[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Okay those against the mandate. If the US could drop its current healthcare system and replace it exactly with some other countries system, which country would you want to copy?[/quote]
No one - there is not one worth copying.
What we need to do is implement policy to reduce health care costs and make helath insurance prtability by disentangling it from employment. Give insurance companies competitive pressure across state boundaries and breack up local monopolies.
Then, after this is accomplished, see who is left over that cannot get insurance - and devise a plan to help them. But that pool of people should be small and the costs manageable.
That’s the great idiocy of Obamacare - how can you complain that the law is supposed to help people who can’t afford insurance when you never try, as an initial matter, to make it more affordable in the first place? If affordability is truly the problem, well, simply try to make it more affordable…right?
Obamacare - and its Orwellian official title, done to maximize marketing - did the opposite: it simply decided to expand coverage without worrying about affordability. That’s the point: the “Affordable Care Act” had nothing to do with affordability - it was an attempt at universal coverage, affordability be damned. It;s the most dishonest bill in modern history.
Every sane person - including legions of moderate Democrats - knew (and know) that if you want to fix health care, you have to prioritize bringing the cost down. Period. Any serious reform will have to begin there. The only thing that Obamacare did was set back real health care reform for years.[/quote]
Agreed.
The question–left completely unanswered by Baucus and company–is how to expand coverage and reduce or contain aggregate costs. The answer should be easy: reduce aggregate demand for medical services.
But as a matter or policy, how does Congress accomplish this? The answer should be to empower consumers by making them pay progressively for services: the educated consumer will choose not to pay for marginally worthless services. (Trust me: much of what is offered as medical care is baseless and worthless.)
This is not news. The interested reader will find 40 years of literature by Mark V.Pauly, and many others.
Instead, what policy have we? In the last 3 years, as a small businessman, my premiums have gone up 50%, largely to pay for the anticipated costs of the “Affordable Care Act.” For any employer, it will become a reasonable choice to end health insurance benefits, and kick part of the cash back to the employees and say, “You are on your own. Go find an insurance exchange.” The exchanges will function to limit access to services, and just because someone has an insurance card does not mean that they will find a “provider.”
(I do not endorse Krauthamer’s argument. Now that Mr. Chief Justice Roberts has redefined the ACA as a piece of taxation, what activity or lack thereof will be untaxable by Congress? By his flawed opinion, the restraint placed on the Commerce Clause now is replaced by COngress’ power of taxation to intrude unrestrained into every private behavior.)
The ACA expands coverage–by fiat, and not well–and gives away entitlements–without funding them publicly–and empowers insurance companies only–without meaningful restraint. Thunderbolt is correct: in no way was any real national health care need met by this monstrosity of a law.
In short, despite what sufiandy or BrianHanson would like to believe, the mere fact that Congress passes a law and the President signs it, does not make it happen, and the worst of “unanticipated” outcomes have been written into this law. Economic forces cannot be wished away.
Were Congress to repeal the Laws of Gravitation today, I would not walk out of a tenth-story window tomorrow.