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Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


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Just now, workswithseed said:

Yes, let's get the state out of healthcare. I agree.

....because the for-profit model has yielded AWESOME results, and kept costs under control.

WTF?

We have literally dozens of first-world comparators.  We stand alone as the highest-cost system.....and we get shittier outcomes than most.  The complete and purposeful refusal to look at what other similar actors are doing -- at lower costs, getting better results -- may be one of the most baffling things I've ever observed.  I truly don't get it.

The for-profit model for basic and necessary healthcare is objectively crappy.  How it is relentlessly defended....the only thing I can get out of that is that its proponents have taken a purely ideological stand that is black and white "private always good, government always bad," and stand on it without any ability to consider actual evidence.

What in the hell does a perfectly and purely private model of healthcare look like for you?  Do you think that you'll be able to afford the coverage you want?  Do you think they'll allow you access to every doctor and procedure that you want?  OR, do you maybe think that insurance companies will act like insurance companies of all stripes -- health insurance, car insurance, etc. -- and do all they can to avoid paying expensive claims?  And do you maybe think they WON'T have utterly complex and incomprehensible rules and procedures that make it impossible for the average person to understand what they are entitled to and to advocate for themselves?  Among 10,000 other shitty things?

I truly don't understand the insane myth that private, for-profit bureaucracy is magically better than public bureaucracy.  Everyone bitches about navigating the DMV.....ever had to navigate a private insurer's claim system, particularly when they are disputing the claim?  Every person I know who has done that would happily trade an afternoon at the DMV for that experience.

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Fuck the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States.  We should let the government run things.

***reboots crashed APH website again to see if any novel mRNA vaccine technology appointments are available***

Edited by Anastasis
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13 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Fuck the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States.  We should let the government run things.

***reboots crashed APH website again to see if any novel mRNA vaccine technology appointments are available***

Well we can at least appreciate that you'd rather not bite the hand that feeds. You're also fig-leafing the federal government's failure to have a vaccine strategy or distribution messaging with a city trying to coordinate in spite of it's state actively undermining it's other health efforts

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28 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Fuck the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States.  We should let the government run things.

***reboots crashed APH website again to see if any novel mRNA vaccine technology appointments are available***

We should let the BMDs hire another coach.  They did so well the last few times, after all.  The answer is, get the BMDs out of the fucking equation.

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31 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Fuck the for-profit healthcare industry in the United States.  We should let the government run things.

***reboots crashed APH website again to see if any novel mRNA vaccine technology appointments are available***

Ahh yes.....[brisketexan, constructing an entirely for-profit system for COVID 19, from vax development through final administration].

"Making my appointment was easy!  All I had to do was be signed up for one of three preferred health plans, paying $1500 in premium per month.  Then, because my insurer BlueCrossFuckYou (all of them, actually) made several COVID treatments and vaccines "outside of my plan," I had to pre-pay $500 by credit card to sign up for the special BlueCrossFuckYou COVID vaccine registry (took me an hour to get through to their system).  They will then notify me of when I can make an appointment in the next 3 months, only at approved in-network locations, of which there are two in the "greater Austin area" (meaning that one of them is in Marble Falls).  Then, once I can make the appointment, I will have to pay an additional COVID vaccine co-pay of $200.  If I went out-of-network, I'd have to pay $3,000.  Lucky me!"

 

Yeah, for-profit healthcare is dreamy, and superior to any government involvement in every way.

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2 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Maybe the private run healthcare system can fix your broken sarcasm meter.

Just saying that both ideas suck.  The choice is either (i) a totally corrupt, money-over-people system where a high-class whore delays my appt while she "convinces" my doctor to push drug A to me, then my insurance company tells me I can't have drug A, and instead I should take vitamins and speak to a wellness coach or (ii) a totally corrupt, money-over-people system delivered by the team that produced the Katrina and COVID responses.

The broken health care system in this country is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.  

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22 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, for-profit healthcare is dreamy, and superior to any government involvement in every way.

There is a place for balance and cooperation between government, regulation, and market-based solutions. I think that COVID vaccine development is a good example.  I am not sure that this thread, at this particular moment when we see light at the end of a tunnel cleared in large part based on the substantial contributions of the for-profit pharmaceutical industry and other components of the healthcare system working in coordination with the public sector, is really the place to stake the argument.  But you guys seems to be having a good time with it.

