Although I complain that we live in a soundbite age and I think we too hastly form opinions based on them (I feel another blog coming on), I love quotes, especially from the founding fathers. I'll probably being adding to these as I find them.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson
"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." -John Adams
"Very few people spend other people's money as carefully as they spend their own." -Milton Friedman on the logical defects with the welfare and entitlement state.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” -Thomas Jefferson
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." -James Madison
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."- John Adams
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."- John Adams
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."- Thomas Jefferson
"Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."- John Adams
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."-Thomas Jefferson
"Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors." - Abraham Lincoln
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses." -Andrew Jackson
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories." -Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not the solution to out problem, Government IS the Problem." -Ronald Reagan
"A Government Big Enough To Give You Everything You Want, Is Big Enough To Take Everything You Have." -Thomas Jefferson
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." -Adrian Rogers, 1931
“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” - Milton Friedman
“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” -Thomas Jefferson
“The only way to come closest to the truth is to rigorously question your own beliefs.” -Common Sense
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” - Thomas Jefferson
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher
“I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.” -Thomas Jefferson
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power” -John Adams
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” -Norman Thomas, 6 time presidential candidate for the American Socialist Party
He also said: “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”The sad truth is that the Republican Party has also adopted elements of it under the guise of “compassionate conservatism”.
"The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall" -Cicero 106-43 B.C.
“That government is best which governs least.” Thomas Paine
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”— Samuel Adams
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern w...ell, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -Daniel Webster
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” - Thomas Paine
“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” -Thomas Jefferson
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." – Robert Heinlein
“It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue” -Samuel Adams
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -Patrick Henry
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry
"In a time of universal decit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act" -George Orwell
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” - Alexis de Tocqueville
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." -Thomas Jefferson
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." -Benjamin Franklin
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." -Thomas Jefferson
"The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy."-John Quincy Adams
"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises...; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false." -Paul Johnson (British Historian, 1928- )
“How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!” - Samuel Adams
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” - Frederic Bastiat
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale” — Thomas Jefferson
“The threat of people acting in their own enlightened and rational self-interest strikes bureaucrats, politicians and social workers as ominous and dangerous.” - W. G. Hill
“All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” - Adolf Hitler
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.” - Albert Einstein
“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” - Fredrich August von Hayek
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” –Henry Ford
"If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies." -Milton Friedman
"As we all learned from the sorry experience of state-sanctioned bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, decentralization [in education] is crucial to both freedom and excellence." -Jerry Brown
"Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details." -Alexis de Tocqueville
"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." -Karl Marx
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams
“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without d...ecency; their sole object is gain.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
“I want people to be able to get what they need to live: enough food, a place to live, and an education for their children. Government does not provide these as well as private charities and businesses.” - Davy Crockett
"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."-Charles A. Beard
"The truth can stand up for itself - it is error alone which needs the support of government" - Thomas Jefferson
“The Constitution is like paper currency, they are both worthless pieces of paper unless there is something to back them up. In the case of money, we need gold or its equivalent. In the case of the Constitution, we need the vigilance of the American people.” – Common Sense
"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies." -Sir Francis Bacon
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years." Thomas Jefferson
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." Thomas Paine
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." Patrick Henry
"I'll bet you never dreamed you'd look back at Jimmy Carter as the good old days."Mitt Romney
"All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."Jonathan Swift
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."Edmund Burke
"Your noble intentions should not come at the expense of my liberty."Andrew Wilkow
"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is safe."Edmund Burke
"A nation without borders is not a nation." --Ronald Reagan
"Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15."--Ronald Reagan
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."-- John Adams
"The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation."-- Ronald Reagan
"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no head."Winston Churchill
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid."-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."--Ronald Reagan
"The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force."-- Voltaire
"There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 per cent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."-- Theodore Roosevelt
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."--Daniel Webster
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into..."--Ronald Reagan
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” -Milton Friedman
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." -Milton Friedman
"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."- Orson Scott Card
"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today."- Fredrich August von Hayek
"Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism."-Herman Hesse
"If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged... ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight!" -Patrick Henry
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning." - Frederick Douglass
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Health Care In My Head
In the health care debate I think something very significant has been overlooked: the fact that we have no money to pay for it! This link explains it so eloquently that I need to say nothing else on the subject. It was a story that ran during the excessive spending of the Bush administration and we are digging a bigger hole now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
Ok, now that you have seen that, we can discuss the problem of health care in America. I know that a lot of other countries have universal health care, some successfully. Many of those countries have much smaller population and much higher taxes. In France (who is held up as having an excellent health care system), health care is bankrupting the country, to the point that they are starting to shut down clinics in smaller populated areas, which ultimately causes rationing of care. They tried requiring co-pays and the population had a collective meltdown. I think we need to take our next steps carefully and while I think everyone agrees that we need to make a change, the change we choose could have some far-reaching consequences.
First off I have to admit that I am anti-entitlement and think that the New Deal was one of the worst financial mistakes that could’ve ever happened to this country (besides the fact that it just made the Great Depression last seven years longer according to a study by UCLA). That is so you already know where I stand and that I am crazy. It is not a leap for me to despise Medicare and the way it is run. (I think anyone giving an opinion should tell where their political affiliations are, so you can read their piece more objectively.)
With foreign officials openly laughing at press conferences where our treasury secretary says "Don't worry. US treasury bonds are still of value continue to buy them," we have limited options of where to get all this magical money from the sky that is going to fund these programs. We need to get real. There are many reasons why I am not in favor of a public option, besides the fact that there is simply no money to pay for it and you already heard that argument so let me go to the others. I have yet to see a government program run anything efficiently and humanely… which I think people were looking for in a government sponsored insurance. For example, the way our wounded vets are treated when they are injured. It is no secret that it has been an absolute scandal the way these men and women who were injured in the name of our country were treated…. or not treated… in sub-standard facilities, not getting the tests, care, and attention they needed. It was like the government didn’t expect servicemen and women to be actually wounded in a war. Every single one of them was on government insurance.
The American auto industry was kept alive by government money for the past two decades. Instead of letting failing companies fail and letting new innovative ones take their place, we kept them on life support while they continued to fail. Foreign car companies came in and made better cars… and here is the kicker… for MORE money and people bought them because they were better cars. Americans were pushed out of the auto industry because the government wouldn’t allow us to fail. No amount of government money will ensure any kind of success no matter how many committees we put in charge of them. The government throws more and more money at education every year and the test scores are worse…. so we lower test standards. Absurd! Instead of having the guts to change the system, we throw more money that we don’t have at it and call it “doing something.”
Then, of course, there is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which I give the distinction of causing, or contributing greatly, to the current economic crisis since it was mandated by Congress that through Fannie and Freddie we would finance all those lovely sub-prime mortgages that ultimately no one could actually afford. Barney Frank, since he provided the Congressional oversight, was celebrating that home ownership was up right until the moment that he couldn’t deny that the system was crashing around all of us. That is the point where we decided to spend MORE money to fix the problem that the government helped create! Ok, I am done with the list of governmental sins. I just wanted to establish WHY I don’t trust the government with health care.
The big assumption made by most right now in this debate and the point that is largely ignored is that government health care is available. Almost any child in any state has a health care plan available to them, if needed. If you can't afford health care, there is usually a state-run health care plan that you can get already.
The root of the healthcare problem is that, as I read to eloquently last week, we want it now and we want it perfect. If a doctor messes up, we sue him. We don’t allow for any kind of human error without financial restitution. So doctors, nurses and hospitals need expensive malpractice insurance. The FDA takes 15 years to approve drugs which drive up the cost of pharmaceuticals, BIG TIME. Since we all must have the latest and greatest pill that was advertised on television, we cost our insurance companies more because the generic isn’t available yet. Don’t forget that 15 years we still not enough time to approve the drug since some particularly vicious side-effects were not known until it was let loose on the public. Make way for another lawsuit… where you can only sue the company who made it not the FDA who approved it for use. If we overhaul the system it has got to be from the fundamentals up, or we are just masking the problems that created the mess in the first place.
Another point that is never mentioned is that America leads the world in medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, the cost of which is passed on to Americans. These breakthroughs benefit the world… I guess the question is: Are we willing to do without them? It is quite the Catch-22. We don’t want to pay for it, but we want the latest and greatest. I submit that the companies creating these breakthroughs would not be the world leaders if their innovation was not closely ties to their pocketbooks.
Ok, so we know the problems and since I am obviously not in favor of a public option what do we do? I have been thinking of some ideas that could at least make health care affordable to most. (I say most, because I could never say ALL and be honest about it.) Some of these were literally thought up today while I was doing dishes, so I am sure they are full of holes, but the idea I think is to reform the industry itself, not create another government money pit. So here it goes:
First, insurance is too complicated. Hospitals and private practices alike pay teams of lawyers and insurance billers to interpret codes, coverage, etc. and the insurance companies themselves employ teams of lawyers and other staff to find ways to get out of paying, interpret policies, look for insurance fraud, etc. We change all of that a save both side a ton of money by requiring insurance companies to only sell policies that pay certain percentages of coverage. For example, if you want 100% coverage you pay a higher premium that the person who chose the plan that paid 60% coverage. That is it. (Actually, I would include a contingent policy that would include paying for alternative and experimental treatments that you would have to pay extra for if you wanted that, because I know that would be an issue.) The insurance companies would pay for any test or treatment deemed necessary by the doctor. No refusal of coverage. Now keep in mind, both sides should be saving money by not having teams of coverage interpreters, so hospital bills should be lower and insurance companies are not spending as much on employee salaries and benefits. If an insurance company thinks a doctor or hospital orders too many unnecessary tests or provides unnecessary treatments than they can choose not to have them be one of their care providers, which keeps costs down also.
