If you're just happening by, first note that if you scroll down a little ways, on the right side are topics/labels arranged alphabetically. Under health care system, you'll see at least 10 posts. Click on the label and you will have just those posts to view. Each one has a succinct point, with links to the supporting, or referencing article or opinion piece. Start there after you read this post. I guarantee you will find yourself informed and you'll find the arguments, as advanced by the proponents of the "single-payer" or gov't option to be quite lame, weak and unsupportable.
The opinion piece published in the Daily News by Ms. Lupe Green, contains data and arguments right out of the liberal think tanks and are all rebutted by other studies, or simple logic. The link you just saw goes to Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, biggovhealth.org, and has more than I could contain here on the case against single-payer. First, the cost, which is no doubt too high in America. The reasons are multiple and not unreasonable, and, the most important point, not going be fixed by single-payer, and, in fact, may/will become become worse (BTW, over a year ago, I wrote several meticulously sourced and supported News and Views on the health care debate--little has changed to affect those arguments and I'll add some excerpts from them tomorrow):
In addition to the per person cost, health care spending, as a percentage of our economy, is higher than other industrialized countries. The reasons are summarized as follows:
1) The system that incorporated health care insurance was a response to, yes, government intervention in salary caps after WWII. Employers couldn't offer monetary raises but could purchase health insurance as a perk to executives. Thus, the byzantine health insurance system for interjecting a third party for the most routine of health care became the norm. Before that, people paid much like they pay for auto repairs, which can, you all know, be expensive but folks figure out ways to pay. No one would think that interjecting an insurance company between the consumer and car repair shops would do anything but greatly increase the cost for anything needing repair, let alone the routine oil changes, tune-ups, etc. (Car insurance involvement in accident repair is different because there are many other expenses not unlike the need for, say catastrophic care insurance even if medical costs were paid with cash)
2) Likewise, much of the excess costs in the current system are the direct result of having to pay employees at insurance companies, employees at the clinics, etc in the course of paying for routine care. Eliminate the insurance company and let doctors post/advertise prices and you would see the costs drop dramatically, even for operations like knee surgery, and if consumers were informed of the ratings for medical providers like they are through consumer reports-type sources, the success/performance rate would be public. Single-payer will do nothing to fix any of this, and will simply use gov't bureaucrats to ration the limited health care resources (which are always limited but are more equitably and efficiently distributed by private citizens acquiring what they can pay for with their dollars) with the type of onerous, heavy-handed approach the government used for, say, fixing the financial system or owning car companies.
3) Another factor in the cost of American health care is the redundancies and overuse associated with tests and procedures performed for several reasons. First, doctors can be using the tests to inflate their compensation, since they are paid what amounts to a premium for additional tests beyond the most likely ones for the particular patient and diagnosis.
Secondly, but not less in impact, are the issues of preventative medicine, preventative of lawsuits. Doctors routinely over test so as to protect themselves from lawsuits if something occasionally goes wrong. Test are also over-used due to insurance companies mandating those procedures to also preventativelye defend from lawsuits. Capping malpractice awards, punitive not compensative, will and in fact has dramatically lowered insurance premiums as well as the overall cost of medical care, as proven in states, like Texas, that have put caps on awards.
4) Global costs per person in America are also higher because the costs for developing more advanced procedures and medicines accrue to the overall bill. Those procedures, tests and drugs are developed in America because there is, yes, profit for having a better drug, a better procedure, just like there is profit in developing and marketing a better piece of technology, computer, etc. Ultimately, if those things are ineffective or unneeded, the market, not the government, is the best arbiter of what remains available and used by doctors, pharmacies and consumers.
5) The costs of the poor, the uninsured are a part of the total bill but that will also not be changed by single-payer. I've seen studies that show that the supposed decreased spending by making preventative care mandatory, while marginally improving the health of those receiving it, does nothing to lower overall costs to the system.
No comments:
Post a Comment