Come on. It's not a problem with insurance, it's a problem with corrupt doctors and insurance companies. If the doctor always give the medicine that gives the best medical treatment, then that issue vanishes. If the insurance also has the client in focus, instead of profit, then you will not get cheaper and worse working drugs.

^ I'm a bit more charitable towards doctors -- they just have the wrong incentive structure.

What makes you more money, focusing on the patients' well being, or using the patient as a vehicle for running the maximum number of tests?

The insurance companies' incentives are wrong too -- they aren't looking for the best way to provide total care at lower and lower cost, they're looking to get the biggest profit by having high premiums and covering the healthiest people, and denying care to people on even the most flimsy of excuses.

Jillette is the only person here worth listening to, but I didn't really hear a concrete solution from him. I would agree that there's a problem with the detachment of payment decisions here, but in the case of healthcare you almost by definition don't know what it is that you need to get (hence what the doctor's there for), nor really judge what quality level you need (do I need aspirin, lidocain, morphine? is there any benefit to brand-name over generic? etc.)?

Likewise, do you want the doctor to limit his choices based on cost? Even Beck found that idea unsettling.

So how do we untangle this mess of perverse incentives and incomplete information, if you rule out anything a liberal like me would propose?

*money, and *health since we need it.

Adding video to channels (Money) - requested by NetRunner.

this is an important no matter what your stance

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, July 20th, 2009 12:30am PDT - promote requested by rottenseed.

This was hardly a debate.

A lot of interesting discussion going on there, on FOX nonetheless.

The insurance companies and doctors are just taking turns trying to screw each other in the ass, but just end up getting frustrated and instead agree to DP the patient.

I can't stand this Republican talking point that Canada has such a bad system and that they all want to come to the U.S. for care.

Ask any Canadian if they would give up their insurance plan for our broken system in U.S.

The U.S. is 37th in the world according to the W.H.O. - hardly worth being jealous over.

Ignore these yahoo's.

Yeah, it doesn't matter what's being said, just who is saying it, right?
If somebody is deemed "not worth listening to" then I don't care what they say.

>> ^NetRunner:
BR>Jillette is the only person here worth listening to, but I didn't really hear a concrete solution from him.

It's is all about the lack of correct incentives.

Higher profits that doctors receive from running frivolous tests, combined with the overarching risk of lawsuits leads to the US having the highest per capita cost of health care for a developed nation.

Silmutaneously, and as a result insurance companies are pushed into a business strategy that underprovides care over a mass market approach that seeks to cover a larger portion of the population by subscribing healthier, younger people to cover the costs of insuring a greater number of sicker, older people - most likely because it's simply too expensive to cover sick people.

It doesn't really matter in the broad sense what kind of form a health care system takes, Switzerland's shown that compulsory health insurance provided by the private sector can work. On the other hand France and Canada have working publicly provided systems. I'm sure they all have their respective problems, but all of them are cheaper per capita and all are able to provide a reasonable level of care for all citizens leading to a productive, healthy workforce. Certainly none of them lead to a nation of 47 million uninsured.

Clinging to the derogatory label of socialism or espousing the vague virtues of libertarianism specifically when applied to health care provision is just meaningless noise in this case. The specific and only reasonable argument they made in this clip as far as I could tell is that a lack of competition will stifle innovation, but that's irrelevant here given that no one is proposing a compulsory public only system.

For what it's worth I'm not too keen on a public competitor. It's definitely the most expedient and political palatable in that it's immune to much of the propaganda that decimated Hilary's attempt at reform because people are able to stick with their current private providers. The problem is, okay suppose a public option does offer far more reasonable premiums that private insurance companies right now. As a result both the currently insured and those that could not previously afford it sign up. Assuming everything else stays the same, yes a larger portion of the population will be insured, but they'll be footing their bill through their taxes. The assumption is, this will force private insurance companies to cut costs and become more competitive, and sure there is no doubt they'll find ways to lower costs to some extent when pressured by increased competition.

