talking if your tonsils get infected and you need major surgery, or your appendix bursts, you have a heart attack, you're in a car accident... you name it... always an issue.
You pay for the service, then in the end when you use it, not only do your rates get jacked up BECAUSE you used it, but they also have the nerve to actually argue with you over what they'll cover. Forget that you and/or your employer paid out tens of thousands over the past few years to these companies, because when you finally need that $4000 surgery, guess who won't pay for it because your anesthesiologist was "out of network"? Or if you're in an emergency situation and you go to the nearest hospital because it's life or death... well, hope the hospital you went to is covered or you're SOL. Not to mention the $1000 ambulance ride.
On second thought, they won't argue about covering it, they'll just flat out refuse. "We don't cover that." And because they are a business, they have full access to your credit report, slap you with the bill, then forget about it while moving on to the next guy. While in the meantime you're sitting there baffled, "I can't ***** believe they can get away with this."
Then you're stuck making hours' worth of phone calls to agents who don't know ***** about anything, transferring, giving you new numbers... and the process takes months, if not years, to recover from. All while this stuff sits on your credit report.
Not only that, but doctors get in on it too. The whole medical system is a necessity for a functioning society, but instead you get morons trying to profit from it. I seriously got charged up in the thousands for an overnight stay in the ER for a surgery that very hospital ***** up the first time! Even the itemized list... $600 for literally 5 morphine injections. Bull. *****.
The first time I had a panic attack, I went to the ER and was billed $700 for an hour stay + 2 xanax they gave me. I saw the bill to the insurance. That's just wrong.
There's absolutely no regulation whatsoever and it's essentially a huge free for all.
In the end, you can't do anything but pay. The service you pay for, Insurance, which means "if something big ever comes up and you need to use it, you're covered. No worries," ultimately walks away with a profit AND fails to deliver on what you needed them for to begin with. - sonofabiscuit, on 06/23/2009, -16/+68"We want money."
- Insurance Companies - engrishGamer, on 06/23/2009, -12/+64Learn how to make a propoer analogy before you make yourself look stupid again
- EnTaroTassadar, on 06/23/2009, -3/+54Why are they so afraid? All those people they've been ***** over for the last 50+ years will suddenly leave them.
- mecanofan, on 06/23/2009, -6/+51LOL, it's an oxymoron.
- superkendall, on 06/23/2009, -11/+55They are literally not allowed to compete with the postal service. They are not allowed to use your mailbox, as one example.
- WorldLeader, on 06/23/2009, -30/+70The US economy never has been purely capitalist, nor are we now. This stupid rallying cry behind capitalism is ludicrous.. pure capitalism just leads to extraordinary exploitation and corruption.
When you say that it is scary that Obama doesn't understand capitalism, what you are really saying is that you do not understand our economy at all.
When will you mouth-breathers figure this out? - FairDinkumMate, on 06/23/2009, -2/+42A US citizen calling someone else's country nearly BANKRUPT. LMAO!!!
Sorry, how much is the US budget deficit? Foreign debt?
By the way,10 postings in 40 minutes on 1 healthcare story - who's payroll are you on? - GregLoire, on 06/23/2009, -12/+51Well, the reason they're afraid is because they're running their company for profit, whereas the government is not.
The specific industry isn't terribly relevant, nor is the distinction between government-run and heavily subsidized. If you're in the business of making cell phones, and another company shows up with government money with the explicit purpose of making cell phones and NOT turning a profit, of course you're going to be afraid, and it has nothing to do with the efficiency of running either company.
I do support Obama's efforts on this front and I hope he succeeds at creating a not-for-profit public health insurance program, but I don't think that asking why insurance companies are afraid while implying anything about efficiency is a logical argument to make. - Shanich, on 06/23/2009, -5/+44France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing. In a recent World Health Organization health-care ranking, France came in first, while the U.S. scored 37th, slightly better than Cuba and one notch above Slovenia. France's infant death rate is 3.9 per 1,000 live births, compared with 7 in the U.S., and average life expectancy is 79.4 years, two years more than in the U.S. The country has far more hospital beds and doctors per capita than America, and far lower rates of death from diabetes and heart disease. The difference in deaths from respiratory disease, an often preventable form of mortality, is particularly striking: 31.2 per 100,000 people in France, vs. 61.5 per 100,000 in the U.S.
