Hmm, I just stumbled across a blog post relevant to the talk about eeeevil insurance companies:
I would argue that to make the insurance market more accountable, we need to delink employment from insurance, to improve competition for customers. Nevertheless this model does suggest that even a moderate level of consumer choice will lead to accountability for insurers - certainly more than a government insurance monopoly would have.
That would assume that there is no competition, and that a monopoly provider to high-risk populations can earn rents from such high premiums.
Which isn’t so far off what we have today. The state-by-state over-regulation of the insurance industry practically guarantees a tiny number of providers, thereby reducing choice amongst consumers and driving up premiums.
Agreed.
I would call it a health care tax, but sure.
point of information: Physician training is subsidized (at the residency level) now. This actually is an indirect source of one of the problems, in that it makes the federal government a monopoly supplier, but not one that sees benefit to itself in maintaining supply, & we’ve had caps on how many residents can be trained. I wish I could see a better way to do it. But do you really plan to take public funding of medical education away, & what should replace it?
I’m out of my depth here, I admit.
HSA’s again. No.
Yeah, that happens with private health insurance too. Try again.
I’m a conservative. I speak for no other but myself on this issue.
One of the big problems, I think, is that people believe health care is a right. I think it would be nice if it it was, but it’s not. It’s just not possible for it to be one.
To explain, a person may live a long and healthy life, and then come down with a terrible, and ultimately fatal illness. In ye olden days, the family would usually take such a person home, make him as comfortable as possible, and allow nature to take it’s course. Nowadays we will engage in heroic measures to try to sustain that life, and we will often succeed, at great financial cost for a number of years. There is an argument here about the quality of life being sustained, but that would be on a case by case basis, and is not for me to evaluate. I will say that to sustain life for just a little longer we put people through tortures that are unjustifiable in any other context. We would not be this cruel to our dogs.
A final, catastrophic illness, at advanced age often comes with a huge financial burden. The current thinking seems to be that the resources we must commit to sustaining that life are to be spent without question, as a matter of right.
As people live to be older, and the technology to sustain life improves, these costs can only go up.
We spend a lot of money prolonging inevitable outcomes.
Not only do I not think this is right, I also think that it’s not a right. We are not obligated to do so as a society. If a person in such circumstances has the means to pay for it, so be it. If not, then no. I know that’s callous, but I don’t think it’s me being callous. The simple fact is that what is becoming technologically possible in postponing the inevitable given unlimited funds surpasses our possibility of funding it.
There is no societal triage. There should be if the society is paying for it.
That’s one problem.
My main objection is more basic.
I believe that the government cannot give us anything. We give to the government. I think allowing the government into our lives over such basic choices as health care is selling out our freedom for an intangible and negligable benefit. It is not the government’s job our responsibility to take care of us in this way. The government should not feed us, clothe us, provide us healthcare. It is not our mommy. We are responsible for ourselves. We take care of ourselves, and we take care of the government. All the government can do is take from us.
While I realize the police and the court system are necessary, my interractions with the police and the court system have not been all that positive. They have a lot of power and all too often and arbitrary and uncaring in the application of that power.
Same for the DMV. Same for public schools, the IRS. My interractions with the government have universally been dealing with vast, complacent, wasteful, and uncaring bureaucracies. I wish to minimize my involvement with them simply because they are rarely positive. I think the idea of giving such greater power over our lives is simply crazy.
We’re voting ourselves into slavery. The scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”
The government can’t help us, and we shouldn’t believe it can, or expect it to. The simple belief that it can creates a moral hazard. I think we need to be responsible for ourselves.
Then too, I think that many of the problems we face in the healthcare system stem from government interference. More government interference is not the answer. To steal a quote from my liberal brethren “we can’t drill our way out of this problem.”
Our expectations are simply unrealistic.
So, to answer the OP, my stance is that healthcare in the US is flawed. Having the government take it over is like trying to save a drowning man by throwing water at him.
