Jivin J’s Life Links 3-9-10
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
Health care, health care, health care.
“The president says he doesn’t want to expand or restrict current law (on abortion). Neither do I,” Stupak said. “That’s never been our position. So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points — we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”
Stupak is apparently being courted fairly heavily…
Stupak was invited last week to the Russian Opera in President Barack Obama’s box. He told the crowd he respectfully declined.
Q: Don’t abortion opponents have other concerns about the bill?
A: A major one has to do with $11 billion that Obama wants to pump into community health centers serving low-income people and the uninsured. As the bill is currently written, those funds are not explicitly covered by the Hyde amendment.
White House health overhaul spokeswoman Linda Douglass says Obama is willing to clarify the language.
There’s also this tidbit:
Abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America say the House and Senate versions of the bill represent the biggest expansion of abortion restrictions in years, yet they’re not trying to defeat the measures.
Hmmmm…..I wonder why? When bills which have small abortion restrictions are introduced PP and NARAL go all out against them but not much more than a press release calling on Congress to fix the Nelson amendment when they’re facing the “biggest expansion of abortion restrictions in years.” Something doesn’t add up.
Angie shrugs it off like she was throwing out some trash. And that is appalling to me, that is what I’m completely incapable of understanding. You would think that the decision to have an abortion would be one of the hardest decisions a woman would ever have to make.
I am pro-life, and I find abortion a horrible, horrible atrocity. My heart still goes out to the women who think that they have no other choice and have to endure it. Yet Angie encourages women to just do it because “it’s not that bad”. How can someone be so cold?
[Stupak video: ABCNews; Obama photo: Associated Press]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
So Bart Stupak is optimistic the bill can be changed to meet his approval. Obama the master manipulator scores again. As I told another poster, I don’t care if Stupak was surrounded by celestial choirs(instead of Catholic bishops) when he proclaimed his PL stance, he is first and foremost a Democrat. Live with it folks, this bill means federal funding for abortion whatever excuse Stupak gives.
I rest my case.
CNN asks “So Angie what did your doctor tell you regarding your health and pregnancy…was this a decision you came to on the advice of your doctor?”
AND SHE NEVER ANSWERS IT. She never explains HOW pregnancy would have killed her, or that she went to her doctor when she found out she was pregnant again to see what the risks were and could she have this baby…nope. Just popped a pill to kill her child.
I think the “my life was in danger” is just what she tells herself to justify it in her own mind.
And she said she researched RU486 by “going to a couple websites.” THATS RESEARCH? Is she NUTS????
Well, I was going to have surgery and I went to a couple websites and…
That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Way to treat your health with such a cavalier attitude, Angie. Yeah, you must have been so scared that your LIFE was in DANGER from the pregnancy…you really acted like it by going to a couple websites and all.
And how did that “research” work out for you? RU486 was fast, quick, and painless right? Just like a period. Or a miscarriage. So so so natural.
Ugh…there is something “off” about her to say the least. I guess when you make the stressful decision to kill your child it brings out the worst in you.
I may be proven wrong Mary but I’m betting Stupak will stick to his guns and force Obama to scrap his provisions for federally funded abortions. Bart Stupak has stood firm for a long time and I don’t see him caving now.
What I was hoping was that his stance would kill the bill and now it looks like we might actually get socialized medicine…long lines, inferior care, the technical stagnation that occurs in the absence of competition, etc.
Ugh.
Time to pray, hard.
So CHCs are the big loophole that people are up in arms about?
I suppose it is time to ban funding for Iraq now because the funding bill doesn’t explicitly say anything about abortion. Or maybe NASA funding.
I wonder if all the years Bush increased funding for CHCs, if there was explicit language.
I wish the republicans would come clean and just say “it doesn’t matter why – we don’t like this bill. In fact, if it comes from the left, we won’t like it, because politics is about doing what is right for our own pockets and jobs, not those of the American people”.