There are clinics out there that do not accept insurance at all, to keep costs down and I think I remember that a doctor’s visit was $20-$30. That is a huge difference from what my doctor now charges an insurance company (around $85 for the visit alone)!
I also submit that this would further cut down on costs because of the emergency room factor. I have seen a lot of struggling and self-employed couples around here carry the emergency room only insurance. So what do they do when their child has 104 degree fever? They take them to the ER even though it is not an emergency. The trip costs $2000 instead of the $150 it would cost to go to the doctor. This happens way too much. It is called and EMERGENCY room for a reason, but it has become a source of primary care for too many. This insurance coverage change would greatly increase preventative care also and if diseases are caught earlier they are easier to treat and therefore cheaper.
Next, we cap how much a hospital and private practitioners can be sued for. This cuts down on malpractice insurance costs and settlement costs which, ultimately, we pay for. As an alternative, I suggest, since we don’t want the terrible doctors to stay in business, we provide a patient feedback database. This would be a private company (or companies) that could function much like 1-800-dentist, with on-line or over the phone reviews of doctors including histories of complaint, positive feedback, if they have been deemed negligent in any court proceedings, etc. I know these are already in existence to some extent, but I am thinking of a more far-reaching and comprehensive database that would include which insurance they would accept and whether they are accepting patients. Since it would be privatized, you would have to pay a small fee, maybe $3-$5 for a family search. I am sure there would be competing companies, which would improve the ease of service and thoroughness of information provided.
I also propose independent oversight of the drug companies. We provide a government contract (I’d guarantee they would function on half the money the FDA functions on) that would be responsible for the drug companies FDA approval of drugs. I am still wondering about this idea myself, but hear me out. This company would function on 3-5 year contracts and if significant lacks of oversight, like drugs passing through that were harmful, the drug company and the oversight company would be held responsible. The oversight company’s contract would go somewhere else, so they would have to be diligent in making sure they were doing their job. The FDA is not held responsible, individuals in the FDA take kick-backs from the drug companies themselves and they will never be put out of business for making a horrible call. This would change all of that. They take kick-backs… they are gone. In addition to that I would halt all drug companies’ advertisements of their new drugs on television and in magazines. This, theoretically, saves the drug company money, lessens the need the newest and greatest, which would allow for the proper amount of time for a smaller group of people to see what the drug does (instead of the huge amounts now) and allow time for a generic alternative. I would like to outlaw all those damn pens and mouse pads that all the drug reps push on the doctors to save cost, but that is going a bit far I guess. Perhaps limit the ways a drug rep can contact a medical facility. I would hesitate at that action as well, but I you can see where I am going with this. They have to still make enough of a profit though for them to stay in the business, so I don’t know. Half of the drug companies’ problem is government paperwork… we need to streamline the system and make it easier for all involved and lower costs.
Last, and least popular, I would announce that anyone 35 and under will not be receiving Medicare benefits when they come of age. Unfortunately, they will be paying for it, either way we would’ve been anyway… now at least they are upfront about our need to prepare to not be covered and to save and plan accordingly. There will still be Medicaid available to the lower income brackets, but for the majority of Americans, it will not be made available. This is drastic, but seeing as we cannot actually pay for the program anyway it is, at least, honest. I would fit into the under 35 category here, so I am not choosing the age so I will get under the wire. I just think 35 is still enough time to save for alternative means. I am willing to pay for a benefit I will not receive; I do that all the time through taxes anyway, if it means that my country will be fiscally sound in the future. Hopefully, by that time, we have reformed the system to be more affordable and cost-efficient.
Again, I know these ideas probably have holes all over the place, but this is just what I thought of at my kitchen sink! Surely others should have ideas that would be even better and more efficient than just throwing money we don’t have at the problem. We need REAL reform, not a band-aid! Let’s get the conversations started!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2fI2p9iVs
Ok, now that you have seen that, we can discuss the problem of health care in America. I know that a lot of other countries have universal health care, some successfully. Many of those countries have much smaller population and much higher taxes. In France (who is held up as having an excellent health care system), health care is bankrupting the country, to the point that they are starting to shut down clinics in smaller populated areas, which ultimately causes rationing of care. They tried requiring co-pays and the population had a collective meltdown. I think we need to take our next steps carefully and while I think everyone agrees that we need to make a change, the change we choose could have some far-reaching consequences.
First off I have to admit that I am anti-entitlement and think that the New Deal was one of the worst financial mistakes that could’ve ever happened to this country (besides the fact that it just made the Great Depression last seven years longer according to a study by UCLA). That is so you already know where I stand and that I am crazy. It is not a leap for me to despise Medicare and the way it is run. (I think anyone giving an opinion should tell where their political affiliations are, so you can read their piece more objectively.)
With foreign officials openly laughing at press conferences where our treasury secretary says "Don't worry. US treasury bonds are still of value continue to buy them," we have limited options of where to get all this magical money from the sky that is going to fund these programs. We need to get real. There are many reasons why I am not in favor of a public option, besides the fact that there is simply no money to pay for it and you already heard that argument so let me go to the others. I have yet to see a government program run anything efficiently and humanely… which I think people were looking for in a government sponsored insurance. For example, the way our wounded vets are treated when they are injured. It is no secret that it has been an absolute scandal the way these men and women who were injured in the name of our country were treated…. or not treated… in sub-standard facilities, not getting the tests, care, and attention they needed. It was like the government didn’t expect servicemen and women to be actually wounded in a war. Every single one of them was on government insurance.
The American auto industry was kept alive by government money for the past two decades. Instead of letting failing companies fail and letting new innovative ones take their place, we kept them on life support while they continued to fail. Foreign car companies came in and made better cars… and here is the kicker… for MORE money and people bought them because they were better cars. Americans were pushed out of the auto industry because the government wouldn’t allow us to fail. No amount of government money will ensure any kind of success no matter how many committees we put in charge of them. The government throws more and more money at education every year and the test scores are worse…. so we lower test standards. Absurd! Instead of having the guts to change the system, we throw more money that we don’t have at it and call it “doing something.”
Then, of course, there is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which I give the distinction of causing, or contributing greatly, to the current economic crisis since it was mandated by Congress that through Fannie and Freddie we would finance all those lovely sub-prime mortgages that ultimately no one could actually afford. Barney Frank, since he provided the Congressional oversight, was celebrating that home ownership was up right until the moment that he couldn’t deny that the system was crashing around all of us. That is the point where we decided to spend MORE money to fix the problem that the government helped create! Ok, I am done with the list of governmental sins. I just wanted to establish WHY I don’t trust the government with health care.
The big assumption made by most right now in this debate and the point that is largely ignored is that government health care is available. Almost any child in any state has a health care plan available to them, if needed. If you can't afford health care, there is usually a state-run health care plan that you can get already.
The root of the healthcare problem is that, as I read to eloquently last week, we want it now and we want it perfect. If a doctor messes up, we sue him. We don’t allow for any kind of human error without financial restitution. So doctors, nurses and hospitals need expensive malpractice insurance. The FDA takes 15 years to approve drugs which drive up the cost of pharmaceuticals, BIG TIME. Since we all must have the latest and greatest pill that was advertised on television, we cost our insurance companies more because the generic isn’t available yet. Don’t forget that 15 years we still not enough time to approve the drug since some particularly vicious side-effects were not known until it was let loose on the public. Make way for another lawsuit… where you can only sue the company who made it not the FDA who approved it for use. If we overhaul the system it has got to be from the fundamentals up, or we are just masking the problems that created the mess in the first place.
Another point that is never mentioned is that America leads the world in medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs, the cost of which is passed on to Americans. These breakthroughs benefit the world… I guess the question is: Are we willing to do without them? It is quite the Catch-22. We don’t want to pay for it, but we want the latest and greatest. I submit that the companies creating these breakthroughs would not be the world leaders if their innovation was not closely ties to their pocketbooks.
Ok, so we know the problems and since I am obviously not in favor of a public option what do we do? I have been thinking of some ideas that could at least make health care affordable to most. (I say most, because I could never say ALL and be honest about it.) Some of these were literally thought up today while I was doing dishes, so I am sure they are full of holes, but the idea I think is to reform the industry itself, not create another government money pit. So here it goes:
First, insurance is too complicated. Hospitals and private practices alike pay teams of lawyers and insurance billers to interpret codes, coverage, etc. and the insurance companies themselves employ teams of lawyers and other staff to find ways to get out of paying, interpret policies, look for insurance fraud, etc. We change all of that a save both side a ton of money by requiring insurance companies to only sell policies that pay certain percentages of coverage. For example, if you want 100% coverage you pay a higher premium that the person who chose the plan that paid 60% coverage. That is it. (Actually, I would include a contingent policy that would include paying for alternative and experimental treatments that you would have to pay extra for if you wanted that, because I know that would be an issue.) The insurance companies would pay for any test or treatment deemed necessary by the doctor. No refusal of coverage. Now keep in mind, both sides should be saving money by not having teams of coverage interpreters, so hospital bills should be lower and insurance companies are not spending as much on employee salaries and benefits. If an insurance company thinks a doctor or hospital orders too many unnecessary tests or provides unnecessary treatments than they can choose not to have them be one of their care providers, which keeps costs down also.
There are clinics out there that do not accept insurance at all, to keep costs down and I think I remember that a doctor’s visit was $20-$30. That is a huge difference from what my doctor now charges an insurance company (around $85 for the visit alone)!
I also submit that this would further cut down on costs because of the emergency room factor. I have seen a lot of struggling and self-employed couples around here carry the emergency room only insurance. So what do they do when their child has 104 degree fever? They take them to the ER even though it is not an emergency. The trip costs $2000 instead of the $150 it would cost to go to the doctor. This happens way too much. It is called and EMERGENCY room for a reason, but it has become a source of primary care for too many. This insurance coverage change would greatly increase preventative care also and if diseases are caught earlier they are easier to treat and therefore cheaper.
Next, we cap how much a hospital and private practitioners can be sued for. This cuts down on malpractice insurance costs and settlement costs which, ultimately, we pay for. As an alternative, I suggest, since we don’t want the terrible doctors to stay in business, we provide a patient feedback database. This would be a private company (or companies) that could function much like 1-800-dentist, with on-line or over the phone reviews of doctors including histories of complaint, positive feedback, if they have been deemed negligent in any court proceedings, etc. I know these are already in existence to some extent, but I am thinking of a more far-reaching and comprehensive database that would include which insurance they would accept and whether they are accepting patients. Since it would be privatized, you would have to pay a small fee, maybe $3-$5 for a family search. I am sure there would be competing companies, which would improve the ease of service and thoroughness of information provided.
I also propose independent oversight of the drug companies. We provide a government contract (I’d guarantee they would function on half the money the FDA functions on) that would be responsible for the drug companies FDA approval of drugs. I am still wondering about this idea myself, but hear me out. This company would function on 3-5 year contracts and if significant lacks of oversight, like drugs passing through that were harmful, the drug company and the oversight company would be held responsible. The oversight company’s contract would go somewhere else, so they would have to be diligent in making sure they were doing their job. The FDA is not held responsible, individuals in the FDA take kick-backs from the drug companies themselves and they will never be put out of business for making a horrible call. This would change all of that. They take kick-backs… they are gone. In addition to that I would halt all drug companies’ advertisements of their new drugs on television and in magazines. This, theoretically, saves the drug company money, lessens the need the newest and greatest, which would allow for the proper amount of time for a smaller group of people to see what the drug does (instead of the huge amounts now) and allow time for a generic alternative. I would like to outlaw all those damn pens and mouse pads that all the drug reps push on the doctors to save cost, but that is going a bit far I guess. Perhaps limit the ways a drug rep can contact a medical facility. I would hesitate at that action as well, but I you can see where I am going with this. They have to still make enough of a profit though for them to stay in the business, so I don’t know. Half of the drug companies’ problem is government paperwork… we need to streamline the system and make it easier for all involved and lower costs.
Last, and least popular, I would announce that anyone 35 and under will not be receiving Medicare benefits when they come of age. Unfortunately, they will be paying for it, either way we would’ve been anyway… now at least they are upfront about our need to prepare to not be covered and to save and plan accordingly. There will still be Medicaid available to the lower income brackets, but for the majority of Americans, it will not be made available. This is drastic, but seeing as we cannot actually pay for the program anyway it is, at least, honest. I would fit into the under 35 category here, so I am not choosing the age so I will get under the wire. I just think 35 is still enough time to save for alternative means. I am willing to pay for a benefit I will not receive; I do that all the time through taxes anyway, if it means that my country will be fiscally sound in the future. Hopefully, by that time, we have reformed the system to be more affordable and cost-efficient.
Again, I know these ideas probably have holes all over the place, but this is just what I thought of at my kitchen sink! Surely others should have ideas that would be even better and more efficient than just throwing money we don’t have at the problem. We need REAL reform, not a band-aid! Let’s get the conversations started!
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