Being Goofy Fringe-Right Hurts Gun Rights

[Jamie6.5]

Under the guise of "healthcare reform," this liberal scheme is in reality healthcare payer reform.
True healthcare reform would start with TORT REFORM!
Boot the trial lawyers out of the hearings and off the approved lobby list and start over.
Boot the insurance companies out of the hearings and off the approved lobby list.
Then limit punitive damages, followed by malpractice insurance percentages.

When all is said and done you will have doctor bills you can afford to pay out of pocket.
Right now the insurance companies are collecting on both ends and are generating the need for health insurance by raising the cost of care through malpractice premiums.

If there was ever anti-trust and/or a monopoly in this country, this is it.

 

[ZachS]

Under the guise of "healthcare reform," this liberal scheme is in reality healthcare payer reform.
True healthcare reform would start with TORT REFORM!
Boot the trial lawyers out of the hearings and off the approved lobby list and start over.
Boot the insurance companies out of the hearings and off the approved lobby list.
Then limit punitive damages, followed by malpractice insurance percentages.

When all is said and done you will have doctor bills you can afford to pay out of pocket.
Right now the insurance companies are collecting on both ends and are generating the need for health insurance by raising the cost of care through malpractice premiums.

If there was ever anti-trust and/or a monopoly in this country, this is it.

Malpractice insurance expenses represent less than 3% of our nation's healthcare spending. Want to try again?

 

[Jamie6.5]

Malpractice insurance expenses represent less than 3% of our nation's healthcare spending. Want to try again?

Care to ask ANY doctor what his/her largest expense is in terms of overhead?
Care to try again?
I have asked my question of every doctor I've had in the last 19 years.
The answer has been universal,...
Malpractice insurance! And most will tell you it's by a large margin.

 

[Just Jim]

Malpractice insurance expenses represent less than 3% of our nation's healthcare spending. Want to try again?

So, if healthcare is 1/6 of our economy then what is 3% of that?? As long as you are useing numbers

jj

 

[Just Jim]

Can you even put a dollar amount on that?

jj

 

[Jamie6.5]

Just a primer for those that don't believe:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/02/eveningnews/consumer/main610102.shtml
Excerpt;

"Medical malpractice costs are all about lawsuits, settlements and jury awards," says P.J. Crowley, an insurance industry representative.

But Joan Claybrook, of the Public Citizen Consumer Group, says that's not the case.

"But it's a great, easy excuse," she says.

Claybrook insists the rate hikes aren't about lawsuits but about the insurance industry making up for investment losses. Investments are their main source of income.

In fact, from 2001 to 2002 when many OB-GYNs saw their rates double, malpractice payouts to victims were actually on the decline.

But insurance companies were losing big on their investments.

"The insurance company does not want to explain how they set their premiums, so they divert public attention and blame it all on people who are injured and their lawyers," says Claybrook.

 

[Just Jim]

Cost is the least of our worries. The loss of freedom and our gun rights will follow and no lawyers will take on the government to defend us.

jj

 

[Jamie6.5]

And this, the practice of "defensive medicine." Now if you think it's politically motivated, try to remember this is from Obama's hometown newspaper:

<broken link removed>
Excerpt:

After being sued for allegedly failing to diagnose a case of appendicitis, Wang says he turned to what's known as "defensive medicine," ordering extra tests, scans, consultations and even hospitalization to protect against malpractice suits.

"You are thinking about what can I do to prevent this from happening again," he said, adding that he did nothing wrong but agreed to a minor settlement to avoid a trial.

The practice is under scrutiny as Congress attempts to get an accurate price tag for the sweeping national health care overhaul. A pivotal floor vote on the Democrats' bill could come as early as Saturday.

Doctors say the hidden costs of the tests along with malpractice insurance and lawsuit awards are major drivers behind the soaring cost of care.

 

[Just Jim]

Going to be interesting when this gets through. People will jump the southern border for healthcare. That's where our doctors will move.

 

[bugeye]

Malpractice insurance expenses represent less than 3% of our nation's healthcare spending. Want to try again?

Yes that's the standard argument against tort reform, but the argument goes further and talks about extra tests done just o make sure and some unlucky (maybe not inept) providers who have been driven out. It is hard to out a dollar value on these extra considerations. I bet we could save as much as a percent with some reasonable limits, and that is nothing to sneeze at. I suspect if the GOP had played ball with the bill that passed last night we could have had some tort reform. Instead they took on a role of blockage and noncooperation. Only one republican vote for in the house. This is kind of a shame because we could have had some additional savings while still keeping settlement rates high enough to assure that providers will operate with the highest degree of accuracy.