And for those haters out there – I feel the same way about social security reform and how the Dems didn’t work on needed reform, but just worked to defeat anything.
analysis of senate bill…
http://thelastdemocrat.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/march-9-my-analysis-of-reid-mgrs-amendment-to-senate-health-care-reform/
I wish the Democrats would come clean and just say “it doesn’t matter why – we want this government expansion bill. In fact, if a responsible health care bill comes from the right (e.g. Paul Ryan), we won’t like it, because politics is about doing what is right for our own pockets and jobs, not those of the American people”.
Jon – certainly, that is more than a strong assumption. I mean, when was the last time that a political party in a time when they control the presidency, the house and senate, would take a key component of their political platform and hand it to the other party.
I think Ryan’s plan has some good components to it, as well as some bad components. I’ve only read a few analysis on it and people differ on what would and wouldn’t work.
I trust the CBO and the various analysis I’ve read of the Dem’s health care plan – and while I wish it had a public option to help drive down costs, it sure is a good start.
Thanks for the comment Jon – have a good day.
Ex-GOP, I can maybe trust the CBO, but I can’t trust the Democrat politicians (maybe not the Republican ones, either. Conservatives tend to distrust government.). As I’m sure you well know, the Democrats put most of the expenses into the future. The CBO can only score what they’ve been given. In other words, the Democrats have misrepresented the cost situation.
A public option will help drive down costs? Who’s making the promise? And are costs really being driven down, or are we just delaying payment, forcing our children or grandchildren to foot the bill (government debt)? Bureacracy never drives down costs; ultimately, it always increases them.
Anyway, what I want is health care reform, responsible health care reform. Get the government out of health care! Get the church back into health care! Individual families should work hard and pray. In God we trust.
Jon – can you link to an analysis about hiding costs? What I’ve read is that costs control is probably understated because of the best practices the legislation will help drive, but can’t get factored in. You are right partially about the costs in the future though – not factoring entirely – the projections from a few years ago often didn’t include the wars, and also factored the tax cuts expiring (which they won’t – well, some will).
Public option – that is basic capitalism – more competition drives down costs. Do some research and find some write-ups on it.
Get government out of health care? Do you support the elimination of Medicare (old folks health care), Medicaid (poor folks health care) and TriCare (military folks health care)? Would you like to get rid of those?
Sen. Dick Durbin, March 10, 2010: “Anyone who would stand before you and say ‘well, if you pass health care reform next year’s health care premiums are going down,’ I don’t think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up.”
Public option – that is basic capitalism
ROFL. You mean like the feds having subpoena authority over competitor Toyota and subjecting them to congressional hearings? Basic capitalism is NOT when the government sets and enforces the rules for competition while having its own product in the mix. That’s as unlevel a playing field as you can get.
You’d be more accurate to state that Obamacare shifts costs rather than reducing them. Even the Dems are now admitting that if Obamacare passes, premiums will go up (Ah, I see Jon beat me to it)
I’m curious what you’re referring to by “the best practices the legislation.” You talking about the monitoring of physicians to comply with federal protocols based on CER or something else?
Funny that you’d bring up “best practices” when we’re seeing corruption to get this bill passed. If the Dems are willing to go against the will of the people in passing the bill, what reason do the people have to trust the appointees (who’ll have zero accountability to voters) who will administer the new healthcare bureaucracies? If those drafting the law refuse to take our wishes into account now, are we supposed to believe they’ll direct their bureaucratic armies to take them into account later?
from Ann Coulter’s “In Other Words…” December 23 Townhall article:
Democrats keep citing the Congressional Budget Office’s “scoring” of their bills as if that means something.
The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill’s authors. It’s worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself.
Democrats could write a bill saying: “Assume we invent a magic pill that will make cars get 1,000 miles per gallon. Now, CBO, would that save money?”
The CBO would have to conclude: Yes, that bill will save money.
Among the tricks the Democrats put into their health care bills for the CBO is that the government will collect taxes for 10 years, but only pay out benefits for the last six years. Will that save money? Yes, the CBO says, this bill is “deficit neutral”!
But what about the next 10 years and the next 10 years and the next 10 years after that? Will the health care plan continually pay benefits only in the last six years of every 10-year period? I think their plan assumes we’ll all be dead from global warming in a decade.
The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill’s authors.
