chet wrote:alex maiolo wrote:
So I don't buy the argument that since Paul is a doctor, he knows what he's talking about here.
Youre right; I shouldnt have included that. I wasnt making the claim that just because hes a doctor, he knows whats up. It matters a little bit, but ultimately not that much that hes a doctor. It doesnt really make a difference. I just wanted to quote the whole beginning part of his statement.
Is he lying though? Wasnt health care much cheaper/more people had it before the time of government intervention?
The wikipedia article on Universal Health Care is interesting. They make some strong claims in the form of universal care, I will admit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I think I made some strong points in the Sicko thread myself, and I don't have the time to rehash them here.
Your question is a good one, and unfortunately it's far, far too complex to prove with "it used to be x way until the HMOs came along."
First, all HMOs are not bad, just badly run HMOs.
There are many reasons healthcare costs have gone up, and many of them are for progressive reasons.
The progressive states, like NY and VT have what's called Community Rating. That means, basically, that all people in an area pay the same thing for health insurance. Sounds good right? Well, that means young people pay the same thing as old and sick people. That makes it expensive to get insurance if you are 20, so many people go uninsured because of it.
More Libertarian states give insurers the right to strike sick people from the rosters, through varous means, or up-rate them so much that they have to drop off. That means, you guessed it, many people end up uninsured.
So which do you prefer:
Screw the young and poor
Screw the sick
-because those are your choices. My state, NC, has something sort of in the middle, and it's no better because we screw both groups a little, instead of one of them a lot.
That is an extremely basic explanation of one small detail of why individual state's rules make this a mess. It's hard to articulate without putting people to sleep, and it's about 5% of what you need to know to really have an informed opinion, as I see it.
Before we go down that road, I'll tell you that making all state's rules the same, or allowing for Association Plans will only make it worse.
Another progressive move that hurt us:
The HIPAA act of 1996. It said that people could move from plan to plan without pre-exisiting condition exclusions, as long as they don't lapse for 62 days. Nice right? Well, in the old days, if you changed jobs, the heart attack you had last year excluded you from getting cardio treatment on your new plan to due pre-ex. Now they have to take you as you are. Since that expense is now not able to be dropped (the sick an't be purged), costs go up. Curse Clinton all you want, but this was a cool thing to do. However, it costs us money.
Also, HIPAA added layers of privacy. That means filing, record keeping and clerical work goes up. That costs money.
You've noticed that drug companies were deregulated, so now they can convince you that you need Nasonex, Paxil, or that you have Restless Leg Syndrome.
People "ask their doctor" as instructed, and they usually get a prescription. Health Insurance plans give you the drug for $10-20 usually, even though their cost is many times that. To cover that cost, health insurance premiums need to rise.
Getting the idea?
Not such a simple thing, right?
What would solve it is to regulate it. People would have to give up some privacy, perhaps, but as we saw in the SARS scare in Toronto, a national database nipped that potential disater in the bud.
I have no doubt that the HMOs that were bad apples screwed up the system a little bit, but that was only one of many things. What I detailed above were the big ones.
Jsut because the government made HMOs possible doesn't mean we have government sponsored healthcare. Yes, the meddled, but they didn't fix anything, they just made a type of health insurance possible, just as they have with HSAs recently.
I'll say it again:
We trust the government with our national defense and highway systems because only it can do that kind of heavy lifting.
The national health is at least as important as those things.
Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Australia, France, etc. may have some fine tuning to do, but their systems work pretty damn well, and their citizens cherish it.
I doubt many people have made it this far without falling asleep. That proves my point though - this is ridiculously complicated and can not be solved because people don't even know where to start. That includes politicians. I've yet to meet one that truly understands the problem, and I've met many.
-A