Under the President's proposal, federal and or state government agencies, would be empowered to review and reject premiums charged by any health insurance plan. Rhetoric to the contrary, there is no grand-fathering clause for health care plans, which Americans currently hold.
To simplify, the primary duty of the government bureaucracies running health care reimbursements, is to hold health care spending down. This means, that we will have government officials canceling our personal health care decisions, in an effort to balance quality of treatment against cost of treatment. In other words, medicine will be all protocol. If treatment doesn't fit the protocol it won't be delivered. Protocols in medicine are a set-up for error. I can just see all the trial lawyers suing doctors for not providing standard of care treatment, because they must operate under protocol. It's an Obama nightmare.
Putting it all together, the end result is denial of life-saving diagnostic tests and treatments, because there's no money. I don't think America wants that kind of health care reform. And that's just the beginning of what's in the bill.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Rationing In The Healthcare Plan
My co-blogger at the Lake County Right to Life Blog brings to our attention the latest warning on Obamacare:
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10 comments:
Objections with possible abortion funding or specific provisions is fair, but disparaging the entire call health reform is absurd.
"Putting it all together, the end result is denial of life-saving diagnostic tests and treatments, because there's no money."
What about all of the life-saving test and treatments that are denied to people that can't get insurance? Health care is a major problem in the US. The current system is broken. Stake your position, and be part of the solution. Don't just tear down other proposals. The status quo is horrible.
When the government dictates what's available, then no one gets what they say you don't have.
Insurance companies just write checks. Government enforces its will with guns.
There are all forms of government power and influence.
The article you cited paints government regulation of pricing in broad strokes. The author makes the leap that power to review & reject will necessarily lead to mandated protocols. And mandated protocols will necessarily lead to the denial of life-saving tests and treatments.
It's the same doom and gloom slippery slope hysteria.
There are states that exercise the same type of legislation, all to varying degrees. Show me the massive death and destruction.
Most of the time this regulation is only around to ensure the insurance companies aren't abusing customers. And most of the time they find there isn't abuse. First, heathcare costs are rising, the pools are shrinking, and the premium raises are justified. Second, the insurance companies have their lobbyists. I don't fear for there interests being represented in government.
The whole thing is pretty peripheral to health care reform if you ask me. And if the federal government is as tough on abusing premium raises as they are on wall street bonuses, I think free market fans have nothing to fear.
This whole discussion is a distraction. The real question is how are we going to get most of the population covered by comprehensive health insurance?
Stephanie: The real question is how are we going to get most of the population covered by comprehensive health insurance?
Ori: You forgot "sustainable". A program that will stay affordable without discouraging young people from pursuing medical careers or result in political pressure on the FDA not to approve expensive treatments.
Do you trust the organization that gave us the world's greatest deficit and Social Security to run medicine? This means trusting not only the current administration, but also the ones that will replace it. Would you have trusted President Bush to run healthcare?
The real question is how are we going to get most of the population covered by comprehensive health insurance?
And a 2,000 page bill that costs $1.3 Trillion is necessary to fix that?
And most of the population has health coverage.
Ori,
I think sustainability is implicit. I didn't qualify my question with a time limit.
I'm a pragmatist interested in a good solution to healthcare. The status quo is unsustainable. If you are interested in sustainability, you should be working to fix problems in the current system
Governments exist to address market failures and create public goods. Every political leaning (except ararchists) agree on that, from Libertarian to Communist. They only disagree on what market failures and common goods the government should address.
FDIC insurance is a government solution to a market problem. While the market collapsed, there wasn't a run on all the banks. My bank failed, but I still have my savings. By all accounts, a roaring success for government intervention to fix a market. From roads to the military our lives are filled with government intervention in markets. Some of it more successful than others. Because the question isn't whether government should ever intervene, its how best, if at all, government should intervene in the case of a particular market failure.
Even the public goods with severe problems are better than the alternatives. The public school system has a whole set of issues. People suggest charter schools, school choice vouchers, performance pay, and end to teacher tenure. You don't hear anybody suggesting we abolish public education for a voucherless laissez-faire approach.
And there is a market failure to be solved with health insurance.
There is a failure in the individual and small business health insurance market. Healthy people pass on insurance, leaving the insurance pool smaller and on average sicker. The actuaries recalculate based on the new pool, which raises the rates. With higher rates, more healthy people pass along with people with moderate health problems that can't afford the new rate. That leaves the pool even smaller and sicker. Actuaries recalculate based on the new pool, which raises the rates. Rinse and repeat. And what happens when those self-selected healthy people get sick? The tax payer pays the bill because they are treated in the emergency room. The individual and small business market is slowly unraveling. This is a textbook "Market of Lemons" problem.
However, this isn't just an academic problem. The theory is in action. My wife works for a small cancer research foundation. They're Anthem Blue Cross premiums just went up 34%. Why? Well, according to Blue Cross, the recession has caused a lot of healthy people to drop their Anthem Blue Cross coverage. What did the actuaries do? Raise the rates.
So since it is clear that we are experiencing a market failure, and that governments are in the business of solving market failures, the question becomes: How is the government going to get most of the population covered by comprehensive health insurance?
That doesn't mean the government needs to create a single payer system. There is a spectrum of government approaches possible. If fact, if the government fix the failed market with limited intervention, great. Heck, if the government can help identify another entity that can fix the market, even better.
And if you have any ideas, I'd be glad to hear them. But I've completely lost patience for people that want to make this a partisan issue. Or people that say the government shouldn't ever solve market failures or create public goods. Or that there isn't a market failure.
Perhaps you haven't been following enough conservative new sources Stephanie, but even at this blog, we've discussed three ideas that would make a big difference.
First, tort reform would go a long way towards reducing the cost of providing healthcare.
Second, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines would improve competition and tend to reduce prices.
Third, allowing individuals to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars would make insurance more affordable to those who don't get insurance through their employers, and would tend to de-link health insurance from employment.
I can't see why these things would be controversial, but I first saw these proposed nearly a year ago, and no one on the Democrat side has seen fit to give these ideas the time of day.
They'd be a huge improvement to the status quo, and quick and easy to implement.
Larry D,
First, what's a better approach, voting by substance or weight?
Healthcare is a complex issue, and the cost of healthcare is expensive. I'm not surprised the bill is big and expensive.
What matters is if it solves the problem, and if it saves money.
Now I've heard good ideas and bad ideas in the current bill. Unfortunately, we aren't getting a real debate on these provisions because half of America is preoccupied with the bills weight, and the other half just wants to shove it through the process.
Second, the conservative estimate is that there are 36 million people without heath insurance. That is not an outlier. And many of them are kids. And by all accounts, that number is only projected to outpace population growth. The status quo is unsustainable.
Paul,
Some of those are good ideas, and those have been embraced by some Democrats as well.
Tort reform - I think this is a great idea, and I was happy to hear it will likely be in a bill passed.
Competition across state lines - I think this is a good idea if there are minimum standards to avoid bait & switch or a race to the bottom. Last I heard this might make it into the bill too.
Pre-tax dollars for healthcare - I think this is a good idea. It is one form of government subsidy. Though I know there are subsidies in the bill, I am not sure if this particular one is on the table.
Unfortunately, those ideas don't fundamentally solve the market failure. By all estimates I've seen, they don't get many of the 36 million people back onto health insurance plans. We really need conservative voices proposing changes that will address the market failure directly. (See my post to Ori)
Looks like abortion has reemerged as an issue. If the Stupak amendment prevails, healthcare reform might push the nation a bit closer to pro-life.
If uninsured people get access to healthcare with good prenatal/delivery coverage and no abortion coverage, that would at least right the current financial incentives for them. And it just might result in fewer abortions.
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