That is true, Jon. One thing EGV consistently omits in his enthusiastic support of socialized medicine is the caveats that CBO issues with its findings.
If you’re interested, here’s what President Obama’s cousin, a physician, has to say about Obamacare. I’m guessing he wasn’t among the white coat props we recently saw flanking the prez.
from Mark Steyn’s March 5 Investors.com article:
Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:
“Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?”
Indeed.
Look at it from the Dems’ point of view. You pass ObamaCare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years.
And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier.
Ex-GOP asked me, “Do you support the elimination of Medicare (old folks health care), Medicaid (poor folks health care) and TriCare (military folks health care)? Would you like to get rid of those?”
We’ve had this discussion already. See your and my comments under Jill Stanek’s February 18 post “Obama may unveil new healthcare bill this weekend.”
Jon – Oh yes – get rid of Medicare (what will a 90 year old do for health care?), but when the government pays for soldiers, then they aren’t the government? I didn’t understand that response. In both situations, the government pays, the care is done by general hospitals and clinics. Also Jon, the CBO scored it past just one decade.
FedUP – Read some articles out there and get a full view of the legislation, especially if you are under 50. A best practice is driving things that work. Treatment A ends up with 15% higher re-admittance rate – sharing info and driving knowledge/compliance drives best practices and saves money. Mayo Clinic has much lower costs in areas because of this.
I know there’s been “corruption” of this bill – but name a big piece of legislation without arm twisting and back room deals? You ever read about the Medicare expansion under Bush and how that went down?
Ex-GOP, there are responsible ways to get rid of a program (my impression is that Paul Ryan thinks along those lines), and irresponsible ways. If the civil government has made promises–and I think that your 90-year-old has a claim on them–then it must honour those promises. Now ultimately, as in Greece, a socialist government cannot honour its promises. That’s the place that the Democrats are leading us to, the collapse of a nation.
Soldiers are government employees. If there are any core indispensable government employees, then soldiers and police officers are they. By allowing for Tri-care, I am not putting myself in favour of socialized health care. I would agree that tax-payers should do their best to care for the soldiers who fight on their behalf. I don’t see how I am being inconsistent. If I am, then I’ll rightly claim ignorance and let you continue the argument with Xalisae, who made the point in the first place.
Fed Up, interesting information. Here is President Obama’s cousin’s conclusion: “The problems caused by government will not be solved by growing government. Now that this new era of big-government takeovers has spread to our health care system, it’s not just our freedoms or our wallets that are at stake. It’s our lives.”
And I just came across a PJTV interview with this cousin of President Obama, Milton Wolf. You can also read his blog, “The Wolf Files.”
FedUP – Read some articles out there and get a full view of the legislation, especially if you are under 50. A best practice is driving things that work. Treatment A ends up with 15% higher re-admittance rate – sharing info and driving knowledge/compliance drives best practices and saves money. Mayo Clinic has much lower costs in areas because of this.
Posted by: Ex-GOP Voter at March 12, 2010 6:36 AM
I’ve read most of the legislation itself, EGV. I’d rather form my own opinion than have a pundit do it for me. I’m quite familiar with best practices. I wanted to know how you were using the term. I figured you were referring to CER and forced compliance, but wanted to be sure. Problem is that patients are individuals, and what looks right on paper isn’t always what looks right on physical exam. The issue for me isn’t best practices per se. It’s how intrusive and punitive the feds want to be in forcing patient/provider compliance with federally determined best practices. Politics and best practices should not be mixed. And providers shouldn’t be punished for doing what’s best for a patient.
Glad you mentioned Mayo. They are no longer accepting Medicare for PCP visits, at least at some sites.
I know there’s been “corruption” of this bill – but name a big piece of legislation without arm twisting and back room deals? You ever read about the Medicare expansion under Bush and how that went down?
Past corruption justifies current corruption? Obama shouldn’t keep his promise to change how things are done? 80% of this nation is satisfied with its health care and coverage. 80% of this nation is not satisfied with its government. I never bought the argument that our health care system is broken. In need of reform, yes. Broken, no. It appears that the public believes our government is more broken than our health care system. I suggest the feds put their own houses in order before they claim any competence to put the health care situation in order.
