What is the Catholic view of governent-paid health insurance?

[andrewstx]

Sorry Mark, I focused on your las question, and became very angry.

I do get tired of people (not you) who think there is no such thing as dissabillity. And ignore the very real needs of the disabled, who think we should just “suck it up” and take our lumps.

Although I can’t drive, I still have to ride to the Drs and the market.

Invariably those who aren’t handicapped take the disabled parking spaces, leaving me and othercripples to take long hikes into the market.

BTW I was a Franciscan until I was released for health reasons, (I always had hypertension) my roomate is a former Benedictine. He is my family now.

 

[andrewstx]

No, my entire point was that we should focus these programs to help people who are truly needy without dragging the rest of the country into the program. I’m sorry but I don’t need the government to babysit me and make sure I save money for retirement. If I was sick as you were, you are completely right that yes I would want that program their to help me. The problem is we have tied everyone out there to the program and its dragging it down. Why don’t we use these programs to focus on helping those who truly need it such as yourself instead of using them as way for the government to amass huge quantities of power? Do you see my point? I really don’t think you guys are reading my posts. You have already tagged me as a conservative and as you just read what you want to read. What I just repeated here is exactly what I said before in an earlier post

I agree completely. Years ago I worked at a convienice (sp) store and I constantly had drug dealers who lived across the way buying case after case of beer,and cartons of cigarrettes, for that they used their drug income.

And since they had no legally reported income they got food stamps to buy food.

 

[markomalley]

Sorry Mark, I focused on your las question, and became very angry.

I do get tired of people (not you) who think there is no such thing as dissabillity. And ignore the very real needs of the disabled, who think we should just “suck it up” and take our lumps.

Although I can’t drive, I still have to ride to the Drs and the market.
**
Invariably those who aren’t handicapped take the disabled parking spaces, leaving me and othercripples to take long hikes into the market.**

BTW I was a Franciscan until I was released for health reasons, (I always had hypertension) my roomate is a former Benedictine. He is my family now.

The bolded above torques me off.

I see people who use handicapped plates who have absolutely NO justification.

Again, it’s “how bad can we scam them”!

And then legit people are hurt because of that abuse. And it makes all of our hearts grow colder when we see it.

 

[Nate13]

I agree completely. Years ago I worked at a convienice (sp) store and I constantly had drug dealers who lived across the way buying case after case of beer,and cartons of cigarrettes, for that they used their drug income.

And since they had no legally reported income they got food stamps to buy food.

Exactly. This is why the healthcare law pisses me off though. It is really just the principle of the government having control of everyone’s healthcare. It’s going to get swamped trying to help everyone in the nation and be incredibly inefficient. The whole point of the program is to help the needy, but they claim they can only do that if they make everyone buy their health insurance? I’m sorry but private charities are much more efficient than the government if this is how they want to get it done. Imagine if your Church was required to give everyone $1 in order to give a needy person $1. If the government wants to help the needy lets put a specific program together that will do so.

 

[dcharles]

Regarding the original question:
What is the Catholic view of government-paid health insurance?

I am sure others have said it already but the Church does not teach that
everyone has a right to free medical care., which will be the case for some. This is socialism.
The Church teaches everyone has a right to freely available medical care.
In other words, if they have to money to pay for medical care, then there should be freely available medical care that they can buy. This will soon go away with national health insurance.

At the same time the Church condemns socialism, one of the reasons is that the Church teaches everyone has the right to private property. Thus, if I vote for laws that will take wealth from the rich and give it to the poor, (redistribute the wealth) then I am participating in theft. And there are a lot more additional teachings of the Church why she condemns socialism.

It is amazing that popular Catholic scholars and the bishops don’t teach this part of God’s word. They are silent. That is why we must learn the Pope’s teachings on our own.

At the same time the Church teaches that while each individual has the right to private property, each individual also has the duty to use their property in the love of God and neighbor. Thus, we as individuals have the duty to love others, and use our private property to do so.

