The Detroit Free Press reports there’s “a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills that could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans. It would see the government — at least temporarily — pay 80 cents on the dollar to corporate and union insurance plans for claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for retirees age 55 to 64.” So the union giveth: accepting stock in GM and Chrysler in place of future, theoretical contributions to their health care VEBA (in addition to $3 billion cash payments). And the union taketh: scarfing $10 billion in federal health care payments. Did the UAW know this was coming down the pike? As the hunter in Jurassic Park said just before the raptors tore him to pieces, “clever girl.” The autoblogosphere is alight with accusations of “union payoff.” And for good reason . . .
Outside experts estimate the [union VEBA] funds have about 30 cents in cash for every dollar of future claims, with no guarantee of what its stock assets will be worth. Lance Wallach, a New York-based VEBA expert, says if the funds “don’t get something, they’re out of business in 12 years.”
So to the taxpayer well we go. Repeatedly.
John Sheils, vice president of the Lewin Group, a health care research firm owned by a United Healthcare subsidiary, said the [temporary, public option bridging] money likely will run out in less than two years. Then, like with the recent cash-for-clunkers clamor, Congress could feel obligated to add money to the program.
“From a political perspective, I think it’s very, very difficult for the Congress to actually close down programs,” Sheils said. “This is something people could get used to very quickly.”
[Thanks to all for the link.]
” … corporate and union insurance plans … ”
Assuming the reporting is correct, then they are talking about a subsidy to both union and corporate managed health plans. Spinning this as a UAW focused thing is, well, spin. You could just as easily have called it a Costco subsidy. Costco is non-union and provides health insurance to employees.
So let the VEBA go bust and throw the UAWens into the same system we all will have, good for the goose, good for the gander!
You want to fix health care? Here’s how you do it, nice and simple. Two words would do it.
Everything’s covered.
Those two simple words would cut out all the administrative overhead, cream-skimming, public/private nonsense, special provisions, sliding scales, etc. About the only people you’d offend would be the people who profiteer off the system as it stands.
Allow me to cry crocodile tears for the insurance industry and the legions of accountants, lawyers and doctor-administrators who’d be out of a job. Boo-hoo.
There’s a reason the US system, decrepit as it is, costs more than the blanket systems of socialized democracies and that reason is that vast sums are flushed down the toilet deciding who gets what when, from whom, and how much instead of just writing blank cheques and making people better. You would save millions just ensuring people got yearly free physicals, free naturopathy, physio and chiro, free drugs, free comprehensive neo- and postnatal, free dental and no-barrier emergency care.
Currently, the US spends the most money per capita on health care and gets the worst service of any developed nation, even those like Canada, Australia or the UK, which are demographically similar.
Those dollars go to administrative overhead, not to actual health services. If you factor in the money that goes into private and group plans, it’s even more horrific.
So why not spend the money purely on services and cut out the parasites?
Have to go now, I am gonna go out and buy everything I think or feel I could possibly ever need, without any concern for the cost.
Let me put it to you using a car analogy, since this is a car site: You could keep driving a clunker (oh, say a mid-90s Saab 900 or any VR6 VW) that strands you weekly, costs a fortune in parts, drinks fuel prodigiously and still leaves you stranded four days out of seven, costing you wages (if not a few lost jobs), time and heartache.
Or you could buy a new car and it would cost you less in the end.
This is the problem with health care: people fail to see exactly how broad the problem really is. It needs to be addressed holistically and comprehensively. I’m guaranteeing you right now that the patchwork, compromised, glue-and-popsicle-sticks version that the US will likely get will be no better than the mess you already have.
psharjinian: You want to fix health care? Here’s how you do it, nice and simple. Two words would do it.
Everything’s covered.
History has shown that freeing people from cost concerns has never reduced costs as a whole, or improved efficiency. The result has always been the exact opposite.
psharjinian: Currently, the US spends the most money per capita on health care and gets the worst service of any developed nation, even those like Canada, Australia or the UK, which are demographically similar.
No, we don’t. We spend more money and get better survival rates on several high-cost disease than those countries. You are also more likely to receive advanced treatments and drugs in the U.S. for cancer, strokes, etc.
And please note that virtually everyone in those countries who can afford private insurance buys it to supplement their government policy. The national plans are good at providing basic care, but people who want more pay for a private insurance policy.
psharjinian: Let me put it to you using a car analogy, since this is a car site: You could keep driving a clunker that strands you weekly, costs a fortune in parts, drinks fuel prodigiously and still leaves you stranded four days out of seven, costing you wages (if not a few lost jobs), time and heartache.
