Obamacare - Confessions of an MIT Bunko Artist, Jon Gruber

[Earl IV]

So, where are those "death panels", dismal?

You are conducting this discussion as if it can be assumed everyone is familiar with the medical system in France.

I am asking you questions about it because I am not familiar with it.

Let me try again:

Is there anyone anywhere in the French medical system who will ever deny me any medical care that I want paid for by the state?

If I feel like it can I decide to have a sex change operation and a lobotomy while on my death bed from 6 different kinds of cancer and an open chest wound?

I'm having trouble connecting the dots here.

What does refusal to cover unnecessary and/or optional surgery have to do with death panels?

I'm no doctor, but I doubt a sex change or lobotomy would be the appropriate treatment for cancer or an open chest wound.

 

[KeepTalking]

It is true the the right has been spreading misinformation; you can't fault the left for that. Gruber's statements just prove that the the Democrats are hypocrites.

No, Gruber's statements only prove that Gruber is a hypocrite.

 

[dismal]

I can think of one good reason to defend the ACA despite it's massive flaws: the American people will be better off, both economically and in terms of quality of life.

Except for, As Gruber points out, the people who were made worse off.

 

[ksen]

I see max was listening to rush limbaugh yesterday.

 

[bigfield]

However, I think it is obvious that big government healthcare requires death panels. I would be more afraid of government healthcare without death panels than with.

There is no such thing as a death panel in any public healthcare system. It is demonstrably not a requisite.

And if you think that a bureaucracy that sets limits on the amount of funding for a public healthcare system is a 'death panel', the characterisation is wholly inappropriate.

 

[ksen]

But bigfield if you get denied a sex change operation or a lobotomy it is the same as killing you.

 

[bigfield]

I can think of one good reason to defend the ACA despite it's massive flaws: the American people will be better off, both economically and in terms of quality of life.

Except for, As Gruber points out, the people who were made worse off.

Gruber states that the public wouldn't vote for a system where healthy people pay into the system but, by virtue of being healthy, do not gain benefits from the system, and instead find themselves paying for other sick people.

The problem with that view is that it is rubbish: no-one is healthy for their entire life; everyone will need healthcare; everyone will have an opportunity to be served by the system. It would be a stupid reason to vote against the legislation.

Plus, everyone reaps the social and economic benefits of a healthier, and therefore more productive, nation of people.

- - - Updated - - -

But bigfield if you get denied a sex change operation or a lobotomy it is the same as killing you.

Only if you have cancer of the personality.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

However, I think it is obvious that big government healthcare requires death panels. I would be more afraid of government healthcare without death panels than with.

There is no such thing as a death panel in any public healthcare system. It is demonstrably not a requisite.

And if you think that a bureaucracy that sets limits on the amount of funding for a public healthcare system is a 'death panel', the characterisation is wholly inappropriate.

But when the free market does it, it is "efficiency and cost control".

 

[dismal]

Except for, As Gruber points out, the people who were made worse off.

Gruber states that the public wouldn't vote for a system where healthy people pay into the system but, by virtue of being healthy, do not gain benefits from the system, and instead find themselves paying for other sick people.

The problem with that view is that it is rubbish: no-one is healthy for their entire life; everyone will need healthcare; everyone will have an opportunity to be served by the system. It would be a stupid reason to vote against the legislation.

No, it's not rubbish. Gruber is absolutely correct. The issue is Obamacare covers people who are already sick. If you are not sick, you are being forced into a pool with people who are already sick.

If you are being forced into homeowners insurance pool with people whose houses are already burned down you will pay more money than is required to insure yourself. The fact that you may someday need that insurance because someday your house may burn down does not change this fact.

Instead of being honest about this, Obama said people could expect their cost to go down $2500 per year.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Gruber states that the public wouldn't vote for a system where healthy people pay into the system but, by virtue of being healthy, do not gain benefits from the system, and instead find themselves paying for other sick people.

