You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2009.
I originally titled this post “Two Presidents for the Price of One – Healthcare.” I have come to realize that was a mistake. My earlier “two presidents” post showed Mr. Obama as one person during the campaign and another as President. This post shows two faces on the same man. I have therefore changed the title. Sorry for any confusion.
During the run up to the election, I kept mentioning in my blog that I thought the public was being fooled. I said we should be looking at what Mr. Obama has done, not listening to what he says. Again, I find myself amazed at the stark difference between what President Obama says and what he does and the difference between what he says and what he knows to be true. Which of the two Mr. Obama’s do we get? The Obama of the promises? Or, the Obama of the deeds? My vote is that we are getting his deeds and I don’t like what I see.
Fans of President Obama will be quick to say that I am picking on our President. Let me be fair and agree. However, I will use his words and his actions to do the picking. You tell me if I am being unfair.
What he says: “I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and they value their relationship with their doctor. And that means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” - BHO, June 15, 2009 to the AMA Annual Meeting. (emphasis is mine)
(painting at the left is from Dana Ellyn)
The truth: If a company changes plans, you cannot keep your old plan. It has been taken away. If the company does this because a new Government Plan is cheaper or the penalties for not chosing the government plan make it so, you will no longer have your doctor or your health plan. They will have been taken away from you. Either Mr. Obama is lying, pure and simple, or, he does not know enough about how our healthcare systems works to comment on it, let alone make law concerning healthcare. Either you can’t trust him or he is so incompetent that you can’t afford to let him make any important decisions.
What the President said: White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod said, “It’s a myth that health insurance reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits.” Mr. Obama did not correct him. He did not say that Mr. Axelrod misspoke. In fact, on August 11 in Portsmouth, NH, Mr. Obama said, “I just want to assure you, we’re not talking about cutting medicare benefits.” We aren’t?
The Truth: In fact, three days later, at a town hall meeting in Montana, he told the crowd that he would pay for healthcare reform, in part, by “eliminating . . . about $177 billion over 10 years” for “what’s called Medicare Advantage.” About 10 million seniors are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, where they are allowed to use medicare funds to buy private healthcare of their choosing. Tell those 10 million people that government health insurance plans won’t be financed by cutting Medicare. Tell them that they can keep their doctor/they can keep their plan. Did Mr. Obama forget those people when he said this?
What Mr. Obama said: To achieve healthcare reform, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies—they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.” - Town hall meeting on Aug. 21, 2008, in Chester, Va. “That’s what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process,” – Los Angeles, January 31, 2008 - similar statements were made at almost every campaign stop during the election campaign.
The Truth: Does anyone on plant earth believe Mr. Obama was truthful about this? Has anyone checked all the scheduled debates around the big round table on C-SPAN? Oh, I see. There haven’t been any open discussions on C-SPAN. First he tried to rush the bills through congress in a couple of weeks so no critic would have time to read all 1000 pages of the bill. Then he has done his usual approach to policy. He makes his statements as broad as possible so he can judge the wind before adding any details. Can anyone give me a good definition of (what Mr. Obama means when he says) “Public Option?” He has intentionally, IMO, kept this as fuzzy as possible, not because he wants you to understand, but because he wants to hide the truth of just how ominous this could be. Then, of course, Max Baucus – Dem., Montana – announced that with the help (pressure) of the White House he had concluded an agreement where PhRMA, the Pharmaceuticals Research and Manufacturers of America, will spend between $150 and $200 Million in advertising in support of the President’s Plan. Most of this is being spent right now with big ads on TV and in print during the August Recess. Was that deal crafted in public? What did Mr. Obama promise? My guess is that the pharmaceutical companies are going to sell a lot of drugs to the government at prices that will be no bargain for taxpayers. And then there is the backroom deal made with Hospitals. A deal made at the White House with lobbyist Chip Kahn of the American Hospital Association is reported to guarantee the Hospitals about 98% of what they had projected for revenue (before the threat of Obamacare) if they will support Mr. Obama’s Plan. I know you didn’t see that on C-SPAN.
