Would you pay extra taxes to help put a good health care system into place?
1 year ago
13 Comments
you are paying for someone's trip to the ER anyway...
Tags: business, government, health care, home, tax
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This topic was started by tereck on January 15th, 2007. 38 grupies have voted on one or more of the 4 answers.
Tags: business, government, health care, home, tax
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The answer to our health care crisis is not higher taxes to pay for Universal Health Care. We do not have an insurance crisis in America. We have a supply side economic problem created by government over regulation.
How does mandatory police power of government type insurance programs increase the numbers of health care providers?
How would the plans of someone like Obama or Hillary, who are using the fear of bankruptcy due to a catastrophic illness or injury to buy votes, increase the number of providers, arm them with the latest and greatest in medical technology and allow them to work in an environment free of the fear of frivilous and excessive lawsuits? The answer is simple. It wouldn't.
We need to increase the number of health care providers in all specialties and in all levels. We can do this by removing the monopolies on training health care providers. Becoming a doctor or nurse practitioner is too difficult because of the expensive tuitions and the subjective and discriminatory selection practices. Why not allow apprentice programs that would lead to decreasing in tuitions and minimize selection processes that focus on the "whole" person which is codespeak for nepotism or government setasides.
The FDA is a corrupt and bloated bureacracy that has long abandoned the original intent of safeguarding the American public from modern "snake oil salesmen". The excessive fees and trial periods result in immeasurable costs in human suffering and lives. America doubles the amount of Nobel Peace Prizes in Medicine than the whole world combined and many of those products and procedures will never see the light of day because of the FDA.
We need immediate tort reform. How can anyone rationalize the severity of a punishment for an unintentional harm being greater than intentional harm based solely on the perceived social status of the accused? The outlandish jury awards are disproportionately based on the emotions of ignorant and class envious jurors instead of science and evidence based medicine. The fear of being the defendent in one of these discriminatory cases results in the practice of defensive medicine which is the ordering of unnecessary tests and delays during crucial decision making processes. This is detrimental to the patient in physical, mental and financial ways. Current tort laws also drive out practitioners in crucial specialties or dissuade some of our greatest minds from even entering into medical fields in the first place.
more to come later.
@ teej: I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I firmly believe there are some things in this world that are not appropriately "managed" in a free market. Utilities spring readily to mind; deregulation has been a fiasco. I think that healthcare is very similar; as long as greed is a factor, people will be cheated out of affordable quality healthcare. You seem to agree with me that greed is indeed one of the major reasons for costly medical care (FDA, lawyers, med schools--I would add insurance companies and healthcare professionals to the list), but we part ways in the extremity of measures to be taken to fix it.
personally, I don't mind the "greed" simply because it is that "greed" that produces the drugs in the first place, how much money does it take to make a single drug, how many drugs get rejected and waste all the money that go into researching and developing, yes they make a nice profit (greedy bastards how dare they make any money off a business venture) but really, have you seen Canada, they come here for the best care and can't produce drugs themselves
The "best" care must not exist in my neck of the woods. I've had some really doofuses (doofi?) for doctors in the past few years. That's when I can actually get in to see one and they take time to listen. Got treated like a hypochondriac for nearly seven years before a really sharp doc saw fit to refer me to a specialist. Turns out I have Crohn's Disease, and it was getting so severe that it was dangerous. The "unnecessary" tests you talk about? They should have tried them on me a half decade before they actually did.
I'm sorry about the delay in your diagnosis of Crohn's Disease. Higher taxes and more regulations is not going to solve those types of problems. In a true free market system you would have been able to go find another doctor who would be competing for your business. You don't seem to understand the constraints that doctors have to work under. Government regulations determine how and what they diagnose if they want to be reimbursed. The selection process now is determined by the government. The caps in place to "prevent a glut of doctors" is one of the reasons the quality of health care is marginal in some areas.
I do not consider your tests to diagnose crohn's disease as unnecessary. I'm talking about tests that are added if the mechanism of injury is likely to go to litigation.
I have been searching for a cure for my autistic son for over 15 years. My wife finally became a nurse practitioner because we could not get even basic care for him. Doctors are too unfamiliar and too afraid of litigation. So my innocent son who is now afflicted with terrible condition secondary to a reaction to his government mandated childhood immunization has to receive his primary care through neurologists at our suggestions. The pharmaceutical company made the vaccines within the constraints of the FDA. The FDA and the CDC both knew the risks but weighed the good of the many against the good of the few.
If we allowed more people to become doctors based on aptitude and desire versus nepotism and government set aside programs the quality of health care would improve exponentially. The FDA needs to stop working on a kickback for their pension plan system. Licensing and accrediting agencies should be voluntary based on business decisions instead of this Mafioso system "if you dont' do business with us, you don't do business at all".
Doctors get a bad rap for being greedy but that is usually from people who aren't aware of or don't understand the overhead costs involved in practicing medicine.
As far as utilities go, and I remember the monopoly instituted by Ma Bell, they were able to set their prices because of protectionism laws prevented any competition from entering the market. Now that we have choices, the price and service go in favor of the consumer. That would happen in the medical fields also if the free market were allowed to work. A monopoly is not a free market either.
Did you know there are laws that make the cost of medications in the United States higher simply because polititicians feel that "we" can pay more? Did you know that some of the best inventions in the medical world cannot be used in the United States because would interfere with government entitlement programs?
I dare you to name one business that has to work in a competitive market that can survive without adjusting prices and services. I can find hundreds of government programs that fail and have failed generationally because the government can just confisticate our money to dump down their rat holes because they benefit from the votes.
Let's all discuss this rationally and allow me to try and answer your questions and concerns. I know some are skeptical of a free market system in health care because we've all been under the wrong assumption that we were always under a free market system when we've been under a underlying socialized system.
Teej:
Still going to have to disagree with you. Allow me to make a few comments that are scattered:
First, I understand the cost of practicing medicine. My dad was an MD, and a good one at that. But he always lived in fear of frivolous lawsuits. He was lucky never to be involved in one. My sister is a doc, and she's a lazy, greedy person who did medicine for the money. Not the person I'd want looking at my samples (she's a path); at least if she autopsied me, I'd already be dead. Sorry, sis, hope you never join Grupthink and read this, 'cause I sure love you.
The utilities: Did you not have rolling brownouts where you lived in the first two years after deregulation? What's the point in a lower price if I can't even get reliable service? Also, the utilities in my area (southwest) are off the charts; price gouging is rampant down here.
The medication stuff, I am definitely aware of. Pharmaceutical companies are ridiculous. They pull some seriously nasty stuff and they are the greediest of the greedy.
As for health care, I live in an impoverished area of the US. In many ways, it is like a third world country. As an educator, I have seen the toll that lack of quality (or any) healthcare can have on kids and families. Missed school, lowered cognitive function, inability to hold down jobs, etc. The one thing that keeps these folks afloat is the socialized medicine that they do get (Native Americans have free healthcare as part of their treaty with the feds).
Hey good to see some thinking going on here guys. I like it when i learn stuff here..
Apechick,
We have a lot in common. We were going to move to either Arizona or New Mexico because they allow Nurse Practitioners to have the same rights and priviliges as Doctors and I'm getting out of medicine to do the troops to teacher program.
A lot of Special Forces medics used to go train in Gallup, NM. My junior medic, who is now a doctor in PA, was there when the Hunta Virus broke out.
I'm sure you're being just a bit hard on your sister. I bet part of her reasoning to get into medicine was to make Dad happy. :)
I hate how the American Indian has been subjegated to a life on the reservation and how that has taken away their identity but that's another discussion.
I'm saying that there were probably lots of people your dad would have loved to have helped but couldn't because of the current restrictions. There are many good people who get into medicine that cannot perform in the altruistic manner in which they anticipated they would be.
Anyone who has a problem with big pharmaceutical companies should be blaming the federal government. Only a big company can afford all the lawyers and non refundable application fees as well as absorb the costs for the 7 - 10 years of trials just in case the FDA decides to allow your product on the market. Overregulation keeps the small businesses from expanding.
