JayB

A retail study for the village done in '05 stated: curious to see how they define "regional" I still think Whistler at $83 is a POS ripoff compared to Chamonix or St Anton at $55, much less Stubai at $40 even in "lame" seasons. The cost of staying in those communities is similar to Whistler as well. Strange that so many Brits and Euros spring for the extra-airfare and endure the extra flying time to come to Whistler instead of skiing in Euroland. One factor that pretty much every Euro/Brit that I've chatted with on the lifts cites (in addition to the scenery, snowpack, terrain, etc) the orderliness of the lift lines, and the relative lack thereof as key attractions of Whistler/North America vs Euroland. What has your experience been? If you live in the PNW, there's really no reason to travel anywhere else to ski IMO. There may be other places that have a better combination of vert, snowpack, and terrain inbounds, BC stuff that's just as good, and a season that's just as long...but I can't see any marginal gain in any of these warranting a flight. If you live in the East, however, it's worth donating plasma if that's what it takes to escape.

Is available and costs money. Your point is? Ditto for lottery tickets, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, flat-screen TV's, chrome rims, etc - but people find a way to buy them. If a hypothetical family could afford health insurance, and disability insurance by selling their home and moving into more modest lodgings, then they *can* afford both - but choose not to. Sorry - but there's no right to a house, a car, cable, etc - and unless someone has stripped every non-essential expenditure out of their lifestyle before claiming that they can't afford coverage, then their lack of coverage is a consequence of their choices, not of circumstances beyond their control.

During our trip last year we used the two-for-one coupons that you got from filling up at Shell stations in Washington to get tickets for half of the stated price. Not sure how the economics of that work out, or how much of their visitation is from international visitors who pay so much in lodging/airfare/food that the price of lift tickets inconsequential. Seems like most destination resorts offer some kind of a deal to folks within driving range of the lifts to keep them from revolting, while getting every penny they can out of the folks who have to fly there. I still think that $82 for a day at Whistler is a bargain compared to prices in $65-$80 a-day range for POS eastern resorts.

A serious injury or chronic condition can easily cost, post insurance payment, 10-20% of your pretax income for a moderate earner not counting loss of wages Sure people could buy some crap catastrophic plan that won't cover much if/when you get injured, which is when healthcare gets really expensive. Disability insurance....

It'd be interesting to see how, under current arrangements, this development will impact Canada overall. Pros: cheaper imports the USA (whether imported by consumers themselves or the various wholesalers, etc that do so on their behalf)and less expensive travel in the USA. Cons: exports become proportionately less competitive in the US market, traveling/shopping in Canada become less affordable/attractive to Americans. Two sides to the coin, but I'm not sure that rapid increases in the exhange rate are a net-positive for Canada.

My main point was to counter FW's assertion that no one wants universal coverage. Certainly some of the 25 million people w/o health care are doing this by choice, but it's fair to say that a good amount of them have no health coverage because it is too expensive. Yes, you can get a cheap policy that covers a major accident, with a major deductable, but that does nothing for any type of preventive, wellness care like taking your kid in for odds and ends. The current private sector model is not working. Given the evidence of how Medicare and the VA can provide a more efficient delivery system compared to the privately run, profit and advertisement driven model, and with ample success stories in all other industralized countries, I have faith that we could work out a good single payer system. So far the only argument against such a system I've heard is that people just don't trust the government to run it well. Given the track record of the private insurers I say it's time to give it a try. How do you explain the fact that the premiums for health insurance - and thus affordability - vary dramatically from one state to the next? Does the price of MRI's and scalpel's vary dramatically from one state to the next, or might the manner in which the health-insurance market is regulated have an impact? It's also worth making the point that "affordable" means different things to different people. How many people who claim that they can't afford health insurance have cable TV, elected to purchase homes instead of renting more modest dwellings, eat out instead of preparing their own meals, own multiple cars, etc? If affordability is the primary problem, there are models other than nationalizing the entire sector of the economy. Is the primary goal here transferring control of a massive sector of the economy to the government, or to improve affordability? Seems like the former to me.

