This could make you very ill
A look at how national health care works in the UK.
As for his description of Canada and “England” as places where one just walks in and gets treatment, perhaps Obama should talk to more Canadians and “English”. Most have to wait months for tests and treatments. The British have a chronic lack of dentists and transplant surgeons, just to name two specialties, because of the lack of compensation for specializations. Both have a healthy “health tourism” outflow of patients to countries that allow for free-market health care. Most people in the systems that Obama hails would laugh outright at the notion that they get health care on demand.
Our own Catamount program is bankrupt, MA program is heading for the same result. (See here)
Hawaii started a free childrens’ health care program. Smart taxpaying parents dropped their kids’ insurance and changed to that insurance, bankrupting it. The state shut it down.
More taxpayers should do this every time the OPM devil shows his horns.
Archived in: Canada, National health care, ObamaApril 9, 2009 at 9:47 am | Trackback
2 comments
Barone, whose opinion I respect, thinks that some kind of reform will happen with our celestial leader, Obama, but the complexity of our system makes a single-payer result out of the question…for now. Of course, practicality, efficiency and sound logic never stopped The Left from attempting something stupid and authoritarian, and insisting upon it whatever the evidence. And the goal for these clowns is always something other than the stated one; some combination of ephemeral ideas about justice or fairness or just plain old power.
Conservatives have no suggestions, though, except medical savings accounts, which seem to have the glorious symbolism that “tax cuts” have for the same people. It’s not enough. Neither is the trope that “no one is denied service in an emergency room”. EM’s aren’t “health care”.
Of the fictional uninsured count of 47 million, the important Pew Study (no right-wing front group) found that some are between jobs, some don’t know that they qualify for MediCare or other services, and some decline coverage even when they can afford it. Only about 8 million are flat lacking in some kind of coverage.
What we need is portability of coverage for those between jobs (other than COBRA), info for those who qualify for services, and some attention to the coming explosion of MediCare, which is a nuke of its own kind (means testing?) , and also med savings accounts and relief for doctors under the threat of tort lawyer settlements.
Of course, I doubt Obama can hold all the complexities in his skull long enough to consider the issue. All of this guy’s nuance and brilliance is a snow job.
We need to sell health insurance lke car insurance. No community rating, bad habits pay higher premiums, like speeding tickets.
You buy the policy when you are young, premiums are low and don’t rise. Wait till you’re 50, they’re higher; everyone is insurable, at a measurable premium.
One way you can buy free lifetime medical insurance is through military service. Either 20 years service or a war confers benefits. Screw them if they think one didn’t pay for them.
Also we need to stop state legislatures from mandating coverages, like aromatherapy, acupuncture and liposuction. Get businesses and government entities out of providing group insurance. That takes care of the portability problem; FDR blew this call.
Stopping the states from shorting the Medicaid payments, which then are tossed onto the personal premiums goes far toward making health care affordable.
Of course none of this is “fair” to the indolent class. Let them die!