Why do I care how Bush did things? I was no fan of his, although I did come to appreciate his prolife stance. I never voted for the man, so why would I need to justify actions of someone I didn’t put in office? You, on the other hand, said you voted for Obama. Apparently you see no hypocrisy when your guy behaves like the guy you like to criticize.
Jon – Greece doesn’t have economic issues because of more socialist activity – it is because of the amount of under the table money and untaxed money in the system.
I am paying into Medicare now – would their be an obligation there? I know you can’t answer that – but simply cutting the system is going to be much easier said than done -what party is going to go near that?
Fed Up – You read the entire bill? Yikes – I’d suggest a girlfriend Sir! (just kidding of course).
I suppose I’m not sure why we should wait for the system to be totally broken before we try to reform it? I’ve seen Tommy Thompson speak on this – the drain on the economy, the drain and threat to global competition, the number of employers dropping health care because they can’t afford it. We will have reform one day – it just depends if we take many steps soon, or if we wait until the system crashes.
Bush – yes, like all Republicans, he talked a good game. Abortion laws seem to exist all over the nation though. I just wish he had been pro-life across the board – death penalty, at least some standards when it came to war. I suppose he talked about it well though.
from Shikha Dalmia’s “Wrong Bill at the Wrong Time” March 10 Forbes article:
The real reason why ObamaCare is so unpopular is that it is proposing a giant expansion of the entitlement state precisely when this state everywhere is coming apart: here and abroad; at the federal level and the state; in the public sector and the private. Suggesting a giant government takeover of a sixth of the economy can’t be a popular selling point in a country whose DNA has a programmed hostility to Big Government.
Even before President Obama rammed through his trillion-dollar-plus stimulus/bailout packages last year, there was a growing sentiment that the country’s top priority ought to be tackling the entitlement programs whose liabilities are like a swelling aneurysm in the brain of the body politic waiting to rupture. The combined unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security–the federal health care and the pension programs for the elderly–are $107 trillion, seven times the current GDP…
Meanwhile, the deficits and debt of the so-called European PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain)–the social democracies whose cradle-to-grave welfare policies are the inspiration behind ObamaCare–are on the brink of bankruptcy. Greece, the most vulnerable of the lot, has a deficit of 12.7% of the GDP–not that much higher than America’s 10.6%.
Pushing ObamaCare was an astonishing misjudgment, the domestic policy equivalent of President Bush launching a full-scale preemptive strike against Iran after embroiling the country in Iraq and Afghanistan. But why don’t progressives get that this is terrible economic timing? Because this is the moment they have been waiting for since Lyndon Johnson enacted Medicare…
Ex-GOP said, “I am paying into Medicare now – would their be an obligation there? I know you can’t answer that – but simply cutting the system is going to be much easier said than done -what party is going to go near that?”
Exactly. I never said being responsible would be easy. Some people have described Paul Ryan as Spartan, not only in his personal life but also in the health care bill that he’s proposed.
Paul Ryan belongs to the Republican Party, but I don’t have too much hope in them. They can only slow down the slide into socialism. My hope, and yours, ultimately is in Jesus Christ and His kingdom of heaven. And even now, on this earth, may God’s kingdom come. Other civilizations may yet rise before our Lord returns, but if so, they will only exist for the benefit of the Church. According to the apostle Peter, God’s being patient.
But what are you proposing? To go with the Democrats and increase entitlements? You essentially prescribe spreading more of the disease!
Jon – my eternal hope is the same as yours. That will solve a lot of issues in a hurry!
I don’t believe it is an increase in entitlements, because there isn’t some big sweeping new drug benefit or anything like that. More people will have coverage, but like the rest of us, they will pay for it (and I don’t consider my insurance an entitlement). Now, the government will help pay for some of that – but as pointed out a million times to me on this site – the uninsured already have insurance. They just wait until it is an emergency and then go get care. If we can lesson those rates by making care more preventative, we all win.
So new entitlement? I don’t think it really fits that because people will still go uninsured.
