Author Topic: Involuntary Committment... Notice Any Similarities  (Read 23299 times)

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Offline Paul

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« Reply #60 on: May 16, 2005, 09:48:00 AM »
Perhaps under 18 it is a question
of legal guardianship.

The youth industry may have temporary
guardianship as part of the paperwork
parents sign upon admission. (I would
be surprised, but...)
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Offline Paul

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« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Deborah

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« Reply #62 on: May 16, 2005, 10:06:00 AM »
Paul,
Pay attention. They aren?t investigating 40,000 for welfare fraud. They are investigating the practice of poly-prescribing. 40,000 (4.2%) are on 8 or MORE drugs.

What?s relevant:
*escalating cost of healthcare
*drugs--many of which are misprescribed
*financially struggling Massachusetts Medicaid program
*poly-pharmacy prescribing- multiple costly drugs of the same class
*more likely to generate drug-induced new pathologies than to cure the condition
*40,000 Medicaid patients take eight or more medications
*THOUSANDS of other patients take five or more psychiatric drugs
*Eight or more drugs or five or more psychiatric drugs, could be a health problem
*poly-prescribing has gotten out of hand

Poly-pharmacy replacing all other services?

Desio is having symptoms Folino said could be the result of multiple drug interactions. Her roommate has called an ambulance many times because Desio has gotten dizzy, fallen, and been unable to stand up.

Explain this comment:
Since Medicaid/Medicare is the safety net for high volume users of private health insurance.

Makes no sense to me.
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Offline Paul

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« Reply #63 on: May 16, 2005, 10:19:00 AM »
Deborah,

I used the 4.2% alledged polypharmacy abuses
compared to the 1% of welfare fraud to spell
out that when fixing a percieved problem
that is immaterial in dollars often more
money is spent than trusting the checks
and balances that are set up.

In Mass, there must be medically necessary
criteria that the doctors have to put in
the charts for each perscription. If I
where in a position of power I would do
an audit, of a sampling, to see if there
is a real problem or a perceived problem.

"Poly-pharmacy replacing all other services?"
I  didn't see this statement. What percentage
of the budget is medication. That will tell
me if "all other services" are being eliminated.

Safety net?

Read the fine print in your private insurance
documentation. If you go over a certain amount,
or have to many appointmnets for certain diagnosis
then cancellation is mandated.

This will get you on social security. This is
by design of the private insurance protocols.

That is why the social security system generally
has the sickest, most expensive patients.
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Offline Paul

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« Reply #64 on: May 16, 2005, 10:37:00 AM »
This paragraph snipped from:

http://www.inequality.org/safetynet.html

Why we have a safety net
The idea for Social Security was dreamed up by Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. Unemployment insurance and welfare were parts of the original scheme. Medicare was President Johnson's doing, 30 years later. The broad idea was easily understood by the generations that experienced the Depression, World War II, the Cold War and some deep recessions. Any family could find itself down on its luck through no fault of its own. Family savings could go down the drain if the economy turned really sour. Its breadwinner might lose his (almost always "his") job and have a hard time finding another. Or he might become disabled or die, leaving his wife and children destitute. An elderly person or couple might lose everything in an economic down draft and face their twilight years in grinding poverty. A humane society, it was assumed, would pool some of its resources to guard against these personal misfortunes. Like any insurance system, citizens would be expected to pay small premiums. But unlike private insurance, everyone would be included regardless of the likelihood that they'd need to draw on the insurance pool. Rich and poor, healthy and sick, young workers and older workers--all would pitch in.
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Offline Paul

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« Reply #65 on: May 16, 2005, 10:44:00 AM »
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... _mz001.htm

MAY 16, 2005    

"I Want My Safety Net"
Why so many Americans aren't buying into Bush's Ownership Society

George Silli, a 66-year-old waiter from suburban Philadelphia, had a brush with President Bush's Ownership Society, and it was an experience he'll not soon forget. Silli's psyche and his wallet still bear the scorch marks of the 2000 market meltdown. He saw the value of his mutual funds drop by 60% and is convinced that opening Social Security to individual investing would produce similar results on a massive scale. ``If people are left to their own devices, we'll become top-heavy with poor people,'' Silli says.

