Mark Steyn Nails It
ByIf given some context, the title of his latest article says it all:
Cross the River, Burn the Bridge
The public option river and the private healthcare bridge, that is. Steyn continues, explaining that for Democrats to be successful, they need only get a foot in the door; exactness in legislative language is very much secondary.
“My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option — because that’s where it leads, remorselessly…. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly.”
I could not agree more. This battle may well be the last stand for truly limited government in the United States. Some may call this Democracy in action, to which I’d say: a little monarchy, please?
Sounds like hyperbole? Keep in mind, we’re talking 1/6 of the entire American economy. We’re talking handing over the control of your body to the State. And hence, we’re talking every decision you make that can be connected to the cost of “healthcare,” no matter how esoteric, being legitimate grounds for Congressional debate. Some likely outcomes – $10 cigarettes, not only in NYC, but across the country. Additional taxes on alcohol. A graduated tax on fat. A tax on sugar and corn syrup. A tax on red meat. A tax on white meat. A tax on the more sedentary; perhaps a subsidy for gym goers. Forced exercise regimens in public schools (or is that gym class?). Less automobiles; more walking and public transportation. A national weight registry. Most abhorrent, though hardly unprecedented: encouraged termination of pregnancies that carry high risks. The list could potentially fill volumes, because what ultimately is not health related? As Mark Levin points out regularly, we can see our future by looking at Canada and Great Britain. Have not many of the items on my cursory list come to pass in one form or another in these countries?
Further implications concern the effect on the future of political debates in this country. Having spent some time up in Canada, I can attest that public healthcare destroys any principled difference between parties. The bureaucracy, once set in motion, becomes too unwieldy; and like an angry, venomous snake, one not dare touch it. The medical institutions that actually provide the health care in a nation with a “public option” is intertwined with the parasitic/host government. Even a hint of poking at the fragile superstructure of protocols becomes positively frightening to a dependent population.
Underfunding being an apodictic certainty when bureaucratic management techniques are applied to profit/loss enterprises, society is left deciding whether taxes increase 4% or 5% in any given year, rather than whether there should be any tax hike at all. For the United States, adoption of a public plan almost certainly means a Canadian/UK-style VAT tax. And the corporations that once opposed seizure will quickly make their peace, preferring instead to benefit from monopoly privilege granted by the state. (Lawsuits get too expensive, and would likely be fruitless when the court system willfully, nay, proudly distorts language.)
Less sophisticated political observers urge Republicans to contribute to the bill, so that they may insert provisions that are more in line with free market beliefs. Compromise, in this case, is suicidal. It matters not what trifling words are found along the fringes of an otherwise gargantuan takeover. Whatever is found inconvenient in the future will, insofar as we can trust history, gladly be misconstrued by a court that finds it against the grain of the spirit of the law at large – that is, the vague provision of the positive “right” of healthcare to the people.
A debate over constitutionality, the first question that should concern our Federal government, is considered superfluous by our incredibly arrogant rulers, whose flouting of conventional law will be next to Caesar’s in history’s books of political tragedy.
Our neophyte, poverty-inducing president is correct when he calls this legislation “historic.” Just as Roosevelt, in his Depression, created the unfunded, debt-bomb, monstrosity of Social Security, Mr. Obama is using his own Depression to yoke Americans into a system of perpetual crisis and chronic failure.
If, as I’ve written, the backstop for this depression is the 22nd Amendment, the only foreseeable end to national healthcare, once enacted, is national insolvency (or imminent threat thereof). Assuming the passage of Obamacare, a conservative’s best friend might become indebtedness.
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34 Comments
January 5th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
“Hand over the control of your body to the state…” Hmmm, sounds familiar, like say perhaps – the military!!!! The list you supply sounds like precisely what should happen (if hasn’t already in some form). I for one rebuke no tax hike that ensures my health care. Instead of the real bureaucracy, which you should know is the current privatized insurance industry, I prefer no public option but single payer. Health care is a right, not a privilege. Privatized systems designed to make money off the lack of coverage they refuse over arbitrary reasons and loopholes is disgusting. What you cloak in pompous language you lack in morality and principles.
Sick.
January 5th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
The military is VOLUNTARY, unlike your proposed “single payer” system. Did that difference ever occur to you?
