Krauthammer Nails It - Draconian Health Insurance Regulation
By Steve_in_KC on September 2, 2009 at 2:01 PM in Current Affairs
I’m a capitalist, not a socialist. I’m a centrist, not a liberal or libertarian. I’m definitely not a Republican or a conservative, but I want this country to achieve a public health insurance policy that actually works, not pie in the sky wishful thinking. I don’t want it to bankrupt the country or any industry that employs millions of people. I want a bipartisan approach to solving the problem; that way, maybe some common sense will prevail.
Charles Krauthammer, a Conservative OpEd columnist for the Washington Post and a frequent guest on Fox News (among other Republican news sources), had this piece published by WaPo August 28, about three days ago. With the title, “Obamacare: The Only Exit Strategy,” I was intrigued. However, I’ve become pretty jaded with OpEd pieces on Health Care and Health Insurance lately. I’m getting sick to death of it!
I read through the opening paragraphs, blah blah, more criticism and advice for Obama on how to salvage this program, and more strident predictions of what will happen in Congress. I’ve seen plenty of this stuff before.
But this I like! What really made me sit up and pay attention was this, the last item in his numbered list:
5) Promise nothing but pleasure — for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one — Obamacare 2.0 — promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation [emphasis added] that prohibits (a) denying coverage for preexisting conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.
What’s not to like? If you have insurance, you’ll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.
I like the concept. I hate the insurance industry, kind of like I hate slaughterhouses, but I honestly can’t take the position that health insurance should be abolished. There are millions of people making a living in that industry, and most of them are not rich by any stretch. At a time when the need for jobs outweighs all other considerations as our nation’s top priority, in my opinion, I can’t endorse killing any particular industry, no matter how loathsome it is to some people.
And if you are honest with yourself, you can’t possibly think insurance is all bad. There are few alternatives in our society that will protect the average person from catastrophic medical costs if that emergency arises. It’s commonplace to hear people say, “Thank God I had insurance!” When you hear of someone suffering an injury or losing their home in a disaster, the first words friends are likely to say are, “You’re insured, aren’t you?” Or when a traffic accident occurs, what a relief to be able to simply exchange insurance info with the other party, rather than having to hire an attorney to settle the damages.
Private insurance is fraught with abuses, to be sure. And the outrageous salaries and bonuses at some companies are scandalous. But insurance as a concept is a pretty good idea: pooling resources to individually protect those who are in the pool. This is the basis of most business enterprises, from partnerships to public corporations. It’s the basis of taxes to pay for necessary functions of society. And it’s the basis of how families function.
As we search for a better way to provide health coverage for all our citizens, let’s not put a whole industry out of business. We need every job we can muster in this country right now.
It would be better to do as Krauthammer suggests, I think, and that is to heavily regulate health insurance companies. As he explains:
The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.
If this can be made to work, I can’t think of any reasonable argument the insurance companies can make against it. And as Hillary Clinton always pointed out, paraphrasing, if everyone is insured, the pool is large enough to protect the insurer, which in turn can bring down the cost of premiums.
He continues:
And here’s what makes it so politically seductive: The end result is the liberal dream of universal and guaranteed coverage — but without overt nationalization. It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largess — subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.
It’s the perfect finesse — government health care by proxy. And because it’s proxy, and because it will guarantee access to (supposedly) private health insurance — something that enjoys considerable Republican support — it will pass with wide bipartisan backing and give Obama a resounding political victory.
Well, I don’t give a flying F*** about Obama’s need for a victory, but if it gets bipartisan approval, I’m very interested. Even optimistic.
I can’t help but think a profit motive for insurance providers would be a safer step at this point than the government administering health plans directly. Our government budget is already insanely out of whack. The Treasury is a sea of red ink. It’s obvious bureaucrats can’t manage money as well as the capitalists.
But like anything political, there are more opinions than there are people. And for every action, there is a reaction. So before we jump to conclusions, let’s allow Krauthammer to finish his point:
Isn’t there a catch? Of course there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.
However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That’s when the liberals will give the FCCCER [President Obama's Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research] regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.
But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.
I completely agree that once an entitlement program is started, you can’t unring the bell. That’s why we must be extremely cautious about enacting a new, incredibly huge, entitlement program. The burden on the budget will be bad enough if done as he suggests, with the government propping up only those who can’t pay insurance premiums to private insurers. It would be a million times worse if government employees are running the whole show. I’m convinced of that.
We already have a shortage of doctors and nurses, especially general practitioners. And most med school grads want to make good money, so they specialize. The capitalistic system allows them to reap the rewards of their 12-years of college. How many will go that distance for a government paycheck?
To meet the demand of either a public option or single payer, we’d have to start licensing nurse-practitioners by the millions to staff government-run clinics around the clock. Seven years of college instead of twelve, for example. Or maybe less, as the needs increase. And none of that fancy hospital lab equipment for these clinics. They won’t be able to afford it.
Hate it all you like, but the capitalistic approach to health care has led to the incredible advances we have seen in nearly all areas of medicine. Private health insurance has played a large role in financing the process, even though we all know of horror stories about insurance companies. But still, they have prospered and most people benefit from it.
Insurance companies can be regulated, and they should be. I believe that even with “draconian regulation,” they will be prosperous and employ millions. And we will have the protections we deserve.
Inside of a decade, government-run insurance and/or health care can become bankrupt, mediocre, or both. If anyone can do it, the government can!
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krauthammer is the smartest man in D.C. period.
I will second that!
And, I will be at the Addison, Texas http://www.teapartyexpress.org r*ot on Friday morning at 11am. I can’t hardly wait! Will give you an update when it’s over.
CAROL HAKA
I will be the one that looks particularly “un-American, Nazi-ish, right-wingish, mobie” and carrying the biggest sign for impeachment!!!!!!
Ha, Carol! We will be looking for you!
Huh? How can anybody tell you are that UN– individual. Everybody there will be looking UN– Oh–and maybe there’ll even be more signs for impeachment. Not raining on your parade. I am cheering you on. Yay.
Here is something else Carol for us to be upset at. Try and take videos and maybe they will post it here. Good luck and be rowdy enough for all of us.
HB 1388 Passed. Just what we need to further cause more debt
Doubtful? To verify this for yourself:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
http://www.theconservativeview.net/hb-1388-passed-just-what-we-need-to-further-cause-more-debt
He needs to be impeached tomorrow!
If we give him a plane and a Black American Express, maybe he will go on permanent vacation and let the Big Girl Hillary run the country.
Notice how I by-passed VP (who the hell knows where he is?) and P*ssy Pelosi?
CAROL HAKA
Black American Express?
Whoops, I guess that seems rac*st in this current climate.
However, it is “the CARD” that the filthy rich have.
I just want to make sure he has an unlimited spending limit. I wouldn’t want BO, MO, the other BO, Grannie, the illegal Auntie, and the kiddie’s to suffer!
CAROL HAKA
This sneaky law that was just passed went right by me. I had no idea! Obama is guided by what and by whom?
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Thanks for a great article, Steve.
Amazing — and very sound thinking from Krauthammer, the staunch conservative. He’s actually espousing “universal health care” and using that very term — also basically espousing HRC’s ideas and plan on HC! This is something all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, can live with!!!! And it will stimulate the economy to boot.