A political independent, Silli has learned enough about the market to be pessimistic about a small fry's chances. He not only wants to leave Social Security alone but also thinks politicians should expand entitlements by mandating near-universal health insurance as a shield against soaring medical bills.

Although Silli may not know it, he has plenty of company from all walks of American life. He's part of a diverse group that includes the pathologically risk-averse and those who are willing to take the Ownership Society for a spin -- as long as it's equipped with air bags.

April Tsirigotis, a 30-year-old Republican and an information technology executive from Lusby, Md., is a big fan of the President and applauds his efforts to solve Social Security's fiscal woes. But, says Tsirigotis, the divorced mother of a 7-year-old, ``I disagree with the idea of giving people private accounts in which their annual returns and their eventual benefits would be based on the stock market. It's too risky. No one knows how much will be there in the end.''

While many members of Safety Net Nation have nothing against investing and choice, they're worried that the country's web of public and private social protections is fraying. They believe in more, not fewer, safeguards against downward mobility in a world that's already pulsing with economic uncertainty. Safety Netters include plenty of card-carrying Republicans and independent swing voters, and the group may represent a broader swath of America than the White House imagines.

A Sept. 2-5, 2004, survey by the Civil Society Institute, a Newton Centre (Mass.) nonprofit group, found 67% of Americans think it's a good idea to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27% dissenting. Support for a government-directed universal insurance system is strong, despite GOP warnings about socialized medicine. Similarly, a Feb. 3-5 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 47% of respondents believe the government ought to guarantee a minimum standard of living for retirees, vs. 35% who felt that was an individual's responsibility.

The most predictable members of Safety Net Nation are liberals who favor activist government. The really crucial bloc, however, is made up of those who backed Bush in 2004. They still approve of his overall job performance but have soured on Wall Street and dislike the President's approach to Social Security. This faction -- estimates range from 17% to 22% of the electorate -- rejects both traditional liberalism and conservative laissez-faire. In an era of rampant job insecurity, when employer-provided pensions and health coverage can no longer be taken for granted, they want a middle-class security blanket that gives them protection as they build wealth.

Stretched Thin
Safety netters' fear of social unraveling comes amid some disquieting trends. Big swings in family income, according to studies by Yale University political scientist Jacob S. Hacker, have increased markedly over the past two decades as the finances of two-earner households have been stretched thin. Even houses -- most Americans' entrée to the Ownership Society -- are increasingly in hock: In the past 15 years, mortgage and home-equity borrowing has risen from 35.1% of home values to 43.9%. That has made families, especially those with unskilled workers, more vulnerable to a catastrophic jolt such as job loss or serious illness. Personal bankruptcies increased fivefold from 1980 to 2002, with many filers citing a layoff or medical emergency as the tipping point.

As income volatility has grown, government -- prodded by free-market Republicans out to reverse the New Deal -- has been offloading ever more responsibility onto individuals. The financial pressure has become much more acute because of another squeeze occurring in the private sector. Corporations vying to compete globally have steadily shifted costs and responsibility for pensions and health care to their employees as part of the restructuring wave that began in the 1970s.

The Sellathon That Didn't
Conservatives see disentitlement as a recognition of new economic realities -- and the death rattle of the Nanny State. But skeptics, among them prominent New Democratic thinkers, counter that America's safety net can be both modern and market-based without piling still more financial burdens onto the stooped shoulders of Joe and Jane Average.

Because social engineering through tax breaks, preferential loan and savings plans, and other indirect subsidies favors those with good jobs and income to invest, New Democrats advocate policies that tilt savings incentives toward lower-income Americans. They include universal 401(k)s, compulsory savings plans set up for kids, and mandated social insurance -- a subsidized rainy-day fund for financial emergencies. Hacker is working on ``a kind of catastrophic insurance plan that could be administered by the private sector but heavily regulated by the government.'' Employers would be required to match employee contributions to the new financial umbrella. The price tag, he concedes, ``would not be trivial'' -- meaning a multibillion-dollar commitment.

