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1. 

   omQ R said, 3 months ago

   Grateful b4stards.

2. 

   believecommonsense said, 3 months ago

   Medical care as profit center in the good old USofA

3. 

   ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

   profit spurs innovation. You take the profit out, there is no incentive.

4. 

   Scott M Smith said, 3 months ago

   So many who take benefits from my disease!

5. 

   deadheadzan said, 3 months ago

   Everybody has a motivation to be healthy- plus make costs and a reasonable compensation. See how that works.

6. 

   believecommonsense said, 3 months ago

   ynnek, I have no problem with profits going to doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists and other clinicians …. I have no problem with researchers and medical innovators making profits

   now, we reward the bean counters and paper shufflers in insurance cos. with huge profits for clerical tasks … oh, and for denying coverage and delaying authorizations for everything they can legally get away with …. that kind of profit ain’t “spurring innovation” and it does in fact, harm people

7. 

   Penny PennyPenny said, 3 months ago

   It’s immoral, and should be ILLEGAL to profit from the welfare of citizens or off the commonwealth of the communities that make up the nation. Housing, banking, education, healthcare, and utilities (water, sewage/trash/recycling, energy, and telecommunication) should all be publicly owned and managed LOCALLY!

   We need to go back to profiting from regulated, competitive productivity, manufacturing, industry, and agriculture. Screw the global perception of American protectionism. America didn’t get to be great being foreign or globally owned the way we are today!

8. 

   dtroutma said, 3 months ago

   Reasonable profit margins should be perfectly acceptable, for those who earn them. Who makes more, a farmer, or the futures trader? It USED TO BE the futures traders stabilized the market, that is not so any more, and it happens BECAUSE they make all the profit. Trading an item that takes four months to grow, 12 times in one day, making a profit on each trade, of an item that is still in the field, and you will never see, or touch, is a process out of control. It is the failure of regulation, not the basic necessity of the system, that is the problem.

9. 

   deadheadzan said, 3 months ago

   It is the speculation and faulty regulation that makes the markets crazy. Andrew Carnegie made most of his wealth, not from making a product (steel) but by trading on Wall Street. I learned that from a book called “See you in Hell”, a biography of Mellon.

10. 

    Atma said, 3 months ago

    Insurance companies typically pay out 80% of their revenue on claims. If it rises, their stock is dumped big time. Medicare pays out 97%. Medicare may be in a precarious position, but probably not as much as insurance companies who have invested heavily in toxic derivatives, and some have gone under just for that, wiping out deliberately uninformed investors. Check out this veteran stock analyst’s experience with rating insurance companies. A real eye opener (for those who choose to see):
    http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/health-care-war-35069

11. 

    ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

    Penny PennyPenny

    I hear Cuba calling you. Reportedly they have world-class health care [and little else]. Sounds like your kind of place. You ought to read up a little on where that’s got them. Or check out China before they got capitalized – turned that dump around.

12. 

    ezdeb said, 3 months ago

    ynek58, what up? No one mentioned Cuba till you snarked your way in. You are approaching ANandy level personal drivel. You in no way contributed to the dialogue. Penny did.

    Corporations abuse their clients to the extent clients allow themselves to be abused. I just got new cellphone service and I had to fight (as I expected I would have to) not to be taken advantage of. I had to untangle an internet service problem with another large, corporate provider who has a monopoly on our area. It turned out to be a problem on their side, but their “customer service” was premised on the assumption that they never make mistakes. It took days of frustrated lost time. We all have these stories.

    I say again: Corporations will abuse their clients as far as clients are willing to be abused. They will charge the maximum they can until peoples’ backs break.

    Why do you think that’s OK when it comes to our nation’s dental needs and medical and vision needs? Do chonically suffering, diseased people meet your non-Cuban, non-Chinese standards for “your kind of place”? Puh-leeze.

    Contribute, stop insulting, or go away.

13. 

    ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

    ezdeb
    OK, I’ll admit I was a bit out of line and too rushed to get a full description of what I was implying by the Cuban reference. What I should have said is that you generally have to fight for what you think is right, whether returning defective merchandise at the store, or getting what you paid for with insurance coverage each of them is a product that is purchased as it should be. If I buy a widget at the store, no one asks what the widget manufacturer is making in profits. If the widget is a good one, and in demand, the manufacturer can get more for it, and people will willingly pay for it. Healthcare is a product, and people either buy it directly (self insure) or purchase insurance on the semi-open market. I say that because the insurance business it already quite regulated. Sure, those mean nasty guys are spawn of Satan and all, but most corporate heads are, greedy bastardes!

