Before insurance, there were also voluntary mutual aid societies, often formed on ethnic or religious grounds, which would pool the members' payments, and then cover their medical expenses. Then the power elites, like John D. Rockefeller, saw a buck to be made, and had the government outlaw mutual aid societies. http://www.corbettreport.com/rockefeller...

I didn't mean to imply kids. Young and old, we've conditioned two full generations of people that they do not need to work. Someone else will take care of you if you cannot or will not do so.

Brats are out there, but I resist the urge to say "kids today" are the problem. People have been saying that since ancient times.

This is what the entitlement mindset has gotten us. Remember the 99 percenters and their demands for income equality? We've bred a generation or two of spoiled brats, and it's all about them.

"My employer has informed insurance premiums have gone up a total of 65% since Establishment Care got passed. "
My were going to double last year. I managed to stay on the a non-compliant plan for this year. My agent said they'd be doubling next year. But they changed the rules, now, so I only need to go on a partially compliant plan next year, resulting in a 25% increase, not 100%. It's such nonsense.

Most people want insurance rules that allow people who are already sick to get "insurance" coverage, but those same people indignantly want it to be free.

Holy excrement!

My employer has informed insurance premiums have gone up a total of 65% since Establishment Care got passed.

It's called Christian Care Ministries. It's one of several faith-based expense-sharing organizations that may exist under a little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act. As long as they "share" expenses for the kinds of things a standard ACA-compliant insurance policy covers, they may operate.

Of course what they do, which insurers never do, is advise people on how to avoid certain kinds of expenses to begin with.

Can you tell us more?

Jan, Research is not encouraged by eliminating property rights. Of course you can get a patent on an antibiotic and gene if it is made by a human.

Limiting antibiotics does not work, cannot work because of evolution and is the same sort of thinking that results in suggesting we need to conserve oil or use "renewable" energy.

Obamacare is just a pathetic attempt to avoid reality and math. It wont work any more than going out to dinner with 10 friends, having everyone pitch in $5 and then ordering a lobster dinner will work.

Limiting access to the newest, strongest antibiotics is how this has successfully been combated.

How often have you gone to the doctor with a 'sore throat' and have been given a prescription for an antibiotic to take away with you? In only a few cases (Beta Strep) does the doctor actually know what is wrong with you (virus vs bacterium) at that point. (And even then, he does not know what antibiotic the organism is susceptible to - he guesses.) In many cases, you have a virus - against which the antibiotic does no good (though it will stop a secondary infection; this is not considered good medical practice without extenuating circumstances).

The high potency, newer, antibiotics are not available to these doctors to prescribe. So although the bacteria are becoming resistant to the everyday antibiotics, we still have something locked away to use against the really bad cases.

You CAN patent an antibiotic; you cannot patent a gene. (I was personally in favor of a limited time patent on a gene, just to encourage bioresearch.). I think you are correct long term, but I also think that until new remedies (which will probably not be antibiotics at all) are in the pipeline we really really need to keep our big antibiotic guns in a place where they can jump out and yell "Surprize! Blam!" at the MRSA they are targeting.

Jan

But Jan, locking up the antibiotics does not stop the process. It is not a solution, we will end up back in the 1930s unless we invent. The answer is inventing, not rationing.

In today's world we should be able to sequence the bacteria in a couple of days and then create a well targeted antibiotic. But the FDA would not allow this and the Supreme Court has said you cannot have a property right in this sort of invention, so no one is going to invest in this.

Ah Ha! I see it now, the Progressive Lie has been told again, and again, an amazing number of the herd of stupid humans believed it.
Its just like the zero down, Adjustable Rate Mortgages featured in the Carter, Clinton, and G.W. Bush advertisements until the bottom fell out in 2006-7.

You may be correct about the credentials. I could see a universe where the doctor advertises that he is an "AMA MD"... or does not! It would make it an easier transition from our current system if transparency of your credentials (or lack thereof) were a requirement for medical providers.

Antibiotic resistance follows the rules of all evolution. If you are prescribed 2 weeks worth of an antibiotic but only take it for 10 days (because now you are all better) then you have probably created a population of bacteria which are the 2% not yet dead which are 'more resistant' to that antibiotic than your original infection was. This process, repeated over the years, results in resistant populations. The availability of penicillin (military and black market) in Vietnam to combat GC infections is what resulted in most GC now being immune to the use of penicillin.

I agree that we need to continue to pour on the gas to create more antibiotics (and other remedies for infections) but I do think there needs to be a locked safe where the really big good stuff is kept. Because in a world where MRSA and ESBL have no counter measures...we are back in the 1930's again.

Jan, who has just been discussing our WHONet export with a doctor in Ghana.

TRUE STORY:

I wen't to have a biometric exam to satisfy our health care coverage through my wifes hospital ($900 bump into our health savings account). After typical BMI measurement (BS), weight, and height the woman told me that ALL of my tests from the previous year looked perfectly fine and that I was above my ideal BMI, aka I'm fat (my words).

Now, I could have saved everyone a lot of time and money (test, exams, etc) and just told them I was healthy but fat - but what do I know, I just won this body.

You want to understand why costs are soaring - this is a great example.

There a number of very nice spots in Mexico. Most the ex-pats we meet feel that they are freer in MX on a day to day basis.

Jan, I disagree about antibiotics. The argument for antibiotics is that bacteria evolves and that rationing will slow down this process. Note this will not stop evolution and therefore is not a solution. Our goal should not be to ration antibiotics, which leads to people who need these drugs being denied them and pushes up the cost. The goal should be to invent faster than the bacteria can evolve. The FDA has shot down a number of promising antibiotics and the cost and time it takes to get through the FDA is why we are not out inventing bacteria's ability to evolve.

I disagree about credentials. The free market will provide these sort of solutions for those who care. Getting the government involved will only cause problems. We buy many things that are as complex or more complex than medical care everyday without have government credentials or oversight.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

I am still in the US for now. I am in New Mexico, not Mexico. My parents moved to Belize in February this year and are enjoying the lifestyle down there. I will probably head that way in about 2-3 years but am trying to attain debt free status first.

Dansail - One of the things that people do not take into account is that, prior to the 1940's, doctors were not the miracle workers they are today. There was a limited amount of healing that a doctor could do: set a bone, lance a cyst, amputate a limb. The cost of going to the doctor reflected that.

Now. Doctors can reprogram your genetics. Doctors can perform (or conduct) operations on the near-cellular level. Medicine can see through your body and into your metabolism in a half-dozen different ways. And the cost of this tremendous increase in the scope of medicine is reflected in the cost.

Comparing pre-antibiotic, pre-medical-technologial medicine to our current abilities is like comparing a stick of dynamite to a Saturn rocket. And likewise the cost.

Jan

Jimslag - If you are outside of the US, you are in an exception zone for Obamacare. You can then _actually_ keep your current insurance. (I was thinking about this. Pity that Mexico is so 'not the place to go' right now.)

Jan

I would only add that when you eliminate the licensing requirement for doctors, you replace it with a requirement for transparency: the 'doctor' has to publish (as in 'in the waiting room') what his credentials actually are. Perhaps you can also limit the titles of "Dr" and "MD" and "DO" to certain credential levels. (While many health care tasks can be done well by people without MD level certs - as is shown in the military - you do want to know what you are getting into. Snake oil pseudo-doctors will be rife, and they will wear good suits.)

Some sort of control is needed on the prescribing of n-th generation antibiotics. I wonder if a separate certification (one that is real difficult to pass) should be required in order to prescribe antibiotics. (I suspect that many MD's would not pass.) While I am not quivering in terror over the current Ebola problem, I am aware that we are growing our own antibiotic-resistant plague in the crockpot of the world.

Jan

Health insurance is the primary source of the problem, not the solution. It prevents the normal free market feedback that limits costs.

TANSTAAFL!