From Stark
In the United States, any political talk about government-run health care is pretty much beyond the pale. All but a few of our political leaders — from both parties –assure us they would never dream of subjecting Americans to the kind of health care tyranny that oppresses the Canadians and the English.
But in Great Britain, the tables are turned. In that country, with its long-established national health care system for all, politicians of all stripes must take the pledge of allegiance to the national system, and disavow any intention of moving toward a U.S.-style private health care system.
This Los Angeles Times story, via Seattle Times, reports on the issue from the British perspective.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who generally gets high marks from U.S. conservatives for his government’s austerity budget, has recently felt compelled to insist that his reforms of the British system are not meant to move his country to a U.S.- style system.
“If you’re worried that we’re going to sell off the NHS or create some American-style private system, we will not do that,” Cameron recently told his constituents. “In this country we have the most wonderful, precious institution and also precious idea that whenever you’re ill … you can walk into a hospital or a surgery and get treated for free, no questions asked, no cash asked. It is the idea at the heart of the NHS, and it will stay. I will never put that at risk.”
The Brits are moving away from their government run health care system and towards more of a market approach, Cameron being the politician that he must be to survive must not embrace what is the failures of our system for sure and we all should agree our current system here in the US (& cost there of) needs great improvement.
What is that improvement, more government or more of the market, I happen to think it’s the market and here is a supporting view:
“I can’t even count the number of articles and blog posts I’ve seen asserting that markets can’t work in health care. Or that they work very imperfectly. Or that they suffer from serious “market failure.” In every case, the writer just assumes that government can remedy these problems.
Yet when Gerry Musgrave and I wrote Patient Power, we concluded that our most serious health care problems stem from bad government policies, rather than from markets failing to work. In other words, “government failure” not “market failure” is the source of most of what is going wrong…..
http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2011/03/10/government-failure/
Good government policies can be good if they support the market.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
I’m a pragmatist, AFY. Whatever works. But I can’t help but wonder. If health care were “market driven,” would I be priced out of the market for a coronary bypass or a hip replacement? Fortunately I’m not currently in the market for those things. But many people in my age and income group certainly are.
As of today, I get some health care insurance through my job. Many of my colleagues have lost their jobs, due to market forces. Under (ugh!) federal law, they can keep their employer’s medical benefits plan for 18 months–but they have to pay the full premium. The employer contribution goes away.
For me, that would mean a monthly premium of more than $1,400. That’s a pretty juicy bite out of an unemployment check.
To take advantage of markets, consumers need competition and good information. I benefit from markets when I buy a car or a supply of toilet paper. Lots of choices, and I understand both product, although to differing degrees.
When I need a coronary bypass, how do I shop around for that? How do I make informed choices?
All this market gibberish is just that. Where you have overlapping monopolies, no market will develop and none of the salutary forces of competition come into play.
It’s the government’s job to see that there is a free market. It was intended this would be accomplished through appropriate regulation of business to prevent perversion of markets. And there will always be some economic undertakings for which public monopoly is suited.
We are so far away from there being the potential for market forces to tame the cost of medical care, what with Big Pharma, the AMA and a tight nit group of insurers fixing prices, we would be far better off to look to other nations’ systems and end this pious rhetoric about markets, and the evils of public (government) solutions.
John I hope you never have to have a bypass, but if you do you do live near a place known for doing it right.
I am for more of the decision making being placed in the individual hands, too much power now lies with the insurance companies, and giving more to government is just not the right direction will only make it worst, IMHO.
Monopolies exist only with the sanction of government and many if not all monopolies have been create or condone by government and government ability to regulate competition.
Competition will decrease cost.
There is no overnight solution to this or any of our problems we have but to be headed down a path in the right direction is the only way we will ever find a solution, going in the direction of more control by insurance companies and government will and have only made matters worst.
Sorry I hit the submit button a little early.
So how do we get on that right path, well not by destroying what we currently have but in changing it, I don’t think we should put all insurance companies out of business nor do I advocate eliminating government regulation.
I am for a safety net for those that need it and also for those who work buying their own insurance(not their employer deciding what best, but that they get the cost currently being spent by their employer) and hopefully one day along this path, people find a way to deal more directly with their own doctors and less with insurance companies, making their own decisions, making all who they deal with compete for their business with as little of government interference as possible.
I believe freedom is the answer, the more we have the ability to choose for ourselves (we will not always decide right but at least we have the right) the better we will all be, better than others deciding for us.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
What, pray tell, is the difference between the public and the aggregation of individuals, AFY?
Didn’t you once proclaim the greatness of government of, for and by the people? Isn’t that the public?
Do you believe the people can’t retake the government for the people? If the people are the government, who are these “individuals” you’d prefer to have in charge?
There are many places on earth where there is no government health care and no health insurance either. These are the places with no doctors and no hospitals.
If my employer gave me the money spent on my health coverage, that would be great. As a prudent person, I would save as much of my paycheck as possible, just as I do now. But suppose I’m a young family man, and my wife has a premature birth. This happened to a couple of people I’ve known over the years, and the medical costs run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. No way have I saved enough money to cover that cost. What now?
Well John, I didn’t say to get rid civilization or of insurance; just that you will have the right to decide how much you and your family needs to protect you.
Insurance is a funny thing, they’re betting you stay healthy and well and alive, you’re not!
I hate wishing they are right all the time.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
GHK, there is no difference in the tyranny of one than it be in that of 30, 300, 3,000 or more.
Individual freedom is true freedom but still has perimeters placed on it by civilization, it the perimeters we argue but we all agree on some.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“many if not all monopolies have been create or condone by government and government ability to regulate competition.”
Like much of what you seemingly believe, AFY, this is nonsense (and not just the grammar.) Far from being active in the creation of monopolies, inaction in its regulatory responsibility due to the influence of powerful individuals, allows competition to be weakened and ultimately eliminated.
It’s hardly the “regulation of competition” that leads to these economic concentrations that then extract excessive profits; but the failure to regulate individuals bent on achieving monopoly power.
Government is not the problem, (Mr. Reagan) government, and its political actors, corrupted by corporate influence stifles competition.
A public monopoly in the field of healthcare would be an improvement, and that’s why the drug, medical and insurance industries so adamantly oppose it.
Believe me. They’re not worried about the individual. We need to worry abut ourselves. Which, in the face of the private health industry, reminds me of that saying about hanging together or hanging separately.
In oh some many ways thru government those who are regulated become the regulators in which the regulators then regulate as much of their competition they can away.
Health insurance is a prime example, where some can compete in one state but not another.
All Monopolies, public or private cost more because they don’t have competition to keep them honest!
BTW, Me don’t care bout no stinkin grammar!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Again, it’s obvious government’s been corrupted. So what do you want to do about that? Get rid of government (and allow the malefactors to range unregulated) or fix the government.
By fix, I hardly mean replacing the old shills for the corporatocracy with new shills.
Life is about direction, you can go in a good direction or a bad one, but if you don’t head in the right direction you can’t never achieve your goals.
I am for government, good government which is limited government, IMHO.
So the direction IMHO isn’t towards more power to insurance companies, nor more power to the government (which insurance companies can also corrupt for their own benefit) but the direction should be:
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
The people, us, the individual, making more of our own decisions, not insurance companies or government!
Kinda what our forefathers had in mine in the beginning:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“All Monopolies, public or private cost more because they don’t have competition to keep them honest!”
You know that’s false, because nations with some form of public health care spend much less per capita than we do. Across the board.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE! sounds like mob rule.
Here’s a good study on the cost of health care around the world;
“Rising health care costs are not a uniquely American phenomenon. Although other countries spend considerably less than the United States on health care, both as a percentage of GDP and per capita, costs are rising almost everywhere, leading to budget deficits, tax increases, and benefit reductions….
Although no country with a national health care system is contemplating abandoning universal coverage, the broad and growing trend is to move away from centralized government control and to introduce more market-oriented features.
The answer then to America’s health care problems lies not in heading down the road to national health care but in learning from the experiences of other countries, which demonstrate the failure of centralized command and control and the benefits of increasing consumer incentives and choice….
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-613.pdf
IMHO one of the reasons our system cost so much is the lack of choice of the individual due to the power of the likes of HMO’s, etc., our current system needs to be fixed, sure freedom isn’t free but giving up more freedom is just not the solution, IMHO!
Mandates are not freedom!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
GHK, do you prefer:
POWER TO THE GOVERNMENT or better yet:
POWER TO THE CORPORATION?
Democracy can be mob rule for sure, like the French revolution which turned out so well, so maybe we should changed that slogan to read:
POWER TO THE PEOPLE THRU A REPUBLIC AND A JUST CONSTITUTION!!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Just teasing out the inherent contradiction in your various positions here and in other posts, AFY.
But then, “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” Right Mr. Emerson?
Didn’t that go like this:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.’
So much for the evils of contradictions in our lives and understandings!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
John, in the days before health insurance became a common thing, people carried what they called, catastrophic health insurance, or major medical. It paid for hospitalization, but not regular doctor visits. Your parents probably had it when you were a kid.
Many people are going back to this type of insurance in combination with HSAs. They save enough out of their paycheck, tax free, to pay the deductible, and other minor doctor bills and depend on the major medical insurance for any hospitalization.
Of course, when you were a kid, we had public health hospitals, where the poor or indigent could seek medical treatment if they didn’t have insurance. I’ve always thought that we should go back to the public health system.
AFY, for real? In this forum you’re quoting the CATO institute, founded by Charles Koch?
Old Ralph then went on to say, “and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Now most have taken Emerson to be criticizing ideologues who adopt, unthinking, the ideas of old dead men. Have a nice evening, AFY
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http://www.cato.org/about.php
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Consistency, is it found more or less with creative thinkers who are open to new ideas and differing viewpoints?
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!