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Obama Proposal To See Federal Government Block Health Insurance Rate Hikes
It's good that the rest of the economy is humming along, and the whole record unemployment thing is under control, cause we were wondering when the president would refocus his efforts on such mission critical things as having the government determine health insurance rates. Apparently the answer to the last question is tomorrow. According to the NYT, "Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation’s health care system, White House officials said."
This whole thing is just getting way out of hand:
By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a
new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama
is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent
announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the
Democrats’ health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from predatory
insurers.
And yes, just when you thought government couldn't get any more socialist, er, pardon, bigger, here's Johnny:
The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human
services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium
increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance
regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate
Authority, comprised of health industry experts that would issue an
annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases
based on conditions in the market.Officials said they envisioned the provision taking effect immediately after the health care bill is signed into law.
The
legislation would call on the secretary of health and human services to
work with state regulators to develop an annual review of rate
increases, and if increases are deemed “unjustified” the secretary or
the state could block the increase, order the insurer to change it, or
even issue a rebate to beneficiaries.
In this vein, how long before we get a "Credit Card Rate Authority", a "Bid Offer Spread Arbitrage Authority" and, just jokingly (not really), a "Thank God There Is A PPT So Pay The Government A Tenth Of Your AUM Authority"? Yes, we are serious. And we are even more confused how [Lenin|Stalin|Khrushchev|Brezhnev|Chernenko] did not think of all these things when they had the chance... Oh wait, they did.
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Wish they'd find a way to block the one i got handed retro-active to the beginning of just this year. I carry my own blue cross and i've seen at least a 10% increase in my premium every January, (never mind that that's like 4+ times the rate of inflation) for the past 6 years. I don't know how they'd pay for it, (run the printer faster?) but health insurance premiums are out of control, and have been for some time imo.
I had an individual plan with Blue Shield of CA (5000 deduct) ... 1500 / month ... moved to Hawaii got HMO (0 deduct) ... 700 / month.
Maybe not everyone could do what you did bud...
I understand but this is why national potability is so critical ... competition will contain cost increases. Right now it's a big shill game with the Administration encouraging abuses with one hand (to encourage rage) and calling for the curbing of government policy increases with the other. If enacted, he can then point to the government plan and say everyone should be 'allowed' to have a plan that effectively contains costs. Three Card Monte 101.
He lies!
You mean that GOP Congressman was right during the State of the Union speech last January? Yeah, we're in dire straits under current rule but I'm worried about gridlock putting us in deeper shit than just healthcare. Your points are well taken and someday Hawaii may be the solution for many more unless AYS, there's a major breakthrough in how things work in Washington (& the states). I'm just not confident that would happen without more catostophic events such as currency devaluation and lost American leadership.....
Gridlock ... hey bring it on ... the best thing that could happen to us would be that nothing gets done. Again, I come from Ca where, so many things got done in the last five years they it is now a failed state and the only hope is that a bankruptcy judge orders a halt to new legislation ... send the ear-mark grease monkeys home and pray for Gridlock.
Can they form a commission to stop unconscionable tax increases by federal, state and local gov'ts?
i've seen at least a 10% increase in my premium every January, (never mind that that's like 4+ times the rate of inflation) for the past 6 years.
Only if you use the govt inflation stats.
Perhaps it's worse where you live than where i am. Or maybe it's just that i'm old enough that i remember it being a lot worse. For example back in the 70s & 80s the price for gasoline & heating oil (and damned near everything else) only seemed to go one way, up. Now, gas & fuel oil prices seem to swing both ways regularly. The prices of most other things seem to have remained relatively stable in my area in the past couple of years.
When compared to those thrilling days of yester-year mentioned above, i haven't really noticed a great deal of inflation on a day-to-day basis like i did back in the day, except in terms of my health care costs (insurance premiums, doctor bills, medicine & everything else related) in the past few years.
Rent control anyone? Gas rations... no takers? History for 200 Alex.
...just saw this popup on turbo tax.... for a second i thought we only got our refund in saving bonds now! (no i didnt even buy one.. so i will most likely get audited or shot)
Putting Your Refund on U.S. Series I Savings BondsThis year, the IRS has a new program that allows you to use all or part of your tax refund to buy U.S. Series I savings bonds.
To do this, first choose an option on this screen other than to receive a check (even though you want savings bonds). Check the box next to "I would like to split my refund into more than one account". Choose the "Use my refund to buy savings bonds" option at the top of the next screen.
You can put your refund on savings bonds if you use direct deposit, regardless of whether you e-file or print and mail your return.
You can buy up to $5,000 in savings bonds, in multiples of $50. The bonds will be issued in your name, or if married filing jointly, in the names of you and your spouse.
Your savings bonds will be mailed to you at the address shown on your tax return.
For more information on Series I U.S. Savings Bonds, please visitwww.treasurydirect.gov
Health Insurance should be a utility.
I'm all for the regualtion of profits of Utilities and if the insurance companies don't like they can get the fuck out of town.
Just last week our local behemoth announced a 50% increase in profits AND wants to raise rates by 30%. Fuck every single goddamned one of them, they are no better than the Goldman Sucks, Hank Paulsons, Joe Cassanos, and other scum of the world.
I hope they are regulated down to a 5% net income.
Health insurance can be a utility when health is a commondity. I would hate your health being interchangeable with my health.
And I thought this man was intelligent!!
The insurance companies will simply become even more aggressinve in cost control, resulting in lower services to the insured. Does O really think he will not get the "credit" for this outcome?
He is in manic mode to demonize Health Care in advance of the 2/25 Summit, so he can point to them as the 'real' reason that the system is broken and that we must pass legislation to solve the problem ... even if by reconciliation.
Why don't we just bring back Nixonian wage and price controls circa 1971? Oh, that's right...it was a monumental failure.
everything else they are doing was also a monumental failure when tried before, that doesn't seem to be a consideration
True. The gargantuan failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hasn't even given them pause when considering a government takeover of health care.
Canada has universal helath care.
If you pay taxes in Canada you get Free health care.
I don't understand how you can pay taxes and then call the product free. By that token, we have "free" government in the US. It just doesn't always seem so free.
To say nothing of our wonderful, top-notch public school system. Or postal service.
Dump on the Postal Service all you want, but remember that they're mandated to serve every citizen. Part of what makes them so expensive is that they have to be able to carry a postcard from Crotchrot Tennessee to Moose Balls Alaska. Try and see how much FedEx charges for that.
Also, did you know that UPS/FedEx use the Post Office for last-mile delivery in rural regions?
I was wondering if there was anybody old enough to remember what a naive bellyflop that was. Even if I was a farkin' pinko, commie hippie.. I have to admit that price fixing doesn't work. We tried it. It sucked. All it does is kick-the-can down the road.
Oh, sorry,... I forgot. That's the policy we are using, rather than face up to the beatings we so richly deserve.
It's hard to say which deserves more self-loathing... the chithouse of a financial system the government and Banks built, or the massive cesspool of solutions they created to hide the chithouse and the peasants' bodies.
Retail customers should have to fill out a Suicide Watch form whenever they place a buy on an equity. If they flag positive, put the order through. At least they are choosing how they want to end it.
The rest of us can stand on the beach, and watch the government attempt to use harsh language to keep the tidal wave from hitting shore. At least we'll have satisfied our curiousity as to where the wave is going to break first.
backdoor nationalized health care, here we come
Sorry ... He's lookin for the front door
Backdoor? The reality is that we already have a form of nationalized health care. Consider this: no person in need of immediate care, who turns up at a hospital, is denied care. The health care system then simply seeks payment after the fact. If the uninsured patient has assets, they go after the assets, if that patient is destitute, the go after government money. When the government pays, it pays at a bare-bones preferred rate. When the patient pays, they pay massively inflated fee-for-service rates. That's why the working poor and the uninsured with moderate assets get wiped out, leading to medical bankruptcy. This massive cost shifting is exemplified this: last summer i had an MRI, and i chatted with the clinic accountant. My PPO provider had negotiated a $600 rate, which I paid out of pocket (pre-deductable). The uninsured, by contrast, are charged $1200 for the same service. The system is ALREADY broken, and burdened by a highly flawed de facto 'socialist' cost shifting system.
2 years ago my mri cost me 3,300.00. I was at the hospital 4 hours , i paid cash and no results to show for it? Still dont know whats wrong, learned to live with more pain and a mystery i cant afford to solve. I asked to use a ultra sound on myself and found i have to go truh a circus act first.
I welcome my last day on earth with the same quiet joy i live the moment.
Thailand's got excellent medical care at prices up to 90% less than Stateside. Even with the cost of the flight you're looking at 50-60% less.
The backdoor involved is going to be yours, mine, and that of everyone else who makes between $50k and $10M a year.
Yep. They tried that in Zimbabwe too. Devaluing the currency while trying to hold prices fixed. It didn't drive prices down but did drive what little industry they still had out of the country.
Just as "ronald reagan proved deficits don't matter" zimbabwe proved that currency debasement is free. Just reprint the dollars with 10 Zeros whacked off the end every couple of months and we'll be fine.
I wish El Jefe and his junta would just get down with it and announce that Barry will be El Emperador for life, so we can get to the point of finding out what kind of backbone is left in this God forsaken country.
The $3000.00 x-ray came back negative. Nothing to see. Not one vertabra remains. Diagnosis..... poor.
America's backbone dissolved, right after JFK was assassinated. Well, "America" or "the United States of America", really didn't exist in 1963, FDR surrendered to the IMF in 1933, which marked the end of the Republic.
Let's see. The health insurance bill was failing due to blowback against forcing people to buy a plan. How convenient that the health insurers would cooperate by behaving badly at the proper timing. Obama and the dems need to pass this to save the mid term election. The insurers are one of their biggest benefactors. Naw, must be a coincidence.
If it passes it will be worse for them, not just this year for the next 20+ years. Their only hope was to quietly let it die with dignity, while choosing one or two simple ideas that had true bipartisan support (like an 80-20 Senate vote), that could have been the beginnings of a newly charted course.
Now Obama is officially flouting the will of 70% of the country's citizens.
The only things capable of getting the kind of bipartisan support you describe in the current Senate are irrelevant fluff like the "Celebrating Grandma's Apple Pie Act". Any remotely serious policy initiative offered by the Democrats will be rejected, even by Republicans who supported it before the Democrats got onboard. And the Republicans don't seem to have much to counteroffer besides tax cuts (which, if you weren't keeping track, are their response to good times and bad times alike).
And some of that 70% number that disapproves of the current plan thinks it doesn't go far enough to straighten the system out.
I keep going over the constitution and nowhere do I see where our real countrymen said it is ok for the govt. to FORCE Americans to join a plan, health plan, any plan. I thought we still had a choice since this is America
Man, am I stupid.
Geesh!
What is this "Constitution" of which you speak, comrade?
Isn't that one of the stats you roll for, when you're setting up your character?
Define: Excessive.
There in lies the loophole.
Ah yes. Created or Saved. Excessive. Don't need a lawyer to catch that one, but unfortunately so many (though not too many here, I'd imagine,) miss that crap over and again. Just like when anyone says 'The american people' or 'the common good' they're totally butt fucking your ability to be addressed as an adult. "you are a child, and you respond to patriotic heart string tugs, so that is how we shall address you." Which reminds me, there is this giant (though on some level laudable) movement in PA to free up beer distribution so that you can buy beer at convenience stores and such. Someone must be running for office on the "Jay Leno goes better with a Six Pack" platform.
Excessive is, whatever your definition of "is" is.
classic.
all the mistakes of FDR and Hoover. its deja vu all over again. just don't remind him about the gold stealing part.
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. --Paul Johnson
I actually think the only reason why he is proposing the idea is to make Republicans look bad - he knows that no matter how much a individual Republican Senator or Congressman wants to limit the increase in health care costs, he knows none of em will vote for government control of prices. Until this President considers serious tort reform along with allowing interstate competition for health insurance, I will not trust his true intentions.
Exactly. He refuses to try the free things first! It would cost exactly zero dollars to try both of those excellent ideas, and he won't do it.
Free? But what about the lawyers and healthcare bureaucrats put out of work? How will they be able to contribute to political plans if the "free" stuff is tried?
Glad I could clear that up for you.
Was my point. And, also that everyone sees it happening real time and knows what he's doing. He's bought and paid for by special interests. It's not a real health reform plan, it's a health control plan.
USGovt price caps = Shortages & Rationing.
Can we lose the multiplication captcha questions? I can't do those in my head! :(
Has it occurred to you that this is precisely what Obama wants. price cap policy rates and insures stop writing policies. Suddenly there is and access problem and the 'free market' isn't working...
Guess we really NEED that UNIVERSAL plan, eh? er... I mean "health care exchange."
If The One pulls this off, abandon all hope. Can't wait for the prop lines in Vegas on which price/wage controls he sets next. Who is John Galt?
This country is not wired for socialism. Never was, never will be.
Obama is loser, doing what losers do. Just like an addict, is the last one to find out, that what he's doing isn't going to work. Lot's of broken promises, lies, in the same breath. Believing that nobody knows and he's the only one doing it.
After the last depression the country swung left and this time it's going right. The pendulum has come back. Obama is our Hoover and Ron Paul will end the FED.
What is the current make-up of congress? Oh, yeah 90% are lawyers so don't expect any serious tort reform anytime soon.
yup - and if they are a lawyer who happens to be a banker, then you have a real problem.
Wow. He'll be lucky to get a whole term. He could be the first president impeached for simple incompetence and obnoxiousness.
We desperately need to rein in health care costs, but this is far, far, far from anything that would effectively do so.
Although I can't directly see the angle on how this would work to the benefit of the insurers, I do suspect that angle is in the background. Perhaps by instituting government control, they can manage to get automatic annual rate increases without competition or state-level interference.
At this point he isn't just ignorinng the will of the people, he's acting in direct contradiction to their will. At what point does this cross over into a leader gone rogue, and at what point is this impeachable.
Huge swaths of his 'healtcare proposals' aren't even compatible with the Constitution. The individual mandate all by itself is enough to make the whole bill illegitimate.
Agree completely, but sadly nothing Obama has done is an impeachable offense since no crime has been committed (other than crimes against common sense which doesn't really fly in a court of law).
He took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Not upholding it and or intentionally distorting it is an impeachable offense.
Oh, right. I see you're one of those people who believes in common-sense or even literal readings of the law and Constitution. I used to be one of those.
Anyway, Bob Barr's memo during the Clinton impeachment said, IIRC, that pretty much anything Congress deemed to be "high crimes and misdemeanors" was so. And there is no chance of the SCT touching an impeachment trial.
This is all just a pipe dream anyway.
The irony is that the Anthem Blue Cross rate hikes are in response to
... wait for it ...
new rules imposed by Sacramento.
Can you beat that?
Can any of you defenders of Insurance Company rate hikes offer any reasonable explanations to justify the rate hikes? My premiums are going up 28% next month. So I shop around. I have doctors as clients. They are not seeing their incomes rise. I have clients who advise hospitals - the hospital income picture is a disaster. Anybody else out there in the marketplace getting 20%-30% price increases to stick? I know all of the over-utilization arguments.
Cheering on the Insurance Companies on the basis of free enterprise is as ridiculous as Obama's comments that Lloyd and Jamie are "savvy businessmen".
I'm no defender of insurance companies....but I think they have a valid argument that medicare reimbursement is insufficient to run hospitals therefore private insurance patients have to pick up the slack.
So, are you saying the insurance companies getting billed more? Because I'm not seeing anything that suggests that their payouts are going up, only their profits.
Yes medicare pays less and private insurers pay more.
Thinking we have anything close to free enterprise in the medical industry is pure fantasy kool-aid stuff. It is a highly regulated industry with huge subsidies and the market distortions are such that true price discovery is impossible. Rising rates are inevitable, because of the government's intervention.
You are equating the medical industry with health insurance companies. I keep seeing that happen a lot. They are not the same thing. The medical industry are the ones who actually fix you when you are sick. The health insurance industry are the guys who stand between you and the medical industry and take the biggest slice of the pie they can.
I'm just not sure why you think it's going to any cheaper if this insane piece of legislation were to ever pass. Nobody, not one single group of people, will pay less for anything health related under this plan.
Their alleged big selling point: It helps all the poor and unisured who desire insurance. Wrong: those people get free medical already under Medicaid regardless of age. Medicaid is separate from Medicare and specifically helps poor people, and especially poor children with further strenghtening under schip.
Well, if Republicans get their way, 'those people' won't be leeching off our money anymore, so they'll need these reforms.
You're lying. Show me where there is or ever was any pending legislation to remove Medicaid. You're making up crap out of whole cloth just like your dear leader.
I'm having trouble thinking of things that are much worse than being a stressed out medical student with mounting debt, that exacerbates the stress, whilst seeing Obama create a government mandated healthcare system that will likely make it virtually impossible to ever pay off student loans for medical school -- at current levels of cost.
Move to some other country and make them chase you for the loan payments.
Are you suggesting that maybe we should have Medical School be an official benefit like Social Security then?
"whilst seeing Obama create a government mandated healthcare system that will likely make it virtually impossible to ever pay off student loans for medical school -- at current levels of cost."
We crossed that line years ago.
Take your average college graduate's ridiculous level of debt, and add $300,000 to it.
Oh, and you can't start working until you're in your mid thirties.
How'd you like to plan on finally achieving a net worth of $0 at the age of 47.
Yea, my nephew was debating medical school or buying the nearby service station were the owner retired. He was good with his hands in cars. He loved cars.
Well he bought the service station (at 21) and after paying the loan in four years, he became a millionaire in his late thirties.
That's how convoluted and out of reality the higher education system is.
Be a doctor and be worth $0 at 47. You are very right.
Well, we need ditch diggers too..
CS Judge Elihu Smails
One of my sisters is in med school. There are government programs which will cover med-school debts if the graduate works in certain inner city areas for a few years.
stressed out single mother who did meth when she was a stripper, before she had a kid, whilest seeing obama destroy 'merica and ruin any chance at single payer (real health care). don't worry doc, your med bills will vanish with inflation.
Is Wellpoint acting as sock puppet here? When I heard they were raising rates 25% I immediately thought this was some fake out designed to set up a straw man for Obama to knock down.
"And yes, just when you thought government couldn't get any more socialist, er, pardon, bigger, here's Johnny:"
Maybe we could just contract it out to Blackwater too
Just Remember "O" was put in place to further the Oligarches' agenda and to be the fall guy when, after a few years into the process, things really got bad. Well, we're gettin' there and, so far, the plan is working perfectly.
Keep in mind the "real game" is several layers deep and you, dear comrades, will never be privy to the real agenda. So go ahead, let "O" have it - just the way it has been planned all along.
Meanwhile, "Got Toothpaste"?
Oh in the new rate program all "those" procedures and care regimes are in the "elective" schedule.
"elective" = cash OR out of country.
I buy family insurance through Anthem (not through employer) and saw a 24% rate hike last year, followed by a 15% hike this year. My wife and I didn't even go to the doctor in 2009 and our daughter only went for regular check ups. In other words, we didn't even cover our deductable, so I'm not understanding how we cost them any money...yet they hike our rates 15%.
Just confused as to why you think you're ever going to pay less under Obamacare? You're still going to pay more, probably egregiously so while premiums get jammed higher immediately before it becomes illegal.
You don't even know what you're supporting. Just like huge numbers of Obama's voters from 11/08.
This whole things smirks of a classic "Red Flag"
Competition has a proven track record when it comes to price control. This course mentioned above furthers progress along the path of centralization, which creates an environment in which companies that can pool monetary resources to influence policy and pricing in D.C. eventually prevail. Sure, there might be the appearance of a momentary gain, but the taxpayer will eventually get gamed.
The most effective path to pursue is to entrust individuals with the responsibility of conserving and maximizing the effectiveness of their earnings.
Governing bodies have a critical role insuring medical practitioner quality, drug safety, etcetera, but I fear implementing cost controls will negatively impact quality, which imparts it's own costs. In addition, such actions will probably subject citizens to continually rising medical costs through taxation, merely shifting the outflow from one column of your paycheck to another column.
Leadership. Morals. What's my cut?
I don't feel sorry for your insurance cost increases. Just send a few illegals home! That would make a huge difference in insurance costs. Especially in California. You're paying for em!
Yes, this bill is a huge win for illegal gang members. This guarantees taxpayers continue to pay for all gun shot wounds and stabbings at the emergency room.
Insurance companies capitalize on human fear. Just watch their commercials.
Insurance companies were cash rich from the excessive profits and they gambled these profits in derivatives and lost.
Do you want revenge? Drop out. Starve them.
Eleven years ago, we priced a family plan and it was $1500 per month with many restrictions, copayments, caps on coverage and myriads of small print. We decided that if we did not get seriously sick for the next two years we will be ahead. We started a self-insurance fund and saved 198k. We have detailed spread sheets and so far we have only spent 33k and most of these will not be covered anyway.
We have contingency plans in case of serious sickness or elective surgery to be performed overseas. For emergencies and accidents we have travel insurance bought overseas and valid in the US. (very reasonable)
We also make many calls and bargain with doctors. It is amazing that for similar cases doctors will charge from $60 to $240. Avoid large fancy buildings with high rent. Same with labs. However, lately large labs have been buying out the competition.
We make sure to park the Porsche a block away from the doctor's office
Look, i hate Big Pharma as much as the next person yet let us think this through. FIRST the US Gov commands pharma on how much they can charge for their services, the next thing you know it will be the next organization... and eventually YOUR business. If America truly is based in capitalism, then what oBOMBa is proposing is flat out ILLEGAL imho and Welcome To The USSA Komrad where the State controls virtually everything... INCLUDING your line of work.
PS: IMHO Big Pharma is VERY evil and US residents should be able to get prescriptions drugs from Canada and other sources at lower costs. The USA government is blocking this FREEDOM OF CHOICE btw.
PS: As everyone on ZH knows, the USA is running the world's largest PONZI schemes when it comes to so-so security and future obligations after retirement that includes medical. What oBOMBa is trying to do is strongarm an industry because the US Gov is insolvent right now and will be totally SOL once all the baby boomers reach retirement.
Free Viagra ..got freedom?
"IMHO Big Pharma is VERY evil and US residents should be able to get prescriptions drugs from Canada and other sources at lower costs."
It is really wonder what people can say they know nothing about. Let us see:
- Canada has close to nothing pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capabilities
- So, where are these all cheap drugs coming from?
-- From US Pharma selling US developed and manufactured drugs to Canada under highly discounted Canada government & US Pharma negotiated prices (these re-imported back to America drug discounted very little)
-- Fake "drugs" from developed countries (like India, China, etc.). These drugs were neither tested nor have anything to do with the drugs patients think they are buying. At the best, these drugs can be placebos.
Finally, let us look at the real data:
Article from the "Investor's Business Daily.."
It provides some very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada .
Percentage of Americans diagnosed with mysterious secondary condition after initial services rendered, placed on permanent appointment loop and prescriptions.
99.9%.
Priceless
"...let us look at the real data:
Article from the "Investor's Business Daily..."
WTF does "Investor's Business Daily" know about actual medical data and drugs? It is for INVESTORS to MAXIMIZE profits (read: Big Pharma gets more $$$$). That is like joke about Bose and how they use Gold Digest review quotes because Golf Digest surely knows about SOUND QUALITY of audio products.
And do not get me going about all the fake/ghost writing medical 'research' articles that appear in the New England Journal and other such items, which are actually ghost written by, guess who, BIG PHARMA and the magazine actuallt defended this type of practice. So wake up and smell the coffee, if you really think that an Investor magazine knows about the medical industry then i suggest you go to McDonalds and ask the person behind the counter what they think about the current Russia and China energy deal development and how it pertains to the recent Israel and Georga arms deal.
What do you know about the actual medical data? You seem to be an authority on many things??? Enlighten us oh truth revealer.
This is so full of crap, I don't know where to begin. So I'll just pop your bullshit balloons one by one:
" Canada has close to nothing pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capabilities"
This is complete crap. Anyone who's driven into Montreal along the 540 from the west passes through a belt of buildings with names like Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, etc. These subsidiaries of US and global firms produce primary, secondary, and tertiary R&D, and they spend over $1 billion a year on it. Merck Frosst Canada, in particular, was responsible for about 15% of all of parent Merck's patents from 1998-2004. So bullshit there's no R&D here.
The Canadian generic manufacturers spend over $615 million a year on R&D, and they PRODUCE billions of dollars of generic drugs each year. It is these generics that, by and large, are responsible for Canada's less expensive drugs. They produced 20% by sales of the Canadian market last year, but a much larger share in terms of number of prescriptions. I'm diabetic; 540 Metformin cost me $40 Cdn plus the dispensing fee (about $8). Try to get the similar number of Glucophage in the US for a similar price. I'll wait....
-- From US Pharma selling US developed and manufactured drugs to Canada under highly discounted Canada government & US Pharma negotiated prices (these re-imported back to America drug discounted very little)
Again, I call bullshit. Most Canadian prescriptions are filled by drugs made by Canadian manufacturers. It's true our provincial single-payer health systems can negotiate lower prices from US firms for drugs that are still under license; have you never heard of "volume discounts"? When you're buying on behalf of 11 million people, as Ontario does, you do have a bit of clout.
Fake "drugs" from developed countries (like India, China, etc.). These drugs were neither tested nor have anything to do with the drugs patients think they are buying. At the best, these drugs can be placebos.
First, I think it's amusing you consider India and China "developed countries". Second, imports of drugs from these countries are non-existent, except for folk remedies popular with Indian and Chinese immigrants. This statement is complete and utter bullshit. Finally:
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
I'm diabetic; it didn't take six months after my GP suspected that I had diabetes to be treated; it took six days, and that's only because it took me six days to get back to see her for a fasting blood test. She took the blood about 8:30 am; asked me to wait. At about 10:30 am, I was called back, told that I had very high blood sugars, was given an immediate prescription, and was immediately booked into the hospital's Diabetes Education Centre, and to see a nutritionist.
My brother's GP now suspects he's "pre-diabetic"; he is already testing his blood sugar, and has been given diet and exercise recommendations before he's even developed the disease. I call bullshit again.
I'm the first one to say there are flaws in Canada's health care system. But your ravings are those of a complete lunatic, completely unaware of the facts, and who apparently just makes shit up as he goes.
It's out of control. Reported Mish this evening: Please consider Put shackles on jail costs:
Monmouth County Freeholder John D'Amico last week proposed turning the county jail over to a private operator, saying the union salaries paid to the 300 correction officers who work there are "unsustainable."
That's putting it mildly
The two highest-paid workers in the county last year were corrections officers, who more than doubled their base pay with overtime. Dana J. Townsend and Robert B. Kornett were the beneficiaries of an out-of-control system. In 2009, both of them raked in $186,000 each — $11,000 more than Gov. Chris Christie. And each received more than $98,000 in overtime alone.
More than 200 guards are due to receive the top-step base salaries of $89,000 or $90,500 if the union's proposals are adopted in pending interest arbitration. Last year, 36 corrections officers made more than $130,000 in base pay and overtime, and 150 made more than $100,000.
The abuses of overtime and excessive salaries paid to corrections officers are nothing new. It's time to do something about it. Taxpayers should let the freeholders know they need to bring the wildly inflated costs under control.
Difficult times often call for drastic measures. Privatization of the Monmouth County jail must be a serious option and not merely a bargaining chip to be used against the union.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
legalize (and regulate and tax) recreational drugs. see the correctional officers' overtime fall. and that isn't 1% of the benefits that would flow from such change.
LiberTARDs UNITE!!!
**** ALERT***Lets Make A Deal will air at its new time and location at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW......
Hey Mr. Change... President Barry O-Hoover
Why don't you just let me buy into Medicare if I want?
Oh, Rahm says no campaign bribes in letting the public having "coverage comparable to what Congress and Federal employees have."
Know where I got that quote President Barry O-Hoover?
Barack Obama's Lying Ass Blueprint for Change
Page 6, I beleive...
If I choose Medicare you up my payroll tax rate from 1.45% to something reasonable to pay for it. In Denmark, you pay an 8% payroll tax for full universal coverage. Medicare is far from that so let us say a cap with an employer match.
That way if Anthem wants to jack up rates let them. People can vote with their dollars and buy elsewhere.
That is what a market does, right Mr. Change?
Now explain to me why Baseball and the Health Insurance industry have Congressional exemptions from anti trust violations...
Do I have to explain everything to this new fucker? George Bush... give the new guy your DUNCE CAP.
problem is and escape claws below make some valid points. the rest of the advanced world seems to get as good or better overall health results while spending about half as much money on healthcare as the u.s. (with the pain in the ass problems of employment ties and the pre-existing condition exclusion solved).
however obama's post-election healthcare proposal generally and this new healthcare wrinkle particularly seem tellingly similar to the reflexive responses of the bush and obama administrations to the financial crisis. don't create policy that improves the situation simply and relatively justly: say let people have the option of buying into a medicare that can negotiate drug prices or, with the financial crisis, treat too big to fail as the small enough to fail were treated and let the bondholders take the haircut not the taxpayers.
no, each situation, like bear stearns, lehman brothers, aig, goldman sachs is an individual case which we must evaluate and decide what exactly we think ought to be done. sounds like the maximum political contribution shakedown potential with the minimum likely improvement for the actual end users/citizens.
Since when did the Tea Baggers join this forum?
Really people? Do you all have Stockholm syndrome or something? It's one thing for the government to hand things out, but it's another for it to limit somebody from f-ing you in the ass with something that you can't really "chose" to have.
Some of the great advantages of our current system:
Insurance tied to employment. Lose your job, loose your insurance. Unfortunately, some people can still benefit from COBRA.
Higher premiums or loss of coverage for those who are sick.
Pre-existing conditions not insured.
Inability to negotiate for lower drug costs.
If we lose these advantages we might as well give up and rename the USA the USSA!
+1
Just remember folks the only difference between
price fixing and price gauging is whether you are
a buyer or a seller.
"based on conditions in the market"
So "the market", debauched and discredited, gets to determine how we live or die?
Is this the best we can do? lol
Hey, price-setting worked for Bobby Mugabe didn't it?
It's time to look beyond our own boarders and narrow cultural, masculine-capitalist worldview when identifying solutions to problems such as these.
Time to end abusive practices. We live in a global deflationary environment; there is no reason for 30-50% profits for unskilled paper pushers and no reason for insurance rates to go up many multiples of CPI.
If you're in an operating room, who do you want in there with you, a surgeon or an insurance CEO? Insurance companies could vanish, like a gaslighter or blacksmith, and capitalism would be fine. Making a Glass-Steagall ruling for insurance companies is overdue, considering consumers can pay insurance fees and then be dropped with no recourse to catastrophic results, while no one threatens the CEO's second and third vacation house.
If you're in an operating room, who do you want in there with you, a surgeon or an insurance CEO?
A government bureaucrat would be an improvement?
Hey, so you don't want anyone in the operating room except you and your surgeon? Easy answer - pay for it yourself. If you want "someone else" to pay for it then that "someone else" gets a say in the matter.
BTW, these "price controls" are working wonders in MA. They've kept cost increases to a mere 3-4 times the stated inflation rate, and have eliminated scads of coverage. So yeah, it's working like a charm. But at least it's really, really expensive too.
You know what I want out of insurance? I want to pay my premium and have them pay for my medical care. Period. The current system employs thousands of people trying to find ways to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Single Payer insurance would be the perfect system (hell, it doesn't even have to be the government, as long as there's strong regulation to curbstomp them if they ever try fucking anyone again).
So at the end of the day you want someone else to pay for medical care that is provided to you. Good luck with that, but unless you manage to negotiate a "I get whatever healthcare I want, when I want it, and where I want it, and you get to pay for it without question" clause in your health insurance then I suspect you're going to be greatly, deeply disappointed with reality.
Got news for you Buttercup, when you want your car insurance to pay for a repair to your car, or your homeowners insurance to pay for repairs to your house, then they get to have input as per the policy that, ahem, you signed.
Why health insurance should work any different is a circle that is seemingly going to be left unsquared. And how you think this will all work any better when a "single payer" is calling all the shots is another mystery - except they'll just be more efficient in telling you that you're not going to get precisely what you want, when and where you want it.
Obama = Chavez
Was elected by populisim.....
Exists because of populism....
Is representative of very poor economics....
.............................
It is clear that the US will not progress until there is a non-populist style president who could thus employee valid and workable basic core economics....as well as prosecuting those who were/are really responsible for the current financial debacle....
At the moment the baby boomers are wiped out ....and today's populists are sticking the next three to four generations with the bill....
Without a doubt ....the US must change its political process ....with "real" capitalistic economics in mind....
Traders who shorted the hole unite against health-care reform. lol
Oh the humanity! A industry that has almost no regulation (even exempt from antitrust) has been put under some sort of limit... oh those commies.
Really, they should be regulated into oblivion. Behind the "economy", there's people. You should never forget that.
Bring this back if you *really* want to make it right - McCarran–Ferguson Act.
It's a pipe dream...
What kind of pensions do doctors get? What kind of pensions do the corrections officers receive?
"Health Reform" was never about actually providing health care to anyone. It has been and is about trying to find a way to obtain more tax revenue to offset the huge budget deficits that President Obama is running and intends to try to continue to run, and he appears to be well-aware that there is no possibility that the market will accept the sort of Treasury Debt sales necessary to do so in the free market…
You will get taxed now and health care improvements never. Believe it. –Karl Denninger
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
Seems that the market would sort out premium costs if the anti-trust exemption for health insurers would end???????
H.R. 3596: Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2009http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3596
But this bill has been stalled since October. Hmmmmmmmm? Shall we dance around the issue in grandstanding fashion??????
How about just tearing down the anti-trust exemptions and returning the health insurer industry to a competitive market? Much easier than passing this POS legislation no?
You're applying far too much common sense to the situation.
Whenever you observe a healthcare related discussion there seems to always be the absence of what I would consider to be the most important questions:
What is HEALTH INSURANCE?
("What most people mean when they talk about obtaining health insurance is "How can I find a third party who will provide me with unlimited consumption of health care at no or minimal cost to me?"-Robert Blumen)
WHY exactly are medical costs so high?
What is different between the states with high insurance costs and the ones with low costs?
When exactly did the costs of medical care start to pull away from the normal price inflation?
What government intervention in the health care market occurred at the same time?
Why is it that our health insurance is tied to our employment (and not our car, or home insurance)?
Are there any medical treatments or procedures that get cheaper over time because of competition and/or the actions of the free-market? (just consider Lasik eye surgery or any cosmetic treatments. Cash only, capitalist acts between consenting adults.)
When these questions are considered, you will realize that it is State meddling in the market that is at the core of all of our current "problems". Each intervention in the marketplace causes 10 unforeseen consequences, which then require 10 more interventions, etc.
The only thing government can do to the costs of medical care is make them higher. Sure, they can mandate certain price controls, but that does not change the actual costs. (They can tell a physician what he is allowed to charge, but that has not changed the physician's costs)
Section 1801 of the original Medicare law (Public Law 89-97, 1965) states:
``Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine....''(PL 89-97)Yeah. That lasted about 5 minutes. There are now over 100,000 pages of often self-contradictory Medicare rules and regulations, all enforced at gunpoint and punishable with jail time. 99% of modern healthcare is regulated by the government.
Are we really still that naive?
"Why are medical costs so high?"
First, classical economics tell us that the demand for a "free good" rises without limit. Yet whenever the slightest cost imposition is suggested (in Canada, people suggested a $5 - yes, $5 - contribution every time some visited the ER. This was met with the usual hysterical cries that ALL the poor people, busy smoking their $7 pack of cigarettes, WOULD DIE), people go apeshit.
Second, the New Yorker has had some very telling articles recently showing that healthcare costs are often driven by physicians seeking profit, rather than improved health care. Google "New Yorker McAllen Medicare" for the story. Places like the Mayo Clinic - not a destination one normally associates with low health care costs - charges about half what the McAllen, TX doctors do to Medicare/Aid, and yet achieve comparable results.
As a Canadian, I can tell you that health care outcomes between Canada and the US aren't significantly different, but our costs are much lower. However, our costs continue to grow every year, and when one Canadian politician dared to cut the rate of growth - not the absolute number, that went up every single year he was in power - just the rate of growth, he was vilified then, and even now, ten years later, as the "slasher". If you get caught up in this BS, you'll watch your whole budget disappear into the health care needs of Ernesto, his wife, and six kids who just swam across the Rio Grande.
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I can't wait till this health care reform will be aprooved. I have read that many people think this reform is unconstitutional but I don't agree with these opinions. I think that Obama is doing the right thing because nothing will work till you'll make health insurance mandatory for all Americans. Just have a look at European countries: all countries have insurance regulated by government and everything is working perfectly. United States has one of the strongest economies in the world, however we can't make our health insurance system working properly. Everything would be working perfectly if every American would purchase health insurance. For example I went in one Iowa insurance few weeks ago and took health insurance in just few minutes. Why everybody can't do like that? Of course I can understood those ones who can't pay 600$ dollars a month for health insurance. However there are some people who are not purchasing insurances despite the fact that they have money. But what can we do about it? Absolutely nothing. Everything we can do is just wait and see how it goes. Thanks for the great article though.
I think this reform will be for the better. There must be some kind of control over Health Insurance Rate. May be Obama is going too far but he is trying to stop further crisis. reverse phone lookup