For anyone interested, here is a link to the House of Representatives Health Care bill that is being mulled over and pormoted by President Obama and the fools in Washington who will vote for this without knowing what is in it.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf
This bill is roughly 1100 pages, try reading some of it. It is simply confusing and cannot be understood without a team of lawyers. It is rediculous.
Contact your representatives. Ask them to read it, ask them to vote against it.
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I actually called all of my senators and reperesentative in support of it but honestly, I think they should pass a bill that entirely consists of single payer health care, instead of an option. The point is to eliminate all of the overhead costs (arguing with and billing 100 different companies, etc.)
ReplyDeleteHealth care should not be a for-profit organization. It is so sad that so many people can't afford it, and those that can get dropped when they get sick because they won't profit the company any longer. Those practices will never change unless we speak out against it and vote for a government health care option so that everyone can get the care they need and deserve.
~Laura
I'm speechless....ok, not quite. Government programs contain more overhead and waste by their very nature than any other system. When people spend money that is not their own, there is zero incentive to be frugal and critical of the spending. I think the option they are proposing is rediculous, but a single-payer system goes in direct violation of the values and freedoms that our founders structured in the constitution. I would be interested in how you answer the questions that have risen in my mind.
ReplyDeleteWhat examples of government run healthcare do you point to as successful examples?
Do you believe your leaders should vote on bills that they have not read? Who knows what hidden items are in this thing?
If this system is so good, why are the leaders voting for it, choosing to use their own system instead? Shouldn't our leaders be required to live under the same rules that we do? Did you ask your representatives to use the healthcare that they want everyone else to use?
Do you want a bureaucrat hundreds of miles away deciding what procedures you can and cannot have? As opposed to the decision made between by you and your doctor.
You say that people are dropped from coverage because they won't provide profit to the insurance company. How is that different from the government denying a procedure to an elderly person because the they will be dead soon anyway, and the cost is simply not worth it? The rationing is now being done by someone else, all while we lose our freedoms and options.
You mention that people need a healthcare option that they "need and deserve", I am sorry that you believe government is the only entity that can provide this. Did the 22-year old in the UK deserve to die because he did not receive the liver transplant that he needed? He lives under a single-payer system. He couldn't "prove" that he would stop drinking, even though he had joined AA a few months earlier. I'm sure there are a few doctors, if not all of them, that would say they are giving the best care they can to every person they see.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6721483.ece
No hostpital in this country has denied emergency procedures because the person couldn't afford it. Payment is determined after the fact. The solutions you seem to want do not target the actual problems of inflated cost. We will all pay either directly, or indirectly. The government run solution will not reduce this cost. No example in history can show this.
It is sad that we assume doctors are simply evil and motivated by profit...or that profit is evil. Profit is the grease that makes business and, by extension, our economy work. A rising tide lifts all boats, bringing everyone down to the same sub-standard level will not benefit individuals or the collective.
The problems you cite will not be solved by government. I'm sorry that so many people apparently think they will.
Andrew, you ask a lot of questions. I will try to get to as many as I can but I'm sorry if I forget some. First of all, I don't see the doctors as evil or motivated by profit. I don't think I ever said that! I see the insurance companies and pharmacutical companies as the problem. Insurance companies insure the healthy and wealthy, because that's where they profit. A person with a chronic disease only gets coverage if they work for a company with a large pool of people who can help carry the burden and even out the cost. That's why a single payer government system would work. With all Americans pooled together, the burden would be evened out an no one would be "dumped" for being sick. I'm sorry you see this type of a system as evil.
ReplyDeleteYou brought up the fact that everyone in this country can get help from an ER, no matter if they have insurance or not. I agree. But that is another reason our insurance costs are so high. The companies don't shoulder that stuff themselves...they pass it along to us, making our health care costs higher.
The ER's then become a place for those without insurance to go, even if the situation isn't an emergency. The ER's get bogged with this, and those people that do really need the ER have to wait. In a government system, everyone pays in and everyone shoulders their share, so the burden doesn't get passed on to one particular group of payers.
It's funny you bring up our leaders' health care...I haven't heard them complaining about the publically funded health care they recieve, which we pay for by the way. I don't think any single representative or senator or the president for that matter should be taking their publically funded benefits while continuing to deny us the same care. Why is it OK for them to have it but not us?
I have a big issue when people think that health care is going to be rationed with a national plan. What do you think is going on right now with private companies? They pick and choose what services they will and will not pay for. They tell you what doctors you can see based on your "network." If you like your doctor but swtich companies and that doctor is not on your new network, you either pay more to keep seeing him or find another one.
I do not see how the CEO's of private companies can take their millions of dollars and live in luxury, knowing that they have this money by denying sick people the care they need. It sickens me. (pardon the pun) The government is not looking into health care for a profit. Indeed, it will not be frugal and critical of spending on health care which is exactly why we have such major flaws in the current health care system. No private company should have the right to pick who lives and who dies simply because it makes them a hefty profit.
I can't wait till the government national data base tells me whether I can have a procedure done or not. Laura's right in saying that a private insurance company can do the same thing now, but I have the right to choose a different health insurance provider if I so choose. Believe me--I've switched before. Do you think they'll let me switch governments when I don't like their decisions for my own health? Can you imagine all the black market payments to doctors after this national health insurance is the new law?
ReplyDeleteBut Obama will let you keep your own health insurance. Yea, right. For a year or two maybe. They want to control you. They can pick and choose who they want to provide for. If you're elderly, good luck. Kurt
Laura, Thanks for responding. After I wrote my last post, I felt like I might have been too harsh. I want to challenge, not insult.
ReplyDeleteI see your arguments. It seems that you want to get rid of the rationing that is done by private insurance companies and replace it with rationing by the government. I'd rather maintain some freedom and choice in the matter.
I still think your disdain by insurance companies is misplaced. Insurance companies don't dictate the prices of procedures, the market does. Unfortunately, we have a health care market that is extremely unbalanced due to government intervention. Insurance companies don't decide who lives and dies, they simply offer an insurance plan that covers certain things and not others. As Kurt pointed out, we are all free to find another plan. We all know what the insurance companies will cover. When government says "we all deserve healthcare, don't worry, we'll take care of you" and then start rationing care, our inability to find another option will be the tragic part.
If the government runs our health care system, people will have no where to turn if the system is not working. It could take decades and trillions of dollars to un-do what is being proposed, if it could be un-done at all.
The most important question in my mind is: What examples of socilized medicine do you point to as successful examples?
The new proposal is modeled after Medicaid (which is nearly bankrupt). A single-payer system, like in Canada, the UK and across the globe, exhibits failures on an enormous scale. The cost will not go down. We will all pay more for the same service because of the government red-tape that causes so much waste.
Only by reducing government interference can we reduce cost. The challenge should be discovering the absolute minimum that government can do while still protecting the rights of citizens, instead of looking for a way that government can shoulder the responsibility for everyone.
Do you keep all your eggs in one basket?
I won't get in to the benefits that all the public employees enjoy on the tax-payer dime too much right now, that is another argument, but it too is part of the problem. The new health-care bill currently allows public employees to stay with what they have. They will not be required to use the same system we would. Working for government used to mean that you got paid a little less, but with good benefits. Now the average government worker salary is twice that of the national average in the private sector and they still get all their benefits paid for.
We need to get our blinders off and critically look at our government as one big entity instead of republican and democrat.
If we give up this freedom, what is to prevent it's abuse in the future by a leader you don't agree with? Take a look at the dictators around the world, they have only their own power and preservation on their minds.