 

There is going to be a really interesting pandemic post-mortem. Beyond just vaccine development and production, which is pretty obvious as far as the significant role that for-profit infrastructure played, we will be able to assess the pandemic response of a variety of different components of the healthcare system, covering a spectrum of private to public, and the associated health outcomes. Will be an interesting aspect of the national healthcare debate moving forward. 

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1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

I am not sure that this thread, at this particular moment when we see light at the end of a tunnel cleared in large part based on the substantial contributions of the for-profit pharmaceutical industry and other components of the healthcare system working in coordination with the public sector, is really the place to stake the argument.  

Not a bad point.  Hard to argue the government over the private sector when the only thing the government hasn't fucked up in this effort has been its funding of the private sector vaccine efforts.

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5 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Not a bad point.  Hard to argue the government over the private sector when the only thing the government hasn't fucked up in this effort has been its funding of the private sector vaccine efforts.

Also worth noting that the trump government is probably not the most honest comparison for what good (or even basic) public health efforts look like. His government was actively seeking to get more people sick in order to speed herd immunity, spreading disinformation about the airborne virus when they KNEW otherwise, and suppressing the availability of testing with the “explicit purpose of reducing testing and allowing the virus to spread while quickly reopening the economy.”

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1 minute ago, Captainant said:

Also worth noting that the trump government is probably not the most honest comparison for what good (or even basic) public health efforts look like. His government was actively seeking to get more people sick in order to speed herd immunity, and spreading disinformation about the airborne virus when they KNEW otherwise.

This.  When the government's goal/role with respect to most facets of this crisis was....AT BEST....abdication....that's not a great comparator/benchmark.

I don't think that anyone but the most strident of gov't healthcare proponents would argue that the private sector shouldn't have a role (again, look to any number of western democracies that have both private players in the healthcare and drug markets, as well as a single-payer system).

For fuck's sake, all that most of us are saying is that we have literally dozens of models that are more cost-effective and successful than ours.  Let's steal the things that work, ditch the things that don't, and build a better system than the most-expensive one in the world, with mediocre results....which is what we have now.

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24 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Also worth noting that the trump government is probably not the most honest comparison for what good (or even basic) public health efforts look like. His government was actively seeking to get more people sick in order to speed herd immunity, spreading disinformation about the airborne virus when they KNEW otherwise, and suppressing the availability of testing with the “explicit purpose of reducing testing and allowing the virus to spread while quickly reopening the economy.”

 

A former Trump appointee in the Department of Health and Human Services lobbied public health officials to adopt a herd immunity strategy in fighting COVID-19, according to emails published by Politico on Wednesday. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” 

I'm not seeing them being sent to old folks homes. Is that the problem?

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24 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

For fuck's sake, all that most of us are saying is that we have literally dozens of models that are more cost-effective and successful than ours.  Let's steal the things that work, ditch the things that don't, and build a better system than the most-expensive one in the world, with mediocre results....which is what we have now.

shut the fuck up you commie PIG!

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7 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

 

A former Trump appointee in the Department of Health and Human Services lobbied public health officials to adopt a herd immunity strategy in fighting COVID-19, according to emails published by Politico on Wednesday. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” 

I'm not seeing them being sent to old folks homes. Is that the problem?

Yeah.....you gotta plan on how to segregate those folks from everyone else?  It's a fucking rainbow unicorn fantasy goal.  It is absolutely unachievable, so it has no place in any grown-up's discussion of strategies.

Nevermind the admin's complete and total abdication of any role in crafting a comprehensive vaccine administration approach.  And any number of other failures with the overall COVID approach -- like LITERALLY calling for there to be LESS testing.  That happened.  Out loud.  Repeatedly.  For fucking fuck's sake.

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1 minute ago, workswithseed said:

A former Trump appointee in the Department of Health and Human Services lobbied public health officials to adopt a herd immunity strategy in fighting COVID-19, according to emails published by Politico on Wednesday. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” 

I'm not seeing them being sent to old folks homes. Is that the problem?

As someone with a dad in a nursing home, go fuck yourself. Stop putting words in my mouth and deflecting from the FACT that the trump admin actively sought to intensify the pandemic and make it harder to protect ourselves through testing and effective public health measures and messaging.

