I think we are over-insured

Dude, I got a rare cancer in my 20s, had to be hospitalized for treatment, traveled cross country to the best in the nation, went to many doctors appointments, various treatments, surgeries (beat it completely), but never saw a single bill or paid anything beyond the original $15 co-pay for the first office visit.

Now I go to the doctor once a year (if that) just for a checkup. Been cancer free for 7 years, and run 80mpw.

Good points. I'm relatively young, but I take care of myself. I don't eat a lot of garbage (I try to stay under 2k calories a day) and I exercise a lot. I get sleep, I don't get too stressed and I don't take any drugs. I plan to do this for the rest of my life. I'm probably not getting heart disease or diabetes.

The guy down the street who smokes 2 packs a day and weighs 300lbs is the one my insurance premiums go to. Under a socialized system he'll benefit because he'll be draining money from healthy people.

We're fat. That explains in large part why we don't live as long. We're fatter than Europe.

This is an area that you and I Sagarin are 100% in agreement on, and it is what makes me a Blue Dog Democrat. I'm not really happy with much of Obama's Health Care Plan, but really, besides that, I think American's just feel entitled to too much. This is ONE of the reasons that antibiotics were so over prescribed...a person gets sick (with a VIRUS) and immediately goes to the doctor. The doctor appeases them by giving them an antibiotic which does nothing against the virus, and then within a week the person is feeling better anyway as the virus runs its course. Otherwise healthy people should NOT go to the doctor with a run of the mill fever and sore throat unless they've had it for 7-10 days. MOST of the time it's a virus. Bacterial infections are TYPICALLY secondary infections that set in due to a weakened immune system caused by the virus, so if you're still feeling like crap after 10 days, you either have a bacterial infection that you've had the whole time and can't shake, OR you now have one that is a secondary infection. ALSO, antibiotics aren't the ONLY way to get rid of a bacterial infection anyway...the body's defenses can fight stuff off, even strep (though since I have access to medical care if I went 10 days and didn't get better and it was determined I had strep, I would take the antibiotics).

Anyway, to expect a low co-pay for an office visit is crazy. MOST people would actually save money by paying lower premiums and paying for the office visit in full when they needed to go. Of course some people would NOT go to the doctor because of having to pay full price for an office visit, but therein lies another problem with people -- save up the money so you can do that!

We own more technology but that doesn't mean we use it effectively or efficiently. If more of our hospitals would share technology equipment instead of many of them competing against each other...we'd have lower health care cost. Instead the hospitals are as capitalistic as any other industry - while being non profit.

Wait time isn't going to matter with a very high percentage of treatments. Every sprained ankle or allergy isn't emergency care.

Better outcomes might be defined as using the practice of medicine to preventatively treat everyone, instead of having "sickcare" which is what we have in the U.S.

to Sagarin - I see a LOT of people arguing that we don't need ANY reform.

Mtn Dew wrote:

We're fat. That explains in large part why we don't live as long. We're fatter than Europe.

We also smoke a lot less. Furthermore, recent studies attribute longer life expectancies to people in the overweight BMI category -- and we're pretty much in that sweet spot.

But that's all beside the point. Unless you have a peer-reviewed study showing that obesity is driving most of the difference in life expectancies (say, by comparing Americans and Europeans with similar BMIs, which wouldn't be hard to do), you are blowing smoke. It's pure speculation, and frankly, it's a thoroughly unconvincing response to the undisputed fact that Americans pay more and live shorter than almost any other Western country.

My $0.02 wrote:

Yes, very homogeneous Japan has a huge life expectancy, but so does relatively heterogeneous France.

Duh, they eat better. Japan eats as well as anyone and the closer you get to the mediterranean, the closer you get to the Mediterrenean diet. Same applies to the artic. Plenty of fish oil and/or olive oil. Less stress too for sure. But, our kids grow up sucking high-fructose corn syrup from birth. Incredible how amazingly gluttinous and ignorant Americans are.

My $0.02, if you can't see that the "unforeseen" bloating of medicare and/or Massachusetts Hillary care aren't collapsing under the collective weight of their girths, then you are kidding yourself.

Obama would be wise to stop trying to "pick off a few Republicans," compromise big-time, and spend his political capital elsewhere. Otherwise, it's going to be a 1994 scenario all over again (which actually could be to his benefit as it was to Clinton).

That's probably the first time I've heard anyone say that the French eat a Mediterranean diet -- or that they eat that much olive oil, for that matter. French cuisine is notorious for the butter and other animal fats.

But in any event, like I said, this is all beside the point. If the main thing driving life expectancy differences is demographic factors like obesity, people who argue that in response to the undisputed fact that Americans don't live as long as other countries should be able to produce a crapload of studies showing that (for example) non-obese Americans live longer* than non-obese Europeans. They haven't because they can't.

* Longer because America spends so much more than other countries for health care. If life expectancies for demographically-similar groups were merely identical, that would be a really raw deal for us, wouldn't it?

Sagarin wrote:

My $0.02, if you can't see that the "unforeseen" bloating of medicare and/or Massachusetts Hillary care aren't collapsing under the collective weight of their girths, then you are kidding yourself.

Obama would be wise to stop trying to "pick off a few Republicans," compromise big-time, and spend his political capital elsewhere. Otherwise, it's going to be a 1994 scenario all over again (which actually could be to his benefit as it was to Clinton).

