Health Care Deceit
The current health care "debate" shows how far gone representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not the people who vote for them.
The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting and increasing the profits of the insurance companies. The main feature of the health care bill is the "individual mandate," which requires everyone in America to buy health insurance. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a recipient of millions in contributions over his career from the insurance industry, proposes to impose up to a $3,800 fine on Americans who fail to purchase health insurance.
The determination of "our" elected representatives to serve the insurance industry is so compelling that Congress is incapable of recognizing the absurdity of these proposals.
The reason there is a health care crisis in the U.S. is that the cumulative loss of jobs and benefits has swollen the uninsured to approximately 50 million Americans. They cannot afford health insurance any more than employers can afford to provide it.
It is absurd to mandate that people purchase what they cannot afford and to fine them for failing to do so. A person who cannot pay a health insurance premium cannot pay the fine.
These proposals are like solving the homeless problem by requiring the homeless to purchase a house.
In his speech, Obama said "we'll provide tax credits" for "those individuals and small businesses who still can't afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange," and he said low-cost coverage will be offered to those with pre-existing medical conditions. A tax credit is useless to those without income unless the credit is refundable, and subsidized coverage doesn't do much for those millions of Americans with no jobs.
Baucus masquerades as a defender of the health impaired with his proposal to require insurers to provide coverage to all comers, as if the problem of health care can be reduced to pre-existing conditions and cancelled policies. It was left to Rep. Dennis Kucinich to point out that the health care bill ponies up 30 million more customers for the private insurance companies.
The private sector is no longer the answer because the income levels of the vast majority of Americans are insufficient to bear the cost of health insurance today. To provide some perspective, the monthly premium for a 60-year-old female for a group policy (employer-provided) with Blue Cross Blue Shield in Florida is about $1,200. That comes to $14,400 per year. Only employees in high-productivity jobs that can provide both a livable salary and health care can expect to have employer-provided coverage.
If a 60-year-old female has to buy a non-group policy as an individual, the premium would be even higher. How, for example, is a Wal-Mart shelf-stocker or checkout clerk going to be able to pay a private insurance premium?
Even the present public option—Medicare—is very expensive to those covered. Basic Medicare is insufficient coverage. Part B has been added, for which about $100 per month is deducted from the covered person's Social Security check. If the person is still earning or has other retirement income, an "income-related monthly adjustment" is also deducted as part of the Part B premium. And if the person is still working, his earnings are subject to the 2.9 percent Medicare tax.
Even with Part B, Medicare coverage is still insufficient except for the healthy. For many people, additional coverage from private supplementary policies, such as the ones sold by AARP, is necessary. These premiums can be as much as $277 per month. Deductibles remain, and prescriptions are only 50 percent covered. If the drug prescription policy is chosen, the premium is higher.
This leaves a retired person on Medicare who has no other retirement income of significance paying as much as $4,500 per year in premiums in order to create coverage under Medicare that still leaves half of his prescription medicines out-of-pocket. Considering the cost of some prescription medicines, a Medicare-covered person with Part B and a supplementary policy can still face bankruptcy.
Therefore, everyone should take note that a "public option" can leave people with large out-of-pocket costs. I know a professional who has chosen to continue working beyond retirement age. His Medicare coverage with supplemental coverage, Medicare tax and income-related monthly adjustment comes to $16,400 per year. Those people who want to deny Medicare to the rich will cost the system a lot of money.
What the U.S. needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that pays doctors and nurses sufficiently that they will undertake the arduous training and accept the stress and risks of dealing with illness and diseases.
A private health care system worked in the days before expensive medical technology, malpractice suits, high costs of bureaucracy associated with third-party payers, heavy investment in combating fraud and pressure on insurance companies from Wall Street to improve "shareholder returns."
Despite the rise in premiums, payments to health care providers, such as doctors, appear to be falling along with coverage to policyholders. The system is no longer functional and no longer makes sense. Health care has become an incidental rather than primary purpose of the health care system. Health care plays second fiddle to insurance company profits and salaries to bureaucrats engaged in fraud prevention and discovery. There is no point in denying coverage to one-sixth of the population in the name of saving a nonexistent private free market health care system.
The only way to reduce the cost of health care is to take the profit and paperwork out of health care.
