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StumbleLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Free market can’t fix our medical system
Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.
Regarding Richard McCord’s Tuesday letter to the editor, headlined “Why Republicans are against ‘reform’ ”:
I agree that in many situations free, nongovernment-controlled markets often allocate scarce resources and produce untold benefits for consumers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in health care.
There are two reasons for this:
The first is the distortion of this market by substantial cost shifting and huge local, state and federal government and private industry payments and/or subsidies. In fact, health care now consumes almost 17 cents of every dollar of the U.S. gross domestic product and at its current rate of growth threatens in less than 20 years to bankrupt the U.S. taxpayer, industry and consumer.
The second reason our health care system does not respond to normal market forces is an asymmetry of health care information. Because of patients’ lack of knowledge of a given doctor’s skill or the actual costs of medical care, it’s virtually impossible for them to make anything resembling reasoned decisions.
So what’s the result for the U.S. consumer? Ours is the world’s most expensive health care system (Americans pay almost twice what Canadians or Europeans pay), and it wastes billions of dollars each year.
Yet in terms of many health outcomes such as infant mortality and overall mortality, outcomes annually tabulated by the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks near the bottom (42nd) of all industrialized nations.
So should we leave the current system, with all its waste and inefficiencies, as is? Or should we impose sensible policies and guidelines (mandates) as advocated by President Barack Obama, guidelines that would define who receives and pays for health care, what’s covered and what’s not, and the amounts the government and consumers will pay?
The alternative is national bankruptcy and increased American suffering and death.
The writer is a medical doctor.
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I hear Republicans moaning about bureaucrats making decisions involving their health care. Perhaps that's partially true. But bureaucrats are currently making those decisions in the "for profit" system we're currently under. The difference would be, that in a government managed system, those bureaucrats would be working to find ways to get you the best treatment available. On the other hand, the profit oriented "bureaucrat" constantly searches, and is motivated to find ways to deny you treatment.
If you haven't yet had the experience of having been told that the procedure or medication your doctor ordered was denied by your insurer, just wait a bit. It'll happen soon enough. Then, when realize you screwed yourself, you'll wonder what in the world you were thinking when you decried a public option and government intervention in this badly broken system.
Our medical system works fine for 90 percent of the legal American population.
Anyone who thinks putting the government in charge will make it work fine for 95 or 100 percent -- or even 90.5 percent -- of the people, they're in immediate need of an appointment with a qualified mental health professional.
Which they are free to pay for out of their own pocket, not mine.
"The first [reason]is the distortion of this market by substantial cost shifting and huge local, state and federal government and private industry payments and/or subsidies."
So the solution is to increase the goverment handling of the money and rules from 50% as it is today to 100%.
Goverment runs 50% of healthcare now and is failing in that role.
Why are we going to double down
Cooperation between the feds and private market is what is needed, not mindless federal domination of the health care equation.
We need legislation to fix several private insurance coverage issues, and tort reform, not a federal dominated health care system!
hey doc...
bravo...
sad part is...
the stupid pathetic lying republican party just isn't negotiating in good faith...
they are in the hip pocket of the insurance companies...
or they have other ulterior motives...
case in point...
look at houstonjac above...
he is on medicaire...
yet constantly rails against reform...
why...
he doesn't want anything to happen to the health care he currently enjoys...
or...
he doesn't want others to get the health care he currently enjoys...
pathetic...
absolutely pathetic!!!
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said we all should take from the workers and give to the unemployed
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today, no work means equal pay
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said take a dollar, here make it two
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said soak those who work hard and give it to those who don't
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
YEAH. Barack Hussein Obama
Interesting that this letter is in the Sacramento Bee today as well, but their it is written by a local Sacramento resident. It seems the pro Obama forces are trying to dupe the public with their letters today.
Honesty would be nice for a change
Yes, I agree... Lets throw out the entire existing health care system and replace it with a government ran system.
Once the health care system has been socialized, the Obama administration can start on socializing the automobile insurance industry. Of course you have heard the horror stories from people who can't obtain auto insurance at regular rates due to their driving records and don't want to go to the high risk groups and pay more.