The problem is though, they can't fix the structurally broken incentives they have no control over. They can't fix a tort system that encourages unnecessary lawsuits. They can't fix the tax exclusion that large employers get for health insurance which screws over small businesses and the self employed. A public option itself won't address this and at best it will work as a temporary bandaid. It's be far better at least in the long run to simply fix these structural issues through regulation and judicial reform, than introducing an unnecessary public option that arbitrarily set its own rates and is not itself subject to any real competitive pressure.

Insurance = legalized extortion.

Give me $20 and I'll hold onto it for you in case you need it in the future. Oh, here's your $8 back because it cost me $12 for me to watch your $20 for you. And you only need $8, because *I* know how much a blankety-blank costs...

And that's if you even get $8 back to begin with...oh yeah, and by the way, you now HAVE to give me $20 because I greased the palms of the lawmakers and made it a law.

Yeah Stossel, don't look at the big picture. The reason there are so few doctors in Canada is that they can go to the US and earn twice as much. It's not a problem in the Canadian system but a problem with the overly expensive American system that drains Canada of Doctors. These guys obviously didn't put much thought or research into their stances, they came in with an opinion and then picked out information that supported their positions.

It's like watching a Libertarian circle-jerk. Without the mess.

For all the criticism of FOX, you'd be lucky to find one libertarian guest in the "unbiased" mainstream media.

10 minutes a week of Stossel "The Oddity" sandwiched between socialist commentators is their idea of 'fair and balanced'.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 9:05am PDT - promote requested by deedub81.

If you haven't seen it, here is the obvious answer to the (R) claim about what Healthcare Reform will look like --- it is a nifty little flow chart showing how the CURRENT healthcare system works .. as of July 2009. Suck it in?

Dueling Health Care Flow Charts Reality vs. GOP Propaganda

Unfortunately, to rebuke the point being made by a flow chart, you have to produce an equally useless yet revealing piece of data....data on the level of the attack.

Luckily, this is one of the few times you don't have to sink too low to fight moron-fire with brain-fire. Those old assholes in congress are really pissing me off with their fucking chart (ie confusion) as the evidence to support a false claim. Yay, lies supported by confusion. Great progressive thinking that STILL grabs a near majority. Sickening. (which is unfortunate since i dont have insurance)

http://www.videosift.com/video/Lewis-Black-Destroys-GOP-Talking-Points-on-Health-Care

I'm somewhat torn on this issue. I'm a Canadian that very much appreciates the advantages of my health care system, but I'm primarily libertarian and pro-capitalism. Certain services, such as police, fire, and medical care are all important enough that I don't mind the cost being shared.

You'll forgive me if I don't shed a tear for the family making $500,000+ annually at having to share 0.3% of their earnings with those who have medical needs. They'll survive, while the uninsured poor may not. Consider it a small price to pay for living in a civilized country.

One of my sons was born with a heart defect and spent 4 months in intensive care. I was told that U.S. patients in the same intensive care unit would run a bill of about US$200,000 for that length of time. He later had heart surgery and spent another month at Sick Kids in Toronto. For the sake of my son, I wouldn't trade our health care system for anything.

As for the lottery story... that really sucks, and I hadn't heard of that. But it's far, far from the norm; it's an anomaly. There are family doctors accepting patients in the city I live, and that's the norm.

Certainly some *lies about Canada going on here.

I just love how Beck uses media to spin a for-profit doggy hospital into the only viable healthcare in my country--Horse shit.

When I broke my wrist a few years ago, from the time I arrived at the hospital, it took the doctors at my hospital 45 minutes to finish looking at x-rays and start putting a plaster cast on my arm. I didn't have to pay $9000 for care, like the cat-scan doggy and I probably got treatment faster.

Adding video to channels (Lies) - requested by notarobot.

"All innovations come from capitalism." ??? Hmmm, let me think of a counter example.. NASA?

I believe Krusty the clown is missing from that expert panel.

*health

Adding video to channels (Health) - requested by brycewi19.