Fatally Flawed Logic
Steve Findlay’s op-ed in Tuesday’s USA Today contains a fatal flaw in it. Let’s see if you spot it:
Socialized medicine. Government-run health care. Rationing. Bureaucrats in charge. “Cookbook” medicine. Waiting lines. It’ll break the bank.
Welcome to the health care debate 2009. Sound familiar? These notions aim to instill fear. And once again, they bear no more relation to the reality of what is being debated in Washington than was the case when the Clintons had a go at health reform in the 1990s. Don’t be misled this time. In fact, far more bipartisan agreement exists on many core elements of reform than you might think.
Socialized, government-run health care? Nothing President Obama or Congress is proposing would replicate the Canadian, British, or French systems or remotely resemble nationalized medical service. Rather, the proposals offer repairs to an American system that is both broken and going broke. Those proposals build on our current private system where most people younger than 65 get coverage through their employers and treatment through private-sector doctors and hospitals.
What would be new is that people who don’t have access to such coverage (and some who do) would be able to get coverage through insurance “exchanges.” They’d be able to choose from a batch of private plans and policies that would have to accept all comers, offer comprehensive coverage, and be barred from “cherry-picking” only healthy people.
Guess what? Democrats and Republicans embrace the idea of exchanges and broad new federal insurance rules. They also agree that this new proposed system would be a boon to private insurers, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and drug companies. That’s because tens of billions of dollars of government funds would help many of the 46 million uninsured get coverage.
Those subsidies are one big reason insurers are so opposed to the idea of a “public plan” being offered in the exchanges; they don’t want to lose any of those new customers to a government-run plan.
Here’s the fatal flaw that I’m refering to:
Guess what? Democrats and Republicans embrace the idea of exchanges and broad new federal insurance rules.
Consensus doesn’t mean that the majority is right. A perfect example of that is global warming, now fashionably called climate change because people tune out when they hear the term global warming.
The point I’m making is that there are too many GOP senators who willingly play the go-along-to-get-along game. That they’re willing to be spineless doesn’t mean that they’re making the right decisions. It just means that they don’t have a set anymore.
Findlay’s right about one thing, though. I’m trying to ‘put the fear of God’ in people. If you haven’t read Jim Hoft’s latest column for the American Issues Project, then you should read it ASAP. Here’s a portion of Jim’s column:
Ava Isabella Stinson was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario on Thursday of last week. Ava was 13 weeks premature. She weighed only two-pounds, four-ounces at birth. Ava needed special care and equipment to keep her alive. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joesph’s Hospital. In fact, there were no open neonatal care beds in her entire Canadian province. Ava had to be transferred to the United States.
If that isn’t enough information by itself to change your opinion of government-run health care, then you’re more heartless than people accuse conservatives of being. What’s worse is that this isn’t an isolated happening.
If people attempt to say that this isn’t relevant, that this couldn’t happen in the United States, I’ll simply direct people’s attentions to this post. Last week, King Banaian and I sat down with Dave Borgert to talk about health care. What Dave told us about Medicare is slightly less disturbing than the case involving Ava Isabella Stinson.
Dave told us what I’ve often suspected: that Medicare payments to clinics, hospitals and doctors aren’t based on whether their payment covered the cost to clinics, hospitals and doctors. I knew they didn’t cover that. That’s why cost-shifting is one of the biggest problems haunting health care these days. What I didn’t know prior to last Friday was that their payments were solely based on a budget passed by politicians.
Dave confirmed for us that Medicare bureaucrats don’t negotiate with hospitals, clinics and doctors. They simply set prices. How long can a system function efficiently if they’re losing money on a daily basis? How long before hospitals, clinics and doctors start begging for a federal bailout?
I’d point out to Mr. Findlay that if something isn’t scary, it isn’t possible for Republicans to scare people. It’s that simple.
This statement is another thing that Findlay said that can’t go unchallenged:
Nothing President Obama or Congress is proposing would replicate the Canadian, British, or French systems or remotely resemble nationalized medical service.
This video says that Mr. Findlay isn’t telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth:
How can anyone view that video and say with a straight face that the goal isn’t single-payer? It’s intellectually insulting to hear Findlay say something that dishonest.
The debate over the public plan also puts the distorting rhetoric on full display. Opponents say the idea is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent toward a European-style “single-payer” system. But the reality is that it wouldn’t be that difficult to design a public option that abides by the same rules as private insurers and has no competitive advantage.
First off, yes, it’s difficult to design a public option that abides by the same rules as private insurers. Yes, it’s impossible to picture a public option that didn’t have a serious competitive advantage.
I’ve stated elsewhere that Medicare doesn’t negotiate prices. It sets prices. There’s no back-and-forth. There’s no reaching consensus. It’s negotiation at gunpoint. It’s totally a my-way-or-the-highway situation.
I’ve said in numerous posts that Medicare and Medicaid set payment schedules without consideration of whether the payment covers the cost of the test or operation. It’s based on a budget passed by politicians. Supply and demand have practically nothing to do with the payment structure.
Can we afford reform? This is the real toughie. Proponents insist that not reforming the system is the real financial risk. On the current trajectory, medical costs will soar to 28% of the U.S. economy by 2030, from 18% today, and the average family will have to pay about $25,000 for insurance by 2025, from $12,000 today.
This isn’t a justification for reform. It’s just proof that our population is aging. The prices, from premiums to out-of-pocket expenses, rise as more baby boomers move into their maximum usage years. This is something that actuaries have talked about for the past 15+ years.
The only way prices will stabilize while keeping the quality of our care high is if we limit the cost-shifting that Medicare causes. That means that providing seniors with more private options is needed to prevent Medicare from going bankrupt. It’s also what’s needed to prevent Medicare from bankrupting the U.S.
The medical industry must be challenged to cuts costs; its bloated General Motors gas-guzzler mindset must be radically re-engineered (just as GM is being). Enforceable targets on reducing waste must be set. New, more efficient care systems must be invented. Government must use its buying clout more assertively as it pays for the care of millions of Americans enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and other public programs.
That’s another fatally flawed paragraph. Findlay is arguing for the public option while insisting that “more efficient care systems must be invented.” If ever there was a paradox, this is it. Even after they’ve been streamlined, government bureaucracies aren’t efficient. More importantly, goverment bureaucracies aren’t flexible enough to adjust to constantly changing health care realities because government bureaucracies are intentionally cumbersome.
If a company becomes aware of a better way to do things, all it takes is a directive from management to change how it does things. If government becomes aware of a better way to do things, it literally takes an act of Congress. All too often, it requires the herding of cats and getting them pointed in the right direction.
That’s assuming that bureaucrats even think about looking for opportunities to change things for the better, something I’m not willing to do.
It’s intellectually dishonest to say that the Kennedy-Dodd legislation or the Baucus legislation won’t induce rationing of health care because government is utterly inefficient. If government is efficient, why is Medicare going broke?
Technorati Tags: Reforms, Health Care, Medicare, Single-Payer, Eva Isabella Stinson, Rationing, Price Controls, Kennedy-Dodd, Max Baucus, Fearmongering, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog