Topic: Health Care
HR 3962 (Health Care) - on Balance a dangerous bill Access to health care, health insurance, and reducing costs is important for all Americans. This bill, however, is not the way to accomplish those goalsby Tully
(libertarian)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
I am not one of those Republicans who opposes all health care reform. However, I strongly oppose bad reform, and on balance, this bill is very, very bad.
The Good: The bill removes Insurer's exemptions from antitrust laws, and creates a national marketplace for shopping for insurance. This is good for consumers, good for competition, and will improve insurance access. The bill also eliminates restrictions on pre-existing conditions, an important aspect of any insurance reform. While it is true that insurers need to make a profit to survive and pay claims, it is also true that the purpose of an insurance pool is to spread the risk - both good risks and bad risks - across the entire pool of insurees. For far too long Insurance companies have gotten away with creating pools that are guaranteed 'winners,' further enhanced by their near monopoly status in some states and ability to limit competition across state lines. These are positive aspects of the bill, and aspects that the GOP ought to get behind in the public marketplace of ideas.
The Bad & The Ugly: The bill requires large companies to offer insurance, and requires citizens to secure insurance, period. The element of freedom of choice will been eliminated, as the government forces us to purchase a product. The cost to individuals and employers in terms of premiums could be disastrous in a recession. Worse, the Government Budget Office readily admits it is planning on offsetting the cost of the new program through 167 BILLION in fines on individuals and employers over the next 10 years. In other words, they are actually counting and planning on consumers and businesses being unable to comply in order to pay for the program!
The bill charges the IRS with compliance with the mandatory insurance provision. This is modeled after Massachusetts, which requires proof of health insurance coverage before one is able to file their State Tax Return. In practice, this has proven to be a nightmare for accountants, who with increasing frequency are preparing returns due to the complexity of the tax code. Now accountants and tax preparers will need to prove insurance coverage on a national scale, and will vastly complicate their practices and increase the costs of filing income taxes for both preparers and taxpayers.
And worst of all is the creation of a Government-run Health Care Insurance Company. There are three ways this can go:
1) It can be so successful that private insurers, now facing stiffer competition and requirements to cover expensive pre-existing conditions, go out of business, and the government becomes a sole insurance provider. 2) It can be financially unsound, and taxpayers will be called upon to bail it out. 3) Both of the Above (the most likely scenario)
In the course of the debate, those against government health-care have pointed to a shortage of coverage in countries with socialized medicine, the rationing of care based on cost-benefit analysis, and the prospect of government-insiders having better access to medical care than the citizens in times of shortage. Could that really happen?
Well, a real-life, real-time personal case in point: The "free," government-run Swine Flu (H1N1) vaccines. The supply of vaccines is woefully short and late. Then, last week we got a call from the local hospital telling us that they ran all of their patients through a database and one of my sons 'qualified' for a shot. Meanwhile, the news reported that Goldman Sachs (you know, the company which supplied us with the Fed Reserve Governors, the Sec. of Treasury, and Bailout Gurus?) received 200 doses of Vaccines.
Oh? Why is that? Are they all children with pre-existing conditions? Health Care Workers? Or just "connected" to the right people?
Lastly, the fact that this is a 1,990 page bill that was passed in the middle of the night. I sincerely doubt how many members of Congress actually read the bill. Upon completion, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked that this was landmark legislation, and compared it to the advent of Social Security.
Great comparison, Nancy. Social Security is a ponzi scheme headed for bankruptcy within our lifetime. And that's what you compare this legislation to?! Let's hope calmer heads prevail in the Senate
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The views expressed in this
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You are right, Tully. This is a very dangerous bill.
The bill (in all its manipulative, Orwellian versions) has NOTHING to do with improving our health care system. It's just another power grab, another criminal scam that will further destroy our health care, destroy our economy, increase unemployment, steal money from our children and grandchildren, multiply our deficit, and enslave us through lies, manipulation, intimidation and coercion.
Imitating Hugo Chavez, Obama wants to nationalize everything, including our health care system! "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama!" Chavez cheered on Venezuelan TV. He added that he and Cuba's Fidel Castro would now have to work harder just to keep up.
Fortunately, as we have seen in the town halls, the marches and the Capitol, most Americans have NOT been dumbed down. Most Americans DO NOT WANT to put the power of life and death in Obama’s ACORN-type bureaucracy. They will do whatever necessary to defend themselves, their children and grandchildren from the abomination of Obamacare and socialism/communism.
I liked this article and believe as you say, but for some reason I get stuck on the purpose, "To reduce health care costs and provide health Care to the 50 million who are uninsured" that is a paradox not reconciled. From where will the doctors come to serve them? and if they contemplate utilization of existing doctors, would not care drop in quality and costs for service increase. Perhaps I am to stupid to understand such superficial issues.
"... For far too long Insurance companies have gotten away with creating pools that are guaranteed 'winners,' further enhanced by their near monopoly status ..."
I agree with your other points, but covering pre-existing conditions is not insurance. The only reason why that economic insanity exists is because of Nixon's wage controls and an IRS determination that health benefits are not employee income. That has incentivized third-party (employer) programs that are not fully vested in the employee. If the health insurance belonged to them and they could take the same tax credits a business does now, the problem with losing a job and concurrently, all insurance coverage, would mostly disappear.
As you say, the absolutely necessary condition for transportable insurance coverage is the elimination of state enforce monopolies. Eliminating that kind of restraint of trade was exactly what the Founders intended in granting the feds the power to "regulate" impediments to interstate commerce.
Of course, state politicians don't want to lose that power and the federal anti-trust laws are a delicious talking point for statists. But, those laws are not a solution to the "pre-existing conditions" problem, they are just another set of subjective regulatory powers that pretend to justify vast and corrupt federal bureaucracies.
Sadly, the Republicans have "bought into" this problem and the Democrat's "solution", without making the point that it was caused by government intervention in the first place.
Making the insurance companies accept pre-existing conditions is one of the main reasons why they must force everyone to buy insurance. Otherwise people would not buy insurance until they got sick. The insurance companies would still have to accept them. People would only keep their insurance in effect until their problem was remedied and then they'd cancel it. No insurance company could stay in business under such circumstances.
I don't want government forcing me to buy insurance. It's unconstitutional and un-American.
Wow, what a worthless article. Because, did you know...libertarians need to know that universal healthcare is against their philosophy! (/sarcasm) This place just is disgusting with all its self-congratulatory orgies, a bunch of fools patting themselves on the back instead of posting this stuff on sites people OTHER THAN LIBERTARIANS read.
You would do better to have just a modicum of grace towards those of us who post here...it may *just* be, believe it or not, that you do not know everything there is to know in the world.
For instance, you have no idea whatsoever why I post here. I post here *not* to preach to the choir, as you so condescendingly presume. I post here because the Nolan Chart has done an *outstanding* job of positioning itself on the net to show up 'above the fold' when the general public does a google search on various topics...which, from a Marketing perspective, is a critical skill when you're trying to be heard above the din of several BILLION websites world-wide. I do not post so fellow Libertarians can read what I have to say...I post so that the inquiring non-libertarian public will have a better chance of running across and reading these points.
You demonstrate your ignorance here. Presuming that I presume, that's ironic. From a marketing perspective, you should look at Alexa to back up this claim, also measure the percentage of how many prospective readers you reach align with the libertarian orthodoxy, then tell me that you are "reaching" new audiences. You want to "market" libertarianism? Better avenues are Daily Kos and RedState. Be gone, you hapless twit. As well as all of you who deny that you're inbreeding the freedom movement.
As a matter fo fact, I post regularly on over a dozen far left blogs. I use reason and pragamatism, and post openly as a libertarian with whom many can agree.
That, of course, appears to be a far cry from your own approach, which echoes the usual bombastic, slash-and-burn techniques of Ivory Tower Libertarians who emulate Billy Joel's "Angry Young Man" more than any rational spectre of statesmanship.
What I'm getting at is that you're being a hypocrite. "Presuming that I presume" again. Really too bad - it stops you from having a credible argument. I hope this is not how you solicit libertarianism to people; who knows what your definition of pragmatism entails, but it's surely not Webster's.
Now, I say again, don't deny that you're inbreeding the freedom movement with recycled dialectics.
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