[Jazzman]

[quote=ocrenter]
But isn’t this the main idea behind all insurance scheme? Essentially the majority of non-users or minimal users are subsidizing the “superusers”. Aka shared risk.
That is correct, but the term “superuser” has negative connotations. You can be the same risk profile as someone else but through misfortune be a so-called “superuser.” I’m not a scientist, but I believe genome mapping hasn’t quite developed to the stage where the risk of all diseases can be predetermined. And then there’s accidents.
…doctors are incentivized to recommend the MOST. Therefore, a twisted knee turns into a MRI and a visit to the orthopedic specialist. Which ultimately drive up the cost.
Doctors should be rewarded for preventive practices and results thereof. It has proven effective in other systems.

This system will therefore collapse on it’s own weight IF superusers are included. This is why all medical insurance companies work so hard to remove superusers from their system.
I think it fair to say that remains to be seen. Presumably, actuarial calculations took that into account.

…[I]F you are unfortunate enough to become a superuser, plan on filing for BK even if you have insurance.

Obamacare at least tries to rectify this by forcing acceptance of the superusers back into the system, but he needed the nonusers like your son to buy into the program as well, otherwise, like I said before, the systems was already barely afloat and would collapse if they take in those that need the most care.
Bankruptcy insurance seems a fitting description of some insurance policies. Each generation will be dependent on the next generation so everything evens out. Isn’t social security funded similarly?

We have two options, full blown socialist model of single payer. You get the doctors out of the game of incentives for doing more for more profit. They are the main cost drivers under the current system. Remember, the same doctor without the kickback from his radiologist and orthopedic buddies will likely just recommend some icing and course of high dose ibuprofen for that twisted knee instead of the MRI and a visit to orthopedics. The single payer has the power of monopoly to set how much they are willing to pay for supplies and drugs, cost can then come down..with the cost controlled, we can take care of our superusers.
I don’t agree with the ideological frameworks being used but agree in principle with the costs and incentives argument.

Our other option is a fully capitalistic model. The government completely get out of the game of health care. Superusers should just move out of the country and if you can’t pay, you are refused service, period. This model does work, see China and Mexico and Thailand. The healthcare cost for these countries are very minimal.

But that’s really the two choices we got, anything in between really is just a big FAIL.
I’m guessing the second option is a rhetorical suggestion.

Drug companies, training, medical equipment companies, bureaucracy, duplication, litigation, and research must also contribute significantly to the cost of insurance. This is not just about insurance. The core of the problem is costs, so why not apply reductionist principles and surgically remove the tumor as opposed to applying palliatives. In other words, treat the disease, not the symptoms.

[/quote]

[Jazzman]

[quote=SD Realtor]Sorry Jazzman, the mantra was very simply stated, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. That was what was very clear. Over and over and over again.

I never said I was lied to because I knew the consequences. However to say that the new law did not deny me choices is incorrect. The new law effectively eliminates the coverage I wanted.

The popular argument about noble intentions, and everyone being dropped by carriers if they had preexisting conditions to justify the elimination of other types of coverage is not sufficient because it presupposes there was no other solutions.

That is incorrect.

Just because you would rather be fed a lie doesn’t mean others would.[/quote]

The law effectively eliminated the cover you wanted because your insurer was legally able to discriminate against you. If you fell ill and they withdrew your cover, would you still think it was the cover you wanted? I think it is a worthwhile compromise to sacrifice elements of cover (if indeed that would happen), to be given a cast iron guarantee of affordable cover come what may.

The argument you hear on the video about the young not subsidizing the program is wishy-washy. Most are smart enough to realize that each generation will look to the next to contribute.

[Jazzman]

[quote=spdrun]Private insurance companies are also EXTREMELY bureaucratic as well — and the problem is that each doctor has to deal with QUITE A FEW of them, each with their own brand of bureaucratic stupidity.[/quote]
The old saying goes that if the person who answers the phone can’t answer your question, it’s a bureaucracy. My comparisons are for illustrative purposes.

[Jazzman]

[quote=SD Realtor]Yes that is exactly what he said. Let us see it again:

“When I say if you have your plan and you like it, … or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.”

Here is what he did not say:

“However the legislation does set new minimum standards for coverage that many plans in effect today do not meet. Now if those plans are altered at all, for any reason, even if the premium changes by 2 cents, those plans will not be considered legal and by LAW must not be offered by your carrier. SO IF YOU LIKED THAT PLAN YOU WILL NOT GET IT BECAUSE YOUR CARRIER CANCELLED IT BECAUSE THIS LEGISLATION MANDATED IT.”

That is what was not said ever. Yet that is what is happening and he knew it would happen because if he would have said it, there would have been problems.[/quote]

It was made very clear what the legal obligations on carriers would be. That many of them are unable to function within the new legal framework is no surprise and highlights the flaws in the current system. It is true that Obama did not advertise this consequence while promising policy holders could keep their policies. It was, no doubt, a politically expedient decision.

Many effected by this think the right to choose is now being denied them, and that they have been lied to. Many others who have been dropped by carriers or are unable to find cover think that health care has been denied them, and that they were also lied to. I would rather be fed the lie that is underpinned by noble intentions, than one that is underpinned by a conflict of interest.

[Jazzman]

[quote=EconProf]I’m surprised so many people on this site want to go whole hog into single payer. I guess the government has done such a good job rolling out Obamacare, they should now take over 100% of health care.[/quote]
Government run health care systems are unwieldy, bureaucratic, inefficient, and burden to the tax payer. Privately run health care is ruthless, discriminatory, and financially ruinous. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to put up with government bureaucracy, than be turfed out onto the street completely destitute.

[Jazzman]

[quote=paramount]Obamacare can be summed up this way: Pay More, Get Less! (for most American’s)[/quote] But that is what created the health care crisis, so nothing has changed in that respect. Out of control costs are, and have always been, at the epicenter of the problem. The problem faced by Obamacare is one of disrupting the pyramid scheme; which brick do you remove without it collapsing in on you. It really shouldn’t be too hard to figure out but rationale is being lost in the fog of political war. If ideological differences were put aside for a day, the conclusion would emerge that a universal system of health care provides the same kind of inalienable rights enshrined in the Constitution. Presently, it remains conspicuous by its absence among fellow, modern-democracy stalwarts: rights to vote, equality under the law, freedom of speech, safety and security, social security, and everything else that is taken for granted. Universal healthcare is not without its problems, so as ever, this is a choice of the lesser of two evils.

[Jazzman]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=CA renter][quote=spdrun]Hope it does collapse and we end up with socialized medicine (or at least a public option) instead. There now, I said it.[/quote]

X2[/quote]

X3[/quote]

X4 to power of 1000

[Jazzman]

[quote=spdrun]Hope it does collapse and we end up with socialized medicine (or at least a public option) instead. There now, I said it.[/quote]
Maybe that’s the plan.

[Jazzman]

[quote=spdrun]Uh, what?

One is a type of physical asset, the other is a share in a company.[/quote]
You’re taking me too literally.

[Jazzman]

Good on Russell Brand. Comedians can be smart. Borat (Baron Sasha Cohen) and most of Monty Python’s cast went to Cambridge, which ironically is part of the class system Russell is railing against. I don’t believe that is the problem though. If it were, how does it explain the same problem of environmental issues vis-à-vis corporatism in different countries around the world.

[Jazzman]

[quote=spdrun]

And yes, I know that stocks =/= housing, but the two are intimately related, at least emotionally.[/quote]

Pardon my ignorance, but didn’t one try to take over where the other, with all its failings, left off. If there is a difference, it is that housing is simpler to understand.

[Jazzman]

[quote=CA renter]Agree with Jazzman, but think the investor-speculators have had a HUGE impact all across the country. When the Fed stomps on interest rates they way they have over the past 5+ (!!!) years, money will end up being squeezed into everything else. Since housing was seen as distressed, that’s where the speculative money went. It remains to be seen how and when (and if!) this unwinds.[/quote]
I think it will depend on how important the housing market is to a recovery. Can it create jobs, or will those jobs come from other industries? Maybe the jobs that were lost are permanently gone; either because the bubble created them, or they’re now in China. In respect of housing, any lift that was caused by speculative investing can’t, by its nature, be permanent. I suspect prices will soon fall in places where they have risen too sharply.

[Jazzman]

This is a pretty academic paper, and it’s not clear to me the researcher has his/her feet on terra firma. Take this statement:

At the same time though, the level of house prices is by far the most important cyclical variable that influences the inventory of homes for sale.

What about builders and new homes?

And this statement:

…Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, the total inventory of homes for rent is approaching that of homes for sale. …the impact of investors in these markets should not be overstated.

The impact of investors cannot be overstated, or should not understated? These are the only three places that corrected and investors flocked to them. Las Vegas saw a 29% increase in one year to July 2013. That party is, I believe, now over. I have seen up to 50% percent of inventory with multiple price reductions. There is a distinct pattern emerging in many of the listings that looks like investor activity. Supply is rebounding, which is what you’d expect, as hedge funds offload in what now seems like a declining market. They sucked up the supply creating the vacuum, pushing up prices and now want to cash in their chips. I’d say investors have had a big influence on this market.

I just couldn’t make sense of this statement:

The decline in homes for sale is very closely linked with the large downward shift in the homeownership rate in these markets. It is impossible to say though whether declining sales are pushing down homeownership rates or falling homeownership is pushing down sales…

I think that what they are trying to say, is that the desire to own a home is falling. But we know that credit, unemployment, affordability, inventory, where we are in the cycle, consumer confidence, demographics, urban vs rural, and a host of other factors are influential in the buoyancy, or otherwise, of the housing market.

[Jazzman]

[quote=6packscaredy]coud it be that greater efficiency goes to support a greater load of “freeloaders” and that this is sutainable, sort of?[/quote]
Yes, it could. But is it possible in a country the size of the US? Maybe the ACA will provide some answers. A while back, the WSJ did a feature on the Nordic model of welfare capitalism. The notion of 60% tax would freak anyone out, but how is it that the Norwegians et al seem happy with it. By all accounts it is efficient and sustainable. If the US aspires to middle-classdom, isn’t that sort of socialism, and if all that means is that everyone pays higher taxes for tangible benefits organized efficiently by non-profit entities, isn’t that something worth exploring? How do you ensure “efficiently” run government? Well, democracy (when it works) is supposed to do that. Creating a system of accountability for politicians might help. US politicians sneer at their constituents, populace, and voters, treating them like fools. Special interests’ sway over legislators is tantamount to bribery and corruption, and when you consider the scale of it, the Chinese hangman would be kept in business for quite a while.

[Jazzman]

[quote=joec]From a nobel prize winning economist about investing in homes:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/economist-who-just-won-nobel-prize-thinks-housing-terrible-investment/7240/

One point to also factor in though is CA has prop 13…and real estate is always local.

Just know what you’re doing and do your homework. I’m not advocating one way or the other.[/quote]
Hehe! Robert Shiller is the friendly face of real estate. I think he’s “right” in both senses, but his words of wisdom are overshadowed by the huge emphasis on housing as a driver of economies. He always strikes me as being bemused by the media attention he attracts for what he obviously considers as stating the obvious

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