OK. Let us use our Noggins here... Why doesn't the government skip this farce and extend unemployment "benefits" indefinitely? Why not make them permanent? If you lose your job, don't worry... we got you covered. You NEVER need to work again, nor experience any of that unpleasant stress that comes with any consequences for your decisions or the vagaries of bad luck.
After all, if you are going to pay people not to work for 2 years, why not 5, or 10? What kind of society are we that we would stop paying people after any period, no matter how long, that they are "out of work".
This is all part of the Washington Blame Game. Its also part of the "I feel your pain" politics that worked so effectively for Bill Clinton. Take a hard look at the healthcare debate. The folks in favor of the nationalization of the healthcare system frame the debate as them being for providing care for poor Americans and the folks agains it just don't care about the American people.
Who WOULDN'T want perfect and free healthcare for the American people? The question the adult side of the debate was asking was: "How are we going to pay for it"? The other side's response? We'll take away the profits from those filthy and disgusting insurance companies.
OK. Here is where I, as a responsible adult, break out the dreaded calculator. If I add up ALL, ALL!... of the profits of the health insurance industry, it totals less than 5% of U.S. healthcare industry. I often hear 33%. Well, REVENUES paid to insurance companies (that are then paid out/passed through to healthcare providers) are roughly 28%, but you would still need most of this overhead structure unless you planned completely free healthcare services with NO ONE doing any clerical or administrative work on the data whatsoever... if you accept that, then the most you could save would be the 5% profit (but you would have to subtract the taxes paid on those profits).
So what's the real deal? Boy, you are really not going to like this. I don't like it either. The real deal is just too unpleasant and too "Life's Unfair" for the multitude of over-the-hill teenagers. Healthcare will eventually be rationed. I don't know what form or how it will come down, but it is very much like having 10 people trapped in an underground cave with the cave only having enough oxygen for 9 to survive. If we attempt a rescue, the equipment will consume oxygen sufficient to keep 4 people alive. We don't know who is going to perish, but we know with certainty that someone has to go. And, no, I do not presume to play G-d.
Our system is incapable of working with parameters such as these (except when we need to kill thousands of non-Americans over Oil or some other "National Interest"); the Blame Game will simply continue, and anybody that questions the veracity of the numbers will be ridiculed as a mean spirited, unenlightened, compassionless, racist, bible thumping, (fill in the Blank), Republican.
32 comments:
Not only will it be rationed it will be Affirmative Action rationed. Let a woman or a minority NOT get some healthcare and all hell will break loose. Think it isn't possible? They will find a way just like child support they manipulate the figures.
For instance my Ex owes me over 30K and nothing has been done. Yet when I switched jobs they had a felony warrant out for me before I even owed 4K. All the while I was sending them the money. Only thing that saved me was the money order receipts. When I ask why, the excuse is that she was on government aid, not that she needed it BTW but women tend to go after all aid while men don't...they know this.
There is a dept of women's health yet nothing for men. Just watch women and minorities will get the healthcare pie while men pay for it. Just like women use more healthcare now and yet by law pay no more on insurance than men but it is still fair to charge men more for car insurance.
Just more wealth redistribution plain and simple.
It is also interesting that the pro-national health care folks have singled out the insurance companies as the villains in this. Of all the players in the game, they are the only ones with any interest in keeping costs down. The medical industry wants more, more, more, and has expanded far beyond the rate of inflation, just like higher education. The consumers of health care don't give a f#$%$&k what medicine costs as long as the insurance company pays up. The insurance companies are in the middle, trying to push consumers to use less and control prices on the other end. So, who gets the blame???? Biggest steaming pile of BS I've ever seen.
In general, the existence of health insurance in its present form is to blame. Any time the party responsible for payment is not the one taking the benefit, there is trouble. The system as it exists will eventually collapse. But, that does not make the insurance companies the bad guys. The new health care act is designed to accelerate the process, and thus bring about the ABSOLUTE NEED for the federal government to take the whole thing over.
