Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan And it isn't people "overusing" healthcare with no regards for the cost that is driving it up so high. It is because people without healthcare insurance don't get routine medical care. They tend to show up in emergency rooms when an illness has advanced farther than it might have if they had been able to seek care earlier on. As a result of the "let the market forces decide" mindset, we start seeing a return of diseases that were long ago all but wiped out. Everyone loses in the current system in the long run.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Isn't our health care system pretty much operating under "market" forces as is?> Not completely. <So, are we to say that it's OK if the market forces half the population to go without health care coverage of any sort?> Of course not. No one is talking about getting rid of all regulations. There needs to be protections built in so companies can't cancel or jack up the rates of those who become ill, naturally. But making insurance more of an individual decision would make it more portable, so that those with pre-existing conditions wouldn't be afraid of changing or losing jobs because they would lose their health care.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << Not completely. >> Please explain what non-market forces are resulting in the large number of people in this country not getting health care.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And it isn't people "overusing" healthcare with no regards for the cost that is driving it up so high. It is because people without healthcare insurance don't get routine medical care. They tend to show up in emergency rooms when an illness has advanced farther than it might have if they had been able to seek care earlier on.> Interesting theory. However, it doesn't appear to be true. “It’s not the uninsured who burden America’s emergency rooms so much as it is people who are carrying government insurance policies,” said Devon Herrick, Ph.D., a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. “The low reimbursement rates offered doctors by government programs means very few will accept taxpayer-funded insurance any more, leaving those on government plans to visit ERs for care instead of primary care physicians. “People carrying taxpayer-funded insurance are far more responsible for flagrant emergency room overuse than the uninsured,” said Herrick. “Emergency rooms have replaced primary care physicians for many Americans, in part because programs like SCHIP and Medicaid pay doctors so little that few will accept patients carrying those insurance policies. As a result, those patients have become accustomed to going to the ER.” <a href="http://www.heartland.org/publications/health%20care/article/24674/Study_Uninsured_Arent_Responsible_for_Emergency_Room_Overcrowding.html" target="_blank">http://www.heartland.org/publi...ing.html</a> Nor does it appear to be true that early prevention can save money. <a href="http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/42" target="_blank">http://content.healthaffairs.o.../28/1/42</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Please explain what non-market forces are resulting in the large number of people in this country not getting health care.> I thought I already had. The fact that some people's insurance is subsidized by the government drives up costs for others. Also, as noted in my post immediately above, it's people on government paid insurance that are flooding e.r. and driving up costs. No system is going to be perfect, but market forces generally deliver the best value for the most people. A single payer system may result in more people having insurance, but it will also cause average health care to be worse.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Interesting theory. However, it doesn't appear to be true.<< The Heartland Institute? "Free Market Solutions"? Gee, color me shocked and stunned that they would blame government-funded healthcare as the boogyman.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Preventive care requires having a physical on a regular basis. Routine physicals and well-child checkups are usually inexpensive or are fully covered by insurance, and they help your doctor detect and control potential problems. Medications might be needed to treat problems and prevent later complications. For example, if someone has diabetes, preventive health care with regular office visits can decrease the chances of later having heart problems and kidney failure. Get regular screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies when they are recommended by your health care professional to help detect and treat medical problems early.<< <a href="http://hr.umich.edu/healthsense/manage-prevent.html" target="_blank">http://hr.umich.edu/healthsens...ent.html</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Nor does it appear to be true that early prevention can save money.<< Think about this for a moment. You go to a doctor and they find a small spot of skin cancer. It is removed. vs. You don't go to the doctor and the skin cancer spreads. Now you're in not for a simple outpatient procedure but rather extensive testing and radiation/chemo etc. I mean, there's no way to say that it doesn't save money -- and lives.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>The Heartland Institute? "Free Market Solutions"? Gee, color me shocked and stunned that they would blame government-funded healthcare as the boogyman.<< <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...ne/view/</a> Fortunately, Frontline is here to tell the whole story. I strongly recommend anyone interested in their healthcare watch the latest episode, "Sick in America." It takes the time to discuss all the issues surrounding the problem, including "medical underwriting," and retroactive denials. One woman had coverage through Blue Cross of California. When she was treated for cancer two months later, they rescinded her policy and made it retroactive, so now she has bills for over $150,000. Yes, the private market is to be trusted. They've done such a bang up job on Wall Street. Go watch Frontline, folks. If you think employer-provided health care is great because you have it, this'll make you rethink your selfishness and understand that we have people in this country literally dying because they can't pay for treatment. And of course, none of this even addresses the problems that can't be quantified. What about the person who stays in a job they hate just for the healthcare? How is that not a drain on our society? Answer: it is. What about the people who don't get counted in all the statistics of uninsured because they have insurance, but it's completely inadequate? They bought the cheapest plan they could find and it has a $10,000 deductible, caps for what they can do, etc. These people also drive up our costs. No other industrialized nation is as behind or screwed up on this topic as we are. We should not be proud to be Americans until this issue is fixed.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << The fact that some people's insurance is subsidized by the government drives up costs for others. Also, as noted in my post immediately above, it's people on government paid insurance that are flooding e.r. and driving up costs. >> In other words, the market wants more money for the services it provides and drives people out of the market who are not willing to pay those premium prices. Doctors who refuse government-back health care plans are one of those market forces. Why are they turning down government money? They are greedy and want to cherry pick patients who are better able to line their pockets with more money. That's the whole point about the health care debate. We are operating in a society where it's OK to discriminate on access to health care based on who has the most wherewithal. Those that champion "market" forces are one and the same with those who believe access to health care only belongs with those who are affluent.