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 : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (613248)	5/27/2011 9:51:48 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1576858

Euthanasia is EXACTLY how liberals intend to control health care costs: "if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die." Robert Reich online.wsj.com ------------------------------------------------------- Medicare and Medicaid are really serious problems for government and Democrats intend to do NOTHING about the problem and prevent anything from being done. I guess the idea is when Medicare goes bankrupt, they can force the draconian rationing they want or use the threat of it to confiscate more wealth from the private sector or something. There are a few health care niches where costs have been either falling or rising slower than normal. Lasik surgery costs have been falling and cosmetic surgery going up slower than other health care costs. Neither are generally covered by insurance ... its the competition and the savings that comes from competition thats the reason. Ryan's plan is to make all of health care more competitive and put the power of competition to work in the health care field generally.

To: combjelly who wrote (613248)	5/27/2011 12:36:55 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576858

Your playing burden of proof games. Your right unless the other side can prove your wrong. That's unreasonable. There is no way to prove either side of this, but prices rise with increasing demand (expressed in dollars or other medium of exchange). Yes supply also rises in response to the higher prices bringing them back down, but prices can't rise to levels higher than what people will pay for the good or service. Euthanasia as a way to solve our debt problem. Its also irrelevant to the question at hand, but nice try. Not giving a blank check to cover all medical expenses is not euthanasia, even passively. Also giving a blank check isn't going to happen anyway. Measures are going to be taken to contain costs. Its a choice between market based measures like in Ryan's plan, or command and control based measures like many Democrats are pushing. ----------- Morality and Medicare Arnold Kling M.S. writes (for the Economist blog), Mr Ryan's plan ends the guarantee that all American seniors will have health insurance. The Medicare system we've had in place for the past 45 years promises that once you reach 65, you will be covered by a government-financed health-insurance plan. The key word here is promises. There is essentially zero chance that the government will keep its current promises. The author concludes, I agree with Mr Ryan that the government needs to limit taxpayers' exposure to Medicare cost inflation. I think this plan is a fundamentally immoral way to do it. Baloney sandwich. The term "cost inflation" means a pure increase in prices charged for the same services. Some of that takes place. But most of the rise in health care spending reflects increased use of expensive inputs, in particular fancy equipment and medical specialists. There are always three ways to deal with the increased usage of premium medicine. a) have government experts ration medical services b) give consumers fixed amounts of money based on income and medical condition, and having them make their own decisions c) tell people that neither (a) nor (b) is necessary Remember that what everybody wants for themselves is unlimited access to medical services without having to pay for them. So the politics of health care push in the direction of (c). I am always ready to have the debate between (a) and (b). But instead, politicians and pundits attack (b) with (c). That is fundamentally immoral. econlog.econlib.org

To: combjelly who wrote (613248)	5/27/2011 1:28:50 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576858

Medicare Actuary: Obama Medicare Cuts Will Deny the Elderly Access to Care Filed in New Health Care Law on May 23, 2011 For the second year in a row the CMS Office of the Actuary has released a dissenting analysis (to the Medicare Trustees’ report) of how the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) affects Medicare: One of the most important factors in projecting Medicare expenditures are the annual payment updates to Medicare providers. The estimates shown in the 2011 Trustees Report are complicated substantially by mandated reductions in these payment updates for most Medicare services….. It is reasonable to expect that Congress would find it necessary to legislatively override or otherwise modify the reductions in the future to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries continue to have access to health care services. Here is Chris Jacob’s summary: The report estimates that, if the productivity adjustments were to remain in effect, by 2085 “Medicare and Medicaid payment rates for inpatient hospital services would both represent roughly 33 percent of the average level for private health insurance.” The report reiterates the actuary’s projection from last year that the productivity adjustments could cause approximately 40 percent of providers to become unprofitable by 2050. Likewise, if the SGR reductions remain in effect, “Medicare [payment] rates would eventually fall to 27 percent of private health insurance levels by 2085 and to less than half of projected Medicaid rates.” It’s also worth noting that all of the economists with whom the actuary’s office discussed these provisions “believed that the payment reductions were unsustainable,” including liberal economists like David Cutler, who served as an unpaid advisor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. healthblog.ncpa.org Of course the Medicare actuary is assuming that the "cuts" (really just reduction in future growth) will do nothing to reduce future prices. I think (if the cuts actually happen, and that's a big if) that they will have an effect on containing medical care cost growth. They would have a better effect (more benefit for each amount of pain) if they where more market based and less command and control, but they should have some positive effect if they ever actually happen. But despite my disagreement with that point, the post is useful because it shows how the alternative is not "keep increasing payments forever as prices go up", its an issue of different ways to reduce the future growth in government payments. The projected growth in payments is unsustainable. Its going to be reduced at some point (likely without any actual cuts as real per capita spending will keep going up).