Posted on 01/13/2007 8:18:07 AM PST by calcowgirl
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once extolled "the power of the market" in Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" PBS series. So it's probably just as well that the late, great economist won't see the regulated mess that his admirer is proposing to make of California's health insurance market. As speaker of the state assembly Fabian Nunes remarked, "This is a plan assembly Democrats could have written."
In fact, they already have--in 2003, when Democrat Gray Davis was Governor. Candidate Schwarzenegger campaigned against that measure, which was less onerous than his own new proposal ... But now he's taking on a new political acting challenge, this time playing Gray Davis as apparently channeled through his chief of staff Susan Kennedy (who used to work for Mr. Davis).
(snip)
Like Mr. Romney before him, Mr. Schwarzenegger is playing on the political appeal of allegedly "universal" coverage. Mr. Romney hopes to ride it to the GOP Presidential nomination, and Arnold is basking in new media admiration. About the best we can say for their plans is that these state policy experiments will show other states what not to do. But they are also providing cover for the proponents of greater government control of health care. Right on cue, Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed "universal" coverage this week too.
The better alternative, as Milton Friedman understood, is to expand tax-advantaged health savings accounts and to improve access and affordability by creating a national market for private health insurance. Consumers in California and Massachusetts, especially, are going to need that safety valve when the bill comes due for their Governors' attention-seeking but poorly considered plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
California--and the United States--could afford universal health care if they eliminated malpractice lawsuits.
That makes as much sense as saying "Californians - and the U.S. could afford universal car accident insurance if they eliminated negligence lawsuits." If there is no way to collect when you are injured from malice or negligence - insurance would be useless.
Likewise with malpractice lawsuits - you could be the next guinea pig for a Tuskegee type medical experiment gone wrong.
Something should definitely be done about malpractice lawsuits. However, IMO, we will never be able to afford universal healthcare as long as it includes all California residents (i.e. anyone choosing to step foot on California soil).
And even if we could afford it, why should healthcare be a "shared responsibility." Using the socialists arguments, food and housing should also then be a "shared responsibility".
This is nothing but marxist wealth redistribution, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
So in other words, you are admitting that so many people are injured by doctors that compensating them for their injuries "doubles the cost of health care". The solution - don't let anyone be compensated for malpractice. I don't think so.
I remember the news from the doctor's strike in the UK a few years back - the death rate in the UK plummeted while the doctors were on strike. Something for you to think about when you visit your doctor / surgeon and he urges you to take out your tonsil$.
Arnold has attempted to frame the cost as "fee increases" on businesses, hospitals, employers, etc. If that definition succeeds, the bill can pass the legislature with a simple majority vote. With a democrat controlled legislature, that largely supports his plan (many of the provisions are identical to those included in competing democrat legislation), it would pass in a heartbeat.
Republicans are universally opposed to the Arnold-care plan. However, they will have no voice unless the cost qualifies as a "tax increase." In that case, a super-majority (2/3) vote is required for any legislation to pass. They could block it. The current liberal strategy seems to be to paint all of those Republican legislators as extremist kooks who just want to be obstructionists and to tout this socialist plan as "centrist". Look for this to go to the courts if the liberals follow through with their "fee" designation.
BTW, too many people were "hoping" Arnold would reign in the liberalism. If they looked passed the campaign rhetoric and warm and fuzzy words, all signs said he was a liberal from day one.
ROFL! He wore a shirt that said "Arnold is Number One"???
What an ego!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Freedom.
Maybe you like being forced to pay an army of lawyers to police the health care system, but I don't. In fact, I resent it.
The purpose of malpractice litigation is to assure that a Mercedes is present in the garage of every trial lawyer. Nothing else.
If the American people were offered the option of (1) affordable health care with no option to sue or (2) the present system--I would be among the first to sign up for option #1. The legal profession has made such an option impossible. Why??? Obviously to guarantee the Mercedes in every garage.
The fact remains: The American people could afford health care if malpractice litigation were terminated.
Maybe you like the litigious society. I don't.
Americans live in fear of it. Whenever anything goes wrong, mention "lawsuit" and watch everyone's eyes dilate with fear.
