Posted on 12/27/2011 5:30:18 PM PST by Libloather
Why health care competition won't work
By Amitai Etzioni, Special to CNN
updated 2:08 PM EST, Tue December 27, 2011
(CNN) -- A proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden to allow those who retire in the future to chose between Medicare and private health care insurance for seniors is the latest addition to the drive to increase competition in health care.
Mitt Romney recently released a health care proposal that would introduce vouchers, which would allow consumers to choose where to take their business, although he did not include Medicare as an option. Newt Gingrich's plan suggests a variety of ways to increase "price competition in the industry."
And President Obama's health care overhaul also includes competition, to take place in new statewide exchanges, in which individuals and businesses will be able to find and compare insurance plans in a centralized marketplace.
But research shows that competition in health care cannot be made to work effectively. As patients, we are just not equipped to absorb and process the information needed to make healthy choices on our own.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
'Nuff said.
What a maroon
Anyhow, a thing need not be perfect in order to be good. It would be far better to have an embarrassment of choices, like wheat bread or canned peas at the typical supermarket, than to be stuck with the one “state” brand.
People on the Democrat plantation may be too stupid to decide...
If we’re not equipped to make healthy choices on our own, how can we be trusted to vote in elections?
End liberalism NOW!
“But research shows that competition in health care cannot be made to work effectively.”
Fortunately for us, “research has shown” that the geniuses who run our government are so much better equipped to know what we need than we ourselves are. And you can see as much due to the fact that they are doing such a wonderful job of regulating our healthcare industry.
This guy is educated to the point of ignorance.
There are more than a few good points in the article. It is exceedingly hard to pick good professionals outside one’s area of expertise. I may be a doctor, but picking good lawyers, accountants, etc is very difficult and I have made my share of mistakes. Being a good accountant doesn’t mean you can pick a good endodontist. Price may be important; cheap but wrong advice can be disastrous. Docs willing to tackle really difficult cases may have worse outcome statistics than a weak one that cherry picks the easy cases. I see docs with devoted followings; sometimes this is a triumph of marketing and personality over skills. Some of the surgeons with the best judgement and outcomes are lacking in the bedside manner department.
At the end of the day, these are very difficult decisions, and one is fooling oneself by thinking the Consumer Reports approach will solve all problems.
Surely they don't mean THE Harvard whose grads are responsible for every single problem this country faces today?
so...basically, he’s been hiding from the real world his entire life.
Not quite related, but here's a fact that might get a few jaws dropped: Do you know which Royal has the highest educational attainment in the history of the British Monarchy?
Prince Charles! (M.A., Cambridge.)
Medicine is not like buying gasoline. If a pill keeps you alive and costs 100 dollars a pill, you will be desperate to pay it. The guy selling it knows you will be desperate to buy it. What is a pill? Processed chemicals, and a person with knowledge to measure and dispense it to you. Money is the barrier that keeps one from having it. Yet making it free does not encourage future development and production of it. Free market vs socialism. How about letting medicine be run by clergy, priests and nuns. These people are willing to do it at a lower cost then non clergy going to school to dispense the same skills. Why? One does it for profit and the other does it as a service. Maybe this is an area that can be left to religious people vs corporation and government.
You make some excellent points but the way I see it is that we are not going to reduce healthcare costs to a manageable level without the market style approach. The free market has never been devoid of evil, it is simply the lesser of all evils by far. Frankly I would rather chance my own wits and abilities and make others do the same than have the government "protect" me.
Haven’t you learned helplessness, yet?
The big world of medicine and health is too scary for little people like us. I bet you didn’t go to an Ivy League school. That’s the problem. If you had you wouldn’t be so quick to think for yourself!
And yet these same liberals behave as though that’s what the people actually wanted when they ACORN themselves into office.
The priest and clergy won’t be happy paying the 100,000 dollar / year malpractice premiums.
Chiropractic and cosmetic surgery are two others prices held down by market forces.
No, they really don’t. Not to sound too cynical, but except for the minority of Koolaid drinkers government bureaucrats know where their bread is buttered and if Americans learned that they could live without them...
I’m on the frontlines here in America’s East Berlin - Illinios. I know first hand of what I speak.
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