The problem with that view is that it is rubbish: no-one is healthy for their entire life; everyone will need healthcare; everyone will have an opportunity to be served by the system. It would be a stupid reason to vote against the legislation.

No, it's not rubbish. Gruber is absolutely correct. The issue is Obamacare covers people who are already sick. If you are not sick, you are being forced into a pool with people who are already sick.

If you are being forced into homeowners insurance pool with people whose houses are already burned down you will pay more money than is required to insure yourself. The fact that you may someday need that insurance because someday your house may burn down does not change this fact.

Instead of being honest about this, Obama said people could expect their cost to go down $2500 per year.

If this is the case, then we'd see people who didn't have insurance going around the Exchanges and directly to the insurance companies because it would be cheaper.

 

[bigfield]

Gruber states that the public wouldn't vote for a system where healthy people pay into the system but, by virtue of being healthy, do not gain benefits from the system, and instead find themselves paying for other sick people.

The problem with that view is that it is rubbish: no-one is healthy for their entire life; everyone will need healthcare; everyone will have an opportunity to be served by the system. It would be a stupid reason to vote against the legislation.

No, it's not rubbish. Gruber is absolutely correct. The issue is Obamacare covers people who are already sick. If you are not sick, you are being forced into a pool with people who are already sick.

The fact that some people are already sick has a relatively small effect on the cost to individual taxpayers. It is not a large enough factor to negate the future benefits gained by currently-healthy people who enter into the system.

If you are being forced into homeowners insurance pool with people whose houses are already burned down you will pay more money than is required to insure yourself. The fact that you may someday need that insurance because someday your house may burn down does not change this fact.

Instead of being honest about this, Obama said people could expect their cost to go down $2500 per year.

Obama is probably correct, if only about the individual cost reduction and not the actual amount. A public health care system is cheaper because it operates on a much larger scale than that of a private insurer, even a national one. The fact that some people are already sick and will incur immediate costs is insignificant.

ETA: To use your home insurance analogy, it is the equivalent of being forced into a homeowner's insurance pool where the pool is massively larger than any private, purely optional pool you can find, making it a better deal despite the fact that some of the houses are currently smoking ruins.

 

[Sabine Grant]

So, where are those "death panels", dismal?

You are conducting this discussion as if it can be assumed everyone is familiar with the medical system in France.

Again, you made a claim quoted several times now and I used the French health care system as an example demonstrating that your claim is false. Further, you still have not supported your claim. No data or documentation provided to prove it when it comes to any nation falling under the definition of "big government health care". Are you not aware that the author of a claim is the party responsible to support it?

I am asking you questions about it because I am not familiar with it.

Let me try again:

Is there anyone anywhere in the French medical system who will ever deny me any medical care that I want paid for by the state?

And you are asking questions while changing the meaning of under which situations the term "death" would apply as in "death panels". Did you or not pay attention to :

You are ducking from your original claim. I have challenged you to document that the French health care system has "death panels". "death panels" would apply to medically needy persons necessitating vital medical care to where obstructing their access to such care would result in a fatal outcome.

I have further detailed for you the reality that health conditions which could result in a fatal outcome if obstructed from access to health care are in FACT covered 100% under the French system.

For some unexplained reason you seem to insist that "death panels" are present if and when an individual seeks coverage for a totally non life threatening condition and unnecessary medical care, they will be turned down. As if being turned down for cosmetic surgery for breast enlargement would result in a fatal outcome.

If I feel like it can I decide to have a sex change operation and a lobotomy while on my death bed from 6 different kinds of cancer and an open chest wound?

Care to explain how in such disconnected from existing realities scenario, any health care professional would conclude that a lobotomy and sex change operation would in any way reverse a terminal prognosis resulting from "6 different kinds of cancer and an open chest wound"?

Are you under the impression that specialists in oncology (the "6 cancers" part) consider a lobotomy and a sex change operation to be part of the pharma and surgical protocols specific to the field of oncology and hematology, protocols applied to treat to cancer diagnosed patients whether they have one of several types of cancer?