Health care is not a right, just like shelter is not a right. If goods and services were “rights,” the cave man could have conceivably claimed the same things. No; what you talk of as “rights” are actually private property, and things of which you are clearly envious.
To borrow your apt moniker, the politicians who promote such and obviously failed models are con artists.
January 5th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Military service in this country is voluntary and only temporary. A socialized health care system would not be. And besides, what exactly are you implying? That we should do away with the military? That it’s okay to have the government run civilian life in military fashion? Which one?
How about a tax hike that will not ensure your health care? Because that’s exactly what you will get. No country in the history of the world has ever ensured health care for its citizens. Some like to pretend.
The current insurance system is not truly privatized. It’s mired in heaps of government regulation, and half of it is actually the government itself.
Says who? No right exists that depends on forcibly taking that which belongs to others, as is necessary to pay for other people’s health care.
If we think insurance companies are acting unethically or illegally, why don’t we pass laws and prosecute those committing fraud then? Every single government run health care in existence denies coverage, only then it becomes perfectly okay because it’s done by the government for the “greater good”. In this country, Medicare and Medicaid deny more claims than private insurance.
As do you, “ConArtist”.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:08 am
and, re-reading what I had written, i don’t think my language was really that pompous.
what you mistake for pomposity is utter dismissal and refutation of your insistently statist plans!
January 6th, 2010 at 12:10 am
to finish you off here:
“The list you supply sounds like precisely what should happen (if hasn’t already in some form). ”
that would make you not a liberal, but a… totalitarian!
January 6th, 2010 at 10:46 am
The most pathetic omission of your responses was my most essential sentence, namely: “Privatized systems designed to make money off the lack of coverage they refuse over arbitrary reasons and loopholes is disgusting.” If that doesn’t strike you as fiercely immoral, than there is little help for the NY GOP.
Now, the military hasn’t always been solely voluntary lest I remind you. I made a supposition based on traditional GOP dogma that you both venerate the military. Which is the utmost form of socialism and relinquishment of private citizens into public puppets. Hence spawned my comparison, though duly noted they are nowhere near identical (health care and the military).
Health care should be a right. Most decent people agree. I don’t mind paying more to prevent my fellow neighbors from suffering.
Many progressive nations insure their citizens presently. They may not have a perfect system (I never claimed one exists), but it certainly supersedes our unethical foundation.
“If we think insurance companies are acting unethically or illegally, why don’t we pass laws and prosecute those committing fraud then? Every single government run health care in existence denies coverage, only then it becomes perfectly okay because it’s done by the government for the “greater good”. In this country, Medicare and Medicaid deny more claims than private insurance.”
Um, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Though through the obscene profits, the politicians are bought off by these corporations so they become self-regulatory. I shouldn’t have to school you in this. And Yaron, your claims are beyond bogus. Do some paltry research and you’d find how egregiously wrong you are.
As for you Willy P, what’s more impressive than articulate vocabulary is an honest, ethical message. And that won’t be found on this site sadly.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:29 am
“Privatized systems designed to make money off the lack of coverage they refuse over arbitrary reasons and loopholes is disgusting.”
I didn’t respond to that sentence because it is logically asinine.
Does the auto industry “make money off the lack of automobiles?” No – they make money by PROVIDING automobiles. And, if insurance companies were in the business of denying coverage, nobody – I repeat nobody – would bother to purchase health insurance. Besides, everybody in the USSR had your esoteric “right” to health care; but given the choice between Soviet and America cancer treatment in the 1980s, which would you have chosen, even assuming you were penniless?
You seem to be juxtaposing my “impressive vocabulary” with my alleged lack of truth telling and morality. Leaving aside my vocabulary, which is truly here nor there (like my alleged pomposity), I think I made clear my case against state run health care. I’ve seen it in action first hand in Canada. 3 brief examples:
1) My friend’s hand went through a champagne glass, cracking the cup part and landing directly on the stem. This injury severed the nerve, in addition to creating a pool and trail of blood in the room. What did the hospital do? They sewed it up to stop the bleeding! Never bothered to check for nerve damage apparently, and he’s now had 3 surgeries total to try to correct the deficiency of the initial treatment. He formerly climbed mountains. That is no longer an option.