The actual reality is different.
We have developed a materialistic society where the things of this world are the most important. This destroys our love for God and others. Then we feel guilty that others have very little, so we try to alleviate our guilt by voting for taxes on the rich to “help” the poor, so we won’t have to use as much of our own money. Thus we commit two mortal sins, we fail to love others and we participate in theft.
This socialism becomes a burden on private industry, which causes more poverty. The socialists see this poverty and they claim we need more government spending. The increased government spending causes a bigger drain on the economy, and thus more government spending. Since no one wants more taxes, the government simply borrows more money (Europe) or prints more money, (USA). In our case this will result in hyperinflation and it will wipe out the savings of the elderly who worked their entire lives to have a little to live on, and within 5 to 10 years our entire economy and government will collapse and we will have massive poverty.

All this is occurring because we have rejected God and His teachings, especially His teachings on abortion, which He gives us through His Church.

 

[andrewstx]

Exactly. This is why the healthcare law makes me mad though. It is really just the principle of the government having control of everyone’s healthcare. It’s going to get swamped trying to help everyone in the nation and be incredibly inefficient. The whole point of the program is to help the needy, but they claim they can only do that if they make everyone buy their health insurance? I’m sorry but private charities are much more efficient than the government if this is how they want to get it done. Imagine if your Church was required to give everyone $1 in order to give a needy person $1. If the government wants to help the needy lets put a specific program together that will do so.

What you say is true, but for a man who is poor not due to is own actions. State provided health care is better than no HC at all.

I take $100s of dollars in medication each and every month. I cna’t burden my parish with that huge bill. One presciption alone is more than $200 a month and I take several.

It’s a poor, largely Latino parish in a small town.

 

[markomalley]

What you say is true, but for a man who is poor not due to is own actions. State provided health care is better than no HC at all.

I take $100s of dollars in medication each and every month. I cna’t burden my parish with that huge bill. One presciption alone is more than $200 a month and I take several.

It’s a poor, largely Latino parish in a small town.

Not meaning to speak for Nate, but here’s my 2 cents:

First of all, chances are you are not receiving State provided health care. Chances are you are going to a private physician who either accepts payments directly from the State as reimbursement for his bills or accepts State-funded insurance. There is a major difference between State provided health care and State provided health insurance.

And this is where my issue with the system comes in: third party paid healthcare. Because of third party paid health care, most of us are not even aware of a doctor visit actually costs. We are concerned with the amount of our co-pay, which stays the same regardless of the actual cost of the provider. Most of us are not concerned with the cost of prescriptions. We care about the prescription co-pay and whether a pharmaceutical is covered by our insurance or not.

Of course, there are exceptions: the (not so) Great State of Texas (your words) only pays for three prescriptions a month for you. The remainder are out of pocket. So you get stuck with the bill for the remaining medication. Most Americans are not in your situation. Most of us concern ourselves with the cost of the copay.

The impact of this is that costs do not have natural free-market control. Because most of us don’t care. If you have one doctor who charges $100 for a visit and another doctor who charges $125 for a visit, it means nothing to you: you pay a $20 copay in either case. So you don’t pay attention to it. Granted, the insurance company who reimburses the doctor will only reimburse $80, but that’s not your problem. Unless you are paying for the visit out of your own pocket.

Likewise with prescriptions: you don’t really care if the drug costs $60 for a one-month supply or $600 for a one-month supply, you’re going to pay $10 for a generic and $20 for a prescription. And anything else is between the insurance company and the pharmacy. Unless you happen to be stuck paying out of pocket (and that is the minority).

You may not know this but insurers (including government insurers) pay based upon a concept of a “reasonable price” for the specific procedure in your market area. What they do is they keep a running database of provider charges for given procedure codes. When the running average on those charges goes up sufficiently, provider reimbursements go up. That’s why, if you (or anybody) ever takes a look at an EOB (Explanation of Benefits), you’ll see that the “amount charged” always, always, always exceeds the amount approved for payment. Doctors, as an industry, know this and are working to inch up the amount the insurance companies (including government funded insurance) will approve for reimbursement.

In a free market system, on the other hand, you will likely care whether the doctor charges $125 or $100 for a visit and go to the more affordable one. And with as many individual providers as there are out there, the market, itself, would keep prices under control. But that’s not our system, is it?

The same with pharmaceuticals (but I won’t belabor the point).