What the President said: “To say it as plainly as I can, health care reform is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.” - BHO, June 15, 2009 to the AMA Annual Meeting
The Truth: Really Mr. President? More important than our freedoms? Is reforming our healthcare system more important to our economy than our sovereignty, our ability to freely pursue our economic goals? How about energy? Is healthcare reform more important than securing our energy future? How do you provide healthcare when you have no energy or the energy costs so much that the Hospitals can only be lit 4 hours a night (like in Bagdad a few years back)? Is healthcare more important to our economy than education? If we can’t educate Doctors, you won’t have very good healthcare. If we can’t compete in the world due to second class education, how will our economy do? It seems you said something similar about the importance of passing the Stimulus Bill. Was that the most important thing we could do or is this?
What the President said: When asked about coverage for illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama said, “This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress, and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants — none of them,” he said. “That has never been on the table; nobody has discussed it. So everybody who is listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case.” – August 20, 2009 Barack Obama answering callers on Michael Smerconish’s radio show
The Truth: The Democrat majority in the House specifically ruled out of order a strongly worded amendment offered by Republicans to ensure that no services authorized under this bill would go to illegal immigrants. However, the House bill, H.R. 3200, excludes anyone who is not a legal resident of the United States from coverage of extended insurance provisions. Section 246 reads, “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” (my emphasis) That may or may not mean illegal immigrants won’t get free government healthcare. It doesn’t, however, mention that Mr. Obama is working to get amnesty for over 10 Million “undocumented workers” in the U.S. (( speaking to the National Conferance of La Raza during the election campaign, Mr. Obama said, “Yes, they broke the law. And we should not excuse that. We should require them to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for citizenship – behind those who came here legally. But we cannot – and should not – deport 12 million people. ” “That’s why we need to offer those who are willing to make amends a pathway to citizenship. That way, we can reconcile our values as both a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.” )) So is it being honest to say we won’t be covering illegals with this reform when our intent is to ensure no current illegal remains “illegal”? That’s like a kid playing street ball who changes the out-of-bounds line so he can win. Cheating and lying are still wrong, even if you are the President and you are very good with words.
Can anyone tell me why information like the above is not headline news?
The healthcare debate has motivated more people to become involved in our political process than any similar issue in memory. I often wonder why.
First, I wonder because it is not, by a country mile, our most pressing national issue. It probably doesn’t even make the top five. The fact is that everyone has access to healthcare services, even if it is costly, inefficient and provided by emergency rooms. Healthcare reform is not an emergency issue that must be addressed today. Yet, it has people of all stripes giving up time and treasure to make the point that they do or don’t want “xyz” as a feature of any healthcare reform.
Surely, the nation’s economy has to be a much more critical issue. If it fails to regain its balance, where will the money come from to pay for any healthcare programs?
I would argue that National Security is a far more important issue. If we are no longer free and secure, how do we control the ability to determine how we will, as a nation, handle the health of our people? Should our Defense Budget be higher or lower? Should we be involved in wars in the Middle East? Should we have mandatory service in the military like many countries or continue to have an “all volunteer” force? Most of these questions are both more pressing and more important than whether and how we tweak our medical care delivery in our country.
I am quite sure that Energy is more pressing. Prices are rising. Sources are not stable. There is an energy component to almost every product and service that touches your life.
I personally think Education Reform is a more important issue. A Democracy depends on an educated populous. If we want to remain an democratic nation, we need to have a better educated populous than we have today. If we want to compete in the world economy, we need a better educated populous than we have today. If we want to continue to enjoy the freedoms and wealth we have today, we need a better educated populous than we have today.
The Environment, Immigration, Foreign Affairs, the War on Drugs, and the size and scope of government are all contenders for the fifth spot on this list in my opinion. That doesn’t even touch things like Family Values, the coming retirement of the Baby Boomers and the pressures that will put on our economy and government. Abortion, Big Business Ethics, Prison Reform, Unemployment, and Civil Rights are thought by many to be far more important than Healthcare reform.
My answer to the question, “Why Healthcare?” is that it is a first rate political tool. If you want power, what better issue to promote? Everyone is concerned about their health. The issue is unbelievably complex so that a majority of people want a simple explanation that they can understand. That makes it ripe for highly distorted but easily understood, politically motivated, misinformation aimed at creating a political result. Understanding how medicine will be rationed under a new, government controlled system is very difficult. It is very easy to understand the image created by the words, “death panel.” Understanding all the things that contribute to rising costs of healthcare is a monumental task. It is pretty easy to understand the image of “fat cat insurance executives” and of seeing only those nasty “rich” people have to pay additional taxes to pay for “healthcare reform.”
As I said in my previous post, about half the politicians want more control over your life and they propose to have it by controlling your health care. The other half want to see the first half fail in order to regain power they have lost. I fear that those who want the political power (and seek it through the tool of healthcare reform) have already won half the battle. They have the entire nation agreeing with the assumption that this is our most pressing national issue. It is not even close.
Maybe this issue is one of the top five if you believe that healthcare reform similar to the House Bill will take many of your freedoms. Many of us think that our freedom of choice and our freedom of action (or inaction) will be greatly reduced by what we see in the Bill. For that reason, the Politics of Healthcare Reform may be one of the most important issues of the day. But, healthcare itself is not that important.
I recently participated in a discussion on the Liberal Oregon Blog, Blue Oregon, regarding a Harper’s article that stated,”Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10.” The purpose of the blog post was, I assume, to point out that our healthcare system is driving people to bankruptcy and we need to pass ‘heathcare reform’ now.
Reading the back and forth, I was impressed how the comments were primarily of the “i’m right and you are wrong” variety. There seems to me to be little interest in taking this opportunity to debate and work toward solutions. It seems to me to be all about the power to control your life and mine. I don’t think that is what our Founding Fathers signed up for.
Below is the last response I made in the discussion:
“In my humble opinion, Democrats want the government to take over the health insurance industry to gain power and Republicans want to derail anything Mr. Obama does in Healthcare because they want some of the power back that they lost to him.
There is, in fact, an opportunity here to improve our system of healthcare. We can make it more cost effective. We can make it more responsive to more people. We can retain its world-class innovation. The way to do this, however, is not by demonizing the Insurance Industry or by scaring seniors with talk of death panels.
If Health Insurers could compete without government interference, our costs would all be lower. Government mandates, HIPA laws, and liberal litigation law have a major impact on the cost of health insurance. Since every proposal I have seen from the House or Senate takes those as a given, I am convinced that our Political Leaders have no intent to solve any problems with our healthcare system. No matter what stripe they wear, this is about the power it represents.
I would love to see a Harpers article that laid out the real opportunities to make our system better rather than seeing them just repeat junk science to support their objective. Wouldn’t it also be nice if Blue Oregon readers were Liberal (read “open minded”) and would discuss the issues with a light to discover solutions rather than to maintain their position of power.”
Feel free to look at Blue Oregon if you want to see how activist Liberals think and how they protect their turf from any ideas not of their own creation/brand.
Mr. Obama’s words in normal text - interpretation in italics
“We can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care,” (If we don’t get this done quickly, people will have time to see what this legislation will actually do, as opposed to what we are telling them it will do, and it will never stand a chance of passage.) Obama said after meeting with doctors, nurses and other health care workers at Children’s National Medical Center. “Not this time. Not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake.” (My job is at stake. The lobbiests for the Pharmaceutical Companies who gave $ to my campaign will lose their jobs. The lobbiests for the Health Insurance Companies who gave $ to my campaign will lose their jobs. The Union bosses who gave $ to my campaign will lose their jobs.)
