**President Trump 2018 Thread**

[Dick Allen]

According to this, the US is ranked 37th in health care. 

 

http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/

[RockRaines]

My point still stands and is valid.  More Americans travel abroad for medical reasons than the number of people that come here from countries with Socialized health care.  If anyone has opposing statistics I'd love to see them

[Soxbadger]

7 minutes ago, raBBit said:

There's a whole government agency made for protecting creditors against collectors. 

 

Now Im confused. I presume you meant protecting consumers against collectors, but Im not sure how that relates to writing off debt. To the best of my knowledge, there is no law that requires creditors to write off debt. My understanding is that the creditor makes this decision based on different factors around the ability to collect versus the cost of collection versus the amount gained by writing off the debt.

Now I could be wrong, do you have any information on this law or the regulations as it pertains to creditors being forced to write off debt.

[Soxbadger]

9 hours ago, Jerksticks said:

It SHOULD be the past.  And to me it’s obvious- 4-10k deductibles is all a person or family can get now. 

 But it’s not the past.  I’m reminded on here and the news every day that all the people around me are racists and it pisses me off.  People just wanted something different.  

 

To your our other point, which I love, is what can be done.  I really hope Trump goes full steam at drug prices.  I think a lot of people think that’s where it starts. I’m not an expert but Smirconish had an expert on the other day exposing how all these middle men basically negotiate the prices of drugs between ICs and Pharma and that Pharma makes so many patents for each drug that generics can’t get in.  

 

I truly think a change to Pharma patent law and price negotiation is about to become the president’s focus and it should be captivating news, especially when it gets to SCOTUS.  There might actually be a ruling from SCOTUS basically saying “we don’t care that the law protects you, people are being crushed.”  That would be unprecedented.   Just my prediction and I think it will be the first time everybody backs him.   Interesting time to be alive for sure. 

Jerksticks,

I hope that Trump does try and do something. But I have not seen any indication that Trump or his administration have any real interest in helping. Mostly what I see (and its just like my opinion man) is Trump wanting to do the opposite of Obama. If he does actually do something good about prices, then I would hope people would get passed fighting for their team and give credit where its due.

 

[Dam8610]

1 hour ago, raBBit said:

There's also a reason that people from adjacent countries that have socialized medicine come to America for procedures.

Please provide data to back your claim.

[illinilaw08]

37 minutes ago, raBBit said:

Again, middle class people who have insurance are more likely to go through bankruptcy than poor people with nothing. 

So, generally I agree that the truly destitute are not likely to go through bankruptcy (they can't afford it, no sense to get bk protection if you are just going to need it again in a year).  And I also agree that a creditor is going to attempt to determine whether they can collect prior to going after people in collection, and that collection efforts against someone who is "judgment proof" is throwing good money after bad (though writing off debt doesn't mean that the debt no longer exists).

But "poor people with nothing" is a really, really broad term.  If somebody works and takes home $1,500/m, subsisting otherwise on benefits like SNAP, I wouldn't consider them to be middle class - they are working poor, better than destitute and below the middle class.  But a creditor (including a hospital!) is likely going to get their judgment, garnish wages, and ultimately force that poor person into bk to stop the garnishment.  So the working poor - ie, lots of debt, garnishments pending - don't fit into the "middle class" designation, but are a hell of a lot more likely to file bankruptcy than someone in the middle class with assets that they can't exempt in the bankruptcy filing as a means to protect their wages.

Pre-ACA, people WITH health insurance were forced into bk because their insurance didn't cover enough, an emergency happened, and all of a sudden they were $80k in debt.  People who worked but were effectively barred from the insurance marketplace because (a) no employer coverage; and (b) pre-existing conditions (or they had hit lifetime caps) ended up in bk because they, too, quickly found themselves with $80k+ in medical debt.

The ACA does a good job of avoiding those catastrophic scenarios.  That's important!  The effect, however, of insuring more people and providing more comprehensive coverage is that coverage becomes more expensive.  There are definitely people who were negatively impacted by that as well, and that's important to recognize as well.

