The Shape of Things to Come

The Long View ^ | 2005.11.13 | John J. Reilly

[B-Chan]

...The Republican Party came to power in the 1990s partly as a result of the implosion of the unworkable health-care proposal that the Democrats made early in the Clinton Administration. Since then, the Republicans have evaded or derided the issue. This is a grave error. Guaranteed health insurance is not a question of help for the underprivileged. Almost all ordinary people at some point in their lives will have trouble providing health care for themselves and their families, or will find that the insurance they do have is inadequate. Furthermore, the overpriced and over-bureaucratized system in the United States has become deadly to the competitiveness of American manufacturers. The important criteria are: insurance must be portable, mandatory, and cheap. If I understand their argument, they say that the country needs is a national catastrophic insurance system, with a competitive insurance industry to manage the deductible...

Some combination... of cultural conservatism and social security in the broad sense, is probably the future. The question is whether the Republican Party can provide the vehicle...

[B-Chan]

John J. Relly is an exceptionally intelligent and clear-headed observer of politics and culture. The article from which the above excerpt is taken should be carefully read by those with an interest in the future of the United States.

[advance_copy]

This is a dumb article, ranks right up there with that bilge from John Edwards. Wealth redistribution and national health care? That is not the future.

[Prime Choice]

If our system is so utterly broken, then why do people across the world come to the U.S. when they need serious health care?

I'll explain why: because socialized medicine does NOT work, that's why.

[Lancer_N3502A]

IMHO the Republicans came to power in 1994 because of the communist's attempts to unlawfully disarm the populace

[StockAyatollah]

The important criteria are: insurance must be portable, mandatory, and cheap

What an ass clown! This guy thinks that big government will lead us to the promised land of "cheap" health care. I could not find this article with the link given. But that's OK. I don't think this clueless, socialist author is worth any more of my time.

[RockinRight]

Furthermore, the overpriced and over-bureaucratized system in the United States has become deadly to the competitiveness of American manufacturers.

Um...yeah. So complete socialization will solve all that, eh?

[sphinx]

We ought to provide universal health insurance coverage. That doesn't have to mean a socialized system; it can be accomplished through a means tested voucher pegged at the level of a decent baseline health insurance policy.

We already provide coverage for the welfare classes through Medicaid. We need to provide coverage for the working poor as well. It is crazy to give health insurance to the ne'er-do-wills but ignore the guy working two low-end jobs to raise his kids.

[Clemenza]

Sounds like a "Right Wing Socialist" aka a Fascist. I'm not buying Reilly's BS.

[Timm]

Almost no one can afford the health care he needs throughout his life according to this author. But if we raise taxes, and pay for health care that way, everyone will be able to buy everything he needs.

Wow, who knew socialized purchasing power was so powerful?! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before??

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"The article from which the above excerpt is taken should be carefully read by those with an interest in the future of the United States."

I prefer to hold onto an optimistic view of the future for the United States for as long as possible, but thanks anyways.

[From many - one.]

An interesting take on the problem.

Unfortunately there is both a 1000 pound gorilla and a bunch of mosquitoes in the living rom and neither are currently being addressed by either party.

The mosquitoes are the multitude of different insurance programs, hmos, medicare, medicad, etc. That alone accounts for 15-20% of our health care costs. Any single payor system, whether the patient or the government would bring it down to about 3%. Many, probably most, doctor's offices have to have a separate employee, just for billings...and that employee often has to get special annual training "upgrades"

Now for the gorilla...medicine is going to continue to get more and more expensive as complex, very high tech procedures and treatments develop.

It is a difficult fact that we can, because of this technology, keep marginally alive people going indefinitely at incredible cost. No, I don't advocate killing them off, but we must acknowledge the finacial cost.

These issues must be addressed before any system can work.