Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Little Joe who wrote (12736)	12/25/2009 5:44:52 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

How can you know that. Because that authority is not in the bill. That doesn't mean that someone won't propose it at some time in the future but it's not in the works now. That's a fact. Regardless,we do not know how they will ration care, only that they will. Shifting into opinion mode now, it seems unlikely that we will ration that way. We are not the Brits. We aren't even Canadians. They're much more accepting than Americans. Medicare-covered voters scare our elected officials half to death. Did you see how fast they jumped to protect forty something women's mammograms? No, we don't know how they will ration care. But we can make some reasonable guesses based on culture, feasibility, politics, and the like. I'm dealing with it as a matter of probabilities. Some people have a tendency to conflate their worst nightmare with likelihood. Those are two entirely different concepts. Americans are terrible at risk assessment. I don't know whether it's lack of training or a matter of temperament but it's not rational. In Great Britain they have a formula that a year of your life is worth We place dollar values on life here, too. How do you think they determined how much to pay in death benefits for the 9/11 victims? It was a simple calculation. If the procedure costs more than 25,000 lbs times the remaining life span, you don't get it. Do you really think that Medicare should pay for a knee replacement for someone with stage four lung cancer? The person will be dead before finishing rehab. What sense does that make? The problem isn't using quality adjusted life years to make funding decisions. Like rationing, that simply is and it's senseless to deny it. The problem is using it as a blunt instrument. That's something we can fight if anyone were ever to actually propose it. Denying the concept isn't helpful. Refusing to allow its abuse is.