Posted on 10/03/2012 7:48:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A top Democrat strategist and donor who served as President Obama’s lead auto-industry adviser recently conceded that the rationing of heath services under Obamacare is “inevitable.”
Steven Rattner advocated that such rationing should target elderly patients, while stating, “We need death panels.”
Rattner serves on the board the New America Foundation, or NAF, a George Soros-funded think tank that was instrumental in supporting Obamacare in 2010. Soros’ son, financier Jonathan Soros, is also a member of the foundation’s board.
Rattner was the so-called “car czar,” the lead auto adviser to the Treasury Department under Obama.
Last month, Rattner penned an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Beyond Obamacare” in which he proclaimed “We need death panels” and argued rationing must be instructed to sustain Obama’s health-care plan. His comments have been virtually ignored by traditional media as the president campaign’s for a second term.
Read more from this story HERE.
Excellent. Your posting clearly show a brilliant understanding of true free markets in operation.
Outside of it's proper Constitutional duties, government does indeed corrupt and inevitably destroys everything is touches.
Milton Friedman would be smiling and agreeing with everything you have written.
At least the Rat is being honest, a rare commodity in either party. Death panels are the unspoken answer to the Soc Sec and Medicare financial crisis.
Slice 10 yrs off the life expectancy and bingo - both programs look pretty good.
Government run health care will indeed make the health care worse for EVERYONE but the very rich. That is obvious by looking around the world at other government systems. Nothing, absolutely nothing good will come from any government (ie sadistic bureaucratic control) system.
You need to ponder the unintended consequences of government intervention. We have no idea of the advances in medicine that would already be available in the market place if not for the of decades of abusive regulations and the corruption of the FDA.
If third party health care didn't exist (came about b/c of government controls), if the FDA didn't exist, if government licensing of medical schools didn't exist, then the health care would be much further advanced and most assuredly less expensive than we can imagine.
It is ONLY because of government intervention that our medical system is corrupted and expensive. Milton Friedman has written extensively on this matter.
It must somehow be made clear and foremost to people that the primary cause of the health care "crisis" is government. Look at how the quality of education is going down while prices rise. Why for the past 30 plus years has College cost exceeded inflation? Simply, because of the government student loan program.
If health care is ever to be considered not a crisis then somehow mechanisms must be in place to transition government (states/fed) completely out of health care.
While I largely agree with you, you overstate your case. Many of the health care systems around the world run pretty well. France and Singapore, for example, are generally reported to have quite effective systems, with of course flaws as all systems have.
The US excels in many areas, and is near the back of the pack in others. What is indisputable, I believe, is that we spend more than any other country, and yet many Americans don't have ready access to medical care when they need it.
The government will never be able to fully remove itself from the health care system.
The American people ARE NOT going to be willing to have people dying on the street in front of the hospital because they don't have insurance.
This means that either everybody must be forced to buy insurance, OR government will pick up the tab for emergency care of those who choose not to, OR providers will be forced to provide care, which they will compensate for by increasing the charges to those who can pay.
I'm not necessarily in favor of this situation, just reporting it. The whole purpose, economically speaking, of a "health care system" is to spread the cost of the total system out over the entire population. The vast majority, who don't get really sick in any given year, will pay in a lot more than they get out. They can pay in via insurance, or through taxes, or through some combination of the two, as in most countries.
What will not and cannot work is guaranteed availability to every citizen, without enforced contribution from all citizens.
we must abort the death panels with extreme prejudice
“he was just a generation off. when i become a non-producer that cannot support the liberals no longer, i will be exterminated.”
No matter how many of the old folks they exterminate, even without ANY healthcare costs, the system will implode.
As the the size of the cancer (welfare collectors) approaches the size of the worker class (which ain’t far from happening) the only solution remaining will occur - the second American revolution.
I’ve always believed it was inevitable, but thought it would wait till I was long in the ground. I’m no longer sure it is that far away. For purely selfish reasons, I hope it happens far enough in the future to that I am gone, or soon enough in the present while I can still use a firearm well.
“Nonsense. Every other provider of luxury goods and services in the world appears to be able to do quite well servicing <15% of the market. I haven’t noticed Ferrari or Louis Vuitton losing all incentive to continue in business.”
