There is general fatigue among United States citizens associated with hearing leftist (democrat) media personalities (journalism is supposed to be objective, and unfortunately there is no longer such a thing as objective journalists) claim "Republicans have no solutions for healthcare" policy. This is false. Solutions have been discussed by republican congressmen and policy pundits for decades. One brief summary as stated by Jeffrey Anderson of National Review in 2014:
(1) Reduce runaway malpractice lawsuits.
(2) Allow citizens to buy insurance across state lines.
(3) Allow private insurers to offer lower premiums to consumers with healthy lifestyles.
(4) Provide a tax break incentive to the self-insured (those of us who have our own policies and not through an employer) and to the uninsured (those who voluntarily do not wish to spend money on a monthly premium for insurance coverage).
(5) Increase federal support for state-run high-risk pools to help those with pre-existing conditions.
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Friday, May 2, 2014
Friday, August 21, 2009
Canadian Healthcare: Free but Slow (see investigative video)
This is a 20 minute video but it is worth watching if you want to see what government managed healthcare is like. This is what will happen to us in the USA if we allow Democrats to pass federal government managed healthcare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw&feature=related
The feds need to stay out of the healthcare industry except for regulation to prevent fraud and unreasonable litigation.
Stossel also put together a shorter piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJgkvF19QA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw&feature=related
The feds need to stay out of the healthcare industry except for regulation to prevent fraud and unreasonable litigation.
Stossel also put together a shorter piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJgkvF19QA&feature=related
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Keep Healthcare in the Private Sector
This is a good editorial by Newt Gingrich, I just had to pass this along. From US News and World Report February 2009:
"Is there anything in your life you think would be better if it were run by government bureaucrats? For most of us, the answer is a laughable "no" !
Yet oddly, there is sympathy for turning over our most private, personal decisions, not to mention one sixth of our economy, to the same unresponsive, anti-entrepreneurial culture that gave us the response to Hurricane Katrina. Our two largest government-run healthcare programs - Medicare and Medicaid - are on fiscal crash courses that make Social Security seem like a model of solvency. Steep benefit cuts or much higher taxes will be required to sustain them anywhere near their current form.
The dwindling number of doctors who accept Medicare patients resent politicians and government bureaucrats threatening their fees and medling with their judgment. This has aided the rapid expansion of private "concierge" medicine for seniors who can afford it and for physicians who demand more than what Medicaid offers. In the mid 1990s, Tennessee's Medicaid program went further than any other state toward the 1993 Hillary Clinton model of government-run healthcare. It proved so catastrophic that only the capable leadership of Governor Phil Bredesen - who profoundly scaled back the experiment - saved the state.
More government bureaucrats involved in your healtcare would be destructive. Other countries with similar systems face lengthly and often deadly waiting lists. That is the only way to ration unlimited demand in the face of static supply. Go to YouTube and view the short films of Stuart Browning for a flavor of the Canadian system.
Ask government-run healthcare advocates if they would ban all private contracting, which would make it illegal for you to purchase any healthcare service also covered by the government. Instead, you would have to wait in line for care - the length of that line and quality of that care notwithstanding. Horrifying, yes. But that was Canadian law until a 2005 decision by even its left-wing Supreme Court found that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare." If those advocates answer no, then they are allowing for what they claim to oppose - two tiered healthcare where the rich use their money and connections to access one system, leaving everyone else to use the lower-quality government system.
Proponents of government run healthcare gain traction exploiting legitimate frustrations with our system, but opponents do not deserve a place in the debate if our only answer is no. We must offer a positive alternative where healthcare becomes more accessible and of higher quality at lower cost. That is what normal markets produce. Think computers and cellphones, where government bureaucrats have zero involvement in design and pricing.
A truly modernized, intelligent health system would focus on measurably improving health outcomes for all Americans. It would be ideologically agnostic about public or private initiatives and instead seek to scale up successful programs and discard those not producing results. A delivery system that allows private and public programs to flourish concurrently is more likely to yield new and better best practices to emulate elsewhere. Many best new practices offer specific financial rewards and incentives to individuals who achieve measurable progress in weight loss, lowering blood pressure, and eliminating tobacco use. Much of your health status is determined by choices you make. Smart health plans incentivize better choices so you are healthier and then share the savings with you. A modern system also will have 100% E-prescribing and electronic health records by a date certain. This will lead to better, more coordinated care with far fewer medical errors, thereby saving lives and money."
"Is there anything in your life you think would be better if it were run by government bureaucrats? For most of us, the answer is a laughable "no" !
Yet oddly, there is sympathy for turning over our most private, personal decisions, not to mention one sixth of our economy, to the same unresponsive, anti-entrepreneurial culture that gave us the response to Hurricane Katrina. Our two largest government-run healthcare programs - Medicare and Medicaid - are on fiscal crash courses that make Social Security seem like a model of solvency. Steep benefit cuts or much higher taxes will be required to sustain them anywhere near their current form.
The dwindling number of doctors who accept Medicare patients resent politicians and government bureaucrats threatening their fees and medling with their judgment. This has aided the rapid expansion of private "concierge" medicine for seniors who can afford it and for physicians who demand more than what Medicaid offers. In the mid 1990s, Tennessee's Medicaid program went further than any other state toward the 1993 Hillary Clinton model of government-run healthcare. It proved so catastrophic that only the capable leadership of Governor Phil Bredesen - who profoundly scaled back the experiment - saved the state.
More government bureaucrats involved in your healtcare would be destructive. Other countries with similar systems face lengthly and often deadly waiting lists. That is the only way to ration unlimited demand in the face of static supply. Go to YouTube and view the short films of Stuart Browning for a flavor of the Canadian system.
Ask government-run healthcare advocates if they would ban all private contracting, which would make it illegal for you to purchase any healthcare service also covered by the government. Instead, you would have to wait in line for care - the length of that line and quality of that care notwithstanding. Horrifying, yes. But that was Canadian law until a 2005 decision by even its left-wing Supreme Court found that "access to a waiting list is not access to healthcare." If those advocates answer no, then they are allowing for what they claim to oppose - two tiered healthcare where the rich use their money and connections to access one system, leaving everyone else to use the lower-quality government system.
Proponents of government run healthcare gain traction exploiting legitimate frustrations with our system, but opponents do not deserve a place in the debate if our only answer is no. We must offer a positive alternative where healthcare becomes more accessible and of higher quality at lower cost. That is what normal markets produce. Think computers and cellphones, where government bureaucrats have zero involvement in design and pricing.
A truly modernized, intelligent health system would focus on measurably improving health outcomes for all Americans. It would be ideologically agnostic about public or private initiatives and instead seek to scale up successful programs and discard those not producing results. A delivery system that allows private and public programs to flourish concurrently is more likely to yield new and better best practices to emulate elsewhere. Many best new practices offer specific financial rewards and incentives to individuals who achieve measurable progress in weight loss, lowering blood pressure, and eliminating tobacco use. Much of your health status is determined by choices you make. Smart health plans incentivize better choices so you are healthier and then share the savings with you. A modern system also will have 100% E-prescribing and electronic health records by a date certain. This will lead to better, more coordinated care with far fewer medical errors, thereby saving lives and money."
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