Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/18/healthcare-choice-in-america-i.html
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I guess a smoking gun just isn’t as impactful in a burning house.
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Of course it is! Anything that involves the government in its structure will be. Same for College Loans. Colleges are now able to raise the price of school tuition at will. Eventually this will all collapse.
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The Libertarian greedpigs have been very successful in convincing the rubes using this line. Some of their more stupid marks even blame the government for the failings of private corporations in this regard.
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Will the next exposé reveal that the system found at carnivals that ostensibly offers huge stuffed toys if you can complete a simple game of chance is somehow weighted towards the house? How is it news that the house always wins?
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Lots of people are just born suckers. Otherwise, Vegas and Atlantic City would be out of business and we’d have had single-payer universal health insurance decades ago.
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Just look at how many “varieties” of Colgate toothpaste you have at the grocery store (I once counted over 20) and you can see how business has turned “free choice” into a scam.
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It’s sad that people get duped so easily by the corporate shills. Medicare is cheaper than private insurance- the government run student loan program had much lower interest rates than after when they were privatized.
Mercenaries cost much, much more than soldiers.
Edit:
Blackwater Pay Insults the Military
There’s something fundamentally wrong when a private contractor makes 10 or more times as much as a regular soldier.
By Bonnie Erbe, Contributor Oct. 4, 2007
More
AMONG THE MORE AMAZING things to emerge from the House government oversight committee hearing on private security contracting in Iraq was the amount of money paid to Blackwater USA private forces. A memo released at the hearing shows that some of the paid militia were making as much as $1,200 per day. Compare that with what the Washington Post reports American servicepersons make risking their lives for this nation:
An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.
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Much like “School Choice”. Divert money from something useful and then promote a scammy alternative and claim it is a choice.
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Donald Trump in his genius as a businessman has made several casinos in Atlantic city go bankrupt.
Las Vegas isn’t doing so hot either.
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Mr Potter has been exposing big insurance secrets for more than a decade now and is a full fledged convert to the cause of Medicare for All - only difference is he wants business to pay for it much like they pay for most employees private insurance today.
He had a personal epiphany when visiting a public health fair in his home town in rural Tennessee and saw first hand how the industry that he shilled for for decades was responsible for so much misery. He’s been working to atone himself ever since.
An excellent series of interviews with Bill Moyers back in 2009 is worth the watch.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html
https://www.pbs.org/video/bill-moyers-the-journal-profits-before-patients/
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Where I live, there are no primary care physicians to choose from. And it’s a city of a million people!
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I’ve been waiting quite a while for that. I never counted on the pretend and extend that trillion dollar money printing (QE) has enabled. Failed systems, institutions (universities), and corporations don’t ever seem to have to face their balance sheets. Debt is so cheap for the chosen few and has a seemingly endless supply of customers/investors for that debt that ridiculous…OUTRAGEOUS money funneling systems remain intact long past their obvious sell-by date.
Bernie Madoff wasn’t outlandish enough. If he had a trillion dollar Ponzi scheme, he would’ve gotten a bailout and would not only be solvent, but could buy up half the country, no matter how stupid the investment or cost.
We live inside a massive scam.
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The choice talking point came actually about when the insurance industry decided to go up against HMOs. I grew up in an HMO. I called them the meat mechanics… Many docs, not waiting. Go in, get fixed. No fuss. No muss, Then the insurance companies came along and we had to pick our personal physicians. Now we get waits and a lot of the mess of insurance coverage.
Ick.
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Every year I get a notice telling me its open enrollment time, I need to puzzle out some complicated benefits package that makes my eyes water.
Thing is, Im too healthy right now to care all that much about the supposed benefits of one medication coverage scheme over another.
It’s going to take substantially more discomfort in my body before I start to care about such things, by which time Im sure Ill be too miserable to do a lot of window shopping. Less choice, more coverage, please!
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We have primary care for kids (obviously) but primary care for grown ups is tough. Sentara just cut salaries for FPs by 25%, driving most away, and the rest are aging and retiring with no replacements. This is a country wide problem getting no press t all.
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that’s for the psychological effects of having too many choices. when each brand has enough variety, people will inevitably sort first the brand they know.
then it’s basically an advertising and shelf space purchase war. which - dear god, it’s toothpaste - is the only way to win market share.
slightly different than employer purchased healthcare where your choice of doctors is artificially limited, and where the administrative work you go through to pick a primary care physician makes you over value your pick.
it does pain me that people like wall street pete’s plan which continues to tie people to the whims of their employers
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