Monday, June 29, 2009
This does not make sense
I happened to hear HHS secretary Kathleen Sabelius discussing Obama’s federal health insurance option with Bret Baier on Fox News. Her mantra was that we need to bring competition into the health insurance industry to lower prices. They are obviously trying to make it seem like a reasonable idea, since they’ve chosen to use market-place competition as their primary selling point. Here’s how the plan will work: the federal government will open up a health insurance company run by public employees. The president said that this would enable them to run a cheaper operation, presumably because federal bureaucrats are such tireless and efficient workers. This will then force the private health insurance companies to streamline in order to compete. But this would not be fair, since the government insurance company would not need to make a profit in order to stay in business. In fact, if it were to run at a loss, the loss could be made up with tax money. So Mrs. Sabelius assured Bret that "the playing field will be level." But how would this happen? By the government increasing their prices? Wouldn’t this defeat the whole purpose of creating competition? Maybe by subsidizing the private companies. But how does this result in any actual decreases in health care costs. And the fact is, today there are hundreds of companies selling health insurance, so how is one more going to suddenly make the whole system more competitive? Frankly, this whole thing has to be a cover for something else because it makes no sense at all.
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Dave, you're exactly right. The government doesn't do anything more efficiently than the private sector; and the reasons are 1) no concern for profits, and 2) "unlimited" funds from taxes. Furthermore, the government doesn't compete, it orders, legislates and regulates. What competitor can do that to its competitor? None but the all-powerful federal government. It's appalling that people fall for this nonsense. The real plan is to control the populace. These people have all the impulses of eugenicists, Nazis and Stalinists. It all fits together. As we battle them, we will have to carve out a new civil society by ourselves.
I'm not sure how it will all work either, but something needs done. Most likely the gov. will undercut the private insurers and we will get to a single payer system over time. Since I have always had insurance, I am not sure what it's like to not have it. My company pays $8k for my insurance in which I pay 25% of that and they pay the rest. Tell me tho what I do if I lose my job. I could never afford $8k for health insurance, so the GOP tax credit idea won't do me any good. Don't talk to me about rationing. My insurance company does that now. It's a problem and not sure what the solution is.
your bro
In response to "your bro," your insurance company is not doing this because it just feels like being cruel. Insurance companies are subject to rules imposed on them by states, which require them to cover everybody who applies, no matter their past history, and to cover everything that could happen to each applicant, and to do it at roughly the same premium. You never hear this from Obama or the media. This is no way to run a business, and it is surely no way to run an insurance company. At least with a private insurance company, freed from government shackles, you have a chance to buy something that fits your needs. No such chance with the government. You're going to wait, for whatever it is, and if your lifestyle doesn't fit the bureaucrats' conception, you might not get the treatment at all. And if you're old, why should the taxpayers' pay to keep you alive a little while longer. This applies to your loved ones, too.
Moreover, people expect (and the government probably requires) the insurance company to cover every sniffle and cold and flu bug. That is ridiculous, and contributes to the expense of health insurance premiums. Anybody could pay these expenses himself, and if he claims he can't, it's because his priorities are out of whack.
It's the government that has made all this more expensive. And the government can't do anything more efficiently than the private sector. Why? POLITICS.
To my anonymous bro,
The fact is, you pay $8000.00 a year for your health insurance right now. The idea that your employer pays $6000.00 and you pay $2000.00 is a shell game. Actually, you pay it all, just like you pay all of your Social Security. If you took that $8000.00per year as cash and got all of the Social Security withholdings and "matching funds" paid by your employer, you would have a nice fat paycheck. You could then invest that money for your future and pay quite a few doctor bills. You could even insure yourself against catastrophic medical situations. But alas, our mommy-state will not allow you to do that. Why? Because they don't trust you and they want to have power over you. Why? Because that is the objective of all radical liberals-socialists-globalists.
There seems to be an implicit underpinning to the posting by "your bro" that health insurance is some sort of right; indeed, that health care itself is a right.
In fact, there is no such right under our constitution or under natural law.
The way this society works - er, that is, the way it should work - is that you are free to develop your talents and skills to their utmost limits. The rewards of your efforts are (or should be) yours to do with as you will.
You may choose to buy insurance that will provide protection for you and your family if you fall ill. Many people find health insurance to be a wise investment.
Or you may choose to buy large HDTVs. 4,000 sq. ft mansons, and $40,000 automobiles instead. I know people who complain about the cost of health care and insurance but spend literally tens of thousands of dollars each year on toys and other amusements. And expect me and you to subsidize their profligacy.
In any case, there are, to be sure, problems with health care in this country. In my view, the problem isn't too little insurance, but too much.
But be that as it may, things like MRIs, knee and hip replacements, new forms of transplant surgery and advanced high-tech treatments of all kinds are extending and, yes, improving lives. I've seen many examples of the true miracles of modern medicine in my own circle of acquaintences. Those are expensive, complex procedures; as the range of such life-improving procedures expands and demand for them grows right along with an aging population, health care costs will continue to grow, too. We aren't talking about a visit from the country doctor here; we're talking about summoning the entire 21st century technological arsenal to serve your personal medical needs. That just isn't going to be cheap. You ain't gonna barter a couple of chickens for those services.
So when the government takes control of the system, the only way - the only way - it'll be able to control costs (if that is, after all, even a real concern) is by rationing care. And rationing care, in turn, is shorthand for saying that certain lifestyle behaviors will be punished and certain behaviors will be rewarded.
I'll leave it to you to guess whether certain wildly reckless lifestyles will be censured under the Obamacare. On the other hand, gawd help you if you enjoy an occasional Big Mac. Or if you have the temerity to need a bypass at age 75 or older. You'll be toast. Or Soylent Green.
Very well said, Bill. The reasoning of the drones, such as it is, goes like this: It's expensive; therefore, it should be free. This is complete nonsense. Their other line of logic is: I don't like the way it runs; let's turn it over to the government. Equally idiotic. It's like asking to be enslaved, only the fools who demand this are seeking to enslave me, too; and I don't consent to be enslaved.
Lots of things are "expensive." HDTV's, video games, computers, gambling, vacations. (My family hasn't had a vacation in three years, and we pay for our own health insurance.) And people of few means consume all of these things. People on welfare have HDTV's. This idea that they can't afford health care or health insurance is absolute nonsense. The truth is that having been conditioned by government meddling to believe their health care is someone else's responsibility, people believe that someone else ought to have to pay for it. It's as simple as that. If health care is a "right," then so are food, housing and clothing. Give responsibility for these to the government, and you've asked to be chained as a slave. Free speech is undeniably a right; that doesn't mean the government has to give me my own tv show.
Dave, I am not sure my company is under any kinda law to even offer me insurance, but they do. IT is kind of a win win for both my employer and me. Remember, I am not a civil servant. Believe me, my company would not give me 8k in place of insurance. Now you want to bring social security into the mix. Gimme a break. All I said is under my private insurance I get rationed and I believe I admitted rationing will be a problem under any plan. The fact this legislation promotes living wills I think is good. Remember, dad had one, and Kathy and I kinda violated it for our own because we did not want to see him suffer. IT didn't work, and I think today we are all kinda ok with the fact that it didn't. Anyway, I see you have no use for taxes of any kind and that's cool. I just think it is foolish to think that health savings accounts are the answer. You ever see some of them hospital bills?
your bro
one more thing guys, I do enjoy these debates and I do believe there is always a middle ground. Health care costs continue to rise and one reason is the uninsured are using the services and the providers are not getting paid, so the costs are passed along to those who do have insurance. Offering gov. insurance seems to be the plan, and I do agree with Dave, I do not understand how anyone making minimum wage or even a few bucks more can afford gov. insurance unless they are subsidized. We subsidize a lot of industries now, so its not like susidies are new. By the way, I am all for investing and using savings to help pay for health care by using these before tax health care accounts, but one emergency at anytime can wipe that out pretty darn quick. The current HR3400 bill needs some work an find tuning, but it's a start. :)
bro
PS I dont have a problem with cap and trade per se, but they got it wrong, so I am hoping the senate does it right or it gets voted down.
