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Pay the bill, make the rules

Submitted by Jon Henke on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:05
in

Paul Hsieh - proprietor of the first blog I read every day, Geekpress - writes about the dangers of universal health care in the Christian Science Monitor, hitting on a crucial point: the loss of economic freedom invariably leads to loss of social and political freedom....

Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

No, this is contemporary Japan.

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles.

For instance, note the recent decision by the LA City Council to "prevent fast-food chains from opening new restaurants in a 32-square-mile area..." in order to improve public health and help out the stores favored by the city council.  Open Left thought this was basically a good first step.

In their eagerness to Do Good, the Left will ultimately invite and impose civil rights violations far, far worse than those of the Bush administration.  As Judge Brandeis said, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

The Right is almost certainly going to lose the battle over health care.  Indeed, with our current government managed, cartelized health care system in which almost 50% of expenses are already paid by government, we've basically lost it already.  Practically speaking, we probably need to focus our attention on the social engineering that will be sure to follow.

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Comments

But yet amazingly

Submitted by NextRightNando on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:34.

Canada and Europe have universal health care but don't measure their citizen's waistlines. How is that possible??

Simple....

Submitted by rcovington on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:13.

They ration care to cancer patients and others that have diseases which are considered to have little chance of success in treatment.  They also ration the availability of things like open-heart surgery, hip replacements, and other procedures that are very expensive and are mostly the problems of the elderly and frail.

They also create wating lists for expensive surgeries and treatments in hopes that the patient will die before the scheduled date.  That saves a bunch.

After they have killed off the patients with those high cost diseases and have to look elsewhere, they will start with measuring waistlines.

because america doesn't have waiting lists.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:13.

strawman strawman strawman!

Here's what I don't get...

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:50.

In America, these peope are dying without even hope of being put on a list if they don't have money, correct?

And in Canada, can't a citizen purchase private care if they wish?

Crticism is easy

Submitted by jaydedman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:53.

I agree that problems of any government can develop under any adminstration (as we've seen). So what is the alternative? If healthcare remains private, what are the levers to improve a system that currently spends more on healthcare than any nationalized system but covers fewer people?

How would you continue to deregulate? Let's propose solutions.

 

Free The Market

Submitted by rcovington on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:16.

Health Care does not operate under a free market.  Free the market:

 

Open HSA's for all including the elderly, Catastophic Insurance for expenses over $ 10,000 in a year, eliminate mandates in coverage by the states, allow the market to innovate and provide coverage in the most efficient way.  This will improve quality, lower cost.

innovation in a system where we already spend

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:14.

6% of our GDP on denying people care?

murder by spreadsheet. read about it.

health care reality

Submitted by chemjeff on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:46.

In the real world, when you have growing demand but finite supply of a product, there will be people who won't be able to obtain the product.  The same goes for health care.  I wish it wasn't the case, I wish we could all live in Magic Utopia Land where everyone is fit, happy, healthy and free, but we don't.  So people are going to be "denied care" no matter what we do, so moral grandstanding about "murder by spreadsheet" isn't terribly helpful.  The real question is, can we find a way to minimize the amount of urgent health care that is denied?  MSA's/HSA's are one way to do this because it includes comprehensive catastrophic health insurance.  Meaning you're fully covered if something terribly wrong happens.  These policies have high deductibles so you've got to pay out-of-pocket for routine doctor's visits.  This is reasonable to me, anyway, since I have never understood why we expect insurance coverage to pay for these things anyway.  My car insurance doesn't pay for oil changes, why should health insurance pay for annual checkups?

Oh and by the way I don't think you'll find many serious conservatives who would claim that the status quo in health care is the ideal standard.  Nobody is happy with the status quo. We are just even less thrilled by the idea of socialized medicine.

find me a good way to roll back our health care system

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:31.

to 1994 or so, and I'll back you to the end of the earth.

I don't like socialized medicine. I don't want socialized medicine.

And I disagree with you. Each year we lose 36,000 people from flu. Those deaths could have been prevented, in the main, by good vaccination programs. I want good preventative health care -- the type that prevents a $300 bill from spiraling into a $3000 bill. That's what I was describing with paying for some generic allergy medicine -- something that will prevent regular emergency room visits.