But, alas, this is not the plan that Obama and his corporate minions want!
thats true it makes too much sense for them
Yup, foxy, because the idea is to fleece the public yet again, so a sane and workable HC plan is out of the question.
Thanks, trixta. Yes, it was nice to see a conservative like Krauthammer giving voice to the same logic Hillary used, even though he concluded with the prediction of rationing healthcare.
Anybody who thinks it’s going to be easy to find a political solution to such an ingrained problem is not thinking clearly enough. My biggest concern is that all this disagreement, even among the writers and loyal readers of No Quarter, will end up with an endless debate and no action.
I still have to think the only chance for change is to work with the existing framework rather than asking Congress to virtually outlaw a major industry, especially in this economic morass.
Why do you think all the talented people employed in the “for profit” health insurance would not be in demand by in a “not for profit” health insurance industry?
And when it comes right down to it I bet they would all sleep better at night.
Betty, I know from experience that people who work for the government, in most cases, are unmotivated and underpaid. Perhaps the underpaid part is what kills their motivation. That is part of the point I tried to make about the shortage of health professionals, especially GPs, even with the high pay most of them enjoy now. If they work for the state, they won’t make as much; if they did, we’d be paying way too much in taxes to cover the cost.
If you go to college for 12 years to become a doctor, would you settle for a paycheck about the same as a good Office Manager? Would you go to college for 12 years only to make $100k a year? Why bother??
If we are talking about health insurance employees, not medical professionals, it’s true they might find their skills in demand in a government job, but in government work, there are strict rules (due to tight budgets) for promotion and raises that are very limited compared to the free market.
The result: underpaid and unmotivated workers. They’d be better off finding a different industry to work in. Like maybe other forms of insurance.
I hate to appear ignorant of govt things, but can a person go and watch the ignoramus’s debate the HC issue in Congress? I am sorry to say that I don’t know this, but maybe if there were real people sitting in on the stupid bantering back and forth that gets us nowhere, maybe some would man-up!
Connie,
You are not ignorant. Obama promised the HC debate would be televised on CSPAN, but–surprise–he reneged on that promise.
Obama will cop out of the Public Option as he addresses congress next week. The secret deals he’s made with Big Pharma and Insurance monopolies insure that they’ll spend $150 million in ads to support his plan. Why??? Because they have carved out a plan with Obama to put 80 billion over 10 years into incremental savings re: drugs which of course is a windfall for them.
Medicare patients in the Dounut Hole still get screwed out of benefits and the high cost of end of life drugs. The Insurance monopoly will achieve record windfalls as mandatory workplace and other insurance in his plan become law.
So, the fraudster has been meeting secretly guided by Rahm and his doctor brother, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel who is the resident Dr Guru to Obama. Howard Dean, a great advocate of the PO, has been under the bus, and Obama’s opposition to Hillary’s plan as inferior to his now is shown to be at best a timid pro monopoly hack who will do anything to get elected. Now he is doing anything he has to do to get re-elected.
The fix is in. Medicare for the first time since its inception will receive NO cost of living increase. The rest of the bait and switch shafting we’re about to receive may become evident real soon. Mr. Silver Tongue finally may have found his voice again.
Nothing in there about THE PRICE. People can’t afford it now and adding people with pre-existing conditions and people who already can’t afford it isn’t going to bring the price down. Massachusetts is trying the GOP route. I have an employee there. His (my) cost didn’t go down.
Yep - the U.S. has the best health care MONEY CAN BUY. Too bad so many can’t afford it.
word.
Ellen D:
I don’t think anyone knows the magic numbers yet, Ellen. It’s all academic at this point, and mostly theoretical. The general idea is that if anything at all is changed in our current system, we will end up paying more in taxes, despite the lies from The Obama camp. By forcing all people to enroll in it, as Hillary also insisted was necessary, that boosts the revenue of insurance companies while drastically increasing the depth of the pool of insureds. In an ideal marketplace, the added revenues would more than offset the added risk. Whether insurance companies would be truly competitive or not is in question. There should also be some regulation of premiums based on their profit margins and other factors, in an ideal plan. As Krauthammer put it, they would essentially become like government-controlled utilities.
Hillary’s plan had a public option.
My electrical utility is a government-owned entity and it is just fine. I lived outside its area once and had a private energy company and they were a horror. The private entity’s first billing told you when they were going to cut off your power if they didn’t receive payment by a certain date. Nice.
I’ll take a government-owned entity any time.
If he would add portability, the ability to purchase across state lines, re-importation of drugs from other countries and medical malpractice reform it might get near unanimous approval. It would certainly place the Republicans in an awkward place to oppose it.
Insurance accross state lines, sounds good. But once in happens it falls under the interste commerce clause.
This country was founded as a Republic for a reason. To keep the majority from taking away a minorities rights. I have the right to choose NOT to have Health Insurance or have it. It is my choice not to buy yours or theirs. Period.
OT slightly but it has to do with HC
Doctors Sue White House Over ‘Fishy’ E-Mail Collection
http://www.breitbart.tv/doctors-sue-white-house-over-fishy-e-mail-collection/
tzada, I understand what you’re saying about Federalism, but prohibition of the interstate sale of health insurance limits choices. How would this prevent someone from choosing not to buy any insurance at all?
The risk, according to opposing opinions I’ve read so far is fraud, i.e., a person or small business contracts with an out-of-state company that’s either a total sham or isn’t sufficiently solvent to fulfill their contractual end of the bargain.
I’d really appreciate more detailed reasons/info about your opposition as I try to sort out this issue.
the answer is simple,open the federal health plan to all americans,there a number or private insurers to choose from and if its good enough for congress its good enough for me.btw do on a sliding scale due to the ability to pay with those under the poverty leval being totally paid for like they are now under medicade.
I’m not supporting one thing or the other, only making a political observation.
Going back to hospital teaching for nurses, would help, and end those years of waiting to get into nursing school. We actually still have one here. After they finish their education, they are given a job for two years to get their foot in the door. Unlike the outrageous price of nursing school the entire year is under 5,000.
Wouldn’t it make sense to identify the areas where there are the most people unable to afford health care and build clinics in those area. Then we do a program similar to Teach For America, but in this case, it is doctors who are forgiven a portion of their student loans if they work in the clinics for two years. We also require the pharmaceutical industries to provide a percentage of the drugs they sell to these clinics for free or at greatly reduced rates, much like the building industry is required to build a certain number of homes in neighborhoods that are set aside for low income families.
The Canadians have a program for Senior Nurses that they will pay for their costs of medical school to become doctors if they agree to serve for a certain length of time in under served areas.
I was told this by a US nurse who was considering taking it.
That might also help solve the problem we have with shortage of doctors.
I read Krauthammer’s article but didn’t come away with the same impression. My take is that he’s WARNING us how the healthcare legislation will be tweaked/re-packaged/marketed in coming days. He’s telling us what to look out for in the future when we realize rationing is an inevitable part of the bargain, just as it is in other countries that provide universal care.
Thats my take on it too.
Insurance companies ration your care now. Why won’t people realise this? They decide which doctor you can see (sure, there’s a long list, but who decides which names are on that list of “approved” physicians?), which treatment they will cover, which medication they will pay for. Then they charge you and arm and a leg for the privilege of rationing your options. Not to mention that it’s tied to your employment…why? Exactly what is good about this?
exactly. all these problems already exist with the present for-profit system.
