Universal Healthcare Debate 10: Q&A, part 3 (10/12)

[neb967]

omg - michael rachlis looks like golem - damn he is ugly... love how cannon destroys krugman.... very interesting points......

[AshyKnucks]

Given his responses, the nuances of this topic seem to be way over John Stossel's head.

[100CommonCents]

i do like the voucher idea. i believe this solves a lot by separating people who want free-markets and not, and those in favour of welfare and not.

with vouchers you can have as much welfare as you want with completely free markets

this avoids blurring between govt and free-markets.

then the people who wish to push for public healthcare at least don't do it due to lack of empathy from government for the poor, since they could instead push for increasing voucher coverage.

[majinspy]

So stossel's point of view: after a health insurance agency screws a couple people, word will get out.....

That..sucks for life and death.

[TimeWarp66]

@majinspy

Their incentive is not to screw people over. They can be sued, or go out of business through bad word of mouth.

No one ever complains of car insurance companies screwing them over. Why? B/c car insurance is a free market while health insurance is heavily regulated by the government.

[majinspy]

@TimeWarp66 The problem is so few people get horrendously sick that I think the insurance companies realized they could just screw over .1% of their clientele (cancer / AIDS / disaster patients), save a TON of money, and still have a 99.9% satisfaction rating.

Over half of bankruptcies are as a result of medical costs. This is awful. I would also ask free market purists like him what happens to people who can't afford care.

[TimeWarp66]

Over half of bankruptcies are a result of medical costs because of government regulations driving prices through the roof! Remember when you argue against the American system, you are not arguing against the free market. Our system is no where near a free market system.

In a free market either local governments would provide vouchers to people who could not afford treatment, or private charities would provide for those who through no fault of their own cannot provide for themselves.

[majinspy]

@TimeWarp66 First, I HATE that private charities stuff so many free market people say. It's the duct tape to hold any flaw of laissez-faire capitalism together. People never have been, and just aren't, that charitable. Someone in my hometown had his legs taken off by a tractor. There was private charity...that was a drop in the bucket compared to his bills.

Secondly, what evidence do you have of regulation making med bills as high as they are? My argument on this can't fit in 500 characters :(

[majinspy]

@TimeWarp66 Part 2: Will the government provide vouchers to people who choose not to buy healthcare? Not a good deal for the government. Noone would buy healthcare, then. How would the government decide who could "afford" it and who couldn't? Secondly, HUGE advances in medicine have made procedures VERY expensive. 50 years ago, a cast was a big deal. Casts are cheap. MRI's, heart surgeries, cancer research...these things are NOT cheap.

You also never responded to my "screw the top .1%" claim.

[TimeWarp66]

Just look at how food vouchers work.(Food stamps) They are a means tested program. If you earn under a certain amount you get a voucher to shop around for food in the private market place. Their are no government supermarkets for the poor.

New inventions are always expensive when they first come out, but over time prices drop. Take cell phones, Ipods..etc. The government forbids you from buying insurance across state lines. This creates artificial monopolies jacking up prices.

[majinspy]

@TimeWarp66 Your idea seems tenable. As long as people have access to healthcare that they otherwise wouldn't. I'm not sure it'd be a great idea to let people choose their own options...most people aren't able to make informed decisions regarding healthcare. Are you REALLY going to argue with a doctor that an MRI isn't neccessary? There would have to be rules on what the government paid for. Wellness / preventative services should be provided as well.

[TimeWarp66]

@majinspy

Competition protects the consumer, not government mandates. Are you really going to argue with your car mechanic when he says you need all new tires? The average person doesn't know much about cars, so the government should regulate auto repair men to make sure no one's getting exploited? Of course not. It's not in a producers interest to exploit customers. Maybe you'd get away with it once, but in the long term you're completely screwed.

[majinspy]

@TimeWarp66 I might argue. More people know about tires than know about MRI's. Plus if a tire gives out, not that big of a deal. If my heart does...I'm dead.

I don't know anything about cars and mechanics often recognize this and try to scare me into buying something. I always go to a friend and ask them whats up. I don't have friends who can tell me whether or not I need an MRI. The metaphor breaks down because of the severe differences in scarcity of knowledge.

[Omroon]

The moderator keeps saving krugman in the debate haha.... i dunno if krugman is just stupid or if he is saying what everyone wants to hear to gain prestige.

[SuperGuitarman69]

Interesting he brought up Milton Friedman. Milton is one of the economic geniuses in the history of mankind. Everyone should find him on youtube and sit and listen to his sheer genius.

[phrankin]

"Health care is not a right! - Sally C. Pipes

Says it all, what a joke.

[sillynanny44]

health care is not a right. sally was right. phrankin is food a right? healthcare like food is a good...

