They say politics makes strange bedfellows, so now that John McCain and Joe Lieberman are in bed together I hope they screw each other's brains out. John McCain may have sparked a little lover's spat yesterday when he encouraged Americans to go to Canada to buy lower priced drugs, something Joe Lieberman (the Senator from Big Pharma) looks on with horror. I sure don't object, but some McCain's other health care ideas strike me as politically suicidal (of course it also doesn't both me if he sends himself down the toilet, either):
John McCain is bolstering his reputation as a maverick by encouraging Americans to buy lower- priced drugs from Canada, a plan that may cost Pfizer Inc. and the drug industry $40 billion over 10 years.McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, says crossing the border for less-expensive drugs will increase health-care access by lowering costs. Spending on doctor services can be cut too, he says, by paying set fees for disease treatments, not on the amount of care provided. He also wants to encourage the purchase of insurance by offering a tax credit paid for by taxing workers' health benefits for the first time. (Bloomberg)
Wow. Make health care more accessible by taxing my health care benefits? Maybe someone should tell Senator McCain that people who have insurance are already paying for those without insurance, via the free care pool. I don't mind paying it, but the idea that universal health care is a new tax is wrong. I'm already being taxed via an extremely inefficient, unequally distribued and dishonestly hidden system that is making health insurance companies rich. Go ahead and tax me and everyone else for a single payer system. I want it. BIf you are worried that a single payer system will lead to the government controlling costs by fixing payments to doctors by disease diagnosis, well that's exactly what McCain is proposing but without any good features. Still, it's fine with me as long as it is coupled with a universal health care system so we are all covered. If someone wants to pay out of my own pocket for extras that's OK.
Anyway I'd love to hear the McCain - Lieberman pillow talk as they discuss health care. Assuming they ever discuss it.
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But with the ever increasing oil prices, is traveling to Canada to buy cheaper drugs really a cost-effective solution?
It sure is lucky for McCain that Lieberman is available to whisper sweet nothings in his ear, otherwise the time lapse between his gaffes and his corrections would make it difficult for the news media to "correct" their videos by clipping out the intervening time and making it look seamless.
And nostalgic Republicans need to be reminded: Just because he's senile doesn't mean that McCain is Reagan.
Joe Lieberman agreed to be an intern on my blog! Check it out.
Our health system is going to collapse in the next 5-10 years if we don't start to reign in costs and deal with uninsured folks. I'm not an ardent fan of single-payer systems )they have their problems, too), but what we have now is worse. Cost-effectiveness studies and EBM is supposed in the long run to bring about better health care and lower costs, but to date, I'm not sure that it's happening. Take a look at the rise in health care costs.
Forcing everyone to get health insurance is not the answer either unless generous subsidies are available for those who cannot afford them. I don't know how successful this policy is in Massachusetts, but I would like to hear what you think Revere.
But with the ever increasing oil prices, is traveling to Canada to buy cheaper drugs really a cost-effective solution?
Not to mention the ever-falling dollar, which has dropped against the loonie just as it has against all other major currencies. A situation which I don't expect to have turn around magically with the end of the Bush era.
Fixing America's little fiscal policy problem will require the minor expedient of raising taxes on Americans until their eyes bug out of their sockets, and I don't see any of the leading contenders in the Presidential race being in any kind of a hurry to do that.
In the following comment, it was noted:
Forcing everyone to get health insurance is not the answer either unless generous subsidies are available for those who cannot afford them.
That's not really the answer either. I can afford health insurance.
The problem I have with health insurance is this:
(ring! ring!)
(robot)
"Hello. You have reached the authorization department of FluffyBunnyBlueSky Health Insurance. Please hold."
(muzak. ninety minutes later, a bored script reader answers)
"Hello. Thank you for calling FluffyBunnyBlueSky Health Insurance. My name is 'Mike'. [In an obvious Punjabi accent.] Can I help you?"
"Uh, yeah, I'm seriously unwell, and my doctor says that I need to have surgery to fix the problem."
"Oh, okay. Well, I regret to tell you that we have decided not to pay for your surgery. You can of course pay out of pocket for it yourself. Thank you for being a customer of FluffyBunnyBlueSky Health Insurance."
(click)
Or, alternatively, "Mike" will tell me to go ahead and have the surgery, and a year later, I will find out that I am in collections because the hospital never got a check from FluffyBunnyBlueSky Health Insurance.
The core of the issue here is that the regulatory and contracting environment in which these insurors operate is so radically stacked in favor of the insuror versus the customer that it has become impossible to get a fair deal as a customer.
This isn't in any meaningful sense "free market" competition -- not when the market is dominated by a cartel of firms which all enjoy the same fortresslike position thanks to their generously funded political allies. Nor is it free market competition when Big Pharma and the American Medical Association have locked down any outside challenges to their hegemony.
I know what to expect from John McCain: pretty much the failed status quo ante. I also know what to expect from either Clinton or Obama: to be FORCED BY LAW to purchase this demonstrably dysfunctional product. Even if they give me a subsidy to purchase it, I'll still get ripped off on the back end of the deal.
Could this possibly get any better?
I do have a faithful shotgun with which to do away with myself once a cancer settles into my bones, which my insuror won't pay to have treated, and which the DEA won't even let me receive effective opiate pain medication for. A magnum buckshot round will square that up for me. And yes, I regard Charlton Heston's "from my cold dead fingers" line *very* literally, thank you. It's the last thing the system will ever take away from me.
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Well for starts Marissa they cant do it and pay for it. There arent enough dollars even if we werent in Iraq. The other part of this screwed up equation is that we are the sole superpower of the world. With that comes great responsibility and we aint done so good since Korea. We never finish our enemies. We get into the deal of nation building and its worked but with limited success. So we have to have a large military. Cant have a nuclear shield without some way to keep that from being the only option.
The Massachusetts "must have insurance to be able to work" law along with the California "employers being forced to pay" law is being challenged and its patently unconstitutional. The idea is that WE the people who are workers SHALL be forced to pay for others and that businesses SHALL also be forced to pay a fine every month. Its a taking. Its a taking to the inurement of another in lieu of the one.
This is in the 9th court in Calfornia and if left to stand, it will be slapped down and hard by US Supreme Court. They have already heard several cases like this and each time it was held that the states cannot force an employer to provide health insurance. They can create a welfare state if they want but they cant do it by any other method other than taxes.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-16-health_N.htm
And the liberalist 9th might in the future have to deal with its demise. They have frequently reached down for cases even under the Clinton regime and ruled on things that furthered their agendas. Then, the Supremes overturned them. Its horrendously expensive to get to the Supreme Court with a case to begin with but when they reach down they havent let the legal system do its thing. Both Clinton and Bush legal operatives have stated their desire to do away with it. Clintonites because its a liberals liberal Judiciary. If they pop up and allow cases to rise to their level, the are automatically challenged because the Supremes are much more conservative. It guarantees that pet projects and programs get found to be unconstitutional. They are appealed and lost.
IMO each state should be given the right to deal with its healthcare issues on its own. They have to provide most of the money for that healthcare now as it is. To have sweeping healthcare issued to people who have never paid for it before is like putting candy out in front of them. They will take it and unfortunately someone else WILL have to pay for it. Our system is one that they will say its based on income and unfortunately about 1/2 or more would fall under the initial dont pay shit. Add in the elderly of many numbers and more numbers than those paying in and the system collapses w/wo insurance companies being in the fray. Also, you will see rises in all kinds of insurances if its implemented. There will no longer be any money for them to cash flow into the stock markets so everything else will go up as a result.
This is the problem with UHC in that it creates a permanent tax on the people for "healthcare" that will be just as dubious in quality, limited in scope after a few years and result in you needing to visit the Bahamas or some other country to get the care you are paying for now via insurance, or will under UHC. Any idiot who pipes up and says its free gets a smack across the face. Its only going to be free to the permanent subculture it will create and that group will suffer the most. The whole bullshit idea is that you and your doctors will be making decisions about your healthcare is a full blown crock of crap. It will be the government. When they have money you MIGHT get what you need because they will allot money for so many hip replacements, or kidney stones or what have you. If you think you will get what is promised you are sadly mistaken. It will be bounded by the amount of money in the system at the time and there will never, ever be enough to do what is promised. Therein lays the future lawsuit that will render it unconstitutional. It becomes a mandated taking and they will as a result of the lawsuits raise the rates, drop the coverage until someone figures it out that we should be paying for indigent care only, and for the kids. Everyone else, get rid of the HBO and the internet connection because thats about the cost per person per month. Might want to get a job too.