2013 Will Be The "Worst" Year For The US [In My Adult Life]

[TripleB]

There's a hell of a large incentive to get insurance.  It's called the individual mandate, and if you don't get it, you're effectively taxed the same as your premiums, so why would anyone go uninsured just to try and game the system?  It doesn't make sense!

"Individuals that fail to pay the penalty will not be subject to criminal penalties, liens or levies."

[Storm]

There's a hell of a large incentive to get insurance.  It's called the individual mandate, and if you don't get it, you're effectively taxed the same as your premiums, so why would anyone go uninsured just to try and game the system?  It doesn't make sense!

"Individuals that fail to pay the penalty will not be subject to criminal penalties, liens or levies."

What?  It's a tax so if you don't pay it you will soon know the wrath of the IRS.

[edsanville]

Besides, why would someone necessarily demand more health care if the government or private insurers offset the cost more? No one with one broken leg wants a cast on both legs just because Medicare is paying....people don't just drop by the hospital and go "ya know, a triple bypass surgery would really hit the spot right about now and since the government is paying I'll go ahead and get one more than I would have if I had to pay for it myself." Healthcare is at least somewhat unlike any other good in that if most of us had our choice the optimal amount consumed would be zero (no one WANTS to be in a hospital, have to have surgery, get injections, etc) if we could be just as healthy without it whereas with many  goods/services (say the government offered free Corvettes or one-tenth price filet mignon dinners) the optimal amount consumed would NOT be zero for most people.

This is an interesting point, but I think it loses sight of one aspect:  unnecessary testing and treatments.  If there's no disincentive to run tests or prescribe drugs, then the doctor might as well run as many as possible, to prevent any hint of malpractice accusations later on.

Example:  I have chronic headaches.  I've been to the doctor many, many times.  Usually, they just send me home with a prescription for an ineffectual drug, (after a 10-minute exam).  I don't think the doctors really thought those drugs would help me, but why not prescribe them anyway?  One time, they sent me to the MRI machine to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor.  I don't think the doctor really thought it was a brain tumor...  but why not send me to the MRI?  Thank Cthulhu it wasn't a brain tumor, but every trip to the doctor has resulted in wasted resources, paid for by my health insurance.  It's not that I wanted more drugs.  I wanted help with my problem, and the doctor wanted me out of his office so he could go to his next patient.

[RuralEngineer]

There's a hell of a large incentive to get insurance.  It's called the individual mandate, and if you don't get it, you're effectively taxed the same as your premiums, so why would anyone go uninsured just to try and game the system?  It doesn't make sense!

"Individuals that fail to pay the penalty will not be subject to criminal penalties, liens or levies."

What?  It's a tax so if you don't pay it you will soon know the wrath of the IRS.

It's only a tax because Roberts said it was in the majority opinion.  No where else is it written that it's a tax.  In fact we were expressly told it was NOT a tax.  It was written as a penalty with no punishment for not paying (apparently).  I'm not sure how they're going to spin Roberts' opinion into tax code enforceable by the IRS.

[Gumby]

Example:  I have chronic headaches.  I've been to the doctor many, many times.  Usually, they just send me home with a prescription for an ineffectual drug, (after a 10-minute exam).  I don't think the doctors really thought those drugs would help me, but why not prescribe them anyway?  One time, they sent me to the MRI machine to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor.  I don't think the doctor really thought it was a brain tumor...  but why not send me to the MRI?  Thank Cthulhu it wasn't a brain tumor, but every trip to the doctor has resulted in wasted resources, paid for by my health insurance.  It's not that I wanted more drugs.  I wanted help with my problem, and the doctor wanted me out of his office so he could go to his next patient.

edsanville,

Most headaches have an underlying cause. There is a relatively simple protocol for determining that cause outlined in this book:

http://amzn.com/0761125663

Read through the reviews and you'll see generally how successful the protocol is. Western doctors don't care what causes your headaches. They only have band-aid solutions for chronic symptoms.