I understand that much of what we'd like to fix is not chronic (or falls within the 'chronic but sucks to fix' like diabetes. lose weight, diabetes goes away. but you have to pay people enough to lose the weight, or else they have a hell of a time affording the diet -- true solution for this is to provide more education in cheap diets).

I HATE catastrophic plans. I've seen people charged for a miscarriage -- all because the company had the policy to deny coverage for anything over a certain dollar amount, no matter the reason cited (this one was called an abortion. who has an abortion in an emergency room?????). If this happened frequently enough, most people would learn from a friend that the health care plan sucks, and get the fuck off of it. But it doesn't, and so a lot of people get sandbagged (that many people can't switch because their employer offers only one carrier is a different matter).  The basic game is "you pay, and you fight for your money back" -- if you have the money, and if you don't die within the timeperiod.

Which is why the health care industry's profits have been skyrocketing.

A free annual checkup is the equivalent of "let's monitor you, so we know when problems occur" -- that is, if they do the standard blood draw. Without it being close to free -- figure it costs upwards of a hundred dollars for a doctor's appointment without insurance, many folks just won't go.

I'd want the actuarial tables to know when and how I'd target people to show up for appointments ( and I might do it with regard to their diseases, if i ran insurance company. if you have diabetes, please show up for four appointments a year. prevents necrosis).

"free" checkups

Submitted by chemjeff on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:56.

A free annual checkup is the equivalent of "let's monitor you, so we know when problems occur" -- that is, if they do the standard blood draw. Without it being close to free -- figure it costs upwards of a hundred dollars for a doctor's appointment without insurance, many folks just won't go.

What if it is "free" and people still won't go?  Then what will you do?

shrug and figure it's their own damn health

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:18.

and that we won't be as able to help them later -- won't be able to notice an increase in white blood cells that indicates a heart infection rather than a heart attack, for instance.

Here is the contradiction

Submitted by chemjeff on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 17:47.

Yet elsewhere, you stated that you said it was in the nation's best interest to have as healthy of a population as possible for as little money as possible.  If we want to minimize costs, shouldn't we require people to get annual checkups instead of waiting until some untreated condition leads to much greater costs later on?

I'm no strict utilitarian.

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 13:09.

I really hate to force people to do things. In some situtations (traffic laws) it is certainly warranted. But I won't force annual checkups -- particularly since certain age groups are unlikely to really need them (20year olds, for example). I will say that we should incentivize checkups for those most likely to be getting sick (35-40 year olds on up, let's say, and definitely for small children).

Dieting Costs Extra???

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:13.

lose weight, diabetes goes away. but you have to pay people enough to lose the weight, or else they have a hell of a time affording the diet.

Actually, losing weight is only a fix for some people.

Diets cost extra money????  WTF

That's news to me.  I lost 28 pounds last year, and it didn't cost me an extra cent.  I ATE LESS, and drank more water (instead of Diet Coke.) 

A properly sized healthy meal costs less then McDonalds meal.

Heck, by eating the correct sized portion while out for dinner, we can usualy strech an order into 2 meals.

I can buy white rice for 30 cents a pound

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:23.

It should be manifestly obvious that to actually be nutritive, I would need to spend more than that. Most fruits and vegetables are priced highly at variance to their caloric value.

Of course a properly sized meal costs less than a McDonald's meal. I live on $4 a day of food, I do know things like that.

Most diets suggest more expensive solutions. The only exception that springs to my mind is the shangrila diet. doesn't get much cheaper than sugar water and oil.

Diet vs Eating Right

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:28.

I didn't try to follow any fad diet.  I ate right, as a nutrionist taught me when I was first diagnosed 10+ years ago.  There's a big difference.

It also takes self-discipline and some knowledge.  The knowledge can be provided, relatively cheaply, but the self-discipline isn't something you can give anyone, no matter what the cost.

Otherwise obesity wouldn't be the problem it is in the US.

agreed.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 17:06.

n/t

So then...

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 09:01.

So then how are you going to get people to do preventative care when people are already not doing what's in their best interests healthwise?

TANSTAAFL

simple.

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 13:12.

you channel the money that is currently being spent on denying people care, and give at least some of it to getting people proper nutrition. Say it costs $20 per person a year to give them some multivitamins. Maybe they can afford that, maybe they can't. But if you give it to them, they're substantially less likely to get a cold (nb just an example. possible a wrong example). That saves everyone including employers money.