Nothing humans design will be perfect. However, Congress is making it clear to the public that the wrong issues are front and center, such as the belief of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., and others that illegal aliens and abortions will be covered if government pays the bill.
Debate focuses on subsidiary issues because Congress no longer writes the bills it passes. As Theodore Lowi made clear in his book "The End of Liberalism," the New Deal transferred lawmaking from the legislative to the executive branch. Executive branch agencies and departments write bills that they want and hand them off to sponsors in the House and Senate. Powerful interest groups took up the same practice.
The interest groups that finance political campaigns expect their bills to be sponsored and passed.
Thus, a health care reform bill based on forcing people to purchase private health insurance and fining them if they do not.
When bills become mired in ideological conflict, as has happened to the health care bill, something usually passes nevertheless. The president, his PR team and members of Congress want a health care bill on their resume and to be able to claim that they passed a health care bill, regardless of whether it provides any health care.
The cost of adding public expenditures for health care to a budget drowning in red ink from wars, bank bailouts and stimulus packages means that the most likely outcome of a health care bill will benefit insurance companies and use mandated private coverage to save public money by curtailing Medicare and Medicaid.
The public's interest is not considered to be the important determinant. The politicians have to please the insurance companies and reduce health care expenditures in order to save money for another decade or two of war in the Middle East.
The telltale part of Obama's speech was the applause in response to his pledge that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits." Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars.
The profits of military-security companies are partly recycled into campaign contributions. To cut war spending in order to finance a public health care system would cost politicians campaign contributions from both the insurance industry and the military-security industry.
Politicians are not going to allow that to happen.
It was the war in Afghanistan, not health care, that President Obama declared to be a "necessity."
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"Congress no longer writes the bills it passes." Excellent point. The real question for which no answers have been provided is: who wrote the present monstrosity? Who wrote the bills in the House and Senate which no one, including the President has read, and the denizens of the Evil Party defend, including the actual drafters, who merely inserted into the bill their favorite provision, regardless of the insertions of other drafters. Be good to know who the culprits are. The great additional question would be: who is the putatively beneficent "single payer?"
After the example of the bank bailouts, how any sane person can trust government to "fix" healthcare is beyond me.
It's becoming clear that single-payer is the least harmful of all the alternatives. If I hear another Republican hack congressman say anything about "death panels", "rationing", "taking away choices", or "free market solutions", I'm going to donate the maximum legal contribution to Dennis Kucinich.
This piece is truly fantastic. I would ask Mr. Roberts what he thinks of Dr. Fleming's brief but practical solution:
1. "break up the government regulated insurance monopolies
2 "set up Health Savings Accounts"
3. "provide low-cost basic treatment for the poorer classes"
"It’s becoming clear that single-payer is the least harmful of all the alternatives. If I hear another Republican hack congressman say anything about “death panels”, “rationing”, “taking away choices”, or “free market solutions”, I’m going to donate the maximum legal contribution to Dennis Kucinich."
Well, that will certainly show them, won't it?
Since you seem offended by the political euphemisms trotted out by the GOP, it may be helpful for you to examine your own euphemism: "single payer".
This euphemism is so transparently silly that only a socialist could fail to be offended by it. When I go to a doctor of any sort and pay for the services rendered out of my own pocket, with no help from anyone, that is a case of a single payer transaction.
When some poor vassal of the welfare state goes to a doctor and simply signs forms in order to receive medical care, every American taxpayer and property owner pays for it. Socialized medicine is the term you're trying to obfuscate with your silly euphemism, "single payer". How can it be said that there is a single payer when every productive member of society pays involuntarily for the medical services received by others?
"What the U.S. needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that pays doctors and nurses sufficiently that they will undertake the arduous training and accept the stress and risks of dealing with illness and diseases."
Have I misread this piece or has PCR gone crazy? "single-payer not-for-profit" means "federally run healthcare" system, does it not?
How can one constantly rail against the monetary policies of the Fed but then support what will become a MedFed?
Ed Roberts, who despite his belief that political work is futile, continues to make good points. Individuals should be responsible for our own healthcare purchases, the same way were are responsible for our own automobile and auto insurance purchases, or anything else we want or need. Food is more important than healthcare, should it be turned over as well?
If the government wants to do some good, break down barriers there. Enable employees to receive cash equivalents to employer-provided healthcare. Reform Medicare and create an opt-out for anyone who wants out of paying those taxes and receiving those benefits. Provide tort reform and remove barriers to purchasing healthcare across state lines.
Most of all, true government reforms shouldn't cost money; they should save money.
Roberts meets Cockburn. What has the federal leviathan ever done efficiently?
Government is the problem, not the solution.
Ed Roberts writes,
"Since you seem offended by the political euphemisms trotted out by the GOP, it may be helpful for you to examine your own euphemism: “single payer”."
This euphemism is so transparently silly that only a socialist could fail to be offended by it. When I go to a doctor of any sort and pay for the services rendered out of my own pocket, with no help from anyone, that is a case of a single payer transaction.
When some poor vassal of the welfare state goes to a doctor and simply signs forms in order to receive medical care, every American taxpayer and property owner pays for it. Socialized medicine is the term you’re trying to obfuscate with your silly euphemism, “single payer”. How can it be said that there is a single payer when every productive member of society pays involuntarily for the medical services received by others?"
Call it Luciferian, communist or even "silly euphemism" medicine if it makes you feel better. The fact is medical costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy. These aren't "welfare vassals" going bankrupt, it's primarily the middle class. We already have socialized medicine for vast chunks of the population as the government covers nearly half of all medical expenses.
We shouldn't decide health care policy around GOP talking points with no basis in reality and the present Baucus bill is not going to solve anything. When will we wake up? When health care takes up 25% of GDP?
The problem with this entire debate is that it always goes back to the health care "system", not health. Nobody addresses health. Americans are unhealthy, plain and simple. No legislation is going to do anything to improve this. It will only allow pharmaceutical companies to shove a bunch of useless pills down the throats of the 40 odd million uninsured people out there, and put more money in the hands of insurance companies, that's it!
If you want to reduce health care costs, you are better off ending farming subsidies which lead to an overproduction of GMO crops like corn which are processed into high-fructose corn syrup and shoved into virtually everything on American grocery store shelves. And then we think we are being compassionate by providing health insurance to the obese, diabetes and cancer-ridden teenagers and adults who grew up eating this "food".
Then we are brainwashed by our education system, the media, and doctors that tell us that the sun is bad for us. Ironically, recent research shows that 50% or more caucasians teenagers in the US are vitamin D deficient (biggest cause of cancer and degenerative illnesses) and the numbers get much higher for blacks and latinos. But not to fear, there is a magic pill to keep your rotting corpse alive to milk as much profit from it as possible. In fact there will soon probably be a "lack-of-sunlight" vaccination which will "save us all" and put another $50 billion into big pharmas pockets.
I have a great cost saving solution. UNinsure everyone in America and watch how quickly people have no choice but to return to sensible, healthy, active living, one focused on true prevention and health. In addition, medical costs would surely drop like a rock because no one would pay for them what they cost now.
What we have right now is a sick-care system, not a health-care system. Any legislation put forth will only dump more fuel on the fire on unhealthiness that is burning out of control across the country.
The current health care “debate” shows how far gone representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not the people who vote for them.
Absolutely correct and, as usual, PCR hits the nail on the head. If the government would stop starting and fighting wars halfway around the world there would be some money to invest in healthcare, in whatever form that might be. As it is we're out of money, but we do have some really nifty military hardware and we just keep manufacturing more and more of it. It's just about the only thing left we actually manufacture.
"Call it Luciferian, communist or even “silly euphemism” medicine if it makes you feel better. The fact is medical costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy"
I didn't mention communism, Lucifer, nor "silly euphemism" medicine. I pointed out your use of a silly euphemism which you use to obfuscate the real proposal you're advancing. Just come out and say that you want medical treatment to be controlled by government, if that is what you mean.
Your assertion that medical costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is baseless. What is the source for this sweeping claim?
If your proposed plan for government controlled medicine is imposed, we would all be welfare vassals when we tried to gain access to medical treatment. By your own admission, medical treatment in the US is already almost totally controlled by government already. If this almost total control is producing the dismal result we have now, what makes you think that making government control absolute would help anything?
It's far more likely that meddling by politicians and bureaucrats has caused all of the problems with the medical industry in this country. Handing more control to politicians and bureaucrats hardly seems like a good idea in light of the current mess.
