Healthcare Reform Whoppers: Yes, but….. March 20, 2010
Posted by rickpa in Uncategorized.trackback
Factcheck.org goes a long way to show the misleading hyperbole in this debate, but I have some thoughts of my own.
1. “Premiums would largely stay the same. The change in the average premium in the large group market would be between 0 percent and a 3 percent decrease, for instance, compared with where they’d be under current law in 2016.”
In real national healthcare, your tax is the premium. In this plan, you pay your premium, and will likely pay more in taxes to cover anyone who can’t pay that premium, so you WILL pay more either way.
2. It’s government-run health care.
No. It’s government controlled health care. It has been government controlled healthcare for decades, ever since the early 70s when Richard Nixon created more government alphabet soup than Campbell’s! Well… more than any other president.
3. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
Liking your plan has long been a luxury most never had, and most still won’t have.
4. The bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion.
I am not sure if it’s true, but I have heard that more than any other insurance plan, the biggest denier of claims is Medicare. Whatever the case, here we have the Republicans pulling the same dirty polemic trick that Democrats compulsively commit in flagrant delicto. They call a decrease in an increase a cut. In other words, Medicare will not be cut, spending on it will increase, but not as much as it currently increases,
5. The health care plan would be the largest middle-class tax cut for health care.
Even if totally true, it’s simply not believable. If taxes don’t go up, premiums must go up. There are millions of uninsured to be covered, our good wishes won’t do it, and we can’t deficit spend at ever increasing rates forever. But really! Are taxes going down for the middle class? No. Are insurance premiums going down for the middle class? Maybe a little, or maybe they’re going up. Mr President, just because Americans are born every minute, it doesn’t mean we’re all buying this!
6. Medical malpractice is the biggest driver of health care spending.
Medical malpractice may not be a main driver of costs, but it is the main reason our healthcare providers are herded into monopolies and oligopolies in our communities. Especially for OB/GYN doctors, who pay annual malpractice insurance premiums averaging $100,000.00 annually. Because doctors must pool their resources to stay in practice, we have gone from private practice, to corporate health care. In areas too sparsely populated to host large group practices, there is a doctor shortage. Medical malpractice is why.
In Summary:
In my view, we have neither free market or government health care. Our health insurance companies are no less than Freddie Macs & Fannie Maes, private for profit entities that are tied to the regulation of the state’s command, yet consumed by their need for profit. They are already too big to fail, but as their demands increase even further to go beyond the role of enterprise, further into that of social engineering, they will collapse just like our financial center did under similar pressure to produce non-existent capital on behalf of government social engineers who wanted inflated housing for everyone for little interest, and no ability to pay.
We are so screwed!
Rickpa…you make sense…but what would you suggest?
I think we need something radical in both the socialist, and market direction. We need an always-on safety net for people that’s not insurance, but a guarantee of a minimal suite of care plans. Maybe we can do this by bolstering the anemic Medicaid program, but we need an outright system of national health care.
Just as many Americans have found greater satisfaction sending their children to private schools, we need a strong and true market system that is allowed to compete, and offer plans which those who are responsible enough to want to make their own choices, and are possessed of the means, can be intelligent and thrifty consumers of their health care. For instance, I have a simple savings account to cover possible deductibles, but as long as I don’t use it, my nest egg grows. We need more choices than our current insurance scheme too. Insurance, as it is keeps us from making good decisions about our own health care, and it does need reform, but not the kind any politicians are talking about. We need more choice. not more deeply controlled choices.
I would suggest ending the so-called “war on drugs”. That would free up billions of dollars.
Yes we do need to end the Insane War On Drugs! As if this country didn’t learn a thing from it’s disastrous alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century!
Rick, your last sentence sums it up beautifully. The public dialog on this topic has failed to answer one major question. The stated goal is to expand Health care (coverage) to the 47 million uninsured in the country (or 40 million or 16 million) or whatever number you want to believe…how is that accomplished without expanding the health care industry? How does the industry absorb the 5-15% increase in demand? I haven’t heard of any incentives being provided to increase the number of doctors, hospital beds, MRI machines, etc. Regardless of which theory of supply and demand or service delivery that you ascribe to, something has to be done to expand the industry.
Since it takes 4 – 10 years to produce a doctor and about half that time to produce a new hospital wing, a nurse or a physicians assistant, the so-called “powers that be” had better stop playing the blame game and get hopping!!