Are you under the impression that chest wounds or any other type of invasive trauma resulting in internal damages to the chest cavity are treated via a lobotomy or a sex change operation in order to save a patient's life?

To oppose your fantasy scenario, how about my rubbing your nose into this undeniable reality : prior to the AHCA, a "death panel" was indeed at play in obstructing my access to life saving and vital oncology based treatments. Giving me no alternative, no option but live day in day out with the knowledge that in absence of access to such treatments, I could meet a terminal prognosis. Further that the prolonged absence of such treatments would undeniably lead to the LAST resort life saving treatment known as a bone marrow transplant with a price tag of 500.000 dollars. In France, such last resort would be prevented as they would be NO obstruction to my receiving medically and clinically supported treatments meant to maintain me in remission and prevent any further progression to a terminal stage. And that despite of the fact that my type of lymphoma (NHD, Lymphoma Type B, Follicular Low Grade) is incurable.

Prior to the AHCA, NO insurance company would let me enroll due to that specific diagnosis. Leaving me with no other option, no other alternative but be dependent on my husband's employer "crumb" Group Plan which left me under insured between 2009 and January 1st 2014.

 

[dismal]

No, it's not rubbish. Gruber is absolutely correct. The issue is Obamacare covers people who are already sick. If you are not sick, you are being forced into a pool with people who are already sick.

The fact that some people are already sick has a relatively small effect on the cost to individual taxpayers.

Wrong-a-mundo. Health care costs are heavily concentrated among a relatively few sick people. You will generally see numbers like 3% of Medicaid recipients account for 50% of the spending. These people struggled to get coverage in private insurance markets because they were the approximate equivalent of trying to buy home insurance while their house was on fire. These people have enormous benefits for flocking to the Obamacare exchange, and will do so in disproportionate numbers.

Some rubes (now aka Grubes) are required to join these pools to bring the rates down.

You know ho knows this sort of stuff inside and out? Gruber does. He supposedly the leading authority in the country on this sort of thing. He knows it so well that Obama paid him $400,000 to consult on it.

 

[dismal]

Is there anyone anywhere in the French medical system who will ever deny me any medical care that I want paid for by the state?

And you are asking questions while changing the meaning of under which situations the term "death" would apply as in "death panels". Did you or not pay attention to :

OK, let's step back and talk definitions so we stop talking past each other. In my view a "death panel" is a scary sounding name slang name for an entity that allocates health care resources. Some people do not get allocated resources they might want. Some of these decisions result in people dying.

Example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

When the government controls the resources, the government allocates the resources.

 

[maxparrish]

Hmmm, I think I read that video five of the "American people are stupid" series just surfaced.

 

[ksen]

Gruber states that the public wouldn't vote for a system where healthy people pay into the system but, by virtue of being healthy, do not gain benefits from the system, and instead find themselves paying for other sick people.

The problem with that view is that it is rubbish: no-one is healthy for their entire life; everyone will need healthcare; everyone will have an opportunity to be served by the system. It would be a stupid reason to vote against the legislation.

No, it's not rubbish. Gruber is absolutely correct. The issue is Obamacare covers people who are already sick. If you are not sick, you are being forced into a pool with people who are already sick.

If you are being forced into homeowners insurance pool with people whose houses are already burned down you will pay more money than is required to insure yourself. The fact that you may someday need that insurance because someday your house may burn down does not change this fact.

Do you not understand the concept of insurance?

 

[ksen]

Hmmm, I think I read that video five of the "American people are stupid" series just surfaced.

who cares, besides you and el rushbo?

 

[bigfield]

The fact that some people are already sick has a relatively small effect on the cost to individual taxpayers.

Wrong-a-mundo. Health care costs are heavily concentrated among a relatively few sick people. You will generally see numbers like 3% of Medicaid recipients account for 50% of the spending.

Where do you see these numbers? Less than a third of Medicaid is spent on long-term care, and even long-term care spending is spread across multiple categories.

