Now it’s up to us.
I find it ironic that the thuggish congressman Grayson is accusing Republicans of wanting people to die, when Robert Reich is very explicit about that as the Dem’s plan.
57 thoughts on “Crunch Time For Health Care”
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Torches and Pitchforks: $5 each.
Yea, I’m sort of missing where there’s anything I can do about it. I live in California (for various reasons, and there’s really not an opportunity to do anything about it this year…).
I really don’t think Eshoo, Feinstein, or Boxer will give half a crap about anything I mailed or phoned to them.
Silver, the thing to do in that case is find an organization that closely approximates your views on health care, and support its efforts. It will focus on members of Congress whose minds can be changed.
Yes, I mean those eeeeeevil lobbyists. There’s a practical reason why they exist.
Here is what we can look forward to: the conveyor belt.
Yankee ingenuity will make this “Pathway” feed a machine that squirts soylent green out its arse-end.
Just don’t call it a “death panel!”
Just read through Titus’s link and googled on the “Liverpool Care Pathway” (LCP). Rather large internet presence yet I see no description of the procedures used in the LCP. Don’t know if it’s just bad web design or if LCP procedures aren’t on the internet.
The Snowe caved-in. Also, witness the insurance lobby’s main complaint: that people won’t be sold into bondage enough for them – “30 shekels, no less!”
A pox on all of their houses.
when Robert Reich is very explicit about that as the Dem’s plan
What exactly makes Robert Reich an authority on Democratic health care reform plans?
Simon’s piece is a good example of the confused opposition to health care reform. He endorses the PriceWaterhouseCoopers study of parts of the Baucus bill, which health insurers commissioned in order to build support for a tougher individual mandate. But in the same piece he calls the proposal a step on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”. Wouldn’t an tougher mandate imply even more government control?
Of course Medicare was supposed to make us serfs over forty years ago, and today it’s the opponents of health care reform (e.g. Jon Kyl) complaining that reform will weaken Medicare.
Hinderaker proposes:
All we have to do is allow insurance companies to compete nationally instead of state-by-state and eliminate all mandates that limit consumer choice.
Which brings to mind Mencken’s line: “There is always an easy solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.”
So let’s say we let insurance companies compete nationally, and eliminate limits on consumer choice. If I’m a health insurance CEO, I relocate my company (call it HealthCo) to the state with the laxest regulations. I focus my lobbying dollars and campaign contributions on that state, reminding legislators that HealthCo jobs and HealthCoPAC contributions will leave town if the regulations are tightened.
Now I can offer customers all over the U.S. policies that I could only offer in that state before — policies that don’t cover maternity care, for example. I can tailor the policies for the target audience, e.g. a policy for young men that doesn’t cover pap smears or hip replacement surgery. People will only have to pay for the kind of insurance that they actually need.
As a result, the people who actually have bigger medical risks — women, the no-longer-young, not to mention anyone with an adverse health history — will pay more, or be unable to buy insurance at any price. The whole reason for having health insurance — to spread risk as widely as possible, so that everyone can feel confident that even if they have above-average health costs they will not have to carry them individually — will be undermined.
Jim, I’ll type slowly so you can follow me: the study finds that the Baucus plan will drive up premiums even for people who already have insurance.
That doesn’t immediately narrow the alternatives to “tougher individual mandate.” It simply means Baucus plan bad.
I guess Jim doesn’t understand the commerce clause either. Color me surprised.
That doesn’t immediately narrow the alternatives to “tougher individual mandate.”
That’s what the AHIP, which commissioned and released the study, takes it to mean. A year ago the AHIG said it supports “the use of so-called guaranteed-issue policies for all Americans, including those with pre-existing medical conditions, as long as the federal government mandates that everyone must purchase coverage.” Their beef with the Baucus bill is that they think the penalties for not getting insurance are too light, which will leave healthy people out of the insurance pool, and deprive the insurance companies of those customers.
It simply means Baucus plan bad.
