This blog printed on 100% recycled electrons.
Who said the following:
The only option that will work is under a single-payer system for basic benefits. Supplemental “bells and whistles” benefits could then be purchased from insurance companies for those who desire expanded coverage. The major factors that are driving affordability are the excessive profits to private insurance and pharmaceutical companies and their undue influence on the political process.
- A. Governor MMMMichael Rounds
- B. Madville Times
- C. Zaniya Project Task Force member
- D. Pat Powers
- E. B & C
- F. Trick question: no red-blooded American would dare espouse such socialist nonsense, especially not with the Soviet Union threatening us with nuclear annihilation.
...O.K. quiz kids, time's up! Sorry, Bob and Steve, it's not F. (Reminder, fellas: Cold War ended 16 years ago.)
The answer is... E! A single-payer system is not merely the province of radical lakeside bloggers. The unattributed comments attached to the Zaniya Project final report include the above comment straight from a Zaniya Project Task Force member who put his/her finger squarely on the real problem. The only irresponsibility driving health care costs is the irresponsibility of the health insurance corporations who focus on profit over people. If someone on the governor's own task force can see this truth, there's hope yet!
Contrary to your implication, I hold no illusions about the Soviet Union; I was in the military that helped bring it to an end by defying it. Unfortunately, however, that doesn't mean socialism went away with it. The comment you referenced is proof it hasn't gone away.
ReplyDeleteThere is undoubtedly a profit motive in insurance companies, and perhaps even an imbalanced one. But that's what makes a free market system--and ultimately a free society--work: profit. But to lay responsibility for the current mess at the feet of the insurance companies not only reveals an ideological bias against the free market system, but is myopic and ignorant.
More than anything, government intervention has brought us to the huge health care costs we see today.
The cost of complying with government regulations and requirements is quite high (I read a report a few weeks ago that put it in the trillions for the entire economy), and the health care industry is one of the most regulated in the nation.
But government health care such as Medicare and Medicaid help make it possible for (1) many people to use the system frivolously that otherwise probably wouldn't if they bore the full costs of their usage themselves, and (2) the health care industry to push the cost of treatment well above what the market would otherwise bear. Programs like the controversial CHIP add to this malady.
See, that's the magic of the free market system. The provider of goods/services can't charge more than customers can pay; if they do, they lose business and thus lose profits. But when government gets involved and throws money at the providers of goods/services without the caution of a regular citizen who's paying for it himself, the system quickly gets inflated. That inflation spills over into the insurance market, which in it's own way adds to the problem of inflated costs (again, the consumer doesn't face the true cost of goods/services and thus over-uses the system).
This vicious process ends up making it devastating for the individual who for whatever reason (even willingly) doesn't have health insurance. Just a few decades ago, few people had government health care or private insurance, and costs were relatively reasonable. My wife and her twin sister were born for about $70 combined back in the late 1960s. But my son who was born 5 years ago cost about $10,000. There's something wrong with that picture, and it's the artificial inflation caused by government intervention, exacerbated by the cost-shielding of private insurance.
There is also a motive in the health care industry, when it knows government is on the hook for the bill and won't check that closely, and even an insurance provider who still won't look as closely as the paying individual, to administer "care" ( e.g. tests, procedures, longer hospital stays, additional follow-up visits, etc.) that may be quite unnecessary. This unnecessary "care" adds to the overall cost of health care.
The obvious answer, therefore, isn't MORE government intervention, but less. This would begin the road back to the sanity of free market controls that help keep goods and services affordable.
*phaedrus enjoys the rare warm glow of rational reason on the Madville Times coming from Bob*
ReplyDeleteTwo words that many have a problem with - "personal responsibility." Example: I have two young couples in my extended family. One couple got their college degrees, eventually got the jobs they wanted, but while waiting for the right jobs they worked at lower end jobs, making sure they at least one of their two jobs also included benefits (yes, there are plenty out there that do) like insurance. i.e. they took personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThe other couple: One taking about eight years to get a college degree, choosing to work a few hours at a job he likes but is a minimum wage job with no benefits, racking up credit card debts with no effort to repay any of these.
One taking an on line course and dropping out and doing the work she wants to do which pays little and has no benefits.
Neither have any oompf to get a better job or look for one with benefits because they can still live with the gov't handouts (WIC, Medicaid - yes they now have a child we are paying for - free daycare, subsidized housing, etc etc etc).
Why should people who make no effort to be responsible for their own finances be the responsibility of those who do make the effort?
I have no qualms about helping those who truly need it, but simply rewarding laziness etc is ridiculous. It didn't work in Plimoth Colony, and it won't work now.