ETA: Never mind, I found the source:
http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/7576-02.pdf

Medicaid long-term care users accounted for 6 percent of the Medicaid population in 2007, but nearly half of total Medicaid spending

These people struggled to get coverage in private insurance markets because they were the approximate equivalent of trying to buy home insurance while their house was on fire.

Plus, most Medicaid recipients are too poor to afford private health insurance, would have made it difficult for them to get the care required to save the metaphorical house before it went up in flames.

These people have enormous benefits for flocking to the Obamacare exchange, and will do so in disproportionate numbers.

At this stage I have reason to believe your claims about these people are suspect. ETA: Never mind, I found the report which corroborates your claim, even if your numbers are a little off.

You are correct that these people will gain greatly from Obamacare. But the marginal cost to each individual taxpayer to cover these people is actually small, and does not negate the savings that individual taxpayers will make at the Obamacare exchanges. Hence the claim by Obama that people will save money.

You know ho knows this sort of stuff inside and out? Gruber does. He supposedly the leading authority in the country on this sort of thing. He knows it so well that Obama paid him $400,000 to consult on it.

Good for him.

 

[Sabine Grant]

And you are asking questions while changing the meaning of under which situations the term "death" would apply as in "death panels". Did you or not pay attention to :

OK, let's step back and talk definitions so we stop talking past each other. In my view a "death panel" is a scary sounding name slang name for an entity that allocates health care resources. Some people do not get allocated resources they might want. Some of these decisions result in people dying.

Example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

When the government controls the resources, the government allocates the resources.

And what proof do you have that the way the State allocates resources to our health care system in France causes our medically needy to die? I have again and again demonstrated that our system provides 100% coverage to conditions which if obstructed from access to health care will result in a fatal outcome and if not fatal will result in a drastic degradation of the affected person's quality of life. Why are you NOT addressing that reality?

I noticed that you gave up arguing from your angle of totally fantasy based scenario of the "6 cancers", "chest wound" and supposedly medically related to a treatment based on "sex change operation" and a "lobotomy".

And in view of this which is NOT a fantasy based scenario but an existing reality which affected far many more than just me prior to the AHCA :

To oppose your fantasy scenario, how about my rubbing your nose into this undeniable reality : prior to the AHCA, a "death panel" was indeed at play in obstructing my access to life saving and vital oncology based treatments. Giving me no alternative, no option but live day in day out with the knowledge that in absence of access to such treatments, I could meet a terminal prognosis. Further that the prolonged absence of such treatments would undeniably lead to the LAST resort life saving treatment known as a bone marrow transplant with a price tag of 500.000 dollars. In France, such last resort would be prevented as they would be NO obstruction to my receiving medically and clinically supported treatments meant to maintain me in remission and prevent any further progression to a terminal stage. And that despite of the fact that my type of lymphoma (NHD, Lymphoma Type B, Follicular Low Grade) is incurable.

Prior to the AHCA, NO insurance company would let me enroll due to that specific diagnosis. Leaving me with no other option, no other alternative but be dependent on my husband's employer "crumb" Group Plan which left me under insured between 2009 and January 1st 2014.

let's see how well you fare through demonstrating that the French health care system has "death panels" while pursuing to whine about the AHCA.

 

[dismal]

OK, let's step back and talk definitions so we stop talking past each other. In my view a "death panel" is a scary sounding name slang name for an entity that allocates health care resources. Some people do not get allocated resources they might want. Some of these decisions result in people dying.

Example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html

When the government controls the resources, the government allocates the resources.

And what proof do you have that the way the State allocates resources to our health care system in France causes our medically needy to die?

I don't know the first thing about the health system in France. However, if they don't have some ability to limit the healthcare resources spent on people who are dying that would be really, really stupid.

You realize I said earlier that I view death panels as a plus? We need to limit the amount of resources we spend on the dying that do not improve outcomes?

If you are saying the French system does not do this you are saying the French system is flawed.