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A Pence for Your Thoughts
Looking for a free lunch. A few health care stats. Hope & Change — Clinton ‘92. Plus more.
RATION THIS
Re: Rep. Mike Pence’s Freedom
Can’t Be Rationed:
Interesting column. But so far, what the kind of “freedom” you want to continue has me living without health insurance. Why? Am I some kind of deadbeat? Am I diabetic, or recovering from cancer? No. I’m a 63-year-old female, employed full time at a small firm (under 25 people), and I have essential hypertension, well controlled on a generic medication that costs me $12 every three months. And for that terrible threat to Blue Cross’s bottom line, I can’t even get a QUOTE on a health care policy. That’s right. You could send me a subsidy, give me a tax credit, whatever, and I still wouldn’t have health insurance because of my age and the fact that I’m not perfectly healthy.
So if this is the kind of wonderful system you want to continue,
I will continue to vote for any candidate of the Democratic Party
out of sheer preservation.
— Suzanne Shobe
Tulsa, Oklahoma
A seldom discussed element of the health care debate is the likely corrosive effect on health from the complete alienation of the person from the process. People need to be health producers, not health care consumers. What kind of person comes from being a mere consumer, not a producer, of the most important thing in life?
The health care debate, in fact, is about ill health or disease, not really health. If “health care’ were caring about the state of health, the idea of third party payment, let alone monolithic government funding, should go out the window. Nothing could be worse for health than becoming a passive consumer, dependent of expert agents and therapies geared neither for understanding nor competitive alternatives.
Attitude and personal engagement matter. If they did not, there would be no placebo effect. Though it is hard to design interventionary (drug) trials to produce data proving my point, but there are vast amounts of observational data supporting more than casual dismissal of subjective phenomena, specifically personal responsibility, in health outcomes. But some want us, for political and economic reasons, to be forever dependent health care consumers.
Reasonable people may differ on how much of our own health we
influence, and certainly it’s not all of it. But when government
monopolizes the treatment of disease, it will tolerate no
competition, no right to chose, no right to personal or family
initiative, no meaningful innovation in diet and behavior, no
speech or assembly for unsanctioned health purposes. Obama has
given lip service to prevention, but that is a good or value far
beyond the capacity of government budgeting and resource
allocation. And the alienation from our own bodies achieved in
national health care of any sort is a great stride for secularism
and materialism. Obamacare is as bankrupting spiritually as his
social and economic agendas are financially. Though we can
recover more easily from the later.
— Christopher Roberts
Brattleboro, Vermont
It is blood-curdling to read the lies and distortions in your article. Misleading people and flat-out lying about facts is ruinous for our country’s future. We will end up like GM, except we will not be able to bail ourselves out. The American century is ending because of our leaders’ stupidity and greed.
How about the below data:
First, let’s look at per capita health care spending in three countries, and in the United States:
United States: $5,274
Canada: $2,931
United Kingdom: $2,160
New Zealand: $1,857
Let’s look at the figures from a slightly different standpoint, total health care spending as a percent of GDP:
United States: 15.4%
Canada: 9.8%
New Zealand: 8.4%
United Kingdom: 8.1%
On the theory that you get what you pay for, our health care system certainly should be the best in the world, as the Republicans keep telling us that it is. So the next question is: what is the objective evidence of the results obtained by the health care systems in those three countries, compared to the United States.
I hope that even you think that babies dying before their first birthday is a bad thing, so surely our massive health care spending gives us a lower infant mortality rate than those countries, right? Wrong. Here are the number of children, per thousand live births, who die in their first year of life in these same four countries:
Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 6.19.09 @ 9:20AM
Laying aside the weariness I feel at repeating the same counter-arguments to every Pro-Socialist Medicine statistics-quoter, may I say once again that the reason for the higher infant mortality figures in the USA is that IN THE USA WE SAVE BABIES THAT IN SOCIALIST COUNTRIES ARE ALLOWED TO DIE AT OR BEFORE BIRTH. That is, there are more "high risk" babies who get to live AT ALL in the USA, than there are in Canada (where I live).
There is also the dirty little Canadian secret that a great many of our high-risk babies are saved ONLY BECAUSE they are transported two hours away to the USA where their lives can and will be saved instead of being allowed to die in Canada.
There is a good reason why 80% of the population of Canada is located within two hours of the USA border.
P.S. The reason for the higher death rate in the USA is due to (1) the large number of Gangstas represented and (2) Detroit and DC.
Remove those two cities, correct for the percentage of Persons of Colour blowing off each others' heads for "dissing" somebody by wearing a hat they don't like, and the average lifespan in the USA will rise significantly. Murders among Gangstas in Atlanta were so routine while I was living there, that most of them did not even make the news. We don't so far have that in much of Canada, save in certain parts of large cities and in Winnipeg.
Alice Moore| 6.19.09 @ 9:23AM
To Suzanne Shobe:
I sympathize with your situation. However, I don't understand your solution. All people agree that the problem with health care is access. Many problems with the health care system lie with the fact that the insurance companies are the customers, not the patients. I've seen this first hand; working in the health care field. The Democrats' solution will be to make the US government the customer.
Right now, you've mentioned that there is no plan available to yourself. With a government plan you certainly will be paying for a plan, but, you may have even less access to health care. The generic drugs that you mentioned are a free market innovation. You may not have even that with a government plan.
Insurance companies of today may employ a doctor or a nurse to help make recommendations. The flaw with this approach is that they do not know the patient. With the government a doctor or a nurse would probably have less if any input. Think your local USPS.
The company you work for probably would welcome off loading insurance requirements to the government. Their reasons are different from your own. The ClintonCare model of the 1990s ran aground because businesses could not offload the obligation.
The free market with the patient as customer. would be superior to the one with government as customer.
BTW, I'm in a demographic that's not far behind your own and have similar concerns. That I can buy prescriptions and BYPASS insurance costs is a plus to myself. The key would be to have the health care field like this. Best of Luck.
Appleby| 6.19.09 @ 9:37AM
Just FYI, socialist medicine in Canada does not pay for prescription drugs at all, not for anybody, not nohow.
Appleby| 6.19.09 @ 9:42AM
p.s. to Dr. Reich: You must get over the idea that socialist medicine is about health care. Socialist medicine is about POWER. And the passive-aggressive socialist is not so much interested in receiving health care as he is in denying it to TheRich. The average socialist is happy to have his daughter die on a waiting list so long as the daughter of a rich man dies five minutes sooner.
Only, of course, the rich man's daughter gets treatment -- in the USA.
SLG| 6.19.09 @ 9:49AM
Appreciate Mr. Tarai's comments, also noting the inept Republican insistance that "all's okay." It's not, obviously.
Now whether it's stupidly high "administrative" costs, insurance company crap, governmental regulations (or the lack thereof in regard to Illegal Aliens sucking us dry), or doctors playing CYA with humungous numbers of unnecessary "tests," I don't know.
I do know, however, that a trip to an Emergency Room after an accident involved a nurse and a PA (never saw a doctor, apparently wasn't required) who gave me 49 stitches....
Forgot the details, but the bill was somewhere between 5 and 6 THOUSAND dollars!
For 49 stitches (yeah, a tetnus shot and X-rays to be sure there was nothing left inside...)?
The "best health care system in the world" needs a whole big bunch of improvement(s), really.
David Govett| 6.19.09 @ 9:53AM
We should look forward to partisan politicians having access to our medical records. Then they will be able to perfect a cutting-edge, two-tier system of medical care: better for supporters of the party in power, worse for the unevolved supporters of that other party. The Founding Fathers would be proud of us.
Pingback| 6.19.09 @ 10:19AM
Life Insurance Quote - Say Adieu to Soaring Premiums on Health Insurance with Planrov links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
JerseyJ| 6.19.09 @ 12:03PM
David thinks ... "The "best health care system in the world" needs a whole big bunch of improvement(s), really. "
Which may be accurate. I would venture to say the single biggest improvement needed is tort reform.
That said, improvement is in the eye of the beholder. Would it be an "improvement" if another 3 or 4 million people got access to some form of care but at the cost of everyone's level of care being cut in half?
Would it be an "improvement" if the fees that providers are permitted to charge were cut in half but you were forced to wait two days to get those stiches?
My point is this ... Don't just think that the government doing SOMETHING constitutes an improvement. Just because you think SOMETHING must be done, don't for a minute think whatever that something is won't make things worse.
"Sir, I see you put a nail through your hand so we're going to amputate your foot because we've got to do SOMETHING."
Klabautermann| 6.19.09 @ 1:11PM
Paul Tarai, it appears that you have spent quite some effort compiling your statistics. The U.S. obviously fairs the worst. I am thinking of emigrating to New Zealand. My only question is; why are not all life expectancies the same in the socialized countries you mention? Could there be other variables you have not considered. I’d like to refer you to a paper presented to the American Public Health Association by Ruben Rumbaut and John Weeks. (See WSJ February 1, 1995, Infant Morality, Morther’s Morality.) They point out that infant mortality rates for Vietnamese immigrant were 5.5 deaths per 1,000 live births. African-American women had rates of 16.3 deaths per 1,000. New Zealanders are not Canadians, Americans are not British, and African Americans are not Vietnamese.
SLG| 6.19.09 @ 2:22PM
Amen, JerseyJ. Absolutely right. And right after I pushed the "send" button, know I'd left out that one very important item -- but the dog needed walking, and I kinda knew that some bright person would catch it. Again, amen.
SLG| 6.19.09 @ 2:24PM
--(talking about the very necessary TORT REFORM above in my last missive.........)--
Alan Brooks| 6.19.09 @ 8:51PM
the national medical debate is leaving out something: don't forget that though biotech may have fizzled somewhat here, the Chicoms and others are quite willing to 'progress'.
Patrick Spooner| 6.20.09 @ 5:24AM
How could anyone with a working brain say that government involvement in health care is a good thing - they either are ignorant or just plain stupid - just look at how government has bankrupted social security, mediacid, medicare and the postal service! I fo one would rather go it alone than be subjected to a federal bureaucrat whose only reason for being involved in rationing health care services is his personal realtionship to a politician!
Pingback| 6.25.09 @ 11:07AM
The American Spectator : A Pence for Your Thoughts | insurance-canada links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: