How little government sponsored Healthcare do we need? {Vanity}

Cronos ^ | 19 June 2012 | Cronos

[Cronos]

I've been thinking about this for years and want to get my fellow Freeper's opinions --> how little healthcare/medicare do we need as a nation?

There are two extremes: government is not involved in any medicare at all, or the other extreme is Obamacare

As a young adult, I'm inclined to the zero government, zero tax-money going to healthcare/medicare. However, I also believe that we young have an obligation to take care of our parents and our other aged relatives. That being said, I look on it as a Christian duty, separate from gubmint.

What do you freepers think? Where along the line from 0 (no government involvement) to 1 (Obamacare) do you stand?

[Cronos]

looking for your opinions / comments to learn more from different perspectives.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

You might just as well call ObamaCare LBJ care because LBJ set the stage when he created Medicare for Ted Kennedy and co. to keep bloating Medicare with one entitlement after another and calling it reform.

Without all of Kennedy’s bloat healthcare wouldn’t have become so expensive that a huge number of Americans believed they could no longer afford it on their own, so let Government just take it all over.

And with all of that the drug companies moved in with what they call public-private partnerships to heavily finance medical research at Universities which has caused us all kind of problems.

http://decisionresources.com/The-Decision-Resources-Blog/November-2010/Pfizers-85-Million-Partnership

These funding deals are corrupting the integrity of medical research to an undreamt degree. $85 Million? Does anyone seriously think that the University researchers are going to bite the hand that feeds them by exposing a Pfizer drug as junk, or dangerous?

Since Government sets the reimbursement rate on a lot of procedures and products everyone bills the Government at the same, maximum allowable charge.

No competition, High prices. Low quality.

Since we’ll never get people to understand that we’d be better off in a real free market without Medicare or Medicaid, It looks to me like the best we can hope for is 1: healthcare vouchers and 2: drop the Can’t sell Insurance across State Lines restriction.

3: a DOJ with a vastly expanded AntiTrust Division to aggressively go after monopolization and anti competitive practices in all sectors of healthcare today: Drug Companies, Chain Hospitals, and back room deals Private Insurance Companies are engaging in to fix prices at the State Level.

[Vendome]

I’m Iinclined to zero as well but, I have a tolerance for supporting 10% as permanent and another % (maybe 15%) with some sort of temporary help and it should come with strings.

Not stringent strings that stifle productivity or more importantly self determination but, something that bridge yet incentives independence of taxpayer support.

Don’t mind helping out but I very much detest cradle to grave support

[Bobalu]

If you have to depend upon the goodwill of others for your well being then everyone is a whole lot NICER!.

If the govmnt forces others at the point of a gun to take care of you then why be nice!? Just be an ahole and act like everyone owes you.

[OldMissileer]

Government intervention in health care is the main reason for the dramatic increases in the cost of medical care.

I know there have been many breakthroughs in medicine, technology, and procedures but it still would not be as expensive if Government had stayed out of the equation.

[VRWC For Truth]

Gov’t is not the answer. If you want to pay for your parents or anyone else then buy them their own policy. The free market is going to offer the best care at the best price.

[RFEngineer]

The extremes are not as you have listed them.

The extremes are you have willing buyer and willing provider or you have government involvement. You cannot have both and have functioning healthcare.

Old folks and chronic or debilitating congenital conditions must be handled outside of government. How that is handled is the only true open healthcare question. I’m confident good people can solve this issue better than government.

[CitizenUSA]

There are all sorts of technology breakthroughs in other fields, like computers, and the price per performance ratio keeps dropping...drastically. You'd think modern medical equipment and pharmaceutical production would put downward pressure on prices, because doctors should be able to more accurately troubleshoot and target what ails you. Of course, the computer industry is very highly competitive and not nearly so litigious as medical care, and the government does not subsidize computer purchases. People don't generally demand that their computer purchases be paid for by other people...yet.

[Cronos]

can you clarify by 10% permanent? 10% of what?

[Cronos]

How that is handled is the only true open healthcare question

True enough, but then there is the ethical question -- if someone hasn't saved enough for their health and gets seriously ill, should government be involved? I believe no, this should be churches who should provide this support

[muawiyah]

Christian moral demands are best met by using your own money to do whatever it is you think needs to be done.

All taxes are collected by force or threat of force ~ literally by putting a gun to the head of the taxpayers. Christ didn't teach you to do that.

We have a situation where Obama and his cronies are seeking to do an end run around the American solution ~ that is, that if the federales and the state governments want to subsidize someone's medical care they should do it the old fashioned way ~ buy it with tax dollars in an open market.

The ObamaKKKare deal seeks to mix private money (that's where the insurance companies and private or nonprofit hospitals come into the picture ) with taxes so that you no longer see just where the subsidies are or what they cost.

Otherwise, ObamaKKKare actually involves a quite large INCREASE in medical expenditures in this country.

[Eye of Unk]

I want to know more about the Sarah Palin Healthcare plan.

Did everyone miss it?

Nobody heard of her idea how to achieve a nationwide healthcare package that wasn’t a stepping stone for establishing a Marxist agenda?

[Wurlitzer]

Since almost without exception, anything done by government (aka no market forces to make it efficient and people friendly), is always way more expensive than they told us it would be, and since it almost never does what they said it would, (how many government addressed problems have ever been SOLVED?), and since governments have ALWAYS abused their power, my question would be; why would you ever look to government for something which could be handled by the private sector?

If I don’t like company A I simply go to company B,C.... If I do not like O’Blame-o’s Commie Care my choice is limited to leaving the country.

[mosaicwolf]

No one needs health care. They just think they do.

[mo]

Society as a whole seemed to have made until 1965 WITHOUT any “government sponsored” healthcare....so the argument is specious....when cast as why We the People need to continue to have the Feds involved in anyway at all.

Here's a recipe to cut Medicare by 50% and preserve access.

2011 Medicare entire budget was $916/mo per beneficiary.
Close CMS/HSS-the Medicare federal agency.

Make available $458/mo to each eligible beneficiary in their social security check.They MAY use the differential, if they CHOOSE to do so-to purchase a health insurance policy.

Voila-cut by 50%. No bureaucratic edict “limiting benefits/access”...just freeing up the ability of the individual to make some choice about their future...

[theBuckwheat]

In asking the question, (”How little government sponsored Healthcare do we need?”), you lead the reader to a liberty-destroying answer.

The question is NOT how much government involvement, but how to do two things: 1) to make sure that everyone pays for their own health care and 2) for those who are indigent, how do we encourage sufficient CHARITY to provide for them?

Private charity respects property rights. It does not need to coerce anyone to pay, nor does it need to engage in extortion. It connects the giver with the recipient. The recipient knows that he cannot demand anything and thus does not develop a dependent mindset.

In the country’s history, private charity has always been sufficient. In the last several years, American taxpayers claimed over $300 billion in deductions to tax-exempt recipients, so there is plenty of money for this purpose if the need was properly marketed and directed.

We only need government to allow this to take place, and to stop destroying charity by assuming to perform the function.

[i_robot73]

You also forgot that no matter how small of the intrusion into any market (seat belts, speed limits, healthcare), the once tiny/optional areas become huge mandates

[no-to-illegals]

Once upon a time society operated on the assumption freedom was necessary to secure the blessings of liberty. Then came those who recognized that a tremendous portion of the economy was based upon healthcare or rather it could be. Those persons went about to create something which would grant care and health to all who would allow those doing the creating to endeavor with creativity whereby prosperity and showers of money would be given and taken to generate debt. When the debt became overwhelming it was ignored, for the debt was not a symptom but rather a cure for those whose true goals were not the blessings of prosperity and and liberty but were instead poverty for all. Equal distribution.

Could tell the story of my life regarding the responsibility I took over the years and the insurance offered (at the time) and purchased at the various stages of life and my family's lives to secure the blessing of protection. It would be boring, so chose instead to write the first paragraph.