donc

I like the bolded part of his reply to you; as that is a page out of his posting style.

__________________
Delay is preferable to error.

Thomas Jefferson

Conservative

Interesting that you post a 2003 study and then use those numbers to compare against 2008 beneficiaries. Also very interesting that you claim that for profit companies have inflated expenses which affect profits but non profit agencies have lower overhead thus expenses yet are basically bankrupt. Does any of that make sense to you?

You certainly have something against private business and for some reason believe that for profit companies are ineffecient but govt. agencies are somehow effecient but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Here is another article again that you will attack the messenger instead of the message

Medicare’s Overhead Medicine and Opera

The problem you have and continue to have is there is no evidence that the Federal govt. can do any social engineering better than private industry. There is no credible evidence comparing private insurance expenses to govt. run agency expenses. What we do know is part of the govt. funding for their healthcare program comes from cutting Medicare expenses by 500 billion dollars. Where are those expense cuts coming from when overhead is so low?

Think, I know you can do it.

Conservative

sounds a lot like the budget discussion that you continue to ignore. Obama added 1.47 trillion to the debt in 2009, will add 1.6 trillion this year, 1.3 trillion next year which in three years will exceed the entire 8 years of the Bush Administration. How is that hope and change working out for you?

Deuce

There...there weren't any numbers in that article.

I posted links to verifiable numbers and peer-reviewed journals, and you posted another link to someone's blog that didn't contain any actual data.

Conservative

That is the point, there aren't any numbers in what you offered either nor is there any logic and common sense thus you remain gullible to Govt. rhetoric.

Deuce

Really. You couldn't find any numbers in my post or my links?

No numbers. You're saying there were no numbers.


edit: I figured it out. You're like Stephen Colbert. A caricature of a conservative. Except you aren't funny.

Conservative

Oh, I found numbers, I found a 2003 report and you applied those to 2008 participation. You cannot compare private industry personnel to Medicare personnel until you define the services provided by both. Govt. employees are dedicated to Medicare whereas private insurance employees do various jobs in all facets of the company they work for. Only a true ideologue can apply all private insurance employees to one segment of the business and call that excessive.

You can make numbers do whatever you want them to do but until you define the parameters those numbers are meaningless. Govt. overhead is different than private insurance overhead just like govt. costs for services is different than private industry costs for service. Keep spinning them in the government's favor when the reality is you continue to ignore the 500 billion that is going to be cut from Medicare. How can any govt. business with such low overhead have 500 billion available to cut?

Deuce

So there are numbers now. Nice backpedal.

Ok, so lets say it's not a totally fair comparison. You're still off by a factor of more than ten. I'll tell you what, we'll be extremely generous and go with the entire social security administration. 64,000 employees. You still end up with 14 employees per 10,000 enrollments, equal to the best of the private businesses and less than half that of the worst. And the majority of the 60,000 people we just added have absolutely nothing to do with Medicare.

I already addressed the $500billion number, but you ignored it because that's your strawman. You're attacking a point that I never made. How can they cut $500 billion? I don't know. I don't think you can. I've already said I don't buy those numbers. You conveniently skimmed over that so you could repost this again.

Conservative

No, you didn't post the 500 billion dollar number but Congress did. The Senate Bill is paid for as they say by cuts in Medicare, the waste, fraud, and abuse. The question you should be asking is where that waste, fraud, and abuse comes from.

You are the one that seems to believe because of a trumped up, distorted overhead number that the Govt. can operate healthcare better than the private sector but your numbers aren't comparing the same things.

You don't know what the private sector employees do but we do know that Medicare employees are dedicated to Medicare. Anyone that believes govt. runs anything more effeciently than private industry is naive, gullible, and very, very misinformed.

You want badly to believe that Govt. run healthcare is going to be effecient, more cost effective, and offer better services but history refutes your opinions.

Deuce

What history?

We've never tried it in our country so there's no history here.

Every country that HAS tried it spends far less than we do and covers 100% of the population.

You'll have to work me through how they are less cost effective. I assert that the are actually more cost-effective.

Canadians, for example, spend fewer tax dollars on healthcare per-capita than we do. They don't have to pay out of pocket for health insurance premiums, because their taxes cover health insurance.

As far as better quality, I'll head off what I already know you're going to say. Waiting times. It's cherry-picked data. You'll always hear it referencing Canadian elective surgeries, usually hip replacement, or in the UK. Did you know that Germany, France, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, and Australia all have shorter waiting times than we do?