Conservatives dismiss such proposals as security pie-in-the-sky. But they've got their own problems in the here and now trying to generate momentum for personal accounts and other becalmed elements of the Bush ownership initiative.

The centerpiece is an audacious bid to ``modernize'' the government's retirement system by letting workers divert part of their payroll taxes into stocks and bonds. On the road, Bush tells audiences he's selling a retirement iPod -- sleek, shiny, and designed for the Digital Age -- while Democrats cling to a system as retro as an LP record. Besides, he says, the downside of personal accounts will be limited. Those who opt in will have a carefully chosen range of investment options, selections modeled on conservative fund choices found on 401(k) menus.

Trouble is, the President, in his guise as Salesman-in-Chief, may have done too good a job raising alarms about Social Security's imminent implosion. ``Bush said, 'We're going to have a crisis,' and offered private accounts as part of the solution,'' says James K. Glassman, an American Enterprise Institute scholar. ``But the two things are really separate, and the President was never able to make a connection between them.'' What's more, the crisis-mongering only served to heighten anxiety among the risk-averse cohort.

Bush made an overture to critics on Apr. 28 when he offered to protect payouts for the poor. His idea: preserve the current benefit structure for the bottom third of wage earners while progressively reducing guaranteed payments for those up the income scale. The result is a means-tested version of Social Security. But despite such gambits, the President has little to show for a 60-day national sellathon that took him to 23 states. If Congress enacts Social Security reform this year, it could be a far cry from reformers' dreams of big private accounts carved out of payroll taxes. ``Bush will come out of this with something, some change or other that allows him to say he moved the ball,'' predicts pollster John Zogby. ``But it won't be what he wanted.''

Down on Wall Street
Objectively, this is not a bad time to be raising the issue of reform. Baby boomers are about to retire en masse and on paper, family balance sheets have improved. Americans' household wealth has floated upward of late, propelled by recovering stock valuations and soaring real estate values. Moreover, real wages for the civilian workforce have grown 8% in the past decade after a long stretch when they fell. And the family poverty rate, tallied at 10% in 2003, has improved from the 13.9% numbers recorded four decades earlier.

Still, what private-account backers seem to have misjudged is the public's current jaundiced view of Wall Street and investing risk. America, unlike most other advanced nations, has a dual welfare system. There are direct government-transfer payments to the poor and elderly -- programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. But there is also a huge set of private-sector protections for workers, largely underwritten by employers -- items such as subsidized life insurance, disability coverage, and help with day care. Plus, powerful groups in society snare subsidies in the form of preferential loans offered to farmers, disaster relief, tax-deductible flood insurance for beachfront property owners, and a fistful of tax breaks for small businesspeople.

While federal spending on the safety net for the poor has grown briskly, it hasn't kept pace with society's needs. Medicare is straining to cover seniors' bills, and some states are downsizing Medicaid programs. In 1996, strict time limits were put on welfare dependency, a step that slashed the rolls by half. Meantime, huge holes have been ripped in the private safety net as the cost shift to workers has accelerated.

The result is riskophobia. ``With a far greater portion of family budgets devoted to the mortgage, car payment, and health insurance, a transitory shock to wages becomes much more menacing,'' says Raj Chetty, a University of California at Berkeley economics professor who studies risk. ``Equities are seen as risky, and if people aren't jumping for the investment option [as part of Social Security reform], there's a reason. Risk in general has become a much more pervasive issue.''

In January, 2000, before the dot-com bubble burst, 67% of Americans said that if they had $1,000 to spare, investing it in stock would be a good idea, according to the Gallup Poll. By April, 2005, that percentage had fallen to 45%, with 51% saying the stock market would be a bad choice. Among the groups whose faith in the market dipped most are three key Bush constituencies: baby boomers, college grads, and suburbanites.

