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Radical Leftist Healthcare?
Ok, it seems to me that the nature of the for-profit system of insurance currently employed screws just about everyone. Insurance companies want to maximize profit, so they exclude the sickest people, cover less, charge more, and squeeze doctors. Am I wrong? The concept of insurance itself is a "socialist" notion of spreading risk through out a large subset of population. Competition in theory should reduce costs, but in the end it doesn't because competition is not measured by the health of the consumers, but by the profit these companies generate. Health insurance companies themselves play no role in medical innovation. Wouldn't a single payer system necessarily be the most efficient iteration of insurance? Of course choice must be offered, so why not allow competition of a government run system on the open marketplace?
One more thing. Please please please repeal direct to consumer advertisements. Those "ask your doctor if this drug is right for you" commercials take a big chunk of pharma dollars, which should be going toward curing cancer, or diseases, or something. Not this lifestyle drug crap. Sure having ED is a tough lot, but so is having cancer. I think I'd take ED anyday.
Comments (4)
Morsel,
You are absolutely right.
The problem is that most people are still talking about getting everyone to buy Health Insurance Coverage instead of talking about Health Care!
As long as we talk about INSURANCE and not CARE we will continue to spiral down the hole created by the INSURANCE COMPANIES.
Please post your comments at www.tmcpac.com/forum
THANKS! O¿O
September 16, 2008 6:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I meet folks that claim to be "free market capitalists" and this is why they want to keep health insurance private, with this same old argument that competition will make it work out...eventually.
And you've exactly hit the point that the competition is for our dollars and the customers health is an afterthought.
A corporation exists for the purpose of profit and a government exists for the purpose of benefiting of the people.
I want a government option because I'm sick of paying over $7000 per capita to fund a profit based system, when I could pay half and actually contribute to my countrymen. It's damn unpatriotic to keep this going.
September 16, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
morsel, your excellent post could be an advertisement for Michael Moore's "Sicko" -- if you haven't seen it, you should.
It's a shame that the same people who blast single-payer because government bureaucrats would determine treatment have given us a system under which insurance company bean counters determine it instead.
Direct-consumer advertising is just the tip of the for-profit healthcare iceberg. I'm disappointed that our choice of candidates does not include one who supports going back to a primarily non-profit system.
September 16, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most people also do not realize that a single payer system does not necessitate total control over one's health choices. It is merely a means of financing procedures when the need arises. A well regulated and defined system to put health choices firmly in the hands of patients and doctors is obviously the most desirable. It's a lack of imagination in policy engineering that is hampering US citizens from getting what they deserve.
September 16, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
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