The Next President is...

[Vertigo]

On 8/8/2018 at 10:42 AM, MooseAg03 said:

I believe an estimate was released that Medicare for all would run about $32 Trillion for 10 years. Government run healthcare is not the answer, we already have tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities for social security and medicare.

Didn't that same report say that the $32T was a $2T savings over what we'll spend with our current system?

[ClearedHot]

21 hours ago, nsplayr said:

The UK & France have 66 million people a piece and they do it.

Puhleezzz...if your liberal utopian vision of universal healthcare is what they are doing in the UK I sincerely hope you never need medical attention.  The NHS system in the UK is in full on meltdown, they themselves have stated they are Condition BLACK.  Analysis by the Royal College of Surgeons found that over the past year an average of 193,406 people a month did not get surgery within 18 weeks of being referred.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/13/193000-nhs-patients-a-month-waiting-beyond-target-for-surgery

[MooseAg03]

Didn't that same report say that the $32T was a $2T savings over what we'll spend with our current system?

Savings from negotiating directly with drug makers and reduced administrative costs (I’m guessing from fewer insurance executives) would total about $2.4T.

From the same article: “It’s showing that if you are going to go in this direction, it’s going to cost the federal government $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion a year in terms of spending,” said Thorpe. “Even though people don’t pay premiums, the tax increases are going to be enormous. There are going to be a lot of people who’ll pay more in taxes than they save on premiums.” Thorpe was a senior health policy adviser in the Clinton administration.”

Who cares if insurance companies are spending less on administration if it means more money in taxes paid by the average American. All while taking away their liberty to get whatever sort of health care they want or don’t want. It’s not fitting with the spirit of the Constitution to steal 40%+ of my income just to make sure I can have treatment if I ever develop cancer, and I don’t give a shit what the legislate-from-the-bench Supreme Court said about it. Our country is about having liberty and freedom to do what you want, it wasn’t fought for and founded to become a nanny state to take care of people from cradle to grave.

[MooseAg03]

You spent a considerable amount of time in a universal healthcare system (tricare) and are now presumably retired into a similar system, yes?  So it appears you are in this type of system but encourage everyone to know how bad that system will work.  I do not follow your logic.

Are you saying because we use Tricare that it can’t be a bad system? Have you ever argued with them over referrals? Has your family ever tried to get an appointment on base? I had to wait 5 weeks for my flight physical appointment a few months ago.

Plus our med group has multiple doctor vacancies. Turns out spending a quarter million on med school isn’t very conducive to a career in socialized medicine.

[Homestar]

TRICARE works fine for me and most of the 2 million or so it serves.

That doesn't mean that it will work for 325 million.

[brickhistory]

- The appointed Special Counsel is friends with one the primary players in the drama

- The Deputy Attorney General signed one of the FISA renewal applications that led to the appointment of the Special Counsel.

- The Deputy Attorney General is the one who selected this specific individual to be the Special Counsel.

- The lead FBI investigator for the Special Counsel was fired for the appearance of bias.

- The FISA warrants themselves were based, at least in part, if not large part, on political opposition research that is unsubstantiated.

- The number 4 guy in DOJ had continuing contact with the dossier's ex-spy author even after the ex-spy was fired by the FBI for lying to the FBI about media contacts.

- The wife of the number 4 DOJ guy worked for the opposition research firm who funded and disiminated the opposition research dossier.

 

Shenanigans = a duck?

 

If you, personally, were in the crosshairs of a federal investigation with these issues, would you be good with it?

Edited August 10, 2018 by brickhistory

[Homestar]

well when you put it that way.... 😄

[brickhistory]

Substitute AFOSI for FBI and WG/CC for Deputy Attorney General and imagine the "harrumphs" that would be filling the thread.

[Lawman]

You spent a considerable amount of time in a universal healthcare system (tricare) and are now presumably retired into a similar system, yes?  So it appears you are in this type of system but encourage everyone to know how bad that system will work.  I do not follow your logic.

Yeah so I actively pulled my wife out of Tricare prime specifically because there were better options available when I’m not dictated by my government what form of care she would receive during her pregnancy.