Why don't we have telephone booths any more? Somebody sued the telephone company; so now, when it's cold or raining, we stand outside in the weather.
We have to pay for all those signs on ladders. Why? Somebody used the paint shelf for a step and sued.
My wife slipped on the ice outside a grocery store. She got up, limped a bit as she prepared Christmas dinner, and laughed it off. Many would have SUED! When I told the grocer about it, fear was all over his face. I had to reassure him that he shouldn't worry.
We all pay for these idiotic plaintiffs' awards. I deeply resent it!
I particularly RESENT not being able to afford medical care because people like you want to bestow lavish awards on lawyers or hope to win the lottery!
You obviously like living like that. I don't.
You probably love the IRS too.
Ok, now I will go read the thread...
Glutteny of the pigs at the trough!!! Ain't that what Socialism is all about? Some of the animals on animal farm are more entitled than others... (they spit on the rules the rest of 'em follow ever so carefully like danged fools)
Hey, fieldmarshal... isn't that your part of town? How's the healthcare?
Sucks donkey balls.
ROFL! Thanks. I think. ;-)
There are two means of preventing malpractice in the medical area - Free enterprise or Government regulation. I prefer the free enterprise system - in other words, an patient hires her own lawyer to seek compensation for her injuries. I pay no taxes to support lawyers and the client can fire the lawyer if he does not perform and the lawyer gets paid nothing if there is no malpractice.
You prefer abolishing the free enterprise system and relying on government regulators paid by taxpayers. Bureaucrats have no incentive to help the injured patient and cannot be fired by the client for incompetence, unlike lawyers and must be paid by the taxpayers - whether or not there is any malpractice.
The choice is simple - lawyers are better than bureaucrats. You are wrong to say that "(I) like to pay an army of lawyers to police the health care system, but (you) don't. The truth is exactly the opposite: I don't want to pay bureaucrats tax dollars to incompetently do the job for which I don't have to pay lawyers to do competently. In a nutshell, lawyers do not go on the public payroll as bureaucrats do and are accountable to the injured patient, unlike bureaucrats.
The real reason medical care is expensive is due to excessive government regulation - it is now a quasi-governmental function without cost accountability via medicare and third-party insurance. If you think health care is expensive now, wait til it's "free".
Always happy to "hep." :-P
Americans have no choice but to participate in the system, the result of which is that no one can afford health care. A few days in the ICU can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Countless unnecessary tests are done--at the patient's expense--as a defence against possible lawsuits.
An incidental racket occurs mainly in the states along the Mexican border. Illegal alien women, in advanced stages of pregnance, with no prenatal care and consequently at high risk, present themselves to U.S. hospitals, where they must be accepted regardless of ability to pay and regardless of the resources, or lack thereof, of the hospital (in some, doctors and nurses have voluntarily paid for such things as pitocin because the hospital could no longer afford to buy them). The baby, born in the U.S., is a U.S. citizen. The mother signs up for U.S. welfare and sues the hospital and the doctors for malpractice. Clever, right? Who can blame her? Who pays all these costs? Who gets the money from the de facto hidden tax???
Who can blame plaintiffs--or lawyers, for that matter--for profitting from the system? It would be like winning the lottery and refusing to accept the payoff.
In some places, doctors have been forced out of practice--especially neurosurgeons and ob-gyn. Some American women must drive many miles to the nearest obstetrician. This is good health care??? This is adequate health care??? Why not offer these women the option of an obstetrician whom they cannot sue nearby or one that they can sue a long distance away???
In fact, why not offer everyone the option of affordable health care with no opportunity to sue or the present system?
Meanwhile, foreign trained doctors can stockpile their earnings in their home countries, far from the reach of U.S. plaintiffs' claims. How well does the system work in patrolling these people?
The system does not work.
Worse than that, it places a severe and dangerous hardship on the American people.
The Tuskeegee Experiment is one of the most hideous crimes in history. Its perpetrators should have been prosecuted and would be today. I personally am not afraid of being subjected to such as this, but I am afraid of not being able to afford health care.
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