Posted on 06/11/2002 10:20:19 AM PDT by joebellis
Vermont Governor Outlines National Health Plan
Fri Jun 7, 5:38 PM ET
By Julie Rovner
PRINCETON, New Jersey (Reuters Health) - The United States can have universal insurance coverage without a disruptive overhaul of the nation's healthcare system, but those who can afford it will have to pay more, Vermont Democratic Governor Howard Dean told a health policy conference here Thursday night.
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But the real culprit in the nation's healthcare mess is the public, he said. "The reason healthcare costs are going up as fast as they are is we want everything that can be done for us and for our loved ones and we want someone else to pay the bill."
Dean outlined a three-part proposal to the annual Princeton Conference, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Council on Health Care Economics and Policy.
For children, he said the rest of the nation should emulate Vermont, which already has essentially universal coverage for those under age 18 through the Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs. Under his plan, states would be required to cover everyone through age 22, "because those between 18 and 22 are not that expensive, and if you give them a voucher they're likely to use it to buy a Harley," Dean said.
In exchange for the new requirement on states, the federal government would pick up the entire cost of so-called "dual eligibles," older Americans who are simultaneously eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Because that population is far more expensive than children and young adults, "states get a great deal," he said.
For those over 65, Dean would add an outpatient prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "paid for easily by rolling back the totally unnecessary tax cuts" passed last year. But Dean warned that the drug benefit "won't be a Cadillac. We're going to have to have co-payments, deductibles, and an emphasis on generic drugs."
For those in between, Dean said he would maintain the current employer-based system, but add subsidies to help small businesses, the self-employed, and part-time workers not eligible for coverage at work. Again, he said, coverage might not be as generous as many would prefer, with deductibles and co-payments designed to "reconnect patients with the cost" of healthcare.
Such a proposal, he said "gets very close to solving the problem" of the uninsured, without "taking on every interest group at the same time, as President Clinton (news - web sites)'s plan did," and avoiding the radical changes that the insurance industry used to exploit Americans' fears in 1994.
Dean said he is convinced that the American public will respond if policymakers tell them the truth with respect. "People are not stupid," he said. "They get the problem. They get the connection between wanting all the medical care they can consume and their premiums going up."
So what else is new? I already pay taxes to support 11.2 non-dependents. He (and is socialist buddies) thinks that I should support a few more.
Ya...it's called communism. Karl Marx would be very proud indeed.
I'm already paying $729 a month for health insurance for me, my wife and my three-year-old daughter. How much more do they want from me to pay for people who are NOT my responsibility?
There are three alternate programs the Federal government isn't telling you about. 1) Pay for it yourself 2) Receive help from a charity and 3) Go without.
This is simply human nature and is also the reason socialism fails. There's no incentive to produce and every incentive to consume. So, contrary to the idiotic Governor, the solution is not a more "reasonable" socialism, with more reasonable people running it (see Governor Dean), but to get the socialism out and personal responsibility in. We've got to reconnect people's own money in purchasing healthcare. The best way to do this is with Medical Savings Accounts. But NOOOOO, Dean chooses more socialism with himself in charge.
Great. Just what we need. Someone running for President, wanting to socialize 1/3 of our nation's economy, and he doesn't even know when the next election is. Wonderful.
Homeschool to raise tomorrow's leaders!
President of what?
Translation: "You get to pay both your own health costs plus those of some life-long transfer payment bum who doesn't want to work but votes Democratic..."
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