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[Zangi]

Give it a few more years.  The pursuit for ever higher profits will fix everything.

[Naturegirl1999]

Give it a few more years.  The pursuit for ever higher profits will fix break everything.

[PTTG??]

Every week is infrastructure week.

[da_nang]

House impeachment investigators begin releasing closed-door testimony

[Trolldefender99]

I'm just gonna leave this here, I'm sure there is an oceanic thread...but I thought a nice touching story would be good. Its rare to get happy news these days. Granted drought is bad, but people came together to help.

https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/news/stunning-scenes-as-droughtaffected-town-flooded-with-donations-from-muslim-community/news-story/d40313090beca9755830e34ec5b44cbd

[McTraveller]

I like how some of the proposals for health care reform conclude that going to single payer will result in some providers going out of business and yet somehow we'll still have enough providers to provide all the care demanded.

One blurb said something like "the big urban hospitals will survive but the smaller ones probably won't".  I wonder if a large part of the problem is the dichotomy between these behemoth hospital systems and smaller private practices.  I saddens me to think that it would not be possible to have a private practice but essentially be forced to work for a big health care conglomerate.

I also cringe that politicians think the root cause of high health care is lack of single payer and everyone ignores the regulatory capture that makes it impossible for health care to be a natural market where people should be falling over themselves to create private practices to get some of that sweet healthcare money.

[Doomblade187]

Well, one of the problems, per provider count, is that the medical schools have a very limited throughput of doctors, which is very intentional, and keeps salaries high. Unsure if nursing has a similar thing, though I doubt it. Secondly, Rural hospitals have been going under for a damn long time now - moving everyone to a single banner, and formalizing access to health care as a right will likely revitalize rural practices, due to lower administration efforts (Medicare billing is rough, but only one insurance company that way) and said right to access - fed government can likely provide more formal support for rural docs.

[Trekkin]

I like how some of the proposals for health care reform conclude that going to single payer will result in some providers going out of business and yet somehow we'll still have enough providers to provide all the care demanded.

Well, health care doesn't operate on a normal demand curve; part of the idea behind making health care more accessible is to facilitate the early detection of health issues before they require major surgery or similarly intensive treatment, or before they become chronic and require a lifetime of care. In that sense, we'd expect health care demand to go down long-term.

[PTTG??]

I like how some of the proposals for health care reform conclude that going to single payer will result in some providers going out of business and yet somehow we'll still have enough providers to provide all the care demanded.

One blurb said something like "the big urban hospitals will survive but the smaller ones probably won't".  I wonder if a large part of the problem is the dichotomy between these behemoth hospital systems and smaller private practices.  I saddens me to think that it would not be possible to have a private practice but essentially be forced to work for a big health care conglomerate.

I also cringe that politicians think the root cause of high health care is lack of single payer and everyone ignores the regulatory capture that makes it impossible for health care to be a natural market where people should be falling over themselves to create private practices to get some of that sweet healthcare money.

Do capitalists really think that healthcare is at all inelastic? Is there a max price or amount of debt a person is willing to take in order to not die of some painful disease? Of course not; we have the evidence of history to show that only national health care works, and for much the same reason that privatizing the military is a bad idea. Any suggestion that private healthcare is a good idea for the USA must include in it an answer to why no other population on the planet with the ability to choose has chosen to let their personal fates be dictated by the whims of billionaires.

[Dunamisdeos]

[snip] why no other population on the planet with the ability to choose has chosen to let their personal fates be dictated by the whims of billionaires.

This is quite a good angle to approach this from. Kudos.

[Flying Dice]

We are so close to getting this carpetbagging sack of shit Bevin out of office. Beshear has a slight lead with 99.4% reporting. and by my rough math would have to get less than 23% of the remainder to lose, but they're all bible belt counties. Gonna be damn close.

[Dunamisdeos]

Son of a bitch I forgot to vote today.

Had one of those mornings, wife worked late, kid had some trouble, rushed in to work and was busy there too.

Dammit.

[smjjames]

We are so close to getting this carpetbagging sack of shit Bevin out of office. Beshear has a slight lead with 99.4% reporting. and by my rough math would have to get less than 23% of the remainder to lose, but they're all bible belt counties. Gonna be damn close.

Vox already called it, but CNN hasn't yet. It's gotten narrower, down to 5k, but this Hicks person is still filling it up making the split still 2%. Republicans are already rushing to distance from Bevin.

Son of a bitch I forgot to vote today.

Had one of those mornings, wife worked late, kid had some trouble, rushed in to work and was busy there too.

Dammit.

The Democrats have flipped the VA. State Senate though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Lee Carter and Danica Roem both won reelection. It is a good day to keep formerly-Republican districts.

[EnigmaticHat]

I like how some of the proposals for health care reform conclude that going to single payer will result in some providers going out of business and yet somehow we'll still have enough providers to provide all the care demanded.

One blurb said something like "the big urban hospitals will survive but the smaller ones probably won't".  I wonder if a large part of the problem is the dichotomy between these behemoth hospital systems and smaller private practices.  I saddens me to think that it would not be possible to have a private practice but essentially be forced to work for a big health care conglomerate.

I also cringe that politicians think the root cause of high health care is lack of single payer and everyone ignores the regulatory capture that makes it impossible for health care to be a natural market where people should be falling over themselves to create private practices to get some of that sweet healthcare money.

People are going to go out of business if/when single payer gets implemented.  Our current healthcare system is bloated by huge numbers of middlemen.  The whole idea is to pay them less.  The flip side of making something cheaper is that it becomes less profitable.

I wouldn't worry about doctors for the most part.  Like doomblade said, we don't have enough.  Right now health insurance is absolutely miserable for small private practices* to handle, to the point where some don't even accept it; single payer might shake things up but all the doctors will still have work and medical receptionists will have a significantly less miserable job.

The people who go out of business are going to be the huge number of private sector bureaucrats involved in health insurance, billing, and medical collections.  Its also likely that lawyers specializing in medical lawsuits will lose some business, kinda hard to say a doctor chose the wrong treatment when there's one system deciding all the rules.  Notice none of those people are involved in actually providing care.

*hospitals actually have it worse, but they at least have more resources to negotiate with insurance companies.  My understanding is the situation gets so complicated no one human actually understands why anything in a given hospital costs what it does