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vern_humphrey
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And the entire point of government-run health care is to force people to pay for something they don’t want.
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pathia
Guest
I never advocated government run health-care. I advocate for a government run insurance agency.
It would be rolled in along side the current market, it would actively compete with the current insurance agencies, but it would be open to any and all.
I just want more options. The freemarket has failed me, utterly, it does not offer the services that I need. I just need a better insurance company.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
In other words, you want to force people to pay for something they don’t want.
Except that it would force people to pay for it – even if they didn’t want health insurance or chose a different provider.
As we have seen, you have options that you have failed to investigate, or refuse to use.
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pathia
Guest
Uh…no…it would be just like the post office. It would run off of the money it takes in, just like any corporation. It would not use taxes.
Please stop dragging my personal history with the church into this, we agreed to stop.
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Oscarthecat
Guest
Just a quick point of fact- the post office is not exactly privately funded- the reason that the US Postal Service can compete (in a manner of speaking) against private companies like UPS and Fedex is because it has protected status as a “Statutory Monopoly.”
In short, the Post Office is able to operate in the arena with private industry because the Government has effectively forced artificial price hikes on private carriers, guarded their market venue (it is illegal for other carriers to deliver to mail boxes), and gave the USPS a monopoly over anything that costs less than $1 to deliver-which accounts for 90% of all mail.
more here on that here… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPS#Statutory_monopoly
With that in mind, the only way a government medical bureaucracy could survive would be to similarly prohibit private practice and private insurance from operating in key market areas, which would effectively raise costs artificially for everyone not participating in the government medical system, thus forcing more people to dump their private care and sign on to the government program. The more people who dump private care, the more expensive it will become, so more people dump it, and so on until there is a government medical system and an elite medical system funded by private insurance that is so expensive it is only available to the super-rich.
10 years down the line, your voluntary government healthcare would end up turning into de facto socialized medicine. At that point, as with the post office, consumer costs would steadily increase, just like the costs of stamps are increasing now.
That being said, another problem with the idea of a government agency that “would run off of the money it takes in” is that what you’re essentially talking about is a business operated by politicians. Politicians wouldn’t and couldn’t allow this hybrid to fail, and so when it, like the Postal Service is now, eventually becomes financially unviable, they would have to either place competition barriers on private companies, as they did with the Post Office, or they would have to infuse it with tax dollars through unconventional channels (tax cuts, government grants, special programs, etc) that effectively hide the real costs of the new medical beaurocracy.
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rtconstant
Guest
The vast majority of those who are offered insurance accept it. Lets not cloak a serious issue with a relatively non-existant patient problem.
A survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust showed that 60 percent of US firms offered health benefits in 2007, down by nine percentage points on companies that offered health care packages in 2000. Additionally, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 6.1 percent in 2007, less than the 7.7 percent increase reported last year but still higher than the increase in workers’ wages or the overall inflation rate.
40% of the work force does not even have the option company sponsed health coverage, and the number is rising not shrinking.
According to the ASRN we rank 16th in infant mortality and 17th in life expectancy. Those numbers are hard to argue for a nation as advanced and wealthy as we are.
About the only legitimate argument that is in anyway a pro for our current system is in waiting times. We do pretty good there, yet still not as good as many seem to think. In a 2005 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund: 81% of patients in New Zealanders receive same or next-day appointments for a nonroutine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. However, patients in the U.S. had shorter wait times than every country except Germany when it came to getting an appointment with a specialist for nonemergency elective surgery, such as hip replacements, cataract surgery, or knee repair.
According to the same report the only thing we came in number one for was in the percentage of citizens (51%) who did not see a doctor, get a test or a prescription because of medical costs.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
And when it went bankrupt?
If you are going to demand we change such fundamentals as health care based on your personal situation, you have to expect some minor examination of your situation.
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Verisimilitude
Guest
Whose goal are you assuming to reach? The federal government has no legitimate role in providing anything like universal healthcare insurance. Insurance is a private business venture just as being a physician, or drug maker is private enterprise. Universities and businesses are involved in research and development for non-government reasons generally. Unless you want or think the government should nationalize the schools, R&D, and doctors like some countries like Venezuala have their energy resources, or Cuba and its healthcare…we should not be asking our government to do what we say we are against.
The government has a role to play like when it passed a law that no one can be turned away from an emergency room seeking help or Good Samaritan type protection laws. It should provide a fair an impartial setting (court) when disputes arrise between individuals and/or companies that make and break agreements amongts themselves. The government should not be taking people to court for violations of private industry for that industry; the company and/or individual have that obligation. There are many private firms (lawyers) who advertise on tv to help protect your rights- for a cost and sometimes for free or % of your recovery. The risks are ours to bear as the rewards are ours to keep.
Look at how the government is planning to bail out many mortgage companies who gave bad loans to many people who for a variety of reasons accepted unrealistic terms. It is promoted as helping those who may loose their homes, but it is little more than corporate welfare. Is that fair to the many live within their means and/or who don’t want to receive or give unjustified benefits?
