Health Care Reform in the US

[I_luv_saber]

Oh, I'm sure they exist. But they are probably internal to each company, and proprietary, therefore not released and certainly not aggregated for purposes of statistical evaluation. Alas.

Probably true...

"Enough"? By whose arbitrary and subjective standard?

*sigh* society's standard.

A better question would be, what standard do you propose then?

Maybe Snopes or Factcheck could look into this one...

For serious.

How d'ye know? I mean KNOW, as opposed to believe?

Because I know that 5% 100,000 is still 5,000 people.

My main objection was on the grounds of foreclosed freedom of choice and undue cost, not on the grounds that 'THS sucks'...

However it was still a factor that people found that unacceptable.

Anyway, the numbers themselves were suspect on several methodological grounds. I doubt that that 97% figure was accurate.

However, even if we assume it was (which many did, for the sake of argument), it was still found to be unacceptable because it was still a very high number of people who had problems with it.

Which amounts to "opinion leaders, the media and the politicians currently in power decide this". Great...

No, they influence it. We decide it, and must accept responsibility for the consequences. Playing the blame game is disingenuous.

If only some of then had the first clue about economics, I'd feel a little better about that.

It would certainly help things. However, I'd also like that they have a clue about culture, society, justice, and right and wrong. That's the key... economics is an important factor, but not the only factor in a functioning society.

[Inquartata]

Uh, yeah, fer sure. And, I'm not seeing how this applies and need to get another beer.

Will that transform it into a teachable moment?

I have some sympathy, and want to give the suckers at least an even chance

Bleeding-heart! ( If I could make that noise the Body-Snatchers emit when they spot a human, I would point and do so! )


[/quote]
Probably? Maybe maybe not. These were early days of mass manufactured convenient factory foods. If they reverted to the neighborhood butcher for a while that might have been a Good Thing.[/quote]

No, I'm saying other foods entirely. Like vegetables grown in polluted soil. Animal dung as fertilizer?! Bleccchhh!

Uh, because I've never owned either?

Come now, you're married, aren't you?

[Inquartata]

Sigh. "I am the Health Care Thread, look on my length, ye Mighty, and despair!"

it is simply the factual case that the population covered by Medicare (over 65, or permanently disabled, or on dialysis) has higher medical needs than the general public, and therefore it is unsurprising that they consume more $ per capita.

Sure. But that's a long way from demonstrating that they in fact need 2/3 more of it than anyone else. Much less that adding another 45 million consumers ( of all ages ) to the health care system is unlikely to make matters worse.

First, the shallow part: on a given transaction, the practitioner incurs no cost for sending a patient out for an unneeded diagnostic procedure (or a cost so negligible that it has no effect on the sunk cost of maintaining an office. The time to write a prescription, read the faxed report, and stick it in the patient's folder is negligible, and he/she incurs no other billing or ovehead costs).

OK.

That is not really the same as being "cost insensitive", though.

( I caught myself before I said "Trust me". )

1. Figure maybe $1M to buy the machine.
2. Build a shielded room for it - it has powerful magnets
3. Hire a tech to operate it.
4. Hire a radiologist to read the results (and not all of them do).

So then, he's sensitive to costs?

And there's another thing: the Stark Laws which prohibit self-referral

1) More costs, in other words.

2) Costs imposed by---hmm, would it be government?

Sure, but it's a negligible cost

You may think so, but probably the office manager would disagree!

So would I, for that matter, but I digress.

( I avoided the impulse to say "Sounds like something a Congressman might say", but again, I caught myself. )

you still get EXACTLY THE SAME FEE for the procedure, and will continue to do so unless you get sued so much you can't afford malpractice coverage, or lose your license. Those evil licenses we've talked about...

You mean the ones that are supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?

Well, yes there is a genius for doing so - but the incentives I'm referring to in the vast majority are unrelated to the government. I've just explained why!

No, you've missed a causal connection.

Were I to accept for a moment your assumption that ordering a procedure is costless to the doctor...why is it costless? Trace it back far enough and you will find something the government did or required someone else to do.

Let's keep things simple: North American and European countries have pretty similar genetic backgrounds.

Well, except for the former's American Indian and African-American population segments...

[I_luv_saber]

I don't know about y'all, but for my part, this thread is starting to get rather dreary. I think I'm about done (unless, Inq, you can manage to be outrageous enough to pull me back in ).

At the very least if I do respond I'll try and pull this back to at least 1 post responses .

[Inquartata]

I hope I don't need two parts for each of your two parts...

Really?

Hah. Busted.

However, some don't,

No, but those don't consume "vast resources".

In fact, if you take out the few serial killers who get whole task forces and so on, homicide investigations consume rather little in the way of resources for the average police department. For example, mine spends a LOT more on traffic enforcement ( although since it's highway patrol that's a special case ). Others tend to spend a lot more on drug investigations or organized crime/gang enforcement. Agencies like Treasury spend more on counterfeiting; the FBI, kidnapping and bank robberies; etc.

It's all part and parcel of the "pursuing crimes" gig.

We were talking about investigations, thou Definitional Retreater, thou! J'accuse!

I haven't so far, have you? People are idiots, but on the whole I guess we turn out to be somewhat reasonable idiots.

Well, I exempt us, obviously.

I see your point, but at what point do we stop simply deferring our responsibility and choices (along with their consequences, good or bad) to the media and politicians because of their influence?

When that stops being a large part of the problem?

I believe that the market would take care of all this, if it were permitted to function without hindrance and distortion from a bazillion Byzantine and sometimes contradictory laws and regulations.

This mess brought to you by "We're from the government and we're here to help you".

Influence matters, surely, but in issues the people feel strongly enough about they will be heard, and it's ultimately their responsibility.

Heard is not necessarily heeded, much less obeyed.

You can see this going on now, with the "town hall meeting" issue. Rather than taking lessons from the near-riots, what are the pols saying? "Oh, these are just agitators trying to disrupt our triumphant march to the glorious future that the people who really matter obviously want!"

In other words, "the voice of the people" is too often dismissed as cognitive dissonance by the Beltway Barons.

I agree there are other factors involved, but the greatest influence (again, in my experience) has always been budget (along with authority and other resources).

Did you read the articles?

The problem may not be prevalent when you compare what percent of people are treated unjustly to what percentage of people are not; but 1-5% of hundreds of thousands of people is still a lot of people. Coupled with the seriousness of the effect, I think it warrants attention.

Are you saying that you have numbers on "seriousness"? Like maybe how many of the cases of demonstrated abuse are "serious"?

And what exactly constitutes "serious"?

Not if their profits are capped.

Yes, even then.

This is a matter of increasing their costs. It has nothing to do with profits.

This leaves aside the question of what right government has to be "capping profits" on private businesses in the first place. That sort of thing has had ugly consequences in the past. The last time it was a Republican, Nixon, who got stupid in this respect; this time it's a Democrat, proving that stupidity is an equal opportunity affliction. ( They're also slapping wage controls onto certain industries. Can price controls be far behind? )

The economic effects of wage and price controls are quite well known. But as I've said before, this Administration and its pet Congress seems not to have a clue about fundamental economics...

I'm in favor of profit caps on insurance companies similar to what is done to utility companies. I can't see how we can classify electricity as a resource necessary for the basic function of life (hence government protection), but not consider health care!

Again, it's a natural monopoly, and health care isn't.

Maybe you'd like to see the government control grocery and commodity prices, too? Another "basic function of life", after all.

What other areas of the economy would you like to see socialized, as long as we're at it?

I'd rather live in a house with no electricity because I couldn't afford the bill and be healthy than die in a fully powered home from influenza because I couldn't afford to see a doctor.

Not in Phoenix you wouldn't!

Every insurance contract (or even contract outside of insurance, government docs have it a lot) I have ever read, has you sign an area that says "I agree all the information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge" or something similar.

Perhaps, but I don't see anything in that about "and we'll pay for anything you say you don't know about"...

Overruled.

Objection!

Insurance companies are basically gambling.

Perhaps we should confine their ownership to Native American tribes and Las Vegas crime families. ( smily )

They are gambling that you are going to pay them more money than you will use over the course of using the service.

More than that, they MUST succeed or they will be unable to pay the expenses of those who DO get sick or injured. There must be a large enough pool of people who are paying more than they get back in services, or the whole system collapses.

If they cannot get this---if they MUST expand the pool of those who get more than they pay in, by government mandate---the only way they can survive is to charge more to everyone.

And this would not work in a free marketplace, where raising price causes quantity demanded to fall. It can only work if all consumers are forced to buy coverage, and have no option to refuse to do so. ( Except for those whose premiums the government will reach into other taxpayers' pockets to subsidize, so that those unfortunates end up paying twice. )

More likely they would just jack the prices up on people with pre-existing conditions so exorbitantly high that no one could practically get coverage anyway.

