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Health care reform: The motives behind the opposing parties

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Health care reform: The motives behind the opposing parties

from Demigod Forums

While some conservatives claim that Obama wants to kill your granny I hesitate to accept that as Obamas sole reason for pushing the health care reform.

From the private insurers point of view it makes perfect sense to oppose the reform ... if they didn't, they'd face an immense decline in profits if either the government option provides better care or if regulations bar insurers from avoiding costs by their current methods.

But it's a bit too simplicistic to merely claim that one party acts out of altruism (or a loathing of old ladies) and the other out of greed.

So, what do you think are the driving motives in this dispute ?

(Note that I don't ask you what you think is the better solution.)

 

Pro (Motives of the health care reform advocates):

  • The Believe that health care is a right, not a privilege (file under altruism).
  • Desire for more government control.
  • An excuse to raise taxes (no one wants to pay more taxes without a good reason).
  • Desperation (they can't get private insurance and hope for the public option).

Con (Motives of the health care reform opponents):

  • Greed / seeking profits (Insurance companies will lose money if forced to provide care to sick)
  • Selfishness ("Why should I pay for your surgery?").
  • Government shouldn't do health care because they are incompetent ().
  • Poor people should die sooner than later.
  • It is not clear how the reform can be financed.
  • A deal with drug companies prohibiting the government to negotiate drug prices can't lower costs.

 

Two key issues that make the health care reform necessary in the eyes of the proponents are quailty and cost.

Quality has been discussed to death and information (and misinformation) is freely available.

Cost is harder to estimate - one simply can't understand what estimated costs of trillions of dollars over decades means for your paycheck. So I started a different thread where I want to compare the personal average cost of health care in different countries.

The personal Cost of Health Care - An international comparison

For example: German average gross income is about €2,500. After deductions (including health insurance) a single person without kids gets to keep about €1,500.

And what can germans do with that money in germany? Why, buy beer, of course. €1,500 get you 1,200 litre of high quality Pilsener beer - twice as much if you don't care about quality and go for the cheap labels.

Health care costs: €185 per month (currently $264)

 

Cheers!

off-topic
1,824,917 views 549 replies
Reply #476 from JoeUser Forums Top

I have the most excellent book with short stories about socialism; the auto-biography of an Israeli author who grew up in Hungary and escaped the Nazis and the Stalinists and then fled to Israel after working as a newspaper editor in Soviet-occupied Hungary for a few years.

It's not available in English, I have checked. Apparently it exists only in Hebrew and German, the two languages in which the author wrote his books. I have a copy.

I will translate and post a few excerpts on my blog here and link to them. I think it will give an interesting perspective.

I can't do it immediately as it is 5 PM now and I am expected in shul. But tomorrow evening I'll be back with that.

 

Reply #477 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

So does slavery.
End of quote

Yup, Egypt built the Pyramids and splendidly luxurious castles popped up like mushrooms in Europe during the Dark & Middle Ages. What time is it on your wrist watch? :annoyed:

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Reply #478 from JoeUser Forums Top

Yup, Egypt built the Pyramids and splendidly luxurious castles popped up like mushrooms in Europe during the Dark & Middle Ages. What time is it on your wrist watch?

End of quote

What does it have to do with time?

 

Reply #479 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Aroddo, reply 464
NAFTA...
End of Aroddo's quote

Reagan/Mulroney(88) & Bush/Mulroney/Salinas(92)... Effects, you meant.

Reply #480 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

What does it have to do with time?
End of quote

The world, you, me has changed radically since.

Reply #481 from JoeUser Forums Top

NAFTA...

End of quote

Wasn't that passed by Clinton 8 years before George W. Bush became president?

It's still Bush's fault, no doubt.

 

Reply #482 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Socialists don't produce wealth, they seize the means of production, such as General Motors and Chrysler. When it's voluntary, like the kibbutz movement, the product of an individuals labour is not theirs to distribute, it belongs to the collective.

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Reply #483 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

How is the war against terror an economic policy?
End of quote

Pweeezzze, DO click on earlier linked demonstrations & evidence of the total ongoing cost(s).

Reply #484 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Wasn't that passed by Clinton 8 years before George W. Bush became president?
End of quote

1992, father or son?

Reply #485 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

...it belongs to the collective.
End of quote

And, since when Capitalism isn't collectively managed.

Reply #486 from JoeUser Forums Top

When it's voluntary, like the kibbutz movement, the product of an individuals labour is not theirs to distribute, it belongs to the collective.

End of quote

Of course, that's the idea.

 

Reply #487 from JoeUser Forums Top

Pweeezzze, DO click on earlier linked demonstrations & evidence of the total ongoing cost(s).

End of quote

It has costs equals it is an economic policy?

 

1992, father or son?

End of quote

1994, I think.

 

Reply #488 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

1994, I think.
End of quote

Well, Clinton & Chrétien signed it... but negotiations were basicly finalized when Bush & Mulroney were in power.

