What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[dps]

And there would be need to be pro-active health measures againsts the causes of increase medical costs, amongst others, bad eating habits, lack of physical exercise, freely accessible guns for anyone with at least one hand no matter the mental state, stigma on mental illness, pollution of water and air, unrestricted use of chemical agents in agriculture, etc, etc.

Someone mentioned preventive medicine up-thread.  Well, if everyone quit smoking, cut back on their eating, and exercised more, we'd live longer on average and probably reduce our health care costs.  We don't need health insurance, or even the intervention of a doctor or other health care professional to do any of those things;  we certainly don't need a single payer system or any government action to do them.  If the assertion that it will save lives is the main argument in favor of Obamacare or any other government program to provide health insurance coverage, then we should also bring back prohibition and outlaw tobacco products.  And instead of legalizing other recreational drugs, we should spend more money on enforcing existing drug bans.

It's all bullshit.  We want to be able to be gluttons, get drunk and stoned, and do anything and everything else that's bad for our health;  and in a free society we should be allowed to make those choices.  But then we also want to turn around and have someone else pay for the care we need when we get sick as a result.  Fuck that.  I don't use tobacco products or any illicit drugs, but I do drink occasionally, and I certainly don't take good care of myself when it comes to diet and exercise;  but I don't think it's right to ask anyone else to subsidize my choices.

[garbon]

I don't see why one shouldn't get praise for each life saved.

Because there are diminishing returns, resources are finite, and demand is infinite.

Oh maybe it is unclear what 'praise' means in this context.

[garbon]

And there would be need to be pro-active health measures againsts the causes of increase medical costs, amongst others, bad eating habits, lack of physical exercise, freely accessible guns for anyone with at least one hand no matter the mental state, stigma on mental illness, pollution of water and air, unrestricted use of chemical agents in agriculture, etc, etc.

Someone mentioned preventive medicine up-thread.  Well, if everyone quit smoking, cut back on their eating, and exercised more, we'd live longer on average and probably reduce our health care costs.  We don't need health insurance, or even the intervention of a doctor or other health care professional to do any of those things;  we certainly don't need a single payer system or any government action to do them.  If the assertion that it will save lives is the main argument in favor of Obamacare or any other government program to provide health insurance coverage, then we should also bring back prohibition and outlaw tobacco products.  And instead of legalizing other recreational drugs, we should spend more money on enforcing existing drug bans.

It's all bullshit.  We want to be able to be gluttons, get drunk and stoned, and do anything and everything else that's bad for our health;  and in a free society we should be allowed to make those choices.  But then we also want to turn around and have someone else pay for the care we need when we get sick as a result.  Fuck that.  I don't use tobacco products or any illicit drugs, but I do drink occasionally, and I certainly don't take good care of myself when it comes to diet and exercise;  but I don't think it's right to ask anyone else to subsidize my choices.

Except we are actually part of a society and it isn't really civilized to sit by while people who make poor choices kill themselves.

[garbon]

And that's leaving aside that many illnesses are not punishments due to those who chose unhealthy habits.

[dps]

And that's leaving aside that many illnesses are not punishments due to those who chose unhealthy habits.

True, but a lot of the chronic, long-term health problems that really end up costing a lot to treat are the result of lifestyle choices.

Catch a flu virus, and unless it's a particularly virulent strain, you spend a few bucks on OTC meds and get better after a few days.  Get lung cancer 'cause you've smoked 3 packs a day since you were 12, and your treatment ends up costing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands., and you still might not last a year.  Be a fat, overweight slob, and you're likely to end up on meds for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, and spend money on medicines for those conditions for years and years and years.

[jimmy olsen]

Did I say you had to save everyone who is sick to be praised?

No, you said save one and you get praise.  Then the one after that gets praise.  And the one after that.  Times infinity.

people dying who didn't have to

Surely the implication is that there are people who will die no matter what. Those afflicted with terminal cancer, other incurable diseases, and wounded in serious accidents, etc. Those aren't the people I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the people who could be saved, and would be saved in other 1st World countries, but American society chooses not to.

[bogh]

Treating them as equivalents is patently false and Warren would be incredibly inconsistent if she gave the same speech in either situation.

They are equivalents in that PEOPLE DIE.

Leave 18 million uninsured.  PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Leave 10,000 uninsured.  PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Roll back coverage for 30 million currently insured.  PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Obviously the statement that people will die is true for any of the scenarios above, but it is much TRUER for some of them. The size and direction of the effect obviously plays a role in the rhetoric that can be reasonably employed.

Would you consider railing against a bill that will increase the deficit massively inconsistent, unless you give that same speech constantly and for everything that does not resolve eliminate the deficit entirely, irrespective of whether the bill in question reduces the deficit significantly, has a marginal impact or massively increases it?

[Monoriu]

One thing I don't understand.  If the US chooses not to save some of the people who can be saved, it follows that the health care cost should go down.  Yet all the evidence points to the fact that health care is a lot more expensive in the US. 

[garbon]

And that's leaving aside that many illnesses are not punishments due to those who chose unhealthy habits.

True, but a lot of the chronic, long-term health problems that really end up costing a lot to treat are the result of lifestyle choices.

Catch a flu virus, and unless it's a particularly virulent strain, you spend a few bucks on OTC meds and get better after a few days.  Get lung cancer 'cause you've smoked 3 packs a day since you were 12, and your treatment ends up costing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands., and you still might not last a year.  Be a fat, overweight slob, and you're likely to end up on meds for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, and spend money on medicines for those conditions for years and years and years.

