The Politics of Health care
One of the more important battles of the next few years is going to be health care reform. I’ve mentioned before I’m opposed to any kind of government run socialized health care system. I have relatives in Canada so my perspective on socialized medicine is a little more direct than most… Suffices to say be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
The Wall Street Journal and American Thinker have both published must read essays on health care recently, if haven’t read them you should.
First is Carol Peracchio’s January 7th essay at American Thinker.com:
Take Two Aspirin and Call Your Congressman in the Morning
When President-Elect Obama nominated Tom Daschle to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services, he proclaimed the former Senate Majority Leader: “one of America’s foremost health care experts.” Obama stated Daschle will be the “lead architect” of the administration’s health care plan. As a nurse, I am always concerned when the government announces it has plans for our health care, so I decided to investigate Mr. Daschle’s ideas. I read his book Critical: What We Can Do about the Health-Care Crisis.
Senator Daschle wrote his book with 2 other experts, Scott S. Greenberger and Jeanne M. Lambrew. According to the flyleaf, Greenberger is a reporter and consultant. Lambrew is a senior fellow. Tom Daschle, of course, is a former US Senator and now a visiting professor and Distinguished Senior Fellow. The back cover of the book has advance praise from 3 senators, a former White House chief of staff, yet another senior fellow, and a professor/dean at a public policy institute.
To paraphrase a famous quote by Sam Rayburn, “They may be just as intelligent as you say. But I’d feel a helluva lot better if just one of them had ever emptied a bedpan.” Read the rest…
Second is Congressman Tom Price’s Op Ed in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:
The GOP Should Fight Health-Care Rationing
Obama’s HMO deserves principled opposition.
By Tom Price, Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2009
Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of the past eight years was the chance for Republicans to fundamentally reform the terribly broken American health-care system. Access to quality health care has long been a professed priority, yet Republicans have been reluctant to tackle the issue.
As a physician, this is deeply disappointing to me because patient-centered health care is, at its core, conservative. Health care is fundamentally a personal relationship between patients and doctors. To honor this relationship — consistent with Republican ideals — our goal should be to provide a system that allows access to affordable, quality health care for all Americans, in a way that ensures medical decisions are made in doctors’ offices, not Washington.
Republican unwillingness to address the issue, however, has left us facing an emboldened Democratic Party well equipped to push a government-centered health-care agenda. While Democrats are still dangerously misguided in their policies, this time they are prepared to avoid the political mistakes of the Clinton administration. Read the rest…
And finally Scott Gottlieb’s Op Ed from today’s Wall Street Journal:
What Medicaid Tells Us About Government Health Care
Why would Obama want to build on a system with poor outcomes?
By Scott Gottlieb, Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2009
Medicaid provides coverage to poor and disabled Americans, many of whom face the highest burden of chronic disease owing to cultural and socioeconomic challenges. The program beats being uninsured, but it often relegates the poor to inferior care.
Reimbursement rates are so low, and billing the program so complicated, that it is hard for internists like me to get beneficiaries access to specialized care or timely interventions. For my patients as well, many of whom are uneducated or don’t speak English, Medicaid is replete with paperwork, regulations and rejections that make the program hard to navigate.
Now Medicaid is to receive a bolus of federal money, probably as part of the fiscal stimulus plan — the figure whispered in Washington is $100 billion — with no obligation that the program does anything to reverse its decline. Read the rest…
From my perspective one of the problems we face in the health care debate is that a great many people have an realistic expectation of what their health insurance should cover. I have private health care insurance an I’m happy with it. It’s not cheap, it costs me roughly $600.00 a quarter and I have to pay $5000.00 deductible in a calendar year.
That’s fine I don’t mind paying out pocket for routine office visits of prescription drugs. All I want from my health insurance is protection from catastrophic expenses and that’s exactly what it provides.
Wall Street Journal: Almost Everyone Would Do Better Under the McCain Health Plan
Robert Carroll has a must read Op Ed on John McCain’s health care plan in today’s Wall Street Journal. Carroll does and excellent job of explaining what may be the single most misunderstood and misrepresented proposal of this election… The bottom line is most of us would do better under McCain’s health insurance tax credit.
Almost Everyone Would Do Better Under the McCain Health Plan
His tax credit is larger than the current tax subsidy for insurance.
