Posted on 06/28/2009 3:33:16 AM PDT by Scanian
"In the beginning," says a character in a Peter De Vries novel, "the earth was without form and void. Why didn't they leave well enough alone?" When Washington is finished improving health care, Americans may be asking the same thing. Certainly the debate will compel them to think more clearly about this subject.
Most Americans do want different health care: They want 2009 medicine at 1960 prices. Americans spent much less on health care in 1960 (5% of GDP as opposed to 18% now). They also spent much less -- nothing, in fact -- on computers, cell phones and cable and satellite television.
Your next car can cost less if you forgo GPS, satellite radio, antilock brakes, power steering, power windows and air conditioning. You can shop for such a car at your local Studebaker, Hudson, Nash, Packard and DeSoto dealers.
The president says his health plan is responsive "to all those families who now spend more on health care than housing or food." Well. The Hudson Institute's Betsy McCaughey, writing in The American Spectator, says that in 1960 the average American household spent 53% of its disposable income on food, housing, energy and health care. Today the portion of income consumed by those four has barely changed -- 55%. But the health-care component has increased while the other three combined have decreased. This is partly because as societies become richer, they spend more on health care -- and symphonies, universities, museums, etc.
It is also because health care is increasingly competent. When the first baby boomers, whose aging is driving health-care spending, were born in 1946, many American hospitals' principal expense was clean linen. This was long before MRIs, CAT scans and the rest of the diagnostic and therapeutic arsenal that modern medicine deploys.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I wouldn’t mind some changes, like limiting lawsuits that would make health care much cheaper. But seeing how almost a politicians are lawyers, that won’t happen.
Oh...and with group health plans at companies, allow people to opt out and get cash back instead. Many two-income families have two separate health insurance family plans, because the companies and groups force them to take it. This isn't necessary. Give them an option to get out.
The canard about how the USA has the highest spending per capita on healthcare and poor life expectancy/infant mortality is HIGHLY MISLEADING!
The numbers are skewed by a minority of Americans who are obese, live on fast food, smoke, drink too much, do drugs, and have promiscuous unsafe sex. Most developed countries don’t have a comparable underclass.
Witness the drug abusing celebrity who took himself out at 50 y/o the other day.
Health conscious Americans have excellent life expectancy. Don’t believe the propaganda.
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