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2 hours ago, Sack that QB said:

But people say they're greedy. Sure, they can be Ds and deny things that people need, but their profit margin isn't like 50%. They profit less than most American companies. Yet everyone wants to blame insurance companies and call them greedy.

Huge insurance companies are nothing like your typical small business.  C’mon man.  They don’t really make money off premiums.

 

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1 minute ago, Bill said:

So I looked at some concierge docs in my area and it’s… surprisingly not expensive. 

Yeah, a LOT more doctors have started to offer it. Focus on the following:

- How many patients do they take on and how responsive are they? Some of them still make you work through people to schedule appointments. The good ones limit the number of patients and give you all their contact info. If I text my guy, he responds. If I am sick, he sees me within 24 hours.

- Check where he/she has privileges. My guy is both Cedars Sinai and UCLA. 

- Most importantly -- who does he/she know? You're really paying to jump the line on specialists. When I suddenly lost hearing in my left ear, my guy got me into the best ENT at Cedars in a day. Without that help, it would have been at least 3 months and I'd have lost my hearing in my left ear.

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

Yeah, a LOT more doctors have started to offer it. Focus on the following:

- How many patients do they take on and how responsive are they? Some of them still make you work through people to schedule appointments. The good ones limit the number of patients and give you all their contact info. If I text my guy, he responds. If I am sick, he sees me within 24 hours.

- Check where he/she has privileges. My guy is both Cedars Sinai and UCLA. 

- Most importantly -- who does he/she know? You're really paying to jump the line on specialists. When I suddenly lost hearing in my left ear, my guy got me into the best ENT at Cedars in a day. Without that help, it would have been at least 3 months and I'd have lost my hearing in my left ear.

BUT HOW DOS A TALKING TREE HELP YOUR HEARING HE STICK A TWIG IN THEIR

4 minutes ago, BBE said:

Did you just acknowledge the need for multivariate analysis while at the same time insisting you are right because you attended medical school? All while ignoring comments related to sample population. 

That is a new one...an appeal to self authority. 

It appears you are a practicing MD.  How much basic medical research have you done?

:lol: you're the one who pulled the "better trained" card dumb ass. "Self authority" gtfoh. 

And I didn't acknowledge that at all. I pointed out that the comorbidity with, by far, the largest difference between the 2 populations doesn't even come close to closing the gap between outcomes in those 2 populations. Adding several (much) smaller variables isn't going to get you close to the numbers you're trying to get.  It's pretty simple. Pretending the dataset has to be perfectly normalized to make up an 8 fold difference in outcome rate is just silly. 

2 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

:lol: you're the one who pulled the "better trained" card dumb ass. "Self authority" gtfoh. 

And I didn't acknowledge that at all. I pointed out that the comorbidity with, by far, the largest difference between the 2 populations doesn't even come close to closing the gap between outcomes in those 2 populations. Adding several (much) smaller variables isn't going to get you close to the numbers you're trying to get.  It's pretty simple. Pretending the dataset has to be perfectly normalized to make up an 8 fold difference in outcome rate is just silly. 

And once again, you are talking with no evidence.  And you continually display a lack of knowledge of important statistical principles that must be employed to make the conclusions you have, specifically the effects of population demographics and the presence of multiple confounding variables. 

2 hours ago, vikas83 said:

You need to stop asking a zebra to change its stripes. For profit companies with shareholders (public or private) will look to maximize returns for those shareholders. This is true of insurance companies, hospitals (the for profit ones) and physician groups. They aren't going to say "but this is an essential service, so we need to make less." It's the same as when that dullard AOC demanded Jamie Dimon agree that JPM wouldn't make loans to fossil fuel companies -- JPM is going to maximize profits. He should have told that moron -- "you're in Congress, pass a law making lending to fossil fuel companies illegal and we'll follow it."

The Democratic Party has pulled a magic trick where they get voters mad at corporations to cover for the politicians' failures to deliver on promises. Corporations aren't complicated -- they maximize shareholder value. If they don't, someone like me buys a block of stock, runs a proxy fight, takes over the board and fires management. If UNH decided to start making less money, or losing money, to approve more claims, the management would be ousted quickly. 

If we want HC treated as an essential good with no profit motivation, take it out of private hands and accept the outcomes.

