The Democratic-led Congress has passed bills to provide health insurance for 4 million uninsured children. In the Senate, nine Republicans joined all Democrats in the bill. That leaves 32 Republicans who opposed it. And here’s why:
But Mr. McCain said, “Some of us who look at this bill may view it as another effort to eliminate, over time, private insurance in America, and I am concerned about that.”
And Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, asked, “Is the real intent of this legislation to replace the private health care system with a government-run health care system?”
And from The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel, who fears that Democrats in Congress are using “stealth” tactics to nationalize health care:
The bill even takes a whack at the private market. Under the guise of money for “health technology,” the legislation makes the government the national coordinator for electronic health records, able to certify what platforms are acceptable. This is an attempt to squelch a growing private market that is competing to improve transparency and let consumers compare providers and costs. In liberal-world, only government should be publishing (and setting) health-care prices.
Dude, if only! I would love to see the day when health insurance rips off only stupid rich people and the rest of the country enjoys a single payer health care system, freeing both businesses and workers alike from the burdens of rising health insurance costs and providing quality health care to everyone, regardless of class.
Oh, but that would be “socialism,” so screw that. If we look at how the Democratic candidates debated health care only a year ago, I think we’ll recall that the consensus favored a hodgepodge of various programs that hopefully achieved near-universal health care insurance coverage. The main bone of contention among the candidates was whether or not the government should impose an “individual mandate” that would somehow force everyone to seek some form of insurance — from an employer, from a government program, or from a private company. (I tended to agree with Obama that such a mandate could penalize poor people yet seemed rather unenforceable anyway.) There is also the Massachusetts program:
Yet Massachusetts has taken a very different route than Senators Clinton and Obama envision. Massachusetts basically adopted an individual-market model: People without coverage from their employer need to actively seek it out. The cornerstone of both candidates’ plans, by contrast, is the play-or-pay requirement: employers cover their workers, or their workers are automatically enrolled in a single insurance pool to which employers are required to make contributions. (Both candidates have said they would exempt small businesses from this requirement, which could pose a big hurdle to universal coverage, since most of the uninsured work for small firms.)
Done correctly — with businesses reporting whether they cover their workers to the federal government, which then enrolls uninsured employees and their dependents — a play-or-pay requirement makes covering people much less complicated. The more than 90 percent of non-elderly Americans (and more than 80 percent of the uninsured) who live in a family in which someone works would be enrolled automatically through the workforce. Many of those missed are already covered through public programs, and aggressive outreach could reach those who still remain without coverage. Thus, Mr. Obama’s plan could well cover almost everyone even without the individual mandate.
That leaves about 10-15 million people without health care coverage. For its part, the Democratic Party agenda advocates “quality, affordable health care for every single American” — and it’s the “affordable” part that sticks in my eye. Republicans lie that Democratic-led government will destroy the health insurance industry. I wish it were true, but I have more faith in corporate influence on congressional Democrats than that of well-placed single payer advocates. However, in the spirit of the times, I’ll hold out some hope that Rep. John Conyers succeeds in bringing “Medicare for all.”
1 response so far ↓
1 C. Steven Tucker // Jan 31, 2009 at 2:11 am
“Socialized Medicine” is primarily an ideology championed by the Democrats. However, contrary to popular belief, a nationalized health care system for all American’s has never actually been on the agenda for President Obama. http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2008/03/detailed-analysis-of-barack-obamas.html His agenda instead has always been to assist those who are rendered uninsurable and or are in need of assistance in obtaining health care coverage due to low income.
Part of his plan is to expand the role of SCHIP and State Insurance Risk Pools so that those who are rendered “uninsurable” on the individual major medical market have guaranteed insurability through their respective State Risk Pools. Many states already have this option. However states such as Arizona and Florida do not. These states desperately need such Risk Pools. Unfortunately, until now they have not been able to receive enough Federal funding to expand this much needed role. States that do have risk pools are listed here: http://www.naschip.org/states_pools.htm
President Elect Obama wishes to provide more Federal funding to these existing risk pools to drive the premiums down, thereby making this option more affordable for those rendered uninsurable.
One of the reasons that a “nationalized” health care system has never been on Obama’s agenda is most likely due to the terrible failure of such programs in countries such as Canada. A common example used to further the cause of “socialized medicine” in the United States is to point out how well it is working in Canada. However, those living in Canada know full well that their government run health care program is most certainly not working.
As a matter of fact, many Canadian citizens choose to hire high priced brokers to find them quality health care right here in the United States because of the terrible bureaucracy that controls all forms of health care in Canada. For more about what is really going on with the Canadian health care system please watch these short but very informative documentary videos:
http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
http://www.freemarketcure.com/twowomen.php
http://www.freemarketcure.com/thelemon.php
The number of actual uninsured’s in the US has been grossly inflated as well. For the real numbers watch: http://www.freemarketcure.com/uninsuredinamerica.php
The truth of the matter is we already have an enormous amount of entitlement programs available to those who find themselves unable to pay for their health care. Often times these entitlement programs are offered to those who are here legally and illegally as was the case in the State of Illinois: http://www.sbisvcs.com/medicaid_expansion.htm
Most recently, the State of Hawaii tried to emulate the Medicaid Expansion programs that were enacted in Illinois. It took less than 7 months to render their program bankrupt: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93SBEUG0&show_article=1
All things considered, the best way to offset the high cost of health care in the US is to adopt the initiatives set forth over a decade ago by Senator Bill Archer (R) of Texas. The Health Savings Account (commonly referred to as a “Medical IRA”) is a unique option that maintains high quality health insurance coverage for the policy holder whilst also building a tax deductible, tax deferred interest bearing account for the insured to use for future medical expenses. Even if these expenses would not normally be covered by the policy holder’s health insurance plan. For more about the “intelligent health insurance choice” (HSA qualified HDHP’s) please click here: http://www.sbisvcs.com/HSA%20&%20HDHP.html
In the end consumer education and retention of existing Federal entitlement programs (via a legitimate needs assessment test) will go a long way towards not only maintaining our current health care system, but also towards keeping the bulk of our nations risk where it belongs namely, with the private health insurance sector.
In light of the recent $7 Trillion “Bail Out” and many other failing corporations coming to the table with their hats in their hands (and their private jets on the tarmac) the last thing our government should do is start cutting more blind “bail out” checks in an effort to “reform” the U.S. health care system.
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