Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia
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Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia
President Obama: "I didn't campaign on the public option."
You see, it all depends on what your definition of the word "campaign" is.
My definition would be the part where it says: "Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice."
Comments (208)
I do think there are inherent structural problems in the current health insurance system in this country, but I don't see the solution as a public option or Harrycare. The insurance companies benefit from shutting higher-cost people out of coverage, and a government option would have no inherent cost control incentives. Instead, I have long been in favor of the approach Whole Foods takes, with robust medical savings accounts and catastrophic insurance that picks up when the annual MSA contributions are exhausted. The biggest problem I see is that consumers want to go back to a time when health care seemed 'free' - when I started working in the eighties, I didn't have to contibute to my health insurance coverage, and co-pays were ten bucks. Those days are long gone. Right now, there are two opposing and perverse incentives in play - the insurance companies try to get rates as high as possible, and once the rate is paid, the consumer has little incentive to control costs. Going to MSAs would remove that dynamic - I have a non-rollover HSA now, and the insurance companies don't look over my shoulder as to how I use it (just have to have purchases confirmed to meet IRS guidelines) - but without a rollover, I end up using it all up each year (my wife bought two new pairs of glasses last year to use the balance up) - MSAs should be allowed to roll over for all consumers. And for lower-income consumers, there could be MSA matching funds akin to EITC. At the end of the day, your car insurance doesn't pay for your oil changes, and your health insurance should NOT be engaged in your basic care - because once they nose into it, the costs go up, whether it is a private company or the government who is involved.— db_cooper
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- "but the fact is that the American people have decided as a group that denying such coverage would be immoral." When did this vote happen? Have you seen the polls recently? And if there is a scarcity of resouces, I guess this means we can force peopel to become doctors then, huh? Your childish notions of rights and equality are laughable. You simply want to pick the pockets of those better off than you.— RG
- ----} I love the link {----- Classic response. You can't deal with the facts the link provides, so simply denigrate the link. The link show the other side of your claims about the 3.5% profits. Get back to me with evidence that ANYTHING contained at the link is inaccurate. LOL!— Talking point sleuth
- Or, TPS, you can look up the case of Debbie Hirst, a British woman with breast cancer who was denied a life saving drug by the NHS because it was too expensive. She then tried to pay for it herself, and was told by the NHS that if she did so, it would make her ineligible for the prgram, cause it violated the idea of equality. And these are the types of systems you want to emulate, all so you can punish "fat cats".— RG
- TPS, from your very own link: ""All that statement says is, if you eliminated all our [insurance company] profits, national health spending in America would be 1 percent lower. It has meaning only in that context," Reinhardt says." Wow. 1 percent.— RG
- Good. I'm glad to see that you're reading the link, RG. Now, continue reading - to the part where you'll read about "medical loss ratio." In fact, private insurance company "profits" measure up to relatively little of the entire amount of money spent on healthcare in this country. But the point is that those profits come (1) after insurance companies have rejected people because of preexisting conditions, (2) come after they never even considered covering people that can't afford premiums, and (3) come after they have spent millions of marketing and higher administrative costs than public sector insurance. That explains why private health insurance is inefficient in an operative and allocative sense, RG.— Talking point sleuth
- ---} And these are the types of systems you want to emulate {---- We have greater inequity in our health care system than in any system in any other developed country on the planet. I realize that doesn't bother you, RG, but I believe that is an issue that can effectively be addressed.— Talking point sleuth
- "That explains why private health insurance is inefficient in an operative and allocative sense, RG." Ah yes, but meanwhile the bill you support just gave them 30 mil new customers and offers to pay for it by cutting the humongous waste and fraud out of Medicare, the inefficient government run health care program. Keep looking past those wild inconsistencies.— RG
- "We have greater inequity in our health care system than in any system in any other developed country on the planet." Ah the heart of the matter, after all these long winded posts on inefficency, we find out it is about your foolish notions of legislating equality. Even if it means not letting people pay for additional care that they could afford.— RG
- This excerpt pretty much sums it up, RG. It combines problems with health care operation with problems related to access to health care insurance, but it will still suffice: --snip-- The U.S. health system has been described as the most competitive, heterogeneous, inefficient, fragmented, and advanced system of care in the world. In this paper, we consider two questions: First, is the U.S. healthcare system productively efficient relative to other wealthy countries, in the sense of producing better health for a given bundle of hospital beds, physicians, nurses, and other factor inputs? Second, is the United States allocatively efficient relative to other countries, in the sense of providing highly valued care to consumers? For both questions, the answer is most likely no. Although no country can claim to have eliminated inefficiency, the United States has high administrative costs, fragmented care, and stands out with regard to heterogeneity in treatment because of race, income, and geography. The U.S. healthcare system is also more likely to pay for diagnostic tests, treatments, and other forms of care before effectiveness is established and with little consideration of the value they provide. --snip-- http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/35365285/Is-American-Health-Care-Uniquely-Inefficient— Talking point sleuth
- And this is, RG, the money quote: --snip-- and stands out with regard to heterogeneity in treatment because of race, income, and geography. --snip-- The point is this, RG, my main problem with the current system is that "heterogeneity in treatment," because it amounts to "rationing" based on the ability of someone to pay. Claims that there is "rationing" in other systems but not in ours are bogus. As for the questions related to efficiency, the point is that the notion that our system as it stands is "fiscally conservative" are bogus, bogus, and bogus. Oh, and they're also bogus. Only someone with stars in their eyes every time they hear "free-market" could think that the role of the "profit motive" makes our system efficient as compared to alternatives.— Talking point sleuth
- ---} Even if it means not letting people pay for additional care that they could afford. {---- Having a system that is less "heterogeneous" and that also allows people to pay for additional coverage are not mutually exclusive. There you go with that binary thinking again. You really ought to work on that, RG.— Talking point sleuth
- ---} waste and fraud out of Medicare, {--- Indeed, there is waste and fraud in Medicare. And only a free market fetishist could believe that there isn't waste and fraud in the private insurance industry.— Talking point sleuth
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