Hi TH, I didn't realize "your bro" was to be taken literally. Welcome to our blog. My point about SS was only that the idea that we pay part and our employer pays part is a ruse. The real cost of an employee is the total benefits package (salary plus benefits). I'm just saying that, theoretically, if your employer were to give you in cash their entire cost of employing you, you could then invest that money and buy your own catastrophic insurance. I believe that in the end you, and the nation, would be far ahead.
Also, I do believe in taxes. I just object to property taxes, income taxes, inheritance taxes, and perhaps a few others. I would like to see the federal government financed by excise taxes, a modest value-added tax, and state assessments based on population. Each state could decide how it would raise the money to pay the assessment. That would keep pressure on Congress to limit spending. I would also like to see the federal government limit itself to only those areas of governance specified in the Constitution. The rest should be left to the states and municipalities. The more widely power is diffused, the better off we all will be.
Theoretically and more likely, my employer would love to not pay my health care at all, which is why I pay 25% and just a few years ago I was paying 15%. It does go up every year. I am sure what Honeywell pays for my insurance they would rather keep for themselves which is why they have revised their retirement plan to no longer include them paying any health insurance for new retirees. That is now my expense. There might be deals out there, I don't know since I haven't looked, but just that one change and the hit in my 401k has forced me to rethink the whole retirement affordability and more importantly, when.
your bro
Take responsibility for yourself. Neither this country, nor any other country, can afford the welfare state.
Who says I am not taking responsibility for myself?
"UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH), which employs about 75,000 workers, recorded $2.98 billion in profit on $81.2 billion of revenue in 2008."
Sometimes I just wonder how much of that profit was on the backs of those citizens not as fortunate as me. I do know I used United Health one year as my insurance and all I did was fight with them on claims and them not wanting to pay for items that were covered in the policy they had with Honeywell.
your bro
You seem to want the almighty government to take care of you. I'd suggest getting over your obsession with profit. Without profit, there's no incentive for anybody to make or sell anything to you. Believe me, you don't want the government as your one and only option. And what do you say to my points about the government interference and mandates? Government CREATES the problem in the first place, and then comes along promising to fix it, and you BELIEVE and trust them?
I have no problem with profit. I do have a problem with insurance companies that might drop someone at renewal time because they know some big time medical expenses are coming up. I don't think you give insurance companies enough credit in ingenuity. No matter what the government might do, they will find a way to make their money. Supplemental policies, maybe even competitve policies. Time will tell on that. HR 3200 is not perfect. It needs work and there is much I do not like in it. Have you read it?
Again, along with Dave, I am not sure how a government insurance plan lowers costs to an affordable level. and believe it or not, I am against mandating that you have to have insurance. that should be a choice and if you choose wrong, that's your problem.
I don't BELIEVE everything I hear from our government, which is why I wrote my representatives urging them to vote down going to war in IRAQ. Why I am now saying it is time to get out of Afghanistan, because you cannot defeat an enemy that considers it a privlege to die and has no fear of death.Matter of fact, for the past 8 years there was lots in the government I disagreed with and still do today. But there is some new stuff that if done right I think will be good. And one happens to be lowering health care costs.
I agree insurance is not meant for someone with the sniffles to go to the emergency room and that needs fixed. Emergency rooms should not be used for such silly reasons, but they are and how do you get people to stop doing that when it is all that might be availabIe to them when they know they won't have to pay. I don't write my policy and my policy says I pay $15/$30 co-pay and they pay the rest with certain deductibles along the way. That's what my policy says, so why do I have to fight with them over that? There are a multitude of reasons for risings costs. 47 million without insurance is one reason. Technology, medicare, medicaid, greed (provider and consumer), and consumer abuse are some reasons for the mess it is in. Far as I am concerned have no public option and instead regulate the insurance companies and medical providers. Whatever, to allow costs to continue to spiral upwards is not in anyone's best overall interest, in my opinion.
Tom, the tail shouldn't wag the dog. People go the ER for sniffles because it's FREE for them. Why is it free? Because the GOVERNMENT MANDATES that no hospital can turn someone away from the ER, whether they have a cold or a heart attack. Consequently, these patients have absolutely no incentive to economize on their health care. Why should they? It's free! The same thing will happen with nationalized health care. Cut costs? Good luck. The ONLY way government will be able to cut its costs is by RATIONING, the same thing they do where? In GREAT BRITAIN and CANADA, where they have what? SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.
Medicare and Medicaid, you say? Well, what do you think THEY are? They are socialized medicine, themselves. And you think MORE of that will make things BETTER? Common sense should tell you it will not.
Regulate the insurance companies? But they are already being OVERREGULATED. The solution is the OPPOSITE: free the insurance companies from this regulation. You seem to be acknowledging what I'm saying--or at least not disputing it--yet you won't make the next step to the obvious conclusions. Come on in, the water's fine.
Technology is GOOD. Remember when calculators cost $300? What does a simple calculator cost now? GREED? You mistake a desire to invent something and better one's (or one's shareholders') economic position with greed. Making a profit is legitimate, and if prices go up--artificially, I might add--because the companies have to recoup their research and development money, and because GOVERNMENT, with its MANDATORY, enforced Medicare system, short-changes the doctors and hospitals with its arbitrary reimbursement system, what are these providers supposed to do? They have to raise prices somewhere. This isn't greed, it's rational behavior. Without profit, there's no incentive to make anything that is useful or better. Name me the great inventions of the Soviet Union.
The 47 million uninsured figure is a lie which politicians and the media repeat over and over. Ten million of these are ILLEGAL ALIENS; do you think we should provide them with free medical care? Millions more are young people who don't think they need health insurance and don't want to pay for it. Besides, NOBODY is being denied medical care in this country. It doesn't make sense to throw the baby out with the bath water, when you have the greatest health care system on earth. Zimbabwe has socialized medicine, and it's free; but I don't think you'd like it.
When you see and acknowledge that much of the increase in the cost of insurance is the responsibility of GOVERNMENT, why on earth do you want to run back to the same government for the solution? Don't listen to me; ask somebody from England or Canada how they like socialized medicine. Do you have a rational reason to believe our experience will be any different? Have you heard Obama talk about his plan? It's clear that if you're old, and you require expensive treatment (this, by the way, is where the majority of health care expense goes), he's going to say, "Sorry, Granny; take this pain pill and good night."
If you think spiraling costs are not in your interest, then support a solution--less regulation--that is rationally calculated to redress the problem of which you complain. Don't go back to the self-interested people who CREATED the problem in the first place. If your insurance company were free to give you what you want and need, and only what you want and need and are willing to pay for, you'd be much happier. Unfortunately, it is not, and the reason is government. You should be suspicious and resentful of the government, not your insurance company, which is trying to give you something you need (for fair, market-rate compensation), but the government won't let it.
So let's deregulate insurance companies kind of like we did the financial instituions. Might was well put the ENRON loopjole back into law so the oil speculators can artificially drive up the price of oil. Let's not revisit the wisdon of the repealing Glass Steagall Act. Let's just let them run unchecked. We can trust them.
Perhaps the biggest difference in our thinking is you seem concerned more about just you, while I am concerned about me, but alos the person not as fortunate as me.
