Originally Posted by princeofcats67

AA: I'll criticize ANYONE who believes it's a Right as an American Citizen to have "affordable" HC Insurance. I don't need "right-wing" radio to tell me that. Where do the "Rights" of American Citizens end? What determines what is defined a Right?
If your defense is that it's a "good" thing, than I have a whole list of other Rights to add.
We can find ways to try to get the costs of HC Insurance lower and we can find ways to expand coverage to more people, but I draw the line that it's a Right. How about the American Electorate "expect" nothing, that way no one feels "entitled".
Of course the US Constitution could be amended; I'm fine with that because it would then be Legal. I wouldn't agree, but I wouldn't
complain(as much)either. Rule of Law is important for many reasons and holds true in this case as well IMO. Start circumventing that(more than they already have been)and I'm outta here b/c I became a US Citizen for our Constitution. Abiding by it means alot to me. PoC67

We're not making much progress, so let's start from the other side. Let me ask you two (three?) questions. What is a defined role of, and what qualifies as a guarnateed right provided by governement ... if any? Now the magic question - why is that so?

I assume this should be easy.

Here's how a "progressive" clinches the right-vs.-privilege argument:

Auto insurance - and by extension, car ownership - is rather obviously a privilege and not a right. Yet alternatives are provided for those who can't afford that privilege, in the form of public transportation, almost always from government on some level.

Similarly, alternatives in the form of community health clinics, publicly-funded "charity care" reimbursements to hospitals, etc., can and should be provided to those who cannot afford the privilege of health insurance.

Problem solved - and no cat-herding of those who already have health insurance into the above, which is the true stumbling block to health-care reform.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

58F: This is where we get hung-up: "and should". If the sentence read:

Similarly, alternatives in the form of community health clinics, publicly-funded "charity care" reimbursements to hospitals, etc., can be provided to those who cannot afford the privilege of health insurance.

.....we'd be alot closer IMO. Expand Medicare? A possibility, no doubt. Compel Participation? NEVER! Once these "big Gear" changes are enacted, they're like trying to retrieve a wedding ring dropped in the toilet. Easier said than done!(LOL) PoC67

But who in their right mind would go to one of these clinics if they had private health insurance?

And who would try to compel them to do so?

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

My point is more of a technical one.
Generally speaking. Let the Fiscal Conservatives have control of the Means, and let the Social Liberal have control of the Ends. Have a Trigger that "incrementally" tinkers with the system, if the Means can't accomplish the Ends. Slow baby-steps if possible is usually a good strategy In My Experience.

Of course this is "la-la land", but it doesn't hurt to plan. PoC67

But this doesn't affect anyone who already has insurance under the current system - and since the "means" would come from those most likely not to have insurance, to the greatest extent that is practical (unless, of course, you honestly believe that the CEO of Halliburton buys pre-paid phone cards or sends MoneyGrams to Mexico on a regular basis ...).

How very GC of Buffett...

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

He's BEEN the Gray Champion and it's kinda disturbing in a "Propaganda/Manipulation of Sentiment" kinda way. Just saying.
PoC67

I'll agree on that; I've been watching him for awhile... he keeps stepping up to a GC level, then retreating. I wonder if he thinks it's just good business sense, or if he can ever be convinced to actually lead. Not that I expect we'll ever elect him, mind you, but I can see him in a much larger advisory role in the future.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Why must it be done precisely this way?

Because otherwise it doesn't pass.

And at least this way you get to say that "there's no such thing as a free lunch."

You can bring certain special-interest constituencies (e.g., environmentalists) on board by adding items to the list of those to be taxed (e.g., incandescent light bulbs - which not for nothing are tending to disappear from store shelves except in the poorest neighborhoods!). Tobacco is a dead horse, though - and you'll lose the support of the Guidos if you tax visits to tanning parlors!




So long as it's Sioux Falls and not Bangalore, I have no problem with it.

But if abuses become truly intolerable, you can always put a federal cap on it, reminiscent of the Extortionate Credit Transactions Statute passed in the mid-'60s to "combat the Mafia" (the same reason given for the abolition of $500 and $1,000 bills).

1. It doesn't have to be done any particular way - I just don't like taxing pre-paid phone cards because that targets people who already are hurting financially or have bad credit. I'm all for taxing funds that are sent outside the country though. Still curious, why pre-paid phone cards?

2. I agree with you about tobacco being a dead horse and finding some tax for the environmental lobby to like. We could also pay for the "charity care" program by taxing junk food or pop instead of pre-paid phone cards.