But hey maybe the 3 year fight to get her knee surgery or watching my retired father (who works for the VA after a 20 year medical career in the AF) have his standard of care eroded every single year under “tricare for life” is all just an illusion.

Do you seriously want to sit there and tell us our benefits haven’t gotten worse as the belts have tightened? You think something as well funded for as low a population it has is going to work better when you dump a couple hundred million more people into it and leave them with no real recourse against it that it’s all gonna work better?

[otsap]

I want everyone to have access to health care.  It sucks to hear stories about people who go bankrupt over medical costs or who suffer permanent or prolonged poor health because of the barriers to care.  I want universal health care to work.  I especially feel for those with expensive pre-existing conditions.

Most people point out the tough financial realities of such a government, or single-payer, program.  I don’t disagree that the costs would require a significant increase in taxes from one or more sources.  Depending on how much it cost, I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it. For example, if taxes went up 4% and everyone was covered, cool, I could live with that.  If they go up 15-20% overall, that’s a tough pill to swallow, sts.

But my opposition is primarily tied to two other issues that I think are more important long-term.  The first is my concern about government creep, a historical near-certainty.  Imagine that the government runs health care and sees costs starting to rise; or maybe costs are going down but Congress wants to fund something else and needs to cut its health care costs to fund this other project.  Meanwhile, people are pissed because their taxes are going to treat people who smoke, drink, and eat crappy all the time.  So, government does what it always does and tries to “fix” this unfairness.  Maybe this would result in limiting cigarette purchases, or banning them altogether.  Alcohol is unhealthy, so that eventually goes down the same path.  Unhealthy foods are taxed more with the idea that these taxes will go to fund the health care system.  Over the course of a couple decades, small, almost imperceptible regulations that are passed in the interest of fairness lead to a situation where the government controls (more or less) what you eat, drink, and perhaps even how you act (ie. extreme sports have a higher correlation to injury and long-term health care costs, so even they are restricted). I know hyperbole and the “what-if” game is a poor argument, I’m just trying to suggest that government-run healthcare could EASILY be an invitation to the government to enter the most personal aspects of your life and freedoms.

Second, profit-motive is a very hospitable environment to medical advancements.  The U.S. is unquestionably the leader in world medical breakthroughs whether that is measured by private and public research expenditures, Nobel prize awards, or published articles and research in medical journals.  Today, for a company to bring a generic drug to market it costs between $600-800 million dollars.  A brand new drug costs between $2-3 billion dollars.  This is the cost of the research, chemistry, FDA wickets, studies, wait times, etc.  The reason a company is willing to spend billions is the guarantee of patent protection that allows them to exclusively sell that drug, once it is approved, for a given number of years.  (This year, Viagra loses its patent protection FYI)  So, Pfizer pays $2 billion for drug X, they have a patent and sell it for whatever they want to recover the costs of development and to make a profit.  Government health care necessarily uses price fixing methods to control costs, which removes the profitability of medical research by private companies.  If you take away a company’s patent rights or exclusive pricing control, they don’t make money and they don’t research and develop new medicine.  (By the way, this isn’t just pharmaceuticals, it’s relevant to medical devices, procedures, techniques, etc)  It sucks that medicine might be too expensive for people who need it, or some jackass buys the patent and increases the price 100 fold; I agree they are playing with people’s lives.  But I also know that if they didn’t get paid, they wouldn’t have invented or developed the drug in the first place.

So I don’t know, I don’t have an answer, just thoughts. But I do think two good places to start would be to look at policies surrounding patent duration and also cutting the cost of FDA approval, thought I know that’s a health and safety concern.  Nevertheless…

[Snuggie]

I’m weary of a fully cash based system for healthcare, even if doctors provide their prices upfront. Vets are almost all cash based and prices are competitive. But if the cost is too high, or the suffering is too great, I can put the dog down. That isn’t something I would do for my kid or my wife. So people expect to do whatever it takes to keep their family members alive and healthy. I don’t know what will solve this problem; personally I think Medicare for all would be the solution for most people, but it would not be without cost.

 

Of course a portion of expensive health problems can be solved by reducing obesity but that opens up a whole different can of worms, since it is a problem across every demographic in the US. I don’t want the government or google tracking my weight and denying healthcare if I don’t get my steps in.