Sure. And the development cost for a ferrari is minimal when compared to a new drug or innovative invention in the medical field. It is pretty easy to spread a couple of billion dollar investment for a new car or yacht over the top 15% of the GLOBAL market. It is impossible to spread the TRILLION or so for new medical advances over the top 15% of the US market!
Then in your next statement you say, “What will happen, of course, is that with a smaller pool of money available, fewer new technologies will be developed and implemented that would otherwise be the case.”
Thus, you prove the point. How is it a “slight” negative impact when the government CREATES a barrier to unfettered innovation? It is an extremely negative impact that will cause the deaths of millions who would have otherwise been offered life saving drugs or procedures that became possible because of new equipment.
What market will exist after our free market is gone (like we had one) that will reward medical development? The answer is NONE!
“A long line for service is an improvement over no service.”
Except for those that WILL die while waiting in line. For them it is not any improvement at all. A long line is nothing more than an indicator that some in that line are going to experience the shortage. Many will die while waiting for the service, others will give up and live with pain, etc.
Think of the gas lines of the 70’s. Nixon capped prices, that created a “cheap” source of gasoline at the local gas station. So, people did not curtail their own behaviour and they burned gas freely. Then we got to experience waiting in lines every other day to buy the few gallons that became available. Many in those lines went home without being able to purchase any gas....Yep, price caps worked great for the elite rulers.
“I didn’t say “the poor” would receive the best available health care, only that for many of them it will be better than what they presently have available to them.”
Either way you try to word it, your assumption is not true. The free market may create “larger” gaps between the very rich and the poor, but it also enhances the lifestyle of the poor to become some of the richest in the world. When you centrally plan, you will degrade their life conveniences and that will not magically change because the subject is health care. When the motivation for innovation is destroyed, then you will see the ENTIRE industry degrade. Over time, and I suspect it will not take long to see the effect in this case, you will see a complete destruction of our system.
Add to that the fact that NOT ONE of our poor are denied health care in our market pre-obamacare. So, we have no one being denied care and we WILL see a degredation in care. Which is better? Let’s look at it this way, a poor person who had no insurance now has insurance, yet it is very expensive to keep them hospitalized for a long time to deal with a bad infection in a limb. We could spend a lot on drugs and a hospital bed with constant care for a few weeks or heck, let’s just chop that limb off and get it over with quickly!
Which would you say the government will chose? Which do you think the individual will chose? Which is a better quality of life long term?
“The idea that any government-run health system will result in worse outcomes for every group is just the flip side of the idiocy put out by proponents that outcomes will improve for every group while costs still go down.”
Not true. The idea that central planning of health care WILL cause a degredation of the entire health care industry is a proven fact. EVERY example shows it to be true. Every example in EVERY industry proves it to be true. Off the top of my head I can not think of one industry that has advanced as a whole in any centrally planned government. I’d be interested to hear about any example that you can provide.
Sure, East Germany was an auto giant, well at least until the wall came down. Mao’s china was spectacular, well after they killed off a few million folks. North Korea is a bastion of utopia today, except for those that starve to death every year. Zimbabwe has been great for black farmers, but moved from the breadbasket of Africa a wasteland. On and on and on and on and on....
Make no mistake about it, Obamacare is not going to improve the health care industry. The masterminds know this and they have no intention of improving the industry. They are simply interested in control over you (and him and me and her.) If they are in control of you, your behaviour and your choices, then they can create their much desired utopia.
They just need more time.
Thank you for your kind words FRiend. I have always understood the “theories” naturally, but have only recently started remembering so many real examples of the failures. By “recently” I’d say the last 10 years or so. Sadly, they are easy to forget by so many...
I have to credit the wide ranging philosophical discussions by TGO! ;-)
The government will never be able to fully remove itself from the health care system.
True. The political class realizes the power and control they can exert through controlling our healthcare. If anything government will push to control all of our healthcare.
The American people ARE NOT going to be willing to have people dying on the street in front of the hospital because they don't have insurance.
No argument there. The American people are quite compassionate. However, if we could imagine the government never being involved in health care, then we would over time, private charities would have evolved to easily take care the indigent. They did so before government pushed them out of the way.