People are cool with insurance companies making a profit. But not too much. How much is too much? What should be covered and what shouldn't be? Where is the line drawn? People seem to be cool living in a country driven by profit motives but only on certain respects. If people hate the US healthcare system, that's fine. I'm not a huge fan of it either, though I do think it has its positives. But if those people can't even admit that it's a problem with equal shares of the blame and it's not all the insurance companies, then they either being disingenuous or have an agenda.

"It's gross people profit off of illness and death!" - ok, take it up with Uncle Sam. Not "Brian Thompson"

15 minutes ago, Bill said:

Hey, I could get a good look at a t-bone by sticking my head up a bull’s a**, but I’d rather take the butcher’s word for it. 

You could, but statistical analysis is not the sole purvey of MD's.  

I would not even attempt to impune his ability to diagnose or design a treatment plan. However, his statistical methodology does need some work.

3 minutes ago, BBE said:

You could, but statistical analysis is not the sole purvey of MD's.  

I would not even attempt to impune his ability to diagnose or design a treatment plan. However, his statistical methodology does need some work.

Well, since we know his self-authority, what’s yours?

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

Eh...those don't exactly work well. See PG&E bankruptcy.

EDIT: Also, no one has ever complained about the gas, electric or water bills to my knowledge...

Didn’t say that the utility model was a perfect solution, just offering another model between "privatized and all about the profits” and "non-profit”. 

PhD in Biomedical Sciences from a College of Medicine.

Which can be verified by someone posting in this very thread.

2 hours ago, DEagle7 said:

Eh I see it as more likely than Medicare for all getting accepted regardless of how people feel about one or the other. Pharmaceutical and insurance lobbyists are pretty powerful players.

We're already kind of making that bifurcation with coneirge doctors. Albeit on a much smaller scale. 

Curious if you feel that the average cost charged by the healthcare system for actual medical care (not what the insurance costs or pays, but the care itself) is overpriced/underpriced/just right? 

14 minutes ago, BBE said:

And once again, you are talking with no evidence.  And you continually display a lack of knowledge of important statistical principles that must be employed to make the conclusions you have, specifically the effects of population demographics and the presence of multiple confounding variables. 

And you've presented zero evidence to refute me. Hell you haven't even presented any raw data. You're just ****ing about normalization and making vague references to your superior training  in statistics while acting as if multivariate analysis for a single outcome is some super complicated concept most of didn't do in some way in undergrad. 

But we're going in circles at this point and as fun as this has been I think I've reached the end of my desire to keep it up. 

2 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

And you've presented zero evidence to refute me. Hell you haven't even presented any raw data. You're just ****ing about normalization and making vague references to your superior training  in statistics while acting as if multivariate analysis for a single outcome is some super complicated concept most of didn't do in some way in undergrad. 

But we're going in circles at this point and as fun as this has been I think I've reached the end of my desire to keep it up. 

QUITTER LOL

2 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

And you've presented zero evidence to refute me. Hell you haven't even presented any raw data. You're just ****ing about normalization and making vague references to your superior training  in statistics while acting as if multivariate analysis for a single outcome is some super complicated concept most of didn't do in some way in undergrad. 

But we're going in circles at this point and as fun as this has been I think I've reached the end of my desire to keep it up. 

I am not the one making conclusions, you are.  Because as you admitted yourself, the lack of multivariate analysis renders it impossible to make any statically significant conclusions.  I don't need to present data when you exemplify so many fundamental flaws. 

2 minutes ago, BBE said:

I am not the one making conclusions, you are.  Because as you admitted yourself, the lack of multivariate analysis renders it impossible to make any statically significant conclusions.  I don't need to present data when you exemplify so many fundamental flaws. 

YOU GONNA TAKE THAT @DANGLE7 HE MAD DOGGIN U

6 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Curious if you feel that the average cost charged by the healthcare system for actual medical care (not what the insurance costs or pays, but the care itself) is overpriced/underpriced/just right? 

Eh that depends.  A lot more goes into it than just a flat cost. The example I always use is people like to complain about the charge the hospital makes for "skin to skin" time with Mom and baby after a kid is born. In reality that charge is for a trained neonatal nurse to be present for that hour.  So some of the sticker shock is explainable. But in general I'd say the costs are generally too high. For complex reasons 

1 minute ago, BBE said:

I am not the one making conclusions, you are.  Because as you admitted yourself, the lack of multivariate analysis renders it impossible to make any statically significant conclusions.  I don't need to present data when you exemplify so many fundamental flaws. 

You're heavily implying that the cause of the difference is comorbidities alone. Which once again given the data we do have, flawed as it may be, is IMO absurd for the MANY reasons I've laid out already. You're making the same assumptions friend, just for your own opinion and with much poorer supporting data. 

19 minutes ago, BBE said:

PhD in Biomedical Sciences from a College of Medicine.

Which can be verified by someone posting in this very thread.

Nah, I trust you.
 

 

Nobody is going to lie about being that big of a nerd. 

1 minute ago, DEagle7 said:

Eh that depends.  A lot more goes into it than just a flat cost. The example I always use is people like to complain about the charge the hospital makes for "skin to skin" time with Mom and baby after a kid is born. In reality that charge is for a trained neonatal nurse to be present for that hour.  So some of the sticker shock is explainable. But in general I'd say the costs are generally too high. For complex reasons 

You're heavily implying that the cause of the difference is comorbidities alone. Which once again given the data we do have, flawed as it may be, is IMO absurd for the MANY reasons I've laid out already. You're making the same assumptions friend, just for your own opinion and with much poorer supporting data. 

I am implying nothing.  I am questioning the basis of your conclusions by citing one of the most egregious oversights of the statistical methods of the western world comparison studies.  I merely cited obesity specifically because it is such a confounding and prevalent variable in health outcome/epidemiology. 

 

My stance to be clear and as I stated is that the data does not support your conclusions. 

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

Nah, I trust you.
 

 

Nobody is going to lie about being that big of a nerd. 

Thank you?

11 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Eh that depends.  A lot more goes into it than just a flat cost. The example I always use is people like to complain about the charge the hospital makes for "skin to skin" time with Mom and baby after a kid is born. In reality that charge is for a trained neonatal nurse to be present for that hour.  So some of the sticker shock is explainable. But in general I'd say the costs are generally too high. For complex reasons 

You're heavily implying that the cause of the difference is comorbidities alone. Which once again given the data we do have, flawed as it may be, is IMO absurd for the MANY reasons I've laid out already. You're making the same assumptions friend, just for your own opinion and with much poorer supporting data. 

Thanks for the trained opinion. I agree. Was just curious to see what an actual doctor thinks about what gets charged in the US.

I can verify @BBE's educational background. 

Man, we've been posting here a long time.

3 minutes ago, BBE said:

I am implying nothing.  I am questioning the basis of your conclusions by citing one of the most egregious oversights of the statistical methods of the western world comparison studies.  I merely cited obesity specifically because it is such a confounding and prevalent variable in health outcome/epidemiology. 

My stance to be clear and as I stated is that the data does not support your conclusions. 

The data does support my conclusions though. You can argue the data isn't complete, or normalized, or contains many confounding factors. Fine. But that imperfect data points very clearly to a frankly massive gap in health outcome that isn't even remotely explained by obesity, which is by far the largest comorbidity difference between the US and the rest of the Western world. Adding in a 3% difference in diabetes rates and heart disease rates simply isn't going to close an 8 fold gap in outcome rate. 

3 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

The data does support my conclusions though. You can argue the data isn't complete, or normalized, or contains many confounding factors. Fine. But that imperfect data points very clearly to a frankly massive gap in health outcome that isn't even remotely explained by obesity, which is by far the largest comorbidity difference between the US and the rest of the Western world. Adding in a 3% difference in diabetes rates and heart disease rates simply isn't going to close an 8 fold gap in outcome rate. 

And that is where we differ.  You think the data supports your conclusion.   I say any conclusion based on flawed data inherits all of the flaws of the data that it is based on.

12 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

I can verify @BBE's educational background. 

Man, we've been posting here a long time.

Yeah we have.  Got my doctorate around this time in 2009.

why are people mad at greed corporations and not congress for allowing them to do this 💩 

money can buy a lot of things but good health is not one..thank goodness at least now Im not a victim to health insurance companies and their bs

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