…freedom from choice is what you want.”- Devo – 1980
In my Dr. Ben Dover post I mentioned that the Democrat’s “government option” proposal will eventually lead to no options for U.S. citizens and I promised to post on it later. Well, at reason.tv I found this great little clip that shows you the President and other proponents of the “government option” actually stating that their goal with the plan is to eventually eliminate private health insurance. Cool! Now I don’t have to write a bunch of stuff. Watch the video and be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
O.K., let’s be serious. This is Rufus T. Firefly. My motto is why say in 5 words what can be said in 500. Here’s the two main reasons why the government system will ultimately annihilate the competition and private insurance will disappear from the U.S. (except for the ultra wealthy).
1. The government doesn’t compete fairly. The government system doesn’t have to compete against the private ones, if the government system makes a mistake it will just increase revenue by taxing us more and cover up any errors it’s making. Private insurers don’t have access to our income via taxes, and don’t have the luxury of taking more of our money when they screw up. In other words, the game is rigged. Want proof? Look at Canada. When the government wasn’t able to compete they made it mandatory for all citizens to use its plan. For the same reason that my city can’t educate kids as well as the Catholic school down the street, so I’ve got to pay to send my kids to the Catholic school AND sill pay for the public school, the government will eventually force us all to pay for their system. They have a 100% history of doing this with every program they implement.
2. Let’s take the President and Congress at their word, “they only want to offer a plan for the uninsured.” How does that work? At my company we’ve run the numbers. The plan would probably be cheaper for about 40% of our employees. No problem, you say. See Rufus, those 40% will choose the government plan and you and the other fat cats can keep your private insurance. Well, no… What happens next? Our private insurer looks at our group plan and says, “Oh, oh, Mr. Firefly. Your premium was based on a pool of xx employees. You’re now at 60% of that number. A smaller pool of people means more risk so we’ve got to raise the cost of coverage to $Y.”" Well, now private insurance at Firefly Industries costs $Y, but guess what, the government plan is still the same price. So, of the remaining 60% on the private plan the increased private premium means the government plan is now cheaper. Let’s say it’s 20% of our employees. So the pool shrinks some more. Our private insurer comes along and says, “Oh, oh, Mr. Firefly, your premium was based on a pool of yy, but now you only have zz employees on our plan. More risk. We’re going to have to raise the premium.” And on, and on, until the private insurer goes out of business.
Sounds like a good old bait and switch scheme!
Says something when you have to lie about your goal.
The private insurance companies will have to decide how to run their business. The old business model will not work of simply raising the premiums because of a smaller pool of people wanting to be insured if the “government option” is available. Do they raise their premiums and risk losing their clients to the a cheaper public option? The demand for private insurers will continue due to the fact people will pay top dollar for medical treatment if they can afford it. If we all could pay a penny and receive the top medical treatment in the world, wouldn’t we all do it? The market will determine how these insurers will run their business. How much profit do they need to make to keep providing their services?
We already pay money for the uninsured reflected in our premiums. In England, doctors are rewarded for making their patients healthier (quit smoking, lose weight, lower cholesterol). Can we put in place incentives for doctors to do that here? It would mean a healthier population, which in turn would mean less demand for health services, which could mean lower costs.
I agree that somehow we will all end up paying for this program whether we use it or not. Health care would then be just like the schools. If I can’t go to the top level private school, that I can still get an education at the public school. The top level schools remain in business and still thrive even though I’m sure they continue to charge an arm and a leg, but people are willing to pay for their services.
BarryO,
Excellent point about us already paying for the uninsured. That is true, and that gets left out too often in discussions on this topic. I’ve got two main concerns about this. The first is what a large government plan will do to competition. Most of the civilized world is already on socialized medicine. The U.S. is the last, great, free market where an innovator can make a new drug or invent a new piece of medical equipment or procedure and still make a personal fortune. What will happen when this market goes away? Research and Development will be planned by the government. That will have a huge, huge, negative impact on innovation. Second is the simple issue of freedom. Being free means we are also free to screw up our own lives. Here is an old post I did on the topic, http://www.threedonia.com/archives/617 If you get a chance, read it. Here’s another one that deals with it from the angle of Economics, http://www.threedonia.com/archives/459
Our country is built on some fundamental principles and individual freedom and responsiblity are foremost in those ideals.
All well and good, BarryO (I do like the competition angle to a degree), but a federal government continuing to chip away unconstitutionally into the private sector ultimately doesn’t sit well in my eyes.
Also, if “Health care would then be just like the schools,” considering the precipitous drop in overall scores and rise in drop-out rates since President Carter’s ill-fated Department of Education introduction (as well as President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” bungle), I’ll once again say like Jimmy Malone initially did to Elliot Ness in The Untouchables: “Thank ya, no.”
I read the older posts. I see that you don’t want government involvement and our money tied up into this. We are not a country willing or wanting socialism. We want affordable options. These options are not provided in the current structure of health care. I say that providing an option does not eliminate the free market or capitalism. I have no crystal ball, but it could lower costs all the way around. Yes, you have to pay a couple of bucks a day. If you don’t use it, then hopefully (although no guarantee) your premiums would drop to offset some of the cost.
Oh, I don’t trust the government to get it running smoothly (it won’t be all rainbows and gumdrops), but they are offering health care regardless of preexisting conditions which is huge. Many people can’t get insured for that very reason. We founded our country on freedom of choice. You can choose the post office or fedex. Both will work and both exist in America’s free market. The government has power but it can’t redefine our economy and free market society. Not even us bleeding-heart liberals would stand for it.
It is interesting you use the Fedex vs. the USPS analogy because this actually highlights a huge problem with using the federal government that Rufus touched on.
The USPS never offered overnight delivery despite the demand. They said for years and years it was impossible. Then Fedex said “F— you Post Office” and did it. And now, lo’ and behold they offer overnight delivery. The problem being is that what if the Feds forced Fedex out of business before they started doing overnight delivery? We’d never have it.
There is no guarantee that the legislation will force private insurances under, but there are several clauses in it which raise that concern for me. When private insurers are gone, where will the innovations come from?
BarryO,
You write, “We want affordable options. These options are not provided in the current structure of health care.”
First, how can adding another layer to the system, a government bureaucracy, lead to better efficiency? If you truly believe the private market has not driven prices down to their lowest possible levels, how does adding more employees to the puzzle lead to lower prices? We’ve got hospitals, doctors, nurses, orderlies, claims adjusters, pharmacists, medical equipment, beds, syringes, bandages…. now. We’ve got all the components we need to provide health care, and all those components are competing now for patients’ money. If the bandage company charges too much for their product I, and the hospital and the nurses will switch to a cheaper bandage of the same, or better quality. That’s all in place now. So how does adding an extra layer of employees to the system make any of those things cheaper? Now we’ve got to work their salaries into the cost of all those items. If you truly are interested in bringing costs down (and I believe you are), you should be lobbying to take the insurance companies out of the system so patients are dealing directly with health care providers.
Second, we are not all going to be able to afford great health care. You use the term “affordable health care.” What is “affordable health care?” When I was starting out on my own, paying for College and working nights at minimum wage jobs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Swanson pot pies, Ramen noodles and Kraft macaroni and cheese were affordable. That’s what I lived on. Now I can’t believe how inexpensive those items are! They are no longer affordable, they’re downright cheap. I understand that Warren Buffet is going to get better health care than I do. If he and I get the same, terminal illness he will live longer. He has A LOT of money and he can afford things I cannot. So, what is affordable, and why is it the government’s job to ensure all U.S. citizens can “afford” something?
Government run ANYTHING is expensive and inefficient. If they want to fix the high cost of medical care issue, then legislate the reason for the high cost…the court system in allowing huge payouts for malpractice lawsuits etc.
Basically, more government is less freedom. Less freedom is slavery. Government giving handouts is the worse thing it can do to a person. It causes them to become dependent. Dependency erodes the mind. We are truly headed in the wrong direction.
G-MAN,
That slavery point is not insignificant. Yes, it sounds like hyperbole, but what else is it when I am forced, by threat of incarceration, to work so that the government can take the fruits of my labor and give my wages to somebody else?
This goes back to my earlier post about the government trying to fix the wrong problem. BarryO thinks health care is too expensive. If that’s the case, do as you write, and attack the areas that are driving costs up. “Government” cannot do that. “Government” is nothing more than a group of U.S. citizens doing a job. We have the same pool of 300 million citizens to choose from. Why will people work better and smarter as part of a government agency than they will in the private sector? Unfortunately, the opposite is all too often true, but even if it weren’t, even if folks do the same work in the public or private sector, how can taking the employees from private sector health care, and shifting them to the public sector make them work cheaper, or better? It’s the same pool of people.
Because it feeeeels so gooood, Rufus! And you know if it feels good then it must be done. That is the Dems prime directive. Unfortunately this “Robin Hood” mentality they have doesn’t work in a situation such as ours. When it’s all over with and the tally sheets are compiled the people who are put upon now will have been put upon more. Less jobs=more gubment control and more gubment control=disaster!
BHO-WHO has this damnable utopian dream that if you kill the rich bastards a level playing field will be the result. Not so. The rich will still be there, but fewer in number. The poor will still be there, but higher in number. You can’t keep taking from the rich and expect their ability to keep employing the middle class to continue as has been the case for lo these many years. How many jobs are created by poor people? NONE!
You are right, Fritz, but I think many liberals, including Barack, understand this, and know it’s a losing strategy. Where they differ from you and I is they think they can boil the frog slowly, and stop the burner just before the frog dies. (I just deleted a bunch more, and realize this needs to be a post. More soon?)
I never cared much for boiled frog. Especially when that frog was me!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124779717982855785.html
A reckless congress, indeed. They plan to push as much through as they can to 1. Try to create their uptopian ideals. 2. Attempt to push things far enough it will take a long time to undo. 3. Change the way things work to what they think how it should work (even though it has failed every time in history). 4. Make people dependent upon government so they become permanently dependent That’s where the slavery enters, such as the generations of families living on welfare.
If people were created in the image of God, then we are creators. Creativity ends when limitation occurs. Dependency evolves into limitation. When the mind gets enveloped in limitation, slavery occurs. If the government dictates what you can and can’t do, it becomes the master, you become the slave. It’s more than laws and regulations. It’s what happens to the mind and therefore the soul.
When are you the happiest? When you are creating something. You have a sense of purpose. If you work and earn money and buy something with it, you have a sense of value. You earned it. Handouts from the government breeds entitlement. We have gotten close to the edge of the cliff already. Look at society today and see how much of an entitlement mentality already exists. That’s how Obama got elected. He promised the world, and they believed. They still do.