In principle, I am against government-run health care because the government has a poor record of running programs efficiently and on budget. On the other hand, I fully understand that health services in this country are out of control, are rising at a yearly rate much higher than inflation, shut out many people from reasonable health care. Of course, one could ask: why should we live beyond 70 years old? Some people stay healthy longer. Of course. So why must we keep people on life support or keep treating people who are terminally ill once they can no longer take care or themselves? What is the point. Ok, so we do not like euthanasia. So let us work within the current system.
There is too much partisanship. Our congressmen (of both parties), make decisions based on electability rather than on what is good for the country. How do I know? Because if they were given a quiz on the health care bill, I would wager good money that they could not answer questions as to content.
Before any statements are made as to our current system (whether by the president, or by our representatives), and before I decide what is best, let us get the answer to the following questions:
1) How much do all the insured pay per year to health care insurance providers (total, per insured inhabitant, and per inhabitant, whether insured or not)
2) How much of health care insurance is disbursed to court proceedings to handle suits (frivolous or not), pay lawyers, give rewards, etc.
3) How much of health care is actually given for doctor salaries
4) How much of health care pays hospital procedures
5) How much of health care pays for senior centers, long term care facilities, etc.
6) More breakdown that I have not considered
Only once we know the answers to the above questions, can we answer objectively:
1) why is health care increasing much more than insurance?
2) why should people on government insurance have access to the latest technology that people with expensive health care packages have access to?
3) what are the projected rise in costs over the next 20 years
(I doubt that projected cost increases take into account suing for example)
Given that these questions are not asked or answered shows me how non-serious everybody is about health care reform, and I include the president in this group.
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3 comments:
Those (and others) are important questions and I am sure others have been asking the same. One place that makes an attempt to systematically address those and similar questions/issues is wikipedia. Take a look
Of course I meant:
1) why is health care insurance increasing much more than inflation?
In the following link,
http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/assets/Reform-Resources/Cost-Trends-and-Cost-Shifting/risinghealthcarecostsfactors2008.pdf
one finds that 87 percent of the costs of health insurance are benefits paid out.
Assuming this is true: I'd like a breakdown. Given the breakdown of costs in the report, I assume that lawsuits paid out by insurance companies are part of this 87 percent. The report implies (does not state) that it is all medically related. So the question becomes: what is the fraction paid by lawsuits relative to the total amount in the claims bucket.
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