“I can’t cover another 47 million people for free. I can’t do that. We’re going to have to find money from somewhere (that would be from taxes, Mr. President, or, do you plan on robbing banks? Oops, already did that, didn’t you?).” (Doesn’t the 47 Million number include somewhere between 10 and 20 million illegal aliens? Does that mean we get to pay for the healthcare needs of illegal aliens with our taxes? Even if the Senate Democrats had not defeated the Republican amendment that would forbid paying for insurance for illegals, it won’t be an issue after all current illegals are given amnesty in the next big legislative push that we will see.)
“I think that we’re going to have to have some system (government controlled, of course) where people can buy into (pay more taxes to be part of) a larger pool. Right now their pool typically is the employer, but there are other ways of doing it. I would like to — I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately (as much as I want that to happen). There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where we’ve got a much more portable system. Employers still have the option of providing coverage, but many people may find that they get better coverage, or at least coverage that gives them more for health care dollars than they spend outside of their employer. And I think we’ve got to facilitate that and let individuals make that choice to transition out of employer coverage (like for example, we could make it almost impossible with the restrictions we impose on them, for employers to keep their grandfathered plans).”
“So we’re going to have to put some money in on the front (we will run a deficit for the first many years, at least). I think that we can by making the system more efficient, get a lot of money out of the system and use that to help subsidize workers who have it and to improve the efficiency of the system. I haven’t yet made a decision in terms of how much additional money is going to be needed to meet my goal of ensuring that universal health care exists in this country within six years. I can tell you that I will do whatever it takes (any amount of money since it is just taxpayer money), because I think over the long-term it’s good for families (at least for my family and Joe Biden’s), it’s good for business, it’s good for the country. So I have not foreclosed the possibility that we might need additional revenue (I won’t confirm the need for increased taxes until after my plan is signed into law) in order to achieve my goal, but I think we shouldn’t underestimate the amount of money that can be saved in the existing system.”
Ask your Member of Congress and your Senators the 20 Questions, then ask yourself the following:
Which is more important to those who push for massive healthcare reform in the form of a government controlled industry, the reform or the increase in the size of the government?
Why was it urgent to legislate before the start of the Congressional August Recess?
Is it possible that unlimited tort law pertaining to medical issues has led to higher Medical Care Costs? If so, why are these things not addressed in current proposed legislation? Could it have something to do with trial lawyers and the power of their lobby with the majority in Congress?
Is it possible that all the government mandated coverage (that must be in any healthcare insurance plan) could have increased the cost of healthcare insurance? Is it possible that a more free market medical insurance would save most Americans considerable money on their health insurance?
Do you think a Government run Healthcare System will be run as efficiently as Prohibition or the War on Poverty or the War on Drugs?
Does it make sense to actually study the problem before just turning it over to bureaucrats in Washington? I do.
Two of my favorite blogs are Asymmetric and Skalduggery. The two posts below are well worth your time:
Of Virtue and Liberty at Skalduggery is a very nice presentation of the concept of Liberty and the Virtues requisite for it to thrive.
When Protesting was Cool and Why Conservative Protesting is More Serious is a great example of just how hypocritical the folks on the left (like Nancy Pelosi) are.
Over the past couple of months, I have spent much time considering the current debate on reforming healthcare in America. In my post, “Healthcare – Define the Problem,” I stated what I considered to be the key problems. A few days later in “Reform, Yes – Government Program, No” I said that I would suggest some solutions in a later post. This is that post.
First, you need to know that I think the “healthcare crisis” in America is one created by politicians as a tool to grab more power over a huge sector of our economy. That doesn’t mean that I think our system is perfect, that it can’t be improved. It does mean I think that what we are reading today in much of the press is simply manipulating public opinion. As mentioned before at this blog, I believe that if a lie is told often enough, eventually people accept it as truth. Today there is barely a ripple of disbelief when a politician says that 50 million Americans are without healthcare. It is blatantly false but has been said so often that we believe it.