3. As far as Sioux Falls, goes, if you like the way the Credit Card industry treats its customers you'll love allowing health insurers to cross state lines. Is there an alternative to this that could promote competition? Maybe having a uniform federal standard, just a thought?

4. What the heck is a "Guido?"

Originally Posted by aadams1980

What the heck is a "Guido?"

Nice place you got here. Be terrible if something were to happen to it.

Originally Posted by aadams1980

4. What the heck is a "Guido?"

Guido last time I checked, correct me if I'm wrong, but that was a nickname assigned to lower-class ethnic Italian-American muscleheads. I knew a few back in HS.

~Chas'88

an East Coast thing I'm guessing

Originally Posted by aadams1980

an East Coast thing I'm guessing

Yeah no Guidos on the West Coast (thank god) but I know who they are thanks to the internet.
Some Photographic Evidence

Originally Posted by aadams1980

an East Coast thing I'm guessing

For the most part, I'd have to say yes. Once you get beyond New Jersey (which seems to be Guido central) there's fewer and fewer of them until you hit the mid-west where they just simply vanish from there on out.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Rose1992

Yeah no Guidos on the West Coast (thank god) but I know who they are thanks to the internet.
Some Photographic Evidence

LOL, what is that from? Casting extras for Jersey Shore? Hell maybe that is that show, I've never watched it (guessing I'm not missing much)

Originally Posted by aadams1980

1. It doesn't have to be done any particular way - I just don't like taxing pre-paid phone cards because that targets people who already are hurting financially or have bad credit. I'm all for taxing funds that are sent outside the country though. Still curious, why pre-paid phone cards?

Rather obviously, because pre-paid phone cards are inordinately purchased not only by those most likely to need some sort of government assistance regards health care, but also by drug dealers, etc., looking for "privacy" in plying their criminal trade.

Think of it as a kind of retroactive co-payment.

Of course if you really wanted to target this even more narrowly, you could impose a 3% payroll tax, from which those who have private health insurance meeting a prescribed minimum standard would be exempt (if they got it from their employers, as the majority do, they would merely not have the 3% deducted from their paycheck; if they bought it directly, they could file a form to that effect on their tax return, and receive a full refund of the amount withheld).

2. I agree with you about tobacco being a dead horse and finding some tax for the environmental lobby to like. We could also pay for the "charity care" program by taxing junk food or pop instead of pre-paid phone cards.

As we have already seen, this is way too unpopular to sell to the American public. Alcoholic beverages - and marijuana, were it ever to be legalized! - could be a fertile field though.

3. As far as Sioux Falls, goes, if you like the way the Credit Card industry treats its customers you'll love allowing health insurers to cross state lines. Is there an alternative to this that could promote competition? Maybe having a uniform federal standard, just a thought?

An income-percentage threshold for health insurance could be established; and then, if the insurance companies got too greedy, the number of people who would meet the "means test" under the national charity-care program would start to increase precipitously. This would also solve the pre-existing conditions dilemma en passant, in that such patients would meet the "means test" even if they were relatively affluent.

4. What the heck is a "Guido?"

It looks as if others here have beaten me to it when it comes to answering that one.

I looked this guy up before writing him an email. He's either a late Silent or early Boomer--graduated from SUNY Buffalo in 1967 but I couldn't tell if that was undergrad or med school. Anyway, he is my new hero, really. Incidentally, I researched the issue myself last year and told my doctor I didn't want the test anymore. He didn't argue.

This guy has guts.

March 10, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
The Great Prostate Mistake
By RICHARD J. ABLIN

Tucson

EACH year some 30 million American men undergo testing for prostate-specific antigen, an enzyme made by the prostate. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994, the P.S.A. test is the most commonly used tool for detecting prostate cancer.

The test’s popularity has led to a hugely expensive public health disaster. It’s an issue I am painfully familiar with — I discovered P.S.A. in 1970. As Congress searches for ways to cut costs in our health care system, a significant savings could come from changing the way the antigen is used to screen for prostate cancer.

Americans spend an enormous amount testing for prostate cancer. The annual bill for P.S.A. screening is at least $3 billion, with much of it paid for by Medicare and the Veterans Administration.

Prostate cancer may get a lot of press, but consider the numbers: American men have a 16 percent lifetime chance of receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer, but only a 3 percent chance of dying from it. That’s because the majority of prostate cancers grow slowly. In other words, men lucky enough to reach old age are much more likely to die with prostate cancer than to die of it.

Even then, the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t.

Instead, the test simply reveals how much of the prostate antigen a man has in his blood. Infections, over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen, and benign swelling of the prostate can all elevate a man’s P.S.A. levels, but none of these factors signals cancer. Men with low readings might still harbor dangerous cancers, while those with high readings might be completely healthy.