This has absolutely no relation to how the U.S. health care system operates in the real world. If anything, a big problem is that the clunker is too often the PATIENT, because the U.S. is more likely to spend lots of money on end-of-life care that doesn’t do much to prolong life. But, as has been seen with the recent backlash from senior citizens, they aren’t too keen on reforming this system.
My wife has been asking for several plastic surgeries. Who should I bill?
I worked for one of Americas largest health insurers for 6 months before resigning in disgust. It was the most amoral inefficient place I ever worked, making the college summer I spent selling GM cars seem downright honorable. Lots of peaple doing little actual work pulling down hundreds of thousands of dollars a year – and yes, there really were rooms of claims examiners looking for ways to drop sick peaple or deny claims based on fine interpretations of the nearly endless red tape.
I’m all for a socialized medical system. Some things, like fire protection and public health, just don’t lend themselves to efficient markets. I would not have said that before, but my brief exposure to the inside of a major insurance company made me a believer.
Okeh, fine, since this post seems tailor-made to veer into Territory, I’ll jump in.
Y’don’t want government interference in your health care? Y’don’t want socialism or communo-fascism tainting your relationship with your doctor? OK. Let’s make an agreement everyone can live with. Something to satisfy the extreme right, the extreme left, and the crazies who are convinced that President Obama was born on Beta-Triangula VI and is an advanced scout of the Klegorionian Star Empire, here to start the conquest.
Here’s the plan:
1. Starting on 1 January 2011, full, free, universal health care for everyone in the United States. Modeled on Medicare and funded by modest co-pays, taxes on you and your employer, and “sin” taxes (e.g., tobacco). Everyone is guaranteed coverage for catastrophic illnesses as well as everyday care and health maintenance. The emphasis is on preventive care, but you aren’t denied treatment for a pre-existing condition. There’s no “gotchya!” for not remembering that you had mumps when you were 4.
2. Everyone is enrolled for six months. By 1 July 2011, you may opt out of this health care system for a private health care plan. The US government will not regulate or oversee private plans. You or your employer will pay for them, and you no longer have to pay any fees or taxes for the public health insurance, deal with government bureaucrats, or subsidize care for those whose ilk you don’t like.
3. If you opt out of the public plan, you can never, ever re-enroll. Those under 18 are covered until they decide by their 18th birthday what they’d like for coverage. Those who cannot make an informed decision for themselves because of illness or mental defect are covered for life.
5. Hospitals no longer have to provide care to those without proof of coverage in the National Health, Private Coverage, or other insurance (OHIP, NHS, etc.). If you don’t have coverage, you get palliative care only. No extraordinary measures. Nothing. You come in with acute appendicitis and you have no proof of coverage, you die. You’ll have morphine, but no operation; you’ll have decided to let the free market determine your care.
There. Fixed.
History has shown that freeing people from cost concerns has never reduced costs as a whole, or improved efficiency. The result has always been the exact opposite.
Ten minutes in any large organization should be enough to demonstrate the cost of bureaucratic cruft.
Unless they’re advocating no public healthcare serivces at all, I fail to see why the Right has a problem with this. Just letting healthcare providers provide healthcare would cut down the amount of government involvement, not to mention the gross abuses of power and privacy on the part of the private sector.
The way it sounds, I get the impression that you think that most people want to spend time being treated. Most people want to spend as little time dealing with the system as possible, so why not concentrate on getting them better quickly and early on, rather than going by the cost-controlled nightmare we have now that keeps people from seeing a family doctor and has huge numbers of people seeking emergency or chronic care.
I would like to know more about this provision.
Is this help only available to health plans for union employees and/or retirees or is this something that everyone including the UAW can benefit from?
I don’t want to get too deep into the health care debate, but I have yet to hear either side tell me how more people will be covered, quality of care will be maintained, and costs will decrease.
// It sounds stupid, but it somehow works out. //
Oh. Magic. OK.
How can anybody ever, EVER attempt to argue that a government controlled system will save me money!?
This drives me nuts.
How can any of you seriously participate in this massive lie?
How can you expect to be taken seriously in auto discussions when you now openly admit to believing in “Future Savings and Future Cost Cutting” by the government.
Nomally I don’t drink scotch with pancakes, but this is starting out as a bad, bad day.
I don’t want to get too deep into the health care debate, but I have yet to hear either side tell me how more people will be covered, quality of care will be maintained, and costs will decrease.
Well, somehow other countries offer more services for less money. Spending a few seconds with the health care budget figures will tell you a few things:
* Americans spend much, much more on emergency services for stuff that could have been caught earlier if the person had easier access to care
* Americans spend more on diagnostics and malpractice avoidance because of insurance requirements (for example, some places will karyotype the ticks that cause Lyme disease before actually treating it because the insurance companies demand it).
These two points are important: People don’t go to the doctor early on, and when people do go to the doctor, the bill is astronomical because of the severity and because of private insurance regs. But those pale in comparison to:
* Americans spend much more on administrative overhead. Vast sums of money pay the costs to deciding and accounting and evaluating risks and charing meetings and crunching numbers, far more than is spent under socialized “Just Do It” care. If you add in the additional overhead of group, private, malpractice, HMO and such it becomes even worse.
What’s amazing is that this information is available, but ideological blinders (on one hand) and the vested interests of those who profit from the status quo make it impossible to get a true picture. Americans are so caught up in trivialities like illegal immigrants getting care, nonsensical ‘death panels’, comparisons to Amtrak or the Post Office and such that they cannot or will not see the real cause of the problem: raw, unrelenting administrative waste.
What bugs me is that Canada is being dragged down this path. It’s so much easier to slip down this slope because it doesn’t require big decisions: little, petty accountants can whittle and nip and tuck and require forms and no one sees how bad it gets until the whole house of cards is about to collapse. The US is approaching the same mess from a different direction, building a Frankenstein’s Monster of a system that does the worst of both private and public care.
The main problem with the current system is the Middle Man (insurance companies) who’s sole purpose is to take your money in place of you paying the doctor. If there was no insurance company, Doctors and hospitals wouldn’t have to charge crazy amounts of money to get their money from the insurance companies who will delay and regulate and try to screw them out of every penny they can much to the detriment of the patient. Why we need the middle man is a conundrum of epic proportions and it has permeated every facet of our lives. Look at what deregulation has done to power in most parts of the country. Here in Houston, all my power is generated by Center Point Energy at a cost of about 8.9c per kW/hr (lets assume), but rather than buy it straight from them I have to go through a middle man (Direct Energy, Amigo, ENRON (HAHAHAHA)) and pay closer to 18c for it (over a 50% markup). This is exactly how health care has been moving. And the entire 50% markup is used for nothing more than overhead and pure profit. There is no benefit to society, it does not go to improving infrastructure, these companies DO NOT DO ANYTHING except sell you power that they did not generate or even transmit. If I have a power outage I still call Center Point to fix it, not my energy provider. This is the same issue with health care now. A lot of the power is out of the people actually administering the care and is in the hands of the insurance corporations to decide what they will and will not cover, and in most cases the patient can’t complain because they don’t have the money to be able to pay out of pocket for something that is not covered.
Thank you lobbyists, you can’t say the insurance and energy companies don’t get their money’s worth out of that investment. The hundreds of thousands that they make sure is worth it for the industries that pay it when they can get legislation passed that make it so easy to make money by doing nothing.
If there is anyone that still believes that this wasn’t ‘slipped’ in by the bought and paid for UAW dems, please take a seat.
One question for y’all: Who wrote and signed off on this provision? Should be a matter of public record.
This is a pretty twisted way to say, “I”m just looking out for my constituents.”
The broader healthcare debate has little to do with this payola.
Americans spend much more on administrative overhead. Vast sums of money pay the costs to deciding and accounting and evaluating risks and charing meetings and crunching numbers, far more than is spent under socialized “Just Do It” care. If you add in the additional overhead of group, private, malpractice, HMO and such it becomes even worse.
So basically if you don’t hold people accountable for malpractice, ignore the effectiveness of treatments when determining coverage, don’t investigate fraud, and pretend overhead costs like bill collection don’t exist because they’re handled by other agencies then administrative overhead is much less!
Oh man, I can’t wait.
Robstar:
My wife has been asking for several plastic surgeries. Who should I bill?
You or your wife should look at employment in certain NY State school systems or local governments. Yes, they often have plans that cover 100% of cosmetic surgery costs.
