Robin Hood and his Merry Men


sbeaulieu

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House Democrats to Unveil Health Care Bill as Obama Prods Senate for Quicker Action

FOX NEWS

I really like how this whole thing is turning out *cough*, and soon we'll all have health care!

My favorite parts of the article are the following:

The measure is expected to impose a fee on large companies that fail to offer insurance; individuals who refuse to purchase affordable insurance will have to pay a penalty.

A new income tax on the wealthy, estimated to raise more than $500 billion over the next decade, would help pay for the bill.

Isn't it wonderful?!

~ Shane

Edited by sbeaulieu
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I've been seeing posters for something called 'robinhood.org ' in the NY subways: it is an organization that provides food for the poor, and can't help noticing that they are so confused they don't know the difference between asking for volunteer donations and stealing.

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"...individuals who refuse to purchase affordable insurance will have to pay a penalty."

Wait...

...so a person will be penalized for not buying something?

Soviet States of America, here we come!

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So it will look something like this huh?

Love that train Michelle

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House rolls out plan to make health care a right

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul

The liberal-leaning plan lacked figures on total costs, but a House Democratic aide said the total bill would add up to about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Most of the bill's costs come in the last five years after the 2012 presidential election.

The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don't provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers' wages with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

We have a right to health care, but we don't have a right to our income.

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Everyone seems to be up in arms about the latest healthcare boondoggle, but I can't for the life of me understand why, as it is no more than a clarification of the system we already have in place.

In a truly free market, individuals, all common producers, are responsible for the results of their own actions. If there are unacceptable risks or consequences, the individuals can pool their risks or else forego their planned actions (viz-à-viz Lloyds of London or other such privately syndicated enterprises).

In a collectivist/statist politico-economic system (either fascist or socialist, no matter), the government provides this risk-absorption function, making all members of a society bear the consequences of others irresponsibility, directly or indirectly.

In our society, most businesses of any consequence are INCORPORATED. A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government. This artificial person, empowered and protected by the government's force of arms, prevents anyone from receiving just compensation from the real individual actor, in the event of wrongful actions on the part of the real individual that is acting under color of the artificial person; society "as a whole" ends up bearing the cost for this.

Further, all modern banks, and especially their subspecie, the insurance companies, are CORPORATIONS. They are protected artificial entities that have interposed themselves into most transactions in society, with special laws granting them special privileges not afforded individuals or even other businesses. These corporations routinely take money OUT of circulation, more like taxation rather than "for services rendered", and when conducting regular or investment business, their presence is akin to a government agency, doling out money according to its own rules, creating market distortions which we witness as runaway court costs, runaway malpractice insurance, and runaway medical costs. Please note that all of these inflationary items are being financed by RUNAWAY INSURANCE CORPORATIONS, who only submit to regulation that is minimal in relation to the amount of cost or damage they have inflicted on our society. Protected corporations.

I don't see maintaining the current fascist system as a viable option. If these creatures of the state (insurance corporations) become nationalized to some extent, it won't make a huge difference. But what is really needed to restore the free market in healthcare is to outlaw health and malpractice insurance.

Edited by Steve Gagne
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House rolls out plan to make health care a right

http://news.yahoo.co...h_care_overhaul

The liberal-leaning plan lacked figures on total costs, but a House Democratic aide said the total bill would add up to about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Most of the bill's costs come in the last five years after the 2012 presidential election.

The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don't provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers' wages with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

We have a right to health care, but we don't have a right to our income.

A trillion $$$$ here a trillion $$$$ there. Pretty soon it adds up to real money.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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To be fair, our current system is not great. I think one of the major difficulties I've had addressing the health care system is the fact that health services are offered at a significant discount to insured individuals but not to uninsured individuals. In other words, a doctor's bill that would cost an insured individual $83 (to be later reimbursed by the insurance company) could cost the uninsured individual a sum total of $500.

Originally I was of the position that insurance companies and health services have a right to negotiate mass-discounts. In other words, it makes financial sense as a service provider to offer an insurance company that brings in thousands of clients cheaper rates than to individual clients. However, the difference between these rates is exorbitant. Thinking on it more, it becomes quite obvious that the government is in a way supporting collusive monopolist opportunities to insurance companies by requiring employers to provide insurance and by preventing doctors from offering more personalized "insurance" plans to their clients independently. There is so much legislation in the health industry that it really can't operate capitalistically at the moment. Since we can't abolish all legislation in one swoop, I suggest that the best action a government can take would be to eliminate rate benefits to insurance companies who have market share as a function of government legislation. In other words, health services should be offered at equal prices to both insured and uninsured individuals. Then those people who are supposedly uninsured could finally afford to pay their medical bills.

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In other words, a doctor's bill that would cost an insured individual $83 (to be later reimbursed by the insurance company) could cost the uninsured individual a sum total of $500.

Are you talking about out-of-pocket cost only? Where is your evidence for this disparity? What's the probability of the doctor collecting the $500?

I suggest that the best action a government can take would be to eliminate rate benefits to insurance companies who have market share as a function of government legislation.

Yeah, right, the solution is more government intervention. :- ( How about recognizing that Medicare and Medicaid under-reimburse health care providers, who then turn around and hike rates on private insurers and patients to try to make up the difference?

Edited by Merlin Jetton
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Chris:

"To be fair, our current system is not great. I think one of the major difficulties I've had addressing the health care system is the fact that health services are offered at a significant discount to insured individuals but not to uninsured individuals. In other words, a doctor's bill that would cost an insured individual $83 (to be later reimbursed by the insurance company) could cost the uninsured individual a sum total of $500."

Either you got ripped off or you must mean something totally different because the obverse is true. I know of no doctor service that is not significantly cheaper with direct payment. Some Doctors actually will not even take you unless you have insurance.

Also, we have two significant segments of our population that have government mandated health insurance. Veterans and the American Indian, the Red Man, a person of color.

How's that workin out for them?

Adam

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Chris:

Either you got ripped off or you must mean something totally different because the obverse is true. I know of no doctor service that is not significantly cheaper with direct payment.

In my area, Chris's statement is generally accurate.

I think the true problem is not the difference Chris notes; it's the difficulty the end-user has in finding out ahead of time what the actual charges will be, and often enough the difficulty in finding out quality of service information regarding specific doctors and hospitals. Part of that is doubtless a product of the current insurance set up. There is also the fact that very often the doctor (or in the case of emergency, the ambulance driver) will decide which facility to use for procedures or hospitalizations. Thus, my GI doctor picks out the facility where I have a colonoscopy (something I need to have done every other year) without no more input from me than picking the day of the procedure; and I never know what the charges will be until I get copies of the bills a couple of months later. (And even then the hospital manages to screw it up: the last time I should have paid the amount of my deductible plus 20% of the remainder; instead the hospital charged me 20% of the deductible. Still waiting to see if they catch that mistake.) And then there are screwy things the insurance company throws into the works: I was hospitalized (same hospital and doctor, in fact) a couple of years ago, admitted through the ER. The insurance company decided that since no had called them to "preauthorize the admission" (meaning in reality that the required form was not sent on time), the hospital was due no money. So I ended up spending two days in the hospital for free. But I have this fantasy: "Hello, United Health Care, I'm going to need to go to the ER in two days. Can you please pre-authorize the admission?"

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Chris:

Either you got ripped off or you must mean something totally different because the obverse is true. I know of no doctor service that is not significantly cheaper with direct payment.

In my area, Chris's statement is generally accurate.

I think the true problem is not the difference Chris notes; it's the difficulty the end-user has in finding out ahead of time what the actual charges will be, and often enough the difficulty in finding out quality of service information regarding specific doctors and hospitals. Part of that is doubtless a product of the current insurance set up. There is also the fact that very often the doctor (or in the case of emergency, the ambulance driver) will decide which facility to use for procedures or hospitalizations. Thus, my GI doctor picks out the facility where I have a colonoscopy (something I need to have done every other year) without no more input from me than picking the day of the procedure; and I never know what the charges will be until I get copies of the bills a couple of months later. (And even then the hospital manages to screw it up: the last time I should have paid the amount of my deductible plus 20% of the remainder; instead the hospital charged me 20% of the deductible. Still waiting to see if they catch that mistake.) And then there are screwy things the insurance company throws into the works: I was hospitalized (same hospital and doctor, in fact) a couple of years ago, admitted through the ER. The insurance company decided that since no had called them to "preauthorize the admission" (meaning in reality that the required form was not sent on time), the hospital was due no money. So I ended up spending two days in the hospital for free. But I have this fantasy: "Hello, United Health Care, I'm going to need to go to the ER in two days. Can you please pre-authorize the admission?"

