If not, how can you claim it's a free market? If I fail to buy a car, and then I need to drive somewhere, no one is going to loan me a car for free if I can't afford one. No one will even loan me bus fare, unless a friend or family. Why should it be different for health care if you really believe in the Free Market? Oh, and yes, our parents should use up their life savings paying for Junior because he was too irresponsible to buy health insurance before he got hit by a bus. That's rugged individualism, you see.
We buy all kinds of insurance because we know no one will cover our costs if we don't - that's the moral hazard. Sink or swim. That's the Free Market, baby. Wait until a few people die on the sidewalks of a few hospitals because they couldn't pay to get care inside. THAT'LL teach people they'd better carry insurance! Otherwise, where are the teeth in the Free Market insurance?
What's that? You would never kick sick people to the curb? Then, you must think health care is some sort of Right. In that case, why not cover it like we cover legal rights? You're entitled to a lawyer, but not a doctor? What's the difference? Surely, you're not going to say one's in the Constitution and the other isn't. Shortly after the Constitution was written, George Washington died of leech's blood-letting. Who would have wanted to guarantee the right to that kind of treatment; we've come a long way since then.
Another point: the people voting against health care today voted against S-CHIP coverage for children, against Medicare balancing, against increase in care for Veteran's health under the V.A. (are you listening John McCain? Even if they didn't vote that way, they won't dare say that, lest they be called to explain why they supported all those things while not supporting expansion of Medicare for all now).
Lines in the Sand: Violate these and the President will veto the bill:
1. A way to cover every American (not illegal aliens).
2. Basic level of care equal to Medicare
3.
No deductibles or co-pays that require
supplemental insurance, or any other gimmicks that essentially strip away
Universal Health Care through the back door. Deductibles and Co-Pays should be affordable.
4. The right of the government to negotiate costs, just like the big insurers do. This is called a Level Playing Field, or the Free Market, for those Socialist Republicans who never heard of those.
The President needs to outline a specific plan - we didn't elect Nancy Pelosi to be President, or a Congressional Committee. Here's the best plan I've heard so far, but this is just a way to keep the debate from spinning out of control on ridiculous issues like death panels and rationed care:
Make Medicare available to everyone under 65, but charge them a premium so it is revenue-neutral. This could be paid for by payroll taxes, or directly, or even by using up the Medicare contributions that people have already made, with the commitment to pay them back later when the recipient gets another job (this won't work out perfectly, but then, it doesn't work out now, either, and there's Medicaid for the truly indigent), but the price should be the same either way. (Fortunately, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) already know the true cost of Medicare Insurance.) It is Medicare that should have the clout to hold down costs, not a particular company - this will eliminate job lock. We already know what to expect from Medicare, so that is an informed choice. Why reinvent the wheel?
OK, maybe this is not the best plan, but the point is, it's a foundation so the wild-eyed crazies who are framing the debate don't get to continue. As Barney Frank was forced to counter to a woman at a Town Hall meeting who compared Obama to Hitler, "Talking to you would be like talking to a dining table." We should not be talking to blockheads like that at all, or if we must, we should attack hard, with no holds barred, and even distorting their distortions - since a minus and a minus make a plus.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
