“Polling on every possible option confounds all logic,” or so writes Tiana Lowe about ObamaCare and its repeal, at National Review.
“Americans overwhelmingly dislike the individual mandate and prioritize lowering the cost of health care over all other health problems in the country,” Ms. Lowe elaborates, “but a majority of Americans do not want to roll back Obamacare’s guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions. Just a quarter of Americans are happy with Obamacare as-is, but a mere 12 percent favor the now-dead Senate health-care bill.”
Perceptively, she notes that the situation is as bad or worse for politicians, who want to “have their cake and eat it too.” The problem with politicians is pretty obvious: they lie because they are afraid of confronting the truth.
But it seems to me, on the evidence Lowe herself provides, Americans mostly have it right.
We want to lower costs of health care. Well, that should be the first priority. It should’ve been government’s highest priority, since government caused our predicament.
A huge supermajority is unhappy with ObamaCare, which makes sense. The Affordable Care Act is not affordable. But the Senate health-care bill was worse than ObamaCare, so folks were right to oppose it.
The only real issue? Many Americans don’t seem to understand that the “pre-existing coverage” mandate necessarily raises costs. Forcing insurance companies to pay for non-eventualities* requires them to pass those extras onto customers in general. Here is where leadership would be of help.
And where it has failed, our President most of all.
Lowe criticizes Trump for not pushing the Senate’s bill more effectively. I’m thankful for that.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Insurers wager against unpredictable future illness or accident, not the sucker’s bet of paying for an existing predicament.
8 replies on “According to Logic”
Neither the electorate nor the Congress wish to understand the workings of the insurance market. That is why, once the concept of national medical services, and the perception that such is a right, a single payer system, at least for catastrophic occurances (which will be experienced by every member of the pool with their final illness) became inevitable. Once price is no longer allowed to equate supply and demand, as it necessarily means some will go without, some form of single payer and rationing become necessary.
The golden age of American medicine is over, now the only question is how steep will be the decline.
Some sage comments in the context. I might also point out that without the War Party spending $trillions on its genocidal War of Terror [fraudulent War on Terror conceived and initially implemented at the JCIT in 1979 (
http://www.bollyn.com/israeli-prescience-of-9-11-and-the-fraudulent-war-on-terror/)], we could pretty much afford any health care system anyone could dream up.
Here’s another thing that most Americans don’t understand: it’s not health COSTS that have gone up, it’s health SPENDING that has gone up. Americans now spend money on health procedures, equipment, tests, and services that did not exist 20 years ago — there’s the increase. That plus the fact of third party pays encourages us to go for it since it feels free. The most effective way to reduce spending is through rationing. When is the predicted crash of ObamaCare? Then we get our own version of the British NHS with all of the problems of a government run health system.
It’s hard to balance costs and benefits. We spend money on annual scans and various tests in an effort to find and treat conditions before they become life-threatening (and more expensive to treat). In this area, rationing is the way to go. How much would costs decrease if Americans had to pay for most of their screenings out of pocket? In return, the insurance company can lower premiums since diseases such as cancer that are caught early would generally be easier to treat and probably less costly. Also, what is the benefit of annual screenings, especially for the young adults in the insurance pool? How much spending is being done unnecessarily precisely because it is considered ‘free’ by consumers? Rationing would come into play by reducing the number or frequency of screenings covered by health insurance. Government needs to get out of the way. If people had to pay more for health care, they would seek lower-cost options and prices would come down as advances were made in the field. Look at computers. Even with inflation, they cost 70% less than they did in the 1990’s. In medicine, look at Lasik. Providers that want people to use their services will have an incentive to make it simpler and more cost-effective.
In addition, licensing for health care professionals should be ended. I know, that idea shocks most people, and it squarely puts the task of choosing a competent and cost-effective provider on the individual, but the system we’ve got makes innovation slow and costly compared to what a free market would accomplish. As long as no fraud is involved, it simply isn’t the government’s business who offers to provide what services.
JdL I have no problem with your proposal and believe that service providers can be satisfactorily controlled by free competition, internet information and the common law of contract and tort.
“And where it has failed, our President most of all.
Lowe criticizes Trump for not pushing the Senate’s bill more effectively. I’m thankful for that.”
More than a little confusing…
It is not the Obama care that is the problem. It is the physicians and drug companies. My husband has macular degeneration. Every shot he gets in one eye is billed to Medicare for $6,000.00 each,and that is just one eye! My medicines for asthma are billed for $360.00 per month. Compare these charges with any other free world country. Then add the insurance premiums on top of that. Of course, our legislators don’t have a clue what we’re complaining about. They get all theirs FREE!