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That's a part of it, but not the reason our healthcare system sucks. Tort reform has nothing to do with people who have pre-existing conditions. If you have had diabetes, had heart problems or God forbid were born with some kind of defect, there isn't a health insurance company in the country that would take you on. Simply put, insurance is not available to you. This doesn't even account for the millions of other people who can get covered but not for the pre-existing conditions they have. Or their premiums are more than they make in an entire year (a cancer survivor will look to pay around $2000 a month in coverage).

And lets talk about those insurance companies. Have you ever had a major medical problem where you had to stay in a hospital? They will fight you for every penny. My Mom has great insurance through one of the major companies. She had to spend 4 days in a hospital. The insurance company refused to pay for more than 2 despite the doctors saying she needed to stay. The insurance company fought the prescriptions they gave her and said they weren't necessary. It took about 6 months of fighting them on things they simply refused to pay for. Things top notch doctors ordered. This isn't new either, this is what happens to just about everyone. I bet you half this board can give you a nightmare scenario with their insurance company.

Sure there margins are small, but their profits aren't. The major healthcare companies made billions. It's a huge industry where a lot of money is made. Lets not act like these guys are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.


Not every human being on the planet who needs health care is doing what you said. Just as not every human being who is on welfare is a crack smoking black person. I'm not saying you're wrong on the argument with health care, I'm just saying this notion that everyone fits into a stereotype is silly.

you're insane. you clearly have zero clue what you are talking about. you are confusing tax rates with what is actually paid.

uhmm.. ok,.. you just out-insaned yourself. if everyone pays 10%... everyone pays 10%. its not real difficult math.

His comments weren't Marxist at all. Just because you heard some McCain campaign staff member use the word doesn't mean it's a fair assessment. Reminds me of people using "appeasement" when they had no clue what it meant. I hope people on both sides of the aisle read about Marx and his philosophies so they can stop sounding ignorant when invoking his name.

hehe, nope its working. :winkwink:

So the 4% difference in tax rates between the two suddenly makes Obama a Marxist Commie and McCain Adam Smith reincarnated?

And how exactly do you plan to pay for our $10 trillion dollar debt the fiscal conservatives have put in? You guys want no one to pay taxes but want to spend all this imaginary money that we don't have.

looked the response oystein.

Would Tort reform not lower the overall cost for the hospitals and Doctors and nurses via reduced legal / malpractice insurance costs? Would that not go towards lowering the overall cost of medical expenses? Which in turn should help lower premiums, allowing people that previously were unable to be covered more leeway? I agree there needs to be reform on pre exisiting conditions too.

So all these pill producing companies that charge 1000-5000% more in our Country do it because they got sued?



So you are a younger MALE, with no kids, that doesn?t smoke. Neat.

My wife is a younger women, with 2 kids, and tubes tied. But she gets charged more because she is within a child having age range.

Also, could you punch the blue cross guy in the face. They wouldn?t? cover my kid, even though my wife and my kid could have died from previous medical conditions my wife has. I was basically fined $20,000 for having a kid.

Thank god my wife went to work for a much larger porn company before the 2nd kid came around. They couldn?t deny shit then.


So I should live poor because of my wife born medical problems? I can?t have a nice car because I should have to cover the $3,000-$7,000 a month medical costs and the $1000 a month pill cost?

I don?t think you have a clue what Insurance costs once you get sick.


23% base or just under 30% on money earned for middle and up. It works out the same, either way. And the poor, can pay less. So if you set it at 10 or 15% - you take more money from the poor and less from the higher incomes.

Problem is, the poor end up paying a higher % of tax, with all taxes added on.

Do I pay less than 23%, hell yes I do. But I own a Company and so can all but the poorest and most disadvantaged Americans can get the same benefits as myself.

My friend, trickle down eco failed. If you wish to accept that or not, is up to you. They forgot one MAJOR factor, and it is the reason it failed?. Greed.



Only way to change companies from going offshore is to correct what they say the problem is. Healthcare costs. And the fact that capital gains tax is 35%. Why in hell anyone would want to invest in this Country, is clear.

No no, I want what MS has. I want to be able to suck this Country dry of billions of dollars from the buyers to the people I hire. I want that money to trickle up, from the people to my bank account. And once I have it, I will take their money and open up Companies on other Countries, so I don?t have to pay taxes anymore. Once I do this enough, I will slowly fire all the people that helped me get my billions of dollars, and go hire people for a dime a month.

What a great feeling that will be. Fire hard working people that help build what I have and go hire others for a few dollars a month, and not have to supply health insurance, or work conditions.. Basically, I want slaves like MS has.



No really? See you give to the poor, because you want to ?GIVE?? All these guys, bill gates, I?m not even going to list them.

When I want to help charity, I write a check and give it to them and mark that on my taxes, that?s giving to the poor.

When they do it, they use a foundation that they own. Allowing them to take personal money, into a foundation they own, which removes the money from the market. They have to then donate a % to make it legal, and the rest can be invested into things like Gold, which isn?t trackable.

This is using the poor, to pay less tax, actually giving them less than you say you did, and then investing your own money again, tax free, into a market that allows you to be paid back, tax free.

Of course it would and I said I'm all for it. But it doesn't stop the two major problems in healthcare. People who can't get insurance because of a pre-existing condition, and the insurance companies abusing their power and screwing over policyholders. I think the following should be done:

- Tort reform

- Laws that prohibit insurance companies from rejecting claims against the insurer made by accredited doctors. There could then be a state review board where insurance companies could file claims of abuse by doctors and have them reviewed by independent panels. Doctors found to abuse their power would be punished.

- Laws prohibiting prescription drug companies from offering gifts, etc to doctors for prescribing their medication.

- Government run healthcare for those who can't acquire health insurance due to pre-existing conditions. People will be required a small percent of their income (roughly what they'd pay as a healthy person) to this as a premium. Government will negotiate with drug companies and insurance companies for best price (they have a lot of bargaining power).

- Government assistance to those who can't afford to pay for insurance.

Not only does this get everyone covered, but it helps take the burden off hospitals for having to pick up the tab for uninsured patients.

someone has to put the disgusting levels of greed in this country in check, if it takes a constitutional amendment to do that, i say lets do it. you can not convince me that its fair that there are people pocketing BILLIONS of dollars a year in personal wealth while there are others living in dirt floored ramshackle houses, and others owing more then they will ever make in their lifetime, in our country. we can not continue down this path of stacking all the money in one corner and allowing the disproportional spread of wealth to keep going this way, this will take us right back to a place we left once before, history has shown it can not work. im all for capitalism but at this point its far beyond acceptable levels. the extremely large corporations and wealthy businessmen have cannibalized on their own countrymen long enough.

just because there isn't a law against things doesn't make them right, many of these companies and their operators are criminals. if morals wont stop them, maybe the law can. im not for more laws, entirely the opposite, but something or someone has to reign these swine in. unfortunately it most likely wont happen until we clean up campaign finance and start limiting the time officials can spend in DC. i do not support socialism(totally), marxism or any other crap, but its glaringly obvious that this system is not working.

Doc the reason health care is so expensive is because of insurances until you realize that you will always be lost. Health care is not a free market is socialized both by the government and big business (company health care coverage). Those are the main reasons health care is so expensive and proof that socialism does not work. I am over simplifying.

Don't forget the "too big to fail status" that insures that if the executives make horrible decisions and the company is in trouble, the taxpayers will cut a check and save them.

So you think that removing all the restrictions on the health care industry would make it better? That these insurance companies would magically take on people with health problems and bad genetic histories.

haha.. "you guys"

i didn't vote for Bush.

"obama is shaky at best" doesn't equate to "i love Bush" or "i'm a die hard neo-con"

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I know why it's so expensive, but I don't follow you :)

I also know these healthcare / insurance Companies have been posting record profits. I also know they talk, and adjust rates all together, in agreement. They decide what not to cover and cover, evenly so nobody overly controls the market.

as for health care, i dont think its going anywhere and its certainly not going to get cheaper. id be willing to bet but i do know for fact that some of the largest contributors to both campaigns were insurance companies. its one of the largest industries in America... do you think these fantastically wealthy people want to lose their golden goose? hell no!

Social health care is where its at... after living in a country with it for three years im all for it. considering America consistently ranks in the bottom 20% of the industrialized nations in health care quality... we cant really do any harm by trying it at this point. i mean come on, the UN claims that there are African nations with lower infant mortality rates then the oh so great united states. choice wont go anywhere and neither will quality, considering if you have poor quality insurance you don't get to choose your own doctor anyways! the health of the PUBLIC is of great concern to the PUBLIC.

I'm not saying you are. I'm saying you usually defend Republican positions and use their talking points.

So am I safe to assume you are voting for neither Stalin clones and throwing your support toward Bob Barr?

insurance companies have nothing to do with the cost of health care. again, i sit everyday with the ex-CFO of Blue Cross/Blue Shield and have these conversations often. their margins are very small.

you're health care is expensive (if you think it is for some reason) because ambulance chasing attorneys and a legal system spun out completely long ago, makes it too expensive to insure people.

oh yeah... and to add more. I want to be so large that I can have a monopoly that was found to be abusing powers and not have to change a damn thing I do. No corp split up, nothing... just a petty fine that was "negotiated down".. Wow, I want that power!

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nobody voted for Bush ... :):) He just won by divine intervention :2 cents:

Margins mean shit. Exxon has small margins and makes hundreds of billions a year. United Healthcare's CEO got an exit package of $1.1 billion dollars. I have a feeling that the company wasn't hurting.

Ambulance chasers are one part of why they are high. Even if you got rid of that completely, there is no reason any health insurance company would ever take on someone with a serious pre-existing condition or genetic history susceptible to illness. You can yell the talking point about torn reform all you want, but there is no way any insurance company takes on a cancer survivor and potentially puts themselves at risk for hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment.

pointing out something about a candidate isn't "defending the other side".

i am not so naive as to think that one sociopathic narcissistic megalomaniac is better than the other.

more than anything, i'm interested with peoples behavior... where everyone loves to fall in line squarely behind one side and accuse the other of the same narrow minded, short sighted and wrong headed thinking as they act in the same exact way as those they criticize.

i'm not going to get into a long drawn about debate about partisan positions and their merits or lack thereof. for the most part, i would say i'm a social and fiscal conservative... and Bush is neither. McCain is neither. Obama is at the far end of the spectrum.

the pendulum is swinging, my man... everyone can argue all they want, circle the wagons, pat each other on the back, laugh at each others dumb remarks and "sheeple" comments and continue to blame the other side for anything and everything while ignoring the other 50% of the facts... and... at the end of the day, the pendulum will still continue to swing.. back and forth.

The obgyn is about the most expensive malpractice insurance you can get. And some how they are the doctors that take cash and don't over charge people, and can stay in business.

How odd.. Stay in business. Humm...

Is that the same as when we had to pay for my wifes spinal thing, they wanted to charge us $3,000 at the hospital. But we got it down to $600, cost of crap and doctors time?

The guy should be sued for trying to charge that much.

an insurance company making 2-3% profit isn't the reason for the costs of health care.

sorry... its just not.

easy scapegoat.

easy to point the finger at who everyone can identify is "the bad guy" because everyone has to pay for insurance, deal with insurance, gets denied coverage etc etc. much harder to convince people to blame trial attorneys when they have no obvious and clear, direct impact on peoples lives.

at the end of the day, the trial attorneys own washington and are continually fucking you up the ass while you are bent over, taking it, squealing and screaming and blaming the vaseline for not being a good enough lubricant to ease the pain.

I agree that none of the guys are fiscal conservatives, but disagree on the social side. Bush has been staunchly socially conservative by opposing gay marriage, stem cell research and abortion. He supports prayer in school and the teaching of creationism in the classroom. McCain has touted many of these same principles himself on the campaign trail.

And how are you socially conservative yet work in porn. It seems like a contradiction. One of the main points behind social conservatism is public morality which you would seem to not fall under based on your choice of profession.

all across the nation for the last 20 years, there are doctors (especially obgyn's) that can't practice medicine anymore because they can't afford ever increasing malpractice insurance and don't want the immense financial liability that goes with trying to heal people in the USA.

i actually had a meeting with my attorney and a group of doctors a few years about projects they wanted to do online and stuff they would be interested in investing in. why? why were 10 doctors sitting in a room talking about doing ANYTHING else? because they couldn't afford to be in private practice anymore.

insurance companies don't create that situation. ambulance chasing attorneys do.

here's a unique concept for many here... i try to think for myself. i don't take an extremely large group of very complicated issues and boil them down into simplistic, black and white, "us against them", "our way, right or wrong" conclusions. depends on the issues... depends on the facts.

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Malpractice insurance costs on average 3.2% of a physician's annual revenue. Are you saying that completely eliminating all lawsuits (which would be silly but we'll use as an example), would somehow get those with pre-existing conditions and bad genetic histories insurance? That considering the entire 3.2% savings being passed on to the patient would magically save the entire health care industry?

uhmm... yeah, i'm saying "completely eliminate all those lawsuits" ... uhmm.. ok... i guess thats all i've been saying.