[edsanville]

Example:  I have chronic headaches.  I've been to the doctor many, many times.  Usually, they just send me home with a prescription for an ineffectual drug, (after a 10-minute exam).  I don't think the doctors really thought those drugs would help me, but why not prescribe them anyway?  One time, they sent me to the MRI machine to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor.  I don't think the doctor really thought it was a brain tumor...  but why not send me to the MRI?  Thank Cthulhu it wasn't a brain tumor, but every trip to the doctor has resulted in wasted resources, paid for by my health insurance.  It's not that I wanted more drugs.  I wanted help with my problem, and the doctor wanted me out of his office so he could go to his next patient.

edsanville,

Most headaches have an underlying cause. There is a relatively simple protocol for determining that cause outlined in this book:

http://amzn.com/0761125663

Read through the reviews and you'll see generally how successful the protocol is. Western doctors don't care what causes your headaches. They only have band-aid solutions for chronic symptoms.

Thanks Gumby, I will definitely check this book out.  It contradicts what I've read about headaches (tension and sinus headaches are a myth?), but I am certainly willing to try anything to get rid of the pain.

Your observations about doctors are spot-on.  I stopped going to doctors for my headaches about 8 years ago, because it was always a waste of time.  I remember one neurologist who confidently told me I was suffering solely from analgesic rebound headaches.  I was skeptical, but I stopped taking aspirin for 6 months.  Surprise, surprise, my headaches did not disappear.

How did you come across this book?  Did you also have chronic headaches?

[TripleB]

It's only a tax because Roberts said it was in the majority opinion.  No where else is it written that it's a tax.  In fact we were expressly told it was NOT a tax.  It was written as a penalty with no punishment for not paying (apparently).  I'm not sure how they're going to spin Roberts' opinion into tax code enforceable by the IRS.

My mind just got blown by how brilliant the politicians were here:

Step 1) Write the penalty expressly as not a tax, and make it not enforceable by criminal penalties, liens or levies, to make it appear harmless and avoid opposition.

Step 2) Get the other side to argue against it, claiming it's an unfair tax.

Step 3) Point the other side to the wording which clearly shows it's not a tax.

Step 4) Pass the law.

Step 5) Get the Supreme Court to rule that it is in fact a tax, because most people will interpret that way even if it's not written that way.

Step 6) Add enforcement to the penalty as if it were a tax, because people already think it's a tax so therefore it's REASONABLE for it to be enforced like a tax.

Step 7) Profit.

We're at Step 5 now. Step 6 is coming up in 2015 or 2016. Hopefully this forum is still around and we can point to my prediction.

[Gumby]

How did you come across this book?  Did you also have chronic headaches?

I don't have chronic headaches, so I can't personally vouch for the book. For all I know it doesn't work. But, headaches do tend to have underlying causes — and this book seems to be one of the few that have given people some relief from what I can tell. I came across the book by accident when looking for headache medicine for my wife (who tends to get more headaches than I do).

[MachineGhost]

It's also worth pointing out that high inflation is extremely unlikely while unemployment is high and taxes are high. If unemployment were to drop significantly it certainly wouldn't be the "worst" year for the US by a long shot. So, it's often just illogical fear mongering when people start only seeing negatives everywhere they look.

I think you mean it is extremely unlikely without wage-push inflation.  There's plenty of countries with both high inflation and high employment because more money is being printed than there is corresponding productivity to match.  Similar could happen here if automation continues to displace more and more relatively less productive workers without a dramatic decrease in government spending.

[MachineGhost]

The demand for a free good tends toward infinity.

That is what HSA or deductibles are supposed to control, to put a little consumer driven demand into the equation.  I can see it happening on Medicaid though.  Expanding coverage on that one has definitely improved lower class access to healthcare.  Hopefully that will result in long-term cost reductions from improved health outcomes (not holding my breath).

[MachineGhost]

If what you are saying is 100% true then the only real solution is to abolish all insurance (or maybe put in place maybe $20,000--or higher--deductibles which is tatamount to abolishing insurance anyway for most middle class and poorer individuals since for them $20K in medical costs before the insurer picks up a dime is a one way ticket to bankruptcy court) and just make everyone pay eveything out of pocket because the vast majority of health care ($$$ wise) is consumed by those who are way past their deductibles/coinsurance levels anyhow.

Health insurance should go back to being major medical insurance and leave everything else up to the consumer.  It's so simple, but the insurance companies and everyone else pigging out on the train ride are not willing to give up their largesse.  It's greed, pure and simple.

[MachineGhost]

There are many reasons why this state of affairs came about, but that's where we're at right now. Health care is basically a sector of the market where market features such as prices and competition are absent, transforming it into a chaotic, disorganized, inefficient, extractive, free-for-all.

I see no difference between our health care and communism of the former Soviet Union.

