National Health Care Would Save Jobs (WI Liberal Explains How)

Madison.com ^ | August 8, 2005 | Dave Zweifel

[theBuckwheat]

Big government is like snake oil. When it fails to cure, the answer is to take more.

The real answer to the cost of health care is to move the function back to where it belongs: with each individual. An employer has no more business being involved in the health care of his workers than he does in providing their food, clothing or shelter.

I speak as one who has had the dreadful job of choosing the health care insurance plan for a company. One size does not fit all! And nobody would buy the plan if they were spending their own money.

The real solution is to give everyone an Medical Savings Account along with their portion of the group health premium and let them shop for themselves. This premium is really part of their compensation anyway.

(Make no mistake, our health care cost problems originate in the tax system! It is because health care costs are largely carried by employers due to a law passed during World War II!)

But this points out how we get screwed several hidden ways by the tax system made necessary by the insatiable need for money of big and bigger government.

In Europe, the cost of the finished goods does not include the "burden" of the pro-rated cost of employee health care. The can be several percent of the finished cost. So, European companies have this advantage over their competition in the US.

But also the European corporate Value Added Tax is rebated for goods that are exported, while in the US, our corporate taxes are not. This is a difference of several percent.

Add several percent to several percent and it is pretty easy to see how our tax system is screwing up the ability of Americans to compete in the world.

[Mike Darancette]

They better solve the illegal alien problem before they think about National Health Care.

[Onelifetogive]

It is estimated that the cost in filling out claim forms alone is 140 billion dollars a year.

If you can convince me that Social Security is a better investment with lower costs and better returns than the private investment industry, I'll buy into the whole socialized medicine scam.

[Fabozz]

"It is estimated that the cost in filling out claim forms alone is 140 billion dollars a year."

If you think the way to save money on filling out forms is to let the government run it, you've clearly never paid taxes.

[FlingWingFlyer]

An article posted on Free Republic about three weeks ago stated that Toyota claimed they weren't building plants here because Americans are too stupid and uneducated. Toyota stated that they had to train American workers with pictures because they can't read and write. I can see why the hysterical Liberals came up with the nonsense in this article. The NEA is a branch of their party.

[lucysmom]

If you think the way to save money on filling out forms is to let the government run it, you've clearly never paid taxes.

Not only have I prepared my own tax forms, I have also prepared bids for government contracts. We have a hodgepodge of government and privately funded health care, each with its own rules and forms. Imagine preparing tax forms by 700 (rounded off number of insurance plans in Seattle), if you're a doctor wanting to get paid. A 140 billion in savings is estimated by simply adopting a universal insurance form.

[lucysmom]

If you can convince me that Social Security is a better investment with lower costs and better returns than the private investment industry, I'll buy into the whole socialized medicine scam.

If you can convince me that having an insurance company clerk micro-manage my health care and charging me an arm and a leg to do it, is a more efficient use of my money, than I will abandon my support for universal health care coverage.

[lucysmom]

If you think the way to save money on filling out forms is to let the government run it, you've clearly never paid taxes.

From "Reason"

Third, health care is a paperwork nightmare for patients, doctors, insurers, and employers. In 1999 The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that found it cost $300 billion annually to administer various health insurance plans. It takes some 3 million clerks and managers to run our health care system; that’s nearly four times the number of doctors practicing medicine in the United States. It costs between $8 and $18 to file each insurance claim, and a third of them have to be refiled.

http://www.reason.com/0411/fe.rb.mandatory.shtml

[Pompah]

Yes Sir.! Womb to Tomb Baby. Nothing else will do for the left.

[Onelifetogive]

...having an insurance company clerk micro-manage my health care...

An "insurance company clerk" cannot knock down the door to your house, and drag you into the street at gunpoint to insist that you stay with their plan. Government can!

[lucysmom]

An "insurance company clerk" cannot knock down the door to your house, and drag you into the street at gunpoint to insist that you stay with their plan. Government can!

Nope. But an insurance company can raise rates over what was quoted, for an entire small company by 35% because I have a benign stable condition that involves one blood test and $200 a year in medication. The following year they raised it another 25% and I was coincidentally laid off the day before the new rates were to take effect.

Has any first world government ever insisted at gun point that a citizen stay with government health care?

[Onelifetogive]

Has any first world government ever insisted at gun point that a citizen stay with government health care?

Sure. Many socialist countries have laws that prevent anyone from obtaining healthcare outside the government system. Canada is one. How does any government enforce it's laws other than at gunpoint?

[lucysmom]

Many socialist countries have laws that prevent anyone from obtaining healthcare outside the government system. Canada is one. How does any government enforce it's laws other than at gunpoint?

Canada's Supreme Court struck down the ban - no guns involved.

If Americans are forbidden to buy drugs from Canada, is that also at the point of a gun?

[Onelifetogive]

If Americans are forbidden to buy drugs from Canada, is that also at the point of a gun?

YES! Can we agree that LESS government is better!

[lucysmom]

YES! Can we agree that LESS government is better!

I wish it was a simple as answering yes or no to that question. History teaches that when government is weak, elements spring up within the culture to take advantage of the void. For instance, I wouldn't want to live where drug lords vie for dominance and government is too weak either from corruption or poverty to keep order.

We like government when it is strong enough to protect our property and person and resent it when it requires something from us and tells us what to do.