The 'porkulus' bill...it could kill you.

[ET]

Interesting bit buried in the porkulus bill. In Section 9201, Obama calls for the creation of a 15-member government bureaucracy with the name of "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research". What is it? It's government rationing of health care by bureaucrat, taken from our socialist friends in Europe. This little bureaucracy will get to determine whether or not a medicine is "effective" and/or "too expensive" and thereby dictate whether or not the medicine or procedure will live or die by declaring it as a paid or not-paid expense of government funded insurance. Since so much health care in this country is paid by the government, this will effectively kill anything that doesn't get approved, or greatly increase the time that it takes for new procedures and drugs to come down in price so they are more widely used and adopted.

From a Heritage Foundation article: Comparative Effectiveness in Health Care Reform: Lessons from Abroad, by Helen Evans, Ph.D.

Excerpt from the article about how this works across the pond (emphasis mine):

The United Kingdom. The experience of the United Kingdom in making the difficult decisions about what kind of health care technologies, devices, drugs, and medical treatments and procedures should be favored in Britain's National Health Service has been cited favorably by Senator Daschle.
***
Overall, NHS health care is rationed through long waiting lists and, in some cases, omission of various treatments.

For the British government, the practice of HTA facilitates rationing by delay. It is a tool that aims to ensure that expensive new technologies are initially provided only in hospitals that have the technical capacity to evaluate them.
***
NICE is a controversial body. It has tried repeatedly to stop breast cancer patients from receiving the powerful breakthrough drug Herceptin and patients with Alzheimer's disease from receiving the drug Aricept. The criteria by which this agency makes its decisions have been kept largely secret from the public. As is inevitable with any nationalized health care system, life-extending medicines such as those to treat renal cancers are refused on the grounds of limited resources and the need to make decisions based not on genuine market economics but on an artificial assessment of the benefit that may be gained by the patient and society "as a whole."
***
There is a pervasive European mythology: a widespread belief that American health care is rooted in the free market. In reality, much of American health care is a highly planned, regulated, and government-funded system. Through major entitlement and welfare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which contribute to rapidly growing American health care costs, government takes a historically higher proportion of gross domestic product than does even the British NHS. Moreover, by virtue of the structure and financing of private-sector health insurance, there is little consumer control over health care dollars.

Nonetheless, the United States is not only a major consumer of health care services, but also the world's largest producer of medical technology. Investment in new medical technology is comparatively high, as is its rate of diffusion: "This is demonstrated by cross-national examinations of the comparative availability of selected medical technologies such as radiation therapy and open-heart surgery. Measured in units per million, the United States experiences levels of availability up to three times greater than in Canada and Germany."

I post this so we aren't under any delusions that national health care is going to get everybody health care. You may not be able to afford it now and you may lose your house to get that life saving treatment, but in Obamaland, the decision isn't up to you. Our Lord and Master, the United States federal government, will be the one to decide whether we live or die. I suppose this is what Obama had in mind when he talked about "shared sacrifice" in his inaugural address.

Is it really better to be dead than bankrupt? Be careful what you wish for....you may get it. I can make far more rational sense out of dying because I couldn't afford the treatment than because I came out on the short end of some bureaucrat's spreadsheet computation. I foresee a whole new legion of lobbyists showing up to influence those decisions.

More at these links:How the Stimulus Bill Could Kill You, American Thinker and Stimulus Math for the GOP, by George Will.

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan, Betsy McCaughey
A quote from the McCaughey quoting Daschle on the idea:

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

[jerryl]

xxx

[Sandy]

The nutsies and spin doctors are out early on this one. It seems that the Hannity-Limbaugh-Beck-Drudge machine is working overtime in the inaccuracy and innuendo department on this one. They seem determined to make certain the GOP never recovers from this election with their nutso extremist garbage.

We've heard all these arguments before, how bad socialized medicine is in Europe, how it doesn't work, and how it isn't going to work here, either. Of course, when an example is needed, they trot out the British system, which generally suffers from a low level of operating capital. They don't talk about Germany or Sweden or Switzerland, who have the highest medical standards in the world. Nor do they mention that the proposal on the table now is not a totally government operated system, but one which takes up the slack where private insurance leaves off.

[William Thornton]

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

Who doubts that this isn't one of a series of moves towards socialized medicine? I'll probably be dead before our BLife budding socialists who think this to be a panacea figger out that it is not.

[Sandy]

Interesting, isn't it, that all these GOP supporters are screaming about the price of the stimulus package and that we don't have the money, all the while 36 GOP senators are backing an alternative plan to spend $3 trillion on more tax cuts for the wealthy. At least the Obama proposal spreads the money out and puts it in places where it is needed. Seems the GOP would rather see the unemployed stay that way until their benefits run out and lose their homes and businesses than actually put money where it would do some good. And look how well the last tax cuts helped to stimulate the economy.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2176539/posts

[William Thornton]

Interesting, isn't it, that all these GOP supporters are screaming about the price of the stimulus package and that we don't have the money, all the while 36 GOP senators are backing an alternative plan to spend $3 trillion on more tax cuts for the wealthy. At least the Obama proposal spreads the money out and puts it in places where it is needed. Seems the GOP would rather see the unemployed stay that way until their benefits run out and lose their homes and businesses than actually put money where it would do some good. And look how well the last tax cuts helped to stimulate the economy.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2176539/posts

'Tax cuts for the wealthy', the phrase the budding socialists never tire of repeating, at least presupposes that there are some people who have done what is necessary to accumulate private wealth and in the process have the means to pay taxes. 'Tax cuts for the poor' OTOH, has come to mean welfare, cash paid to those who pay no taxes. Such is life in America these days.

And "spread[ing] the money" is well, classical Marxism - "from each...to each..."

"Where it is needed" is in the eye of the bureaucrat or legislator who love the power to make these third-party decisions about who has too much, who has too little, who ought to have less, and who ought to have more. More marxist/socialist language. Such is life...

Tax cuts have a history, one that seems vastly more positive than the government manufacturing and spending staggering sums of money they do not have, the chief benefit of which will likely be an enormous expansion of folks who think that the government will take care of them.

Better start thinking, 'cradle to grave'.

[Jonathan]

Interesting, isn't it, that all these GOP supporters are screaming about the price of the stimulus package and that we don't have the money, all the while 36 GOP senators are backing an alternative plan to spend $3 trillion on more tax cuts for the wealthy. At least the Obama proposal spreads the money out and puts it in places where it is needed. Seems the GOP would rather see the unemployed stay that way until their benefits run out and lose their homes and businesses than actually put money where it would do some good. And look how well the last tax cuts helped to stimulate the economy.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2176539/posts

What is even more interesting is how all of these Obama supporters, who spent a great deal of time and energy over the past 8 years decrying Bush's spending and the serious increase in deficit spending, want to get this particular piece of legislation done before anyone has really had a chance to debate it.

This thread is case in point. This is an economic stimulus bill. Why not keep the healthcare stuff out of it and reserve that for a debate on healthcare? Same goes for a lot of the other items.

I give Obama a great deal of credit for being able to manage a run and gun offense to get a bill loaded up with a virtual leftwing wishlist, call it a stimulus, declare that the world will end if it is delayed, all while providing signals that this is only the first step in his spending plans. May he stay in office long enough to have to deal with the fallout that reasonable folks like those at the CBO (and hundreds of credible economists) tell us is surely coming if this bill become law.

Of course, I give our former president even more credit for this. Were it not for Pres. Bush and the Drunken Sailor Republicans of 2001-2006, Obama might still be a Chicago political underboss.

Elections have consequences. Next up: 1) politicizing the census bureau, 2) stacking the courts with folks who see the US Constitution as legal silly putty.

[ET]

And why are government bureaucrats rationing health care worse than insurance company bureaucrats rationing health care?

Allow me to answer a question with another question:

"Why do the same people who don't trust the government to spy on terrorists, lest dissenters get caught up in the web, so often also urge giving government control over our health care?" -- James Taranto

Health care decisions made by insurance company bureaucrats are doing so in manner that is consistent with the goal of any business -- to make a profit, remain in business and to serve as many of it's customers as possible while doing so. No one is guaranteed that all their health care needs will be met no matter the cost. Insurance companies would not be financially viable if that were the case.

Government, on the other hand, has no place in making health care decisions for 300+ million people. Government's job is to make and enforce laws for an orderly society where free individuals can interact peaceably and not have their rights trampled upon by others or by government itself. Nothing in the makeup of government makes it suitable for organizing and providing health care to it's citizens. Government's primary characteristic is the ability to coerce, which it uses in enforcing laws, ensuring order or to engage in military action should it become necessary. How does coercion work to the benefit of us all when it comes to health care?

Even if we decide that government can provide health care, upon what evidence does anyone claim that it will do so better than the private sector and should provide health care? Given the government's record of "success" in things such as education and the "war on poverty" over the last 40 years and the pending financial meltdown of the social security ponzi scheme in the coming years, how can one not be considered a "little touched" to think government can do health care better than the private sector?

The nutsies and spin doctors are out early on this one. It seems that the Hannity-Limbaugh-Beck-Drudge machine is working overtime in the inaccuracy and innuendo department on this one.

We've heard all these arguments before, how bad socialized medicine is in Europe, how it doesn't work, and how it isn't going to work here, either. Of course, when an example is needed, they trot out the British system, which generally suffers from a low level of operating capital. They don't talk about Germany or Sweden or Switzerland, who have the highest medical standards in the world. Nor do they mention that the proposal on the table now is not a totally government operated system, but one which takes up the slack where private insurance leaves off.

I was not aware that George Will was part of the "Hannity-Limbaugh-Beck-Drudge machine". Health care works in Europe...it just doesn't work very well....or as well as Michael Moore would have you believe. It is not some glorious medical Utopia light years ahead of the U.S.

Nobody stated that the proposal on the table was a totally government operated system and, if you are referring to the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, it is not a plan to pick up any slack either. The plan is to create a government bureaucracy that makes decisions on what treatments will be paid for by government funded insurance based on some as yet unknown criteria for being effective. It's got nothing to do with private insurance. If I'm wrong on this, please provide evidence to the contrary. If you Google 'comparative effectiveness research', no information comes back that has anything to do with taking up the slack in private insurance. It's all about government limiting what treatment options are available in order to reduce prices.

Switzerland -- to address a country other than the U.K. as Sandy mentions -- has coverage for everybody through private, for-profit insurance companies. Everybody must buy insurance or pay a hefty fine, virtually insuring everyone has coverage. Also, individuals buy insurance rather than through their employers. Switzerland is actually more of a free-market system than ours.

Here's a web site where you can compare the different health care systems of the Europeans: Comparing Health Care Systems Worldwide. A basic overview of each system in Canada, France, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and Norway. I will point out the fact that in almost every case there is a mention of high or increasing costs, so let's not pretend that the nationalized plans will greatly impact costs.

Also, the next time you read or hear some 'horror story' about some mean U.S. insurance company and what they wouldn't do, surf over to BigGovehealth.com and you'll find horror stories just like them in socialized medicine countries.

I would also ask Sandy: how can a country have the "highest medical standards in the world" when the government restricts the newest technologies because they don't want to pay the price to provide those services to their citizens? Or, if you are referring to those WHO rankings that put the U.S. down low on the list, then I suggest you read about what goes into those rankings. Those rankings using life expectancy include deaths due to things that are completely unrelated to health care -- homicides, car crash fatalities, obesity, etc. Ranking countries based on life expectancy that includes such data makes them invalid.

[Stephen Fox]

At Bellevue during the July 4 celebration, the Johnny Rebs chase the Yankees off the stage.
I do not understand ET's view of the Kingdom of God; instead of the New Testament seems like he got the last two decades of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th confused with Matthew, Mark , Luke etc not to mention the letter to the Ephesians and what not.
Here is more from Robert Parham's world, you know, the one Ed McAteer, Colgate Palmolive, and the Texas Regulars displaced:

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=13647

[Sandy]

Too many slanted websites, ET.

No system is perfect. However, most systems are better than what we currently have, where health care and particularly health insurance becomes an angle to make a buck rather than a means to obtain a basic human right.

Actually, health coverage in Switzerland is paid for through a tax collected by the government, and the companies which provide it are strictly regulated with regard to the rates, along with the fees paid for services rendered. A reasonable profit is allowed, health care professionals are paid well enough for there to be an abundance of them enrolled in training, and I was amazed at the speed at which I was in and out of an emergency room in Olten several years ago, along with the quality of the care. Being a non-citizen, I had to pay for the services, but my insurance provider at the time gladly forked over the $45 for what would have cost several hundred dollars in a hospital here.

[Haruo]

So, ET, who do you think should decide, and on what grounds, what procedures and treatments will be paid for by Medicaid or Medicare, and at what rate?

[ET]

At Bellevue during the July 4 celebration, the Johnny Rebs chase the Yankees off the stage.
I do not understand ET's view of the Kingdom of God; instead of the New Testament seems like he got the last two decades of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th confused with Matthew, Mark , Luke etc not to mention the letter to the Ephesians and what not.

