Thursday, August 13, 2009
A modest proposal
Since the tinfoil hat brigade seems for exercised over any public involvement in health care, unless of course its the VA or Medicare which they are perfectly happy with, I have a suggestion. Since the ultimate goal is to reduce the cost of health care, or at least control the growth of its cost, how about encouraging private non-profit health care options. Lets see if taking the profit motive out of the insurance business can help control costs - it certainly has in elsewhere. Just as the Lutherans have their own investment company (Thrivent Financial ) to encourage their core values, what if major churches were encouraged to start non-profit health plans for their members. Its actually a very old idea. Then Catholics could have a plan that reflected their faith's core values. So could Lutherans, etc. And for the heathens out there, we could have a public plan. Then no one would have to be afraid of Obama's death board abortion farms! They'd only have to be afraid of their church elders.
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3 comments:
I think you're attacking some straw men. What do you think of this?
Personally, I think we're just fooling ourselves on all of this. Medicare and Medicaid are doomed. Just take a look at their future costs. There is no avoiding major cuts in benefits for all.
My yacht post was only partly in jest. Modern medical care is a luxury good. If you don't think so, do a Bing image search on Operating Room and consider the money it took to put those places together and prepare the staff to do their jobs. Toasters are a general commodity. Modern surgery is a luxury.
Luxury goods for everyone at no increase in cost? I don't think so.
Liked the link, but I think he's attacking straw men. There are many reasons Walmart has become an economic juggernaut. The reason he states is one, but another is that Walmart's retail foot print is so huge, they can arm twist suppliers into meeting a price point. This is something my insurance company does on Rx's. One problem with Medicare is that they negotiated away the right to use their influence to get better prices.
But you are probably right about the long term viability of these programs. That said, my regular employer provided insurance has gone up about 12% every year. My salary doesn't go up a fraction of that. The situation is unsustainable.
So I don't have anything to loose trying something different, and everything to loose if things stay the same.
I'd suggest you have a lot to lose. Increased costs or not, you can get in to see your doctor now. With added patients to see and a reduction in doctors (cutting their pay will not increase their numbers) you may never get to see your doctor at all.
By the way, dig this story out of Oregon.
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