Ah, the inhumanity of it all!!!
"Our medical system works fine for 90 percent of the legal American population."
What a load of crap. Ten percent is less than the portion of the population that doesn't have any health insurance at all. Over half of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by large medical bills, and over 75% of those people HAD HEALTH INSURANCE! Did the system work fine for them? We have higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancies than almost all other industrialized nations. How could any dispassionate observer believe that our system "works fine"?
"He said soak those who work hard and give it to those who don't..."
More crap. Are you trying to say that everyone with money worked hard for it? And that everyone who isn't wealthy is poor only because they don't work hard? Where do you get off having such disdain for the people around you?
JohnF has it right. Most of the wealthy earned what they have honestly and deserve to keep it. Most poor are poor because they are either stupid or lazy. Many times both.
There is some chatter in the postings that the government is going to run the health care system in a more economical manner. I challenge anyone to tell me what the government has ever run that has been run effectively. Medicare, going broke. Social Security, going broke. Medicade, causing the states to go broke.
Government health care, god forbid, if it ever gets started will take the seniors and put them on waiting lists so they will die before the government has to spend any money on them. Look at Europe, the young think their systems are fine because their governments don't spend money on the young. When you get to be seventy and have a serious problem that will cost $200,000 or so it will be "don't call us we will call you in a couple of years". Meantime, you will die or else go to a country that has more freedom than we do and pay for it yourself.
Obama realy touts the thing but the "man" is a pathetic power hungry liar. Don't believe a word the despicable little crook says.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 09/27/09 at 17:18 GMT (EST+5) is
307,560,157.
So, 10% of 307 million is about 31 million...
Hey, that's close to those U.S. residents who do not have health insurance.
And included in that 31 million or so, are approximately 15 million who can afford insurance, but do not desire to obtain health insurance.
So, someone might help me, because I have been called stupid and uneducated, but it appears to me that approximately 15 million U.S. residents or about 5% need help in obtaining health insurance.
I say, "get er done."
Tomorrow, President Obama should make a Presidential Proclamation, that effective tomorrow, all those not financially able or those with pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain Medicaid Health Insurance based on their ability to pay.
But, I bet you a penny, that this won't be done, because it doesn't fit into the Obama Administration's agenda of socializing our health care system.
Dr. Shear,
I do not know if you are reading these posts but if you are take a second and click on "birdiedreamin" and see what this piece of work's real opinion is on doctors? Take careful note that there is no distinction between doctors of any political stripe.
This loser has nothing but disdain for you "money grubbing whore doctors". All of a sudden birdie has something nice to say about the medical profession? This bird is nothing but a progressive, liberal tax-grabbing collectivist. Don't be sucked in.
Republican greed and spin are displayed over
and over again on this post. Thank God they're
the minority.
Health care reform WILL PASS.
jib: you might have missed JohnF's point.
JohnF is a bleeding heart liberal which by itself would be OK except he also seems to be a socialist.
He has 300 employees of which only a small fraction does he provide health insurance. Of those, they have to pay half of the premium. He wants us to pick up the bill for the rest.
JohnF: why don't you and your bosses help your poor employees to enjoy the American dream of health insurance like I am sure you do?
I hope they hit your business with an 8% payroll tax for all your uninsured and you can learn firsthand the unintended consequences of your socialist nirvana.
The vast majority of the poor in America (of which only a small fraction ever remain "poor" throughout their lifetime) are there because of their own doing.
I sacrificed over a decade of my life to become an upper-middle class, bitter, jaded, conservative/Libertarian. I put in 100 plus hour weeks for minimal pay. I gave up weekends, vacations, you name it to make sure my family and I could rise above our middle-class roots. Boo hoo for me, right.
I did this by choice, of course. What choices have others made? Booze, play, obesity, laziness, multiple kids out of wedlock without fathers in the home, gambling, dead in jobs but lots of money for happy hour and quarter slots on the weekends?
