Obama's Health Plan

[Sis]

It's bad enough that insurance companies decide what kind of health care we need, the government being involved is twice as scary. I've seen what they can do to the people they already have control of and I hate it. I would hate to have all decisions about my health care taken from my hands and put in the hands of the medical establishment and the government.

I've already experienced it with my Dad. They took all decisions from us. He wasn't allowed to even refuse treatment, and we (having full power of attorney) were told nothing. They took all decisions from us.  I can see that happening through the whole country and not just those on Medicare.

What we need is for the government to butt out and  the medical establishment to give us AFFORDABLE health care.

[Richard]

Actually, I agree with that.

My point is that, in almost every instance, the private sector has more experience and is more efficient and cost-effective in the health care arena.  For Obama to assert that it will cost only $214 Billion to cover ALL Americans, when the cost to cover just 30% of them is $538 Billion, is ludicrous at best.

For the cost to remain at $214 billion, many will go without necessary and lifesaving treatment - primarily the very old simply because they no longer have any intrinsic value and the cost of their care is much greater.

And my argument is more abstract.  An insurance company is profit based...a government is not.  My view is that if it is a basic human need, then people should not be profiting off of it.  Especially to the degree that they have at the expense of citizen's health and well-being.

I think we must look to other countries that have socialized health care (or partially socialized health care) as a model.  Look for what is working.

[BenJammin]

So, you're saying that government operates Medicare & Medicaid on a more efficient and cost-effective basis than the private sector could?

Just trying to gain some clarification on this.

Also, address the real issue here.  At what cost will we be subjected to Socialized Health Care?  It's obvious that the $214 billion figure is a gross under-estimate, considering the overall cost of the 2 socialized programs we have already.  I simply don't believe that this undertaking can be accomplished, and Obama maintain the heavy tax cuts he is proposing.  Taxes will ultimately be raised across the board in order to finance this monster.  Biden, just yesterday or today, said, "Raising taxes is patriotic."

Also, the predominant message of smaller government doesn't resonate with me when this program is touted.  Can you imagine the size of the bureaucracy necessary to handle the load?  Also, talk about a massive government funded HMO...doctors won't be able to treat unless authorized by the bureaucrats in the government agency.  This is exactly why, when the option for my healthcare has been HMO or nothing, I have chosen to be uninsured and take responsibility for not only the decisions regarding my treatment, but the cost of it, as well.

[BenJammin]

The Truth About Health Costs

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

January 10, 2008

Health Care Reform: Democrats claim high medical costs are a "failure of the free market," and they demand a government takeover. But a new study says government's to blame.

Public health programs account for almost half of the $2 trillion spent on U.S. health care, a Hoover Institution report says. An astonishing 80% or more of all medical-care pricing is based on government reimbursement rates set by Medicare.

As for private costs, they would be lower if government didn't interfere in the market. Regulations imposed on the industry cost more than $330 billion a year, Hoover says.

Perverse tax policies have created a third-party payer system. Patients no longer have first-dollar responsibility for medical bills thanks to employer insurance.

Someone else is paying, so inflation goes unchecked and unabated.

"Patients have no idea what their doctor visits, surgeries, diagnostic studies or other medical services — whether urgent or elective — will cost until the bill comes weeks later," said Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a senior Hoover fellow and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School.

Even then, they seldom flyspeck the bill. Why bother, when they're responsible for just 10% to 20% of it?

Meanwhile, demand climbs higher and higher, and insurance premiums along with it, taking a bigger bite out of employer paychecks and putting health care completely out of reach for a growing number of Americans.

So if Uncle Sam made health care so unaffordable, why do so many voters like Democrats' plans to expand government control of health care? Because they've bought into the myth that the private sector has failed and begs for government rescue.

Democrats' solution to this failed government-heavy system is more government in the form of mandatory health coverage. Public plans offered by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all boast of "using government to lower costs and ensure affordability for all."

But if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until government makes it "free."

Hillary calls for expanding coverage through public health plans like Medicare or the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. Yet Medicare already costs more per capita than any other industrial nation's public medical program.

The way to control costs isn't to expand a health care bureaucracy that already is divorcing patients from market-price decisions. The answer is letting them choose between health care and money.

Most of the Republican plans would help patients make that choice by expanding health savings accounts with high-deductible insurance plans. HSAs are tax-deferred accounts that patients set up to pay for routine medical care and to save for future unexpected medical expenses.

The key, however, is making the accounts attractive enough to shift incentives from the current employer-based system of insurance to the individual market.

Right now only about 17 million Americans buy their own health insurance. If 50 million did so through HSAs, we'd see at least a 30% reduction in medical costs, studies show, thanks to increased competition in the market.

By putting the patient back in charge of health care, making him a buyer as well as a user of care, a nationwide HSA rollout would create a large enough consumer-driven market to control costs.

Then the health care market would work more like a real market.

The medical costs Americans complain about were caused by government, not the private sector. This is a little recognized fact.

More government will not only ramp up costs, but deteriorate the one thing American patients seldom complain about — the quality of their health care.

Source - http://77wisdom.blogspot.com/2008/01/coming-socialized-medicine.html

[jdcord]

I think we must look to other countries that have socialized health care (or partially socialized health care) as a model.  Look for what is working.

But that's the problem - it's not working.  Their own citizens - those who can afford it, anyway - look to the U.S. medical system whenever they are in need of any serious medical care.  That is a very strong indicator of which system can be counted on when it's desperately needed, and which ones can't.  Why in the world would we want to copy or switch over to the ones that can't?  That's crazy.

[Richard]

So if Uncle Sam made health care so unaffordable, why do so many voters like Democrats' plans to expand government control of health care? Because they've bought into the myth that the private sector has failed and begs for government rescue.

Umm...have you seen the news lately.

[BenJammin]

And government can help undo this....................how?

That is exactly the attitude to which the author of the article was referring.