    The illusion to Cuba, was a mere inference of just more run-of-the-mill socialism, and that Cuba, at the cost of many other choices within their society, has chosen to spend a disproportionate amount of their collective wealth on healthcare (their choice, or should I say Fidel’s choice).

    The failure, generally, of many socialists is that they don’t see that everything has a cost, and you are trading the upgrade in healthcare for a downgrade in something else. I wasn’t particularly judging the overall morality of that, just noting the fact. It may in fact, be more moral to decrease defense, spending (accepting a reduction in either influence, or security), for healthcare, but whether or not it is moral, doesn’t change the fact that there will be a shift in priorities, and last time I checked the defense of the country is mandated by the constitution whereas the collective healthcare of the nation is not (nor is there any indicator that it was ever meant to be back in the day).

    Frankly, one should be able to say merely “Cuba”.
    The really interesting thing about China, is that even under a Communist government (which normally sucks out loud), is that despite their government, they have completely turned the place from literally starving backwater, to thriving economic power in just a few decades by embracing the capitalist economic model. That should be an eye-opener for anyone. I personally would have thought you needed political freedom as well, but apparently, independent of the political system, what you need above all is economic freedom, but only if you want prosperity, evidently.

14. 

    omQ R said, 3 months ago

    ynnek said:”
    The really interesting thing about China, …., they have completely turned the place from literally starving backwater, to thriving economic power in just a few decades by embracing the capitalist economic model. That should be an eye-opener for anyone”

    Opened my eyes, through incredulity at your words.

    Thriving economic power indeed. But who is thriving within China? Who is really paying the cost of China’s sudden prosperity?
    This is the model you support and advocate as great and wonderful? Are you kidding me?
    The average Chinese has had its lot diminish dramatically. The few hundred million that has had its lot improved has been on the backs & sacrifice of the many hundred million (and millions of your US jobs, too ;-) ). That’s how you promote capitalism?
    You do nod at political freedom perhaps being needed but hey, economic freedom is what counts because of the “prosperity” it brings. Next you will be telling me this is trickle down economics; that a rising middle-class will pull the rest of China up. Sure…but at what cost and whose sacrifice, even globally?

    ynnek also said:
    The failure, generally, of many socialists is that they don’t see that everything has a cost

    Methinks you are the one failling.

    Marxism came about precisely because Karl Marx in London observed abuses of the post Industrial Revolution capitalist excesses. The above description you’ve provided says nothing of the gross human abuses dealt out to their still very impoverished rural population (and fast becoming urban as they flock to cities but remain impoverished, still literally starving).

15. 

    ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

    obviously you haven’t been to China. I am going strictly what I saw while I was there a few months ago. 15-20 years ago people were actually starving in significantly large numbers. They have made huge progress by making individual responsible for their own economics. On Castro’s visit, what was it, maybe 10 years ago, he was dumbfounded by the economic progress and the economic growth that he saw (obviously comparing to the non-progress Cuba had made during the same time) (not enough evidently to free his own slaves though that’s another story). The transformation and the wealth of, yes, I’ve got this right INDIVIDUAL Chinese, by the millions are living better off because the Chinese abandon the dumbassed planned economy and most of the other socialist economic policies. Whether this cost American jobs is irrelevant to the progress made within the Chinese economy itself.

    Really, the important question for people to be asking is not if, since what happened is obvious, but WHY. Not unlike the pilgrims before them who faced chronic food shortages while collectively farming, they discovered to REALLY make people productive you give them incentive. After they made each family resopsible for their own plot of land, the shortages stopped. And by incentive I mean cash. There is nothing like it to get people off the keesters.

    And MARXISM? WOW, that worked out pretty well. Are you suggesting protectionist policies are what needed to spur economic growth? or that a planned economy beats a free market? Which country was it again where a planned economy worked so well – it’s alluding me at the moment (and everyone else on the planet). These grandiose social experiments are consistent and huge failures that bring nothing but poverty in the end. Perhaps a little light reading of Hyak would help you grasp the concept.

    Hey, nobody said capitalism was easy, or fair, since outcome will be based on what you put into it. If you are looking for some non-existent utopia where everyone works for the noble State, dude, it just doesn’t exist. Human nature will not now, nor will it ever support such nonsense.

    Of course we are not talking about the absence of regulation which is a complete red herring. Good capitalism requires a strong rule of law. A rule of law that in know before hand, not one that changes after the fact by someone who doesn’t like the outcome.

    The point about political freedom, which I also believe strongly in (and how can you really have that unless you have economic freedom) was that despite being Commies, the managed to prosper BECAUSE they had adopted capitalistic principles. The implication is obvious. Despite the political freedom that we enjoy, should people use that to confiscate other wealth, the result will then push us toward the system the Chinese and other failed socialist states are fleeing from.