Nope. That's prohibited under the current versions of the bills in Congress.

This leaves only raising prices on everyone else...or government subsidization ( and IMO eventual takeover ).

Yes, but that analogy wasn't even remotely close.

Yes, and the meteor might hit someone in China, so it's not our concern...

Don't be anal about anal-ogies! ( double-smily! )

One is an entity acting to make money off of another entity at their expense. i.e. there is motivation to do harm. I don't think meteors have much motivation to strike a particular person...

If it's a forced gamble, then yes, I will pick the one I think is going to cost less in the long run.

Sounds like you are cut out for a political career, then!

Why?

You set up incentives to conceal everything throughout your life, so as not to run the risk of ever being "caught" on anything in the future.

Because it's rigging the game!

Perhaps the problem is in seeing it as a game rather than as a business?

No matter how hard they try, they cannot prepare for EVERY variable. If they could, we would see their clientel filled purely with people who would never have to cash out.

This is not what I am on about. I am on about why your merely not knowing about having a condition should mean that they have to shower you with money later on. Why a condition that is difficult and expensive to treat should be viewed the same as a common cold merely because "I didn't know"...

As long as I entered into the contract in full honesty and full disclosure, why I am I to shoulder the burden for every variable?

Of course---that's the wicked corporation's job, I guess?

It's like saying that if a man invests in a company and the company goes belly up because no one likes the product, that he should get all his money back because he didn't know the product wouldn't succeed!

Aha! An analogy!

You've GOT to know what I'm going to say about that, right? ( heh )

But to argue all regulation is ineffectual so we just shouldn't pursue it is folly. That's like saying "All laws will be broken anyway, so why have any?".

Another one!

Oh, the irony! ( smily )

You tell me, you were the one harping on transparency regulation as opposed to direct regulation, earlier.

I was?

Again, that's your opinion, so have at it. Most of us do not feel that way (thankfully)

Tsk! Argumentum ad populum.... ( smily )

[Inquartata]

If the company is not fulfilling a contract, they are the ones who have breached it and should have to show probable cause for doing so

Then take them to court and prove your case, but the burden of proof lies on the accuser, not on the defendant, and I for one do NOT want to see a precedent set for reversing that. Still less do I want to see a requirement mandating that one must defend one's conduct OUTside of a courtroom, as part of some regulatory burden...

Why is the situation different?

Because utilities are natural monopolies. That is, under normal conditions they will always produce less of a good and charge more for it than under competition. This means ingrained economic inefficiency.

None of this applies to competitive markets, and like it or not, health care and insurance are both competitive markets.

Utility companies provide a service that people must have (mostly, at least it's what's been decided by society).

This is irrelevant to the economic discussion.

Again, what other necessities would you like to see government control? Supermarkets? Farming? Ranching? Dairies? Heating oil in the Northeast and Midwest in the winter? Housing?

This aside from the fact that it is NOT "a service people must have". Heck, it's not even on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I reiterate that I myself did without for some 20 years and am no worse for it. Choosing not to buy coverage or to use health care services is a decision which rational consumers can make for themselves, and choosing "not" does not equal disaster...

As such, it is regulated in order to prevent selling water for $100 a glass, in a desert.

Better recheck the law on this one.

Water utilities, as natural monopolies, are regulated; water itself is not. I mean, unless you can demonstrate that state utility commissions are empowered to regulate Dasani, Arrowhead and Perrier as well...

Medical care should be in that same category.

That may be your wish, but economically speaking there is no support for it. The industry structures are different and do not warrant regulation.

The fact of the matter is that health care is far too expensive for 90% of people to pay for directly.

And once upon a time, it wasn't.

About half of what changed that state of affairs is the cost of medical technology. I take it that you would not want to forego those advances in order to make care more affordable; maybe you'd like to force those who produced the innovations to sustain losses in order to provide them to you more inexpensively, but that's not the way markets work, and if so you'd have to sign on to socialism.

The rest, IMO, is due not to "greed" or underwriting or actuarial tables or excessive profits. It is due to the distortions introduced to the markets by decades of attempts by government to buy people a free lunch. It is due to the imposition of layer upon layer upon layer of costs required in order to comply with layer upon layer upon layer of regulation, tax incentives or penalties, reporting mandates, and so on. What you are asking for is more of what caused the problem in the first place, IMO.

If that is the case, insurance is the only *practical* way people can get health care (unless we start talking of a government plan).