No. As PwC stated today:
and:
In other words: if you cherry pick certain parts of the Baucus bill, premiums go up. Since no one is proposing that Congress pass just that subset of the Baucus bill, it’s a completely irrelevant study.
So let’s say we let insurance companies compete nationally, and eliminate limits on consumer choice. If I’m a health insurance CEO, I relocate my company (call it HealthCo) to the state with the laxest regulations. I focus my lobbying dollars and campaign contributions on that state, reminding legislators that HealthCo jobs and HealthCoPAC contributions will leave town if the regulations are tightened.
Sure, Jim. In the first place, you’re an idiot. Generally speaking states reserve the right to regulate your business if you do business in the state, not just if you happen to have a headquarters there. Have you noticed that you can’t buy a car that doesn’t pass California emissions requirements in California — even though zero (0) car manufacturers are headquartered in California? Weird, huh?
In the second, you suppose we already live in the Orwellian future you would like for us, when the dominant factor in what decisions people make is government regulation — not their own free choice. You suppose that I could build a thriving health insurance business by selling people shit products, as long as no government regulator prevents me. That is, of course, absurd. No company thrives offering products that suck, unless (ironically enough), people are forced by law to buy those products. We can confidently predict that if HealthCo offers miserable policies that charge too much for too little benefit, folks will notice and instead buy BetterHealthCo’s policies that do.
The overarching folly in your thesis is that a passel of lawyers sitting in Washington in 2009, horsetrading back and forth with lobbyists and dickering politicially, are going to make better decisions about what healthcare insurance my daughter needs in 2040, and what she is willing to pay for it, than she will herself. If this weren’t such a widespread lunacy, it would be laughable.
As a result, the people who actually have bigger medical risks — women, the no-longer-young, not to mention anyone with an adverse health history — will pay more, or be unable to buy insurance at any price. The whole reason for having health insurance — to spread risk as widely as possible, so that everyone can feel confident that even if they have above-average health costs they will not have to carry them individually — will be undermined.
Ah, we come to the heart of the matter. Well, first of all, you’re an idiot, again. The ability of people to prognosticate their own future is far more limited than you think. Ever buy life insurance? If so, you should have been pretty astonished at how limited an amount of information they collect on you. You’d think in that Wild West unregulated industry they’d require MRI scans, DNA tests, et cetera, to give you their best rate. Find out exactly what your risk of dying is. But they don’t. Why not? Because they know very well that the science is not nearly so good, and beyond some very basic stuff — do you smoke? Have you had cancer? Do you have high blood pressure? — it’s hard to predict a person’s lifespan except in the broadest terms.
How much worse is your average uninformed consumer going to be? Sure, some people will say ha ha! No one in my family ever died of cancer, so I’m just going to skip the cancer coverage in my health plan. And perhaps some company will be glad to sell him one. But such people are very likely to edit themselves out of the market pretty quick, when it becomes rather obvious to everyone that that’s a pretty foolish move. Historically speaking, people are conservative, and love insuring against risks, even unlikely ones. That’s why we freak about having health insurance in the first place, you know. We could just save up our cash, and count on borrowing if we had some emergency — but we don’t. We’re so anxious about the risks that we want to know we’re fully covered, even for strange and unlikely events, like needing a heart transplant.
Why would this behaviour change, if “governmen regulation” weren’t in place? It wouldn’t. You’re fantasizing a world filled with people who bear no relationship to actual people.
But, yes, without doubt some people would find the price of their coverage higher than average. Women, as you say, might, although I think not, since their enhanced exposure through childbirth is offset by their longer lifespan. Certainly people wth birth defects or those with obvious lifestyle risks — skydivers, coal miners, people who smoke — would.
What’s wrong with that? You know, if you choose to go into a dangerous profession, or smoke like a chimney, or lard up on saturated fats, or don’t bother to get your mammograms or blood pressure checked, I really don’t see why I who choose not to do those things should have your risk “spread” to me. Screw you, mate. You can pay for your own risks. That’ll teach you to minimize them. You think the concept of “moral hazard” only applies to Wall Street lenders?