Another thought:
We seem to be able to provide a pretty reasonable level of healthcare to our dogs at pretty reasonable costs without excessive bureaucracy, or governmental interference.
It seems to me that the healthcare system for our pets is better than it us for us, not just from a cost standpoint, either. Our pets get good service from competent caring individuals in a timely manner with a minimum of regulatory interference at a reasonable price.
The four main differences are:
We pay for our pets out our own pockets rather than getting a third party to pay, so we are cognizant and aware of costs and interested in keeping them down while making sure we receive maximum benefit for our dollar.
Vets don’t customarily get sued for gazillions of dollars.
Less bureaucracy.
Reasonable expectations. We don’t seek unlimited heroic interference at great cost for our pets especially in the face of an inevitable outcome.
I do think we treat our pets better than ourselves in this regard.
In reference to an article by Robert Pear of the New York Times, which appeared in the Houston Chronicle today.
WTF
That’s about $212 per week, which is about $100 more per week than I am currently paying through my employer’s group health plan.
again, WTF
WTF, WTF, WTF
Is anyone paying attention to any of this? What is the advantage? Middle class America get’s bent over the barrel yet again…
Sorry, but this has disaster written all over it…
I agree with 1-3. 4 I think is a natural human urge, and the only reason that it is a problem now is because nobody pays when they make the decision to have heroic treatments.
Or about $46 dollars less per week than what I pay for COBRA. It all depends on your point of view.
and 5
Been there, done that as well. I feel for you cause it does suck.
However, I knew when I was doing COBRA, it was only temporary, not for the rest of my days…
It’s quite possible it will be the last health insurance I will ever have. My wife is on SSDI and will become eligible for Medicare in about a year. I am 55, self-employed, a cancer survivor, and have had a perforated ulcer, so I expect any insurance I can find will be 1) prohibitively expensive, or 2) so bereft of benefits as to be worthless.
I am planning on being a burden to society.
Why does this shock anybody? Every government program costs thirty-eleven bajillion dollars, is beneficial to four people, and makes life worse for thousands of other people.
The only thing I can think that this will do is make people beg for a single-payer national health care system.
Stealing an embarassingly corny pop-culture line, because it works:
You’re not heavy. You’re our brother.
Good God. A voice of reason, seemingly from the Heavens.
You just made my day, Mr (or Mrs?) Scylla. I have renewed faith in the readers and posters on the SDMB.
Huzzah! Huzzah, I say!
Do you deny that government run healthcare works and provides exceptional service (since there are no recission issues, if nothing else) for our senior citizens, our completely indigent, our government employees and our military members and their families?
People who look at the total picture would deny that it “works” because that word also must include a sustainable way to pay for it across generations. It has to “work” even with upside down demographics.
People only say it “works” because they only look at the benefits payout instead looking deeper into the program’s total cashflow in to the fund and out of it.
We’re so lucky that the Apollo project, Interstate Highway System, and TVA just magically appeared with no government involvement. And just think where we’d be if those wonderful wonderful corporations hadn’t set up Social Security and Medicare out of the goodness of their hearts. And isn’t it nice that we can eat food and take medications that have been inspected and tested without any government involvement? Gosh, this libertarian paradise is just so wonderful!
I suspect that if a private corporation tried to set up Social Security in its present form, they would be arrested for creating a Ponzi scheme. Of course, if a corporation had set up Medicare, maybe they would not have structured it so that it will eventually cost more than all current government programs put together.
Regards,
Shodan
Still, where would we be without it? SS has given independence to a great many seniors who otherwise would have had to move in with their kids. Without Medicare, what would the mortality rate of the elderly be?
Hey, I think Shodan is really making some progress with the cite thing, supplying us with intelligent, responsible expertise on the issues! Such as:
How refreshing! Clear-eyed, hard-headed realism, not like wishy-washy liberal sites, sobbing endlessly over the plight of the undeserving, many of whom cannot even speak passable English, and are diluting and debasing our cultural heritage in places like San Diego, Las Cruces, San Jacinto…