Hey, cover this, pal
Dave’s not pushing for the so-called “public option” in health care, but economic pressures are pushing him toward it:
If a public option becomes available, or if there is a non-profit co-op that becomes available, I will probably sign up for it. While I am opposed to the idea of the government taking over the health care system, I’m also a realist about my own personal financial situation.
At the moment $200 of each paycheck is taken out for insurance, yet since I have been on this plan I have seen my co-pays only get higher and higher and my coverage get lower and lower. But beyond even that … I can’t afford losing $200 a paycheck ($400 a month). I make barely over $10 an hour (supporting a family of four with this as our only income) and that $400 a month would make a HUGE difference in our financial situation.
Who could blame him?
Now where’s the proposal that takes care of Dave and his family without turning the whole ball of wax over to the tender mercies of the Federal bureaucracy?
McGehee »
25 August 2009 · 9:07 am
That’s the thing about a public option: everybody’s going to be paying for it eventually anyway, so everybody might as well sign up for it. That’s why the administration can claim they’re not abolishing the private insurance market, while knowing damn well that’s what will happen.
I don’t know Dave’s situation or why his $10/hour is the only income for a family of four, but my first suggestion is undoubtedly one he’s already heard thousands of times: more income. Obviously in a recession — especially one that’s being drawn out by uncertainty over things like bailouts, wasteful “stimulus” bills, multi-trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, and the threat of socialized medicine — that’s easier suggested than done.
His own non-profit co-op idea is what’s known in the insurance industry as “mutual” — and there are a lot of insurance companies around that already work that way. Unfortunately they’re lumped in with the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT insurance companies in the ongoing rhetoric, and will be put out of business with the rest of them if the public option comes to be.
Jeff Brokaw »
25 August 2009 · 12:37 pm
Free markets. The health care industry is highly regulated, which pushes up prices and reduces competition.
E.g., who benefits from a ban on selling insurance across state lines? Artificial limitations on competition benefit suppliers, not consumers, especially in the insurance industry, where volume in the form of more insured leads directly to lower rates.
The Heartland Institute has a whole bunch of info on free market solutions. I’m no expert on health care, but I suggest reading some of their material. I do believe in free markets as the best way to provide lower costs and better quality to the consumer, when compared to regulations and meddling, pretty much across the board. It’s interesting how that view never makes it into the newspaper, except via op-ed pieces by free market advocates.
Seems to me that all the relevant points aren’t being presented in context so that informed citizens can make informed choices. Imagine that.
McGehee »
25 August 2009 · 12:59 pm
You wingnut, you. ;-)
Lisa Paul »
25 August 2009 · 1:56 pm
I grew up and thrived under a government-run health care program. It was the plan for military officers and their dependents (the same full coverage your Congressperson enjoys.) We went to the doctors we chose, my mother who has a chronic lung disease was seen by every specialist in her field, we seldom if ever went to a vets hospital but enjoyed the best of care available in the towns or cities where we were stationed. And when my father was dying, his coverage paid for comprehensive end-of-life counseling that allowed me to orchestrate having him die comfortably and with dignity in his own home. The only way we knew we were “on the Guv-mint”? We never had to hassle with insurance companies or make “food or care” decisions.
If Jeff thinks the governement is running the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals instead of the other way around, well, I’ve got some highly-paid lobbyists for him to meet.
McGehee »
25 August 2009 · 3:24 pm
Lisa, why do you think those lobbyists make such huge money?
How much money do you suppose a lobbyist for, say, Stanley makes, in an industry that is utterly ungoverned compared to insurance?
Here’s the way it happens, Lisa: some company called, let’s say, Leviathan Insurance, decides it has too much competition from upstart little companies like, say, Mutual of Poughkeepsie. The CEO writes a big check to a congressman seeking re-election and gets a law passed that makes MoP’s efforts to compete with Leviathan that much harder.
Then InsuriMammoth, Leviathan’s biggest competitor, sends its CEO to lobby his state’s senior Senator for new rules that will improve its position vis-a-vis Leviathan.
Now, you’d think the result would be that the two goliaths would compete for the favor of Congress — but when both realize that Mutual of Poughkeepsie is still gaining market share against them because it’s smaller and therefore more adaptable, instead they join forces to establish the National Too-Big-to-Fail Insurance Industry Association, which will lobby for the things they agree on.
And as the industry becomes more uniformly regulated, what they agree on becomes more and more, well, uniform.
And then when insurance customers discover that “the industry” (because MoP has finally decided if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em) is treating them like cattle, their natural reaction is to demand (wait for it) more of the same kind of regulation the industry’s lobbyists have always pushed for.
The Democrats, of course, keep hoping that these voter demands mean there’s popular support for nationalizing the whole shooting match, but the last time they tried it they lost both houses of Congress and didn’t get them back for 12 years. That’s the danger of trying to imminentize the eschaton.
The real answer is not to push the lobbyists’ wet dream to its ultimate logical (but wrong) conclusion with the Regulatory Scheme to End All Regulatory Schemes that only trades in a corporate compound bureaucracy for a unitary government one. The answer is to give the power to the consumers.
Which as Jeff said, is free markets.
Lisa Paul »
25 August 2009 · 5:24 pm
I can only speak from the perspective of having been raised enjoying the benefits of “single payer” health care. And having lived in England for awhile and enjoyed their “socialized” medicine (which I found much like the US Military Plan). And having an unfortunate illness in France that required going through their health care, which was fast, effiicient and topnotch. Then for the last few decades, navigating the pitfalls and vagueries of “corporate” insurance. Not to mention having many Canadian friends who love their plan.
I still want someone to explain to me why we pay so much more and get so much less — at least if you judge less by our health, longevity, and infant mortality rates which are on a par with many third world countries.
It can’t be explained away with just our diets. Have you seen what the British eat? And they still out live us and outlast us in health.
Not saying the Europeans have ALL the answers, but with the statistics pointing to the fact that SOMETHING right is happening over there. Well, wouldn’t it make sense to — well, I don’t know — maybe listen. Instead of showing up with a gun. Or worse yet, a sign that says “Keep your Government hands off my Medicare.” (Uh, anyone aware that Medicare is exactly what Obama’s talking about here? Basically Medicare for all.)
And I disagree that the free market can solve everything. If it had been left to the free market and government hadn’t stepped in, we’d still have things like slavery, child labor, etc. etc.
kent »
26 August 2009 · 12:15 pm
jeff you really believe that the insurance industry is one of the most regulated….. have you ever tried to get the books on what really is going on. Why is the insurance industry one of the largest owners of real estate properties? Hmmm did those premiums not all go toward the risk pool that they were to cover?
Old Grouch »
27 August 2009 · 5:06 pm
Lisa, longevity statistics involve a couple of apples and oranges comparisons.
(1) The U.S. counts “live births” differently:
(The authors of this CDC report don’t agree with the quote, but do present the numbers on premature births… look at the data, and you be the judge.)
(2) Americans under 40 have a considerably higher chance of being murdered (for the 20-29 cohort, it’s almost 10 times more likely) or dying in accidents than Europeans. (Data from Carnegie-Mellon’s DeathRiskRankings.com.) While you can say these deaths reflect the quality of medical care, do you really want to include the handling of (mostly) crime- or carelessness-induced trauma when you’re making international comparisons?
Both factors increase the number of “premature” deaths in the United States sample, and thus lower the overall expectancy figure. Wasn’t able to find a cite, but I recall a report that said something to the effect of “Once you’ve lived to age 40, your life expectancy in the U.S. is equal or greater to anywhere else in the world.” It takes a bunch of 95-year-olds to counteract the gangstas who get their “caps popped” at age 20.
CGHill »
27 August 2009 · 5:38 pm
For the moment, I’m just wondering if the murder rate drops precipitously after 40.