 

[ThreeHoler]

So you’re tired?

[Lord Ratner]

A huge percentage of healthcare costs goes towards keeping old people alive when they should be dead. We cannot have a productive conversation about changing the healthcare system in the US without first addressing this. In the market, it's simple: until you're out of money. But when it's the government's money, the system collapses before the fake money runs out.

I love my grandma. I like visiting her whenever I can. But she shouldn't be alive, and the amount of money being spent by Medicare to keep her alive is staggering, and the only thing she's dying from is old age (94 years old).

We can easily afford to give every child in America unlimited healthcare. In fact, I think it should be that way. Full coverage until age 20, then lifetime coverage for chronic conditions that manifested during childhood. After that, you better have insurance.

But if you think the boomers, or any other generation of senior citizens is ever going to vote for something where other people get free healthcare and they don't, just ask my Sean Hannity-quoting, millennial-bashing, proudly conservative father who loses his mind anytime someone mentions making cuts to his precious Medicare.

This doesn't even get into the issues of producing doctors, questionable data on the efficacy of medical coverage, incentives to plan for retirement, etc.

[dream big]

2 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

A huge percentage of healthcare costs goes towards keeping old people alive when they should be dead. We cannot have a productive conversation about changing the healthcare system in the US without first addressing this. In the market, it's simple: until you're out of money. But when it's the government's money, the system collapses before the fake money runs out.

I love my grandma. I like visiting her whenever I can. But she shouldn't be alive, and the amount of money being spent by Medicare to keep her alive is staggering, and the only thing she's dying from is old age (94 years old).

We can easily afford to give every child in America unlimited healthcare. In fact, I think it should be that way. Full coverage until age 20, then lifetime coverage for chronic conditions that manifested during childhood. After that, you better have insurance.

But if you think the boomers, or any other generation of senior citizens is ever going to vote for something where other people get free healthcare and they don't, just ask my Sean Hannity-quoting, millennial-bashing, proudly conservative father who loses his mind anytime someone mentions making cuts to his precious Medicare.

This doesn't even get into the issues of producing doctors, questionable data on the efficacy of medical coverage, incentives to plan for retirement, etc.

Correct, there are many  drivers of healthcare cost.  Another side to this argument is that the people screeching for universal healthcare are the same people advocating for open borders and paying for undocumented individuals.  How the hell do we pay for that?! 

The best answer to healthcare would be to foster competition and innovation in the private market and have a small safety net for those who really need it.  

[brickhistory]

5 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

A huge percentage of healthcare costs goes towards keeping old people alive when they should be dead. 
...
This doesn't even get into the issues of producing doctors, questionable data on the efficacy of medical coverage, incentives to plan for retirement, etc.

Agreed that a small percentage of the population uses the biggest percentage of the health care pie.

But I'm a little confused by your post as to your point.  Are you arguing that 94-yr old Granny shouldn't be supported by the government's healthcare or at all, i.e., with family money?

If it's the government, who gets to decide life or death for Granny?

If it's ok to deny Granny continued care because of the cost, then, logically to me anyway, why do younger people, including kids, who have life=debilitating disease/injury/etc, get government coverage as you indicated?  QOL is QOL.  Money is money.

Which goes back to who makes those decisions.  If the gubmint is fubared on everything else, I don't want somebody faceless/nameless to make those decisions for me/mine.

As to your father's not wanting to give up his promised Medicare; 1) he was promised it at whatever benefit to him by the government in return for his taxes, is he really wrong to expect a commitment to be honored?  Which furthers my point that the government making broad brush social commitments is evil, e.g. Obamacare.  It has been historically impossible to take something away from the population once it's been "given." and 2) Would you be ok with a unilateral drastic change to Tricare along the lines you say your father does regarding Medicare?  You signed up with an understanding/agreement.  

Perspectives change along life's timeline and I don't think it's Uncle Sam's prerogative to decide when I've been around long enough.  I should.

If I missed your point, then apologies.

 

 

full disclosure:  I'm a penultimate year-group baby boomer.

Edited August 11, 2018 by brickhistory

[ThreeHoler]

Wasn’t there just some kid that the UK let die when he would have been treated in the US?

