Comments on: Echoes of Social Security Reform in the Health Care Debate

By: billwatson1

billwatson1 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:24:03 +0000

A common sense blunt fix for health care.

1. Set up a civilian, VA style, public health care system for delivering all government funded health care and medications free to everyone choosing to use it, no restrictions, rich, and poor, Medicare, Medicaid, etc everybody who wants public care has it free, all services, all medications, free period.
2. Pay for it with a national sales tax.
3. Let private insurers and care providers compete for everyone who wants private care, unfettered by government mandates, dictating who must be served, at what level, for what price, and totally unregulated but for safety.
4. Businesses that choose public care for their employees will have no financial obligations or any other responsibilities concerning health care.

(The Best Care Anywhere by Phillip Longman)http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html

Dispensing health care efficiently, and collecting the money to pay for it cheaply, that's the purpose of the exercise, and no one can compete with the government at these two tasks.

An OMB study of this dual solution for health care reform compared to any other would show annual savings of hundreds of billions of dollars.

This is the best that we can do!

By: seanmel

seanmel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:44:35 +0000

rustyreturns says: "I believe the concern is well founded that the only thing Obama is creating is the destruction of the private insurance business, and replacing it with a far inferior insurance program run by government "DMV"-type people who WILL dictate who you will see, when you can be seen and how much of a reimbursement the Physician will be given." Uh, that's exactly how an HMO, PPO, EPO, etc. work NOW. A series of byzantine rules enforced by distant beaurocrats determines what should be covered, and more importantly NOT covered, how much physicians will be paid, and which doctors and hospitals, procedures, and medications will or will not be covered.

By: Recomendados #8 | destruição criativa

Recomendados #8 | destruição criativa — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:40:39 +0000

By: thefoff

thefoff — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:20:46 +0000

Please explain to me like I'm a third grader how the "Party of Free Market Choice" opposes additional competition in the almost-empty market of health care options in America. We used to have choices. Then a few giant companies, with the help of their Republican protectors, bought all of the options, leaving America with, what?, like three health insurance companies. It seems that having additional choices in a managed market means that CONSUMERS (you know, the American people) win. But I imagine that health insurance companies who've managed to increase their profits by over 400% in the past ten years (I'm not making that number up) don't really want to lose their unCompetitive Advantage. After all, they have all of those members of Congress to buy off with the profits they're making. And the AMA actively limits the number of seats at medical schools to ensure that there is always a high demand for doctors--by ensuring that we never have enough. Yeah, I trust them to make a recommendation about health care.

By: stuartzechman

stuartzechman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:26:10 +0000

Yoshi:
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I was genuinely surprised to find nothing of factual substance in the article you linked
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In all honesty, could you be more specific?

By: omgamike

omgamike — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:04:44 +0000

To rustyreturns:
I will simply say that I am a 60 yr old disabled male. I receive both Medicare and Medicaid under a program designed, by the "government" to allow me to stay in my home, rather than in a nursing home. Government saves a whole lot of money by doing so. I have total freedom in selecting my doctors and hospitals, when needed. You cannot say with any degree of honesty, that these government run programs do not work. The only problem with them is that an individual has to wait up to a year or more to get on the program. Without the help from Medicare and Medicaid I would either be crippled in a nursing home, or dead.

By: yoshiattack

yoshiattack — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:58:25 +0000

Stuart, I was genuinely surprised to find nothing of factual substance in the article you linked.
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To be certain, progressive health care advocates also have well-tuned talking points and polling data at their disposal.
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Why tell us something we already know?

By: stuartzechman

stuartzechman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:43:17 +0000

Rustydog:
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Didn't you read what I mentioned previously?

By: rustyreturns

rustyreturns — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:08:48 +0000

One person's "talking point" is another persons rallying cry to stop the fools in Washington from making the biggest mistake since the bailouts and stimulus debacles. . It is purely big government interference into private industry stuart and you know it full well. It will also be a "government takeover" of our health care which was pointed out in Jay's posting above that over 70% of the American public HAS insurance. . That simply means the liberal progressive / socialist want the other 30% who are under or non-insured to dictate to the rest of our society exactly how their health-care will be handled. Handled by big brother Obama and sister Pelosi. I for one do not want to give them one more damn thing to F@ck the hell up as they have so far with the economy and the demise of GM and Chrysler.

By: jayackroyd

jayackroyd — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:55:55 +0000

SS is easily fixed. Drop the cap. If that's not enough, remove or reduce income tax loopholes. And cut defense spending in half. This gibberish is very tiresome.
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The gibberish that retaining a failed health care system is not just tiresome. It is actually damaging. A profit driven health care system does not permit effective delivery of services to best deliver good patient outcomes. It is particularly ineffective in providing preventative services that are by far the cheapest way to arrive at good health care outcomes. This is not debatable. The only issue at hand is how to overcome the institutional (read "corrupt") barriers preventing sound policy.
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There was some doubt about this in 1993. There is none now.