Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

San Francisco's misguided vision
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | July 23, 2006 | Editorial

Posted on 07/23/2006 9:09:11 AM PDT by Graybeard58

Health insurance in this country dates to the 1850s, but it wasn't until the 1930s that "Blue Cross" health-care plans were introduced. During World War II when wages were frozen, many employers began providing their workers medical coverage in lieu of raises. "Major medical" was introduced in the early 1950s, and by the end of the decade, more than 80 million Americans -- nearly half of the population -- had employer-funded health insurance.

Things were going along just fine until the politicians made health insurance an entitlement rather than a perk earned through achievement.

First, it was Medicare, then Medicaid. Then special interests lobbied lawmakers to pass legislation requiring specific coverages, and the era of insurance mandates was born.

Before long, mandates were piled so high that basic policies were unaffordable. Some companies stopped buying insurance for their workers, but most simply bought policies with higher co-pays and required their employees to pay some of the premiums. But more lobbying brought more mandates, which accelerated the cycle of higher costs and increased the ranks of the uninsured.

Politicians looked at the huge pile of uninsured Americans they had created and blamed businesses. Congress and the states responded by expanding Medicaid dramatically, while Connecticut and other states also created taxpayer-funded health-care programs, initially for children but later for adults, too. Since the level of benefits was on par with what public employees receive, these programs, along with higher Medicaid bills, quickly became enormously costly.

When even harsh tax increases couldn't keep up, politicians began beating the drum for universal health insurance, delirious in the belief that government could do better despite decades of manifest failures.

San Francisco is about to be the first city in America to provide health-care coverage for all residents, no matter their job or immigration status. The program will cover just about everything, as long as the care is administered within the city limits.

The $200-million-a-year cost -- a vast underestimate if there ever was one -- would be financed by taxes and "mandatory contributions from employers."

If the Board of Supervisors approves the plan, businesses with more than 50 employees must begin participating by next July while smaller businesses would have to come aboard by April 2008, giving both time to get out of town to avoid the coming fiscal and health-care train wreck.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: California
KEYWORDS: ecoterror; healthcare

1 posted on 07/23/2006 9:09:12 AM PDT by Graybeard58
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58
We have universal coverage in Palm Beach county. It started with docs volunteering and morphed into a healkth care district that served about 1000 indigent a year. Now that has developed into basic med insurance for $50/mo.

I was listening to coverage of this SF plan. It starts by assessing wages $1.60/hr to cover 16000 uninsured workers. That leaves 68,000 uninsured, unemployed, not eligibele for Medicare or Medicaid people. I cannot figure out who they are.

2 posted on 07/23/2006 9:31:30 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58

It's really a shame what that beautiful, iconic American city has become in the last forty years. They just keep banging their head against the socialist wall. You'd think, after being utterly inundated by homeless people, due to enacting the nation's most liberal policies regarding the homeless, that they'd realize they're going to be inundated again. By the carload and planeload ... rent an apartment, establish "residency," and the city is on the hook for very costly medical care. And, when it's done, they'll return back home, assets intact, to get on with their lives. Do they really anticipate anything other than financial collapse out of this? Why are socialists so completely incapable of envisioning the consequences of their utopianism?


3 posted on 07/23/2006 9:37:37 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClaireSolt

An ambitious plan. I see some problems. Businesses are assessed a tax of $1.60 per hour per employee? That's pretty steep. Also, the care is to be administered in the city of San Francisco if I read right . What's to stop doctors and hospitals and clinics from going outside the city limits and not being under the plan? It's even possible that some businesses will leave San Francisco and locate outside the city limits to avoid this.

While it sounds nice to say healthcare will be available for all, somebody has to pay the bill.

What we all should know is that the existence of new taxes, government regulations, etc. that cost money change people's behavior. I'm sure the bureaucrats who studied this assume that no businesses will cut back or relocate or shut down, they assume that no more homeless or low income people will gravitate to San Francisco to take advantage of this, etc.

I hope I'm wrong but I think this will collapse of its own weight eventually.


4 posted on 07/23/2006 9:40:45 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego

Business have been fleeing San Francisco proper for many years. Some of the largest companies western headquarters are located in Walnut Creek.


5 posted on 07/23/2006 9:54:07 AM PDT by sheana
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: ClaireSolt
$1.60 per hour per employee. Some day soon, if a San Francisican can find a company to work for, they'll be earning minimum wage.

But, dang it, they'll get medical coverage for their malnutrition, won't they!

I foresee a mass exodus of businesses to another county.