Of course there will be rationing. If medical costs are not controlled by the market, they will have to be controlled otherwise. How wonderfully it all fits with the god-complex of the left. Isn't it just the greatest ego trip to choose who shall live and who shall die?
Your insurance company sets defined limits to your coverage. They, at least, have the nuggets to tell you that you've exhausted their contractual obligation and you are done. These Socialist weenies don't have any such fortitude. They will hide in their offices and choose which treatments are cost effective and deny those that they deem not to be. Some will die. If you become seriously (expensively) ill, they will do a cost benefit analysis on your sorry butt. You'll never be told. Instead of telling you that you are among the Chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice for the collective, they will just delay your future appointments and treatments until you are gone. You will never see a doctor again and be sure that he has your best interest at heart. The cowardice and perversity are sickening.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Canada, the UK and France (at least) all have national, single payer health care, and their citizens would NEVER vote to get rid of it. It removes redundancies, covers everyone, unifies all paperwork, works much better at preventive care, benefits hugely from economies of scale, and we are the only major country who DOESN'T do it. Whose the dummy?
As far as unemployment goes .. we are in a deflationary depression, something (partly caused by our debt mania) that hasn't happened in 75 years. Extended unemployment benefits for something this unique is not unheard of. The $70 billion unemployment costs this year isn't even a significant part of the Federal budget. 80% of Federal money goes to S Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Interest and Defense. Unemployment, along with VA benefits, paying off defaulted college loans and farm supports isn't cheap, but it isn't big money.
A WONDERFUL website ...
http://federalbudget.com/
There are many people in Canada and elsewhere that are dissatisfied with national health care Basically, national health care reduces the public to animals at the veterinarian. Treatment, ultimately, is at the discretion of the owner.
When you get sick and national health care refuses to treat you, will you fall at the feet of your socialist masters and thank them for selecting you to make the ultimate sacrifice? You are so much about the macro view. What about you as an individual? How ready, really, are you to take one for the Gipper? How ready, really, are you to have a system where your doctor works in the best interest of the State, and will lie to you to that end? How ready, really, are you to have no choice?.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Carbon, if you can find an article or something about how 80%+ of Canadians would vote to scrap their single-payer system if they could, I would love to read it. I can never find such things. I CAN find, however, anecdotes of rich people not wanting to wait for their elective surgeries, and going to the US for treatment cause they are too rich and important to wait. :)
What ever happened to "it's ok to be average?"
There is also a problem with survivor's bias here. You'll never hear my sister-in-law bitch about Healthcare Canada, for instance.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Bur,
There are very sick men, in your and my age group, in hotels in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh waiting to have heart attacks so that they can get "emergency" bypass surgery. If you are over 45, Healthcare Canada gives you a bottle of pills and sends you home, but will pay 75% of emergency treatment if you are out of the country. When the US goes the way of the UK and Canada, where will we go? Be careful what you wish for. Also, eat right and exercise.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Again to get a better picture of actual spending by the government one needs to look at ALL spending including that spending mandated by the fed to the states which dramatically raises education.
Not to mention those parts of federal spending from areas such as medicaid which are shifted to the states for inner city schools health services and other social spending. I will interested in seeing what area the fed takes the unemployment money out of that isn't mandated and paid by the states up front.
Whats important is the actual overall spending which includes state revenue.
As for Canadian healthcare I worked for a company based out of Windsor and guess where all the home office employees went when they needed to see a doctor? You guessed it Detroit because they had US based health insurance on top of Canadian care.
As for France nannycare the French government tried to get rid of it more than once as it cost so much money. Twenty years ago they couldn't but I wonder how the people feel now. Worth looking into.
From Gallup (2003 -- bottom of link) ..
"In all three countries, there is great variation of opinion within the population on both the quality of medical care and the availability of affordable healthcare. It is a testament to national health systems that people in Canada and Great Britain are significantly more satisfied with availability of affordable healthcare than their American counterparts are."
http://www.gallup.com/
poll/8056/
healthcare-system-
ratings-us-
great-britain-
canada.aspx
Bur,
My wife works an orthopedic office in greater Detroit and they are swamped by three groups Medicare/Medicaid, Canadians coming to get care and auto accidents. As of about a yr ago they will no longer accept Medicare/Medicaid. The interesting thing about the whole situation is that the doctors that own the practice are a minority group and huge democrats, but you don't see them adding more charity work to the schedule. Bur you don’t see complaining from Canadians because you live in Chicago, not a northern border city. It was like the libs in Ann Arbor always telling me I don’t know anybody that voted for bush but you and I always responded that of course you don’t because you surround yourself with people just like you. You know Radical leftist revolutionaries.
As for whole groups not wanting national healthcare who knows. It very easily could be defined as socialization. This is why most judges only give sentences for 6-9 months at first. This is called shock incarceration. They do not want the prisoner to get normalized (technical definition, but really just comfortable). This would explain why people just follow what was there before them. They might not like it but it is all they know. Also makes me amazed that the founders had the courage to truly change the world that they lived in.
Hey bur did you watch that link to James burke?
I was reading about what shell has done to the niger river delta. WOW a gulf like accident every yr. It is sad that the dictators steal all of the money from the people.
Has anyone heard that lawyers are sueing BP under RICO laws. I havent looked law up yet, but essentially if a organization has two criminal actions you can seize assets. What would bp going down do to markets.
Those suggesting the France/England/Canada solution simply cannot work a calculator.
Both France and the U.K. are "circling the drain" because of their social programs - healthcare being numero uno.
Canada? Might as well have said Saudi Arabia or Norway. The natural resources of the country vis a vi their healthcare budget make it a non-starter as a comparison.
This is the very essence of our political problem. Proponents of national healthcare will have no problem finding folks to agree with them when they say silly things like " look at Canada, the U.S. and France"...
Nobody breaks out the dreaded calculator.
Lets not forget Canada does NOT have a first amendment nor is it shy in letting even foreign writers find out that fact.
We may in fact not hear of any complaints about Canadian-care from any main stream named medium.
Our rulers seem determined to make the US the same as England, just changing the names of the programs. Sure, the people there want to keep the Natioal Health Service and the dole. How many sheeple would turn down 'other people's money', especially when they've been told that they deserve it?
Dextred, ol buddy, Canada has what is called the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" enacted in 1982. It's similar to the Bill of Rights. Canada is just like us. Actually, they are us. :)
From Wikipedia ..
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (also known as The Charter of Rights and Freedoms or simply the Charter, French: La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés) is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all levels of government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The Charter was signed into law by Queen Elizabeth II of Canada on April 17, 1982 (along with the rest of the Act).
Ask your wife to check out what the Canadians are coming to the US for. :)
(Oh, US medical costs per person are TWICE the cost per person of the next nearest country -- Canada I believe.)
Bur,
I will when she gets home. She usually says MRI because Canada has something like 30 for the whole country and we have more in southeast Michigan.
I don't understand why you quoted the charter of rights to me? I even gave you that lots probably like the free health care. Why not they don’t pay into it. But you do realize that they ration care right? Takes weeks to get to see a general practitioner and months to yrs to see specialist. It is only common sense that services will be rationed if prices are artificially held down. This is one reason we have so many nurses from Canada now in Michigan. One nurse at my wife’s office is from Canada and one of the physical therapists is from somewhere in Europe with national health care. Want to say UK but I think she says he has a thick accent.
Bur,
Watched video linked on earlier article with simmons. Lot of info to ponder there.
Heres link for others
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGAoU1H2gM
I brought up the Charter because YOU said ...
"Lets not forget Canada does NOT have a first amendment nor is it shy in letting even foreign writers find out that fact."
Canada has essentially the same "bill of rights" that we have. They just call it something different. :) Canada is a modern country. It is UK-European.
JAPAN, however, can hold crime suspects for 28 days (the U.S. allows 48 hours), and Japan can legally torture people accused of crimes into confessing. 90% of accused Japanese plead guilty.
