Limits of State Power
POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Sunday, December 14, 2025 21:53
VIEWED: 37205
PAGE 28 of 36
Quote:Cites and quote please.
I AM bothered that we've allowed a cartel to control health care and essentially hold us hostage - that we've allowed corporations to hijack our government and use it to consolidate their control of our health care.
Most peeps who claim that our health-care system is screwed due to "government regulations" typically can't cite even ONE regulation to back that claim. I've been thru this before: Hospitals, labs and facilities are accredited by a private non-profit (The Joint Commission), doctors, nurses and therapists are licensed by private Boards (confusingly called State Boards, but not run by states at all), insurance companies are marginally controlled by individual states (for fraud and breach of contract), malpractice insurance is controlled by- you guessed it- the insurance industry, the medical schools are controlled by the AMA, and so forth. As far as I can tell, this is a mostly industry-regulated industry. Unless you provide SOME data to back up that oft-told story (it's all the government's fault) I'm gonna consider it an oft-told story and nothing more.
Also, I would like to know what alternatives you propose. That derives partly from your response to the first question. IF you find that certain laws, regulations etc. have a significant impact on health insurance performance, it should be an easy fix to suggest law changes which would help. I'm a little tired of people handwaving with generalized, ideology-based concpets which have little basis in fact. So be specific. Look at where the rubber meets the road. Enlighten us.
----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Sarge wrote:
From my perspective, it's the "oversight" that's killing us. The most dangerous aspect of our current situation is the trend toward corporatism and national regulatory schemes only fuel that fire.
If you can figure out how to achieve your seemingly-contradictory goals, please let us know how. You're arguing AGAINST government oversight, yet also AGAINST corporatism. How do you curb corporatism without oversight? In other words, if you remove all government oversight (which seems to be the goal, going by everything you've posted), won't the corporations run wild and roughshod over us?
On another note, how do you feel about Tort Reform? Are you in favor of that kind of government oversight (limiting punitive and actual damage payment caps by government mandate), or do you prefer to let juries decide what is fair compensation for corporations gone wild?
I'm trying to figure out where it is you're coming from.
Oh, and Geezer: Because Bernie Sanders said it, do you take it as given that it's going to happen, or that it's got widespread support?
Mike
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
When the Haileys sued Blue Shield after their 2001 rescission, the practice was largely hidden. Since then, the state's (California) five largest insurers have been shown to have engaged in systematic efforts to rescind individual policyholders AFTER expensive medical care.
Several insurers set up departments devoted to rescission. They pulled members' medical records from as far back as 20 years and scoured them for details not disclosed on their applications for coverage. Those discrepancies were used to justify rescissions.
In many cases, individuals were rescinded for omissions that had nothing to do with the illness or injury that triggered the investigation. And, in many cases, the individuals contended, they were confused by the application or unaware of a notation that their insurer found in an old medical chart. (Do you know ALL the notations and notes in ALL your medical charts and records ?)
Rescinding thousands of policyholders a year enabled California insurers to save millions of dollars. Health Net Inc., for example, figured that it avoided $35 million in medical expenses over six years. (A 'savings' I might note that doesn't result in lower premiums, but in increased profits.) The loss of coverage left individuals awash in medical bills and without healthcare when they needed it most, and it left many hospitals and physicians with uncollectable debt.
The disclosure of systematic rescissions triggered a firestorm of criticism and scrutiny. Lawmakers complained loudly, and regulators opened investigations.
In Blue Shield's case, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in 2007 accused its Life & Health Insurance Co. unit of 1,262 "serious violations" over a four-year period that, he said, "completely undermine the public's trust in our healthcare system and are potentially devastating to patients." Poizner proposed $12.6 million in fines but ultimately declined to impose any.
Blue Shield became suspicious in February 2001 that the Haileys had withheld information, the appellate court noted. Steve's car accident occurred in March. But Blue Shield did not notify the couple of its rescission until June. By then, Steve had run up more than $400,000 in medical charges.
Had Blue Shield notified the couple more promptly, the Haileys argue, Cindy would have had the chance to get coverage through her employer before the accident, avoiding the dispute, financial ruin for the family and delays in his care.