My wife is from England and she says England's health care over all is better. Yes, there are issues with certain waiting times, etc., but if you have a private insurance to supplement you, that problem kinda goes away.
I'm done until something is actually passed or you tell me you have read the bill. :)
No, Tom; actually you won't be "done" until you answer the points I've made with something other than unrelated MSNBC talking points. Is that uniform among you guys, changing the subject? Read the bill? I have to work for a living. I pay a Congressman $175,000 a year, plus gold-plated perks, to read bills. Hell no, I haven't read it; have you? Has your representative? I'll tell you what I have done, though: I've heard descriptions of what is in the bill from people who have read it. Have you? Or do you simply trust the socialists? Obama keeps saying if you like your insurance, you can keep it. That is a flat-out lie. Once one comma or apostrophe changes in your plan, you are dragged into the government plan. And that's just one example.
Care about myself? You bet I do. Who else is going to do it, a bunch of lying, selfish politicians? No, thank you. As for these others you're so worried about, don't you think all the state and local spending and a multi-trillion dollar federal budget is enough to take care of those people? I do. The so-called "poor" in this country are rich in the communist countries you seem to aspire to. No, I think the phony liberal concern for the poor downtrodden is merely an excuse to "get back at the man" and get something you didn't earn: my money, Dave's money, Bill's money, and that of millions of others.
And I don't believe your wife, or your reporting of what your wife says. I'll be happy to send you links to dozens, perhaps hundreds of articles from British publications (the American press won't print them--imagine that) about that wonderful system. Unlike Britain, people don't leave the United States to get treatment. Why don't you and your wife live in Great Britain, by the way?
The financial system has not been unregulated. How many myths and misstatements do I have to debunk? I have a family.
Brian, It appears to me what you do is read right wing talking points on the bill and then choose to believe it as gospel. I read those as well. I also read liberal talking points on the bill. I don't believe Hannity any more than I believe Olbermann. Then I download and read the parts that seem to get a lot of play in the media. Then, believe it or not, I form my own opinion.
I live in America because this is my home. Please don't tell me you are one of those love it or leave it guys. Believe it or not, most of HR 3200 is about insurance, not health so much direct health care. Republicans had both houses of congress for 12 years and the presidency for 6 of them years. Why did they sit back and do nothing much but borrow money and invade a country. You blame democrats when you have had congress for 12 years and the presidency for all but 8 years since 1980.
I continue to have faith in the system. I don't like everything that is done, but I don't despise everything either. Even Fox News is starting to debunk some of the right wing talking points on this bill. Maybe there are such things as miracles. I even think the insurance companies are smart enough to figure out how they can make money if there is a public plan. The only way we become the USSR is if we give in to the military industrial complex.
I just love how dems are blamed for everything when they have had little power for the past 14 years. The economic meltdown was caused by the government, dems, and republicans, the banks, the investment firms, and greed from all of the above, and it is the middle class that suffers. Limbaugh is making his $40 million a year, so he aint suffering. He is laffing all the way to the bank.
One more thing Brian, I never said I was concerned for the poor. They have medicaid. My concern is for my son who is out there humping away trying to make a living, getting $30k a year, and being told 20% of that goes towards his companies health care plan if he so chooses. The bill is on my desktop at work. Would you like me to send you a copy?
PS Look up Glass Steagal Act. Repealing that probably caused the economic downfall more than anything else. Brian, think about this. Why do states have regulations on insurance companies when it comes to raising premiums? Im not just talking health care either. An insurance company for the MD condo association I take care of tried to raise its rates 24 per cent one year based on hurricanes in Florida. That broke MD regulations by one, not giving me proper notice and not giving the state notice that they were trying to raise it more than the 19 per cent allowed by regulation, so don't tell me they play by the rules and less regulation would be good.
Corporate America has changed. Everything now is bottom line and shareholder value. Corporate responsibility seems to have gotten lost in the last 15 or 20 years.
What points do I still need to answer?
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