Thursday, July 16, 2009

The 'Public Option' Health Care Scam

By Steve Chapman

Some statements are inherently unbelievable. Such as: "I am an official of the government of Nigeria, and I would like to deposit $60 million in your bank account." Or: "I'm Barry Bonds, and I thought it was flaxseed oil." And this new one: "I'm Barack Obama, and I favor more competition in health insurance."

That, however, is the claim behind his support of a government-run health insurance plan to give consumers one more choice. The president says a "public option" would improve the functioning of the market because it would "force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest."

He has indicated that while he is willing to discuss a variety of remedies as part of health insurance reform, this one is non-negotiable. House Democrats, not surprisingly, included the government plan in the 1,000-page bill they unveiled Tuesday.

It will come as a surprise to private health insurance providers that they have not had to compete up till now. Nationally, there are some 1,300 companies battling for customers. Critics say in many states, one or two insurers enjoy a dominant position. But market dominance doesn't necessarily mean insufficient competition.
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2 comments:

  1. Hamster4:59 PM

    One way to gauge how the US health care system stacks up against other countries is to ask citizens of each county what they think of their system.

    Harris conducted a poll in 2008 to answer that question

    http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=927

    Not surprising that 33 % of Americans believe that the American system "has so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it".
    Only 12% of Americans thought their health care system was working well.

    In Britian, where they have an evil public healthcare system only 16% of the Brits felt their system needed overhauling.

    In fact the 58% of the Brits and 70% of the French are so enamored with their public system that they feel theirs is the "envy of the world".

    I'm not sure it is , but you aren't going to find anywhere near that many Americans who feel their private "for profit" free market health care system is anything to crow about.

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  2. lgstarr6:29 PM

    Although 69 percent of voters nationwide say Americans should have the option of government- run health insurance, only 28 percent would choose to be covered by it, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today [7/1/09]. Voters say 49 - 45 percent they would pay more to reform health care, but a total of 72 percent don't want to pay more than $500 a year.

    Of the 88 percent of American voters who have some form of health insurance, 49 percent are "very satisfied" with their plan and 36 percent are "somewhat satisfied." Among voters with Medicare or Medicaid 54 percent are very satisfied, compared to 45 percent of voters with private insurance. Voters say 52 - 34 percent that most Americans do not get good value in the cost and quality of health care. But these same voters say 70 - 25 percent that they personally get good value in the cost and quality of their health care, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll of more than 3,000 voters nationwide finds.

    http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1344#

    British healthcare in crisis despite massive investment
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1019/p04s01-woeu.html

    Oncologist Karol Sikora recently submitted an op-ed to the Manchester Union-Leader with the dire warning that This health care 'reform' will kill thousands.
    http://www.americanissuesproject.org/blogs/aip/archive/2009/05/15/warning-british-health-care-is-coming.aspx

    Facing long waits and substandard care, a growing number of Canadians are willing to pay for health treatment...
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/30/canada-sees-boom-private-health-care-business/?test=latestnews

    In Canada it’s common for there to be doctor lotteries as new physicians entering practice are bombarded with “applications” by people desperate to acquire a family doctor. While 15% of the US population currently doesn’t have health insurance, 20% of the Canadian population does not have ready access to a family doctor...access to medical specialists is so curtailed that it routinely takes upward of two months from the time a patient is referred to a specialist before the patient is even called back with an appointment.
    http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8128

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