Solutions? If we agree that defining the problem gets us halfway to the solution, then I would concentrate my efforts to solve the “crisis” on things that address the key problems that were stated in “Healthcare – Define the Problem,” namely, the cost and uneven delivery of medical treatment, and, the lack of focus on prevention. In my view, solutions should be oriented towards incentives, not mandates. Government mandates (think Prohibition or War on Drugs or War on Poverty) have a history of complete failure. Incentives work (think the $1,000,000 to fly a heavier than air craft, or, the pay scale that helps convince people to study for 9 years in college to become doctors).
Let us start with prevention. I am not like the President. I don’t want to make the insurance industry into the villain. I don’t want to demonize the Republicans or the CBO. In fact, I think the insurance industry can be a big part of the solution. If our government will get out of the way and the States will remove the mandates, I think the insurance industry could come up with a menu of options from which to choose the insurance we want. It would then be priced based on what you want, not what you are required by your government to buy. In the area of prevention, I think that insurance would be cheaper for people who are not obese or who don’t smoke, or who have regular annual checkups with sufficient lab work to find and prevent major problems. I know that this sounds a bit simple. Just think what would happen if someone knew that they could pay $50 per month more and have a smoking cessation program included in their health insurance. Once they have completed the program, they stop paying for a smoking cessation program, and they get a preferred policy that saves them 10% on their total package. I think a fair number would give it a try. Similarly, I think that reduced premiums would cause a fair number of people to have annual checkups and to watch their weight. This is not a cure-all to our lack of focus on prevention, but it is a start and one that gives people incentives to make wise choices rather than having Big Brother mandate what you do.
Next is cost. This is the good-news/bad-news part of the debate. The bad news is that healthcare costs are high, health insurance is expensive, and prescription drugs are very expensive. The good news is that this presents us with an almost unlimited number of opportunities to cut costs.
We could start with national recognition that Medicine should not be a substitute for a trip to Las Vegas or the lottery. By that I mean that no matter how bad it is, there should be a limit on how much could be awarded for pain and suffering in a judgment in a medical malpractice lawsuit. All the money in the world will not bring back the past. Insurance and lawsuits should aim to mitigate the problem, not be a substitute for winning the lottery. If insurance companies did not have to plan for huge pain and suffering awards, insurance would be cheaper, as would the rates the Doctors must charge to cover their insurance bills. Many, if not most, Doctors today practice “preventive medicine” where priority number one is to protect themselves from lawsuits. If they were not doing this, they could practice more effective and lower cost medicine.
Costs for medical care insurance are also driven higher by State mandates for coverage of an ever growing number of conditions. Having seen what happens when a State legislature mandates coverage of, for example, prenatal care, every lobbiest for every small group is working to have their group’s problem become a mandated coverage. Think how much of the cost of your healthcare insurance goes to pay for such things as: Accupuncture Treatment, Chiropractic Care, Transexual Hormone Therapy, Breast Cancer Screening, Diabetes Screening, etc. All those may be valid medical treatments but why should everyone have to pay for them?
Will you spend more or less money on what you buy when you know what it will cost you? If, each week when you went to the grocery store you had a limit of $50 to spend, would you not carefully choose the products that most fit your needs and your budget? Would you not skip some things that would be nice to have and concentrate on the things you needed to prepare wholesome meals? On the other hand, if you don’t have a budget and don’t know the prices of the products in the store, is it likely you will buy things you don’t need and pay too much for many items? You will probably even stock up on things you know you don’t need. When all services are provided by your Medical Plan and the cost is the same whether you use them or not, you will use more services. That is what the new Healthcare Plan is setting up. How is it possible this will reduce costs? I think we would reduce costs if each person who wanted healthcare insurance had a menu of services with costs to provide them. I also believe that if you had the opportunity to insure the risks you cannot afford and are reasonably likely to happen that you would buy that coverage. It is not unlike a policy for an automobile. You have the choice so when your car gets up in years, you probably would not spend the money on collision insurance.