[illinilaw08]

35 minutes ago, Soxbadger said:

 

Now Im confused. I presume you meant protecting consumers against collectors, but Im not sure how that relates to writing off debt. To the best of my knowledge, there is no law that requires creditors to write off debt. My understanding is that the creditor makes this decision based on different factors around the ability to collect versus the cost of collection versus the amount gained by writing off the debt.

 Now I could be wrong, do you have any information on this law or the regulations as it pertains to creditors being forced to write off debt.

This is how it has worked over my last decade of practice...

[greg775]

2 hours ago, raBBit said:

Your testimonial doesn't live up to the facts. If a single mother has 300 dollars in the bank and has an ACA plan with a $5,000 deductible and all of a sudden she gets an emergency surgery for $4,500 the hospital doesn't follow her around and garnish her wages until she's a slave. They write it off. Since ACA brought in these high deductible plans, hospitals have been writing off more and more receivables because lower middle class and poor people have been forced onto high deductible plans. If the same single mother had 300 dollars and no insurance, she would get covered for the emergency surgery and the hospital would write off the debt she couldn't conceivably pay.

This isn't partisan theory or opinion. This is how insurance works. This is my experience in that industry. My mom's (liberal) understanding of a nurse of 2-3  decades in the ER/ICU.

The problem with health insurance in America isn't poor people. Poor people get covered by good Samaritan laws and ethical debt practices. The people who get fucked are the middle class. The one's who have assets and a family but get unexpected medical expenses. The talk of poor people and the destitute is just an emotional play by the people in congress who are influenced by the healthcare/insurance industries. 

Wow. This is awful

[southsider2k5]

3 hours ago, Dam8610 said:

Please provide data to back your claim.

https://patientsbeyondborders.com/united-states

 

Each year, some 300,000 international patients visit the United States seeking excellence in specialty care—especially in complex or "high-acuity" cases. US facilities and physicians are rarely able to beat the price at a JCI-accredited hospital in India, Turkey or Thailand; however, American specialists often are called upon to treat cases considered difficult or untreatable elsewhere.

[Whitesoxin2019]

 

[Dam8610]

7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

https://patientsbeyondborders.com/united-states

 

 

 

That's an incomplete data set that neither supports nor debunks his point. The dataset needs things like the number (and percentage) of people who leave their country each year to receive medical care and the number of foreigners that go to each country to receive medical care, preferably broken down into percentages by country of origin. Seeing that would allow a proper vetting of the validity of his claim.

ETA: Turkey, Thailand, and India are not adjacent and Thailand does not have socialized medicine, while India has it in name only. I suppose we could just look at net patient migration between US and Canada to test his claim, since it was only about "adjacent countries that have socialized medicine", though that probably wouldn't service his claim well. 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Dam8610

[southsider2k5]

Just now, Dam8610 said:

That's an incomplete data set that neither supports nor debunks his point. The dataset needs things like the number (and percentage) of people who leave their country each year to receive medical care and the number of foreigners that go to each country to receive medical care, preferably broken down into percentages by country of origin. Seeing that would allow a proper vetting of the validity of his claim.

Why?  He didn't use a quantitative term to signify how many.

[Dam8610]

4 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Why?  He didn't use a quantitative term to signify how many.

Fine, let's just look at net patient migration between US and Canada, since Canada is the only country that meets the criteria.

[caulfield12]

5 hours ago, raBBit said:

Exactly. I am and was totally against ACA. 

And yet offer no better solutions than to complain.

Sounds a lot like the Tea Partiers...where, exactly, are they now?

[caulfield12]

23 minutes ago, raBBit said:

I don't usually read your posts but when they're this short I'll respond. I've said my piece on healthcare a million times. You can act like I haven't but you've probably scoffed at it in the past. What in the world do the "Tea Partiers" have to do with anything? Stop projecting your hate for people who have different opinions than you onto me. 

Why are you so afraid of there being a better solution?

The Tea Partiers are the ones who launched a whole election cycle based on getting rid of the ACA...and continued on in 2012 and 2014.  They too, didn’t offer any solutions.   Meanwhile, the Republican Party had months and months to formulate plans for what they could do to improve health care if they ever got into a position to do so and completely, utterly failed to deliver on what was promised to the American people.