Ex-GOP said, “More people will have coverage, but like the rest of us, they will pay for it.”
I thought that your big thing was to cover all the people who can’t afford to pay for insurance. Certainly that’s the Democrats’ big thing. Or perhaps you mean that their insurance will be affordable because it will be subsidized by richer people, in which case they aren’t paying for their insurance. Actually, I’m not sure what you mean.
Ex-GOP said, “If we can lesson those rates by making care more preventative, we all win.”
Don’t insurance companies already have a great incentive for making care more preventative? Because they have to compete with each other, they already want to lower rates. I want to know why you think that jack-of-all-trades Democrats and the bloated bureaucracy they preside over can achieve more effective preventative care. You sound pie-in-the-sky to me.
Jon – more preventative for people who HAVE insurance. The rest of us pay for those who don’t have insurance, and instead of paying for antibiotics at the beginning of an illness, we pay for a hospital stay at the end. With less and less people actually covered by insurance, this is becoming more and more of an issue.
Expanding coverage is certainly a big goal – yes – but without a full system like in England or Canada, that won’t happen.
Insurance will be available for purchase, subsidized partially by the government. Right now, if you are in an employee plan provided by an employer, your plan is actually subsidized (by not being taxed) through the government.
You didn’t answer my second question, Ex-GOP. Why do you think that the government will be able to achieve more preventative care if competing insurance companies haven’t been able? The only way that I’m aware of involves more government interference in our lives, i.e. less freedom.
You wrote as your last paragraph, “Insurance will be available for purchase, subsidized partially by the government. Right now, if you are in an employee plan provided by an employer, your plan is actually subsidized (by not being taxed) through the government. “.
However, the government doesn’t subsidize anything. When we replace the word government with tax-payers, then your last sentence no longer makes sentence. Paying fewer taxes is not the same thing as a subsidy. Ultimately all taxes derive from employers and their employees. The government is just a sinkhole.
Oops, in my comment above, I meant that “your last sentence no longer makes sense.”
Also, you don’t want a full system such as exists in England or Canada. They spend a very large portion of their funds on bureaucracy rather than on patients. What you end up getting is less coverage, e.g. some places in Canada have lotteries to get a family doctor. There aren’t enough doctors. And there are too many patients, so there are waiting lists (except if you need a sex change, abortion, or something else to do with sex).
You picked terrible examples because England is in even worse shape than Canada. With such a haphazard approach and far bigger economy, how can the United States do better?
Obama’s Illusions of Cost-control
by Robert J. Samuelson
Monday, March 15, 2010
“What we need from the next president is somebody who will not just tell you what they think you want to hear but will tell you what you need to hear.”
— Barack Obama, Feb. 27, 2008
One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving “universal health coverage.” The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.
There’s a parallel here: housing. Most Americans favor homeownership, but uncritical pro-homeownership policies (lax lending standards, puny down payments, hefty housing subsidies) helped cause the financial crisis. The same thing is happening with health care. The appeal of universal insurance — who, by the way, wants to be uninsured? — justifies half-truths and dubious policies. That the process is repeating itself suggests that our political leaders don’t learn even from proximate calamities.
How often, for example, have you heard the emergency-room argument? The uninsured, it’s said, use emergency rooms for primary care. That’s expensive and ineffective. Once they’re insured, they’ll have regular doctors. Care will improve; costs will decline. Everyone wins. Great argument. Unfortunately, it’s untrue.
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A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the insured accounted for 83 percent of emergency-room visits, reflecting their share of the population. After Massachusetts adopted universal insurance, emergency-room use remained higher than the national average, an Urban Institute study found. More than two-fifths of visits represented non-emergencies. Of those, a majority of adult respondents to a survey said it was “more convenient” to go to the emergency room or they couldn’t “get [a doctor’s] appointment as soon as needed.” If universal coverage makes appointments harder to get, emergency-room use may increase.
You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation’s health. The uninsured don’t get care or don’t get it soon enough. With insurance, they won’t be shortchanged; they’ll be healthier. Simple.