If you’ve ever wondered why taxing Gold Plated Health Plans (those that cost > $10K annually per individual) is so politically toxic, look at who benefits: CEO’s who fly around to whatever specialty clinic in the US they desire (cough-SteveJobs-cough) and thousands of NY State teachers who want C/D/DD-Cups and a tummy tuck for their 25th/35th/45th birthdays.
Respectfully, anyone, including our government, basing their assessment of the US health care system on the World Health Orgs study needs to look at what criteria it “failed” at.
The US health care system was slammed for things like allowing HSA’s, not being Gov’t run and not taxing the wealthy heavily enough. Politics not health.
When the political/ideological items are removed and you look at the “outcome” based criteria of that study alone it is my understsanding that the US rises to the top.
You cannot use an ideologically slanted study to tell which ideololical system works best.
Not saying we don’t have problems in the healthcare system, but the WHO study’s overall conclusions are not valid.
Give it a thought?
Bunter
Please explaine why anyone would give more power to Uncle Sam when he does not deserve it. Look at any major program that Uncle Sam is in charge of,
1. United States Postal Office.
2. Social Securtity.
3 Medicare
4 Medicaid
5. Amtrak
6 Veterans Adminstration
7. Freddie Mac
8. Frannic Mae
9. Federal Reserve
The list goes on and on. Each one of these programs are broke and will need more bailouts.
This is a payoff to the UAW plain and simply.
Philipiy
+1 philipiy
I was in the military and the government run medical care is so abysmal, they nearly killed me before I was even married for a year.
My pal is a 20% disabled vet (knees) and when he went to the Vet’s hospital 30 years after being honorably discharged and obtaining his 20% disability from what the Army did to his knees, he asked to be looked at in terms of finally getting an operation to fix said knees. They’re really bothering him in his late middle age.
The doctor didn’t look at his file, didn’t examine him, didn’t ask any questions – just said “your knees are fine. No operation”.
So, my pal asked, why have I been getting 20% disability for 30 years, if my knees are “fine?”
No answer.
They aren’t going to do a thing for him. So being denied care is NOT simply something which happens from insurance companies alone.
Trouble is, he’s been let go and lost his medical care, his new (worse) job has no med care – so he has bad knees and no medical coverage at all.
There must be some kind of solution, but danged if I know what it is.
I do know this for a fact – everything the government touches, they SCREW UP ROYALLY.
Personally, I’d rather take my chances with no medical care (or having to go into debt and pay for my own care) than the incompetently run government care, if the VA and military medics are anything to go by.
@menno:
everything the government touches, they SCREW UP ROYALLY
Oh really? This morning I woke to my alarm clock, powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean, safe water provided by the local water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to an FCC-regulated channel to see what the National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather will be, using satellites designed, built, and launched into orbit by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast — which has been inspected for safety by the Department of Agriculture — and took my medicine, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-certified and -approved automobile, and set out to work on the roads designed and built by the local, state, and national Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase fuel at a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, at a pump certified by the local Bureau of Weights and Measures to have dispensed what it says it did, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I drop my mail in the outbox for the US Postal Service, which can deliver a note anywhere in the country in less than a week, and drop my kids off at the local public school.
After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been vandalized or plundered of its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log onto the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and carp on freerepublic.com about how ‘socialism’ is bad because the government can’t do anything right.
Another fine example of bailout bucks continuing to flow to those that were part of the “quick-rinse” GM BK. The legend of American Leyland continues to emerge. Just remember that someone will have to pay for all of this eventually.
“History has shown that freeing people from cost concerns has never reduced costs as a whole, or improved efficiency. The result has always been the exact opposite.”
All the published statistics on health care costs and outcomes disagree with you. Every other industrialized nation in the world spends less per person on health care than the US, and the vast majority of their populations enjoy longer, healthier lifespans.
I’ll chime in with the polar opposite suggestion that psarhjinian has:
Eliminate health insurance.
The US doesn’t have a health care problem, it’s a health insurance problem. The health insurance *IS* the problem. By removing costs from the consideration of just about everyone since someone else pays the majority of it there is an overdemand for health services. The extra costs exists because of the overhead for handling the intermediary decisions/billing outside the doctor/patient interaction, plus the doctor must employ multiple individuals to extract payment from distant non-patients who pay most of the bills.
Every care provider should have an a-la-carte menu of services with the associated costs available for prospective patients to view and shop around. Individuals pay said costs when seeking treatment. Major medical insurance can be purchased to cover the truly expensive emergency conditions/situations and will have no input or responsibility for minor or preventive care.