2) Another friend of mine suffers from leukemia. Regularly, during chemotherapy treatments and suffering from the flu, he was in the waiting room for 16 hours. When they finally saw him, they gave him some pills and sent him home. This happened countless times to my then 21 year old friend. No resources to ease the suffering of a young man undergoing chemotherapy, but they did give him prescription marijuana.
This (and other reasons) is why he started traveling from QC to BC to receive treatment from his own doctor, who was unaffiliated with the government.
3) A third friend was bitten by a raccoon that walked into his apartment one summer night. Raccoons do not typically walk into apartments – this is a sign of rabies. He went to the ER, and was told to monitor the situation because they did not want to treat him. Luckily, the coon was not rabid. However, I often marvel at the willingness to leave to chance potential neural damage.
Yes, there are obviously good stories I’ve heard about their system, as well. But the three mentioned above, three scenarios I cannot begin to imagine in the United States, were enough to convince me that state run health care is anything but kind, compassionate, and least of all moral!
And, keep in mind that these were all young people, all in their early 20s, with a long tax paying life ahead of them. How does a comparable case for a 75 year old strike you? Maybe, like B.O. said, we should simply give these elder patients some pain killers, and saved the money for more viable persons.
You, my friend, need to address the state’s moral deficiency. You attack me from a position of severe weakness and historical inaccuracy.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I should also point out that it was Milton Friedman, a close friend and ally of Ronald Reagan, who served as the centuries most influential opponent of compulsory military service.
January 6th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
The premise of the private insurance industry is to offer plans to people gullible enough to procure things without research or experience. There are innumerable samples I can provide that exemplify the US atrocious health care insurance industry. From personal experience, I no longer buy or contribute because my family and I have been denied claims or have been less than partially covered.
To call my statement asinine is itself asinine. People buy insurance because it’s all they can do (unless generously covered through their employer, VA or Medicare/Medicaid which most recipients love…um, government run). How do you think these insurance companies accrue massive profits? How? It’s not because people don’t get injured or sick. It’s because they are denied coverage.
What we should be having is a philosophical discussion not a political one. And my supposition is this – a compassionate government has a responsibility to provide health care to all its citizens. I believe in incentives. I believe in higher taxes and penalties for those who kill themselves through bad habits. But I still think those people deserve coverage.
The current system is unsustainable and is burdening our nation. Health care shouldn’t be relegated to ER for millions of Americans. Preventative care and incentives (i.e. income tax reductions, etc.) for those who stay healthy should entice people to remain healthy.
Comparing the proposed public option or eventual single payer system to the USSR is laughable and you know it.
I work right next to a woman from Canada (Montreal) who loves the care she receives. Albeit, your enticing a circular argument that I won’t indulge. Point – our health care system needs to be fixed and it’s the privatization of people making profits for denying coverage based on ludicrous rationale that is the culprit.
The state’s moral deficiency is only in it’s continued imbecilic notion of electing members of the Republican Party to legislate.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
You can then tell the woman you are sitting next to that what I described was all witnessed at Royal Vic, in Montreal, at the foot of Mont Royal. I’ll stop short of naming the doctors. You then may remind her that Quebec is the most subsidized province of Canada because of their history of violent separatism, and the funds now serve to placate the Quebecois. Finally, you may also ask her why on earth she’d leave that paradise on earth of Montreal, which has vast expanses of abandoned buildings right downtown, for the, in her eyes, backwards United States.
What you believe in does not require any innovative philosophical discussion – it’s called the redistribution of wealth. It was summed up most voluminously by the crank Karl Marx, who was was well characterized by Thomas Sowell as a minor post-Ricardian.
If the Canadian healthcare system is so wonderful, why does it have such serious structural problems? Why does it consumer all political debate? Why is their most functional healthcare system in Alberta, which is also (coincidentally) the most highly privatized? Better question: why are they increasingly talking of privatizing their healthcare sector to address the current shortfalls? None of this means anything to you, of course, because you’ve already made up your mind.
Who was it that created the modern welfare state, complete with social “benefits” for all? No, not the liberals up north, or the softies in America. It was the authoritarian German unifier, Otto von Bismark. Hmm, that’s odd, isn’t it?
January 6th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
err,
“Better question: why are they increasingly talking of privatizing their healthcare sector to address the current shortfalls? ”
This should say:
“Better question: why are they talking of privatizing certain areas of their healthcare sector to address the current shortfalls?”