Jeff:

I understand the glitches that you are pointing out. These are testimonial specifics and no less serious, especially to the patient. However, let us imagine setting a minimum level of care, which we can establish with malpractice legal precedent.

This minimum level of care would cost less, more, or about the same depending on your particular locality.

The cost of that minimum level of care can be declared or posted just like the ingredients in over the counter medications or oil that you add to your engine.

Would you then argue that insurance would cost less than paying cash/check/credit card?

If so, can you please give me an example?

Adam

Post script: South Florida...hmmmm it was not that way in the other Florida where I was. Without being personal can you cite a specific?

Edited by Selene
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To be fair, our current system is not great. I think one of the major difficulties I've had addressing the health care system is the fact that health services are offered at a significant discount to insured individuals but not to uninsured individuals. In other words, a doctor's bill that would cost an insured individual $83 (to be later reimbursed by the insurance company) could cost the uninsured individual a sum total of $500.

I think the discrepancy you're seeing is actually the result of regulation or current legal practice.

Have you ever seen the notice posted on the inside of your hotel room door? Among other things, it tells you the room rate. Typically, the posted rate is twice what you're actually paying for the room. Reason? I'm not really sure, but if I recall correctly, there is some sort of law that states that a hotel or motel cannot charge more than the posted rate and that if they do, you can take legal action. The law might have been created to prevent hotels and motels from discriminating against minorities. So, if you were a minority, and you were being charged more than the posted rate, you could file a racial discrimination lawsuit.

Naturally, as hotel owners are not stupid, they started posting rates that were considerably higher than the amount that they really intended to charge. There is no law against charging less than the posted rate. And there you have it. They found a way around the law.

Well, I suspect that medical providers do the same thing for similar reasons. If someone were an expert and could shed light on the subject, that would be nice. But, I suspect that medical providers set their nominal rates ridiculously high on the theory that no one can complain if they are charged less than the nominal rate. Since 90% of their customers have insurance, they probably don't care if the remaining 10% get screwed. Since they have a virtual legal monopoly on the practice of medicine, they're busy all the time and don't really need more customers. There's that darned government interference getting in the way again.

Now, if insurance premiums could be deducted, dollar for dollar, on your income tax, the way that a business can deduct premiums, there would be no advantage to businesses offering insurance as a benefit. They could either pay the $5000 it costs to insure you to the insurance company or directly to you and you could buy your own insurance. Suddenly, the idea of people insuring themselves makes sense.

BTW, some people that buy their own insurance currently buy catastrophic only, for, say $99/month. I'm betting the new legislation will outlaw that possibility, driving up the cost for many people.

I recently met a rather wealthy man that bought catastrophic insurance, rather than comprehensive, because it made more sense to him financially. I think he was paying about $2000/year compared to $6000/year for comprehensive. His insurance had a $6000 deductible, but to him that was a small risk compared to guaranteed loss of $6000/year in premiums for comprehensive or $4000/year more than for catastrophic. The guy didn't get to be rich by being an idiot, but I guess the government is justified in substituting their judgment for his because they know better.TM

Darrell

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In our society, most businesses of any consequence are INCORPORATED. A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government. This artificial person, empowered and protected by the government's force of arms, prevents anyone from receiving just compensation from the real individual actor, in the event of wrongful actions on the part of the real individual that is acting under color of the artificial person; society "as a whole" ends up bearing the cost for this.

I think your comments are really off the mark. Individuals can be and are held responsible for their actions. It is true that a CEO of a corporation cannot be sued every time an employee screws up, but that is only reasonable. It would be impossible to run a company if the CEO got sued for everything that went wrong. If the CEO is doing things himself that are really out of bounds, he can be and is held personally responsible. If he tries to use the corporation as a shield for illegal actions he can end up "piercing the corporate vale" and be held directly liable for any monetary losses.

Given our current legal climate of allowing people to sue for everything under the sun, it would be impossible to operate a business without some protection from liability for the corporate officers. If you owned a company with a thousand locations and every time someone slipped on the ice outside one of them you got sued personally and lost because you had a greater ability to pay than the person that slipped, you'd soon be broke. No one in their right mind would want to run a company under such conditions.

A corporation is like an insurance policy. If some crazy jury were to award the plaintiff that spilled hot coffee in her lap 10 million dollars (and the company wasn't McDonald's and only had three locations) the CEO could pay out what the company was worth and walk away with his personal property intact. Yes, he could buy an insurance policy, but what if it wasn't large enough? Or what if the insurance company refused to pay?

