…although it won’t well-received.

I’m in a hurry, so this may not be perfectly organized. Sorry.

First, as for my party affiliation. I’m now an Independent. I was a Republican, but I don’t believe the current Republican Party offers many meaningful solutions to our problems — especially health care. I think many of the most prominent voices in the RP are irresponsible. For example, the recent dust up over “death panels” was embarrassing and completely dishonest. I have a living will and I believe everyone over the age of 18 should.

I have nothing good to say about the Democratic Party (and no, I won’t use the childish and grammatically incorrect Democrat Party — that’s one of my complaints about the Republican Party — it’s degenerated into a non-serious entity that engages in such silliness.)

At this point I am for a single-payer universal system. I’ve lived in Europe and now live a few miles from Canada. I’ve seen their systems compared with ours and despite flaws, single payer systems are much better than what we have in this country. For me, it’s not a matter of ideology; I simply don’t believe our private approach has any chance of doing the job that needs to be done.

I think the current proposals by Democrats will be either worthless or a disaster. They are taking two of the worst aspects of our system (private for-profit insurance and employer-based insurance) and creating a monster around them. I expect insurance companies’ profits to soar (if there is a mandate) and employers will continue to have to drop insurance benefits for competitive reasons, but I don’t see anything that will help contain costs or make our system generally better.

In a way, my feelings about health care are similar to what my father experienced when he visited China decades ago. He was a very conservative, free market oriented businessman. But after visiting China several times he said he didn’t see how (at that time), given the population and magnitude of China’s problems they could even hope to have a democratic system like ours. He was convinced by what he saw, not by what he had always thought.

Concerning health care, I’ve experienced government health care systems and private, and I don’t believe private insurance can or will do the job. Health care is not a commodity and it doesn’t respond to market forces the way most things do. I am convinced that we will have a single payer system eventually — because I believe it’s the only thing that has any hope of working — so I don’t see any reason to put off the inevitable while countless people die, suffer, and face financial ruin. And you can deny it if you want to, but it is happening. And it’s preventable.

As a moral issue, I don’t believe a country as wealthy as ours should tolerate having uninsured people. Those who think that being able to go to an emergency room constitutes health care really haven’t thought it through.

It’s crazy to saddle employers with the added costs of providing insurance (it makes them uncompetitive) and it’s ridiculous to lose your health insurance every time you change jobs. It’s not only inefficient, it’s dangerous. If someone has an accident or illness while between jobs, they may never get insurance again (until they reach age 65).

Having a healthy population is vital to our own economic well-being and right now — regardless of why they are uninsured — having tens of millions of citizens without insurance and underinsured makes no sense to me. The idea that someone who works and has insurance could face bankruptcy and financial ruin because they lack (adequate) health insurance is both crazy and despicable.

Right now we already have a significant percentage of our population receiving “government” health insurance when you include Medicare, the military, and VA. Since the cost of health care is a critical issue, it simply makes more sense to me to remove private insurers — and their need for profit and advertising — from the equation. No matter what the cost of private overhead, profit, and advertising is, I think it is wasted, since much of it could go for care, which should be the only point of a health care system.

My next door neighbor, a 75-year-old Republican is on Medicare and with her supplemental insurance is perfectly happy with it. However, she is from the UK and prefers their system to what she has now. For my part, I absolutely don’t want socialized medicine — i.e., the National Health Service of the UK. I don’t see any need for the government to own everything. Other single payer systems demonstrate that that isn’t necessary and I oppose it.

The vast majority of what opponents of single payer systems say about them in the media consists of lies, distortions, and exaggerations. People in other countries look at us and shake their heads at our gullibility and I agree.

There is a more that I could write about why I favor a single payer system, but I didn’t make my original comment because I wanted to argue about what system we end with. I just wanted to point out that no one benefits when anyone in the discussion uses terms like pro- and anti-rationing.

As for why I haven’t posted. I have little time to post and from following threads here, I knew that it would be difficult for me to be honest and not spark a lot of insults and pointless name calling. I have no interest in disrupting this site and in the future, I don’t intend to engage in the kind of extended commenting that I’ve done today.

I’d much rather have a government employee deciding what care I get, than a private insurance company employee who’s concerned with profit. I’ve seen enough nightmarish examples of this to want to end it forever. After all, how much we spend on health insurance is simply a matter of priorities. Every health expert I’ve heard or read agrees we have the most inefficient system of any highly developed country.

I hope that answers most of your questions. I have to go out, so I’ll have to end this now.

Started commenting on 03/12/09, and went out on the issue of Healthcare. Wow. The left is definitely frightened.

Maybe they are simply downright embarrassed because they have majority status with regards to the Aristocracy, but the REAL majority is speaking out across the country, taking them to task, and winning.

The left puts their trust in others, the right trust themselves.

from EMATALA isn’t free. Its an unfunded mandate. The Government told hospitals they have to provide service to people who can not pay but the Government doesn’t reimbursement for their costs at all. Do you think that private hospitals should be forced to bear the financial burden?

“There are also clinics that are free or fee based on income which some people get care at them free as well. So, between those and hospitals not being allowed to turn people away they’re covered.”

They aren’t always covered.
Some areas have a lot more indigent care than others.
Emergency rooms only have to provide stabilization.

Some lower cost or not made to pay upfront clinics have specialist (areas where there are medical schools) but many do not. Those that do not are great for an easily treated infection but not for chronic conditions. Many family practice physicians will not treat conditions a specialist should be treating. Some physician groups associated with not for profit hospitals do offer an indigent care program but not everyone knows about it or gets approved for it. They are only mandated to offer a percent too it’s not a program where everyone that is under the income guidelines will be part of the program.

The exception here is pregnancy, if a patient is pregnant with a chronic condition, the system seems to do a good job of getting doors open for her.

There is a real issue for the indigent with chronic diseases that need care. In areas where there is a medical or osteopathic school the care is much more accessible IMHO.

Art,

Add to your list of things that need to be improved as way for people who want to retire before Medicare is available who don’t get medical care at any price from their employer after they retire.

I’d think something like creating ether a pre-retirement account to pre pay medical insurance along with some sort of tax advantage to cover retiree health care administrative costs.

I’m looking thinking about this topic right now, and the availability of heath care insurance at a price I can afford will keep me working many more years than I’d like.

Its a hyperbole. But its also why you can’t buy organs on the open market regardless of whether you are in the emergency room or with a private physician. There is precedent that in regards to health care the free market takes a back seat to ethics.

Moe impersonated a government employee decider pretty well, there.

When these deep cover lurkers bubble up after years, they remind me of those Japanese soldiers hiding out on islands decades after WWII ended.