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Even California Governor Jerry Brown Says

Ikari said:
lol....OK.
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Oh?

Fact:
Efforts to reduce wait times for MRI have focused on increasing the number of diagnostic imaging devices, as Canada lags far behind other countries in this regard. For instance, Japan and the United States have 35.3 and 19.5 MRI units per million population, respectively, whereas Canada has only 4.6. (Stein 2005). The number of MRI scanners in Canada is lower than the median of 6.1 scanners per million for all countries within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Stein 2005). The optimal number of MRI machines per capita has not been established, and the number of scanners does not indicate the number of patients scanned; however, it does provide an indication of capacity. While Canadian provinces have recently increased the number of imaging devices, it is unlikely that Canada will have such ready access to imaging as these other countries. Therefore, other approaches to wait time reduction are needed.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653696/

Lives are at risk because of a desperate shortage of MRI scanners in the NHS to diagnose cancer, an international report has found.
In a bitter irony, it was UK scientists who were instrumental in inventing the scanners which are now credited with saving lives throughout the world.
Yet we have fewer of them than almost all other Western countries – and even developing countries such as Turkey and former Communist states such as Slovakia.


Read more: Britain has fewer MRI machines than almost any other Western country | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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Probably helps to understand the impact your delusional dreams of free healthcare actually have before typing.
 
Renae said:
Oh?

Fact:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653696/



Probably helps to understand the impact your delusional dreams of free healthcare actually have before typing.
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So they don't have enough for the throughput, OK. Get more.

Prices in the healthcare market are greatly inflated, but what you posted doesn't support the claim that the system cannot afford them, rather they haven't got them. It could be a variety of reasons from price to red tape, you didn't offer proof.

I don't believe in "free healthcare", though some form of actual universal coverage should be looked into. Afterall, America pays more for and has less access to healthcare than any other developed/industrial country that uses at least some hybrid system. But I know the "fudge them, let them die" approach does seem oh so much more efficient.
 
Ikari said:
So they don't have enough for the throughput, OK. Get more.

Prices in the healthcare market are greatly inflated, but what you posted doesn't support the claim that the system cannot afford them, rather they haven't got them. It could be a variety of reasons from price to red tape, you didn't offer proof.

I don't believe in "free healthcare", though some form of actual universal coverage should be looked into. Afterall, America pays more for and has less access to healthcare than any other developed/industrial country that uses at least some hybrid system. But I know the "fudge them, let them die" approach does seem oh so much more efficient.
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They can't afford too, MRI machines are not cheap. It's obvious you have little understanding of economics of healthcare, and are only interested in fantasy. Good day Ikari.
 
Renae said:
They can't afford too, MRI machines are not cheap. It's obvious you have little understanding of economics of healthcare, and are only interested in fantasy. Good day Ikari.
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Nice Ad Hom, interesting that's all you can produce.

It didn't say they couldn't afford to. It merely stated they do not have enough. Certainly it could be cost prohibitive, likely very much so to step potential up to the required numbers. But it's not to say that's the overall mechanism behind there being so few.

So if you cannot debate as an adult, then good day indeed.
 
eohrnberger said:
Aren't those employer-sponsored insurance results?
How's that related to ObamaCare and it's double and even triple digit percent premium increases? The ObamaCare bankruptcy inducing deductibles?
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Yes, those are trends for premiums in employer plans, which the overwhelming majority of privately insured people have. You can't bend the cost curve just by focusing on 10-15 million people buying in exchanges. But if you bend the curve for Medicare and ESI and get the results we've been seeing in both--well, then you're onto something.

Most of the exchanges have corrected this year for previous underpricing (exchange premiums have been ~20% below the CBO projections, which is part of the reason the ACA has been so much cheaper than originally advertised). That's not a statement on the broader trends in health care costs or overall national health spending.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper / easier to extend a reasonably working system, namely medicare, to those without medical insurance? Rather than the government take over that is ObamaCare (designed to collapse, and usher in single payer).
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You want to expand Medicare to head off single-payer?
 
beerftw said:
I do not think you understand at all. I never said we should do any of that, But what I was saying is that our system is deeply rooted, and switching it to single payer or socialized medicine would to cost prohibitive unless we reformed our system from the ground up.

As it stands now, going from a capitalist system to single payer would bankrupt the country, the two systems are incompatible, and that is just simple fact.
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Fair enough.
I'll grant you being correct on both counts, that the two systems are incompatible, and that single payer would likely cause the nation to go bankrupt.
 
Greenbeard said:
Yes, those are trends for premiums in employer plans, which the overwhelming majority of privately insured people have. You can't bend the cost curve just by focusing on 10-15 million people buying in exchanges. But if you bend the curve for Medicare and ESI and get the results we've been seeing in both--well, then you're onto something.

Most of the exchanges have corrected this year for previous underpricing (exchange premiums have been ~20% below the CBO projections, which is part of the reason the ACA has been so much cheaper than originally advertised). That's not a statement on the broader trends in health care costs or overall national health spending.
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As odd as it may be, I find myself agreeing with you here. I agree with you that trying to bend the cost curve by changing how health insurance is provided to 10-15 million isn't going to have a significant impact on the cost curve.

I think it would be far more effective if the actual healthcare costs on a doctor by doctor, hospital by hospital, and procedure by procedure basis were available to the buying public. The competitive pressures would soon be bending that cost curve, as most of the buying public will have the information they need to start shopping around.

Even currently, the majority of the costs for care is obscured from the patients (other than what they are responsible for paying), it being hidden in what amounts to backroom deals between the providers and the insurance companies (isn't that called a monopoly?). Were that to be cracked open and brought out into the public light, the rest would probably take care of itself.

You want to expand Medicare to head off single-payer?
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This was one of the options that was being kicked around during the debates over ObamaCare while it was a bill (wasn't it?). I believe some of the punditry in their back of the envelope calculations came to the conclusion that just expanding Medicare to cover those who were able to provide themselves health insurance would end up being much cheaper and far more cost effective than ObamaCare. At least that's as I recall. I may be wrong on that, or the conclusion of the punditry may be wrong on that.
 
Visbek said:
Only one state had a triple digit increase: Arizona.
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I stated that: " How's that related to ObamaCare and it's double and even triple digit percent premium increases?"

So where was I wrong?

"Double digit" premium increases were routine for years before the ACA. In fact, premium increases for the two years prior were lower than pre-ACA average increases.

Oh, and most Americans weren't affected by the increases. Subsidies took care of most of it.
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In other words someone else was charged for the increases that weren't passed on those on subsidies, i.e. the tax payer, i.e. the middle class (who always end up paying for everything - and yet, so many parrot concern about them, yet have no problem heaping ever more tax obligations on them - I think this is called inconsistency - at the very least).

Most Americans won't be affected by Obamacare premium increase | ABC10.com

Unsurprisingly, these increases were in part sparked by, wait for it... Republican opposition to the law. E.g. they killed the risk corridors, which helped insurers stay in the markets. Reinsurance plans weren't renewed, neither was support for co-ops.




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You do know that Medicare is a government system, right?!?

48 million Americans were uninsured before the ACA took effect. Putting them all on Medicare or Medicaid would pretty much be setting up a socialized medicine system. That's like going straight to single payer.



Bull****.

• Over 20 million people now have health insurance or Medicaid
• It established guaranteed issue
• It set up exchanges, which are so popular even Mitch McConnell wants to keep them
• Insurers can no longer refuse to pay for pre-existing conditions.
• All ACA plans have to cover the 10 essentials
• It successfully lets parents keep their kids on their insurance to age 26
• It's lowered Medicare's costs
• It's improved the quality of care offered via Medicare
• It's closing the Medicare Part D "donut hole"
• Premium increases were below the pre-ACA average for many years
• The big hits this year only affected a small percentage
• The popularity of the bill has soared since the election
• Many drivers of high costs (such as unregulated pharmaceutical pricing) were not addressed by the bill

It's certainly not perfect. But given the rampant animosity towards the bill by Republicans and conservatives, it's actually doing fairly well.
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I still think my earlier observation holds true. Unmask the hidden cost of healthcare, hidden by the providers and the insurers, and give the buying public the information with which to competitively shop with. It would seem reasonable and logical that this would do far more at bending down the cost curve than any other action.
 
Visbek said:
Read my post.

I said that Brown thinks California CAN'T set up a single payer on its own. And that KFF could discuss a national single payer, which would have a pretty good chance of working -- since it works in almost every industrialized country in the world.
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Fair enough.
 
Renae said:
And far greater wait times for simple things like MRI's or CAT scans.
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That's part of the price of having low cost healthcare. The equipments considerable costs are amortized over the patients whose procedures involve that equipment.

The reason a CAT scan costs $3,000 minimum is because you're paying a ****load of money for that equipment to sit idle most of the time.

They have a thing in healthcare systems called "triage"- it coordinates how resources are utilized. Our resources are being squandered inefficiently which is part of the reason they charge so much.
 
Renae said:
Oh?

Fact:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653696/



Probably helps to understand the impact your delusional dreams of free healthcare actually have before typing.
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You're really losing your argument here. This is not a necessarily result of providing access to healthcare.

Nobody is claiming that we should do exactly what Canada did- it doesn't make sense for us to build hospitals in Canada to serve people in Louisiana, for example. Try to think critically rather than politically.
 
Absentglare said:
That's part of the price of having low cost healthcare. The equipments considerable costs are amortized over the patients whose procedures involve that equipment.

The reason a CAT scan costs $3,000 minimum is because you're paying a ****load of money for that equipment to sit idle most of the time.

They have a thing in healthcare systems called "triage"- it coordinates how resources are utilized. Our resources are being squandered inefficiently which is part of the reason they charge so much.
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Oh, so that's why Single Payer nations have so few MRIO machines, they are EFFICIENT! 18 weeks for an MRI wait, efficiency!
Do you think about what you type or is it just "How can I regurgitate the talking points today"?
 
Absentglare said:
You're really losing your argument here. This is not a necessarily result of providing access to healthcare.

Nobody is claiming that we should do exactly what Canada did- it doesn't make sense for us to build hospitals in Canada to serve people in Louisiana, for example. Try to think critically rather than politically.
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What... the ****... are you on about? Hospitals in Canada for Louisiana?
 
jonny5 said:
I dont get his point. You get the money by taking it from state residents. Is he really saying its not politically possible, that people wont stand for actually paying for things they want?
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Californians already pay up the ass for everything. That's why their revolving door only goes one way.
 
bluesmoke said:
What are you saying? That if Brown says single-payer can't be done, then it must be so? But, if he says the Republican plan is foolish, it is not so? Bit of a false dichotomy.
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I don't know what he said about the Republican plan. I didn't like the Republican plan. It was just a mirror version of Obamacare. The end result would have been the very same disaster that Obamacare has become. But, if the liberal Jerry Brown says that single payer can't be done then that is saying something. In case you didn't know, I was against healthcare the way it was before Obamacare, I am against Obamacare, I was against the Republican plan, and I am against single payer.
 
He's an idiot if he thinks it can't be done at the state level. Period.
 
Renae said:
Oh, so that's why Single Payer nations have so few MRIO machines, they are EFFICIENT! 18 weeks for an MRI wait, efficiency!
Do you think about what you type or is it just "How can I regurgitate the talking points today"?
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I'm explaining to you that lower cost is likely to mean having wait times.

What you should be upset about is that the magic of the market isn't providing any low cost healthcare service that may incorporate wait times for non-emergency diagnostic procedures.

Instead, you're just making this into some partisan contest.
 
Renae said:
What... the ****... are you on about? Hospitals in Canada for Louisiana?
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Sorry, i was pretty clumsy with my wording there.

Canada provides healthcare in Canada. The US is a different geographic body so we cannot implement the exact same system that Canada does. I was trying to point out how absurd (note: exact) that idea is.
 
Absentglare said:
I'm explaining to you that lower cost is likely to mean having wait times.

What you should be upset about is that the magic of the market isn't providing any low cost healthcare service that may incorporate wait times for non-emergency diagnostic procedures.

Instead, you're just making this into some partisan contest.
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Wait, are you saying that in return for "free low cost healthcare" we get... lesser service? Why do I want this again?
 
Van Basten said:
It's been done in plenty of countries, cut the crap.
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Sure! Its easy! Tax the **** out of people and when you still cant afford it, just increase your debt spending annually and leave it for future generations to deal with it. No problem! Its the leftist way!

Jerry Brown points out that current state, Medical consumes 18% of their total state budget. hat does a universal healthcare system do to that figure?

When Governor Moonbeam says its crazy...its probably crazy.
 
Renae said:
Wait, are you saying that in return for "free low cost healthcare" we get... lesser service? Why do I want this again?
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Right now, we don't let people die. We save peoples lives, often at great cost. Those costs are indirectly paid for by the rest of us. Those costs are unnecessarily high because so very many medical resources sit idle for so very long. The uninsured are a big part of the reason that OUR care is so expensive.

If those who are currently uninsured were actually covered by some plan, even if it had wait times for non-emergency procedures, that would make healthcare more affordable for everyone else.
 
Moderate Right said:
I don't know what he said about the Republican plan. I didn't like the Republican plan. It was just a mirror version of Obamacare. The end result would have been the very same disaster that Obamacare has become. But, if the liberal Jerry Brown says that single payer can't be done then that is saying something. In case you didn't know, I was against healthcare the way it was before Obamacare, I am against Obamacare, I was against the Republican plan, and I am against single payer.
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What are you for?
 
eohrnberger said:
I think it would be far more effective if the actual healthcare costs on a doctor by doctor, hospital by hospital, and procedure by procedure basis were available to the buying public. The competitive pressures would soon be bending that cost curve, as most of the buying public will have the information they need to start shopping around.

Even currently, the majority of the costs for care is obscured from the patients (other than what they are responsible for paying), it being hidden in what amounts to backroom deals between the providers and the insurance companies (isn't that called a monopoly?). Were that to be cracked open and brought out into the public light, the rest would probably take care of itself.
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I'm supportive of price transparency, though it's limited by a number of factors: 1) the majority of health spending is on services that aren't shoppable, so this has no impact on them; 2) spending in any given year is concentrated on a relatively small segment of the population, and those folks will hit any reasonable out-of-pocket limit, again rendering this useless for them; and 3) the percentage of the population that doesn't have enough money saved to cover an unexpected $500-$1,000 expense is staggering--it's like two-thirds of the population or something. All of which make price shopping for health services more challenging.

And it's logistically difficult to implement under the current system. As you pointed out, prices are the results of contract negotiations between insurers and providers. Which means there is no set price for a service, it will depend on who your insurer is and what price they've negotiated. And that's usually considered proprietary information anyway.

This was one of the options that was being kicked around during the debates over ObamaCare while it was a bill (wasn't it?). I believe some of the punditry in their back of the envelope calculations came to the conclusion that just expanding Medicare to cover those who were able to provide themselves health insurance would end up being much cheaper and far more cost effective than ObamaCare. At least that's as I recall. I may be wrong on that, or the conclusion of the punditry may be wrong on that.
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Expanding public coverage is already a major component of the ACA. That's what the Medicaid expansion is.

There was a proposal back in 2009 (and resurrected in the campaign last year by Hillary Clinton) to also allow older adults under age 65 to buy into Medicare but that was defeated.
 
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