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2016-11-29 08:41 by Karl Denninger
in Editorial , 584 references Ignore this thread
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Price (Trump's pick for HHS, which I remind you oversees Medicare and Medicaid) has given zero indication that he has any intention of reforming any of the monopolist practices in the health care industry.

Price insisted that Republicans can keep the protections for those with existing medical conditions without mandating that all individuals carry coverage or pay a penalty to support an expanded insurance pool. Price said Republicans want to address "the real cost drivers" of health care price spikes, which he said were not necessarily sicker patients, but a heavy regulatory burden, taxes and lawsuits against medical professionals.

Not one word about monopolist pricing structures.  Not one word about CON laws.  Not one word about drugs that are 10, 20 or even 100x as expensive here as in other OECD nations and laws banning the arbitrage of those prices which would instantly collapse said price structure.  Not one word about a system that has expanded "administrators" at 5x the rate of care-givers, all of whom you pay for.  Not one word about a so-called "insurance" system that demands you pay continuing deductible amounts after the insured event happens should a calendar boundary be crossed, which is an out-and-out fraud.  Not one word about a refusal to post prices and presenting you with a document demanding that you accept any bill for anything done, with no cap and no binding estimate.  Not one word about charging different prices after the fact based on how you pay rather than what is done, which is not only improper it quite-arguably is felonious on its face as it constitutes a kickback (which are in many cases illegal and in all cases are taxable yet are not reported as such nor are the taxes paid.) Not one word about forcing you pay to correct errors made by the physician or, even worse, to treat infections and diseases contracted as a result of being in said hospital and inadequate sanitation.

Yes, lawsuits add cost. If you got rid of all of them you'd cut cost by.... a single-digit percentage. But, not all medically-related lawsuits are baseless or harmful; some are both reasonable and necessary. In other words while the issue of lawsuit abuse is real it's worthless and would do exactly nothing in terms of actually addressing the problem of medical cost -- and Price knows this.

Look to the right, click the topic entitled The CERTAIN Destruction of our Nation, and read it.

Then go get a drink.

Or three.

Or fuck it, just drink the whole bottle.

The good news is that if you have no need for health care because several years ago when I started raising hell about this and writing about how you can change outcomes, and you did it, the "mandate" will almost-certainly disappear and you can stick up the middle finger and spend zero - for real.

The bad news is that if you do need health care you're going to be bankrupted, dead, or both unless you can manage to employ medical tourism. But for any given situation that might work and.... it might not.  If this becomes a matter of a chronic condition rather than something that is acute, and especially if it takes you out of the job market then you're flat-out hosed.

You might also want to contemplate, if the bad happens to you personally and you discover that your hourglass will run dry absent that which you can't afford or obtain whether you are afraid of consequences in an afterlife or not.

I'll leave the rest up to you to think about on your own because the fact is that as a nation it appears we are truly and completely fucked.  Enjoy the next couple of years as we're now odds-on that they'll be the last good ones.

That's math, not politics.