Oh, goodness, Fox, if I recall correctly you've trotted out that "July 4" idiocy before. My comments are not about the Kingdom of God. They are about the best way to provide health care to the citizens of this country. My position is that government is the worst choice we can make to do so. It is not an argument for denial of care to anyone. Might you ever be able to contribute anything of substance to a discussion other than a link? If you have such trouble understanding my arguments, then I suggest you stay out of the discussion instead of implying that those that disagree with you are somehow exhibiting unChristian attitudes. Haruo, KeithE and our banned brother Norm have differences of opinion with me, but they don't resort to such implications.

Too many slanted websites, ET.

Slanted websites? Apparently you didn't notice that almost all of the stories on the BigGovHealth web site have links to the original newspaper articles in the respective country. One from the Norwich Evening News in the UK, another from the Oxford Times, one from the Perth Sunday Times in Australia and another from the Montreal Gazette in Canada. Read them for yourself and feel free to try to make a case that they are "slanted".

No system is perfect. However, most systems are better than what we currently have, where health care and particularly health insurance becomes an angle to make a buck rather than a means to obtain a basic human right.

First, health care is not a human right. A human right is something that can exist simultaneously among all people without imposing an obligation on someone else. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are such rights. Free speech, a free press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right of self-defense (2nd Amend.) and the right to file grievances against your government are all rights that we Americans have that impose no obligation on others.

Health care, on the other hand, cannot be classified as a human right under that definition. Health care may be needed as much as food, clothing and shelter, but it is not a right. One cannot have health care as a human right without imposing an obligation on others. A "right" to health care means that if I cannot afford medical services, then you are to be coerced through government force into providing it for me. What moral principle says that I have the "right" to insist you pay for something I cannot afford? Why should you have to sacrifice you right to enjoy the fruits of your labor in order to provide something for me? You may do so out of the goodness of your own heart, but should you be forced to do so?

However, like a basic education, we may define a societal right to health care and may set up a government program to administer it, but health care is not a human right.

Secondly, you are right that no system is perfect, just as capitalism is not perfect, but upon what basis do you state that most systems are better than ours? Based on what? Folks in Canada come down here to get services all the time because they can't get them in their country or have to wait months to get something we down here can get in a few days. We lead the world in medical technology. I've asked for the evidence that would support the notion that government managed health care will be better than what we have now, although I would contend that we have far move government involvement health care now than we need. Much could be done in the way of removing government barriers to lower costs. We could start with allowing insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines.

Thirdly, health care professionals have just as much a right to make whatever the market will bear just like anybody else. You make call it "an angle", but Jefferson called it something more elemental:

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

We may all wish for everyone to have health care, but that does that give us the right to restrict what medical personnel make -- to take from them -- in order to give others a lower cost of care, as you seem to find attractive in the Swiss system. We have then violated one fundamental human right in favor of fulfilling a want -- to "spare to others" the cost of medical services.

Actually, health coverage in Switzerland is paid for through a tax collected by the government, and the companies which provide it are strictly regulated with regard to the rates, along with the fees paid for services rendered. A reasonable profit is allowed, health care professionals are paid well enough for there to be an abundance of them enrolled in training, and I was amazed at the speed at which I was in and out of an emergency room in Olten several years ago, along with the quality of the care. Being a non-citizen, I had to pay for the services, but my insurance provider at the time gladly forked over the $45 for what would have cost several hundred dollars in a hospital here.

No, actually, the health coverage in Switzerland is paid by the individual. From Health Care Economist Health Care Around the World: Switzerland:

Insurance is purchased by individuals. Individuals generally must pay the full cost of premiums, but the government helps to finance insurance purchases for the poor. “These subsidies are designed to prevent any individual from having to pay more than 10 percent of income on insurance,” and one third of Swiss citizens receive this type of subsidy. Thus, the Swiss government only pays for 24.9% of health care costs (compared with 44.7% in the U.S.).

Others are advocating an approach similar to the SWiss model....How the Swiss do health care, by Bill steigerwald.
Interesting piece on Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn's proposal to model American health care after the Swiss model, which puts more control of health care in the hands of the individual and encourages more preventive care. I like the idea of phasing out company-paid medical insurance. The Swiss never went this route and company-paid benefits remove any incentive from the employees to control their health care spending. (Of course, company-paid health insurance resulted from our government imposing wage controls after WWII. Companies got around that by offering 'fringe benefits'. Do you see the irony? The government created one of the aspects of the health care problem and now we've got a bill to 'fix' something they are responsible for in the first place.)

