Bill Donhue of the Catholic league is not pleased
Posted by John Rove as Words at 12:01 PM GMT+4
October 31st, 2009
Jesus gets a golden shower
October 28th, 2009
More on the opt out compromise
I wonder if conservatives are starting to understand how unpopular opting out will make them at the local level and in addition I have a feeling that the states that are going to opt out are also the states that have the most unhealthy people, like Texas and Mississippi, so by opting out they are going to lower the rates for the rest of us. This is a win win situation. Unless of course you live in a state that wants to keep letting private insurers steal from their citizens.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 12:53 PM GMT+4
October 27th, 2009
Overtreatment?
I am not sure I get the outrage on this one:
Checking the “female” box when buying health insurance is likely to cost extra — perhaps up to 50 percent more than a man would pay for the same coverage.
Gender-rating — or what some term as flat-out sexual discrimination — is linked to the simple fact that women, particularly those under age 50 or so, go to the doctor more often than men.
It seems like too many visits to the doctor can adversely effect your health and with each visit a person runs the risk of being treated for a condition that they may not have, so I can see why people who visit the doctor more should probably pay more for health insurance.
In some ways this shows the folly of for profit medical companies, a doctor has an incentive to have people come in for lots of tests and insurance comppanies have an incentive to keep those people off the their rolls. the end result is a lot of people get overtreated while many other people get no treatment at all.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 11:24 AM GMT+4
October 26th, 2009
Unrelated thoughts
Finally got to watch some football yesterday, it seems Chicago is just good enough to narrowly miss the playoffs, just like the Denver Broncos of a year ago.
And, it should be illegal to experiment on babies.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 10:14 AM GMT+4
October 22nd, 2009
Opting out
Looks like their may be a public option for health insurance with a clause that allows states to opt out if they don’t want to let their residents have the choice of public insurance. Other than the fact that this will probably make the south, the only area of the country that may “opt out”, even more third world, it seems like a good idea.
My guess is that within a few years the biggest issue for the voters in the states that opt out will be how do elect politicians that are willing to opt back in.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 10:34 AM GMT+4
October 21st, 2009
The best care in the world?
As the healthcare debate heats up opponents of reform argue the U.S has the best health care in the world. Maybe not so much:
“McAllen is legal hell,” the cardiologist agreed. Doctors order unnecessary tests just to protect themselves, he said. Everyone thought the lawyers here were worse than elsewhere.
That explanation puzzled me. Several years ago, Texas passed a tough malpractice law that capped pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Didn’t lawsuits go down?
“Practically to zero,” the cardiologist admitted.
“Come on,” the general surgeon finally said. “We all know these arguments are bullshit. There is overutilization here, pure and simple.” Doctors, he said, were racking up charges with extra tests, services, and procedures.
The surgeon came to McAllen in the mid-nineties, and since then, he said, “the way to practice medicine has changed completely. Before, it was about how to do a good job. Now it is about ‘How much will you benefit?’ ”
Not only is overtreatment expensive it also is unhealthy. The American system needs reform.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 7:35 PM GMT+4
October 14th, 2009
At least use real facts
One of the strangest things to come out of the health care debate was the the Price Waterhouse report. At one time Price Waterhouse had a good reputation but after the report on the Baucus bill where at the direction of the insurance they produced a report thin on facts and fat on scare tactics, Price Waterhouse is little more than an appendage of the industries they claim to audit.
This incident sheds some light on many of the financial dissasters of the last few years as clearly firms like Price Waterhouse did not really audit firms they simply passed on whatever gibberish the “client” told them too. Hopefully the next area of reform will be to replace “independant” auditors with a government agency that really does audit the books of comppanies.
Update: This explains the insurance industry pretty well
It’s true, as the report says, that buying better insurance will cost somewhat more than buying insurance that doesn’t cover anything. The vast majority of the people affected by this will be using subsidies, of course, but put that aside for a moment. This is part of the point of health-care reform: Insurers will no longer have the freedom to offer products that let an individual think his family his protected when the policy will do nothing of the sort. That may raise prices, in much the way that antibiotics cost more than herbal supplements, but it raises prices because it reduces the insurance industry’s ability to sell a deceptive and insufficient product.
Although I would add that buying better insurance is only going to be more expensive if no other cost saving measures are added and insurance company profits stay in the twent-percent range.
Posted by John Rove as Words at 10:17 AM GMT+4