The Dems made deals with big providers, insurance and drug companies to get this bill, they could have made another one with the trial lawyers. Maybe next year, now they need to get woking on jobs.

 

[tinknocker]

Government control is the issue we should be talking about guys, nothing really matters more. The more control we allow the more the government will take, after all politicians know best right?
In (I believe) 1978 a new dept. of the government was formed, the Dept. of Energy. It was formed to curb our dependence on foreign oil. The budget, I believe, was about 8-12 billion to start. Currently that budget is about 260 billion dollars. So if that budget has grown so much why should I believe that if they take control of health care that costs will stay low. I'm not so afraid of the insurance companies as I am the government that now owns them.

Talking of our views and opinions is but one right we can openly enjoy.

What we on this site have to do is stay united on the right to bear arms and get as many interested on gun rights as we can.

 

[Jamie6.5]

As long as the insurance companies are making money on both ends we will have this problem.
They know that if they want to sell more healthcare insurance, all they need is increases in the cost of care. The easiest way to raise the cost beyond what the patient can pay is raise malpractice insurance.
Now they also have a built in "obfuscator" in that ins.co.s point the finger at lawyers who point the finger at Dr.s who point finger the finger at ins.co.s and on it goes.

For an eye opener, have a look at what hospitals in New York had to deal with in terms of increases in malpractice insurance from 1992-2004:
www.gnyha.org/3283/File.aspx
152% increases in a single year in some cases. Now if you are in the business of trying to make a profit and you suffer that kind of overhead increase what do you do? Pass it on to the consumer(patient). You have no choice.

The first thing that needs to happen is the insurance companies that sell health insurance need to be forbidden from selling malpractice insurance. No selling on both ends.
That creates the monopoly. That is the definition of Anti-trust and price fixing.

When the Dems grow some stones and stand up to the trial lawyers we might get meaningful healthcare reform. When the 'Pubs grow some stones and stand up to the insurance companies we might get meaningful healthcare reform.
Instead of healthcare payer reform.
In the meantime those in control of 2 out of the 3 branches of our government are just interested in taking more of your $$$ to pay off their buddies in the 2 industries mentioned above.

 

[ZachS]

Government control is the issue we should be talking about guys, nothing really matters more. The more control we allow the more the government will take, after all politicians know best right?
In (I believe) 1978 a new dept. of the government was formed, the Dept. of Energy. It was formed to curb our dependence on foreign oil. The budget, I believe, was about 8-12 billion to start. Currently that budget is about 260 billion dollars. So if that budget has grown so much why should I believe that if they take control of health care that costs will stay low. I'm not so afraid of the insurance companies as I am the government that now owns them.

Talking of our views and opinions is but one right we can openly enjoy.

What we on this site have to do is stay united on the right to bear arms and get as many interested on gun rights as we can.

You're off by a factor of ten: <broken link removed>

And a substantial portion of the DOE's $26 billion budget goes toward maintaining our nuclear weapon and nuclear fuel stockpiles - the DOE is much more focused on nukes and fossil fuels than renewables, as it was the successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission.

 

[Jamie6.5]

The Dems made deals with big providers, insurance and drug companies to get this bill, they could have made another one with the trial lawyers. Maybe next year, now they need to get woking on jobs.

Yeah they made deals alright.
Deals our kids will pay for for decades.
This kind of program is impossible to get rid of/repeal, and was not needed, as it does nothing to remedy the core problem.

OMG, no telling what they'll do to generate jobs!

 

[bugeye]

The goal of the heathcare plan is single payer, ie the government will be the insurer when this is all over. The insurance companies just want to be part of government insurance to secure good government jobs for themselves when government takes over. Who else is going to run this new healthcare plan?

The government programs so far have shown huge fraud and abuse. Any private program with those kind of loses would have gone under years ago. Government has unending money so it doesn't matter to them how much failure they have.

Socialism is for the lazy. Hope that helps remove the vagueness.

The teabaggers only problem is they fight for freedoms that socialist losers will give away. While the cause of freedom is great the populace is going to have to live under tyrany for a while so it will burn in their souls what they have lost. Yet they will never admit responsibility for it.