These companies lobby our government officials to pass laws that favor them to reduce their risk at the expense of the individuals. This is evident in energy, housing, insurance, military hardware manufacturers, farmers as well as helathcare professionals.
I would wager if the federal government got out of trying to solve all of our problems for us in an effort to help us; like how much a HMO can charge a patient for an asprin (the maximum) or how much a doctor can charge an HMO for reimbursment (the minimum), what treatment is beneficial for a particular malady and patients choice of physician our status of best healthcare in the world would continue rather then be declining.
The Church should restrict it’s role to forming our morality so that in our daily lives as a doctor, patient, drug company or legislator we are fair and compassionate to those we deal with in a professional Chirstian manner. With that formed morality we shape our government to reflect that morality and fight the immorality of others who want to shape it in a different and harmfull ways like legalized abortion as part of universal healthcare.
The free market unrestricted by federal government mandates would better serve the people. State governors could negotiate with private insurance companies better for the citizens of that state and local appeals for assistance to those who need it would be heard louder than now. We as a society have begun to look to the federal government as the responsible party for our well being and they are not. We the individuals are responsible for ourselves and our neighbors, but if the monolith of federal government is given control of our lives like we have been doing we should not be surprised if most federal government programs are abused like the Social Security program.
We dull our humanity and natural instincts by relying on the federal government like that. We have become ‘afraid’ to render aid in fear of a lawsuit, or we think the 30% we give to the federal government in income taxes absolves us of our duty to care for the man lying in the gutter, or the abused mother and children since the federal government has the money to redistribute for us.
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rtconstant
Guest
You mean health coverage? Yes I suppose there could be a small percentage of people who don’t want health coverage. Don’t really see why that would be an issue. Some people don’t want to make use of public education they’re obligated to pay for it nontheless.
We have to pay for lots of things we may not use or care about its part of living in a society. I’d much rather pay for health coverage for myself and my fellow citizens than to pay for most of the pork that I’m paying for now.
As to providers those who live in UHC countries usually have greater choice in providers than we do.
You’re always the first one to complain when people make assumptions about you. Why not pay Pathia the same courtesy?
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vern_humphrey
Guest
I suspect your “small percentage” amounts to tens of millions of dollars.
Given how badly the Public Education system has failed, I don’t think I’d want to use it for an example!
But that’s not the choice we’re being offered, is it? No one in Congress has come up with a list of pork that will be cut to pay for health care.
In fact, I can have any health care provider I want.
What have I “assumed” about Pathia?
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rtconstant
Guest
I’m not going to get into your whole post but I had to pull this out. You do realize that the DC bailed out those companies to protect our economy right? Yeah it sucks because the companies were completely irresponsible, and no the government would not come to bail you or me out if we behaved the same way. But if you or I go under it really doesn’t affect anybody but us.
We were within days of a chain reaction of loan and insurance defaults that could have gone into the trillions. The government had to react. Yes it goes against free market philosophy but it would have been devastating for everyone had the Washington not stepped in.
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Oscarthecat
Guest
One of the problems with statistical studies, and I have experience in this area, is that they can be manipulated to say anything. Without picking apart all of your stats, here are a few examples…
There is a big difference between choosing not to spend money, and having no money to spend. For example, one of the reasons I didn’t go to the doctor the last time I was sick was because I didn’t WANT to pay the copay, but I also hate going to doctors, I knew that I could get by on over the counter meds, and I didn’t really have time to sit around in the doctor’s office.
Like I said, your statistics don’t tell the whole story, just the part of that you believe supports your position.
The implication here is that rising health costs will be remedied with UHC. The problem is that there is no mention of the tax increases that would inevitably occur with UHC. Would tax increases to these same businesses be more or less than their current cost of health care? I’ve seen statistical studies which say they would, and others that say they wouldn’t- depending on the political position of those doing the study.
This statistic doesn’t say why this is so, and has no bearing on whether wide sweeping interventions like UHC are the best answer.
Again, these two statistics have no bearing on the impact UHC would have on the infant mortality rate or the life expectancy. How many of those children died due to lack of medical care? People with good medical care die at young ages, you know.
This statistic is very misleading because it implies that those who chose not to see a doctor could not afford it. Technically, if you asked me “have you decided not to make a doctor’s appointment in the last 6 months because of medical costs?” I would answer “Yes” but that wouldn’t mean that I couldn’t have afforded it if I wanted to go.
There is a big difference between choosing not to spend money, and having no money to spend. For example, one of the reasons I didn’t go to the doctor the last time I was sick was because I didn’t WANT to pay the copay, but I also hate going to doctors, I knew that I could get by on over the counter meds, and I didn’t really have time to sit around in the doctor’s office.
Like I said, your statistics don’t tell the whole story, just the part of that you believe supports your position.
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Verisimilitude
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Bunk. The companies should have defaulted and failed.
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LCMS_No_More
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vern_humphrey
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You didn’t need to have a portrait of yourself made so you could send it to us.