***************************************************************
Fuck them. They need to be cut out of the game.
ETA: you and your family are one serious accident or illness away from being pay-as-you-go bankrupt. And then there is always old age, which is expensive. Maybe we just need to encourage the old, injured and sick people to take a walk on the freeway, eh ? (There being no handy ice-floes available.)
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
RUE: Agreed.
GEEZER, SARGE: still waiitng for your proposed alternatives.
----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Apparently neither of you have come up with a good alternative yet. Keep at it.
----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by JKiddo:
Let's extend this to houses, because credit cards are unsecured debt. So, the lender moves to get the money back, which in this case is backed by real estate values. Only now, they are owed more money than the house is "worth". Now what?
They might not get their money back, but that doesn't mean the money has ceased to exist. Lets assume, for the sake of simplicity and argument, that the person you bought the house from just put the money straight into their savings account, and haven't touched it.
Lets say this house is up for $500,000, you have $100,000 in the bank, so you need an 80% mortgage, $400,000. You borrow that from a mortgage lender, and it's transferred into your account. You now have $500,000 of real, not made up, not future money in your account. If you went to the bank and said "I want to close my account" you'd get $500,000 of crisp new bills, it's tangible real now money.
You buy the house, you hand over the $500,000 and it goes into the sellers savings account. Two weeks later "implausible terrible scenario #4" occurs, your house loses fifty percent of it's value, and you lose your job and can't pay the mortgage. The bank forecloses, but can only get $250,000 for the house on the open market.
"Ah" you say, "that means $250,000 has just vanished into thin air!"
No. Take a look at the Sellers savings account, it still says "$500,000". The money wasn't made up, and it hasn't vanished. It's just in a place that isn't so great for either you or the bank. All the money that was ever in the system, is still in the system, it's just some assets aren't worth as much as they used to be. But the amount of capitol in the system hasn't changed.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
It's true that somebody walks away with the cash. The problem is the banks and homeowners. The banks loan money they do not have - they just assume it will come in later ... and then they end up with an asset which is not worth the loan they made. And the homeowner loses whatever equity they have in the house.
It's exactly the same as when the stock market or an individual stock drops. The people who hold stock at the moment lose. But somebody walked away with the cash.
But in the case of loans, the banks created new money and dropped it into the system.
***************************************************************
Silence is consent.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:And what I was saying is tha loans based on ephermal values are a form of currency CREATION. Where did that money come from? By putting a five with a bunch of zeros behind it into to the seller's account. What is backing that amount? A $250,000 value and a promise to pay which fell through. Yes, the seller has nice new crisp bills... it was the loan itself which turned "nothing" into "real money", the reason why some mortgage institutions are flirting with insolvency, and also why Obama is printing money as fast as he can ... to backfill all of that created money with actual currency.
You buy the house, you hand over the $500,000 and it goes into the sellers savings account. Two weeks later "implausible terrible scenario #4" occurs, your house loses fifty percent of it's value, and you lose your job and can't pay the mortgage. The bank forecloses, but can only get $250,000 for the house on the open market.
"Ah" you say, "that means $250,000 has just vanished into thin air!"
No. Take a look at the Sellers savings account, it still says "$500,000".
To put a historical distance on the topic, think of the tulip bulb craze of the 1630s
Quote:In this case, TULIP BULBS became, in effect, and alternate currency. In other cases, stocks become an alternate currency. In still others, real estate or commercial real estate. Or gold or diamonds. www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes2.asp
When: 1634-1637
Where: Holland
The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: This number is difficult to calculate, but, we can tell you that at the peak of the market, a person could trade a single tulip for an entire estate, and, at the bottom, one tulip was the price of a common onion.
I don't think we'll ever agree on this, but I think the facts (deflation in the past 6-9 months) suports my POV.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Meanwhile, neither Geezer nor Sarge have devised a viable alternative to the cluster-f*ck which is our very own privately-run health care system.
----------------------
We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Patience is a virtue. Not everyone can spend as much time here as you obviously can.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME