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I can't believe people aren't tearing this asshole to threads. Between all the bullshit in his article, what he's really saying is this: let's pay less for hea

by earl 16y ago

I can't believe people aren't tearing this asshole to threads. Between all the bullshit in his article, what he's really saying is this: let's pay less for health insurance by transferring more costs to the individual. I suppose you might support this if you're so deluded as to think lots of people are going to the doctors office because they're bored and have nothing better to do than have time consuming, often humiliating, uncomfortable to painful procedures and tests performed on them on a schedule that's extremely inconvenient. OTOH, those of us whose heads aren't firmly buried up our assholes think that people mostly try hard not to go to the doctor or hospital because the experience sucks, and so the way this Dave asshole is trying to save money is by discouraging you from getting health care you need by making it cost more. ps -- people who don't straightforwardly acknowledge that health insurance isn't insurance, it's group cost pooling, are idiots who should be ignored in the health care debate. It's not insurance and shouldn't be because we can tell that in certain cases people will cost a lot of money to treat. Insurance would leave them out in the cold. Societies with integrity or conscience treat people anyway. Compare to insurance -- if you build a house in a flood zone on the florida cost, you should probably be told hell no -- no company will sell you insurance. If all the women in your family get breast cancer, we should still give you health insurance for when you get breast cancer.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I can't believe people aren't tearing this asshole to threads. Between all the bullshit in his article, what he's really saying is this: let's pay less for health insurance by transferring more costs to the individual. I suppose you might support this if you're so deluded as to think lots of people are going to the doctors office because they're bored and have nothing better to do than have time consuming, often humiliating, uncomfortable to painful procedures and tests performed on them on a schedule that's extremely inconvenient. This has been proven experimentally (by a randomized trial) to be true. When people pay more out of pocket for medicine (95% copay vs 5%), they consume 30% less medicine, but have statistically identical health outcomes. http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie/ http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie/ The reason people consume unnecessary medicine is unknown, but the fact that they do so is not in doubt. (I'm not even going to address your claim that "anyone who disagrees with me on the purpose of insurance are idiots".)
- earl 16y ago
  The glibertarians' favorite experiment -- which is (btw) 30 years old and unreplicated despite attempts, and has methodological flaws. To name just one: a number of people dropped out of the study. The authors have dismissed this as a concern, but you don't have to think to hard to figure out why it is a real problem. Second, as the author admits: "For most people enrolled in the RAND experiment, who were typical of Americans covered by employment-based insurance, the variation in use across the plans appeared to have minimal to no effects on health status. By contrast, for those who were both poor and sick -- people who might be found among those covered by Medicaid or lacking insurance -- the reduction in use was harmful, on average" Good system.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    This unproductive argument is exactly what's wrong with your Pickett's Charge case against the ethics of insurance as oppposed to "cost pooling". People who disagree with your slippery slope argument will just put you on their own slippery slope; pretty soon you'll be arguing that yes, it's only fair for us to be buying everyone's kids X360's. There are plenty of pragmatic problems in the current system to address arguments to. The solutions to those problems will improve people's lives without requiring anyone to adopt new political ideologies.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I'll ignore you ad-hominem attack on people you disagree with. Please name a single attempt to replicate the RAND experiment (i.e., a randomized trial). Really, I'm waiting. I ask because I'd really love to see something more current. It would be amazingly useful. Incidentally, you are eliding some other interesting facts the RAND experiment turned up. For the healthiest 80% of the poor, being in the 5% copay group made them less healthy. In all cases, the variation was very small. This is roughly what you'd expect in a study statistically measuring many null results - a few measures turn up non-zero purely by chance. Similarly, if you study the affect of prayer on 30 or 40 different medical problems, you are likely to come up with 1 or 2 positives.
- brudgers 16y ago
orangecat 16y ago
this Dave asshole is trying to save money is by discouraging you from getting health care you need by making it cost more Yeah. Also, he's trying to make you drive an unsafe car by not paying for your Volvo. There's no reason why your employer should be involved with your health insurance. Our current system eliminates pricing signals, discourages entrepreneurship, doubly screws you if you lose your job, and means that you get to disclose personal health information to HR. health insurance isn't insurance Yes, and this is the source of much confusion in these discussions. Most of us would be better off with real insurance, where we pay for minor and routine services directly, and are still protected from large unexpected expenses. It's true that some people can't get real insurance because of preexisting conditions, and we should help them directly.

by earl 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

earl 16y ago
The glibertarians' favorite experiment -- which is (btw) 30 years old and unreplicated despite attempts, and has methodological flaws. To name just one: a number of people dropped out of the study. The authors have dismissed this as a concern, but you don't have to think to hard to figure out why it is a real problem. Second, as the author admits: "For most people enrolled in the RAND experiment, who were typical of Americans covered by employment-based insurance, the variation in use across the plans appeared to have minimal to no effects on health status. By contrast, for those who were both poor and sick -- people who might be found among those covered by Medicaid or lacking insurance -- the reduction in use was harmful, on average" Good system.
- tptacek 16y ago
  This unproductive argument is exactly what's wrong with your Pickett's Charge case against the ethics of insurance as oppposed to "cost pooling". People who disagree with your slippery slope argument will just put you on their own slippery slope; pretty soon you'll be arguing that yes, it's only fair for us to be buying everyone's kids X360's. There are plenty of pragmatic problems in the current system to address arguments to. The solutions to those problems will improve people's lives without requiring anyone to adopt new political ideologies.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I'll ignore you ad-hominem attack on people you disagree with. Please name a single attempt to replicate the RAND experiment (i.e., a randomized trial). Really, I'm waiting. I ask because I'd really love to see something more current. It would be amazingly useful. Incidentally, you are eliding some other interesting facts the RAND experiment turned up. For the healthiest 80% of the poor, being in the 5% copay group made them less healthy. In all cases, the variation was very small. This is roughly what you'd expect in a study statistically measuring many null results - a few measures turn up non-zero purely by chance. Similarly, if you study the affect of prayer on 30 or 40 different medical problems, you are likely to come up with 1 or 2 positives.
brudgers 16y ago

orangecat 16y ago

this Dave asshole is trying to save money is by discouraging you from getting health care you need by making it cost more Yeah. Also, he's trying to make you drive an unsafe car by not paying for your Volvo. There's no reason why your employer should be involved with your health insurance. Our current system eliminates pricing signals, discourages entrepreneurship, doubly screws you if you lose your job, and means that you get to disclose personal health information to HR. health insurance isn't insurance Yes, and this is the source of much confusion in these discussions. Most of us would be better off with real insurance, where we pay for minor and routine services directly, and are still protected from large unexpected expenses. It's true that some people can't get real insurance because of preexisting conditions, and we should help them directly.