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Another American Health Care Horror Story


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#1 diogenes227

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Posted 12 August 2018 - 03:40 PM


"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me because I'd like to hear it again," Groucho Marx (on market history?).

“I've learned in options trading simple is best and the obvious is often the most elusive to recognize.”

 

"The god of trading rewards persistence, experience and discipline, and absolutely nothing else."


#2 CLK

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Posted 12 August 2018 - 04:40 PM

https://www.huffingt...ecd_a_23426460/

 

 

The tax rates stay low in Canada up to 41k, 15% vs. 25% here. 

 

How do you change a system without crashing it ? How do you tell big pharma and the Med schools they are going to

take a 50% drop in revenue ?



#3 Rich C

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Posted 12 August 2018 - 07:03 PM

The problem with addressing healthcare costs is that Obamacare started on the wrong end of the horse.  It started on "how to insure people" without affecting the underlying cost of the services that insurance was paying for (ok, it did a little on the medicare side).  That is not to say the repubs have any better solution, they have the whole congress and the WH and they have wiffed so far (we're going to have some cheaper policies, but they will cover much less, not a good solution if you get a non-covered condition).

 

Why don't we make any progress?  Two full time lobbyists in DC for every member of congress.  Congress is corrupt and owned by the healthcare lobby.  After the repubs passed Medicare Part D in 2003, Rep. Billy Tauzin (D) La. was hired in a lucrative deal by the pharma lobby, legal corruption.

 Billy Tauzin resigned from Congress in February 2004. In January 2005, the day after his term in Congress ended, he began work as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA.[2] a powerful trade group for pharmaceutical companies. Tauzin was hired at a salary outsiders estimated at $2 million a year. Five years later, he announced his retirement from the association (as of the end of June 2010).[3]

Two months before resigning as chair of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees the drug industry, Tauzin had played a key role in shepherding through Congress the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. Democrats said that the bill was "a give-away to the drugmakers" because it prohibited the government from negotiating lower drug prices and bans the importation of identical, cheaper, drugs from Canada and elsewhere. The Veterans Affairs agency, which can negotiate drug prices, pays much less than Medicare does. The bill was passed in an unusual congressional session at 3 a.m. under heavy pressure from the drug companies.[4][5]

As head of PhRMA, Tauzin was a key player in 2009 health care reform negotiations that produced pharmaceutical industry support for White House and Senate efforts.[6]

Tauzin received $11.6 million from PhRMA in 2010, making him the highest-paid health-law lobbyist.

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Billy_Tauzin

 

Big pharma, health insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, and the hospitals all pay players in both parties, so they are all bought off.  Trump has talked about bringing down drug costs.  See any progress there?  I didn't think so....

 

Until the big money that is legally given to these politicians is taken out, I don't have much hope.  We are going to be lied to and led down the primrose path, over and over, like we have for the last 50 years.  And I don't see the big corporate money coming out of politics, on the heels of "Citizens United".  Or until the world stops taking US dollars as the world reserve currency because it is obvious we have become just another banana republic with trillions of debt that our only hope of servicing is to monetize it, which is when our hard earned savings will be taken from us by the govt.

 

I know, I'm a bundle of joy. 


Edited by Rich C, 12 August 2018 - 07:10 PM.

Blogging at http://RichInvesting.wordpress.com

 

My swing trades typically last a couple of weeks to a couple of months. 


#4 CLK

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Posted 12 August 2018 - 07:50 PM

Nothing but bribery, this nation is as corrupt as they come.



#5 CLK

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Posted 12 August 2018 - 08:02 PM

It's one thing to plead your case, totally different if result goes to the highest bidder.

 

 

http://thehill.com/b...s-lobbying-laws



#6 colion

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Posted 13 August 2018 - 04:56 PM

Obamacare is not universal healthcare insurance.  The road to such insurance is through repealing Obamacare to a market driven system that 'works' for the U.S.



#7 colion

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Posted 13 August 2018 - 05:05 PM

 

 

"Big pharma, health insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, and the hospitals all pay players in both parties, so they are all bought off."

 

One aspect of the problem with drug cost is that many foreign countries require a relatively low cost.  As a result, pharmaceutical companies make up the developmental shortfall by charging U.S. citizens more even though through tax breaks the country has contributed to drug R&D.  IMO, this is under the table foreign aid.  A number of years ago, a bill was proposed in the House (don't remember the author) that set a limit for drugs sold in the U.S. to the average of the price paid by the top 6 industrial countries.  This approach has merit but it never made it to the floor for a vote due to lobbying efforts.



#8 CLK

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Posted 13 August 2018 - 05:18 PM

Is it safe to say then that, unless you are in the top 10%, a US citizen is far poorer than those in most other countries ?


Edited by CLK, 13 August 2018 - 05:19 PM.


#9 diogenes227

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Posted 14 August 2018 - 09:47 AM

Is it safe to say then that, unless you are in the top 10%, a US citizen is far poorer than those in most other countries ?

 

Not sure that's safe to say, but the Trump Administration is working on it.

 


"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me because I'd like to hear it again," Groucho Marx (on market history?).

“I've learned in options trading simple is best and the obvious is often the most elusive to recognize.”

 

"The god of trading rewards persistence, experience and discipline, and absolutely nothing else."


#10 diogenes227

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Posted 06 December 2018 - 10:56 AM


"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me because I'd like to hear it again," Groucho Marx (on market history?).

“I've learned in options trading simple is best and the obvious is often the most elusive to recognize.”

 

"The god of trading rewards persistence, experience and discipline, and absolutely nothing else."