Another Matt Simmons video from today (7/21), it looks like ..
http://www.business
insider.com/matthew-
simmons-we-
now-have-killed-the-
gulf-of-mexico-2010-7
Reality check: Health care is already rationed in the US. As someone who has worked in healthcare off and on for nearly 20 years I can tell you first hand: there is a direct correlation between socioeconomic status and health care.
why do poor people die younger? Why do poor women have lower birth weight babies? After working in an OB clinic for women in some of the poorest urban neighborhoods I can tell you that a poor pregnant woman in many areas of the US will not be able to see a doctor for pre natal care. She will see a midwife if she is lucky.
The US has the worst health care system in the developed world and we also pay on average twice per capita than any other industrialized country. And it will get worse.
If you go to a small hospital in a wealthy suburb you will probably get prompt excellent care. If you go to an overcrowded urban hospital you will get bad care and a bonus hospital acquired infection. Its just the way it is. Health care in the US is bad.
Bur,
Was not me. But there is a large difference in common law nations without constitutions. Mainly that the law is changed as time goes by the judges (case law) and in England and Canada they both have hate speech laws much less tolerant than ours. The way Libel is judged is much easier to show and as such restricts free speech.
It was me who made the first amendment statement, which was meant slightly sarcastically.
I chose to let Bur stand uncorrected for other reasons, but Dex you at least saw what I was getting at.
Fatkitten,
It should be obvious to you if you have worked in those areas that they have government provided healthcare. The number one indicator of benefits payout is single mothers which is much more prevalent in cities and in the black community in general. Thank you for making the argument against government healthcare.
RE: Rationing
Just talk with American Indians
Indian Health Service: Health Care Services Are Not Always Available to Native Americans
The Rationing of Healthcare and Health Disparity for the American Indians / Alaska Natives
Aw, sorry, I mixed my Preps with my Dex's. :)
Up until the new hospital came to town about five years ago my physician charged $25.00 per visit. Not co-pay but total charge; it was even lower than the co-pay on my lousy “Cadillac plan.” He had been there for years and was a pillar of the community. However just after the hospital and a large corporate outpatient clinic opened the DEA took an interest in the quantity of pain meds he proscribed, he spent a weekend in jail then acouple of weeks later repeated the experience. Shortly thereafter he announced he was moving to Africa to do missionary work. The high prices are by design, if a physician doesn’t charge enough he gets ran off. Just one more way we are getting screwed over.
I recall reading about dogs getting to jump in line in front of humans for MRIs in Canada because the pooches were paying customers a few years ago. This isn’t it but it is another case of SSDD.
I have never heard so much crap spoken as when Americans talk about the French or UK health systems. Here's a few inconvenient facts:
Despite the recession, ALL parties in the recent UK election promised to protect the budget for the National Health Service. It's that important and highly regarded, and it has been repeatedly shown to save money for the economy.
The French are justly proud of their health service and have NEVER considered scrapping it (although they want to reduce drug costs). It is officially the Best in the World.
As I recall it the U.S. healthcare outcomes standard is below some East European and Africal countries!
American life expectancy is falling, and is now below Kenya in 30% of US states!
The reason a state invests in healthcare is to keep people working, paying taxes, looking after their families and off other benefits. It is enlightened self-interest.
Bottom line? You guys in the US who can afford health care are getting ripped off. And your countrymen who can't afford it are ill and dying. Do you really think that's OK?
WOW. Most of the comments about the Canadian health care system are so inaccurate, I don't know where to start. In fact, I won't, other then to say everyone gets treated and life threatening procedures are taken care of immediately. The anecdotal references (like crossing the border for treatment) do little to aid the debate about how your system will operate in the future.
Greg - great blog. I look forward to your posts. Keep up the good work.
Two anecdotes. My brother-in-law's wife is dead. She got horrible treatment. The doctors kept telling them that she is 50 and has already had a long life. Blah Blah Blah. My brother in law has been waiting a year to have his hernia repaired. That's considered "elective" until he gets gangrene in his intestines. He's waiting in line. I'll take US health care any day.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Post a Comment