The cause of universal health care, though not a right, still carries the force of moral imperative. This battle, too, shall be won.
The rise of mass consciousness, a uniquely modern phenomenon, has resulted in the proliferation of an idealistic, moral view of the world. It has been the most singular achievement of modernity. Nowhere has its impact, its peculiar stamp, been more evident or more pronounced than in politics.…
Article comments
26 - roger nowosielski
A fairly comprehensive article on healthcare rationing
27 - Dave Nalle
It's discouraging to see that Dave hasn't abandoned his habit of condescension and his patronizing attitude.
Bliffle, I wasn't being condescending. I was being serious. Based on your earlier comment and what you repeat below, we do actually seem to agree here that monopolies and the lack of competition and fair business practices seem to be the real problem in the healthcare industry -- a problem which the current proposals seem to intend to institutionalize rather than end.
It isn't "current healthcare proposals " that are dangerous, it's the existing unbridled monopoly that has been operating for decades.
Except that the current healthcare proposal in the congress basically accepts the status quo and if anything gives more power to the monopoly. I would think that might bother you.
Dave
28 - Dave Nalle
Roger, here's an article on what the result of healthcare rationing are likely to be.
Dave
29 - Doug Hunter
"Wasn't talking about small businesses, Mr. Ellis. That's another story"
Yes, indeed. Even after my prompting, which played a role in the development of this story there is still very little time devoted to the actual tradeoffs made in order to achieve your healthcare goal. What many hope (except perhaps Clavos) is that the resources used will come from the party money or perhaps a few foot off the yachts of the rich. Even those 'wasteful' expenditures affect someone, yacht builders, brokers, caterers, etc.
If not for those making over $200K/year who would have the capital to introduce new players into the market and keep competition alive? Who would maintain the demand for fancy homes, expensive cars, and other luxuries that serve as the gainful employment of many in society? The rich inspire million $ bonuses, huge commissions, and purchase overpriced, handmade, and locally produced goods. The poor stimulate $7/hour Walmart jobs ,low level social service employees, and cheap Chinese shit. Anyway, that's delving into another topic(suicidal class warfare) that those on the left seek to incite.
In some cases the sacrifice will be luxuries, in others it will be college funds and business expansion, such is the nature of these things. At least you have considered the ability of society to pay for such programs. From what I can tell we cannot afford it, or anything else, at this time without making a serious (and politically unfeasible) sacrifice somewhere else. Politicians on both sides have no spine, and each gleefully responds to their pet half of the problem. Not every situation, in fact very few, can be a true win-win.
I'm ready to go with some form of mandated or guaranteed healthcare for all (even though I realize in the end I will have diluted and decreased or rationed quality care for myself) if the government is willing to reprioritize and sacrifice as well. To that end I have seen no honest debate, no frank discussion of the tradeoffs, and no willingness to sacrifice anything but our children's future through unstustainable debt. That is something I can't in good faith support.
30 - roger nowosielski
I am not qualified to address the present healthcare proposal, Doug. It's another thousand-pager. I was only addressing the concepts.
I'm surprised, however, there's no mention of tort-reform - a very important element which keeps on escalating the overall cost of healthcare.
31 - roger nowosielski
There's a false assumption, Doug, in your #29 - namely, that all the rich are entrepreneurs. Lots of them are just stinking rich and their contribution to the economy is not through creation but consumption. So there's no difference between these kinds of people and the majority of consumers except for their deep pocketbooks.
Heard about the recent rash of bonuses approved by Goldman & Sachs? The average compensation runs close to 3/4 million a year. Now, these are truly productive members of the society - peddling their fucking derivatives and god knows what financial products. So you're saying that taxing these people a bit is going to hurt the economy?
32 - roger nowosielski
Dave, #28,
There should be no reason, Dave, why the situation should become so dire - not if the compensation to the medical profession will be reasonable, which, then again, will insure against the professionals leaving the industry. (And where would they go?)
I hope you're not assuming that providing reasonable healthcare to those who are presently uninsured would overtax the system to the point you're suggesting; I don't believe it will; again, not if the compensation rates remain reasonable.
The rationing has to do with a rather different idea: of how much money can or ought to be spend on a case by case basis, not necessarily with the things suggested in the linked article.
33 - Doug Hunter
I said - 'In some cases the sacrifice will be luxuries, in others it will be college funds and business expansion' - I think that's pretty clear and accurate.
As for Goldman, you're conflating two different issues. I don't understand the business model of Goldman-Sachs enough to comment intelligently on the company's contribution to society although my gut feeling is that you're on to something there. That is a seperate from employee compensation which, from my reading of recent news headlines, focuses on merit and rewards their employees handily for their productivity and abilities.. that is something I support.
34 - roger nowosielski
You're correct though, Doug, insofar as the spending habits of the poor are concerned - they do encourage the Wall-Mart minimum-wages type of jobs and cheap imports (like Chinese-made, not Hong-Kong suits). So there is a difference besides the economies of scale.
35 - roger nowosielski
What I definitely agree with you on - small business should be encouraged rather than discouraged; if anything, credits should be given to all small/medium-size businesses to help them pay the healthcare costs. Because the whole thing will fall flat on its face if we don't grow the economy and jobs.
36 - Doug Hunter
We agree on more than we disagree. Healthcare needs to be a higher priority than it has been. Unfortunately, we're at the point where we need to make some actual sacrifices to achieve it rather than simply putting it on the tab. The sacrifice can't always be more redistribution from the private sector, sometimes it means reprioritizing how the government allocates those resources. For example, it's not politically realistic, but you could likely pay for universal healthcare by accelerating the restrictions on social security (ie. middle class, those with resources and pensions, don't get any and further increasing the age dependent on health). That's a real sacrifice and tradeoff that doesn't hurt the engine of our economy at all, doesn't put anyone in poverty, and still achieves healthcare without taking any additional money.
37 - Doug Hunter
Also, I'm willing to sacrifice by getting rid of those silly homeland security color codes if that'll help!
38 - roger nowosielski
Resctrictions on social security for the middle class (those with separate pensions and IRA) is definitely a good idea. Of course you know that the response from the AARP is likely to be. There is only one pie and no matter how you're going to slice it, it will go only so far. So I definitely agree that any well-conceived health plan must be accompanied by making strategic cuts elsewhere.
39 - m a rk
Here's a discussion of Dave's referenced article in #28.
40 - Bliffle
Roger is wrong again:
"38 - roger nowosielski
Resctrictions on social security for the middle class (those with separate pensions and IRA) is definitely a good idea"
It's a lousy idea, even if you could convince anyone that it's legal to renege on an annuity that they've been paying into all their working life.
For one thing, there's no NEED to do it. SS turns a surplus of about $160billion a year and has a $2.5trillion standing deficit.
Have you been fooled by all those claims that SS is broke? Are you falling victim to the rightwing echo chamber?
Wise up.
Not only are middle-class people legally (even morally) entitled to their SS proceeds, if you could find a way to gyp them out of it you would lose their support and the system would be doomed. Of course, that's exactly what Wall Street speculators want because that would force the government to give them all those trillions to play with in their weird investments.
Don't be a sap(again) Roger.
Research, think, investigate before you blurt.
41 - Bliffle
I read the two propaganda articles about public healthcare rationing.
They're anecdotal and unverifiable. What would you expect from publications notable as opinion sources?
Any number can play THAT game.
We ALREADY have healthcare rationing, right here in the USA with our celebrated private health insurance system. 20,000 people a year die from lack of medical care. Probably more. The private system simply has NO way of accommodating those people, so they will die.
Under private health insurance, my doctor has been told that she must increase her patient load from 600 patients to 2000. Thats a diktat from Blue Cross/ Blue Shield. That's why I have to wait to see her for 3 hours.
The cited articles don't even support the BC commentors POV:
"It is hard to see how the nation as a whole can remain competitive if in 25 years we are spending nearly a third of what we earn on health care, while other industrialized nations are spending far less but achieving health outcomes as good as, or better than, ours."
And we aren't spending that money on HEALTHCARE, we're spending it on health insurance (which will probably fail most of us and ultimately kill us).
The not-so-subtle stunt that the (malevolent) insurance companies have pulled on us is to always insert themselves in the front of the queue, so that we are talking about healthcare and health insurance as interchangeable.
Health care is a LOT less expensive than health insurance, and a lot more efficacious , too.
42 - roger nowosielski
It's all a matter of greed. Everyone's got to tighten their belt for the good of the whole. I don't have any compunction about cutting benefits from those who can afford it anymore than limiting exorbitant renumerations given to Wall Street parasites. Greed is a property of any class of people. So even if your stinking benefits will be cut, Bliffle, given you're already collecting on your fat pension, I wouldn't loose a minute of sleep over it. You seem to think that our resources and ability to do things is inexhaustible.
Keep on dreaming and being a sap.
43 - Bliffle
Oops! In number 40 that should be:
"For one thing, there's no NEED to do it. SS turns a surplus of about $160billion a year and has a $2.5trillion standing surplus."
The Wall Street noise machine is even affecting ME!!!!!
This is horrible!
(Too bad BC doesn't have a PREVIEW option.)
44 - roger nowosielski
Anything that runs contrary to bliffle's esteemed opinion is propaganda; everything that it's in accord is gospel truth. But as usual, bliffle is a bean counter and a number cruncher. His comprehension of basic ideas and underlying concepts leaves a great deal to be desired.
45 - roger nowosielski
Mark, #39:
I agree. The article Dave cited raises the wrong kind of issues. I believe I raised my objections to it in #32. In short, it does not address the issue of rationing - which I believe is a sound idea considering our present circumstances - if not in principle.
Do you care to address this?
46 - Bliffle
Dave makes a good point:
"Bliffle, I wasn't being condescending. I was being serious. Based on your earlier comment and what you repeat below, we do actually seem to agree here that monopolies and the lack of competition and fair business practices seem to be the real problem in the healthcare industry -- a problem which the current proposals seem to intend to institutionalize rather than end."
True. But the current abuses are so longstanding and so well-bribed into the system, that it will be impossible to dislodge them. The only solution is to outflank them by going to a public system. I hate to say it (as a lifelong real conservative)
but the insurance companies have blown it.
there's not a chance in h*ll we can revoke the privileges of wanton health insurance corporations.
This illustrates a dangerous propensity that we have in our System: we are willing to endure an injustice for so long that it gets tremendously exploited until it is a Way Of Life and we no longer seem to have the will or the means to do away with it.
Such is the case with insurance companies, and such is the case with (overprivileged) corporations.
They will destroy the USA with their excesses and take down the good (usually small) businessmen with it.
Small business guys have to wake up to the fact that Frankenstein corporations are not their friends (just because they are businesses, too) but the predator that will destroy them.
47 - roger nowosielski
I hope you don't get the impression, bliffle, that I'm condoning private insurance companies. They are taking us to the cleaners and it's time to do away with them. So a government-run system is inevitable. But it's got to be done responsibly. The element of scarcity and limited resources is ever-present. It can't be ignored.
48 - Doug Hunter
"It's a lousy idea, even if you could convince anyone that it's legal to renege on an annuity"
You're too smart to actually believe this bullshit. SS has much more in common with a Ponzi scheme than an annuity and you damn well know it. (Ask Madoff if he enjoyed the 'surplus' from his Ponzi scheme) You're being willfully ignorant and misleading. Congress already 'reneged' on the agreement by modifying it several times before and they will again. Idiots that want to live in a fantasy world where you can have everything for nothing are dooming our economy, our system, and our children to failure. Thanks for being a part of it.
49 - roger nowosielski
Right, Doug. Notice, though, that the very same people had no compunction about cancelling the AIG bonuses - contractual or not. But now they all want to stand on the principle of the thing whenever it affects their own pocketbook. Talking about double standard.
50 - Doug Hunter
Roger, no one wants to sacrifice anything except someone else's money or push the bill to a future generation. I think the basket of benefits we would get from healthcare assurances and limits on retirement funds to those who have adequate resources is preferable to a guaranteed payment to everyone with no safety net for middle income workers healthcare. We probably need to moderately raise taxes in addition to pay down a bit of the debt we've rang up recently as well. Again, it's completely politically untenable but we need to do exactly the opposite of what we have been, namely we need to raise taxes and reprioritize and decrease government spending. Unfortunately, we can do neither we're going to wait until the whole thing crashes and let the ensuing chaos change things for us.
51 - Clavos
Everyone's got to tighten their belt for the good of the whole.
Easy for the self-described poor man to say, it's not your ox that will be gored; on the contrary, you'll get the money they take from those who have saved.
So says the Politburo.
52 - roger nowosielski
I think you're right. We've lost the sense that we all in this together and that only together we'll be able to pull ourselves through - rich, poor, and the middle class. So yes, it does assume the dimensions of class warfare as long as everybody looks at number one and thinks it will just miraculously happen at the expense of everyone else but them. And Bliffle is the best example of this myopic type of attitude, thinking our resources are unlimited.
It's still amazing to me that they're considering putting the plan into effect without proper cost-benefit analysis: where they can save to pay for it. But it's like anything else in politics: everything is done out of sense of expediency, not out of forethought.
53 - roger nowosielski
I will have nothing to gain from that. Already have Medicare and Medicaid. But if I were in the money, I'd still say the same thing. Unless of course every man for himself is the preferred attitude. And if the rich are asked to bear the burden, so should the middle class (whatever is left of it). Are we a society or are we not?
54 - Bliffle
Doug is wrong, as usual:
"SS has much more in common with a Ponzi scheme than an annuity ..."
Actually, it was patterned after annuities.
Don't believe me, ask your life insurance agent how an annuity operates.
Then, if makes the common complaint about "unfunded liabilities" (as private insurance companies are wont to do when complaining about a competitor that has a superior product) ask him what the "unfunded liabilities" of HIS insurance company are, and how they plan to cover them.
That's homework assignment #1 on the way to improving your knowledge in hopes that will improve your insight and opinions.
Here's assignment #2: did you know that congresscritters (and some other government employees) can buy/sell stocks using their Insider Knowledge? That's something you and I and company CEOS and and everyone ELSE cannot do. Remember when some famous person went to JAIL for insider trading?
Well congresscritters can do it. So finally there's a bill:
(H.R. 682, STOCK)
to stop such insider trading.
Read it and weep.
Generally speaking, you people would be better off if you spent your time reading OpenCongress rather than trading misinformation and naive opinions here on BC. You might also want to take a look at H.R. 676 while you're there.
55 - Dave Nalle
There should be no reason, Dave, why the situation should become so dire - not if the compensation to the medical profession will be reasonable, which, then again, will insure against the professionals leaving the industry. (And where would they go?)
Except that the current bill has no provisions for cutting compensation or limiting costs. It was largely written by lobbyists for the medical and insurance industries.
I hope you're not assuming that providing reasonable healthcare to those who are presently uninsured would overtax the system to the point you're suggesting; I don't believe it will; again, not if the compensation rates remain reasonable.
I wasn't even considering that at all, actually. There seems to be no provision in this bill to provide reasonable healthcare to anyone. It just forces people to buy health insurance and if they can't afford it it slaps them with a big fine.
The rationing has to do with a rather different idea: of how much money can or ought to be spend on a case by case basis, not necessarily with the things suggested in the linked article.
There's much more to rationing than that. It also means limiting purchases of key hardware for hospitals, limiting the number of certain types of epcialists. The problem is that it's not done on a case by case basis, but on a system wide basis. They look at how many patients a hospital serves and say that hospital only needs 1 MRI when it has 3 now. They look at how many neurosurgeons it has and trade a couple of them to the hospital down the road. They rule out certain medications entirely as too expensive. They give you beta blockers as the first treatment for a blocked artery instead of angioplasty or a bypass. It creates problems throughout the system and the result is more deaths.
