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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
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80%
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60%
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40%
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June 24, 2007 07:02 PM UTC
47 Comments
we get the robotic criticisms of Mike for being a socialist, I urge all my friends on the right to look it up.
He just makes them uncomfortable. I’ll be there!
Actually, socialism is a pretty good philosophical description of major segments of the health care system (Medicare, Medicaid) and where we’re headed with health care policy.
Unfortunately, many folks view health care as a service they should be able to consume, but have someone else pay for (a health insurance company or the government).
The spiraling health care costs, in my opinion, are due to a massive market failure in the industry created by the general reliance/expectation that a 3d party will or should pay for health care.
Health insurance will be a major issue in 2008 in Colorado according to my crystal ball. After education, health care expenses (mostly Medicaid) are one of the largest components of the Colorado state budget, and those expenses growth at double digits. I suspect we’ll see the Massachusetts plan debated in the Colorado legislature next year.
We have the most expensive healthcare in the world per capita and the most most market driven of any developed nations. The market failure is that this is a good with inelastic demand, oligopolistic behavior, capture pricing and ineffiecient delivery based on determining who and what is not covered.
Single payor is much cheaper.
No one expects “free” care except for a few morons who think that such a thing can exist. I just would like to be able to pay in such a manner that first, I’m not being screwed with costs well above every other country with “socialized” medicine, and second, don’t have to worry if my premium is paid. I’d much rather put my money into taxes that cover me at any time, any where and, BTW, provide the administrative overhead at 3% vs. private cares’ 30%.
I remain consistently amused by folks on your side of such arguements about medicine being “socialized.” Why do you get such a woody upon hearing the word? I don’t. I remember back in 1964 when Medicare was under discussion that the AMA kept trotting out the “socialized medicine” canard. In only a few years doctors found out that they had a new income stream. They didn’t have to provide as many free services. And the health of older Americans improved radically.
BTW, the countries with “socialized medicine” seem to do a lot better job than we do by every metric. I want RESULTS, I don’t care what the delivery system is called.
I think you are right on. I would gladly pay more tax to have reasonable health care and leave it at that. Why ? Because right now you end up paying so much more out of your pocket. Yes, I don’t pay tax for healthcare, whoppee ! But you know what ? I have paid almost 8K this year for my son’s birth (we had to stay for a week), and 4K last year for 20 minutes of outpatient surgery. The year before that I paid 3K for an emergency room visit, AND I HAVE PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE WHICH I PAY $ 200 FOR EACH MONTH.
What the hell gives ? Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but you are putting the fox in the henhouse when you invite private entities in who have an agenda that has nothing to do with taking care of the patient. MAXIMIZING YOUR BOTTOM LINE AND GIVING THE PATIENT THE BEST POSSIBLE CARE AT THE BEST PRICE ARE, AND WILL ALWAYS BE, INCOMPATIBLE. That is why our current system is broken.
The insurance companies, the hospitals, the lawyers, and the drug companies are all putting their hands in my pocket and soaking me for as much as they can, but gee, thank god we don’t have socialized medicine.
Obviously you are of “breeder” age while I am well past that…
My last employer paid $300 on a group coverage with Kaiser, the lowest cost provider. I still had to pay $20 for visits and assorted other charges.
The man I work PT for now has a family of three. He’s 52, the wife is about 47, and a 14 year old son. They pay $2500 a quarter for high deductible coverage. All in all, they are paying about $15,0000 a year for health care. That figure is right in line with national averages.
If we got rid of that 30% administrative overhead and replaced it with the “socialized” efficient 3% that Medicare experiences, he would save at least $4,000/yr!
I am dating myself and am of breeder age. I have a Blue Cross policy which is pretty good comparatively with other policies.
If it takes less money out of my pocket, then “socialized” is just fine with me. Call it whatever; right now its broken and just costs too much.
We don’t have socialized medicine. Huh?
Medicare is medical care paid for by the government for folks over 65.
Medicaid is medical care paid for the government for indigent people. CoverColorado is a medical care program paid for by the State of Colorado.
Drug patents (which inflate the drug prices we pay) are intellectual property rights enforced by a government sanction mechanism. The FDA — a government regulatory agency — reviews, regulates and approves virtually every drug introduced in the market. The FDA regulations determine whether a drug may be advertised (a few years ago it was illegal to do so) and what disclosures must be made in those regulations.
Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs — a very large hospital — is owned and operated by the City of Colorado Springs. The University of Colorado Medical center is a hospital owned by the state of Colorado.