I found this bit of commentary/info on the Swiss model:

Switzerland, unlike many other developed countries (the US, France, Germany), has never connected health care to employers, an arrangement that hinders competition in many other countries. In the United States in particular, it is the poor who are most penalized by this system.

Swiss health care is obviously costly. However, any service of good quality, based on top-skilled labor in a developed country will always be expensive. But do we want doctors and other medical staff to take vows of poverty? Should patients be treated by paupers worrying about their basic necessaries of life?

With equal costs, a system based on market prices will always be more efficient than a state-governed one with administrative prices. The money will be used more effectively. Taxpayers will not subsidize poor management of hospitals. A facility or a doctor that provides bad services will go bankrupt. Public subsidies are directed to poor patients, not to poor hospitals, as it routinely happens under the Czech health care system. Even poor patients have lots of power to choose.

Finally -- woo-hoo!! - I get to you, Brother Haruo.....

So, ET, who do you think should decide, and on what grounds, what procedures and treatments will be paid for by Medicaid or Medicare, and at what rate?

Medicaid and Medicare are government programs. As such, the government employees working in those programs make those decisions just like those in a private insurance company. I am not advocating for a change in that system. If one enrolls in a government program, one should expect government employees to be the ones making the decisions.

Whew....time for bed. TTFN (ta-ta for now, as Tigger would say).

[Jim]

It’s always a mistake to compare apples with oranges, which is what comparing Switzerland to the USA is. Switzerland’s population is 1.5 million less than that of New York City and its geographical area is roughly the same as that of Connecticut/Massachusetts. Its population is 94% white, with all other possibilities comprising the other 6%. Its GDP per capita is $8500 less than that of the USA, which is about 74% white, with 65% of its African-American children living with single parents. That number for American-Indian and Hispanic children is 49% and 37%, respectively. For whites, it’s 23%. Single parents comprise the poorest households but government, as a cause, has nothing to do with that circumstance.

This is from Human Events today: Under the auspices of a “Comparative Effectiveness Review” the [stimulus] package heavily funds the first steps towards the government-mandated rationing of health care and tramples your right to medical privacy. Those who are eligible for Medicare note on their statements the actual cost of procedures, what the government allows, whether or not the physicians accept these amounts (most do), and the difference to be paid by private supplementary insurance. So...there already is in place a good bit of governmental control with respect to retirees, who must pay for their own private insurance for both treatment and medicine. This is expensive but the retiree chooses his own doctors and procedures, and that’s important, added to the fact that there is virtually no waiting period for anything. Retirees who cannot afford any other plans are covered completely for everything by Medicare.

The USA spends 17% of GDP on health (four times the amount spent on defense), compared to Switzerland’s 11%. Eighty-five percent of Americans are covered with insurance compared to about 99% for Switzerland. The democrats would forfeit the patient’s freedom of choice to cover that 15%. There surely are ways to do this without total governmental control over everything, which is what is needed now, not pie-in-the-sky schemes that eventually will drive the system into socialized medicine. Under the plan just passed by Congress, insured children can be as old as 26, with eligible households earning up to $88,000. This is typical government.

Karl Marx is said to have said this: “We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.” As per actions of Congress in the recent past and those involving much larger “investments” to be effected right away, the state has taken part ownership of the nation’s financial establishment, as well as its auto industry. Through its creeping control of the financial institutions, especially as they determine who does and does not get money for whatever purpose, it gains control of the population while establishing a new hierarchy (there will always be the fat cats) that calls the shots. This is different from the entrepreneurial model that has made the nation what it is.

To “put the people back to work,” the president and Congress are mistakenly stuck in the 1930s model in constantly screaming “money for infrastructure” in that ten-thousand people using picks and shovels then amount to “one man and a machine” now. Just a look at strip-mining or the Kennicott Mine near Salt Lake City proves the point. The unemployment rate in 1933 was 25%; in 1938, it was 19% (Encarta). The nation geared up for WWII soon after and the rest is history. The manufacturing base that undergirded this country through the 1980s has gone overseas not just through the sheer greed of management and labor but also through the insistence of citizens that they not settle for just a living wage, health-care, and substantive retirement, preferring to live much “higher on the hog.” They priced themselves out of the world market. More than anything else, the two-earner family, besides eviscerating the blue-collar unions (whether one thinks for good or ill), has brought this about.