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rtconstant
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Oh, all together it would be a lot comparied to your or my income surely. But still small and ultimately irrelevant since as established before we pay for lots of things we may not personally make use of.
Cute “type bite” but ulitmately the point still stands. BTW, I have no complaints about my time in the school system.Given how badly the Public Education system has failed, I don’t think I’d want to use it for an example!
Yeah, but no one here seems nearly as concerned about wasteful spending here as the horrors of the possibility that everyone might have access to good medical coverage. Improving our health system would absolutely require changes no one said otherwise.
Unless your contention is that the US government is to corrupt or inefficient to pull it off which is different argument all together, but possibly one worthy of its own thread.
Good for you. Assuming that’s true you do know you’re in a minority right? Most of us are told who we are allowed to see by our insurance providers. We also (and this includes you) must be referred to specialists by our primary care doctors. UHC countries usually don’t make their people go through that red tape.
Nevermind…
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rtconstant
Guest
You would not have liked the consequences of that. We do not live in economic bubbles. That would be nice but it isn’t reality.
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Verisimilitude
Guest
I don’t like the consequences now. How would it have affected my mortgage if they failed? Would it have made me pay less for my house or more though I have a fixed rate? Who has the right to renegotiate my mortgage without my authority for good or ill? I have enough trouble to pay it, but if I decide to not pay my monthly payment that I agreed to but wanted more chrome for my bike instead, why should you pay my for my house this month?
I am forced to give my income tax money that we are borrowing from the Chinese or other foreign governments, that I and everone else that pays the income tax must pay back at high interest rates to bail out bad business decisions. We borrow money to give to Islamic dictators. We borrow money to fund abortions. The money in the ‘ecconomic stimulus package’ is an example of this same sham. We borrow this money we don’t have from the Chinese to spend in Wal-Mart so the ecconomy is seen to grow but all it is is added to the national debt that future generations will pay back. Sometimes we actuallyhave to do without or with less. That is reality.
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vern_humphrey
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How does mismanagement and overspending in government justify more mismanagement and overspending?
You just brush off a 30% high school drop out rate, nation wide? And a 50% average drop out rate in our 50 largest cities?
I think your prejudices are speaking there.
Everyone wants good health care – and I have posted several things we can do to get it.
When I look at inner cities, families that have to have two incomes, and look at the waste in government, I am not filled with confidence.
Why am I in the minority? What prevents other people from shopping where they please, including shopping for doctors?
If we adopted MSAs, as I explained, we could all choose our doctors. In fact, MSAs encourage people to shop for doctors and health care, and allow them to make all their own health care decisions.
Actually, until recently I would say no to that. But as an experiment, I enrolled in VA health care (for glasses and hearing aids.) When I go through VA – which is government health care – I have to drive a 100 mile round trip to see a doctor who tells me what my doctor here tells me. Then he “authorizes” me to visit a clinic (250 mile round trip) to get tests I could get within walking distance of my doctor here.
You’re kidding!?!?
I was in England working a project and watched TV in my hotel room. I saw a news program where the worlds Number One heart-lung transplant hospital was being closed down “for reasons of efficiency.” A government spokesman explained this was a good thing – the heart-lung team would be dispersed to other hospitals and train more teams.
That was followed by an interview with one of the team. He said, “I’m the Anesthesiologist. How can I train surgeons?”
Look at the waiting lists.
Read the comments by Canadians who blame us for “poaching” the Canadian doctors who come to the US to work.
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rtconstant
Guest
True but that doesn’t mean we just ignore them.
A good question. GMC is good example of this. In the US GMC litterally spends more on health coverage than on steel. about 1.7 billion if memory serves. However, they have credited Canada’s UHC with saving them millions of dollars in health coverage.
The statistic is there because of the cost of health coverage in the US for domestic companies. You are however right that this number doesn’t suggest that UHC is the answer. UHC is simply giving because it has a good record and at the very least is superior to our own system. There could be other ways of dealing with the problem. But at the very least we have much more to learn from UHC countries in matters of health care than we have things to criticize.
For the first part see above. All I was showing was that in nations that are our peers in the first world we do not place well in these areas. You can argue that there are many factors (and I’m sure that’s the case) however, it would be foolish to say that the medical system does not play a primary role.
Sure, that one could cover lots of different things. Obviously it covers more than just those that couldn’t afford it as it is a pretty high percentage and at most those without coverage make up about 47% of our population. Still, it is only reasonable to assume that since at the very least a percentage between the high 30’s and early 40’s can’t afford the visits a significant portion of that number probably belongs in the “can’t afford category”.
Sure these issues are complex however, all of my conclusions were reasonable to the data given. Keep in mind that my conclusions also coincide with the institutions I was quoting.
Still in the end I really don’t have to work to hard to support my position here. The bottom line is that we rank low in the industrialized world in healthcare. There really isn’t any way to get around that. We can of course debate on how to improve that standing but our current system is at worst failing and at best just not as good the systems of our peers.
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