Friday, July 24, 2009
A Brief History of Healthcare in the U.S. - How we got here
For more information, visit our website. If you need health insurance in South Carolina, Georgia, or other states in the Southeast, we'll be happy to help you find the right plan for your needs.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
I thought we were trying to control the cost of health CARE....
A few notable points about Mr. Obama's primetime news conference Wednesday night:
The Politico (7/23, Frates) reports, "If you haven't been paying attention, you might have missed it. But with the substitution of one word...Obama was able to redirect his healthcare message from uninsured Americans to those who already have insurance." He "talked about 'health insurance reform' a noticeable shift from the 'healthcare reform' he had been talking up until late last week." The new term "has distinctive political advantages. Insurance reform, insiders say, likely polls better than a more general reform message because it targets something voters know, understand and don't particularly like. And, it has the added bonus of setting up the insurance industry as a political punching bag."
Hmm ... I thought we were trying to control the cost and availability of health care, not the price of the insurance that helps pay for it. That's sorta' like trying to reduce the cost of the gas in your car by reducing the price you pay for car insurance. Since "insurance" is designed to help pay for the medical care, wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the cost of the care itself? The fact is, most people, including those without private health insurance, still have access to health care at various city & county health clinics, hospital emergency rooms, and so forth. It's the rising cost of care that's the issue, not the cost of the insurance to pay for it...
Continuing, doubt was cast on some Obama assertions: In a "fact check" piece, the AP (7/23, Woodward, Kuhnhenn) reports that the President's "assertion Wednesday that government will stay out of healthcare decisions in an overhauled system is hard to square with the proposals coming out of Congress and with his own rhetoric." During his news conference, Obama said, "We already have rough agreement" on some aspects of reform, including keeping "government out of healthcare decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it." But, legislation in the House would create "a commission appointed by the government" that "would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government." Obama then "went on to lay out other principles of reform that plainly show the government making key decisions in healthcare." Obama also said, "I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it." White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, however, "told reporters this week that the promise does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients."
The Politico (7/23, Frates) reports, "If you haven't been paying attention, you might have missed it. But with the substitution of one word...Obama was able to redirect his healthcare message from uninsured Americans to those who already have insurance." He "talked about 'health insurance reform' a noticeable shift from the 'healthcare reform' he had been talking up until late last week." The new term "has distinctive political advantages. Insurance reform, insiders say, likely polls better than a more general reform message because it targets something voters know, understand and don't particularly like. And, it has the added bonus of setting up the insurance industry as a political punching bag."
Hmm ... I thought we were trying to control the cost and availability of health care, not the price of the insurance that helps pay for it. That's sorta' like trying to reduce the cost of the gas in your car by reducing the price you pay for car insurance. Since "insurance" is designed to help pay for the medical care, wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the cost of the care itself? The fact is, most people, including those without private health insurance, still have access to health care at various city & county health clinics, hospital emergency rooms, and so forth. It's the rising cost of care that's the issue, not the cost of the insurance to pay for it...
Continuing, doubt was cast on some Obama assertions: In a "fact check" piece, the AP (7/23, Woodward, Kuhnhenn) reports that the President's "assertion Wednesday that government will stay out of healthcare decisions in an overhauled system is hard to square with the proposals coming out of Congress and with his own rhetoric." During his news conference, Obama said, "We already have rough agreement" on some aspects of reform, including keeping "government out of healthcare decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it." But, legislation in the House would create "a commission appointed by the government" that "would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government." Obama then "went on to lay out other principles of reform that plainly show the government making key decisions in healthcare." Obama also said, "I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it." White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, however, "told reporters this week that the promise does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients."
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Baffling flow chart .... but it will save us money!
When I first saw this I thought it was a joke. Since then, though, I've seen references to it from some well-regarded sources (several Congressmen, the president of an insurance company, the Drudge Report, etc.). I found this press release from Congressman Kevin Brady: "Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX), the lead House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee, today unveiled a detailed flow chart of the complex health care reform proposal by Democratic congressional leaders.
The chart identifies at least 31 new federal programs, agencies, commissions and mandates that accompany the unprecedented government takeover of health care in America.
“Why should any patient be forced to give control of their health care over to this Faustian pit of Washington bureaucracy?” asked Brady.
“This government takeover has only one guaranteed result: to tell Americans what doctors you can see, what treatments you deserve and what medicines you can have.”
The attached chart depicts how the health care system would be organized at the national level if the Democrats’ plan became law. These new levels of bureaucracy, agencies, organization and programs will all be put directly between the patient and their health care."
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Pizza parlors and health care....
So says Michael Roz3ff in an article posted on Lew Rockwell:
More and more, I have come to believe that state regulation of anything not only destroys liberty but also is essentially irrational for those on the receiving end, which is frequently most of us and very often many of us. Somebody always stands to gain, but the costs they impose on others are much larger.
Would it be rational to have a state control the production and distribution of pizza or shoes or computers or pets or movies or music by the use of compulsion and regulation? Would we observe pizza stores located where they now are located, open at the hours they are open, providing the variety they provide, at the prices they now charge? Would our pizza desires be satisfied via government-mandated pizzas? If our desires for pizza waned and were replaced by desires for submarine sandwiches, would the state respond quickly and effectively? Evidently not, for the state is not a business. It does not respond to the profit incentive.
Health care, like it or not, is a business. It takes resources to produce it. It takes toil and sacrifice. A doctor is not doctoring us out of the goodness of his heart and generosity, even if he does possess the milk of human kindness. He is responding to an economic problem wherein he, as much as the pizza baker, has to use limited resources to achieve his ends. No better system – no more rational system – has ever been found for producing health care than a system of liberty in which the choices are left up to the patients who are the buyers and the doctors (or other health care providers) who are the sellers. Profit signals are good. State-controlled health care lacks these. It is far inferior. Bureaucrats and legislators are not doctors and not profit-oriented. If they respond at all to what people want, it is in the most obtuse, roundabout, and counterproductive ways. They seek to augment their own positions or those who pay them off. They produce nothing. Once power and force are used to reach ends, resources are wasted jockeying for a slice of the regulated and/or taxed pie.
Our society and our system are committed to government-by-force – to compulsion. Our society and our system not only allow fascism but want it. If we want irrationality, we shall have it. And we are getting it.
More and more, I have come to believe that state regulation of anything not only destroys liberty but also is essentially irrational for those on the receiving end, which is frequently most of us and very often many of us. Somebody always stands to gain, but the costs they impose on others are much larger.
Would it be rational to have a state control the production and distribution of pizza or shoes or computers or pets or movies or music by the use of compulsion and regulation? Would we observe pizza stores located where they now are located, open at the hours they are open, providing the variety they provide, at the prices they now charge? Would our pizza desires be satisfied via government-mandated pizzas? If our desires for pizza waned and were replaced by desires for submarine sandwiches, would the state respond quickly and effectively? Evidently not, for the state is not a business. It does not respond to the profit incentive.
Health care, like it or not, is a business. It takes resources to produce it. It takes toil and sacrifice. A doctor is not doctoring us out of the goodness of his heart and generosity, even if he does possess the milk of human kindness. He is responding to an economic problem wherein he, as much as the pizza baker, has to use limited resources to achieve his ends. No better system – no more rational system – has ever been found for producing health care than a system of liberty in which the choices are left up to the patients who are the buyers and the doctors (or other health care providers) who are the sellers. Profit signals are good. State-controlled health care lacks these. It is far inferior. Bureaucrats and legislators are not doctors and not profit-oriented. If they respond at all to what people want, it is in the most obtuse, roundabout, and counterproductive ways. They seek to augment their own positions or those who pay them off. They produce nothing. Once power and force are used to reach ends, resources are wasted jockeying for a slice of the regulated and/or taxed pie.
Our society and our system are committed to government-by-force – to compulsion. Our society and our system not only allow fascism but want it. If we want irrationality, we shall have it. And we are getting it.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Looking for "car repair" or "automobile care?"
People who seek the services of auto mechanics want car repair, not "auto care." Similarly, most people who seek the services of medical doctors want body repair, not "health care."
We own our cars, are responsible for the cost of maintaining them, and decide what needs fixing based partly on balancing the seriousness of the problem against the expense of repairing it. Our health-care system rests on the principle that, although we own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly noble purpose of redistributing the potentially ruinous expense of the medical care of unfortunate individuals.
But what is health care? The concept of reimbursable health-care service rests on the premise that the medical problem in need of servicing is the result of involuntary, unwanted happenings, not the result of voluntary, goal-directed behavior. Leukemia, lupus, prostate cancer, and many infectious diseases are unwanted happenings. Are we going to count obesity, smoking, depression and schizophrenia as the same kinds of diseases?
Many Americans would willingly pay for insurance to protect them against the exorbitant cost of treating their own leukemia. But how many Americans would willingly pay for insurance to protect them from the expenses of treating their own depression?
Everyone recognizes that the more fully we wish insurance companies to defray our out of pocket expenses for our car repairs, the higher the premium they will charge for the policy. Yet foregoing reimbursement for trivial or unnecessary health-care costs in return for a more suitable health-care policy is an option unavailable under the present system. Everyone with health insurance is compelled to protect himself from risks, such as alcoholism and erectile dysfunction, that [many] would willingly shoulder in exchange for a lower premium.
The idea that every life is infinitely precious and therefore everyone deserves the same kind of optimal medical care is a fine religious sentiment and moral ideal. As political and economic policy, it is vainglorious delusion. Rich and educated people not only receive better goods and services in all areas of life than do poor and uneducated people, they also tend to take better care of themselves and their possessions, which in turn leads to better health. The first requirement for better health care for all is not equal health care for everyone but educational and economic advancement for everyone.
Our national conversation about curbing the cost of health care is crippled by the vocabulary in which we conduct it. We must stop talking about "health care" as if it were some kind of collective public service, like fire protection, provided equally to everyone who needs it. No government can provide the same high quality body repair services to everyone. Not all doctors are equally good physicians, and not all sick persons are equally good patients.
If we persevere in our quixotic quest for a fetishized medical equality we will sacrifice personal freedom as its price. We will become the voluntary slaves of a "compassionate" government that will provide the same low quality health care to everyone.
(For the original Wall Street Journal post by Dr. Thomas Szasz, click here.)
We own our cars, are responsible for the cost of maintaining them, and decide what needs fixing based partly on balancing the seriousness of the problem against the expense of repairing it. Our health-care system rests on the principle that, although we own our bodies, the community or state ought to be responsible for paying the cost of repairing them. This is for the ostensibly noble purpose of redistributing the potentially ruinous expense of the medical care of unfortunate individuals.
But what is health care? The concept of reimbursable health-care service rests on the premise that the medical problem in need of servicing is the result of involuntary, unwanted happenings, not the result of voluntary, goal-directed behavior. Leukemia, lupus, prostate cancer, and many infectious diseases are unwanted happenings. Are we going to count obesity, smoking, depression and schizophrenia as the same kinds of diseases?
Many Americans would willingly pay for insurance to protect them against the exorbitant cost of treating their own leukemia. But how many Americans would willingly pay for insurance to protect them from the expenses of treating their own depression?
Everyone recognizes that the more fully we wish insurance companies to defray our out of pocket expenses for our car repairs, the higher the premium they will charge for the policy. Yet foregoing reimbursement for trivial or unnecessary health-care costs in return for a more suitable health-care policy is an option unavailable under the present system. Everyone with health insurance is compelled to protect himself from risks, such as alcoholism and erectile dysfunction, that [many] would willingly shoulder in exchange for a lower premium.
The idea that every life is infinitely precious and therefore everyone deserves the same kind of optimal medical care is a fine religious sentiment and moral ideal. As political and economic policy, it is vainglorious delusion. Rich and educated people not only receive better goods and services in all areas of life than do poor and uneducated people, they also tend to take better care of themselves and their possessions, which in turn leads to better health. The first requirement for better health care for all is not equal health care for everyone but educational and economic advancement for everyone.
Our national conversation about curbing the cost of health care is crippled by the vocabulary in which we conduct it. We must stop talking about "health care" as if it were some kind of collective public service, like fire protection, provided equally to everyone who needs it. No government can provide the same high quality body repair services to everyone. Not all doctors are equally good physicians, and not all sick persons are equally good patients.
If we persevere in our quixotic quest for a fetishized medical equality we will sacrifice personal freedom as its price. We will become the voluntary slaves of a "compassionate" government that will provide the same low quality health care to everyone.
(For the original Wall Street Journal post by Dr. Thomas Szasz, click here.)
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Will you get to make the choice?
From Newt Gingrich: "President Obama said something at his White House healthcare event last week that offers a disturbing hint of our future under his vision of health reform. He suggested one way to save costs is not to spend on procedures that "evidence shows [are] not necessarily going to improve care" for the sick and the dying. "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller," the President said. Maybe. But the question is, who decides? Who decides if those extra dollars will or will not be spent on your care or the care of someone you love? Under the plan advocated by President Obama and his allies, that someone will be a government bureaucrat. And even if that bureaucrat has the best of intentions, and even if he does his job well - especially if he does his job well - his main concern won't be you or your loved one. His only concern, if he's doing his job right, will be for the government's bottom line. It's his choice, not yours. Surgery costs too much. Make do with the painkiller."
But, wait! you say ... we still have the option of keeping our private health insurance if we want it, right?
"The private insurance market [will] gradually disappear. And if you think this is an irrational fear, listen to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a supporter of the public option. Rep. Schakowsky proudly says that private insurers "have every reason to be frightened" by a government plan, because it is a "strategy for getting [to a single-payer system], and I believe we will."
The President and the democrats seem to have made their choice - the question is, though, if you'll be able to make a choice when the time comes or if it will be made for you.
But, wait! you say ... we still have the option of keeping our private health insurance if we want it, right?
"The private insurance market [will] gradually disappear. And if you think this is an irrational fear, listen to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a supporter of the public option. Rep. Schakowsky proudly says that private insurers "have every reason to be frightened" by a government plan, because it is a "strategy for getting [to a single-payer system], and I believe we will."
The President and the democrats seem to have made their choice - the question is, though, if you'll be able to make a choice when the time comes or if it will be made for you.
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