The current mess that we have with government propping up companies that are "too large to fail" has nothing to do with corporate liability. Why should a company owner have to risk losing his own personal property in order to run a company? In my view, corporate governance is generally pretty sound and it is mostly the financiers of the company that get hurt if things aren't being run properly anyway. I don't see how upping the ante would help anything. I have seriously considered buying several businesses or franchises but so far have been afraid to take the plunge due to the risk of losing a lot of money. I don't see the benefit of increasing the risks still further.

Darrell

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Jeff:

I understand the glitches that you are pointing out. These are testimonial specifics and no less serious, especially to the patient. However, let us imagine setting a minimum level of care, which we can establish with malpractice legal precedent.

This minimum level of care would cost less, more, or about the same depending on your particular locality.

The cost of that minimum level of care can be declared or posted just like the ingredients in over the counter medications or oil that you add to your engine.

Would you then argue that insurance would cost less than paying cash/check/credit card?

If so, can you please give me an example?

Adam

Post script: South Florida...hmmmm it was not that way in the other Florida where I was. Without being personal can you cite a specific?

The difference between what the insurance companies pay and what is charged to an uninsured seems to be related to the ability of the insurance company to bargain down the prices, so your idea would not necessarily result in no difference being paid for the uninsured. It would be a good idea, but I don't think it would impact this particular aspect of the problem. That is to say, the insurance company could negotiate with the provider of services for a lower fee schedule than what was posted, unless legally the provider of services could not offer a lower rate than what was offered on the posted signs.

I've known several people who had to pay the medical bills in full because of insurance problems. The closest I've come to it personally was about a year ago, when my mother's doctor decided to do a full body PETscan in place of a series of CTscans and MRIs. It turned out that Medicare would not pay for it (apparently, Medicare does so only if cancer is present, which it was not in this case), so we got a call from the hospital asking us if we were ready to pay $14,000, or did we want to cancel the PETscan? Once we realized they seriously expected us to pay that much, we cancelled and went through with the MRIs/CTscans, for which Medicare probably paid what it would have paid for a single PETscan.

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Ahh, but you have not met Rahm, the enforcer, Emanuel's brother:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_J._Emanuel

Cancer Specialists' Support for Assisting Suicide, Euthanasia Drops By Half in Four Years

http://www.euthanasia.com/onco.html <<there are two charts in there.

Washington, DC -- A study published October 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that support for assisting suicide and euthanasia among oncologists (physicians specializing in cancer treatment) declined by more than half between 1994 and 1998, a drop the study authors attributed primarily to "expanding knowledge about how to facilitate a 'good death,' making euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide no longer seem necessary or desirable."

Oncologists, who reported that they could get their dying patients all necessary care were over four times less likely to have performed euthanasia, compared to those who reported that administrative, fiscal, and other barriers allowed them to provide only some of the care needed by their dying patients. Those who reported having sufficient time to talk to dying patients and those who believed they had received adequate training in end-of-life care were less likely to have performed euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. The study authors, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel and seven others, wrote that the date "end some support to [the] concern [that] inadequate access to palliative care might make euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide attractive alternatives."

The study, with 3,299 participants, founds 22.5% of oncologists supported physician-assisted suicide (PAS), compared with 45.5% in 1994. The shift was even more dramatic with regard to euthanasia (here understood to mean the doctor killing the patient, as by lethal injection, instead of providing the patient the means to commit suicide, as in PAS). Only 6.5% supported it, compared to 22.7% in 1994. Of doctors who had actually performed PAS (10.8%), 18% had done so five or more times. Additionally, 3.7% had performed euthanasia, 12% of whom had done so five or more times.

"The significant decline in cancer specialists who support euthanasia demonstrates that the answer to pro-euthanasia activism is not to legalize killing but to redouble efforts to improve care," said Burke J. Balch, J.D., director of NRLC's Department of Medical Ethics. "You don't solve problems by getting rid of the people who have them."

Maine voters will decide November 7 whether to join Oregon in legalizing assisting suicide. A bill now before the U.S. Senate, the Pain Relief Promotion Act (passed by the House in 1999) would end the use of federally controlled drugs to assist suicide, while implementing programs to improve pain relief as a positive alternative.

