I am pretty sure nobody who reads my blog is against Obama’s healthcare plan, but if you are, we need to talk. (I know people outside the US might not understand to the extent at which this is a dividing issue here). Who would have though so much controversy would come from someone trying to provide everyone with healthcare? Not to mention someone who campaigned on the idea, and got elected in part because of it.
Lets get this real straight: This plan will save money. If you are against it, turn off Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, take down your confederate flag, and use your brain.
Today, anyone, healthcare or not, citizen or not, can walk into any hospital in the country and get treatment. Many people do. And the ones that don’t have healthcare? You and I pay for them, through our insurance, who receives inflated charges from the hospital because of the additional burden of these uninsured. Do you really think that having the government run healthcare is going to make us pay for everyone else more than we currently do? (For a point of reference every month I pay over $700 to insurance just for my daughter and I)
Having country-wide heathcare would allow us to formalize this process, and make sure that those who were previously going to the hospital and getting free care (ie defaulting on their payments) are now taxed for it. You can get out of hospital bills, but getting out of taxes is a million times harder. For people here illegally, that is a issue that is mutually exclusive from this, as their coverage wouldn’t change with this plan.
As for the idea of death panels? They exist already. Insurance companies drop people, and their personal savings run out. Sending a loved one to a nursing home or hospice is already deciding their fate. Before “ObamaCare” your fate was decided by money. After it, you will still be able to have to decided by money. That doesn’t change.
You can call it socialist, and I can call you a fool, because as I said already, we already care for everyone, they just default on their bills.
Go ahead and use the Post Office as a case study of why government shouldn’t run things. Show me one small business that can deliver mail to any address in the US for < 50 cents. It isn’t possible. What they do is phenomenal given their budget and scope. If I lived in rural Idaho, no commercial interest would ever drive a letter out to me for that price. And the benefits? Increased communication, resulting in increased national commerce. Driven anywhere? Yeah the government runs the roads so well I can do that.
Bring on your ignorance in the comments.
Related posts:
#1 by ethana2 on September 8, 2009 - 7:27 pm
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As a Christian conservative from Nebraska, let me say–
Universalize healthcare, and decriminalize cannabis.
#2 by d0od on September 8, 2009 - 7:37 pm
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I live in the UJ where universal free healthcare is such a national institution that Governments can’t be elected unless they pledge to continue supporting it.
I have watched open-mouthed at the neo-con savaging of the proposed American “NHS” – as you so succinctly put in your post – this will SAVE people money which is probably why the Neo-Con’s don’t like it: Insurance Lobbies.
#3 by sharkbait on September 8, 2009 - 8:11 pm
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Obama is a Socialiast Marxist Fascist Nazist Terrorist Atheist Muslim!!!!!111 He should not be able to encourage our CHILDREN to do well in school! And we shouldn’t have better healthcare! That’s COMMUNIST!!!1
*sigh*
Trying to help people != evil.
Obama is actually pushing for making the U.S. better, yet his opponents don’t think that’s a good idea. WTF?
#4 by Bryce on September 8, 2009 - 8:56 pm
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The crazy thing is (some) people keep on believing. How, I have no clue.
With this latest right wing anti-school stuff I think you’d have to be lobotomized to continue swallowing it.
But a lot of people sadly still believe the world was created in the year 3987 B.C.
#5 by Paul on September 8, 2009 - 9:10 pm
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We are all adults here, and as adults we know there are consequences for are actions, so if you do not agree with his views on healthcare, you can a) do nothing, b) vote for him, c) not vote for him, d) protest and picket, its your choice, live the dream!
It all comes down to what you believe, either you are your brother’s keeper or are not. The healthcare system is broken, even when you play by the rules, because even when you are working and come down with something serious the insurance company can deny your claim and you are stuck using you own funds and filing for bankruptcy when these same insurance companies are paying out bonuses to those employees that deny claims and on top of that the same companies show record profits. We are already paying for emergency room care anyway for those without healthcare, it makes sense to me to cover everyone and not pay 10-20 times more for emergency room care.
#6 by nixternal on September 8, 2009 - 9:10 pm
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I am not totally against it, but it does need refining, and thankfully people on his side are starting to agree.
As for the insurance companies paying for the uninsured, I don’t know how true that is nationwide. Here in Illinois, you go to the county office, and file for a healthcare card. Funny enough, they actually call it a green card, which confused the hell out of me. Anyways, with this card, you can get healthcare at facilities such as Stroger/Cook County Hospital, Central DuPage Hospital and others. The government actually foots the bill.
And the ‘if you default on a payment’ that typically means you can’t afford it, and if ObamaCare then goes after these people who defaulted by taxing them, what happens when they don’t pay? You put it on their credit? You think people who can’t afford it really care about this? What’s next? Putting them in prison? Aren’t states now trying to relieve the over-population that is going on, this whole taxing thing could possibly fill them all back up. Honestly, not paying your taxes is about the same as not paying your credit card bills. It just goes on a credit report and they keep charging you interest until they wake up and realize you aren’t going to pay. Now of course, if said person gets a job one day, they will not be getting any taxes back at the end of the year. The only thing with taxing is that when it gets high enough that you owe, it becomes a felony.
So if this taxing part is a fact, I think that really needs to be thought out. There is no doubt this plan will eventually help a great deal of people, but it is only going to help those out that can afford it. This plan, as it stands, is really nothing more than the ‘US Insurance Agency’ here to provide a bit of competition in the market, and this isn’t a bad thing.
And, as a christian conservative from Chicago, I kind of agree with what ethana2 said
On, before I go:
“Lets get this real straight: This plan will save money. If you are against it, turn off Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, take down your confederate flag, and use your brain.”
And if I have to give up any of these things, then you should turn off Rachael Maddow, Keith Obermann, and the rest of MSNBC while you are at it :p By the way, Beck is a Liberatarian, though I enjoyed him a bit more when he wasn’t with Fox.
#7 by sharms on September 8, 2009 - 10:14 pm
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Nixternal – Just to clarify, I live in Ohio, absolutely the only political shows I listen to are Rush, Hannity, Beck and a local guy named Willy Cunningham. I voted for Bush twice because he was the best candidate, and I don’t believe in a strong welfare system, the FCC, or gun control.
So I wouldn’t say I am a democrat by any means, this issue just seems pretty clear.
#8 by LaserJock on September 8, 2009 - 10:55 pm
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I read your blog and I’m utterly against Obama’s health care plan. The more I work with (and now for) the US government the more I want to keep them out of the health care business. We don’t need Universal health care, we need to 1) keep real health care costs down 2) promote personal responsibility and ownership of one’s health 3) keep decisions as close to the caregiver and patient as possible and 4) promote charitable giving to help those in our country who are in legitimate need. I don’t see how Obama’s plan does any of those things and quite to the contrary seems to make existing problems worse.
I’m really no expert on the subject, but I just haven’t seen government run programs really work all the well. They tend to be overly inefficient and bureaucratic. I don’t see how private insurance companies, which may be doing a better job, will be able to compete with a non-profit, government-baked insurance system.
In short, I struggle to see where Obama’s plan will help much and can see many areas where it will be worse than the current “system”. I think he could have done much better by the American people if he’d focused more on keeping costs low and quality high in the existing system, rather than such a drastic change to the existing system which seems solely focused on getting 100% of American’s covered.
#9 by Matthew on September 8, 2009 - 11:13 pm
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“I’m really no expert on the subject, but I just haven’t seen government run programs really work all the well. They tend to be overly inefficient and bureaucratic.”
Yes, you got that right (the no expert part).
Fact: The VA (Socialist healthcare for vets) and Medicare (single-payer) deliver very high standards of care more cheaply and efficiently than the private industry. Medicare’s administrative costs are around 3% compared to around 30% for private insurers. Medicaid is comparable to Medicare, but is slightly less efficient than it because each individual state jointly administers its own program.
They aren’t perfect, but the major government-run programs easily outdo the private sector by wide margins in both access and affordability.
#10 by scomar on September 8, 2009 - 11:29 pm
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Steve, the most outrageous thing in your post is this: 700 USD a _month_ !?! Are you effing serioius?? Here in Australia I have private health insurance that costs me 550 AUD (~475 USD) a _year_ (I thought this was pretty steep). And I don’t even really need it – you get some marginal benefits over the public system, like more physio visits per year etc.
@nixternal: Beck is an idiot. For example:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-11-2009/reform-madness
“Everything that is getting pushed through congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama’s thinking on one idea: reparations.” — glenn beck
#11 by LaserJock on September 8, 2009 - 11:40 pm
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@Matthew:
I have several family members that use both VA and Medicare. They would all prefer private insurance if given a choice. Medicare’s administrative costs are not lower than private insurers from numbers I’m seeing. On a per/beneficiary basis Medicare’s administrative costs are higher from what data I could dig up. For instance, in 2004 Medicare’s administrative costs were $521/person and private insurers were $425/person.
It isn’t the cost alone that’s the issue for me, it’s also the philosophical/political idea that powers of government and personal property should be held as close to the individual as reasonably possible. If I have to pay for my own health care then I’m more likely to be involved in keeping its costs low. I’m more likely to take more preventative measures, and I’m more likely to hold those I’m getting the services from accountable. For instance, I have had times where I didn’t have insurance. I made sure I had only procedures I had to have and in fact doctors were generally willing to help me find cheaper alternatives. My experience has been that the cost of health care was roughly half when I didn’t have insurance and was paying out of pocket.
#12 by Matthew on September 8, 2009 - 11:50 pm
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Nobody is forcing them to use the VA or Medicare.
They are being given a choice, and as you said, they’re choosing Medicare and the VA.
#13 by Matthew on September 8, 2009 - 11:53 pm
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http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/News/News-Releases/2009/May/Elderly-Medicare-Beneficiaries-Give-Their-Coverage-Higher-Ratings.aspx
#14 by Anonymous on September 8, 2009 - 11:59 pm
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Forcing everyone to pay more money to drug companies does not equal better health care. Abolishing tax-funded support to drug companies and putting it (plus this “health care” bill money) into PREVENTION (you know, keeping poison from being sprayed on food, exercise, making fresh food more available than McDonalds) would equal health care. Sadly there are no well paid lobby groups that get larger payouts for prevention. The drug company lobby groups will do very nicely when we’re all legally forced to pay for their products whether we use them or not.
#15 by Matthew on September 9, 2009 - 12:09 am
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And I suppose I should clarify/provide more resolution on the administrative costs bit:
“Perhaps the most obvious advantage of public insurance is that it is inexpensive to administer. The public Medicare plan’s administrative overhead costs (in the range of 3 percent) are well below the overhead costs of large companies that are self-insured (5 to 10 percent of premiums), companies in the small group market (25 to 27 percent of premiums), and individual insurance (40 percent of premiums).”
From: http://institute.ourfuture.org/files/Jacob_Hacker_Public_Plan_Choice.pdf
(In the PDF, page 9)
As far as I can tell, the numbers you quote are from an incredibly sloppy paper by the Heritage Foundation, which functions more like a partisan operative than an intellectually honest think tank.
In fact, the report that the Heritage foundation bases its numbers off of says this:
“The central findings can be summarized as follows:
*
Administrative costs for private health insurance, defined broadly, are in the range of 11-14 percent of total premiums.
*
Administrative costs reported directly in the Medicare budget, combined with a proportional allocation of the costs of other federal government administrative functions, yield a finding of 6 percent of Medicare outlays as the total reported administrative costs for Medicare. This more complete estimate is twice as high as a proportion of Medicare outlays as commonly asserted.