The system doesn’t really work all that well, because, while most Americans are covered by health insurance, that health insurance is extraordinarily expensive (average cost for a family to be insured by employer-provided health insurance is about $11,000 per year). For a low wage earner, that is a huge part of the cost for employing a person. (In my company, which has mostly middle or high wage earners, the fringe rate is about 35%)

And the problem is that those people, in the minority, who have no health insurance, either government provided or employer provided, get stuck: either with astronomical insurance bills or, potentially, astronomical costs by a system that is based upon how to game the system, rather than how to provide value.

The socialists out there say the solution is to have government control the costs. Well, here’s the dirty little secret of all of this. This problem was caused by government provided health insurance, a/k/a Medicare. That’s the dirty little secret that they don’t tell you. Diagnostic Reference Groups (DRGs) and Procedure Codes were initially implemented by Medicare back in the 70s as a method of controlling costs. Those methods were then picked up by commercial health insurance companies. While they did so for a little while, the doctors, the hospitals, and the pharmaceutical companies figured out how to start gaming the system in order to improve their reimbursements.

And, over the past 30 years, we can see where that’s gotten us.

A government funded system, while it likely will be able to help the problem of excessive costs in the short term, will have disastrous consequences in the long term. The problem is that the entire system needs to be restored to having natural free market controls…that is the only way that, in the long term, that the problem can be kept under control.

 

[markomalley]

What you say is true, but for a man who is poor not due to is own actions. State provided health care is better than no HC at all.

I take $100s of dollars in medication each and every month. I cna’t burden my parish with that huge bill. One presciption alone is more than $200 a month and I take several.

It’s a poor, largely Latino parish in a small town.

BTW, one thing I didn’t mention is “what about people like you”?

Well, if the system, as a whole, could be corrected so that Free Market controls would be in place to keep costs under control, then people, who through no fault of their own, who were unable to provide for their own health care, could then be provided for from the community.

I would prefer to see a system where doctors and pharmacies could deduct their costs for caring for those in your situation from their taxes…thus providing a tax incentive for them to do “corporal works of mercy.” (My version of “charity”)

But, even if that situation were not to be feasible (which I doubt), having the community take care of the people would be something that should be done…for those who are unable (not unwilling) to care for themselves. Even if that means that a city or state would need to allocate tax dollars to do so.

 

[Nate13]

What you say is true, but for a man who is poor not due to is own actions. State provided health care is better than no HC at all.

I take $100s of dollars in medication each and every month. I cna’t burden my parish with that huge bill. One presciption alone is more than $200 a month and I take several.

It’s a poor, largely Latino parish in a small town.

Again I’m not suggesting you rely on your parish alone to pay for your medication. My example was to show how ridiculous it is to form a policy around giving everyone healthcare in the name of helping out a small minority of the population who really needs help. Instead of giving everyone a dollar before we can give a needy person a dollar, why don’t we just skip jumping through all the red tape and get the money where it is needed and at the same time we won’t be forcing a policy down on a majority of the population that doesn’t want it.

 

[theswan]

creeps

 

[markomalley]

creeps

Really? Should that be considered a personal attack or are you talking about the motion of a device like this one:

Just want to make sure…

 

[andrewstx]

BTW, one thing I didn’t mention is “what about people like you”?

Well, if the system, as a whole, could be corrected so that Free Market controls would be in place to keep costs under control, then people, who through no fault of their own, who were unable to provide for their own health care, could then be provided for from the community.

I would prefer to see a system where doctors and pharmacies could deduct their costs for caring for those in your situation from their taxes…thus providing a tax incentive for them to do “corporal works of mercy.” (My version of “charity”)

But, even if that situation were not to be feasible (which I doubt), having the community take care of the people would be something that should be done…for those who are unable (not unwilling) to care for themselves. Even if that means that a city or state would need to allocate tax dollars to do so.

Actually I am on medeciad, which I assume is state paid ins.

I cannot work and the only income I have is SSI, you know my history already. During the great depression we relied complely on charity and people starved AND died. And at that point we lived in large extendeed families.

Now that has all changed, and some/many? us have no families at all.

