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With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens

misterman said:
Um, if you click on that link, it show you this link:

Meeting Enrollees' Needs: How Do Medicare and Employer Coverage Stack Up? - The Commonwealth Fund

Which is the survey I referred to. I guess I should have posted that link so as not to confuse you.

Details of the survey:


So what exactly is your problem with this?
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So you have a study asking people that get freebies, if they like their freebies and expect them to say Nooooo, I hate them....Yeah ok....*Yawn*


j-mac
 
j-mac said:
So you have a study asking people that get freebies, if they like their freebies and expect them to say Nooooo, I hate them....Yeah ok....*Yawn*


j-mac
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:roll: :roll: :roll:

Meeting Enrollees' Needs: How Do Medicare and Employer Coverage Stack Up?

May 12, 2009

Authors: Karen Davis, Ph.D., Stuart Guterman, Michelle M. Doty, Ph.D., and Kristof M. Stremikis
Journal: Health Affairs Web Exclusive, May 12, 2009, w521–w532
Contact: Michelle M. Doty, Director of Survey Research, The Commonwealth Fund, mmd@cmwf.org
Summary Writers: Tammy Worth

Synopsis

In a national Commonwealth Fund survey, elderly Medicare beneficiaries reported greater overall satisfaction with their health coverage, better access to care, and fewer problems paying medical bills than people covered by employer-sponsored plans. The findings bolster the argument that offering a public insurance plan similar to Medicare to the under-65 population has the potential to improve access and reduce costs.

About the Study

The authors used data from the Commonwealth Fund 2007 Biennial Health Insurance Survey to compare how patients felt about access and cost under Medicare and employer-sponsored plans. Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted the survey by telephone with adults in the United States over age 19. The survey response rate was 47 percent. The 25-minute phone interview included questions about health care access, out-of-pocket spending, benefit information, and demographic characteristics.
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I've been on Medicare for almost a year now.

The only difference I can see between Medicare and employee provided health care is that i don't have to worry about being laid off and losing my medical insurance. No more worries about getting sick, losing my job because I'm too sick to work, then losing my medical insurance due to not being employed, then losing my house and savings due to medical bills, then having to go on Medicaid.

Other than that, I have the same access to health care I had before.

Now, if there were no Medicare program, we seniors would be SOL. Who is going to provide insurance to the most expensive demographic?
 
j-mac said:
I see. No response. Typical.


j-mac
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I thought the response was clear:

Meeting Enrollees' Needs: How Do Medicare and Employer Coverage Stack Up?

May 12, 2009

Authors: Karen Davis, Ph.D., Stuart Guterman, Michelle M. Doty, Ph.D., and Kristof M. Stremikis
Journal: Health Affairs Web Exclusive, May 12, 2009, w521–w532
Contact: Michelle M. Doty, Director of Survey Research, The Commonwealth Fund, mmd@cmwf.org
Summary Writers: Tammy Worth

Synopsis

In a national Commonwealth Fund survey, elderly Medicare beneficiaries reported greater overall satisfaction with their health coverage, better access to care, and fewer problems paying medical bills than people covered by employer-sponsored plans. The findings bolster the argument that offering a public insurance plan similar to Medicare to the under-65 population has the potential to improve access and reduce costs.

About the Study

The authors used data from the Commonwealth Fund 2007 Biennial Health Insurance Survey to compare how patients felt about access and cost under Medicare and employer-sponsored plans. Princeton Survey Research Associates International conducted the survey by telephone with adults in the United States over age 19. The survey response rate was 47 percent. The 25-minute phone interview included questions about health care access, out-of-pocket spending, benefit information, and demographic characteristics.
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A clear and honest reading of what he posts destroys your point. They weren't asked if they liked freebees. Nor is anything free, btw.
 
j-mac said:
So you have a study asking people that get freebies, if they like their freebies and expect them to say Nooooo, I hate them....Yeah ok....*Yawn*


j-mac
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You've switched instantly from one idiotic argument that failed (and which you failed to admit when it failed) to another. Medicare isn't free. Check your paycheck. :roll:
 
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So you have a study asking people that get freebies, if they like their freebies and expect them to say Nooooo, I hate them....Yeah ok....*Yawn*
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Actually, as stupid as it sounds, there are tons of people who get everything handed to them by the government and still whine about it. Some people are never happy.
 
