Harry Reid tells the truth ... for once.

I

ilkhan

Well-Known Member
What that $54 Billion is a "very small percent" of $2 trillion.
I don't think this means what you think it means. :)

1. health savings accounts
2. high deductable major medical insurance
3. Tax credits for Pro-Bono work.

Prices will drop drasticly.
HMO's and government care are failed experiments.
Bring the market back into medicine.
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
ilkhan said:
What that $54 Billion is a "very small percent" of $2 trillion.
I don't think this means what you think it means. :)

1. health savings accounts
2. high deductable major medical insurance
3. Tax credits for Pro-Bono work.

Prices will drop drasticly.
HMO's and government care are failed experiments.
Bring the market back into medicine.
Click to expand...
How can you compare private HMOs to medicare? Medicare works very well while HMOs rape the people and deny services. Most of the faults with medicare are the asshole clinics and doctors over-billing, double and triple billing, billing for services not rendered, etc. and in general trying to rip off the government. That's where all the excess expenses are going, to crooked dr.s and medical facilities.
 
ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
No ... the truth told by Harry Reid in the video is that he admitted the proposed health care will cost TWO TRILLION and not the 987 billion as promised.
 
O

ObamaSanta

New Member
The CBO has already come out and said the true cost of the plan as it stands (which EVERYONE knows it will become worse) will end up at around 3 trillion. But, you dreamers that actually believe (and you know you don't, you just don't care) it will be less than 1 trillion, keep flapping your gums. I do find it strange that no lawyers organizations have spoken out against the bill, oh yeah, that's because there is NOTHING in it regarding tort reform. You know, the single largest factor in health care costs according to the doctors, but hey, what would THEY know about medical costs.
 
RickWhite

RickWhite

Well-Known Member
Why do people think that because medicare works, universal healthcare will work?

Medicare taxes a large goup to pay for the treatment of a small group. Universal healthcare will tax a small goup to pay for the care of a larger group.

One works (barely) and the other simply can not. We are not Cuba with a few million homogenous people. We are over 300 million from vastly different income levels.
 
CrackerJax

CrackerJax

New Member
medicineman said:
How can you compare private HMOs to medicare? Medicare works very well while HMOs rape the people and deny services. Most of the faults with medicare are the asshole clinics and doctors over-billing, double and triple billing, billing for services not rendered, etc. and in general trying to rip off the government. That's where all the excess expenses are going, to crooked dr.s and medical facilities.
Click to expand...
Even Obama disagrees with you....

Peter Orszag, Obama’s director of the OMB, pinned blame for the deficits on Medicare and Medicaid, calling them “the key driver of our long-term deficits.” Orszag called for “serious steps to put our nation back on a sustainable fiscal path.” The OMB also noted that Obama “is committed to addressing the shortfall in Social Security system.”


sounds like a great govt. program!!!
 
I

ilkhan

Well-Known Member
I compare them MED because they are both government creations.
They both destroy the market and force costs up.

Medicare works because it rapes the people to pay for a privledged few.
See I can do it to.

So all we need to do is tell the doctors what they can earn.
Were they can live, what buisness model they use.
Tell investers to stop expecting a return and all our problems will be over?
 
ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
The reason Medicare works is because its a Ponzi scheme. All Ponzi schemes come to an end eventually.

Post office is broke.

Medicare is broke.

MediCaid is broke.

The entire federal government is broke and now relying on the printing press. The bill is being handed to several future generations down the road.

Oh, Hell yeah, let's turn over our entire medical system to congress to run. :wall:
 
doobnVA

doobnVA

Well-Known Member
2 trillion dollars is what we CURRENTLY spend on health care. Not what the Baucus bill would cost.

He's saying that a reduction of 54 billion from tort reform is a very small percentage of our total healthcare spending, which is (approximately) 2 trillion annually.
 
medicineman

medicineman

New Member
The only answer to medical is single payer. It would eliminate the burden on businesses and allow them to compete on the global market. The rise in individual taxes would not exceed the amount now paid by the employers and employees. When you take out the 300 billion in insurance profit, (The money that does nothing to promote good health care), you would be able to have medical care for all citizens. Is this such a bad thing? I can't believe that the right has such disdane for keeping people from getting medical care. Seems like a bunch of selfish pricks to me. Hey, keep your expensive medical plans, I'll go with the program. I have excellent medical coverage, Probably one of those Cadillac plans, it's not about me, it's about all the people being able to see a doctor and get medical attention just like me.
 
