I have been watching hours of debate over health care and am trying to come to terms with the assertion that a public option will somehow reduce the cost of coverage.
There is all sorts of talk about cutting costs, eliminating waste, eradicating greed and using the proceeds to pay for health insurance for all.
Insurance companies are being villified. Well, which ones ? Are the local agents who sell the plans also evil ? Are third party administrators also ripping people off ?
How about this cost of care. If costs are to be cut which employees at Samaritan will be let go ? Which ones will get pay cuts or fewer weeks vacation ?
Who are the local doctors who are overcharging and need to be reighned in ?
If there is a "public option" competing with the private insurers, will government employees lead the way by switching to the public plan ? Will that be mandated in order to provide a ready flow of customers ?
Medical is the fastest growing component in local government budgets, so why wouldn't local lawmakers off-load the cost and undertainty ? Pay the proposed 8% penalty and get rid of a lot of grief.
But wait, that kind of change is the subject of mandatory collective bargaining in this state. Would those unions and their members be the first to jump into a federal single payer system ? Or would they refuse ?
Now all of this relies on higher marginal income tax rates for the well-to-do, a.k.a. doctors and administrators. Won't they want to be paid more to make up for the higher taxes ?
Isn't the delivery of health care in NY already regulated ? A hospital cannot open or provide a service without a determination on need by the state. Will the federal government replicate all of this in order to achieve all this efficiency?
There are so many questions, and the answers lead to more questions. I suppose changes are needed, but who among us knows what they are.
14 comments:
you left out the largest component of health crae costs, the fact that people don't take responsibility for their own good health. They drink too much, smoke, and eat too much of the wrong things. They go to the ER for tx of a cold. Take out obesity and alcohol/smoking related patient care, and you reduce the load by about 60%.
By the way, Old GM was the number 1 Viagara customer, maybe that's why they went belly up.
"Old GM was the number 1 Viagara customer, maybe that's why they went belly up."
Belly up due to Viagra?
Unlikely, as they had to go belly up, as they couldn't take it lying down.
US healthcare needs more free market forces to curb costs.
Health insurance is the only insurance we don't shop for.
I would like employers to stop providing it and make EVERYONE shop for it. If you're fat and smoke you would pay more, just like the guy who drives a Corvette pays more auto insurance than the guy in an Impala.(Sorry Mayor, I don't speak Volkswagen or Kia fluently). Then the fat guy would have a financial incentive to take better care of himself.
Pre existing conditions would go into an "assigned risk" pool.
Just remember that over 80% of Americans are happy w/their health care. That's pretty damn good. When was the last time 80% of Americans agreed on ANYTHING?
The politics, as usual, has taken over. It has whipped the flames of hate and anger (anger in some cases; hate in most); distrust of government (in most cases); fear of Mr. Obama (in a lot of cases); and, a huge dumping of mis- and disinformation (in all cases), and, it was expected. It will get worse.
BL: The DEMS have to stop caving to the GOP and their fear/ threatening, or whatever media (effective, too) machine.
Put the bill out, vote on it, pass it, get it into law, and then build on it to make it better and more effective. And, along the way, rip the GOP a new one in the process that will last forever.
DEM BATTLE CRY SHOULD BE:
"Social Security is a huge hoax - it won't work." — Alf Landon, GOP Candidate for President, 1936.
I rest my case.
Which post did you eliminate and why?
an estimated $350 billion is wasted in this country by private med insurance screening. It would be cheaper just to insure everyone, according to James Galbraith. (How many of you read?)
The only winneers in maintenance of the status quo are BIG Pharma and BIG Insurance companies > One HMO executive made MORE $$$$ than the combined profit margins of all hospitals in NYS . Most NYS hospitals are at risk and lose $$$ and YET the idiots in our state government have a 1% gross receipts tax and BTW charity care at hospitals in many cases HAS tripled during this recession.
Local hospitals are teetering while the bozos in Albany and DC and the greed hog special interests screw around withthis damn fear-mongering .
Here's a message to our elected representatives" Get off your dead asses and solve this NOW
Folks who have health insurance seem to think because they pay a premium, this entitles them to ER visits, going to specialists to have a "Wart" removed from their fingers. I often wondered if folks had to pay the whole shot would they go so frequently.
"Anonymous said...
Which post did you eliminate and why?"
It was an explanation by Liberal Laugh as to why Jeff may be one of the few people in the world who still supports Sarah Palin. Pretty funny, actually. But this is a winger blog and LL is a bit out of place here.
A. Friend
actually, i really don't think this is a "winger blog"! for that matter, i don't even think piv is (though some of his/her commenters are obviously full-blown wingnuts). if you want to see the genuine article, try monroerising -- though it's advisable to do so only on an empty stomach.
as for the mayor, he really does seem hard to pin down ideologically. and i think that makes his reverence for palin all the more flabbergasting. someone like him really should know better.
Universal, government run health care is an easy sell as long as the government can convince everyone that the Donald Trump's of the world are going to have to pay for it. Now that John Q. Public has woke up to the fact that our current Pres. considers ANYONE who brings home a paycheck a Donald Trump, and that (oh haevens-to-besty, I"M gonna have to pay for another government boondoggle)They are starting to realize what a mess government run healthcare would really be. Socialized medicine has never worked anywhere it has been tried, and never can work.
Socialized medicine has never worked anywhere it has been tried, and never can work.
sorry but that's completely wrong. in fact, socialized medicine has done quite well where it's been tried.
look at britain, where the entire medical system is run by the state (not just insurance, but the delivery of medical services as well -- a much more socialistic system than anything currently being proposed in the u.s.).
do you think it's a system teetering on collapse? quite the oppsosite: in fact, the british conservative party is currently trying to brand itself as the party of national health care!
sure, the british system isn't perfect, but it's doing fine and is extremely popular. and also extremely cheap: per capita, britain spends only 41% of what we do, with outcomes that are about as good, maybe slightly worse.
While I agree Nationized is a great concept, in Canada there are waiting lists for families to get a family doctor, I wonder if this fact will weigh heavily in the decision.
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