In America, for now at least, if you are willing to work hard AND sacrifice, you can still be guaranteed a decent living and, yes, health insurance.
You see, guys like me are not ready to turn over more of our hard earned money to the ruling class in Washington so they can give it to "the uninsured". I'm already helping the destitute, the disabled, the unfortunate (willingly, I might add). I might spring for another 10 million to get health insurance if they really need it but enough is enough.
If free markets (which really don't exist) can't fix health care then the stupidest people in the country bureaucrats and politicians can't fix it either. I bet Mr. Shear cannot name one thing that has gotten better with government involvement. They fail at everything they do.
pbim72. You just have the wrong attitude. What makes you think that because you work hard and earn money that it belongs to you?
pbim,
I would love to be able to provide my employees with health insurance. The owner for whom I work would also love to be able to do so. We offer the very best we can while still remaining financially viable.
And that's the problem for all of us, isn't it? How to get insurance while remaining financially viable? The whole medical insurance debate is about how we are going to see to it that people can provide for their own health care without having to claim bankruptcy.
The best way to do that, of course, is to stop relying on the people who profit from the provision of health care by keeping rates high, denying coverage, capping benefits, and dumping expensive patients.
This isn't about socialism or moral obligations or subsidizing lazy people or any other such thing. This is simply common sense. We have a system in which 45% of the people are receiving health insurance through the government or not at all, while the private sector covers - and makes obscene profits on - those who are healthy and inexpensive to insure. As soon as those people become unprofitable the private insurance companies dump the cost of their care on taxpayers. Why, as taxpayers, should we continue to subsidize this system when by eliminating the middle man - by putting everyone on Medicare - we could cover everyone and save billions of dollars every year?
It's simple dollars and cents. I and the owner for whom I work would gladly pay a higher Medicare tax if we didn't have to cover the cost of health insurance. I and most everyone I know would gladly pay a higher tax so we could pay $2,000 less for every Ford, GM, and Chrysler product. And most importantly, we all would gladly pay a higher Medicare tax if it meant that we could cover everyone while also seeing the overall cost of our medical care decline.
JohnF:
Since you believe that health care is a right, then you are violating your employees' rights by not providing them with health insurance.
Oh yes, pbim,
Are you on Medicare? If so, my employees - who are all taxed to pay for Medicare and can't afford medical insurance for themselves - are subsidizing the cost of your medical care without being able to take advantage of the system themselves. How is that fair?
jlb is wrong again, as usual.
There are problems that the private sector can't solve for the very reason that the profit motive - which works exceptionally well in the vast majority of circumstances - doesn't work the way it's supposed to.
Under normal circumstances, services and goods are provided at a cost which both the provider and the buyer find fair; they both feel they are getting value in the transaction.
The provision of health care is different. The way the insurance industry makes money is to NOT provide the service for which the customer receives value. Only one side receives any value in the transaction. As soon as someone becomes unprofitable to insure, his policy is dumped.
Government does a fine job of providing outstanding service in a wide range of areas. Government built and maintains the interstate highway system. Government built the TVA. Government created the national and state park systems. Government provides us with water and sewer services every day. Government runs free and fair elections (everywhere except Florida and Chicago :-}). Government built UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, The Harrah Hotel College at UNLV, and the University of Texas. Government built and runs the FDA, CDC, and the USDA which keep us safe from tainted food and drugs.
And of course, government does a fine job of seeing to it that the elderly - whom no private insurance company will cover - receive excellent medical care, and they do it for less money than the private sector spends on younger, healthier patients. It's ridiculous to think government couldn't do that for the rest of us.
"Since you believe that health care is a right, then you are violating your employees' rights by not providing them with health insurance."
Where's the logic in that statement? C'mon, lazyfaire. I know you're better than that.
It's now the responsibility of employers to guarantee all the rights of employees? Am I also violating their second amendment rights if I don't give them guns when they enter the workplace?
