It's so easy to fix healthcare costs too, just apply some socialism magic to the whole thing
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
After having studied the US health care legislation rather extensively, I came to the conclusion that although costs are likely to fall substantially, they could've fallen by so much more if Obama had just blazed ahead and put into place a Social Health Insurance system like all of Western Europe has (fuck, even developing nations - even Mexico). What you guys will have in 2014 is basically SHI... but with no Government option and insurers that have been kneecappped by stringent regulation/caps and what is likely to be a fiercely competitive local market place in the form of the health insurance exchange. Which does bring down cost but it's left to be seen how that impacts on quality of care (which is already rather mediocre vis-a-vis the rest of the developed world).
Still, I digress. You guys might find it interesting/despairing to know that the republicans belting out lines in support of lower taxes at the top actually have support in the form Optimal Tax Theory. A result from the Mirlees optimal labour income tax problem is that the marginal rate (not average rate) of tax at both the very bottom and very top of the scale should be 0%. In numerical computations, increasing the weighting on equity by using Rawlsian social welfare functions (which are oonly concerned about the utility of the very poorest) doesn't change this fact - it just increases the marginal tax rate for the intervening income bands.
Then again, I haven't seen a single republican saying 'this is good economics!' (by the by, there are a wealth of reasons why you'd be right to criticise such a theory in practice), and realistically, I'd like to see them even try and make these massive Government cuts whilst they're in office. Would they have the balls to put their ideaology up against poll ratings?
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darklite_xI'm not an r-tard...Registered Userregular
It's so easy to fix healthcare costs too, just apply some socialism magic to the whole thing
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
Out of curiosity, would you care to explain why this is a bad thing and why banning it would help? I'm not trying to be snarky, I honestly can't see why this is bad other influencing patients to go for more expensive brand name drugs over generic drugs. I'm not sure why banning direct to patient advertising would change anything as I would imagine the same advertising that affects the average consumer would have a similar affect on medical professionals. At least to some extent.
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Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37 PSN:Rage_Kage_37 Battle.Net:darklite#2197
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
So, here's the Republican plan that is going to make Ryan's plan seem reasonable (lol).
It's so easy to fix healthcare costs too, just apply some socialism magic to the whole thing
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
Was it Sully? It was probably Sully. Who is not a Republican so much as he is a Tory.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
It's so easy to fix healthcare costs too, just apply some socialism magic to the whole thing
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
Out of curiosity, would you care to explain why this is a bad thing and why banning it would help? I'm not trying to be snarky, I honestly can't see why this is bad other influencing patients to go for more expensive brand name drugs over generic drugs. I'm not sure why banning direct to patient advertising would change anything as I would imagine the same advertising that affects the average consumer would have a similar affect on medical professionals. At least to some extent.
Well, firstly, it costs the drug companies a shitload of money to do. They spend about 1/5th of their drug sale revenue on it (a fact I did not always believe - cribbed quickly from here if you have access, first column - they say 22.5%), yet it has exactly zero value for patient health outcomes.
It negatively competes for doctor mindshare - advertising a prescription drug means you're encouraging healthy people to go to the doctor and press them about diseases they most likely don't have. Doctors then get put in the impossible position of having to spend time - which they'll bill someone for - convincing people that either they don't have a disease, or ordering tests to that effect since you need to practice some degree of defensive medicine. It also convinces people that they have to have Brand X of a drug, even if other drugs might be better suited to a specific condition, cheaper, or both.
For much the same reasons, my country has been steadily imposing tighter restrictions on direct-to-doctor advertising - it affects mindshare and behavior negatively.
Finally, think about that number - 22.5% of their drug sales revenues on advertising. If direct-to-patient advertising doesn't work, then why would they keep paying so much money for it? If we want cheaper drugs (and by we, I mean you), then you need to choke the life out of either the persistent idiocy of that form of advertising, or the negative consequences - outlined above - of that form of advertising.
It's so easy to fix healthcare costs too, just apply some socialism magic to the whole thing
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
Out of curiosity, would you care to explain why this is a bad thing and why banning it would help? I'm not trying to be snarky, I honestly can't see why this is bad other influencing patients to go for more expensive brand name drugs over generic drugs. I'm not sure why banning direct to patient advertising would change anything as I would imagine the same advertising that affects the average consumer would have a similar affect on medical professionals. At least to some extent.
Well, firstly, it costs the drug companies a shitload of money to do. They spend about 1/5th of their drug sale revenue on it (a fact I did not always believe - cribbed quickly from here if you have access, first column - they say 22.5%), yet it has exactly zero value for patient health outcomes.
It negatively competes for doctor mindshare - advertising a prescription drug means you're encouraging healthy people to go to the doctor and press them about diseases they most likely don't have. Doctors then get put in the impossible position of having to spend time - which they'll bill someone for - convincing people that either they don't have a disease, or ordering tests to that effect since you need to practice some degree of defensive medicine. It also convinces people that they have to have Brand X of a drug, even if other drugs might be better suited to a specific condition, cheaper, or both.
For much the same reasons, my country has been steadily imposing tighter restrictions on direct-to-doctor advertising - it affects mindshare and behavior negatively.
Finally, think about that number - half of their profits on advertising. If direct-to-patient advertising doesn't work, then why would they keep paying so much money for it? If we want cheaper drugs (and by we, I mean you), then you need to choke the life out of either the persistent idiocy of that form of advertising, or the negative consequences - outlined above - of that form of advertising.
It's a huge problem no matter how you slice it.
Interesting America fact: This law would be unconstitutional.
how would a ban on advertising prescription drugs be fundamentally different from a ban on advertising cigarettes on television
Because cigarette manufacturers save money off the ban* so they don't fight it in court. But anyway, how is a a drug add different than a political add?
*Total cigarette consumption doesn't change with advertising but market share does so everyone wins if advertising is banned.
Well, the FEC regulates how candidates spend money on ads. I don't see why the FDA and FTC could not regulate how drug manufactures spend money on advertising, in the exact same way they regulate how tobacco and alcohol manufacturers spend money on ads.
Well, firstly, it costs the drug companies a shitload of money to do. They spend about 1/5th of their drug sale revenue on it (a fact I did not always believe - cribbed quickly from here if you have access, first column - they say 22.5%), yet it has exactly zero value for patient health outcomes.
It negatively competes for doctor mindshare - advertising a prescription drug means you're encouraging healthy people to go to the doctor and press them about diseases they most likely don't have. Doctors then get put in the impossible position of having to spend time - which they'll bill someone for - convincing people that either they don't have a disease, or ordering tests to that effect since you need to practice some degree of defensive medicine. It also convinces people that they have to have Brand X of a drug, even if other drugs might be better suited to a specific condition, cheaper, or both.
For much the same reasons, my country has been steadily imposing tighter restrictions on direct-to-doctor advertising - it affects mindshare and behavior negatively.
Finally, think about that number - half of their profits on advertising. If direct-to-patient advertising doesn't work, then why would they keep paying so much money for it? If we want cheaper drugs (and by we, I mean you), then you need to choke the life out of either the persistent idiocy of that form of advertising, or the negative consequences - outlined above - of that form of advertising.
It's a huge problem no matter how you slice it.
Interesting America fact: This law would be unconstitutional.
It was the law until about ten or fifteen years ago, when it was repealed (not overturned).
You can't advertise all kinds of products on television, prescription drugs easily pass constitutional muster because it's already illegal to sell them over the counter - that in and of itself shows that we don't trust people enough to just go pick em up.
Republicans tend not to approach policy questions with anything involving Reagan, otherwise they'd have to admit that their hero raised taxes
Reagan was not a 'Reagan-Republican.' They mythologize this fucker like he was George Washington.
Reagan was a phenomenal president policy wise compared to any of their current crop, and he was a fruitcake who gave double fisted corporate happy endings
Yes that guy, he's a far more sane and compassionate person than any of their current candidates except Romney
They think he ended the cold war, but they also say communism was not viable and that caused them to collapse. I've heard that particular logical error less than one sentence apart.
You can't advertise all kinds of products on television, prescription drugs easily pass constitutional muster because it's already illegal to sell them over the counter - that in and of itself shows that we don't trust people enough to just go pick em up.
Is that just FCC regulated stuff or everything. Has this come up for challenge after Citizens United?