6 posted on 07/23/2006 10:25:03 AM PDT by 3catsanadog (When anything goes, everything does.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Dilbert San Diego

Some one told me that this is what Hilary wanted in her universal health care plan - $1.60 per hour per employee. He thought this was a wonderful, humanitarian idea. I said, well kiss your raises goodbye if you still have a job.


7 posted on 07/23/2006 10:27:50 AM PDT by 3catsanadog (When anything goes, everything does.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58
Chevron moved their headquarters from San Francisco to San Ramon in 2001. They sold the two towers on Market Street owned since 1964. I have no idea what the occupancy on those buildings is today, but I've heard that it is a good sight below full occupancy. And a large part of the reason they left was because of the punitive policies of the city against any sort of commerce. They are the largest example of the corporate exodus that has occurred in San Francisco, but by no means the only case.

This city, and especially the Board of Supervisors, continually is trying to enmesh all tenants of the city in a socialist web. To witness a meeting of the Board is akin to watching unwatched children play in a sandbox. What frustrates many people is that the Supervisors' actions run counter to what is good for San Francisco. What people must realize is that they don't want the San Francisco people have learned to love. They want something else, something that has (a) only truly existed on paper, and (b) fails every time it is tried. I know I don't need to speak its name.

What is odd is that while these ever more business-unfriendly policies are put into place, there is a tremendous amount of large building going on in SF, both commercial and residential, especially south of Market Street. South of Market resembles one massive building site, and walking down there means listening to the constant smash of piledrivers and roar of construction machinery. Quite a few builders are betting on a future for San Francisco that is markedly different from the one the Supervisors are trying to bring about. I'm very much wondering whose vision will prevail.

8 posted on 07/23/2006 10:29:51 AM PDT by Virulas (Your modern Democratic Party - a cult in search of a personality.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 3catsanadog

Did you do the math? We are doing it for $50/mo paid by the subscriber.(I don't know if it is subsidized by the county) They are getting $250/mo from employers. 4Big difference.


9 posted on 07/23/2006 10:34:04 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Graybeard58

bump for later


10 posted on 07/23/2006 11:58:33 AM PDT by GOP Poet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Virulas
What is odd is that while these ever more business-unfriendly policies are put into place, there is a tremendous amount of large building going on in SF...

Maybe they're building homeless shelters, "peace centers", etc. You know--the standard leftist monuments.

11 posted on 07/23/2006 12:50:02 PM PDT by randog (What the...?!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Virulas

Well, I guess that I can understand the new residential construction. As long as so many of the local fools will pay $700K and up for 1BR/1BA condos, the developers will keep slapping them together as quickly as possible. You're right, though, that it is odd that developers would be building new office space in S.F. right now. I don't have any statistics on the number of folks working in downtown S.F., but my personal impression is that the total downtown workforce is much lower than it was, say, 20 years ago. When I worked in the financial district in 1988, Market Street was jammed with pedestrians at lunch time. Now, with companies like Chevron gone, the noontime foot traffic seems like about half of what it once was.


12 posted on 07/23/2006 1:14:11 PM PDT by irishjuggler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: irishjuggler

I'll have to take your word for what the traffic at lunch was like in '88. I've been working here for only 7 years, though I've lived in the Bay Area all my life. I have seen occupancy figures for commercial highrises (other than the ex-Chevron towers) and they are generally very high. People are still paying the rents, and businesses still want to be here so much that they're accepting the exorbidant taxes and other shakedown bids from the city as well as the state.

The condos going up between Market and AT&T park are by no means shoddy either - they are going to be outrageously expensive, even by San Francisco standards. The skid row where Jacks London and Kerouac did a good deal of their drinking is being pulled up block by block and converted to condos and Whole Foods superplexes. The style is warehouse district chic - tear down the warehouses, then build a new structure on top of it that looks a little like the warehouse that you tore down, but with state-of-the-art earthquake protection, security and fibre-optics for the tech tenants you're trying to attract.

I would bet the person most responsible for this development is Willie Brown. He was a mayor in the Boss style, like so many in the early 1900's. He was grafting, shifty, lying and a general sack of excrement. However in his self-aggrandizement he did have a particular skill - eschewing red tape. He seemed to have a policy of 'add the office and apartment space now, and we'll worry later about how we'll fill it.' He also cursed the board of supervisors with a passionate hatred, for which he did deserve some respect. He hated how they drove off business, which he saw as the Golden Goose that made possible the lunatic crap that the Board so slavishly pursues. And he did know how to use executive power.


13 posted on 07/23/2006 1:50:11 PM PDT by Virulas (Your modern Democratic Party - a cult in search of a personality.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Virulas

At those prices maybe SF will become the mecca of trust funders who can turn their noses up at business. They'll build their utopia on daddy's money.


14 posted on 07/23/2006 3:45:59 PM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson