Posted on 10/16/2006 6:08:28 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Everyone complains about the rising cost of healthcare. And now is the season when politicians and pundits propose solutions. Unfortunately, too many of these proposals spring from the wrongheaded notion that healthcare is, as a recent New York Times letter-writer asserted, "a human right and a universal entitlement."
Sounds noble. But not everything that is highly desirable is a right. Most rights simply oblige us to respect one another's freedoms; they do not oblige us to pay for others to exercise these freedoms. Respecting rights such as freedom of speech and of worship does not impose huge demands upon taxpayers.
Healthcare, although highly desirable, differs fundamentally from these rights. Because providing healthcare takes scarce resources, offering it free at the point of delivery would raise its cost and reduce its availability.
To see why, imagine if government tried to supply food as a universally available "right."
To satisfy this right, government would raise taxes to meet all anticipated food needs. Store shelves across the land would then be stocked. Citizens would have the right to enter these storehouses to get "free" food.
Does anyone believe that such a system would effectively supply food? It's clear that with free access to food, too many people would take too much food, leaving many others with no food at all. Government would soon realize that food storehouses
~snip~
The solution is less, not more, government involvement in healthcare. Market forces have consistently lowered the cost and improved the quality and accessibility of food - which is at least as important to human survival as is healthcare. There's no reason markets can't do the same for healthcare.
It's ironic but true: Only by abandoning attempts to provide healthcare as a "right" that's paid for largely by others will we enjoy surer access to it.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Fix Medicare, not prices
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6722
Editorial from Mitt Romney's home state. A bit of irony, that.
Hard to believe that the Christian Science Monitor is advocating a free market solution, but I guess that old saw about the blind pig applies here.
I thought that was odd too,coming from the C.S.M. but I guess that must be their idea of "fair and balanced" - running a fairly conservative editorial once in a blue moon.
"What is the magic about your percentages? Upon what research do you rely to establish such rates as reasonable, accurate and sustainable?"
There is no magic in the percentages. They can be jiggered around with. This is about how the French national health insurance system works, and it provides a comparable standard of care to the American system, but provides universal coverage to everyone, at about 2/3rds the cost per capita as the US system.
What France does works better, and is cheaper, and is universal. So, my starting position is to just copy France. If greater efficiencies can be found while the basics of universal insurance are provided, then so much the better. We do not need to invent the wheel here. Dozens of nations have universal health care systems. Some, like Canada and Britain, are utterly abysmal. So don't copy that or even think of it. France's is the best, and provides a standard of care comparable to the United States, UNIVERSALLY (which is the most important difference), at a considerably lower cost (which is another key difference).
The percentages are not magic in France, but they work.
That's the starting point I am using, and those are the reasons I am using it.
"You do realize you're on a conservative Forum, don't you?
Get the government out of healthcare. People should be paying out of pocket for routine and general care. They can easily afford catastrophic insurance if they want to."
No, really?
FreeRepublic is a conservative forum?
Who knew?
Ronald Reagan held Social Security sacrosanct (and was a key union leader pressing FDRs agenda back in the day). Reagan did not like LBJs War on Poverty and the 1960s radicalism of the Democratic Party, so he left it, but Reagan never abandoned the concept of Social Security.
Was he not a conservative?
Newt Gingrich, in one of his first public speeches after becoming speaker, praised FDR and social security. Is Gingrich not a conservative?
George W. Bush, the current President, pressed through the expansion of Medicare to provide prescription drugs. He did this through a House dominated by Republicans, and a Senate in which Republicans have had either a majority or a filibusterable minority throughout his entire term.
Is the President not a conservative?
Health care, like Social Security and Public Schools and roads and sewers is a fundamental and universal need. The private sector has a role to play in medicine, retirements, education, road-building and sewers, of course, but the needs for all of these things are universal. This is not an ideological debating point. It is a self-evident fact of human existence. Before Social Security, old people literally starved, or were dependents on their children, who often could not support them. Public roads (and canals, and railroads) opened the country to settlement and commerce. Public education, including public funding of college education through the GI Bill, made America more upwardly mobile than it ever was before. And no responsible conservative leader (as in Presidents, Speakers of the House, etc.) has attempted to dismantle those basic infrastructural necessities.