This is the worst possible solution. Forcing people to buy somethign from a private company is bullshit. Talk about taking away your freedoms. Tax credits are a boon doggle. EIC is already in place for people who wouldn't be able to afford insurance. The only way for these people to get healthcare is if the tax credits were to pay them significantly more than they paid in the first place. Even then, the financial burden wouldn't be manageable. They wouldn't get that money back until their tax returns were filed. How would being forced to pay for a good from a private company - in a system where aside from satisfying certain minimum coverage requirements - you are free to choose from catastrophic versus comprehensive coverage, you are fee to choose from policies offered by all participants in a competitive health-insurance market, etc...worse than being forced to pay into a unitary system run by the government where you have none of these things? Would you rather buy your car insurance from a government run monopoly, instead of participating in the current system, where the government mandates coverage and certain minimums but otherwise allows insurers to compete for your business and for you to choose who you want to buy your insurance from? If we were discussing private monopolies versus public monopolies I might agree with you, but none of the compulsory insurance models that I'm aware of include the establishment of private monopolies in their plans.

Jim: I presume that when Tim Eyman's referendums secure passage, you raise a glass to to him, and delight in the prospect of legislative solutions to problems requiring the consideration and resolution of an incredibly complex series of conflicting perogatives - by a simple majority of the citizens, whether or not they have any expertise on the matter. "WOULD YOU RATHER PAY A FLAT $30 FEE FOR CAR TABS OR PAY MUCH HIGHER FEES?" Aside from the "wisdom of the crowds" angle at play here, there's also the matter of whether the respondents would respond with equal enthusiasm if the question were phrased differently, and whether enthusiasm for universal health care is synonymous with a model in which all health care is paid for and administered by the government.

I don't think there is a "crisis". Obviously there are problems - and they are getting worse. But 'crisis'? Politicians love to "manufacture" crises when they don't exist. I don't trust government programs and their costs. I want to understand exactly why we are doing something, what the "solution"'s goals are, how much it will cost and be convinced that the quality of care will not go down. And I want the people who institute these programs to be accountable with adequate oversight. If the program fails it should be scrapped. With government that rarely happens. I've already proposed a palatable solution for me. Let people opt in to a gov't sponsored program and see how it flies. Every card-carrying Dem can sign up, along with the 43 million uninsured. According to Jim's arguments it would be more efficient than private health care, eliminating the "middle man", and address issues like denial of coverage. My suspicions as to why people don't support this idea is that they know damn well that the program will fail to be any better than private care and will cost more. What they want is to nationalize health care first, ask questions later, and just shrug off any failures by either denying that they ever said the plan would be cheaper and better or blaming failures on "the other side" or "lack of adequate funding". One component of this debate that's often left out the fact that medicare/medicaid often make payments that are less than the total cost of the procedure being covered - and hospitals, doctors, etc cover the difference elsewhere - which results in proportionately higher insurance premiums and medical bills for those outside of these systems. This will not be possible under a single payer system, in which the payer will have to either pay the full costs of the procedures, or attempt to impose price controls. Since price is a function of supply and demand, which is influenced by factors that can neither be controlled nor forseen by whatever centralized administrative mechanism has been installed to replace the price mechanism - the odds are 1:1 that the nominal price set by the government will diverge from the real price of whatever health-care good is being purchased - which will result in overpayment for, and a surplus of, those health care goods for which the nominal price is higher than the real price. The probability of the converse occurring, where the nominal price set by the government is less than the true price of the health-care good, and those in the business of providing those goods will decline to produce goods at a loss, and the end result will be a shortage of those goods relative to demand, and this shortage will persist until the nominal price increases to the level required to bring additional supply forward. When you attempt to supplant the real price with a nominal price - these outcomes are inevitable.

