Matt Yglesias‘s comments on James Surowiecki on the health care reform debate triggered a few thoughts in my head.
First, Surowiecki (after describing how people fear reform because they tend to fear change):
Because it’s hard for individuals to get affordable health insurance, and most people are insured through work, keeping your insurance means keeping your job. But in today’s economy there’s obviously no guarantee that you can do that. On top of that, even if you have insurance there’s a small but meaningful chance that when you actually get sick you’ll find out that your insurance doesn’t cover what you thought it did (in the case of what’s called “rescission”). In other words, the endowment that insured people want to hold on to is much shakier than it appears. Changing the system so that individuals can get affordable health care, while banning bad behavior on the part of insurance companies, will actually make it more likely, not less, that people will get to preserve their current level of coverage.
This is basically what Simon and I argued in the Washington Post a couple weeks ago, and I’m glad that someone with a much bigger platform is saying it, too.
Surowiecki goes on, “The message, in other words, should be: if we want to protect the status quo, we need to reform it.” This reflects a disturbing trend I’ve been seeing lately, and that to a small extent I’ve participated in: supporters of health care reform talking about how the Obama Administration is fumbling the message. George Lakoff’s recent assault on “PolicySpeak” is one example. (I generally find Lakoff only half-convincing; I read Moral Politics, and while I thought his characterization of the conservative model was brilliant, I thought his attempt to create a liberal “equivalent” was an exercise in wishful thinking. I think conservatives just have it easier when it comes to this sort of thing.)
I don’t mean that Surowiecki shouldn’t be criticizing the messaging; I mean that it’s worrying that the administration’s communications problems have become the news – in part, of course, because the media find them more “newsworthy” than, say, the details of non-profit cooperatives. Remember, this was the team that ran the most praised presidential campaign in decades. If they can’t get it right, maybe the problem goes deeper.
And here’s Yglesias:
Insofar as people are already walking around filled with anxiety about loss of employer-provided coverage or rescission, then this kind of message will appeal to them. But if you run around trying to tell people they don’t have things as good as they think you do, will they embrace your policies or just decide you’re an unpleasant jerk?
According to the polls, many people are not walking around filled with anxiety. I guess I’m the unpleasant jerk in this scenario; our Post column was titled “Like Your Health Insurance? Maybe You Shouldn’t,” after all. My theory is that the only thing you can use to counter fear is fear; instead of being afraid of government death panels that don’t exist and won’t exist, people should fear losing their jobs and getting sick, which are real dangers. But curiously, we Americans seem to have this instinctive belief that we must have it good – we’re Americans, for God’s sake. And if that’s the case, then change – especially change that brings us marginally closer to the way every other advanced country provides health insurance – must be something to be afraid of.
Update: Mark Thoma makes a similar point:
The point that Democrats must make clear is that doing nothing puts people’s existing health care coverage at substantial risk. People should be very afraid if reform fails, especially people who have good coverage now since they’re the ones with the most to lose. . . . System-wide reform of health care is the best chance people have for a health care system that meets their needs at least as well as what they have now, and the necessary reform cannot be accomplished without government’s help.
By James Kwak
The Baseline Scenario 
“According to the polls, many people are not walking around filled with anxiety.”
Yeah, and these polls are meaningless; more than 50% of insured people will never use their insurance in a 5 year period. Another group of more than 25% will only use it for ordinary care like visit to the doctor for flu or something similar. How unhappy are 75% of respondents supposed to be, if they never experience first hand, the drama of getting really sick and face the multiples problems of health care insurance in the first place?
A really meaningful poll would be to measure satisfaction with those who had interactions with the health insurance and rate the satisfaction in correlation with the severity/complexity of disease/injury they had.
You can bet your last n’gwee (1/100th of a Kwasha) that results would be very different.
But it’ll be hell on earth before American Media explain this rather obvious methodological flaw to their audience; after all, gotta keep those advertising dollars flowing to the bottom line, right?
