Democrat's Health plan flowchart

[DC Tom]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

Yes, according to the DoI one has a right to life. Health care can provide the difference between life and death. So if one has a right to life and health care can provide that life, one should have the right to health care AND everything that is possible within health care to provide that life. No picking and choosing. No holding out. Provide life with all that medical science has to offer.

 

So your argument is that the Declaration of Independence is truly a manifesto of government dependence?

 

 

It's rare you see a post this stupid that doesn't start with "CHECK IT".;

[Alaska Darin]

Life doesn't exist on paper? Than what do our laws do govern a bunch of robots. Laws are based off of people and what rights they do and don't have.

So I guess nature is populated with a bunch of robots since they have no written laws. You obviously have no understanding of causal relationships.

In the Deceleration of Independence it says all men have a right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I just don't get what you say when you state life doesn't exist on paper could you elaborate on that point. If you don't have some sort of right to life than what do you have the right to?

You do know the "Deceleration of Independence" (sic) and the Constitution are two completely different documents, right?

 

Life DOESN'T exist on paper. If it did, people would stop killing each other because we wrote a law. They'd stop doing drugs because we wrote a law. They'd stop polluting because we wrote a law. Life is what happens while people like you are busily making plans.

I am not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of the health care system but treating health care like a utility which is regulated by the government yet still run like a business (Much like you water or power) would be a system that could work out for the best at least in my opinion. Giving everyone some sort of right to health coverage is just something I believe in. Its not easy to work out a system but I think you have to consider government intervention on a large scale even if its only just to hit the reset button on the whole system.

I'd love to jump on board but I'm afraid you're completely wrong and basing your opinion on nothing more than passionate ideology. There's nothing wrong with that but you're going to spend a lot of time being disappointed. I think the only thing that could possibly work is a giant reset but that's unlikely to happen as our government has been bought and paid for by special interests for far too long.

 

Until the average American realizes that re-electing these criminals at a 96% clip is killing us, we're going to continue getting exactly what we deserve.

[Alaska Darin]

So your argument is that the Declaration of Independence is truly a manifesto of government dependence?

 

 

It's rare you see a post this stupid that doesn't start with "CHECK IT".;

Rare indeed.

 

But Eric is also rare to disappoint with his special brand.

[billsfan89]

So I guess nature is populated with a bunch of robots since they have no written laws. You obviously have no understanding of causal relationships.

 

You do know the "Deceleration of Independence" (sic) and the Constitution are two completely different documents, right?

 

Life DOESN'T exist on paper. If it did, people would stop killing each other because we wrote a law. They'd stop doing drugs because we wrote a law. They'd stop polluting because we wrote a law. Life is what happens while people like you are busily making plans.

 

I'd love to jump on board but I'm afraid you're completely wrong and basing your opinion on nothing more than passionate ideology. There's nothing wrong with that but you're going to spend a lot of time being disappointed. I think the only thing that could possibly work is a giant reset but that's unlikely to happen as our government has been bought and paid for by special interests for far too long.

 

Until the average American realizes that re-electing these criminals at a 96% clip is killing us, we're going to continue getting exactly what we deserve.

 

I think we are getting caught in an argument of semantics. Life exists on paper to me, we write laws based off of life what you do when you take it away and other instances. To me I think we have a different definition of what on paper means. Than thats where we are getting confused.

 

As for the whole health care thing I think eventually we will have no choice but to hit the reset button on the whole system and the only entity with the power to do so is the government. And I Don't think Obama care in its current proposed form is going to work its a half assed reform and those things never work.

 

To me I have to say because health care is something we all need we will eventually get reform within the next decade. With the way things currently are 39-57% being paid publicly with over 50 million uninsured, as well as the fact that we spend the most in terms of GDP on health care yet we don't have the best health care system on the planet (World health organization ranks our system depending on the barometer somewhere between 18-37).

 

As I said in my previous post I think a system where health care is treated like a utility is the future of health care. Such a system theoretically keeps everyone insured yet keeps innovation alive.

[/dev/null]

World health organization ranks our system depending on the barometer somewhere between 18-37

 

The WHO? Oh, you mean the OMFG the sky is falling declare a pandemic because somebody got the flu

 

Yeah they're real pinball wizards

[Alaska Darin]

Gall Bladder Surgery Patient Loses Both Legs

[IDBillzFan]

Gall Bladder Surgery Patient Loses Both Legs

What a sad story. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is the comment: "Jessica Read said the doctor admitted his mistake, but under federal law the Reads cannot sue."

 

I just did a quick look, and it would seem that according to Federal Tort Claims Act, she could ultimately sue the government if a claim isn't approved, as the surgery is not subjected to sovereign immunity since the surgery could have been provided by a private doctor.

 

I'm not lawyer, so maybe I'm just misinterpreting the FTCA.

[OCinBuffalo]

I just don't see insurance coverage for those who don't have it will lead to people who already make smart choices make stupid ones. If you are smart enough to know that smoking is stupid and hurts your health and costs too much money why would you start just because you got health insurance?

 

If you live a fit life style because you know the consequences of obesity and diabetes why would you start to eat more and care less just because you got insurance.

 

I don't know many people who take bad care of themselves because of their insurance.

Well. Thanks for ignoring my points and repeating yourself. Your punishment is a long post.

 

Perhaps I can make you "see" it this way:

If you look at health care in terms of a supply chain, you will quickly "see" that this plan does nothing to improve it.

 

The main goal of any Supply Chain Management System is to drive out all the nickels and pennies everywhere they can be found. Usually there are opportunities all over the place to do this. But, these opportunities are either based on creating competition, or, incentivizing each member of the chain, in a quantifiable and therefore consistent manner, for their cost reductions. Occasionally they exist for no reason other than the stupidity and/or the comfort zone of the managers of the supply chain.

 

What makes the typical health care entities SCM system much different than other industries is: service is also part of the supply, and materials and service are NOT related to each other consistently. I.E. today, it takes 3 adult diapers to toilet a patient, tomorrow it may only take one. This, and the fact that "taking care of people" apparently has many health care managers convinced that they don't actually have to....manage, and health care workers convinced that they don't have to control cost, is why health care is 20 years behind other industries in terms of their operational efficiency.

 

Right now the GE's and Cerner's and McKesson's and ALL the others, of the world have put together such terrible SOFTWARE systems that their entire company, person for person, would be fired in any other industry. Day one. Why?

1. They are either hardware companies doing software(ALWAYS a bad idea, except Mac, but that's a whole other thing) or,

2. They are JV of the programming world = you make a lot more money elsewhere as a coder.

3. They are in such a hurry to focus on data storage, integration, and fancy hardware...they forget to make the user part...usable. Doctors and nurses don't use paper instead of software because they hate computers, or because they don't have them, or because they don't have software. They don't use it because what they have sucks big ass, it's not designed for them, it's designed for accountants and/or people who work at a desk. The problem is: health care doesn't happen at a desk. It happens at the bedside, the hallway, the OR, your home, etc.

 

How does Obama's plan stack up against these realities?

 

1. Instead of incentivizing the SCM, it actually works the other way. The proposed "changes only an idiot believes in" do NOT incent cost reduction.

a. They either JUSTIFY cost increase = there is nothing about cost per service in terms of competition, and, nothing to incent higher productivity....um Unions have nothing to do with that I'm sure , or,

b. they ignore it = there is nothing about bonuses for materials mgt. cost reductions or incentives for capital expenditure competition...(cough, GE campaign contributions, cough), or,

c. they drive legitimate competition out of the chain = insurance policies that compete with the government's are subject to government special commissioner approval....um move the goal posts = we already have entire state and federal commissions for insurance...why do we need this guy?. No reason other than to move the goal posts and make sure that eventually private insurance becomes unfeasible. There is no other reason that can be defended rationally by a reasonable person.

d. so, with NOBODY incented to cut cost, AND, by adding another 30 million people to the system, AND with everybody thinking in terms of "free health care": you better believe that people will make dumb health care choices...if nothing else than by default. Who stands to gain by them being healthier? consuming less health care? doctor's not ordering unnecessary procedures and tests? Answer: Nobody. Even the lawyers benefit: more consumption means more things that can go wrong = more things they can sue over.

 

2. The idiot authors of this plan have clearly demonstrated that, not only do they not know how business works, or supply chains, or cost accounting(um, the way the people who do this for a living reduce costs), they don't know how health care differs from standard thinking regarding these concepts. And, they sure as hell don't know how to blend these concepts and create the right recipe for health care.

 

They remind me of the PhD nurse/state employee I met a few years ago who was so proud of her amateurish attempt($20 million grant, btw) at using a data warehouse to predict falls. When I pointed out that her data collection process was hopelessly flawed(because it was, and she also had no way of controlling for it, "best programmers in the state" or not ), and that all the BI techniques in the world don't make up for bad data, she simply stood there like a duck in thunder. So did her programmers...because...they were only programmers. They don't do why, what and when, and they don't design how.

 

So, they did the same thing so many tools do here when they are proven patently wrong, she attacked me and my crew. We took the high road and ignored her. 1 year later the grant was canceled because she could not show consistent results = taxpayer loses again.

 

The first rule of our business is to work THE WHOLE problem. Just like focusing on analysis and BI, and ignoring data collection, this plan targets political enemies and ignores many critical areas, clearly helping political allies. That's not working the whole problem. This plan is a politicized piece of crap, and it has nothing in common with an enterprise solution proposal other than the OP's posting of a nice, colored flow chart.

 

3. I have to go so I will make this simple: why in God's green earth would you allocate $650 Billion to companies that make crap right now? They have had the 20 years to improve. They make plenty of money, allowing them to spend plenty on R&D...and Nurses and Docs STILL use paper. All that is happening here is a campaign contributor payback. GE and the rest are simply going to take that money and make more bad, faster.

 

Look, there are lots of ways to get lunch today. Everybody wants lunch, we all see the value of lunch, we all like lunch and we are even ok with paying for somebody else's lunch some of the time. There is no dispute with lunch.

 

However, there is a dispute with going to Jim's Steakout and demanding that everybody order the same thing, let Jim's employees demand whatever non-market supported pay they want, thereby making the cost of lunch keep going up, force Jim to buy locked in prices for meat and bread, thereby leaving the materials cost to either go up or at best stay the same, telling people that they can only get lunch from Jim and not Anchor Bar....and calling that lunch....lunch.

[Magox]

Well. Thanks for ignoring my points and repeating yourself. Your punishment is a long post.

[Alaska Darin]

What a sad story. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is the comment: "Jessica Read said the doctor admitted his mistake, but under federal law the Reads cannot sue."

 

I just did a quick look, and it would seem that according to Federal Tort Claims Act, she could ultimately sue the government if a claim isn't approved, as the surgery is not subjected to sovereign immunity since the surgery could have been provided by a private doctor.

 

I'm not lawyer, so maybe I'm just misinterpreting the FTCA.

Military personnel can't sue the government for medical malpractice because of the Feres Doctrine. The Supreme Court basically made it illegal.

[IDBillzFan]

Military personnel can't sue the government for medical malpractice because of the Feres Doctrine. The Supreme Court basically made it illegal.

Just read through Feres vs. the US, and while I won't profess to be well versed in interpreting such documentation, it would seem to me that while I understand how the government needs to protect itself from being sued every time a soldier is injured or dies in battle, the idea that they're also protected from a botched gall bladder operation leading to leg amputations, or the discovery of medical towel left in a patient's stomach, probably isn't what was intended. Or maybe it was and we're just douchebags.

[VOR]

Obama showed his ass when he went to the (dinosaur) AMA and told them to expect to make less money, but that tort reform was out of the question. At least those fossils had the gumption to boo him (and then laughingly endorse his health care plan).

[Magox]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/j...c-option/print/

 

 

Democrats beware! If you're not fully supporting President Obama's health care overhaul, liberal advocacy groups have you in their sights.

 

As the August congressional recess looms and the final details of the health care plan take shape, the groups have unleashed a series of hard-hitting attack ads against Democrats while mostly ignoring Republicans.

 

Change Congress is raising money to go after Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, using one of her own constituents to ask, "Will Landrieu sell out Louisiana?"

 

"Our pressure campaign targeting Landrieu has great momentum, but so far, her public position has not moved. So we have a choice: Walk away from the fight or escalate the pressure? For us, the choice is easy," the group told supporters.

[billsfan89]

Well. Thanks for ignoring my points and repeating yourself. Your punishment is a long post.

 

Well just to be fair I am not in favor of any of the plans in place by Obama and the House. I know the need for reform and I don't doubt the merits to arguing against a universal system. But i think that you are just missing my point you keep saying that if you give the poor health coverage they do things that are bad for them simply because they now have health coverage.

 

You implied that if a universal system was in place that the poor would go crazy and they would all become drug addicts and eat themselves into oblivion. To me that just isn't true.

 

You said "I am saying that fundamentally, taking away accountability for your own health care, namely, the hit in the wallet you take if you act like an idiot, is a bad idea. For rich people, poor people, all people. It already is a bad idea for those people who have gold plated insurance, and adding more people, regardless of status, just makes more "bad idea".

 

Think about it this way: you pay for your own car insurance. Therefore you take care on the road, because if you f up, you pay for it in terms of premium increase. There is no such mechanism for health insurance by and large, with the exception of SOME HMOs.

 

Health Insurance should be = car insurance, and there's no good reason why it isn't."

 

What is Intrinsic encouragement to take care of your body is that it is the only one you have and no amount of health coverage (Especially if you are poor your coverage is going to be average at best) can fix that. If you are stupid and are going to treat your body like crap than you are going to do it regardless if you have insurance or not because you are stupid.

 

If you are smart and treat your body well you aren't going to stop doing that because you have health coverage. I doubt there is someone without health coverage going man I want to eat unhealthy, smoke, and drink out of moderation but I don't have the insurance to do so. You are smart and understand your body insurance isn't going to make you dumb.

 

That is the one aspect of your argument that I simply say isn't true. I do agree that in any health care system you do need to raise rates on those who don't take care of themselves I get your point but to say obesity and smoking will become much more rampant because we switch to a universal system is just not true the Intrinsic risk of cancer and diabetes keeps most from doing that.

[YellowLinesandArmadillos]

http://docs.house.gov/gopleader/House-Demo...Health-Plan.pdf

 

 

Nope, not complicated at all.

I will have to look through my old Charts from 2005, The current system is no better with private insurance. Please....

 

This is an excuse to do nothing. Agreed it would be easier if thing were simpler, but in order to reform the system and with all the contending laws it is going to look a little convoluted. Common you are dealing with lawyers, doctors, hospital systems, state and federal government and did I say lawyers... This is an inane chart and comment.

[VOR]

Well just to be fair I am not in favor of any of the plans in place by Obama and the House. I know the need for reform and I don't doubt the merits to arguing against a universal system. But i think that you are just missing my point you keep saying that if you give the poor health coverage they do things that are bad for them simply because they now have health coverage.

 

You implied that if a universal system was in place that the poor would go crazy and they would all become drug addicts and eat themselves into oblivion. To me that just isn't true.

 

You said "I am saying that fundamentally, taking away accountability for your own health care, namely, the hit in the wallet you take if you act like an idiot, is a bad idea. For rich people, poor people, all people. It already is a bad idea for those people who have gold plated insurance, and adding more people, regardless of status, just makes more "bad idea".

 

Think about it this way: you pay for your own car insurance. Therefore you take care on the road, because if you f up, you pay for it in terms of premium increase. There is no such mechanism for health insurance by and large, with the exception of SOME HMOs.

 

Health Insurance should be = car insurance, and there's no good reason why it isn't."

Great! Where are the car insurance public option plans?

 

What is Intrinsic encouragement to take care of your body is that it is the only one you have and no amount of health coverage (Especially if you are poor your coverage is going to be average at best) can fix that. If you are stupid and are going to treat your body like crap than you are going to do it regardless if you have insurance or not because you are stupid.

 

If you are smart and treat your body well you aren't going to stop doing that because you have health coverage. I doubt there is someone without health coverage going man I want to eat unhealthy, smoke, and drink out of moderation but I don't have the insurance to do so. You are smart and understand your body insurance isn't going to make you dumb.

 

That is the one aspect of your argument that I simply say isn't true. I do agree that in any health care system you do need to raise rates on those who don't take care of themselves I get your point but to say obesity and smoking will become much more rampant because we switch to a universal system is just not true the Intrinsic risk of cancer and diabetes keeps most from doing that.

A lot of people don't care about taking better care of themselves. Most everyone knows that you should eat right, drink plenty of fluids, exercise, get plenty of rest, and avoid excessive drinking, smoking, taking drugs, high risk behavior, etc. Yet most people who can afford to pay for health insurance don't do more than a few of those things, much less the people that can't afford to pay. And the effects often-times don't manifest themselves for months to years later, so it's not readily apparent what you're doing to yourself. When you're driving in a car, you try to avoid accidents because first and foremost, you can get seriously hurt, if not killed, in an instant. Thoughts about damage to the car, the other driver, etc. are secondary.

 

I agree that giving free health insurance might not lead to people making more poor choices, but I don't think it will make one bit of difference, while saddling the rest of us with their bills. If you have no interest in taking care of yourself because it's your body, I have no interest in taking care of your bills.

 

And as I said before, food and shelter are the most basic "rights," yet you don't see anyone talking about a public option for them. Maybe giving free healthy food to the poor is the answer?

[VOR]

I will have to look through my old Charts from 2005, The current system is no better with private insurance. Please....

 

This is an excuse to do nothing. Agreed it would be easier if thing were simpler, but in order to reform the system and with all the contending laws it is going to look a little convoluted. Common you are dealing with lawyers, doctors, hospital systems, state and federal government and did I say lawyers... This is an inane chart and comment.

It is an inane chart. Sadly enough, it's pretty close to the truth. The government's answer is more bureaucracy, which means even greater complexity, oversight, inefficiency, and wasted money.