[Lord Ratner]

Agreed that a small percentage of the population uses the biggest percentage of the health care pie.
But I'm a little confused by your post as to your point.  Are you arguing that 94-yr old Granny shouldn't be supported by the government's healthcare or at all, i.e., with family money?
If it's the government, who gets to decide life or death for Granny?
If it's ok to deny Granny continued care because of the cost, then, logically to me anyway, why do younger people, including kids, who have life=debilitating disease/injury/etc, get government coverage as you indicated?  QOL is QOL.  Money is money.
Which goes back to who makes those decisions.  If the gubmint is fubared on everything else, I don't want somebody faceless/nameless to make those decisions for me/mine.
As to your father's not wanting to give up his promised Medicare; 1) he was promised it at whatever benefit to him by the government in return for his taxes, is he really wrong to expect a commitment to be honored?  Which furthers my point that the government making broad brush social commitments is evil, e.g. Obamacare.  It has been historically impossible to take something away from the population once it's been "given." and 2) Would you be ok with a unilateral drastic change to Tricare along the lines you say your father does regarding Medicare?  You signed up with an understanding/agreement.  
Perspectives change along life's timeline and I don't think it's Uncle Sam's prerogative to decide when I've been around long enough.  I should.
If I missed your point, then apologies.
 
 
full disclosure:  I'm a penultimate year-group baby boomer.

Yeah, you missed it. But it's the internet, so no worries.

I'm against govt-run healthcare. One reason is because in order to have it, those choices need to be made. People who want govt healthcare never want to talk about those choices.

My grandma should not be supported by the govt. They are paying to fight an unwinnable battle at the expense of other programs. If people want to spend their own money to do so, great. All for it.

QOL is not QOL. If you can't see the difference between a sick child and a sick old person, I can't help you. Denying the concept of differential worth between humans is one of my least favorite aspects of the progressive movement.

Promised? By who? If you promised to make it to my birthday party, but then the power went out in your part of the country for multiple days, and the only way to make it to my party was to leave your wife and child at home alone and unable to fend for themselves, would you still go?

We can argue all day about what is and isn't right, and what promises the government should or should not honor. But at the end of the day my political philosophies boil down to two very simple premises. 1) We don't sacrifice our children's future for today. Taking a loan out is okay, but not when you know that you will be worse off at the end of the loan then you were at the beginning.

2) Never ignore human nature. People will always choose their family over a principal. You see this everywhere. Rich liberals who decry school choice, but send their kids to the most expensive private schools. Calls for renewable energy, from the same people who demand no wind turbines be built that obstruct the view from their porch. Old conservatives who talk about the unsustainable levels of handouts from our government, as they drive to their govt funded Medicare appointments.

The ultimate goal of the progressive, socialist, liberal, whatever you want to call it, movement is the creation of a global community, and that will never, ever succeed. Even if it wasn't an impossible goal, people will always work harder for their family and their immediate community. Working harder means producing more. Producing more means more overall wealth. More overall wealth means a better world for everyone. Does it seem like a coincidence to anyone that the greatest, fastest improvements in the overall condition of humans on this planet, to include the very poorest amongst us, have occurred during the last century of unbridled capitalism in America? And the parallel socialist experiments have all, every single one, resulted in unspeakable horrors and millions of dead?

Free healthcare in Britain isn't helping the starving kids in India. The incredible fruits of the profit-motive are.

I'm not against universal healthcare because I don't think it's fair, or because I pity the rich doctors, or because Hillary likes it. I'm against it because a capitalist system is the best chance that my grandchildren won't know what cancer is.

If I have to die at 86 instead of 92 from kidney failure to achieve that, so be it.

[brickhistory]

Roger.

 

Or "copy" as the kids say today...

[Lawman]

Agreed that a small percentage of the population uses the biggest percentage of the health care pie.

But I'm a little confused by your post as to your point.  Are you arguing that 94-yr old Granny shouldn't be supported by the government's healthcare or at all, i.e., with family money?

If it's the government, who gets to decide life or death for Granny?

If it's ok to deny Granny continued care because of the cost, then, logically to me anyway, why do younger people, including kids, who have life=debilitating disease/injury/etc, get government coverage as you indicated?  QOL is QOL.  Money is money.

