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And wasn't Medicare (and Medicaid, and Social Security, and all other entitlement programs) also initially sold to the public on the basis of being self sustaining? Yet now those programs are causing unsustainable public debt, and what's being proposed is that the way to solve that is to broaden the pool of people who are covered by the programs.
The current plans being floated are supposed to be completely self-sustaining, other than the initial infrastructure setup period.
Besides, it's not as if the private insurers are on the receiving end of a huge giveaway as a result of the employer health care tax shield.
To answer Jazz's questions:
1) If the government option is cheaper, and provides roughly the same service (or better), then the private industry will either adapt or be crushed in the marketplace. The government plans being proposed will not be subsidized by general government funds (outside of the initial setup period), so it will in essence be self-sustaining.
2) It will be a government bureaucrat or doctor. The better plans provide incentives for doctors to willingly try to find the most efficient ways to deliver care so costs are kept under control. But in any case, I don't see how a government bureaucrat would be worse than an accountant at an insurance company. At least the government isn't concerned with squeezing every last dime out of you.
3) Any good reform plan will cost a lot up front, and then should be self sustaining in the future. The trick is to make sure the reforms will ultimately cut the long terms costs of health care. No one will much care that the government debt situation is hunky dory if we're all taking 50+% of our paychecks and handing them to the health insurance industry.
"[... A]s Congress opens a major debate over reforming the nation’s health care system, public opinion about the issue has changed somewhat since President Clinton launched his unsuccessful effort to pass an overhaul of health care in 1993.
There continues to be widespread support for changing the health care system so that all Americans have insurance that covers all medically necessary care: 75% favor this currently, while 21% are opposed. However, the percentage favoring this proposal is down from 83% in April 1993. Similarly, while a large majority (61%) believes it is very important to limit annual increases in health care costs, fewer say that now than did so 16 years ago (69%).
When asked which is more important – to control annual cost increases or guarantee all Americans access to needed care – a majority (56%) says that it is more important to provide access to necessary medical care for all Americans while 36% say it is more important to control health care costs. In 1993, the public also opted for guaranteed access to care for all, but by a greater margin (74% to 20%).
Perhaps the most important change since 1993 is in the public’s assessment of how much change the current health care system needs. In April 1993, a majority (55%) said the system needed to be completely rebuilt, 26% said it needed fundamental changes, while 15% said it needed only minor changes. Today, fewer than half (41%) say the system needs to be completely rebuilt, while 30% say it requires fundamental change and 24% say the system works pretty well and needs only minor changes."
http://people-press.org/report/522/
(I avoid watching teevee, as a rule, but I knew the lib media were rushing to hype health care and the "crisis" [sic] and engage in all kinds of other agitated garbage, including at least one informercial on Obama's behalf.)
If so, then I would assume he is also keeping on "open mind" about finding a new line of work in 2012.
"Would you support or oppose a federal tax on health insurance benefits people receive through their employer if those benefits cost more than 17 thousand dollars a year?"
.
Support Oppose Unsure
% % %
24 70 6
And how many actually believed his campaign promises?
I wonder exactly what motive or motives underly this proposal. Note first of all the irony and the inherent hypocrisy behind one reason given, an elitist one in tone, that it encourages people to seek "excessive" use of the health care system. This, from people who want to provide so much more to so very many! Is it a pathological desire to control and deprive people? Is it merely appealing to many Dem voters' and left activists' class-warfare-motive envy and resentment? Is it merely a cynical, crude, blunt tactic to attack and reduce the private sector (which so many of the same proponents and more want a "public option" to even more greatly attack and reduce the private sector), to induce people to switch to any public health care alternative, or simply to tear down in a significant way the "private alternative" or existing "option"?
I vote for cynicism (they can't expect to rely on tax revenue from what obviously will be reduced after it is taxed) and an additional attack on the private sector when they anticipate offering a "public option" to make the private alternative repulsive, as a way of making the "public option" even more relatively attractive (and thereby accelerate and advance the growth of the public fraction of health care in the USA).
It's monumental conceit or a glaring lack of realism among the starry-eyed Obama groupies that would make anyone argue that Obama's re-election is assured. Even cheating in elections (or trying to steal the office after they lose, as in 2000) by the Dems cannot be reliable in this huge, non-homogeneous nation.
As I said above, I believe it's an act meant to accompany the public option that induces people to go public.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.
Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.
The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.["]
Did Mr. Obama just admit that the government option would not provide the best care? If so, why in the world would anyone want it?
I give the same benefit to my employees. Should I switch them into the government plan just because it will be less expensive for me although it will provide fewer choices for them?
When a person is starving and has nothing to eat and no money to buy anything to eat, they can eat sheet-rock. Why would a person do that? Because it is better than nothing and cheaper than the status quo (Mc Donalds). Hell of an argument you have there sparky.
And Obama was "supposed" to post all bills for 5 days allowing citizen review according to an oft repeated campaign promise. That hasn't happened either. I think it was particularly revealing that he wouldn't commit to using the new plan for his own family. And one more question I've not heard answered, "Will I be paying even higher taxes to provide this coverage to people who entered this country by breaking the law and are here illegally? This would provide an even further incentive for thousands and thousands of people to enter this country illegally. Where are the disincentives for them to do this? I'm afraid that I don't see any.
I don't mean I am afraid of a doctor, more that the I feel I can't afford to go to the doctor for even the simplest thing.
At 37, self-emplyeed, burdened with student debt and a poor credit score because of my debt to income ratio, not only can I not afford health insurance but in the past when I tried to buy heath insurance my rate would have been higher because of my credit score - even though I was in perfect health.
Can we use other countries as an example of how national health care can work? Italy and the UK for example. Neither is perfect but when I lived in both countries for a number of years to escape my student loans (I'm just being honest) I had gone to the doctor in both countries and paid almost nothing compared to the US.
In Italy I contracted a minor STD and was seen twice and treated for only €50 and in London I had a stomach problem and was also seen and treated for only £ 120.
If I was in their countries as a citizen it would have been free.
Can you imagine going into any doctors office in the US and getting any treatment for $100 without an expensive health plan?
Flip side. If you need a "fancy" operation or something the government deems unnecessary you're out of luck or you at least have to wait a long very long time. In these cases those with money tend to go to private (expensive) doctors.
So be it.
I have too many friends who have almost died or have died because they seldom go to the doctors and serious health problems go undetected for far too long.
Lastly I might add "we" always thought we would be giving back to out society. Many of us, myself included, are graduates of Ivy league colleges yet somehow we now burden our society. I truly believe this stems from poor lending practices regarding for student loans.
I know this is off topic but they all roll together.
Thank you for talking about this in a realistic way, I hope we all start to.