For a guy who has managed to demonstrate a modicum of open mindedness in the past. I'm finding it somewhere between amusing and mind boggling that you think this has any chance of true success. Were not it's primary goals adding the uninsured to the rolls and reducing healthcare costs? In both regards it is ALREADY a miserable failure and it hasn't even been officially implemented yet. How many "failed" government programs have been scrapped by congress in living memory? Once it's up and running we're most likely stuck with it. And it gets worse. In case you've been living under a rock the past few decades. Our "leaders" in Washington measure government program "success" by how much money they budget for the program. NOT by measurable results. The Unaffordable Health care act not working? Congress's solution? Obviously we're just not spending enough money on it yet. It will simply become another campaign promise like "I'm in favor of education" now it will be "I'm all for healthcare" which translates into bigger and bigger expenditures with no improvement in the situation. Just look at dept of ED for the proof of this.
After Mocking 'Bizarre' Ted Cruz, ABC Finds a Man Who Will Lose Coverage Because of ObamaCare Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-...nds-man-who-will-lose-coverage-#ixzz2g2zPACAE
Anyone interested in reality rather than political tripe would recognize that we Americans are looking at Obamney care against a backdrop of the worst medical care among industrialized nations, and not just in terms of cost, but quality as well. It is difficult to imagine that Obamney care could be any worse than what we have now! If it is worse, perhaps that will be a necessary step toward eventually developing a true health care system that can function at least as well as that in our sister developed nations. Blame the defects on our corporate style capitalism that allows big business to use government as a tool to prevent competition; thus Obamney care leaves our government protected medical cartel largely intact. That's where the real problem lies. In the long run, employers, who have for years now cut there hourly workers time back to avoid having to provide medical benefits, will have been in the forefront of our shift away from employer provided medical care. Employer provided medical was a bad idea in the first place, and one we must get away from if we want to join the rest of the civilized world and see that 100 percent of the population has access to basic medical care. (don't bother regaling me with anecdotes of how our care is the best in the world because the Duke and Duchess of such and such flew to Houston for their heart-lung transplant. )
You got some un-politicized reputable stats on that. I would have sworn I read we have some very good health care with minimal wait times with the latest technology and procedures. Along with some of the better doctor patient ratios in the world. Albeit at a very high cost. Which incidentally Obamacare is in fact already making more expensive with no addition benefits to justify the cost increase.
About a year ago I read an interesting Bloomberg article about 2 events that took place in 19th century. One was Aqueduct system in New Yor Cityk. There was a huge opposition to what was perceived to be government intrusion into people's lives to install central water system for all residents. The opposition slowed the completion of the system by I think 15 years. Once installed however, it became a huge success and reduced cholera cases by 10s of thousands. The other was was the idea of sending kids to central place for education - schools, instead of home schooling them. Schools were a very alien concept for many families. It takes a passage of time for what is perceived as radical to become common place and obvious. I am open minded, the question is are you?
Sometimes, but then we all consider ourselves far more open minded than we really are. "How many "failed" government programs have been scrapped by congress in living memory?"
Lucrum, it is impossible for Obamney care to add 38 million to the health care rolls without increasing total cost. (Another approach altogether, such as single payer might achieve that however.) What was meant by the hype leading up to Obamney care was that Obamney care would bring the average cost per person down, not the total cost. It remains to be seen if that goal will be achieved. A similar situation pertains to how privatizing prisons was sold. The fledgling prison corporations said they could bring the cost per prison bed down, and they achieved that. However the total cost to the States mushroomed! Now Alabama, for example, spends 20% of their entire State budget on prisons, whereas when prisons were run by the State the fraction of the budget that went to imprisonment was far less.
Indeed I do. And those stats have been referenced in these forums many times now. Do a google search and you will quickly unearth them. The un-politicized data tells an entirely different story than you'll get from the not disinterested U.S. medical cartel. Access to top notch health care in the U.S. is among the best in the world for the wealthy, by the way. But that is not what we are talking about.
Thats not necessarily where the problem lies. There are working health care systems that do rely solely on the private sector (i.e. Switzerland) and there are working health care system that are run by the state (i.e. Austria, or Scandinavia). Hybrid systems are generally shit, because then the private sector tends to siphon off the profitable portion of the clients (young, healthy, money), which leaves the public system with the poor and sick, and it will inevitably incur deficits which will have to be covered by tax-dollars. To make the numbers work for a public healthcare scheme, you need to force the better part of the population into it. I.e. in this case competition for insurance is not the way. Of course, pharma and healthcare service providers need to compete for public contracts to keep the cost down.