Not to mention I now have the same (self) coverage as I did as an employee…for 1/4 the cost.
Somebody somewhere is makin’ a load of cash when it’s tied to employers, which is one reason oBlunder’s plan is crap.
BINGO. (Seems to me, if BO really wanted health care legislation that would improve overall access to services, he would employ better marketing agents than does the health insurance industry.)
sandi78,
You are right to point out that Big Insurance and Big Pharma control the kind of care and the amount of care we get.
We have high deductibles,and any condition no matter how inconsequential is written into the small print of medical policies in order to insure “pre-existing” whenever posssible to deny the insured their reimbursements.
Many insurance companies only permit in-network physicians, and will reject the need for surgery and/or treatments whenever possible.
Many insured patients have been denied transplants and other vital life saving treatments and died as a result of Big Insurance and costly drugs that dictate and control healthcare.
With or without a public option it will be necessary to control insurance companies as to how they select and make good their responsibilities. If public, computerizing all records and a board controlling fraud and costs certainly could contain costs that run out of control as a result of test duplications, lack of coordinated care,and a great reduction in the cost of administration. Private insurance is 3 times as costly to administer than Medicare.
Unquestionably our choice of care is rationed, we are denied privacy in the workplace insurance,
and life saving choices are not ours to make.
California’s Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims
PacifiCare’s Denials 40%, Cigna’s 33% in First Half of 2009
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/09/02-7
===
Pfizer Agrees Record Fraud Fine
By BBC
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23416.htm
Patience,
My take on Krauthammer’s article is the same as yours. He’s a doom sayer.
Patience,
You nailed it. I’m shaking my head at everyone who somehow couldn’t understand Kraut’s point. Cripes…
This is not on topic but I was thinking that it would be interesting now that 6 months have passed of Obama’s administration if there were a debate between the pro obama bloggers and the anti obama democratic bloggers where they had to justify their claims before the election and defend their defamatory attacks.
Would Larry Johnson want to be part of this kind of debate?
Why do you think that the pro-Obama forces would want anything to do with such a debate? Two reasons why not - 1. to them questioning Obama’s fitness for office is challenging an Article of the Faith = unchallenged and unchallengeable. 2. now that we have seen that their “pig in a poke” is really a pig, they will not want to look more foolish than they already do.
This was on Obama own Organizing for America website
this week. Is this the kind of defamatory attacks you are talking about?
Obama’s Team Crosses the Rhetorical Line
“All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/01/obamas-team-crosses-the-rhetorical-line/
Clear your calendars!
BO is propagandizing the children on Tuesday and on TV again with the bestest of all bestest speechtifying on Wednesday also ……….
I’m rushing out to get the popcorn and candy now ……….
CAROL HAKA
Don’t forget the “Pepto-Bismol” ™. After hearing Ozero speak you may need it.
Here is a poll where we can vote on it. I am keeping the children home that day. I hope millions do and picket their schools as well.
YOU DECIDE: Is a suggested lesson plan designed to follow-up on President Obama’s speech a propaganda exercise provided by the White House? Share your thoughts, first vote in our poll then click on “Leave a Comment” below.
Thank you for voting!
Yes. 94% (35,775 votes)
No. 4% (1,416 votes)
Maybe 3% (970 votes)
Total Votes: 38,161
View Comments (152)
Return To PollShare This
PollDaddy.com
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/02/decide-obama-lesson-plan/
Not sure if this is what is planned for the schools 9/8 or if this is another.
Parents upset over ‘leftist propaganda’ video
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13249171
TOTUS rides again?
I’m hoping TOTUS gets the Swine Flu!
I bet it’s not covered under Universal ObamaScare!
CAROL HAKA
Yes, the college kids are growing wary of him. So he’s targeting a younger audience. He loves youth!
No, no, the BEST spectacle would be if someone could hack into the teleprompter, and puts lots of great stuff for Obama to say there. We could all take bets to see how long he would talk before realizing it (because I don’t think he processes what he is saying, he just reads it and lifts his chin!)
“Hi. I’m the President. I won. I’ve realized that Hillary’s health care ideas were the best, and I’m going to start working under her direction. And to all of you, my heartfelt apologies for how I cheated and stole the nomination. I need to be big enough to say this to all of you, because I Won.
I would go to confession, but I’m not sure if I’m a Muslim this week, or an Atheist this week…. maybe I’ll just sit in the confessional, kneel on a prayer rug facing Mecca, and work my worry beads, maybe that will cover me…. oh, yeah, maybe I’m scheduled to be a Black Liberation Theologist next week - so I’ll just do the confessional/prayer rug/prayer beads thing, and yell about Whitey and the Clinton’s sex life at the same time at a high decibel… yeah, that should do it… I can do it, yes I can, because I Won.
And because this whole Presidency thing is Mission Impossible to me, as soon as I right my wrongs, my head will self-destruct in 5 minutes. I’ll make sure Biden and Pelosi are standing on each side of me. Because it was Hillary who won.”
Hysterical!
CAROL HAKA
Steve in KC,
I admit to having no pity for the people who work in the health insurance industry. I have waited 18 months to be paid for work I did for one of their clients. And then they sent the check to the patient, who happened to be a good person. Often when they are sent to the patient
you lose the money and the patient.
The insurance employees have been trained that doctors are making a killing, because they have never shown the slightest remorse or concern.
I had hand surgery and they paid the surgeon $12 for me to have a post surgical check-up, which took the time of the MD and three staff people.
Who can keep a fully staffed office open making $12 for an office visit?
If they end up out of work it might just be karmic justice. Hard working people in health care have been beaten up pretty badly by these people, so forgive us for wanting to get them out of our lives, so we can improve yours.
My Mother had to have a 6.5 hour operation for a really large herniated navel. All of the tissue from just above the navel and below had to be removed with a huge cut(think large tummy tuck), a large mesh type screen placed to hold her inerds in, and a stitch by the General Surgeon that would put a Cosmetic Surgeon to shame (he had to learn the technique because Medicare would not pay for one to close a Medicare patient).
When all was said and done, the General Surgeon’s take home pay from Medicare was approximately $1200. Pretty low pay for someone who saved my Mother when he thought she wouldn’t make it through the operation and recovery because of the severity of her overall condition.
It was 7 years ago, and she is fine and healthy!
CAROL HAKA
carolhaka, I had that identical surgery in 2001, and I’m still going strong as well. This has nothing to do with the insurance angle or health care reform, but I just wanted to share that with you. As is probably the case with your mother, I now have a “zipper” scar where my navel used to be.
As for the insurance angle, I happened to have been uninsured at the time, but my surgeon allowed me to pay as little as $25 a month on my bill, as did the hospital. And both were the best available in the city at the time.
Now I have insurance through my job, which costs my employer $650 a month! But the young folks who work there only cost about $60 a month.
There’s nothing easy to comprehend about the system, is there?
But the rates sure keeps employers from hiring anyone over 40!
Hope you don’t lose your job with 20 odd years to go for Medicare. That’s the REAL donut hole.
They didn’t open a hole for the navel. She needed the support of the tissue over the opening.
Had my mother not have been Medicare, the doctor would have made a lot more money. But, he is a good soul and did the surgery.