I'm sure everyone would take free vitamins if they could.

again, just an example.

What money is being spent to

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 16:01.

What money is being spent to deny people care?

Per an reply above, if I had been going for regular checkups in my 20's they would have caught my diabetes before it turned into a big problem.  The unknown fact to me at the time was that my grandfather (dead before I was born) also had diabetes, so I was at risk for it.  Something my parents never thought to mention.  Just a small example.

Of course, if I hadn't been eating crappy food for lunch (almost always McD's) and drinking a six pack of coke at work, I probably wouldn't have developed it either.

And what else is going to be in those free "vitamins?"  Maybe a little prozac to take the edge off the population.  You can sure bet the conspiracies will spread around right quick for that program.  And does that really sound like a world you want to live in.  The government handing you pills to take every day.

Boils down to, do you want to live free of government nannying, or not?

Whenever you give the government the power to decide what's best for you, you are giving up your liberty.  Give up enough liberty and you are no longer free.

Civil liberties? Ha, ha.

Submitted by DMac on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 11:58.

In their eagerness to Do Good, the Left will ultimately invite and impose civil rights violations far, far worse than those of the Bush administration.

 

Well, that's arguable, isn't it?  Would you rather get your waistline measured or have some low level bureaucrat listening in and snickering at your private conversations as they tape them.  Oh, what a choice.

 

EIGHT YEARS.  Eight years Republicans controlled the government and look where we are.  Trying to decide which liberty encroachments are the worst: Ds or Rs.

Troll Report

Submitted by rcovington on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:17.

Off topic, do not feed this troll.

What makes that comment trollish?

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 16:01.

Honestly? Do you deny that federal agents have abused their ability to listen in on private conversations? IIRC, not a SINGLE request for a NSA letter to listen in has been denied.

Do you have proof that they

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 16:02.

Do you have proof that they have abused their abilities, because you can't prove a negative.

tch. I know which takes less time to circumvent.

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:16.

also, fwiw, we already do this with military personnel.

More Cold Warrior nonsense

Submitted by quiet on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:17.

Japan is a highly stratified, group-oriented society. They do a lot of things that are neither possible nor desirable in the U.S. or anywhere else. It's a fallacy to think that we'd follow their lead in this area, and as NextRightNando points out, there are numerous counterexamples, from cultures much more like our own.

In their eagerness to Do Good, the Left will ultimately invite and impose civil rights violations far, far worse than those of the Bush administration.

This is a good way to "energize the base" the way Palin did, but it's not going to reach anyone else, because it doesn't make any sense. There's a couple things wrong with equating universal health care to a loss of civil rights:

  1. "Freedom to be stuck without insurance" is not a civil right. Left entirely to unregulated market mechanisms, the best strategy for insurers is (a) don't insure people who are likely to need medical care, and (b) take away someone's insurance as soon as they need it.
  2. Seriously? The Big Bad Universal Healthcare is going to be worse than BushCo's torture/rendition, warrantless wiretapping, secret air transport rules, and imprisoning people without charge? You're serious?
  3. The GOP--with its theocratic agenda of forcing pregnant women to become mothers (while refusing to support them with social programs, for an extra spit in the eye), constant attempts to regulate people's sex lives, and (looking back, and I'm hoping it comes around again) deciding that flag-burning can be a critical national issue--is about as credible a proponent of individual liberty as Vladimir Putin.

If universal health care is the end of the world, what's the Republican solution, given that we know an unregulated health care market leads to spiraling costs and millions of uninsured?

jeez, I didn't know Bush imposed "universal rendition"

Submitted by Ironman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:25.

and I thought this was just narrowly tailored to deal with national security...How did I miss seeing everyday people off the street being spirited away in black helicopters? I need to pay more attention.... ... 

I hate to break it to you...

Submitted by quiet on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:29.

But even if it only happens to some people, even if it's not anyone you know, even if it's people with foreign accents or brown skin...it's still a civil (and human) rights violation, and it's still important.

 

 

check in with Leon Panetta on that one

Submitted by Ironman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:32.

I recall the Clintons started that little program. Funny how being in charge gets folks off the soapbox and into the trenchs.

Besides, its the libs who want to track our daily whereabouts.....see the Oregon GPS mileage tax plan?

Yeah, the Oregon plan is idiotic

Submitted by quiet on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 12:42.

We should just raise the gas tax by setting a minimum price on gas. Now if only Republicans would admit that government can't be run on fairy dust and tax cuts, we could have a functioning country.

I will be the first to agree

Submitted by chemjeff on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:01.

I will be the first to agree that the government cannot be run solely on tax cuts and fairy dust.  Now, would you be willing to admit that the economy cannot be run by the government?

Go tell it to the Federal Reserve

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 03:19.

It is neither feasible nor desirable that either capitalism or socialism should exist in pure form.

Every modern industrial economy is a mixed economy.

It is the government's job to create an environment conducive to business. 

It already did happen to you.

Submitted by artigiano on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 21:11.

Under current US policy initiated by the Bush administration, you or anyone else can be apprehended on the streets by persons and agencies unknown. They can do this without any warrant, evidence, indictment, or oversight by any outside court or agency. You can be taken to an undisclosed location outside the US. There you will be tortured to gain the information which you as a terrorist or terrorist sympathiser obviously have. Your imprisonment and torture will continue until you provide such information.

But they obviously have the wrong guy. You could easily prove this of course, if only you had access to a lawyer and an immediate hearing before a judge where you will be apprised of the charges against you. You had  a right to all that of course until Bush and Co. took it away. Perhaps Obama will restore your habeus corpus rights. After all, he is a "pal of terrorists."

And if he could be one, why not you?

I'll give you a heads up when I see black helicopters. Ok

Submitted by Ironman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 21:57.

some folks must have 24 on the brain.....

I got felt up by the FBI

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 22:01.

for trying to mail my gas bill at the post office in the federal building.

Scaring people out of their liberty with the threat of some form of criminal activity has to stop.

That's betting a possibility against a certainty.

Stupid. 

My default position is when the government pulls a Plaxico

Submitted by Ironman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 22:12.

it's because they are stupid, not evil.  

I got the same impression

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 03:20.

n/t 

probably because you don't read dailykos

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:21.

had a friend of a friend get spirited off into homeland security's dungeon.

an eighty year old grandmother, suspected of doing something stupid near a plane.

read the story on how much flammable substances can be smuggled onto a plane? Let alone Hamas flags and everything else. Reporters started daring each other to see what they could get on the plane. Turns out it's basically everything.

And we can't forget the "where's the safest place to sit on a plane" question that a Muslim man asked, and got his entire family kicked off a plane (that's courtesy of muslimmatters).

So, yeah, i think it's because you don't read any place that feels like publicizing the stupidity.

REMOVE the government welfare that is the TSA. That's one of the main agenda's for my friend the lobbyist -- and he's a democrat! (now. courtesy of Clinton VS Obama. he used to be an independent so that he could get his work done without implication of partisanship)

How's that for who is on the side of less govt.

Why would anyone in their right mind read dailykos?

Submitted by chemjeff on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 11:35.

n/t

Breton Woods. CDC discussion.

Submitted by RisingTide on Tue, 01/13/2009 - 13:41.

Fly Ash removal.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/12/15463/0193

and crazy republican ideas for the new administration:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/2/17516/86081

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1/1/222030/1144

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/12/31/21344/814

Troll Report`

Submitted by rcovington on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:18.

Off topic, do not feed this troll.

I Like my rights.

Submitted by artigiano on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 08:47.

We trolls just seem to prefer to still have our constitutional rights even when we are not exercising them. It's like the spare tire in the trunk. I'm damn glad it's there even if I never need to use it.

Health Care Solutions

Submitted by ThinkTank on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 13:33.

Please propose health care solutions instead of raising strawman scare tactics.  It's simply not helping the GOP case.  Again, the touching faith in completely unregulated health care is not being borne out by the reality of its effects. 

John, show us a better plan.  If it's heath savings accounts, then demonstrate the feasibility of it.  Personally, I don't think they work on their own.  In combination with employer-mandated or other "shared risk" arrangements--which is esentially what insurance programs, incluing universal health care plans, are--they may have their place.

Free market health care reform

Submitted by PaulHsiehMD on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 14:20.

As the author of the CS Monitor piece, Jon Henke has invited me to respond to some of the comments on this thread. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to make a few points on free market health care reform:

1) We don't currently have a free market in health care and health insurance. Health care is one of the most heavily-regulated sectors of the economy. Insurance companies are under numerous regulations specifying who they must cover, what benefits they must offer, and what sorts of prices they may charge. In Massachusetts, you have to purchase health insurance with in vitro fertilization benefits and alcoholism treatment benefits, regardless of whether you want it or not. This is like the government forcing car manufacturers to sell (and customers to purchase) child car safety seats, even if the buyer has no kids.

Plus the current employer-based insurance system is an artifact of decades of bad government tax laws which distorted the market and turned health insurance from protection against rare-but-expensive events into inefficient pre-paid care. If someone else is paying the tab, costs are going to skyrocket. Just ask anyone who's purchasing dinner on his company's expense account.

Similarly, doctors are subjected to many regulations on how they must practice, and such restrictions are likely to multiply if the incoming Obama Administration pushes through its plan to establish a "Federal Health Board" which will decide what treatments are considered "most effective" and should be paid for.

Furthermore, we *already* have "single-payer" government health care for a large section of the population -- the elderly -- in the form of Medicare. Yet Medicare is rife with problems. Due to the burdensome regulations and poor reimbursements, Medicare patients have a difficult time getting a physician who will accept them. Such problems will merely multiply if this country adopts a "Medicare for All" system as some liberal Democrats propose.

2) We have to challenge the assumption that health care is a "right" that must be somehow guaranteed by the government. Health care is a *need*, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action, such as the right to free speech. They are not automatic entitlements to goods or services that must be produced by others. There is no such thing as a "right" to a car -- or a tonsillectomy.

If someone needs health care but cannot afford it, he should rely upon voluntary charity. In the past, such charity was always forthcoming from generous Americans. Any attempt to guarantee health care as an alleged "right" necessarily violates the genuine rights those who must produce it and/or pay for it, just as an alleged "right" to a house necessarily enslaves the carpenters and plumbers who must build it.

And government-guaranteed health care necessarily implies a massive expansion of government into health care delivery and financing. Any time government attempts to guarantee a service such as health care, it must necessarily control it. As we've seen in other countries like Canada and Great Britain, this leads to bureaucrats deciding who gets what health care and when, rather than doctors and patients. A Canadian woman with breast cancer might wait months before the government approves her chemotherapy, even when the physician considers it medically necessary. In government-run medical systems, health care is never truly a "right" but just another privilege dispensed at the discretion of bureaucrats.

3) Free market principles can and do apply to health care as well as the rest of the economy. LASIK eye surgeons are constantly offering better, safer procedures for lower prices precisely because their services are not guaranteed by the government. Those surgeons have to *earn* their patients' business. As a result, we see the typical free market pattern of rising quality and lower prices that we take for granted with cellphones and computers. This can and should be the norm in all of health care.

Other encouraging trends such as the growing "concierge physician" movement, the growing popularity of Health Savings Accounts, and the development of in-store "retail health clinics" also represent steps towards a free market. These all give patients greater control over health care spending, enabling them to seek better value for their dollar.

In my own practice, I've worked with many patients using Health Savings Accounts (rather than relying on traditional employer-based insurance). These patients are motivated to pursue their best medical interests in an economically efficient fashion. These patients and I will discuss at length whether they should get an ultrasound vs. a CT scan for their problem, including a frank discussion of their respective benefits, weaknesses and financial costs. The ultimate decision is up to them, based on an informed rational assessment of their personal needs and priorities. Americans are clearly capable of making such informed decisions about buying a house or a car -- we should allow them the same opportunity to make similar decisions about their health care.

There's a lot more that one could say about this topic, but I wanted to keep this (relatively) short.

Anyone interested in a more detailed discussion of practical free market health care reform might enjoy the article by Lin Zinser and myself from the Winter 2007-2008 issue of The Objective Standard entitled, "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'":

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universa...

There's also our "FAQ on Free Market Health Insurance":

http://www.WeStandFIRM.org/blog/2008/05/faq-on-free-market-health-insura...

Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss this issue in greater length!

Paul Hsieh, MD

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)

http://www.WeStandFIRM.org

I appreciate your response! 

Submitted by acinphx on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 14:40.

I appreciate your response!  This is the first time I have seen a rational explanation and justification for market-based healthcare.  I will read the article and do more research on my own.  THIS is exactly what the GOP needs to do more of:  present a solid plan with rational arguments that offers a genuine alternative to Dem proposals, for the very-real problems facing ordinary Americans. 

You've GOT to be kidding me.

Submitted by Cahnman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 20:39.

Not going to find the link during 24, but Bush campaigned on this EXTENSIVELY in 2004.  It was part of EVERY single stump speech he made.

Here You Go

Submitted by Cahnman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 21:17.

This YouTube clip is from 2007, not the 2004 election and it gets the point across.

Excellant Analysis Of What Ails Health Care

Submitted by rcovington on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 00:22.

Government does not innovate, it does not solve problems, "it is the problem".  Get the government out of the way and watch the issues resolve themselves faster and less expensively.

First question doc:

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 13:30.

how many of the medical journals in your field do you read? If I was to ask you about a zebra-problem (i.e. one that crops up 1% of the time, instead of what you regularly deal with) -- what is the likelihood that you could fix it?

Critique: within your first paragraph, you shoot your credibility in the foot. It seems manifestly apparent that the mandate of supporting alcoholism programs does not mean that everyone must attend an alcoholism program regardless of whether they are an alcoholic or not. So your example is either really really dumb, or an egregious attempt on your part to inflate the cost of an alcoholism program -- which MADD, among others, would say is responsible for saving many lives.

For what it's worth, doctor, if you gave me a health savings account, I would barely be able to avoid visits to the hospital on a daily basis. Or death. Not to mention that most of my health care costs would not actually be covered under the Health Savings Account -- due to the excessive pollination, I need research-grade filtration to keep allergies under control in the house. Otherwise, the best case is mild shock. The worst case is moderate shock while driving a heavy vehicle (read automobile). Combine muddled judgement with normally poor reaction time, and you get an accident.

Why is this? Well, it's simple: even the generic drugs to treat this condition cost a LOT. We're talking about $300 a month, at least -- and that's not counting the nasal sprays, which I've never priced without the insurance. Nor is it counting the allergic legrot (bad day when your body considers your skin something to attack).

This adds up to $3600, WITHOUT the doctors' visits to actually fix the bloody condition once and for all -- with allergy shots.

I do not believe that would be the most effective use of everyone's money.

Perhaps this is an extreme case. But most people are in the range of forty to fifty, not thirty, as in my household. they are all likely to have medical problems.

 

RE:forthcoming donations

bullshit. when children are dead of a toothache, you don't get to fucking tell me about how "everyone pays happily for your health care if you don't have it" because THEY DON"T. Besides, the amount of time needed to find most charities, and the level of social skill needed to navigate them, is sadly often lacking in both the working poor and the homeless.

 

Say what???

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 14:53.

I do not believe that would be the most effective use of everyone's money.

Perhaps this is an extreme case. But most people are in the range of forty to fifty, not thirty, as in my household. they are all likely to have medical problems.

Why is it my duty to help you pay for your medical bills?

I'm not asking you to pay for my bills, what with diabetes, high cholesterol, and the related risks?  I'm lucky to be in an insurance plan that allows me manage my problems with my doctors help.

within your first paragraph, you shoot your credibility in the foot. It seems manifestly apparent that the mandate of supporting alcoholism programs does not mean that everyone must attend an alcoholism program regardless of whether they are an alcoholic or not

I think you are taking what he said to literally.  He's not against people electing to be covered for either problem, he's saying that government mandates are increasing the cost of insurance.

From a quick search:

We estimate that mandated benefits currently increase the cost of basic health coverage from a little less than 20% to more than 50%, depending on the state and its mandates. Mandating benefits is like saying to someone in the market for a new car, if you can’t afford a Cadillac loaded with options, you have to walk.

Is that simple enough to understand?  The additional mandated benefits increase the cost of insurance.

Seems to me that making the government in charge of health care would make them the largest HMO in the country.  But, refuse their perscriptions for your life, and they have the power to, deny you other benefits, like tax credits and social security.