Healthcare is not a right!?

[scaredyclassic]

all this spirited debate seems very hopeful and democratic and american. personally, i am starting to think the “not voting” option may be the only meaningful way to dissent. if enough people lost interest, then maybe things would actually change. or maybe not. i looka t my ballots lately in complete puzzlement, no sense of any mark i could make on it necessarily meaning anything. hope no one is giving themselves an ulcer over any of this, as i don’t want my insurance bill to go up to pay for it. please, for god’s sake, and our mutual pocketbooks, take care of yourselves!

[davelj]

[quote=greekfire]
DaveLJ:
I sympathize with your personal experience with healthcare. I have also lost many members of my immediate family to cancer and know firsthand that it is not a fun thing to deal with.

I have appreciated your posts over the years, but I couldn’t help but notice, in this latest thread, that you made the assertion that improvements in healthcare technology equated to an increase in prices. Please let me better understand your logic behind this assertion as I was under the impression that improvements in technology generally equated to a decrease in prices.

Another area of your logic that I question is the point at which prices of healthcare will decrease. You mentioned at the tail end of your last post that “Costs will escalate until care is rationed at the high (cost) end.” I read that to mean that the cost of healthcare at the high end will decrease if it is rationed, or reduced.

My question to you is would not a rationing (decrease) in the supply of healthcare at the high (cost) end lead to an increase in prices rather than a decrease, based upon the simple law of supply and demand?[/quote]

You raise a good point, so let me be more clear. Advancements in technology have made medical care more affordable at the “low end.” For example, I’d bet that the cost of providing simple x-rays and vaccinations, etc. are less expensive than they were 40 years ago. But…

… the problem is that these efficiencies are more than offset by advancements at the “high end” (that is, high-cost procedures that weren’t even available 40 years ago). So, again, to use the example of my parents, the $600,000 that was spent on giving them each an extra year of life wasn’t even an option 40 years ago, so “Society” wasn’t forced to pay for it. Today, however, due to advances in medical technology, there are all sorts of expensive procedures that are covered by Medicare and private insurance that weren’t even options 40 years ago. And many of these procedures extend life by a limited amount of time and/or are of limited efficacy.

So, to get to your question, overall medical costs would be reduced if certain (expensive) procedures were simply made unavailable to the population at large, because “we the people” would not be paying for them. So, yes, the cost at the high end will decline if it is rationed because these procedures will be unavailable – we simply won’t pay for them. And, no, there would be no increase in prices because the services would simply not be made available. To use a specific example, the price to Society of “treating” folks with pancreatic cancer would decline dramatically because we simply wouldn’t treat them – they would die before spending god-only-knows-how-much money on them.

[davelj]

[quote=greekfire]
DaveLJ:
I sympathize with your personal experience with healthcare. I have also lost many members of my immediate family to cancer and know firsthand that it is not a fun thing to deal with.

I have appreciated your posts over the years, but I couldn’t help but notice, in this latest thread, that you made the assertion that improvements in healthcare technology equated to an increase in prices. Please let me better understand your logic behind this assertion as I was under the impression that improvements in technology generally equated to a decrease in prices.

Another area of your logic that I question is the point at which prices of healthcare will decrease. You mentioned at the tail end of your last post that “Costs will escalate until care is rationed at the high (cost) end.” I read that to mean that the cost of healthcare at the high end will decrease if it is rationed, or reduced.

My question to you is would not a rationing (decrease) in the supply of healthcare at the high (cost) end lead to an increase in prices rather than a decrease, based upon the simple law of supply and demand?[/quote]

You raise a good point, so let me be more clear. Advancements in technology have made medical care more affordable at the “low end.” For example, I’d bet that the cost of providing simple x-rays and vaccinations, etc. are less expensive than they were 40 years ago. But…

… the problem is that these efficiencies are more than offset by advancements at the “high end” (that is, high-cost procedures that weren’t even available 40 years ago). So, again, to use the example of my parents, the $600,000 that was spent on giving them each an extra year of life wasn’t even an option 40 years ago, so “Society” wasn’t forced to pay for it. Today, however, due to advances in medical technology, there are all sorts of expensive procedures that are covered by Medicare and private insurance that weren’t even options 40 years ago. And many of these procedures extend life by a limited amount of time and/or are of limited efficacy.

So, to get to your question, overall medical costs would be reduced if certain (expensive) procedures were simply made unavailable to the population at large, because “we the people” would not be paying for them. So, yes, the cost at the high end will decline if it is rationed because these procedures will be unavailable – we simply won’t pay for them. And, no, there would be no increase in prices because the services would simply not be made available. To use a specific example, the price to Society of “treating” folks with pancreatic cancer would decline dramatically because we simply wouldn’t treat them – they would die before spending god-only-knows-how-much money on them.