Think again. I’ve written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance’s effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don’t. Medicare’s introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn’t find gains. In the Atlantic recently, economics writer Megan McArdle examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are “open to question.” Conceivably, the “lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance,” she writes.
How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy — about two-fifths are age 18 to 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors — smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.
Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system’s major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government’s latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health “reform” would probably increase that.
Unless we change the fee-for-service system, costs will remain hard to control because providers are paid more for doing more. Obama might have attempted that by proposing health-care vouchers (limited amounts to be spent on insurance), which would force a restructuring of delivery systems to compete on quality and cost. Doctors, hospitals and drug companies would have to reorganize care. Obama refrained from that fight and instead cast insurance companies as the villains.
He’s telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama’s plan evades health care’s major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It’s a big new spending program when government hasn’t paid for the spending programs it already has.
“If not now, when? If not us, who?” Obama asks. The answer is: It’s not now, and it’s not “us.” Pass or not, Obama’s proposal is the illusion of “reform,” not the real thing.
Derek Thomas – Closing Arguments for and against Health Reform – http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/closing-arguments-for-and-against-health-care-reform/37498/
Health care reform is heading into what could be its do-or-die week. Democrats expect a vote by this weekend. Republicans are digging in. And op-ed writers are making their closing arguments.
Here’s (he linked to the article Jon just posted) the Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson taking on costs. Samuelson and I agree on the basics of reform: you can’t bring down costs dramatically unless you change the fundamentals of our health providers and move away from a fee-for-service system. On every else, we don’t see eye to eye.
First Samuelson questions the idea that universal health insurance is a worthy goal because universal care won’t bring down emergency room visits. But that’s far from the central justification for universal coverage. Let’s leave aside questions of morality for a second. Health reform would force insurance companies to make their policies richer: no blocking customers with pre-existing conditions, community rating, no more rescinding insurance for health reasons. Richer policies could force up the price of insurance, because superior products are more expensive. But when the government forces tens of millions of younger, healthier Americans to buy health care, this gives insurance a larger pool of “cheaper” customers and brings down the cost. The universal mandate is a tool to bring down average premium prices.
Second Samuelson claims universal coverage is a fool’s goal because health insurance doesn’t actually make anybody healthier. He picks some controversial studies that support this argument, ignores studies that rebut his argument, and generally concludes that health care might be totally frivolous. But one paragraph later, we get this:
Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system’s major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets.
Come. On. If Samuelson can spend four paragraphs arguing that insurance isn’t necessary, why is he even worrying that uncontrolled spending prices people out of the market? That is, after all, just a fancy way of saying “makes people uninsured.” And uninsured people are just as healthy as insured people. Because insurance doesn’t matter, right?
I don’t really know what to do with this. I want Samuelson to mention the delivery system reforms in the bill, if only to prove to me that he’s aware of them. I want him to acknowledge the political challenge of instituting delivery system reforms as impending laws rather than pilot programs, if only to prove to me that he’s thinking about politics and policy together. I want him to acknowledge that if the uninsured are capable of injury or disease, health insurance would help them; alternatively if they are, in fact, super-humanly healthy, then forcing them to buy insurance brings down the cost of insurance for the rest of us humans. Instead Samuelson has his eye trained on the perfect, and he’s making it the enemy of good enough.
You still didn’t answer my question, Ex-GOP. Why do you think that the government will be able to achieve more preventative care if competing insurance companies haven’t been able? The only way that I’m aware of involves more government interference in our lives, i.e. less freedom.
Derek Thomas, in the article you posted above, says this near the very end: “forcing them to buy insurance”. Again, is this what you’re after? May the government force me to buy insurance? Why can’t I make this decision myself? Maybe I just don’t want insurance. I’m not a slave!
And once again, I’m all for health care reform. Paul Ryan made a genuine attempt at health care reform. The Democrats, however, are only interested in the expansion of government.
Jon – sure, the government makes us do all sorts of things – pay taxes, buy car insurance (I suppose a percent or two of folks can just walk everywhere…). It isn’t a new debate though, and one supported by a lot on both sides.
Cost reduction – I’ll leave it to a group of experts on that one:
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/pressroom/2010/03/av/hcletter.pdf