[Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .

Fri Jan 4 11:36:19 PST 2013

My understanding of the way the system works (correct me if I'm wrong) is that every patient is charged the same high rate for the same treatment at the same facility.  A person without insurance is charged for 100% of what they are billed.  A person with insurance pays their copay portion and the insurance company settles the balance with the health care provider by paying 20 cents on the dollar such that the invoice is considered 'closed' by all parties.  So Donovan's claim of health care providers suing / garnishing wages looks right to me in that the health care provider is looking to get paid what they'd get from the insurance companies.

On that note, I have a relative who is a self employed handyman who makes too low of a wage to purchase his own health care.  When he needs medical attention (seemingly once a year, every year), he goes straight to emergency, gets admitted and treated, and tells them he has no insurance.  When he gets his $5000 bill, he pays $10 a month on it.  A couple of years ago, I advised him to to just offer them something like $1500 to close his bill out.  I'm not sure what he offered, but in any case they took it and considered the bill settled.

I had another relative who had no insurance, had a heart attack, was life flighted up to Sacred Heart in Spokane, had surgery and an extended hospital stay.  They put a lien on her house so that they would get their cut when she and her husband died, which they both did a few years later.

My understanding is that the pre-obamacare system we have now will bankrupt you and once you're destitute, you can still receive care at tax payer expense.  I thought a way around being bankrupted would be to simply give all of your assets away, thus becoming destitute and getting medical treatment at tax payer expense.  However, on a business trip to Japan several years ago when this came up in discussion, one of the Japanese sales guy told me that didn't work because they (I guess the bill collectors on these) go back into your records for the past 5 years, and go after any assets that have been given away.  Don't know if this is true or not, but this guy had a relative in the US that was sick and his/her family was being bankrupted due to whatever illness had struck.  He added 'the US health care system is broken'.  I'm not sure how representative/accurate this one example is.

One final note, I have another relative who was planning to get married for a 3rd about a month after she had met some guy.  When I asked her 'Why get married yet again and why so soon?', her one word reply was 'Insurance'.  I told her, 'well at least you have a logical reason.'

-Scott

Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 10:37:19 -0800
From: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .
To: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
CC: scooterd408 at hotmail.com; vision2020 at moscow.com

I don't think you can compare car insurance to Health Insurance. But let us go that route. I've paid about 18K in insurance with USAA over the last 20 years. I did so just in case someone without insurance hit me, or I got into an accident that was my fault. In September I was rear-ended by a lady that didn't have insurance. They refuse to fix my car and they won't give me enough money to replace my car. I could have bought 3 or 4 of my cars for $18K plus the interest.

Insurance companies increase the costs, they are about collecting money, not paying out. They have policies, lawyers, paid off politicians and bureaucrats to keep every dollar they can from going out. Insurance agencies encourage medical services to charge huge rates that people cannot afford so people have to by insurance. Then they deny payments that they promise. 

The reason your hospital bed costs $5000 a night is because people are scared into paying it. If nobody did, they would have to charge a reasonable rate. 

If you force people to pay into the health care system, you need to clean it up like every other industrialized nation has. The US taxpayer is getting robbed by the huge costs related to health care. Then robbed again when they try to actually use a health care system they have paid enormous amounts of money into already. 

You are incorrect about how the emergency room works. Emergency Rooms charge each person that comes through the door. If they don't have insurance they charge that person about 1000% their costs. The person cannot afford it, so they sue within 60 days, and garnish their wages, they recover about 20% of that bill, which was 2X what it cost them, and destroy that person's financial health for seven years.  

Donovan J. Arnold

From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>; viz <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Friday, January 4, 2013 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .

Donovan,

Heath care is expensive. Maybe it shouldn't be but it is. Let's look at car insurance first. Why do we need car insurance? Well, you could get into a car accident and (accidentally) total someone's car. Maybe the road was icy and you slipped through a stop sign. If you can only afford to pay $2000 in that instance, then the person who's car you've (accidentally) wrecked is SOL. Thus, given that accidents like this are possible, it stands to reason that some folks need some assurance that they will be adequately compensated in the worst case scenario. Thus, the need for insurance.

For heath care, the situation is even worse. Here we don't just have our usual wants and desires like having a nice car. We've got interests of quality of life, fear of death, etc. In a society ruled by supply and demand, it isn't too surprising that heath care costs are outrageous. People will pay anything when life and heath are
 concerned.

The fact is, there is some risk that your heath care costs over the next year will exceed the $2,000 that you can afford. In fact, the probability that they exceed those costs at least once during the course of your life is close to 100%. Just to give you an idea of how easy that is, last year I had what I thought were symptoms of a heart attack. I went immediately to my doctors office but they sent me across the street to the emergency room. Preliminary checks were fine but since I was 53 with a family history of heart disease they suggested that I spend the night, where I could be monitored and further tests could be run. Eventually they recommended that I get an angiogram. Long story short, I paid over $2,300 to find out I was OK. And that is because I have pretty good insurance! If I had no heath insurance, the bill would have been in excess of $11,000 (which would have been the bill for the emergency room stay and tests alone).

