The Governor's health care proposal is unsatisfactory and is not even a good starting point for discussions.
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The Republican Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal,
proposed the following for a national health-care policy:
Insurance reform. Congress should establish simple guidelines to make
policies more portable, with more coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Reinsurance, high-risk pools, and other mechanisms can reduce the
dangers of adverse risk selection and the incentive to avoid covering
the sick. Individuals should also be able to keep insurance as they
change jobs or states.
Problem: The failure to provide "more coverage for pre-existing
conditions" is not, as the computer guys say, a bug, but a feature of
private, for-profit health insurance. It's an inherent, built-in
tendency that no "guidelines" will ever eliminate from the picture. It
is in the financial interests of these companies to
not
pay claims. Nothing will ever "fix" that as asking them to ignore that
fact is to ask private, capitalist companies to disregard their very
nature.
Consumer choice guided by transparency. We need a system where
individuals choose an integrated plan that adopts the best
disease-management practices, as opposed to fragmented care.
If it were in the financial interest of private, for-profit companies
to provide such transparency, they've had decades to provide it. If
there is no such transparency currently being provided, there's very
probably a good (financial) reason why not. It's very highly likely
that even if such transparency is mandated, companies will find ways
around it, thereby making phone-book size regulations inevitable. BTW,
the Blue Dog Democrats are
no better on the issue than Republicans are. Again, their reasons are mostly financial.
Aligned consumer interests. Consumers should be financially invested in
better health decisions through health-savings accounts, lower premiums
and reduced cost sharing.
Lower costs are
precisely what's being offered by
the Democrats.
In short, Jindal is offering absolutely nothing that even begins to
address the problems caused by over-reliance on private, for-profit
health care insurance. What are his critiques of the Democratic
approach?
Second, the Democrats disingenuously argue their reforms will not
diminish the quality of our health care even as government involvement
in the delivery of that health care increases massively. For all of us
who have seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to
hurricanes, this contention is laughable on its face.
Keep in mind that in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Presidency, the Senate and the House were all in
Republican hands. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency on Friday, 26 August. President Bush was
fully and properly informed
by the Governor on Saturday, 27 August that Federal assistance was
required. The hurricane struck late on the night of Sunday, 28 August.
8PM CDT [Monday 29 Aug]- GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: "Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you've got." [Newsweek]
LATE PM - BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO'S REQUESTS [Newsweek]
New Orleans was not submerged because "government" was inherently
incapable of action. It was submerged because the government was in the
hands of people who didn't believe they were responsible for assisting
their fellow citizens in a crisis.
Far better examples for Jindal to use to look at how the government
would handle health care would be to look at institutions like the VA
Hospitals (I stayed in two VA Hospitals in 2000 and was satisfied with
their services) and the Post Office (The number of letters that I
didn't receive despite their being properly addressed, I can count on
one hand).
Republican Representative Michele Bachmann agrees with Jindal's first point, that
If a so-called public option is part of health-care reform, the Lewin
Group study estimates over 100 million Americans may leave private
plans for government-run health care.
See above, where I explain that private, for-profit companies will
inherently and by definition, always seek to pay out as few claims as
they can possibly get away with. A government plan will not have that
incentive. Note
Bachmann's reasoning as to why a government plan will be less expensive:
...because the taxpayer-subsidized plan will be 30 to 40 percent cheaper.
Not because the government can
make it cheaper, as Jindal claims it will unfairly do, but it will just be
inherently
cheaper as the government pays their senior people far less than
executives at private companies make and the government doesn't have to
pay for advertising or any other type of competition with other
providers.
In short, Jindal makes an extremely unconvincing case for maintaining
private, for-profit health insurance. I recommend "single-payer" and
believe that "public option" would be a reasonably satisfactory
substitute, at least for now.
Authors Website: http://www.prawnworks.net/
Authors Bio:PN3(Ret), USN, 1991-2001. Done a number of clerical-type jobs. Computer "power user," my desktop is a Windows machine, but my laptop is an Ubuntu Linux.
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