I would like the insurance companies to price what they sell based on its cost not on some government mandate. Price controls (which is what the mandates in effect are) have never worked. The usual result is a shortage of whatever is controlled. One of the key reasons that healthcare insurance is so expensive (that there is a shortage) is that government has mandated costly coverage that few people want or need. I think the insurance companies would be smart to offer a portability option. They make a bit more money each month and the owner of the policy has the assurance that they will continue to have the insurance even if they lose their job or move from the area. Last, I think they would also sell a ton of “catastrophic coverage” policies. If they could do that (without all the frills mandated by the states) I think most people would choose that plus other coverage that they feel fits their needs and budget.
So, in a nutshell, I think we need to eliminate government mandates on the insurance companies – let the market tell them what to offer. I think we need an incentive-based preventive medicine component. We also need to limit the awards (payoffs against bets) in the medical malpractice lawsuits.
It wouldn’t hurt for us to look at Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic or Grand Junction, Colorado to learn what they are doing. All are successful at keeping people well, containing costs, and have a reputation for quality of care, in spite of dealing with government control and regulation in the form of care mandates. Does that sound like the V.A. Hospital System?
We still have the many of the most skilled Doctors and Nurses and the most innovative medical industry in the world. Getting government out of it makes much more sense to me than the current suggestions we see coming from Congress and the President.
I recommend that the Republicans (and Blue Dog Democrats and Democrats who are members of the Progressive Caucus) propose and support a compromise on Healthcare Reform.
Here is the compromise: Mr. Obama and The Democrats in the House and the Senate get to write the healthcare bill. They can put in anything that they will support so they can pass it. The Republicans will have no input except for one clause: “The referenced Act shall become law upon the signature of the President of the United States (on or before October 1, 2009) and will be in effect until two calendar years after the date of signing, expiring no later than October 1, 2011.”
That gives the Democrats 2 full years to show the American People that they were right all along. Hopefully it will allow enough people to experience dealing with the plan to let the public decide if they like the plan or not. If the public is outraged in just one year, they will let the Democrats in Congress know in the election in November, 2010. If the public is really upset, the election in November of 2012 will be the first chance to tell both the President and the Congress what they think.
Hopefully, a two year experiment will not be long enough to make it impossible to return to a private system.
What do you think?
20 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES ON THE SUBJECT OF HEALTHCARE REFORM:
1. The President is telling us that his health plan will not increase the deficit, it will save each of us money and we won’t pay more in taxes to fund his plan. The CBO says it will cost us more than $2 Trillion dollars over the next 10 years, it will add over a trillion dollars to our deficit, and, it will require additional funding (taxes) to pay for it. Who is right?
2. Will you promise to read the entire healthcare reform bill in its final form before voting on it?
3. Will you support a sunset provision for the Healthcare bill that will repeal the legislation if any of the promises offered in its defense turns out to be untrue? For example, if taxes need to be raised to fund the legislation, would you agree to a provision that would repeal the law?
4. Do you believe that 50,000,000 Americans are without any form of helathcare insurance or coverage?
5. Do you believe that undocumented Aliens should be afforded the same healthcare insurance/coverage that American citizens will receive under the current House/Senate Bill?
6. Do you believe that there should be a limit to the amount of money that could be awarded in a medical malpractice lawsuit?
7. Do you believe that a government agency can provide better healthcare service for less money than can a private medical insurance plan?
8. Will there be any guarantee that I will be able to keep the plan I have and the doctor I have under the Plan now in the House/Senate?
9. Will the law require Members of Congress and federal employees to be enrolled in the “government option/public plan?
10. Will seniors be denied joint replacements, stents, and the chemotherapy they need because actuaries have determined there is too small a benefit to society for the large cost for the aged individual?