*
A shift to a single-payer system would yield net savings of about $99.6 billion (as of 2006) annually in reported administrative costs, or about $2100 in potential health-care benefits for each of the 47 million individuals currently uninsured.”
Admittedly, the Manhattan Institute report goes on to say that single-payer (e.g. Medicare) is not a panacea, but it’s hardly saying what the Heritage report says (in fact, it says the opposite).
The figures you quote are not the result of honest reporting.
#16 by nixternal on September 9, 2009 - 12:19 am
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I used the VA healthcare, and let me just say, it was horrible. I can’t believe the way veterans are cared for, unless of course they have a serious health condition, which is all the VA benefits are good for. All the old farts in my family who use Medicare have a supplemental insurance as well, as Medicare doesn’t cover a lot of things that these old farts deal with, yet they wouldn’t talk bad once about Medicare.
Anyway, fix the healthcare, make it work, do it right. Just because it works in other countries, the government run/funded healthcare doesn’t mean it will work here. I am a bit sceptical in some regards. When I think government run anything, the first thing I think of is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yes, both were and still are run by the government. I worked there for a year after the Navy, and my bosses were Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines, and the guy watching them, was Senator Barney Frank. Who is a bloomin’ idiot, but one hell of a dude to sit out back and have a smoke with
#17 by nixternal on September 9, 2009 - 12:25 am
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oh, Steve, I voted for Bush twice as well, but I will not listen to Rush or Hannity. I have only watched Beck a few times, and it is his demeanour that really irks me. He might actually irk me more than Maddow or Olbermann. This time around I voted McKinney of the Green Party, trying to help them achieve their 5% so they can stay on the ballot. Reason was, I was not voting for Palin, McCain anti-senile-republican-party-pushed yes, but not the duo. And being from Chicago, guess who this state had already picked months before the polls opened
#18 by Matthew on September 9, 2009 - 12:28 am
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“Veterans who recently used VA services and were interviewed for the 2005 ACSI survey gave the VA’s inpatient care a rating of 83 on a 100-point scale — compared to a 73 rating for the private-sector health care industry. Veterans gave the VA a rating of 80 for outpatient care, five percentage points higher than the 75 rating for private-sector outpatient care and 9 percent higher than the average satisfaction rating for all federal services. ”
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=14560
Individual anecdotes don’t really hold up well compared to the data.
#19 by joe on September 9, 2009 - 1:03 am
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Barney Frank isn’t a Senator.
#20 by Steve Dodier on September 9, 2009 - 3:08 am
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The people who are worried about the efficiency of public health care should wonder why people get better health care for much, much cheaper in France.
@nixternal you said “Beck is a libertarian” What does libertarian mean in the US, please ?
#21 by Tom on September 9, 2009 - 4:39 am
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Wow, people admit voting for Bush … twice.
People will get the government they deserve I guess. Deaths and debt are probably not important to a lot of people. Gun control is where the pursuit of happiness is really at.
IMNSHO this healthcare debate shows that the US is doomed.
#22 by Zack on September 9, 2009 - 10:47 am
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“IMNSHO this healthcare debate shows that the US is doomed.”
Exactly.
I don’t know how many times I hear the utterly ridiculous “love it or leave it” type crap from people when I talk about how awful this country is. From the two horrible imperialist wars to the support of Israeli apartheid to having to actually debate with over-privileged reactionary types about the poor and oppressed “not deserving” the same medical care as them… as if these reactionaries heartless and selfish positions have any relevancy to a compassionate world I’d want to live in.
I just need that plane ticket and I’ll most certainly choose the “leave it” if it’s that binary.
#23 by nixternal on September 9, 2009 - 1:19 pm
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@joe – sorry, congressman…I just get so used to seeing an idiot politician and automatically thinking they are a senator, or president, or governor of Illinois :p
@Steve Dodier – http://www.lp.org/ – their slogan is “Smaller Government, Lower Taxes, More Freedom.” They actually have some really good views, but they also have their nut jobs.