[RememberDeath2112]

i don't want to soung like a tool, but how did Rachlis convince a woman to marry him? He must be very rich or have a wang the size of my arm. wouldn't it be funny if his wife had a really deep voice? ok, maybe not. forget i said it.

[fraz65]

Has the financial crisis passed these people by? Free-market capitalism is as much of a relic now as the Soviet-union. What else do they advocate? A privatised police force and fire service? A privatised military ?(oops too late!)

[Malthus0]

Well the most important thing more important then practically all other privatisations . Is the denationalisation of money. It is misuse money at the hands of those socialist planning boards we call central banks, that causes bad cyclical problems. And it was the only privatisation that was never seriously considered. The last 30 years have been like taking rusty banger of a car changing the body, paintwork, lights & seats and leaving in the old fucked engine.

[sillynanny44]

financial crisis was caused by govt elimination of risk and promising bailouts... there was no free market... big govt caused the financial crisis and it was predicted by austrian economists and libertarians... fannie and freddie had govt granted priveleges which allowed them to attract capital. govt encouraged over investing in housing and raised the cost of housing when there was too many houses. dont pretend this is caused by capitalism when you dont have a clue..

[fraz65]

Bear Stearns? Lehman Brothers? Collateralised Debt Obligations? You're probably right- as a medical doctor I don't have a clue about economics but it would appear that you know even less.

[sillynanny44]

@fraz65 in a free market there may be failures but they wouldnt collapse wholesale creating a crisis. in capitalism people fear consequences promising bailouts eliminates the risk. instead of allowing market to set interest rate, fed set it to 1% under greenspan now it is lower. govt encouraged borrowing and lending discouraged saving. fannie/freddie caused credit and real estate bubble w/ home buying advantages(mortgage interest tax deduction, exemption of r.e capital gains from taxable income)

[fraz65]

The government caused an unsustainable housing bubble- i'll acknowledge that. The US became rich selling each other houses with money that it had borrowed from China. There were undeniably failures with laissez-fair capitalism, even the most rabid neocon must admit that. Long-term sustainability was overlooked in the rush for short-term profits. The government did not force the financial sector to purchase CDOs. The market decided that these were safe investments and you have to acknowledge that

[sillynanny44]

@fraz65 there is a role for govt in capitalism. it is penalizing fraud after it happened like putting people in jail. that is the best way to destroy the incentive for fraud. that doesnt go in conflict w/ free markets at all. im against govt managing conducts of buisnesses and having a central bank. failures in capitalism are not largescale and good assets would be bought out like lehman brothers. rush for short term profits at expense of longterm is suicide, no incentive 4 that in capitalism

[sillynanny44]

@sillynanny44 neocons dont support free market capitalism.

[gunsandbullhorns]

Fuck Paul Krugman. This man has not made an honest argument yet. He's not an economist. He's a pundit.

[savemyplaylist]

Rachlis has such a bitch voice.

hahah!

[FTWyousuck]

If the American working class-- that actually make this country what it is and also make billionaires smile pretty for CNN--each smash down this ill-advised HMO system, the economy will inherit a grand Boost!

If America wants to save itself she will have to cut the HMOs at knee level. Let it remain for the fools that love ignorant living!

Health Care is not a commodity!!

A human being has no business paying for medical attention when we can multiply a penny from each American pocket.

End it!

[voskresene]

Man, Sally C. Pipes hit the nail on the head when she pointed out how the government tax break on companies that insure their employees has lead to the cost problems.

[ShaunaDDye]

Krugman is extremely arrogant and ignores or belittles any point made against him. My family and I pay for our own healthcare out of pocket because the coverage at my husband's work is so poor (he happens to work for the public school system). We pay a lot, but are extremely happy with the coverage and do not want our choices taken away by the government. If others were doing what we're doing, there would be more options for coverage available because companies would scramble to meet demand.

[jarrbear05]

Krugman is an idiot. That 20 years covers back to the Reagan years up through NAFTA and free trade agreements and tax cuts.

[fraz65]

I'm a big fan of Intelligence squared. It does seem ridiculous however to only have one doctor on a six person panel on a debate on health care. If it was a discussion on economic policy would there only be one economist on the panel? I think not. It is a vacuous debate when there is only one person who actually has any idea of the subject matter in question.

[migkillertwo]

well this IS a policy debate, so its best to have people knowledgable on health policy and economics.

[gunsandbullhorns]

I totally agree with you, fraz65.

...except I wish they had zero doctors in this debate. Doctors have too much personal vested interest in this debate. I don't trust them.

Also, I didn't hear Paul Krugman make any economic arguments.

I'd recommend doing a web-search for an audio lecture by Walter Block (an economist) called "Health Economics".

...unless you are hostile toward free-market ideology. If you are, then you probably won't like the lecture.

[fraz65]

What strikes me is that the free-marketeers in these debates seem as blinkered and dogmatic as Marxists in their outlook. There seems to be no acknowledgement of the cost of US healthcare (twice the OECD average) and the fact that it is ranked below almost every other developed nation in quality of healthcare. These aren't facts that can be brushed over and I have yet to hear a cogent argument against them.

[gunsandbullhorns]

Hi fraz65,

I think it would be really silly to argue against the fact that cost of US healthcare is exorbitant, or argue that there is not an obvious quality deficit. I can't understand why you would expect an argument to the contrary.

I'm a little bit surprised that you've never heard an acknowledgement of the cost of healthcare out of a free-marketeer.

In a nut-shell, the free-market explanation is that we are paying monopoly-prices at many levels. Have you heard that explanation before?

[fraz65]

Surely the payment of monopoly prices is due to the stranglehold that Insurance companies have over healthcare in the US? An estimated 25% of healthcare costs are in admin alone. When healthcare is working with profit as the overriding motive it leads to unnecessary investigations and treatments. I fail to see how less government regulation can be the solution to this. I'm not anti free-market I just don't buy the blinkered belief in it as the solution.

[sillynanny44]

see my previous comment to understand why financial crisis was not caused by capitalism. as for healthcare, it was managed healthcare, govt pour out easy credit creating inflation, govt eliminates competition, hmo made employers cover employees, since other individuals pay there is no incentive to find cheaper healthcare. in areas where there is capitalism, lasik, plastic surgery, contact lenses price goes down. it is not logical to look at the effect of govt intervention and blame capitalism

[SuperGuitarman69]

@sillynanny44 Very Very well put my friend

[rescuemay]

This is the first time I've seen Krugman and I gotta say my respect for him decreased.

[ncposs]

michael cannon made him look stupid

[Questfortruth86]

People take Krugman seriously because he got the nobel prize. But the nobel prize, at least in economics, is a complete joke and biased. Anyways, that being said, he got his nobel prize for explaining TEMPORARY international trade trends. If you know anything about economics, you know that the only thing which is not debatable, is international trade. But when it comes to business cycle theory, or macro policy, he's considered a joke. A wanna-be politician.

[lyethian]

Glad someone brought this up. Krugman should never be taken as an expert on health policy. Or anything for that matter.

The nobel prize, in anything other than hard science, is a joke. See Al Gore.

[lyethian]

I never had any for him in the first place, so he's just further in the red from my perspective.

[58robbo]

to art kellermann: if gas cost $16 per gallon, you can bet your bottom dollar that the market would've come up with a solution. either we'd be driving electrics, hybrids, smaller cars, bicycles, there'd be less urban sprawl and nobody would waste energy. imo, we wouldn't have environmental problems, terrorism or energy concerns.

you want to subsidize if not outright pay for medical. watch the demand sky rocket for services like the demand for our subsidized gas has gone through the roof

[TiaSaysSo]

What a fucking idiot that Canadian guy is.Health care services are absolutley a market phenomenon.The very fact that some people can give you better healthcare treatment than others,offer you a wider variety of procedures,treatments etc,all make it a subject of market based dynamics.

[gold95]

Krugman is really rude and disrespectful. Stossel didn't make rude remarks to him.

Cannon rocks Krugman at the end...LOL

[TimeWarp66]

Agreed.

[cpiratebee]

The Netherlands have a totally private health insurance market. The government just reimburses the people.

[SunBeamsan]

Wow, people hate the truth huh?

[cpiratebee]

What? The Netherlands has all basic Healthcare provided by private insurers. There is then a government insurance pool to make it accessible to everyone. Then the government pays for long term care where the private insurers usually fail to cover anyone. This includes care for elderly and treatment for mental illness. It is significantly more market oriented than the US system.

[SunBeamsan]

I was agreeing with you. ~_~

[cpiratebee]

Oh sorry, my bad. (-_-;) lol

[scj16]

"Real economists don't talk about competitiveness."

- Paul Krugman

[Claytrainor]

lmao... what a keynesian prick.

[1Natecore]

he really is a prick. He plays this partisan role while addressing Stossel, a know Libertarian

[cpiratebee]

Yeah Krugman is really only great when talking about economic geography, and trade theory. Outside of that realm his is pretty much your typical political hack.

[thinkingrationally]

Totally agree with you!

[Chainedorlo]

lolzorz

[calvintorres45]

I am so happy i found a group of people who despise him as much as me!

[gloryoski]

Yeah lady, I've never known a drunk under 30 who wanted rehab. Never happens....

[gloryoski]

I tell ya' I feel sorry for the poor insurers that they have to pay for mammograms and things like that now. Yeah, that's really the damn problem. Who would want insurance that doesn't cover you for anything?