Journal smittyoneeach's Journal: Read it and effing weep 23
From the beginning, proponents of The Affordable Care Act conflated the argument that the rising costs of healthcare were due to people without health insurance. They ignored the fact that most Americans have health insurance, and they failed to admit that the rising costs of health care have been ignited by players such as the medical insurance industry and big Pharma which were integral in crafting Obamacare.
About the only quibble I could offer is later:
Cost control will be the driving force to keep the system operating; therefore, rationing of care will be inevitable.
The driver is actually the growth of bureaucracy. Over time, the cancer eats more resources to fund new bureaucracies that mostly produce acronyms.
This will hold true even after our existing system is blown up, and Single Prayer comes to (en)s(l)ave us.
In Eternity, this shall not have mattered much. But here under the sun, the deceit involve in all this is just staggering.
On the contrary (Score:1)
Single payer will liberate us from the private monopolies that we are slaves to today. The government is a public resource, and the public has a right to use that resource to compete in the open market. Like with no fault auto insurance, it is the only fair way to make sure everyone is covered.
Just to be real clear: (Score:2)
liberate us from the private monopolies that we are slaves to today
I can't tell if you're just simple, or maybe diabolical on this, but you really could not be more incorrect.
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Yes he could, because we need some sort of third way. We really are slaves to private monopolies, and a government monopoly really won't solve the problem. Nobody is helping, not the citizenry, not the government, not industry, because nobody is admitting that the solution won't be simple, won't be as profitable as what we have today, and won't make it all cheap. (Simply making it less expensive is still a worthy goal.)
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Maybe you overlooked the word compete in the above post. Is this intentional, or just another one of your subconscious reactions?
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The government is a public resource, and the public has a right to use that resource to compete in the open market. Like with no fault auto insurance, it is the only fair way to make sure everyone is covered.
The several states delegated certain enumerated powers to a federal government of a multi-state/international flavor.
Your formulation indicates that you're bought into the false Wilsonian premise that has brought us to ruin this last century.
And, I had been in a hurry earlier.
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Wilson was a servant to the banks and industrialists, and is irrelevant to this discussion. Why do you H8 competition and open markets??
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From projection to non-sequiturs... How do you do it?
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:-) It might help if you read and comprehend the words...
I am still interested in knowing why we can't use our public resources to compete (remember that for future reference, okay?) in the theoretically open markets we currently have in the US. There's lots of work to be done, and the private market is not cutting it with their hoarding the 85 billion we are giving to them every month. Best to put that money to use directly.
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I am still interested in knowing why we can't use our public resources to compete
I suppose if you maintain control over the definition of 'compete', then sure: have it your way.
Having some familiarity with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Acquisition_Regulation [wikipedia.org], I can tell that either you
(a) aren't versed in the fractal vistas of government acquisition, or
(b) maybe you are.
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Everything depends on the class of people that are elected to office.
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If the monopoly is not run for profit, it can. Executives of health care insurance companies take home bigger bonuses than bankers, and spend more money in lobbying than the oil industry. All of that was money that was supposed to be going to health care.
The U.S. spends 20% of it's GDP on health care, while most other first world nations spend about 12% and cover more people. Many European countries combine public single payer with public and private health care providers, and this seems to deliver the best
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I'm old enough to remember when all US hospitals were non-profit. When doctors had the biggest house in the neighborhood, but they still lived in the neighborhood.
The ground under this discussion is shifting faster than most people realize. Some very interesting and unexpected voices are stepping forward in favor of universal, single-payer health care in the US.
And for those that can afford it, solid-gold, white-glove care will still be available, fee-for-service, as it is in the UK, Canada, Europe, South
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Some very interesting and unexpected voices are stepping forward in favor of universal, single-payer health care in the US.
The challenge is that the same people arguing in favor of this, with which I disagree, are lined up for practically every other asinine idea under the sun.
not true (Score:2)
Then why is Medicare more efficient than the "free market" at providing health care.
Dollar for dollar, Medicare is the most economical way to get health care. By far.
You need to prepare yourself for the inevitable. Universal single payer is coming to America. If little Israel can make it work, I don't see why you think the US is less capable.
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Dollar for dollar, Medicare is the most economical way to get health care. By far.
I think it's mostly a vote-buying scheme.
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Think what you will, but Medicare is the most economical way to get people health care yet devised in this country.
And people love it. Ronald Reagan hated it. He fought like hell to stop it. And 30 years later, Republicans were running on a platform of "Obama is bad because he's cutting money from Medicare!"
If Obamacare had simply been Medicare for everyone, it would have been a great success instead of lukewarm.
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Here's a more recent story that can help ease your worries about the "demographics" don't work. Medicare is in good shape and can easily be made fully sustainable indefinite. There are even more recent studies that show immigration reform would put Medicare and Social Security on solid footing for the next half-century.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3532 [cbpp.org]
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Medicare is in good shape and can easily be made fully sustainable indefinite. There are even more recent studies that show immigration reform would put Medicare and Social Security on solid footing for the next half-century.
You've got a link to a liberal think-tank that thinks entitlements are swell.
I do not support this; not in premise, not in execution, not in the future. I do not, as a practical matter, think it possible to crank taxes high enough to stabilize any of these programs, short of eliminating currency and companies and just having the government control everything. Maybe you can give everyone a chip implant.