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Anthony
Posted on: Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:53 pm
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Universal Health Care: Is It Good for California?
October
20th
Anthony
Tonight’s show featured a spirited debate about California’s Universal Health Care bill SB 840 with Sara Rogers of Senator Sheila Kuehl’s office. What’s your opinion? Sound off on this hot topic here!
Posted on: Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:53 pm Healthcare, Show Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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10 Responses to “Universal Health Care: Is It Good for California?”
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I listened to the show on Saturday and it was more like a bad science fiction show.
I can not believe the lies and the inconsistencies. They want soooooo badly to tak in an additional 12% to 16% of our income that they will say absolutely ANYTHING to try to get us to believe it is a good thing, but not ONE of them has ever lived in a socialized country.
Try it before you flog it!
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:44 pmOK, for 5 years they’ve been trying to flog this piece of junk and have not gotten it passed either by a Democrat Governor, or a Republican Governor.
They’ve been saying it is single payer ofr years, but now it’s a 2 tier plan!!
Let me explain the difference….
There are several typef of government medicine.
1) Single Payer is a system that only 2 countries in the world have; Canada and North Korea. In a single payer system there is a SINGLE payer; the government. That means a private citizen CAN NOT pay for private treatment. This sytem has VERY log wait lists.
2) Two Tier Government Medicine is the most common. It is used in the UK, Germany, France, South Africa, Australia and many others. The government collects taxes then finances your medical treatment. In a 2 tier system, you can get private treatment. It still has long wait lists.
3) Taxpayer funded government managed semi-private insurance….that’s long winded….they have this in the Netherlands. The government collects taxes and gives it to private insurance companies, then tells them how to run thier business.
4) Government mandated Universal Healthcare. This is used in Switzerland. The government says everyone must have health insurance. It is slightly better than the above scenarios, in that your premium is partially based on risk so you are not penalized for earning more, but still removes choice.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:01 pmUniversal Health care has never been successful. This is evidenced in the US in the state of: Kentucky, where cardio vascular diseas and AIDS skyrocketed when they adopted a universal system and people with these illnesses flocked to the state to get care for “free”; Tennessee, when they adopted Tenn-care and incresed their sales tax in order to supplement the state’s Medicaid system. They have started rationing certain drugs because they are so highly used (after all, you only want healthy people on a universal system, right?), and there are people using the system who are not even living in Tennessee; in New York they have “Healthy New York” which is funded by tax dollars from tobacco sales (if people quit smoking what happens?)and if you “qualify” you have your choice of using 1 out of 3 HMOs. TAX DOLLARS PAYING HMOs THAT ARE FOR PROFIT. Medicare is doing the same thing because government can’t manage anything. But, if you need hip replacement, go to any of those states and see if you can get it “for free”.
Your guest from SB840, Sara Rogers, lied when she said illegal aliens would not be covered under this bill. She sounded like she was living in a complete fantasy.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:11 pmI recently had a school project (a 5 minute speech) and chose SB 840 as my topic. With each source I found more and more evidence pointing to the high cost of government health care and the short-fallings of those supposedly great socialist systems that SB 840 wants to emulate.
Sheila Kuehl is accepting a salary paid by tax dollars to represent the people of California, and yet if she had done as much research for her bill as I did for my 5 minute speech, she would have soon found out that her bill is in the best interest of nobody that wants to see Americans die in waiting lines.
Equality of care is no good if there’s no quality of care.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:14 pmI’m sorry I missed the show Anthony – I listened to the podcast and wanted to call in.
First comment – it’s your talk show, you can talk as much as you want too.
Now back to topic – there are so many problems with our Health care system that even the government can’t fix it. One of your callers said the problem was diet – and that we should cut out meat and dairy. How novel – how about we only eat tofu and vegetables and drink only water, then we all can live healthy lives and be the most boring society on earth. Tourism would leave California along with all the restaurants and the people. Lets face reality that will never happen.
Preventive care – another problem – no medical provider really wants this because the healthier we are the less money they make. Kind of like the cigarette companies paying for ads to stop smoking – is it really working?
The root of the problem is that there is money to be made with sick people, lots of money and no matter how much regulation there is the working consumer will always pay for it.
Yes, people going to India and Mexico for surgery –it is cheaper, that is true but it is usually for surgeries that are not covered by insurance – like plastic surgery or weight reduction surgery. The scary reality is the problems you don’t hear about – complications with your “typical” surgery they don’t know how to solve – then they send you back all cut up so a real doctor can fix their mistake.
There are even problems with Medicare – and it’s Govt operated. Some doctors are refusing to accept patients under medicare because the reimbursement is so low they are going bankrupt. Soon most good doctors will refuse medicare patients and that will cause the long waiting lists associated with Govt run health care.
I’m sorry I don’t have the answers but if I did – we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Keep up the good work!
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:51 pmThe top 5 reasons to oppose government medicine
1) TRUST: We can not trust government or politicians enough to hand over $2 trillion a year and have them take over one sixth of our economy. We know that government sometimes operates on inaccurate data; (“Mr. President, they have WMD’s”). We also know that some presidents lie; (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”). Many politicians do more for votes than for the good of the country, and even if we have the most perfect president in office, we know that in 4-8 years that will change. In your lifetime, can you think of a president that you would NOT have wanted to have in charge of your health? If the government takes in $2 trillion, think of the temptation to “borrow” from that fund to pay for a few pet projects. Didn’t they already take money from Medicare and Social security? What would it feel like to tune in your favorite news channel and hear the president say; “My fellow Americans, I did not see where those $2 trillion dollars went”
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:36 pm2) COST: Government programs are notorious for projecting low, then coming in over budget. You’ve heard the stories about the army paying $3,000 for a hammer. While this may not happen every day, we only need to look at the 2 current government run healthcare financing systems, Medicare, the federal run programs costs $645 per enrollee to administer vs. $485 for private insurance. Medicaid, the state run system, only pays 69 cents out of each dollar on patient care vs. 86 cents for private insurers. Government programs are costly. Medicare costs $16,018 per enrollee, Medicaid costs $6,792 per enrollee, and private insurance costs $3,444 per enrollee.
3) MONOPOLISTIC: Monopolies, especially government run monopolies stifle innovation and increase costs. Think about Ma Bell before de-regulation. They had a monopoly and an in state long distance call cost over a dollar a minute. When the industry was deregulated, Sprint and Verizon drove those costs down to mere pennies. Think about the efficiency of some government run monopolies like the DMV, Medicare, Social Security, FEMA. Do you want the people in charge of these programs to regulate YOUR health?
4) RATIONING: Government programs which attempt to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor profess to attempt even distribution of benefits. Unfortunately sick people need the benefits more than healthy people, but with even distribution, we all get the same care. This distribution of benefits is based on what the government perceives to be “fair”. This ends up harming the middle and lower income earners the most, since they do not have the financial resources to seek timely treatment, when they get sick. When government attempts to set up a large program, people will invent ways to abuse it, and government will react by rationing care. This happens in every country that has government medicine. Since government initially has no desire to save money by “adjudicating claims”, they try to run lean on the admin side. This allows for abuse, and the government reacts by rationing care.
5) COST EFFICIENCY: Government programs promise cost effectiveness. But what does that mean? Certainly and x-ray is less costly than an MRI, and a cane is cheaper than a motorized scooter. Every time there is a change in government, costs will be slashed as the president blames the previous administration. Then, a year before election time, they will reduce wait times and lift restrictions and politicize that wait times were reduced from 9 months to 6 under their watch. Will a $30,000 a year government bureaucrat feel that a procedure recommended by a $600,000 a year Stanford educated cardiologist is cost effective? Will the government approve a costly new breakthrough treatment for cancer, when radiation is more “cost effective”?
Sara: Have you ever walked into a California state/county run health facility? How about your local Medi-Cal office? This is the healthcare version of your local DMV. Incompetence and inefficiency are the hallmarks of those agencies. It would be dreadful to empower this type of system to make decisions for your or my care.
Yes, we are experiencing escalating costs in healthcare but this has much more to do with an increasingly sick and aging population than a simple re-distribution of premiums from several large insurance payors to a proposed government single-payor entity. I am not an advocate for the insurance companies but I would much rather have these companies competing for an individual’s ability to choose than submit to one entity for what they deem “medically necessary”.
Here are just a few ideas that where the government could actually be of help:
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 pm- The public interest would be far better served by our legislature working more aggressively on tort reform to combat the rising cost of health care professionals to practice their trade. Why do we let these frivolous lawsuits clog our legal system and drive up premiums for malpractice insurance.
- Creating vehicles that help relieve the financial burden of the small to mid-size groups of healthcare providers to meet technology goals such as EMR. If every doctor could afford an EMR system in their office, just think of all the potential benefits to patients for improved access and care, not to mention the saving the environment with all that paper.
- Finding ways to help health facilities streamline their fulfillment of regulatory requirements by accreditation agencies like JCAHO or DHHS. Our health facilities and especially adminstrative and nursing staff are so overwhelmed by the incredible volumes of paperwork. This takes away from quality patient care and just becomes a hurdle to get through a survey while increasing costs. Compliance and outcome information is important and necessary but it has gone way too far….now there is unannounced visits at any time for any reason. No wonder nurses and administrators get burnt out.
- How about creating a vehicle for large pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies and insurance companies who have enormous profits re-invest their earnings to help supplement the shortfall of health care for the uninsured, or any other item that drains our healthcare system?
five reasons why ralph weber is flat wrong.
1. trust: it is true that the government should not be blindly trusted. we have even less of a reason to trust the health insurance companies. are you kidding me, mr. weber? the ceo’s are making more in bonuses each year than the vast majority of americans will see in a lifetime. the companies care about one thing, making money. they are accountable to the their shareholders, period. they can not be trusted to take care of our needs any more than a fox can be trusted to look over a hen house.
2. cost: honestly, we pay more than any other country in the world for health care and we rank #37 by the world health organization. i guess you don’t get what you pay for when it comes to private health insurance companies. canada pays half of what we pay, and they live three years longer. a recent study in the journal of the american medical association showed that even the poorest english person is expectd to live longer than the richest american. even el salvador and cuba have lower infant mortality rates than the u.s.a. according to the united nations.
3. monopolistic: let’s be truthful about the whole de-regulation, privatisation issue. certain services are essential to the needs of americans. the government has to provide these ie the police department, the fire department, and the military. obviously, anyone who thinks healthcare is not an essential service has never had to go without it. perhaps, we should ask some of the 50,000,000 americans in the united states if they think it is an essential service. a single payer system is not a monopoly, physician and hospitals will continue to compete and do their best to attract prospective patients.
4. rationing: this already takes place all across the united states. currently, healthcare is rationed based on one’s ability to pay. insurance companies ration care and medications to those who can afford to pay for them. insurance companies decide what is covered and what is not.
5. cost efficiency: just how efficeint does mr. weber think our private system currently is? roughly 30 cents of every dollar spent goes to pay for complicated benefit schemes, enrollment procedures and access limitations. health insurance premiums are up 87% since 2000, yet physician re-imbursement continues to go down. where is all the money going? someone is making a profit, and believe me it is not the health care providers, its the private insurance companies.
one final word: i would caution anyone to take advice regarding the health care system from someone who sells private insurance plans. do the research yourself. the facts are really not that hard to find.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:54 pmI am a Canadian physician now living in the United States. I worked 13 years in Canada and I have worked six in the United States. As director of Diagnostic Imaging at a Regional Medical Center in Canada, we had a 13 months wait for MRI and a seven month wait for CT. I knew other specialists with two-year waiting lists simply for an initial consult. If surgery was necessary, there would be a wait of months for that also.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:52 pmBoth a patients (insured or not) and physicians fare better in the U.S. than in Canada. Our facilities in Canada were outdated. Insider political pressure was required to get monies for improvements. Decisions for capital allocations were made by political pull rather than the objective merit of the free flow of dollars as would occur in a free marketplace (which the U.S. is NOT an example of).
It is naïve to believe that a one-party payer system means that government will simply foot the bill and doctors will be allowed to practice as they please. That is exactly how Canada’s system was initially. No government has infinitely deep pockets. When prices are placed as zero, demand becomes infinite hence the government took over Canadian health care bit by bit to control costs. The end result is zero autonomy for patients and doctors.
What is sorely missing from the debate on health care in the United States is how the current mess arose. Neither the status quo or nor a one party system addresses this problem. The problem started in World War 2 with wage and price controls (a government action). To attract employees, employers offered health insurance because increased wages were not allowed. The employer, not the employee, received the tax deduction. This established the perverse norm or having insurance tied to employment. Mortgages and other financial obligations aren’t so why should health insurance. A sizeable number of uninsured are simply between jobs.
It was an act of Congress (further government action) and not the free market that made insurance companies the primary payer rather than the individual. This governmental action put the insurer in the position of controlling the dollars rather than the patients. If I crash my car, I ultimately must pay the body shop. It is between my and the insurance company for me to be secondarily reimbursed. If my car insurance company doesn’t pay legitimate claims, I will feel the pinch personally and move to a different insurer. Such a mechanism is not operant in health care.
If we do not act as consumers and look for lower costs and apply market pressure for costs to drop, then someone must restrain costs. In the U.S. it is insurance companies and in Canada it is the government rationing care. If you think that insurance companies are bad wait until your only choice is a government monopoly.
Health savings accounts are a giant step in the right direction. They empower patients as consumers and provide pressure to providers to drop costs. Look at Lasik eye surgery. It is not usually covered by insurance in the U.S. nor by the provincial health plans in Canada. In both countries there has been massive deflation in costs for Lasik. Meanwhile opthalmologists are not starving in either country.
This is not to suggest that there is no role for insurance. Insurance is critical for covering unlikely events. We do not buy car insurance for gasoline, oil changes and paint jobs. If we did car insurance would be outrageously expensive. We buy car insurance for the unlikely event of an accident or theft. Likewise, we need health insurance for the relatively unlikely event of serious illness or trauma.
If the power of HSA’s and high deductible health insurance, were fully unleashed, the effect could be amazing. A young person could conceivably accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. Suppose they then had an insurance product with a deductible in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such a plan would be as cheap as borscht.
It is basic economics that all products drop in cost as a percentage of income in non-inflationary dollars if the market is allowed to work. Glaring exceptions are health care and public education because they are subject to government control and subsidization. Currently 43% of all health care costs in the U.S. are borne by government. It is infantile to believe that increasing that to 100% will suddenly solve all problems. If we want prices to drop and availability to increase we need to extricate ourselves from the government’s present control over health care rather than to increase it further.
Lee Kurisko MD FRCPC
Eden Praire, MN
Jim Crow Laws Employment Law Us Supreme Court…
I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…
March 13th, 2008 at 8:56 pm