But maybe you are focussed on the tragedy of people who have “preexisting conditions” that can’t get coverage for love or money. That is, and principally, people with a history of cancer now in remission. That is indeed a national farce. But it is a direct result of brain-dead leftist government action, courtesy of the Law of Unitended Consequences. The clever New Deal business about giving a tax break only to health care bought through your employer means you have to, practically speaking, and that means you can’t stop working without losing your continuous coverage and having to buy new coverage — when, of course, you have to make a new bet with the insurance company.
The problem would be solved if this were not the case, if you could buy insurance — like you do for fire, auto, life, homeowner’s — as an individual, and keep it as long as you liked. You’d buy a health care plan when young and healthy, and keep the same plan as you changed jobs, or even took time off to have a baby, work part-time, travel, or, yeah, cope with a cancer diagnosis. Being intelligent, you’d buy a plan that guaranteed no rate increase if you were diagnosed with cancer (the way most life insurance plans now come with guaranteed no rate increase). The company would obviously price in the risk of such an event, and their loss, over all the plans they issue, so your magic “spreading” would occur automatically. You’ll also be paying in your youth extra money to cover that risk — in effect, subsidizing yourself in older age.
It all works fine, because you can take the insurance with you. It’s portable, it’s yours, it has zero connection to your job, so you’re not dependent on working continuously. Purge the system of the leftover Democratic Party foolishness from 50 and 70 years ago, and the problem solves itself.
What’s left is the issue of charity for those unlucky few who under no circumstances can afford, even over a lifetime, the cost of their own medical care. Those with severe congenital defects, for example. But charity for the unlucky few is a very different case than dealing with the vast majority, who can and ought to pay for their own care, on average. Charity is a reasonable goal for a limited government program, some method by which we pay a small amount of taxes, each of us, to rescue, out of a commn sense of humanity, those very few of us who are so unlucky.
. Ever buy life insurance? If so, you should have been pretty astonished at how limited an amount of information they collect on you.
I did this, 2 years ago when the wife and I moved to the USA. We started with the mandatory medical history interview, took about 40 minutes. Then a nurse came to our house to draw bloods, do the BMI analysis and verify the data on the history. The bloods covered Blood Glucose, Cholesterol, Liver and Kidney function, battery of drug tests and, of course, the usual STD tests.
Hardly a limited amount of information, and hardly non-invasive. If I hadn’t, at 40 and moving to a job with inferior life cover, wanted to ensure the mortgage was covered I’d have told them to shove it.
The kind of errant idiocy you seem to be cheer leading for is the same insanity I see with American Car Insurance (at least in Washington and California – the only states where I have experience) where it’s perfectly legal to drive with insufficient cover to repair the damage to the car you hit. Or, to have insufficient cover, that if you cripple somebody or render them unable to work, the only recourse that person has is to start a civil law suit.
The reality of healthcare is that at some point you’re going to need it, and, as you do actually rightly point out, people are lousy at predicting it.
This bill looks to me like it sucks. Like many, many, probably the majority if polls are to be believed, the ONLY solution for this mess is a single payer system. But idiots won’t get that, even when the financial facts speak for themselves.
Shoot, let me summarize that. Here’s the bizarre flaw in your “thinking,” Jim:
There are only two possibilities: either (1) the average person can afford the average lifetime cost of his healthcare, or (2) he can’t.
If (2) applies, there is no solution. Wealth cannot be created out of nothing but fancy accounting tricks.
If (1) applies, then by definition it is possible to construct a business that is profitable selling people health care coverage. You just have to come up with the right business model, figure out the right combination of products and sales methods.
If it’s possible to construct a proftiable business selling health care coverage, someone will. (You might keep in mind that private business invented the insurance policy. Risk-pooling is not something government came up with, and shoved down the throats of corporations. It was an invention of clever businessmen to make money satisfying a market desire.)
There are zero examples of a money-making opportunity going to waste, often despite fierce public opposition to the business (porn, drugs). And health care is generally potentially a very profitable business, since people are even more likely than in, say, the case of their HDTVs or cars, to insist on the very best product they can afford, cutting corners elsewhere if they have to.
