Comments on: Health Care For Almost One-Third of Everyone (Who is Left-Handed and Over 50)!

By: irishace11

irishace11 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:56:56 +0000

I don’t want to seem like a jerk but shouldn’t you have known beforehand what to do in a medical emergency? And if your husband did indeed have had a heart attack why couldn’t you have called a private ambulance and then face an expensive ambulance bill rather than a hospital bill hundreds of times more expensive? Just asking. Hope your husband feels better.

By: dadenman

dadenman — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:43:31 +0000

I read both the article in RS and the rebuttal, and was amazed that the only difference was the Rubin information. I have a feeling that the ‘Rebuttal/Fact Check’ was written for people who would NEVER read the original, as the information was basically the same. Their point seemed to be “The President is on Everyones Side”, and while that may be the ‘Hope’, it is definitely not the Practice. I voted for the current president, based on the ‘Hope’ of ending the two wars that are STILL raging, as I have been in war and know the affects, not only to the soldiers but also to the mentality of those running it. There seems to be another war taking place at the same time, but one that is inflicting casualties to the common citizen, through financial means.
We got here by one of two way: Incompetence, or Prior Planning. I tend to think that nothing that is currently happening was a ‘fluke’. I still go back to the immortal line stated by the acting run of the Administration “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.
Please keep reporting, please keep researching and digging. Truth is relative, but the facts stand regardless of the slant trying to be applied.
I applaud your courage and dedication Mr. Taibbi. Please keep up the excellent work.

By: jz1861

jz1861 — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:40:55 +0000

Good article, Matt, except you blew it with this one line, “because hopsitals and doctors won’t tolerate having to take Medicare rates from everyone”.

Uh, no. Doctors and hospitals not only tolerate taking Medicare rates, they often take in nothing and dispense billions per year in charity care.

When it comes to reimbursement, Medicare has not kept up with the rise in payments from private insurers, so Medicare patients are not as eagerly sought out.

I am glad Rick corrected you on this. I got so sick of the doctors are greedy jerks mantra that runs so deep in this country that I quit medicine. Physicians and clinical services (whatever that means) make up 22% of the health care budget. Physician pay is something like 9% of the total budget, but it is like 90% of where the griping from the public is.

“Half of their administrative personnel were devoted exclusively to chasing claims from all the various insurance companies”

And this is where you and the others in the media need to focus. For every service provided in the health care industry, you can add between 10 and 20% of administrative cost due to this bureaucratic bs.

Hospitals and doctors wouldn’t need to see rates raised if this bureaucratic beast could be tamed. You wouldn’t believe how stupid, random, and tiresome the payment process for doctors and hospitals truly is.

By: Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun » Blog Archive » HCR? BFD

Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun » Blog Archive » HCR? BFD — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:18:33 +0000

[...] most feckless shadow of the public option became anathema for conservative and moderate Democrats. Here’s the inimitable and heroic Matt Taibbi discussing the latest compromise, a proposed expansion of Medicare to folks age 55 and over: I get [...]

By: kentgrattan

kentgrattan — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:45:51 +0000

Exactly! Even crazy people scream, “keep your dirty guvmint hands off my Medicare!” we’ll just keep expanding it til everyone who needs it gets it.

Btw, how much of the 3-5% profit goes for lobbying? Most of it, I bet, unless that’s included in the ridiculously high overhead costs the
industry bears.

By: Like A Shot…Oh, Where Does Hope Reside? « Left Flank

Like A Shot…Oh, Where Does Hope Reside? « Left Flank — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:05:29 +0000

[...] Kroll can’t convince you Harry Reid’s Medicare Mess is worse than what already exists, Matt Taibbi has a neat comparison: “this is sort of like a bunch of doctors arguing over how to cure the hangnail on the left [...]

By: Like A Shot…Of, Where Does Hope Reside? « Left Flank

Like A Shot…Of, Where Does Hope Reside? « Left Flank — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:04:13 +0000

By: beowulf

beowulf — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:10:04 +0000

As a hint, the author very effectively compares the state of our medical industry in 2009 to the state of our agricultural industry in 1909 (1903, actually).

should we be expecting fewer or more lynching next? Is it a good time to add Mark Twain to my dead pool?

By: billepilgrim

billepilgrim — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 09:03:54 +0000

Interesting exchange, I would call it the “detailed critique of Taibbi by someone who doesn’t seem to have really read, or understood, Taibbi’s piece.

There’s another one where Fernholz “refutes” the idea that Biden and thus his adviser aren’t focused on regulatory issues, which Fernholz claims is a massive error because Biden does in fact deal with jobs and stimulus issues sometimes.

One of the many “Hunhn??” moments in reading Fernholz’s piece. He got many more things wrong than Taibbi did as far as I can see, and he was only critiquing one article, which anyone could fact-check him against. It appears that Taibbi used the wrong first name/diminutive for someone, but that’s about it. Hardly a “Oh what a mess” as Fernholz tries to sneer.

By: cavegal

cavegal — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:13:28 +0000

I am a supporter of HR 676, a 50 page bill that takes a phased in approach of expanding Medicare to the entire population. And for business reasons here is why:

Economies of scale matter. A lot. Both from a risk pooling perspective, but also in terms of cost efficiency. See, the larger the entity, the lower the fixed costs relative to variable costs. Why do you think companies try and get big? To have a cost advantage over their competitors.

If size is a detriment, why does the UK, which has four times the population of the Netherlands, have an even LOWER per person cost? Or Italy? Or Japan?

But there’s a far bigger issue here, that also should lead the US to have among the LOWEST per capita cost (instead of the world’s highest), it’s called the Aging Index, and it’s the ratio of those over 60 (big consumers of health care) versus those under 16 (light users of health care)

In the US, there are 84 people over 60 for every 100 people under 16

In NL, there are 112 people over 60 for every 100 people under 16.

In Japan, there are over 200 people over 60 for every 100 people under 16.

America has the BEST demographic profile within the OECD, and yet it has the worst health care expenses.

Single payer countries still have profitable health insurance companies that offer additional coverage such as private rooms for hospital stays, elective surgeries and abortion if it is not available within the single payer plan. This is an enormous boon for large American muti-national companies operating overseas because their costs per employee are so much lower in terms of offering attractive benefits packages.