Yes, it is a conservative forum, and I am one of those realistic people who deals in the real world of real policies with real democratic limits on the possible. Some conservatives may want to live in an Ayn Randian dystopia, but that is not me. We are always going to have the government providing the final financial backstop of health care. That is a given which democracy is not going to let come unravelled, nor SHOULD it, because the alternatives are what we had before, which was lots of people dying young for lack of care. We are never going to go back to that.
Given the unalterable reality, and good, of government involvement in medicine, a thinking conservative leader needs to think in terms of making it economic and rational. Runaway tort and the current runaway costs are neither economically sustainable nor rational. That does not mean that we are going to dump the government safety net. Put it out of your mind. That will NEVER happen, because 85% of the people will vote against it every time, including most thinking conservatives. We aren't going to push grandma out on an ice floe because she can't pay for her meds. We're going to provide the safety net by government. Accept that bound of reality, because it IS reality, even in a conservative forum - ask Reagan, ask Gingrich, ask Bush. If you're going to throq THEM off the bus too, then you want to rave in lala-land. Which is your right.
Policymakers have to deal with the reality of government health care insurance, and figure out how to make it more efficient. "Kill it" is never going to be the answer. Forget it.
One could more reasonably argue that food, water and shelter are more critical to human existence than is health care. But you haven't yet placed your marker for government providing food and housing to the tune of 2/3 or 80% some other arbitrary amount.
Why not?
So why have you bought into the notion of health care as a right?
Health care, like food, water, shelter and, in a modern society, education, are fundamental human needs. These needs can't be overridden by rhetoric. People get medical care, and live longer, or they don't, and suffer horribly and die sooner. Illness strikes randomly and is no respecter of class or income or age.
The nature of it makes it such that government is best positioned to provide the ultimate safety net so that nobody goes without insurance for the care they need. Only government can provide it for those people for whom providing medical insurance is not profitable.
We need universal fuel insurance to pay 80% of fuel bills. And univerisal grocery insurance to pay 80% of grocery bills. And universal Starbucks insurance to pay 80% Starbucks bills. And universal cable insurance to pay 80% of the cable bills. And universal Music insurance to pay 80% of song purchases. .... Why stop at medical care? Why the heck do you want to disenfranchise the healthy? 80% for all!
It's always driven me nuts when people say insurance is a right. You work at a job and in return you receive a paycheck to pay for all your necessities. If you can't afford the things you need/want, get another job or take on a second one. The following is very interesting:
BEING UNINSURED REMAINS A "CRISIS" OF INCOME
10-Year Census Figures Show Health Insurance Often Is a Matter of Choice
August 30, 2005
DALLAS (August 30, 2005) – The number of Americans with health insurance grew by more than 2 million people last year, but the percentage of Americans without health insurance continues to grow among higher-income households, according to the latest report released today by the Census Bureau.
"Being uninsured in America is largely a matter of choice," said NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick, who also compiled a 10-year analysis of Census Bureau figures. "The greatest and growing problem of the uninsured is among those families who can afford health insurance."
The number of uninsured among higher-income households continued to grow last year, even though the percentage of uninsured has remained stable, according to this year's Census report:
Between 1995 and 2004 (data for the 2005 report), the number of uninsured with family incomes of less than $50,000 actually fell by 8 percent. The number of uninsured in households earning less than $25,000 fell by an estimated 19 percent.
But over the same 10-year period in households earning $25,000 or more, nearly 90 percent of the increase in the uninsured has occurred among higher-income households ($50,000 or more). And the number of uninsured Americans in families earning more than $75,000 has increased by 153 percent.
"An alarming change over the past decade is the growth in the number of Americans who choose not to be insured," Herrick said. "Among low-income households the number of Americans without coverage has changed little."
40.6 million Americans were uninsured in 1995, or 15.4 percent of the population. In this year's Census report, 15.7 percent of Americans (45.8 million) were without health insurance.
In addition, about 10 million of the uninsured have access to Medicaid and government-sponsored health care coverage, but have not enrolled.
Approximately one-third of foreign-born residents are without health insurance. In today's Census report that accounted for about one-fourth of the uninsured population.
Dr. Herrick's analysis found that the rise in the number of people with and without health insurance is mostly explained by growth in the overall population.