JohnF:
The logic is that when the government says you have to provide health insurance for your employees, you'll be fined if you don't, i.e., you'd be violating your employees rights. Yes, under Obamacare, employers will have to guarantee their employees "rights." The Second Amendment guarantees citizens the right to bear arms, not for employers to buy them arms. C'mon, JohnF, I know you're better than that. Actually, I don't.
JohnF, I am not on Medicare. I am still working hard and paying plenty of taxes, thank you very much.
And jib is right; I do have an attitude problem. What I have is a negative attitude, which by itself doesn't mean it is bad.
JohnF, if you cannot afford to provide your employees insurance, and you have 300 employees, and you do this because you want to make your business profitable to you and the owners, then where to you suppose the money is going to come from if you yourself don't have it?
Are you saying Obama can make insurance rates cheaper and then you will be able to afford it?
What will you do if they impose an 8% tax on you? Will you go out of business?
Will you tax the "rich"?
Is Obama going to increase competition?
If you take out the profits and then insure all the currently "uninsurable", remove caps, co-pays, life time benefits (which Medicare has currently, by the way), pre-existing condition exclusions, etc., what will that do to cost?
JohnF Wrote: "I would love to be able to provide my employees with health insurance. The owner for whom I work would also love to be able to do so. We offer the very best we can while still remaining financially viable.
And that's the problem for all of us, isn't it? How to get insurance while remaining financially viable?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had to re-read this. Yes, that is the issue isn't it: how to remain financially viable while handing out free health care.
I want someone to tell me where this money will come from. JohnF's business is on such a tight budget (along with most American businesses/Americans) that he can't provide health insurance for his employees (although I'll bet he has it) yet he and many like him want it anyway.
I'm beside myself (Hi, self!).
JohnF is more interested in his profits than he is in the rights of his employees. Greedy capitalist.
Oooh! That hurt!
If insurance was a right, the GOVERNMENT would be required to guarantee that right. That's why governments exist in the first place. That's what the Declaration of Independence says, remember?
lazyfaire, there is a difference between a right and a legal requirement. You have a right to bear arms, but I have no legal requirement to provide you with a weapon, regardless of whether you are my employee.
Medical care is not a right (although I believe it should be). I may however, in the very near future, be required to provide it for my employees. I have an option, though. If I don't want to provide your insurance I can choose not to employ you. That doesn't mean you have a right to insurance, it only means I have to provide it if I choose to employ you.
Don't be so obtuse. As I said, I believe you're better than that.
You believe health care should be a right. Then why don't you back that up by providing health insurance for your employees? It would hurt profits? You're no better than the insurance companies you despise.
"Yes, that is the issue isn't it: how to remain financially viable while handing out free health care."
No that's not the issue. Nobody thinks health care is free. The question is, what's the best way to pay for it? Arguing that how we're doing it now is how it should be done is absurd, especially when we can see that other nations pay far less for medical care than we do and get better outcomes for their money.
lazyfaire, why do you have to be so deliberately offensive? Why do you have to twist reason and logic to make an ad hominem argument?
Where did I ever say that I despise health insurers? What I said was their motives and the motives of their customers don't coincide. I ask a very simple question: why should we continue to subsidize the health care of the unprofitable for the benefit of the insurance companies when we could save hundreds of billions by assuming the cost of the profitable as well?
You have never, nor will you ever, provide a satisfactory answer to that question. My company has decided that we would rather keep people employed and offer the health insurance that we do rather than close the doors. It has nothing to do with rights. It's not my place as an employer or as an individual to guarantee anyone's rights. It's the job of government. I am more than willing, both as an individual and as an employer, to carry my share of the burden of provdidng everyone with medical insurance just as I am willing to share in the burden of the national defense, Medicare, the FDA, the CDC, the interstate highway syatem, and the myriad of things the government does to make our lives better every day.
Of course, answering your attacks is getting to be more and more a waste of time. One can't argue with someone who has no regard for logic and resorts to ad hominem attacks. So blast away a little more. Anyone who has respect for reasoned discourse can see through your arguments.
ad hominem: "attacking the character, motives, etc., of an opponent rather than debating the issue on logical grounds." (Webster)
Where have I made an ad hominem attack? However, you have in numerous posts on these boards. Here's one of yours from Sep 9:
"To all, I beg your pardon. I let my emotions get the best of me. I would never suggest that any of you are stupid. Please forgive my use of the word."