I don't really see the question of whether the detention program applies to citizens too or only non-citizens as particularly important. I oppose the detention system as a whole, so I guess I'd rather have it apply to fewer people rather than more, but at the same time it seems inconsistent to have it only apply to non-citizens. You can have a citizen and a non-citizen that are almost identically situated. For example, two brothers, one of them was born while his parents were visiting the US, the other was born a year later when they were back in Canada. Both of them moved to Afghanistan, got involved with the same organization, and were arrested side by side, but one of them has full constitutional protections and is handled through the criminal justice system while the other is shipped off to a secret prison to be tortured? That doesn't make sense to me.

Whatever the urgent necessities are that supposedly require the suspension of the rule of law are, if they're important enough to take such an intensely drastic step for non-citizens, certainly they're not outweighed by somebody happening to have a piece of paperwork saying they're a citizen.

Ideally what we should do is eliminate the detainee status completely and just go back to the days when you were either a POW or you were handled through the criminal courts.

But, failing that, if we need to have a detainee status, we need to create a clearer and more sensible line for who falls in that status. It needs to be clearly limited to people involved in terrorist acts against the United States whether they are citizens or not. Right now we're using that status for everything from former Iraqi military to insurgents to people who were caught committing some kind of ordinary crime in a war zone. People that support the detainee system support it because they picture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but very few of the actual detainees are connected with actual terrorism.
 
misterman said:
You've switched instantly from one idiotic argument that failed (and which you failed to admit when it failed) to another. Medicare isn't free. Check your paycheck. :roll:
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Absolutely, and people that have paid into the system their entire lives, or even those close to retirement, 50 y.o. and above, would not see any change. But clearly a system that is tens of trillions of dollars upside down can not continue on its current path, or else everyone will lose it.


J-mac

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
 
j-mac said:
[...] clearly a system that is tens of trillions of dollars upside down can not continue on its current path [...]
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What system is that?
confuse.gif
 
j-mac said:
Absolutely, and people that have paid into the system their entire lives, or even those close to retirement, 50 y.o. and above, would not see any change. But clearly a system that is tens of trillions of dollars upside down can not continue on its current path, or else everyone will lose it.


J-mac

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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"Tens of trillions" may be just a slight exaggeration, but, yes, Medicare will have to be reformed, or the costs will be too much to pay. Further, Medicare is a part of our health care system, all of which has to be reformed before the costs eat us alive.

Right now, I don't see the will or the cooperation necessary to do more than throw thirty second sound bytes at the problem and use it for partisan bickering.

So, my prediction is that the situation will get a lot worse than it is now before anyone is able to step up to the plate and make any meaningful changes.
 
The sad thing is any effort at real reform can't get beyond the partisan bickering and ideaological silliness to actually get to problem solving. Such has always derailed reform.
 
Dittohead not! said:
"Tens of trillions" may be just a slight exaggeration, but, yes, Medicare will have to be reformed, or the costs will be too much to pay. Further, Medicare is a part of our health care system, all of which has to be reformed before the costs eat us alive.
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Check the unfunded liability...Agreed but this isn't the way.


j-mac
 
Boo Radley said:
The sad thing is any effort at real reform can't get beyond the partisan bickering and ideaological silliness to actually get to problem solving. Such has always derailed reform.
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You have no idea what you are talking about.


j-mac
 
Dittohead not! said:
Originally Posted by Neomalthusian
It would have to be their own savings.
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Now, that's just so far out of touch as to be downright funny.
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But that's the answer to the question, "who is going to provide insurance to the most expensive demographic?" if there were no Medicare. Their own savings, or no one.

Keep in mind, the way it's set up, Medicare is not insurance. It's welfare for the elderly on the backs of their children and grandchildren. The 20s-50s are struggling to afford their own healthcare in our cost-expansionary system, and the idea that they'll be able to also fund the needs of the boomers as they get old and start dying... THAT'S what's out of touch. We all know it can't be done. So what? Just turn the benefits off? Uh, yeah! And then what pays for all the elderly's care? They do, or no one does. Where else would the money come from?
 
j-mac said:
You have no idea what you are talking about.


j-mac
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You're welcome to contribute more than this silliness, if you have more. :coffeepap
 
Neomalthusian said:
But that's the answer to the question, "who is going to provide insurance to the most expensive demographic?" if there were no Medicare. Their own savings, or no one.

Keep in mind, the way it's set up, Medicare is not insurance. It's welfare for the elderly on the backs of their children and grandchildren. The 20s-50s are struggling to afford their own healthcare in our cost-expansionary system, and the idea that they'll be able to also fund the needs of the boomers as they get old and start dying... THAT'S what's out of touch. We all know it can't be done. So what? Just turn the benefits off? Uh, yeah! And then what pays for all the elderly's care? They do, or no one does. Where else would the money come from?
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Medicare is not insurance, but a way of paying for some people's health care collectively.

The way to reform it is to place everyone under the Medicare umbrella, or better, give them the option of being there.
 
I would argue that Medicare is, indeed, effectively insurance. That you may technically be paying the premium for a retired person, when you retire someone will be paying your premium, so the end result is the same. Unless, when you retire the benefits are turned off (see Mr. Ryan's plan).

Furthermore, when one retires and dies suddenly, there is no Medicare premium refund (like insurance, that premium is absorbed into the overall fund). Or if they simply live a long life with little need for medical attention, there is again no rebate of premium (even though they, themselves, continue to pay it monthly). Again, just like insurance.

The welfare argument is simply class warfare.

As to unfunded liabilities, that assumes premiums (payroll taxes) and payments remain the same for the next 75 years. As the program becomes progressively unbalanced, that is likely to change long before such alarming numbers are reached (which therefore changes the unfunded liability picture).

The solution is to not attack the program, but that which it pays for (healthcare system)... for when the government can no longer afford to pay for healthcare, neither will anyone else (something Mr. Ryan's plan conveniently overlooks).
 
Karl said:
I would argue that Medicare is, indeed, effectively insurance. That you may technically be paying the premium for a retired person, when you retire someone will be paying your premium, so the end result is the same. Unless, when you retire the benefits are turned off (see Mr. Ryan's plan).

Furthermore, when one retires and dies suddenly, there is no Medicare premium refund (like insurance, that premium is absorbed into the overall fund). Or if they simply live a long life with little need for medical attention, there is again no rebate of premium (even though they, themselves, continue to pay it monthly). Again, just like insurance.

The welfare argument is simply class warfare.

As to unfunded liabilities, that assumes premiums (payroll taxes) and payments remain the same for the next 75 years. As the program becomes progressively unbalanced, that is likely to change long before such alarming numbers are reached (which therefore changes the unfunded liability picture).

The solution is to not attack the program, but that which it pays for (healthcare system)... for when the government can no longer afford to pay for healthcare, neither will anyone else (something Mr. Ryan's plan conveniently overlooks).
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Spending other peoples money is always fun, until you run out of it.

J-mac

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
 
j-mac said:
Spending other peoples money is always fun, until you run out of it.

J-mac

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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Isn't it also my money?
 
j-mac said:
Yes, and no one said you spend your own money on foolish things. But, you should have no claim to mine.

J-mac

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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I don't. But it is our tax money, and better it go for something useful than appeasing big business or invading countries. However, regardless, we decide as a people where we spend that money. And either of us can lose that battle.
 
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