In approving the procedure, the Food and Drug Administration relied heavily on a study that showed testing could detect 3.8 percent of prostate cancers, which was a better rate than the standard method, a digital rectal exam.

Still, 3.8 percent is a small number. Nevertheless, especially in the early days of screening, men with a reading over four nanograms per milliliter were sent for painful prostate biopsies. If the biopsy showed any signs of cancer, the patient was almost always pushed into surgery, intensive radiation or other damaging treatments.

The medical community is slowly turning against P.S.A. screening. Last year, The New England Journal of Medicine published results from the two largest studies of the screening procedure, one in Europe and one in the United States. The results from the American study show that over a period of 7 to 10 years, screening did not reduce the death rate in men 55 and over.

The European study showed a small decline in death rates, but also found that 48 men would need to be treated to save one life. That’s 47 men who, in all likelihood, can no longer function sexually or stay out of the bathroom for long.

Numerous early screening proponents, including Thomas Stamey, a well-known Stanford University urologist, have come out against routine testing; last month, the American Cancer Society urged more caution in using the test. The American College of Preventive Medicine also concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend routine screening.

So why is it still used? Because drug companies continue peddling the tests and advocacy groups push “prostate cancer awareness” by encouraging men to get screened. Shamefully, the American Urological Association still recommends screening, while the National Cancer Institute is vague on the issue, stating that the evidence is unclear.

The federal panel empowered to evaluate cancer screening tests, the Preventive Services Task Force, recently recommended against P.S.A. screening for men aged 75 or older. But the group has still not made a recommendation either way for younger men.

Prostate-specific antigen testing does have a place. After treatment for prostate cancer, for instance, a rapidly rising score indicates a return of the disease. And men with a family history of prostate cancer should probably get tested regularly. If their score starts skyrocketing, it could mean cancer.

But these uses are limited. Testing should absolutely not be deployed to screen the entire population of men over the age of 50, the outcome pushed by those who stand to profit.

I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster. The medical community must confront reality and stop the inappropriate use of P.S.A. screening. Doing so would save billions of dollars and rescue millions of men from unnecessary, debilitating treatments.

Richard J. Ablin is a research professor of immunobiology and pathology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the president of the Robert Benjamin Ablin Foundation for Cancer Research.

Without arguing the merits of the PSA screening for most men, I have different take on it. I'm a prostate cancer survivor, hence I'm a lot less sanguine about never having the test. When I contracted prostatitis 16 years ago, I had a benchmark PSA run, and have had one every 3 years since then. Last year it shot up, I had the biopsy and the treatment that followed.

Mine was a minor case. I qualified for the least invasive treatment, took it and it's been successful. The initial side effects have diminished to the point that I'm basically back at square 1.

I'm lucky. It killed my first cousin in his early 50s.

Originally Posted by Xer H

I'll agree on that; I've been watching him for awhile... he keeps stepping up to a GC level, then retreating. I wonder if he thinks it's just good business sense, or if he can ever be convinced to actually lead. Not that I expect we'll ever elect him, mind you, but I can see him in a much larger advisory role in the future.

I thought it was just me who thought he was doing that gc thing then stepping back. Now that PoC and you are mentioning what I noticed about Buffet, I guess I'm not alone in thinking this.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Without arguing the merits of the PSA screening for most men, I have different take on it. I'm a prostate cancer survivor, hence I'm a lot less sanguine about never having the test. When I contracted prostatitis 16 years ago, I had a benchmark PSA run, and have had one every 3 years since then. Last year it shot up, I had the biopsy and the treatment that followed.

Mine was a minor case. I qualified for the least invasive treatment, took it and it's been successful. The initial side effects have diminished to the point that I'm basically back at square 1.

I'm lucky. It killed my first cousin in his early 50s.

I don't think there's actually any difference between you and him. He would probably agree that the postatitis (and also, perhaps, your cousin's illness) would have qualified you for the test. He's complaining about giving it to ANYONE without distinction.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Without arguing the merits of the PSA screening for most men, I have different take on it. I'm a prostate cancer survivor, hence I'm a lot less sanguine about never having the test. When I contracted prostatitis 16 years ago, I had a benchmark PSA run, and have had one every 3 years since then. Last year it shot up, I had the biopsy and the treatment that followed.

Mine was a minor case. I qualified for the least invasive treatment, took it and it's been successful. The initial side effects have diminished to the point that I'm basically back at square 1.

I'm lucky. It killed my first cousin in his early 50s.

I don't think there's actually any difference between you and him. He would probably agree that the prostatitis (and also, perhaps, your cousin's illness) would have qualified you for the test. He's complaining about giving it to ANYONE without distinction.

