Posted on 05/13/2009 10:14:47 AM PDT by curiosity
The time for universal health insurance coverage has come. Everybody seems to know that -- except for the Republicans, all too many of whom cling to traditional denunciations of universal coverage as socialism... The Republicans could instead offer a consumer-controlled universal coverage system, like that in Switzerland, in which the people, not the government, control how much they spend on health. There are no government health insurance programs. Instead, the Swiss choose from about 85 private heath insurers... This consumer-driven, universal coverage system provides excellent health care for the sick, tops the world in consumer satisfaction, and costs 40 percent less, as a percentage of GDP, than the system in the US...The Republican choice is clear. They can whine while the Democratic Congress enacts a government-controlled system, or they can embrace a Republican approach to Universal Coverage.
(Excerpt) Read more at business.theatlantic.com ...
The fact remains, that a completely free market in healthcare is never going to happen, both because of the market failure and politics.
Besides, anyone who thinks that our current system is a "free market" system is an idiot. The Swiss system is much closer to than anything else in the world.
A Swiss-like system is probably the best we can hope for. It certainly better than either the present system we have or socialized medicine.
And no, the Swiss system is not socialized medicine, and it is not Hillarycare, the protests of the brainless purists not withstanding.
I have to agree with you. Nice post. Thanks.
I agree with you...the Swiss system seems to be a good one. We are going to get some form of health care because of the job losses from free trade run amok and of course the downturn...aging baby boomers need it too because many have lost their jobs and are too old for private insurance policies. Business support health care also, since they can not compete with other countries who do have national health.
No matter how good Swiss health care is, we can’t apply it to the U.S. Switzerland is a federalist country where each canton has a lot of autonomy. The U.S. stopped being federalist looooooooong ago...
What if I don’t want health insurance?
May I point out that the U.S. is not Switzerland?
It just might be a mistake to assume that the populations will respond identically to the same model.
I don’t trust the gov’t with my meager taxes...why should I trust them with my LIFE?? Have you ever gone through a public system for “Free” gov’t programs??
It’s like getting a proctology exam...Imagine having to do this every time you go to the doctor...then waiting in line just to get on a wait list. Then being denied a life saving drug because it’s not “cost effective” for the gov’t.
Imagine the people at the DMV being in charge of your healthcare....Not pleasant thoughts.....
The government has already driven out most of the insurers from the market place by unfunded mandates, over regulation. Also, Swtizerland is a very poor example because their population is very controlled and does not contain the massive numbers of illegal immigrants who are now clammering for free health care.
What is happening now is about power, money and ideology. Your dreaming.
The crux of the suggestion:
“Republicans could enact Swiss-style universal coverage by enabling employees to cash out of their employer-sponsored health insurance. (Although many view employer-sponsored health insurance as a” free” benefit, it is money that would otherwise be paid as income.) The substantial sums involved would command attention and gratitude: a 2006 cash out would have yielded $12,000 — the average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance — thus raising the income of joint filers who earn less than $73,000 (90 percent of all filers) by at least 16 percent. Employees could remain in with an employer’s plan or use this new income to buy their own health insurance.”
Then you're an irresponsible jackass free riding off the system.
This is my beef with this entire debate. The talking heads and idiot politicians assume that the only reason people lack health insurance is cost. It's utter BS. A large number make more than enough money to buy insurance. Their priorities are elsewhere. In some cases it is not easy to argue that they are wrong.
Who pays for health care for people who can’t afford it?
When I hear that the healthcare industry is ready to make 2 Trillion in cuts over 10 years, I wonder why competition has not squeezed those cuts out already. The answer must be the market is not functioning correctly, or there is collusion.
You dont know that he is free riding. He could be paying his bills out of pocket.
Wrong-o, dude. Switzerland has one of the highest tax rates in Europe - around 90% to pay for all that health care.
If you want to pay thse kinds of taxes, adopt me so you can pay the taxes for me, too.
Modeling our system after any European (or Canadian) system with less than 300 million people is absurd.
Switzerland’s model is good, but the Democrats want the horrible Canadian/British command and control system of healthcare.
Or I’m independently wealthy and choose to pay out of pocket.
Let me offer up this wisdom. It should not cost more than $35 for you to walk in and be seen by a simple doctor for a 7-minute consultation. A doctor should not have to pay $15k a year for his liability insurance. We shouldn’t have drug companies walking away with 40 percent profit on a monthly drug that we take. There are a hundred of these little things that add up.
I live in Germany and witness ‘control’ that the government mandates over hospitals, doctors and drug companies. Profit margins are examined and there is a limit to what is acceptable. Forget about lawsuits. No one is really happy over German universal health care, but its that or nothing.
If it’s consumer controlled then why should a political party, and subsequently government, have anything to do with it? If it’s such a great idea and not controlled by the government then get together some private citizens and start the ball rolling.
You may be right and then again we may not like the scaled down service of a medical industry cutting 2 trillion in cost. Where are they cutting from? Service, research into new drugs and cures, pay to doctors or other workers? That is the big question to me. Of course it is obvious that soemthing is wrong but what exactly?
Agree saftey nets fail.
“You dont know that he is free riding. He could be paying his bills out of pocket.”
For routine doc visits and the majority of meds, that could be the case. But one major hospital stay would change his/her mind...unless they have a heck of a stash of cash.