Swiss Model: The Swiss healthcare system is a combination of public, subsidised private and totally private systems: * public: e. g. the University of Geneva Hospital (HUG) with 2,350 beds, 8,300 staff and 50,000 patients per year; * subsidised private: the home care services to which one may have recourse in case of a difficult pregnancy, after childbirth, illness, accident, handicap or old age; * totally private: doctors in private practice and in private clinics. The insured person has full freedom of choice among the recognised healthcare providers competent to treat their condition (in his region) on the understanding that the costs are covered by the insurance up to the level of the official tariff. There is freedom of choice when selecting an insurance company (provided it is an officially registered caisse-maladie or a private insurance company authorised by the Federal Act) to which one pays a premium, usually on a monthly basis. The list of officially-approved insurance companies can be obtained from the cantonal authority.

Echoes of Luke and Darth Vader...

You know better than to foist this troll bullshit. The Dems are not pushing universal health care; the country is. The idea is now supported by a majority of Americans regardless of political affiliation. "LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." Pretty clear to me. At the center of this troll is the idea that only lazy shitbags get sick, and they do so because of poor life habits. In fact, they deserve it, right? It's simply a story people tell themselves so that they feel better about abandoning so many of their countrymen in need. I'd have more respect for the opponents of universal health care if they just came right out and said they really didn't give a shit about anyone else. Oh wait, KKK just said that, and I still don't respect him. The simple story being told to oneself here seems to be that anyone that opposing the nationalization of healthcare is doing so out of callous disregard for the less fortunate.

Seems like it's just effective diplomacy to me. I'm sure that they're aware of the fact that their volte-face on this one will get Tehran's attention, and will be more effective at getting them to the table averting a real war than an infinite succession of firm-yet-ambiguous diplomopablum would be....if they don't sack Kouchner and immediately offer an extravagant litany of apologies and prostrations before the mullahs for his rash statements. We'll see.

"World should brace for possible war over Iran: France PARIS (AFP) — The world should brace for a possible war over the Iranian nuclear crisis but seeking a solution through talks should take priority, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday. "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," he said in an interview broadcast on French television and radio. "We must negotiate right to the end," with Iran, he said, but underlined that if Tehran possessed an atomic weapon, it would represent "a real danger for the whole world." Calling the nuclear standoff "the greatest crisis" of present times, the minister said: "We will not accept that the bomb is manufactured," and hinted that military plans were on the way. "We are trying to put in place plans which are the privilege of chiefs of staff and that is not for tomorrow," he said but stressed that although any attack on Iran was far from taking place, "It is normal for us to plan" for any eventuality. In Washington, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates took a more muted approach on Sunday. "I will tell you that I think the administration believes at this point that continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat ... through diplomatic and economic means is by far the preferable approach," he said. Kouchner meanwhile said France wanted the European Union to prepare sanctions against Iran, outside the ambit of the UN Security Council, to force Tehran to forsake its nuclear ambitions. "We have decided that while negotiations are continuing ... to prepare eventual sanctions outside the ambit of UN sanctions. Our good friends, the Germans, suggested that," he said. The foreign minister also said leading French companies such as Total and Gaz de France had been urged not to undertake new work or contracts in Iran..." http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iN4GM3DfrF7M_a2ASOwVHkePq58g

sounds like she is making that choice - not to get the money for this surgery. Yeah, she is "choosing" to suffer a life of disability rather than trot on down to the magic money tree and pick a few $10k bills off the low-hanging branches. Tell me more about the fairytale land you live in! During my last stint in Washington I got catastrophic coverage with a $2500 deductible for ~40 a month when I wasn't covered by an employer sponsored plan. Worth looking into if you don't want to roll the dice.

Anyone got a breakdown of how much the uninsured make, how long they stay uninsured on average, etc? I've seen this data before, somewhere.

Silly response - yes. Silly question - no. Why not eliminate the private market for food and place it in the hands of the government? The arguments used to justify nationalizing healthcare apply equally well to food. If you want the government to be responsible for paying for, administering, and distributing all goods and services in the healthcare market on the grounds that the private sector is incapable of doing so efficiently, how is it that the same government could not execute the same tasks just as well when it comes to producing and distributing food? Seriously.

Well, I recently read health care costs will go up 78% in 6 years, if that actually happens, it may very well precipitate a quick change. Back to my point above, imagine that this limited "pilot" program exists, and it is an option on the benefits package for those of us insured through our employers. Right now I have two choices: a PPO plan with "more choice" and a POS plan with a restricted set of doctors/clinics I can use. Imagine the third (gov't) program is an option as well, and I can change coverage say once a year. Right now, I don't think the PPO is worth the extra cost and am fine with it. I might give a government program a shot under this type of scheme. I could actually SEE the cost, and make a personal decision on my coverage, which I could change, say, each year, if I am not happy about it through experience in that system. This is far superior than having all these things decided FOR ME by government as the result of a specific candidate's platform and (tyranny of the) majority rule. Excellent points/ideas.

Related question: can anyone arguing in favor of nationalizing health care make a credible argument against nationalizing the production, distribution, and provision of food?

Transferring the tax advantages that currently go to employers to individuals, compulsory coverage with subsidies where appropriate, coupled with tax-free HSA's and a nationwide market for health insurance plus existing medicare/medicaid programs for children/the-elderly/the-disabled/etc would result in universal coverage, greater affordability, and foster price transparency and price competition in the medical marketplace, which would help contain total expenditures. What [positive outcomes] would nationalizing healthcare accomplish that the above reforms would not?

Providing services in a sector in which the price mechanism coordinates supply and demand, sets prices, allocates capital for new therapies and technology, etc is a much different task than attempting to manage the entire market via a centralized administrative mechanism. Thankfully - I imagine that Hillary is actually proposing something along the lines of making insurance compulsory, and using a combination of tax-credits and subsidies for working adults who would not otherwise be able to afford the premiums, which is something quite different. Guess I'll have to read the article.

That a person can simultaneously believe that the government is corrupt, power-hungry leviathan hell-bent on trampling the rights and freedoms encoded in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights on one hand, while simultaneously fantasizing about a state of affairs in which the same government literally has your life in its hands as the sole custodian of all of your most sensitive personal information, the sole provider of healthcare, and the serves as the sole paymaster - and thereby the sole arbiter - responsible for all healthcare decisions is quite astonishing. The coercive powers of any government in any society increase in direct proportion to the extent that the government controls the economy, so a socialist sounding the alarm-bells about the dangers of excessive government power is about as convincing as a prostitute preaching the virtues of chastity.

Could you expand on the oil/1st-world-population link in a bit more depth?

Quite a bit more to the energy-consumption/global-warming/CO2 emissions puzzle than petroleum consumption by passenger vehicles.

I don't personally think that a fleet-wide fuel economy standard is necessarily the best way to promote fuel efficiency, since automakers base their production on what they think that consumers want to buy, and if consumers don't want to buy fuel efficient vehicles, the auto manufacturers shouldn't be penalized for that. As fuel gets more expensive, consumer preferences will change accordingly - but progressively higher fuel costs aren't necessarily guaranteed, and hit the poor - especially the rural poor the hardest, not only at the pump, but via higher shipping costs, etc - all of which materialize in higher prices for the consumer staples, etc that they spend most of their money on. Not to mention the increased costs of heating their home, etc. If I had to dream up a legislative method for promoting fuel efficiency that doesn't hose the poor - I'd favor fees that you paid at tab-time that used some kind of AGI ajdusted formula that multiplied either gross vehicle weight or EPA fuel-economy stats by miles driven per year. The AGI component could be used to lessen the impact on low-income people, and using this mechanism rather than a global tax on all fuels would prevent higher fuel costs from translating into higher prices for food, transport, etc, etc, etc, etc.