Thanks for the usual snark, though.  Good usage of “scoffed.”   If you weren’t so interested in insulting everyone or complaining about “being ganged up on” over and over again, you’d be a lot more fun.  Actually, I would think that you would enjoy the sheer intellectual challenge of it all, instead of constantly arguing how it’s unfair.  Apparently it’s justifiable to criticize others, but it doesn’t feel good when the shoe’s on the other foot, right?  (Sounds exactly like a certain president.)

By the way, I don’t HATE those who have different opinions...any more so than those who “attacked” the poster who was spouting Alex Jones Talking Points yesterday “hated” him.   In fact, you might be the first person who has ever accused me of hating ANYONE (I’ve said a number of positive things about Trump and certainly never was firmly behind Clinton), but that’s okay.   It’s not like anyone tells you to move to another country or follow the Cubs instead because their fanbase and owner are more traditional/conservative, lol.   

Edited May 17, 2018 by caulfield12

[GoSox05]

1 hour ago, Whitesoxin2019 said:

 

That's definitely what people are saying.

[caulfield12]

I know there are a lot more countries around the world THIS WEEK thinking “Israel/innocent peacemakers” than those believing Palestinians are all terrorists.

Sure...and did those talking points come from the desk of Oliver North, by the way?

[Whitesoxin2019]

24 minutes ago, GoSox05 said:

That's definitely what people are saying.

Yeah and you only need to go a few pages back in this very thread for those spreading out of context fake news that those “animals” Trump spoke of were actually ms13. 

And it quite a few times on this board all Trump supporters were blanketed as racists. 

 

Edited May 17, 2018 by Whitesoxin2019
Trump Supporters are actually not racist

[Kyyle23]

50 minutes ago, Whitesoxin2019 said:

Yeah and you only need to go a few pages back in this very thread for those spreading out of context fake news that those “animals” Trump spoke of were actually ms13. 

And it quite a few times on this board all Trump supporters were blanketed as racists. 

 

Trump being known as a racist is not limited to those comments.  Not even close.  But I am sure you already know this

[Reddy]

33 minutes ago, Whitesoxin2019 said:

 

Memes and tweets =/= cogent arguments.

No one thinks Hamas are innocent demonstrators. The *PEOPLE* - especially the children - demonstrating are not Hamas, even if they've been radicalized by Hamas.

[Whitesoxin2019]

“Ugly white people”

 

does talcum X not realize he’s white too?

[Whitesoxin2019]

30 minutes ago, Reddy said:

Memes and tweets =/= cogent arguments.

No one thinks Hamas are innocent demonstrators. The *PEOPLE* - especially the children - demonstrating are not Hamas, even if they've been radicalized by Hamas.

Orly?

no one? 

You are defending a base that still needs to be taught what laws are and illegal alien vs Immigrant. I still hear the “Trumps wife is an immigrant” argument every so often hurr derr

Edited May 17, 2018 by Whitesoxin2019

[caulfield12]

4 minutes ago, Whitesoxin2019 said:

Orly?

no one? 

You are defending a base that still needs to be taught what laws are and illegal alien vs Immigrant. I still hear the “Trumps wife is an immigrant” argument every so often hurr derr

One can only hope that ALL immigrants seeking entry into the US are treated so favorably and looked out for as Melania was...that they can be granted special status for “having a unique talent” such as being a Slovenian model with multiple cosmetic enhancements possessing a physical look that could not be replicated by domestic American models.

[Whitesoxin2019]

24 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

One can only hope that ALL immigrants seeking entry into the US are treated so favorably and looked out for as Melania was...that they can be granted special status for “having a unique talent” such as being a Slovenian model with multiple cosmetic enhancements possessing a physical look that could not be replicated by domestic American models.

Sure. But there were people with way less working for them who did things the legal way. 

[Dick Allen]

Can someone point to the law democrats are responsible for according to Trump that forces the break up of families, or is that  just more dishonest,fake news the media has him on camera saying?