Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

The Senators moved to Texas and became the Rangers decades ago. Or is Kerry a hockey fan, and threatening us with a Canadian system?

Posted by Raoul Ortega at July 30, 2004 06:27 PM

Senators usually get driven around by a young staff member. Can I get one of those too?

Posted by at July 30, 2004 07:15 PM

And don't forget out free postage too.

Posted by Stephen Macklin at July 30, 2004 07:20 PM

We, the people, will NOT get Senators' health care or pay or perks...

Kerry didn't say that to suggest he'd actually work to deliver those, he was driving a class-warfare wedge into the heart of America.

Vampiric spineless marxist!

Posted by Sharps Shooter at July 30, 2004 09:00 PM

I'd settle for the same access to GOLF that U.S. Senators have. I've always wanted to play a round at the Congressional... or Army/Navy Country Club... or Burning Tree...

Safe and legal access to GOLF is a civil right of EVERY American!

Posted by bchan at July 30, 2004 09:26 PM

You're stretching credulity pretty far, Rand, with this snarkiness. Perks like free haircuts and subsidized meals have nothing to do with health care.

If you're willing to block health care for millions of people who need it simply to sustain an allegiance to an ideology that has proven itself uninterested in delivering that care, then so be it. There's nothing in the tenets of democracy or in the Constitution that says the best government is a government that turns its back on the people.

Posted by billg at July 31, 2004 05:30 AM

A band-aid and two aspirin is not health care and that is about the level of quality you will get if the .gov runs it.

Do you want to wait for six months for an MRI?

To wish that the .gov were to take over health care is almost to wish for suicide IMO.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 31, 2004 09:47 AM

"There's nothing in the tenets of democracy or in the Constitution that says the best government is a government that turns its back on the people."

There is nothing in the constution that says the the government is responsible for providing health care.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 31, 2004 09:48 AM

Nothing in the Constitution, Mike, says the government is prohibited from providing health care.

But, this is about ensuring people can obtain and afford health care, not ensuring that the government provides that care. Those are two different issues, although it is a typical tactic of kneejerk conservatives to attempt to focus the discussion on the latter. They want to rant about big government while pretending that the way to fix the health problem in this country is to keep hands off the institutions and corporations that caused the problem in the first place. Staying true to their beliefs is more important than actually helping people.

Posted by billg at July 31, 2004 09:59 AM

To wish that the .gov were to take over health care is almost to wish for suicide IMO.

The gummint would be only to happy to providfe that too.

"It's people! Soylent Green is people!"

Posted by McGehee at July 31, 2004 10:00 AM

"Nothing in the Constitution, Mike, says the government is prohibited from providing health care."

Nothing in the Constiution says it can either.

The purpose of the Constitution it to establish .govs proper role and to set boundaries it is not supposed to exceed.

Posted by at July 31, 2004 10:50 AM

Uh, Bill:
"kneejerk conservatives...want to rant about big government while pretending that the way to fix the health problem in this country is to keep hands off the institutions and corporations that caused the problem in the first place."

Time for a fact-check. The institution that caused the health-care problem in the first place *is* the FedGov. To wit: second World War, Congress invented Tax Withholding. The business ecosystem reacted to this by offering fringe benefits, which were not taxed. The secondary effects of 'third-party-pays' problems came as a result of the imposition of tax withholding. For an historical view of the role of physicians/surgeons vis-a-vis the poor in the era prior to third-party payment, see "The Doctors Mayo" by Helen Clapesattle. Charity and donated service were far more prevalent than today, prices were frequently negotiated by patients (up to and including barter) in those quaint days when a man was responsible for himself and his family. Imagine that.

Posted by Simon Jester at July 31, 2004 11:23 AM

>>"Time for a fact-check."

OK, I'm looking....

Staying healthy should not be dependent on "charity and donated service", faith-based or otherwise. We have an obligation to ensure that everyone can make enough money to afford the health insurance they require.Part of that is working to lower insruance costs. (Please note that I didn't say "ensure that everyone gets enough money".)

If you've never had contact with the health and insurance industry regarding five- or six-figure bills, consider yourself lucky. They are a thoroughly greedy and untrustworthy collection. They have no interest in hrlpimng people.