I ask because I'm not a lawyer but if they can buy elections I don't know what they couldn't do.
Whose policy though? Gave weapons to terrorists, granted amnesty to illegal mexicans, raised the debt, raised taxes.
I mean honestly what did Reagan do aside from being a republican that they like so much?
At this point the modern GOP doesn't lionize Reagan based on his overall policies (unless they take some weird revisionist history take that ignores any policy changes after 1982 other than "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall").
They lionize him because not only did he drive the final nail in the coffin of the New Deal Democratic coalition but he was able to sell Goldwater's combination of "the government is the devil" and "why is your hard-earned money going to taxes to support those shiftless criminal Negroes when it could be going to build more Commie-busting bombs" rhetoric so effectively that American political discourse still uses that as a starting point.
You can't advertise all kinds of products on television, prescription drugs easily pass constitutional muster because it's already illegal to sell them over the counter - that in and of itself shows that we don't trust people enough to just go pick em up.
Is that just FCC regulated stuff or everything. Has this come up for challenge after Citizens United?
I ask because I'm not a lawyer but if they can buy elections I don't know what they couldn't do.
Individuals can't advertise certain things either, you can't go on TV and tell people that Draino is good for babies to drink. I don't see how citizens united changes anything in that regard.
Good news everyone! The NYTimes is reporting that Obama is jumping on the austerity bandwagon. He'll be presenting his plan this coming week.
"Austerity"???
President Obama will lay out a long-term deficit reduction plan later this week that will take “a scalpel, not a machete,” to programs like Medicare and education and try once again to extract more taxes from the wealthiest Americans, his senior adviser said Sunday.
Between this, Ryan's plan, Simpson Bowles, and the Gang of Six; we can hope something will actually happen in the 2012 budget.
I can't believe you are bringing those things up as if they were good instead of the ridiculous piles of fantasy shit they actually are.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I can't believe you are bringing those things up as if they were good instead of the ridiculous piles of fantasy shit they actually are.
Ryan's plan may be fantasy but it has achieved its goal. Overton Window: moved! I'm completely in support of Simpson Bowles and the Gang of Six. I can only hope Obama will be as bold.
Come on man! Triangulate. It's why you're my favorite President since Clinton.
GOP wins include assurances that there will be a stand-alone vote over barring Planned Parenthood access to government money and on defunding the new health care law. House Speaker John Boehner revived the school voucher program in the District of Columbia and a ban on the District using its own local tax money for family planning or abortion services. And there will be a ban on money for transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the States. Congress had already banned such transfers last year.
But the GOP did not manage to bag the bigger game it was hunting in the forest of social policy. The ban on the EPA spending money to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was dropped. The defunding of NPR was dropped. The defunding of the federal family planning program – also dropped.
But liberals like Miller weren't dancing in the end zone either. "I don't consider this to be a great performance," he says.
To get the trade-off on the policy riders, Democrats had to give on spending — to the tune of the largest budget cuts ever. There's a $1.1-billion cut across the board for discretionary spending and dozens of nips and tucks all over government, from Justice Department programs to subsidies for co-ops in the new health care law to the Pell Grant program for low-income college students.
Democrats could only take solace in reworking the mix of cuts so that the Defense Department, certain transportation projects and other GOP favorites were hit, too.
I can't believe you are bringing those things up as if they were good instead of the ridiculous piles of fantasy shit they actually are.
Ryan's plan may be fantasy but it has achieved its goal. Overton Window: moved! I'm completely in support of Simpson Bowles and the Gang of Six. I can only hope Obama will be as bold.
Come on man! Triangulate. It's why you're my favorite President since Clinton.
It achieved it's goal of moving the Overton Window towards idiocy and garbage fantasy solutions.
I can't believe you are bringing those things up as if they were good instead of the ridiculous piles of fantasy shit they actually are.
Ryan's plan may be fantasy but it has achieved its goal. Overton Window: moved! I'm completely in support of Simpson Bowles and the Gang of Six. I can only hope Obama will be as bold.
Come on man! Triangulate. It's why you're my favorite President since Clinton.
What kind of monster are you?
Sure thousands of poor people will die each year from no healthcare but hey who cares, we gotta fund 2 increasingly insane wars!
End the wars, hey look I've saved us 2 trillion over 10 years
Seriously guys, if your politicians are thinking that the only way to pull this off is to gut social services, I think we should go with my plan from last thread of just auctioning off a couple of carrier groups. I've got at least a couple grand to pitch in, and wouldn't mind being able to project significant air and sea power.
... as long as I don't get yelled at by the UN for doing low level flybyes at Valve and Blizzard HQ along with pamphlet bombardments that say "get back to work, bitches, D3 and HL2: Ep3 won't release themselves!"
Sure thousands of poor people will die each year from no healthcare but hey who cares, we gotta fund 2 increasingly insane wars!
End the wars, hey look I've saved us 2 trillion over 10 years
Manage to put some agencies in their place and start putting funding to more effective use than the War on Drugs and reforming the prison system and you might just count that as 3-4 wars crushed and god knows how much saved.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Good thing I got my revolver and bullet standing by for the good news
Edit: A look at education, yes thats where we should definitely extract money, a place where less than 20% of Americans want us to cut it
Why the hell couldn't Hillary have won
Let's stop pretending that where Americans want the budget cut is where the budget actually should be cut.
Although in this instance those two things line up pretty well. I mean, cutting funding to education has consistently seemed like the dumbest possible thing you can do.
Exactly, the public doesn't want education cut *and* it makes sense to not cut it.
Why then are they cutting it
Because it's expensive, discretionary, and unlike many other basic services (police/fire/military/roads) it's something the wealthy can pretty easily provide for their kids on their own.
Not in the way you're describing. Since Obamacare will stay in place, Medicaid will be extended up to 133% of the poverty line. So I don't understand who the thousands dieing of no healthcare are that you were referencing when calling me a monster.
Posts
There's no reason that costs keep going up other than executives around the country in a race to see who can get the biggest bonus. How about we ban direct to patient advertising for prescription medications, cap pharma profits, give government bargaining power over costs, etc.
You know I saw on Bill Maher's show (yes I know hes a fruitcake in regards to germ theory, sue me) they had a Republican arguing that socialized medicine was bad because his sister in law couldn't get a free epidural in the UK because she was young and healthy. Well no shit sherlock, there's a reason their health care costs are lower than ours.
I would wager the amount of money we spend on hospital lobby upkeep in the US could pay for Mexico's health service
Still, I digress. You guys might find it interesting/despairing to know that the republicans belting out lines in support of lower taxes at the top actually have support in the form Optimal Tax Theory. A result from the Mirlees optimal labour income tax problem is that the marginal rate (not average rate) of tax at both the very bottom and very top of the scale should be 0%. In numerical computations, increasing the weighting on equity by using Rawlsian social welfare functions (which are oonly concerned about the utility of the very poorest) doesn't change this fact - it just increases the marginal tax rate for the intervening income bands.
Then again, I haven't seen a single republican saying 'this is good economics!' (by the by, there are a wealth of reasons why you'd be right to criticise such a theory in practice), and realistically, I'd like to see them even try and make these massive Government cuts whilst they're in office. Would they have the balls to put their ideaology up against poll ratings?
Out of curiosity, would you care to explain why this is a bad thing and why banning it would help? I'm not trying to be snarky, I honestly can't see why this is bad other influencing patients to go for more expensive brand name drugs over generic drugs. I'm not sure why banning direct to patient advertising would change anything as I would imagine the same advertising that affects the average consumer would have a similar affect on medical professionals. At least to some extent.
http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Honest_Solutions_Final.pdf
/Help us, Obi-Won, you're our only hope.
Was it Sully? It was probably Sully. Who is not a Republican so much as he is a Tory.
Well, firstly, it costs the drug companies a shitload of money to do. They spend about 1/5th of their drug sale revenue on it (a fact I did not always believe - cribbed quickly from here if you have access, first column - they say 22.5%), yet it has exactly zero value for patient health outcomes.
It negatively competes for doctor mindshare - advertising a prescription drug means you're encouraging healthy people to go to the doctor and press them about diseases they most likely don't have. Doctors then get put in the impossible position of having to spend time - which they'll bill someone for - convincing people that either they don't have a disease, or ordering tests to that effect since you need to practice some degree of defensive medicine. It also convinces people that they have to have Brand X of a drug, even if other drugs might be better suited to a specific condition, cheaper, or both.