If one person can construct a proftable business, so can another. They will compete, of course. Without stupid government interference, the inevitable result is a minimization of the cost to the consumer and a maximization of the efficiency of the producer. Not because the producers want it that way — they don’t, of course, and would love to eliminate competition — but because consumers are part of this process, and a free market guarantees no producers can survive unless they please consumers as far as is humanly possible.
This is the way it works in every other field of human endeavor, bar none. There are no historical counter-examples. So what makes health care the sole, magic, exception?
Hardly a limited amount of information, and hardly non-invasive.
Oh give me a break, Daveon. Your definition of “non-invasive” probably consists of them asking you for your name, maybe your birthdate. Why don’t you try getting diagnosed with cancer, and see how much testing gets done, hmm? Jim’s belief is that people will cleverly predict whether and when they’ll get cancer or heart disease or lupus and take those portions out of their healthcare plans, nastily driving the price up for those poor sods who know they’re going to get cancer, heart disease, et cetera.
My point is that the people who, right now, are most interested in predicting the exact probability of your death, so they can maximally differentiate the price of their products, don’t even try very hard. They do tests that could have been done in the 1950s to draw a very crude distinction between your risks and those of the guy down the block. What does that tell you? It tells you that, practically speaking, it’s impossible to assess your health care risks to any serious level of detail. So the idea that the market will differentiate and fail to pool risk, except in the crudest sense, is unrealistic.
The kind of errant idiocy you seem to be cheer leading for is the same insanity I see with American Car Insurance (at least in Washington and California – the only states where I have experience) where it’s perfectly legal to drive with insufficient cover to repair the damage to the car you hit.
Exactly backwards. The car insurance situation is exactly the result of your collectivist madness. People are forced to buy liability insurance, for the silly reasons you suggest. (What if I have some horrible injury and the fellow doesn’t have the assets to pay for it? Eek!) But of course the theoretical ideal met the political reality, and the requirements you see are what you get. One size fits all. The careful retired schoolteacher who motors 2,000 miles a year, back and forth the library, has a liability policy that wildly exceeds her needs, and the careless drink ‘n’ drive hotshot teen has a liability policy that absurdly undercovers his. Good work lawyers ‘n’ Marxists! Obviously the solution to a fuck-up that size is to create an even larger one, like the solution to a stubbed toe is to amputate your arm, so you don’t notice the little pain.
Jim is so wrong on his premises, that there’s almost no point in hacking at the branches of his arguments. Here he assumes that cross-subsidizes are the foundation of “insurance” and goes from there. In truth, actual insurance, actual markets, drive-out cross-subsidizes to create stable risk pools which can then be attractively priced to consumers such that their expected values, on average, are worth more than their cost.
If you assume cross-subsidies as your premise, then you must argue for nothing less than single-payer medicine because that’s all that can “honestly” exist — a phony insurance “market” that Congress would create would either be pure exploitation of the population or of the insurance investors. It cannot be any other way — there is no fairness either in the production of the policies to be produced or in the valuations of those policies — those things require freedom to be discovered.
“…the ONLY solution for this mess is a single payer system.”
You bet Dave!! Please precede me down that Liverpool Pathway.
What exactly makes Robert Reich an authority on Democratic health care reform plans?
Well, at least he’s a Democrat, and a former cabinet secretary in a Democrat administration. That’s got to make him a better authority on Democrat health-care plans than Alan Grayson is on Republican health-care plans.
Jim, what makes you an authority on health care plans? Actually, it’s a moot point. The details are completely beside the point, though arguing them past the point of exhaustion serves to keep people from seeing the point.
The motivation behind “health care reform” is implicit in one phrase of yours: “So let’s say we let … ” Acquiring the power to “let” (or, more likely, “not let”) people run their own lives is what “we” are after. And by “we,” you mean “you” and people who think like you.
Daveon Says:
October 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
“But idiots won’t get that, even when the financial facts speak for themselves.”