@Zack – oh man, I just heard “Love it or leave it” yesterday when talking politics with my old man. He is a bleeding heart liberal, and I am more of a middle of the isle (Centrist) to a little bit right but not in the whacky area of the right, so it makes for some really good heated conversation. I should go Bam Margera on him :p
#24 by 72.189.1.224 on September 9, 2009 - 4:30 pm
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Posted by 72.189.1.224 who tries to spoof other user’s names on blog comments:
Why is this nonsense on the Planet Ubuntu feed?
—
“Lets get this real straight: This plan will save money.”
Not according to the non-partisan CBO:
“Congress’ budget watchdog warned Thursday that Democrats’ health care bills would not lower skyrocketing costs and would drive up government spending, undermining one of President Obama’s chief arguments for the overhaul.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/17/health-care-reform-said-to-increase-federal-cost/
—
“If you are against it, turn off Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, take down your confederate flag, and use your brain.”
I’m opposed to this so-called reform, and I don’t listen to any radio personality, own a confederate flag, and I placed into a gifted program at age six. But, by all means, criticize yourself (since you admitted to listening to Rush, Hannity and Beck) and others of being ignorant.
Pro-tip: Watch Jim Lehrer if you enjoy forming your own opinions.
—
“Today, anyone, healthcare or not, citizen or not, can walk into any hospital in the country and get treatment. Many people do. And the ones that don’t have healthcare? You and I pay for them, through our insurance, who receives inflated charges from the hospital because of the additional burden of these uninsured. Do you really think that having the government run healthcare is going to make us pay for everyone else more than we currently do?”
Yes.
Look no further than Medicare: The program’s price tag was $3.4 billion in 1966, and $682 billion in 2008.
Also, you’ll continue to pay for other people’s uncompensated care, be it through increased insurance premiums or taxes.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29339.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
—
“Having country-wide heathcare would allow us to formalize this process, and make sure that those who were previously going to the hospital and getting free care (ie defaulting on their payments) are now taxed for it.”
How naive.
“For people here illegally, that is a issue that is mutually exclusive from this, as their coverage wouldn’t change with this plan.”
In that they would continue to receive benefits while paying little-to-no taxes, then yes.
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=137859
(scroll down until you see “Democrats Vote Against Making Sure Illegal Aliens Don’t Get Subsidized Health Insurance”)
#25 by michael on September 9, 2009 - 5:15 pm
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Socialized/liberal programs will fail 100% of the time. They are not sustainable, you always run out of other people’s money eventually while contributing nothing to the general welfare. Everything the democrats create ends up failing (Community reinvestment act, social security, welfare, welfare form reform, transit authorities, public school programs, stimulus, cash for clunkers, GM bailout, TARP (democrat congress (Bush is an idiot too)), etc, etc), and they just keep raising taxes . Name ONE liberal program that is actually helping people and is sustainable. Healthcare will be rationed just like in the UK and Canada. All democrats do is promise things at other’s expense to get votes. This is the same thing.
Maybe you should turn on Rush, Hanity or Beck. They are much more compassionate then the type of people you hear on NPR who are filled with hate and bitterness. All people on NPR do is complain instead telling people to take responsibility and control of their own lives. I like my freedom to choose which will go away with the public option. If any of you actually read beyond the table of contents of the bill you would understand how this is going to destroy everything that is awesome out healthcare in the US. This is all about control, not your healtcare. Do you think Obama is going to be using the same doctors you do? Doctors don’t want this, nor should you.
As Steven pointed out initial government intervention in the 60′s is why costs are completely out control today. The government should stay out of the healthcare. I work in a hospital and we get about 17 cents on every dollar we charge to people on medicard/aid. That gets absorbed by the other patients. Not to mention when people get free healthcare they come in for headaches and want MRIs since its all free. They call ambulances at 3am when their back hurts since its all free. That costs a lot of money.
Open your mind. Peace.