- inactive, on 06/23/2009, -179/+217The Government does not have to play by the free market rules, as it does not go out of business just because it is running its business wrong. All it has to do is tax its citizens more or bully suppliers to give it a discount. This is the unfairness of having to compete with the government.
What is really scary here is how Obama shows he does not understand this, which tells me he does not understand capitalism. - scottknick, on 06/23/2009, -9/+46The only private insurers that survive will are those that can demonstrate to the market that they deserve to earn a profit. And there will be some. But those who have simply relied on the inevitable concentration of economic power in an unregulated market will go the way of the dinosaur. Good riddance.
- piznut, on 06/24/2009, -6/+42Want a level playing field? How about getting rid of private health insurer's immunity to the sort of antitrust laws that prevent collusion and price-fixing.
We've got an entire industry who is providing an essential service but their primary motive is profit. They minimize risk pools by cherry-picking their customers and making premiums far too expensive for anyone who isn't rich or in good health.
I'd personally rather that if someone gets sick in this country and cant afford care that they can *still* get care, or if someone contracts a treatable but serious disease that it doesn't doom them to bankruptcy because their private insurer decided to cut them off.
Maybe thats just me. Id rather people not have to suffer or die because some greedy ***** ***** are trying to turn out big exec bonuses. - jorel009, on 06/24/2009, -4/+39@raider007
you are right on man, every time ppl say "but but they don't make profit waaaa".....its your ***** health?!? you want to trust someone who sees your health as a dollar sign? "sigh" some ppl are just ***** stupid...its astounding really. - publiclurker, on 06/23/2009, -3/+37We basically have a bunch of fat bloated insurance companies over here that take about 30% of the money they take in as profit and spend a vast amount of their effort trying to find way do deny paying out what they should.
These groups know that they would not be able to rake in the profits and executive bonuses if they were going to have to actually provide services, which they would have to do if there was a legitimate competitor. Therefore they spew out all sorts of baseless fear mongering to keep the gullible thinking that they are somehow honored to overpay for what is basically crap service. - biotch, on 06/23/2009, -8/+41Why should I have to pay for your police or your roads or your military security or your handicapped relatives or your emergency room visits or your Social Security or your [insert socialized cost here] if I want to go private?
- TheTaoOfBill, on 06/23/2009, -6/+39df12 it doesn't matter if USPS makes a profit. You're not getting the point. The point is even without having to make a profit there is still Fedex and UPS and countless other courier companies. Why would insurance be any different?
So again... What are you afraid of? - inactive, on 06/23/2009, -0/+32Even the USPS uses FedEx for Some types of package deliveries.
- df12, on 06/23/2009, -26/+58Ask the GOA. It's because the USPS is run unbelievably poorly. The USPS lost more money than UPS or FedEX made last year. That doesn't even include the nearly $10 billion the USPS already owes it's creditors.
- eatasandwich, on 06/24/2009, -6/+38I'm English. I live in the states. I work in the health care industry. I absolutely ***** HATE health insurance companies. I hate the way that health care here is all about profit and not about care. The current health care system in the US is an absolute travesty...a complete and utter *****-up. The English system sucks, but it makes the American system look so pathetic and sorry for itself that, in my opinion, nobody who argues for the current system has a leg to stand on.
You think you get better health care in America? You need to take off your blinkers. Stop deluding yourself just because you're worried about your wallets. Good health care is IMPORTANT. There are always horror stories for the media to dig up about everywhere and anything....and it's those stories that make the headlines.
Without the shadow of the money-grabbing insurance companies that dictate how every health worker does his job, you'll always struggle against the system and pay through the nose for meds and treatment that shouldn't cost anywhere near as much as it does. Your co-pays are more than the treatment is worth. Durable medical equipment is billed at about 50 times what the product is worth.
I used to work for a non-profit children's hospital (in the US) that wasn't mangled by health insurance companies. Yes the employees were paid less, but they were happier and the standard of care so much better.
Patients were treated right...and they were always treated. It really is that simple...you should have that everywhere. - Qumahlin, on 06/23/2009, -15/+47"bully suppliers to give it a discount."
You seem to have no idea how things work now otherwise you would realize how stupid that statement is. If anything it would drive the prices across the board down, not just for one provider and that would be a GOOD thing.
Don't you wonder why prescription medication is cheaper in pretty much every other country in the world compared to the USA? - Rsulliv1, on 06/23/2009, -7/+38@c3rb85
Not only is USPS well suited for everything FedEx, UPS, & DHL does (perhaps besides heavy freight), they do it with a flat rate.
http://www.usps.com/shipping/prioritymail.htm
There's your proof that not only is USPS suited for regular mail, but they also have all of the features of the private carriers. If you disagree, please provide proof this time around.
If healthcare can be run as well as the USPS, I believe that we'd see our quality of life skyrocket while non-necessary emergency calls would drop thereby lowering the societal cost of "Emergency room checkups".
More factchecks against your claims:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/ ...
"Until adoption of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the U.S. Postal Service functioned as a regular, tax-supported, agency of the federal government.
According to the laws under which it now operates, the U.S. Postal Service is a semi-independent federal agency, mandated to be revenue-neutral. That is, it is supposed to break even, not make a profit."
"The USPS does get some taxpayer support. Around $96 million is budgeted annually by Congress for the "Postal Service Fund." These funds are used to compensate USPS for postage-free mailing for all legally blind persons and for mail-in election ballots sent from US citizens living overseas. A portion of the funds also pays USPS for providing address information to state and local child support enforcement agencies, and for keeping some rural posts offices in operation."
"Still, the US Postal Service has averaged a profit of over $1 billion per year in each of the last five years." - imric, on 06/23/2009, -17/+47Horsecr@p. And the richest Americans GO ELSEWHERE for medical care. Your pile of strawmen is so rickety that I'm surprised it can stand on this page.
Further, what is so bad with having a baseline of service? You rich people will still be able to afford the service you think is so grand; it's just that folk with NO other options will not be completely excluded. I know that being poor is a moral affliction with you 100% unbalanced free-marketeers, but I assure you it is not. We've seen where following your divide-by-zero economic theories lead; some of us have been unlucky enough to live the results (and more all the time!). Nobody buys your BS but you 20-percenters, anyway, anymore. Guess what? Trust is a form of capital, and you've spent all yours. - jgzman, on 06/24/2009, -5/+35Most people don't want free health care. We want reliable, trustworthy health care. We want to be able to trust our little plastic insurance card, and not worry about having to fight over every procedure or billing protocol.
- krunktar, on 06/23/2009, -1/+29I'm Nigerian and I was slightly offended by this message.
- engrishGamer, on 06/23/2009, -6/+33@df12
Those are projections, not actualities. Do you have a link that actual shows them taking a loss? - StaticThunder, on 06/23/2009, -8/+35At this point, I have no sympathy for the private insurers.
- df12, on 06/23/2009, -21/+47Depends on how the government runs it. I mean a government run "company" wouldn't have to make a profit or even break even, to survive. Case in point the US Postal Service http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-475T If any non-governmental entity were run like the USPS, it would have gone under long ago... or needed a bailout.
The fact that the USPS is managed so poorly provides the opportunity for UPS and FedEX to remain in business. One might say "See Government support competition works!" and they would be at least somewhat right. But do you really want your healthcare run with the same competence as the USPS?
I suspect if we don't ultimately end up with the dreaded "Socialized" healthcare in the US, we'll end up with something akin to the USPS / UPS / FedEX arrangement. Whereby you get your day to day healthcare done via the government and you pay more for 'overnight shipping" so-to-speak. - lindenwold, on 06/24/2009, -2/+27The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an "independent establishment of the executive branch" of the United States Government (see 39 U.S.C. § 201) responsible for providing postal service in the United States.
The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation but as noted above is legally defined as an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States," as it is wholly owned by the government and controlled by the Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General. As a quasi-governmental agency, it has many special privileges, including sovereign immunity, eminent domain powers, powers to negotiate postal treaties with foreign nations, and an exclusive legal right to deliver first-class and third-class mail.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPS
Also from source:
FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) directly compete with USPS express mail and package delivery services, making nationwide deliveries of urgent letters and packages. Due to the postal monopoly, they are not allowed to deliver non-urgent letters and may not use U.S. Mail boxes at residential and commercial destinations. These services also deliver packages which are larger and heavier than what the USPS will accept, and unlike the USPS assign tracking numbers to every package. DHL Express was the third major competitor until February 2009, when it ceased delivery operations in the United States. 28 May 2008: DHL Express announced the restructuring plans for its United States network, including terminating its business relationship with ABX Air and entering into a contract with competitor UPS for air freight operations. - D3L3T3D, on 06/23/2009, -4/+29Ok... what's the percentage of people without insurance? I'd be happy with my insurance IF I HAD ANY
- Nairebis, on 06/23/2009, -17/+40Guess what? Obama is just a guy with a job, just like anyone else. He's not some superhuman intellect. He has a law degree, that means he knows something about law. He might know something about other subjects, but this is not proven. And it's definitely true, just like anyone else, he is totally wrong about certain subjects. The question is whether he has the wisdom to understand that.
- dagamer34, on 06/23/2009, -5/+28The postal service isn't run 100% like a business otherwise you'd see MUCH higher increases in stamp prices to increase profits. If anything, it's subsidized.
To say it's loosing money is to no understand the purpose of the Post Office. It's there to provide a baseline level of service. If you want the more exotic stuff, you have to pay for it. - avd007, on 06/23/2009, -7/+30if you watch the press confrence he gave today, you would notice that he adressed the idea that a government helth care plan would NOT be feeding from the taxpayer trough, and insteead would run the same as a private inurance comapny, the only difference is that the government plan would have nothing to do with figuring out ways to make more money and provide less coverage, because at the end of the day, health care should be as seperate from human greed as possible, otherwise were all dead.
- Makisupa, on 06/23/2009, -8/+31Whether you favor universal healthcare or not, you have to admit the is a disingenuous argument. Increasing taxes, which are mandatory, is not the same as choosing a provider. Not to mention, the government has no mandate to try to make a profit, or at least break even.
The only way this argument works is if people can opt-in to government sponsored healthcare, and the government can not subsidize it. That is, they have to charge enough to break-even.
If you want to argue that healthcare is a universal right and the government should subsidize it, that is an argument completely divorced from the economics. - imric, on 06/23/2009, -16/+38ROFL. Again. What are you worried about?
After all, the USPS supports itself, even makes a profit - but does not kill competition. It only provides a baseline of service. I know you may WANT to think it's government supported, but it's not. Just government regulated. - Shanich, on 06/23/2009, -4/+25 The insurance companies only care about making a profit for there stock holders we have all experienced or heard about the horrible games the insurance companies play with are lives , SCREW THEM and there killing ways !!!! Over 20,000 people die in this country every year because they dont have this screwed up health coverage , and that number will just rise as more good jobs leave are country , its the least they can do for the citizens of America , we spend the most per person already , yet most are under insured or have no coverage . Enough is Enough !!!!!
- EddiePotato, on 06/23/2009, -3/+24Because you can catch my diseases if they go untreated.
- greencrow333, on 06/23/2009, -13/+34When it comes to healthcare it is ludicrous to care about fairness to businesses. If it means that the people in the US have affordable health care that covers everyone then to hell with the profit margins of corporations.
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