Contributors

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

SOTU Bite Size Chunks (Part One)

I'm going to be taking the SOTU speech in smaller chunks throughout the day and focusing in on particular passages. First up, is this one...

On Medicare, I’m prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

Wow. That's certainly going to piss off a lot of Democrats. And it's way past time that he did this!

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this is yet another health care plan from an Administration whose actions are causing roughly 7 million people to lose their insurance (according to the CBO) and will raise the cheapest insurance plan to $20,000 a year (according to the IRS).

Yeah, we're all excited about that.

Anonymous said...

Fact checking the 2013 State of the Union speech

This carefully crafted phrase recently earned the president a prized Geppetto Checkmark. Obama wants us to compare the savings in 2022. Granted, that would be six years after Obama’s second term ends. But administration officials argue that changes in health-care policies take time to achieve budget savings, and that the right mix can produce greater savings in the long run.

Using Congressional Budget Office estimates of the president’s budget, we see that over 10 years, Obama’s proposals would achieve $337 billion from 2013 to 2022, compared to $483 billion for Bowles-Simpson in the same time period. (Bowles-Simpson, or more accurately the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is considered by many in Washington to be the model for a bipartisan approach for deficit reduction.)

However, in 2022, both would achieve exactly the same amount of savings — $68 billion.

Administration officials say they believe their proposals would achieve greater savings than Bowles-Simpson after 2022, which would be consistent with the increase in savings toward the end of the first 10-year budget window.

Mark Ward said...

It's very easy to be a critic. What would your plan be to reduce the cost of health care in this country?

Juris Imprudent said...

Ha ha - "easy to be a critic"? It isn't for you when it comes to Obamessiah, is it?

Anonymous said...

Mark,

I don't have time for a full explanation, so I'll just post this:

Dr. Benjamin Carson

His suggestion about Health Savings Accounts is a big part of what I think would work. Insurance should be for major health crises, not maintenance. And it should be managed and sold more like life insurance and car insurance. (Not mandatory.) Passing money through multiple hands (like citizen -> government -> insurer -> doctor) adds major costs. Cutting out two very expensive middlemen for day-to-day health care would cut costs enormously.

Mark Ward said...

Yeah, I saw that video...it's been making the round of the right wing blogsphere.

There are fundamental problems with your solution here. First, who gets to decide what is catastrophic and what is not? The government? That wouldn't be a good idea because then there really would be death panels. Second, car insurance is mandatory because of the free rider problem and that's why health insurance should be mandatory as well. Third, and most important, if you cut out the middleman, then you have a problem with inelastic demand. Even if its something that may not be life threatening but is making someone miserable (back pain, for example) the sellers in the market would have an unfair advantage over the buyers. They could charge whatever price they want for services or drugs and no one would leave the market. Monopolies and Oligopolies could also form. These markets would not allocate resources efficiently and that's why the government has to be involved.

The fundamental nature of the free market shows us how many health care markets have to have some government regulation and mandatory insurance. For something like Lasik, for example, the free market is great but this is a highly elective procedure. It would be nice if it all the markets were like this but they aren't.

Juris Imprudent said...

Yeah, I saw that video...it's been making the round of the right wing blogsphere.

You really are a Baptist preacher at heart aren't you? Just like someone at the pulpit ranting on about Satan, you have such a difficult time thinking about anything else.

Anonymous said...

Yep, Mark. You just proved that any dumbass can be a critic.

Fisk time.

There are fundamental problems with your solution here.

Health Savings Accounts already exist! What I am suggesting is not something new and unworkable.

Treasury: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

Health Savings Accounts

First, who gets to decide what is catastrophic and what is not?

Insurance companies already offer ranges of coverage. The consumer gets to decide how much coverage they're willing to pay for. After all, its their money and their life on the line. It's called a "free market". Ever heard of it?

car insurance is mandatory

Duh! You clearly didn't notice my quick "(Not mandatory)" note. My point is that car insurance life insurance are very competitive markets. Insurers have developed a wide range of coverages at varying price points. There are web sites you can go to which compare rates and coverages. Consumer Reports regularly runs surveys comparing the various insurances, and so forth.

is making someone miserable (back pain, for example) the sellers in the market would have an unfair advantage over the buyers. They could charge whatever price they want for services or drugs and no one would leave the market.

Bullshit. It is already the case that if I don't want to pay for treating something like back pain, I don't. What creates "inelastic demand" is "the money has already been taken from me to pay for this, so I might as well go".

In a free market, when the person receiving the benefit controls the spending, then the providers have no choice but to make sure their costs are low enough that people are willing to spend the money.

This is true of the veterinary medicine market, and costs are far lower than in the human medical field. It's because there's COMPETITION. Also note that you are seeing consolidation in the human medical field RIGHT NOW to try to control the costs caused by GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS; in other words, the government is forcing consolidation. But vet's offices tend to be independent.

