Weighing Health Care Proposals

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United States patent 1493222 is for "A weighing device especially adapted for weighing feces as excreted.

I challenge Seth to provide 7 points that he believes are in Obama's health care reform & why each will do the job to his satisfaction & why? What I am looking for is not the White House / Congressional talking points (we've had enough of those from both sides), but the detail justification for the top 7 elements of a bill that BHO should sign as seen through Seth's eyes. I shall be working on what I would call 7 points why the current proposal (HR3200+) should be DOA, since I have already made my positive proposal in 12267.

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Seth says

Sure I will enter into constructive inquiry with you. But first we need to establish an environment in which constructive inquiry can exist. My experience tells me that it requires two elements: (1) agreement on a common purpose. This is usually the formation of a question which needs to be answered. And (2) adherence to rules of conduct. If we can agree on those, then perhaps it will be worth the effort. As a start I propose the following:

The question to be answered is: What are the essential elements of the current progressive reform of health care and how are they supposed to accomplish their goal? The point of answering that question is to discover what the plan is of its own right - what it proposes to do and how it proposes to do that; but not to criticize it. We can criticize it, or look at alternatives, only when we can understand what it is.
The rules of conduct should be to write only true sentences which further the purpose of answering the question and contain none of the known fallacies.

I'm going to be busy next week on speaktomecatalog business. However, with your cooperation, if we can agree on something resembling points 1 and 2 above, then i will still try to get the job done by the end of the week.

Mark de LA says

Well, you have asked a different, but corollary question than the one I wanted to answered. I want to know what are the top 7 features of a plan to reform health care in the US that the president should sign from Seth's point of view. I then want a clear explanation of why those features will work & how they will work & what they will accomplish. I don't care where they come from, but Seth must be behind them or not bother to state them. Another way to state the question, Seth, Is what do you want in a health care reform plan & why; will it do the job? At some point after that discussion I would want a set of metrics proposed that would measure the results.

P.S. There is no hurry, people will be getting born, living, getting sick & dying for a quite a few more millenia to come in this World.

Seth says

To be honest i don't know how to reform health care, so i can't share a purpose of propping up my point of view and what i am behind. But for the sake of cooperation i can tell you what i think the administration's plan is. To insist that it be a 7 point plan seems too arbitrary; but strangely enough it did just happen to came out in 7 points.

Unfortunately you have not agreed to any rules of conduct - you need to do that in writing or i'm not going to spend much time here.

That said, off the top of my head, sans research, my understanding of the administration's plan for health care reform is below. Bear in mind this is not necessarily what the administrations plan actually is - for that we need research. Nor is it any of the 4 different plans cumming (or not) out of the congressional committees - for that we need research. Nor is it my plan - for that I would need much more research. And, yes, i would vote for the plan below assuming that the research that i noted was done.

Leave alone those things that are working.
Establish a "exchange" where individuals and businesses can choose an affordable private insurance policy where:

you cannot be excluded because of preexisting conditions
you cannot be canceled if your pay your premiums

Put in the exchange an option of an insurance company administered by the government without profit. That public option would be restricted to paying claims out of premiums and not out of tax payer money.
Establish a counsel of experts which would establish rules for payment of claims based upon a scientific study of what health care works best. These rules would be implemented if Congress did not override them. It is unclear to me what relationship this would have to 1, 2, 3, and medicare - that needs to be researched.
Eliminate known inefficiencies in the delivery of health care. I'm not quite sure what is covered by these inefficiencies; but a couple come to mind:

eliminate Medicare Advantage
improve automated medical records
eliminate redundant or unnecessary tests (research defensive medicine)
skew what is paid for to include more for prevention
skew what is paid for to be not so much for procedures done, but rather for health delivered
skew what is paid for to encourage more primary care not so much specialty

Mandate that businesses (and possibly individuals) must have health care policies. These mandates make the pool of covered individuals much larger making it possible to eliminate the cancellations and exclusions of the current system.
Provide subsidies for people who cannot afford the premiums. It is unclear to me whether the monies for the subsidies would come from premiums collected from the larger pool or whether they would come from tax payer monies.

Mark de LA says

It is hard to obey any rules when you won't answer the question posed : What is Seth's health care plan? I suspect that you, Seth, can think independently from the Obama Administration which predominately wants to solve all problems by throwing taxpayer money at them. Will you?