Dave
56 - Doug Hunter
Okay Bliffle, I'll play your silly little game. If what you say it true then, like and annuity, why not make Social Security voluntary? If it can stand on it's own like annuities do then there should be no need to compel people to join.
As for my reading list, I'm compelled to choose on my own how to spend my time. Thanks for the condescension though.
57 - Clavos
The faith that those in favor of UHC have in the government bozos' assurances that the administration bozos' plan will save money is touching, especially if one has experience with Medicare.
58 - pablo
cindy 21
is that the same walmart that hilary clinton was on the board of directors of?
just checkin ;)
59 - Cindy
pablo,
Was she really? It's like one big country club.
60 - Cindy
Oh and very nice to see your words, pablo. :-)
61 - Cindy
There are differences between the necessity of these things and society has a right to draw a line somewhere and say no more.
I agree. I'm saying "no more Daves." Maybe they will become extinct.
Sometime in the future:
Look kids see those people over the fence, they're a rare kind of subhuman species called Daves. Yes, they do look much like the rest of us. Unfortunately, evolution took them in a different direction. They didn't use their sense of compassion or love enough and now they are just soulless brutes with tiny shriveled hearts. We just try to make sure they stay on that side of the fence where they can beat each other senseless trying to 'get the most' out of their ugly lives.
Don't be a Dave.
62 - roger nowosielski
Hi, Cindy. I see you're somewhat out of circulation lately. Same here.
63 - Cindy
This illustrates a dangerous propensity that we have in our System: we are willing to endure an injustice for so long that it gets tremendously exploited until it is a Way Of Life and we no longer seem to have the will or the means to do away with it.
"The responsibility for change, therefore, lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical. This means fighting off the idea assassins who rush forward to kill any new suggestion on grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, no matter how absurd, oppressive, or unworkable it may be." - Alvin Toffler 1995
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." - Alvin Toffler
64 - Cindy
Hiya Roger,
It has been so cold and rainy so far this year that it has been making headline news here. My neighbor, who usually starts swimming in May hasn't been able to swim yet. We have to take every available opportunity in NJ, we will only get a little summer this year.
Hope you are enjoying the summer! :-)
65 - Cindy
(I am cheating on a break from yard work, I am supposed to be cooking blueberry pancakes. shhh don't tell.)
66 - roger nowosielski
Unlike where you're at, it's always hot and humid here. Swimming is good. Used to do it religiously every day - at least 40 lapses, Olympic size pool.
67 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, you're getting all our wet weather up there. We're in a record drought in Texas with over a month now of temperatures over 100 degrees. Though I hear it might get down to 98 tomorrow. Yay!
Dave
68 - Bliffle
It's hot and dry here in the Gabilan Range. It's about 90, but very low humidity, so just sitting out under a spreading Valley Oak (the Monarch of California trees) in the dappled shade is quite comfortable. especially since there is a persistent valley breeze of about 4mph that helps blow away insects and body heat. The climate is so perfect that it's like no climate at all
I'm watching the antics of a hen Turkey who is concerned that some of her chicks have flown up into the Coyote Brush about 4 feet off the ground. The Coyote brush is too flimsy to support her weight, so she jumps up and tugs at branches to tumble the chicks out onto the grass.
It's beautiful here. Now if only I can figure some way to kill an adult turkey without running afoul of the constabulary, I can get a nice turkey dinner. I already figured a way to hike into a remote old farm pond that's brimming with Bluegills that are over an inch thick and bigger than a saucer. Apparently stocked many years ago and not fished since, the Bluegills come right up to you for crumbs of bread, so it's easy to catch them with a dropline, though they're hard to land because they are fierce fighters.
Those turkey chicks grow fast. they're bigger than pigeons now. The plentitude of turkey meat makes the cougars bolder, so I've seen tracks 100 yards from here.
69 - roger nowosielski
The Can't-Do Nation.
Reminds one of Robert L. Heillbronner's classic, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect,1974, when he questioned humanity's ability to respond to the many crises and challenges of modernity. It's almost prophetic.