Johnnyorganic

Johnnyorganic

Well-Known Member
medicineman said:
The only answer to medical is single payer. It would eliminate the burden on businesses and allow them to compete on the global market. The rise in individual taxes would not exceed the amount now paid by the employers and employees. When you take out the 300 billion in insurance profit, (The money that does nothing to promote good health care), you would be able to have medical care for all citizens. Is this such a bad thing? I can't believe that the right has such disdane for keeping people from getting medical care. Seems like a bunch of selfish pricks to me. Hey, keep your expensive medical plans, I'll go with the program. I have excellent medical coverage, Probably one of those Cadillac plans, it's not about me, it's about all the people being able to see a doctor and get medical attention just like me.
Click to expand...
The health insurance industry makes $300 billion in PROFIT? Is that gross profit or net profit?

Wow! Either way, that's approaching evil petroleum industry profit levels.

Source please.
 
PeachOibleBoiblePeach#1

PeachOibleBoiblePeach#1

Well-Known Member
CrackerJax said:
big oil nets about 9% profit. despicable
Click to expand...
9% of what kind of figures?,,also I remember a few years back they were profiting about 40% percent, how could that be?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude prices.
Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said fourth-quarter net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share. The company earned $10.25 billion, or $1.76 per share, in the year-ago period.
The profit topped Exxon's previous quarterly record of $10.7 billion, set in the fourth quarter of 2005, which also was an all-time high for a U.S. corporation.
"Exxon can put out some amazing numbers and this is one of those cases," said Jason Gammel, senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in New York.
Exxon also set an annual profit record by earning $40.61 billion last year - or nearly $1,300 per second in 2007. That exceeded its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006.
In the fourth quarter, the company said revenue rose 29.5% from a year ago to $116.64 billion.
Analysts were looking for the company to report quarterly profit of $10.36 billion on revenue of $114.9 billion, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial.
Despite topping Wall Street's estimates, Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) shares slipped in afternoon trading.
The company reported strong results in its worldwide exploration and production, or "upstream," business. Profit rose 32% to $8.2 billion during the quarter, offsetting some weakness earlier in the year.
Income in Exxon's refining, or "downstream," business rose 15.7% during the quarter to $2.27 billion.
Exxon attributed its impressive results to strong performance across its divisions, but a large part of the profit surge was underpinned by climbing oil prices.
Crude prices skyrocketed nearly 60% last year. The surge helped prices break through the $100 a barrel mark for the first time ever early last month. Since crossing that milestone, prices have eased to around $90 a barrel.
Natural gas prices also jumped last year, albeit marginally. But costs have also increased for the oil companies, which is why profits haven't risen as rapidly as crude prices.
Big oil companies that both pump oil and refine crude into gasoline have to spend more for crude but are unable to pass on all the extra cost to consumers, which eats in to gasoline profit margins.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit an all-time high of $3.23 in May, according to the motorist organization AAA. The high prices were blamed on strong demand and a series of accidents that shut down refineries in the U.S. But slack demand for gasoline in the latter half of last year kept gas prices from rising as dramatically as crude prices.
Exxon's record results, which coincide with smaller rival Chevron's (CVX, Fortune 500) profit jump, drew some fire from both government officials and consumer rights groups, who have argued previously that the the oil industry is deliberately restricting supply and profiting on the back of U.S. motorists.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. took a swipe at the two firms, calling on fellow lawmakers to break the country's dependence on foreign oil and rollback unnecessary tax incentives for oil companies.
Judy Dugan, research director of The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, urged Congress to initiate some oversight into unregulated energy trading markets, which have been accused of helping to drive up the price of oil.
"Exxon is happy to take advantage of these prices," said Dugan.
But finding oil has also become more costly. The oil boom has led to a surge in exploration and drilling activity, which has pushed up the price for skilled workers and equipment.
Furthermore, new supplies of oil are increasingly difficult to find and generally tend to be located in harder to reach - and hence more expensive - places. The new natural gas field discovered this week by Brazil's Petrobras lies three miles under the ocean.
ExxonMobil representatives also stressed the cyclical nature of the business and noted that growing global demand for energy will require companies to heavily invest in future growth. The company said it estimates that global demand will grow by 30 percent by 2030.
"The challenge for all of us in the industry is how to we meet that increased demand," said Henry Hubble, vice president of investor relations.
Exxon and Chevron aren't the only two oil giants to report impressive earnings recently. Conoco (COP, Fortune 500), the nation's third-largest oil company, trounced profit estimates by nearly 25% when it reported last week. And Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, reported a 60% increase in profits Thursday.
 