11. If seniors will be allowed the expensive but most effective treatments, how will costs be controlled?
12. Will patients have to wait longer for their treatments than they do now?
13. Will doctors see their payment schedules drop?
14. If their payments fall and they make less money, won’t there be fewer doctors practicing medicine?
15. Doesn’t Canada have long lines for important surgeries?
16. How will making our system more like Canada’s not mean longer lines and longer waits here?
17. Have you read the bill well enough to be interviewed about it on the radio by a conservative talk show host?
18. What makes this a crisis that requires Congress to act so fast?
19. Why is it that Liberals get offended when someone discusses restricting their “right to choose” to abort a child but they have no understanding of why Conservatives don’t want their right to choose health care providers restricted?
20. Would you be willing to write healthcare reform legislation that would sunset in two years?
As our government manipulates more of our lives, we lose the advantages that have made us a great nation. My view is that the great power of Capitalism and a free society have helped make our nation the strongest force for good in our world. Almost from our start as a nation, though, we have regulated and manipulated markets to make things “fair” for more people. I think this manipulation has made puppets of all of us and it is our own government that is pulling the strings.
If you have not seen the interview of Peter Schiff on “Morning Joe” on Thursday, August 6th, please take the 9 minutes needed to watch it. Schiff has put in a very short period of time most of the thoughts I have tried to express over the past 10 months on this blog, namely:
Capitalism works but not when it is controlled by Government intervention, regulation, and manipulation for ’social purposes’.
Saying we have “deregulated” business doesn’t mean we have done so. It usually means the opposite.
We can’t long survive as a “service economy.” At some point, we need to make things again. We need to be a productive economy.
We can’t, as a nation, borrow money short term and then use it to buy things from the people who lent us the money (China, India, etc.). That is doing what we accused irresponsible homebuyers of doing which precipitated the housing market decline. At some point, the Chinese and others will stop lending money to us. At that point the dollar will lose most of its value and we will see inflation unlike anything we have seen in the past.
The healthcare debate is just a microcosm of our entire economic meltdown. People on one side say that Capitalism has failed and that our healthcare system is in need of reform because of greedy capitalists (today’s target is “insurance companies”). The other side in the debate shows that if government got out of healthcare and stopped mandating things that most people don’t want or need, it would work much better than it does now. Our healthcare system is not perfect and we could do a lot of things to make it better, but, regardless of all you read from the “progressive press,” in my opinion it is still the best in the world. It is responsible for more breakthroughs in health and wellness than any other system, but, it is being slowly bludgeoned to death by unrelenting government interference.
The desire of those in Government to make things “fair” has led to more bad legislation, more interference in markets, and created more waste than any other factor, in my opinion. I think it would be interesting to change the Healthcare Debate. I wonder what would happen if we framed the debate like this:
Too many people are unable to afford healthcare insurance and therefore many people in our country are not covered by insurance. The government has mandated too many medical procedures/costs be covered by any healthcare insurance policy thus driving up the cost of all healthcare insurance. The Unions have bargained for bigger and better and more expensive medical plans with tons of things most folks don’t need. We have too many non-citizens using our emergency rooms and driving up the costs to run hospitals. What we need is a uniform package of minimal health services that is open to bidding to all insurance companies. Like most purchasing departments of most big organizations, the process would start with a request for proposals. Insurance companies would offer to large employers packages that would include all urgent care services (with reasonable co-pay), annual checkups and lab work, and a catastrophic illness coverage with a cap on cost to the individual. The competition for this would have the insurance companies, the healthcare providers, and the actuaries crunching numbers and eventually coming up with programs that would make the system affordable for the vast majority of all companies and individuals. They could even offer a portability rider that would allow the insured to take the plan with them if they changed jobs, etc. People would again be covered by healthcare insurance that was affordable to their employers and to themselves. Medical Care providers would be paid based on the value of their services, not based on arbitrary numbers assigned by government bureaucrats.
No posts this weekend. Have friends visiting. In the meantime, run over to The Skald for two very good recent posts. The one with John Conryn’s Letter to the President is a must read.
Back with more on healthcare and Two presidents for the Price of One (Mr. Obama as campaigner and as President), next week.
Latest comments: