Quote:
Originally Posted by mookiemookie
And you're mis-characterizing the argument so as to create a strawman. No one said that health care professionals should work for free or even a pittance. What is being argued is that health insurance should be nationalized and taken away as a profit-making enterprise. The interests of health insurance company shareholders and the insureds are irreparably at odds. Scrap the for-profit model.
If you believe that, you must have a serious moral quandary when you pay your insurance premiums each month. You're paying for the bad decisions of your fellow policyholders.
|
Two points here mookie. First - if something is not for profit - then it can't make a profit. Meaning it cannot GROW. So the local doctor, with just him on staff - cannot afford to hire another physician or nurse - because he has no margin for it. The local small hospital that really SHOULD have an MRI machine because its servicing a fairly large area, can't purchase it because it has no profit to reinvest and grow.
Take profit out of the equation, and your reduced to the old west, one doctor in the whole town and hope he carries what you need in his little black bag when you see him. How exactly is that improving health care?
Secondly - the issue of insurance. I have the CHOICE of paying insurance premiums with everyone else that has my policy or provider. There is no moral quandry - its my CHOICE. The "public option" - as we see steps to put it in place using the existing health care bill - means EVERYONE pays - either through their own insurance premiums, non-coverage "fees" or just outright taxes. No choices given.
You want a public option? Fix it where my tax dollars, my private insurance payments and such don't fund it. Institute it to where only those who use it pay for it. Then fine. But you can't do that - there won't be enough money to pay the bills, so the difference gets lumped on everybody, without any of us having a choice.
So no - there is a big difference in me choosing my insurer and choosing to pay the premium and share the load with others - and having the government MAKE me.
Edit: Yes, its true that right now we are all paying for the care of the uninsured via higher premiums, exorbitant hospital bills and general taxes. However, that doesn't mean the "fix" is to formalize the high costs by recognizing the existing de facto problems and permanticizing them into law. Better to change the equation all the way around.
#1) Change how health care is delivered: disallow hospital emergency room care to non-emergency patients. Yes, allow hospitals to turn away non paying patients who are not in need of immediate emergency care.
#2) Repeal the insurance industry;s anti-trust exemption.
#3) Tort Reform
#4) Rework how Medicare and Medicaid payments are dealt with - paying doctors properly while dramatically reducing fraud.