Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 03:41pm PT
|
MB,
The Clintons tried Health Care in the 90's and the Health Care/Insurance Industrial Complex swatted it aside.
That sucked. But it is what it is.
The Dems decided to focus on trying to minimize the number of Americans that did not have insurance without trying to take the insurance industry on. I think that was the best approach, all things considered.
Obamacare managed to do that. Could it have been better. Sure, I would have preferred single payer or at least a public option. But there was no political route to success for that.
Regarding the salary of the top administrator. I don't know anything directly about it. But a person with that type of skills could no doubt make much more in the private sector. Being a public servant often entails making less money. But too often the government shoots itself in the foot by being unwilling to pay for better talent with regard to select jobs that have a huge impact. For instance, if you decide to contract out 10s or 100s of millions of dollars of work, that used to be done by government workers, it is absolutely worth it to tax payers to hire a really good contracting officer.
|
|
Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:02pm PT
|
Head of Medicare is on the ES scale, makes more like $208k max. Low salaries in government keeps us from ever really having the best and brightest working for us, leads to the sort of people working in government that everyone complains about. Ask them to pay more taxes for better government employees and their heads explode with instant vitriol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Schedule
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:17pm PT
|
That's still an outrageous amount of money, particularly when it's coming directly from taxpayers' pockets.
Even for you, that's a laughably ludicrous comment.
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:22pm PT
|
Who knew how hard health care could be?
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:25pm PT
|
How about improving ObamaCare? no, can not do that, it would involve admitting that the black boogie man put together a pretty good program, best reform of health care in 50 years.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:31pm PT
|
How come you are never outraged that someone making 50 times that ($102 Million) was made by denying people medical care?
How come you can't read with comprehension?
My post clearly expresses outrage at the obscene costs of both the providing of health CARE and the obscene profits (which pay obscene salaries) made by the health INSURERS.
I guess you need me to detail each individual, tiny portion of the joint problems and express "proper" outrage at each one.
At present, we have a two-sided problem, and the feds are unwilling to address EITHER one. Addressing them IS within the feds' constitutional mandate. But too many of you prefer to punt, just accept that we are necessarily going to get screwed over by our government, and accept a lame-a55 "solution" that addresses NEITHER problem but instead just screws us in new and different ways.
We COULD contact our "representatives" and say something like, "Get off your a55es and hold Congressional hearings on the costs of health care and the profits (and salaries) of insurers. Then TAKE that knowledge and ENFORCE anti-trust principles to dramatically and obviously rein in both sides of this coin! We will NOT accept any 'stop-gap' measures that put patches over the gaping holes in the system. FIX it, and that means really FIX it BY reining in both sides of the problem."
|
|
NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:37pm PT
|
That's still an outrageous amount of money, particularly when it's coming directly from taxpayers' pockets.
Who in the private sector gets paid that little for managing a budget and setting policies with that much money at stake? Be realistic, and make apples to apples comparisons in areas where you have relevant professional competency. Ha! I can already see those 3 fingers pointing back at me when I point a finger at you ;)
|
|
rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:39pm PT
|
Trump and Ryan again proved that the Republican party can't govern...Losers...
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:39pm PT
|
We dodged a huge bullet in that Trump is completely incompetent. He tried to shove a bill down the throats of Americans that would leave 24 million more people uninsured. What a clusterf--- of the first order. This is what happens when you elect a narcissistic, I'll informed conman. Make America great again--what a crock.
Told ya!
|
|
NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:45pm PT
|
Was it really Reid and Pelosi that blocked the single payer system in early ACA negotiations?
My perception was that Obama and most Dems were pushing for the single payer thing, that Repubs poisoned it with keeping the insurance companies in the middle, and Obama calculated that the compromise and gamble was worth it as a stepping stone to force us to a single payer system. I'd be happy to see any pointers that support or refute my perception.
Edit:
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/02/16/16766/elimination-public-option-threw-consumers-insurance-wolves
Joe Lieberman is a (former) Dem (now "Independent" in party affiliation but not free of corporate influence) from Connecticut. Home of Hartford Insurance and many others. From that article:
In an effort to keep the public option idea alive, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited me to testify during a Sept. 16, 2009, meeting of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Forum on Health Insurance Reform.
Knowing the industry as I did, I told the committee that if Congress failed to create a public option to compete with private insurers, “the bill it sends to the President might as well be called “The Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.” Pelosi insisted that Congress had no intention of doing that.
While Pelosi was able to get a bill through the House with a public option provision, she couldn’t control what was happening in the Senate. Although a majority of Senate Democrats supported the public option, the industry knew it only needed one senator who caucused with the Dems to change his mind and kill it.
That undermines the idea that Pelosi was against single payer. And it shows that because of the number of Republicans, the insurance industry only needed ONE Democrat!!!
|
|
chill
climber
The fat part of the bell-curve
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 04:50pm PT
|
In all seriousness Jody wrote:
Part of Trump's brilliant plan
I find this idea that there is some sort of plan really amusing.
