Issue: Health Care

[gravesdav]

I heard Ron Paul talking about how we can make people to like us in the world. Not through invasion, but by fixing problems here. One thing he said was getting health care coverage for every American. I know he doesn't want to have socialist health care, so how does he intend to get everyone covered.

[dude58677]

The reason health care is so expensive is because of the cost of complying with with government regulation. Dr. Paul has personal experience with this. When government was not in health insurance only cost a few dollars a month and there were free charity clinics, charity hospital's, and doctor house visits everywhere. Also eliminating the Federal Reserve and IRS will drop the inflation on health care.

[gravesdav]

cool. I'd like him to articulate it though.

[kylejack]

I'd also like to add that when Ron Paul was practicing medicine, he refused to accept Medicare or Medicaid. He just did the work for free for people who didn't have insurance and couldn't pay. If only there were more doctors like him.

[angelatc]

I can't find the link now, but there is a group of doctors (in Texas, I think....) that don't take insurance at all. Their office visits are very affordable, because they don't have to wait for payment and hire staffers who do nothing but fill out endless paperwork.

[Gee]

The reason health care is so expensive is because of the cost of complying with with government regulation.
Well, not completely. Milton Friedman had some good thoughts on it (I'm always surprised how RP looks more to Mises than Friedman, but thats another story):
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3459466.html

Basically, healthcare coverage was touted by employees during WWII as a way to attract workers in the labor-starved days of the war (starved, I might add, by excessive inflation combined with wage and price controls). This coverage was not reported to the IRS. When the war was over, congress wanted to tax it, but found that enormously unpopular. So they instead made the tax exemption legal. Big mistake.

That ment it was more economical to get health insurance from your employer than it was to pay out of pocket. So everyone started doing it, with really low deductibles. Unlike how most insurance is used to cover huge, unexpected costs, healthcare insurance came to be used to cover nearly any cost, because it was tax-deductable. This led to a situation where people were spending "other people's money", i.e. the insurance company's. Since the patients no longer cared about the bill, the healthcare providers charged insurance companies as much as they could get away with, with unnecissary tests and all sorts of things. Patients also began going to the doctor for more trivial things, and why not? Its covered by their policy. The result was higher and higher costs for everyone. Insurance companies can try to increase their beurocracy to prevent abuse, but this comes at significant costs in bureaucracy and things (for doctors and insurers).

Thats one major failing of socialism, no one spends someone else's money like they spend their own. When you get a lot of people spending someone else's money, the result is a lot of waste.

[JaylieWoW]

Well, not completely. Milton Friedman had some good thoughts on it (I'm always surprised how RP looks more to Mises than Friedman, but thats another story):
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3459466.html

Basically, healthcare coverage was touted by employees during WWII as a way to attract workers in the labor-starved days of the war (starved, I might add, by excessive inflation combined with wage and price controls). This coverage was not reported to the IRS. When the war was over, congress wanted to tax it, but found that enormously unpopular. So they instead made the tax exemption legal. Big mistake.

That ment it was more economical to get health insurance from your employer than it was to pay out of pocket. So everyone started doing it, with really low deductibles. Unlike how most insurance is used to cover huge, unexpected costs, healthcare insurance came to be used to cover nearly any cost, because it was tax-deductable. This led to a situation where people were spending "other people's money", i.e. the insurance company's. Since the patients no longer cared about the bill, the healthcare providers charged insurance companies as much as they could get away with, with unnecissary tests and all sorts of things. Patients also began going to the doctor for more trivial things, and why not? Its covered by their policy. The result was higher and higher costs for everyone. Insurance companies can try to increase their beurocracy to prevent abuse, but this comes at significant costs in bureaucracy and things (for doctors and insurers).

Thats one major failing of socialism, no one spends someone else's money like they spend their own. When you get a lot of people spending someone else's money, the result is a lot of waste.


Hammer, nail, head. There is a local radio show host who talks about this all the time. It is a conservative radio station and this host continually refers to himself as being of the "little L" persuasion (emphatically supports the Iraq war, which I can't understand). People call in and bust his chops all the time about it and just can't seem to grasp that if we weren't seeing the doctor everytime we had a wee little cold then health costs most likely would not be so high. Much like the "entitlement" mentality, "I should get FREE healthcare because I'm American", so goes the paying customers to health insurance, "I go to the doctor whenever I want because I PAY for my insurance." It really is a different side of the same coin if you ask me.

[Gee]

Hammer, nail, head. There is a local radio show host who talks about this all the time. It is a conservative radio station and this host continually refers to himself as being of the "little L" persuasion (emphatically supports the Iraq war, which I can't understand). People call in and bust his chops all the time about it and just can't seem to grasp that if we weren't seeing the doctor everytime we had a wee little cold then health costs most likely would not be so high. Much like the "entitlement" mentality, "I should get FREE healthcare because I'm American", so goes the paying customers to health insurance, "I go to the doctor whenever I want because I PAY for my insurance." It really is a different side of the same coin if you ask me.
If MDs weren't so regulated those silly trips to the Doc for antibiotics (which create more drug-resistant strains, yay) wouldn't be as bad. In many cases I'd feel completely comfortable getting medical care from am experienced nurse (it would certainly be a lot cheaper), but state laws prohibits that in a lot of cases.

[Billsfan]

Did you all see this?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a0_1181090478

It's at Liveleak.com

[Broadlighter]

I have a doctor friend, who charges his patients directly, takes no medical insurance and works just three days a week (sometimes four). He's well rested and clear headed when he sees his patients and gives them high quality attention. He thinks what's needed to make health care more affordable is to reform the insurance industry, so that it only provides for catastrophic care and hospitalization. This would force doctors to compete more for the lesser services like exams, testing and certain therapies. The effect would bring down prices to levels the market would more easily afford.

My wife once had a job that offered both HMO and PPO health insurance. My wife took the PPO insurance because it meant she could choose her own doctor. The other employees thought she was crazy to pay the extra money in premiums. Then they would talk amongst themselves about how their coverage afforded them operations as though they were getting something for nothing. Never mind how they got themselves in the position where they needed surgeries. They prided themselves on taking advantage of the system to have their bodies carved up.

[angrydragon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVGTrCZ2O1Y From the man himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgRUBlNd6fE part 2 (talks about healthcare here)

[LibertyCzar]

The sale of goods is regulated by the UCC in 49 states. This should be the model for health care. Not necessarily one Code, in this case is sufficient.

I think a plan like Mitt Romney established should be made public. It's not necessarily the best, but it is an option. Then the legislatures of other States should voluntarily join the plan in the form of a Code. Every American should be able to buy into this Code, not just the States that belong to the particular Code.

All States should be required to belong to a Code, but they can decide which Code to belong to. Entering into a Code should be voluntary, and each state should be able to leave at will. In theory there could be 50 Codes. With the competition, prices will have to decrease.

But all Americans should further be allowed to participate in a private insurance plan, not just one of the Code insurance plans. Yes, I know this all sounds really complicated. But it's a combination of social and private at the State level. Think about it, if no one participates in a particular Code, won't those States belonging to that Code choose another Code? If a corporate "private" plan has no participants, that plan will likewise be abolished. The People will have a definitive impact on overall health care.

The role of the federal government should just be to declare that this is possible, and enact whatever is necessary to ensure it is practical. This should include requiring each State to belong to a Code. This substitutes the requirement that each State come up with it's own plan.