The U.S. dollar reached its lowest point against the euro this year due to a myriad of forces including rising global stocks and commodities prices, low interest rates, and investors diversifying out of Treasury debt and into other assets including U.S. stocks with the Dow Jones industrial average approaching 9500 in late afternoon trading.

Stocks in Asia and Europe saw big gains, and gold topped $1,000 an ounce. (See “Stocks, Commodities Rally After Long Weekend.“) Oil also gained 4.9%, or $3.31, to $71.33, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, due in part to Goldman Sachs affirming its year-long outlook. By midday trading one euro traded for $1.45, meanwhile the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell to its lowest level since September of 2008.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/08/dollar-euro-imf-markets-currencies-united-nations.html

Perfect timing, Doc99. The bot Czar is over on the “Paglia” thread, counting the number of healthcare bills.

So tell people they can get “free” healthcare just by filling out some paperwork and you can bet people will rush in to join up. Marketing 101 proves that the majority of people are swayed towards choosing a “free” anything when given a choice rather than paying a small amount for a better deal.

In a competitive market, when an industry is so heavily regulated that it prohibits competition, it permits industry leaders to charge as much as they want. The way the industry is is the way the big insurance conglomerates want it. It is to their benefit.

What Obama and his allies are doing is misguidingly telling people that the only other option for competition is a government run plan. That is a lie. What they want is to nationalize as many indsutries as they can and healthcare is the biggest.

If you take away state mandates and eliminate all interstate regulations, then competition will dramatically reduce insurance premiums because lower costs providers working on lower profit margins will force that. It will also lead to better policies without precondition stipulations.

Sorry Linda, but America-hating Matt Taibi and statist Bill Moyers aren’t people I look to for answers to this problem.

Government collusion with the insurance industry has brought us the system we currently have. And guess what? They’re at it again!

As someone here (WMDB — not sure if the letters are correct) talked about on other HC threads, there’s a no-insurance chain of primary care clinics cropping up which started in Seattle called Qliance. It was started with the needs of the working poor in mind. Check it out.

http://www.qliance.com/index.html

Now THIS is my idea of reform and neither the government nor the insurance industry is involved in bringing this innovation to healthcare consumers.

Access to something like Qliance along with an HSA (Health Savings Account) or some other kind of catastrophic plan could provide good, affordable coverage that many people would find acceptable.

It’s time Americans got value for the money. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 1999, the average American family spent $5,791 on health insurance: in 2008 this has risen to $12,680.

According to OECD figures, Americans spend more than twice the amount on healthcare as other countries, and Americans are not any healthier and don’t live longer than people in countries who spend half of what Americans spend. Americans just have to start having the money they pay out actually go towards healthcare, and not to buy foreign villas and domestic palaces and stuff the Cayman Island bank accounts of the insurance and drug executives.

National per capita spending on healthcare, 2007
United States: $7,290
Norway: $4,763
Switzerland: $4,417
Luxembourg: $4,162
Canada: $3,895
Austria: $3,761
France: $3,601
Germany: $3,588
Netherlands: $3,527
Belgium: $3,462
OECD average: $2,964

Life expectancy for these nations, 2006
United States: 78.1
Norway: 80.6
Switzerland: 81.7
Luxembourg: 79.4
Canada: 80.7
Austria: 79.9
France: 80.7
Germany: 79.8
Netherlands: 79.8
Belgium: 79.5

Number of practicing physicians in these nations, per 1,000 people, 2007
United States: 2.43
Norway: 3.86
Switzerland: 3.85
Luxembourg: 2.87
Canada: 2.18
Austria: 3.75
France: 3.37
Germany: 3.50
Netherlands: 3.93
Belgium: 4.03

Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2006
United States: 6.7
Norway: 3.2
Switzerland: 4.4
Luxembourg: 2.5
Canada: 5.0
Austria: 3.6
France: 3.8
Germany: 3.8
Netherlands: 4.4
Belgium: 3.7
(Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

Amenable mortality rate, preventable deaths per 100,000 people, 2002-2003
United States: 110
Norway: 80
Switzerland: N/A
Luxembourg: N/A
Canada: 77
Austria: 84
France: 65
Germany: 90
Netherlands: 82
Belgium: N/A
(Source: The Commonwealth Fund)

Estimated number of deaths in the United States from lack of health insurance, 2006: 22,000
(Source: The Urban Institute)

Sorry, but I don’t think so.

hokma made a statement yesterday that he/she was paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 @ month for a decent family healthcare insurance. The median wage of the “ordinary American worker” is in the $50,000 range. If you’re paying $20,000+ coverage and making $55,000 per annum, you’re already on the ropes.

He/she also made some ridiculous comment that the average American worker pays nothing or relatively little for healthcare coverage [that is, if the coverage is available].

“”In the U.S. “ordinary working people” are have health insurance through their employer and either pay nothing or relatively little.”

Well, hello! My husband and I make more than the median. But not so much we’d be considered “rich.”

We pay $6800 + per annum on our own [though the price keeps going up every year] and put another $3000+ in a personal health savings account to pickup all the things our insurance package does not cover. The company my husband works for chips in, too. In fact, it matches. That’s in the neighborhood of $17,000 per year, a fairly substantial chunk of change.

Sorry, but I don’t consider that free or relatively nothing. But at the same time, we consider ourselves fortunate: because at the moment, we can still afford the premiums.

I could cut our costs by going to managed care, but we had a catastrophic event with one of our kids ten years ago. My son would not have received the therapies he needed under an HMO plan. And the final cost? It would have left us bankrupt.

Even with our package, I spent more time on the phone after my son’s injury fighting with insurance clerks than I care to remember. Why? They tried to nickel and dime us to death, insisting that certain treatments fell outside the insurance coverage. That was BS. For those without an advocate? You’re up a damn creek without a paddle.

So, we’re still carrying the upgraded package out of sheer fear. The premiums keep going up and coverage keeps shrinking.

This is not a system that works! And for families who cannot afford the price, you’re dead in the water [no pun intended]. In fact, if my husband and I lost our employment, we too would lose coverage.

I have no problem with insurance companies making a profit. But there’s a good, solid profit, and then there’s an obscene profit. And when it’s done on the backs of ordinary Americans, I say enough is enough!

It’s by design. Further debt means people are even more dependent on this innocent-seeming narcissist. And the narcissist gets to berate the dependents for being irresponsible. And gets to roll the eyes and ask “why am I the only one” who has it all together.