its not complicated. its hard to tell if you are just 19 and naive or what. i got into a car wreck once.. i rear ended a car as the last of 5 cars who all stopped suddenly when a kid ran into the road. i hit the last car and pushed all the cars together (or at least they all made contact). the people in the car i hit were fine. i was doing like 15mph or so probably when i hit them... the odd thing was that the further we went forward in the line of cars... the more everyone suddenly had a neck problem. that's the system we have. a system that encourages and rewards scam artists and crooks and that breeds asshole attorneys who exploit the system for the big rewards it provides when doing so. who bears the brunt of that????? INSURANCE COMPANIES... who gets screwed? INSURANCE COMPANIES

why is it so hard to understand that an insurance company is a business selling a product. nothing more. like any business, they want to sell that product... they want to sell it to as many people as possible... but they don't determine the price of that product. the circumstances and associated risks determine the minimum price of that product.

the funny thing about listening to both obama and mccain was blaming the insurance companies for the cost of health care. no facts. no real discussion about why prices are what they are. just finger pointing at an easy target.

we live in the worlds MOST litigious society and i guess that just can't possibly play a role in higher insurance rates?

really?

Everybody needs to just snap out of the preconeption that there is any difference between the two opposing parties. The same agenda will be pushed and has been in the past no matter if democrats or republicans are in power.

As I said. The average physician pays 3.2% of their revenue to malpractice insurance. 3.2%. Do you feel that the 3.2% is causing the health care industry to have skyrocketing prices as a whole?

The lawsuits aren't what is doing it. The Doctors do not get to charge more because they got sued. The Insurance Companies tell the doctors what they will be paid.

And why and how, in 07, did every major medical insurance company almost post double profits?

These Companies stock pages say 4-6%, and we all know how you get your profits to drop. If you were going to make billions in profits and would be taxed and for sure slammed on it, wouldn't you do everything in your power to reduce it?

Oh.. I would say so.

first random result in google for "cost of malpractice insurance"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in610102.shtml

3.2%

huh?

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next result... something i already mentioned... many cities and counties have a shortage of obgyn's because they can't afford to practice

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-hco053105.php

next result...

http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporte...alpractice.htm

"In 1997, we paid $4.4 million to cover all of our clinical faculty and the hospital, and now we are paying $24 million in premiums,"

next result...

http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/i...ce/medicalmal/

"Among the other factors driving up prices was a reduced supply of available coverage as several major insurers exited the medical malpractice business because of the difficulty of making a profit."

should i go on? or do you guys know how to use google?

What does any of this have to do with the cost of medical insurance for people?

A Doctor can't charge more because he was sued, he can't pass it on the medical insurance company. They set the prices for what is paid.. Not the other way around.

insurance is expensive because of lawsuits. expensive for all parties.... not because a big, greedy insurance company is exploiting all the lowly, innocent masses who just want to do right in the world

my point was about insurance being expensive. you are saying healthcare is expensive because doctors are greedy... wasn't aware of that.. haven't heard Obama say anything like that.. he's said specifically that he will go after insurance companies for making health care expensive.

You are pulling up individual cases. The national average is 3.2%.

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1303
http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporte...alpractice.htm
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/pr...sp?Counter=735

These numbers are from from Health and Human Services. Those are articles and testimony from both sides of the argument that state the 3.2% national average.

Now I'm sure you can find individual cases of high costs for malpractice. Typically the insurance is based on risk and previous history. Those with malpractice lawsuits against them will pay higher fees. Just as a bad driver will pay higher insurance rates because of previous accidents/tickets.

I have said multiple times in this thread that tort reform is necessary. But I think it's silly to believe that this is the primary reason health costs are high considering the small expense it has on the average physician.

It is also worth noting that unemployment rates among doctors are much better than the national average. There is in fact a shortage of doctors in many parts of the country (especially highly skilled ones). This is the reason they are so highly paid. Lets not pretend that there are doctors on the side of the road begging for handouts.

That's fine, I was just pointing out that many of your independent thoughts are the same as the daily talking points from the Republican party.

I don't think anyone is blaming doctors. The reason health care costs are high is due to a shortage of skilled medical professionals and the equipment necessary to diagnose.

An MRI machine costs a couple million dollars and near a million annually to maintain/run. That's why an MRI costs you $1500. X-Ray machines are expensive. Special testing is expensive. These are procedures that can only be done by trained professionals which there is a shortage of.

If you want to cut down on health care costs for the average American, you help put more skilled professionals in the market. Whether that's grants/scholarships for college or subsidized loans for medical students, putting more people out there lowers the cost. Also having the government help with the purchase of these machines is a way to lower costs. Perhaps the government buying up MRI machines in bulk at a discount from the vendor and then re-selling the machines to hospitals/clinics at cost. Maybe just tax discounts for places that buy high end equipment.

The cost of health care has to do with much more than lawsuits. It's become a complex field that requires skilled professionals and expensive equipment.

You meant "locked" I presume :thumbsup