Private insurance companies are often huge bureaucracies that resemble the most hide-bound, inflexible government agencies. Government regulators do virutally nothing to regulate them. When was the last time you heard about the insurance commission bringing a lawsuit against a health care company in Colorado? George Stigler would likely cite this as a classic example of a regulator captured by the industry it’s supposed to be regulating, effectively making the industry an arm of the government.
The number of new doctors is artificially restricted, which drives up the price of medical services. Why doesn’t the University of Colorado a expand its medical school?
Hospitals usually require approvals by state agencies that look at whether there is a community need for the facility — i.e., whether the hospital will compete with an established facility. That’s government determining how many health care facilities are in the market.
If you open a medical practice and want to get paid, you have to accept insurance, and often Medicare and Medicaid. I don’t know any doctors in my area who rely on private pay patients. All have horror stories about the bureaucracy of Medicare/Medicaid and “private” insurance companies.
If you’re a senior with health problems, you don’t shop price, you shop MDs based on whether they accept Medicare and/or whatever insurance plan you might be lucky enough to have. If they don’t accept Medicare or your insurance, you can’t afford them.
The proposals on the table are to expand the power of single payors — if you believe large bureaucracies are beneficial, that’s a good thing; if you do not, that’s a bad thing.
The only thing that seems to be missing in this structure of regulation, government provision of services and payment institutions is that docs are not public employees.
. . . that any time you have a program adminstered (as opposed to regulated) by the government, it’s a klusterFГјch.
And what’s all this disparating lawyers about. Heresy!
disparatingdisparagingThose of us who do have insurance (and haven’t been blackballed) pay premiums, copays, and deductibles. Insurance shares the risk and costs of exraordinary circumstances. Same principle for health, auto, renter’s, FDIC, etc……
The profits, I dare say, come from the instances where service is greatly reduced or denied, and goes to dividends or paying the CEO.
Are we really that selfish and shortsighted?
Oh, how I wish I could attend. My kids and I always enjoy a MM event with the passion, energy and excitement he always brings to a subject.
Doesn’t anything like this ever happen in the Springs????
… a Micheal Moore event in the Springs. Maybe it will happen around the same time Doug Lamborn holds a fundraiser in Boulder. Just teasing 🙂
Did you see:
Media AdvisoryCONYERS AND STARK WELCOME MICHAEL MOORE TO CAPITOL HILL
Press Conference, Briefing to Address For-Profit Health Care and the Crisis of the Uninsured
The briefing will be conducted in a hearing-style format. Clips from “Sicko,” Moore’s new movie, will be screened.
Who:
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers
Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark
Academy-Award winning director Michael Moore
Additional Members Invited
Where:
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
When:
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
1:30 Press Conference
2:00 Briefing
It’s really pretty cool.
Health care and potential reform of our current system is a huge issue. I wish I had the time to post all of my concerns and even disgusts with Michael Moore and others on both sides of the aisle, but alas I do not. I will just say this: anyone who oversimplifies this issue does a disservice to our great nation. A silver bullet such as socialization of our nation’s health care system does not exist.
Whether it is the woman who continues to have children she can not afford because she likes them and other taxpayers are footing the bill or the elderly gentleman who can not receive medical attention unless he is bleeding, socialization has proven to be grossly ineffective. That being said, people are wronged by some on the health care industry the way it currently does business. Some people are not even offered service. However, socialism is not the answer. I hope “Sicko” fully addresses the complexities of the health care issue, but I am pretty confident “Sicko” does not because such a movie would not be appealing at all to movie-goers. Addressing it properly would involve an upper-level Economics/PoliSci class, and it would be HARD.
what do we do then ?
That I like is to have a mini-socialized program which has some inputs driven by free-market ideals. Med school is expensive…so lets have a program (Some scales of it already exist) where the government doesn’t just give student loans but pays the student’s schooling in exchange for a 10-year commitment to the “Socialized practice” program. Other incentives could be offered, as well as a buyout plan for the graduated student if they think they can make more money in private practice to make it economically beneficial for them.
This type of program is done in rural areas to get a couple students in a state to commit to being a rural doctor, but the program I imagine would be even more strict. And yet, free market lovers would be appeased as entrance into the program is by choice. It would still be paid for by your tax dollars, but would take care of one input in a cheaper more efficient manner and is a way to avoid the fight current doctors might put up.
Another fix would be to allow poor people to opt-in to a health care program so that they are still paying a percent of their income but doing so very obviously. Some sort of visible fee structure must be in place so they see clearly what the costs are and are able to value it in their own minds. Think of predatory lenders taking advantage of the poor…how terrible would it be if our socialized health care system hid the costs while providing the service to an uneducated populace? Thru my work with the poor I have realized how crucial education is, and I hope others realize it too!
