Bad Statistics

Originally posted by no1marauder
So your solution is to increase taxes on the working class, end regulation of a price gouging industry while at the same time increasing the burden on some present policy holders and slash care.

Sound about right?

sh76 is also offering a "public option" -- something that I believe you yourself consider to be better than the compromise plan offered by Obama.

Originally posted by spruce112358
"Thinking about the health care bill which was passed into law last March, do you favor all of the proposals in that bill, favor most of them, oppose most of them, or oppose all of them?"

Favor all 6%
Favor most 39%
Oppose most 34%
Oppose all 16%
No opinion 5%

"And if you had to choose, would you rather see Congress vote to repeal al ...[text shortened]... ion 8%

Looks like the 'Oppose Most' and 'Oppose All' groups would like to start over.

It's been shown that the wording of a poll or survey can strongly affect the results. CNN and their ilk are not doing serious research. I wonder what would happen if the choice "No opinion" were replaced by the choice "Undecided" or "Undecided at this time." My hypothesis (which means, my untested speculation) is that some people feel that choosing "No opinion" implies that they are done thinking about the issue. Also, an option like "don't know all the provisions" might elicit responses because (I speculate) lots of people know about some proposals in the bill that they favor or oppose and have no idea about the rest of the bill.

But that's waaaay to complicated for what is basically a human interest piece on CNN.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Your original claim was that the Health Reform Act was totally unworkable without the individual mandate. It was child's play to show the fallacies of your argument (which you failed to back up with any evidence). Moreover, it was pretty easily shown that you don't have much of a detailed knowledge of the HRA itself. Wouldn't you say that actually knowing something about a law should be a requirement before one proposes measures to replace it?

This debate can go in a couple of directions. One way or the other, in our country and most others, health care will be provided and health care costs covered, for those who do not carry insurance, by those of us who have at least some money. In the most extreme case, a wealthy person can go without insurance and pay his or her own way, and most poor people can get to the emergency room where, depending on the situation, their costs show up in the premiums of the insured, or are covered in a via government programs that depend on taxes. Of course there are exceptions, but the bulk of uninsured people get their health needs met and the cost is absorbed by society in in rather complex ways. How efficient this process is, compared to alternatives, would be an interesting debate.

The "mandate" that would have to be overcome to eliminate the average person's paying for financially stressed, uninsured peoples' health care, is the mandate to care for the ill. We have to go pretty far afield from our current expressed social values to overcome that mandate.

So, if you want to lower that part of your premiums and/or tax bill that goes to pay for health care for the uninsured, consider among your options, supporting politically viable, constitutional measures to decrease the number of uninsured people.

Originally posted by Melanerpes
spruce was making a legitimate point here.

No1, what would be your proposal for ensuring that there's a sufficient supply of providers in the future to meet the rapidly rising demand for healthcare? (which was going to be an issue even without Obama's healthcare plan).

Hire some of the surplus doctors in Cuba.

Originally posted by Melanerpes
sh76 is also offering a "public option" -- something that I believe you yourself consider to be better than the compromise plan offered by Obama.

His proposal was:
1) Give everyone the option of enrolling in Medicare; those under 65 pay market level premiums, which are reduced on a sliding scale based on income. Double the Medicare tax if that's what it takes (or triple it); it will save money in the long run.


I don't see this approach as preferable to the one under the HRA. In theory, there's little difference between having a consumer pay "market level premiums" based on a sliding scale and having them buy health insurance in the market with part of the premiums paid by the government. In practice without the exchanges being able to reject plans which charge above reasonable rates, market level premiums will increase substantially (as they have over the last decade) thus increasing the costs to consumer who use sh's "public option" or purchase from the private sector. And the Medicare tax is a regressive payroll tax; doubling or tripling it is a tax increase the burden of which falls disproportionately on those least able to pay.

Originally posted by no1marauder
His proposal was:
1) Give everyone the option of enrolling in Medicare; those under 65 pay market level premiums, which are reduced on a sliding scale based on income. Double the Medicare tax if that's what it takes (or triple it); it will save money in the long run.


I don't see this approach as preferable to the one under the HRA. a tax increase the burden of which falls disproportionately on those least able to pay.

The main difference is that Medicare is single-payer and thus more efficient, allowing lower premiums. sh76's suggestion is fairly similar to the German system, although in the German system premiums are zero (but this boils down to income-dependent premiums collected through taxes). sh76's proposal would effectively run private health care out of business for standard health care.

Edit: my bad, in the German system there are premiums for the "public option".

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The main difference is that Medicare is single-payer and thus more efficient, allowing lower premiums. sh76's suggestion is fairly similar to the German system, although in the German system premiums are zero (but this boils down to income-dependent premiums collected through taxes). sh76's proposal would effectively run private health care out of busin ...[text shortened]... alth care.

Edit: my bad, in the German system there are premiums for the "public option".

sh76's system doesn't allow lower premiums for the public option, however. Also most people are insured by employer through group plans and his plan (as stated) would only allow individuals into the public option. So private run health insurance would not only continue and insure the majority of consumers, but set the rates the customers of the public option paid.

Originally posted by no1marauder
sh76's system doesn't allow lower premiums for the public option, however. Also most people are insured by employer through group plans and his plan (as stated) would only allow individuals into the public option. So private run health insurance would not only continue and insurance the majority of consumers, but set the rates the customers of the public option paid.

The employer programs would disappear because they would be too costly. Alternatively, they could collectively enlist in Medicare with an income-dependent premium.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The employer programs would disappear because they would be too costly. Alternatively, they could collectively enlist in Medicare with an income-dependent premium.

Why would they be "too costly"? Group rates are significantly less than individual rates in the US.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Why would they be "too costly"? Group rates are significantly less than individual rates in the US.

Because the Medicare rate, including the government subsidy, will be significantly lower.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Because the Medicare rate, including the government subsidy, will be significantly lower.

You're not paying attention; under sh76's plan the Medicare rate will be = to the market premium rate for individuals. This is significantly higher than group rates.

Originally posted by wittywonka
I'm going to try to beat some people to the punch.

CNN released a survey today that concluded approximately half of Americans support a repeal of Obama's health care reform package. CNN should also release a caveat, if not an apology, about the nature of their survey.

1) The survey, for whatever reason, did not include Americans between the ages of of the bill, and yet they choose not to just to make a symbolic statement of opposition.

The poll does not lie, nor is it bad. Statistics don't lie.

The problem is that too many people are math illiterate and read far more into these things than they actually tell us. You are right to highlight where the survey is limited and how that restricts what we can infer from it. Unfortunately, many people lack that skill.

Originally posted by no1marauder
You're not paying attention; under sh76's plan the Medicare rate will be = to the market premium rate for individuals. This is significantly higher than group rates.

But sh76 also said lower incomes should get a subsidy to help pay for the premiums.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
But sh76 also said lower incomes should get a subsidy to help pay for the premiums.

If you're in a employer based group plan (as most Americans are), your employer is to some extent already subsidizing you (though you may very well "pay" for it in lower wages, at least in theory). I suspect very few who are currently in a group plan would change over to an individual plan even if public and even if subsidized.

Originally posted by no1marauder
sh76's system doesn't allow lower premiums for the public option, however. Also most people are insured by employer through group plans and his plan (as stated) would only allow individuals into the public option. So private run health insurance would not only continue and insure the majority of consumers, but set the rates the customers of the public option paid.

I didn't mean to literally tie the Medicare premium to the average private sector premium. I mean the premium would be whatever is competitive. The bureaucrats in charge of the plan would set the premiums, just like Healthy NY does now.

The point is that private companies would be able to compete against a public option if they weren't constrained by all these absurd restrictions. The people who couldn't afford the private plans or whose employer does not provide one would take the Medicare option, which ensures that almost everyone is insured.

The private plans could, like life insurance, be based on health factors, allowing them to pool the risk so that healthy people don't have to subsidize the sick through their purchase of a private plan. They can do that through taxation.

To force low risk people to subsidize the higher risk population through government fiat by paying more money to a private company is truly bizarre.