Gun control is comming, right after they get control of you life with healthcare. Read a bit about how the Nazi socialist used American "progressive" ideology (healthcare) to take over Germany.

Make sure you tell you kids what you voted for, they will pay for it.

jj

Hey do you think the government is running the economy well? They caused the depression and they are spending your money to fix what they caused. What do you think healthcare is going to look like when they use the same private insurers you hate to run government healthcare????

1. That's an interesting take on what just happened, do you have any good sources for this belief? I do find it far fetched that big insurance would have gone along with this reform and stayed out of the fight (since it is their interests that are being directly opposed) unless they belived in the deal they were offered?

2. I think the government runs pretty good programs, and in health care they do run far more efficiently than private insurance. What the world financial system just did to all of us is an example of corruption and insanity in the private sector. I know of nothing the gov has ever done to compete with insuring finiancial markets to the tune of 1000 trillion bucks without so much as a dime set aside to back it. We are talking record here, and these outfits are just about all back in business.

3. Socialism is a word, a word is not an argument. If you want to discuss particulars we can see if they are lazy, but generalities - generally are a good clue of brainwashing.

4. So your requirement for self appointment to patriot is alarmingly low. That's too bad.

5. And then a brilliant example of the sort of rant that thread is about. Do you really know that this stuff your saying is true, or is it just way too much fun to say it?

 

[Just Jim]

1. That's an interesting take on what just happened, do you have any good sources for this belief? I do find it far fetched that big insurance would have gone along with this reform and stayed out of the fight (since it is their interests that are being directly opposed) unless they belived in the deal they were offered?

2. I think the government runs pretty good programs, and in health care they do run far more efficiently than private insurance. What the world financial system just did to all of us is an example of corruption and insanity in the private sector. I know of nothing the gov has ever done to compete with insuring finiancial markets to the tune of 1000 trillion bucks without so much as a dime set aside to back it. We are talking record here, and these outfits are just about all back in business.

3. Socialism is a word, a word is not an argument. If you want to discuss particulars we can see if they are lazy, but generalities - generally are a good clue of brainwashing.

4. So your requirement for self appointment to patriot is alarmingly low. That's too bad.

5. And then a brilliant example of the sort of rant that thread is about. Do you really know that this stuff your saying is true, or is it just way too much fun to say it?

I am not suprised you can't put meanings to words, but true to liberal form you can put feelings to them.

You think government works well when they have put millions out of work and crashed the economy. It tells me you have lost reality. I won't bring anymore points to your limited attention. When healthcare comes to your door, well I doubt you will understand.

After they finish crashing your economy watch what they do with our guns.

jj

Oh and real brainwashing is evident when people will vote for those who take away their freedoms and even argue toward a healthcare program that gives government control of their lives

 

[Trlsmn]

3. Socialism is a word, a word is not an argument. If you want to discuss particulars we can see if they are lazy, but generalities - generally are a good clue of brainwashing.

Socialism is a political ideal, words are letters arranged in a fashion to convey real meaning, words have killed more people than any other cause. So yes a word can be an argument!

Walk up to a group of African American men and use the N word and when you get out of the emergency room come back and tell me how that single word worked out for you.

We are not protesting the word socialism and it's inclusion into the dictionary we are questioning the socialist political ideal and it's forced inclusion into our lives.

 

[Just Jim]

Socialism is a political ideal, words are letters arranged in a fashion to convey real meaning, words have killed more people than any other cause. So yes a word can be an argument!

We are not protesting the word socialism and it's inclusion into the dictionary we are questioning the socialist political ideal and it's forced inclusion into our lives.

Heck I just want to talk to people who know the meanings of the words I don't believe the conversation will work out if the person you are talking with is trying to figure out what the meaning of "is" is.

If healthcare is this bad imagine when guncontrol comes up what will happen then.

jj

 

[swoop]

Heck I just want to talk to people who know the meanings of the words I don't believe the conversation will work out if the person you are talking with is trying to figure out what the meaning of "is" is.

If healthcare is this bad imagine when guncontrol comes up what will happen then.

jj

I think what the meaning of "is-is" was answered when Lewinski produced the blue dress.

 

[Just Jim]

You might think about this, if they are not afraid to lose thier jobs for stealing 1/6 of the economy then they won't care about your gun rights.

jj