Tom Toles for August 25, 2009

The problem for Obama as he said in 2003 he favors the single payer plan. That would cost a minimum of $1T/10 years. As I write this Monday night we await the Tuesday report on long term deficit by the non-partisan GBO. It is thought they will estimate Obama personally is going to double the long term debt. That is before a health plan. If that concept doesn’t send shutters down your spine you have no knowledge of Econ 101. When Bush wildly overspent the left went bonkers. Obama is making Bush look like a piker.

Wachs: “That would cost a minimum of $1T/10 years”

And our present system cost us $2 Trillion last year.

So $1T/10 years sounds pretty bleeep good…as long as your figures are accurate.

@GNW - we will discuss the final price tag when it comes. However, Anthony makes a good point - healthcare costs 2.2 (iirc) trillion USD per year, and will probably grow. If the 1 Trillion have a good chance to decrease the overall amount, they will be a good choice.

Single-payer will cost less and cover more people offering more, useful care in the long run..

The Free-Market has show it is unable/unwilling to do the job at hand. When that happens, you must find another solution.

HQ, analyze our current health care system, and you’ll find the answer to your last question.

HQ, unfortunately other countries ARE doing, by and large, better - or at least are much more efficient. How else do you call it when you achieve similar results (or superior, depending on the measure) with half the money? Right-wing pundits have been taking turns to moan and whine about the British system (up to the point that the Brits themselves had enough of it), but according to the OECD in 2007 it cost the average Joe Brit $2992 . The US system cost his American-dwelling cousin $7290 - without even providing universal coverage. When the results are comparable (and in many areas they are), then apparently the UK government has done a better job than the US free market. I guess the US government just isn’t good enough to match their counterparts beyond the pond, eh?

That is why in the US healthcare is 16% of the economy, and in the UK it’s about, iirc, 8 or 9. Where is the personal responsibility in that? Instead people get scare tactics and over-exaggerated anecdotes about how awful the NHS or the Canadian system are, as if such things don’t happen in the US.

And, of course, there are the other western countries like France or Germany (where many Brits go if they think they need something extra), where healthcare is run by non-profit private organizations. Hey, if you can get the US insurers to do that, I’m game. Unfortunately, think that’s even less likely than a decent public plan - Medicare/Medicaid and the VA might not be perfect, but at least Washington has something to base a public option on.

BTW, here is an interesting study - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/

health plan = menu from The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

^ Ah, a fellow Bunuel fan! Great flick (liked ‘The Phantom of Liberty’ even more though)

Gary, what you say about the Republican plan is scary, but true. The Republicans will not become a strong party again until they knock off the terror and scare tactics of the Bush years and the present nonsense aimed at crippling Obama’s presidency. Except for the very vocal nut case minority.

HQ,

There’s nothing wrong with making a profit, particularly when you’re selling a product such as furniture, cars, appliances, etc. But all those private companies are basically investor owned, and those investors want a return on their investment. Nothing wrong with that. But in the case of healthcare, the private, for-profit health insurance companies are also responsible for return to investors and so they need to be very careful of the bottom line. That can lead to finding ways to insure a profit by finding ways to deny care. Why do these companies need to have people whose main job is to find ways to deny claims, create loopholes, and otherwise try to provide as little as they can while charging as much as they can. In California recently, there was a young woman who needed a transplant, but her insurance company said no, and denied the transplant. There was such a public outcry that the company finally had to relent, but by then it was too late, the girl died.

Health insurance is an area that needs, not necessarily government intervention, but perhaps the health insurance companies should be non-profit ones, so that while they need to maintain some cost control to stay afloat, at least they don’t have to be setting aside money for investor return. That’s not a perfect solution, perhaps nothing is since even some non-profits can create procedural problems. But at least we wouldn’t have huge investor-ownedinsurance companies controlling the dispensing of health care. There can be economies in this. Perhaps an example in a different area might help. In the Southern California desert, a good portion gets its electricity from Southern California Edison, a private, investor-owned company. The eastern part of the desert gets power from Imperial Irrigation District, a non-profit. IID’s charges for power are about one-third less than Edison, and it has made some people decide to live where IID provides power, especially when in summer, with over 100 days of 100+ temperatures (and some days being between 110-120), air conditioning is a must for survival and the difference in costs between those in IID territory and those of us getting power from Edison is significant. Maybe we could get the same savings from health care in a similar way.

Shouldn’t good health be right, not a privellage?