In case you were wondering that in the midst of all the drama on the Democratic side of the aisle it was possible for the Republican party to remain brain dead on the seminal issues of our time… wonder no more.
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday rejected calls by his Democratic opponents for universal health coverage, instead offering a market-based solution with an approach similar to a proposal put forth by President Bush last year.McCain’s belief in the power of the free market to meet the nation’s health-care needs sets up a stark choice for voters this fall in terms of the care they could receive, the role the government would play and the importance they place on the issue.
The Republicans largely really believe some of this bull about the free market. They really think in their heart of hearts that the solution for every issue is to sprinkle some of that magical “free market” fairy dust and all will be well. The problem is, that is not what Americans feel. Oh sure, we’re willing to give the market a go of things - and for some things it works great. But we effectively operate under a free market health care system right now and its woefully unpopular. That’s the reason why health care is a serious issue in 2008 in a way that it wasn’t in 2004, 2000, etc.
John McCain is so out of touch with normal Americans (his health care costs are covered by his military disability, his Senate health care plan and should anything fall through the cracks his wife’s generous inheritance can take up the slack) that he believes that what people want is more of the current mess.
Yet the American mood on large national issues like this is not a faith based free market system, but rather historically tends to favor a collective system where we all pay in and benefit.
“Sen. John McCain on Tuesday rejected calls by his Democratic opponents for universal health coverage, instead offering a market-based solution with an approach similar to a proposal put forth by President Bush last year.”
The plurality of Americans want Universal Health Care even if it means paying more taxes. That’s universal health care. SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. The Republicans are so out to lunch on this, that is should be easy to crush them at the ballot box over this issue.
I keep waiting for a dumb ass reporter to ask McCain why he doesn’t opt out of his present HC if the free market is so great. The Democrats should pound John McBush relentlessly on this issue.
The democrats are all talk and pandering. Their promises are as empty as Nancy Pelosi’s 2006 plan to reduce gas prices:
“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), a member of Senate Democratic leadership and a key Hillary Clinton ally who also sits on the Finance Committee, said he is “not sure we have the big plan on healthcare.”
Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), a Clinton supporter who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, said “the money is not necessarily there right now”
As for your contention that people are unsatified with their healthcare:
Gallup’s annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied. These percentages have been quite stable in recent years, after a slight dip in reported satisfaction between 2001 (64%) and 2002 (58%).
Gallup’s annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied.
1. You realize of course that this is only a valid question if you already have insurance. It’s hard to be satisfied/dissatisfied with something you don’t have.And if the folks with a pre-existing condition who can’t get insurance are what, SOL??
2. McCain’s plan will actually increase the amount of money most people have to pay for healthcare, since employers won’t be footing a large fraction of the bill anymore. So get back to me when the average Joe’s premiums have risen 150-200%. Then we’ll see how satisfied everyone is.
For those that keep pushing the “Universal Health Coverage” what I am about to say will only anger you or you will poo poo my words as a lie or a “right wing” babble. You are NOT smart thinking this. Universal health care has a lot of drawbacks you are going to have to face.
I will give you three points you must consider when thinking about the government taking over health completely. the first is “Cost” and the second is “Service,” the third is “Doctors.”
#1. “Cost”: Canada is looked at as a wonder for how amazing everyone can get health cost “free.” Right? Well, not exactly. Has anyone ever looked at the tax rates up in let’s just say Ontario.
A. What about a 15% sales tax on everything you buy, everything without exception. In Ontario even if you have to go buy a permit to add a fence to your property you pay an added 15%. (A friend from Italy tells me she pays 20% sales tax.) Groceries and clothes are NOT excluded. So you take the 6% average we now pay to various state sales coffers and add 15%. Now we’re paying 21% of everything we buy? Can you afford a 21% reduction in your income?
B. Let’s look at property taxes, and let’s look at income taxes. All of these are still needing to be paid on top of the sales tax to pay for medical care.
C. There are a lot of people with single family homes in Ontario but do you realize how many take one floor of their home and make it into an apartment to help cover costs? We’re not just talking about the middle class, we’re talking about a majority of the homes, the rich too. Next let’s look at the lot size. Do you realize how few homes in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) barely have any size? You can’t afford a lot up there. The taxes kill you.
#2. “Service”:
A. Doctors Office Appointments: To get a doctor to see you in Ontario you are usually talking 24-36 weeks in Ontario for a physical, a physical. For an emergency you go the the ER and wait.
B. Going in the Hospital: Do you know how often the hospitals are full and you have to search for a hospital and sometimes there are no beds and so you can’t go to the hospital.
C. Nursing Homes: Very few vacancies and no new construction. Forget it unless you can pay out of your own pocket.
D. Rx: The one good thing. You can get American made Rx and cheaper than we do down here.
C. Major Surgery: One example. 55 year old, heart attack. Was told he would have to wait 6-8 weeks for a bypass. Luckily he had health insurance he was only permitted to buy three years ago. He had to go to Buffalo to get his operation.
#3 “Doctors”
Do you really think doctors that are making $350,000 a year are going o be happy with $100,000 in income? How will they pay their BMW’s off? How will they pay their mortgages? How will they be able to afford their country clubs?
What they will do is move out of the USA to countries where they can practice without restriction. The result will be that the best doctors will leave and new graduates from medical school will also practice elsewhere. So, how about going to India for your heart transplant or Mexico.
Do you really want universal health coverage? If you think this is still bunk look at what is happening in Massachusetts. It will happen all over America.
Get ready if that is what you want. Don’t ask for this with such excitement, you may just get what you don’t want. Life is not all fun and games with univral health care.
You’re so right, Bob.
I am going to “poo poo” (sic) your little diatribe as right wing babble, cuz that’s just what it is.
Your right Bob, let’s just do nothing then everyone who can’t afford it will just fuck off and die. Better?
“McCain’s plan will actually increase the amount of money most people have to pay for healthcare, since employers won’t be footing a large fraction of the bill anymore. So get back to me when the average Joe’s premiums have risen 150-200%. Then we’ll see how satisfied everyone is.”
Thank you. This is one part of McSame’s “plan” that I find interesting, but the media is ignoring it (CNN’s lame break-down of McCain’s “plan” this morning didn’t even mention that he wants to “unburden” business of providing Healthcare for its labor.) This shifting of responsibilty for healthcare coverage from employer to the individual seems to me to be a stealth boon for business which McSame justifies by saying that this shift would free up money that employers could use to pay “higher salaries” (um yeah, I believe it.) Additionally, McCain doesn’t seem to realize that his plan will almost certainly further disenfranchise the aging, and those with pre-existing health conditions vis a vis being able to purchase affordable health insurance coverage (although it behooves me to point out that his “tax credit” toward purchasing private insurance, $5,000 for the typical family, woefully underestimates the current cost of coverage, around $12,000 for healthy individuals.)
WHY isn’t this guy getting hammered on this? Is the media so blinded by the spectable of Jeremiah Wright making a fool out of himself, and by extension, Obama, that even the most absurd statements by McCain simply get a “Hail Mary Pass?”
Strange Bob. Canada pays a smaller percentage of their GDP for their healthcare than we do. On top of that private health insurance in the US accounts for about 35% of health care costs, the government accounts for about 45%, and the rest is born by the citizens or charities.
Does Canada run a deficit of over 10% of revenues like the US does? Maybe that could account for some of the taxes, Bob.
CSS: The Republicans are so out to lunch on this, that is should be easy to crush them at the ballot box over this issue.
Calvin: The Democrats should pound John McBush relentlessly on this issue.
Agreed. It should be easy and they should pound relentelessly.
But for that to happen the Democrats will have to stop acting like typical Democrats…
Bob, you’re missing a bit of your own “SMART” thinking. Minor example: If the average state sales tax is 6% and it goes up to 21% that isn’t a “a 21% reduction in your income”. At most, it’s about 15%. You’re getting your basic math wrong because you’re more interested in going for the emotional “the sky is falling” distraction. So much for “thinking”.
As for housing in Toronto (I notice you conveniently leave out any numbers at all, again using a hysterical argument instead of one involving any thinking) if you actually search for any real data:
This puts aside entirely, of course, whether Toronto as the one example you give is anything like typical for Canada. But let’s not think about that.
Bob: Do you really think doctors that are making $350,000 a year are going o be happy with $100,000 in income? How will they pay their BMW’s off? How will they pay their mortgages? How will they be able to afford their country clubs?
What they will do is move out of the USA to countries where they can practice without restriction. The result will be that the best doctors will leave and new graduates from medical school will also practice elsewhere. So, how about going to India for your heart transplant or Mexico.
So you start by saying the motivation for doctors is money, and end by saying they will move to places that offer fewer restrictions on their practice. Nice switch there, Bob.
Do doctors in India or Mexico really make $350k a year? I doubt it. But I admit I don’t know for sure. you want to provide some actual facts to back that claim up, Bob, or would that require to much thinking?
Note that I’m not saying universal health care is or is not a good solution. What I am saying is your arguments are not by any stretch an example of the “SMART thinking” you advocate.
Why wouldn’t a doctor continue to make a similar if not greater annual wage? Prices for procedures are tied to medicare lists now. So why would they get paid less for the same amount of work.
A few other benefits for doctors $$$.
-They wouldn’t have to spend half their time explaining why patients need treatments to insurance companies. Giving them more time to actually attend to patients or play golf.
-They wouldn’t have to pay 6 people to deal with insurance company billing.
-Medical malpractice costs would lower considerably.
-They would get paid for their work. They would also get paid in a timely fashion.
