Some interesting clips on healthcare. This is the third clip. Check the menu for the rest in order. Youtube My question is can the U.S gov't realisticly provide healthcare for 300 million Americans without having worse waiting list and rationing of medical procedures than smaller populated countries like those in Europe and Canada? Providing healthcare for 300 million Americans is going to be more complicated than providing healthcare for just 11 million Cubans or 8 million Swedes for example. I liked the solutions shown in clips 5 & 6. I think Health Savings Accounts also known as Consumer Driven Healthcare will be the future for America. Americans will need better market oriented approaches rather than gov't approaches that depend on taxes. We're already seeing the funding problems that's comming with trying to expand the SCHIP program for kids(higher cigarette taxes,possible medicare cuts).
Don't we have waiting lists and aren't some people denied care because they don't own supplement insurance policies today? Market oriented approaches?...sorry I lived through market directed deregulation of utilities in California, we lived through the market directed supply of necessary commodities. Health Savings Accounts, what bureaucracy will administer it one run like the savings and loans were by Neil Bush. SCHIP programs are mandated by the feds but underfunded, while taxpayers pay outrageous amounts to the State Department's hired guns...Blackwater. Clean up collusion and corruption and the moneys given through taxes could support reasonable programs. Much as No Child Left Behind has earned Bush brownie points for policy, but he failed to fund his mandates. So states have to cut in other areas in order to make his policies work.
Don't try to sell me market driven. The only thing the market cares about is profit, and seems that's the only thing our government cares about today.
Ever look at the history of Social Security and the good that it has done? And it's proven way more endurable than anything the open market has had to offer. Without it the thousands that lost their savings through the Saving and Loan scandals would have ended up on the streets, and many did anyway while scoundrels reaped the profits.
What reasons did he give for doing this? Aren't there legitimate funding issues with expanding SCHIP?
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-kids4oct04,1,1515498.story?coll=la-headlines-health&track=crosspromo Bush wants to cut California's allocation by more than a third of what they see as necessary. He thinks the state can provide services for all the illegal alien kids, and those that are legal in the state for less than a third, while he and Condi continue to pay Blackwater employes more than three times what our military earns. And they probably provide them first class seating on airlines when they fly their butts out of the area to avoid investigation.
What innovations did we see in California while our power rates increased 300%? While Enron executives laughed? While Bush and Cheney told us we would have to solve our own problems? How have the people affected by Katrina fared through profit/market based solutions?
As I've pointed out before the success or effectivness of market approaches is largely determined by how they're implemented. This is why Pennsylvania was more successful with energy deregulation because they implemented their deregulation differently from California. ------------------- Here's some info on Wendys use of Health Savings Accounts. Fine-Tuning Consumer-Driven Health Plans With a few years of experience under their belts, employers and health plans are adjusting their consumer-driven health plan offerings in an attempt to make them more attractive to plan sponsors and employees. By Karen Pallarito The changes include improved communication efforts, more user-friendly decision-support tools and revamped plan design and financing. Wendy’s International Inc., for example, boosted employer contributions to workers’ health savings accounts in 2006. Today, Wendy’s share of HSA funding is about 60 percent, on average, across the various CDHP options it offers, up from 35 percent to 40 percent in the first year, Bauman noted... Workforce.com
He calls it too costly. Go figure. Probably because with it figured in his people can't fly first class or afford their SS mercenaries.
Here's what I ment about there being funding issues with expanding SCHIP. Also won't a higher cigarette tax have the effect of causing fewer people to smoke affecting SCHIP's long term funding? Kids' insurance plan takes aim at tobacco Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007 3:00 am The contentious debate over funding a national health insurance program for children by raising the federal cigarette tax has caught North Carolina squarely in the middle. For now, that funding is sidetracked. President Bush vows to veto legislation that greatly expands coverage and increases costs by $35 billion. Congress wants a whopping 61-cent-per-pack hike in the federal cigarette tax to pay the additional costs over five years. Yet a regressive tax that hurts tobacco sales is too high a price to pay -- even for a worthwhile program. North Carolina tobacco farmers, already adjusting to the end of the federal tobacco quota system, will take a financial hit if demand lessens. It's unfair and unrealistic to expect the tobacco industry to pay the full funding tab... LINK
What exactly were the differences between how Pennsylvania instituted deregulation and California? Please, explain I'd love to understand why it worked there and the cititizens of California were the laughing stock of the nation.
Wendy's International...are we all buying burgers? 30 to 40% of what? And what is guarranteed? I only buy insurance when it's mandated by my state like on my car, only because I have to. What exactly am I buying, a promise for what? When I buy a product I own it, if it doesn't meet my needs I throw it out. What can we do with insurance companies...when do they ever live up to their promises? Why should insurance be seen as more important that the common good. They are profit based, they aren't giving us anything.
Tobacco is the old boogeyman. It's a way to render southern interests without power. It worked, many will now vote for increased taxes no matter what...hey they don't smoke they don't want their families to, they think voting against it will save them in insurance and health costs. I smoke, I am used to the increasing taxes on something I as individual take part in legally. Are you saying Bush vetoed it because of the tobacco tax? Please, say yes, this would be such a big one. Who's interests is his administration protecting? Oh wait isn't this a market economy, isn't the market directing his administration? Is it the tobacco market?