Bingo! Either it’s Collectivist, or it’s Individualist. I want my freedom, and I see no reason why politicians should have their nose in my healthcare decisions.
That is the antithesis of the free market and is almost as bad as government-provided care.
There's no way the government should be regulating profit margins, and if there's any competition there should be no need for it to do so either.
vaudine
What tends to work in Switzerland would quickly devolve here into an bottomless swamp of entitlements, unrecoverable debt, rationing, and corruption. Whatever remains of "health care" after that will be picked clean to the bone by our Tort Pimp lawyers, who will sue everyone and everything as long as someone else pays for it and they collect the fees. Our "markets" didn't fail: Liberalism did.
There are a few items ‘overlooked’ in this rosy description of the Swiss system. For instance, the amount of services provided during each visit with the doctor is limited. Any large company in Switzerland includes supplementary health insurance to cover the gap between the ‘negotiated’ price of a service and the ‘market’ price. Payment for surgery, etc. anything involving hospital stays is payable in full upfront prior to any service.
In addition, the taxes that allow this system don’t come from the air. Switzerland is a highly structured, homogeneous (as much as any country with 4 national languages that have existed separately for nearly 800 years can be), strictly stratified and regulated society. It is geographically very small (it would fit neatly into part of Maine. Government representatives at ANY level (local, cantonal or federal) can enter any home at will. Citizenship is highly regulated and expensive if you are not native born. The government taxes on actual as well as imputed income (e.g.if you own a home, they estimate what you could rent it for and count that as taxable income - e.g. if you could rent your home for $2500/month - you are taxed as if you made an extra $30K per year). I could go on but Switzerland is NOT an easily reproducible despite what ANY academic study says.
I want whatever plan Teddy Kennedy will get.
The Swiss were so smart about Germany too. < /sarc >
As a brainless free market purist, let me start:
Tort reform has to come before you changes thing one about health care. The cuckoo-clock makers don’t have a system where non-economic damages are allowed, nor can they be tripled in the case of making those damages punitive.
Currently, across the entire economy, tort adds about 19% to the cost of everything (USGAO office, 2008). The reason why a band-aid HAS to cost $400 is because of the egregious amount of liability insurance a hospital and a doctor must carry to practice.
Kill off the Tort Bar, and you’ve put real money back into consumer’s pockets across the board. Until ANYBODY is serious about reforming tort law first, reforming healt care is an exercise in navel gazing.
The outright Nationalization, by either a private monopoly or outright government socialism, of our system would do nothing to correct the present inefficiencies.
Roll it back to a free market system. It's the Constitutional thing to do.
Well there is one way. Replace the entire population of the USA with responsible, thrifty Swiss.
I do agree that it would not work here. We've way too many free-riders, from those who won't pay to those who feed off the system (politicians, lawyers, fraudsters).
Things work much differently in small, homogenous societies than in large countries with disparate societies.
Why not pubie health care and dem health care?
Remember that.
Besides, anyone who thinks that our current system is a "free market" system is an idiot.
No,
Don't take offense - you don't care.
The Swiss system is much closer to than anything else in the world.
That sentence dosn't even make sense
A Swiss-like system is probably the best we can hope for
No, it is not. - America is not Switzerland thank God, and that system will not work here any better than ours does now.
RE: Who pays for health care for people who can’t afford it?
Why do you think income taxes and other taxes are so high in Switzerland?
New tagline...
I would argue that one of the key premises of your argument, the inevitability of universal coverage, is flawed.
The Swiss system sounds a lot like the once vaunted but now more clearly seen as failed Romney-care program in Mass.
It is government funded and government controlled. The states decide who the health care providers are - take the national billion dollar scam that we call Medicare and apply that across the board - nepotism, croneyism, and corruption run wild within the existing system, how much worse would it be if they had more influence on who could and could not participate?
Enrollment in Switzerland is 99 - due to enforcement by their tax administration. So what you are saying amounts to this - you want the IRS to be the muscle to make sure people do what the govt says regarding health care.
How about Republicans embrace conservatism?
How’s that for an idea?
Yet another “What The Republicans Should Do To Save Themselves” story from the liberal media. Our enemies have our best interest at heart and only want us to succeed don’t y’know.
The population of Switzerland in 2003 was estimated by the United Nations at 7,169,000, which placed it as number 93 in population among the 193 nations of the world.
The United States has a population which is close to 30 times as large as the population of Switzerland. If there is hard evidence that a Swiss solution would work in the U.S., I'd like to see it.
In general, I would say that the belief that comprehensive solutions to incredibly complex problems scale up from small systems to large ones is both naïve and dangerous.
Pretty much sums it up.
Additionally, why should a single employed male or widower have to buy a package that includes obstetrics care as part of the compliment of services? I have to agree that a completely free market in health insurance is unattainable, but involving government further into the sector will offer little except more complaints.
Whose paying for it now? Easy. You and I and a heck of lot like us.
We the people need to speak out. NOW & LOUD!!!!
NO!!!!!!!!
My husband is the only one with insurance. We can pay a boatload a month (more than our mortgage) for insurance to cover us or pay when we need it. My youngest ripped open his hand and we had to take him to urgent care. Cost in cash $189. A few weeks later we got a bill for over $700. When I called on it, they said my balance was $0. The only thing I can think of is the $700 is how much would have been charged to an insurance company.
You are correct!!!
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