ViRedd

ViRedd

New Member
There is a provision in one of the bills to cut Medicare benefits by 500 Billion.

Hey Med-'O-Mao ... how come you're not stating the obvious, that the Democrats/Obama want to take food out of the mouths of fixed income seniors. Why, if you have your way, the old ladies will be eating cat food and foregoing their medications! It will be either eat cat food and afford your monthly prescription meds, or buy your prescription meds and starve to death. So much for you
compassionate Democrats. Bah ... a pox on all of you!

Hell Med, I figured you, of all people would be pointing this out. I mean you did such a good job when the Republicans were talking about privatizing SS. Remember?

And by the way, why no pictures posted by you of all the flag-draped military coffins returning from Afghanistan? bongsmilie
 
CrackerJax

CrackerJax

New Member
HEALTH COSTS AND HISTORY

Washington has just run a $1.4 trillion budget deficit for fiscal 2009, even as we are told a new health care entitlement will reduce red ink by $81 billion over 10 years. To believe that fantastic claim, you have to ignore everything we know about Washington and the history of government health care programs, says the Wall Street Journal.
Let's start with the claim that a more pervasive federal role will restrain costs and thus make health care more affordable. We know that over the past four decades precisely the opposite has occurred:

  • Prior to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health care inflation ran slightly faster than overall inflation.
  • In the years since, medical inflation has climbed 2.3 times faster than cost increases elsewhere in the economy.
  • Much of this reflects advances in technology and expensive treatments, but the contrast does contradict the claim of government as a benign cost saver.
Next let's examine the record of Congressional forecasters in predicting costs. Start with Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor:

  • The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that its first-year costs would be $238 million. Instead it hit more than $1 billion, and costs have kept climbing.
  • Thanks in part to expansions promoted by California's Henry Waxman, a principal author of the current House bill, Medicaid now costs 37 times more than it did when it was launched -- after adjusting for inflation.
  • Its current cost is $251 billion, up 24.7 percent or $50 billion in fiscal 2009 alone, and that's before the health care bill covers millions of new beneficiaries.
Medicare has a similar record:

  • In 1965, Congressional budgeters said that it would cost $12 billion in 1990.
  • Its actual cost that year was $90 billion.
  • The hospitalization program alone was supposed to cost $9 billion but wound up costing $67 billion. These aren't small forecasting errors -- the rate of increase in Medicare spending has outpaced overall inflation in nearly every year (up 9.8 percent in 2009), so a program that began at $4 billion now costs $428 billion.
The lesson here is that spending on nearly all federal benefit programs grow relentlessly once they are established. This history won't stop Democrats bent on ramming their entitlement into law. But every Member who votes for it is guaranteeing larger deficits and higher taxes far into the future, says the Journal. (completely true unfortunately..... CJ)
Source: Editorial, "Health Costs and History; Government programs always exceed their spending estimates," Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009.
 
doobnVA

doobnVA

Well-Known Member
Typical of Jax to post an EDITORIAL as fact.

The Wall Street Journal has long been the United States' most influential conservative republican editorial page.

The lesson here is that Jax can't differentiate between a conservative OPINION piece, and a factual analysis of the situation.
 
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