Posted by at July 31, 2004 12:12 PM

See what one of the many drawbacks of government healthcare is, here:

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=663192004

Captain Ed blogged this most insightfully, but sorry I can't come up with a link right now.

It is a never-ending source of puzzlement to me that the Dems think that lawyers can make doctors less expensive. I suppose the Dems are hoping that even if the system goes to hell, the public will still look to them to sort things out. Class it as a case of government being a disease masquerading as its own cure.

In seven short years of marriage, my young family has racked up nearly a third of a million dollars in major medical costs. Thanks to my insurance, a PPO, I've never been more than $1,800 per year out of pocket. I have had difficulty getting some of the zillions of claims sorted out, but I'm satisfied that this was because of ordinary bureaucratic inertia, not corporate malevolence. And I'd much rather hang on the phone with a CS rep sorting out a claim, than queuing up for months waiting for service while poorly-managed resources go unused elsewhere.

Posted by The Sanity Inspector at July 31, 2004 02:55 PM

Class it as a case of government being a disease masquerading as its own cure.

"Here's to alcohol - the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

- Homer Simpson

Posted by Rand Simberg at July 31, 2004 03:00 PM

I've had a lot of medical expenses myself, "Sanity Inspector", and my health insurance covered all but a few thousand. I'm less charitable about the medical bureaucracy and its blind eye to the potential for fraud and bill padding.

But, there are tens of millions of people in this country who will suffer needless paind, ill health, and unnecessarily abbreviated lives because they cannot afford health insurance. I certainly don't want lawyers and the government making my health care decisions, but I do want my government to make sure everyone can get the health care they need, whether or not they have insurance. (Although lawyers and insurance bureuacracts make comparable decisions every hoir of every day. Regardless of your doctor's opinion, you won't stay in the hospital one hour longer than your insurance company thinks you need to stay. Given half a chance, I suppose they'd start knocking off life insurance customers who'd live beyond the actuarial predictions.)

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness don't mean squat if you're dieing and can't afford a doctor. Republicans don't seem to get that.

Posted by billg at July 31, 2004 06:02 PM

One area that needs help - though not by a substantially more socialized medicine system - is the issue of insurance for "preexisting conditions" that are not the fault of the patient: Developing rheumatoid arthritis or type 1 diabetes, for example. People tend to get locked into jobs, can't get personal insurance except at extreme cost, or can't get jobs where they would like for an accident of nature.

We've seen what highly socialized medical systems look like: Even higher taxes and bad medicine. Unfortunately, Bush seems to be for it as well, just not to the degree as Kerry.

Posted by VR at July 31, 2004 06:04 PM

"but I do want my government to make sure everyone can get the health care they need, whether or not they have insurance. (Although lawyers and insurance bureuacracts make comparable decisions every hoir of every day. Regardless of your doctor's opinion, you won't stay in the hospital one hour longer than your insurance company thinks you need to stay. Given half a chance, I suppose they'd start knocking off life insurance customers who'd live beyond the actuarial predictions.)"

Hospitals are now required by law to provide treatment for life threatning conditions regardless of ability to pay. Hence the illegals bankrupting hospitals in border areas.

Posted by Mike Puckett at July 31, 2004 06:20 PM

billg,

Is it right to point a gun at my head and make me give you money for a surgery? What if I need that money to feed my kids, buy clothing or housing, or even to pay for a surgery for one of my family? But that's what you want, isn't it? Only you're probably too squeamish to do that, so you want to outsource that job to a federal bureaucracy. And once you've got that system, who decides who gets the surgery, the government? Say hello to rationing.

Our current health care system for the most part has been screwed up by trial lawyers, the tax code, and insurance companies. It's hardly a free market, but it delivers the best quality health care in the world on a regular basis.

Fortunately, those of us with a libertarian bent don't need to hypothesize how a free market health care system would work because we can look at the current market in elective cosmetic procedures. Do you know anyone who has had a boob job or gotten their eyes fixed with LASIK? Prices are decreasing and availability is increasing there, partly because those doctors can deal with an open market, unrestrained by insurance companies.

The best thing we could do to reform healthcare in this country would be to remove the artificial incentives that lead to third-party provided health insurance. There are almost no accurate price signals in your average PPO or HMO.

Posted by John Lanius at July 31, 2004 07:36 PM

Some of you may be interested to hear Ronald Reagan delivering a speech against socialized medicine back in 1961 in an AMA-sponsored drive to oppose what was to become Medicare.

Check out the mp3s I have posted here. Code word - "Operation Coffeecup."

Posted by John Lanius at July 31, 2004 07:42 PM

Lanius: Who said anything about holding a gun to your head?

I said I want to ensure everyone can afford the health care they need. I did not say anything about raising taxes, rationing health care, copying the UK system or Canada's system, or creating the big socialist scarecrow that the libertarian and conservative crowds love to use to divert attnetion from the real issue.

Instead, from you we get the usual canned rant about lawyers and insurance companies. Somehow, you imagine that if they all went away, people without jobs or people making minimum wage could afford health insurance. Blatant nonsense.

Only ideologues who care more about the purity of their own "faith" than the welfare of the nation can generate this stuff.

Posted by billg at August 1, 2004 06:41 AM

> Who said anything about holding a gun to your head?

Is billg suggesting that he's not going to use tax money to fund this project? If so, great!

If, however and as I suspect, he wants to use tax money, he's talking about pointing guns at heads. People don't pay taxes voluntarily.

Posted by Andy Freeman at August 1, 2004 09:16 AM

Billg, actually, the Constitution does say the federal government can't provide health care. (We haven't followed the 'Enumeration of Powers' part for awhile, but 'Health Care' ain't in there.)

Second, I live in Washington state, and have had plenty of interaction with both Canada's health care & the USes. I played ice hockey at the edge of semi-pro, and we sent plenty of people to the hospital. After a very short while, the manager wised up, and we took our own MD along. And mostly returned to the US for treatment.

But what was amazing to me was when an _opposing_ player with (what ended up being) a broken collarbone asked if he could bum a ride with us back to Seattle. A three hour trip + US emergency room wait + paying for service was better than a free ambulance ride + free care in Vancouver.

"everyone" gets Senatorial Health Care the same day everyone gets an above average income, for exactly the same reason. Get a clue.

Posted by Al at August 1, 2004 11:54 AM

Billg: Would you mind explaining what you DO want to do? It's all very good to say you'd like there to be an overreaching health system without raising taxes and creating a typical socialized/bad medical system, but just how do you DO that?

Last time I looked, medicine was very expensive and socialized systems caused far more problems than they solved. That's from real world examples, not ideology.

Posted by VR at August 1, 2004 02:47 PM

"I said I want to ensure everyone can afford the health care they need."

Sorry, William, can't be done, because often enough the type of health care that people need is so expensive (even leaving out such luxuries as R&D and the need of nurses for hot food and sleep) that there isn't enough wealth in this world to pay for it for everyone. Sometimes, in fact, it doesn't even exist.

Of course, "need" is almost as slippery a word as "want". Does a diabetic "need" a working pancreas? Or an assured supply of injectable insulin? Or a caretaker to help her cope with the neuropathy caused by improper glucose regulation? Given that everyone will eventually die (sorry, Rand, but the more extensive assertions for cryogenics sound like so much yivshish to me), do we "need" health care any more than our Neolithic ancestor did?

If we are to have a serious discussion, instead of slinging around warmed-over incentive about Hillarycare, let's begin by defining "need".

Posted by John "Akatsukami" Braue at August 7, 2004 11:31 AM

Given that everyone will eventually die (sorry, Rand, but the more extensive assertions for cryogenics sound like so much yivshish to me)

Most sensible cryonicists wouldn't disagree with the proposition that everyone will eventually die (from the heat death of the universe, if nothing else). They only claim that there's much more than could be done to keep people alive.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 7, 2004 12:56 PM

The pack of wolves in Wash. have abused the system too long. Elected officials were supposed to serve as a duty, not as a way of making themselves rich. They should not expect perks or pensions. I served in the military, a year in Vietnam, where everyone puts their life on the line, and I don't get any perks or a pension. I guess serving in an elected slot in the government is more dangerous than military service. jerry

Posted by at August 14, 2004 08:09 PM

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