Where is the US economy headed?

If you wish cost containment the only way is to get the damn insurance companies out of the loop.

We have the most expense system in the world now and changing over to a one payer system would greatly reduce the cost.

Overhead (skimming by the profiteers) is only part of the problem....lack of preventative care, over caring (unneeded procedures and drug dispensing, especially at the end of life), the massive costs for technology and the robbery committed by the drug companies enabled by our broken patent law all need to be dealt with as well.

Re end of life care: My grandpa got Medicare to do a double knee replacement on him even though he was in frail health and had not walked in two years. It was obvious to us and to most doctors that he went to that his legs and his overall health were too poor to ever be able to do the rehab and use these new knees. But he found a quack to do it. We paid for a double replacement and rehab that he almost never went to, plus nursing home care for three months (we, the taxpayers). He never walked, and because he had this done he had triple the knee pain he had before the procedure till the end of life....the next year.


My mom burned though $100k of cancer care in her last 5 months, even though the medical opinion was that the cancer had spread too far to do much about. My mom could not live with herself unless she did everything she could to try to stay alive. Uncle Sam was willing to pay to keep her delusion alive. End result; diminished quality of life, because of the Chemo and radiation she lost a couple of usable months...once she started on her medicare funded medical odyssey the rest of her days were filled with fatigue and pain.

My sympathies to you, hawkeye. Did they have Hospice care near the end? I think Medicare will provide that with a doctor's Certification that life is limited to a short time. I believe it is a very good program.

Based upon my recent experiences, it is insurance companies that are providing much of the cost containment. Face it, Central Planning or single payer has never worked well for running anything efficiently, Bill.

I think you are focused on the wrong things.

Oh and the fact that all the studies that indicate that single payer systems work far better then our current system at a far cheaper cost should be overlook?

Hell the fact that companies now run bus tours for old people to go into Canada/Mexico in order to get far cheaper drugs should be overlook?

That medical tourism is happening where US citizens are going as far away from home as China should be overlook for cheaper but state of the art health care?

Has Obama ever talked about growing the private sector economy?

And I think you are focussed on the wrong things and don't dare focus on what I think are the right things. You're in soft furnishings. The decor on the structure and not the structure.

Have you a book in your line to rival The Organisation Man, The Theory of the Leisure Class or Anti-Intellectualism in America. For lasting relevance I mean. And I could name a fair number that deal with the structure.

The fact that nobody gave a damn about the IMF chief committing adultery whereas 50 years ago that would have been the main lip-purser. That's a structural, scientific fact peer-reviewed by millions. That one voice only reached as far as it could shout not long back and now it can reach billions. Live. With no heckling. What does that fact tell you about the priorities when writing the speech? No wonder it's meaningless jargon when it's delivered. It has to play good from sea to shining sea. Across continents when it is required to rise above the provincial.

The difficulties you are wrestling with, besides being easy, are inevitable given the structures. They will all be forgotten in a few years.

You're strong on meaningless diversions that lay no solid foundation for the structure you are building.

A couple of questions for you spurt.

Do you think the Obama stimulus created any new jobs?
Do you think repeating anything in that stimulus will create jobs?

Structures are complex. One aspect of them is how on earth an expensive full time education over many years can result in you thinking that statement means anything and, by extension, everyone else who went through the same mill thinking that similar assertions are anything more than hot air.

How come industrial efficiency reached such perfection that all the women had to go out to "work" and hold down "jobs". One might be forgiven for thinking that industrial efficiency would result in less work. What % of jobs do you think can be classed as a sub-division of the entertainment industry? Or, as some say, "treatment in the community".

This is a private sector retiree who was high up in the insurance industry who has a few things to say about how well the insurance industry is doing.

This man said that he commuted in a private jet and was served meals on gold trim plates using gold plated utensils.

That's bugger all rl. Lady Docker had a gold toilet seat on his Lordship's yacht and Poppea Sabina had gold soled slippers which wore out in a few days and required thousands of slaves to work in mines to get her cobbler new materials. She also had 500 asses to provide the milk for her baths which gave her epidermis the lustre than Nero went mad for.

Your guy is an amateur at conspicuous consumption. Lower middle class actually. With an obvious feminine susceptibility.

Please explain how you came to this logical conclusion.

I did. In three lines with two explanatory examples which isn't bad for a logical demo. I could have mentioned Madame de Pompadour and a number of others.

That explains this? If your corporate jet happens to serve its members on that type of setting. He did not say that it was at his request!





If that is what he is what are you and I?

I don't know about you rl but I'm a shagged out old has-been. Which is very amusing actually.

I posted this on the Obama 08 thread; but it's relevant here too.

Turns out that Americans really, really like the ideas Obama has proposed regarding job creation - and how to pay for it.





Even self-identified Republicans support these ideas...



The GOP can certainly block this, but that will be difficult for them heading into an election year.

Cycloptichorn

The vast majority of Americans want Obama ousted in 2012 and his policies reversed ASAP.