Proponents of Obamacare believe that reforms to the health care system can bring down or eliminate unnecessary costs in health care and that by facilitating these changes, the government can bring overall health spending under control and create economic stimulus and universal insurance coverage in the process.
Marianne Skogh is an 83-year old Swedish woman who suffered from spinal stenosis.
Skogh waited over a year to see a specialist under Sweden’s public health care system, only to be told that, though the pain and numbness in her legs was something that could be treated, she was too old to undergo that treatment.
Two Michigan legislators, Rep. David Camp and Rep. Fred Upton, have signed a pledge being circulated by Let Freedom Ring regarding the passage of any health care reform legislation.
The pledge that these representatives has made is a small but significant one: They have promised that they will not vote on any health care legislation unless they have read it. They have also committed to making legislation available to the public before voting.
In his latest column for Reason Magazine, John Stossel brings up an important point about health reform cost predictions:
What will the actual price tag be for a plan estimated to cost $1.5 trillion? Let’s hope Americans don’t have to find out.
With the recent Rasmussen poll that suggests 53 percent of Americans are at least somewhat opposed to congressional plans to reform health care as the latest evidence that Americans are skeptical of governments’ plans to take on a greater role in that sector of the economy, it’s curious that President Obama continues to push for health reform before the fall.
Senator Carl Levin thinks that President Obama needs to proceed with caution on health care reform:
Sen. Levin has an important opportunity to push for the kinds of reforms that do help to lower the costs of health insurance: opposing community ratings systems, pushing for interstate competition in health insurance and lowering or removing coverage mandates that push up premiums.
The New York Times reports that Massachusetts will be cutting care for over 30,000 legal immigrants in the state. Although they hold green cards, they’ve done so for less than five years and as such, these taxpayers will no longer qualify for the benefits afforded to the rest of the state — though they’ll continue to pay for them.
America’s new cap-and-trade system for energy as a result of the Waxman-Marxley legislation is designed to reduce energy use. It does this by increasing the price of energy through rationing — that is, putting a cap on energy use. After this cap is in place, the market must readjust to a new, higher cost of energy.
Some materials from the Grand Rapids Health Care Roundtable are now available online:
America’s 45 million uninsured are often touted as the main reason that the government needs to introduce a public health insurance option and overhaul the health care system.
There is considerable doubt that there really are 45 million chronically uninsured Americans. In Michigan, although Gov. Jennifer Granholm says that there are 1.1 million, some (like former Rep. Bruce Caswell) have estimated that the number is more like 200,000. Nationally, it’s been found that many are not American citizens, some already qualify for Medicaid but don’t apply, and some simply have other priorities.
NICE, or the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, is a British authority that is in charge of making sure that the country’s national health care system uses “best practices” to “root out under-performing doctors and useless treatments, spreading best practices everywhere.”
What are the differences between health care in Massachusetts, a state that has implemented many of the President’s proposed health care reforms, and Georgia, a considerably less regulated state?
Much like the health care systems in other countries with socialized health insurance markets, costs are higher and wait times are longer in a more regulated state.
John Goodman, one of the best writers on health care policy, wrote an interesting piece on the social cost of health care reform.
As Gregory Mankiw explained in a recent New York Times editorial, if we want to shift costs, we do not need monopsonistic buying power. We could simply impose a tax on all the providers and use the proceeds to subsidize the health care purchases of patients. Good for patients and bad for doctors, perhaps. But since the gains and losses cancel out, the benefits for society as a whole are nil.
More myths debunked last week in this column by George Newman in the Wall Street Journal. My favorite excerpts:
In other words, you can keep your current plan if it (and the company offering it) is still around. This is not a trivial qualification. Proponents have clearly learned from the HillaryCare debacle in the 1990s that radical transformation does not sell. What we have instead is what came to be dubbed “salami tactics” in postwar Eastern Europe where Communist leaders took away freedoms one at a time to minimize resistance and obscure the ultimate goal. If nothing else, a century of vain attempts to break the Post Office monopoly should teach us how welcoming Congress is to competition to one of its high-cost, inefficient wards.
Shikha Dalmia had a brilliant column in Forbes last week, reprinted at Reason this week, on “Obama’s top five lies” about health care:
You can read why you ought to regard these claims as dubious by reading her full column.
The Acton Powerblog has a quick write-up of last week’s Health Care Roundtable.
John Stossel has an article posted at Reason about “free” health care. He says it’s not free at all.
Obama insists he is not “trying to bring about government-run healthcare.”
“But government management does the same thing,” says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. “To reduce costs they’ll have to ration—deny—care.”
The Health Care Round Table that took place yesterday in Grand Rapids brought out about 90 participants interested in the future of America’s health system. RightMichigan’s Nick De Leeuw, who attended the event, has an excellent write-up here.
Dominic Siciliano, one of the speakers, told those present at the meeting about his two-year-old daughter, who was receiving a chemotherapy treatment at the time he was speaking.
An Op-Ed by Judith White Bridger in the Lansing State Journal inadvertently shows one way that universal health coverage could severely inflate America’s health care spending:
According to the AARP Web site, insurance premiums and deductibles for my age and location for the same 4 1/2 years are estimated at between $22,500 and $36,000, when a trip to a local Redi-Care cost about $95, and an accompanying antibiotic prescription can be filled at Meijer for free.
Fix Health Care Policy has posted a video of an interview with Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman regarding his feelings on the public option health care plan. Lieberman explains why he’s not really in favor of the public option — which he believes is too expensive given the nation’s existing debt, could lead to a doctor shortage and will shift costs to privately insured individuals — nor does he think that it’s politically feasible.
The Lansing State Journal reports on proposals to tax health care benefits provided by employers.
That benefit has been provided tax-free to employees. But that could change.
The exclusion of employer-provided health care from taxable wages is the nation’s biggest tax benefit. The hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue is being eyed as one way to help pay for extending health care coverage.
From Mark Steyn in the National Review Online:
Hamilton’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph’s Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.
A provincewide search for an open NICU bed came up empty, leaving no choice but to send the two-pound, four-ounce preemie to Buffalo that evening.
9 & 10 News reports more health care cuts as Michigan legislators try to get their budgets in order. Another reminder of what happens when patients aren’t the ones deciding which services are worth keeping around.
Carpe Diem’s Mark Perry featured this video, from Reason.tv’s archives, about how to decrease the number of uninsured in America.
The premise? If you want health insurance, buy it. Many of America’s uninsured remain that way by choice, rather than because they can’t afford coverage.
