It is true that private health insurers are largely behind the “no” movement, however.
Right. But not PhRMA this time and I think it’s important to either be informed or at least not spread misinformation.
I think a large part of it is that they would be willing to fight Obama on anything, because if his plan succeeds, then that means they were wrong when they voted against him. That’s why they’re doing everything they can to defeat it, and why they’ll believe anything negative about the plan (while being unable to admit its strengths).
Agreed.
In case anyone is wondering, the reason the pharmaceutical companies aren’t against it is because a deal has been made wherein the Feds won’t impose drug price controls on them.
One area where cultural differences between Brits and Americans may come into play:
Brits seem content with queueing up for things and waiting for medical services for periods of time that would be intolerable to most Americans.
For those already annoyed by waits for hours to get in to see the doctor, projections for waiting months to see a specialist or to get an elective surgical procedure done don’t go over well.
Some form(s) of rationing are inevitable in an American government-sponsored health care plan, just as they’ve been everywhere else. I think we’d be moving forward faster in getting a bill passed and gaining public acceptance if sponsors of the plan were knowledgeable and upfront about this aspect.
I’m a Briton and I have a completely different viewpoint to that of the OP. The unhygienic conditions in many British hospitals are a national disgrace. You’re more likely to catch MRSA (the ‘superbug’) in a British hospital than almost any other in Western Europe.
Last year HCP, a Swedish company which analyses European healthcare, published “a detailed assessment of health system performance in all 27 European Union countries.” (Full report here). Note this is a PDF file.
The UK came 17th, beaten even by Estonia.
More and more Britons are turning to private insurers to provide a decent standard of health care, to avoid the long waiting lists and unsanitary wards of the NHS.
I know plenty of Americans who already wait months to see a specialist just because they’re booked for months. That is, completely separate from having to wait for some HMO bureaucrat to approve seeing the specialist, it’s often months to get an appointment. I’m young and healthy and haven`t needed any specialists but waiting months to get an appointment seems more the norm from what people have told me.
I don’t think we disagree.
Would that not be the case under one of the new proposals? If all of the money’s coming out of your own pocket, couldn’t you still pay a hospital or doctor to perform the tests?
You’re right (although why call me out rather than the poster I was quoting?). I was mainly referring to the “fear & ignorance” part.
Who here has dealt with the VA?
I would say that a strong majority already have decent care at reasonable prices. Either through their jobs or through Medicare or Medicaid.
I contend that the problem is that there is TOO much government involvement already from licensing laws limiting competition, government payment rates, drug laws, etc. More government is not the solution for too much government.
Imagine if one of the biggest industries in the US was oranges. That the orange companies made billions of dollars per year by charging people as much money as possible for the oranges because, due to some contrivance, it were impossible to grow them on your own.
In fact, when you paid the orange company you weren’t even guaranteed an orange. You give OrangeCo your money, and pray that if you really need an orange, they’ll send you one.
Now imagine that the President decides that, since oranges are healthy and delicious, they should be free or cheaper. Free oranges for everyone.
What do you think an industry making billions of dollars by bilking its orange customers, often finding ways to take their money without giving them oranges, would do? Would they realize their time is over, pack up their bags, and move on to tangerines?
Or would they use their billions of dollars to fight it? Would they promise money to politicians (most of whom they’ve already given tons of money) if they spread lies about how the Government Oranges will kill your grandparents? Would they hire PR and lobbying firms to spread false information about how the nazis loved oranges? Maybe those firms would send out instructions for people to go to town hall meetings with congressmen and completely disrupt the proceedings, yelling nonsense about killer oranges. Maybe they’d create manufactured talking points and send them along to the most influential TV and radio show hosts so that people with no strong feelings either way will become terrified or government oranges for no real reason.
Maybe people who don’t care either way about oranges, but just don’t like the President very much, would do everything they could to stop him, just to see him fail.
Ideology will always trump the greater good, and ideology will always be for sale.
The orange company exists to make a profit, and they would do anything possible to for things to stay just the way they are.
The pros, cons, and costs have been terribly communicated by the government. It sounds like a huge, sweeping, and very expensive change. With so little information, it’s natural to fear the worst.
Some oppose it because they don’t believe that it’s a legitimate use of government power.
Some oppose it because they believe that the private sector can do virtually anything better than the government can.
Some oppose it because the change would cost them money.
Some oppose it because they’re doing fine under the present system and don’t want to risk change.
