Howard Dean is back on the scene. After being passed over for HHS consideration, he keeps on trucking. His newest health care campaign: Stand with Dr. Dean.
Now, call me naive, but this is what I've been saying when I talk to my pals about health care reform. (though I hope I didn't speak like I've never read cue cards before.) Makes total sense.
In America, you can go to public school, you can pay more for private, or you can home school. You can get on public transit (for a small fee) or you can buy a car. You can use the USPS or you can ship FedEx. You can call the police when you hear a noise and you can buy your own alarm system. Why why why is health care different? As "Governor Howard Dean, Dr. Howard Dean," says, this is the system already set up in health care if you qualify for Medicare/caid (read: you're poor, disabled, over 65). Why stop there? (*cough* insurance lobbyists *cough* AMA *cough*...)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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3 comments:
This is something I agree with in principle, but I am unsure about the practicalities. Is he saying that premiums for the government plans would come out of existing taxes, or would people who opt in have to pay additional premiums?
Is cutting "shareholder equity" and "high executive salaries" enough to make the difference for the insured?
It may very well be. I am no economist, but it's difficult to sign on to something I am so unsure about the details of. I am sure this is in large part due to my own ignorance, but where is the place (beside this blog, of course) to go to look at clearly presented details side-by-side?
I haven't yet seen any specifics on funding from Governor Dr. Dean. Generally, the line is that cutting down on fraud and administrative costs will be a huge source of funding. People with Medicare do pay premiums, though they're comparatively low.
I'm definitely no economist either, but here's what I've seen/interpreted so far: With insurance you have the bottom line being to make profit because that's what business does. Mix that with the bottom line of the consumer being health instead of cost, and it's a dangerous combination that IMO has lead to the mess we're in now. Health care is not analogous to other commodoties on the free market, for a number of reasons: there's a huge information/knowledge gap between consumer/patient and doctor, there is no real ability to shop around, many times a person is in no position to shop around anyway due to emergency or other illness, etc. This really puts a wrinkle in the competition-drives-down-cost argument, as people can be in a pretty vulnerable position when faced with the dilemma of weighing their health against their financial well-being. (Hence the high number of bankruptcies being attributed in large part to medical bills).
To be fair, there are problems with Medicare/caid as well. It has the rule of law behind it, and the bargaining power that comes along. Medicare pays notoriously low amounts of money for procedures and supplies. This, along with the low payment schedules negotiated by managed care (among other things), jacks up prices for the uninsured as providers try to compensate...though many of those bills can go unpaid and be written off at tax time by the provider. So that's the way the American public pays in taxes without seeing their taxes raised.
Okay, this might have been a little tangent. I'm still trying to figure this all out, really. As to your last question, I've been on the lookout for a good nonpartisan comparison. I'm going to look around a little more and get back to you on that one.
ps--thanks for commenting!
Wow. Thanks for the detailed answer. Looking forward to more posts, Vee.
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