(Dr.) Charles Krauthammer has a rational plan — tort reform and severing the connection between employment and health insurance. Sounds good to me. Unfortunately for the fascists, it doesn’t provide an opening for the government to take over a major portion of the economy, and your health and well being. And of course, this is what, in their lies, they call “proposing to do nothing.”
22 thoughts on “True Health-Care Reform”
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Quite honestly, they would probably get away with it if all the proposed crap in that bill was voluntary, even if taxes funded it. It was be awful, but I bet you it would pass. But people get really upset when you tell them how they’re allowed to spend their own money and what sort of product they are allowed to buy.
If I want to spend half my income on my house, the government is there to help it happen. If I want to spend half my money on food, travel, or entertainment, they are thrilled! I’m stimulating the economy. But if I want to spend less than that on my own *health*, that’s bad?! Are they crazy??
Sorry, but health is sort of one of those top 5 items for me, oddly enough.
And you know what? I’ve been told before to take the pain pill and come back later, instead of meeting with me longer than 5 minutes and running a basic test. And I never went back to that doctor. That’s why I shell out the big bucks for a PPO. I’d rather have catastrophic coverage and pay everything else out of pocket, but since we’re tethered to our work plans, I’m offered the PPO, the choose-a-primary-doctor, or an HMO. So PPO it is.
I will never be trapped with one doctor and left to suffer.
But if I want to spend less than that on my own *health*, that’s bad?!
Says who? Nobody is going to stop you from spending your money.
What’s bad is people going without health care because they can’t afford decent coverage, or going bankrupt paying for needed care that insurance won’t cover.
I will never be trapped with one doctor and left to suffer.
Nothing in the proposed bills would trap you with one doctor.
Jim,
If the problem is people who can’t afford Healthcare, why all the reform and the public plan? Just raise the Medicaid threshold.
Yes, tort reform is the key. It’s the key to a lot of other things, too. For example, in the dim and distant future when private space travel becomes possible – it will be prevented by the sheer impossibility of insuring against the possible catastrophic accidents that may result from it. Note that I said “accident”; sometimes when something really bad happens it really isn’t anyone’s fault, and therefore nobody should have to pay for it. Certainly not in advance.
I don’t have any proof, but I don’t think that it is any sort of accident that the country with the biggest proportion of GDP devoted to healthcare is also the country with the greatest proportion of lawyers.
There is another issue related to healthcare; the total domination of the system by the companies that make drugs and medical supplies, greatly to the patients’ detriment. There has to be something wrong with a system that makes it possible for an “alternative” health clinic to be raided and shut down by FBI agents with submachine guns.
Note that in many cases complementary therapies are much cheaper (and often much more effective) than conventional ones – but complementary therapies don’t make telephone-number profits for Big Pharma, so they just HAVE to go.
but complementary therapies don’t make telephone-number
profitstaxes and campaign contributions for BigPharmagovernment, so they just HAVE to go.fixed
Brock, you can’t usurp power the Constitution doesn’t give you doing that.
As usual, there goes that damned Krauthammer, cutting through the BS, making sense, and proposing a viable solution. Solutions aren’t the answer, raw naked, Constitution eviscerating power is the answer.
Just ask the newest member of SCOTUS.
“What’s bad is people going without health care because they can’t afford decent coverage, or going bankrupt paying for needed care that insurance won’t cover.”
What is far worse is the President’s idea that the feds need to control the corrective to this problem.
Simplest of solutions: $5000 /yr voucher from federal gov’t into HSA for everyone. 3E8 x 5E3 = 1.5 trillion, or about 12% of the economy.
No gov’t bureaucracy required to administer health care. Only the bureaucracy required to administer the proper disbursement of the EFT into the HSA.
Why not support THAT, instead of ObamaCare?
What is far worse is the President’s idea that the feds need to control the corrective to this problem.
Who else has stepped forward to deal with it, besides Massachusetts?
Simplest of solutions: $5000 /yr voucher from federal gov’t into HSA for everyone. 3E8 x 5E3 = 1.5 trillion, or about 12% of the economy.
And if your care costs more than you have in your HSA?
Health care is not like consumer goods or retirement. Person A may need 100x as much health care spending as Person B. The alternatives are to either tell the unlucky Person A that it “sucks to be you”, or have insurance systems that spread the risk.
“The alternatives are to either tell the unlucky Person A that it “sucks to be you…”
Which, in time, is exactly what Obamacare will do.
Jim, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. My proposal doesn’t need to be perfect, and it IS good.
My proposal is vastly superior to anything the administration has on the table. My health INSURANCE at $5k/yr per person offers a pretty substantial amount of coverage.
If the actual billable expenses exceed the coverage available at $5k / yr, then there are plenty of options. Bankrupcy protection, for example — it’s not just for government owned automobile corporations any more.
There are also *gasp* social groups that can offer financial support to these unusual cases of catastrophic health expenses. Some of them are even called “churches” — though that might ruffle a few feathers of the rabidly secular statists. Not that such ruffling is a bad thing.
It is strange but in most of the world insurance is to cover risks that an individual can not cover themselves, in the USA it only covers risks that individuals can cover themselves, and so is effectively useless and just another (and particularly inefficient) form of tax – hence the reason so many people revolt. It is amazing that the US economy is so strong in other regards as to be able to sustain such inefficiency.