The Anointed One and his crowd are on the wrong track. Rather than throw a trillion dollars into “programs” that are never-ending, for the most part, they might as well give it to heads of households and tell them to spend it or save it (about $13,300). Either way, some good might be accomplished. Currently, they seem to have absolutely no idea of a method, as evidenced by the Treasury Secretary yesterday, who gave no details whatever and actually made the president look bad.

[Haruo]

Karl Marx is said to have said this: “We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.” As per actions of Congress in the recent past and those involving much larger “investments” to be effected right away, the state has taken part ownership of the nation’s financial establishment, as well as its auto industry. Through its creeping control of the financial institutions, especially as they determine who does and does not get money for whatever purpose, it gains control of the population while establishing a new hierarchy (there will always be the fat cats) that calls the shots. This is different from the entrepreneurial model that has made the nation what it is.

Where is Karl Marx when we need him? Where he prophetically foresaw the withering away of the state and the flourishing of the commune (the state is the evil identical twin of the community, often mistaken for it) we have a flourishing state and declining community.

[Dave Roberts]

In reading all of this, some of you make it sound as though the idea of a provision of health care as something you have a right to receive is a novel idea. My grandfather (who died in 1936) lived in a cotton-mill town in the south. He worked in the mill, but the mill provided doctors who saw mill employees and their families (and most of the people for several miles around) as what they saw as a company obligation to the community that supplied them labor for their operation. They considered it a right to be cared for as part of the community with no charge at all to see the doctor who was simply an employee of the parent company just as the mill hands were. Was not that type of care socialized medicine?

[Jim]

DR: Was not that type of care socialized medicine?

J: Of course not. That care was provided by a private company at no cost to any taxpayer. It’s a shame that more companies do not do the same today, although many of them do. The company I worked for provided good health- and dental-care. I had to pay my part, of course, but getting something for nothing has become the mantra lately, such as the housing debacle involving the government telling the people to buy houses and other taxpayers would pay the freight. It didn’t work, of course, thus the current mess.

[ET]

There was no government involvement in that instance, so it wasn't any type of socialism, just the good-will of the company to provide the service.

[Dave Roberts]

There was no government involvement in that instance, so it wasn't any type of socialism, just the good-will of the company to provide the service.

What I see here is that companies decided it was more acceptable to thrust such care onto the government than to offer it. Thus we have so many working families with no opportunity even to participate in any kind of company offered insurance. Have any of you priced any real (not the bogus internet kind with $10,000 deductible) individual coverage. Only the rich can afford it

[Jim]

Here’s an interesting site along the lines mentioned above: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Toyota_med_center_provides_it_all_.html. Most employers provide what they must, especially in the case of unionized industries. Toyota, in order to dodge the union, does things like this...just good business. The huge plant (7-8,000 workers) where Camrys, among other models, are made is less than 15 miles from where I live and its national headquarters is located in northern Kentucky. Its hourly workers make about the same as those at General Motors ($29.78 per hour opposed to $30.00), but the total hourly package is $48.00 to $69.00, respectively. I don’t know the difference in health plans, but it’s virtually impossible to unionize Toyota or other foreign car-makers. I believe the plant near here provides child-care, something that’s unusual. The Toyota plant in Gibson County, Indiana, opened its child-care center (24/7) on 31 January. Small businesses are hard-pressed to provide benefits, but multitudes of people eligible for existing governmental help don’t get it because through ignorance or negligence they don’t apply.

[JaneFordA]

Here’s an interesting site along the lines mentioned above: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/Toyota_med_center_provides_it_all_.html. Most employers provide what they must, especially in the case of unionized industries. Toyota, in order to dodge the union, does things like this...just good business. The huge plant (7-8,000 workers) where Camrys, among other models, are made is less than 15 miles from where I live and its national headquarters is located in northern Kentucky. Its hourly workers make about the same as those at General Motors ($29.78 per hour opposed to $30.00), but the total hourly package is $48.00 to $69.00, respectively. I don’t know the difference in health plans, but it’s virtually impossible to unionize Toyota or other foreign car-makers. I believe the plant near here provides child-care, something that’s unusual. The Toyota plant in Gibson County, Indiana, opened its child-care center (24/7) on 31 January. Small businesses are hard-pressed to provide benefits, but multitudes of people eligible for existing governmental help don’t get it because through ignorance or negligence they don’t apply.

Honda's plant up here in Marysville, Ohio is very similar, too. Good employer and a good corporate neighbor.
I think Honda has had a few years less time building Accords here than Toyota in Georgetown has been providing Camrys (didn't they furnish a truck line, too, once upon a time?).

Toyota got up and running for business in what year? '86? '87? Not too far in the future, that first wave of employees (both Honda and Toyota) will be ready to retire. What will those retirement plans look like?

[ET]

What I see here is that companies decided it was more acceptable to thrust such care onto the government than to offer it. Thus we have so many working families with no opportunity even to participate in any kind of company offered insurance. Have any of you priced any real (not the bogus internet kind with $10,000 deductible) individual coverage. Only the rich can afford it

Company-paid health insurance is one of the factors behind these escalating health costs. Company-paid health insurance came into vogue after WWII when the government imposed wage and price controls in an effort to control inflation. As a result, companies were restricted in what they could pay their employees but got around that by offering 'fringe benefits'. Now a large segment of the population is covered by insurance that is paid for by someone else (the company), which insulates the consumer from the true costs of such services.

We don't expect our auto insurance to pay for oil changes --- and probably everyone here can tell you how much an oil change costs -- but we expect to pay $10-50 for a doctor's office visit when we get a cold and think of that as the "cost" of a doctor's visit. After all, who really cares if your CEO is lamenting rising health care costs when your co-pay went from $15 to $20 while the company's cost when up $50 or $100/month? It's only $5 a visit for you, instead of and additional 50 or $100 a month. Likewise, few probably have any idea of what a doctor's visit actually costs when combining the co-pay along with what the insurance company pays.

Senator Coburn's plan phases out company-paid insurance and McCain proposed phasing out the tax-break for company-paid insurance also.
Consumers will get a LOT more selective about their consumption of health care services under such plans. If everyone had to pay for their own health insurance and then paid for their risk factors such as smoking or being overweight, then consumers will start passing up that double-quarter pounder with/cheese when it may mean they pay 50 or $100 more a month in health insurance premiums. Make Americans start paying for their health insurance based on how they live -- like they do with car and life insurance -- and not let them put that cost on others (the company and other employees) and they'll be far more motivated to live healthier lifestyles.

There are other government rules that add to the cost, such as insurance companies not being able to sell health insurance across state lines, thus decreasing competition. (Give the Geico Gecko and the Cavemen a chance to sell health insurance!!) Of course, things like tort reform would need to be done also so the ambulance-chasers weren't able to manipulate millions of dollars out of juries and judges because of some frivolous lawsuit. Mississippi and another state I can't remember at the moment have recently capped awards and have already seen malpractice insurance rates for doctors go down.

The irony in this is that just like the current economic mess, it was largely a result of government meddling in the market, yet we turn to the same clowns to fix something they broke. It's like taking your car to some shade-tree mechanic that promises to 'fix' your car and when it breaks again, you blame the manufacturer for making a sorry product and take it right back to the guy that promised to 'fix' it in the first place, somehow expecting different results.

[Dave Roberts]

The issue of health insurance for church staff members (who certainly don't make $30/hr salaries) is becoming more and more problematic as the cost of insurance moves closer to the costs of salaries for those people. Who will provide for church staff members who will not be able to provide for their own families. The costs of individual policies are usually so much higher than group policies over which the risks can be spread. The American health care system is so inflated in price that people cannot afford to receive health care. That doctor visit we get for $30 to $50 copay is billed to the insurance company as costing $150 for 5 minutes of the doctor's time. The company then adjusts it to the prevailing rate and pays the doctor $35 that he accepts. If you are paying without such insurance then his bill is $150. The greatest misuse of the system that I see is the number of Medicaid recipients who use the emergency room for primary medical care and run up bills of $1,000 for the ER to get a child with a sore throat seen. Ths system is broken!

[William Thornton]

I know no one who says this business is not messed up but I see no solution that has a snowball's chance of success that isn't some move towards government taking this over. While I know that such an eventuality would be harmful in the long run, I admit to feelings of ambivalence about it. How much worse could it be than what I have to deal with now?

Health insurance is such a significant part of most of our pay packages that, inevitably, it eats up any possible pay increases. If this isn't the experience of other clergy who frequent this place then I'd like to hear of it. While I am appreciative of my churches policies to pay the healthcare premiums for pastor and staff, the reality is that I'm up to a $2,000 deductible per person meaning that I'm effectively paying my own health care expenses until something serious happens.

Bah. Humbug. It's a mess.

[Sandy]

In spite of Jim and ET's lengthy, slanted, completely biased and frequently inaccurate information, one theme comes out pretty clear. Conservatives are unwilling to do anything for the people. They are all for the guys who make the profits, and completely and totally against the people who work hard for their money and are at the mercy of those who have collected fortunes and are greedy for more. We've had eight years of a Presidential administration that pretty much let the profiteers run amuck, with no accountability and as a result, we are seeing more than 600,000 people lose their jobs on a weekly basis. Many of them are also the marginal investors in the stock market. The profiteers can weather the storm, I mean, what's the difference between earning $1 billion in dividends this year, or $600 million? But when your entire retirement fund was invested there, and you were depending on that based on the promises your rich stockbroker made to get you to invest so some corporate exec could take extra vacations and refurbish his million dollar office and buy one yacht for each ocean, you lose. And the conservative attitude, represented by most of the GOP is "too bad, so sad, get a job."

A human right is something that can exist simultaneously among all people without imposing an obligation on someone else. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are such rights. Free speech, a free press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right of self-defense (2nd Amend.) and the right to file grievances against your government are all rights that we Americans have that impose no obligation on others.

Rights that "impose no obligation on others"? So, as both a Christian and an American, I don't have to be concerned about anyone but myself? All those Biblical ideas about being part of the body and all of that stuff that Jesus talked about with regard to loving your neighbor as yourself, I guess that's all just rhetoric to you, huh? And your interpretation of human rights certainly lets our military people off the hook, doesn't it. I mean, self defense is a right, but if you have rights that impose no obligation on others, then military service is nothing more than a career option, isn't it? Your interpretation of "human rights" may square up with a humanistic view, but it is way out of step with what I would consider to be a Christian, Biblical worldview. John Dewey and Paul Kurtz would be proud of you.

I would say that, clearly, the right to health care is inherent in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The idea that health care, because of the business aspect of it and the profit margin involved, is not accessible to a fairly significant portion of the people of America would be the equivalent of telling people that they could not come to Christ or hear the gospel if they couldn't afford to pay the fees. Here is something of life-saving, life-enhancing value, technology and knowledge that is clearly a gift from God himself, and the angle of making a buck off of it denies it to people who do not have the ability to afford it, so as a result, they must suffer. Under those same rights, then, the government is obligated to protect its people, and that includes by whatever means it has at its disposal from whatever danger it can protect them from, including economic disaster. Even in attempting to do that, the previous administration bungled and botched things, basically handing the money over to banks that had squandered their profits on parties, executive salaries and perks, and that is epitomized in the fact that, when summoned to testify before Congress, the whining automakers flew to D.C. in private jets. And the GOP's solution to the problem is to borrow, and hand over, $3 billion in even more tax cuts to the wealthy. The old argument that it will "trickle down" doesn't hold water. These companies and execs have already raked in billions in tax cuts, many of them find major loopholes to avoid paying taxes, and they are still laying people off in droves.

I was in the hospital for most of the month of August with a strep infection in my lower left leg that caused a pulmonary embolism and some other complications. Eventually, I had surgery to drain the leg. With full insurance coverage, the highest level plan offered by my wife's employer (of course, I pay over $700 a month in premiums for my share of it) my out of pocket expenses reached $5,000. Thankfully, a member of the church paid that for me (I guess he felt "obligated" to help one of his church's ministers). I was in a not-for-profit hospital. When it was all over, I asked for an itemized copy of my bill. I was amazed at what the "negotiated price" was for some of the services I received. The bill for my medication, which included a few heart-related medicines I take regularly, and some high powered IV antibiotics, was $30,000. The doctor prescribed Nexium, which I've never had, at a cost of $45 per dose. When I asked why, I was told that the hospital policy was to give all patients Nexium every day because of the other drugs they have to take. When I asked my case worker about it, she said that the company that makes it has negotiated similar deals with hospitals all over the country, and that the insurance company gets a kickback from the sale of it which is why it costs so much. That's why most Americans seem to be willing to accept government stimulus programs without all the whining about socialism. It isn't socialism, first of all, and it is far more compassionate than what we have seen for the last eight years.

[Jonathan]

In spite of Jim and ET's lengthy, slanted, completely biased and frequently inaccurate information, one theme comes out pretty clear. Conservatives are unwilling to do anything for the people.

This is why I tend not to engage Sandy on political matters. He has such a skewed view of folks who disagree with him that why even try. Might as well try to have a meaningful discussion with Kanye West.