Floyd Norris: “If the Democrats win the election this year, and are able to enact a health care plan that extends adequate coverage to all Americans, the loser could be the Army. Getting enough people to enlist could become a major problem for the next president . . .
. . . Government polls show that the proportion of young people who think they might enlist is roughly half what it was in the late 1980s. The military has responded with more recruiters and higher cash enlistment bonuses, and has met its goals. A significant factor for many recruits, it turns out, is the military’s generous health benefits for dependants.”
(via WSJ Health Blog)
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The RVU/RUC is built around a system of WIN-LOSE. For every financial winner there is a financial loser. It should come as no surprise that the ACS is strongly against the budget neutral changes. It is not possible to get WIN-WIN in the RVU/RUC/SGR/ known as Medicare Part B. The system has created exactly what it was set up for. Competition, not cooperation.
Wait a minute: we should be afraid of a “health care plan that extends adequate coverage to all Americans” because “a significant factor for many recruits, it turns out, is the Military’s generous health benefits for dependents”? That seems like a bit of a stretch as an argument against better access to health care. Is that like the generous education benefit that the govt is trying to take away from veterans right now? And how generous can the benefit be when the govt employs people to find ways to turn down veterans’ claims? How does this mesh with the ridiculous criticisms coming from some circles that military personnel who are injured shouldn’t complain because they should have known what they were getting into and just signed up because they wanted all the fabulous benefits. Whew, sorry to rant, but this one really set me off.
Generous military health care benefits as a motivator to enlist? That is laughable on its face. Active duty get whatever services the active duty medical corps and commands provide; sometimes it is good and other times . . . not so much.
Retirees and active-duty dependents get Tricare. Tricare is not exactly a high end form of coverage; more often it is comparable to Medicaid maanged care contract coverage.
Perhaps the writers were confusing the health benefits with the fine military base housing that are surely pulling enlistees in the door.
People should have the right to not buy health insurance if they don’t want to. For America to remain the land of opportunity, people need to have the freedom to take risk of their own choosing for a better future. A great many businesses that become great divers of the economy were started by someone on a shoestring who went without many of the “necessities” including health insurance in the start-up years in order to afford their dream.
If universal coverage is obtained by providing it by shifting wealth from the more productive to the less productive instead of requiring it’s purchase, than one has removed the incentive for all sorts of prosocial productive activity including but not limited to the military.
Do we want to become like the socialist countries with legions of lay-abouts on our streets? If you want health insurance, get off your butt and earn enough money to buy it.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been to Canada several times and you could barely walk because of the “legions of lay-abouts” on their streets. And in all honesty how can we justify taking more in taxes from the those “more productive” AIG/Lehmans/Enron/Woldcom etc executives and use it to pay for health benefits for “less productive” middle class families.
The bottom line is: if you are middle class you just need to be “more productive” if you want to have affordable health care. Every time I hear about someone who couldn’t afford a surgery or had problems getting health care I just smile and think of what a great opportunity it is to educate and motivate to be “more productive”.
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