From people I know the cost of their medical treatments is never affected by lack of access to preventive care. Nobody values their individual health enough to partake of preventive care available to them. Why should they, when medical offices are crowded, slow, and there’s nothing wrong with their health at the moment? Eliminate overdemand of services, reduce costs/overhead, and reduce wait times. Plus, allow comparison shopping!
philipiy
I agree with menno, which in itself is a really small step forward for me.
+1
(until the next prius discussion!) :{)
Now…
Daniel J. Stern
Instead of naming a few programs regulated by government, why didn’t you address the entire list by philipiy?
Is this so easily brushed aside?
Please, we are all awaiting your explanations.
The monopoly in your energy supplier is first of all NOT government run.
And in fact, it has been demanded more competition be allowed and has been/successfully.
This is silly power supply wise as you cannot have many privately run power lines on your street anymore than you can have opposing highways run by private enterprise.
That’s why our cell phone industry/service sucks. So many towers…not that work for Verizon (mine!)
Why are you confused with regulated verses run?
All those launched satellites are privately designed and funded…that’s what pays for the shuttle program.
NASA, by the way, is a losing proposition, profit wise.
Is it safe to assume that all of those who recoil at the thought of the federal government running anything would be ok with winding down the DOD and the CIA? Shall we just outsource all of those efforts to Halliburton and Blackwater?
“The monopoly in your energy supplier is first of all NOT government run.”
The poster may well live in an area served by a local municipally owned utility company. There are a lot of them:
http://www.utilityconnection.com/page2e.asp#muni_util
Austin, TX, Palo Alto, CA, Ft. Collins, CO and many more cities large and small have long had their own publicly owned utilities.
everything the government touches, they SCREW UP ROYALLY
You know, we wouldn’t have the Internet or the World Wide Web if it wasn’t for the government. The private sector option would look like the balkanized AOL/GEnie/CompuServe mess.
Next up would be the military. Visualize a private army. If you need examples, sub-Saharan Africa or Afghanistan provide them in spades.
How about roads? Private roads have always been failures, going back two millenia. Privatized water service has killed people. Privatizing power caused blackouts.
How about we word this truthfully: when things are run by people who are not accountable or actively malicious, they tend to run badly. Listing every abuse of power by public and private institutions would take a very, very long time, so perhaps instead of banging the ideological gong we can try to point to a system that would work better.
The suggestion above about having no coverage is an interesting one. I don’t think it’s a good idea unless your citizenry can afford it and it was somehow possible to make, say, major surgery cost less than a new home. But it’s better than the mess you have now that achieves the same goal of mediocre service but still costs a pile of money.
And it isn’t even a full moon yet!!!
What was the question? Oh yeah, is there another $10B for the UAW to cover lost health care benefits tucked inside the health care reform bill?
UAW members paid and pay taxes too. So saying that we are going to the taxpayer well is trying to push buttons. Why not say “going to the printing machines in Denver and Philly” that are actually covered by loans the US gov’t gets from where? China?
What I want to see is the wording in the bill! And not the 1000 page .pdf file that locks up my GM employee computer. And, who did Obama negotiate with first re: health care reform? Why, those most affected by a change to the status quo – insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. And why do Republican office holders stir up their gun toting constituents? Because they get big campaign contributions from their Joe six-pack voters? I think not.
But what if every day USAers clamor for “no reform”? Things will stay the same and the insurance companies will continue to pull down huge profits.
Health care reform is not about keeping any of us working stiffs healthy. It’s all about money.
@paulie – you make me smile about scotch with pancakes, makes me think of beer in cereal when you run out of milk!
@ ihatetrees – “C/D/DD-cups and a tummy tuck for 25th/35th/45th birthdays”
I would think women would want DDs for their 25th birthdays not their 45ths – with gravity and all!
So basically if you don’t hold people accountable for malpractice, ignore the effectiveness of treatments when determining coverage, don’t investigate fraud, and pretend overhead costs like bill collection don’t exist because they’re handled by other agencies then administrative overhead is much less!
You’re being facetious. No one is saying run the system like an anarchist’s bazaar, or that trending and analysis won’t happen, or that there won’t be a mechanism for malpractice.