With no government involvement there health care costs would be lower, so the burden less. With technological advances, charities would be themselves competing to help the poor in a truly more efficient manner. Feedback mechanisms would provide information to show which charities provide the most bang for the buck. People would be more willing to donate to such charities and thereby providing more efficient care to the truly indigent.
Charities would also not waste money on those who are scammers or needlessly abuse the system -- they would be better wards of donated dollars.
With government systems they are inherently bureaucratic. Much of our money is absorbed in the bureaucracies. They are people spending other people's money with no penalties for waste and fraud. In one consulting job I was involved with health care systems and the insane amount of reporting and paperwork and control by the government is mind-boggling.
This means that either everybody must be forced to buy insurance, OR government will pick up the tab for emergency care of those who choose not to, OR providers will be forced to provide care, which they will compensate for by increasing the charges to those who can pay.
Again, this crisis exist because of government involvement. If we could imagine the government never being involved then this situation would never have evolved. The market place would have evolved to efficient develop to deliver very affordable health care costs.
We could easily imagine people going to doctors and paying cash for most regular visits. Simple, efficient and easy. With government never being involved people would have a tradition and a strong incentive to be more responsible. People would naturally be inclined to purchase catastrophic insurance to handle low probability high-cost year-to-year events. I have catastrophic insurance. Those what are wise enough to get such insurance would rightfully be rewarded by having access to better hospitals and care.
There would still be a "need" and therefore market mechanisms in place that would serve those who do not choose wisely. They would have access to hospitals and services that cost much less but that would not have the best equipment or the best rated doctors. That would be proper because of their decision to not get catastrophic insurance. In a truly free society people would be aware of such realities and out of self-interest, they would have a strong incentive to purchase catastrophic insurance. They would adjust their budgets and likely spend less on some things and move it towards health care. This would occur without government or liberals intervening!
Milton Friedman and others have written at length about the beauty of markets solving the problems of health care. Prices would be driven down dramatically and quality would go up as hospitals and doctors compete. It's sad that it will likely never be a reality.
There are many more benefits of a truly free market-base system that cannot even be known because they are not allowed to come into existence. Go back twenty years, could anyone have seen the development and explosion of smart phones of the amazing growth of the Internet? No. But they are here and benefiting us greatly. They developed because of people being free to engage in commerce and be rewarded for success; profit from such activities (people voting with their dollars)
Imagine if twenty years ago the government took over the development and/or had companies meet government specs on cell phones. With a few big players they would use crony capitalism (i.e. using government) to squish newcomers. It's easy to imagine the government "forbidding" this and that from small startups with great ideas. Companies would be happy with a fixed market share with a known return. There is no doubt that the pace of advancement would be slowed greatly. We would likely be not much further along than brick phones. We would be here today not ever knowing the wonderful benefit of smart-phones and other technological advances.
Instead, we have a somewhat free market where people vote with dollars and compel companies to offer better and better products and the best price. If not they lose market share, profits and in the worse case, they go out of business.
Government bureaucracies cannot and will never face market pressures to improve. If they fail, their budgets increase. Their incentive is to grow and push out private players. They benefit from inefficiencies and a populace in crisis.
What will not and cannot work is guaranteed availability to every citizen, without enforced contribution from all citizens. ,
Agreed, but that is not how it should be. Government involvement will guarantee that costs will never go down and that quality will never go up. Government is the absolute sole reason that our health care system is in crisis.
In all matters, we should strive to allow market-place solutions; which is nothing but allowing people to vote with their dollars and chose who is best to serve them. With government there is only forced control. In other words, Freedom is always superior to the force of government.
“The American people ARE NOT going to be willing to have people dying on the street in front of the hospital because they don’t have insurance.”
Which of course has never been the situation in the US. Regardless of how many times this claim has been made, we can see from history that it did not happen before health insurance became the norm and it will not happen if we are ever able to remove government from the market.
“What is indisputable, I believe, is that we spend more than any other country, and yet many Americans don’t have ready access to medical care when they need it.”
Completely false. Either you are purposely lying or you are an unwitting dupe to the left’s argument for central planning. I challenge you to name ONE American citizen that was not able to acquire medical care when they needed it.