Maybe this belief is a consequence of your youth. You have never known things to be done any other way. But I assure you, medical care was once provided quite without the intermediary of insurance. If something has happened, it's a pretty good indication that it's possible, no?

Now, you may be right under current conditions of government interference in the private sector. But IMO the solution to that is NOT more government interference...

The service is, basically, necessary for most people to stay in good health.

How do you know this?

I'm a pragmatist. Aside from a precious few set of issues, if I see the end result will be worse by being stubborn instead of compromising and at least partially getting what I want, I'll go with the latter.

But in fact the Republicans are NOT "partly getting what they want" by "going along". They are only getting slightly less of something they DON'T want.

I'm sure the constituents who elected them expect them to throw up their hands in the name of "pragmatic cooperation", though.

I can't think of a particular situation off the top of my head, but yeah, there were times the Democrats were sticking sternly by issues that needed compromise and as such got nowhere.

The filibustering of judicial nominations springs to mind...

Squelching on a contract is legal?

You are assuming a verdict before the issue even goes to court? Why?

And the rest must wait until the weekend...

[I_luv_saber]

We were talking about investigations, thou Definitional Retreater, thou! J'accuse!

Most times I referenced it I said "pursuing crimes" in which I was speaking of both investigation and prosecution.

And what exactly constitutes "serious"?

Purely subjective to each person, and we all throw in our lot on what we consider serious.

Yes, even then.

My opinion is the government does have the right in certain situations where the immediate welfare of people are involved. It needs to have some oversight and accountability to the people, and if not by regulation, then by direct control (which I am not in favor of).

Maybe you'd like to see the government control grocery and commodity prices, too? Another "basic function of life", after all.

It IS regulated, as jeff pointed out, albeit more indirectly.

What other areas of the economy would you like to see socialized, as long as we're at it?

I don't want to see nearly anything socialized. In fact, I'd like to see us move away from it more, like putting education in private hands as well.

My basic philosophy: Put it all in the private sector, and regulate where needed. Some more than others, depending on importance to society.

Not in Phoenix you wouldn't!

True! Fresno isn't much better

At least here in Fresno, though, we have public "cooling centers"...

Perhaps, but I don't see anything in that about "and we'll pay for anything you say you don't know about"...

That's almost exactly another definition for what I just said!

Perhaps we should confine their ownership to Native American tribes and Las Vegas crime families.

I already think that the mafia decided the insurance business is better than casinos. It's run the same way! (smiley)

Nope. That's prohibited under the current versions of the bills in Congress.

Just to clarify, this is my pipe dream, I'm not necessarily defending something from Congress. I've advocated this long before these talks of big reforms happened. I believe there is a long discussion somewhere in the forums between me, jeff, and probably you, where I advocated this system before it was the cool thing (smiley)

{snip}...or government subsidization ( and IMO eventual takeover ).

I certainly hope not.

Don't be anal about anal-ogies!

Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle. (smiley) (I normally have no problem with analogies, but this one wasn't even in the ballpark!)

Sounds like you are cut out for a political career, then!

I've been told I should've either gone into law or politics, so take that for what it's worth! (smiley)

Perhaps the problem is in seeing it as a game rather than as a business?

One would argue the two aren't so far apart.

This is not what I am on about. I am on about why your merely not knowing about having a condition should mean that they have to shower you with money later on. Why a condition that is difficult and expensive to treat should be viewed the same as a common cold merely because "I didn't know"...

Because that's the entire point of insurance.

Of course---that's the wicked corporation's job, I guess?

Yes - that's their gamble.

Aha! An analogy!

You've GOT to know what I'm going to say about that, right? ( heh )

I felt it was a reasonable one. But as I said, Mr. Pot... (blah smiley)

I was?

Yeah, either earlier here or in another thread. "Full Disclosure" regs would be a better definition, I think. I am actually curious about exactly how this would work out. Believe it or not, I am actually very open minded to solutions! Just not so much for pretending there is no problem (smiley)

You are assuming a verdict before the issue even goes to court? Why?

(Okay, you got me, I'll do ONE long one (smiley))

Because the service has not been fulfilled. I will do X if Y happens. Y happens... no X. It becomes my responsibility to say why I did not keep my word. And assertions of lying against the other party does not equal proof. His assertion, his burden. You are saying that if I say I will do X if Y happens and I do not do it, that it is the responsibility for the other party to prove why I should have. If that's the case, what's the point in even having a contract? The contract IS proof I should have! The contract does not list a set of conditions in which I will pay out (it's really more complicated than that, but basically...) it lists a set of conditions in which I do not have to pay out. I have to prove one of those conditions were met.

[lindajdunn]

Am I the only one finding it exceedingly difficult to follow the train of thought in these long posts of short, multiple quotations and responses?

[I_luv_saber]

The posters are even having trouble!

[fencerchica]

Here's another example of what worries me about politicians making economic decisions. I saw an interview with Peter Orszag in which he was talking about moving "away from more care...toward better care". That is, the Administration wants to raise quality and to reduce quantity supplied. Fine. But how is this supposed to lower the price of care, as they insist their reforms will do? Increasing quality and reducing quantity supplied cannot reduce price. They are things which can only raise price! Increasing quality involves increasing costs, which will increase price. Reducing supply will also raise price, assuming that demand stays the same---but they envision increasing demand by some 50 million consumers! When demand rises and supply diminishes, what happens to price? Hint, Mr. Orszag: It does the opposite of "go down".

I think at least one answer you're missing is that if I understand correctly, the White House would like to put more of an emphasis on preventative medicine. Under the current system, insurers will often refuse to cover the costs of preventative care. The reason why it's not a case of penny-wise and pound-foolish for the insurance company (even though it sure is for the customer) is that they hope that by the time urgent and expensive care is required as a consequence of that neglect, they'll no longer be the ones footing the bill. Availability of affordable preventative care and no disincentive from using it would bring overall healthcare costs down.

[jeff]

Will that transform it into a teachable moment?

At least I'll get some halfway decent beer. Well, maybe not to Gav's standards!

Bleeding-heart! ( If I could make that noise the Body-Snatchers emit when they spot a human, I would point and do so! )

Sorry - I don't know that sound. OTOH, I've concentrated on the sound from Star Trek's teleport, and it's never beamed me out of a boring meeting. Darn it. Maybe both sounds would work as ring tones...

Seriously: while there are deadbeats out there, most people are not. The current system is incredibly complicated, and even trained professionals have difficulty reading an EOB or understanding the fine print. I don't think that's accidental, either. In my opinion, there's something wrong with a system that lets an insurer dump a patient (after receiving their premiums for years) when they get sick. Even the gullible - or especially the gullible (or should we say "trusting") - need protection. I think it entirely appropriate for there to be government intervention to protect people from predatory behavior, and sometimes even from their stupidity.

I know that's not the libertarian "markets solve all" perspective, but I never signed up for that point of view, which smacks to much of "I got mine, Jack". A different perspective.

Probably? Maybe maybe not. These were early days of mass manufactured convenient factory foods. If they reverted to the neighborhood butcher for a while that might have been a Good Thing.

No, I'm saying other foods entirely. Like vegetables grown in polluted soil. Animal dung as fertilizer?! Bleccchhh!

In modern society we like to not take the "circle of life" so literally, eh?

Come now, you're married, aren't you?

Yes indeed, but the shoe aint fittin'!

[jeff]

The posters are even having trouble!

That's true fer sure. Soon we'll forget which positions we're taking!

[jeff]

I think at least one answer you're missing is that if I understand correctly, the White House would like to put more of an emphasis on preventative medicine. Under the current system, insurers will often refuse to cover the costs of preventative care. The reason why it's not a case of penny-wise and pound-foolish for the insurance company (even though it sure is for the customer) is that they hope that by the time urgent and expensive care is required as a consequence of that neglect, they'll no longer be the ones footing the bill. Availability of affordable preventative care and no disincentive from using it would bring overall healthcare costs down.

Absolutely.

And to the cost issue: Price Waterhouse just released a report on $1.2 trillion excess cost per year. Part behavioral (obesity, smoking), part clinical: "entailing overuse, misuse or under-use of particular interventions, missed opportunities for earlier interventions" (my emphasis). See http://www.pwc.com/us/en/healthcare/...f-excess.jhtml

[jeff]

Sigh. "I am the Health Care Thread, look on my length, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Ozymandias HMO - he has a preexisting condition!

Sure. But that's a long way from demonstrating that they in fact need 2/3 more of it than anyone else. Much less that adding another 45 million consumers ( of all ages ) to the health care system is unlikely to make matters worse.

That's not a problem, because the preceding material did not attempt to quantify it. I've previously (and recently) alluded to the hockeystick curve of increasing cost at end of life.

Instead I was commenting on your comment to Hauptmann about "50% of all spending to serve 28% of the population" not being efficient. As both Hauptmann and I pointed out, the population served has higher costs for reasons that are completely obvious, and therefore one cannot look at that 50% for 28% distribution and claim that it is evidence of inefficiency as you seemed to indicate. Sorry, ball's in your court.

Not that I want to stick you with homework, of course...

OK.

That is not really the same as being "cost insensitive", though.

( I caught myself before I said "Trust me". )

If the guy doesn't care about the cost of something he/she prescribes, then it sure sounds like "cost insensitive" to me!

So then, he's sensitive to costs?

Only in the narrow and irrelevant sense that if it cost $0 he might go into that business.

It really has nothing to do with the daily experience of "should I prescribe this unneeded test or use this super-expensive tool when a cheaper one is available." Since I raised this issue to illustrate this phenomena, and that was the point I was trying, could we drop discussion of topics that are utterly unconnected to it? (this thread would not be quite so long if we stayed on track, eh?)

1) More costs, in other words. 2) Costs imposed by---hmm, would it be government?

Uh, no. Lower costs, in other words, because the practitioners affected can't use the ability to refer to themselves as an infinite cookie jar they can reach into at will. BTW, this works the same with HMO funding. They look askance at the very same practice.

You may think so, but probably the office manager would disagree!

So would I, for that matter, but I digress.

( I avoided the impulse to say "Sounds like something a Congressman might say", but again, I caught myself. )

You're claiming that a doctor writing a script is a significant cost? Why? What makes you think so?

You mean the ones that are supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?

The very same. What we have is an imperfect system that filters out a lot of risk, but not all of it. It would be silly to eliminate that in favor of no system at all, which filters out nothing.

No, you've missed a causal connection.

Were I to accept for a moment your assumption that ordering a procedure is costless to the doctor...why is it costless? Trace it back far enough and you will find something the government did or required someone else to do.

1. It's costless because the patient is on the phone or sitting in front of the doctor, and the only cost is the time spent - which is a sunk cost. It takes little time to write a script - and if it's something the patient is demanding, it takes less time than to explain why it isn't needed.

2. I don't follow the "trace it back far enough at all". As I've described in this and other threads, doctors prescribe things that aren't needed to avoid lawsuit, because it's convenient to them and adds no cost to them, because the drug rep was cute and paid for their vacation, because the patient saw it on TV, whatever. These have nothing to do with the government. Government is not the problem, cliche or no.

There are very simple causal relationships that are right in front of us, that inflate healthcare costs and reduce their effectiveness. The PWC reference above in my reply to fencerchica is good reading, but to restrict to the topics from this thread:

1. Providers in a fee-for-service system like ours have an incentive to provide services, even when they are not needed or helpful for health. Raises costs (but not to the practitioner, see above discussion), and can harm patients.
2. Fear of malpractice adds to the above, but is not the only reason.
3. Insurers have an economic incentive to deny care, cherry pick only the healthy, and dump the sick. It's good for their bottom line, bad for health.

Well, except for the former's American Indian and African-American population segments...

Sure, but the results for European-origin Americans still fit!

[Bayou Bum]

I just wish that it was cheaper for individuals to purchase health insurance. $300/month is not affordable.

So, you want to pay less than $300 a month but you expect someone else to pony up potentially hundreds of thousands to treat you if you need it? What do your benefactors get in return, besides your vote?

[Gav]

After reading some of the posts on this particular thread. I think I would like to share this story which I think highlights just how much you lot in the US don't get the NHS.

Stephen Hawking is, in fact, alive.

[thereom4]

So, you want to pay less than $300 a month but you expect someone else to pony up potentially hundreds of thousands to treat you if you need it? What do your benefactors get in return, besides your vote?

I'm a student. $300/month is alot. Oh and I posted this like what a month ago? Did you really want to engage me in dialogue that bad? Don't bother responding because I don't care.

[fencerchica]

So, you want to pay less than $300 a month but you expect someone else to pony up potentially hundreds of thousands to treat you if you need it? What do your benefactors get in return, besides your vote?

Ladies and gentlemen, for his latest trick, Bayou Bum demonstrates that he doesn't have the faintest concept of the underlying principles of how insurance works.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

( If I could make that noise the Body-Snatchers emit when they spot a human, I would point and do so! )

Nowwaitaminute!

Inq - I thought you were the one who most definitely did not approve of noise being emitted in a compative setting!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[thereom4]

Ladies and gentlemen, for his latest trick, Bayou Bum demonstrates that he doesn't have the faintest concept of the underlying principles of how insurance works.

Nice.