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13 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As someone with a dad in a nursing home, go fuck yourself. Stop putting words in my mouth and deflecting from the FACT that the trump admin actively sought to intensify the pandemic and make it harder to protect ourselves through testing and effective public health measures and messaging.

and on the 5th day God said "Biden give up"

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20 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As someone with a dad in a nursing home, go fuck yourself. Stop putting words in my mouth and deflecting from the FACT that the trump admin actively sought to intensify the pandemic and make it harder to protect ourselves through testing and effective public health measures and messaging.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-25/could-a-controlled-avalanche-stop-the-coronavirus-faster-and-with-fewer-death

It sounds like a controlled avalanche like the Israelite scientists were saying.

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6 hours ago, Newdoc said:

I would like to see some numbers normalized for our current state of health versus other countries. Obviously we are spending way too much no matter how you take out the variables but damn, we are an obese, lazy, unhealthy nation. And that is one of the reasons our Covid hospitalization and death numbers are so high.

I’d like to see what we spend on r&d and innovation that the rest of the world gets a free ride on.  

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8 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

And y'all are the same contingent arguing that vaccines are bad (and carry the mark of the beast!) because they might have dangerous side effects. 

And you're championing a policy that even the best-case numbers show would kill thousands.

Again, nevermind how to effectively implement it as to only those folks....and to keep them in isolation to avoid spread to the vulnerable.....and how to spread the infenctions out to avoid overwhelming hospitals because even at a lower death rate, many still need hospitalization.

Jesus monkeyfuck, stop already.

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44 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This.  When the government's goal/role with respect to most facets of this crisis was....AT BEST....abdication....that's not a great comparator/benchmark.

I don't think that anyone but the most strident of gov't healthcare proponents would argue that the private sector shouldn't have a role (again, look to any number of western democracies that have both private players in the healthcare and drug markets, as well as a single-payer system).

For fuck's sake, all that most of us are saying is that we have literally dozens of models that are more cost-effective and successful than ours.  Let's steal the things that work, ditch the things that don't, and build a better system than the most-expensive one in the world, with mediocre results....which is what we have now.

Yup. There are a range of options from which to choose, ranging from a fully nationalized system like the UK where the doctors are government workers to one that is a mix of private/public insurance providers.

There's too much here to copy/paste, but below is a nice comparison from a few years ago of just a few in a tournament-style competition that has stuck with me showing various trade-offs among the systems of Canada, Britain, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia, and the US.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/best-health-care-system-country-bracket.html

First Round

UK over Canada: 4-1

US over Singapore: 4-1

France over Australia: 4-1

Switzerland over Germany: 3-2

Semifinal

Switzerland over UK: 3-2

France over US: 3-2

Final

Switzerland over France: 3-2

Quote

 

Conclusion

Germany would have tied Switzerland had we averaged our rankings of the nations instead of using head-to-head matchups in a bracket system (Switzerland eliminated Germany in the first round). It’s an example of how close the voting was. Not one vote was unanimous among the judges, and all the semifinal and final votes were 3-2. Clearly, there is room for disagreement about the relative merits of health systems, and different experts would surely reach different conclusions.

Some judges took a global view, giving the edge to countries, like the United States, that promoted innovation that benefited the rest of the world. In other cases, how health systems treated the poorest of society was paramount.

To nobody’s surprise, the United States could do better at balancing health care costs with access, quality and outcomes. But there are many ways to reach that goal, and there will always be trade-offs. Learning about them from other systems and debating them honestly would probably do us a lot of good.

 

To select the winner of each matchup, we gathered a small judging panel, which includes us:

Aaron Carroll, a health services researcher and professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine
Austin Frakt, director of the Partnered Evidence-Based Policy Resource Center at the V.A. Boston Healthcare System; associate professor with Boston University’s School of Public Health; and adjunct associate professor with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
and three economists and physician experts in health care systems:

Craig Garthwaite, a health economist with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management
Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist with Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Ashish Jha, a physician with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute

About the judges:

Craig Garthwaite is a conservative economist who believes that well-regulated markets offer the best means of providing quality and innovation. He’s a lifelong Republican but has been broadly supportive of the market-based A.C.A.