Apparently you more than suggested it.
My argument is perfectly logical. You have advocated passionately on these boards that health care, along with food, shelter, and clothing, is a basic human right, but you don't back it up with actions. You're eager to tell everyone else what they should do, and attack their character for not doing it, but you give yourself a pass.
In answer to your question of questions, I would first reject your claim that billions could be saved by covering everyone. Health insurers cannot afford to cover the "unprofitable" and stay in business, and the "unprofitable" could not afford the premiums that would be necessary to cover them. Society as a whole will not be able to do it either, so we will have to ration care. But rather than us rationing our own dollars in a free market (which doesn't currently exist), we will hand over control of our health care to bureaucrats, politicians, and special interests.
Listen to the docter, he's smater than
all of you.
Make that smarter.
If your doctor told you what his/her charges were before your visit and the doctor down the hall charged less for the same service, would you change doctors?
I would.
OK Teamster, we get the message. I agree that a health-care bill will be passed.
You know why? The Democrats have no choice. They have painted themselves into a corner. If they don't pass SOMETHING, ANYTHING, then Obama's presidency is over before it has really begun. They have gone all-in and they already know they've lost the hand. They can't even bluff now.
So they're more than welcome to pass the Ted Kennedy Memorial Forget-About-Chappaquidick Feel-Good Skittles-For-All Health Care Act of 2009. It will have NOTHING in it. No public option that uses more of my tax dollars to pay for social leechitude.
Pelosi keeps talking a good game, but that's only so she'll have deniability. She doesn't want her far-left base to blame her, so this way she can put it on Obama for not fighting for a public option.
The day they pass the bill, you'll wake up like a kid on Christmas and say, "Wow, such a pretty box, I wonder what's in it for Teamster and his Teamster cronies?" Then you'll realize the box is empty. You'll realize the bill was a farce, designed to fool union dupes, ACORN criminals and the rest of Harry Reid's gullible voter base.
Just in case you don't figure that out, the rest of us higher beings on these threads will make sure to stop by every day to explain it to you.
^
Higher beings whose only source of information is Fox News and Hate Radio?
What is wrong with the competition that the Public Option will provide?
judge:
Your on the wrong side of life.
I feel sorry for you.
If it's such a important issue, why doesn't the Obama administration IMMEDIATELY through a Presidential Proclamation make Medicaid available to all who can't afford health insurance and have preexisting conditions and can not obtain health insurance?
But, it's not really a important issue with the Obama administration. Obama is using it as another crisis to get a complete government takeover of the health care system.
You see, a government takeover of the health care system advances his socialist agenda.
"If it's such a important issue, why doesn't the Obama administration IMMEDIATELY through a Presidential Proclamation make Medicaid available to all who can't afford health insurance and have preexisting conditions and can not obtain health insurance?"
Because covering people is only a part of the equation, Larry. Obviously, you haven't been paying attention.
Just extending Medicaid will not accomplish Obama's ultimate goal: to bring down the cost of health care.
Really, this isn't that complicated if you'll tone down the conspiracy theories maybe you'll understand.
LarryVegas: has it all right.
Teamster: is a moron. Remember teamster is brainwashed and told what to do by people who force him to pay dues.
Providing coverage to all is not really major issue with the Obama administration. Obama is using it as another crisis to get a complete government takeover of the health care system.
A government takeover of the health care system advances his socialist agenda.
No need to feel sorry for me, Teamster. I have Cadillac health care and you want to suckle at the gov't teet.
Save your pity for yourself. I can hear the clock ticking, and you and your Teamster brethren will be in the unemployment line soon. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Unless you're already in the unemployment line. Better hope your benefits get extended. Health care can be very expensive if you have to leech off others to get it.
Call it like you see, the name says it all, Teamster.