January 6th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
“Trust me, I return to Montreal just for the health care,” was her reply. She didn’t call the US backwards, though it certainly is in many ways. You mean they talk more about health care than we do?? Not lately.
Thomas Sowell is an imbecile. And yes, redistribution of wealth is wonderful. It’s called minimized suffering. And I’m all for that.
I don’t think you should single out Canada. How about criticize the entire continent of Europe? Or moreover, why not state why our care is the greatest when it’s persistently rated quite low?
Sure, I’ve made up my mind like you have. Except mine isn’t propagated regurgitation that Sarah Palin would recite.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
The problem with this debate is that opponents of healthcare typically have not actually had to experience what millions of Americans suffer through everyday.
Healthcare should be provided by civilized countries, if we continue to refer to ourselves as such. The vast disparity between the wealthy and the poor is ever apparent if people step outside their houses and walk just a few blocks down to the “other side of town.” Hardworking Americans are deprived of and denied healthcare routinely, which has only been exasperated with the tanking economy.
What is perhaps a more apt comparison with the military, however, is the actual expenditures. Conservatives always point to the cost of healthcare, but they view it in a vacuum. There is no sense of comparison with other costs of our government, nor any comprehension of the costs of not having health insurance for the poor.
First turning to actual expenditures. No one seems to even bat an eye when its announced that we are spending millions per hour to fund two wars that even most conservatives now acknowledge are fruitless. Spending billions to kill people is apparently fine, while spending a comparatively small amount to save people raises infinite controversy. What about spending billions to bail out the financial industry who got us into the financial crisis with their greed and deregulation. Again, no controversy to pay off the people harming the nation.
Directly addressing Yaron, its a rather idealistic statement to think that all we have to do is get laws passed to regulate the industry. The eight years under Bush were almost entirely dedicated to deregulating every industry, the healthcare industry only one of the disturbing examples (which include the environment, oil, energy, financial etc). This has no changed under Democratic rule, as it is clear that the pharmaceutical and insurance industries have bought and paid for their representatives. They are getting the best end of this deal, while the American people, both rich and poor suffer. The rich will get taxed and the poor still won’t get healthcare.
Secondly, most people never stop and think of the cost of not having health insurance. What happens to those people without insurance when they get sick? They go to emergency rooms. And then they don’t pay, because they can’t. Or, they try to and enter bankruptcy as medical bills are the nummber one impetus behind declaring bankruptcy. Either way, taxpayers pay their bills. Thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars can easily be accrued in a single visit. Each test analyzed, each machine used, each minute conversation with a doctor has a price tag of hundreds of dollars. Which can’t be paid because the patient does not have healthcare. Further, insurance premiums rise for those who do have insurance to cover these lapses.
If these people could be the beneficiary of a government run healthcare system, their bill would be paid and distributed, just like everyone else’s would be.
Please stop to think logically about the repercussions of your statements before you rail off using Republican talking points.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
hahahaha, so your coworker lives and works (and pays taxes) in the united states, and goes back up north for free care.
wow, what a unremarkable event. taking advantage of what in this case truly is FREE CARE! – i.e., no taxes paid into canada’s system. i take it she has no insurance in the united states, or what, likes the drive up? is this supposed to prove anything? my guess is that she does not have american insurance, and is not very ill.
she is very much bucking the trend of her fellow countrymen, which is fleeing to the united states for surgeries and examinations that are in short supply there.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/07/01/better_health_care?page=full
“People line up for care, some of them die. That’s what happens,” says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of “The Cure”. He liked Canada’s government health care until he started treating patients.
“The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house.” “You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months.”
particularly after you just called tom sowell an “imebile,” your rank partisanship is clear. BUT, if you are interested in thinking, you might want to ask what less of a right a person has to food, to shelter, to clothes.
yet, we don’t provide these in a socialist manner, do we? (true: our housing market, thanks to fannie, freddie, and the CRA, is quasi-socialist; THAT worked out well, huh?)
for a logical reason why socialism not only has failed, but will always fail, see:
http://mises.org/econcalc.asp
“redistribution of wealth is wonderful. It’s called minimized suffering. And I’m all for that.”
why, pray tell, did the USSR fail?
January 6th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
says ashley:
“Directly addressing Yaron, its a rather idealistic statement to think that all we have to do is get laws passed to regulate the industry.”
Yaron was “directly addressing” the conman. And you mock him for his response, at the same time wishing to completely regulate the industry. So is regulation idealistic or not? What do you call takeover?
You want US to stop and think logically? You can’t even keep your story straight for one sentence.
Furthermore, nobody outside of the DNC Office of Propaganda believes Bush “deregulated” every industry in the country. This could not be further from the truth. We live in a highly, highly regulated economy that we inherited from FDR on.
Last, if you think we spend too much on the military compared to social programs, I suggest you look at the actual budget numbers. Entitlement programs dwarf military spending.
sloppy, sloppy, sloppy…
January 6th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Thanks to Ms. Ashley for providing some cogent reasoning so missing from Willy boy. It’s become clear that he lives devoid of reality and instead focuses on soundbites and provincial snippets. He truly has no philosophical background and it’s lucid in his writing.
The USSR failed for plenty of reasons. Primarily because of the nefarious rule and exploitation of the leading class. It’s impossible to correlate the benevolent notion of insuring everyone in the United States to the USSR. Our systems are quite different.
How about this pray tell (apt expression as the GOP prayers often come up empty for obvious reasons) why the US system is superior. And how you base your argument. I’m sure it’s because of insurance companies. Gotta be.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
PS – she’s a vegetarian like me, so yes, she’s very healthy. So she’s not sick often. And she says you’re right, she doesn’t pay a dime and waits in no line in Montreal (St. Luke). She only uses it when she’s visiting and sick. But she has insurance through our work. So yes, she’s insured in the US, although our insurance plans have been downgraded due to the recession.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
conartist, go back to writing bad poetry.
i have a thousand years of history on my side, especially the 20th century, a tenable theory of economics, and the best you can say is “sure it’s because of insurance companies.” so, now i’m a corporate shill for insurance companies. lol, if you only knew in what industry i worked.
as a matter of fact, i’d change a lot about the system, including decoupling tax benefits on insurance to employers and making them ALSO available to individuals. that would be true, market based reform.
the ussr did not start out as a murderous politbureau – this is not how the population was sold on the revolution. they heard of the brotherhood of man, of paradise on earth.
look, it’s apparent i’m dealing with a novice who somewhat incredulously infers other people’s philosophical proclivities, and then says they have philosophical background. why don’t you pick up either a history book or a book about economics and then try again.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
err, then says thay have NO philosophical background.
in other words, i’m a shill for insurance companies who just send you an epistemological-based argument for the impossibility of a socialist system, and yet i have no philosophical background.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:13 am
That might be an idealistic statement, but I didn’t make it.
Here is what I said:
Where do I say it’s “all we have to do?”
“All we have to do” implies that there are no other things to be done, and that it, i.e. law enforcement by the government, would solve everyone’s problems. Perhaps you’re confusing me with a liberal!
However, if it’s indeed true that insurance companies are selling insurance and then fraudulently denying the benefits to those who paid their premiums,then why don’t we prosecute those responsible? Fraud is already against the law. And if there are some weird “loopholes” that let insurance companies get away with things, why don’t we close those? But instead we’re using this as an excuse to nationalize a huge industry. If we used the presence of fraud as an excuse to nationzlize other areas of business, there’d be no private sector left.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:29 am
There is a cost to people not having health insurance who end up at the emergency room and don’t pay their medical bills. The cost of taking money out of the economy, thereby stifling economic activity, and creating a government bureaucracy to pay for a lifetime of health care for all those who don’t have insurance would be more.
Please stop to think logically about the repercussions of your statements before you rail off using Democratic talking points.
January 7th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Thanks for reading my poetry Willy boy. You may learn a thing or two as you have much to learn.
You have history on your side as much as you have God on your side. Wake up neophyte. All progressive nations have made steps toward a state-sponsored system. In fact, your argument is essentially backward. Let me remind you that you were the one who charged my philosophical leanings with Marx. Such a hypocrite you are. Once again, perhaps I’ll comment on a future post that isn’t written in haughty language designed to impress overweight white audience. The NY GOP. Keep praying.
Yaron, whew. Really, just sad.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:01 am
for the whole world to see:
ConArtist’s vote counts as much as mine.
