Three Reasons to End Obamacare Before It Begins!
We're just days away from the Supreme Court's monumental ruling on The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. As we wait on the high court's final ruling, it's a good time to review just why the law is a bad idea from just about every possible angle. "3 Reasons to End Obamacare Before it Begins" was produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie and originally ran on March 25, 2012. Here's the original text for the release:
As the legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - a.k.a. ObamaCare - goes before the highest court in the land, here are three reasons to chuck the whole program even before it gets underway.1. It Represents the End of Limited Government. The Supreme Court will issue its verdict later this spring of course, but there's no question that if the government can force you to do something simply because you exist and draw breath, then the American experiment in limited government is over and done with. Whether it's the mandating of eating broccoli or buying insurance, a government that can make you do whatever it wants just ain't in the American grain.2. Its Price Tag is Already Ballooning. The latest government estimate of cost tells us what we already knew. Health-care reform is going to cost us a lot more than the arm and the leg it's supposed to save us. The Congressional Budget Office is now saying that the first full decade of Obamacare is going to cost about $1.8 trillion , or double the original estimate used to sell the program.3. Obamacare Won't Make Us Healthier. Health insurance isn't the same thing as health. Most of us might end up paying more for health care under the new law, but there's precious little evidence that coverage itself leads to lower medical costs. A 1993 study by the RAND Corporation found that "for the average person, there were no substantial benefits from free care ." Not smoking, eating moderately, and not boozing it up provide greater health benefits than any low-deductible, low-co-pay insurance plan.Produced by Meredith Bragg; written by Nick Gillespie, who also narrates.About 1.45 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions. Subscribe to Reason's YouTube channel to get automatic notification when new material goes online.To watch more health-care videos from Reason, go here.For Reason's coverage of health care, go here.For more "3 Reasons..." videos, go here.
No question that personal responsibility is significant. I've already droned on with links and stats. I've also rebuked the occasional tendency to shift the problem-solving burden onto the individual (banking reform is really the fault of the American people - the "you made me do it" defense), but for health care (in USA) key point.
ReplyDeleteBut Not the Only One.
Institutional reform is also required.
Which means "negotiations" and "deal-making."
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou what?
DeleteIf you are going to attack someone, have the balls to put your name on the post. I do not expect that will make you any smarter, but at least we will know who the fool is.
DeleteYou know fully well who wrote that post.
DeleteIt was b.
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Up yours.
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And I am certain I put my identifying b on it.
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It appears that you have elected to join said poster in the Condescending Prick Chatroom. Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteBeats your bullshit.
ReplyDeleteJoin us sometime!
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All I know is, I've voted for my last republican. I doubt seriously that I'm alone.
ReplyDeletefunny I have voted for my last democrat...
Deletewe are even
California got 14.6% of its electricity from Renewables, yesterday. Add in Large Hydro, and it would be somewhere over 25%.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia ISO
Oh, and 99% of the people in Massachusetts had health insurance, Saturday.
The republicans are so far behind the curve that I doubt they will ever catch up.
The party of the 1800's.
I expect, now, you'll start to see some other wealthy states start to pass their own versions of Romneycare. I'm thinking Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Delaware - maybe Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington later.
ReplyDeleteThey are all liars. Health care reform without tort reform and increased individual responsibility is impossible. Illegal immigrants, obesity, fraud and onerous legal judgements are simply too high a burden on the system.
ReplyDeleteWhat chance is there of either political party taking on the illegals, the lawyers and the lard asses?
Non.
The same program is working like a champ in Massachusetts.
DeleteIt only works with a taxing authority that rewards responsibility.
DeleteThat's just "babble," Deuce, and you know it.
DeleteThe taxpayers are already paying the medical expenses for the highest-risk people - old folks, injured veterans, the non-insured with Emergent, or Life-threatening Conditions.
ReplyDeleteThat's why Romney/Obamacare only added approx 2.9% to Massachusett's budget.
Quit making so much sense. You're annoying people.
ReplyDeleteWait 'til I recommend we pay for it by legalizing, "and taxing," Pot.
Delete:)
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DeleteDon't fold so easy, Deuce. Geez-o-peet.
The Massachusetts experience can't easily be translated over to a national program.
First is just the magnitude of the task, trying to draft legislation that can be replicated across fifty disparate states.
Second, is the definition of "minimally acceptable services" for these policies. The term reeks of subjectiveness. The debate on reproductive services is just one example. Likewise, the needs of various states, Florida, Massachusetts, Idaho, and California for instance, based on their demographics, create widely varying circumstances and needs.
However, the biggest issue is the cost. Cost containment and reduction, this is what the national program was sold on; yet, there is no way they can meet their goals without gutting that "minimally acceptable services mandate".
Likewise, there will be too many political obstacles to meeting the cost objectives. We have seen it already with the deals to states, individuals, organizations, unions, and companies. But there is also a more basic reason. It's how Congress organizes itself.
A point was made in a recent article on Congressional insider trading, that point being, committee membership is assigned based on 'knowledge', knowledge being defined as 'if you come from a farm state, your assigned to the Agriculture Committee, if you are from a state with a lot of defense industry or military bases, you are assigned to the Armed Services Committee'. The system creates its own conflicts of interest.
When it comes to healthcare, the committee involved, like all the other committees, will be drafting rules and regulations that benefit their constituency, and believe me, that constituency isn't the American people.
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That’s what I meant so say.
DeleteWithin a short period you guys' argument has gone from "It will be a disaster in Mass," to "Okay, it works great in Mass, but it won't work in Missouri."
DeleteSomehow, France, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Massachusetts, Japan, and Chile can manage healthcare but the dumb ol' Americans cain't.
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DeleteOnce again, you are wrong.
While I was skeptical of the Massachusetts plan when it first came out, it has worked. But even you must recognize there are differences in the two plans. Likewise, I am not saying it won't work in Missouri. It might very well work; however, I suspect Missouri would come up with a plan that while similar in some ways to Massachusetts was drafted to meet any unique needs given the circumstances in Missouri.
As for the last argument, I'm not saying we can't do it, I'm saying we likely won't.
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Don't worry, guys; you're going to get your way.
ReplyDeleteWe'll continue being the only industrialized (almost the only, period) country in the world w/o healthcare for the poor.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to continue to convince yourselves that that is a "good" thing. Maybe.
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DeleteLike all advocates you, continue to propagate the meme that objection to specific parts of a massive program implies a disregard for the need for any program at all.
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I just understand how insurance works.
DeleteThere are, quite simply, 3 options:
1) Do nothing
2) Pass an Obamacare/Romneycare-type program
3) Pass a Single-Payer program
There is a variation to no. 3 that we might end up adopting (more or less out of default.)
DeleteThat would entail slowly moving up the age limits on the "healthcare for kids" program, while incrementally dropping the age for Medicare, and liberalizing the eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Shouldn't take more than 20 or 30 yrs.
I believe that we are the only industrialized country that imports poor people without restriction. How will that fit into any program?
DeleteSweden had as close to the perfect system for social welfare because everyone was Swedish and bought into both sides of the equation: benefits/responsibility.
We have a bizarre notion of: entitlements/(forgot to put anything on this side)
How did anyone expect that to work?
I don't know about you, but I've been paying Social Security, and Medicare taxes since I was 18.
DeleteI've always said, we Swedes are role models for the world.
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ReplyDeleteIf Obamacare is struck down, it will represent a significant tactical mistake on the part of the Obama administration.
It will be because of miscalculation and a skewed view of the constitutional issues involved based upon liberal bias.
While it would have been extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to sell Obamacare as a tax, that strategy would have eliminated all of the constitutional issues they are now faced with.
Not only would it have been a more honest approach, it would have gone farther in achieving their ultimate goal of a single-payer system.
You charge more in taxes, fold it into the existing Medicare system, and you achieve a more efficient system that meets the goal of universal coverage, and frankly, would be fairer.
It still would not achieve the aim of containing costs, not until the goverment stops cowtowing to big pharma and the healthcare industry and instead uses its size to actually negotiate prices with them.
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How is it Constitutional to draft someone to go get killed in a phony-assed war like Vietnam, and to tax the rest of the population to pay for it, but "Unconstitutional" to require citizens to provide for their own healthcare (through the purchase of insurance, if necessary?)
Delete.
DeleteYou are talking emotion.
I am talking the Constitution.
It's the classic liberal argument. If it's the right thing to do, and you can't get enough votes to change the law, ignore the law.
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I think my argument is more of a "Moral" argument than an emotional one.
DeleteAs for the Constitution: Obamacare is, probably, "One Justice Short" of being "Constitutional. Had Scalia dropped dead of a heart attack last year, Obamacare would, almost certainly, "Be Constitutional."
See: Dred Scott for your first lesson on "The Supreme Court, and Constitutionality."
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DeleteWoulda, shoulda, coulda.
You can make the same arguments for Citizens United or Roe v. Wade.
You live with what you've got. Well, if you are not a liberal kool-aid drinker.
With regard to Dred Scott, that was eventually reversed. Hopefully, the same will happen with the two I mentioned.
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And, btw, the health insurance program that provides the most healthcare for the buck in the U.S. is . . . . . . yep, Medicare.
ReplyDeleteHealth care reform without tort reform and increased individual responsibility is impossible.
ReplyDeleteDealing with tort reform first, as acknowledged by one of the policy architects behind the PPACA, Peter Orszag, but tort reform with a twist, emphasizing the "customary practice problem" over the problem of liability damages:
The biggest substantive shortcoming of the legislation involves tort reform. The academic literature generally concludes that medical liability laws do little to raise costs, although some recent studies suggest modestly larger effects. The literature also suggests that variation in the medical malpractice laws across the United States explains very little of the variation in health-care costs. What this literature largely misses, however, is the fundamental problem with the laws’ standard of “customary practice” — the norm that protects doctors if they can be found to have treated their patients the way most other doctors in the area do. This basis for malpractice creates a strong contagion effect among doctors, because a doctor’s legal liability is minimized by doing what the doctor down the hallway is doing.
The traditional approach to tort reform involves imposing some limit on damages. The problem with such an approach, however, is that it does nothing about the customary-practice problem. A far better strategy would be to provide a safe harbor for doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines. Under this approach, a doctor would not be held liable if he or she followed the recommended course for treating a specific illness or condition under guidelines put forward by professional associations such as the American Medical Association or the Institute of Medicine. By failing to move forcefully in this direction, the health reform act missed a major opportunity.
Note that the tort reform solution proposed by Orszag is *intimately* integrated with the new "pay-for-performance" cost containment programs that I described in the previous thread and elsewhere. *Intimately.*
(What has to be a huge disappointment for the policy designers behind the PPACA effort was the considerable amount of work put into thinking through the structure of the reforms. Yes, I know, they're all over 21.)
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I will speak to personal responsibility in the second post. My long health care posts get deleted and overwritten.
RE personal responsibility
ReplyDeleteThis subject makes my stomach churn and I know I cannot do it justice in a few brief words. The history of western civilization is the story of balancing individual freedom with collective responsibility. If the argument is elevated to the macroscopic ether of the metaphysical, why provide health care at all if we're just going to die?
Government has a place, call it a role, one that will be debated long after we are gone. So health care reform is to be hung up on this subject until we as a nation can resolve perhaps the single greatest question of the modern world??
FTS. In the specific case of health care, and more specifically cost containment, personal responsibility is a greater factor than in other modern policy subjects, simply due to the dominance of behavior-related physical pathologies such as heart disease and diabetes.
I predict the Republicans will attempt to reshift health care reform to the individual level rather than engage in the tough work of institutional reform, which the Democrats at least attempted.
This is a very clever move and will likely find considerable support among a Tea Party besotted public.
Final point on this behavior subject relative to health care, the logical extrapolation is not hard to see: defining genetic predispositions to (1) physical disease, and (2) mental and psychological dysfunctions, including behavioral tendencies to overindulge in the drug of choice. We're already there with gene-mapping providing predictive tools allowing insurance companies to make their own policy decisions.
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On the subject of administrative efficiency, anyone interested in the facts can look up Social Security. The Feds got that one down cold but SS has to go, according to the waste, fraud and abuse rubric of the self-involved, the self-indulged, the self-righteous and the sanctimonious who rose out of the ashes of what exactly? Nothing but the usual meaningless babble of extremism generated by economic duress introduced by foreign wars and banking fraud.
Yeah, let's make the little guy show some Personal Responsibility. That's the Ticket.
The use of renewable technologies on the battlefield could reduce the fuel consumed, per Marine, per day, by 50 percent, and reduce total weight of batteries carried by nearly 200 thousand pounds.
ReplyDeleteIn collaboration with MicroLink Devices, Design Intelligence Incorporated, and the USMC Expeditionary Energy Office (E2O), the NRL have developed and prototyped a new photovoltaic system that is specifically designed to meet the needs of a US Marine.
“The mobile solar power (MSP) prototype, capitalizing on recent advances in solar cell technology that allow the manufacture of high-efficiency, flexible solar cells, consists of an array of single-junction solar cells with a power conditioning circuit that maximizes array power production and charges a standard, military issue, high capacity rechargeable lithium-ion battery (BB-2590).”
Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1b5Jk)
Solar-Powered Marines
The nation’s first ever grid-connected wave energy system went online this week, at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, in Oahu. As Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus aptly put it in a Navy press release, “This project demonstrates the Navy and Marine Corps commitment to lead the country toward a new energy future.” Mabus made it clear that it’s full speed ahead for the Navy’s goal of 50% alternative energy by 2020, which presents a stark contrast to the situation in the civilian world, where certain groups are hell bent on opposing legislative action that promotes alternative energy.
ReplyDeleteSource: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12tld)
Max (short for Maxine)Sun Jun 24, 04:37:00 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteNo question that personal responsibility is significant.
Let's see. What did I say. (my name is b, bob cause I'm tired of struggling with my computer)
I think I said something like no shit nitwit keep trying you will get the hang of it, but in very polite terms. Deuce zapped it for some reason.
Marxine may make some progress, there is no hope for trying to untangle the internal contradictions of a deuce.
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I believe the phrase you used was TOTAL FUCKING MORON, Bob.
ReplyDeleteYou and Doug are welcome to treat me that way (I probably deserve it;) but, it's assinine to treat one of our thoughtful commenters that way. If you don't have a coherent argument, just sit down and wait for the "next" train.
I think I was agreeing with Doug's thoughtful analysis Rufus.
ReplyDeleteI myself would reserve the words TOTAL FUCKING MORON to your noble self.
I do not think she is thoughtful. Verbose, yes.
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Bob, you wouldn't know "thoughtful" if it bit you on your "naked white ass."
DeletePersonal responsibility does not equal getting dead drunk and rolling off the bar stool into the recruiting station, as you have stated you did. Then blaming the 'govmint' for getting you into a war.
ReplyDeleteb
Do you honestly believe "everything" you read on the internet?
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