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

To: Road Walker who wrote (36371)	5/2/2014 2:43:26 PM
From: i-node	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB TimF Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

>> The trade off is a little more regulation of the product. If it were a "little more", I'd really not be complaining. But one can readily see, from the restructuring the industry is undergoing (not only health care payments, but the entire health care system) the regulation isn't a little more, it is a lot more. When you tell insurance companies what their maximum allowable profit margin is, that is a lot of regulation -- even if it doesn't create a big problem for them immediately -- because it is a matter of time before those allowances are decreased by Congress to the point of unsustainability. When you mandate that insurance policies must cover consumable items, like contraception, and that young people aren't rated differently from old people, and middle class people are subsidized by taxpayers, and it goes on and on, this is turning a previously functioning system on its head. It is a very big, very complex system. I'm not sure a lot of people grasped that. And you can't just roll in with people who don't understand those systems and dictate to the people who do, "It will be done this way." Not and expect it to continue functioning without adverse economic consequences. Which we're starting to see, in spite of efforts to hide the downsides. No one is saying it didn't need work. Only that you cannot rework a system like this with a one-sided view and expect it to work. You need input from EVERYONE, and frankly, there was no input from the most important people -- those who will be buying the product.

To: Road Walker who wrote (36371)	5/2/2014 2:45:05 PM
From: Lane3	2 Recommendations Recommended By i-node TimF Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

Just because automobiles are regulated to the hilt, it doesn't mean the industry isn't a free market. I don't think your comparison works. There is regulation and then there is regulation. Automotive regulation is mostly about safety and the environment. No one is constraining the buyer's choice of sedan vs pick-up vs sports car. No one is saying that all vehicles have to seat at least six or have navigation systems. It's true that all vehicles come loaded with some things that customers might not have chosen as options but there is still a vast choice. With ObamaCare you get bronze, silver, and gold, the differentiation being not in the product but in the portion of the cost that is covered by the policy vs what the patient pays out of pocket. I can't see how you can say getting the buying decision closer to the end user is a bad thing. I don't see how a choice among bronze, silver, or gold puts the buying decision in the hands of the policy owner. I take your point about the employee choosing rather than the employer. But if the employee is constrained by draconian ObamaCare regulation, it's a Phyrric victory.