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John McCain and Health Care
Submitted by Rev. John on Wed, 06/11/2008 - 07:27
(I originally wrote this back in March and thought I'd share)
A major issue on the minds of your average voter, and another one that the R's always seem to concede to the D's that they shouldn't, is health care. Zogby did a recent poll on whom voters think is best on health care and the results were Hillary Clinton 36 %, Barack Obama 27%...John McCain 13 %. This has to change.
I think a main reason for the extreme discrepancy in this poll is the simple fact that R's don't talk aboot health care, and why they don't I have no idea. The health care policy on McCain's website makes sense to me, so why not talk aboot it? Also, there's an area of health care the D's don't talk aboot, and that concerns personal responsibility. One of the reasons health care costs are so high is because the amount of preventative health care people need drives up the cost of non-preventive health care. Simply encouraging people to live healthier would be an angle not often used when discussing health care.
John McCain even has two surrogates on his side to help: Mike Huckabee, and his daughter Meghan.
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I had mentioned Huckabee's passion for health issues when I asked what's next for Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee is the poster child for taking personal responsibility for your own health. At one point he was extremely fat and a pork chop away from Type II Diabetes. Instead of complaining aboot the cost of insulin or the fact that restaurants cook in trans fats, he changed his eating habits, exercised, and lost over a hundred pounds. Huckabee can talk about how you should take responsibility for your own health because he took responsibility for his health. Plus, campaigning with someone who is the cat's pajamas to southern evangelicals couldn't hurt John McCain either.
His daughter Meghan can help with a slightly different health issue, and one that neither party talks much aboot. So sayeth Ms. McCain on her blog [in March]:
"I've been surprised by critical comments regarding my weight and body shape. It recently reached a ridiculous level when someone handed me a business card for a plastic surgeon and suggested I needed liposuction. I am proud of my curves and have always loved my fuller figure, as should every woman who is not a size "0". I want to be a positive role model for my little sister and all of the other young women who read my blog and help perpetuate a more positive image for women, regardless of their body size. I feel empowered to tell everyone that it's important to maintain a healthy weight that works for them - not everyone is going to be model thin, nor should they expect to be. To every young girl reading this blog, it is inner beauty and happiness that makes a person beautiful, not a number on a scale."
Is there anyone that can deny that's a problem? How many young women do you know that can relate with what she's saying? Is any candidate in either party talking aboot this? Plus speaking politically, if it's McCain vs. Hillary, Clinton's supporters are going to be quick to play the gender card. How can they when McCain's daughter is the only one talking aboot self esteem/weight issues in young girls? (June update: Plus, aren't we looking to attract Hillary voters?)
(And for what it's worth, I've yet to see a picture of Meghan McCain and thought that she's fat. Not to mention, who the hell walks up to the future first daughter to say "hey fatty, you could use som plastic surgery" in the first place?)
This is an election where Republicans can't afford to concede any issue to the Democrats, especially one as important as health care. And before people get carried away, I'm not suggesting a nanny state or regulation mandating what people eat and that they feel good aboot themselves.
What I'm saying is that people have their own stereotype on what we as R's and/or C's think aboot health care, and by John McCain simply acknowledging voters concerns and campaigning on more of a "lead by example" approach to health care, he could stand out more and help sell his health care plan in ways people understand better than just talking aboot tax credits and markets.
Psst...go check out PCLIVE! on Facebook.
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Comments
The Problem with McCain's health care scheme
Like most republican health care schemes is it buys hook line and sinker into the Democratic talking point that their is A health care crisis.
there isn't A health care crisis their are multiple health care crisis. And instead of trying to solve multiple problems with a one size fits all solution (which both parties are invested in doing) we should solve each individual crisis as best we can
In politics, there are no absolutes.
Raising health care costs are strictly the result of giving the private-health care industry a monopoly in providing health care. I take for my example, the steep rise in health care prices soon after the government's Public Health Service was abandoned in the late 70's. At the time we all complained about the Public Health Service, but I am beginning to think now, even as a fiscal conservative, the only real way to curve health care costs is to break the private-health care monopoly. All I see from our present political leaders is different ways to raise yet still more money to feed the monopoly beast, and as we all know, providing more money to feed the beast, simply makes the beast bigger.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Ok here is a problem
Private Health care doesn't have a monopoly. From the coverage side to the provider side. thats just wrong. More people pay for health care with a government sponsored health care scheme today then pay with private funds
Okay, fair enough
Either way the private health care industry is providing the health care, the government isn't, unless you are in the military, stationed on a base, ship or the battlefield.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Wrong again
Most local governments in this country contract out to a hospital (or provide it themselves) which provides health care. Health care which they have to provide if you can pay or not (so sayith the federal government).
You only get private health care at your Doctors office (if your doctor isn't at a free clinic) and only if you don't have a government sponsored health care card. And that private doctor unless he employes fewer then 5 employees or refuses federal monies has to jump through tons of hoops which run his costs through the roof and prevents him from running his buisness the way he chooses so essentially unless your doctor has less then 5 employees he is a defacto government operation because thats how much government meddles in health care
Government owned or privately owned?
"Most local governments in this country contract out to a hospital." Most local governments in this country do not contract out to a "government" owned hospital, but to a "privately owned" hospital. Unless you are suggesting that all hospitals in this country are government owned, that they are not privately owned corporations, or that they do not have shareholders.
ex animo
davidfarrar
And your point is....
Private Hospitals in taking the loss of being the hospital of last resort have to put themselves under additional regulations and additional controls by -the government-. Often times have to obey government rules on hiring and firing. They take a HUGE loss and get less profit.
Most of these hospitals the government contracts to these private firms to manage for them are "Not for Profit"
and the difference between a government contractor and the government which gave him the job is you took all the negatives of a private enterprise, and all the negatives of a government enterprise and if your lucky you get the positives of a private enterprise
They may indeed be "Not-for-Profit"...
...but even "Not-for-Profits" can benefit from being a monopoly. Where else is the consumer going to go to get health care but to a private health care provider, either for-profit or Not-for-Profit?
ex animo
davidfarrar
private health care provider
I'm not sure such things exist in America today. Hospitals are quasi-state entities. They are required by the government to treat anyone who walks int the door, insured or not, American citizen or illegal alien. That's one reason they are going broke.
On a related note, McCain supported a bill to bail out hospitals in this situation. That looks a lot like national health care to me. Or at least, national health care for illegal aliens and a subsidy to their employers.
The record speaks for itself.
Go back and see when medical costs started sky-rocketing beyond the inflation rate. It was approximately six months after the government abandoned the Public Health Service.
It is no accident both Obama and McCain have accepted political donations from the pharmaceutical industry.
It is also no accident I am being forced to pay $102 for a prescription from CVS when I can get the same prescription online from Canada for $28.
It is also no accident the FDA has made this example of my "personal choice" illegal at the direction of a Republican president.
It is no accident that your own personal doctor will no longer give you your own written prescription, but instead will ask you who is your pharmacy and we will send it over to them from the office.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Your right it is no Accident
Doctors don't give you your own perscription most placed because people use their script pads to fake a prescription to get highly profitable drugs.
And if you want to do what the canadians do: Drive prices down on 80% of the drugs (and making the other 20% more expensive)and driving all of the drug companies (and their jobs, and their profits, and their taxes) out of the US we can have the same scheme .
Medicare drove up costs. Medicaid drove up costs. Recruing hospitals to take care of anyone, no matter if they can pay or not drives prices up.
Since when are doctors...
...now drug enforcement officers? You can't be serious? Doctors now are nothing but enforcement agents for the pharmaceutical industry, as is the FDA.
There are lots of reasons why Canada can sell prescription drugs cheaper than the US. But my government should not put itself in a position to tell me I can't exercise my personal choice of where to buy my own prescription medication; should they?
And you might very well be correct when you say: "Medicare drove up costs. Medicaid drove up costs. Requiring hospitals to take care of anyone, no matter if they can pay or not drives prices up."
Here again, these costs didn't rise above the inflation rate when the Public Health Service was available to those who could not pay for their medical services. It was only when these patients were forced to go to private health care providers that the costs went up for all of us.
So perhaps we have stumbled on a solution...bring back the Public Health Service for two reasons....it will take the non-paying patients out of the private health care arena while at the same time, provide structural competition to the private health care industry.
ex animo
davidfarrar
There is one Reason drugs are cheaper in Canada
Socialism <-- the only reason
They buy in bulk
Now, do you actually want to explain why Bush's drug program doesn't take advantage of this same free market mechanism?
ex animo
davidarrar
No they don't
The Canadian government says for Drug X we will pay you Y amount
Socialism, not the free market
free market
Nobody is compelling the drug companies to sell at that price. They can simply walk away if they want.
Impossible.
The drug companies clearly make a profit on the drugs they sell in Canada, or they would not sell there.
That being the case, what justification is there under free market grounds for our governement to block the importation of a product from abroad? You seem to be arguing for tariffs to protect the drug industry.
Of course, the people they want protection from are themselves, in the form of their own exports.
They do make a profit there
But they make a profit there in the mindset of We need X million customers for this drug to break even. So if we have to break even in Canada and other socialist countries then make our real profit in countries that don't hate freedom then thats what we have to do
So what you are saying is
that they break even in Canda and elsewhere, and make their profit off the American consumer. Even if true, why should the American consumer subsidize the rest of the world in this fashion?
Our government is very resistent to placing restrictions on the imporation of products from abroad, even where made by what is basically slave labor. What justification is there for restricting the importation of American made products into America?
This is another one of those issues where the Republican party has adapted an absurd position with no popular support. As I've said before, there is a limit to how much of this a party can do and still expect to be given power.
Really...
As someone I know is fond of saying, "Correlation does not imply causation."
And funny, in the last year, I know I've gotten several Rx's for medicine directly from doctors, including one for a narcotic.
Why don't you also go back and see what laws have been passed that effect the health care industry, insurance, and the pharmacutical industry during that same period.
Also of interest, this study from the GOA recognizes that there are in fact government owned hospitals, at least as lately as 2003.
hey can simply walk away if
hey can simply walk away if they want.
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Sen. John McCain met with a
Sen. John McCain met with a mad throng at a town-hall meeting on health care reform Wednesday, from time to time having to scrap to chat and telling one woman who wouldn't stop yelling that she had to leave.
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