If everybody in this fair land got health care, which would be run on the excellent model that the Veterans Administration uses, that could be the stimulus package the country needs right now. People wouldn’t have to pay for premiums and small business and large wouldn’t. That is cash in the pocket and that goes into the economy and investment for growth. Congress, teachers, state employees, unions, veterans, people over 65 all get some kind of insurance most of them paid for with tax dollars.
Preventive medicine saves money for the country. The poor use the ER for their primary care. Taxpayers pick up the tab. These same people tend to consider something “free” as having no value. They never consider preventive measures for whatever reasons, but that is not for us to speculate here.
My friend Dr. Malvesta (mal means sick in French) says it won’t work. But I would offer this explanation from the group, Physicians for a National Health Program:
“The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.
This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans."
"Policies that work means that everyone must be included, and that risk must be distributed in an equitable manner, based on ability to pay," says a group member. Or as Karl Marx might have it, “From each according to their ability, to each according to his need.” Yes, it’s redistribution of wealth (like all taxes) and yes, using the term Marxism isn’t that popular with anybody. Get Over It! It’s just a tag on an economic theory which in the proper environment works. And is working right here in the good ol’ US of A. If you make more money in this country, then you get noodged into a higher tax bracket. While you may not like it, you accept it. Your higher taxes go to helping crack babies get a better shot at life, educating any and everyone, and bailing out fat cats who have been scamming the system since they got their MBAs. It’s just the way it works.
To quote one of my favorite philosophers, “Let me make myself crystal clear” (that would be Nixon, Henney): We invest speculative dollars in a proven system to save big time on government handouts. We also improve the quality of health in the nation which means we spend less on life’s losers. Also too, and this is the point right now, people on national health care and businesses of all sizes will have more resources for the things they need. And businesses in particular can be more competitive on a world scale because they won’t have the onerous “benefit packages” that include in large part health bennies.
Postscriptum: Even if the (formerly Big) Three get the $25 B, they have already stated that it will not be for investment in 100 mpg vehicles. It will go for “on-going costs.” This is chump change to them. Last quarter, GM alone lost $39 B. You’d think that would be a record. Nope. The record belongs to AOL Time Warner back in 2002, $45 B. They didn’t get a bailout and now they are trading at about eight bucks a share. GM is at $2.88 Time to buy, I’d say.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
But reading about your plan makes me sick?
ReplyDeleteA huge cost for the auto industry is health insurance. A single payer system would solve that problem.
ReplyDeleteCongress should pass higher CAFE standards, ASAP.
The CEO's of the Big 3 should all be fired, and all private jets and planes sold, or at least put in storage for now.
It seems as if some part of those big plants could be retrofitted to produce wind turbines and solar panels.
If they can't come up with sensible, futuristic business plans, fire the lot of 'em and send in someone who can.
There would be a complete collapse of an already fragile healthcare industry who are not prepared to deal with an onslaught of multi millions of new patients - medical professionals (is that about a fifteen year learning curve to be qualified and not enough in the queu and costs oodles), equipment and technology (can be about the same development time as professionals and costs oodles), administrative support equipment & supplies, and all related symbiotic business would crash. Physicians would be straddling their GE MRI equipment and dreaming of a turbo charged ride to D.C. On the other hand, commercial real estate demand would surge but the prices would be driven down further with the inability to pay boutique pricing. This would take away money from the businesses you thought would save and then have money for other uses. And can you imagine the zoning wars towns across America would face? btw - when we see the pharmaceutical industry on valium before Congress and asking for a bailout I'm outta here.
ReplyDelete"Let me make myself crystal clear" and a toast to your friend Dr. Malvesta - it clearly won't work.
ReplyDeleteA key plank in Theodore Roosevelt's losing Presidential campaign of 1912 was national health insurance.
ReplyDeleteHarry Truman tried and met powerful opposition-
On November 19, 1945, only 7 months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman gave a speech to the United States Congress proposing a new national health care program.
The American Medical Association (AMA) launched a spirited attack against the bill, capitalizing on fears of Communism in the public mind. The AMA characterized the bill as "socalized medicine", and in a forerunner to the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, called Truman White House staffers "followers of the Moscow party line".
The labor movement initially lined up behind Truman in support of his plan for a federally-run health insurance system
Labor's approach changed after the 1946 elections led to Republican majorities in both houses. . .Without significant movement on Truman's health insurance plan, labor increasingly began to pursue an alternative strategy of negotiating with employers for the private provision of health insurance. Collective bargaining efforts fragmented labor's support for national health insurance.Once it succeeded in obtaining benefits for a significant portion of its members, national health insurance was no longer of interest to the unions
Richard Nixon(??!!) tried, but his plan was undone by tragi-comic events of the time-
Nixon's Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) consisted of an employer-mandate and a separate program designed to help the working poor and unemployed. . .In February of 1971, President Nixon declared HMOs to be innovations for health care that would be part of "a new national health care strategy." . . .Senator (Ted) Kennedy, after becoming chairman of the Senate Health Subcommittee in 1971, introduced the Health Security bill. . . His plan, however, was delayed that summer when Senator Kenneday's car ran off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. . .Wilbur Mills, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. . .declared that he and Kennedy would develop a national health care plan together. . .It was discovered that Mills had accepted $100,000 in illegal campaign funds from Electronic Data Systems, a major health insurance claims processor. Mills jumped back into the health care scene in 1974, when he and Kennedy finally formulated a national health care plan in response to Nixon's Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan. . .
Jimmy Carter (sorta) tried-
Jimmy Carter worked to enact healthcare reform during his presidency in the late 1970s and early 1980s. . .Carter took office during an economically strenuous time; Carter faced the phenomenon of stagflation. The inflation and fiscal crisis greatly affected planning. . .The Secretary of HEW, Joseph Califano was placed in charge of policy formation.. . .To curb the high cost of health care expensives, which were expanding at fifteen times the national inflation rate, Califano instituted price controls, limiting annual rate increases to one and a half times the price index, with a nine percent cap. . . .Hospital lobby groups called Califano's plan a "most serious challenge."
The AHA, representing non-profit hospitals, mobilized and the for-profit hospitals soon followed. The for-profit hospitals were huge beneficiaries of health care inflation. Profits for these companies had shot up as high as 52.3 percent in one year. A political action committee was formed, $1 million set aside for advertising, and members of Congress received large donations from the Federation of American Hospitals. Over 23,000 letters were mailed out to join the campaign against Carter's administration before he imposed "inflexible and bureaucratic federal controls" . . .Ted Kennedy came forth with his Health Care For All Americans Act, which would guarantee universal coverage. Carter fired back with his own plan, named HealthCare. This plan, however, did not guarantee univeral coverage and preserved a large role for private insurance firms. Carter and Kennedy negotiated behind the scenes and finally managed to form a compromise bill that was close to Kennedy's plan with a larger part for the private sector. The bill, though, died soon after. Carter fired five cabinet members, including Califano; in addition, the public's interest was arrested by the developing crisis in Iran
And the less said about Harry and Loiuse the better-
The Clinton Administration's health-care initiative of 1993 collapsed a year later, after conservatives, physicians (the AMA), and insurance companies mounted a well-orchestrated attack.
What will history write about Obama's effort to overcome the self-interested power of inertia?
Bad links from above comment fixed:
ReplyDeleteTheodore Rosenfeld
Jimmy Carteretsky
Bill Clitman
Ooh! Ooh! And I also left out the best part of the failure of health care reform during the Nixxon abomination- the raving-mad antics of Wilbur Mills; to wit:
ReplyDeleteThe Kennedy-Mills plan called for a single national health insurance program that featured a basic benefit package with high co-payments and deductibles. The AMA denounced it as "socialist" and the AFL-CIO claimed the plan hurt the lower and middle classes with such high co-payments and deductibles.
Mills kept the plan alive, until he was pulled over for speeding on October 7, 1974. Mills staggered out drunk, and his passenger, a stripper who went by the name Fannie Fox, followed suit. When Mills appeared drunk at Fannie Fox's show at a Boston strip club soon after, he was removed as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, effectively ending his push for the Kennedy-Mills plan.
Anyone else think the AMA is a buncha wankers? Congratulations for turning their once-esteemed profession into a group of quintuplicate-form-filling mendicants- begging for scraps from greedy insurance bureaucrats. Way to do no harm assholes!
And thanks for taking us all down with you.
'Toid,
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the best part. Mills piles out of the car as does his escort, the Argentine stripper Annabelle Something aka Fannie Fox and she decides to avoid the cops by jumping into the tidal basin which is by the mall. She earns a free stay in St. Elizabeths, a DC booby hatch. Mills retired in disgrace even though most people thought it was a hoot.
Also too, they had a driver so no DUI charge.
Ha Ha Ha!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you people don't want to Vote!
ReplyDeleteThe outcome is foreordained, your royal Porkulence. Only God's vote matters. We can merely grovel humbly in the blazing light of your impotence.
ReplyDeleteFinally, here is irrefutable proof that God does exist, and is just.
ReplyDelete