Your claim about "Monopolies and Oligopolies could also form" is the direct OPPOSITE of observed reality.

Anonymous said...

Second, car insurance is mandatory because of the free rider problem and that's why health insurance should be mandatory as well


LIABILITY insurance is mandatory.

Do you understand what that means?


liable
 li·a·ble
[lahy-uh-buhl]
adjective
1.
legally responsible: You are liable for the damage caused by your action.

Liability insurance covers damage that YOU cause to ANOTHER PERSON. It does not cover damage or injury to YOURSELF.

To compare this to medical insurance would be to say that it would be mandatory to get liability medical insurance to cover injury you cause to another in a fist fight. Such mandatory insurance would not cover your broken leg when you fell off a ladder.

Sheesh.

Mark Ward said...


Wrong. Draw the demand curve for a market with inelastic demand...lets say back pain. Most people won't leave the market if the price goes up because they are in pain. Sellers can charge a higher price and resources are not allocated efficiently.

Anonymous said...

Most people won't leave the market if the price goes up because they are in pain.

You don't know any actual people, do you?

Anonymous said...

Still not understanding 'inelastic demand' and 'competition' I see.

Mark Ward said...

So, both of you are contending that people who have serious (but not life threatening) health concerns will not leave the market if the price becomes too high, correct?

Anonymous said...

Care to read what you wrote and rethink that?

Mark Ward said...

So, both of you are contending that people who have serious (but not life threatening) health concerns will not leave the market if the price becomes too high, correct?

Anonymous said...

No. That's YOUR position, which is why I suggested you look at what you wrote again. Why are you unable to see that?

Mark Ward said...

Let me word this another way since there seems to be some confusion. People will leave the health care market for back pain if the price becomes too high...yes or no. I say most won't leave the market because they are in pain. The demand curve would look something like this.

http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2013/02/blog-post_1756.html

Anonymous said...

Apparently I need to repeat myself because you are unable to even comprehend what my argument actually is:

----------

In a free market, when the person receiving the benefit controls the spending, then the providers have no choice but to make sure their costs are low enough that people are willing to spend the money.

----------

Even in today's market, and with full insurance coverage, people do choose to refuse treatment, even when that choice means that they will die.

Larry said...

I don't know what world you live in, Mark, but pain medication is pretty fucking cheap compared to a lot of meds and treatments. So much cheaper that that your favorite Presidential fellatee thinks maybe we should be doing a lot more of doping elderly up instead of actually treating their problems. Kind of like NHS is doing.

Mark Ward said...

then the providers have no choice

Obviously you don't grasp the concept of inelastic demand. They do have a choice on price as long as demand is relatively inelastic. They make a greater profit because they essentially have people trapped and the extra money from the higher prices more than makes up for the few people that leave the market.

Larry, I'm not talking about garden variety pain. I'm talking about the various health care markets where people aren't dying but have very serious problems. You probably know people like this. Are they going to leave the market if the price gets too high? Just live out their lives in misery?

Larry said...

And you assume that there is no competition between providers, and that they are in fact an evil cabal of bloodsucking fiends. They're doctors, not teachers or or other union workers seeking to get the most for the least effort. You keep chanting the mantra of inelastic demand, and yet I see no sign that you understand it at anything more than a cargo-cult level.

Mark Ward said...

Fundamental economics show us what a limited number of sellers will do in a market that has relatively inelastic demand. They collude.

Larry said...

Like they doing now, asshole? Except that they aren't, are they? What planet do you fucking live on? Did you ever pass an economics class? It's for sure as shit you never took, let alone passed, a class in formal logic.

Mark Ward said...

I got an A in both the Economics and Logic classes I took back when I was at the U. A few years ago, I took another economics class for CE credits (Greg Mankiw wrote my textbook) and I got an A in that one as well. Please refer to Chapters 15-17 in Principles of Microeconomics. You might also want to bone up on the prisoner's dilemma and the Nash equilibrium.

I'm always amazed by the arrogance of the Right in thinking that they have the corner market on "fundamental economics" and that it explains how their ideology is logical. It doesn't.

Anonymous said...

I got an A in both the Economics and Logic classes I took.

Mark's constant, and nearly exclusive use of logical fallacies says all that needs to be known about that claim.

Mark Ward said...

Mark's constant, and nearly exclusive use of logical fallacies says all that needs to be known about that claim.

And your constant retreat to form (and quite a poor analysis of it, btw, combined with massive projection) as opposed to actual substance sums up why fewer and fewer people are listening to you.

Time for some Latin to distract from the fact that you don't have any there there...:)

Anonymous said...

Simple questions Mark refuses to answer:

Is the Constitution law?

Is "false" equal to "truth"?

Mark Ward said...

Time for some Latin to distract from the fact that you don't have any there there...:)