Posted on 01/31/2008 11:56:06 AM PST by neverdem
On Monday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "universal" health-care plan was shot down by a committee in the state's Senate, 7-1. The most vociferous opponents were not fiscal conservatives, but labor unions that launched a last-minute revolt against its most crucial feature: an individual mandate that would have forced everyone to buy coverage.
This defeat has national political implications. Hillary Clinton, for example, has denounced Barack Obama for refusing to include an individual mandate in his health-care plan. Yet many California unions argued that a mandate would force uninsured, middle-income working families to divert money from more pressing needs toward coverage whose price and quality they cannot control.
The unions are correct: This is exactly what is happening in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney enacted a similar plan two years ago as governor. (And Mr. Romney's plan is the inspiration for both the Schwarzenegger and Clinton plans.) The experience in the Bay State deserves a lot more scrutiny than it has been getting.
Massachusetts uses a sliding income scale to subsidize coverage for everyone up to 300% of the poverty level -- or a family of four making around $60,000. Everyone over that limit is required to pay for their own coverage if their employers don't provide it. All this has inflated demand, which, combined with onerous regulations on insurance suppliers, has triggered premium increases of 12% for this year -- double last year's national average.
No one is escaping the financial sting. The state health-care bill for fiscal 2008-2009 is expected to touch $400 million -- 85% more than originally projected. Still the state won't be able to fully shield those it subsidizes from the premium increases. But uninsured folks who don't qualify for government help really get pounded. Before the hike, the cheapest plan for uninsured couples in their 50s...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Just read something today about 25% of health care costs are attributable to consumer behavior:
not eating healthy, not exercising, smoking.
You KNOW that these behaviors will come under “regulation” if we ever get “universal free” health care.
I had a lib call me paranoid for thinking this, right after she was spouting how she wouldn’t trust a health insurance company to run an “ask a nurse” line because they’d use the information against her.
LOL. They have not the slightest concern about uninsured, middle-income working families. The unions like that there is a big tax-advantage in employer provided health insurance vs. privately bought health insurance. The unions offer that as major reason to join unions. That tax break is one of the central strengths of the union movement. They don't want to lose their recruiting advantage.
The universal health plan proponents and medical professional advisory boards that had proposed universal health care in Oregon went in depth regarding which illnesses and treatments and medicines would and would not be covered under the plan.
You end up with elective sex change operations being covered because of organized intense lobbying efforts from the same sex lobbyists, while experimental off formula cancer treatments that are on formula and have passed experimental testing and have received approval and are covered in Europe, as not being covered because the doctors and researchers and drug Co’s in Europe who own the patents and developed the procedures don’t have lobbyists in backwater Oregon, USA.
Oregon had a appeal track that would have seen most critically ill patients in need of experimental treatment dead before the appeal was decided, while a bunch of ex-men were walking around without their frank and beans, all paid for by the residents of Oregon.
Medical treatment, the decision of life and death, was politicized in Oregon even BEFORE the universal health care bill was made public in a first draft.
The Pro-Life community in the USA would do well in not only opposing elective abortion under universal health care proposals, but also blocking politicians and lobbyists from playing God over which elderly and infirm live or die through action or omission of treatment by state regulated universal health care regulation and actuarial table decision makers.
Not treating those over 65 is already in practice in countries with universal health care. There was an article just the other day about the UK.
That just gave me an unwelcome vision of yellow spandex. Thanks for nothing.
Bill would order checks for buyers at gun shows (courtesy of Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg)
"We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Global Warming Bill Clinton
The War Against Jihadism. Why can't we call the enemy by its name? We're going to have to ...to win
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The most vociferous opponents were... labor unions that launched a last-minute revolt against its most crucial feature: an individual mandate that would have forced everyone to buy coverage... Hillary Clinton... has denounced Barack Obama for refusing to include an individual mandate in his health-care plan... This is exactly what is happening in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney enacted a similar plan two years ago as governor.
Thanks for the ping!
yay, lets try free-market health care.... not that they will ever allow that
The British seem to loathe things like quality and choice in healthcare
in’t the UK stop giving pain medicine to women in labor and mandate the use of birthing pools?
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