The Goat Pen

Hey-oh!

bluetick wrote:Two of the five most profitable industries in the United States -- the pharmaceuticals industry and the medical device industry -- sell health care. With margins of almost 20 percent, they beat out even the financial sector for sheer profitability.

The players sitting across the table from them -- the health insurers -- are not so profitable. In 2009, their profit margins were a mere 2.2 percent. That's a signal that the sellers have the upper hand over the buyers.

Guess that is a signal that we need to have President Obama ride in on his horse with a whole new Federal Agency of civil servants to save the day for the insurance companies by legislating away that 20% profit such that we can properly spin off Obamacare.

Nice to know Johnette's Daddy is thinking about penis. Hope your state legalized gay marriage for ya buddy...

THE_WIZARD_ wrote:Nice to know Johnette's Daddy is thinking about penis. Hope your state legalized gay marriage for ya buddy...

He's USC fan so...... still dealing with Prop-8 (that would be a no.)

Hey Johnette, how many Obama voters in California in 2008 voted for Prop-8? You are a preacher right? Did you tell your congregation to vote yes or no on Prop-8? Why is it that only the LDS of California caught hell for voting for Prop-8?

THE_WIZARD_ wrote:Nice to know Johnette's Daddy is thinking about penis. Hope your state legalized gay marriage for ya buddy...

Being gay and protesting in front of the LDS Temple in San Diego (where the gays know that no one will give them a hard time) is one thing. Being gay and organizing a parade and marching in the streets of Compton is another.

bluetick wrote:

Big Orange Junky wrote:
Apples and oranges, apples and oranges.

Fruit or no, we pay twice as much or more for healthcare than our allies yet we're sicker than they are.

Sicker....that's debatable.

But by apples and oranges I mean you can't compare the cost without comparing the variables. One large one is tort actions. In the US everybody gets sued, the doctor that ordered the MRI, the radiologist that read the MRI, the hospital that bought the MRI and the people that make the MRI. I don't know if that happens or not in France, but I doubt it. That would make a difference in the cost right there.

Then you also have to compare the quality of the equipment, comparing a 1987 MRI to a 2013 MRI is also apples to oranges.

The link was "invalid" when I tried to go read the article so I can't say how much of that they did or didn't account for, but you also even have to account for the currency exchange rate as well.

Again, apples and oranges.

Just like the "sicker" stuff. People want to count access to the witchdoctor as the same as access to a board certified family practice physician when they compare healthcare in their "studies" and they don't want to include cancer survival rates etc.

One thing that shold scare everyone about obamacare is the fact that the federal gubment now has all your personal health information. Every bit of it. Doctors are required to use gubment approved electronic medical records now, and that record must send the feds your personal information, your diagnosis, your medications, your habits, your BMI, all of it. But they promise to be good with it, they promise not to use it against you..........yeah right.

And after looking at the other link it doesn't say how they come up with it. Just prices.

They don't throw in the fact that it is illegal for me to send one price to one person and another price to someone else. In other words if the insurance company forces me to bill 350 bucks to get 100 bucks (which they do) then when a self pay patient comes into the office I must send him a bill for 350 bucks, even though the insurance company won't pay me the 350 if I don't send him a bill for 350 and only bill him for the amount I would normally get paid for the visit, 100 bucks, it is considered insurance fraud.

So I have to waste paper and send them the bill for 350, then if they show intrest in paying the bill and come in to the office to discuss it I am allowed to discount it down to the 100 bucks, but I had to bill him for the 350 first. Nice way to also build animosity toward the docs for being "expensive".............

So the article doesn't mention all the lawsuits and the malpractice insurance, plus it appears they go by billing, at least for the uninsured, as opposed to payment which really skews things.

Compared to most industrialized countries, the U.S. lags in most health indicators. See the CIA who keeps a lot of these stats.

Owlman wrote:Compared to most industrialized countries, the U.S. lags in most health indicators. See the CIA who keeps a lot of these stats.

Ahh yes, the indicators that convienently leave out survival rates after cancers etc.

Some of the indicators are OK, some are not OK.

Show me a site where survival rates are statistically better in the U.S. than in Europe??? Not to say that it may not be true, just haven't seen it yet.

Owlman wrote:Show me a site where survival rates are statistically better in the U.S. than in Europe??? Not to say that it may not be true, just haven't seen it yet.

Cancer survival rates are the best in the US for every major cancer except Gastric, which is higher in Japan. They have a genetically different gastric cancer though.

I would have to look for those statistics again but that was in one of my journals. That statistic is left out most of the time. I specifically remember breast was way up there as well.

Here ya go, straight from Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/1 ... xpectancy/

Look at the cancer survival and all those other countries.

BoJ is correct re:cancer. Also, criteria for inclusion for incidence, prevelance, and mortality are often reported differently and with different rule-out and exclusion criteria in other countries. That said, our working poor have much less access than the working poor of most industrialized countries.

AlabamAlum wrote:BoJ is correct re:cancer. Also, criteria for inclusion for incidence, prevelance, and mortality are often reported differently and with different rule-out and exclusion criteria in other countries. That said, our working poor have much less access than the working poor of most industrialized countries.

Its the same thing with infant mortality rates. Other Western countries rule out this criteria, that criteria, etc. But the US includes pretty much ALL childhood death in their mortality rate (excluding no criteria) which makes our mortaility rate look worse than several other Western countries. In reality, we just more honest about it than other countries.

Anyone know the breakdown of homos, hos and dead people for O?

ah, the vitriol is music to the ears of the supporters of the victor

10ac wrote:Anyone know the breakdown of homos, hos and dead people for O?

I will say over a million of each...

If they would simply make it a requirement to have an IQ of 50 or more to vote Dems would never win an election.

Bigger reasons for Karl Rove's meltdown: candidates supported by his Super-PAC, American Crossroads, got their asses kicked across the county. His organization spent over over $6 Billion this campaign cycle, most of it futilely. He wasn't just watching a Republican loss; he saw that too in 2008 but had no connection to the McCain campaign. He was watching his own reputation as an electoral "genius" fall apart in ruins

Conservative activist Richard Viguerie said in a statement Wednesday that "in any logical universe," Rove "would never be hired to run or consult on a national campaign again and no one would give a dime to their ineffective Super PACs, such as American Crossroads."

http://news.yahoo.com/republican-strate ... 09469.html

Big Orange Junky wrote:And after looking at the other link it doesn't say how they come up with it. Just prices.

They don't throw in the fact that it is illegal for me to send one price to one person and another price to someone else. In other words if the insurance company forces me to bill 350 bucks to get 100 bucks (which they do) then when a self pay patient comes into the office I must send him a bill for 350 bucks, even though the insurance company won't pay me the 350 if I don't send him a bill for 350 and only bill him for the amount I would normally get paid for the visit, 100 bucks, it is considered insurance fraud.

So I have to waste paper and send them the bill for 350, then if they show intrest in paying the bill and come in to the office to discuss it I am allowed to discount it down to the 100 bucks, but I had to bill him for the 350 first. Nice way to also build animosity toward the docs for being "expensive".............

So the article doesn't mention all the lawsuits and the malpractice insurance, plus it appears they go by billing, at least for the uninsured, as opposed to payment which really skews things.

I don't know what if anything you know about reasonable and customary contracts and how they're determined. The key word is contract. Your group partcipates as a preferred provider for various carriers because it's in their financial best interest to do so. With that participation comes the responsibilty to adhere to agreed upon terms and charges for service.

Or maybe you're not in a group. You keep talking about "I bill so-and-so" - do you have your own shingle? If so you can charge whatever you want, or trade for a basket of eggs or maybe a pig.