Hiram's Guest Post
"I support universal and affordable health care. Along with support for public schools, it's basic to why I am a Democrat. When I do that, am I trading in fear? I am sure you can make a strained argument to that effect, but I guess is just don't see it in those terms.
Something I have long complained about, arguably the fear I often trade in, is the linking of health care insurance to employment. It's one of the truly dumb ideas. What always terrified me, what fueled by hysteria on the issue, was the possibility that a pandemic would hit in a time of widespread unemployment. We are seeing that now. The problem with Democrats on this issue is that we just did not monger fear effectively enough."
30 comments:
Hiram is right again. The only problem with this formulation is that the problem--linking health care to employment-- was CAUSED by government price controls way back when. To suggest now that the solution is government, especially government price controls, seems rather.... odd.
It seems you are kind of correct on this one.
Another version of the story
Of course, this does not mean that it should not be changed away from a company oriented system.
Jerry,
So what is your proposal?
And remember that it can not allow poor stupid people to die in the streets or to be reliant exclusively on charity?
Our society will not allow poor stupid people to die on the streets...
Charity does not have the money to help everyone...
Shocked as I am about it, I am in agreement with Jerry on this. The linking of health insurance to employment does go back to wage controls. But whatever the merits of that linkage were then, they are not relevant now. The reason why health insurance is linked to employment today is that we as a nation for various and often conflicting reasons, haven't mustered the will to change the system.
Tha
Since my posting this morning I have been thinking about what my fears might be, and what fears should I work harder to monger. One of the things that terrifies me is that our government has lost the ability to take action or effectively address crises. With respect to health care policy, we weren't able to deal with it effectively when the nation wasn't nearly as polaraized as it is today. If we couldn't deal with it then, how can we deal with it today? My guess is that in this current health care crisis, when ordinarily bills would be generated for all the health care being provided which would be sent to health insurance companies, mostly those bills will simply be thrown away, and the insurance companies that are supposed to pay for them will simply go bankrupt.
--Hiram
John, the problem will not be solved so long as you cling to your assumptions.
A) people are not dying in the streets today. 85% of Americans have (had) health care they liked and wanted to keep, and emergency room care was mandated, regardless of ability to pay. When Obamacare required people to buy insurance, emergency room care went UP, not down, because people couldn't afford it. Bring the cost down, the problem gets better instead of worse.
B) And if the cost is brought down, and the only government support for the indigent is in the form of "premium support" or "charity hospitals," Charity DOES have enough money.
The trick here is to, as the old Mayo study suggests and my personal experience confirms, get government OUT of the health care business in a major way, and see costs decrease by 50% or more.
HIram, your concern is correctly founded, that government is not nearly as capable of handling a crises as it might have once been, but that is all the more reason why government should NOT be micromanaging these crises in the first place. Don't you wish somebody in Congress had asked, "Why did you shut down the whole economy, and where are you getting the trillions of dollars you're spending to prop it back up?"
Jerry,
As usual... Just opinions with no sources. :-(
But please elaborate on your proposal.
"Get government OUT of the health care business in a major way."
Does this mean dropping medicare, medicaid, and all of the other entitlements that people seem pretty happy with?
Discontinue the write offs that companies get for providing insurance and benefits?
I mean I am still fairly young and healthy with no pre-existing conditions, I could use more cash and less benefits.
Jerry,
We have had ~43,000 Americans die from this virus in ~1 month due in a large part to Trump's removal of key personnel and departments, and his active denial of reality.
I can't imagine how many it would have been without government mandated stay at home orders...
By the way, here is something called a source... :-)
Or I guess we could be like NY and storing our dead in refrigerated trailers provided by FMEA.
Or putting the homeless in Temporary Mass Graves
Yep let's open MN back up so folks can eat out and have a beer with their friends.
First off, let's not talk about CV; the whole discussion lacks perspective. Wasn't it last year that the flu, for which we HAVE a vaccine, killed 60,000 Americans? This is not the deadly plague the alarmists want us to believe it is, nor something that would justify these totalitarian "house arrest" orders.
You want to talk about our health care system. You challenge me for sources. /I/ am the primary source, because my company offered two choices for health care (this is pre-Obamacare; post O'care they quit offering either) One was conventional health insurance-- fee for service-- and the other had several names, but basically was "prepaid care"-- a fixed fee and minimal paperwork. The latter was exactly 50% the cost. Since Medicare and Medicaid are fee-for service, every other insurance company blindly follows suit, SO, convert those programs to "premium support" programs, allow insurance companies to follow suit, and you're halfway home.
Jerry,
You truly are in denial. COVID has killed >43,000 in 1 month with lock downs in place. I can not imagine how many dead we would have had without the lock downs... But hopefully we will never find out.
If you are the source, there is no point continuing the comment exchange.
Have a good evening!!!
You are not being rational about CV, but then most people are not. 43,000 is still not as bad as some flu seasons, and again, we have a vaccine for the flu. Some believe the CV death toll is inflated, because the CDC has ordered all those who died WITH CV should be noted as dying FROM CV. Big difference. Studies out of CA suggest that the number who have/HAD it is 50-85 times the official number of cases, meaning the mortality rate is similar to the flu. And half these deaths were in New York Metro. So, courtesy of Dennis Prager, you have to ask
a question
And you are correct. If you will not believe what I tell you from my direct personal experience, there really is no point to commenting here. Ever.
Anyone paying any attention to Dennis Prager is not worth paying attention to.
Moose
Jerry,
That Dennis Prager piece was really really worthless... All opinion and little to no fact. Is he always like that?
If I told you that something was "a fact" / "a truth" /"always the case" because... I, a single person had experienced something in a single situation... How would you view my statement?
Unfortunately that seems to be how you have generated and defend your opinions.
That would be like me saying that employer funded health insurance under the ACA law is the best system ever... I mean I pay very little for the five of us, it covers my girls until they are ~26, and pretty much everything is covered... What could be better?
It will be interesting to see how the folks in rural states fair.
Especially those that did not limit contact.
I am interested to see what impact it has on the elderly conservative voters in Florida.
FOX News is reporting 46,079 dead due to COVID.
And yes I know that is WRONG, because some people may have died from something else and some people died of pneumonia but no one checked for COVID...
It is the best number we have at this time.
Now as I have said, I am relatively young and am usually open to playing the odds. Let's open things up and see what happens... But IF hundreds of thousands of the weak and old are killed... Who will we hold responsible? Or is okay if they die and save us money?
Opening things up isn't going to "fix" anything because most people understand it's a stupid idea. They aren't going to go to movie theaters or risk sitting in a busy restaurant because they know they could get sick. They're not going to stick their fingers into a bowling ball that Lord-knows-how-many people have used. You've got to get the virus under control before you can expect the economy to bounce back.
Sean,
I guess I disagree... I think there are a lot of people like me who just live our lives and manage our risks...
I do a lot of things that may kill me, not much for sitting at home worrying that the grim reaper is out there looking for me.
My company was deemed essential and we do not eat out much, so this whole shut down thing is foreign to me. Except that my hair is getting too long and becoming annoying. I am considering using my "dog trimmer". :-)
I am more interested in getting the test to see if I had COVID19... I got real ill for ~5 days in mid February after getting back from India... Don't know if it was just the flu or this???
See Life in Sweden for Comparison
What does it mean for people when the stay-at-home order is lifted?
Restaurants mandated to reopen
No business interruption insurance, as the restaurant is "allowed" to operate full capacity
Landlord can demand all their money, since the restaurant is allowed to fully operate
Furloughed staff collecting unemployment insurance have to come back to work or be let go, which will then go on the restaurant's UI tab, even if things blow up again
Sounds like a government-mandated death sentence to me.
Moose
Moose,
Now I understand why the Conservatives think the Liberal are idiotic alarmists.
As far as we know, only ~1% of people die from COVID 19 and that is if they get it.
And for people who typically work in the service industries the rate is much lower.
CDC Mortality info
And...
No one is mandating that they open, if people go to work there, if people go there for a service / product, etc.
That is their choice.
What do envision? We just stay locked up indefinitely and continue to borrow money?
Now hang on a sec. If the State says that businesses are open for business, then what recourse does the business owner have when they say they don't want to endanger their employees and the public? The State says they are free to be open, so now it is on the business owner, not the State. Put people at risk or go belly-up because they are responsible citizens. And if they open, not only do they put people at risk, the business will still suffer because there will be little demand for their product.
It's supply-side (failed) economics all over again. Republicans will never learn the lesson.
"What do envision?"
As always, as a liberal, I envision doing the right thing for the majority of the people. I know it's anathema to a fence-sitter like you and other conservatives and Republicans, but it is what it is.
In case you're wondering, the right thing does not include putting people's lives at risk to make a buck.
Moose
Moose,
"doing the right thing for the majority of the people"
If that was the case then we probably should have never closed down anything...
I mean currently we are punishing the 99% of citizens to save the 1%...
Probably much less than 1% because not everyone would get the virus.
How's this for a kicker...
Economic slow down will lead to famine of "Biblical Proportions"...
that famine article is too depressing. Maybe I should donate some money. Both my sons donated their stimulus check to charity so I am feeling guilty if I keep mine.
You raised them well.
Though if I got checks, I would have probably bought something and kept folks working. :-)
Then again on second thought... Giving to charity also provides jobs...
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