David Catron writes about it in The American Spectator.
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As a family physician and registered democrat, I am frustrated by Obama and Clinton just focusing on universal coverage. I actually find McCain’s ideas intriguing.
However, where have the Republicans been on this topic during the Bush Administration? What have they given us? Dr. Bill Frist, with his hand in the Humana cookie jar? Medicare advantage, a subsidized program that actually increases Medicare costs by 12 percent, although none of that money goes to physicians or hospitals? The Medicare prescription drug plan? Please, not only is this expensive but it is turning out to be a nightmare for primary care with all this formulary nonsense.
And please stop talking about the free market and healthcare. Healthcare does not obey free market dynamics, with the exception of cosmetic procedures. It just does not. It is not something use choose to get, but something you need.
This idea that if health insurance companies compete, costs will go down is a lie. How come we don’t see it now? Because th ehealth insurance industry is an old fashioned oligopoly with a very big pie and enough pieces to go around. Perhaps the government could encourage competition but not allowing every merger under the sun. The Bush Administration has never seen a merger that they do not like.
Let’s face it, Americans like government funded health care, because they think it is free, which of course it is not. If given the choice to buy insurance, many will simply choose not to. If they are healthy, that is fine, but when one of them gets sick, ie cancer, broken bones, appendicitis, new onset diabetes, etc, they will be showing up at er’s or primary care offices without insurance and we will, legally and ethically, be compelled to provide care for them.
In conclusion, single payer, although also fraught with flaws, is the way to go.
Americans should never be forced to buy insurance. We are the greatest country in the world because we are a country where people are free to take risks to try to better themselves. Some want the cozy socialism of civil service or corporate employment but we are free to freelance or start our own business–and for most that means not being able to afford insurance for a while–to take a risk.
Any reform that forces people to buy insurance is absolutely an assault not just on healthcare Liberty but a broader assault on Liberty because it will chain people more than ever to their corporate cubicals.
Rather we need to give the self-employed and others who chose to buy their own insurance the same tax break that those covered by employers have.
Bush did in fact propose this 2 years ago, but the Democrats in control in Congress refused to even give it a committee hearing, showing that they are only for reducing the number of uninsured if it means making them dependent on the government or employers for that blessing. They seem downright offended at getting out of the way and letting people help themselves.
We need adjustments that make us less, not more, chained to unsuitable jobs–that give us more freedom to develope our own full potential in the economy, to exercise our personal autonomy in pursuit of self-actualization.
That means decoupling insurance from employment.
Employer purchased insurance must naturally occur in a small market too small to be a free market. Too few purchasers, buying products for too many enrollees that must therefore be the lowest common denomenator product–choices between Walmart, Target, and Sears.
Sure a world were some people chose to not buy insurance means docs can’t collect sometimes. But you don’t always collect from the insurers either, and not getting paid 100% of the time has been a known liability of this profession for as long as it has existed.
Any reform predicated on “univesal coverage” is doomed to fail, as that is not achievable here. 1/3 or more of the uninsured are illegal aliens, and a few million more are in the underground economy already–fugitives with outstanding warrants, people hiding from murderous ex-spouses and pimps, and the plain paranoid or pathologically individualistic.
I am not aware that Bush proposed what you say he did 2 years ago, but I’ll take your word for it. However, he had 4 years to propose such legislation under a Republican-led congress. How come he did not do it then? I think it is because Republicans have more to gain from the status quo than Democrats. Remember Bill Frist, owner of Humana?
Think what you want, he proposed it and the Democrat controlled congress refused to allow it a committee hearing.
This shows why democracy isn’t working. People hear what they want to hear, “know” what fits their prejudices regardless of the facts, and then when confronted with facts contrary to their prejudices, discount them rather than broaden their perspective.
I don’t know what you’re talking about; you must be smarter than me
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