I agree, but the problem with medical advice: it's never taken in full doses. Medicine is as much art as science. Part of the problem, maybe the biggest part, is the individual patient. One patient will hear the exceptions, assume he or she qualifies and demand the test. The next will assume the baseline state, and refuse outright. Both are wrong.

This is one field where the statistical average doesn't apply very well. You only have one life, so how you and your doctor handle it is the only case that's directly important to you. My mother was a bit of a hypochondriac, but she died of cancer at 59. Was she wrong to be concerned? My father ignored his health entirely. He died at 51. I think I can say he made bad choices, but being prudent may have been of no help either.

Physicians have to deal with the aftermath. They try to do as much right as possible while doing as little harm. It's a field I admire, but one I could never enter.

First, the Democratic propaganda machine soars, with Natoma Canfield. Then it crash-lands, with Marcelas Owens.

The Canfield story is exactly the kind the Democrats should be emphasizing: A self-employed - and thus presumably "hard-working" - rugged individual, who actually was insured until the very end, facing financial ruin, or even worse.

But the Marcelas Owens story plays straight into the far right's hands: If he's 11 years old, and his mother died at age 27, what does that tell you? (And I don't even want to know how old the grandmother is - 43?).

You do the math. Obviously someone at the White House didn't.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

First, the Democratic propaganda machine soars, with Natoma Canfield. Then it crash-lands, with Marcelas Owens.

The Canfield story is exactly the kind the Democrats should be emphasizing: A self-employed - and thus presumably "hard-working" - rugged individual, who actually was insured until the very end, facing financial ruin, or even worse.

But the Marcelas Owens story plays straight into the far right's hands: If he's 11 years old, and his mother died at age 27, what does that tell you? (And I don't even want to know how old the grandmother is - 43?).

You do the math. Obviously someone at the White House didn't.

I dunno, I like watching rich bureacratics who have the economic means to save dying mothers, using a child who lost his mothers for their own political gains. Oh well, atleast they're living up to their image with me.

So Preminums will rise or fall under this directly/indirectly pass Health Bill? Who is telling the truth? One way or another, the Health Insurance industry will exact their pound of flesh from us;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...topnews&sub=AR

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

First, the Democratic propaganda machine soars, with Natoma Canfield. Then it crash-lands, with Marcelas Owens.

The Canfield story is exactly the kind the Democrats should be emphasizing: A self-employed - and thus presumably "hard-working" - rugged individual, who actually was insured until the very end, facing financial ruin, or even worse.

But the Marcelas Owens story plays straight into the far right's hands: If he's 11 years old, and his mother died at age 27, what does that tell you? (And I don't even want to know how old the grandmother is - 43?).

You do the math. Obviously someone at the White House didn't.

Clearly, the far right doesn't give a damn about children of teenagers? Can that possibly be correct?

I mean, the kid didn't choose to be born to a teenager....

Why should we be concerned with the cesspool morality of the "far right" in this kind of situation?

The far right will say anything to discredit this... the grandmother is actually 52, and is caring for Marcelas and his two younger sisters. You should read all the crap out there from them... every imaginable thing they dig up they're trying to use to discredit him.

Now, in all fairness, there's record that the mother didn't seek treatment even though she was quite ill (vomiting blood). And, there's a lot that could be said for refusing care whether insured or not. There are quality hospitals in almost every state that take patients regardless of ability to pay, including one the mother went to more than once.

Would healthcare reform have prompted her to see a doctor sooner? Probably not. But it might have helped her continue to seek treatment once her condition got worse, or prompted the hospital to provide longer care without impacting profitability.

There are a lot of factors going on in this story, but what makes it unfortunate is that both the right and left keep using it to skew opinion to their respective sides, rather than having an honest discussion about what would work in situations like this, and what wouldn't.

Originally Posted by wtrg8

So Preminums will rise or fall under this directly/indirectly pass Health Bill? Who is telling the truth? One way or another, the Health Insurance industry will exact their pound of flesh from us;

Like I've always been saying, why the hell do we need "health insurance" ? The debate should focus on health care delivery, which (probably can be an economic good procured ) without the extra price add on (profits, paperwork, allocated economic resources , etc.) IOW, "health insurance" is a false choice. Of course malpractice payouts need to be capped as well. "Legal Lotto" is just as much to blame as profit penny pinching for the CF we find ourselves in. So... Who will gore the left's (malpractice lawyers) and right's (Big pharma/health insurance companies) ? So, to get real reform, it's gonna take goring quite a few sacred cows on both sides to get it done right.