Goverment its writing checks at a 15% discount, but its a revenue stream that is unlimited from the government. Of course that is inflationary. Just like government supplying loans to people who shouldn't have houses. You have added an enormous demand component to the system. Shifting the fucking curve and as a result prices can rise. OMFG get a clue. If these people where added to a private insurance pool that had incentives to control costs and ability to shop, maybe prices would stabilize, but it still would be inflationary. In the end however insurance is still another third party cutting checks. You can also blame the government for the current system you so despise. Direct pay existed in this country until the WWII. This was another unintended consequence of government central planning of guess what... PRICE CONTROLS. Thats right the government in its genius instituted wage controls during the war, but they didn't cap fringe benefits so guess what companies did raise fringe benefits including...HEALTH INSURANCE. So rather than having a system where insurance is just that something you insure against in rare events, it become a highly inefficient third party funding mechanism for every toothache, cold, and bout of heartburn. Again, Inflationary. But lets replace that with the ultimate in efficiency the government because they have done such a brilliant job with every other system they have managed, like our own budget. Maybe you should sit in on semster of highschool Econ, and learn about price curves and supply demand, the free market, and the failure of the Soviet Union. GTFO just GTFO. If you want European socialism, by all means take it. Go see how stress free, the Brits are as their country implodes, pregant women delivering on the side of the road, because hospitals have no capacity, people pulling their own teeth because it takes months to see a dentist, spain in depression, greece, italy, france. BTW stop regurgitating the WHO statistics. The same bullshit that places CUBA ahead of the USA in healthcare. I am to believe a country that just announced a shortage of toilet paper, that people are getting in rafts to cross the ocean, has a better healthcare system than the U.S. Unlike Cuba if life is so tough here, you are free to leave. Tell me you want central planning so everyone gets the same shit. and I mean SHIT. But don't tell me central planning produces better outcomes by using propaganda stats from countries who promote central planning. Oh and I am so sorry the insurance companies cause stress. Is there anything else that causes stress in your life? Be sure to write it all down and send the list to Santa Obama so he can cure all your worries.
I know this is glaringly obvious to most people. But just in case some of the proponents of public health care do not get it, I would gladly settle for a more expensive, less efficient, corrupt private health care industry. I am not interested at all in a less expensive, more efficient, corrupted public health care system. The point is I do not want to pay the government to take care of me. I'll die young if it allows me to take care of myself. I think we are arguing the wrong points in this debate. People who are against federal health care are never going to win in a service or value based argument. The designers of the reform can change the system whenever a new valid argument against is discovered. As a matter of fact the opponents are probably doing half the work of designing the reform for them. The only way to win this is to prove that we are not interested in government run healthcare regardless of the benefits or negative aspects.
OP is from the <i>New York Times<i> -- which tells you all you need to know -- though it's unreferenced by the poster (BTW - What's up with cut/pasting chunks of text rather than giving URLs? Don't these frigtards know any better?) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27sun1.html/
How come the only people pushing for a public health care option are the ones who will never be on it? Btw, I've re-thunk my position and have to say that I am now for health care reform. My only concern is how we will pay for it. So in that spirit, I have written a letter to my Congressional and Senate represetatives urging passage a of 1/4% tax on all stock transactions. Most people won't even notice. Besides, I am just a paper trader like the rest of the yahoos on ET. PS. Perhaps a tax on TeeVee, sport stars, movie stars, and celebrities in general, too?
WOW! You have a great idea there! What do medicine and food have in common? Answer: we need them to stay alive. In fact, food is even better than medicine as far as making a few bucks, well more than a few actually. All we need is the FDA to regulate access to food the same way they regulate access to medicine so that only those licensed to write prescriptions for food can do so under federal law. Food, as we all know, is incredibly dangerous, too much of it, or the wrong kind, leads to all sorts of horrible and fatal diseases. atherosclerosis, diabetes, stroke -- the list is endless and includes sudden death from choking, or nearly as sudden from all kinds of food borne pathogens. Yes, we all know the dangers of food, and to protect the public we must strictly control access through the writing of Food Prescriptions that can be filled at any licensed grocery store. Only those with a prescription will be able to obtain food. It's a safety issue! You and I will become government Certified and Authorized Restrictors of Tarts, Eggnog, and Lard (CARTEL) for the purpose of informing and protecting the public. Our motto will be "First, Do no Harm" and we will ask Louis Lasagna, Dean of the Tufts medical school, to write our Oath, because he knows how to write good Oaths and has a delicious sounding name. To protect the public we will regretfully have to limit the number of people that can be trained to write food prescriptions. We'll also contribute heavily to political campaigns of those politicians who understand the dangers of food and what could happen if unlicensed Toms, Dicks and Harrys were allowed to prescribe food. In fact, we'll get the government to require that everyone who is granted a license to write food prescriptions be a graduate of a food school and take a test. We'll even volunteer to write the test. Some, ignorant of the dangers of food, will say that CARTEL makes their food too expensive and that access to food is a basic human right. We will be far to busy writing prescriptions to have time for these petty arguments. These same naysayers will no doubt attempt to foolishly endanger the public by trying to restrict the amount we can charge for food prescriptions. And then of course we will have no choice but to raise our collective voices, because we will know in our hearts how wrong they are, and how dangerous their misguided message is. When we say "Sorry Bud, you don't eat without a prescription," we will know it is for the public good. Trust us. Safety first.
Keep in mind that most docs who currently take medicare can only afford to do so because private insurance reimburses at a higher rate. If 100% of reimbursement was from medicare most practices would not survive. As it is many practices restrict the % of their patients who are on medicare and are simply not taking on new medicare patients. I don't think that this has been adequately covered in the health care debate so far but the fact is that privately insured patients are subsidizing the care of medicaid patients. I have long been an advocate for a single payor universal healthcare program but I realize that the government has show that it can not be trusted to reimburse at a fair rate and as any collective bargaining by physicians is outlawed there will be no check on the government nickle and diming the healthcare system in to decrepitude. Any healthcare reform that does not include increases in reimbursement for primary care (without which you may have more people insured but it will do nothing to solve the problem of access and quality, the best practice medical home model of primary care can not be provided with 100% medicare reimbursement) and tort reform is not credible in my opinion.