BTW, it seems very difficult for pollsters in general to get their sh*t straight when it comes to health care.
See this discussion by the Master Nate Silver about this topic:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/how-to-poll-on-public-option.html
change – especially change that brings us marginally closer to the way every other advanced country provides health insurance – must be something to be afraid of
this is not helped at all by Obama’s frequent derision of the systems of every other advanced country, and professed desire to create a “uniquely American” system. as if that were a virtue.
the whole “if you like what you have, you can keep it” line is fine. the problem is that the other half of that argument is MIA. if you don’t like what you have, then, well, tough.
This is probably the best commentary I’ve seen on the topic yet in terms of message. Obama simply baffles me on this. I already pay more for health care per capita than anyone else in the OECD. Now, Obama has come up with a “reform” (by way of that Rube Golbergian think tank known as Congress) that he can only promise will cost still more–just not as much as the CBO’s pessimistic appraisal, mind you. So, what? I’m sorry, if the reform costs more, it’s either flawed by design, or (as we all know) he’s bargained away all of the potential savings to special interests. So, as you point out, he’s too timid to tell me how it will help me in crisis down the road, and (as I’ve noticed) he can’t tell me how it will save me money right now. And, they wonder why it’s not being well received. Sheesh!
I think James is right about trying to counter fear with fear. Maybe we run the risk of being perceived as that unpleasant jerk, but that’s better than definitely being perceived as a Washington bureaucrat with nothing to say (or not being noticed or perceived at all).
These are all emotional issues; reason seldom plays much role, and wonkery never.
As for Obama’s communication issues, my perception follows from my conclusion that he was always lying when he claimed to be seeking Change and reform.
It was easy for him to radiantly communicate hazy lies during the campaign; it’s not so easy to convincingly lie directly to your own base on a specific core issue.
That’s why he tried to let Congress do everything while he mostly kept his mouth shut. He hoped the Dogs could shepherd through a sham package which would deliver the conscript mandate market while leaving the status quo in place (with some cosmetic embellishments; ergo his secret deal with Big Drug).
Maybe there’d be some bipartisan help (since the package would certainly be acceptable to most Republicans if put together by Reps), and if not they could try to blame any problems on Rep obstruction.
Now that all that’s publicly blown up, and he’s faced with having to talk, Obama is at a loss. What kind of rhetorical passion could he possibly muster, and toward what audience? Some observers call for a moral message? But that still assumes he ever really wanted reform. Given his corporatist agenda, here is no such message and no such audience.
So the communication has been very poor, as he doesn’t know what to say or to whom to say it. The base is finally waking up and will no longer cultishly accept his lies and assurances on faith, while the Republicans keep spitting in his face, as anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 15 years knew they would always do no matter what he did.
[I agree with James’ assessment of Lakoff. Yet another example of what seems to be a law of social and political criticism: the dignosis and analysis are almost always far more compelling (and better written) than the prescription.]
the whole “if you like what you have, you can keep it” line is fine. the problem is that the other half of that argument is MIA. if you don’t like what you have, then, well, tough.
It almost seems that people who are in fear of losing their employer-provided insurance have it better than some–those who aren’t even eligible for coverage. People with two part-time jobs, or any person who is a contractor. These are the people who are really left out. Try getting an individual plan in these circumstances. And for those with pre-existing conditions, these rogue insurance companies have an across-the-board policy of non-coverage (for chronic illnesses such as type 1 diabetes). See Massachusetts as a model for at least attempting to combat these atrocities.
http://blog.richesamongtheruins.com
I’m self-insured – a clear advocate for health care reform and I’ve really heard nothing in this policy debate that makes me think we’re at all close to reforming a broken system.
When Congress talks about offering reimbursement for “end of life counseling” – I don’t see “death panels” – I see a terrible continuation of what’s horribly wrong with health care today – the idea that docs won’t/can’t talk about health care at all with patients unless there’s a billable box they can check off on the insurance reimbursement forms.
Thus, the obese don’t get “health care” from docs until they need treatment for obesity-related diseases, and since we don’t reimburse for chats about diet and exercise, the treatment they get is in the form of a pill or surgery after they’ve become obese.
And if docs don’t get paid to talk about dying with the terminally ill, then they won’t talk about it at all. At least that’s what that section 1233 of HR 3200 is apparently about.
(That was not my experience at all when I was primary caretaker for my father when he was dying of cancer; end of life discussions were very honest – and they were initiated by the doc and we talked and made decisions about treatment/palliative care as a result. That was years ago, however, and I don’t think the doc once felt the need to be reimbursed for such conversations.)
If Congress thinks the way to reform is to make more billable boxes in the for-profit insurance forms (or public health reimbursement plans), then we’ll go broke even faster than with the system we have now – which, if not reformed, will have us broke soon enough.
The debate ended a long time ago right after the lobbying funds had been disbursed. All you see now is the political theater designed to appease you.
then we’ll go broke even faster than with the system we have now
You might be broke, but the insurance industry is about to make a “killing.”
As for Obama’s communication issues, my perception follows from my conclusion that he was always lying when he claimed to be seeking Change and reform.
The main problem was that no one bothered to read his platform, for example on his website, which would have made it clear how miniscule the reform he was seeking was. Instead, all kinds of unrealistic “hope” and “change” was projected onto him.
Please, over 70% of Americans support reform.
The media is the problem, trying to generate controversy where very little really exists. The right-wing media fires up their crazies, pays a huge amount of money to organize these stupid protests, and suddenly we all agree there is controversy?
There is no controversy — there is only big money and big insurance paying to ruin the health of the American people in every way they can just so they can make one more dollar.
You’ve mistakenly assumed, EMGuy, that the issue is whether we get better health care or not. No, the issue is clearly whether Obama is effectively communicating to us on the issue of health care. A secondary but nevertheless important issue is how to distribute your healthcare dollars to insurance companies.
I like a book called “The Chicago Plan & New Deal Banking Reform”, by Ronnie J. Phillips. Obviously, it’s a book from my general point of view, and not to everyone’s taste. But one quote from it speaks to anyone who wants the financial system changed:
“The final reason the reforms were not adopted was a belief that the Banking Act of 1935, far from being an end to New Deal banking legislation, was the first step in reform. This view was prominently expressed by Jacob Viner and reflected a general sentiment among many economists and politicians.” p.134
I’m assuming that Viner et al were wrong.
even if you have insurance there’s a small but meaningful chance that when you actually get sick you’ll find out that your insurance doesn’t cover what you thought it did
Good thing he doesn’t quantify “small.”
Once, I was testifying before the North Dakota Legislature on the topic on consolidating its many, many school districts. The plan was going nowhere, and one astute legislator explained why: “Everybody wants progress but nobody wants change.” So, if Obama could talk about improving health care, making it better, then maybe we will get the change, oops, I mean, the progress we desire.
Any conversation on health care reform MUST include a discussion the the 250,000 jobs which will be lost with Obamacare. In my industry, medical sales, we have already lost 20,000 jobs in medical sales as medical suppliers prepare for reform. Learn more at our blog. http://www.gorillamedicalsales.com/blog
Many average Americans want to know how to get affordable health care with very good coverage. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has already solved this problem. If you need affordable health insurance Republican Senator Grassley says
you can—“go work for the federal government”. As far as I know, NEVER has a Senator or current member of Congress been denied health insurance. Let me repeat that. As far as I know NEVER has a Senator or current member of Congress been denied health insurance. If ANYONE can tell me an exception to that, I would love to hear it.
IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO SEE, IF ALL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DIDN’T CURRENTLY HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, HOW FAST HEALTH INSURANCE LEGISLATION COULD BE PASSED. ISN’T IT INTERESTING THAT CONGRESSMAN NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT THE EFFICIENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT SPONSORED HEALTH CARE THEY NOW RECEIVE?????