OK, so you’re an atheist redistributionist. Remind me, what were the Bolsheviks? What were the National Socialists?
Do you have any background in economic or political analysis, or is this like a casual thing for you? (Clearly, you’re not much of a history buff.) In what capacity are you qualified to comment, besides being a hack?
January 7th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Ah, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I should’ve made a concerted effort to remain civil, especially on your site. Forgive me.
Yes, we know your vote counts as much as mine, however, mine may ‘hypothetically count’ more pending on my registration location.
I never said I’m an atheist. Your deduction is false. Though I take no offense.
Yes, I have an education in political systems. As if I’m qualified to comment, I didn’t realize you were the arbiter. I assumed you welcomed feedback as your previous posts elicited no comments.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:28 am
I apologize about the atheist comment. I thought I had read it on your own site. You’re more than welcome to be an atheist in my America, or a Christian, Jew, Hindu, or Muslim. On the other hand, in your America I’d be stuck paying higher taxes on my sinful consumption of meat, tobacco, and alcohol.
I do welcome feedback. I like feedback when it’s coherent, and the people who offer it can substantiate their claims.
So, tell me, with your education of political system, what political system in history has centralized economic control and experienced prosperity? If you can think of one, HOW did that centralization of power and decision making benefit the society?
January 7th, 2010 at 10:53 am
No offense taken. And in my America you’d surely be paying higher taxes for destructive behavior, though that doesn’t mean you couldn’t indulge (assuming your salary could sustain the expense) nonetheless.
I welcome feedback on my blog as well. Although I don’t pick and choose the coherency of the commenter. I’ve learned not to deter readers so I allow them to respond in whatever way they choose without belittling (though once again, I accept blame for my part above).
As for centralized economic control (fairly vague statement) I think most successful economies are mixed: like North America and Europe)
I don’t believe in free-market/market economy completely as I do support regulation and taxation. Though I don’t think the severance has to be complete. See developing Asian countries for evidence of rampant pollution and exploitation of labor forces for just two problems of capitalism without genuine regulation.
When you err to far on one side or the other I think they system is destined to collapse. However, through my studies the least vulnerable economies often are more liberal (though certainly aren’t recipients of giant bull markets or booms and likewise rarely suffer prolonged depressions).
January 7th, 2010 at 11:19 am
no offense, but you sound ridiculous.
your political theory would best be characterized as “how do I feel, today?”
there is no other way of interpreting this:
“I don’t believe in free-market/market economy completely as I do support regulation and taxation…. When you err to far on one side or the other I think they system is destined to collapse.”
as for you and marx, a single payer system is socialism in healthcare. how? public funds used to create a resource that is operated along bureaucratic lines. this is not putting words in your mouth; it’s identifying the true nature of a single payer system.
and, since it is a socialist model, it will fail for the same reasons all socialist models fail: destruction of price information, resulting in the misallocation of resource, no way of knowing whether resources are used efficiently (that is, whether you’ve attained a net gain or less through changes), chronic shortages, and perpetual crises.
this is not being a shill for an insurance company. this is actually caring about the population at large, and basing my opinion off of a careful study of history and economic theory.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Socialism in health care is a much, much preferable system than the millions uninsured, millions more under-insured, and the very wealthy few who often travel abroad for cheaper treatment anyway. I don’t coil when you use the term socialism if that’s what your attempting to induce.
The bureaucracy exists in the private system. Have you ever even filed a claim??!! It’s not just bureaucracy but rampant denial of coverage that wouldn’t even be an issue in a single payer system. They get bonuses precisely based on the number of claims they deny. How can you possibly justify this behavior?
It’s not caring about the national population, it’s sabotaging it. When profit is the bottom line, the world suffers. It is seen in factory farming (which you probably have a cursory knowledge of at best), exploitation of workers, and our asinine system of companies who accrue millions while choosing who would live or die. Explain why people on government provided insurance are so vociferously defending their insurance if it’s such a nefarious entity?
A single payer system guarantees people coverage. THAT is what’s caring about the population at large.
All socialist models do not fail. In fact, the only models that ever succeed incorporate many elements of socialism.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Really, really? Oh, yeah really. Whew “ConArtist”, you’re really making a point here. A sad one… really, no joke. I’m really, really serious about this.