[davelj]

[quote=greekfire]
DaveLJ:
I sympathize with your personal experience with healthcare. I have also lost many members of my immediate family to cancer and know firsthand that it is not a fun thing to deal with.

I have appreciated your posts over the years, but I couldn’t help but notice, in this latest thread, that you made the assertion that improvements in healthcare technology equated to an increase in prices. Please let me better understand your logic behind this assertion as I was under the impression that improvements in technology generally equated to a decrease in prices.

Another area of your logic that I question is the point at which prices of healthcare will decrease. You mentioned at the tail end of your last post that “Costs will escalate until care is rationed at the high (cost) end.” I read that to mean that the cost of healthcare at the high end will decrease if it is rationed, or reduced.

My question to you is would not a rationing (decrease) in the supply of healthcare at the high (cost) end lead to an increase in prices rather than a decrease, based upon the simple law of supply and demand?[/quote]

You raise a good point, so let me be more clear. Advancements in technology have made medical care more affordable at the “low end.” For example, I’d bet that the cost of providing simple x-rays and vaccinations, etc. are less expensive than they were 40 years ago. But…

… the problem is that these efficiencies are more than offset by advancements at the “high end” (that is, high-cost procedures that weren’t even available 40 years ago). So, again, to use the example of my parents, the $600,000 that was spent on giving them each an extra year of life wasn’t even an option 40 years ago, so “Society” wasn’t forced to pay for it. Today, however, due to advances in medical technology, there are all sorts of expensive procedures that are covered by Medicare and private insurance that weren’t even options 40 years ago. And many of these procedures extend life by a limited amount of time and/or are of limited efficacy.

So, to get to your question, overall medical costs would be reduced if certain (expensive) procedures were simply made unavailable to the population at large, because “we the people” would not be paying for them. So, yes, the cost at the high end will decline if it is rationed because these procedures will be unavailable – we simply won’t pay for them. And, no, there would be no increase in prices because the services would simply not be made available. To use a specific example, the price to Society of “treating” folks with pancreatic cancer would decline dramatically because we simply wouldn’t treat them – they would die before spending god-only-knows-how-much money on them.

[davelj]

[quote=greekfire]
DaveLJ:
I sympathize with your personal experience with healthcare. I have also lost many members of my immediate family to cancer and know firsthand that it is not a fun thing to deal with.

I have appreciated your posts over the years, but I couldn’t help but notice, in this latest thread, that you made the assertion that improvements in healthcare technology equated to an increase in prices. Please let me better understand your logic behind this assertion as I was under the impression that improvements in technology generally equated to a decrease in prices.

Another area of your logic that I question is the point at which prices of healthcare will decrease. You mentioned at the tail end of your last post that “Costs will escalate until care is rationed at the high (cost) end.” I read that to mean that the cost of healthcare at the high end will decrease if it is rationed, or reduced.

My question to you is would not a rationing (decrease) in the supply of healthcare at the high (cost) end lead to an increase in prices rather than a decrease, based upon the simple law of supply and demand?[/quote]

You raise a good point, so let me be more clear. Advancements in technology have made medical care more affordable at the “low end.” For example, I’d bet that the cost of providing simple x-rays and vaccinations, etc. are less expensive than they were 40 years ago. But…

… the problem is that these efficiencies are more than offset by advancements at the “high end” (that is, high-cost procedures that weren’t even available 40 years ago). So, again, to use the example of my parents, the $600,000 that was spent on giving them each an extra year of life wasn’t even an option 40 years ago, so “Society” wasn’t forced to pay for it. Today, however, due to advances in medical technology, there are all sorts of expensive procedures that are covered by Medicare and private insurance that weren’t even options 40 years ago. And many of these procedures extend life by a limited amount of time and/or are of limited efficacy.

So, to get to your question, overall medical costs would be reduced if certain (expensive) procedures were simply made unavailable to the population at large, because “we the people” would not be paying for them. So, yes, the cost at the high end will decline if it is rationed because these procedures will be unavailable – we simply won’t pay for them. And, no, there would be no increase in prices because the services would simply not be made available. To use a specific example, the price to Society of “treating” folks with pancreatic cancer would decline dramatically because we simply wouldn’t treat them – they would die before spending god-only-knows-how-much money on them.

[davelj]

[quote=greekfire]
DaveLJ:
I sympathize with your personal experience with healthcare. I have also lost many members of my immediate family to cancer and know firsthand that it is not a fun thing to deal with.