For much the same reasons, my country has been steadily imposing tighter restrictions on direct-to-doctor advertising - it affects mindshare and behavior negatively.
Finally, think about that number - 22.5% of their drug sales revenues on advertising. If direct-to-patient advertising doesn't work, then why would they keep paying so much money for it? If we want cheaper drugs (and by we, I mean you), then you need to choke the life out of either the persistent idiocy of that form of advertising, or the negative consequences - outlined above - of that form of advertising.
It's a huge problem no matter how you slice it.
Interesting America fact: This law would be unconstitutional.
Because cigarette manufacturers save money off the ban* so they don't fight it in court. But anyway, how is a a drug add different than a political add?
*Total cigarette consumption doesn't change with advertising but market share does so everyone wins if advertising is banned.
We can't limit speech without a solid imperative for the public good.
Given our current court, lowering medical costs isn't going to clear that bar.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Reagan was not a 'Reagan-Republican.' They mythologize this fucker like he was George Washington.
Reagan was a phenomenal president policy wise compared to any of their current crop, and he was a fruitcake who gave double fisted corporate happy endings
I mean honestly what did Reagan do aside from being a republican that they like so much?
pleasepaypreacher.net
They think he ended the cold war, but they also say communism was not viable and that caused them to collapse. I've heard that particular logical error less than one sentence apart.
I ask because I'm not a lawyer but if they can buy elections I don't know what they couldn't do.
At this point the modern GOP doesn't lionize Reagan based on his overall policies (unless they take some weird revisionist history take that ignores any policy changes after 1982 other than "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall").
They lionize him because not only did he drive the final nail in the coffin of the New Deal Democratic coalition but he was able to sell Goldwater's combination of "the government is the devil" and "why is your hard-earned money going to taxes to support those shiftless criminal Negroes when it could be going to build more Commie-busting bombs" rhetoric so effectively that American political discourse still uses that as a starting point.
Individuals can't advertise certain things either, you can't go on TV and tell people that Draino is good for babies to drink. I don't see how citizens united changes anything in that regard.
Between this, Ryan's plan, Simpson Bowles, and the Gang of Six; we can hope something will actually happen in the 2012 budget.
Edit: A look at education, yes thats where we should definitely extract money, a place where less than 20% of Americans want us to cut it
Why the hell couldn't Hillary have won
"Austerity"???
I can't believe you are bringing those things up as if they were good instead of the ridiculous piles of fantasy shit they actually are.
To be fair, more than 80% of Americans are correct in that cutting education is not a good thing.
Come on man! Triangulate. It's why you're my favorite President since Clinton.
Also here: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/04/key_details_of_the_budget_deal.html
Although the text of the article itself may make you want to punch someone.
It achieved it's goal of moving the Overton Window towards idiocy and garbage fantasy solutions.
What kind of monster are you?
Sure thousands of poor people will die each year from no healthcare but hey who cares, we gotta fund 2 increasingly insane wars!
End the wars, hey look I've saved us 2 trillion over 10 years
... as long as I don't get yelled at by the UN for doing low level flybyes at Valve and Blizzard HQ along with pamphlet bombardments that say "get back to work, bitches, D3 and HL2: Ep3 won't release themselves!"
Manage to put some agencies in their place and start putting funding to more effective use than the War on Drugs and reforming the prison system and you might just count that as 3-4 wars crushed and god knows how much saved.
:?:
Neither Simpson Bowles, the Gang of Six, nor presumably Obama want to end Obamacare.
Pretty much everyone is taking aim at Medicaid
Although in this instance those two things line up pretty well. I mean, cutting funding to education has consistently seemed like the dumbest possible thing you can do.
Why then are they cutting it
Because it's expensive, discretionary, and unlike many other basic services (police/fire/military/roads) it's something the wealthy can pretty easily provide for their kids on their own.
Mostly that last.
Not in the way you're describing. Since Obamacare will stay in place, Medicaid will be extended up to 133% of the poverty line. So I don't understand who the thousands dieing of no healthcare are that you were referencing when calling me a monster.