Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Final Authority

I don't see him as being moderate on this issue, more off the charts.

Health care? It's so screwed up that a simple person like me has no answer. I do know a few things, though.

1. Get rid of health care insurance. As at least one other poster noted, it has helped the price for any medical care go through not only the roof but the stratosphere. Insurance companies, bless their hearts, are not charity orgs. They are profit driven companies, and I am not faulting them for that. But they need their money, and our money becomes their money, and the price of dr visits and eveyrthing else goes up, up, up.

2. Tort reform. Lawyers need to be muzzled, restrained, put in strait jackets, and defanged.

3. Medical savings accounts sound good.

4. Other kinds of medical licenses could work; a lot of Americans already visit "alternative" caregivers such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and the like. Actually many of these people are very qualified and knowledgeable, and could help peoples' health before it gets irreversibly bad, thus needing more expensive and invasive methods.

5. Even regular medical schools could offer other kinds of degrees - for instance, there has been a proliferation of "nurse practitioners" who are very knowledgeable and can do much that a regular doctor can do, but presumably less schooling, and therefore cheaper to become one.

6. Related to health insurance - if people have to pay, out of pocket, for each visit and each pill, they will not be so profligate with going to the doctor for each cold and flu, and not be so stupidly demandind of pharmaceutical drugs for same. Which generally do no good anyway. There's a huge problem with over prescribing anti-biotics for every cold and flu, which do no good whatsoever, and just screw up peoples' health anyway.

How's those for starters?

And for really poor people, doctors and nurses who are so inclined (there are some, in this area there is a clinic for low income people staffed by retired nurses and doctors who wanted to work there) can work for less money, on a sliding scale, so people can afford it who have little money.

And, in the past, churches and private organizations took up the slack to help the poor. If taxes were lowered (which they should be), private individuals such as you and me could afford to donate more to our favorite charities, and help the poor that way. Much better use of money.

What do you think of those ideas, just off the top of my head?


79 posted on 06/23/2005 9:20:31 AM PDT by little jeremiah (A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, are incompatible with freedom. P. Henry)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies ]


To: little jeremiah
It's not necessary to go so far as to get rid of health insurance, nor is it desirable, because a certain percentage of people are going to incur expenses that they can't pay off, in ways that are impossible to predict.

What really needs to be done (and unfortunately this really is a problem at the federal level primarily) is to get rid of the tax incentives for employers to provide insurance in lieu of salary. Health insurance should have nothing to do with employment. We don't get fire insurance or car insurance, or for that matter food, through our employers, and nor should we get health insurance through them. If it went back to being an individual responsibility, there would be more meaningful competition among insurance companies to tailor their policies for the needs of those individuals, rather than for the convenience of employers.

Another thing is that there should be no government-imposed requirements on what insurers are and are not required to cover. That should be utterly between the insurers and their customers. If I only want to pay for an insurance policy that covers only serious life-threatening or debilitating problems, and with a $7,000 deductible, and if the insurance company is willing to offer it to me, the government should have nothing whatsoever to say about it.

81 posted on 06/23/2005 9:52:44 AM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies ]

To: little jeremiah
Off the top of your head is off the charts. Nothing you wrote convinced me that Romney is a problem to conservatives because he is moderate. Based on your original words you have no answers to my questions and by your own digression you did not answer any of them, so based on my assessment, you are not a very good judge of Mitt's efforts.

So answer these questions:

Do you or are you required to have auto insurance in order to have a registered vehicle on the road to drive?

If you have a home mortgage, are you required to have proof of insurance to cover the value of the loan?

If the above is generally recognized as being right and correct and the responsible thing to do then why not health insurance?

Do you have a "thing" for doctors and professionals in general who are educated and have made us the culture and the society that everybody in the world seeks?

Just a few more questions but I doubt you will effort an answer.
84 posted on 06/23/2005 10:28:12 AM PDT by Final Authority
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson