On Health insurance costs more in Wisconsin

Posted on November 19 at 2:58 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

Because Medicaid only pays for about half the actual costs hospitals incur to treat people, the more medicaid members there are, the higher the utilization is, and the more losses hospitals take with every new medicaid patient. They can only make up those losses in one place: private insurance companies.

Thus, more Medicaid = higher private insurance premiums. That's why everyone should be scared to death of the 'public option'. The more business the public option gets, the more money hospitals lose (government programs like Medicaid and Medicare don't cover their costs) and the more hospitals have to make it up through private insurers, drastically increasing premiums on those not on the dole.

On Health insurance costs more in Wisconsin

Posted on November 19 at 11:06 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Here are a the major reasons health insurance is higher in WI:

1. Benefits are better. Lower deductibles in WI mean people pay less (directly) for their healthcare and thus are less affected by price,

2. Wisconsinites demand everyone be in their networks, and

3. Wisconsin healthcare providers, especially hospitals, are organized as regional monopolies much more than in other states (e.g. UW, Aurora, Mercy).

4. Thus, Wisconsin's hospitals charge MUCH more for their services to health insurance companies than do hospitals elsewhere. Why? The hospitals know that the insurance companies basically have to have their regional monopolies in their network and thus have more leverage to increase their prices.

For as much complaining you hear about insurance companies, it's the providers that get 86% of every premium dollar. Hospital systems make, on average, about a 20-40% profit on their services when they're paid for by insurance companies, in large part because Medicare and Medicaid underpay and in WI, they are able to negotiate ridiculous prices.

On Fairness, speed of education-reform measures questioned

Posted on November 16 at 9:55 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

You can control for children who are harder to teach by tracking results against the proportion of students who participate in the free/reduced cost student lunch programs, for example.

The solution to determining which teachers are better than others should not be abandoned because it's not as easy as filling out a scan-tron test. School district administrators are hardly the only people whose jobs require judgment in managing their employees.

The alternative is the current system where, because teachers organize themselves like meatpackers, all teachers are considered equal, they basically cannot be fired, and pay is based on tenure, not ability to teach. Sounds like a recipe for failure, or mediocrity at best. Can you imagine if you staffed a football team that way?

On Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

Posted on November 13 at 8:14 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Still waiting for news of Bumba's first friend who chose to die rather than say he wasn't the son of God.

On Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

Posted on November 12 at 8:25 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

I am looking forward to followers of Bumba who can point to ten people who knew Bumba personally who, when faced with terrible deaths or denying that Bumba was the son of God, each chose terrible deaths. In fact, I'd settle for one. I'd even settle for one documented miracle that occurs when someone prays to Bumba.

In the meantime, I won't generalize and say that all people who are atheists are hateful, bigoted, and violent even though the most atheistic regimes known to man (Stalinist Russia, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia) were also, not coincidentally, the most violent, hateful, and bigoted. These are just facts.

In so doing, I'll be showing much more open-mindedness and tolerance than the loudest lefties on this string.

On Wisconsin on list of ailing states

Posted on November 11 at 1:39 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

This cannot be so: the Democrats control all the levers of power in WI and have for years. Their plans to raise taxes and spending will pay off very soon - just you wait and see!

On Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

Posted on November 10 at 11:37 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

"I was saying that his faith and your faith are identical - incriminating your dangerous ignorance along with his."

Put another way, one muslim is ignorant and dangerous, so all Christians are ignorant and dangerous.

You're so close-minded you can't see the bigotry you wallow in every day.

On Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

Posted on November 10 at 8:47 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

You've gotta love how lefties who profess to be tolerant and open minded, when given the protection of anonymity, post the most intolerant and close-minded comments you'll ever see. Witness the post two down from this.

I shouldn't be surprised that the biggest racists I've ever known were all Democrats.

On UW-W student questions on-campus grocery prices

Posted on November 6 at 3:41 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

The fact that an 18 year old thinks he's overpaying 30 cents for his Easy Mac is news? What a joke of an article.

On Wis. Assembly takes up birth control education

Posted on November 3 at 11:38 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Great, so when will we start teaching kids to smoke low tar cigarettes, or at least filtered cigarettes? That way, we can teach the kids HOW to smoke safer cigarettes and the parents can tell them WHEN to smoke them.