Re: Returning to Heath Care
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Dan Mdsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: Well, the problem just gets personalized when you remove the government. Backwards. Health care is personal to begin with. Government gets added later. Thus, it is a fact that countries with more governmental involvement have cheaper, better results. No, better results is not a fact, it is your opinion. Better is a judgment made by each consumer. Each consumer has different wants and needs. the posts from you that I see seem to have a pattern of ignoring facts that falsify simplistic libertarianism. Did you just complain about people not replying to your posts? Because this is the third time in a short time that I have seen you write something like this that makes me not want to discuss anything with you. If someone does not agree with your opinions, then they are ignoring facts. Not a great attitude if you want to have a discussion with someone. Don't be surprised if I do not respond to you much in the future (although currently, the list seems broken...) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Returning to Heath Care
Since folks have expressed the desire to resume debating health care, I decide to put out some of the facts concerning health care and public opinion. 1) People want costs contained. 2) Most people, particularly the elderly, are fairly happy with what they have now, but fear the future. 3) The majority of the elderly, who are on government health care, oppose government interference in health care. 4) Any minor hint at adressing the massive amount of money spent transferring the last week of life into the last month of life will raise a firestorm. The safe side for any politician is to call these death panels and be against them. 5) Folks don't want government interfering with their private employer health care. Therefore, I conclude that folks want health care costs contained without doing anything that might possibly affect them in order to contain costs. I am now leaning towards the opinion that we will face this problem only after Medicare requires a 500 billion/year payment from the government after its funds are exhausted. Californias refusal to face its obvious unsustainable position during the last decade until the roof caved in provides good precident for this. Dan M. mail2web.com - Microsoft® Exchange solutions from a leading provider - http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Returning to Heath Care
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 5:41 AM, dsummersmi...@comcast.netdsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: 3) The majority of the elderly, who are on government health care, oppose government interference in health care. Nicely stated. 5) Folks don't want government interfering with their private employer health care. Right, including government interfering by removing the government interfering tax subsidy for employer plans. Ironically, I think there would be less resistance to adding an equivalent tax subsidy for all non-employer plans, which of course is financially equivalent to removing the employer-plan subsidy. Therefore, I conclude that folks want health care costs contained without doing anything that might possibly affect them in order to contain costs. I agree, and I think the main cause of this attitude is that most people are spending other people's money. I am now leaning towards the opinion that we will face this problem only after Medicare requires a 500 billion/year payment from the government after its funds are exhausted. At some point, the younger generations are going to balk at sending over half their income to the older generations. Demographics for the next 40 years can be easily and accurately predicted (assuming no large immigration changes). See for example: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/08/us-population-distribution-by-age-1950.html Clearly the ratio of under-65 to over-65 is undergoing a drastic change. The uncertainty comes in at what point the younger generations will balk at paying most of their income for the older generations. I agree that a political solution is unlikely. Already, ObamaCare is looking like less than 50% to pass, and if it does pass, it will probably not have any meaningful changes. I wonder if more consumer-driven health care might slip in without an explicit government reform, similarly to how many pension plans changed from defined benefit to defined contribution over the past several decades. Perhaps more employers will switch to plans like Whole Foods, with HSAs and higher deductibles. That is still some way from true consumer-driven health care, but the Whole Foods employees do vote on their benefits, so there is some small amount of consumer choice. And most surveys of highly-rated places to work that I have seen put Whole Foods high on the list. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
