Only recently have I issued opinions regarding Healthcare via an online journal.
First was, Personal Thought: Why Healthcare Policy Remains So-Sour, then An Idea To Healthcare Reform – hastily written on Facebook, but which brought intriguing discourse, presented as follows:
My Original Statement: How about the Fed gov provide states wanting sole Single-Payer Healthcare to receive additional grants to expand Medicare and Medicaid to phase into a Single Payer program.
States that want Healthcare access for some, and Medicare and Medicaid for the disabled and aged (not the poor) be allowed to undergo different tax and e-commerce regulations to foster the recreation of Healthcare access enterprise through personalized/privatized insurance programs, while accepting the set and historical Fed funds allocated for current Medicare and Medicaid recipients in states undergoing a new quasi-free market program.
This is a very reasonable idea and falls in line with how a Constitutional Republic is meant to operate. The approach would be an awesome example of American, AKA, The Great Experiment.
Online Reaction: Because the people currently living in the states who would do the insurance market that need it most can’t afford it and can’t afford (nor should they have to) move to another state that offers universal care. Fundamentally, why is it ok to profit off a sick person? We don’t allow price gouging at grocery stores or gas stations after a storm because we don’t think businesses/individuals should be able to exploit people at their most vulnerable. Still, somehow this morality doesn’t apply to when it comes to healthcare. Help me understand.
My Response: The current and the proposed fix to single payer is -and will- continue to destroy the middle class. Too many making 65k in NYC can’t afford the ACA bronze plan and are without insurance, and pay a fine. Why deny people of what you purport they should have, and then fine them on top of that?
Those who really believe in “communal values” over “individual values,” those who allow politicians to create a program where the insurer/underwriter is looking to employers to administer HMO’s in return that the public pay off individual business tax write-offs should consider moving.
Why fight for crap insurance that leaves too many with unattainable services and leaves them to remain underinsured? Why should insurance companies pay doctors based on sick claims instead of performance claims? Why not reward a patient and a doctor who can work together to lose weight, to manage diabetes, to manage MS, and so on?
“Fundamentally, why is it ok to profit off a sick person?”… To me, it is a weak position of an argument. I would ask, why not profit from CURING and treating a need?
Why hold a false notion of what a right is.
Drew, sorry, but you do not have the right to force a person to services without the agreement of minds (i.e., contract). You do not have the right to force/drive the costs of my health condition by tethering it to the costs of your health condition. You do not have a right to implement a method (i.e., healthcare ) to chip away my liberty.
The system, as it stands, is causing your ” so-called right” to be in direct conflict to my “real liberty.”
Regarding, “We don’t allow price gouging at grocery stores or gas stations after a storm, because we don’t think businesses/individuals should be able to exploit people at their most vulnerable, but somehow this morality doesn’t apply to when it comes to healthcare. Help me understand.”
AWESOME QUESTION.
Here’s the reason why Healthcare and Education (while other industries) are discreetly encouraged by lobbyists and politicians to price gouge. Both industry sectors receive the highest amount of government subsidies based on individual SS # use.
Let’s look at where gov was not allowed to allocate tax subsidies based on SS #’s filing claims. Advance eye care, elective cosmetic surgery, and advance dental care. All three sub-sectors within the Health Care industry… Not Healthcare Industry (there’s a difference) in 20 years is offering better treatments and services at drastically lower costs.
My best friend’s father had eye corrective surgery in the early 90’s. He paid 20K. In 2006, I had advance Lasik surgery for 4.75K. My procedure was safer, was more effective, was less invasive, and held less downtown. What element was missing from 1990 – 2006 was massive tax subsidies based on SS # claim.
In fact, the minimal tax subsidies that were issued by public taxation was allocated to entrepreneurs working on robotic health technology.
So yes, there is a role to be played by Taxpayers and by Government. However, it’s less government and smarter policymaking that will reduce price gouging.
Online Reaction: “Healthcare should be a right.”
My Response: A considerable danger to hold that mentality. There are many forms of rights: Universal Rights, Civil Rights, Constitutional Rights, State Rights, Natural Rights, and so on. Healthcare Insurance as a right doesn’t reach any constructs of any such rights.
The ACA is unconstitutional since it violated the Commerce Clause, which stipulates Gov cannot compel individuals to engage in commerce — that is, to purchase goods and services.
Even with the Court declaring the ACA is constitutional, under the legislation of a tax, permissible for governing authority to consider within the realm of constitutional —such authority does not supersede a force of a tax (synonymous with fine, fee, and penalty) for parties unwilling to participate in an exchange.
The Obama admin (not ‘We the People’ who are to work with House Representatives & Senators) made the ridiculous claim that the ACA imposes a tax in an attempt to guarantee its constitutionality.
That argument was shut down so fast the Court did not accept the premise. Still, the Obama administration, through executive order was able to have the legislative branch maneuver segments of hierarchical law; the known course of action — that is, the Federal legal interpretation for words, “fee,” “fine, and “penalty” be altered.
Net Net: A Constitutional (or a Universal Right as Sanders loves to say) must not be an imposition. Your claim, Healthcare Insurance should be a right is equivalent to claiming that a person should not have a right. A right to you seems to forgo 1) the right to accept 2) the power of choice, and 3) the right to not impose duty onto another.
Online Reaction: “You are also confusing the ACA and single payer, and confusing single payer with a national or government-run health system.”
My Response: No, I have gone further than most to understand the legality, the merits and the spirit of programs. I have reviewed the operations, the implementation, the considerations, and the ramifications to identify authenticity.
The ACA is a transitional tool to lead to Single Payer. Single Payer is a transitional tool to lead to a fascist economy; CEO’s, brokers, and politicians guaranteed more substantial economic and political power for the wealthy or for the connected, by way of implementing a law that ‘We the People’ guarantee funds be allocated to those controlling Healthcare Insurance programs.
Online Reaction: “Also, voters and consumers are the same people.”
My Response: Not all consumers are voters. And not all people are consumers or voters.
Online Reaction: “When they vote for people who regulate industry heavily that’s not government interfering in a market, its consumers expressing their displeasure through their ballot, and the subsequent regulations created by those officials are the invisible hand of the consumer in the market.”
My Response: Correction, voters are promised falsehoods. Falsehoods were created by Sanders and his ilk to alleviate the displeasure, pain, and frustrations of voters.
Online Reaction: “Your citizenship in this country along with mine is the contract that mutually binds our fate more (we are both free to renounce it if we choose, although not likely).”
My Response: You’re 100% correct, let’s call it an invisible social contract.
I’m not leaving this land; neither are you. Instead, we are advocating to change the laws governing this land. And I am EXTREMELY (LIKE FOR REAL) HAPPY to have a civil discussion in the hope each of us gives consideration to the other and finds some ground to work forward.
Clearly, we both are seeking what is best for all 320+ million Americans, and not just the suffering of declining sub-communities.
Online Reaction: “The problem is trump didn’t win a majority, and the Senate “majority” actually represents over 30 million fewer people than the democrats, the falsehood is claiming the American people support these silly, disproven theories of economics and government.”
My Response: OH CRAP! I HATE THIS PILLAR (invoking legitimacy of our administration) ARGUMENT.
Why? Because you and I are working from different rules and facts. I don’t know how to approach this argument without us working off the same rulebook.
Yes, alternative facts are real, an abstract notion complicated; however if you think about the concepts of “duality” and of “interpretations of stats,” you know the power of repositioning.
You’re a marketer – of course, you do.
BTW: Many within my camp think when the center-left pounces on everything there’s a decay of integrity. The more you and members of your camp hastily attack President Trump, the more encouraged those within my camp will defend and overlook when President Trump is actually in the wrong.
Online Reaction: “Your point about tax subsidies doesn’t address price gouging at all, I get that it’s encouraged in some sectors, but that’s stupid. Profit motive changes incentives and behaviors, drug companies develop maintenance drugs instead of vaccines because the repetitiveness of purchase is more profitable for them but more costly for everyone.”
My Response: It {tax subsidies} is actually the strongest of factors to price gouging and my most persuasive argument.
Online Reaction: “In prisons, private prisons create bullshit violations to keep prisoners in longer raising their profits, instead of spending money to educate or job train people so they can re-enter society successfully, which is in the country’s best interest but not their shareholders best interest. Educational institutions with profit motives aren’t out to create brilliant kids when they can squeeze two more kids per room, they can hit next quarters’ margin number. Profit motive distorts outcomes and isn’t a good thing in particular areas like healthcare, prison, and education.”
My Response: We’re beginning to veer off track. Yes, I invoked Education. However, I did so for the mere fact of how that industry is subsidized in a similar fashion to the Healthcare Insurance industry and how much lead to price gouging. Look into the rise of cost for both sectors and the relationship to tax subsidies.
Sagely Salvaged 