O-Blame-O get's schooled :)

[pink]

[video:youtube]

[pink]

too bad this guy didn't get elected 4 years ago....

[rob]

too bad this guy didn't get elected 4 years ago....

 

Meh, you should read his book "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" and see if you still think so. Certainly he has many personal achievements worth of merit and respect, but does that make him a good president? Not in my opinion after suffering through his (well-written, at least) revisionist US history treatise on the benefits of unbridled capitalism and how much better everything used to be.

 

You should give it a read and see if he still gives you a chubbie. It's cheap on Kindle and worth a read, especially if you like the guy.

[pink]

too bad this guy didn't get elected 4 years ago....

 

Meh, you should read his book "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" and see if you still think so. Certainly he has many personal achievements worth of merit and respect, but does that make him a good president? Not in my opinion after suffering through his (well-written, at least) revisionist US history treatise on the benefits of unbridled capitalism and how much better everything used to be.

 

You should give it a read and see if he still gives you a chubbie. It's cheap on Kindle and worth a read, especially if you like the guy.

 

i find him a tad more inspiring than obama. he could at least get health care on the right track. rob, i honestly lean more right these days with the exception of bible thumping, gay hating and i could give a rats ass if someone gets an abortion.

 

i don't think obama would stand a chance with him in a debate on healthcare, but you can't beat a man at his own trade. i also would like to add that i can't say a community organizer from a corrupt city in a failed state would be a great president either.

Edited February 10, 2013 by pink

[JosephH]

I suspect HSA would be a bad idea for folks in poverty. For every low income person who 'gets' HSA's and manages them 'right' there'd likely be many more who wouldn't and who would still end up in ERs.

[rob]

HSAs are not for everyone, first of all don't you have to have a high-deductible plan to even qualify? My high-deductible plan that qualified me for an HSA comes with a $3750 deductible and another 2k of "coinsurance", and an HSA is useless if you don't have that kind of disposable income to put into it.

[kevbone]

Go Blazers.

[JayB]

HSAs are not for everyone, first of all don't you have to have a high-deductible plan to even qualify? My high-deductible plan that qualified me for an HSA comes with a $3750 deductible and another 2k of "coinsurance", and an HSA is useless if you don't have that kind of disposable income to put into it.

 

Easily remedied by income-indexed transfers into an HSA account. We do more or less the same income-indexed transfers for food via food-stamps, housing via section-8 vouchers, income assistance via the EIC, etc.

 

Until this year I had a high deductible plan with a 3K deductible into which my employer contributed $1500 - and the balance accumulated year after year. Replicating that model and indexing the annual contribution into the HSA account to the recipients income wouldn't be difficult.

 

Not everyone who lacks the income to adequately fund an HSA or make up the difference between their contributions and their deductible is either chronically ill or financially destitute, or has a medical catastrophe each and every year, so most people would likely be able to accumulate a sufficient balance to cover the full amount of the deductible when they do have a medical crisis.

 

There's a sub-population of people who are perpetually ill and/or destitute that the state would probably be better off just paying for directly.

 

 

 

 

[JayB]

I suspect HSA would be a bad idea for folks in poverty. For every low income person who 'gets' HSA's and manages them 'right' there'd likely be many more who wouldn't and who would still end up in ERs.

 

Agreed - but not sure that would necessarily leave us in a worse position than we're in now, where Medicaid patients have little or no incentive (other than wasting their own time) to avoid using the ER for non-emergencies. If even 25% of the Medicaid population managed their HSA appropriately (I suspect the number would be at least 3X as high with the right plan design), the potential savings would be substantial.

 

If you get a chance, find a front-line ER doc that works in a hospital that serves a heavy load of medicaid patients and ask them if they can think of any policies that would reduce the frequency with which Medicaid patients seek care in ER's that would be much better addressed via anywhere from a nurse-practitioners outfit to an urgent care clinic.