Source: National Right to Life Press Release; October 4, 2000

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In our society, most businesses of any consequence are INCORPORATED. A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government. This artificial person, empowered and protected by the government's force of arms, prevents anyone from receiving just compensation from the real individual actor, in the event of wrongful actions on the part of the real individual that is acting under color of the artificial person; society "as a whole" ends up bearing the cost for this.

I think your comments are really off the mark. Individuals can be and are held responsible for their actions. It is true that a CEO of a corporation cannot be sued every time an employee screws up, but that is only reasonable. It would be impossible to run a company if the CEO got sued for everything that went wrong. If the CEO is doing things himself that are really out of bounds, he can be and is held personally responsible. If he tries to use the corporation as a shield for illegal actions he can end up "piercing the corporate vale" and be held directly liable for any monetary losses.

Given our current legal climate of allowing people to sue for everything under the sun, it would be impossible to operate a business without some protection from liability for the corporate officers. If you owned a company with a thousand locations and every time someone slipped on the ice basic outside one of them you got sued personally and lost because you had a greater ability to pay than the person that slipped, you'd soon be broke. No one in their right mind would want to run a company under such conditions.

A corporation is like an insurance policy. If some crazy jury were to award the plaintiff that spilled hot coffee in her lap 10 million dollars (and the company wasn't McDonald's and only had three locations) the CEO could pay out what the company was worth and walk away with his personal property intact. Yes, he could buy an insurance policy, but what if it wasn't large enough? Or what if the insurance company refused to pay?

The current mess that we have with government propping up companies that are "too large to fail" has nothing to do with corporate liability. Why should a company owner have to risk losing his own personal property in order to run a company? In my view, corporate governance is generally pretty sound and it is mostly the financiers of the company that get hurt if things aren't being run properly anyway. I don't see how upping the ante would help anything. I have seriously considered buying several businesses or franchises but so far have been afraid to take the plunge due to the risk of losing a lot of money. I don't see the benefit of increasing the risks still further.

Darrell

You said, "I think your comments are really off the mark"

Let's see what comments you referred to:

1) "In our society, most businesses of any consequence are INCORPORATED." This is a statement of FACT. Do you object to this?

2) "A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government." This is a statement of FACT and LAW. Do you object to this?

3) "This artificial person, empowered and protected by the government's force of arms, prevents anyone from receiving just compensation from the real individual actor, in the event of wrongful actions on the part of the real individual that is acting under color of the artificial person; society "as a whole" ends up bearing the cost for this." This is merely a statement that a limited-liability corporation shields its OWNERS from from responsibility for actions performed UNDER THEIR AUTHORITY and FOR THEIR BENEFIT. This is a statement of FACT, LAW, and SOCIAL POLICY; touching back on the topic of social contract theory and quasi-contract liability that was discussed here a couple years ago. Is this what you object to?

Of course you don't. You just sense the anarchist implications of the words I chose (I won't hide behind the label "libertarian"). But you present no actual theoretical basis for objecting.

You misdirect to a discussion of CEO's (who are only corporate employees, not necessarily owners), and then give me a mishmash of pragmatist considerations of runaway jury awards. This latter, of course, only proves my (chicken-and-egg) point, that it is a direct result of quasi-governmental organizations (in this case, insurance corporations, a kind of bank), standing there, ready to be deep pockets, providing a virtually unlimited source of fiat cash with no value behind it, creating steep market distortions in first, court case precedents, then in regular court cases, then in malpractice insurance, then in medical fees, then in health insurance, then in health cost displacement, step-by-step, as would be readily apparent to anyone understanding even a smattering of basic monetarist price theory. (And all the while, these insurance companies are operating at a PROFIT, which says that the actual cost of the medical-care chain, without the insurance companies' particular cut, is actually affordable to the other companies and individuals in society.) Are you saying this is not what has occurred?

And as for the liability issue, that $10 million case could never have occurred without court precedents and someone with deep pockets. But if you create what is known as an "attractive nuisance" that causes harm to someone, you are and ought to be responsible for rectifying the harm you contributed to. Why should someone who is hurt by such, lose his right to justice simply because the ownership of the attractive nuisance is transferred from a natural individual to a fictitious one? Why should the liability be less than, or more than, a just solution? Fake people and fake money are what makes this type of injustice possible.

Then there's "too big to fail', and your own non-entrepeneurial risk aversion. Additional cases of displaced risk. Fake risk assessments. Fake risk assignments.

Solution? Stop faking. You disagree with that?

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In a truly free market, individuals, all common producers, are responsible for the results of their own actions. If there are unacceptable risks or consequences, the individuals can pool their risks or else forego their planned actions (viz-à-viz Lloyds of London or other such privately syndicated enterprises).

What about people who provide capital to a business, via bonds or stocks, but otherwise take no part in running the business? Suppose the following. Steve Gagne owns, say, 25% of the shares of a corporation. This corporation is found guilty in a lawsuit and the penalty far exceeds the corporation's ability to pay. Should those who sued or the court be entitled to lay claim to Steve Gagne's other assets (retirement and bank accounts, etc.)?

By the way, Lloyd's of London includes corporate members with limited liability.

A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government.

This is true of some corporations (e.g. Fannie, Freddie, PBGC), but false for most. The latter are recognized as a legal entity, but not created, by government. Recognition is not creation.

Please note that all of these inflationary items are being financed by RUNAWAY INSURANCE CORPORATIONS, who only submit to regulation that is minimal in relation to the amount of cost or damage they have inflicted on our society.

... it is a direct result of quasi-governmental organizations (in this case, insurance corporations, a kind of bank), standing there, ready to be deep pockets, providing a virtually unlimited source of fiat cash ...

An insurance company cannot inflate the money supply like a bank can. A bank can add to the money supply with mere accounting entries; an insurance company can't.

But what is really needed to restore the free market in healthcare is to outlaw health and malpractice insurance.

Since when does this sort of government intervention mean "free market"? A free market in health and malpractice insurance would be governments not regulating it (other than to rectify or prevent fraud), not abolishing it.

Edited by Merlin Jetton
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Steve:

Are you familiar with the common law principle of equity?

Adam

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  • 3 months later...

In a truly free market, individuals, all common producers, are responsible for the results of their own actions. If there are unacceptable risks or consequences, the individuals can pool their risks or else forego their planned actions (viz-à-viz Lloyds of London or other such privately syndicated enterprises).

What about people who provide capital to a business, via bonds or stocks, but otherwise take no part in running the business? Suppose the following. Steve Gagne owns, say, 25% of the shares of a corporation. This corporation is found guilty in a lawsuit and the penalty far exceeds the corporation's ability to pay. Should those who sued or the court be entitled to lay claim to Steve Gagne's other assets (retirement and bank accounts, etc.)?

By the way, Lloyd's of London includes corporate members with limited liability.

OK, Merlin, there is more than one point we need to sort out here here. I am trying to draw a distinction between figuring out the facts relevant to the ethical implications of one's actions, versus accepting things as they are at face value.

As far as the use of stocks and bonds, it requires the pre-existence of the business form of the corporation for these instruments to be in use. Historically, the original corporations in common law were formed by grants of royal charters, and operated under the rules dictated to them by the royal grantor. Children of the state. With the advent of the modern nation-state, these grants came to be granted by duly constituted civil authorities, and are protected by the force of the state, moreso than are individuals or truly private associations. I am not advocating for this, merely stating facts.

If a sole proprietor or a partner in a directly-owned business encounters the lawsuit you mentioned above, what happens? The owners lose their shirts. If I am the owner, I am the one who loses my shirt (retirement and bank accounts, etc.). This is the nature of personal responsibility, of accepting the consequences of one's actions and of the actions one makes possible. If, however, the ownership is covered in the convenenient legal fiction of "an artificial person" (a corporation), suddenly he is shielded from his personal responsibility, and the consequences are borne, not by the owner, the one who made the inequity possible, but by the society-in-general (i.e., parties who weren't even involved in the particular incidents to begin with) and, since he can't receive payment-in-full from the owner, by the victim himself!

Further, present-day excessive jury awards have come about due to findings in legal precedents, i.e., similar, earlier cases where outlandish awards were made, and then upheld upon appeal because there was someone there -the insurance companies- who were able to actually pay the awards. So these awards are a market distortion based on the presence and behaviour of the insurance companies.

Note your comment about Lloyd's membership is not really relevant. It didn't stop them from going broke in the 90's, and the individual members lost their shirts!

A corporation is an "artificial" person, a CREATURE OF THE STATE, created as a parnership between real individuals and our supposed protector of individual rights, the government.

This is true of some corporations (e.g. Fannie, Freddie, PBGC), but false for most. The latter are recognized as a legal entity, but not created, by government. Recognition is not creation.

See my comment above regarding the historic source of "corporations". Without the necessary ingredient of government, there is no such thing as a corporation.