Tell us all how your idea for government controlled medicine would work.
We all get caught up in "the tyranny of words." Debate is nearly always engaged using the vocabulary of our adversaries. It is precisely that the Washington gang has involved itself in the matter of "health care," an area in which it has no competence whatsoever,nor any constitutional authority to act. Thus any action is, by definition, a usurpation. In fact, as we know, health care is hardly the issue at all. It is finally control. The Congress itself is subject to the iron law of bureaucracy---"we can do so much good if only we had more staff and funds." The gang sees that this law can be employed to usurp more functions that should be the responsibility of individuals, the municipalities, or the states. And it can be deployed to insure the continuing tenure by members of the gang, who can control the delivery of benefits to favored classes.
It would also be interesting if Dr. Roberts provided the identity of his "single payer" and how that payer might be guided in distributing largess.
Ed Roberts,
I simply said "single payer" or government controlled health care was the "least harmful" of all the alternatives. I didn't intend to debate semantics or use a euphemism; we both know what Paul Craig Roberts is denoting when he uses the term "single payer."
You write: "Your assertion that medical costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is baseless. What is the source for this sweeping claim?"
It's from a 2005 Harvard University study that was published in Health Affairs. You can look it up on a search engine. It is not baseless or I would not have written it. I am not a propagandist nor am I a liar. Here's a sample what it found:
"February 3, 2005
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most."
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html#ixzz0RQ2gx6S9
"If your proposed plan for government controlled medicine is imposed, we would all be welfare vassals when we tried to gain access to medical treatment. By your own admission, medical treatment in the US is already almost totally controlled by government already. If this almost total control is producing the dismal result we have now, what makes you think that making government control absolute would help anything?"
We have the worst possible arrangement: a hybrid private insurance/government health care system. That is why you are taxed to pay for "welfare vassals" and those who cannot afford medicine, while also being forced to pay for your own health care costs because you aren't a pauper. I am not claiming it's a nirvana, merely the least harmful of all the alternatives.
"It’s far more likely that meddling by politicians and bureaucrats has caused all of the problems with the medical industry in this country. Handing more control to politicians and bureaucrats hardly seems like a good idea in light of the current mess."
Insurance companies and newer more expensive technology has nothing to do with it right? Now this is a baseless claim.
"Tell us all how your idea for government controlled medicine would work."
Look to Cananda my friend. Hell, even Mexico is on its way to insuring everyone.
This is yet another horrendous article by PCR. First of all, the number of uninsured is 12 million not 50 million. Americans are happy with the services they receive and nationalizing the whole industry is about expanding socialism and not resolving anything else. Yes the system could be improved but not the way that is proposed
"The only way to reduce the cost of health care is to take the profit and paperwork out of health care." This is the kind of statement that is not only absurd but also illogical if you follow PCRs other musings about capitalism. So if this is true in general, perhaps PCR should forego profit (or grants) that he receives so that he may continue writing in order to be more efficient! Does that make sense? A restaurant that sells hamburgers at the price they pay for the meat, will not be able to provide for the owner's car payments, mortgage payments, his childrens college etc. etc. This is why everything has to have profit in it, There are no exceptions! Only Marxists would claim otherwise.
"A private health care system worked in the days before expensive medical technology, malpractice suits" again, abusrd. How can someone make such ridiculous inferences? So the government in fact can pay off the lawsuits and provide better health care, but that means that we are. In fact we are paying more than before because now none is asking us how much we want to spend. So how is that good??
"most likely outcome of a health care bill will benefit insurance companies and use mandated private coverage to save public money by curtailing Medicare and Medicaid." again this so patently absurd. How are insurance companies gonna benefit when they are driven out of business by the government!? And the statement about curtailing Medicare and Medicaid, I cannot even begin to imagine what that is supposed to mean.
"Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars." Again absurd. PCR must be on another planet. Obama is cutting military expenditures while the 2 trillion a year gift to political activists that will assure his permanent grip on power is the real scandal, that dwarfs whatever the excesses of militarism ever were.
And then this whole notion that the evil insurance companies are gonna make more money! I have heard someone expounding on it on an Air America type channel in Los Angeles. So PCR is right there with the Marxists! Obama is really the candidate of the big business! So we are supposed to shut up, be apathetic since there is nothing we can do. This is classic manuevering by the Democrats that they have used ever since I remember and PCR is nothing more than their shill.
