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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pogeu Mahone who wrote (110327)	12/30/2007 1:48:01 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

zeus, If your goal is to cause long term economic disaster, that's easy. Just put healthcare into government and promise everyone the same level of care that the average person that is currently getting via insurance from work, on their own etc... If your goal is to provide an equal and adequate level of care for each citizen, then you'll have to tell the millions of Americans that are currently insured via their job or by buying it themselves that their level of care will have to decline sharply in order to bring everyone else into the system (and I recommend you tell them that from the safety of another country). There are obviously way more problems in this system than any individual can understand, but IMO one guiding principle should be for health care spending to be a "value" decision just like the consumption of other things. Whenever there is a 3rd party payer (government or private insurer), it removes the "value" judgement from the equation. Everyone wants as much as they can get whether it really makes sense or not, whether the society can afford it or not, etc... Those costs are passed on in the form of higher taxes and inflation (government) or higher insurance premiums (private insurance). 3rd party payers don't care. They just pass on the costs. Obviously, the costs are even more likely to spiral out of control when government gets involved because politicians are unable to make sound choices on such sensitive issues and remain in office. Others are so borderline evil they will make promises they know can't be kept just to get elected or remain in office. To me, this all means we should only insure those things that actually need to be insured. Typically, that means big ticket items that can ruin a person's life. We don't get car insurance for our annual inspection, flat tires, a new battery, routine maintenance, a new alternator etc... If we did, all those things would be wildly more expensive because of those extra costs of dealing with 3rd party payers. Plus, everyone would have their car in the shop whenever they had some free time so all their parts were new, inspected etc.... It would be a disaster. Instead, we insure against major collisions etc... because they might lead to financial ruin. Is that the only problem? Obviously not even close! I am identifying one obvious problem and explaining the economic realities of trying to cover everyone. If we addressed just what I am suggesting, IMO things would function much better for the vast majority of people and we would be able to provide top notch care for more people. That would be a start. If we moved it all into government, it might make people very happy for 10-15 years, but we'd be signing our long term economic death certificate. I don't think there's anything "politically" biased in my point of view. I am pointing out the economic problems with both public and private 3rd party payers, the real world of politics, and why government would be worse as a result.