Further, as I pointed out under the comments on personal responsibility above, the property rights of the corporations and their owners are treated as superior to the property rights of the rest of the members of society in general, as well as the property rights of those victimized by the corporations; the non-owners of the corporation are prohibited by law and public policy from using the force of law in equity to protect themselves against corporate owners, in the way they can against the sole proprietor or general partner in a non-incorporated business, or against any other private individual.

I have to call a spade a spade here. That is one of the fundamentals of fascism.

Please note that all of these inflationary items are being financed by RUNAWAY INSURANCE CORPORATIONS, who only submit to regulation that is minimal in relation to the amount of cost or damage they have inflicted on our society.

... it is a direct result of quasi-governmental organizations (in this case, insurance corporations, a kind of bank), standing there, ready to be deep pockets, providing a virtually unlimited source of fiat cash ...

An insurance company cannot inflate the money supply like a bank can. A bank can add to the money supply with mere accounting entries; an insurance company can't.

An insurance company is just another specie of bank. They manipulate money, and nothing else, for purpose of sequestering a certain amount of wealth from a market. Ultimately as useful and as ethical as trading equities backed by sub-prime mortgages. And besides the mutuals, just who do you think made a market for those derivatives?

But what is really needed to restore the free market in healthcare is to outlaw health and malpractice insurance.

Since when does this sort of government intervention mean "free market"? A free market in health and malpractice insurance would be governments not regulating it (other than to rectify or prevent fraud), not abolishing it.

My original comment wasn't that the Pelosi-Reid Communization of American Healthcare bill would restore a free market, it was that it would make obvious the collectivist system that has really been in place since WW II, and was reinforced by federal law in 1945, which has protected the insurance industry as a fascistic, government-mandated oligopoly since then. A free market in health care cannot include that.

What I advocated was that, rather than tinker with the system (as all the health care plans do), look at the cycle of the malady, which I have outlined elsewhere:

1) Too much money available for malpractice lawsuits.

2) Too high awards in legal precedent cases.

3) Failure to appeal excessive jury awards.

4) Too high payouts by insurance companies.

5) Too high corresponding malpractice premiums.

6) Doctor bills too high to pay malpractice premiums.

7) Health insurance goes up too high.

8) Reimbursements to doctors go down.

9) Catch-up health costs go up too high.

10) Sue the damn doctors to get your money back.

11) Start all over.

In most cases, the malefactors are the short-term greed, laziness, and incompetence of the insurance companies and the lawyers. Their employees would all make good government welfare bureaucrats. But really, not much else. So either start calling 'em all what they are, or fire the whole lot of them & abolish the insurance corporations!

Edited by Steve Gagne
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My original comment wasn't that the Pelosi-Reid Communization of American Healthcare bill would restore a free market, it was that it would make obvious the collectivist system that has really been in place since WW II, and was reinforced by federal law in 1945, which has protected the insurance industry as a fascistic, government-mandated oligopoly since then. A free market in health care cannot include that.

What I advocated was that, rather than tinker with the system (as all the health care plans do), look at the cycle of the malady, which I have outlined elsewhere:

1) Too much money available for malpractice lawsuits.

2) Too high awards in legal precedent cases.

3) Failure to appeal excessive jury awards.

4) Too high payouts by insurance companies.

5) Too high corresponding malpractice premiums.

6) Doctor bills too high to pay malpractice premiums.

7) Health insurance goes up too high.

8) Reimbursements to doctors go down.

9) Catch-up health costs go up too high.

10) Sue the damn doctors to get your money back.

11) Start all over.

In most cases, the malefactors are the short-term greed, laziness, and incompetence of the insurance companies and the lawyers. Their employees would all make good government welfare bureaucrats. But really, not much else. So either start calling 'em all what they are, or fire the whole lot of them & abolish the insurance corporations!

There are a number of errors in your post--you seem to totally misunderstand the nature of corporations and insurance companies, for one thing--but I want to focus on the part that's immediately relevant to health care.

The idea that malpractice premiums and malpractice suits and lawyers are important factors in the cost of health care is totally wrong. They do have an impact, but not that much of an impact. And to blame "defensive medicine" is laughable. The correct term for "defensive medicine" is "the doctor doing what the doctor should be doing even if he wasn't concerned with malpractice". The essential component of malpractice is after all, malpractice--the doctor not doing things that should be reasonably done--negligence, in legalese.

What is driving health care up is a combination of technology (in particular, the high costs related thereto) and the impossibility to compare pricing in any rational way.

For instance, a basic colonoscopy--which every person over a certain age should have every so many years to screen for cancer--costs, once the various lab and doctor bills are totalled in, about $3000 or more (at least in my area); but it's not possible to find out what the costs are, or how much a patient would actually be billed if he or she lacked insurance, until after the procedure. Sometimes well after. (My most recent colonoscopy was almost a year ago, and I still am waiting for a couple of bills to come in for it.) How many people have that amount of money handy every few years, if they don't have access to insurance? And how practicable is it to shop around for the best price if you are paying on your own--if your doctor even lets you pick the facility (mine doesn't)? And that's for things which you can plan for well in advance. Emergencies, of course, you are almost totally at the whim of whatever hospital the ambulance delivers you to.

Essential fact: because of technology, standard medicine is now too expensive for most people to afford on their own.

Essential fact: most people in our society don't accept that it's moral to give people "second-best" medicine simply because they can't afford it, and to give other people "first-rate" medicine simply because they can afford it.

Therefore, any health care "reform" has to include the capability of giving everyone "first rate" medicine (including the expensive technologies) if it is to be politically viable.

Jeff S.

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My original comment wasn't that the Pelosi-Reid Communization of American Healthcare bill would restore a free market, it was that it would make obvious the collectivist system that has really been in place since WW II, and was reinforced by federal law in 1945, which has protected the insurance industry as a fascistic, government-mandated oligopoly since then. A free market in health care cannot include that.

What I advocated was that, rather than tinker with the system (as all the health care plans do), look at the cycle of the malady, which I have outlined elsewhere:

1) Too much money available for malpractice lawsuits.

2) Too high awards in legal precedent cases.

3) Failure to appeal excessive jury awards.

4) Too high payouts by insurance companies.

5) Too high corresponding malpractice premiums.

6) Doctor bills too high to pay malpractice premiums.

7) Health insurance goes up too high.

8) Reimbursements to doctors go down.

9) Catch-up health costs go up too high.

10) Sue the damn doctors to get your money back.

11) Start all over.

In most cases, the malefactors are the short-term greed, laziness, and incompetence of the insurance companies and the lawyers. Their employees would all make good government welfare bureaucrats. But really, not much else. So either start calling 'em all what they are, or fire the whole lot of them & abolish the insurance corporations!

There are a number of errors in your post--you seem to totally misunderstand the nature of corporations and insurance companies, for one thing--but I want to focus on the part that's immediately relevant to health care.

The idea that malpractice premiums and malpractice suits and lawyers are important factors in the cost of health care is totally wrong. They do have an impact, but not that much of an impact. And to blame "defensive medicine" is laughable. The correct term for "defensive medicine" is "the doctor doing what the doctor should be doing even if he wasn't concerned with malpractice". The essential component of malpractice is after all, malpractice--the doctor not doing things that should be reasonably done--negligence, in legalese.

What is driving health care up is a combination of technology (in particular, the high costs related thereto) and the impossibility to compare pricing in any rational way.

For instance, a basic colonoscopy--which every person over a certain age should have every so many years to screen for cancer--costs, once the various lab and doctor bills are totalled in, about $3000 or more (at least in my area); but it's not possible to find out what the costs are, or how much a patient would actually be billed if he or she lacked insurance, until after the procedure. Sometimes well after. (My most recent colonoscopy was almost a year ago, and I still am waiting for a couple of bills to come in for it.) How many people have that amount of money handy every few years, if they don't have access to insurance? And how practicable is it to shop around for the best price if you are paying on your own--if your doctor even lets you pick the facility (mine doesn't)? And that's for things which you can plan for well in advance. Emergencies, of course, you are almost totally at the whim of whatever hospital the ambulance delivers you to.

Essential fact: because of technology, standard medicine is now too expensive for most people to afford on their own.

Essential fact: most people in our society don't accept that it's moral to give people "second-best" medicine simply because they can't afford it, and to give other people "first-rate" medicine simply because they can afford it.

Therefore, any health care "reform" has to include the capability of giving everyone "first rate" medicine (including the expensive technologies) if it is to be politically viable.

Jeff S.

Essential fact [THE ESSENTIAL FACT]: Government involvement directly and indirectly and government money makes health care so expensive. This is also true of education and all such boondoggles. Prices expand to sop up the money. Government involvement also makes medicine comparatively primitive to what it would otherwise be.

--Brant

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