Chasing Gushers
To George W. Bush, a Texan who revels in the myth of the wildcatter, running risks in pursuit of the big gusher is a quintessential part of the American character. But as the scion of an aristocratic Eastern dynasty, the budding young tycoon always had a network of family friends and relations to call on. Those golden connections bailed George W. out of his early forays into the oil business.

The not-as-well-fixed Net Setters want some bedrock guarantees in turbulent times, too. Private Social Security accounts? Sure, in addition to core benefits. Portable medical savings accounts? Fine, but not as a replacement for employer-provided health insurance. ``They want the Ownership Society -- but they want it with a warranty,'' says Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who has introduced legislation to expand tax credits for lower-tier families and to make college savings easier.

According to a BusinessWeek analysis of data compiled by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, at the core of Safety Net Nation are white men. You read that right. These are the same white-male swing voters who have been trending strongly Republican in recent Presidential contests. They tend to be socially conservative and patriotic. They have average incomes and are slightly less educated than the citizenry as a whole.

The Safety Netters are not monolithic, however. They include aging men who are suspicious of Big Government and Big Business and who view private accounts as a giveaway to Wall Street and a gamble for their children and grandchildren. There are suburban Security Moms -- convinced by Bush that Uncle Sam should aggressively protect them from terrorists and cultural pollution -- who worry that the President is making retirement dicier. And there are the burned investors of the Baby Boom generation, who want some government safeguards from the serrated edge of globalism -- from corporate downsizing to vaporware pensions and rampant outsourcing.

Bush über-strategist Karl Rove, who commands the White House's Social Security war room, sees personal accounts as vital to shifting the allegiance of younger voters to the GOP. But there's a glitch in Rove's machine: Polls show that, rather than flocking to Bush over Social Security, the under-40s are growing skeptical of his approach.

Among those resisting a Bush move to pare middle-class entitlements are thirtysomethings who feel squeezed between saving for their kids' college education and taking care of retired or soon-to-retire parents. Then there are disillusioned techies who once wanted government to get out of the way and let them get rich by age 30 but who now favor a federal role in shielding them from the excesses of capitalism.

Put these pieces of the electorate together, and you have the makings of a political boulder that stands between Bush and his shining city on Ownership Hill. ``We are now living in the Security Society,'' says independent pollster Thomas H. Riehle. ``People say, 'Protect me.'''

If the President can't win over some of these skeptics, GOP knees will continue to buckle on Capitol Hill. More important, other elements of his agenda, from new savings plans to personal health-care accounts, could be imperiled by the flight to safety. ``If Social Security reform stalls, blood will be in the water,'' warns Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. ``Democrats fighting for what I prefer to call the Dependency Society will be emboldened to oppose all of Bush's ownership agenda.''

To complicate the President's push for private accounts, the performance of stocks in what was supposed to be a sprightly spring has led to more skepticism. In April, the Dow Jones industrial average hit a new low for the year on stagflation worries, and the major indexes gave up most of their '05 gains as investors fled from risk.

``Bush's timing is not good,'' notes Eva Bertram, a political scientist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. ``The public is leery of becoming more dependent on the market, and there is great anxiety over employment prospects and stagnant incomes. Right now it's just very hard to give up the security offered by things like Social Security and traditional Medicare.''

Shifting the Risk
Democratic pollster Stanley B. Greenberg is more blunt. ``I never believed this Investor Class hype for a minute,'' he says. ``What happened is that Bush gave the nation an extended tutorial on risk, and that came on top of growing awareness of the risk shift from private institutions to individuals'' as both traditional pensions and 401(k)s fell short of offering true security. The result, Greenberg's data show, ``is a collapse in support for Social Security reform.''

What the White House proposes, in fairness, is not a complete swap of a public retirement supplement for a private one. Bush says that letting workers voluntarily set aside a chunk of their payroll taxes -- say, 4 points of the 12.4% tax -- in conservative investment options will let retirees reap a richer reward than the government system's puny 2% return. But if guaranteed benefits are slashed for the middle class and above, more Americans will be drawn into private accounts to make up the difference, changing the nature of Social Security. ``The plan does have a guarantee in it in the form of the core benefit,'' says Kent Smetters, a Wharton School associate professor and former Bush Treasury official. ``Since it's only partial privatization, Bush needs to play up the safety net angle.''

The model for private accounts is the 401(k) system of workplace savings. But critics claim Bush is overselling the ability of such self-directed plans to build a nest egg. Former Clinton economist Alicia H. Munnell, director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research and an expert on 401(k)s, says the numbers don't bode well for Social Security.

Skimpy Savings
Munnell's research shows that 26% of eligible people never opt in to 401(k)s, fewer than half of the participants take the advice of financial planners and diversify their holdings between stocks and bonds, and 55% cash out their savings when they change jobs -- which is frequently. Models project that a median-wage worker contributing 6% of pay, plus a 3% employer match, should have about $300,000 in his 401(k) as he approaches retirement. The actual figure: $42,000.

``People have not done a very good job with 401(k)s, and it weighs on them,'' Munnell says. ``I don't see any sign that they're dying to take on still more of this kind of responsibility. The Social Security debate may be testing the limit of the swing to individualism we have seen for the last 20 to 30 years.''

To the counter-reformers who believe Bush is misguided in his ownership strategy, the question is not whether to kill off market-based measures that aim to increase family savings or health-care security. It's how to use markets and choice in a more effective way.

Democrats would keep core Social Security intact but are willing to augment it with an add-on investment option. ``If the President says individual accounts would be separate from Social Security and was willing to make the financing of reform progressive, he could get Democrats to sit down, and [he would] have a shot,'' says Gene Sperling of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank. ``If he wants to start down the slippery slope toward privatization, why should we work toward goals that are the antithesis of what Democrats believe in?''

Other Dems are more forgiving. ``The President has the right idea to strive and make more people own more of America,'' says Ray Boshara, director of the asset-building program at the New America Foundation (NAF), a centrist think tank. ``Owners are better citizens. But we need to preserve the safety net while helping people build wealth.''

The NAF is pushing two pet ideas: a tax-favored savings account for every child, seeded with a $500 grant at birth and with government subsidies for low-income kids, and an option for taxpayers to direct the IRS to channel part of their tax refunds into savings accounts. If savings can be made automatic, backers claim, taxpayers are less likely to spend refunds.

An Elemental Struggle
The ``kid-save'' idea is no pipe dream. An early fan was former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, and conservatives such as Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) are mulling legislation to create the accounts. Projected cost over 10 years: $38 billion.

Yale political scientist Hacker and economist Peter R. Orszag of the Brookings Institution are thinking on a larger scale. Hacker's plan for a universal family savings account is being fleshed out and is scheduled to be unveiled in August. ``You have to provide workers with a basic form of protection that follows them from job to job and covers big risks,'' Hacker says. Universal insurance would be regulated by the government, and employers would have to kick in mandated matching payments. But administration of accounts would be left to the private sector.

Not so long ago, Republican economists would have been delighted to hear political rivals floating ideas for boosting savings and shoring up Social Security's solvency. But in today's hyper-partisan climate, the fight over the ownership agenda has taken on a larger dimension. Bush wants to wind down dependence on the bureaucratic welfare state. Democrats want to revalidate government by weaving costly new safety nets for workers. It's an elemental struggle, but one in which outcomes can be perverse.

In 2003, for instance, the White House set out to revamp Medicare by putting a lid on runaway costs of the huge entitlement program for seniors. GOP lawmakers, though, feared they would be hammered over the issue in the '04 election, so tough cost controls went out the window. What Bush wound up signing into law still has many conservatives seething: a $1.3 trillion expansion of entitlements in the form of a new Medicare prescription-drug benefit. It was hardly the monument he envisioned. But it was a testament to the raw power of Safety Net Nation, which -- for now -- seems to be just saying no to more financial risk.