*are* collapsing... forgot I had a double negative.

By the way, there are plenty of "studies." Just google or go to pubmed. To me, it's pretty intuitive. Feed babies from birth with high-fructose corn syrup in formula (instead of breast-feeding like the good ole days), throw them in daycare where their sleep patterns are messed up, throw too many vaccines on them all at once, and bingo... all kinds of "diseases" start popping up like ADHD, autism, obesity, food allergies, etc. Get a fukking clue people. Flagpole is right. Make sacrifices. Learn to live with less on not take on so much debt. Love your neighbor, but take CARE of yourself for God's sake. raise your kids correctly (diet, tv, video games, etc). Teach accountability. In other words, PARENT.

Sagarin wrote:

My $0.02, if you can't see that the "unforeseen" bloating of medicare and/or Massachusetts Hillary care aren't collapsing under the collective weight of their girths, then you are kidding yourself.

Obama would be wise to stop trying to "pick off a few Republicans," compromise big-time, and spend his political capital elsewhere. Otherwise, it's going to be a 1994 scenario all over again (which actually could be to his benefit as it was to Clinton).

Medicare is "bloated" because of rising medical costs -- but so is every other type of health care delivery system in this country. Medicare costs aren't rising any faster than private insurance costs.

As for Massachusetts, my understanding is that reports are mixed. I haven't really looked into it in any detail, so I'll refrain from speculating.

My $0.02 wrote:

That's probably the first time I've heard anyone say that the French eat a Mediterranean diet -- or that they eat that much olive oil, for that matter. French cuisine is notorious for the butter and other animal fats.

Ummm, yes, they do eat rich food, but they also eat fish. They do eat olive oil, and, frankly, and here's the BIGGIE... they don't eat HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP-laden PROCESSED food. Their diet is much more natural than ours and contains more natural fruit and vegetables.

While I don't think that single-payer is the worst thing in the world, I don't think it will ever happen in the U.S. I'm leaning towards the Wyden-Bennett bill as the best approach to reform. The best thing it does is that it gets rid of the employer/union tax benefit that basically makes no sense in the current labor market.

Actually it wouldn't effect cost that much since those things are relatively cheap. The big payouts are what make insurance costs rise. In fact, if they funded routine maintenance they may actually lower costs because they would potentially avoid large costly payouts in the future (e.g., accidents caused or exasperated by poor car condition such as balding tires).

Mtn Dew wrote:

Imagine how costly car insurance would be if it included oil changes, tire rotations, alignments, timing belts and anything else that is part of routine car upkeep.

I don't even think a routine pregnancy should be paid by insurance. Insurance is for things one has no control over.

My $0.02 wrote:

Medicare costs aren't rising any faster than private insurance costs.

That's inaccurate when you take out the administrative portion or account for it correctly (we always compare apples and oranges here). But, it's also a different demographic admittedly.

Sagarin wrote:

By the way, there are plenty of "studies." Just google or go to pubmed.

Then it shouldn't be any problem to produce one that says the main driver of different life expectancies between America and the rest of the Western world is American obesity rates.

And like I said, it may be "intuitive" that if fatter people die earlier, then a fatter country will have a lower average life expectancy than a thinner one. But there are other variables that this ignores. A (relatively) non-smoking country should have a higher average life expectancy. A country where the average person is in the "overweight" BMI classification should have a higher average life expectancy vis a vis a "normal" country as well. Citing one of these factors as the primary reason for the well-documented fact that Americans don't live as long is BS without a peer-reviewed study to back it up.

Sagarin wrote:

Ummm, yes, they do eat rich food, but they also eat fish. They do eat olive oil, and, frankly, and here's the BIGGIE... they don't eat HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP-laden PROCESSED food. Their diet is much more natural than ours and contains more natural fruit and vegetables.

I agree. So what is the reform that changes this?

Sagarin wrote:

*are* collapsing... forgot I had a double negative.

By the way, there are plenty of "studies." Just google or go to pubmed. To me, it's pretty intuitive. Feed babies from birth with high-fructose corn syrup in formula (instead of breast-feeding like the good ole days), throw them in daycare where their sleep patterns are messed up, throw too many vaccines on them all at once, and bingo... all kinds of "diseases" start popping up like ADHD, autism, obesity, food allergies, etc. Get a fukking clue people. Flagpole is right. Make sacrifices. Learn to live with less on not take on so much debt. Love your neighbor, but take CARE of yourself for God's sake. raise your kids correctly (diet, tv, video games, etc). Teach accountability. In other words, PARENT.

Definitely good points in there; we're lock step in this area pretty much. I'm definitely leery of vaccines, but I don't have enough concrete info yet to be adamant one way or the other, but it sure seems like a certain small yet significant percentage could have adverse reactions to them.

Bottom line.... the more you approach the social engineering, cradle-to-grave policies of California, the closer you become to BEING California on a Federal level. Unfortunately, the resourceful Californians are leaving in droves and spreading their insane policy elsewhere (which is so hypocritical - take your cap gains, spending, and tax revenue out of California and leave them holding the bag that YOU VOTED for you idiots).

We all need to REIN IN SPENDING and enhance productivity people!!!! All of us, including our government. It's not a hard principle.