“The whole purpose, economically speaking, of a “health care system” is to spread the cost of the total system out over the entire population.”
The purpose of any industry is for product or service providors to be motivated to make a profit. Period. That purpose does not change with the title of the industry. The Insurance industry is certainly a voluntary transfer of risk between two parties, but it is not spreading a specified cost.
As soon as you start “spreading the cost of a total system over the entire population” you have nothing but collectivism. That breeds lowered accountability by individuals and it increases costs. Name one example where collectivism has improved the way of life for those involved. BTW, a hippie commune is to small to be a significant example.
“What will not and cannot work is guaranteed availability to every citizen, without enforced contribution from all citizens.”
Yes, you can FORCE contribution to a system, or to put it more plainly you can take money from everyone vie the barrel of a gun. However, you will never be able to gaurantee availabilty to anyone, let alone every citizen, unless you are willing to force producers (doctors, nurses, etc.) to actually do specific work tasks. Eventually you must then force “competent students in the department of education” to enter “the department of vocations” to become a nurse or doctor, etc. Our name is Equality 7-2521
Your examples of other countries “that are not that bad” are only able to survive because we have been their beacon on a hill. Without our HC industry, you will see collapsing dominos throughout the world.
I hate to ask a personal question, but I am compelled. How old are you? I am suspecting that you are to young to have much experience with collectivists and their ideas....
Correct. However, the reason it doesn't happen today is because there are federal laws requiring hospitals to treat all emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay. With of course federal, state and local government subsidies to the hospitals involved, or they go out of business.
I believe some of your claims are flatly untrue. You claim, apparently, that nobody in America has ever gone without needed medical care, regardless of whether they have insurance or not. I assume you carry insurance yourself.
Why? If having it or not makes no difference in the care you will receive, why do you bother to cough up the rather large sum each year to be insured.
While I'm a huge fan of the free market, those who try to apply free market principles fully to health care fall into a logical trap. They claim that Obamacare is insupportable because it will add 25M or 50M (or whatever the number is) of new health care consumers to the system, without increasing the support system that provides that care. This is absolutely true.
However, by making this statement they are agreeing that this same 25M or 50M people are presently not being provided the health care they need.
BTW, I'm surprisingly old. As stated, I dislike statism and collectivism, but I recognize that true free market principles, for cultural and political reasons, are NOT going to be fully applied to health care. Given this fact, then it behooves conservatives not to insist on going down with the free market ship, but rather to fight for the most efficient and least liberty-destructive system that we can achieve.
“the reason it doesn’t happen today is because there are federal laws requiring hospitals to treat all emergency patients regardless of their ability to pay.”
It didn’t happen before that particular law and it didn’t happen after the law passed and it isn’t happening today. History proves that the American people are a charitable lot and that they charitably care for one another.
“I believe some of your claims are flatly untrue. You claim, apparently, that nobody in America has ever gone without needed medical care, regardless of whether they have insurance or not.”
Wrong. My statement is that those that WANT medical care get medical care. Before the law you cited we had charitable hospitals that voluntarily cared for those that had a need but not the funds. Post the law we absorbed those costs into the insurance roles. Either way, no one that WANTED care was turned down.
“Why? If having it or not makes no difference in the care you will receive, why do you bother to cough up the rather large sum each year to be insured.”
This is a moronic statement on its face.
“While I’m a huge fan of the free market, those who try to apply free market principles fully to health care fall into a logical trap.”
So, you agree that sometimes you have to kill the free market to save the free market....
“However, by making this statement they are agreeing that this same 25M or 50M people are presently not being provided the health care they need.”
Ah, leftist projection into my statements. Clearly, you recognize your own logical falacy and have now reverted to leftist tacticts. I actually have stated that Americans get the health care that they need. You instead like to equate INSURANCE with CARE. They are simply not the same, but one feels good...
“As stated, I dislike statism and collectivism, but I recognize that true free market principles, for cultural and political reasons, are NOT going to be fully applied to health care.”
Feel free to give up all you like, however your complacency is not going to make a difference. The health care industry WILL be severely degraded in America. It is a factual and predictable outcome. Collectivism kills, period! History is filled with examples, however feel free to deny history all you like.
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