[MachineGhost]

Example:  I have chronic headaches.  I've been to the doctor many, many times.  Usually, they just send me home with a prescription for an ineffectual drug, (after a 10-minute exam).  I don't think the doctors really thought those drugs would help me, but why not prescribe them anyway?  One time, they sent me to the MRI machine to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor.  I don't think the doctor really thought it was a brain tumor...  but why not send me to the MRI?  Thank Cthulhu it wasn't a brain tumor, but every trip to the doctor has resulted in wasted resources, paid for by my health insurance.  It's not that I wanted more drugs.  I wanted help with my problem, and the doctor wanted me out of his office so he could go to his next patient.

So all these doctors wasted a lot of resources when something as simple as Butterburr extract may have solved your issue, which I just told you about for free becuase 1) I'm not a physician 2) I'm passionate about natural/alternative methods of healing.  Have you tried it? 

There's a lot wrong with health care, but ignorance (on so many levels) is the true #1 issue.

[MachineGhost]

I remember one neurologist who confidently told me I was suffering solely from analgesic rebound headaches.  I was skeptical, but I stopped taking aspirin for 6 months.  Surprise, surprise, my headaches did not disappear.

That's interesting.  I suffer from that whenever I take any painkillers (synthetic or herbal) after a day or two, so had to stop.  I wasn't aware it was a medically recognizable symptom.

[Pointedstick]

So all these doctors wasted a lot of resources when something as simple as Butterburr extract may have solved your issue, which I just told you for free.  Have you tried it?  There's a lot wrong with health care, but ignorance (on so many levels) is the true #1 issue.

IMHO, our western medical system is optimized for solving problems like broken bones, infectious diseases, etc, because that was what it evolved to treat. But nowadays people have all sorts of vague and nebulous chronic aches and pains, and western medicine is flummoxed because there's no one clear cause, and doctors are unused to looking for underlying dietary and environmental reasons for these types of conditions. It's sort of a cultural thing I think that causes doctors to see themselves as engineers of the human body rather than farmers of the human ecosystem.

[edsanville]

I don't have chronic headaches, so I can't personally vouch for the book. For all I know it doesn't work. But, headaches do tend to have underlying causes — and this book seems to be one of the few that have given people some relief from what I can tell. I came across the book by accident when looking for headache medicine for my wife (who tends to get more headaches than I do).

I fully agree that headaches tend to have underlying causes.  That's why it was so frustrating to walk into a doctor's office and get a prescription thrown in my face.  The book stresses dietary causes, which I think is a bit better because that's at least trying to eliminate the cause, (if that really is the cause).  I already downloaded the book to my Kindle, and I'm skimming through it today.

Recently, I also purchased another e-book that claimed most chronic headaches are tension headaches brought on by bad posture, and working at a desk all day.  This definitely applies to me, because my self-employment involves long coding sessions that sometimes last into the night.  That e-book was written by a sports medicine guy (he's not even an MD), who described my symptoms almost perfectly.  So, I'm going to try some of the things he recommends in his book as well.

So all these doctors wasted a lot of resources when something as simple as Butterburr extract may have solved your issue, which I just told you about for free becuase 1) I'm not a physician 2) I'm passionate about natural/alternative methods of healing.  Have you tried it? 

There's a lot wrong with health care, but ignorance (on so many levels) is the true #1 issue.

Interesting, I've never even heard of this Butterburr extract.  I will add it to my list of things to try.  I do like the idea of natural/alternative medicines, and I think modern "Big Science" or "Big Pharma" (or whatever you want to call it) is brain-dead not to be running trials and testing every known natural remedy on Earth.

You'd think the success of aspirin, (which comes from Willow bark, and has been used as a pain reliever for CENTURIES), would alert them to the fact that there might be some wisdom in the old folk remedies of the world.  Of course, I don't think all alternative medicines are effective, but they should be run through clinical trials, for sure.

That's interesting.  I suffer from that whenever I take any painkillers (synthetic or herbal) after a day or two, so had to stop.  I wasn't aware it was a medically recognizable symptom.

It is a symptom, and I have had many analgesic rebound headaches (because I do take a lot of aspirin for these damn things).  But that neurologist's attitude that my headaches were all due to rebound came off as ignorant and insulting.  Did he think that there was never a real underlying cause of my headaches, and I just decided to pop aspirins every day for no reason?  It's nonsensical to me.

IMHO, our western medical system is optimized for solving problems like broken bones, infectious diseases, etc, because that was what it evolved to treat. But nowadays people have all sorts of vague and nebulous chronic aches and pains, and western medicine is flummoxed because there's no one clear cause, and doctors are unused to looking for underlying dietary and environmental reasons for these types of conditions. It's sort of a cultural thing I think that causes doctors to see themselves as engineers of the human body rather than farmers of the human ecosystem.

Exactly!  The problem is, more and more often doctors need to be detectives, and 99% of them don't know how.  There's a huge difference between fixing a broken bone, and investigating a vague set of symptoms.  It's a rare individual who can do the latter thing correctly.

[TripleB]

Health insurance should go back to being major medical insurance and leave everything else up to the consumer.  It's so simple, but the insurance companies and everyone else pigging out on the train ride are not willing to give up their largesse.  It's greed, pure and simple.

The free market fails again! Evil capitalists with their grubby hands in our pockets making life worse for us all!

Either that or HB is right and it's a blame shift by the politicians because health insurance companies ARE NOT ALLOWED to offer major medical insurance plans. Regulations require them to offer things like annual physicals, hardon pills, and now a push for birth control pills.

If I want a plan that only covers me for certain extremely catastrophic events, I can't buy one because the government won't let me. Insurance companies can't offer them because the government won't let them.

And such, each year, more and more special interest groups get added to the bandwagon. "Men get viagra covered, so we should get birth control pills, too!"

And such, the premiums rise because insurance is no longer insuring for unlikely events but is instead used to pay for guaranteed events.

The free market fails again!

[Benko]

PS,

"western medicine is flummoxed because there's no one clear cause"

Western medicine IMHO has no clue, and can not have any clue because the model is grossly deficient.  Western medicine does fairly well if you are in a car accident, or have pneumonia.  Western medicine fails often as one starts to deal with chronic diseases because these often have some (I did not say were totally caused by)  emotional component.  Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) which has been around for centuries and ayurvedic medicine (ancient Indian as in the country India medicine) have emotional issues as part of their model. 

Freshman year of medical school there was a noon elective called surviving death and dying in which two social workers who dealt just with cancer patients told us of their experiences.  I can't imagine the administration knew what they were really telling us but it was eye opening. They told us over and over specific examples of how e.g. patients gave up and quickly died, or didn't want to live and got cancer, or their spouse died of cancer and they didn't want to live and quickly died.  I did Japanese acupressure for many years on people with various illnesses and you could see it e.g. I asked a woman with bad rheumatoid arthritis about how/when her illness started and she re-lived a memory and became really pissed.  I understand that there is probably no way for many/most of you to understand/believe me on this, and I can't imagine how you'd even design a study to test this stuff.

[Pointedstick]

TripleB is exactly right. The last time I tried to shop for an inexpensive no-frills, minimum-coverage-for-catastrophic events plan, I couldn't find one. Every plan was required to cover mental health, drug rehab, prescription medications, women's reproductive health (I'm not a woman, WTF), and so on and so forth. News flash: I can shop around for all that stuff! I can (get this) look for the lowest-priced sellers, and then (stay with me here) do research to see which of those sellers have the best reviews and reputation!

This idea that shopping around for medical care is impossible is a huge myth. Anything you make a planned appointment for, you can shop around for! I hear people arguing that consumers don't understand medicine and wouldn't know how to distinguish the good from the bad, but isn't that an argument that can be made for any complicated product, like consumer electronics, motor vehicles, or houses? I don't buy it. I can't shop for the doctor fixing my broken arm, but I most certainly can shop for sellers of routine physical exams or antibiotics I'm prescribed.

[edsanville]

TripleB is exactly right. The last time I tried to shop for an inexpensive no-frills, minimum-coverage-for-catastrophic events plan, I couldn't find one. Every plan was required to cover mental health, drug rehab, prescription medications, women's reproductive health (I'm not a woman, WTF), and so on and so forth. News flash: I can shop around for all that stuff! I can (get this) look for the lowest-priced sellers, and then (stay with me here) do research to see which of those sellers have the best reviews and reputation!

This idea that shopping around for medical care is impossible is a huge myth. Anything you make a planned appointment for, you can shop around for! I hear people arguing that consumers don't understand medicine and wouldn't know how to distinguish the good from the bad, but isn't that an argument that can be made for any complicated product, like consumer electronics, motor vehicles, or houses? I don't buy it. I can't shop for the doctor fixing my broken arm, but I most certainly can shop for sellers of routine physical exams or antibiotics I'm prescribed.