By Robert Carroll, Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2008
Still, some 45 million Americans are uninsured; and the growth in health-care spending continues to outpace the growth in incomes and the economy, which portends further increases in the number of uninsured. The employer-based system itself is eroding. Voters should be wondering whether there is a better approach than this subsidy.
What many may not realize is that the federal government already “spends” roughly $300 billion to $400 billion through the tax code to encourage people to pay for their health care through employer-sponsored health insurance. This subsidy takes the form of the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance from both income and payroll taxes.
There has been a lot of rhetoric and misstatements, but what exactly does Sen. McCain have in mind? He would replace the current income tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with a refundable tax credit — $5,000 for those who purchase family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage. Mr. McCain would also reform insurance markets to stem the growth in health insurance premiums. Read the rest…
Poll Question: Who Won The Final Presidential Debate?
Overall I thought this was John McCain’s best debate. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was a game changer. In fact I think the plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, was the only real winner.
A couple of quick points:
1) The Secret Service says they have yet to find anyone who can backup that Scranton ‘Kill Him’ Report.
[Secret Service agent] Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.
“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.
He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.
Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”
“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”
2) Can we please put that 47 million uninsured myth to rest?
Michelle Malkin has a brief debate wrap up here. Jeff Emanuel has commentary and analysis @ Red State.
Morning After Updates
Ed Morrissey has post debate analysis and a run down of Obama’s big lies @ Hot Air. Karl Rove says Obama hasn’t closed the sale and the Wall Street Journal editorial board says Joe the Plumber cuts to the heart of the Presidential choice.
Health Care and the State of the Union
Here are two great columns from The Wall Street Journal. If you haven’t already read them you should.
The first, The Republican Health-Care Surrender by Dick Armey details one of the biggest problems Republicans are facing… Their complete surrender on health care. I don’t want government run health care I have private health care insurance an I’m happy with it. It’s not cheap, it costs me roughly $600.00 a quarter and it doesn’t cover everything and that’s fine with me… I don’t expect it to.
I chose the coverage I have based on my needs and what I could afford and it covers everything it should. I’m not bothered by paying my doctor $90.00 out of my pocket for an office visit or paying a $5000.00 deductible in a calendar year, what I do want from my health insurance is protection from catastrophic expenses and that’s what it provides.
Part of the problem with the health care debate is that to many people want their health insurance to pay for every little thing… Whether it’s $20.00 co-pay for an office visit or $6.00 co-pay for prescription drugs they have an unrealistic expectation of what their health insurance should cover.
Before anyone starts telling me I’m living in a fantasy land… I spent the past year dealing with a health problem and had surgery to correct that problem on January 17th so I’m intimately familiar with the system. I can’t say anything bad about my doctors, the nurses or physicians assistants who treated me or my insurance company who never once questioned the decisions my doctors or I made.
The Second is today’s Potomac Watch column, The State of the Union? Furious. by Kimberley A. Strassel.
Ms Strassel writes:
The state of the union is angry. Citizens are furious about gas prices and health-care costs, broken schools and property taxes. These are the leaky hydrants, the constant reminders that government hasn’t done much for them lately. Their fury has bubbled as they’ve watched Washington obsess over itself – dealing out earmarks, paying off constituencies, launching probes into political enemies. Accomplishing zip.
This anger is the best way to describe today’s political landscape. Ever since Republicans were routed in 2006, and more recently with their loss of three special elections, the party has been in a debate about what changed in the country and what to do in response. In the primaries, as Mike Huckabee pitched to evangelicals, Rudy Giuliani pitched to fiscal conservatives, and Mitt Romney pitched to anything that moved, some went so far as to declare the “death” of the Reagan coalition.
She’s absolutely correct, Republicans (and Democrats for that matter) in Washington are painfully out touch with what matters on main street. They’re more interested in pork barrel projects, pandering to special interests or playing political games than addressing real issues and solving problems. The soaring price of gas is just one example… We’re not stupid out here, we know when we’re being lied to or when we’re being pandered to. Rather then address the issues that have led to high prices, principally the weak dollar, our leaders put forth ideas like a windfall profits tax on oil companies or temporary moratorium on the federal gas tax. If they really wanted to address the issue they’d be talking about strengthening the dollar, building new refineries and increasing domestic oil production so we weren’t as dependent on foreign imports.
The Reagan Coalition isn’t dead but it’s no longer being represented… and there in lies the problem for Republicans, they’ve lost the trust of the people that helped bring them to power. If they want to have any chance in November they have to get it back and champion an agenda that will inspire them.