Without criticism, I suspect you may want to pull item one from your list as that is what the debate is all about; I think there is nothing wrong with the current system.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-24 08:28:24 12448

Btw, you really should change the about of this item and the body - it is not fitting of useful discussion.

It's probably going to say the same. It's a humorous mnemonic.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-25 11:58:18 12448

You can read your insults yourself in the train 2009-08-24 16:29:20. I'm not going to rehash them for you.

If you actually do "want a discussion" then reread my first comment on this item. Note that the question i mentioned there was a proposal to be negotiated. We need to form a common purpose or any discussion will just go back and forth with nothing learned. There needs to be some question that we both actually want to know the answer to. If your purpose here is to "weigh Obama's health care turd", then obviously that is not a purpose that i want anything to do with. I proposed one inquiry above which does interest me and did match your initial request: "Seth to provide 7 points that he believes are in Obama's health care reform". I provided that, in a cooperative spirit, based upon your request. I've already told you (please believe me) that i don't have my own plan - it doesn't make any sense for me, with my little knowledge of the health care monstrosity, to come up with a plan. I elected Obama to come up with a plan - so i'm going with his. If you want to compare your plan to something, then it should be to the liberal plan that is before congress now. But if that no longer interests you, propose another question about reform which we both want to know the true answer to.

If you actually do want a reasonable discussion with me, then it is a requirement that we agree upon a set of rules. Note these are not "my rules" but rather ones that we both agree to adhere to. I though that eliminating writing known fallacies was the simplest kind of rubic that would work; but i'm open to considering anything else that would keep us out of the normal rwg that we always get into, and tend to focus the discussion. I don't think it is the structure of the dialogue that is the problem, but rather the behavior and intentions behind the behavior that is giving us the problem.

If there is no intention to cooperate, then do not expect cooperation. I've responded again in a spirit of cooperation in the hope that my brother can cooperate with me to find some truth. It's up to you now.

I couldn't find insults in your reference. Perhaps you have an overly sensitive Obamaspot somewhere. I didn't elect Obama & nearly half of the rest of the people in the country didn't either. You may wonder why such polarity in the absence of good deeds and results shows up and we don't just trust our spendthrift leader with a blank check (or NOT). A continuous mantra of the word cooperate doesn't do much more than the empty promises of the words hope & change - it's the deeds & results that must reveal themselves or lose my support. I am basically tired this item. If you want to revive your plan on another item & discuss it in the MacroVU format I would participate keeping things in the pristine state of the intellectual. Otherwise I'm done here.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-24 12:11:07 12448

MR 2009-08-24 11:02:08 12448

Without criticism, I suspect you may want to pull item one from your list as that is what the debate is all about; I think there is nothing wrong with the current system.

Nothing constructive here. Bye.

Knew you can't do an independent thought on the matter, bye indeed!

Seth says

MR 2009-08-24 15:11:12 12448

seth 2009-08-24 13:55:54 12448

MR 2009-08-24 13:24:41 12448

seth 2009-08-24 12:11:07 12448

MR 2009-08-24 11:02:08 12448

Without criticism, I suspect you may want to pull item one from your list as that is what the debate is all about; I think there is nothing wrong with the current system.

Nothing constructive here. Bye.

Knew you can't do an independent thought on the matter, bye indeed!

Well your original challenge was "to provide 7 points that he believes are in Obama's health care reform", which i totally did. Then you change your request to be what is my plan, ignoring the fact that i had just told you that i don't have enough knowledge of the problems of health care in US to even come up with my own plan. You obviously have no intention of useful dialogue on the subject. Again after wasting too much of my morning on you i feel cheated again just like Charlie Brown.

Yep-, same way I feel each time I look into the health care proposal from the Congress. Perhaps I moved the bar a bit, but I wanted to be sure you were behind the proposals you think are in the healthcare bill that you particularly want to happen. If you don't know anything about healthcare reform then you are like 90% of Congress & the president just angling for some freebies without caring where they come from. I do credit you with a little common sense enough to read about things you want in the bills. So far the Obama administration has gone 2 TRILLION into debt over the next 10 years for programs which I don't seem to see an results for. Lets hope that healthcare boondoggles doesn't just raise that debt.