By the way, he has tourretts and is known as “the General Surgeon” to aspire for in Fort Worth.
CAROL HAKA
ditto, nan.
[...] Krauthammer Nails It - Draconian Health Insurance Regulation : NO … [...]
And if you are honest with yourself, you can’t possibly think insurance is all bad. There are few alternatives in our society that will protect the average person from catastrophic medical costs if that emergency arises…
*********
That is the major and fatal flaw in your position. It doesn’t protect you, it’s a total crap shoot. The US is one of the few/only “first World countries where a person can be bankrupted due to illness. I have personal experience with that and there is a reason why most people filing for bankruptcy for Medical bills had insurance.
correct; the whole insurance industry is nothing but a racket. no way in heck do i want my health care to be dependent on the whim of someone who gets paid extra if they deny my claim. and no way in hell do i want to be FORCED to do business with these crooks.
Wasn’t Krauthammer one of the conservatives who voted for O,like Powell, because he couldn’t get behind McCain on the account of Sarah Palin? So, yes, he has a vested interest in the success of Pres. Obama, not necessarily championing conservative issues. If I am remembering wrongly, someone pls correct me.
Krauthammer was for McCain. In fact he wrote the most articulate case for McCain that I saw. It was so good that I saved it.
Here is the link. It is worth reading. Please tell me where Krauthammer was wrong??
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/security_first_why_im_voting_f.html
Thank you for correcting me, JJ. ( great pro-McCain argument right there, one that I had evidently missed) Now I am left wondering which of TV frequent guest-pundits I was thinking of.
(bows head in shame)…
Krauthammer is a neo-con, and so I found myself at odds with him on Iraq. But, he is my favorite conservative writer/pundit (since Buckley died) because his opinions are well thought out.
Krauthammer is also an M.D. and has written 6 columns on healthcare that have been very informative. One was on the fallacy that preventive care saves society money. Another was on the subtile coercion in allowing doctors to initiate end of life counseling. Here is a link to his articles:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032401690.htmlAs for you Nobama4me, someone with that “handle” need never hold his/her head in shame on this web site.
If the idiots would put Hillary at the podium, she’d sell it to the seniors. They dragged Bill, but the people trusted Hillary with their healthcare. We all know that there would be blowback from the republicans if Hillary were in charge, but she would confort the Seniors.
As you increase the number of insureds, it’d be a good idea to make sure there are enough docs, pa’s, np’s etc to see the folks. Universal coverage does not assure universal access as Mass. discovered.
This is just another reminder that Krauthammer’s NOT a proponent of this plan he’s outlined. Make sure you read the last few paragraphs of his article, which Steve included:
Isn’t there a catch? Of course there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.
However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That’s when the liberals will give the FCCCER [President Obama's Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research] regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.
But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.
hey, it’s all good. we’ll also never be able to end the mandated subsidizing of insurance companies, so krauthammer’s folks win. what’s he complaining about?
Hello American dreamer - what exactly do you think is going on in America today with health insurance??? Healthcare is already rationed in America, in ways that seem shocking to most Western countries. The only people who don’t have rationed healthcare are the super rich, who can go whereever they wish and buy whatever they want. Most other Americans are told what doctors they can see, what procedures they can have and what hospitals they can go to. Most Americans also have high co-payments that effectively deny them most elective surgeries. So, many more Americans have emergency hernia surgeries, for example, because they keep putting off spending the thousands they’d owe in co-payments. Many Americans who need joint replacements live for years in severe pain, just waiting until they are old enough to get the surgery with Medicare, because the co-payments for surgery, post-operative care and physio are too horrendous to contemplate, and would wipe out their retirement funds.
Futhermore, Americans are already paying more than twice what other nations pay for healthcare, so there is a lot of room in the American system for improvement.
Total spending on health care, per person, 2007:
United States: $7290
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Japan: $2581
The American system is being looted by the insurance and drug industries, and more than half the money spent goes to pay the corporate owners, and is never spent on healthcare.
I’m not one who denies that private healthcare coverage is rationed. But I want to be able to choose, via the coverage I purchase, what I’m willing to do without. I currently have an HSA (Health Savings Account). This is basically a form of catastrophic care in the sense that I have a high deductible in order to keep my premiums affordable. While most of my expenses are paid out-of-pocket, some preventative care and screening is covered even if I haven’t met my deductible.
This option obviously wouldn’t suit everyone. Some people prefer more comprehensive coverage that pays for a host of treatments, procedures and services. But each state mandates that insurers cover various healthcare which in many instances drives up the price of premiums. The result is that some people simply can’t afford insurance. In light of this, some believe prohibition of the interstate sale of health insurance adds to the problem and eliminating it would give consumers more options, portability, and allow many who can’t currently afford insurance an opportunity to purchase at least basic care.
I also think something must be done to prevent the essential dumping of pharmaceuticals, which has caused Americans to pay much higher prices than other countries for the same drugs.
If reducing out of control healthcare spending and covering the uninsured are truly goals, I think it’s not only worth our while, but incumbent upon our legislators to explore ways other than universal care to solve those problems.
BTW, neither my sister nor her eldest daughter are wealthy and don’t have gold-plated health insurance coverage. Yet each of them has had knee replacement surgery with hardly any related out-of-pocket expense. While I’m not suggesting there’s no need for insurance reform, your sweeping indictment of the industry flies in the face of the fact that a majority of Americans are content with their current healthcare coverage.
Your tone is offensive — I’m not a dreamer.
Most Americans with ‘good’ health insurance would have a co-payment for joint replacement of about $2,000, plus a charge for every day in hospital of at least $50 per day, plus co-payments on all pre-admittance and post-operative tests, plus co-payments on post-operative physio, which could be necessary for many weeks. Not so bad? Perhaps, but you have to consider that these people are probably already paying thousands each year for their policies.
Many, many Americans are underinsured, and have very large co-payments, which can be $10,000 or more for ‘elective’ surgeries like joint replacements. While some of these people may have money set aside in HSAs, the reason so many are underinsured in the first place is that they can’t afford higher premiums and have little or no savings, and the older they get, the more expensive their basic policies become, unless they opt for higher and higher co-payment amounts.
‘Patience’, you may think you are being very realistic about your own situation, but you, like most Americans, only really have health insurance until your first major illness prevents you from working. Once you are incapacitated for any length of time, you risk not being able to afford your premiums, even for your ‘basic’ insurance. If you don’t pay, your insurance will lapse, even if you’re still sick and in need of medical care. Furthermore, once you recover, you will be one of those unfortunates who have no insurance and have a dreaded pre-existing condition.
And, ‘Patience’, if you have your insurance through an employer, you really only have insurance so long as you stay with the same company. If you lose your job, or your company goes bust, you will have to buy insurance on your own. So long as you are young and healthy, this might not be unaffordable, but if you lose your job in the no-man’s-land between 50 and 65, and if you have any problems with weight or cholesterol or have had any suspicious moles or benign tumours, you will be metaphorically ‘up shit creek without a paddle’.