…and they do very well. Under that dreaded Bill Clinton, he turned that stodgy old bureacracy into a model. Surveys show that the people in the VA system rate it with higher satisfaction than any other delivery system. At the bottom, of course, is private care. (BTW, any vet walking into a VA hospital anywhere in the country has his records available immediately on the computer system. Darned efficient government!)
No it is NOT “hard.” We have about 34 models in other coutries that we can look at and pick and choose what works and would work for us. That, I guess, is one advantage of waiting so long to join the civilized world.
The greatest fallacy of the private care model that I almost never hear mentioned is this: It pretends everyone is stable in their lives, is stable in their jobs, and is stable in their income. Many Americans don’t fit into those parameters that our legislators typically live in.
And when I hear jackasses with a forum like Mike Rosen say that everyone has health care, they can always use the emergency room, peacable me has this urge to become violent against such intellectual and moral dishonesty and their purveyors.
What if I’m one of the millions without health care and you hurt me! And I do not expect you to read this long post but I need to get it all out of my system.
Ok seriously, one of the reasons I strongly believe the process you mentioned IS HARD is that our culture is completely different from countries where such programs have been succesful…For example many people would rather have lower taxes in our individualistic society than pay 70% of their income to the government but have their health care be “free”.
I was also not aware of the high approval rates of our VA system…it seems to me many are unsatisfied and consequently there have been pushes for reforms in the VA system. However, if you cite some quality studies on the issue of satisfaction with VA I would love to see them. I will be the first to admit that having my records readily available in any doctor’s office in the nation would be nice AND economically beneficial…I suppose privacy issues might be a concern but that should be able to be solved in this computer age.
I guess one question I have would be how satisfaction can be compared across sectors, like private care and VA. People try to compare satisfaction of Canadiens and Americans all the time and I dont think it works. Recently several illegal private clinics have been opened so the rich can pay for care, but I bet the poor are in many cases happier with the availability of health care.
Another thing: Many people do not have health care. Also, some people on medicare abuse it, something I wish more people would recognize. If you can not afford another kid you should not be purposefully getting pregnant. Also, last I checked about 9% of those earning over 100,000 a year did not have health care…this seems to say that some who can afford it choose not to.
Until something very bad happens to them, some people whether rich or poor would rather have more money than health insurance. I don’t think this needs explained. Where do we draw the line on socialized health care? Infectious diseases, stomach cramps, heart failure from obesity, child birth, ulcers, foot pains, or balding? I would say balding is a no-go…but what about the rest?
There is a consensus among a small minority. A consensus like the captured alien… (in that stupid but lovable movie ‘Independance day’) when asked… “what do you want from us?”
his reply…Just die!
Moral of this story… This medical system runs like a well oiled michine for some.
http://rinf.com/alt-…
Think Walter Reed and other ‘Nice’ thoughts.
is underfunded and process of being “privatized”. It is a military hospital. As such it is not a “for profit” insurance company covering military personnel and a hospital system that is “for profit” treating wounded troops.
Funding is from Americans through taxes. Cutting taxes and not funding the military is not the way to support our troops.
works just fine. It is a real simple concept, (perhaps that’s why liberals want to make it so complicated, they hate knowing this system is not run by our vasty more efficient government)….
Buy it.
Use it.
Problem solved
Oh wait, now here is where you all say “what about the poor and all the bums in the country”.
Again, simple, get a job.
from our resident simple mind. Nice work, Socrates!
attempt to use it. Find out you’re not covered, or discover the loophole. Pay ten times what those in other countries do. Go bankrupt. Die.
Good system LIAS !
you forgot fill out paperwork in triplicate, wait for bills you did’t even know were coming, have your credit destroyed while 2 insurance argue who has to pay.
The system is totally effed up.
what do we do?
I’ve been busy working on a policy paper for a workable Iraq solution. Don’t have time to work on healthcare. Personally I would take the canadian system at its per low capita, I actually think the French system is the best in the world, but it costs almost as much as the US.
My Iraq paper’s working title is Polishing the turd: Iraq options bad, worse and apocalyptic
If the enormous amount of profit taken out of the system by private insurers/drug companies each year is cut, you have savings to fund part of the program. However, there still has to be decent profit motive and support for IPR for drug companies to perform R&D, just make it more reasonable.
Put a very big cap on awards for medical malpractice, which is an enormous bill for so many doctors. Provide incentives for creating networks, databases so patient information can be pulled up instantly, paperwork can be reduced, and errors in diagnosis are reduced. Reduce the costs of perscription drugs in the United States versus other countries, if they don’t cooperate allow purchasers to pool their resources and buy from wherever they please (Canada, wherever) forcing the drug companies to compete for the US market rather than rigging the price. Emphasize preventative care, which heads off a serious condition from developing, which are far more expensive later.
Those are some things I think would work.
I think the number one problem for the proponents of universal health care advocates like yourself is finding politicians who are willing to spend the political capital and run the very high risk of not getting re-elected if they implement such a system and the higher taxes that *should* come along with it (of course I recognize we could do some more deficit spending and make everyone except every other generation very happy).
You’re right it would take taxes, and that does take political capital to get through. However, once it went through it would become very popular.
One of the interesting arguements against universal healthcare is the “in x country, you have to wait x amount of time” argument. While there are anecdotes of failure in universal systems, there has been NO move to privatize in any country that has universal healthcare.
…..and your medical care withholding would go down. No more employers paying for some or all of that insurance, so they can pay you more.
You are probably right about the risk factor, and finding politicians who are willing to do something. It is a crisis though, and won’t get any better until somethings done.
…is less than 1% of what we spend. That includes lawyer’s fees, awards, and settlements.
Next alleged cause of high health care costs, please….
Beautiful – just beautiful.
I was diagnosed with Diabetes a couple of months back. My planned career change to an independent businessman is pretty much flushed thanks to the wonders of our so-called perfectly functional health care system. My ability to switch jobs even to another major employer within my current career is now limited because of this extra-ordinary level of care that you speak of.
I have just had healthcare shoved to the top of my important issue list for the next election. I wouldn’t call myself a single-issue voter, but I will be strongly considering candidates who offer (a) portable healthcare, and (b) single-payer or small business group health so that I can actually afford to make my career move.
You can take your simple-minded attitude somewhere where it isn’t crippling my life, thank you very much.
So you want me to help pay for YOUR coverage?
WHY?
I pay my own and my families, thanks anyway.
Explain why I should pay for your insurance, without all your lefty liberal more government is better rhetoric.
We all know how well our government is at running massive programs. Just look at our Social Security system.
SMOOTH.
In a civil society we all pay for things we don’t want or use.
I’ll tell you what you can get a rebate check because you don’t like universal healthcare when I get mine for the Iraq war.
I’m waiting.
I want you to understand that there are better solutions.
What more would you pay under single-payer or small business group coverage than you pay now if you’re in the same insurance company as I’m in? I would pay more as an independent businessman because I’m a group of one, with a pre-existing and permanent medical condition. But the insurance companies don’t have any problem handing out a “group rate” for larger companies, with little regard for the proportion of “problem” patients in the company.
And if I change jobs, I have a three month wait period before I can get medical care, pretty much (since diabetes touches on just about everything, the insurance company can deny just about everything based on it…). BUT… I’m already covered, and I’ve been covered for all but about 5 years of my life (just after leaving college…). The only reason private insurers have this rule is because it’s one more way for them to make a profit – if you can give me a better one, let me know it.
Next unthinking complaint?
You’re willing to be scammed out of 25%+ of your medical insurance bill and go through life being completely unsure of whether or not your insurance company is going to pay a legitimate medical claim, just because the alternative might have something to do with the government?
You could have 1/10th the overhead costs, the benefit of a larger insurance risk poll which lowers costs more, and the assurance that non-frivolous claims won’t get rejected; you could give our country the leg up that every other industrialized nation in the world benefits from – lower cost of business, better health (and hence higher work attendance) for employees – but you’re willing to forgo all of it because you’re either too interested in lining people’s pockets or you’re afraid?
We choose to live as a civilized society so we pool our resources sometimes for the common good, at times through government, but thanks for taking us back a few hundred years.
What about fire/ police departments, roads, etc. You can always move up to Montana and live with the freemen, or leave the country if you don’t like it. Dosen’t sound like you’re much of a “joiner” anyway.
For more reading see: John Locke, Social Contract.
Yes, look as SS for a perfectly well run program! It is, indeed, to use your word, SMOOTH! In seventy years no one has missed a check and there hasn’t been ONE scandal. Compare that to your private pensions.
Yes, look at Medicare. Free choice of physicians and services and only 3% of the total costs goes into administration.
Yes, look at our space program! Sure, some significant errors, but what private company would ever do what NASA does?
You are so brain washed facts mean little to nothing to you. Change your channel.