>> It is a good idea, that is what you don't understand.
I think it would be fair to say the depth and breadth of my understanding is such that I have a decent sense of what will work in the United States and what will not.
While it would be nice if health insurance dropped out of the sky for everyone, it doesn't work that way, and it is a very expensive proposition. Which we cannot afford.
There are things we COULD do which would ameliorate the problem and not be cost prohibitive, but many politicians are unwilling to go those routes. Medicaid is, flatly, unaffordable. But it is also highly inefficient in delivery, not cost effective, and generally doesn't improve health outcomes.
Medicare could be a good program if we allowed more market-driven control of costs.
But as one of the excellent posters on the health care forum here pointed out years ago, you're not going to get there without getting away from egalitarian principles in health care. Not everyone can afford the best. I would add (don't know if he would agree) that we all benefit from some patients being able to afford the extremes of health care, since eventually, the successful extremes become the norms.
It is a very expensive proposition and there is a lot that can be done to deal with that problem. But you can't solve it with idiots like Zeke Emanuel -- a politically motivated jerk -- calling the shots. And that is what Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are holding out for. So, rather than solving the problems we're simply in a waiting mode until the damned thing collapses and perhaps it can be rebuilt from scratch.
That is probably the best we can do given what the Democrats did in 2010. History will not remember them well for it, I don't think. |