There is no plan. The man has the attention span of a Tweet. Its the perfect forum for him.
Some people have compared him to Hitler. This is way too extreme, and ascribes to him undeserved competence, but there is something Mussolini-like about him. A pompous, strutting blowhard, playing Mussolini to Putin's Hitler.
|
|
rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 05:00pm PT
|
chill... exactamundo...
|
|
eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 05:05pm PT
|
Hey chill, I've been pointing this very thing out to whoever will listen to me for months now. Mussolini is EXACTLY who Trump is, um, "channeling", not Hitler. I think that Hitler really did believe in the whole German master race thing. He was an ideologue. That's not Trump. Trump is all about Trump -- just like Mussolini, basically a thuggish and clannish (and clownish) character.
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 05:08pm PT
|
Fortunately, he lacks Mussolini's discipline, brains and experience.
|
|
crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 06:06pm PT
|
Trumpcare was a horrible bill, but the hapless GOP probably benefited in the long run. Just about everyone hated it so once the embarrassment wears off they can go back to whining about Obamacare, albeit less stridently. It is humorous to watch Madbolter's president point the finger at everyone but himself, however.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 06:27pm PT
|
Madbolter's president
ROFL
Whatever turns your crank.
Why didn't you put up a viable candidate, so that I had a viable choice? Instead, you left me with "horrific" and "just a tiny smidgen less horrific." In general, thus far, getting Gorsuch would be enough for me, so I couldn't be happier, given the choices we were faced with.
|
|
crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 06:51pm PT
|
Nobody on the forum worked harder than you to undermine his opponent. Incompetent Don's yours, 100%. You get the slimball Gorsuch and everything else. Package deal, the vanity, narcissism and clumsiness included.
|
|
Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 06:59pm PT
|
Reposted from the 'Congratulations' discussion (with particular aim at Jody, who never responded to this):
We should talk about how well the U.S. health system, by far the most expensive in the world as a percentage of GD (17.1%), actually works. A single example with data from the CIA https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html. Infant mortality in the United States (5.80 deaths/1000 births) is greater than Bosnia (5.60), Slovakia (5.20), Cuba (4.50), Estonia (3.80) etc. etc. etc., not even to mention England, France, Germany, Ireland, and many other countries. Yes, I know infant mortality isn't the only measure of health care but pretty much all other measures replicate the data.
And yet here we are, with republicans wanting to defund planned parenthood, get rid of Medicaid, remove health insurance for 20 million Americans.
Here are health care costs as % of GDP for the countries mentioned above from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS:
United States 17.1%
Bosnia 9.6%
Slovakia 8.1%
Cuba 11.1%
Estonia 6.4%
Canada 10.4% (included as they are much maligned)
Germany 11.3% (as another 1st world example)
In fact, the next closest countries to the US are the Marshall Islands (17.1%), Micronesia (13.7%), then France (11.5%), Germany (11.3%), and Austria (11.2%).
Yeah, the greatest health system in the world my ass. In the 35 to 44 year old range, medical costs caused 28.9% of bankruptcy in 2013 (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148);. It's way past time the United States joined the rest of the world and instituted universal health care. I'm amazed large corporations aren't pushing for this, as it would be a huge cost saver for them.
Edited to add: And let's not even get started on drug costs ...........
Re-edited to add: My brother gets to keep his health insurance. A good outcome.
|
|
madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 07:06pm PT
|
Nobody on the forum worked harder than you to undermine his opponent.
And thank goodness there were enough people across the nation to stop the insanity that was the Clinton machine!
Incompetent Don's yours, 100%. You get the slimball Gorsuch and everything else.
I'll take him, if I end up with Gorsuch. Those of you who think you understand (and reject) "originalism" would instead prefer an entirely politicized court, finger to the wind, "interpreting" the constitution HOWEVER they see fit at the moment, completely untethered from the pesky history and pesky MEANINGS of the people who actually wrote and ratified THE law of the land. I literally laugh at the absurdity of it. So, yup, if Trump was the price to get Gorsuch, it seems like a pretty good deal to me thus far.
Package deal, the vanity, narcissism and clumsiness included.
True dat!
Still better than the vanity, narcissism, clumsiness, AND criminality of the candidate you preferred.
LOL... see, we can do this all day. You have your "side," and by contrast, I'm off your scale and thinking entirely pragmatically about a choice between "dumb and dumber." I don't have a "left" OR "right" ideology. YOU insisted on Clinton, when there were FAR better options available.
Oh, but right... I remember now... Clinton was the ONE Demoncrat candidate that COULD NOT LOSE. It's all coming back to me now.
|
|
rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
|
|
|
Mar 24, 2017 - 07:07pm PT
|
I don't care if i can't afford health insurance i want Hillary and Obama in jail...
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!