Are these the same financial facts that explain why the Dollar just fell below the Euro and the Yen as the favored reserve currency of the Central Banks? Cause if it is then hammering away at public policy that only seeks to consume 40% of GDP seems like precisely the wrong financial path to take right at the moment.
In the first place, you’re an idiot.
Starting with your strongest argument I see….
Generally speaking states reserve the right to regulate your business if you do business in the state, not just if you happen to have a headquarters there.
Generally speaking, yes. But this whole discussion is about making health insurance an exception to that rule! What do you think Hindraker means when he writes that “All we have to do is allow insurance companies to compete nationally instead of state-by-state and eliminate all mandates that limit consumer choice.”? Insurance companies can sell across state lines today, but they have to comply with the regulations of every state they operate in. That is what Hindraker (and the GOP) propose changing.
Screw you, mate. You can pay for your own risks. That’ll teach you to minimize them.
Explain this to David Waddington’s sons. Their father has polycystic kidney disease, has lost both his kidneys, and needed a transplant. The sons are the most promising potential donors, but they also have a 50% chance of having inherited the disease. If they get tested to see if they qualify to donate, and discover they have the gene, they will not only not be able to help their father — they will never get health insurance for themselves. The things they can do to try to minimize their health risks — get tested, donate if possible, seek experimental treatments if they have the gene — will also maximize their odds of being bankrupted.
Please explain the ethics of a system that puts the Waddington family in this position.
[Click my name for a op-ed about the Waddintons.]
Well, at least he’s a Democrat, and a former cabinet secretary in a Democrat administration.
So is Ramsey Clark; that doesn’t mean he has any influence on health care reform legislation.
The motivation behind “health care reform” is implicit in one phrase of yours: “So let’s say we let … ” Acquiring the power to “let” (or, more likely, “not let”) people run their own lives is what “we” are after. And by “we,” you mean “you” and people who think like you.
The proposal I was hypothesizing about is being proposed by the GOP, and was being endorsed by Powerline and Rand. If you don’t think the Federal government should have the power to deregulate interstate health insurance sales, take it up with them, not me.
Here he assumes that cross-subsidizes are the foundation of “insurance” and goes from there.
Health care costs are very unevenly distributed. Most people will have modest lifetime health care costs. A minority will have costs that are much higher than their lifetime income. The only way that minority will get health care is if they are subsidized by the majority.
The only way that minority will get health care is if they are subsidized by the majority.
I don’t see that. They can also pay for their own health care. It’s perfectly reasonable to give people only the health care that they can afford and chose to pay for.
It’s perfectly reasonable to give people only the health care that they can afford and chose to pay for.
Shorter Hallowell – “if you can’t pay, please go find someplace to die.”
It’s perfectly reasonable to give people only the health care that they can afford and chose to pay for.
So if an uninsured woman gives birth to premie twins who need $500,000 in neonatal care, and she doesn’t have it, we let them die?
So if an uninsured woman gives birth to premie twins who need $500,000 in neonatal care, and she doesn’t have it, we let them die?
If she had aborted them, apparently society would have no problem with that. But if she doesn’t choose to do so, society is somehow morally obligated to come up with half a million dollars to keep them alive? Not to mention the future medical bills likely to come from a premie? She is welcome to attempt to have children, but that doesn’t obligate the rest of us to pay for them. Human life is priceless, but for public policy purposes, we have to put a value on it, or we’ll bankrupt ourselves.
Shorter Rand – “If you can’t pay, please go find a place to die.”
Shorter Chris – “We have infinite financial resources.”
This is exactly the kind of utopian thinking and desire to have it both ways that Bob Reich was talking about.
Then subsidize them above-board and stop destroying everyone else’s insurance.
No, Rand, we do not have infinite financial resources. But society as a whole has a hell of a lot more resources than any individual in it could hope to have.
But society as a whole has a hell of a lot more resources than any individual in it could hope to have.
That is both true, and irrelevant.
Chris says,
Shorter Hallowell – “if you can’t pay, please go find someplace to die.”