"I simply said “single payer” or government controlled health care was the “least harmful” of all the alternatives. I didn’t intend to debate semantics or use a euphemism; we both know what Paul Craig Roberts is denoting when he uses the term “single payer.”"
Yes, I read what you wrote and I responded. So, your use of a euphemism and your subsequent attempt to debate semantics by dragging into play euphemisms I hadn't mentioned was accidental. That's helpful.
A Harvard commissioned study referenced in a magazine article isn't a sound basis for your pronouncement on bankruptcies. Note that the article claims that "illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work — losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.”"
This is a strange claim to make, that an employee loses his insurance coverage for becoming ill enough to be out of work. I've never had job-based health insurance coverage cancelled when I had to miss work due to illness, have you?
"We have the worst possible arrangement: a hybrid private insurance/government health care system. "
I don't agree. Total government control of access to medical treatment is a possible arrangement which would be even worse than the current mess we face. You're stating an opinion, and I'm offering my own.
"Insurance companies and newer more expensive technology has nothing to do with it right? Now this is a baseless claim. "
Insurance companies are privileged by legislation passed by politicians and by regulations imposed on medical providers by bureaucrats. Insurance companies lobby for more legislation routinely. As to the expensive new medical technologies, are they more expensive than the layers of bureaucracy which currently impair the medical industry? I don't think so.
Without the crippling cost of compliance with laws and bureacratic mandates, medical care was once much less expensive. These costs make insurance necessary.
"Look to Cananda my friend. Hell, even Mexico is on its way to insuring everyone."
Well, I don't "look to Canada" for much of anything, but I have looked at their dreary government controlled medical "industry". It's pretty inadequate, from what I've been told by Canadians. A friend of mine in Calgary was conversing with me by email one night and said that he was responding slowly in our discussion of a coin deal because his thumb was bleeding badly from a cut. I said that he should go to an emergency room for stitches and he replied that he would have to wait until after 8 am the following morning because the emergency rooms closed at 5 pm every afternoon.
There being no option of calling on a doctor to provide treatment for payment, he was having to simply do without until the government provided emergency room opened the next morning.
Since your opinion is that socialized medicine is the least harmful alternative, I'm assuming that you haven't considered repeal of all federal law and regulation on medical treatment providers as an alternative. Before we had all the legislation and regulation, medical treatment was much more accessible, according to what I've read and what I remember being told by my parents.
I was born in a Catholic hospital in 1952 and my father paid the hospital bill himself in cash. He wasn't particularly well off, just a radio engineer for a small local AM station. I doubt that more government intrusion is the cure for the ills visited on us by
past government intrusion. Your opinion may differ.
Also, I never called you a liar or a propagandist. That would have been discourteous of me.
re #15:
Mr. Bailey, I agree with you on many of your points. The medical industry would be much stronger and more advanced, and treatment would be much more affordable and accessible without government attempts to eliminate profits in the industry.
I don't agree with Dr. Roberts' conclusions in this article, but I would point out that he's usually more likely to be a shill for the GOP than for the dems. I view the GOP as the original socialist party in the US and the dems as a johnny-come-lately imitator. There's little discernible difference between the two parties now, though.
@ Ed Roberts
"Well, I don’t “look to Canada” for much of anything, but I have looked at their dreary government controlled medical “industry”. It’s pretty inadequate, from what I’ve been told by Canadians. A friend of mine in Calgary was conversing with me by email one night and said that he was responding slowly in our discussion of a coin deal because his thumb was bleeding badly from a cut. I said that he should go to an emergency room for stitches and he replied that he would have to wait until after 8 am the following morning because the emergency rooms closed at 5 pm every afternoon."
I have worked in the Canadian, British, and US health care systems, and I would say that your friend is lying, or being sarcastic. Calgary is a wealthy city and has great facilities. If your friend went to the emergency room, they would see how severe his problem put him on a priority list (ie. behind car accident victims wheeled in unconscious). In addition he has the option to go to many 24 hour medical clinics who most likely have someone on staff who could give stitches for minor lacerations.
