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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (2078)	9/20/2007 10:59:17 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I don't think you would be surprised to learn that I disagree with the idea that she has a good proposal. What do you like about it?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (2078)	9/20/2007 1:06:49 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Proposals for Health Care Stasis Arnold Kling Now that Hillary Clinton has released her health care plan, it occurs to me that "health care reform" has become an Orwellian term. Her proposal, like those of other Democrats, would take our existing form of health insurance--what I call insulation --and try to extend it to everyone. Consider three ways that medical decisions can be made: 1. Put bureaucrats in charge of spending the money and making the decisions. 2. Put consumers in charge of spending the money and making the decisions. 3. Use insurance to try to separate the issue of spending the money from the process of making medical choices. Our current approach is to use (3). This means that we spend lots of money, with Hansonian consequences. What I would like to see is different states experiment with (1) and (2). My own preference is for (2), but it is possible that (1) would work out better than (3). In any case, the "reform" plans would foreclose any experimentation of any sort. They should be called stasis plans. econlog.econlib.org I do think perhaps "Orwellian" is a bit over the top, but I agree with the point to an extent. Reform implies that something is supposed to get better, but many reform plans (not just dealing with medical insurance) might more appropriately be called steps backwards. And I agree that the most of these plans try to put in place a system that decreases flexibility and the possibility for experimentation and alternate choices and solutions. I posted the link for the discussion in the comments section as much as for the blog posts itself. A lot of different viewpoints in the comments, so its not just different ways of expressing the same thing. One part of one comment expresses something I've already mentioned, but maybe it states it better than I did. bingo writes: ...First-dollar health "insurance" is nothing more than a complex pre-paid service contract. The insurance company attempts to determine the amount of money you are likely to spend on health care and then in effect charges you that as a premium; the insurance company (in a very simplistic way to explain it) makes it's profit on the investment value of the premium dollars it holds before they must be paid out for health care..."