Making a last-ditch effort to save his health care overhaul, President Barack Obama on Monday put forward a nearly $1 trillion, 10-year compromise that would allow the government to deny or roll back egregious insurance premium increases that infuriate consumers.
Cato says, What an idiot!
a) The insurance companies make somewhere between 2-6 % profits, so they cannot be gouging the consumer. The root cause is simply the perception that the cost of health care is "too high*", not the insurance companies, which he is using as a scapegoat.
b) If consumers are infuriated by an insurance company, they should just be able to go to another one. If you opened up the insurance market to true competition, that could happen.
c) It’s not the government’s job to appease infuriated consumers, it’s the market’s job.
d) Now we suddenly have another manufactured faux crisis – infuriated consumers. Might these be the same consumers ginned up by ACORN to protest foreclosures of houses … uh, that should never have been purchased by those consumers in the first place - and indeed would never have been made available to those consumers had it not been for government meddling in the housing finance business?
~Seneca's Commentary
Right On, Right On, Right On
* Concerning the "cost" of health care. This too is just a red herring meant to stir up the people. Talking about the high cost of health care begs the question "high cost compared to what"? Tony Parker's salary, the cost of a basketball ticket, death, bones hanging out your arm, kids that die??
Quite frankly the cost of health care is NOT "high". Now, if you want to grouse about health care, grouse about the delivery system and the dismissiveness of most doctors, and how if you have a 10 o'clock appointment, you are kept waiting till 11:30. If you want to grouse, how about grousing to Congress about a patient's rights act which would require the doctor to actually treat you within 10 minutes of your appointment or else he pays you for YOUR time waiting on him? And NO I do not care about how many little Johinnies he had to see before ME. He made an appointment - I was there - he should be also. A few hundred dollars in time penalties with a posting to the internet will correct this problem quickly.
4 comments:
Well, but there is excess in the cost, and there again, the prime reason for that excess is government involvement. Of course, the costs associated with having the best health care in the world are unique to America and will always be with us. But if we get rid of the government involvement, THEN we can decide how to deal with the rest, if need be.
Well, I can agree that there is an overhead burden a.k.a. excess, because of the government meddling and the government involvement. Of course, some of that cost is for things like quality requirements and testing requirements which I am (even with all my fulminations here) predisposed to agree with, however, even with the added costs from government friction, I believe that the costs are still not "high".
For example, I just had a plumber in to put in a new water heater. His hourly rate he is going to charge me??? $90/hr. for a guy in a tee shirt with dirt under his fingernails. Now, I pay him because he gets that amount in the trade --- and I need a water heater.
All this from a guy that did not go to Med school, does not need to go to Broadway plays, had a lifestyle where he augers out sewer lines And all this on something that is just for my convenience as opposed to something life threatening.
While this i$ is for a plumber it could be for any tradesman. Wife want some updated kitchen (while children are starving in Africa)?? $10,000 at the drop of a hat. Looks cool and we can show off our conspicuous consumption to our neighbors - ans lots of sex afterward, so we chumps are happy to pay.
Contrast this to going into the clinic the other day to have them take a look at some ingrown toenail and cut half of if off. Cost? Oh, about $200/hr and much less than the kitchen and a bit more than the plumber. But, I moan and groan about how "costly" health services are???
Well, I do not groan about it. They have something I need. Their service is their property and I think that all the frustration with medical treatment is actually caused by having to deal with insurance companies and caused by insurance companies trying to beat everybody down on their price - and caused by an attitude on the part of the doctors and their staffs, that is dismissive to patients. But, considering it costs $10,000 for a kitchen and $100k for a transplant,I figure I am getting a good deal on the transplant - even if i have to put up with nurses and doctors that are put out that I want more information and not just a prescription written from on high. And all that transplant being done with no sex involved.
But again, I agree that there is cost resulting form the government meddling/control, and if we really want to see costs go up(or availability eliminated) then all we have to do is wait for Obama to take it all over.
As far as med staff attitudes, I think that that too can be helped by the government getting out of the way. IF I was a staffer, I would be most unhappy having 40% of my time taken up by treating people that figured that somebody "owes them".
I am so tired of this health care crap. When is that buthead in Washington ever going to learn that the American people said NO!!!
I hear you pig.
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