Michigan state legislators are pushing forward on their own proposed reforms for health care in the state. States should be encouraged to initiate their own reform efforts and reject one-size-fits-all federal reforms, but the enthusiasm that Teamster lobbyist William Black expressed in the Lansing State Journal for state Rep. Marc Corriveau’s proposed reforms is misplaced. Mr. Black did a fair job of characterizing these changes. Here’s his bullet points:
A great video from the Independence Institute on the costs of mandatory insurance in places like Massachusetts — costs that could be spread to the whole country with a federal insurance mandate. Check it out:
John Calfee has a great column in the WSJ today tackling some of the major myths regarding a public “option” for health insurance — what he calls “Fannie Mae health care.”
The first three arguments are bogus. The fourth argument is only half-bogus — but the half that isn’t reveals a great danger: If a public plan is inserted into private insurance markets, the American health-care system could rapidly evolve into a single-payer system, which would have devastating effects on R&D for new medical technology.
Investors Business Daily reports that Sen. Max Baucus claims he has found $600 billion in cuts that can be made to spending on proposed health care reforms after the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis revealed last week that President Obama’s reforms were projected to overshoot his original cost estimate of $1 trillion by just that much.
A report by UpNorthLive reminds us where the government’s priorities lie when health care services are one of their many commitments: not with providing the most or best care, but with curbing costs.
Fred Keeslar with the Grand Traverse County Health Department says their wellness center at the TBA ISD Career Tech center is one of the programs that would feel the pinch if the state trims funding. Keeslar says the program “last year served over a thousand children that went through that school, and many of them received 2 to 4 services from the department.” Keeslar says the students are often uninsured teenagers in need of medical care, “the kind of services range from physicals to injuries, to illness to health promotions such as smoking cessation depression through mental health services.”
Robert Reich’s column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," misses important facts in its arguments for implementing a “public option” in health insurance and addressing the arguments against it.
Reich makes three major assertions in an attempt to dissuade us from listening to critics of keeping the government out of the health insurance business.
President Obama has said that his health care reforms will cost the nation $1 trillion. But what does $1 trillion get you?
Most assume that for $1 trillion, the United States will achieve universal coverage, and every man, woman and child in America will be covered. To many, this might be worth the cost. But that’s not what’s on the table so far.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal had some coverage on existing Supreme Court of the United States case law, privacy rights and their implications for government health care.
The Supreme Court created and guarantees the right to privacy, which is justified by the Fourteenth Amendment: "… these matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” That is, the courts guarantee Americans a right to personal autonomy over their lives and prohibit the government from infringing on that right.
One of the major downsides of Canada’s socialized health care system is that you might die while waiting for care. Lindsay McCreith is the plaintiff in a case challenging Canada’s government monopoly on health care provision and insurance with the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
The Wall Street Journal published an outstanding essay by Abraham Verghese on the costs of preventative health care.
If you’ve paid attention to President Obama’s promise to reduce health costs and find the savings that will fund his health care reforms through actions like switching America’s focus toward preventative medicine, take note that while an ounce of prevention might be worth a pound of cure, it sure doesn’t cost less. From Verghese’s article:
President Obama has been adamant that if his public insurer is introduced to the market, Americans who have insurance and are happy with it will be able to keep their plans.
The Congressional Budget Office seems to see things differently, though. Their analysis of Sen. Kennedy's health care bill estimates that under the proposed changes, 23 million Americans would lose their private insurance coverage because of the bill.
Derek Melot from the Lansing State Journal had a blog post last week on the vested interests of doctors (specifically the American Medical Association). In his post, Melot seems to suggest that doctors’ input in the health care debate should be less important because they may lose money under some reform proposals.
The Detroit News reports that Michigan may create its own state-funded insurance plan for the uninsured in the state.
There are plenty of problems with the plan, but here’s the biggest concern: If Michigan is already free to create a program like this, why does Congress feel they need to impose a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation?
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is seeking an immediate and significant rate hike (of about 44.4 percent) for those who buy their insurance through the provider and are not insured through the workplace.
Robert Kasperek, a regulatory vice president for BCBS, actually has the gall to call the 44.4 percent hike a “money saving” move for its ratepayers, since the hike is not as high as the original 56 percent the organization requested.
A little while back, Libby Spencer at The Detroit News had written in her blog that Obama and Democratic health care reformers are not supporting socialized medicine with Sen. Kennedy’s bill or Obama’s public option. Ms. Spencer, along with Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, believes, "Socialized medicine is a system in which the government owns the means of providing medicine."