Uwe Reinhardt, who has analyzed health care systems around the world for half a century, has been a longtime supporter of single-payer, although he has said he doesn’t believe the United States could manage that system well because it’s captured by special interests.

Ashish Jha and Aaron Carroll believe in universal coverage. Austin Frakt is less invested in universal coverage than universal access to affordable coverage. All three pay less attention to whether a system is more government-run or more market-based because they think either approach can succeed if devised well. Aaron and Austin blog at The Incidental Economist. For more information on health care systems, you can view Aaron's Healthcare Triage playlist of videos. Ashish blogs at an Ounce of Evidence.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

And y'all are the same contingent arguing that vaccines are bad (and carry the mark of the beast!) because they might have dangerous side effects. 

And you're championing a policy that even the best-case numbers show would kill thousands.

Again, nevermind how to effectively implement it as to only those folks....and to keep them in isolation to avoid spread to the vulnerable.....and how to spread the infenctions out to avoid overwhelming hospitals because even at a lower death rate, many still need hospitalization.

Jesus monkeyfuck, stop already.

Nice straw man. I mean we still have thousands dead, before the vaccine came out and media like this said it wouldn't even happen this year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/most-people-likely-wont-get-a-coronavirus-vaccine-until-the-middle-of-2021.html

I guess you're fine living in your home with deer presenting themselves to you, but people can't stay indefinitely in their home and feed thier family. You're even saying it yourself that's a unicorn's dream of older people dying. what would you do different?

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18 hours ago, Lobo said:

No U.S. Dept. of Education is going to tell my state what to do.  And my state isn't gonna tell me local I.S.D. what to do.  The shit we signed on for a decade ago has lasting consequences.  

Actually the state is telling your local ISD exactly what to do, even if it runs counter to what the local ISD wants to do.

A whole lot of people who thought their local ISD was actually independent, have been woken up to just how much power TEA has over local districts.

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Just now, workswithseed said:

Nice straw man. I mean we still have thousands dead, before the vaccine came out and media like this said it wouldn't even happen this year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/most-people-likely-wont-get-a-coronavirus-vaccine-until-the-middle-of-2021.html

I guess you're fine living in your home with deer presenting themselves to you, but people can't stay indefinitely in their home and feed thier family. You're even saying it yourself that's a unicorn's dream of older people dying. what would you do different?

Do you even fucking read what you post?  It's a 9/4/20 piece, so reflects what we understood 5 months ago -- which is almost half of the length of this pandemic.  And "the media" isn't saying anything about timing -- they are citing authorities who are saying that.

Quote

Most Americans likely won’t get immunized with a coronavirus vaccine until the middle of next year, U.S. officials and public health experts say, even as the federal government asks states to prepare to distribute a vaccine as soon as November.

And finally.....it's fucking ACCURATE.  MOST Americans won't get it until around mid-year.  We may get lucky and beat that by 30-60 days, so we can have over 50% of Americans who are eligible vaccinated by May or so.  That's pretty spot-on for an estimate as to a completely unknown vaccine(s) and unknown distribution processes.

Fucking seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?

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19 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

I’ve got some reading to do on it, I’ll admit that right now. But I’m assuming one of the big pushbacks is having to pay for fat people, lazy people, and people who knowingly harm their bodies with drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc?  Coincidentally the same groups that typically already contribute less to the slush fund.  

Oh, you get to pay for those people.

I have an in-law and her bf, and while they aren't on the druggie route (yet), they work very little, live off of relatives, and do not have healthcare.  When they need to see a doctor, it's the emergency room for them, and you, me, and everybody else reading this thread pays for their healthcare.

And I have a pretty good idea of the costs for every visit to the ER, since inevitably a collections agent comes around, asking us if we have an address for them, or if we'd help pay for the costs, because they listed us as the next of kin.

If they started a gofundme one of these times, I'm sure they'd make off with the money and not pay their bills, assuming anybody cared enough to contribute.

 

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Do you even fucking read what you post?  It's a 9/4/20 piece, so reflects what we understood 5 months ago -- which is almost half of the length of this pandemic.  And "the media" isn't saying anything about timing -- they are citing authorities who are saying that.

And finally.....it's fucking ACCURATE.  MOST Americans won't get it until around mid-year.  We may get lucky and beat that by 30-60 days, so we can have over 50% of Americans who are eligible vaccinated by May or so.  That's pretty spot-on for an estimate as to a completely unknown vaccine(s) and unknown distribution processes.

Fucking seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?

A Lot Rubbing Hands GIF by Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-promises-coronavirus-vaccine-end-year-experts-temper/story?id=70712823

Miss clicked. Here's the article from the beginning of may where experts said it wasn't likely.

"Frankly, 12-18 months is already a very aggressive timeline," Slaoui, the former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, said in an interview with The New York Times. He said he was in agreement with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, about the challenge that timeline poses.

 

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14 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

A Lot Rubbing Hands GIF by Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-promises-coronavirus-vaccine-end-year-experts-temper/story?id=70712823

Miss clicked. Here's the article from the beginning of may where experts said it wasn't likely.

"Frankly, 12-18 months is already a very aggressive timeline," Slaoui, the former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, said in an interview with The New York Times. He said he was in agreement with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, about the challenge that timeline poses.

 

And it WAS aggressive.  Getting the vaccines out on the timetable that happened was literally unprecedented.

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Just now, Judge Roybeanbag said:

If Chinese shenanigans were responsible for this, then we absolutely should try to find out. I’m curious about what good the furious finger pointing does now, though.  It’s not going to bring back MeeMaw.   

Well, perhaps the international community could come together to condemn the actions of China and consider actions that might punish them.

 

 

Who am I kidding, they are going to bend over as soon as China threatens their supply of Rubber Dog Poop.

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11 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Well, perhaps the international community could come together to condemn the actions of China and consider actions that might punish them.

 

 

Who am I kidding, they are going to bend over as soon as China threatens their supply of Rubber Dog Poop.

Lol at punishing China.  They’ll peepee in our Diet Coke and we’ll drink it anyway.

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1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

huh?

Not sure what was so difficult to understand. The USA is responsible for about 50% of the world's medical research. Other countries get a free ride on the drugs we develop and the medical techniques and procedures. The profit motivation is a hell of an incentive.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000235406

 

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17 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

Not sure what was so difficult to understand. The USA is responsible for about 50% of the world's medical research. Other countries get a free ride on the drugs we develop and the medical techniques and procedures. The profit motivation is a hell of an incentive.

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000235406

 

i thought it was a free ride?

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1 hour ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

If Chinese shenanigans were responsible for this, then we absolutely should try to find out. I’m curious about what good the furious finger pointing does now, though.  It’s not going to bring back MeeMaw.   

there isn't furious finger pointing.  this is the typical "we formed a house select committee to look into it and we determined that we don't know" but instead the house is a global org looking to protect the guilty and it's own incompetence.  see UN and just about any other global organization where we pay the freight.

you are correct that it won't amount to anything because it is planned that way.  run a year long "investigation" and hope the news cycle and the vaccine take care of anyone caring anymore.

Edit: Isn't it obvious this a just a shell game and they started to "get serious" after the vaccine came out, when they know the it will start to go away.

Edited by dcar00
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4 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

there isn't furious finger pointing.  this is the typical "we formed a house select committee to look into it and we determined that we don't know" but instead the house is a global org looking to protect the guilty and it's own incompetence.  see UN and just about any other global organization where we pay the freight.

you are correct that it won't amount to anything because it is planned that way.  run a year long "investigation" and hope the news cycle and the vaccine take care of anyone caring anymore.

Edit: Isn't it obvious this a just a shell game and they started to "get serious" after the vaccine came out, when they know the it will start to go away.

It’s not some shell game, dude.  Stop falling for conspiracies.   It’s a fucking virus, it doesn’t attack capitalists exclusively.  

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1 minute ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

It’s not some shell game, dude.  Stop falling for conspiracies.   It’s a fucking virus, it doesn’t attack capitalists exclusively.  

what does who the virus attacks have to do with the WHO being corrupt, incompetent and wanting to obviously cover their and China's ass?

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2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

what does who the virus attacks have to do with the WHO being corrupt, incompetent and wanting to obviously cover their and China's ass?

Why are you concerned about The Who?  Is it because of Pete Townsend’s pedophilia?   I don’t give a fuck about China.  I give a fuck about people who can directly affect getting vaccines into my arm and into my fellow Americans arms.  Why are you obsessed with China and The Who?  Who are you?  Who who?  I really want to know.

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away


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