The problem at the emergency room is that he might have to wait until 8am because 500 ignorant people before him are there for a bad case of the sniffles. Don't underestimate how soft people have become. When I was young and was running a fever of 105, my mother would run an ice bath and toss my butt in it. If the fever didn't break after several baths like this, then she might consider taking me to the family doctor the next day. She wouldn't even dream of bringing me to the emergency room for a fever.
Canadian hospitals are very short staffed, but this is not necessarily a natural market phenomenon. Every year hospital administrators, in an attempt to get more money from their provincial governments, spend well past their budget and create a situation in which many people complain about lack of service. The most common thing I have heard in Canadian hospitals is "If you don't like it, go talk to your MP! (member of parliament)" as if this is the problem. Hospital administrators get fat bonuses for poor performance, just like insurance company and banking execs in the US.
One of the biggest problems in the US is that insurance companies pay for procedures, not time. Therefore, you only have 2 minutes to spend with your family doctor (if you have one at all) and doctors overprescribe tests and procedures because they can make more money on it instead of listening to their patients. Sitting down with you, listening to you , and telling you to get some vitamin C, excercise and rest is not an option anymore. So you end up with a lack of family physicians whose job it is to screen you BEFORE you go to a specialist and help guide you to optimal health. Without this, there are a ton of specialists who are all the more willing to cut you open and order every expensive, albeit useless, test in the book. It is good for business.
Each doctor I know lied in his interview for med school that he wanted to practice family medicine and serve the community, when he really wanted to be a specialist because he can make much more money. And believe me, just because they are doctors, it doesn't mean that they are not willing to cut you open for no reason at all. A surgeon sees the world at the end of the scalpel. Doctors used to walk through the snow for miles to comfort a sick and dying patient. Those days are long gone.
I have been in working in the health care system as a practitioner for some time now. I have not seen a doctor in over 10 years, because I know that no matter what, I will be waiting for 2 hours to seen him for 2 minutes (US and Canada alike) and he will have determined that I need some antibiotics, vaccinaitons, pain meds and a bunch of useless tests without actually have spent any time actually listening to what I have to say. What is the point.
People need to stop relying on a system for their health and start taking full responsibility. We live in the information age. Achieving good health (apart from getting hit by a bus) is not that complicated a thing. You just need to use your brain and a little intuition.
"I have worked in the Canadian, British, and US health care systems, and I would say that your friend is lying, or being sarcastic."
I doubt he was lying. I know him. I don't know you, so I'll assume you're lying. How does that sit with you? That's what you've just done with someone you don't know.
That is a poor way of beginning a response to someone, don't you agree? It might tend to make the person you're addressing decide not to read anything further in your response.
@19 Ed Roberts
How does that sit with me? I am not bothered, and if you read my entire response which I'm sure you did, you would realize I know a little more than the average person posting here.
People say all kinds of things with respect to health care in different countries that are not true (political knee-jerk BS). It has become even more dogmatic than the abortion issue. You can call me a liar, but instead of assuming anything, why don't you get on a plane to Calgary, Alberta, the province of no debt, swimming in oil revenue from the tar sands, and try find an emergency room that closes at 5 pm. Better yet, why don't you google the major hospitals with full service emergency rooms in Calgary, call them (very cheap) and ask the receptionist what time they close.
I may have repsonded to your initial post in an inappropriate way, but a little reality check is in order. Almost nobody in any country in the world is satisfied with their medical system. All three systems in the countries I have worked are failing, and the health of their populations are getting worse, but none as bad as the US. That is a fact. And sadly, because of that fact, and the fact that most Americans take no repsonsibility for their health, you and I will have to deal with any reforms Obama wishes to pass. You at least don't have to work in the system. I do, and I pray for the day that people wake up, take responsibility for their health, stop drinking soda and eating processed garbage, get some exercise, and stop being a bunch of babies, so we don't have to have these useless debates anymore.
All three systems in the countries I have worked are failing, and the health of their populations are getting worse, but none as bad as the US.
I believe you. I also believe that drug companies are grabbing more than their fair share from our problems. But people who compare the United States unfavorably to Canada, Australia, the U.K., Ireland or any Western European country often overlook one likely explanation. For all its muscle, the United States has from the very beginning had, sociologically, far more in common with Caribbean nations and with Brazil than its exponents would like to admit. And yes, this is deeply rooted in our demographic history. For 44 years now the sociological swing away from "Europe" and towards "South America" has become increasingly pronounced, and unless the steady march toward Banana Republicanism is halted, there is no hope for any successful reform of U.S. health care.