    I advocate not only political freedom, but economic freedom as well. Hey, you welcome to give all of your money away. Your not welcome to give mine away – it ain’t your to give.

16. 

    WestTex13 said, 3 months ago

    BCS - Nice Post.. I agree with you wholeheartedly on the need to reward doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists researchers and medical innovators while believing that we’re going astray with rewarding bean counters and paper shufflers in insurance cos. for denying coverage and delaying authorizations for everything they can legally get away with .

    Reward those helping and doing a good job while pushing out those who are profiting from the suffering of others..

17. 

    ezdeb said, 3 months ago

    Well, I guess here’s where ynnek58 and I disagree on this topic. He sez healthcare is a product and should be no different than any other widget.

    Fundamentally, labor (and it’s subsequent health needs) is not the same as real estate or timber or other commodities. When the widget is people, different standards (not just dollars) need to be applied. People like ynnek58 consider themselves and those they identify with as complex beings, but somehow the greater complexity of millions of equally complex beings eludes them. Suddenly the complex needs of multi-generational populations just gets boiled down to a widget. Can’t be done. Shouldn’t be done. Doesn’t work.

18. 

    omQ R said, 3 months ago

    yynnek: You really don’t read other peoples’ posts, do you? I’m not a Marxist. I don’t believe in command economies. Protectionism? I suggested nothing of the sort; I’m for globalisation and fair levelling of the international market, taking into account the environment. I was reacting to your lazy appreciation of the lack of care for the majority of the Chinese in favour of the few who are clearly benefiting. Your admiration for their take on capitalism is blinding you stupid. I have been to China, starting off point was Macau (Las Vegas will have nothing on this place) and hopped into the Guangdong province. After leaving the outskirts of Macau what I saw was a total disregard for human misery to achieve their economic prosperity. I doubt you travel with your eyes open. You see what you want to see, distracted by the massive projects and building sites, new shops bulging with flashy goods, bling and oblivious to the misery just around the corner.

    Ezdeb above is correct to recognise that labour, although a resource, shouldn’t be regarded just like a widget. Which is what you always do.
    Empathy, dude, empathy, you’re sadly lacking.

19. 

    nomad2112 said, 3 months ago

    To quote Harry S. Truman (again) - “Nothing but a d@mn bunch of bull$h!t!”

20. 

    ynnek58 said, 3 months ago

    The invisible hand is better than the State hand – every time. I AM personally compassionate – I just don’t think the state ought to be redistributing wealth. Every time I hear a socialist say the word compassion, I reach for my wallet.

    I have actually sat down with poor people one-on-one, counseled them, helped them learn to prioritize there spending and resources etc. I donate money (a significant amount) to the poor, so don’t go pereaching about who I am or what motivasted me because you haven’t, obviously, got a clue.

    Working directly with the poor (as opposed to theorizing about them) was a real eye-opener. There are lots of reasons why people are poor, but nobody wants to understand the root causes (or even admit what they are).

    I saw poor in China and I actually lived in Hong Kong for an extended period of time. Though there are some poor there (and BTW, VERY poor) – it still stacks up against any socialist drivel I either seen or read about. Labor IS a product. the more skilled you labor, the higher a person will be rewarded for it – there’s no mystery here.

    In fact people are NOT complex. They are also not as sophisticated as some of you make them out to be. They are not motivated by principles but by self interest. Some of you act like self interest is a bad thing. Self interest and self preservation is the ONLY thing that motivates virtually everybody. Again – y’all are welcomed to give away every last dime you make, sell your houses and cars and give that away too – it is (or should be ) a free country – knock yourselves out – just don’t ecpect me to follow you off that cliff.

21. 

    4uk4ata said, 3 months ago

    I think you are oversimplifying, ynnek, both on human nature and free-market vs state regulation.

22. 

    ezdeb said, 3 months ago

    If the free market system worked, it would be great. If communism worked, it would be great. Same for socialism, ditto for theocracy. Corporations like health insurance companies, get to socialize their risks, in the form of enormous tax breaks and ongoing lax regulation, etc. They are “super-citizens” with many rights that non corporate citizens have. They get to privatize their profits, however. Self interest is a bad thing when it comes to policies that affect the larger community.

    Your pure economic theory doesn’t work for very many people. Congrats that you got yours. By the way. Paying slightly higher taxes for the good of the nation is simply not the same as selling your houses and cars and giving all away. That sounds more like the Christianity ppl like you love to say you emulate.