Reply #489 from JoeUser Forums Top

Well, Clinton & Chrétien signed it... but negotiations were basicly finalized when Bush & Mulroney were in power.

End of quote

So we agree that NAFTA wasn't one of George W. Bush's policies that caused the recession?

 

Reply #490 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

No, we aren't. It simply states that H_Bush contributed to setup the *second* NAFTA deal between Canada/USA/Mexico and that such a process doesn't necessarily caused a USA (only, btw) recession conditions partially or not; for that, you'd need a Gulf War and Koweit restarting Oil supply after fixing some sabotaged wells for steady production.

Reply #491 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

New Orleans was a Democrat disaster;
End of quote

How so... Katrina hurricane didn't have any political agenda, it struck the USA coastline and whomever managed at the time had strict intervention responsabilities to the people (left behind, in fact), not the oil wells supply or artificially generated, as a result of previous neglect, recession concerns.

Reply #492 from Sins Forums Top

Wait, what?  Are you saying that NAFTA's free trade zone somehow created a recession?

Reply #493 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Who was it that said Lumber isn't an engine for prosperity? And that, anyone can actually provide a steady stream of plywood sheets (etc) back & forth unless somehow blocked by a "BUY American" clause.

Not that both tourism industries can't collapse when the loonie flies steadily near the greenbuck value; come and visit us, now that your money is almost at par with ours. We'll possibly start driving less south to shop more north.

Strange economic figures, isn't it?

Reply #494 from Sins Forums Top

I'm having trouble discovering what point you are trying to make.  Are you for or against free trade?

Reply #495 from Demigod Forums Top

You are pretty calm considering that the USA is broke now, broke 20 years into the future, losing the dollar as lead currency and being at the mercy of China. China could decide to sell all dollar assests, causing the currency to crash and in addition make US bonds too unattractive to buyers. Total defeat.

Of course, China will unlikely do so. They tend to act carefully, patiently and with great foresight. If they should decide to do so however, we can be assured that they'll have thought it through.

Reply #496 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Quoting Aroddo, reply 495
You are pretty calm considering that the USA is broke now, broke 20 years into the future, losing the dollar as lead currency and being at the mercy of China. China could decide to sell all dollar assests, causing the currency to crash and in addition make US bonds too unattractive to buyers. Total defeat.

Of course, China will unlikely do so. They tend to act carefully, patiently and with great foresight. If they should decide to do so however, we can be assured that they'll have thought it through.
End of Aroddo's quote

They don't do that because they know that it would help *us* far more than them. The near term would suck, no doubt, but a wrecked dollar would erase their trade advantage. If the dollar fell far enough, we would start seeing the outsoursing trend reversed and a rebirth of American manufacturing. Not to mention that a major currency shift would allow us to buy back most of our debt. In twenty years, we'd be better off than we are now.

 

Reply #497 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Are you for or against free trade?
End of quote

F_O_R.

Reply #498 from JoeUser Forums Top

I'm having trouble discovering what point you are trying to make.
End of quote

That's a point in your favor, SpardaSon.

Reply #499 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Moosetek13, reply 453

Let's see...

3% of 6.6 billion is around 198 million.

Covering 50,000-60,000 people would be spending around $4,000-$3,300 each?

Hasn't the White House come up with figures closer to $6,000 per person per year?

Seems like SF is doing something right if they can do it that cheaply.

But they are only average numbers, after all. Personally, I don't go to doctors or seek medical help on a yearly (or even semi-yearly) basis. I only go if I really have to. I go many years between any visit to a doctor, so I doubt in my 53 years that I have racked up even close to $175.000-$318,000 in medical bills - even considering the 5 (2 corrective knee and 3 hernia) surgeries I have had over the years.

I doubt that any of us spend $3,300-$6,000 per month on health insurance - per person, per year. But, that is what 'insurance' is all about. It is paying (relatively) little to get a lot if you need it, or spending a lot even if you only ever need a little.

Insurance plays on the fears of people, and profits by those fears. Because most people don't really need all that much money for health care.
End of Moosetek13's quote
Exactly.

You also have to keep in mind that for profit insurance companies have to prove that they're spending less and less on medical care each year (percentage wise)

Reply #500 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Aroddo, reply 495
You are pretty calm considering that the USA is broke now, broke 20 years into the future, losing the dollar as lead currency and being at the mercy of China. China could decide to sell all dollar assests, causing the currency to crash and in addition make US bonds too unattractive to buyers. Total defeat.

Of course, China will unlikely do so. They tend to act carefully, patiently and with great foresight. If they should decide to do so however, we can be assured that they'll have thought it through.
End of Aroddo's quote

China needs the United States. The situation is rather simple.

Also, the economy of the US is no less doomed than it was in the 30s or 70s. Because China's demographics prevent it from becoming the new hyperpower, no single nation will be able to topple the US as the dominant global power. The EU has no hope of doing so without stronger unity, India is a mess, and Russia is still poor.