I have appreciated your posts over the years, but I couldn’t help but notice, in this latest thread, that you made the assertion that improvements in healthcare technology equated to an increase in prices. Please let me better understand your logic behind this assertion as I was under the impression that improvements in technology generally equated to a decrease in prices.

Another area of your logic that I question is the point at which prices of healthcare will decrease. You mentioned at the tail end of your last post that “Costs will escalate until care is rationed at the high (cost) end.” I read that to mean that the cost of healthcare at the high end will decrease if it is rationed, or reduced.

My question to you is would not a rationing (decrease) in the supply of healthcare at the high (cost) end lead to an increase in prices rather than a decrease, based upon the simple law of supply and demand?[/quote]

You raise a good point, so let me be more clear. Advancements in technology have made medical care more affordable at the “low end.” For example, I’d bet that the cost of providing simple x-rays and vaccinations, etc. are less expensive than they were 40 years ago. But…

… the problem is that these efficiencies are more than offset by advancements at the “high end” (that is, high-cost procedures that weren’t even available 40 years ago). So, again, to use the example of my parents, the $600,000 that was spent on giving them each an extra year of life wasn’t even an option 40 years ago, so “Society” wasn’t forced to pay for it. Today, however, due to advances in medical technology, there are all sorts of expensive procedures that are covered by Medicare and private insurance that weren’t even options 40 years ago. And many of these procedures extend life by a limited amount of time and/or are of limited efficacy.

So, to get to your question, overall medical costs would be reduced if certain (expensive) procedures were simply made unavailable to the population at large, because “we the people” would not be paying for them. So, yes, the cost at the high end will decline if it is rationed because these procedures will be unavailable – we simply won’t pay for them. And, no, there would be no increase in prices because the services would simply not be made available. To use a specific example, the price to Society of “treating” folks with pancreatic cancer would decline dramatically because we simply wouldn’t treat them – they would die before spending god-only-knows-how-much money on them.

[Arraya]

Looks like insurance and pharma spent 400 million over the last year to get the bill just how they wanted it.

They will reap 20-30 times that every year, at least. So, the ROI on the 400 million is incredible.

Hero to the insurance industry, Joe Liebermen was the last hold out with his refusal to allow any “public option”. That move made his constituents billions, good move Joe.

[Arraya]

Looks like insurance and pharma spent 400 million over the last year to get the bill just how they wanted it.

They will reap 20-30 times that every year, at least. So, the ROI on the 400 million is incredible.

Hero to the insurance industry, Joe Liebermen was the last hold out with his refusal to allow any “public option”. That move made his constituents billions, good move Joe.

[Arraya]

Looks like insurance and pharma spent 400 million over the last year to get the bill just how they wanted it.

They will reap 20-30 times that every year, at least. So, the ROI on the 400 million is incredible.

Hero to the insurance industry, Joe Liebermen was the last hold out with his refusal to allow any “public option”. That move made his constituents billions, good move Joe.

[Arraya]

Looks like insurance and pharma spent 400 million over the last year to get the bill just how they wanted it.

They will reap 20-30 times that every year, at least. So, the ROI on the 400 million is incredible.

Hero to the insurance industry, Joe Liebermen was the last hold out with his refusal to allow any “public option”. That move made his constituents billions, good move Joe.

[Arraya]

Looks like insurance and pharma spent 400 million over the last year to get the bill just how they wanted it.

They will reap 20-30 times that every year, at least. So, the ROI on the 400 million is incredible.

Hero to the insurance industry, Joe Liebermen was the last hold out with his refusal to allow any “public option”. That move made his constituents billions, good move Joe.

[jimmyle]

My friend’s dad was 82 year old when he suffered a stroke and was brain dead. He also had severe liver disease. My friend’s family decided to keep him on life support for two years. All expenses paid by the gov’t. I wonder if it costs the family even at 10% of the total cost, would they have kept him ‘alive’?

[jimmyle]

My friend’s dad was 82 year old when he suffered a stroke and was brain dead. He also had severe liver disease. My friend’s family decided to keep him on life support for two years. All expenses paid by the gov’t. I wonder if it costs the family even at 10% of the total cost, would they have kept him ‘alive’?

[jimmyle]

My friend’s dad was 82 year old when he suffered a stroke and was brain dead. He also had severe liver disease. My friend’s family decided to keep him on life support for two years. All expenses paid by the gov’t. I wonder if it costs the family even at 10% of the total cost, would they have kept him ‘alive’?

[jimmyle]

My friend’s dad was 82 year old when he suffered a stroke and was brain dead. He also had severe liver disease. My friend’s family decided to keep him on life support for two years. All expenses paid by the gov’t. I wonder if it costs the family even at 10% of the total cost, would they have kept him ‘alive’?

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