Come up with something better first. Then whine about my callousness. Remember it applies to me as well. The idea of throwing money at needy people from the limited resources of everyone else is bankrupt. Needy people, especially sick needy people, can always need more while the source of the funds can’t always provide more. There isn’t an infinite supply of cake.
Also remember that most medical expenses occur at the end of life. I don’t approve of spending vast sums merely to keep someone alive a few more days.
Jim says,
So if an uninsured woman gives birth to premie twins who need $500,000 in neonatal care, and she doesn’t have it, we let them die?
I know the answer to this one! We do it like the Europeans do. We reclassify them as stillbirths. Then we let them die. That way, they don’t screw up our mortality statistics.
Titus says,
Then subsidize them above-board and stop destroying everyone else’s insurance.
Whoa! That’s crazy talk. We supposed to let them die in the gutter or squander our future on tough luck cases. Not do something sensible.
Regarding the family of Jim Waddington as referenced by Jim:
And here we see the arguing to the Exceptional Case. You cannot set national policy based on those who are by default uninsurable. By doing so you create what is essentially an untenable system that, while it extends the edges of the bell curve as much as possible – ends up screwing the middle (insert congruent arguments about tax policy intended to make certain the top 0.01% ‘pay their fair share’, and education policies making certain to cater to lowest common denominator). Such arguments make for great drama, especially when presented by Opra, but lead to horrible policy when pursued in the general case.
In answer to the argument: “what about this really emotional and horrible Exceptional case!?!!?!!1!” Charity, either through government or private action.
Finally it needs to be pointed out that the US medical market (both insurance and provisioning) is the most *heavily regulated* market in our economy. So our proposition to fix it is to regulate it further.
I smell Wookies, as that makes no sense.
You cannot set national policy based on those who are by default uninsurable.
Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let’s force insurance companies to write life insurance policies for people after they’ve died, and fire insurance companies to write policies on burning houses! What could go wrong?
Karl – I have come up with something better – it’s called HR 3200.
Regarding this “re-classification” of preemies as still-borns, could somebody actually provide a link to a source?
Titus – I’d love to have an “above-board” subsidy. I think it’s called “public option” here in the US.
Rand – if somebody is by default uninsurable, then we either let them die or put them in a public option. Or am I missing a third choice?
If the “public option” were only an option for those who are uninsurable, there might be much less objection to it. But that wouldn’t serve its real purpose…
Well, if the dead can be registered to vote then surely they can be forced to pay health insurance premiums…?
Rand – if the public option is an “option,” one class of people who are going elect the option are those who can’t get anything else. Your conspiracy theory that the public option is somehow going to lead to Communism (or whatever) is not backed up by the historical trends in other countries. Australia, for example, has both private insurance AND a public option. In fact, 50% of the population opts for some private coverage above the basic health plan.
Chris, I see two problems with the Australian setup. First, they subsidize private health care plans. There’s no need for that other than to buy off opponents to the scheme. Second, the public plan apparently doesn’t pay for itself even with an apparent 1.5% tax on all Australians. That means another subsidy for the public plan.
Ultimately, I see the same ignored problems all over again. Say I know I’m going to get a massive health care cost in the future. Why pay for it? I can get the cheapest possible plan, the public one, and get them to pay for my health care when I need it. Odds are really good that I’ll get a lot more out of this than I would with private health insurance. 50% of Australia agrees with me.
To be honest, I don’t see that any of these other systems are really working in the long run. They claim to be roughly half the cost per capita of US plans. But even that favorable a standing indicates that everyone’s health care costs are increasing rapidly though perhaps not as rapidly as the rocket that is US health care.
So Chris wants rationed care, ballooning financial obligations that are under-funded and a tough luck policy for the elderly? That’s what you’re going to get. Tax the “Cadillac plans”? I have one of those for now. When the taxes start, my coverage will shrink so it’s not taxed. Almost all of them will. There’s 200 billion of the money for the new plan gone. How are you going to make that up? These pie-in-the-sky ponzi schemes to pay for it never work. Look at MC and SS. We can’t pay what we owe now. So let’s spend more with Rube Goldberg financing we already know won’t work. Canada and Britain both ration care to try and keep costs down. Everyone else is on the same road unless they have a zillion petrodollars to use. How about we try less expensive options first?