What cradle-to-grave proponents want is for people to get the treatment they need when the need it, if not before they think they need it, rather than forcing them to wait until they’re desperate and spending more money deciding who should or should not get coverage and how much then actually providing the treatment. And certainly not spending what money there is on bureaucracy and middle-men.
Put it this way: if you had free drugs, dental and checkups as well as a proactive monitoring system (public health nurses, social workers, psycologists), you’d do wonders for diabetic complications, chronic illnesses or disabilities, people with mental health and addiction issues, the poor and/or children and the elderly because you’d see their problems before they required an visit to emerg. The yearly salary for any number of these people can cost less than an single ER visit and much less than surgery—and that’s not counting externalized costs of poor health, like crime, business productivity and such.
Your comment about billing and collections is telling because it shows that you don’t understand how socialized care works. Think about how much that costs (the answer is “hundreds of millions”. Now, imagine that you don’t ever do this and instead just pay the operating costs of the health delivery services themselves. Suddenly, you’re spending those millions on nurses and doctors and drugs instead of accountants and bookkeepers.
This is such a stupid debate. People are talking past each other.
For some, “health insurance” means protection against the rare but crushing expense of unanticipated needs such as a heart transplant. It’s akin to the insurance for car crashes.
For others (the UAW and perhaps most Americans nowadays), it means someone else pays most or all of the bill for routine and predictable care such as when a doctor advises rest and plenty of liquids during the sniffles, or the kid gets standard immunizations, or the wife has a baby.
I think folks should declare what side they’re on. Statists like and trust government, want to see it expand, and naturally favor socialistic policies and programs. Free-market conservatives distrust government, fear its expansion, and prefer that problems be addressed by private institutions and through self-interested choices.
The side I’m on depends mostly on whether the Exclusionary Principle is applicable. The Post Office can be privatized. The Army can’t.
For some, “health insurance” means protection
This is a good point, but I think it warrants clarification.
I think people on the libertarian side of the fence fear the government getting into the health insurance business (see the whole “death panel” debate as an example of this carried to an illogical extreme). They’re right to do this because the insurance/risk/profit model is a very bad way to run a social service.
Socialists don’t want the government providing insurance either**, they want the government funding service. There’s a distinction that’s important there: instead of the government deciding what you need and how much money they’ll pay, they want your practitioner deciding it and being backstopped by government coffers.
** this is why leftists are screaming blue bloody murder about Obama’s plans. It’s just another take on the “worst of both worlds” you already have.
An person faints in a Walmart store, someone calls 911. The Gold Cross ambulance (owned by the Mayo clinic) arrives and transports victim 1 mile to emergency room. Cost- $1200. The victim had a dizzy spell!!!! This goes on day after day.
John Horner: All the published statistics on health care costs and outcomes disagree with you. Every other industrialized nation in the world spends less per person on health care than the US, and the vast majority of their populations enjoy longer, healthier lifespans.
The European plans have not freed people from cost concerns. All of the national plans aggressively work to reduce costs, and they do it in ways that most Americans with good insurance plans – especially UAW members – would never accept.
The idea that European plans simply pay for every procedure, drug or treatment without a concern for cost is a fantasy.
And suggesting that the adoption of European plans would result in better outcomes for U.S. citizens is a common falacy. That ignores differences in population (no large numbers of illegal immigrants in Europe running up hospital bills, for example), genetics and lifestyles.
It’s like saying that if we all drove BMWs, Porsches, Mercedes-Benzes and Audis, we could then abolish speed limits on interstate highways and enjoy fatality rates similar to that of the Autobahn.
The local paper recently ran an interesting front-page article on health care reform. Several researchers – who were not associated with or part of the Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute – noted that extending insurance availability to everyone would have limited impact on U.S. health care statistics and outcomes.
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psarhjinian:
For some, “health insurance” means protection
This is a good point, but I think it warrants clarification.
==================
He did clarify it! You just snipped out his words as if they were never written.
Everybody here REALLY IS talking past each other!
The idea that European plans simply pays for every procedure, drug or treatment without a concern regarding cost is a fantasy.
They pay for more coverage and for more people at a lower cost per capita. They also allow for group insurance plans to top up benefits. What they do not allow is what happens in the US: where people get no access to basic care and/or get faced with crushing medical bills for necessary procedures.
I live in Canada. Our system is not perfect and, in many ways, worse than what western Europe offers (because we’re trending to the American model), but you will never, ever see a Canadian citizen faced with a bill from a hospital in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Does. Not. Happen.
Hell, visiting a doctor in Canada is free. For everyone. Where we lack is universal drug, mental health, physio/chiro and dental coverage, which does cost money.
Yes, there are rich Canadians who cross the border to get faster service. So what? What options do poor and/or middle-class but un-covered Americans have? Answer: debt, if they’re lucky.
psharjinian: Put it this way: if you had free drugs, dental and checkups as well as a proactive monitoring system (public health nurses, social workers, psycologists), you’d do wonders for diabetic complications, chronic illnesses or disabilities, people with mental health and addiction issues, the poor and/or children and the elderly because you’d see their problems before they required an visit to emerg.
Sorry, but it wouldn’t always work that way in the real world.
You’d have large numbers of people who would think that they could continue to do anything that they want, because the government would ultimately foot the bill.
I’ve seen obese people wolf down fatty, greasy foods and then take a cholesterol pill later – and they see no problem with this. I can’t count the number of people I’ve talked to who think that taking cholesterol pills makes it okay for them to eat anything that they want (and exercise rarely, if at all).
I also know for a fact that one of the biggest problems facing health care providers offering FREE check-ups and dental visits to poor children in this area is getting parents to actually show up for the appointment. Most of the time, the failure to keep an appointment is because the parents “couldn’t be bothered” or “had something else to do.”
psharjinian: They pay for more coverage and for more people at a lower cost per capita.
My German grandmother (age 90) depends solely on the German national health care system.
My American grandmother (age 96) depends on a private insurance plan she obtained through my deceased grandfather’s place of employment.
The benefits and coverage enjoyed by my American grandmother are far more generous than those enjoyed by my German grandmother.
Again, when you strip off the political criteria from the WHO study and use the outcome based criteria the USA comes out on top of ALL the other nations. Yes even those with government run programs.
Likewise, when non-healthcare issues like homicide and traffic deaths are removed from the WHO statistics our longevity moves to the top also.
Yes, we are expensive (where is the tort reform, oh right, the lawyer party is in power, never mind), but based on healthcare outcomes, not political criteria, we have the best health care.
Think about it, rather than simply buying into the MSMs regurgitaion of politically biased statistics.
Bunter
John Horner
Very interesting, as usual.
Let’s all agree to something.
First, we have to have government run programs because we are a nation of states, not independent state nations.
Yes, we need to have SOME programs like armed forces, under a national system.
Let’s be clear about the rest.
Not everything should be nationally controlled or run.
The ever expanding role of the national government is not a totally agreed upon success.
Yes, it does run the highways. But does it do it as well as if run by individual states?
Dunno…never given the chance.
Yes, in some cases as you explained, some local run utilities are successful.
BUT they are LOCAL.
They are SMALL.
They are accountable to their communities.
People LIKE/ demand accountability.
That’s why we have school districts elected locally.
We tax ourselves as we wish for our community.
We don’t have the citizens of south Detroit or St Louis telling us what our teachers should be paid.
We don’t need be responsible for somebody else’s lifestyle or health.
The TRUTH is this: the bigger the bureaucracy, the less controlled and politically muddied.
Is there any question of this…at all?
“a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills…”
Has anyone read this thing?
Everyday something new and stupid in it comes out!
UAW be damned.
And for the poor down trodden illegal aliens, let them eat cake.
One final point…
Freedom is all I ask.
Responsible for my own actions is all I seek, not yours.
I don’t smoke.
I play tennis everyday.
I try to control my weight.
I drink…an astounding amount.
But I PAY for MY sins.
I have control over myself.
I have NO control over the a-hole next to me in his smoke filled car.
Why should I pay for his 30 per day Twinkie habit?
Why should I pay for the medical expenses of a 5 child family?
I didn’t have this because I couldn’t afford it.
Is medical coverage more important than food?
Should everybody be guaranteed 3 hearty government appointed daily meals?
Clothing?
Isn’t that more important than medicine?
Should everybody get a standard allowance for clothing each month?
Isn’t it almost necessary to have a college education today?
Should this now be part of a national payout?
Shouldn’t every family have a 80,000 voucher towards a public college for each child?
It isn’t fare that SOME families can afford this, that some families give their children a better chance at success!
EVERYBODY should be equal!
Yes, in some cases as you explained, some local run utilities are successful.
BUT they are LOCAL.
They are SMALL.
They are accountable to their communities.
Always a great day when I can paraphrase Star Wars:
I have never seen a such a wretched hive of scum and villany…as I have when I deal with local government. I see more nepotism, more abuses of power, more waste and more petty politicking and more outright corruption in at the municipal level than I ever see at the provincial or national stage.
At worst, Federal and Provincial work is like Office Space. Local has resembled Goodfellas.
To arrive at the medical system the USofA has you have to be prepared to ignore human suffering.
All men are created equal and all that….. Long forgotten.
(Happier with that RF? It needs to be said).
psarhjinian
Um, let me get this straight because the logic defies all reasoning.
At least with the logic I studied in philosophy.
Smaller government is rife with corruption and “nepotism, more abuses of power, more waste and more petty politicking and more outright corruption in at the municipal…”
But bigger government is not.
Why?
Because bigger government is more manageable and thus cleaner.
Ok, I need help.
Real beginning at the basics help.
I simply cannot follow this for the life of me.
Could you list the specific reference to this in the health bill. Which health bill is it? What page?
I just have to see this with my own eyes.
@PeteMoran:
+1
“psarhjinian”
+1
As a Canadian I can say that I have NEVER stressed over health insurance, Doctor bills, and enjoy good and bad service from our health care system
“PeteMoran”
To arrive at the medical system the USofA has you have to be prepared to ignore human suffering.
+1
Responsibility here is VERY fuzzy! The “overweight” people can lie in the bed they made themselves unfortunatly in canada Taxpayers foot the bill.
Here is the POINT. Responsibility is not turning your back on the guy who was born with cancer, heart condition, not at fault accident…. ect. For all good that can be done in a public system there will be abusers, who will have to live with there poor health and guilt of taking from taxpayers.
@ mitchim
What to do with the “losers” in civil society is a hard question. I’m of the belief there will always be a certain percentage of under- as opposed to over- achievers in any walk of life. Some people are destined to be overweight, pop out 10 kids, and die before they’re 40, contributing very little.
The measure of the civil society is the opportunity for self improvement that is offered should that very person (or their children) recognise and then WANT to change their lifestyle/contribution.
mitchim: In your “POINT” what you describe is not responsibility, but compassion.
Compassion is admirable, but not required. It is immoral to confiscate earnings from the productive to give to the downtrodden so as to satisfy a third party’s compassion. Let the compassionate satisfy their yearning by giving of themselves; allow the indifferent to maintain their property.
PeteMoran: If everyone took care and responsibility for themselves and their own, and allowed others to do the same without imposing their own will, the country as a whole would become was America was intended to be.
The concept of relieving administrative overhead, cutting red tape, and enhancing accountability by shifting responsibility to the US Federal Govt simply boggles the mind.
-cleek (from just outside the Beltway)
psarhjinian
mitchim
Compassion!
Look all mirrors have been removed from my house, but not for the reason of guilt.
I just can’t take the aging look.
But I live comfortably in my self love and gratification.
But this is TTAC, where we shout about excessiveness.
As I explain in my discussions with my Christian friends, IF you TRULLY had compassion, if you TRULY felt the need to make life good and fair for the poor and downtrodden…you would have but a fraction of your own possessions.
What car do you drive?
How many?
How much money saved?
Should you have any after giving it to the truly needy?
You should in all consciousness have a small, economical everyday commuter.
How many closets have you filled with more clothing and shoes than you can wear in a week?
Why do you?
Do you remember Sister Theresa? How many cars owned by this truly compassionate person?
Here it is.
IF you were the compassionate person you say you are there would be so little to your world the rest of the earth’s inhabitants would be awash in its gifts.
But you would rather feel good, to sleep at night knowing you made a contribution today at church.
You took from me so you can give to others.
This is your compassion. Not just give up your luxuries, but to make all of us part of your confession.
Don’t talk about compassion.
You have no idea what it is.
You only understand self riotousness.
It doesn’t belong on TTAC, where we brag and swim in decadence.
Wow has this gone south!
my “POINT” was that responsibility has some to do with compassion but more to do with being socially responsible.
Tax dollars spent on keeping your people healthy is not BAD. At the same time you have to beleave that MOST people are good about it. The bad folk have to deal with there ill conditions brought about themselves ex. Tobacco Taxes. As a smoker I am sure that I am paying in through here!
If I had it my way I would pay for all my healthcare, build my own roads, and pay myself while I am unemployed ect… NOT GONA HAPPEN