Slime wrote:
>> The US spends 16% of our GDP on healthcare.  That's more than we spend on 
>> defense, and we're fighting in Iraq *and* Afghanastan!
> 
> 
> Isn't much of that money going to the people who provide the healthcare? 
> Doesn't that motivate them to provide the best services possible?
> 
>  - Slime
>  [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ] 
> 
> 
The people providing the health care are not determining what is being 
provided, or even the "prices". Insurance companies mitigate their costs 
by a) not covering some things, b) hand picking doctors they know will 
minimize their costs, and/or c) refusing to pay for some treatments. In 
one case, a major insurance company actually "bought up", what was, at 
the time, the only two agencies responsible for rating the actual cost 
of medical procedures, then ordered their, now sub-companies, to under 
rate the costs, so that the companies could make **you** pay for some 
percentage of the real cost for the procedure. They got sued, and 
forced, as part of the settlement, to pay money out, to create an new 
*independent* agency to provide such cost ratings. The problem is, they 
themselves still use "their" companies, and so does nearly every other 
company that wants to save themselves money, instead of basing coverage 
on "honest" averages of those costs. Worse, some morons just recently 
convinced the courts that it was "unfair" for us to only pay the 
percentage we where (I think like 10-15%), and to raise it to 20% of the 
costs, and there is at least one idiot in congress, if I remember 
rightly, on the right wing side, who has suggested it would be ever 
fairer if we paid 30-35% of the cost of medical bills, as premiums. Or, 
in other words, 30 cents, out of every dollar, for **all** procedures, 
whether it be a $20 bottle of pills, or a $10,000 surgery.

Insurance companies are in it to make money, while minimizing how, when, 
and how much, they pay out, when you "need them". Its also why they 
almost *never* cover preventative care. Some moron figured, some place, 
that the odds of most people needing to have $100,000 was extremely 
small, but if 1,000 people all had to pay $20 to get a checkup (this 
being when they first came up with the stupid idea), they would be 
paying out $200,000 a year, instead of $100,000. So, its better if you 
never use it, and they keep making money, than if you do use it, to 
prevent paying for actually medical problems. At least from their 
perspective.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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