Such things are no more essential today than they were 500 years ago yet the race has endured, perhaps because of those same hardships that you so fear. I'm not the one on this thread casting about simplistic rhetoric. As yourself, too many Americans have given up to the collectivist mindset, and turned the responsibility for their own lives over to bureaucrats.
It is precisely such weakness that draws millions of illegals into this country. Free education, free health care and housing subsidies act as a magnet to the rest of the world. As more people realize these gifts are here for the taking, how long until employable Americans tire of toiling to support those who do not work and stop working themselves? Who will provide your societal gifts then?
We cannot continue to expand the welfare state and expect to have a vibrant economy.
"It is precisely such weakness that draws millions of illegals into this country."
No, it is non-enforcement of the immigration laws and the utter lack of effective security at the Mexican border that have allowed millions of illegals into the country.
"Why stop at medical care? Gee gosh golly molly!
We need universal fuel insurance to pay 80% of fuel bills. And univerisal grocery insurance to pay 80% of grocery bills. And universal Starbucks insurance to pay 80% Starbucks bills. And universal cable insurance to pay 80% of the cable bills. And universal Music insurance to pay 80% of song purchases. .... Why stop at medical care? Why the heck do you want to disenfranchise the healthy? 80% for all!"
We haven't stopped at medical care.
Government in America, and Englad, and the West, has always been deeply involved in matters of social welfare and necessary infrastructure.
Recall, please, that the original canal and railroad systems in the United States (e.g.: The Erie Canal, the Pennsylvania Railroad, et al) were constructred by government and later privatized. Similarly, the interstate highway system and the airport system and port system is all government built. So is the sewerage system. So was quite a bit of the original electrical power grid in much of America. Infrastructure is necessary for growth, and government's always been the prime mover. Point one.
V13... No, it is non-enforcement of the immigration laws and the utter lack of effective security at the Mexican border that have allowed millions of illegals into the country.
That's a neat trick you have there (but not very effective)... argue against a point that was never made. It's apparent that NK was speaking of the attractive power of the welfare state, your counter argument pretends to answer that point without directly addressing it.
"That's a neat trick you have there (but not very effective)... argue against a point that was never made. It's apparent that NK was speaking of the attractive power of the welfare state, your counter argument pretends to answer that point without directly addressing it."
I addressed it.
But I will address it again, for your benefit.
That America is a desirable place which draws in millions is not simply or even mainly due to the welfare state. It draw in millions before there was a welfare state. America is free and prosperous, and THAT is the draw. Europe is also prosperous and free, and that's the draw there too. America and Europe were attractive before there was a welfare state.
The problem isn't the welfare state drawing in millions of illegals. And it isn't a "problem" that America is free and prosperous, and therefore draws in people from all over the world.
The problem is that America does not control her borders, and so illegals become a burden which overwhelms the system. If America enforced her immigration laws, the presence of immigrants, including those on welfare, would not be breaking the bank. But add in another 10 million illegals, who have no right to be here in the first place, drawing on the social protection system that American citizens have rightly chosen to erect for themselves, and suddenly the burden becomes overwhelming. The problem ain't the social protections, it's the non-enforcement of the borders. American social protections are intended for Americans, not the whole world.
Japan has thicker social protections than America does, but the Japanese economy is not sinking. Japanese businesses, with those socially protected workers - like Toyota - are putting American competitors out of business. It is not because the Japanese don't provide health care for their workers or stint on social protections that Toyota is clobbering Ford. It's not because America has greater protections for workers than Japan does that Ford is floundering - the opposite is true: the Japanese are much more socially protected.
Social protection and the provision of fundamental infrastructure are not the problem. Lawless borders and other bad policies are.
Illegals are afforded instate tuition at universities in many states. Out of state US citizens and foreigners on student visas must pay the full rate. Non-citizens in Maryland's Takoma Park may vote in local elections. Democrats in California want to give illegals driver's licenses. How is this sound policy?
These are your magnets, methods provided for illegals to skirt immigration laws. And to hold up Europe as an example...native population growth has stagnated. Clustered neighborhoods of muslims - many unemployed are the growth areas. Discontented "youths" went on a vandalism spree turning over hundreds of autos.
BMW builds factories in the US because they can no longer afford to employ workers at a premium and provide exorbitant vacation time and pay taxes to provide for the myriad of social services that are holding down Germany's economy.
Civil engineering for the masses!
Civil engineering for the masses!
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.