Some oppose it because they don’t trust Obama and/or the Democrats.
Some of the opponents have always felt this way and some of have been recently convinced by existing opponents using arguments and methods that may or may not have been honest.
I think most Americans’ experience with public health care has to do with going to a clinic or an emergency room.
You start out in an overcrowded waiting room without an appointment. Wait for your name to be called, then you’re ushered in to be seen by whatever random physician, nurse practitioner or technician happened to get your file. You don’t know the person, have no idea of whether they’re competent or whether they have ever seen a case like yours before. When they’re finished, they tell you to find a specialist or come back for follow-up. Then it’s the same process. There’s no one who’s familiar with your history, no choice in who you get to see and no chance to ask any questions.
That may be tolerable for a one-time problem, like getting a bad cut taken care of, but for a chronic health problem that requires follow-up or a something potentially life-threatening, it’s scary.
I may be wrong but the NHS came into being in July 1948, lady Thatcher became an MP in 1959, I believe she was doing her chemistry degree at Oxford about the time of the start of the NHS. Perhaps as a student she may have had an opinion but I doubt it carried the same weight as if she were a politician at that time.
I really am not trying to pick a fight, but here is a point of truth: If you ask a mostly liberal board why conservatives don’t like something, you are going to get a different answer than if you asked a mostly conservative board. No matter if either or neither is actually factually correct.
With that being said, I am quite surprised that very few comments in here have stated what most of my conservative friends/family believe.
I think this quote mostly sums it up. We have seen people get health care from the government. From the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid. Although there will always be anecdotes saying they got great care from one of these, overall, these government run programs do not have a sterling reputation of fast help and great customer service.
For the vast majority of the people that I know (and that are against govt health care), they get better care than the average govt run program.
I get GREAT health care from my employer. If the government starts to give the stuff out for free (or near free), I am sure it will take exactly 0.23 seconds for my employer to drop that coverage. Overall, I am of the opinion that my health care service will go down.
For some it may go up, but for me, I would anticipate down. It doesn’t take shady big-pharma conspiracy theories or million dollar lobbying to explain why I might not be a huge fan.
Just curious: did anyone else think National Honor Society?
How do you think being laid off or terminated would affect the quality of your coverage?
Precisely. Also, there is a sense that private health care is available if you are willing to pay for it, where a NHS-style program would tell you that the elective surgery you feel you need and can afford is not something that some bureaucrat thinks you need, so you cannot have it – at any cost.
In all fairness, one can point to issues with the Canadian program (I believe that Sam Stone has noted some cautionary tales; when matt_mcl was outlining NDP issues with the then-ruling Liberals, their ‘gutting’ of the healthcare program was an important part of his list.
It should be noted that AFAIK nobody is proposing a NHS-style program where most American medical practiitioners would be employed by the government, but rather one where government funding would supplement private care to ensure that all have adequate care.
And a final note – there is a (IMO well-founded) fear that incompetent bureaucracy will impede provision of care. I can speak to this; though probably eligible financially, Barb and I do not have Medicaid – we have twenty-page questionnaires provided by the local Social Services we have not filled out (nor arranged for rides for an all-day wait for our paperwork to be reviewed and rejected at the county offices 15 miles away), as what it will entitle us to in practice is care by the only non-pediatric medical clinic accepting Medicaid patients in our area, whose incompetence (bordering on malpractice) frankly makes us feel that self-medicating at need is preferable. In short – we’re gambling with our health because we cannot afford decent care and will not subject the taxpayers to paying for incompetent care (nor do we wish to risk the results of going to that clinic).
If you get a great plan from your employer, it’s most likely because they want that to be a perk. They could be giving you crappy coverage, but they’re paying for quality.
If there were a public alternative, free or not, wouldn’t private insurance most likely lower their rates to stay competitive? In that case, your work could offer the same benefits for less money.
If an employer gave all their employees a Lexus as a perk, but the government decided to give anyone who wanted it a free Ford Taurus, would that employer stop giving out Lexuses (Lexii?)?
Not being argumentative, just running though a thought experiment.
I’ve got no problem with people debating the merits of any kind of healthcare change, and I’m not attached to any one solution. My only problem, and it is a big problem, is with people just flat-out lying. Not “spin,” not “scare tactics,” just lying. Telling 100% verifiable lies shouldn’t be tolerated in politics, but we’ve become so numb to half-truths that we somehow missed the point where the line from half-truth to full-lie was crossed.