So the real question is: Who should encumber your heath care risk, a risk associated with being mortal and living in an imperfect world? On the old system, you'd have gone to the emergency room and those costs would have been spread among others. That was a very inefficient system where all of us encumbered costs. I see Obamacare as an attempt to make a more efficient and fair system. Not perfect, of course.

I think that this is one case in which (ideally) BIG government could provide a better solution since we could do away with insurance companies altogether and have the government play that role. Why the government? They are the only entity willing to play that role without seeking a profit, so they would limit costs substantially. (I'm speaking ideally, of course.) Unfortunately, we also live in a country where just suggesting something like this gets you labeled as a "communist" so that option is out! As it is, all we seem to be able
 to do is spread the costs beforehand and, as you note, this eventually has a much greater impact on the economically less fortunate.

There is clearly a problem here. What is your solution?

Joe

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 8:22 AM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Obamacare isn't health care, it is an federal tax om the poor. Health insurance isn't health care.  I would like a single payer care system. You either buy your own, or you pay a health care tax to the government and you get access to health care. 

The way Obama wants it now I would pay $4000 a year to my employer for health insurance, and then another $3000 in a deductible to the health insurance company, plus $45 for every doctor visit. So I pay $7200 for what would cost me $2000 worth of care. I cannot afford the $7200 on a nursing assistant salary. I can afford only the $2000. Obama wants to force me to pay the extra $5000, which is unfair and budget busting. Who needs that $5000 more, me or an insurance company executive?

Basically, he is just stealing my tax return, because I am not going to pay $5000 extra for medical expenses. That is just too much damn money for me.  

Donovan J. Arnold

From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>; viz <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2013 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .

If you don't like Obamacare what kind of healthcare system would you prefer?

On Jan 3, 2013, at 11:04 AM, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Why do we care what Bouma thinks? I don't like Obamacare either. It is simply a tax on people that cannot afford to give money to fraud artists called insurance companies. 

Donovan J. Arnold

From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
To: Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com> 
Cc: viz <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent:
 Wednesday, January 2, 2013 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .

What is the deal with the alleged connection between Obamacare and (supposed) "corporate welfare to big pharma," as you say Scott? That is clearly what he's getting at. I confess ignorance on this matter -- meaning, I have no idea whether there is a link between the two or not. Is there a link? Does anyone know if the comment has any basis? Of course, big pharma has been consistently helped by big government but that was true before Obama and as far as I can tell both Dems and Repubs have been guilty of this sin. Is there something in Obamacare that I've missed suggesting that the situation is likely to get worse? Joe

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com> wrote:

It's interesting that Bouma chooses to list his biases for his 'ideas' on preventing massacres.  Vouchers = parents are allowed to send their kids to schools with better security (and as an added bonus Bouma essentially lists that the vouchers target teacher's unions).  And now, he pretty much writes that preventing kids from being medicated will prevent shootings (and as an added bonus, Obamacare is stopped and that thus corporate welfare to big pharma would be curtailed).  This is pretty much the worst spin I've ever seen put on anything.  If he continues in this vein, I'm guessing that his next move will be '[insert any conservative cause] will prevent school shootings because [insert any random bullshit] and as an added bonus [insert underlying Biblical or financial justification]'.

From: thansen at moscow.com
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 13:41:58 -0800
To: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com 

Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another Answer to School Shootings . . .

It should also be noted that those shooters, identified in the article linked by Bouma's comment, wore under garments (so it has been reported by a source best left un identified).  Could the donning of undergarments have been a contributing factor in the commission of these heinous murders?

If so, Moscow, you can feel safe with me.  I haven't worn underwear since 1968. 

Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.moscowcares.com/

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

On Jan 2, 2013, at 1:27 PM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:

The article that Bouma refers to and his use of it provide nice examples of fallacious reasoning. In the article, there is a list of school shooters and then the claim that all of them (not all school shooters but everyone on the list) happened to be prescribed some kind of medication, though in some instances the medication is listed merely as "Med for Depression." Then the claim that the medications are responsible and so we should reject Obama-care!

One fallacy is the confusion of correlation and causation. All the shooters drank water as well but that doesn't mean that drinking water was the cause of the shootings. One needs to establish at least "4 cells" of information in order to make a case for a causal relation: How many took the meds and became shooters? How many didn't take the meds and became shooters? How many took the meds and
 didn't become shooters? How many didn't take the meds and didn't become shooters? Correlation fallacies focus on just one bit of this information, In this case, we don't really even get the first cell of info since we don't know that the shooters took the meds, just that they were prescribed medication (not sure how we could know this latter point either, by the way) -- and a variety of meds to boot, some unknown or listed just as "Med for Depression."

Today's logic lesson was brought to you by Starbucks coffee!

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 8:28 AM, Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> wrote:

Does this message from Bouma auger a merging of Freeze Church ans Christ Church?

w.

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 9:28 PM, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

<image.jpeg>

https://chumly.com/n/19166c9

Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.moscowcares.com/

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
               http://www.fsr.net/
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

=======================================================
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
              http://www.fsr.net/
         mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
======================================================= List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. http://www.fsr.net/ mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com =======================================================

=======================================================
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
              http://www.fsr.net/
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

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