"exponents"--make that PROponents.
@20, Daniel, do not confuse facts with statistics. You obviously have a lot of experience within the medical industries of apparently three different countries, but that doesn't make you an expert in anything other than that. I think it is not possible to say with authority that almost no one in any country is satisfied with their healthcare. Perhaps where the systems are socialized and run from above, that is true. I have also not seen evidence that Americans are sicker than any other people. As the baby boom bulge ages, that may show up as us being sicker or as a failure of some system, but that would be misleading.
It is important to remember, while these debates descend into the undebatable anecdotal, that Obama and Co are approaching this thing strictly from a "macro" point of view. He has hired advisors from McKinsey & Co who have excellent access to information from "systems" all over the world.
I have sat in on a conference call from said company to hear their take on differences between our "system" and the "systems" of other countries. As a "system", we outspend these other countries as a relationship to our GDP by $500 billion. This is the real statistic ticking off the people who want to manage our lives.
Logically, it could be that the extra expense is from increased disease rates or would result in higher health results, but neither has been found to be true, at least according to the statistics provided. That indicates there is some inefficiency somewhere.
Initial results of their analysis was that our nation has an over-abundance of nurses, mostly staffing underused rural hospitals (an artificial result of an Eisenhower-era highway bill). Another is theorized that Americans spend their healthcare money for other concerns, like "quality of life". There are no silver bullets though, there were no glaring "80%" causes.
The point is, it is difficult for anyone of us, even experts within our fields, to make arguments based on our own experiences, as we usually have no idea how accurately these experiences represent the bigger reality.
We must argue on principle, not anecdote or experience, that any plan from the federal government, regardless of the details, will approach healthcare as a *system* and will destroy yet another area of our personal lives.
It is shocking to me that anyone with a decent understanding of the long-term effects of unelected officials running important national concerns (e.g., the Fed) could argue for a deeper involvement of this same government into healthcare. I see no need for comparison with any other country other than our own throughout history.
@23 R. McCabe
Believe me, I do not support government involvement in health care at all, but the fact that the US does not have a single payer system, does not mean that the federal government is not too involved already, or even possibly more so than other industrialized nations. I was just commenting that people posting who state that the Canadian system is a flat out failure and the US system is somehow superior because it is "private" sound just as ridiculous as Michael Moore who tries to paint the Canadian and British healthcare systems as some sort of utopia. Neither are telling the truth.
The thing I like about the US system is the fact that it is not a single payer system, because once one generation becomes "hooked" on that system, they can't imagine anything else and it is very difficult to change. The US still has a chance although that might not be the case very soon. But at the same time, I find it laughable that some people posting are concerned that insurance companies will be put out of business. To them I say not to worry, because they can be the next ones in line for a nice gov't bailout. Insurance companies are not going anywhere for a long time.
My comment about the health of Americans is not false though. I am not as concerned with the baby boomers. What scares the hell out of me is when I am treating kids. The rise in obesity and diabetes, and other degenerative illnesses (the kind we only saw in our grandparents) in young children in the US is frightening and there are plenty of statistics to back this up. Look at any pediatric medical journals.
In my opinion, and it is my opinion, if we continually have to pump obscene amouts of money into a system and people are getting more sick (this is happening in many countries), then perhaps it is not just the system that is severely flawed, perhaps it is the entire medical model that is flawed. The same model that forces kids to have an absurd amount of vaccinations right on up to highschool and pumps them with antibiotics every time they get a little ear ache. It is possible that medicine is actually making us sick, and more evidence is starting to suggest this.
The US system of government is mercantilist, with legislation-to-order for those able to pay. Pharmaceutical corporations have huge influence on the practice of medicine in more ways than what is readily discernible. Their influence on government legislation and regulation has not only allowed them to have their poisonous vaccines made mandatory, but by getting Congress to change regulations which prohibited direct public advertisement for their medications, they have gained a high level of influence on the mainstream media.
The sanctification of bribes from lobbyists to politicians is one very large source of our trouble with government. When bribery is made legal, as it has been in our system of government, then legislation and regulation are for sale, at wholesale prices, to corporations with the funds necessary to pay for the crafting of rules and laws.