Consider the position of a legal resident in the Province of Quebec, in Canada. Every resident, regardless of age, employment status or health, has health insurance. Employers pay a payroll tax ranging from 2.7% to 4.26% of payroll towards the Healthcare fund, but this amount is levied against all companies, and every company of the same size payroll pays the same amount. In addition, gold-plated private insurance that covers everything from private hospital rooms to dental crowns and bridges, and full drug insurance with no co-payments, can be had for between two to four thousand dollars per year per person, and some companies provide this as am employee benefit. Drug insurance is free to the poor and elderly, and employed adult Quebecers pay a maximum of $595 per year for drug insurance, which gives them coverage with a small monthly maximum due as a co-payment or deductible. This health insurance covers everything from pre-natal care to childhood doctor’s visits and innoculations to psychiatric care to heart surgery to organ transplant surgery and all emergency care. It covers dialysis and joint replacements and cataract surgery. It is comprehensive, universal, lifelong health insurance.
This is the kind of health insurance most people in other Western democracies have. Americans are paying twice as much as most Western democracies, and yet have over 40 million uninsured people, and another 100 million underinsured people like you, ‘Patience’, who are only really one job loss or serious illness away from uninsured hell and bankruptcy.
It’s really time for Americans to demand better.
Most Americans with ‘good’ health insurance would have a co-payment for joint replacement of about $2,000, plus a charge for every day in hospital of at least $50 per day, plus co-payments on all pre-admittance and post-operative tests, plus co-payments on post-operative physio, which could be necessary for many weeks. Not so bad? Perhaps, but you have to consider that these people are probably already paying thousands each year for their policies.
Many, many Americans are underinsured, and have very large co-payments, which can be $10,000 or more for ‘elective’ surgeries like joint replacements. While some of these people may have money set aside in HSAs, the reason so many are underinsured in the first place is that they can’t afford higher premiums and have little or no savings, and the older they get, the more expensive their basic policies become, unless they opt for higher and higher co-payment amounts.
‘Patience’, you may think you are being very realistic about your own situation, but you, like most Americans, only really have health insurance until your first major illness prevents you from working. Once you are incapacitated for any length of time, you risk not being able to afford your premiums, even for your ‘basic’ insurance. If you don’t pay, your insurance will lapse, even if you’re still sick and in need of medical care. Furthermore, once you recover, you will be one of those unfortunates who have no insurance and have a dreaded pre-existing condition.
And, ‘Patience’, if you have your insurance through an employer, you really only have insurance so long as you stay with the same company. If you lose your job, or your company goes bust, you will have to buy insurance on your own. So long as you are young and healthy, this might not be unaffordable, but if you lose your job in the no-man’s-land between 50 and 65, and if you have any problems with weight or cholesterol or have had any suspicious moles or benign tumours, you will be metaphorically ‘up shit creek without a paddle’.
Consider the position of a legal resident in the Province of Quebec, in Canada. Every resident, regardless of age, employment status or health, has health insurance. Employers pay a payroll tax ranging from 2.7% to 4.26% of payroll towards the Healthcare fund, but this amount is levied against all companies, and every company of the same size payroll pays the same amount. In addition, gold-plated private insurance that covers everything from private hospital rooms to dental crowns and bridges, and full drug insurance with no co-payments, can be had for between two to four thousand dollars per year per person, and some companies provide this as am employee benefit. Drug insurance is free to the poor and elderly, and employed adult Quebecers pay a maximum of $595 per year for drug insurance, which gives them coverage with a small monthly maximum due as a co-payment or deductible. This health insurance covers everything from pre-natal care to childhood doctor’s visits and innoculations to psychiatric care to heart surgery to organ transplant surgery and all emergency care. It covers dialysis and joint replacements and cataract surgery. It is comprehensive, universal, lifelong health insurance.
This is the kind of health insurance most people in other Western democracies have. Americans are paying twice as much as most Western democracies, and yet have over 40 million uninsured people, and another 100 million underinsured people like you, ‘Patience’, who are only really one job loss or serious illness away from uninsured hell and bankruptcy. You may not be a dreamer, ‘Patience’, but you sure are looking on the bright side.
And your comment about allowing insurance companies to sell outside their state is interesting, but could create an even larger paperwork burden for individuals and medical facilities than exists today, because once a policy met state minimums, there could be any variety of small print conditions poorly understood by doctors, clinics, hospitals and patients. It would take longer to check if a patient were really covered for a procedure, and could increase collection costs.
It’s really time for Americans to demand better.
LDW, I appreciate your input. I’m in my 50s and I pay for my HSA myself. I’ve also had a disability insurance policy for a long time and the premiums are affordable since I purchased it when I was fairly young.
Sorry, but out-of-pocket expenses related to my sister’s and niece’s knee replacement surgeries weren’t nearly as much as you stated in your example.
BTW, you’ve spoken of infant mortality rates on another post. Until recently, the statistics generally cited concerned me greatly since the US ranked so low. But I’ve recently read an article (fully aware that it has a free market bias) about French healthcare that also sheds light on infant mortality statistics, which you may find interesting:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=504557
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a cheerleader for insurers — I know what weasels they can be. I also have issues with the pharmaceutical industry. But my concerns about government are just as serious and now that it’s proposing healthcare legislation I’m trying to develop informed opinions. It isn’t easy because political ideology shades so much of the healthcare debate.
The investors.com article is mistaken about how France calculates rates of infant mortality. There is a statistical problem with French calculations, because they only count those babies who are alive long enough to be registered, which could take as long as 3 days after they are born, and those who die shortly after birth get counted with the still-born babies. This does make a small difference, but hardly helps America move up the ranks in terms of infant mortality (considered the rate of children born live who die before their first birthday). Besides, whether you move France up or down a few percentage points, America is still places
at the bottom of the pile of developed nations. Even South Korea and Cuba are better than the United States in this regard.
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=xx&v=29
Here is an overview of the French system (which I do not think would be a good American model - I think either a single payer system like Canada has, or a regulated insurance system like Switzerland has would be better).
http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-health/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=197
to ‘Patience’ - This article, written by Milton Fisk in 2004 might interest you:
http://www.miltonfisk.org/writings/unaffordable-health-insurance-and-presidential-politics/
From this article: “There will also be a tendency for the major medical insurance of those who opt for HSAs to become more expensive. Even though they may be healthier, they will have an incentive to keep their savings accounts rather than spend them on physical check ups. They may also delay getting treatment for a condition until it calls for expensive treatment. Their thrift merely makes it more likely that they will incur expenses for which their major medical insurance will be needed. The net effect will be to make that insurance less affordable.”
Thank you for the link. Ironically, the presumptuousness of that very part of the article you posted is one of the reasons I discount the author’s POV.
‘Patience’, - You don’t like the presumptuousness of Milton Fisk, but the bulldozer tone of the investors.com article, which is full of distortions and lies, appeals to you?
The French system is a hodge-podge, with a bureaucracy worthy of the French, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest it become the American model. Which is precisely why investors.com chose for their discussion about universal healthcare. Investors.com was using the straw man argument technique, and attacking all the weakness in the French system, without dealing in any serious way with the weaknesses in the American system. Even when the investors.com article deals with specifics, such as infant mortality rates in France and America, it implies that if the French would gather their statistics the same way America does, that America and France would have similar rates of infant mortality, but this is not so. Changing the way the data is calculated would not raise the French rate to anywhere near the American one.
Investors.com could have talked about how Americans spend much more on healthcare than other OECD countries, including France. According to the OECD, America spends more than any other OECD country per person.
- UNITED STATES, per person, in 2007, $7,290.00
- FRANCE, per person, in 2007, $3,601.00
France provides excellent healthcare for all its citizens for about half of what America spends to leave 44 million people uninsured.
Here is the OECD website address for the 2007 figures.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf
You don’t like the presumptuousness of Milton Fisk, but the bulldozer tone of the investors.com article, which is full of distortions and lies, appeals to you?
The French system is a hodge-podge, with a bureaucracy worthy of the French, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest it become the American model. Which is precisely why investors.com chose for their discussion about universal healthcare. Investors.com was using the straw man argument technique, and attacking all the weakness in the French system, without dealing in any serious way with the weaknesses in the American system. Even when the investors.com article deals with specifics, such as infant mortality rates in France and America, it implies that if the French would gather their statistics the same way America does, that America and France would have similar rates of infant mortality, but this is not so. Changing the way the data is calculated would not raise the French rate to anywhere near the American one.
Investors.com could have talked about how Americans spend much more on healthcare than other OECD countries, including France. According to the OECD, America spends more than any other OECD country per person.
- UNITED STATES, per person, in 2007, $7,290.00
- FRANCE, per person, in 2007, $3,601.00
France provides excellent healthcare for all its citizens for about half of what America spends to leave 44 million people uninsured.
Here is the OECD website address for the 2007 figures.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf
At least with IBD, the reader expects a pro free-market bent. The article for which you provided the link is biased, didn’t you notice? It finds no fault whatsoever with universal healthcare but criticizes the alternatives discussed, in detail.
My search for non-ideological healthcare information may be futile.
Kraut is warning us about the gradual progression to government controlled healthcare, inch by inch, step by step, no matter which way you see it, any policy that comes out of BO’s administration or any words that he reads off the teleprompter–it’s all lies. Start from that premise and you’ll know exactly where things are heading. It doesn’t take a genius like Krauthammer to figure that out, look at the people at the townhall meetings and those of us who didn’t vote for this Chicago fraud–we may not have Ivy league educations but our common sense has served us well.
OT very OT but important at least to me
HB 1388 Passed. Just what we need to further cause more debt.
This is for all of you who wish for Universal “Health Coverage” But leave my options alone.
Sentenced to death on the NHS
It’s top of the Drudge Report right now and here is the direct link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6127514/Sentenced-to-death-on-the-NHS.html
Maybe you should read the entire article. You’d find out that what happens is almost exactly what happens in Hospice here when terminally ill patients have days or hours to live. Nobody is “getting better”, they are dying.
No, YOU need to read the article. It is not the same as hospice here in the US, because we here do not PUT anyone on hospice care. The docs may recommend it, but it is entirely the patient and the family’s CHOICE whether to continue other treatments or go on hospice.
What is happening in Britain is that the docs are going by a standardized checklist, ticking a person off as “terminal” (which is sometimes in doubt), and they get put on that “pathway” whether they want it or not.
Hospice in the USA is entirely voluntary. This is not. And it is not the State’s business to say that if I’m going to die anyway in a year, that I may as well go ahead and die this week, because what’s the difference. It may be a HUGE difference to ME.
No, doctors in Great Britain are not forcing patient into hospices and dispatching them after a cursory checklist!
Patients in Great Britain are free to chose their own doctors, and treatments. Some terminally ill people remain at home, with medical help provided by the government.
Hospices everywhere is entirely voluntary. The idea that hospice staff would be holding patients against their will and murdering them in their beds is ridiculous, and the newspaper article you are talking about says nothing at all even remotely suggesting such a thing.
The article is dealing with patients whose condition has been evaluated by a medical team, and a patient whose family has been consulted, because the whole point is that the patient is no longer able to communicate when these protocols are enacted. The concerned doctors in the article are just wanting a few more steps in the process, to make sure that a patient’s lack of ability to communicate is not due to some reversible condition, like a drug reaction or an infection.
The UK telegraph article says people who are placed on the “pathway” can then be denied food and fluids. They’re given sedatives until death finally arrives. This isn’t what my experience with Hospice has been. Food and fluids weren’t denied in my mother’s case.
There are different types of Hospice care here. In some instances like my mother’s, employing Hospice care meant she would no longer be given any meds or treatments in a futile attempt to cure the incurable — just palliative medication if she needed it. I’ve known other people who’ve had Hospice care for their parents where the parent can still take meds for things like hypertension, etc. but a Hospice worker may make a home visit 3 times a week (or whatever) to provide custodial-type care.
Denying food and fluids is what jumped out at me in the article, and I can’t abide by that.
What are you up in arms about? Under the NHS in Great Britain, doctors developed protocols to follow for severely ill patients at the end of their lives, and the protocol has a name: the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), and it’s designed to reduce suffering, by keeping patients comfortable in their final hours. It was developed for cancer patients who were in the final stages of their illness, and this protocol has gradually been extended to cover patients with other terminal conditions.
Now there is some concern that two aspects of the protocol should only be applied after stringent investigation. The first, which involves sedating the patient, should not be applied to lucid patients, and the doctors raising the alarm are worried that some patients might have infections or drug reactions that cause them to seem unaware of their circumstances, and some doctors are fearful that sedation could be given wrongly to some of these patients, thus depriving them of several weeks or months of lucidity before death. The second aspect that worries some doctors is that, along with sedation, many hospitals only give enough food and liquids to make the patient comfortable. The doctors fear that some patients who seem to have slipped over the edge could, in fact, recover lucidity for a short but worthwhile amount of time, and they don’t want to take even one day away from a dying patient unnecessarily.
It is important to remember that the fears of some doctors are, as yet, unfounded and unproven, and all medical facilities that use these protocols only do so after all the doctors and nurses weigh in about the patient’s condition, and the family members agree.
There is nothing reckless going on here, and, personally, I would love to have medical staff trying to make me as comfortable as possible at the end of my life, should I become unable to communicate my wishes.
These concerns are being raised about patients who are being looked after, in an attempt to improve treatment for them and future patients. The fact that the concerned doctors are speaking up will result in a further examination and tightening of the protocols, and should improve the situation for all concerned.
By the way - do you think most terminally ill people in America get good end of life care? You do realize, don’t you, that at the end of your life, should you make it past 65, you’ll probably end up with Medicare. You do realize, don’t you, that Medicare is a government-run, single payer health insurance system, much like the one in other Western democracies? You realize, don’t you, that the private insurance industry has now and has always had absolutely no interest whatsoever in having to cover elderly, sick patients, and that’s why the government had to start a program to help them?
HB 1388 give over 20 million to Palestine Hamas refugees . This will allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in, the US at American taxpayer expense.
Doubtful? To verify this for yourself:
http://www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
http://www.theconservativeview.net/hb-1388-passed-just-what-we-need-to-further-cause-more-debt
[...] is every bad. There are few alternatives in our gild that module protect the average person …Krauthammer Nails It - Draconian Health Insurance Regulation : NO …by Steve_in_KCI’m a capitalist, not a socialist. I’m a centrist, not a liberal or libertarian. I’m [...]
Hot Air TV: Jason Mattera undercover at a town hall meeting
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/01/hot-air-tv-jason-mattera-undercover-at-a-town-hall-meeting/
Very informative post. Thanks! It will be interesting to see what Obama has to say next week.
Is j.brown a regular or a troll that popped in when I mentioned a “Black American Express”?
CAROL HAKA
It’s obviously the ghost of The Godfather of Soul, James Brown.
I’m sure James Brown had a Black American Express!
CAROL HAKA
Hey, I got an offer for the “Black Card” today. For only $495 a year I can be one of the top 1% of credit card holders to have THE card.
I found a couple of interesting health care related links…
One addresses the comparison between Medicare’s administrative costs and private health insurance administrative costs, and makes the case pretty convincingly that numbers stated for the low Medicare administrative costs are misleading in several ways. For example, part of administrative costs are due to taxes paid to the government - which obviously are not paid by Medicare, and that the analagous Medicare costs for ‘premium collection’ (administration of Medicare tax collection) are excluded from Medicare costs because they are performed by employers.
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf
Another link relates to a booklet produced for the VA which covers end-of-life counseling and was created with the assistance of the Hemlock Society. It isn’t a death panel, but if it truly is as described, it makes me uncomfortable…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358590107981718.html#printMode
Do you guys use any source to attack Obama? Right, center, left. It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s anti-Obama, it’s considered a good source. There’s no consistency here.
Straight out of the sources mouth! We don’t have to look any further than that.
However, since you seem close to the source, how about asking him to release his Birth Certificate, Passports, School Records, …………….
Just saying ……………….
CAROL HAKA
Jack, which way do you take it from Obama? Any way he wants to give it to you? Does he give you a good slap when he’s finished with you?
Consistency? You mean groupthink. NQ is not a groupthink tank.
Even if the government moves the insurance industry out of the primary healthcare industry, the industry will still do a good business offering the wealthy extra insurance to guarantee things like private rooms and access to private testing facilities, and dental expenses not covered by a government single payer system.
Of course, the insurance industry now maintains a large cadre of employees whose sole job is to deny claims and weed out high risk applicants. If the Obamacare legislation passes in its present form (in any of its incarnations) this cadre will not only continue to operate, but will have to expand. The insurance companies want the extra money mandates will bring them, but they don’t want to take on any expensive policyholders, and they’ll do their best to only get the young and healthy newcomers. They already have lots of tricks, like having sign-ups one the third floor of a building with no elevator, or in the evening somewhere that buses don’t run late to, etc., etc. To get around these practices and still allow the insurance industry a stake in the primary health business, the USA would have to move to a heavily regulated system such as is found in Switzerland.
Some insurance industry clerical staff would obviously be able to find work in the new expanded administration of a universal public system. The people who would ’suffer’ the most, one would hope, are those in the upper echelons of the greedy voracious insurance industry, who take home millions and millions while rationing care and denying claims.
America needs to shift out of the ridiculous system that now afflicts the land. Americans are now slaves to the insurance and drug industries. Americans cling to hated jobs and stay in miserable working conditions with abusive bosses just because they are afraid of losing health benefits. Americans stay in bad, abusive marriages just to keep healthcare. Small companies cannot hire talented workers who have some pre-existing condition, even if it’s unlikely to effect the employee’s performance, because the small company cannot afford the huge premium increases this would entail.
Even Americans with insurance live in dread. They live in dread of needing surgery or some expensive treatment because they can’t afford the co-payments. Americans who have one family member who experiences a serious illness or accident live in dread, knowing another similar piece of bad luck would push their claims above their ‘lifetime cap’ limit and they’d be left with no option but to sell everything, and empty their life savings before Medicare would help them.
Middle aged with arthritis often live in severe pain for years, because they can’t afford the co-payments for surgery and post-operative care and rehabilitation when they need knee and/or hip replacements. In all other Western democracies with universal healthcare, there is a sizeable proportion of all joint replacement candidates having surgery before the age of 65, but in the USA, almost all joint replacement surgery is carried out on patients older than 65, because people hang on as long as possible, waiting to be eligible for Medicare coverage.
Last but not least, Americans are already paying at least twice as much, per person, as other developed nations pay for universal healthcare programs that have their citizens living longer than Americans, and have much lower rates of infant mortality. Americans are already spending enough money. It’s high time they got some value for their dollar.
Total spending on health care, per person, 2007:
United States: $7290
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Japan: $2581
Just curious (I am not wanting to start an argument…) if there is any information on how much any or all of the following contribute to the high price of health care and/or decreased life expectancy in the US:
- cosmetic surgery / elective surgery
- Malpractice awards (I seem to recall a # around 1%?)
- ‘defensive medicine’ - extra tests / second opinions done as protection against malpractice claims
- violent crime (as opposed to other countries)
I know I have read several articles which make the point that other countries determine the infant mortality rate differently than we do in the US - for example, some countries don’t count babies born under a certain birth weight, or babies that don’t live 24 hours, etc. But I don’t think I’ve seen any comparison between the statistics once those differences are taken into account.
It seems to me that without good data and apples-to-apples comparisons, the discussions are much more challenging…
Your remark about American infant mortality is refuted in this article:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=504557
Here’s a reply I made to one of your earlier posts, in case you missed it:
I’m not one who denies that private healthcare coverage is rationed. But I want to be able to choose, via the coverage I purchase, what I’m willing to do without. I currently have an HSA (Health Savings Account). This is basically a form of catastrophic care in the sense that I have a high deductible in order to keep my premiums affordable. While most of my expenses are paid out-of-pocket, some preventative care and screening is covered even if I haven’t met my deductible.
This option obviously wouldn’t suit everyone. Some people prefer more comprehensive coverage that pays for a host of treatments, procedures and services. But each state mandates that insurers cover various healthcare which in many instances drives up the price of premiums. The result is that some people simply can’t afford insurance. In light of this, some believe prohibition of the interstate sale of health insurance adds to the problem and eliminating it would give consumers more options, portability, and allow many who can’t currently afford insurance an opportunity to purchase at least basic care.
I also think something must be done to prevent the essential dumping of pharmaceuticals, which has caused Americans to pay much higher prices than other countries for the same drugs.
If reducing out of control healthcare spending and covering the uninsured are truly goals, I think it’s not only worth our while, but incumbent upon our legislators to explore ways other than universal care to solve those problems.
BTW, neither my sister nor her eldest daughter are wealthy and don’t have gold-plated health insurance coverage. Yet each of them has had knee replacement surgery with hardly any related out-of-pocket expense. While I’m not suggesting there’s no need for insurance reform, your sweeping indictment of the industry flies in the face of the fact that a majority of Americans are content with their current healthcare coverage.
I keep hearing about Canadian rationed health care and long waiting times in emergency rooms. It is all bunk. We have health clinics all over the place in Canada. I have a walk in health clinic in my apratment building and if I am feeling to pukey to go to my doctor I just go downstairs. There are three other clinics within a 20 minute radius from me. The same at work. There are at least two clinics very near where my job is. I am sure there are more than two, but there are two that I am aware of. If people want to go to hospitals and sit around for hours, that is their problem. They just have to find a clinic. The doctors there are just as qualified.
I have a brother-in-law who got a new liver in the past six months in one province (Alberta). I have had a sister who had breast cancer and she had her surgery within a couple of weeks (in Manitoba). It cost neither one a CENT.
We do, however have the Canadian Medical Association going around talking about how our health care is imploding. They want to become private so badly that they can taste it. As Bill Clinton says - lots of money to be had. Most Canadians have no respect for the Canadian Medical Association who has been forecasting the death of medical care in Canada for years.
My friend and I sit and watch the stories on American shows. She works for a scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, a world renound hospital. We just sit and shake our heads when we hear the drivel that comes out of America about our health system.
We also can go to any doctor, or hospital, in any province in Canada - FREE.
In fact, we had a national television program where people voted for the greatest Canadian. People love Pierre Trudeau (former Prime Minister), but when it came to the greatest Canadian Tommy Douglas, the NDP member who brought health care to Canada won hands down. He was a practical man. He is Keifer Sutherland’s grandfather. He once said something that I love to ponder on: During the 20th century man has learned to burrow through the earth like a mole, swim throught the sea like a fish and fly through the air like a bird. Hopefully, during the 21st century he will learn to walk the earth like a man. He is the father of health care, and Canada’s hero.
Just informing those who might care.
I know that for-profit insurance companies are nightmares. But we belong to NON-PROFIT Kaiser HMO. It’s a great system. I know they vary somewhat by area but we are very happy with our healthcare and they have made great improvements in their systems in recent years. I’ve heard the CEO on NPR–it would be a great model for the US.
I agree with what someone said way up at the top of the page–government run care might not be the answer. We should follow the German model where insurance is regulated–they cannot deny service and everyone is a subscriber and poor people are subsidized.
One HUGE difference that no one talks about is that we are much larger and more diverse than Canada or the UK. Canada has a smaller population than California. We need our own US version of health care.
This cannot and should not be rammed thru to fit BO’s timetable. This requires planning and thought.
And why doesn’t anyone in the media ever mention that the bogey man of “death panels” has a kernel of truth because they appointed Rahm Emanuel’s brother to several positions in the White House overseeing health care reform and he has made it his life’s work to support rationed health care at life’s end!!
The fact that America has more residents per square mile can make healthcare much less expensive, not more, because the density of the population will mean more facilities can be closer to the population. Whereas Canadians might have to travel a fair distance, with expenses covered by Healthcare, to receive specialized treatments, the larger, more dense American population distribution would mean a larger tax base to support specialized medical and trauma centres within a smaller geographical region. Small towns just can’t support many medical specialists, because the small towns will never have enough patients to make this economically feasible, not to mention that the specialist’s skills could get rusty with so much time between patients. There are still vast, sparcely populated regions in the US, where residents face the same problems with access to specialized care as do geographically isolated residents in all Western democracies, but overall, having a larger tax base contributing to the system with more of the contributors living near the medical institutions they need, would make the system less expensive, not more. The rate of illness and accidents is about the same in all Western democracies, although America does have a larger than average (much larger) rate of injuries due to guns than most other Western democracies.
I just read a study that showed if health care is expanded MORE people will use the emergency room for their common ailments so I don’t think we will get economy of scale because we are bigger. I think it means we need to make our health care fit our larger and varied population.
And regarding your last thought about gun shot injuries–I don’t see that mentioned anywhere when people discuss “end of life” issues. In fact Rahm Emanual’s bro thinks that x number of teens = one old person. But what about the teenage gang banger with 6 gun shot wounds who takes $75 thousand to get patched up? A lefty paper (East Bay Express) out of Berkeley did a bug study last year that these gang bangers are bankrupting Highland hospital in Oakland.
This is a BIG issue that needs to be planned not cobbled together by congress people beholden to their lobbyists.
big study….not bug study….
Actually, I think you were right the first time, as bug is a more descriptive adjective of a study involving gangs.
Ha!
One of the biggest reason I watch the Special Report of Brett is because of Krauthammer’s analysis.
I ditto that politics is dirty! Charles is worthy of my attention.
Steve, you covered so many of the things I have been mulling since this became a “crisis”.
My husband and I are into our first year on Medicare. We are paying those premiums, a supplemental premium, have an earned Health Savings Account, and also established an account for our maximum yearly out-of-pocket.
Sure, we could enjoy that money, but I am too proud to leave my daughter with costs associated with my passing, if I can prevent it!
“health insurance should be abolished?” Many plans such as Canada have nationalized healthcare, but people can buy private insurance if they want. In the U. S. the problem is that healthcare is a for-profit industry. It’s ridiculous. you really can’t complain about the many problems facing this country and then support the nonsense the corporations lobby Congress into supporting.
In Canada, private healthcare is used for things not covered by the public system, such as getting private hospital rooms or some dental procedures.
Doctors in Canada can decide whether to take patients covered by the public system and get paid the public rate, or take patients privately and get no remuneration from the public system. Doctors are forbidden, by law, from double dipping. In other words, they can’t take the payment from medicare and then ask their patients to pay a surcharge or extra billing. There are some private clinics for relatively low risk surgeries and cosmetic surgeries. Unfortunately, these clinics are subsidized anyway,because in the event of post operative complications, the patients most likely get dumped back into the public system.
Almost all doctors in Canada operate as private individuals who bill Medicare. Very few have decided to go outside the system, because the system gives them the ability to treat anyone who walks through the door without having to check their abilitly to pay, and without have the difficulty of collecting fees. This way, doctors can concentrate on helping patients, and refusing poor people and chasing others for payment.
LDW–I’m all for single payer universal care IF we fund it properly. But Americans don’t realize that health care is NOT FREE! We would all have to pay more taxes in order to have a fully funded system. Canadians and the French pay a lot for their health care.
One of the big problems, IMHO, is how BO and the Clever Dems decided that just the middle class or the rich should pay for health care for the 47 million uninsured! Why?
That is why this is doomed. Why should my taxes go up and my husband’s salary down (if they are going to tax his health benefits) and why should my doctor take a cut in pay just for those 47 million? This should have been a BENEFIT for EVERYONE–just like social security and medicare–then I think it would have had a better chance of gaining support because there’s a real need for reform.
But remember–Obama has always been against universal health care. He spent at least $6 million blasing Hillary just on this one topic.
And if he makes backroom deals with Billy Tauzin, that’s change you can believe in….
The problem with healthcare “reform” is that it isn’t. Reform, that is. So, why do we keep saying that what Dr. Krauthammer correctly calls “draconian health insurance regulation” is “reform”? It isn’t reform; it’s vastly more regulation offered to cure a system that is strangled by regulation.
Allow the free interstate sale of health insurance, and the insurance industry will be forced to compete, thus driving down health insurance premiums. But just like progressivism isn’t progressive, politicians are NEVER going to do what’s best for Americans. They are going to continue to big government solutions because it empowers politicians. In other words, health care “reform” = government empowerment.
The problem with healthcare “reform” is that it isn’t. Reform, that is. So, why do we keep saying that what Dr. Krauthammer correctly calls “draconian health insurance regulation” is “reform”? It isn’t reform; it’s vastly more regulation offered to cure a system that is strangled by regulation.
Allow the free interstate sale of health insurance, and the insurance industry will be forced to compete, thus driving down health insurance premiums. But just like progressivism isn’t progressive, politicians are NEVER going to do what’s best for Americans. They are going to continue to push big government solutions because it empowers politicians. In other words, health care “reform” = government empowerment.
sorry for the double post.
beez