Our problem with our energy system is that we haven't been allowed to upgrade since the 70s. Clinton made it worse by signing by executive order that if any company upgraded their power plant, that they had to upgrade the entire system at one time. The original system can remain the same by what they call a "grandfather" clause. If those types of laws applied to homeowners for example, you could never remodel or improve your house because you'd have to start at the foundation begin everytime.
I would like to see the annhilation of the laws that prohibit the provision of free medicine in America. I work in S. America and I can't tell you how many times I see doctors and church groups coming down south to help poor people. They would be just as happy to go and do the same work in inner cities, the appalachins and the Indian Reservations. I have a couple of real close friends who through the government agencies travel to reservations all over the country to help and conduct studies to produce a vaccine for alcoholism that is caused by an enzyme deficiency that is prevelant in Native Americans. All providers are not greedy and in a free market those people would be put out of business.
take care and thanks for talking,
teej
I assume the reference to "apechick" was an unintended faux pax, and not some kind of freudian slip.
It was merely addressing a user name on this site. I have no idea why she chose it. I used to converse online with a girl who called her self First Monkey Girl on a poetry site. Her picture didn't match the name at all so I never fully understood she chose it besides a short explanation that it was an oxymoron for her feelings concerning evolution. To make a long story short, who knows why the apegirl title. I was just specifically addressing comments she made. There was no malicious intent or freudian slip on my part at all.
@teej: Just making a little joke at your misreading of apchick... quit digging and see http://www.grupthink.com/profile/apchick
It seems to me that the argument (used by most in favor of "free", or "universal" health care) is for tax dollars to pay for universal insurance coverage. That isn't necessarily an argument for a "good health care system".
Universal coverage with no or minimal copayments would certainly drive up demand for "units" of health care, e.g., office visits, tests, scans, Rx, optional surgeries, etc. Assuming the process is heavily regulated by the government, there is good evidence (medicare, other countries' systems) that prices will be controlled to the effect of reducing supply. When demand significantly outpaces supply, and the marketplace is unable/unwilling to increase supply, there will be problems: longer waiting lists, triage processes (e.g., you're too old, you have less priority), and strong potential for general reduction in both availability & quality of services.
I would prefer a detailed analysis of cost drivers in the health care system before a decision is made to invoke a particular solution. I suspect there is something analogous to the 80/20 rule at work, and it may be possible to derive solutions to address the 20% of drivers causing 80% of the costs -- and that don't create another huge entitlement program.
Note that the median age of the population continues to grow older, and as we have fewer workers (i.e., our children) to support these entitlements, the tax burden will become overwhelming in years ahead.
I see what you mean by apchick vs Apechick. sorry.
You're absolutely correct about an universal insurance program driving up the demand because it would cause less prioritization by patients and therefore more prioritization by the governing body. This will lead to cost containment by limiting services. I want to get it through people's heads that if a politician truly believes there is an "underserved" population then there logically has to be a belief that there is an "overserved" population. Who truly wants those who politicize disease processes and conditions in order to gain and maintain power to decide what group they may eventually fall into?
The bottom line is that insurance and digitalized records will have no bearing on health care improvement. It will in the short run create some very powerful entities from whoever receives the contract to provide the insurance and digitalize and maintain our private health records.
As for costs that must be passed on to the consumer we must look at the nonrefundable application fee to the FDA, tuition and cost of living to become a physician, nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, RN, etc, malpractice insurance, accreditation and association fees as well as the costs of running both a small and large business. These are only some of the costs, you are probably aware of this with the MDAdams screen name. I would like to see a documentary depicting the path to becoming a health care provider with all the hoops and obstacles highlighted so that all of the class envious people can begin to emphathize with the hard work of gaining and maintaining the credentials necessary to practice medicine. Concurrently there should be segments outlining the processes for bringing new medical technology from development to marketing. We're talking about application of knowledge that is how we used to say when I was in the Army, harder than woodpecker lips, that helps to improve people's lives around the world. When we get to election time though the politicians all cater to the "hardworking" as lower income menial laborers. Not that I'm being being condescending. I come from that background. My father and grandfathers worked under conditions that were indeed difficult and in all kinds of weather and light conditions. People work hard all sorts of ways and those who endure the prepatory classwork and the 90 hour work weeks consisting of shiftwork should get some credit also.