 

[markomalley]

Actually I am on medeciad, which I assume is state paid ins.

I cannot work and the only income I have is SSI, you know my history already. During the great depression we relied complely on charity and people starved AND died. And at that point we lived in large extendeed families.

Now that has all changed, and some/many? us have no families at all.

OK, so are we changing the topic from State Paid Insurance to the idea of State assistance as a whole?

OK, if that’s what you want to do, I can go there as well.

First of all, let me re-state two things so that they are perfectly, 100% clear:

• I have no problems with society providing for those, like you, who CAN not work through no fault of their own (a/k/a for some malady are physically or mentally incapable of providing for themselves). I would PREFER that this assistance come through individual, voluntary liberality on the part of those who are able, either through the extended family or through the corporal works of mercy from friends, neighbors, or the community. But if that, for some reason, doesn’t happen, I see no problem with society doing so through government…again, preferably at the most immediate level possible: through the city is better than through the state is better than from the federal level. But one way or the other, I believe society has an obligation to those who CAN not take care of themselves through no fault of their own.
• I have no problem with society providing for those who are the victims of some emergency or some disaster. The type of assistance needed to prevent loss of life, further injury, and to help get people back on their feet so that they can again provide for themselves. Again, I would PREFER that this assistance come through voluntary liberality, but there are some instances where voluntary liberality can’t generate the level of support needed to adequately cover the situation.
  – caveat: please note that a “disaster” could include economic disasters, as well. For example, let us say that a auto plant goes out of business, throwing thousands of people out of work all of a sudden and threatening the incomes of those who provide products and services to the former employees of that auto plant.

I think my beliefs line up pretty well with the teachings of the Church. From the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, paragraph 188:
Various circumstances may make it advisable that the State step in to supply certain functions[401]. One may think, for example, of situations in which it is necessary for the State itself to stimulate the economy because it is impossible for civil society to support initiatives on its own. One may also envision the reality of serious social imbalance or injustice where only the intervention of the public authority can create conditions of greater equality, justice and peace. In light of the principle of subsidiarity, however, this institutional substitution must not continue any longer than is absolutely necessary, since justification for such intervention is found only in the exceptional nature of the situation.

Having said the above, where I have my major problem is with the creation of a “culture of dependence” among those who are capable of working. Making them long-term wards of the State. Again, not those who are disabled, but those who are able to work but who aren’t.

Since 1940, we’ve managed to spend $8.68 TRILLION dollars on “income security,” $8.57 TRILLION dollars of that has been spent since LBJ’s time and his “war on poverty.” This does NOT include Medicare, nor does it include Social Security. Just the numbers the White House classifies as “income security.” (Note: if you add in all “human resources” functionality, the numbers go up to $36 TRILLION since 1940 and $35.6 TRILLION of that since the time of LBJ)

[This is off-topic, but whenever I talk to left-wingers about this, they always complain that if we didn’t spend so much on Defense…well, the amount we have spent on defense since 1940 was $13.5 Trillion, $12.5 Trillion since 1964…just so you know]

My source for the above is from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, Budget Historical Tables, table 3.1.

One other thing, it should be noted that the amounts above do NOT include the amounts spent by State and Local governments…only Federal spending. I would imagine that if I was able to add in all the money spent by state and local governments on “income security”, the amounts would skyrocket.

Let’s take a look at what our spending has gotten us:

According to the US Census, the poverty rate in 1966 was 14.74%. In 1981, the poverty rate was 14.01%. In 1991, the poverty rate was 14.22%, in 2001, the poverty rate was 11.69%, and in 2010 the poverty rate was 15.11%. The absolute lowest that the poverty rate has been since LBJ’s “War on Poverty” was in 1973: 11.06%.

Now I would think that the goal of a “war on poverty” would be to eliminate poverty, right?

With, despite having spent $8.57 Trillion dollars in the “war on poverty” on “income security” alone and $35.6 Trillion on all “human resources” spending, only having a MAXIMUM reduction of 3.6%, I can only come up with one conclusion: we’ve lost the war. Poverty won.

Does this mean that I am just a right-wing meanie who wants to starve the poor children (like the Democrat party wants you to believe)??? Hardly.

But it is apparent to me that what we’ve done in the past 47 years hasn’t worked. We haven’t reduced poverty by any significant amount. We need to do something different. We need to do something to lift people out of poverty and help them keep themselves above poverty. Just throwing money at the problem clearly hasn’t worked.

 

[dcharles]

Actually I am on medeciad, which I assume is state paid ins.

I cannot work and the only income I have is SSI, you know my history already. During the great depression we relied complely on charity and people starved AND died. And at that point we lived in large extendeed families.

Now that has all changed, and some/many? us have no families at all.

Actually, the reason the depression lasted 10 years was BECAUSE the government spent more. Depressions normally last 1.5 years unless the government intervenes such as the great depression and this one that is only starting. Read Thomas Woods book “Meltdown” and you will see that it is government spending that made the depressions 10 times worse.

Europe is dying because of socialism and we will become a destitute country as socialism takes over. The Catholic Church condemns socialism. Socialism is against the teachings of Jesus Christ, thou shall not steal. The Church teaches you cannot be a socialist and be a Christian. They are in opposition.

This country will become destitute because we have refused to defend the right to life of the innocent, and instead have supported pro abortion politicians
We have refused to use our own money to help the poor, and instead voted to steal the money of others by socialism
We have supported wars that were unjust as defined by the teachings of the Church
We have supported those who promote class envy of the rich.

Thus we are causing our own demise. It is NOT the politicians fault, because there are always evil people in the world. It is the people of this country who vote for and support those evil people who are responsible for the terrible sufferings that are coming up in the near future. The people have rebelled against God’s teachings and thus will suffer by the hands of those whom they have elected.

 

[lynnvinc]

I’m thinking like this. “Government-paid” in a democracy is actually people-paid, since it is done in the name of the people, and we elect those who create those programs, and they collect taxes from us to pay for them. In the case of medicare and social security we are also paying in – actually we working people are caring for the elderly, as we should do, and we will be likewise be cared for by the younger generations when we are old, as they should do.

So it seems perfectly fine and within Catholicism and human decency to have government health care programs. These are programs of the people, by the people, and for the people. Do we expect Santa Claus or some dedicated nuns or rich benefactors or pro bono doctors to take care of all those who need care? We can do it and we should do it.

However, I would only say that because we Americans are so selfish, considering the great wealth we have and how little we give proportionately, say compared to Europeans, etc, we really don’t do a good job at all taking care of our sick and elderly. The World Health Organization ranks us 37th, after Costa Rica (36th), in terms of our health system.

We just don’t care if our people get sick and can’t afford medical coverage. I was in a pharmacy today & had to pay $100 co-pay for 2 tiny bottles of eye drops, and yesterday made a co-pay $500 for cataract surgery…and I have health insurance from the U of Texas, and luckily could afford those expenses. The clerk there said she didn’t have any health coverage at all, so she just had to be sick without seeing any doctors at all, or getting any medicine.

We are a mean-spirited, selfish, rugged-individualist, anti-Christian country. The proof is in the pudding and our lack to health care for all, which clearly indicates our lack of Christian compassion. If we were truly a Catholic or Christian nation, if we truly had a grain of compassion in our hardened hearts, we would have health care and other important helps for people in need (something well beyond the feeble “Obamacare”), as they have in France, where my niece had a difficult pregnancy with complications after the birth. Not only were all her medical costs covered, but she had some 6 months of PAID maternity leave, and government-paid, professional childcare (not the babysitter from hell) for her other children while she was disabled and her husband was working. Of course the French pay taxes for all this. But you get what you pay for, and our America is a cheap-skate nation that doesn’t care about those who need help.

I’d suggest seeing SICKO by Michael Moore. That should open some eyes.

 

[RCIA4]

I want universal healthcare!

 

[zz912]

I’m thinking like this. “Government-paid” in a democracy is actually people-paid, since it is done in the name of the people, and we elect those who create those programs, and they collect taxes from us to pay for them. In the case of medicare and social security we are also paying in – actually we working people are caring for the elderly, as we should do, and we will be likewise be cared for by the younger generations when we are old, as they should do.

So it seems perfectly fine and within Catholicism and human decency to have government health care programs. These are programs of the people, by the people, and for the people. Do we expect Santa Claus or some dedicated nuns or rich benefactors or pro bono doctors to take care of all those who need care? We can do it and we should do it.

However, I would only say that because we Americans are so selfish, considering the great wealth we have and how little we give proportionately, say compared to Europeans, etc, we really don’t do a good job at all taking care of our sick and elderly. The World Health Organization ranks us 37th, after Costa Rica (36th), in terms of our health system.

We just don’t care if our people get sick and can’t afford medical coverage. I was in a pharmacy today & had to pay $100 co-pay for 2 tiny bottles of eye drops, and yesterday made a co-pay $500 for cataract surgery…and I have health insurance from the U of Texas, and luckily could afford those expenses. The clerk there said she didn’t have any health coverage at all, so she just had to be sick without seeing any doctors at all, or getting any medicine.

We are a mean-spirited, selfish, rugged-individualist, anti-Christian country. The proof is in the pudding and our lack to health care for all, which clearly indicates our lack of Christian compassion. If we were truly a Catholic or Christian nation, if we truly had a grain of compassion in our hardened hearts, we would have health care and other important helps for people in need (something well beyond the feeble “Obamacare”), as they have in France, where my niece had a difficult pregnancy with complications after the birth. Not only were all her medical costs covered, but she had some 6 months of PAID maternity leave, and government-paid, professional childcare (not the babysitter from hell) for her other children while she was disabled and her husband was working. Of course the French pay taxes for all this. But you get what you pay for, and our America is a cheap-skate nation that doesn’t care about those who need help.

I’d suggest seeing SICKO by Michael Moore. That should open some eyes.

Getting your information from michael moore is dangerous. He repeatedly lies or selectively edits to make his “point”. In particular sicko has been ripped to shreds.

As to your post, Americans are actually MUCH more generous than Europeans. And our health stats are low only because we calculate our numbers differently than most others, especially those with government health care. For example we count every birth as a live birth, while most govt run countries only count babies that live a certain amount time. If they die earlier, they are a “stillbirth”. So their numbers look good even though babies sure there much more frequently than here.

Also I’m a little surprised that you are offended you have to pay a whole $500 for eye surgery!!! So you’d rather pay $4000 in taxes to sit on a wait list instead? And funny enough, those health care utopias have huge wait lists for routine surgery and appointments. People literally die waiting for this “wonderful” care. My wife worked for a dermatologist and his office would get jammed with canadiens in april and may who were desperate to be seen before going home to their “free” health care. They would pay out of pocket instead of taking advantage of govt health care.

 

[Viki63]

I have to agree with lynnvinc. I speak every day with people who supposedly have healthcare, but can’t get the medications prescribed by their doctors because the insurance company won’t approve them.
There is no reason to be paying one third of our healthcare dollars to the insurance companies for advertising and profits, which they increase by refusing care. That money would easily pay for the healthcare needs of those who are currently without insurance.
I support Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, which advocates streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer, which would save more than $400 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.
It’s not government run healthcare, it’s privately provided, publicly funded healthcare, in which medical people make a decent living and nobody makes an exorbitant profit.

 

[markomalley]

I have to agree with lynnvinc. I speak every day with people who supposedly have healthcare, but can’t get the medications prescribed by their doctors because the insurance company won’t approve them.

You can take a look at any number of examples of this in a government-run healthcare system, as well. Take a look at the UK’s NICE department, for an example (NICE = National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). A couple of fairly recent examples:

NHS rationing body rejects prostate cancer drug

MS pill rejected as too costly by Nice

Nice rejects Lucentis for diabetes-related sight loss

And so on.

There is no reason to be paying one third of our healthcare dollars to the insurance companies for advertising and profits, which they increase by refusing care.

That money would easily pay for the healthcare needs of those who are currently without insurance.

Where do you come up with that?

Here is a spreadsheet, from Google Finance, that shows the net profit for most of the major health insurance companies out there:

easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/665/7403169744.png

United Health’s operating expenses in 2010 were 15.2% (according to their 10-K filed for last year – see p 41). Those operating expenses do include marketing, but they also include the cost of the employees and computers and networks required to process claims.

The real problem is that they have to constrain premium prices so that employers will select their insurance over some competitor’s plan. And, in constraining those premium prices, they have to make decisions as to what is covered and what is not covered (just like the NHS / NICE have to do with the government-funded plan over in the UK). They also have to do so in order that their investors (for example, individual 401(k) retirement funds, union retirement plans, and so on) realize a profit on their investment. And I have a real hard time when somebody tells me that 4.92% (or even 6.35%, in the case of CIGNA) is an unreasonable amount of net profit for an investment.

I support Physicians for a National Healthcare Program…

There are a couple of things that neither this nor any other plan addresses.

First of all, there are always going to be limits. You folks who advocate government-run (or privately run government funded) don’t seem to recognize this point.

If an individual buys a health insurance policy, there is a limit as to how much he is willing or able to pay for that policy. If an employer buys health insurance policies for his employees, there is a limit as to how much he is willing or able to pay for those policies. If the government pays for health insurance policies for its citizens, there is a limit on how much it is willing or able to pay for those policies (the taxpayers will revolt if taxation used to pay for those policies is too high). Those are just facts of life.

If an individual pays directly for his own healthcare, there are going to be limits to how much he can pay those healthcare providers. He can’t pay out more than he has in his bank accounts (+ however much he is able to borrow). When the well runs dry, it’s dry.

If a commercial insurer pays for the healthcare for its insured (whether those insured directly paid for the insurance or if their employers paid for it), there are going to be limits to how much that insurer can pay the providers who give healthcare to the insured. The insurer can’t pay out more than they receive in premiums (minus the costs associated with processing claims). When the well runs dry, it’s dry. If the insurer goes into debt, the investors will drop it and go to more profitable investments.

If a government either directly pays for (or goes through a contractor) healthcare for its citizenry, there are going to be limits to how much the government can pay providers who give healthcare to the citizenry. It’s no different than commercial insurance.

Since there are limits (and I hope we can agree that there are practical limits), decisions have to be made.

If an individual is paying directly for his healthcare, eventually that individual will say “I can’t afford this” and will either work with his provider to find a cheaper alternative or will do without. That is his decision. Maybe the provider will work with him to reduce the cost or do it for free, but, again, that is between the provider and the individual.

If a third party (either commercial insurance or government-funded insurance or direct government healthcare) is paying the bill, they, too, make decisions. Those decisions are more generalized: what is covered vs not covered, how much they will reimburse, and, in the case of directly provided healthcare, when they run out of room. When these third parties decline to cover something, you end up getting headlines (like the ones you mentioned or the ones I cited above). But there are limits as to what they can cover. If you reduce reimbursements, providers will just stop providing (look at how many doctors are leaving medicare)

So there will always be limits…the question is who makes the decisions. (cont’d below)

 

[lynnvinc]

Getting your information from michael moore is dangerous.

No, I had my information well before seeing SICKO. It’s just that for others who may not be as academically oriented, Moore sums it up pretty good. But I suggest people do their own research.

I also met the President of Costa Rica (many years before I saw SICKO) when he came to give a talk at our university. He himself didn’t know that his country was above ours on its health system (and WHO used the exact same parameters to rank all countries), but the gist of his talk was how Costa Ricans had decided to put people first (instead of military build up, war, and multinational corporations)

That’s so unlike our country where we consider corporations to be humans, and give them all the rights of humans and many blessings and subsidies and tax-breaks (welfare for the corps is greater than for the poor). The Bible doesn’t say anything about how we should be so loving, kind, and generous to corporations, while ignoring the people. That’s not in the 10 Commandments, which BTW are duties for socially engaged people, not rights for rugged individualists.

However, corporations are not like people. For instance, if they harm and kill people because of their pollution or products, they can’t go to jail. Of course, they could be could be sued. However, they can also dissolve, hidding their assets, then reincorporate under at different name. Corporation resurrection. Unlike people they cannot die, but they can resurrect. So I guess that’s why we Americans worship them above God Almighty. That and the mistaken belief that they alone provide all the good.