By Lee Walczak and Richard S. Dunham, with Mike McNamee in Washington and Ann Therese Palmer in Chicago
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
or those who don\'t understand my position, on all subjects:

* Understand the law and your rights.

* Make sure you have the freedom of choice.

* Seek and receive unbiased information and
know the source of information.

Offline Deborah

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« Reply #66 on: May 16, 2005, 11:44:00 AM »
I didn?t get that there were any checks and balances or criteria. They did do an audit and perceive a problem, hence the investigation.

Since when does excessive drug bills and doctor appointments result in someone being put on Medicaid/SSI? My understanding is that no one gets Medicare/Medicaid unless they are determined to be ?disabled?, which is VERY difficult, or economically destitute, and I mean destitute.

If one's Insurance is cancelled, that person will pay their med/drug bills out of their pocket unless or until they become destitute or deemed disabled.
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Offline Antigen

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« Reply #67 on: May 16, 2005, 12:57:00 PM »
Quote
On 2005-05-15 22:09:00, Paul wrote:

"Wow, like I said, I am uninformed on the

laws for those under 18.

Well, it's not really the laws that are the problem, but people's false belief that the laws are usually followed and the people enforcing them usually have everybody's best interests at heart.

"Laws are like spider webs. If some poor weak creature comes up against them - it is caught. But the bigger one can break through and get away."
-- Solon; Greek philosopher - c.630-c.555 BC

This hasn't changed in 2500 years and probably won't change anytime soon.

Quote

Thanks for writing up your experience.

I don't take it lightly.



Does the law have two components,

under 18 and adult?"


NP. You need only wander around these forums a bit to find a lot more stories like mine.

Yes, there are two componants. But the actual difference in the laws for minors are not as different as people's perception that minors have no rights. And, in practical terms, neither do people deemed mentally ill. You know that and I applaud your efforts to address it.

But I think maybe you spend too much time in close company w/ those review boards and such. The way you frame the issues, and I'm sure you and the pros really believe it, you'd think that no one ever abused this set of legally debilitating policies.

Deb is exceptionally well informed on this issue. And she's providing us w/ data that suggests a fairly broad pattern of abuse. And it's seems asthough the victims are always the most vulnerable among us; children and broke people.

Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name. Thy kingdom nada, thy will be nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
--Ernest Hemingway, American author

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"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
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Offline Antigen

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« Reply #68 on: May 16, 2005, 01:07:00 PM »
The trouble w/ the great safety net is that it's pie in the sky. All good intentions aside, a healthy free market economy provides better for everybody than a contrived attempt at equitable redistribution. The people preaching most loudly about free trade these days would be the first up against the wall if we ever attained anything close to a real free market. If they understand the concept at all they're laughin' up their sleeves knowing that the American education system hasn't taught ecconomics in nearly 100 years. And 3 generations is quite enough to kill a body of knowledge for all intents and purposes.

The drug industry is a perfect example of that. It's one of our more overly regulated industries and, therefore, among the most corrupt.  

The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst.
--Andrew Dickson

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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #69 on: May 16, 2005, 01:44:00 PM »
Deborah,

There is always a medical necessity requirement
for anything paid for by any insurance company,
public or private. This provides an audit trail.

Questions on someone's care can easily be audited.

40,000 audits is expensive. The way an audit works
in accounting, for instance, is that one does a sampling to verify the validity of the system. The same way Mass. should do it for these 40,000.
They will find out pretty quickly if there is a problem.

Then the solutions can begin, rather than assumption generated accusations.

There is also quality control audits built into every system of care. Another question, if there
is a problem, is why didn't the QA dept catch this 4.2% abuse, as accused.

---

Regarding the simplicity of getting private insurance cancelled and then ending up on Medicaid/Medicare?

You got it:

"If one's Insurance is cancelled, that person will pay their med/drug bills out of their pocket unless or until they become destitute or deemed disabled."

A good way to create disabled people is to take away their health care! Need I say more?
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Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #70 on: May 16, 2005, 01:52:00 PM »
Most of what you said is right on.