Which goes back to who makes those decisions.  If the gubmint is fubared on everything else, I don't want somebody faceless/nameless to make those decisions for me/mine.

As to your father's not wanting to give up his promised Medicare; 1) he was promised it at whatever benefit to him by the government in return for his taxes, is he really wrong to expect a commitment to be honored?  Which furthers my point that the government making broad brush social commitments is evil, e.g. Obamacare.  It has been historically impossible to take something away from the population once it's been "given." and 2) Would you be ok with a unilateral drastic change to Tricare along the lines you say your father does regarding Medicare?  You signed up with an understanding/agreement.  

Perspectives change along life's timeline and I don't think it's Uncle Sam's prerogative to decide when I've been around long enough.  I should.

If I missed your point, then apologies.

 

 

full disclosure:  I'm a penultimate year-group baby boomer.

 

My mother works in Hospice care at a major assisted living center.

 

Medicare is spending truck loads of money to basically keep people from dying today instead of next week. Part of it is the completely lack of oversight on spending like giving a healthy donor heart to an 85 year old instead of anybody else. The other bigger part is families not ready to let mom go to the point it’s cruel.

 

Have you ever seen a full code before like in real life and not on TV? It is violent. It is destructive. CPR breaks ribs on healthy people... and you’re doing it to a 91 lbs frail 80 year old who will spend the next few months dying slowly in massive amounts of drug washed pain, because we as a society won’t accept death is a natural and sometimes correct state.

[DEVIL]

Can we agree that this is getting a little ridiculous? For 9 to 14 days at a time (51 days so far) this yuge TFR knocks out all of these GA airports. I'd hope there'd be some scalability based on impact to local commerce for this (or any guy's) vacation. DC already has the SFRA, can't we make the traveling road show a 10 mile ring and call it good?

Random sportbitch of the day.

[brickhistory]

Two views of the same thing.

One is written as a straight news article, the other as an opinion piece about that article.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-poses-with-supporter-with-sexist-patch-at-motorcyclist-event/2018/08/13/fe531672-9f00-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.737d5db4c8bd

 

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/08/13/wapo-article-guaranteed-lead-trumps-impeachment...or-reelection

 

 

 

Oh, and FBI Agent Peter Strzok was fired today by the FBI.  So he gets his pension for doing 22 years and will write his self-righteous book ("Don Quixote" is already taken, btw), and will get his CNN/MSNBC appearances, but by next year, he will be forgotten.

With his soon to be ex-wife (remember he was dipping his wick in a DOJ lawyer who wasn't his spouse) getting 50% or more.

So, when the night is cold and the wind howling outside, and he's staring contemplatively into his scotch, will he think he did the right thing?

[MooseAg03]

Not to mention he just created a Twitter account and has a Go Fund me page looking to raise $150k. Disgusting.


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[MooseAg03]

A lot of us here have been arguing for a return to paper ballots, here’s a good reason why. There was another video floating around of a woman demonstrating hacking an actual machine and it took less than 2 minutes to gain admin access.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/08/13/11-year-old-hacks-replica-florida-election-site-changes-results/975121002/


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[Disco_Nav963]

On 8/14/2018 at 3:43 AM, MooseAg03 said:

A lot of us here have been arguing for a return to paper ballots, here’s a good reason why. There was another video floating around of a woman demonstrating hacking an actual machine and it took less than 2 minutes to gain admin access.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/08/13/11-year-old-hacks-replica-florida-election-site-changes-results/975121002/


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Voter-verified paper ballots is something no reasonable person should disagree with. In my prior life before the Air Force (and before I became a Democrat) I was an Early/Absentee ballot judge and Republican precinct chair in a medium population county in TX (~250,000 county residents). I went to meetings with county officials each election cycle along with representatives from the Democrats... And this was one thing everyone agreed upon. I can't even think of a reason for manufacturers of electronic voting machines to disagree since it gives them an opportunity to charge more for a Print feature! Blows my mind it isn't standard. (I vote by paper absentee ballot every two years anyway, so G2G.)

[drewpey]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/revoke-my-security-clearance-too-mr-president/2018/08/16/8b149b02-a178-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html?utm_term=.26f93ba123b1