Health Care Reform

Some thoughts on Health Care from the Dean of Havard Medical School. Too often the health care debate consists of Dems pushing their idealogical, partisian approach and criticizing Repubs for standing in the way of progress and Repub not offering any meaningful alternatives beyond the good ideas of increased competition and tort reform.

It should be obvious that we can not just add 50 million people to our current system without considerable costs and considerable increases in waiting times to get into seeing a doctor. And probably extra cost increases because emergency room usage will increase when people can't get into seeing a doctor otherwise. Doctors aren't just working at 70% of capacity now, waiting to provide service to all these new people.

And you can not just cut $50 billion or so, c 16%, from Medicare spending. Oh sure, you can pay less to the Doctors but they are not required to take Medicare patients. What would you do if you got 20% less for working for someone? Would you find another employer?

Somewhat is going to have to explain that we either need rationing or some customer based pricing for services. Someone who insists on motorized scooters and medical testing of questionable value should have to pay out of pocket.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539581994054014.html

My SodaHead Responses on Health Care

Does it seem odd that some people put down the US health care system by saying that it ranks 37th and yet they celebrate Canada's system which ranks 30th? Hardly sounds like much of an improvement and hardly looks like a model for the US. Netherlands ranks much higher and uses compulsory private insurance. Sounds like a much better model than the single payor public system in Canada and UK. One good thing about the Canadian system, however, seems to be that as a confederation, provinces have more autonomony and there is not a single Federal health insurance system-there is provincial control.

Odd that the Canadians are complaining about their low, 30th, ranking due to questionable criteria in the WHO ranking. And WHO is currently revising their methodology and withholding new rankings until they better address issues with the criteria. Rankings are always suspect. My point is that ranking 37th is not really that bad when Canada ranks 30th, Australia 32nd, Denmark 34th.

It seems to me that it is the utmost of arrogance to think that the US is #1 in everything or should be. In the first place, WHO has given up rating countries on health care because of the complexity involved. In the second place, their posted rankings are now 9 years old. In the 3rd place, I don't mind being ranked in the same area as Australia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand-all these countries have great health care. But, most importantly is this-it is not that I am against universal health care, I am just against Obama's public option. He said it best himself-"FedEx and UPS don't have a problem, the Post Office has a problem." If he would drop his silly subborn idealogical partisian insistence on the public option, health care would have a much better chance of passing. Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries who rank much higher than Canada on health care have compulsory PRIVATE insurance. Regulate private insurance. Don't put out another inefficient, ineffective, bureaucratic, government run piece of crap legislation.

The top 8 countries are: France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Singapore, Spain, Oman. Congratulations to Andorra, Oman et al but I don't really want to live in any of those countries. You want the US to rank with Malta?

The Value of Health Insurance

This is just so funny. Here we are, debating health care and fretting over the 50 million Americans without health insurance. And along comes a respected researcher who studies the issue and finds, contrary to his intuition and wishes, that those without health insurance have the same mortality rates as those with insurance. Apparently doctors do nothing, for most people. And yet this little study remains hidden. Even Politifact seems like it is unhappy with this study.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/20/bill-pascrell/pascrell-says-22000-americans-die-yearly-because-t/

Health Care

Obama has agrued, counterintuitively, that health care will actually save tons of money because American businesses have been so burdened by health care costs and his plan would save money.
Unfortunately, the CBO estimates than any savings will be very small and will not offset the increased cost of universal health care.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/07/26/orszagism-reeling.aspx

Health Care Reform

I beleive that every state has a health plan. Massachusetts has a Universal Health Plan. So, how about this as a federal health care measure: Require every state to have a universal health care plan. Provide some federal funds for these plans. A lot of funding could come from simply taxing current health care benefits. It should be common sense that someone who makes $40,000 a year and has a employer provided health plan through work that costs the employer $13,000 per year has more income than someone who makes $40,000 a year and no health plan.

And all Congress members must have the same plan as their state plan.

Health Care Reform

Here is how I thought things worked in the US. You know, the 10th Admendment-"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Massachusetts has Universal Health Care. They, like the Dutch, basically made it mandatory for people to have health insurance. What is wrong with state by state health insurance? Why does there have to be a national plan. Don't things work better with more localized control?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-07-22-masshealth_N.htm?csp=34

Health Care Reform

For those of us who believe that Medicare is one of the main reasons why health care spending has increased over the past 40 years, way more than inflation, this is troubling news. And another breaking of a campaign promise by Obama. During the campaign he spoke in favor of private insurers and a voluntary system. Did he lie then or did he just discover realities?

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/23/obama_us_cant_insure_all_americans

Health Care Reform

A thought on health care from David Bernstein:
Serious Health Care Reform Proposal: Let the Democrats put forward three different health care reform proposals. Let the Republicans put forward two different proposals. Find five states to volunteer. Each state adopts one of the proposals. Wait several years. See if any of these proposals worked out well, and if so, which one seems best, and why. Learn from this trial and error, and then pass a national health bill, instead of trying an untested, one-size fits all solution for 20% of the American economy.

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_19-2009_07_25.shtml#1248062921

Seems reasonable to me. We have gone 40+ years with millions of uninsured. And people don't agree on the current science. So have large scale testing. And bring health care now to millions.

UPDATE: I posted the above comment on SodaHead and got the response:
"Here's an idea:Let every single industrialized nation in the world except America require universal coverage.Wait several years.Find out which one works best and modify it for America.oops! We've already done that! "

Of course, we have not done that and there is considerably difference in what universal health care means. China has universal health care and families tend to allow parents to die rather than pay the costs of "universal health care". The Dutch system is basically a law that tells everyone that they must buy medical insurance through whatever private company they want. Sounds like a plan. If you want universal health care mandate that everyone buy a COBRA plan or something else like it. Wait, we already have that, don't we?

Health Care

Maybe Government run health care is good. We are having a problem with the high costs of public pensions, social security, and Medicare. If people would just die younger we would save $billions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPC6CqAFA4E