But surely there's some wealth disparity to those choices. After all, good, healthy foods don't come cheap. Particularly not if you happen to live in part of a city where you don't even have grocery stores, just corner stores.

So on some part it seems like we are blaming people for choices that might be their only realistic choices and doing so under the guise that its just because people wanted to be fat, lazy, smoke, drink etc.

Seems like it'd be sensible to work towards a system that covers how many/most Americans actually live, no? Not sure how making more people uninsured would lead to such outcomes.

[frunk]

One thing I don't understand.  If the US chooses not to save some of the people who can be saved, it follows that the health care cost should go down.  Yet all the evidence points to the fact that health care is a lot more expensive in the US.

We've turned health care into a for profit business with little or no competition, with predictable results.

[CountDeMoney]

Really wish Der Trumpinator would stop referring to North Korea in terminal language. 

Adios, Timmay.  Enjoy your 3rd degree burns before your radiation sickness takes care of things.

[Malthus]

Presuming those are just a raw figures of dollars spent...

What would make those figures a bit more telling, is, compared to the others, how much of that is profits going to pharma companies, health insurance companies, etc?   As compared to those countries where "profit" is not even a concept/factor in health spending.

Profit most certainly exists as a concept in healthcare in Canada. The interaction between private, profit-making companies and institutions and the public system is complex to say the least, but it is a complete misunderstanding to assert that profit-making doesn't occur in our system.

To take but one example - the making and selling of medicines is entirely private and for-profit. They are sold by many of the same companies that sell them in the US.

Why is less spent here for the very same things?

A few basic reasons.

First, Canada has a mechanism of price controls - but only on those medicines that are patented. This mechanism is actually pretty ineffectual (and is undergoing a complete overhaul for that reason), mainly because other factors are more significant.

The most significant factor is that each province has public drug insurance for everyone over 65 and everyone under 65 who is on social assistance (with other programs for very expensive drugs that cover most people). The over-65 crowd tends of course to use the lion's share of drugs.

This gives the provincial insurers a huge amount of bargaining power - which they use to extort kickbacks in the form of "rebates" from the manufacturers, in return for "listing" their drugs on public formularies. They also have systems for declaring certain drugs "interchangeable", meaning that they will only pay for the cheapest of several drugs that do the same thing.

Another major factor is - no direct to the public advertising of "prescription only" medicines (meaning, less pressure put on docs by patients to prescribe expensive medicines as a result of an ad campaign).

All of these (with the exception of the first) are pretty straightforward ways the government could save money while, paradoxically, improving public health - namely, public insurance of vulnerable populations (compared with leaving them untreated and relying on expensive hospitalization when their condition becomes dire); using the public insurers' vast bargaining power to extort a lower effective price; eliminating appeals to the public to buy more expensive drugs while paying only for the cheapest effective ones for those whose drugs are publicly reimbursed ... all appear somewhat proven techniques, which work fine without discarding capitalism.   

[Malthus]

And there would be need to be pro-active health measures againsts the causes of increase medical costs, amongst others, bad eating habits, lack of physical exercise, freely accessible guns for anyone with at least one hand no matter the mental state, stigma on mental illness, pollution of water and air, unrestricted use of chemical agents in agriculture, etc, etc.

Someone mentioned preventive medicine up-thread.  Well, if everyone quit smoking, cut back on their eating, and exercised more, we'd live longer on average and probably reduce our health care costs.  We don't need health insurance, or even the intervention of a doctor or other health care professional to do any of those things;  we certainly don't need a single payer system or any government action to do them.  If the assertion that it will save lives is the main argument in favor of Obamacare or any other government program to provide health insurance coverage, then we should also bring back prohibition and outlaw tobacco products.  And instead of legalizing other recreational drugs, we should spend more money on enforcing existing drug bans.

It's all bullshit.  We want to be able to be gluttons, get drunk and stoned, and do anything and everything else that's bad for our health;  and in a free society we should be allowed to make those choices.  But then we also want to turn around and have someone else pay for the care we need when we get sick as a result.  Fuck that.  I don't use tobacco products or any illicit drugs, but I do drink occasionally, and I certainly don't take good care of myself when it comes to diet and exercise;  but I don't think it's right to ask anyone else to subsidize my choices.

Heh, people also want to walk down the street late at night and not get mugged - we turn around and expect someone else to pay for armed cops, courts and jails to deal with criminality. I never walk down the street late at night, so why should I pay for all that stuff?

While we are on that topic - I take care to make sure my house isn't a fire hazard, yet I'm expected to pay for expensive firefighters!

Sure, criminals may attack me and it is possible my house could burn down - but we all know that most folks who suffer criminality or fires take risks they should not. Why should I subsidize them, when I'm careful?

[Malthus]

Apparently, Disney will add a "Robot Trump" to its hall of Presidents - with a speaking role.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/trump-speak-disney-world-hall-of-presidents_us_595128dbe4b0da2c731d3608

What will it say? 

[Oexmelin]

Really wish Der Trumpinator would stop referring to North Korea in terminal language. 

Adios, Timmay.  Enjoy your 3rd degree burns before your radiation sickness takes care of things.

Seriously, those people on cable news who write headlines about North Korea need to consider very carefully how they present it.