Government backed healthcare, for or against.
69- rhamson
- 1895 posts
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The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
89- Poppa Blues
- 2427 posts
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I think the whole idea needs to be scrapped! The government will never be able to pay for it which is why they want a mandate to force people to buy insurance. That is a big problem since the constitution does NOT grant such power to the federal government.
What needs to be done and what can easily be done is to allow sale of insurance across state borders. You can also force insurance companies to cover people regardless of existing condition and not allow them to drop you for something previously undisclosed. This of course will add to insurance costs.
The other thing that can be done easily is to cap malpractice insurance. This will help reduce costs.- 69
- rhamson
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Poppa Blues wrote:
I think the whole idea needs to be scrapped! The government will never be able to pay for it which is why they want a mandate to force people to buy insurance. That is a big problem since the constitution does NOT grant such power to the federal government.
What needs to be done and what can easily be done is to allow sale of insurance across state borders. You can also force insurance companies to cover people regardless of existing condition and not allow them to drop you for something previously undisclosed. This of course will add to insurance costs.
The other thing that can be done easily is to cap malpractice insurance. This will help reduce costs.I agree that the government having the power to require insurance or face a penalty is a bit extreme. To force someone who cannot afford the coverage now is like adding fuel to the fire so to speak. Requiring people to be covered with pre-existing conditions must have the bean counters running through the halls like their hair is on fire.
Allowing competition to span states borders sounds good but don't we have a problem with that in some states with auto insurance. It did not reduce the costs to so many that states had to set up their own insurance funds to try and rectify the problem. Even then the premiums would make a Mongol cry.
The government in charge of a vast amount of tax dollars to manage the program also scares the snot out of me because of their looting social security with complete abandonment.
This is a complex issue we cannot ignore as other countries such as Japan and Canada have health coverage from the government that reduces their goods they sell to us. We ship jobs overseas as the costs are too much to produce products here.
We are in a spiral and with no palatable plan it is going to sinks us all. 
66- dutchman1951
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rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
scrap it, go back, try it again as Insurance ompany Reform laws.
Give it teeth, make it work at street level for real people.
Jonscrap it.
Totally Against that crazy crap
Totally Against that crazy crap
I don't get why need to create a new system instead of fixing the current one. Makes no sense. Let's create two systems that basically don't work well and then what? They'll say we need some sort of government program to oversee both systems. Then we'll need more government programs to oversee those programs.
It never ends. Even when it doesn't work.- 69
- rhamson
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drking wrote:
I don't get why need to create a new system instead of fixing the current one. Makes no sense. Let's create two systems that basically don't work well and then what? They'll say we need some sort of government program to oversee both systems. Then we'll need more government programs to oversee those programs.
It never ends. Even when it doesn't work.But how do you get a for profit organizations such as HMO's and insurance companies to agree to regulations that restrict their profits? They would soon tire of the endless negotiations and opt out.
Rather than having it operate as all our government programs do we ned to find a new way to make this something we can all afford without restricting our benefits.
I know the slime in DC will put their screwed up stamp on another bill. 
88- ledefensetech
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rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
You might find the following article interesting. It articulated the problem in a way I haven't been able to so far. What we have in the US today is a monopoly of providers of heath care who enforce a price floor on the costs of healthcare, but there is no ceiling, which is why the cost is spiraling out of control. If you really want to fix healthcare, get rid of the monopoly first.
http://mises.org/story/1749
64- Mitch Rapp
- 488 posts
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We already have government backed health care. Its called Medicare and Medicaid they are both poorly managed and rampant with fraud and abuse. Why would anyone think that government somehow now has figured out what the problem is and how to fix it?
rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
Time to drop it; it is a disorganized mess and that nobody understands...not even those who created it. I wonder why the president would want to rush an approval on something in two weeks that nobody understands; what is really in there?
91- Misha
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ledefensetech wrote:
rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
You might find the following article interesting. It articulated the problem in a way I haven't been able to so far. What we have in the US today is a monopoly of providers of heath care who enforce a price floor on the costs of healthcare, but there is no ceiling, which is why the cost is spiraling out of control. If you really want to fix healthcare, get rid of the monopoly first.
http://mises.org/story/1749Nice article LDT, thanks
71- sneakorocksolid
- 3778 posts
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Government healthcare, Great! As long as they pay for it. Otherwise no!
- 88
- ledefensetech
- 2881 posts
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Misha wrote:
ledefensetech wrote:
rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
You might find the following article interesting. It articulated the problem in a way I haven't been able to so far. What we have in the US today is a monopoly of providers of heath care who enforce a price floor on the costs of healthcare, but there is no ceiling, which is why the cost is spiraling out of control. If you really want to fix healthcare, get rid of the monopoly first.
http://mises.org/story/1749Nice article LDT, thanks
No problem, Misha. I'd written about our current system before, but hadn't connected all the dots and linked it with economics. This article does that wonderfully.
It's certainly a very difficult time economically to try to get a hugely expensive measure like universal healthcare up and running - regardless of whether you agree with the policy or not, the timing couldn't be worse.
It's still surprising to read how many in the USA are opposed to the policy. Here in the UK, the NHS is almost a religion - it's almost considered bad manners to criticise it.
That doesn't stop me though - I think it's a terrible system - but here people seem to value equality of healthcare over excellence. Health outcomes for many diseases lag behind the best in the world, but since everyone gets the same mediocre treatment, people put up with it.
I'm not saying the present system in the USA is perfect - but I'm not sure you'd want to replace it with the system we have here.
Perhaps there's something better than either out there somewhere?The whole idea of a mandate for health insurance is something the health insurance industry has fought and spent millions of dollars to get into the bill proposed by Senator Baucus. It's a scam and is detrimental to uninsured Americans. Drawing a parallel between health insurance and auto insurance is foolish and infantile.
Government run health care can be effective. It works for both US Military Veterans (like myself) and the elderly (in the form of Medicare and Medicaid).
It will keep competition in the healthcare industry strong. Just like the US Postal Service keeps UPS, FedEX, and DHL competing strongly for our business. If other countries can have effective, efficient and affordable healthcare provided by the government then so can we.
It's sad to know that our health care system ranks 37th in the world. For example, we have the lowest life expectancy rate in the developed world and the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world. We can do far, far better.
Expand Medicare to every American so we can all be healthy.
62- Adnan Habib
- 35 posts
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Government must assure at least all the fundamental needs of people.
ledefensetech wrote:
rhamson wrote:
The latest vote to pass health care reform in congress has failed. Do we need to drop the issue or negotiate a new one?
You might find the following article interesting. It articulated the problem in a way I haven't been able to so far. What we have in the US today is a monopoly of providers of heath care who enforce a price floor on the costs of healthcare, but there is no ceiling, which is why the cost is spiraling out of control. If you really want to fix healthcare, get rid of the monopoly first.
http://mises.org/story/1749I found this article and the website interesting. I wanted to reply here, but the reply became too long, so I converted it to a hub about the problems as I see it of applying the principles of the von Mises school of thought to health care.
bump
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