Either way, no need to worry if you don’t have good health insurance now, Senator Grassley explains the answer in the link here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzZwAhuqzAw
I agree, the preemptive loss of jobs can be devastating. These people in sales should be paid more while simultaneously reducing healthcare costs for everyone.
Everyone should work for the government. That could be the culmination of capitalism.
The arrogance in this article is quite breathtaking.
Obama, after completely flubbing financial industry reform, tries to cram through healthcare in only a few weeks? Please.
There are simple things Obama could do first to build trust and comfort. Instead, he’s piling on fear, and according to you, not enough of it.
Simple changes:
1) Make individual healthcare have the same (or similar) tax treatment as employer provided healthcare.
2) Offer regional pools that individuals can join.
3) Control cost in Medicare, showing how “waste, fraud, and abuse” can be driven out of the system. This can include death panels or not.
But instead, Obama tries to revamp the whole system in some vague and rushed way, and then gets mad when Community Activists raise a stink.
YAKKIS: Everyone working for the GOvernment is the culmination of Democracy. Certainly, Government service is the career I would have picked if I had to do it over, particularly in Finance.
Simple changes:
1) Make individual healthcare have the same (or similar) tax treatment as employer provided healthcare.
And while we’re it, cut taxes for the rich and repeal the estate tax and the capital gains tax.
2) Offer regional pools that individuals can join.
No one is stopping them.
3) Control cost in Medicare, showing how “waste, fraud, and abuse” can be driven out of the system.
This can include death panels or not.
If by “death panels” you mean vigilante groups of Republicans who don’t believe in evolution, then I’m all for it!
YAKKIS: Everyone working for the GOvernment is the culmination of Democracy. Certainly, Government service is the career I would have picked if I had to do it over, particularly in Finance.
I hear ya. Democracy and capitalism live side by side like ebony and ivory.
The biggest problem with the push for health insurance reform is the media. Very few are even approaching cogency in their coverage. They are almost exclusively focused on the ridiculous “smoke and mirrors” talking points as they arise out of the melee and are fostered and sponsored by the oligarch stake holders and their toadies on the Hill. Amidst all of the “blather” that gets coverage, and the complexity of the issue, how can the public have any kind of clear view of the real issues. It’s so sad to see our “democracy” at work through the captured media.
The problem is so simple at it’s core. If we don’t find a way to provide access to our truly wonderful health care providers, the monstrous problems which are only beginning to rear their ugly heads will expand dramatically and exponentially. The “insurers” are not appropriate participants in an area which needs truly professional attention. They are ONLY INTERESTED IN MAKING MONEY, period. They do no give a whit about the public weal. No chance, no how, no way!! This is pure undeniable fact.
I will continue to feel that many other countries have found ways to deliver effective health care to their populations WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES. Their systems are not perfect, but are LIGHT YEARS BETTER THAN OURS. Our debate should begin by examining, in a truly logical and dispassionate way, the systems which work in the countries who lead us (36 total) in delivering health care to their citizens.
If we permit the status quo to continue, in ten years (or less) we will become no better than a third world country. At the current rate of increase in health care costs in this country, we will be spending nearly 30 percent of our GDP on it in less than ten years. That will bring America to her knees.
I am joining the discussion here because the replies seem to trail off from health care reform. I am in agreement that the public debate has been shallow and filled with non sequitors and empathize with Anne because the debate, as well as the health care system, has lost its humanity.
I swear in spite of all the appeals to “care” that few in the conversation genuinely care what happens to anyone else. Somebody’s going to have to give up some of what they have if others are going to receive minimal, basic medical care.
The messaging on this how intransigent the different actors are. Obama to me sounds disingenuous and patronizing, and the Republicans sound obstructionist. The messaging leads only to a stalemate. Everybody agrees we have a broken system. We will get legislation in the fall, much less than is needed, perhaps making the whole mess worse than better. Everybody on the hill will clap each other on the back and declare how wonderful they are while little will change for most Amaericans.
Let’s stop trying to reform it and tear it apart instead.
Have we ever stopped to think that the health care system as an oligopoly is much like the banks. They whole system has become too big to fail. The system has become so large that it is incredibly inefficient, spending massive amounts of wealth merely to preserve itself. Its self-perpetuation has become more important than the care it is suppose to provide. We are trying to regulate and reform rather than do what any good construction engineer would do, tear it down and start over.
The NYT calculated that whereas both GDP and healthcare spending grow yearly, it will be 2035 when
healthcare absorbs 1/3 of GDP…
“Correction: July 19, 2009
An article in The Times Magazine this weekend about the argument for rationing health care in the United States misstates the number of years it would take under the current system for the country to spend nearly a third of what it earns on health care. It is 26 years from now, or 2035, not 15 years. ”
…………
Obviously, for whatever reason, people support healthcare reform, but nonetheless many are skeptical of the President’s efforts. Perhaps, it’s because what is proposed is not understood… perhaps it’s because right now there is no bill to debate.
Since “Obamacare” would seem to be amorphous and camelion enough to adopt to the broad outlines of anything required of it, I’d say that’s something to be afraid of. The “splendid opportunity”, whose outcome was always known in advance given the ownership rights to the President that would be exerted at the critical time, has oozed away. The question now is what to do with the carcass. Certainly, those who’d had an interest in single payer have all the appearance of a Social Democrat beaten bloody by Nazi bullies in the street brawls of early 1930s Germany. I say join the brownshirts at the town hall affairs and bring down this monstrsity at the earliest possible time. I don’t think I could endure the next twelve months listening to the phony adminstration characterizations of what emerges as a “peoples’ plan”.
My modest proposal: Do nothing. Abandon reform. Embrace the dysfunction.
Left to its own devices, the huge, steaming pile that is the American Health Care system will eventually consume the entire economy and implode under its own, massive, dishonest, corrupt weight. Let necessity be the mother of invention.
Can you tell me who I need to talk to to get paid to disrupt these meetings? And do I get paid by the same people who make up the stuff I’m supposed to say, or do I need to talk to some other people too?
How about Chief District Judge Loretta Preska?
Yakkis:
“Simple changes:
1) Make individual healthcare have the same (or similar) tax treatment as employer provided healthcare.
And while we’re it, cut taxes for the rich and repeal the estate tax and the capital gains tax.”
Why?
“2) Offer regional pools that individuals can join.
No one is stopping them.”
States limit insurance companies abilities to offer plans across state lines. This should be banned.
“3) Control cost in Medicare, showing how “waste, fraud, and abuse” can be driven out of the system.
This can include death panels or not.
If by “death panels” you mean vigilante groups of Republicans who don’t believe in evolution, then I’m all for it!”
No, I mean that Obama should control costs in Medicare first to show us all how it would work.
“I hear ya. Democracy and capitalism live side by side like ebony and ivory.”
Better not tell Hong Kong, China, or Dubai that!
I’ve made myself listen to two of the last or before last weekly radio messages by Obama and to me it sounds like he is trying to get the pitch forks out against the insurance companies
I scratch my European head and wonder why he uses such strong language with a group he will have to come to terms with one way or another
a) is he trying to destroy them, get a disgust campaign going
or
b) is he wink-winking at them that this is only for the public so the deal government’ll come up with will look more like a success
as I am old-fashioned European I’d gamble on b)
anne
your post made me realize how natural it has become to us that doctor and patient work together in a way never spelled out, to frame it so, that the Krankenkasse (insurers) will have to pay.
And stupid me some 15 years ago I believed it might help containing cost if the patients would see the bills the doctors sent to the insurers. My colleague at my corporations Krankenkasse was horrified by that idea because it would increase their clerical staff hugely.
But now I can see that there would have been whistle blowers without end catching the fraudster-doctors but also those who did it because they wanted to provide good care helped by a set of hard to spell out signals exchanged between doctor and patient and refined over the decades
– the patient wanting his/her doctor to get paid well for every minute at work and the doctor wanting to be able to tweak regulations when he felt his/her patient had to have it.
ah,
that might be another reason for the way Obama is going after the health insurers in this tone
whenever reform arrives there is confusion, confusion requires information to be spread by informed persons
while the informed person, ideally a medical sales person because of his pre-existing knowledge of the system, spreads the ins and outs of loopholes in the system ooops information about the changes, he should be able to raise interest in the latest and the best
whatever your employer is telling you is therefore either Quatsch (nonsense) to cover up that he wants to tighten up his work-force or he is extraordinarily lacking in his skills to game a system
according to City-Journal (Manhattan Institute) these 36 countries can only be better than the US because they make the US-market compensate for the low prices for drugs these countries force on your industry – if sales to those 36 “bad, bad” countries do not cover the real costs of the drugs why then sell them? or is there a profit margin that has to be forecast and that has to be met no matter what the market says and so they get it from the most compliant customers
or are all those 36 countries among the poorest of the poor so that it is charity to sell at reduced price? ;-)
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0824gs.html
it was the communists i.e. blue collar workers who took the brunt of the beating and getting killed
the Social Democrats were the ones not joining in the vote on the Ermächtigungsgesetz (empowering law) of 1933.
It was “projected onto him”, which is precisely what they wanted people to do.
During the campaign more than one journalist found it strange that he had been to one of his speeches and came out of it all turned on but couldn’t remember what he had been told
– the next day they were back to ululating as if this realization wasn’t worth a follow-up
I agree with zanon and am somewhat surprised to see on this blog that my rational concerns with the amorphous kitchen-sink “reforms” in the several different bills are being mischaracterized as “fear” that can only be fought with more “fear”. I’m perfectly happy with my insurance; it’s an HSA. From everything I’ve read, all of Obama’s “reforms” would do away with HSAs, whether quickly or not immediately but soon. Since I know he is lying when he says I can keep my insurance if I like it, why should I have blind faith that his other ideas are (a) trustworthy, or (b) workable? That would be totally irrational.
Also, this is supposed to be an economics-oriented blog. What are the odds of an individual having some condition that his/her insurance company won’t cover? Obviously, an individual calculation. Knowing that it can happen with some *small* probability does not mean anyone should be enthusiastic about breaking the bank (when we’re already out of money) toward an illusory 100% swaddling cloth from cradle to grave.
I’m really disappointed.
I am 72 years old. On social Security and work full time with Employer provided health insurance. They pay about 80% of the premium. This january I spent 1 and 1/2 days in the hospital and received a pace maker. So far I have had out of pocket expenses of $3500. Deductables, third party billing in excess of insurance company contract allowances and Insurance company claims making social security Medicare the primary provider and the Insurance company the secondary provider where the most visable reasons. Don’t get sick or ill your lifetime savings will be plundered!
Since I know he is lying when he says I can keep my insurance if I like it
You have forgotten Newton’s second law (of Government): a program in motion stays in motion forever.
Some Guy,
Sadly not far from my own reaction.
in the late nineties a guy fresh from a fancy management trainee course refused to insist on any agreed upon procedure being adhered with the “wisdom” of
“the pain from the chaos must first become big enough before change is welcome”
– as I have since learned that is old communist wisdom as taught to Kaders in the “real existierendem Sozialismus” of the GDR
and as is well known it ended in implosion
My HSA isn’t a government program. The “acceptable” plans under the bills so far proposed don’t include high-deductible plans or health savings accounts. They will force my company to stop offering this plan in 5 years or I will lose it sooner if I change jobs.
I’m lucky right now to be at a large employer with more choice across health care plans than I’ve had previously. It doesn’t make sense to me though that my choice is limited by my employer (as well as my employment status). Far less do I want my choices to be limited by the government’s ideological perspective on how much I need to pay to cover the costs of everyone else’s insurance. That’s the opposite of real insurance; it’s just extortion.
everyone else’s insurance — should read, everyone else’s health care.
“What are the odds of an individual having some condition that his/her insurance company won’t cover? Obviously, an individual calculation. Knowing that it can happen with some *small* probability does not mean anyone should be enthusiastic about breaking the bank (when we’re already out of money) toward an illusory 100% swaddling cloth from cradle to grave.
I’m really disappointed.”
Pray tell, how will the “individuals” who calculate that they aren’t covered hope to pay their medical bills? Assuming that each individual calculates correctly. Too bad for them if the insurance company deceives them into thinking they’re covered when they aren’t, I guess.
In any case, the current bankruptcy method for paying for medical costs passes on the costs to the rest of us anyway. Do you really think the hospitals don’t get paid eventually for those services? They just raise their costs elsewhere.
As for the “swaddling”, yes, our society effectively delivers cradle to grave medical care. Just inefficiently, through misuse of emergency rooms.
You’ve missed the point. How individuals will pay individual bills going through the roof is no more of a stumper than How will taxpayers pay all of the bills for everyone going through the roof. Why not consider that some of the anomalies of the health insurance market could be reformed by structuring its transactions to be more like other insurance markets, and less like Mary Poppins’ bottomless carpetbag of entitlements, paid for by fairy dust?
Break the interstate restrictions on competition, remove mandated coverage that’s ridiculous (e.g. pregnancy for men), equalize tax treatment for insurance through your employer vs insurance privately purchased, pilot other policy changes intended to improve competitiveness and service before imposing “health care reform” blindly on the whole nation, find ways to reduce defensive-medicine costs — these are just a few ideas that would open new alternatives, more constructive to discuss rather than resorting to unconvincing hyperbolic rhetoric.
The ever-escalating costs are the deal-breaker on all of the current congressional plans, and re: the status quo.
Yet none of the plans even remotely pretend to address cost questions. They just shift the burden of who pays, and increase the power of the IRS and other government agencies to intrude in all citizens’ private and personal decisions.
being insured in a country that adheres to a solidarity principle puts a higher burden on the young single male*) than he would have to pay for private insurance
but as it is totally worry-free I find it very comfortable – i.e. I do not have to change the insurer when I am unemployed or retired or decide I like a doctor at the other end of the country better
– and I wouldn’t be amazed if by now I would have the same coverage in some areas in the Mediterranean – if all that is extortion then I’m all for it
*) females are more expensive because they might give birth
In a country where a large percentage of people would rather buy a new car, 40-50″ lcd tv, $100 sneakers, etc but not invest in their on health care until they have a problem…….why is it the governments job to protect them?? To make them do what they should be already doing?
They would rather buy a new 4wheeler, 20″ rims, clothes, new car, etc than pay for their insurance. I have a health savings plan and pay a substantial amount of money for health insurance for my family. Yes the system needs to be fixed….children under 18 must be taken care of period…….elderly people over ___ must be taken care of….insurance company’s should not be allowed to drop a person once they get sick……tort must be reformed….fraud in medicare must be fixed….some of these problems congress should be able to come to some mutual agreement on how to fix or improve them.. …..get these items done first……then work on what becomes the next priorities….why do we need to throw it all away and start from fresh? In any business situation….you take stock of what is working and not working….then take the items that need to be fixed and find solutions to fix them…this goes on every day in the private sector….how well a company survives is based on how well they address their successes and failures….
They are really stupid. They should be paying $1500 a month for insurance with more holes than swiss cheese, that will be cancelled as soon as they get really sick. Then they can really experience the full pleasure of being bankrupt, homeless, disabled AND sick.