11/25/2003: 
Breaking News
Let me clarify my position about my opposition to the Medicare reform bill. The Medicare program provides free health care for senior citizens, and is paid for by taxes on those who are younger and healthier. The only problem with this is is that a disturbingly large percentage of the younger and healthier have little or no health insurance while paying for others to have it for free- and now we have to pay for their drugs? So if I go to the emergency room, I could be destroyed financially, but as long as I'm working, they'll take out Medicare, Social Security, Federal, State, and Local taxes. Not only that, the under- and non- insured frequently forego routine medical visits because they can not afford them. There is also the problem of people in poor and rural communities who simply do not have the same access to the same level of medical care as in richer cities.
So what's the problem? Whose fault is it that medical costs are spiralling out of control, and what can we do about it? The HMOs, insurance, pharmecutical, and medical supply companies, doctors and nurses are all making profits by charging an exhorbitant amount for the product that they sell, which is health. There is something obviously wrong with the system, but no one in power will honestly assess the problems until it all falls down.
All I am adovocating is that the only way to "fix" health care is to make it affordable for all demographic groups. Although free health care would be nice, it barely works in Canada, and America has ten times the population. Besides, the Federal government has a mixed track record managing large scale programs such as this.
I want to warn the young adults of today of the possible steamrolling we will receive from the elderly of tomorrow as the Baby Boomers near retirement. The elderly/AARP lobby always get their way, and they are going to get it again, despite what it does to other demographic groups. When Baby Boomers with their selfish militancy become the bulk of the elderly, they will attempt to get their way, as they vastly outnumber their Generation X (born between 1960- 1985) offspring. We need to be aware this is coming and plan accordingly. Unfortunately, we have stayed away from politics and occupy few postions of power as of yet. If we continue to turn a blind eye to politics, we risk becoming the permanent indentured servants of elderly hippies.
3 Annotations Submitted
Tuesday the 25th of November, prof_booty noted:
Whose fault is it that medical costs are spiralling out of control, and what can we do about it?
i think you can place the blame solely on the captialist system. billions of dollars are spent each year on pharma development. every advance in this field is motivated by profit. and, unless i've misjudged you, you believe is a good thing. without profit motive there will be no advance in health care. unless "HMOs, insurance, pharmecutical, and medical supply companies, doctors and nurses are all making profits" no new treatments for diseases no one should have to suffer through.
how could we "make it affordable for all demographic groups" without government intervention?
Tuesday the 25th of November, rafuzo noted:
the litany of government failures in health care is well document and well argued. There's a fundamental reason why people in countries with "universal health care" still come to American hospitals for treatment. FDA safety regs have effectively made drug development a crap shoot, and the only people who can make repeated crap shoots betting millions of dollars are the whales (huge pharmas). So it should be no surprise that they run drug development (and often at a loss, contrary to the "huge profit" myth).
Wednesday the 26th of November, santo26 noted:
I think that the issue of everyone having affordable access to health care is a "termination shock" issue between free market and collectivist ideologies. The profit motive does indeed make the US health care industry #1 in terms of creating new products, but this same motive makes it so that many companies don't even consider giving their workers medical coverage.
Although I do believe in both free enterprise and personal responsibility, I never have assumed that giant corporations believe in both, which is where the free enterprise system begins to fail, and statist/ collectivist ideas begin to hold sway.
Free market theories sound good when you are on the right side of the equation, but make less sense when you are the worker who has to work 50 hours a week to afford health care (don't forget about the taxes being involuntarily taken out), or doesn't get any coverage at all.
I am not afraid to look for answers that may end with government intervention, but I want to be damn sure there is no other alternative.