Well i told you that I would vote for the plan that i enumerated above. I had cooperated with every one of your reasonable requests. You did not need to start insulting me at that point. Again, if you do not agree to rules of conduct, i am no longer going to waste my time here.

Seth says

Mark de LA says

Which comment did you consider insulting? I wanted a discussion of Mark's plan vs Seth's plan not just a rehash of the talking points of the white house & the media talking heads. You said you couldn't do that & gave me the white house plan which wasn't a plan. You further wanted to bind me to a set of your rules to participate. You said you can't get behind your presented plan, but could only vote for it. For me, that would make it Mark vs Obama talking points & campaign fluff; not very interesting since we have already been doing that.

I once presented my plan and an, albeit stilted, MacroVU structure to discuss it within. That fell flat. I could be curious why, but I suspect strongly that it unmasks fluff & spin in a discussion. We could take apart pro/con your (or Obama's) plan as presented in a MacroVU structure way, but I guess that would fall flat too. My enthusiasm for this item is waning as well. Mixing plans with campaign fluff doesn't make much of a plan to think about except for an Obami. To vote for your item 1 of your plan would be like saying trust me, I know what is working & what is not & know how to fix it; not in my book as there is no precedent for the trust yet.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-25 14:40:49 12448

I will not take any discussion with you seriously ever again unless you (1) state the question to be determined, and (2) agree to a set of rules of conduct.

I'll take it that you are self-destructing.

Mark de LA says

I pronounce this turd is overweight!

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-08-25 22:43:05 12448

MR 2009-08-25 18:14:56 12448

seth 2009-08-25 16:30:50 12448

MR 2009-08-25 14:43:20 12448

seth 2009-08-25 14:40:49 12448

I will not take any discussion with you seriously ever again unless you (1) state the question to be determined, and (2) agree to a set of rules of conduct.

I'll take it that you are self-destructing.

Just to be clear, i have been remarkably consistent to the very end, hence your claim of self destruct is as usual your own twist of the truth. I won't characterize your behavior here ... i can only assume that you know what you are doing and it serves some purpose for you. Sometimes i truly wonder what that purpose might be ... but what it certainly is not is discussion or communication with me.

Like I have explained several times, ad nauseum, I had hoped to have dueling health care plans:yours & mine. You made that impossible saying you couldn't do it. The rest of this item was talking about talking. At this point I am just going to shut up.

Well i did provide you with the 7 points that worked for me. But, no, you really did not want a serious discussion - you proved that with every comment you made. Next time you want a specific, and serious discussion, try not wrapping it in a turd.

Given the results it was overwhelmingly appropriate!

Mark de LA says

Remember when we wondered what Obama's health care plan was? Well apparently he didn't really have one because he is now, realy, realy going to come out with one for the Democrats to sell:

MKH: ... In a little sop to liberals, he'll say he kinda digs the public option, but won't insist upon it. Up to this point, the plan sounds much like every vague speech he's given on health care since Day One, but one must read a bit further to what the plan's actually meant to do:

Though officials would not provide the numbers Obama plans to use, they say that the goal is to give his side -- Democrats -- a true presidential plan that they can sell. That includes the rebranding of several consensus initiatives, like the insurance reforms, as his own. The effect of this sales job, if it works, will be to associate the president with parts of the reform bills that are almost certainly likely to pass -- assuming the Senate doesn't bog down.

So, Obama sat back while most of the substantive legislative wrangling happened, spouted platitudes from the bully pulpit while a skeptical public imposed its will on his massive majorities, lost his chance at an abbreviated debate and an August vote, and went on vacation when things really got rough only to descend from the Martha's Vineyard Mountain with tablets inscribed with the more reasonable consensus ideas Congress has been forced to consider since his own ambitious vision tanked so spectacularly.

Stand back, look cool, don't get too involved, wait for things to shake out, adopt eventual consensus as his own idea, claim victory. Yeah, nobody saw this coming, unless of course they had paid attention to his entire career.

...I speculate that the details will be as thin as his campaign speeches with as little substance as is his feel-good charisma based presidency can get away with, if any at all!

discount louis vuitt says
You are a very paranoid man

Weighing Health Care Proposals

About: great invention idea? human turd scale! | inventorspot

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