The health insurance and pharmaceutical industries in this country are akin to racketeering and organized crime. They set the costs for services, or deny service on a whim. We end up paying “protection” money to these criminals and hope we never need to file a claim, which automatically gets denied anyway.
There has to be a better way.
Shorter John McNovocain: Single-payer health care? We already have that, don’t we? The person who needs health care pays, right? Through the nose.
I love the health care I have, my family in Canada can’t get a dentist appointment and they come to America for any surgeries. I wonder why? Please don’t take the healthcare that saved my wife’s life when she had breast cancer.
RE: “Medical malpractice costs would lower considerably.”
Yeah, no one would ever sue the government, right?
A few other benefits for doctors $$$.
-They wouldn’t have to spend half their time explaining why patients need treatments to insurance companies.
Right, because as we all know, government getting involved NEVER results in a MASSIVE increase in red tape.
Medicare is and always has been one of the most efficient government run agencies EVAR.
Please don’t take the healthcare that saved my wife’s life when she had breast cancer.
I just want to say that this is the first time I’ve seen an emotional argument in favor of our current system. Usually the emotional arguments come from the side that wants change–that is, “Please can we change the health care system that denied my family member the life-saving operation he or she needed.”
Please don’t take the healthcare that saved my wife’s life when she had breast cancer.
No one wants to take away your wife’s healthcare. We’d like other people’s wives to have the same care.
And make it work better for everyone.
Well, Farris there is a big difference explaining to a government employee why your licensed professional opinion should be the standard to a government employee ultimately responsible to the taxpayer, and explaining why your licensed professional opinion should be the standard to a corporate bean counter whose job is dependent on his ability to deny, deny, deny and who is ultimately responsible to company shareholders rather than customers. Get it?
As for the Dude’s wife’s breast cancer, you shouldn’t be taking her to a dentist to treat her cancer. Seriously though, Canada has 1/10 the population of the US in slightly more square miles. I am sure there are problems territory to territory and in some areas of medicine, just as we have in the US. The life expectancy of a male in Shannon county South Dakota is only 48 years.
Compared to the US, Canada has better life expectancy rates, lower child mortality rates, pays about half per capita for health care, and spends less in government revenues (percentage wise) on healthcare.
Last response, as mentioned in an earlier thread, medical costs, continuing and long term medical care is a major component of malpractice suits. Take away that component and awards will shrink.
Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It’s worth a read.
It works for every industrialized society in the world. Why are people so convinced it’ll never work here? Are we all Eeyores here now? It’ll never work, we’re all doomed? Screw that. If we don’t try, the answer is always no.
And Mr. The Dude, I’m glad your wife is ok. As for taking the healthcare that saved your wife, nearly 1.5th of Americans don’t have access to that care.
The free market is running health care right now. Someone needs to clue in McBush.
Right, because as we all know, government getting involved NEVER results in a MASSIVE increase in red tape.
Red tape as a result of oversight, as in practicing due dillegence. That often happens in government, fuckstick.
Saw McSame speaking about his Healthcare “plan” this morning; gotta give the guy props for memorizing all the crap he was spewing at his age…but also have to ding him for obviously not knowing what the fuck he was talking about.
Bob,
Your facts are quite simply wrong and/or non-typical. Speaking as a Canadian resident interested in this whole debate, Canada’s system works. You can’t take the worst case numbers fromt the worst case region of a country and call that typical. Alberta for example has one of the lowest tax rates in all of North America, no sales tax and I waited exactly 2 months for reconstructive knee surgery and it cost me absolutely nothing, AND it was the result of a motorcycle accident. Try to find that stateside.
I had my gall bladder removed, showed up to the ER with pain, was admitted an hour later, and within a week had the surgery to remove it. Again, no cost to me.
The real nice part of the whole thing is that the unemployed newly bankrupt guy can expect the EXACT same level of care. Healthcare should not be a privelege of the wealthy, it should be a right to all citizens.
And to the point of not being able to find a dentist? I can leaf through the phone book and have an appointment with 15 different dentists within a week.
The only people that the ‘free market’ system works for is the insurance companies making billions off the skin of hard working citizens.
“Healthcare should not be a privelege of the wealthy, it should be a right to all citizens.”
But this is exactly what Republicans are fighting against. They WANT healthcare to be a privilege for those who can afford it. They WANT poorer people to get sick and die. They WANT doctors to “earn” astronomical wages. Of course, they will (mostly) deny this to your face, but behind closed doors, this is EXACTLY what they are shooting for.
Sick people are sick because they are poor. Poor people are poor because they are lazy and/or stupid. Lazy/stupid people cost non-lazy/stupid people money. Anything that costs rich people money should be eliminated at all costs.
Throw in the fact that, to some “Christians,” being poor is an indication that you are not among God’s favored people, and well, they’re just doing God a favor by sending you to hell a little quicker!