Home › Blogs › RBIII's blog ›

ObamaCare Gets An "F"

Submitted by RBIII on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 13:14
in

Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gives ObamaCare a big fat F for not doing anything the Progressives / Statists (i.e. Obama and Co.) claim it will do.

I encourage you to read the whole article here.  But here's one part that hits the nail on the head:

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

The bottom line is that getting the government more involved in the Health Care industry is going to do what government involvement always does: Lower quality and increase costs.

Of course, Progressives don't care about that.  All they care about is government control.  Health Care is the lynchpin for Statist control of the populace.  There are some liberals who simply don't realize this.  When they do finally realize it, they usually become conservatives / libertarians.

A recent Gallup Poll showed that more people than ever before (since Gallup started tracking the question) are of the mindset that the Government doesn't belong in Health Care, so there's hope.  Let's hope that this enlightenment hasn't come too late to reverse all the damage that Progressives / Statists and the Progressive-lite Republicans have done over the last 100 years.

0
Your rating: None

Comments

Thanks.

Submitted by John Smith on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 13:33.

A very interesting contribution, from a source who should be listened to. I have only one quibble. He says it comes as news that "this can only be the first step of a multiyear process to more drastically change the organization and funding of health care in America". I disagree - the point is frequently made that we have to start somewhere. He clearly wants something much more radical. Well, doing nothing now is not going to make doing something more radical in the future more likely.

You've Lost Cambridge

Submitted by RedMango on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 14:03.

You've Lost America.  In the ideal world, it should be the other way around, but Obamacare as it stands is dead. 

In any good horror movie it will come back to life.

Submitted by Wayne from Jere... on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 14:32.

Right now it in is in the Senate laboratory and Dr Reid is looking at it.

 

Don't let reality interfere with your ideology

Submitted by Tlaloc on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 20:04.

The bottom line is that getting the government more involved in the Health Care industry is going to do what government involvement always does: Lower quality and increase costs.

Reality is we have the most privatized health care in the world.  We also have the most expensive and at best average quality for an OECD nation. 

But you just don't want to hear facts that contradict your world view, now do you?

Facts?

Submitted by RBIII on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 20:18.

These "rankings" the left are constantly referencing are from an organization who ranks HC systems based on how much the government provides.  Do you realize this?

You are referencing rankings by organizations who WANT socialized medicine around the globe.  That's how they view the entire matter.  Of course we're going to rank low.

The reality, though, is that people from those countries that "rank" higher come HERE to get treatment their glorious statist health care systems can't give them in a timely manner, if at all.  Medical innovation comes out of the US more than any other country on the planet.

You can take your WHO rankings and shove them. Or better yet... move to a country that ranks higher and we'll see if you have the misfortune of needing a procedure those nanny states won't give you.

No I didn't realize that

Submitted by Tlaloc on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 00:18.

mostly because it isn't, you know, true.  A look at life expectancy does not mean ranking "based on how much the government provides."  Nor does looking at the percentage of the population that gets preventative health care. 

Your statement was pure nonsense.

You are referencing rankings by organizations who WANT socialized medicine around the globe.

Funny howorganizations that want the bestcare and inpossession of endless data that shows that "socialized medicine" works better and cheaper would in fact want "socialized medicine."  It's eerie!

The reality, though, is that people from those countries that "rank" higher come HERE

Okay let me stop you.  The reality is that yes you have medical tourism which mean the obscenely wealthy of other countries come here to buy medical procedures that they won't get back home because their governments though maybe saving lives was more important than their latest plastic surgery.  They come here because they can get the medicine for cash regardless.  Thing is you;d have much greater medical tourism the other way except in the other systems you generally need to be a citizen so that just isn't possible. 

So yes our current system works to the advantage of the worst and most contemptible people on the planet.  No disagreement there.  The thing is you apparently like it that way whereas i see it as a flaw.

Or better yet... move to a country that ranks higher and we'll see if you have the misfortune of needing a procedure those nanny states won't give you.

You mean like here where if I don't have insurance I don't get treatment for my chronic condition?  Kind of like that?  Oh and because I have a chronic condition I can't get insurance if I let my current one lapse.  Gosh, yeah I would hate to be under a system where I didn't have that hanging over my head every single day.

All medicine is rationed.  You can either have it rationed by a democratically elected government or by a private insurance company that is only accountable to its shareholders makes money by screwing you over.  Don't be an idiot and pretend the latter choice is anything but hell.

 

With this one comment...

Submitted by RBIII on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 09:24.

...you rendered your entire position irrelevant.

The reality is that yes you have medical tourism which mean the obscenely wealthy of other countries come here to buy medical procedures that they won't get back home because their governments though maybe saving lives was more important than their latest plastic surgery.

People come here for things from simple hip / joint replacements to cancer treatments that their glorious Statist health care systems won't give them.  Sometimes they're not even available to them at all because the HC providers (doctors) don't even know how to provide it because there's no incentive to provide anything beyond what the government will pay for.

And this comment is just plain stupid:

You can either have it rationed by a democratically elected government or by a private insurance company that is only accountable to its shareholders makes money by screwing you over.  Don't be an idiot and pretend the latter choice is anything but hell.

Companies that provide a service are subject to market dynamics.  Unless, of course, they operate in government sanctioned monopolies / oligopolies like they do now.  You unwittingly proved that less government intervention and manipulation would increase competition, increase quality, and make insurance companies more accountable to the market and consumers.

The very problem you morons want to fix is caused by the very same government you want to give more power to.  The government cannot provide better care for lower costs.  In fact, they historically provide lower quality AND higher costs and stifle innovation.

Capitalism works.  Socialism doesn't.