The Glade 4.0

Interesting that no one has brought up the hospital's costs. Personally I believe the cost of treatment in America is ridiculous due to pharmaceutical price gouging, rampant malpractice suits, and people insisting on treatment with unreasonable goals (put 90 year old grandpa on chemotherapy to save his life). That cost is passed along to the consumer.

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That is a good portion of the cost, indeed.

The pharmaceuticals are particularly hilarious participants because they charge vastly more for drugs here than in Europe. So next time you hear about how low the spending per-capita is on healthcare in Europe, remember that you are subsidizing it.


It should be said, though, that a lot of the cost comes from new technology. This is, in fact, the biggest cost driver of the last 30 years, in my opinion.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Interesting how the more socialist Europe has better pricing on the same drugs than the US.

Because we're subsidizing them.

If we cracked down and legislatively mandated drug costs, they just shut down and go out of business.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Not to mention that "socialist Europe" has been getting a free ride on defense for at least 20 years now, and maybe a lot longer depending on how you look at it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Indeed. If you look at one of the Swiss pharma companies, their entire business model depends on being able to charge high prices here, because European governments don't allow them charge reasonable market rates there.

That said, they probably wouldn't just shut down. Manufacturing the drugs isn't the costliest part: it's the research. So what would happen is that zero new drugs would ever come out.

Given that they haven't cured some of the stuff we all want them to cure, but have promising research in the works (like, say, Alzheimers, or AIDS), I'd rather they didn't have to shut down research for economic reasons.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm still baffled as to how Medicare and Medicaid can be now close to $600 billion in debt annually and still considered to be underpaying, yet health care is not somehow exorbitantly expensive. The program that underpays has $700 billion in costs on $180 billion in revenue. How is anyone supposed to afford it for real?

Medicine is only for the wealthy. All the poor people are supposed to die, preferably quietly somewhere where the 1% don't have to watch.

It's interesting to note that medical care was generally a lot cheaper (relatively) when people paid for it themselves.

I think the disconnect is one of the biggest things. we don't shop around or insist on the best price practices because the insurance will just cover it. Instead we (as a society) go to the ER for stupid pointless stuff so we can get our money's worth out of our premiums.

health insurance should be like my car insurance, there when I get in a big wreck, but not changing my oil and filling up my gas tank.

I'm not some rich guy with a big insurance plan, and now somehow I have to pay the government $600 a year on top of that. And on top of that I can't work more than 29 hours a week. I don't have any clue what i'd do if I actually got sick, and I as I just said the government isn't helping. Aren't I supposed to be one of those unsinsured guys the great health insurance overhaul was supposed to "help"

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Everyone dies

It's really simple: People will charge the government a lot more because they know the government is enormous bureaucracy coupled with endless ability to assume debt. Why do you think they were charging the Navy $700 for a toilet seat in the 80s? Did that mean people couldn't go to a hardware store and buy a toilet seat?

No, it didn't, because when people know they can overcharge, they overcharge. When it's charge a fair price or don't get anything at all.. they charge a fair price.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

non competitive?

Not sure what you mean, but if you mean the toilet seat incident, it's not like there's only one company that makes toilet seats.

The "no competition contracts" that were so infamous, such as to Haliburton were awarded because there's only one company that can provide the service in the first place. Just like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. There's exactly one place that makes them, and there's no way to support enough of a market for competition.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't believe it's that simple these days. Most government contracts have strict regulations around pricing and forcing the most competitive bid to be picked.

Do you mean fine organizations that oversee the spending like this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/us/po ... .html?_r=0

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Must be nice for those 99%, then, that you're not in charge if this is your belief.

This is especially true since you're in the 1% globally.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Contrary to popular belief, the most competitive bid is not necessarily the lowest. There's enormous subjectivity involved, and it is compounded by mandated discrimination in favor or minority and female-owned business.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You can't prove that.