You live in California, right?  That might have something to do with it.  When I lived in New Mexico, I did a little shopping and I was able to find a catastrophic $97/month plan.  I was pleased with the plan as it was.  Although, I was always afraid that, if something did happen, they would get lawyers and weasel out of actually covering me somehow.

[Pointedstick]

I believe you, Benko. My grandmother is a person who "gave up" one day and died the next, after an entire lifetime of fighting. She even survived lung cancer for 19 years after chemo, but one day she decided she wanted to die, so she did, almost immediately.

The same thing just a few days ago happened to my wife's grandmother. She told one of her daughters that she wanted to visit a relative who had already passed away; the next day she too had died. My father-in-law is a pastor who deals with death a lot and sees this pattern over and over again.

We have a lot to learn about this kind of thing.

[edsanville]

Example:  I have chronic headaches.  I've been to the doctor many, many times.  Usually, they just send me home with a prescription for an ineffectual drug, (after a 10-minute exam).  I don't think the doctors really thought those drugs would help me, but why not prescribe them anyway?  One time, they sent me to the MRI machine to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor.  I don't think the doctor really thought it was a brain tumor...  but why not send me to the MRI?  Thank Cthulhu it wasn't a brain tumor, but every trip to the doctor has resulted in wasted resources, paid for by my health insurance.  It's not that I wanted more drugs.  I wanted help with my problem, and the doctor wanted me out of his office so he could go to his next patient.

edsanville,

Most headaches have an underlying cause. There is a relatively simple protocol for determining that cause outlined in this book:

http://amzn.com/0761125663

Read through the reviews and you'll see generally how successful the protocol is. Western doctors don't care what causes your headaches. They only have band-aid solutions for chronic symptoms.

Well, this is quite the book.  I can't take medicine or eat/drink caffeine , MSG, sharp cheese, citrus fruit, nuts of ANY kind, yogurt, onions, lunch meats, pepperoni, sausages, freshly baked goods, and dozens of other foods.

Does it prevent chronic headaches?  Well, I've been following the strict diet for about 5 days now, and I'm tentatively impressed.  The first couple days was absolutely brutal, as I came down off excedrin and caffeine.  But, for these last few days, I've only had a small "background" headache.  The author says that it might take some time to totally control the headaches, but so far so good.

He writes that most doctors erroneously tell patients to cut one or two headache triggers, and it doesn't solve the problem because chronic headache sufferers have a lower migraine threshold.  So, it's better to cut all possible triggers, stop the headaches, then add foods back one at a time, (to see what patient's individual triggers are).

Anyway, thanks again for the book recommendation, Gumby.  If this works, you're literally a life saver.

EDIT: I tried to separate this into a separate thread to avoid hijacking TripleB's thread, but changing the subject didn't work...

[moda0306]

There are many reasons why this state of affairs came about, but that's where we're at right now. Health care is basically a sector of the market where market features such as prices and competition are absent, transforming it into a chaotic, disorganized, inefficient, extractive, free-for-all.

I see no difference between our health care and communism of the former Soviet Union.

Then let's move to single-payer and leave the insurance companies and private employers out of it....

[Pointedstick]

There are many reasons why this state of affairs came about, but that's where we're at right now. Health care is basically a sector of the market where market features such as prices and competition are absent, transforming it into a chaotic, disorganized, inefficient, extractive, free-for-all.

I see no difference between our health care and communism of the former Soviet Union.

Then let's move to single-payer and leave the insurance companies and private employers out of it....

Honestly, I think it would be an improvement. Either we need to go in the direction of single-payer, or the free market, but continuing the same unholy regulated corporatist private-government partnership is just going to lead to worse outcomes.

[MachineGhost]

Well, this is quite the book.  I can't take medicine or eat/drink caffeine , MSG, sharp cheese, citrus fruit, nuts of ANY kind, yogurt, onions, lunch meats, pepperoni, sausages, freshly baked goods, and dozens of other foods.

I have issues with many of those foods.  I wonder if your liver detoxification is subpar.  Have you tried taking liver detox boosting bioagents, such as NAC or Siliphos?  Done any liver flushes?

Also, have you had your toxic element load tested?  You could be high in lead, mecurry, flouride or manganese which act as neurotoxins.