Letters to the Editor
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@unadilla
If insurance is "socialist" then corporations are "socialist" too -- they exist to share risk and returns. Arbitrage is socialist, the stock market is socialist -- everything is socialist by that definition.
But you have hit on something: Enterprise is a way for people to cooperate to produce public goods.
Profit is an excellent motivator. Why shouldn't it be? If people are going to work and invest in things that make the world better (or in things that people simply want) then they ought to be able to do well out of the deal. What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with this?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/healey/2007-05-18-test-drive-fcx_N.htm
You can chew bark and dance in the drum circle all day, but it's corporate profit that's putting hydrogen cars on the market.
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walter_map
How true. But the unifying points remain to make a true repugnican: Greed and admiration of the stupidity of one George W Bush.
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Why don't
prenticehill wrote:
"Why don't the people who think that other countries are better than ours leave?
Why don't the ignorant right wing trolls who think that people who think that other countries are better ought to leave the country, leave Salon.com? And never come back, or read anything here ever again?
I mean, if it gets your dander up so much reading liberal-slanted articles and comments, what's the point? You'd be a happier lil Reaganite camper at the Free Republic.
I'll make you a deal: you stop whining about us leaving the country and I won't demand you cease frequenting Salon.com. How's that?
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Shame on Salon for failing to thoroughly examine this subject
Shame on Salon. This is supposed to be an intelligent, thoughtful magazine. You reviewer characterized the current American system as the private alternative to universal, governmental health care, but that's an extremely distorted view. For several years, private think tanks and government bodies have been looking at this issue. From those efforts has emerged a better understanding of our current system. That understanding, combined with a well earned respect for the power of free market forces, has led to the creation through enabling legislation over the last four or five years of private Health Savings Accounts. The fundamental problem with our current model is that there is no linkage between the consumer of medical services and the payer for those services. How in the world can anyone expect market forces to work if they're bottled up in the current system that we have? The solution isn't simply to move from a stingy overseer to a permissive one. It's to empower the consumers of medical care to make their own choices. HSA's are the first step in accomplishing that.
If Salon wanted to make a valuable contribution to the debate on this issue, they's take the time and trouble to investigate all the alternatives, and the emergence of HSA savings accounts and high deductible private health insurance policies is clear evidence of an emerging third approach.
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Part of the problem is insoluable
In that the compact which asserts that those most likely to consume health care, e.g. the poor, are least likely to pay for it. That's a societal norm of whatever society you happen to live in. Whether it's the US or Indonesia or Switzerland.
An make no mistake, it' not simply a middle class issue. It's an issue for the poor first, then the middle class. We can safely assume that any sort of national plan would involve those who don't actually have any health care now, the poor and lower middle class to get theirs before the middle class underinsured get their parity. We just need to understand that the middle class will be tapped to subsidize the poor before they ever seen a benefit to themselves. And then when it's their turn, it will cost even more.
Now having said that some societies have shown a higher tolerance for that than others. For instance France and Israel with their very high tax rates have helped shape such a society. They also happen to have poverty rates on par with the US circa 1960, about 22-24%. So in a big way, a quasi socialist plan comes at the expense of income compression nad with the risk of a lower overall standard of living, in the aggregate.
Again, not an inherently evil thing, but, I wonder what the response of the already kicked in the head middle class will be when they are required to pay for someone else. I know that at this point I would seriously consider emigrating; either to a low tax high income country like Uruguay, a low income low tax country like Portugal, or a middle income high tax socialist country like Israel or France. There's no downside to it at that point.
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Greed, ignorance, fear
In my first dentist appointment away from home in New York, the dentist put a camera in my mouth, pointed to a screen and told me that I had five cavities. I balked. Prior to that appointment, I had only had one cavity my entire life. I walked out of that dentist's office and never came back.
Later on, I went to another dentist. He told me my teeth were just fine. And he was right.
That was my first experience with the lack of integrity of some medical professionals and the extent to which they would go to make a buck. This guy outright lied and made up a problem with me that didn't even exist!
My beef with the healthcare system in this country is that there is not more transparency. I don't know how much of that is the direct result of the litigious culture in the U.S. I don't know how we can fix this if we switch to universal healthcare. But I do remember being baffled when I enrolled in an insurance plan at my first job when I realized there is a Zagat guide for the freakin' restaurants in New York, but there is no widely published guide to the doctors and dentists in the city.
Why is that? And why are these medical professionals who are recommending invasive, expensive and unnecessary treatments to their patients still practicing?
We have a big fear of big government spending in this country, but I pray that if we ever switch to universal healthcare that we'd cut the crap, weed out the bad doctors and keep the good.