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh From Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell: Too often a false contrast is made between the impersonal marketplace and the compassionate policies of various government programs. But both systems face the same scarcity of resources and both systems make choices within the constraints of that scarcity. The difference is that one system involves each individual making choices for himself or herself, while the other system involves a smaller number of people making choices for others. It may be fashionable for journalists to refer to “the whim of the marketplace,” as if that were something different from the desires of people, just as it was once fashionable to refer to “production for use, rather than for profit” — as if profits could be made by producing things that people cannot use or do not want to use. The real contrast is between choices made by individuals for themselves and choices made for them by others who presume to define what these individuals “really” need.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The flip side of that theory, of course, is that that individuals often screw other individuals blind, and the government can be there to ensure a fairer playing field. And if you don't think HMO's constitute a "smaller number of people making choices for others," you probably don't belong to an HMO. Too often, their incentive is denial of care, because it improves the bottom line, despite what the patient needs.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 >>The Heartland Institute? "Free Market Solutions"? Gee, color me shocked and stunned that they would blame government-funded healthcare as the boogyman.<< No kidding. Note that the big "source" there is the National Center for Policy Analysis, whose spokesman blithely puts out his statement, but provides no stats or context for the relative numbers of uninsured vs. govt.-insured; no backup for his assertion of “People carrying taxpayer-funded insurance are far more responsible for flagrant emergency room overuse than the uninsured." And as Sport Goofy points out, even if it were true, this is an indication of a PROBLEM with "market forces," rather than a recommendation for them. By the way, just who is the "National Center for Policy Analysis?" An industry-funded think tank who is paid to come up with studies that lean towards those industries that pay them, and/or make "market solutions" look good (if you don't look too closely). They also put out global warming "studies" and the behest of their masters. <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/wiki/index.php/Deniers:Organisations:National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis" target="_blank">http://www.exxonsecrets.org/wi...Analysis</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I thought Douglas was going to link to sites with facts and evidence. Instead, he linked to purely partisan/opinion-oriented sites. I guess this means next time I want to prove something is "not true" I can go ahead link to one of Keith Olbermann's "Special Commentaries." It would be about as valid.
Originally Posted By ecdc I'm seriously so depressed after watching this Frontline episode (sorry, I linked to their main viewing page but the episode still isn't available for streaming yet). As much as people want to make this about a million other things - free-market, access to higher quality healthcare, etc. - it really boils down to greed. Greedy doctors don't want to make less money. Greedy hospital administrators (if we could cut administration costs in half, like all other industrialized nations have, we could easily cover *everyone*) don't want to generate less income. Greedy pharmaceutical companies don't want to make less of a profit. Greedy manufacturers don't want their expensive equipment to be turned away. Greedy insurance companies don't want to cover anyone but the healthy. And finally, greedy Americans don't want to watch their healthcare access go down in order to get coverage for everyone. Their job is secure (so they think), and their company has a great program. Why shouldn't they and their families be able to go to the best doctors with the best equipment and get the best prescription drugs whenever they want? So what about the guy who got laid off, then had a heart attack, then had to sell his home and move back in with his mom at age 60 just to be able to pay his medical bills? He's some nameless, faceless guy anyway, right? Sure, it's a sad story, but why should I have to sacrifice just because of this guy's misfortune? That's the attitude. How on earth do people get off calling us a "Christian nation?" Our healthcare system is based on profit margins, not on healing. As such, those with good coverage are over-medicated and over-insured (which causes a whole other can of worms of a fragile culture that can't even get a cold without running to their physician) while those with poor or bad coverage are under-insured and wait until it's too late for treatment. It's a fiasco.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I thought Douglas was going to link to sites with facts and evidence. Instead, he linked to purely partisan/opinion-oriented sites.<< I'm going to actually defend Douglas. I appreciated that he's having a real conversation instead of, "I already talked about that" or "I disagree." In fairness, I've linked to Huffington Post before and people have just dismissed it as partisan nonsense without debunking what the article is actually saying. If someone links to a partisan site, debunk what the site is saying. A partisan hack can still make a good argument about certain topics.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I agree. But in this case, the link contained no specifics, just generalities (not backed up by anything) on government-insured people vs. uninsured people. Partisan sites are fine as far as they go (one should always consider the source, and the "National Center for Policy Analysis," despite the high-falutin' sounding name, is very much a pro-business group); you're quite right that we should not dismiss one out of hand whether it's NCPA or Huffington Post, but rather delve into it and see if we can refute what it is saying. In this case, the spokesman asserted certain things without a shred of evidence, or even links to evidence (the JAMA article that was linked was about the uninsured, and NOT about the government-insured).
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>If someone links to a partisan site, debunk what the site is saying.<< A few of us have. He declared what I said "not true" based on these sites.
Originally Posted By piperlynne kinda off topic, but then this whole topic is now. . But the actual numbers for the GOP budget are supposed to come out today aren't they? Anyone seen them yet? And where is that dang topic? I went through WE looking for it, but couldn't find it (the one with the link)
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And if you don't think HMO's constitute a "smaller number of people making choices for others," you probably don't belong to an HMO.> I have belonged to an HMO, and if you read what I proposed, you'll see I'm advocating moving away from employer provided health care and HMO's, and towards giving the individual more control over their health care. You do know that the spread of HMO's was pushed by Sen Kennedy and other liberals a few decades ago, right?