And as for tying health care to employment, well, that is like tying employment to unionism, or social welfare to church going. But without such ties unions and churches are greatly diminished (just look at other countries), hence the political payback vicious circle that is next to impossible to break. Unfortunately the USA does not have the constitutional fortitude of other countries to combat such vested interests.
Health care is not like consumer goods or retirement. Person A may need 100x as much health care spending as Person B. The alternatives are to either tell the unlucky Person A that it “sucks to be you”, or have insurance systems that spread the risk.
Actually that pretty much is like consumer goods and retirement. If I don’t play golf or are anywhere near retirement, I won’t spend anything like a retiree who golfs a lot. In other words, need and spending can easily be greater than two orders of magnitude in most good and services.
And everyone ends up in the “sucks to be you” part of health care sooner or later. We all will die after all. Even if I drown or electrocute myself, there are steps, costing considerable money, that could be taken before and after my accident to prolong my lifespan. More money means more extreme measures can be taken to safeguard my health. No system can throw unlimited resources at keeping me alive.
My proposal is vastly superior to anything the administration has on the table. My health INSURANCE at $5k/yr per person offers a pretty substantial amount of coverage.
No one will sell you individual insurance, for $5k/year or anything close to it, if you are a cancer victim, or a diabetic, or have heart disease or Downs syndrome, or any of a number of other conditions that are expensive to treat. Why would they?
Now you could regulate the insurance companies so that they have to offer coverage regardless of current or past medical conditions. Congratulations, you’ve just rediscovered a major piece of ObamaCare.
If the actual billable expenses exceed the coverage available at $5k / yr, then there are plenty of options. Bankrupcy protection, for example…
Each year there are 1.4 million new cancer cases in the U.S. — they should all go bankrupt?
There are also *gasp* social groups that can offer financial support to these unusual cases of catastrophic health expenses. Some of them are even called “churches” — though that might ruffle a few feathers of the rabidly secular statists.
Cancer, heart disease and diabetes are not unusual — they are the most common causes of death in the U.S.
As it happens I bought and delivered platters of food to our local free health clinic on Friday — it’s something our church does once a month, so that patients and volunteers get a free meal. I’m all for churches and others helping people who can’t afford medical care. But if you talk to the doctors and nurses volunteering at those clinics they will tell you right away that they want to be put out of business. They are generously trying to fill a gap that would not exist if our wider society, as represented by our government, was not failing in its duty to make health care accessible to everyone.
Actually that pretty much is like consumer goods and retirement. If I don’t play golf or are anywhere near retirement, I won’t spend anything like a retiree who golfs a lot. In other words, need and spending can easily be greater than two orders of magnitude in most good and services.
Golf is not a need. Dialysis, chemotherapy, bypass surgery, hip replacement; those are needs.
Jim,
I do not have a duty, nor does “society”, to pay for someone elses cancer treatment, diabetes, or Down’s syndrome child.
I DO, however, have a duty to pay for the proper, narrowly defined public health expenses — immunizations against easily communicable diseases (Hint: That does NOT include STD). I DO have a duty to pay for research into the prevention of such.
I am WILLING to pay for a broader range of health care items.
I have no DUTY to just open my checkbook and pay for the treatment of your diseases.
Grow up, and start accepting that the rest of us owe you only your Constitutional rights. If we agree to give you some other benefit, entitlement, or protection, that is because we agree to, not because we have some Jim-declared duty to do so.
I do not have a duty, nor does “society”, to pay for someone elses cancer treatment, diabetes, or Down’s syndrome child.
I thought it was clear that the use of the word “duty” was an expression of my opinion.
Evidently our society does see itself as having a duty to provide medical care to the poor, the elderly, and children; hence Medicaid, Medicare, and S-CHIP. I hope and expect it will also recognize a duty to provide health care to the rest.
The existence of a government-run, taxpayer (or debt) financed program does not make a comment about “society”. It DOES comment about who (individual or faction) wielded enough political power to enact it, and who wields enough political power to retain it, at any point in time.
On some days, I regret that I lack the romantic attraction to concepts like “society” or “public”. It can feel quite safe, snuggly, and secure to believe that some abstract government protector exists to catch me if I should fall.
On most days, I don’t regret that lack. These abstract concepts are examples of “false teaming”, and political opportunists use them as means of self-aggrandizement. If our politicians were all Sir Thomas More, I wouldn’t mind. But our politicians average a lot closer to Mr. Dillinger than to St. Moore.
It can feel quite safe, snuggly, and secure to believe that some abstract government protector exists to catch me if I should fall.
I don’t think there’s anything “snuggly” about it. It’s a simple fact that no man or woman is an island, and “society” exists whether you believe in it or not.
That begs the question of what “society” is, and how its members (assuming the “individual” exists as a concept separate from society) relate to each other.
It also doesn’t address my concerns about the State, but you are under no obligation to do so. Free country, liberty, and all that.
Golf is not a need. Dialysis, chemotherapy, bypass surgery, hip replacement; those are needs.
There is no difference between a “want” and a “need” other than the “need” is wanted more. Think about why that is the case. This has a lot to do with why medical care shouldn’t be a right.