#26 by michael on September 9, 2009 - 5:19 pm
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@Steve Dodier
It cheaper because they have a 19% VAT. They are still burning through cash too at unprecedented rates too, their healthcare system will fail withing 10 years.
#27 by Stijn Bossuyt on September 9, 2009 - 6:00 pm
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As a european (i live in Belgium) it’s really weird to see how people are scared of everything that’s a bit related to socialism. Conservatives made the people believe that its same thing as communism.
When i heard about Obama’s plans i tought ‘Finally…’.
btw, everyone should have seen Sicko..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOZmvaFfjtk
#28 by Steven Harms on September 9, 2009 - 6:10 pm
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Out of pure curiosity, everyone who says we can’t do healthcare because of the costs, and the other countries health care system costs the government too much:
Where is an example of a country on the gold standard who is conservative, with no national health care that is on the up and up?
#29 by Jason on September 9, 2009 - 10:18 pm
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I live in Australia. here we have national government paid healthcare for all citizens called Medicare – http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/
Does it work? Does it make our standard of health better? The answer is neither Yes or No. But the problem is, it’s abused (by both users/citizens and healthcare providers) and unsustainable as the national age average increases and the costs of medicines and health care increases.
Abuse – it doesn’t have a general usage cap. I can get (and expect) free doctor and hospital visits and care for every little sniffle I have and front-up several times a week. As for the healthcare providers (hospitals, doctors, etc) they fudge figures and invent hospital wards that don’t exist to obtain extra government funding. And because of the abuse on both sides, wait times for medical care are extreme – unless you’re prepared to pay extra (top-up) the free government payment or have additional private medical insurance to jump waiting queues. More than 90% of our doctor’s at your local GP clinic charge more than the government paid rate for a standard visit anyway. The government pays almost $40AU for a standard doctor visit, but most doctor’s charge $50-$60, meaning you still have to pay up to $60 out of pocket just to see a doctor and then claim back your almost $40 from the government Medicare office at a later time.
As the cost of healthcare increases, and the quantity and average age of our aging population increases, the government paid healthcare model is also unsustainable in the future. Consultants and governments here are already recognizing that, as well as it being obvious from my Doctor’s charges example above. Our aging population gets larger and living longer lives, requiring more and more medical services, and the net quantity of tax payers whom contribute to the government healthcare system gets smaller and smaller, as a percentage of total population. Final result = less percentage of people paying taxes, and greater percentage of non-tax paying people requiring heatlhcare. Team this with exponentially increasing healthcare costs (medicines, treatments, r&d, etc.) and you have a totally unsustainable model.
The answer, for any country, is a user pays systems subsidised by the government teamed with safeguards for the needy and those in the lower socio-economics. But always with abuse caps!
Let me see a doctor for free but only give me 10 visits a year, after which I have to contribute on an increasing sliding scale, unless I have a disease/conditions which falls under special temporary or permanent exemptions. Almost the same for hospital treatment too. Give me 5 hospital treatments per year for free, after which I have to contribute too on an increasing sliding scale, unless I have a disease/conditions which falls under special temporary or permanent exemptions.
And I can choose to either self-fund or have private healthcare insurance if I want a higher level of care (private hospital vs public hospital) or will incur extra charges once my free usage ‘cap’ is completed and I have to start contributing. Only this sort of system is sustainable in any country that does not want to start paying at least 50% of it’s GDP towards free healthcare.
#30 by Sense Hofstede on September 10, 2009 - 2:30 pm
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I’ve watched an interview of Betsy McCaughey and must say that the fact that she refused to read a passage differently, even though she was clearly wrong, amazed me. If every opponent is like that, debating has no use.