What specifically do you disagree with? If you don’t mind.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Actually, all socialist models do fail. This is exemplified in history and explained with theory. To the extent that any succeed, it is because they incorporate some market based solutions.
I tried to explain why they defend their systems in my original posting:
“Further implications concern the effect on the future of political debates in this country. Having spent some time up in Canada, I can attest that public healthcare destroys any principled difference between parties. The bureaucracy, once set in motion, becomes too unwieldy; and like an angry, venomous snake, one not dare touch it. The medical institutions that actually provide the health care in a nation with a “public option” is intertwined with the parasitic/host government. Even a hint of poking at the fragile superstructure of protocols becomes positively frightening to a dependent population.”
That’s the true intent – destruction of meaningful political debate, and control of your body by the state.
Look, if you refuse to acknowledge that coverage does not equal care, and that single payer systems MUST, and DO RATION too, I think you’re properly classified as living in a fantasy world. It happens everyday, because you cannot legislate away scarcity. What do you think a waiting line is a manifestation of? And although you will downplay their significance, I don’t think you would if you were in desperate need of a new hip, or knee, or shoulder, or needed a tooth filled.
Which is why I say I’d rather pay in DOLLARS than in PAIN.
There are plenty of ways to expand coverage without destroying the innovation and market coordination provided by a private system. All involve DEREGULATION. Believe it or not, insurance is one of the most regulated industries in the country.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Ah yes, and for the cases that are truly unprofitable from an economic perspective, there would be a) private charity and b) as a very last measure, a program like medicaid.
If you do not think man is naturally inclined to donate to charity, I’d humbly ask you to explain the American response to the Asian tsunami.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
In a socialized health care system, everybody ends up “under-insured”.
Bureaucracy exists in the current health care system, but then again, it’s is not truly a private system. Heavy government regulations are grinding competitive market forces, which are the strongest impetus of efficiency, to a halt. Also, government run Medicare and Medicaid deny more claims than private insurance.
What bottom line do government and politicians have? A benevolent empathy for the needs of others? Not! This is exactly where socialism fails and what proponents of socialism never accept, to the detriment of all. People at first think they’re “democratically” relinquishing their freedom in exchange for a benevolent helping hand, but what they get is a system full of crooks and incompetents, vying for their own self interests. Only now they are in government and those crooks and incompetents have a greater opportunity to abuse their power than ever. And that’s because unlike in private industry where the “evil” profit is the motive, a socialist program has no need to retain customers through quality of service because the customers have nowhere else to go, no incentive to economize because it’s spending other people’s money and not in competition with other businesses, and has no incentive to innovate because innovators do not benefit from their efforts with said “evil” profit. And on top of everything, the crooks and incompetents in government are for the most part expected to regulate themselves into honesty and benevolence.
There are plenty of people who hate their Medicare, Medicaid, and VA service, but they want to keep it because they think they’re getting something that others are footing the bill for. What a surprise!
To summarize Will’s point, a single payer system guarantees people coverage, but it does not guarantee people care. Those are not one and the same.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Let me solidify a point, with a brief report that was delivered to me this morning:
“New York Hospitals are pitching their services to Canadians, cashing in on frustration over a system where nonemergency patients can face long waits. The system north of the border guarantees that all residents get free care, but patients who need procedures such as joint replacement or bariatric surgery can wait months for months for treatment. Seeing an opportunity, Kaleida Health System in Buffalo rented billboard space in Canada touting its “timely” care and “expedient treatment.” A newspaper in Hamilton, Ontario reported that hospitals in Michigan are doing much the same thing. While the Ontario provincial health system pays for care provided in the United States and concedes that waits can be frustrating, some officials say they find the ad campaigns “distasteful.” The Hamilton paper notes that health officials in Ontario want to reduce the outflow of patients. Health officials say they paid for 12,000 Canadians to get care in U.S. hospitals in 2008, a fourfold increase over the 2007 level. They had no figures on how many Canadian patients decided to cross the border and pay for care on their own.”
note: that was from crain’s health pulse.
See? The Canadians are fleeing, and the response from their pathetic health officials is that the Americans offering care to their northern neighbors are acting distastefully. How uncaring, arrogant, and genuinely repulsive.
January 8th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Also, see here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/744815–billboards-lure-patients-south