Putting aside all the clever metaphors and punditry, here are some data:
Over 50 percent of Americans polled over a three year period agree with the following statements:
•Insurance companies should spend more money on health care than on administrative costs. •People should not be denied health insurance because of an illness. •The government should lower health care costs to participants. •The government should help lower class people obtain health care. •Everyone should have access to health care. •The government should not force people to buy health insurance.
And the last one doesn't actually affect the vast majority of voters.
1. Insurance (all kinds) is regulated federally and separately in every state and territory. When I worked for an insurance company, we had big floors of lawyers, clerks, and IT programmers who did nothing but try to keep the company in compliance with all the regulations. Wishing that insurance companies spend more on claims and less on administration won't make it so - particularly with more regulations.
2. So who pays the difference? Taxes, debt, doctors, or reduced services - those are your choices.
Trying to solve 3 and 4 without 5 is pretty much impossible.
Really, Nigel, we're going to play the polling game? Before Obamacare, something like 90% of Americans didn't have a problem with their healthcare. There were any number of ways to address the 10% gap without trampling on individual liberty.
Well, I guess the White House didn't since the mandate is now a tax...which the White House insists it isn't.
Vike, the relevance of this is that there has been an excellent PR job done to cast "Obamacare" as "bad". Not "Romneycare", mind you, "Obamacare".
The fact that it is based on Romney's plan, which was based on recommendations from the AEI and the Heritage Foundation, and had bipartisan support under Bob Dole's leadership, has been lost in the fog of millions dollars of First Amendment spending.
The 'trampling individual liberty' theme is nice, juicy red meat to throw out there, but it does not reflect reality.
The individual mandate was put in health care plans (like Romney's) on the insistence of conservatives. The logic was that since everyone uses healthcare at some point, and since the rest of us end up paying for the uninsured when this inevitably happens, that it was unfair to foist the cost upon others.
Your expectation, and mine, and everyone else's, in today's America is that if something bad happens to you you will be picked up in an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and healed.
If we are not OK with dumping libertarians who got in car accidents out onto the street because they don't have a way to pay for their hospital visit, then we need a solution.
6 comments:
You mean Obama's going to win again, 55.5% to 44.4%?
I don't follow that logic. This ain't 2008.
Putting aside all the clever metaphors and punditry, here are some data:
Over 50 percent of Americans polled over a three year period agree with the following statements:
•Insurance companies should spend more money on health care than on administrative costs.
•People should not be denied health insurance because of an illness.
•The government should lower health care costs to participants.
•The government should help lower class people obtain health care.
•Everyone should have access to health care.
•The government should not force people to buy health insurance.
And the last one doesn't actually affect the vast majority of voters.
Most people are stupid
1. Insurance (all kinds) is regulated federally and separately in every state and territory. When I worked for an insurance company, we had big floors of lawyers, clerks, and IT programmers who did nothing but try to keep the company in compliance with all the regulations. Wishing that insurance companies spend more on claims and less on administration won't make it so - particularly with more regulations.
2. So who pays the difference? Taxes, debt, doctors, or reduced services - those are your choices.
Trying to solve 3 and 4 without 5 is pretty much impossible.
Really, Nigel, we're going to play the polling game? Before Obamacare, something like 90% of Americans didn't have a problem with their healthcare. There were any number of ways to address the 10% gap without trampling on individual liberty.
Well, I guess the White House didn't since the mandate is now a tax...which the White House insists it isn't.
Vike, the relevance of this is that there has been an excellent PR job done to cast "Obamacare" as "bad". Not "Romneycare", mind you, "Obamacare".
The fact that it is based on Romney's plan, which was based on recommendations from the AEI and the Heritage Foundation, and had bipartisan support under Bob Dole's leadership, has been lost in the fog of millions dollars of First Amendment spending.
The 'trampling individual liberty' theme is nice, juicy red meat to throw out there, but it does not reflect reality.
The individual mandate was put in health care plans (like Romney's) on the insistence of conservatives. The logic was that since everyone uses healthcare at some point, and since the rest of us end up paying for the uninsured when this inevitably happens, that it was unfair to foist the cost upon others.
Your expectation, and mine, and everyone else's, in today's America is that if something bad happens to you you will be picked up in an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and healed.
If we are not OK with dumping libertarians who got in car accidents out onto the street because they don't have a way to pay for their hospital visit, then we need a solution.
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