Except, any third party payment scheme
is an attempt at attempt at equitable redistribution. Any time you don't take
money out of your pocket to pay for
an unsubsidised item is an attempt
at equitable redistribution.

The problem with capitalism, here and
internationally is that there is none.
Lobbying and changing laws to favor
a business, automatically stops free
market enterprising.

The US, as you probably know, has more
lobbyist that the rest of all the nations
combined. Lot's of interference with a
true capitalistic society.

Sadly, in health care the biggest abusers
of ripping people off for their money is
private insurance. Cancellations due to
needing it, and having gatekeepers to deny
services should be illegal instead it is
embraced and given a nice monicker: HMO.

The interesting thing about Big Pharma is
that their financials are not so good that
they are the only stock to buy. In fact
if you follow the industry many are not
doing so well, that has created the big
buyouts, because the ones with strong
cash positions will buy out others that
promising new novel medications in the
pipeline.

For all its criticism, and I think the sin
here is being a slave to the quarterly mentality
of the stock market rather than to social
engineering, they do not make "all the money"
as it is often suggested.

They make money, certainly, but not enough
to call them the trigger industry in political
and social direction.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #71 on: May 16, 2005, 02:00:00 PM »
You know, part of the problem is not that the market is risky but that some investors don't know what they're doing.

I got out of that part of the market before the dot bomb and kept my profits (900%, in three years, no that's not a typo) because I saw the bubble and knew bubbles burst.

Maybe in private investment retirement accounts you should have to pass a test on how the stock market works, how to read a balance sheet, and how to tell what range of risks/benefits you are likely to have with various hypothetical profiles of fictional stocks.

Maybe also some investment ratios in kinds of stocks, stock funds, bonds, or bond funds that reasonable money managers recommend based on the investor's age.

Also, what commission practices are typically in what segments of the market and what they mean, and what various levels of stock quotes mean, and the *relative* risk of different kinds of investments.

Also maybe they give you a lot of information, much relevant and much not, on a fictional company and you have to determine what the stock price would need to be to be equal to the company's capital assets.

Then say you have to make a certain score on the test to be allowed to use a private account for your social security.

The biggest risk of private accounts is that a lot of people would invest very badly because they *don't* know a lot of those things, and they couldn't figure it out even on an open-book test.

Investing privately is *not* risky if you know what you're doing.  You can regularly make reasonable, steady returns on investment if you know what you're doing, and better gains if you're young and have the time and the seed capital to take *calculated* risks.  I would never have taken the risk on the stock I made so much money on if I hadn't understood exactly what I was buying, understood *why* the stock was a winner (it was, but I got way more profit than I could have anticipated because some other investors were really dumb and bid the price up way more than the company was worth--which was *why* I sold when I sold--but it still would have been a good stock even if those other buyers hadn't made a really bad decision because when I bought it it was very undervalued).  And I also never would have bought a stock that I might have had to wait so long for other investors to catch on that it was undervalued if I hadn't been young enough to wait it out.  There *was* risk of loss, of course, but it was reasonable and calculated risk and I had balancing investments that were a lot less risky.

It's not that the stock market is risky, it's that a lot of the people who are in it shouldn't be or are okay to be in but should *know* assessing risk isn't their strong suit and should be in very conservative investments, like T-bonds or public utilities.

The worse you are at valuing a company or assessing risk or all that "technical stuff," the more conservative your investments should be, and you really should be in a deep-discount brokerage firm where your broker *cannot* churn your investments to fleece you for extra commissions because you do all your own trades, and you should pick conservative investments and leave that money in the same conservative investment for years at a time.

Yes, you're leaving money on the table, but as they say in the market, "Little pigs get eaten."

If you don't know how to swim, you're better off staying in the shallow end of the pool.  You won't get to swim as much, but you'll still cool off on a hot day without drowning.

Timoclea
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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« Reply #72 on: May 16, 2005, 02:07:00 PM »
In some respects, Ginger, you are correct.
In others, not.

I try my best to identify the problem,
see if there is facts, or distortions.

Then I try to see if there is mechanism
built in to protect consumers, like in
any business.

Then I try to inform.

Where it gets nasty is when the basis
for someone's argument is not understood
by themselves, and I, or others try to
introduce facts. Then personal attacks
like "arrogance" get tossed around rather
than rebuttals.

For example:

Dr. Mosher happened to be living in
San Diego. I knew him personally. I was
at many meetings with him. So I
know his effectiveness locally and his
reputation. Should I keep it a secret?
Should I introduce it? It is difficult
when one introduces logic into an emotionally
based argument. There is no doubt that
just about everyone in San Diego liked
Dr. Mosher, it is just that his dogma
didn't hold up.

I would rather that both sides of the
fence use the same business, and beurocratic
examination of the issues to prove their
point and improve the system. Just like
improvements in a product, such as cars,
for example.

It is very frustrating to have a patient
referred to me that hit rock bottom because
of the influence of the anti-psychiatry crowd.

What can I say? The latest is a lady who
at 38 years old, and is a victim of spousal
abuse, was told by friends, family and the
abuser himself to stay away from psychiatry
and never mention she hears voices. Ok, she
stayed away, and did crystal instead. She
lost her kids, permanently, her husband is
being allowed to relocate out of state. She
lost her house, her section 8, her medi-cal
(which is Medicaid) all of her friends except
two, most of her family ... why ... she is
labeled a drug addict. What about the voices,
well, that is secondary. That is my reality.
It is sad to watch, and even sadder when the
patient is so out of control that she cannot
follow any advice, or make any phone calls
for herself. I am just a little ole voluntary
advocate. Free will for her, sadness for me.
She is sick and needs help ...

Anyway, I digress from the review boards, I
used to do the alternative stuff, until I
figured out that they where lying more than
the MDs.

I got involved beurocratically because I
was asked questions at a Medi-cal quality
insurance audit. I asked questions back
and asked how I could participate. One
referral led to a committee, and on and
on it went.

I don't do wholesale criticisms of the
system, I try my best to understand, teach
and improve it.

The one's that only complain are not
effective and often interfere with a
symptomatic persons ability to make
informed decisions on their own health
care.

I have never been bored in these meetings.
Trying to help from within the system is
very rewarding for me ... and that is why
I continue.
emotional argument. There is no doubt
that I
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Paul

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« Reply #73 on: May 16, 2005, 02:14:00 PM »
(oops, I just realized that I hadn't logged
in for my last two posts.)

All good points about private accounts.

The way that Bush has his private accounts
set up is a lose, lose.

The numbers have been run, and even at
an above historical market return any
person is better staying with the current
system.

---

One way I think Social Security would do
better is to include the whole country's
health care system.

Don't elimate the private sector but let
them bid for services. The government would
manage these contracts. San Diego County
Mental Health does about 70% of their
$208 million dollar budget this way, and
it looks darn good to me.

Then we could take the 30% profit off the
top of the private insurance industry and
re-invest it into health care for all.

The absolute best thing about socialized
medicine is that no longer would people
be bound to jobs because of health insurance
reasons and people on disability could
return to work without the fear of losing
insurance. The bubble that keeps people
on disability would be gone. People could
just work, how refreshing.

My favorite, is socialize medicine, let
the government manage it, let both private
and public entities bid and the contracts,
called Managed Competition. Then, get
the employees out of the health business
and let them focus on business!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
or those who don\'t understand my position, on all subjects:

* Understand the law and your rights.

* Make sure you have the freedom of choice.

* Seek and receive unbiased information and
know the source of information.

Offline Paul

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« Reply #74 on: May 16, 2005, 02:15:00 PM »
The safety net in society works
for roads, sewage, drinking water, etc.

Why not health care?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
or those who don\'t understand my position, on all subjects:

* Understand the law and your rights.

* Make sure you have the freedom of choice.

* Seek and receive unbiased information and
know the source of information.