Americans use weird definitions of liberal, communist, socialist, right and left. What is right in the US would be far-right in the Netherlands. What you call left is here centre or centre-right. The Democrats would be considered centre-right, the Republicans extreme-right. We do have a socialist party, but that party has never taken part in the government. We also have a party that’s nicknamed ‘the Liberals’. It’s usually the only party that agrees with the Republicans and was the only party that agreed with McCain. Communism is a form of government where the state is in control of everything and decides everything. In theory everyone is equal and receives the same. The current Health Care plan doesn’t force everyone to take the same insurance and let everyone pay the same. It also doesn’t force people to use certain hospitals. Therefore it’s not communist.
People often react surprised when you tell them the communist Netherlands doesn’t have a ‘Public Option’. A lot of the anti-healthcare plan protesters react enthusiasts on this. See! Even the socialistic and paternalistic Dutch don’t have a Public Option!
However, it’s wrong to think the government has nothing to do with our health care at all. It is mandatory to have a basic insurance and to make sure everyone can afford a basic insurance the government subsidises the insurance companies. Companies aren’t allowed to refuse customers, except in exceptional circumstances.
This resulted in a system where everyone is insured and where even stories circulate about patients that got a special treatment in a hospital in the states covered, trip and stay covered for the patient and a companion.
As for the ignorance, is it strange that people that get their news from a source that claims we kill babies and elderly against the will of their relatives or of themselves (in the latter case) while standing in front of a Palace of Justice — a remainder of a previous, extreme decentralised state form — which they call the Dutch Parliament and that use nazi posters to illustrate badly-informed blog posts are ignorant?
I was baffled when I was told that in some cases ambulances don’t take everyone. Is that really true? Do they really refuse people without an insurance?
#31 by stoffe on September 11, 2009 - 4:26 pm
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The interesting part of it all is the part where calling anything “socialist” is automatically a bad thing. Do Americans even know what that means – at all? They don’t (in broad, general terms of course) seem to know the meaning of simple words like “freedom”, substituting it for any number of very anti-free things, so would guess not. I would like to say present company excluded, but the use of the word “socialist” in that context suggests that I can’t.
#32 by Przemek on September 16, 2009 - 8:22 am
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You don’t know what you are asking for. I’m from Poland. Here we have such “national insurance company” which looks exactly like what you guys describe here. It’s definitely not working good. Just because it HAVE TO exist it doesn’t need to compete. It’s inefficient and because it has practical monopoly on distributing funds among hospitals it dictates it’s own terms constantly.
This broken system that your’e heading into was designed by post-communist political party with broken minds. It replaced decentralized system assembled from many smaller agencies designed this way to compete with each other for the good of insurance takers (polish citizens) and service providers (hospitals etc).
I don’t believe my eyes when I see that you, young people, are supporting such model. You should learn from other’s mistakes instead of happily jumping on a broken boat similar to the one we are on. Don’t make the fool you – exactly the same arguments were used here by socialist.
Geeez…
#33 by Richard on September 19, 2009 - 11:10 pm
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Lots of interesting comments here. If you want to read the thoughts of someone in the health care industry, may I direct you to my essay on this subject: http://crumja.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/thoughts-on-health-care-reform/
#34 by Charles Perry on October 10, 2009 - 1:34 pm
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Steve is spot on. Further more go to the Rand Corporation
http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/health/hilite.pl?key=2009_215&hi=sood
Healthcare is the Economy!
Check out http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf page 18. This is a stastical analysis of which countries have the best healthcare. We are ranked 37th! What a sad day for America.
Issue; (Illegal immigrants receiving healthcare)
This arguement is about as dumb as they get. Anyone who says too you “Illegal Immegrants do not deserve healthcare” ask them this:
1. Do you want an illegal Immigrant who has turbercoulosis, who cannot get medical help, sitting next to you in a movie theater, restrauant, mall, grocery store coughing all over you?
2. If you get mugged and all your ID has been stolen, should an ambulance pull up and discover that you have no documentation, leave you there for without proof of citizenship for you are considered and illegal alien? I worked as a paramedic on an ambulance for over four years. The reality on the ground is that we are going to get you into the amublance, sustain your life and get you into the Emergency Room asap; hopefully within the golden hour. Illegal Alien or not.