Carl,
You’re really rambling all over the place with your comments about healthcare and markets, try again mate. Thanks.
Pretty much the same as your contradictory arguments about car insurance.
The car insurance situation is exactly the result of your collectivist madness.
Rubbish. Because, like with healthcare, we don’t see the same problems in other countries where people don’t chose their caps.
But of course the theoretical ideal met the political reality, and the requirements you see are what you get. One size fits all.
Do you buy car insurance? There certainly isn’t a one size fits all in the US. You can pick and choose practically everything in your coverage, from the deducatable to the cover if you kill or maim somebody. That’s insane.
The careful retired schoolteacher who motors 2,000 miles a year, back and forth the library, has a liability policy that wildly exceeds her needs, and the careless drink ‘n’ drive hotshot teen has a liability policy that absurdly undercovers his.
The way to deal with that is through large safe driver discounts, not through giving people the right to pick less cover to save money.
The careful, retired schoolteacher who motors 2000 miles a year could still do something stupidly expensive, no matter how careful they are. However, under the British system, their policy would be based on Car Type, Age and Driving Record. No claims discounts in the UK go up to 90% of the cost of the insurance.
On the other hand, a 21 year old, driving an over powered “hot hatch” will probably pay more than the value of the car in insurance because, from an acturial perspective, the probability of a major accident is practically 1:1.
While the chance of killing or maiming somebody in an accident is extremely low, it’s still there. Insurance isn’t just to cover the vehicle loss.
Just like health “insurance” isn’t just for when you’re sick.
If the “public option” were only an option for those who are uninsurable, there might be much less objection to it. But that wouldn’t serve its real purpose…
Oooooooo!!!! The “real purpose”!!!! Scary.
Seriously, dude, do you even read what you post any more.
What is this “real purpose”?
Wait, wait, don’t tell me, the communist take over of the means of healthcare provision in the United States and the conversion of the US into a communist state like Cuba led by Che Obama?
Am I close?
What is this “real purpose”?
A single-payer system, as Obama has declared in unguarded moments.
Wait, wait, don’t tell me, the communist take over of the means of healthcare provision in the United States and the conversion of the US into a communist state like Cuba led by Che Obama?
I know it’s an unreasonable request, but please stop being stupid.
Canada and Britain both ration care to try and keep costs down.
Yes they do, and the UK spends less than half the amount the US spends.
But, in the UK, if you have the money and want to pay or have private additional insurance you’re allowed to.
How about that! A basic minimum level of cover for all, with a top up system that the rich can opt in for if they want all for 60% of what you’re already paying…
The French ration too, but they have more providers, which does push costs down somewhat but also reduces Doctor’s pay. Then again, the UK, France and other countries also heavily subsidize doctor’s training, so you don’t have to graduate sadled with $200K+ in debts, so you can afford to live well on lower salaries and don’t need as much money to repay it.
There’s a thought. Government grants to smart students to become doctors. Strong arm the AMA and get them to agree, increase the supply…
A single-payer system, as Obama has declared in unguarded moments.
Oh, in that case, he’s right. Excellent idea.
You guys need one.
Like that old lefty Bill Frist said the other day on Real Time. Oh? He’s a republican? AND a surgeon? Gosh. He must be real stupid too.
Seriously, watching you melt down like this is even more amusing than I thought it would be back in November.
Seriously, watching you melt down like this is even more amusing than I thought it would be back in November.
Are you amused by playing with rubber bands, too? If this is a serious statement, a humorous one will split my gut.
Rubber bands not so much, except the obvious slapstick joy when you see other people repeatedly hitting themselves in the eye with the one they’re playing with.
Yes Rand, that was an ANALOGY, you probably got it. Yes?
Press Stick, on the other hand, I can have hours of joy molding with.