Isn't it possible that insurance corporations are behind this latest push for socialized medicine, along with pharmaceutical corporations? Insurers would hardly be harmed by legislation which compelled citizens to purchase insurance. Nor would they be harmed by regulations which would require them to offer "coverage" for preexisting conditions, since that coverage would be wholly subsidized by federal funds.
@25 Ed Roberts who said...
"Isn’t it possible that insurance corporations are behind this latest push for socialized medicine, along with pharmaceutical corporations? Insurers would hardly be harmed by legislation which compelled citizens to purchase insurance. Nor would they be harmed by regulations which would require them to offer “coverage” for preexisting conditions, since that coverage would be wholly subsidized by federal funds."
I believe that you hit the nail on the head. This public option that everyone fears will still be administered by insurance companies using federal funds. Thus, if the 40 million uninsured is even remotely accurate, this means 40 million more customers for insurance companies and a situation in which it would be much easier for pharmaceutical companies to lobby for mandatory vaccinations, which has been coming for a long time.
OK. For a long time I have been defending PCR against the claim from more mainstream conservatives that he is or has become liberal, a claim they base on his opposition to the War, opposition to Bush, writing at CounterPunch, etc. These people are usually completely ignorant of PCR's background. But I am not sure I can any longer defend him. He seems to have either such an axe to grind against insurance companies and the system that he has embraced a policy counter to his conservative instincts just to spite them or he really has drifted to a populist leftist position.
Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the Feds to do ANYTHING regarding healthcare. Period. End of discussion. If you want health care reform at the Federal level then bother to amend the Constitution or shut up. The only things that I can think of that the Feds could constitutionally do re. health care is dismantle the unconstitutional programs that are already in place and change the patent laws re. pharmaceuticals. If anyone can think of anything else then I would like to hear it.
PCR is right on the money again! And to answer Red Phillips above, the Federal government ALREADY runs national healthcare. What do you think the FDA and Medicare and Medicaid and insurance regulation and liscensing boards, etc. ad infinitum are doing? Do you really think that we have a free system? Do you think that it is not completely manipulated from within the monster in DC?
We are ALREADY paying for single payer, we may as well face facts and streamline the bureaucracy, because the Republicans are not even faintly interested in getting the government out of health care. The best choice would be to legalize the practice of medicine by anybody without government oversight. Costs would plummet, but the AMA and the trial lawyers and the insurance companies and the HMOs will never allow that to happen.
So PCR is right - make it a single payer system.
And I am a staunch free-market libertarian. I just realize that there is no hope for a free-market health system.
I believe the point is to encourage an open and honest debate not simply a public relations stunt orchestrated by paid interests or a talk-radio type ideological shouting match. In such a forum, single payer should indeed be one of the possible solutions debated. Why not?
To those that deride socialist Canada, consider such other "backward" and "socialist" places such as Switzerland. (In case it wasn't clear, that was sarcasm...the Swiss enjoy some of the best government-provided health care in one of the freest societies in the world.)
There are a lot of considerations to be made and there should be real facts put forth. This I agree. But facts should be ranked in hierarchy of veracity. For instance, I might rank a publicly available Harvard peer-reviewed study higher than a single exchange over email in collecting the bases for factual argument.
The setting for such a debate should be one in which sober minds and cool tempers discuss the costs and benefits of a systemic overhaul.
I don't know what the best answer is, but I think I understand the preconditions necessary for arriving at one. And those conditions general don't involve public relations for interest groups or an ideologically-fuelled shouting match. We have plenty of the former in our legislatures and plenty of the latter in online forums and plenty of both in the so-called "town halls".
"PCR is right on the money again! And to answer Red Phillips above, the Federal government ALREADY runs national healthcare. What do you think the FDA and Medicare and Medicaid and insurance regulation and licensing boards, etc. ad infinitum are doing? Do you really think that we have a free system? Do you think that it is not completely manipulated from within the monster in DC?"
Of course we don't have a free system now. I didn't say we did. The FDA, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. that are already in place at the Federal level are also grossly unconstitutional. Call me naive, but I have this quaint idea that the Feds ought to actually follow and be bound by the Constitution they swear to uphold. Silly me.
Red,
I agree with you. But until we return to Constitutional government, it would be better to unite all the idiot government health programs into one.