From The Thread Without End On Health Care

Both Doxy, Arkansas Hillbilly, and Counterlight contributed excellent commentary to my post on Joe Lieberman, which evolved into a wider discussion than the words and actions of Prince Lieberman. I'll hand it to Jim in GA for sticking with the discussion. Jim is one of the "sensible" of those in opposition to any kind of further intrusion by the government into the health care system, which can be good news or bad news, depending on your point of view. I selected one each of the comments by Doxy and Arkansas Hillbilly, along with a bonus by Counterlight, to bump up to a post. The comment thread, which numbers 65 at this point, is quite an interesting read.

Arkansas Hillbilly said:

Ok, let's try this mule one more time...

Jim,

I have looked up two of the individuals you have named continuously in your debate. Of them, Professor Munger, a Libertarian, has written extensively on the subject, and I disagree with his view. He seems to take the opinion that health insurance should be like car insurance, at least from the articles I have read. Mr. Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, compares unions to VD ("The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.") Both come from the position that basic healthcare is a commodity to be traded, not a right. Both advocate a system that opens insurance across state borders, uses health savings accounts and catastrophic insurance, again to make it more like car insurance.

The problem with this view is again that healthcare is not a commodity for those who can afford it. Health savings accounts are great for those who can afford to sock away the money, but for those who are barely making ends meet as it is, you might as well ask them to lasso the Moon. Even though my wife and children are not covered under my VA benefits, I am not allowed to participate in this system because I have the VA for myself. Where would this leave my wife and children for the "preventive care" like annual check ups, vaccinations, and such?

We are not dealing with automobiles, we are dealing with human lives. Lives like the police officer in Siloam Springs, AR whose wife is going through chemotherapy for breast cancer and must choose between her continued treatment or the rent for their home. Lives like the young girl in Georgia who died earlier this year waiting for Blue Cross to approve her liver transplant. Or the woman who was denied coverage for cancer treatments because she forgot to mention she was treated for acne as a teenager. Or Doxy's friend who made too much for Medicaid but not enough for insurance. She died of cancer because she couldn't afford regular doctor visits and the disease was caught too late to be treated. She left behind a young son. Care to explain to him why his mother is not able to hug him anymore? Would you explain that it was her fault for not having a health savings plan or that she would still be alive if there had been more competition between doctors for her business (the "Munger plan").

I do not purport to hold a monopoly on "compassion". I do however know that, like diapers, if something stinks, it should be changed. This system is broken. Competition between insurance companies will work about as well as competition between oil companies has. Having at least a Public Option (note the term option there, Jim) allows for true competition and cost control. Until that happens, all other methods of "cost control" will be like peeing into the wind. Sure it makes you feel better, but you still wind up standing in a mess.

Doxy said:

Jim: "Well, I suppose you are advocating that everyone, everywhere has a "right" to access to M.R.I. and machines and C.T. scans. I would think you would be more concerned that people who need basic medical care get it and that it should be affordable and of good quality."

Can you read for comprehension, Jim? That is exactly what I *am* arguing for. I don't think that one group of people should have access to all the bells and whistles of 21st century medical care while another can't even get a check-up.

I'm not riding an ideological hobbyhorse---I'm sincerely interested in in living in a fair and just world where people actually care enough about their fellow human beings to ensure that they are cared for when they are ill.

And I'm also sincerely interested in ensuring that the Big Lies spouted by the barking-mad dogs on the right are countered.

Do you disagree with me that those aims are important? We certainly don't agree on the specifics, but--like Mimi--I'm trying to figure out just what it is that you want to see happen.

I'd also be interested to know what kind of insurance you have and what (if anything) would you be willing to give up so that others could have care?

Finally, I would like to know if you've ever watched someone you care for die because they were too poor to afford healthcare? I am passionate about this issue because I have seen, up close and personal, how pernicious our current system is. This is not academic for me.
Doxy

And the bonus from Counterlight, who, along with others in the thread, speaks intelligently and clearly about the need for justice and fairness in our healthcare system:

Counterlight said...

I'm not in favor of the current health insurance bill.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a big give away to the insurance industry. People will be legally mandated to buy insurance, but there will be no meaningful way to help people pay for it. It's like the states that require driver's liability insurance, but provide no assistance to those who can't pay for it (liability insurance in states like New Jersey and New York is very expensive). These states have criminalized the problem without solving it. Legal or not, they still have a lot of uninsured drivers on the road.
So too, if the bill in its current form passes, it will solve nothing. There will still be millions of uninsured out there, only now they will be illegal and subject to fines on top of hefty insurance premiums with no meaningful help to pay for any of it.
The current bill is a bonanza for the insurance industry. Now everyone will be legally required to buy their product.

I don't buy the argument that there is no money for universal health insurance or a single payer system. There's always plenty of money to bail out the financial industry, plenty of money to subsidize the oil and auto industries, and there's always money for Freedom Bombs over the Middle East. We're just too busy giving away money to people who already have trainloads of it to bother with cutting a break to the people whose work creates that wealth.

Frankly, I don't expect to see any kind of meaningful health insurance reform in my lifetime. We've been at this issue since the days of Theodore Roosevelt with precious little progress to show for it. All of the nations of the developed world are way ahead of us, and will remain so. Their systems are not perfect, but they deliver so much more to their people for so much less than our system. Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, France, and Israel in their own different ways have finessed the issue of access to health care far more successfully than we have.
The Netherlands, the country that gave the world rich cholesterol filled cheeses, now had the world's healthiest (and tallest) people.

So, what's our problem?