Letters to the Editor
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misguided
The rest of the world can only watch in disbelief. Firstly because the President has such ridiculously excessive powers and can veto anything and secondly because Bush demands trillions of dollars to fight a useless, futile, unwinnable and disastrous war and then refuses to give 6 billion OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY (it's not his money) to support a small percentage of American children when they're sick. It reminds me of the last child to be hanged in England during the Victorian era - he was six years old. Bush would have signed that execution order without so much as a blink, that's the kind of cold, despicable shit he is. And then he calls himself a Christian. He's not a Christian, he's a High Tory bigot with no sense of justice or decency. America can never move out of the 19th century, where it is presently trapped, with leaders like him. Under Bush, America has become a fully fledged criminal enterprise. That wouldn't matter if they kept it to themselves but America insists on getting everyone else involved in their crimes. Look at the World Bank. Look at the war in Iraq and the 'War on Terror'. If it was possible, America would not only refuse to provide decent healthcare for its own citizens, it would dismantle every government run healthcare system in the world. America not only doesn't have civil society, it doesn't want anyone else to have it either.
Keep your eye on America's stooge in France, Sarkozy, he's heading for a gigantic punch up with the citizens of France, who won't tolerate for one minute the kind of political silliness you Americans take for granted. There must be a deep vein of masochism running through American society that you accept this kind of treatment from a completely discredited President who presides over a completely discredited political system.
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So some people don't want "socialized medicine..."
I can accept that.
But I do! I want to quit my corporate job, go freelance and know that I will be able to find health-care at a reasonable cost, that I will be able to afford.
We claim to be an entrepreneurial nation that encourages innovation and free-thinking. Yet we have created a system that binds people to jobs they might hate, that don't make best use of their creative energies, because of what our health care system has become.
All you free-thinking Libertarians out there, which would you prefer? A system that allows people the freedom to pursue their dreams? Or what we have now, in which ever increasing numbers of people are corporate wage slaves.
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And don't think of: A big SWAT team gathered at your inoffensive door
...all in black with masks, and weapons and goggles
Having conveniently 'not bothered' with the warrant and....
DO start remembering 4th Amendment things ....too.
[while you're NOT thinking about the sick kids you've either lost or seen
back to health. Signed MD who has lost a few and thanks to this piece is now remembering...that]
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One of the reasons the overhead on Medicare D is so low
Is because Medicare doesn't make much of an effort to confront or fight fraud. It relies on the honesty of doctors. So the actual costs all get back end loaded in the fake/fraudulent/unnecessary care that providers are allowed to get away with. If Medicare D had the same controls against fraud that private insurance has it would cost about the same as private insurance.
Because guess what - even the government doesn't intentionally get in the business of fraud for the sake of poster children. It won't do it. If there is a national one payer system you can bet that the government will insist on stringent fraud controls which will driver the overhead cost up from Medicare D's 11-17% to the private industry's more typical 33%. Now there are two ways to balance that. One is higher premiums (taxes) than originally intended. The other is to limit care.
Since no one, at least no one here is looking at the revenue side of the equation I figure both things will be done - higher premium (tax) costs and care limitations. What will result is a pretty crappy creaky plan that sort of provides some care to some people under a blanket of cumbersome rules, PCPs and gatekeepers.
Of course in about 6 years I will no longer have a reason to live in the US so you all can pay for that.
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It's a Disgrace
Why is it that the US is the only developed country in which the government doesn't think it has any responsibility for the health of its citizens?
If our roads were not maintained, people would be up in arms. It's just people that don't seem to count.
This is very personal for me. I am the mother of two autistic children. My youngest has had many compounding problems ranging from anxiety to OCD to ADD to depression. Recently, we moved from one state to another, and when I attempted to transfer her health insurance, along with mine and my sons, she was turned down by our private insurer. I was informed that she could join the "state pool" at a rate of over $330 per month.
For my son and myself I am currently paying $764, which is outrageous. Placing my daughter in the state pool would bring my bill to over $1000 per month for premiums alone. I must work out of my home in order to care for my children, and I make about $800 per month and get $1200 in child care.
In addition to health care premiums, my daughter requires medication. She is now uninsured and her medications alone cost more than $300 per month. How is this fair to my child and my family?
Instead of wasting trillions on this stupid war, every American should be receiving free or cheap, comprehensive health care. All I can do is cry when I think of the unnecessary suffering being endured by innocent children who deserve better.
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The article about SCHIP has a fundamental flaw in logic
The basic premise of this article is that insurance companies have an incentive to provide as little service at as high a price as possible and that this is somehow unique to insurance. The fact is that ALL businesses have an incentive to provide less at higher prices. However, all customers have an incentive to get as much service for as low a price as possible. Markets resolve this to the satisifaction of both the business and the customer EXCEPT when the customer isn't the one paying. When a third party pays then the customer has an incentive to get as much service as possible regardless of cost and then the payer and the business have the same incentive to provide less service. This is the simple reason that socialism always results in rationing of services by some artbitrary authority in some uninformed way that satisfies no one. We already have a near socialist healthcare system now and that is why costs are always increasing far more than the costs of other types of products.
My standard example is that there is zero problem matching the number of people who want TVs with all sorts of different options to the providers of TVs. America is overflowing with TVs including every so-called poor household in the country (third world citizens risk their lives to be "poor" in America). I have three even after donating two to Goodwill Industries. If only healthcare worked the same way, we would all have easy access to the kind of care we want at prices we are willing to pay even given the fact that some of us are hypochrondiacs and some of us think most doctors are quacks. Insurance is about risk not about service. Once the customer pays for most care and uses insurance only to mitigate risk, costs will come down and care will go up.