What's Wrong With Hillarycare?
In The Wall Street Journal, Tarren Bragdon, a health-policy analyst with the Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for New York State Policy, asks why Senator and candidate Clinton's state spends more on health care for the poor (through Medicaid) than every other state, but still have a larger proportion of its population walking around uninsured than states that spend far less:
...New York has made private health insurance too expensive for many people by imposing a long list of mandates. For a policy not purchased through an employer, most individual New Yorkers have to pay about $500 a month, and most families about $1,400. That's about twice the national average.Three mandates are largely responsible. Two -- "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" -- are closely linked.
Guaranteed issue hits those who are buying insurance on their own. It requires insurers to sell a policy to anyone who can pay for it, regardless of health status. It sounds fair, but drives up premiums for the healthy and induces them to drop out of the insurance pool. It also encourages people to wait until they are sick before they buy insurance. After all, if you can't be turned down, why pay in when you are healthy?
Community rating requires insurers to charge the same premium to anyone in a given plan, regardless of age, gender or health. This forces the healthy to subsidize the unhealthy, also driving up the cost of insurance.
Every state mandates that insurers cover basic care. But a third New York mandate goes well beyond the basics and requires insurers to cover 52 types of services, ranging from chiropractic to fertility treatment to mental-health services. This adds about 12% to the cost of insurance in the state.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer is promoting further health-care idiocy -- extending Medicaid benefits to children in families earning up to 400% of the poverty level (about $80,000/yr. for a family of four in New York) -- many of whom already have private insurance:
If this leads parents to drop their kids from their insurance and enroll them for government benefits, Mr. Spitzer will have succeeded at expanding the Medicaid rolls while doing little to solve the uninsured problem.
Bragdon has a better idea -- reinvigorating the private, direct-pay insurance market while providing for the hard-to-insure:
Thirty-three states have created a new "risk pool" for high-cost patients without jeopardizing access to private insurance for everyone. This pool, which is often subsidized by a tiny surcharge on other policies, allows insurance companies to charge rates that more closely track the actual cost of providing health care to individuals. If New York had a similar risk pool, those in fair health could buy unsubsidized private coverage at competitive rates.The evidence suggests, moreover, that almost everybody could buy private insurance if carriers were allowed to tailor plans to meet consumers' needs.
Consider WellPoint's "Tonik Health Plans," which are cheaper because they are tailored to the needs of the consumer. In Connecticut they allow people between the ages of 19 and 34 to buy insurance at a cost of $105 to $203 a month, depending on age, gender and plan selected. About 78% of those who buy Tonik plans were previously uninsured.
...So-called temporary plans also help people find health-insurance coverage. In Washington, D.C., a 40-year-old person can buy a six-month health-insurance policy with a $500 deductible for just $119 a month. But in New York (and four other states) temporary plans aren't permitted.
If Mr. Spitzer freed the private health-insurance market and backed regulations that promote competition, affordable private health insurance would be available to nearly everyone. Precious taxpayer dollars could then be directed to the truly indigent and uninsured.
Here's TONIK for Californians, from an insurance website:
You're between nineteen and twenty-nine years old, so you've pretty much got everything you'll ever need . . . you're young, you're as healthy and in shape and travel as much and are as physically active as you're ever going to be. But unfortunately, life was designed to be pretty freaking unpredictable. It could only take one slip surfing, one fall snowboarding or one spill off a bike to set you up to discover that from time to time the financial pains resulting from coping with an unexpected injury can easily outweigh any physical distress. If and when you find yourself laid out by the grass, the snow, the waves, the roadway or something as unforeseeable as a burst appendix, you are definitely going to wish you had the assistance that only reliable health care coverage has to give.Well, Blue Cross of California is now offering a trio of straight-up, practical and reasonably priced health care plans specifically designed to cover A to Z's just like yours. They're collectively known as TONIK, and if you happen to be between 19 to 29 years of age, plan rates can clock in as low as sixty to eighty dollars per month, depending on which of the three TONIK's best describe your lifestyle and overall health insurance requirements as well as where in CA you live, your age and your general medical history. Rates are subject to change, but TONIK can help protect your way of life from just about any mishap...
...TONIK: How the Plans Breakdown:
The Thrill Seeker - waives the overall plan deductible for participant members first four doctor's office visits per year - features a $20 per office visit Co-Payment, a $64 average monthly premium and a $5,000 annual deductible schedule.
The Part Time Daredevil - waives the plan's overall deductible for member's first four general practitioner visits per year - features a $30 per office visit Co-Payment amount, an on average $73 monthly premium and a $3,000 annual deductible.
The Calculated Risk Taker - Offers its participant members basically unlimited physicians office visits each year, features a $40 Co-Payment amount, an on average monthly premium of $80 and a $1,500 annual deductible
What's wrong with Hillarycare is what's wrong with all health care fix ideas. They are all based on propping up a health care system that is broken & unaffordable for gov, bus & individual alike. The system switched to managing health issues a couple of decades ago & stopped looking for cures. If you can afford it you can manage HIV and live your full life span. The focus on managing a health issue leads to very profitable drugs. It is not profitable to cure a disease. Imaging a Manhattan Project to cure HIV!
William at January 6, 2008 7:20 AM
This has to be part of the reason Mrs. Clinton won't allow unscripted questions at her appearances. It reminds me of the PJ O'Rourke comment, roughly "If you cringe at the cost of health care today, wait 'til you see what it costs when it's 'free'."
But none of this addresses a more fundamental question: why should routine medical care employ thousands of office workers at insurance companies? Stossel & Co. have aired shows about clinics operating without insurance involvement at all, and they're doing fine, with elective procedures, an actual pricing schedule, referrals for second opinions, etc.
Radwaste at January 6, 2008 7:43 AM
Oh, wait - the original draft of the National Health Care plan proposed by Mrs. Clinton actually included prison terms for people and doctors who deviated from the Plan, including treatment options and doctor selection. That's the way to keep the number of people in the Plan locked into it, so enough "contributors" are always available to spread the costs. That's what we all want, right?
Radwaste at January 6, 2008 7:49 AM
Too slow Amy... I went ahead & imagined it without you. Here's the cure:
The following link shows footage of a bridge crossing the Tacoma Narrows that was destroyed when the wind matched the natural frequency of the structure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxTZ446tbzE
HIV as well as any other virus can be destroyed by resonance after finding its natural frequency.
Example: Let's say the natural frequency of HIV is .0000000000000005673nm. All of the other things in a bod will have their own frequency which is different from HIV. So, I would then bathe an AIDS patient with the frequency & all of the HIV structures would be destroyed in the same manner as the bridge in the video. The blood stream would then wash the waste out just as is gets all of that alcohol out of your system. This is a cure for all viral & bacterial disease but it also creates alot of unemployment. Finally, a cure for the common cold!
The next time you have a sore throat Amy, just take a cotton swab of you mouth, put it under the microscope hit it with a frequency emitter that slowly changes frequ's.
.000001, .000002, .000003, etc until the bacterium breaks apart. You use a camera with a timer & automate the scanner so you can go surfing while your computers look for your cure.
If I end up floating in the Tallahassee River please know that I did not jump off of the Tallahassee Bridge like Billy Joe McCallister. The list of suspects would start with pharmaceutical company executives ;-)
William at January 6, 2008 7:52 AM
Sorry, folks - the double post above appeared when I refreshed an error page with about 30 lines of Linux error messages. Please hate me for something else.
Radwaste at January 6, 2008 7:55 AM
William - nm is a unit of wavelength, not frequency. And the "frequency emitter" is unspecified, in literally hundreds of ways dealing with its composition, conversion factors, etc. And the principle ignores the susceptibility of other molecules to the same energy transfer, as parts of, not just whole, structures can be and are broken down by all sorts of energy transfer. The claim that "all other things in a bod have their own..." is unfortunately false; HIV is built from the same materials as most of the rest of your body: atoms, combined with the "weak nuclear force" into molecules.
By definition, the process you name uses ionizing radiation, a term of specific definition in the nuclear industry. In short, it's not magic, it has been thought of, and the energy deposition requirement is fatal to the subject. After all, HIV hides within cells; break it up, it's still poisonous to the cell.
It's a nice "seed" for another urban legend, though.
Radwaste at January 6, 2008 8:19 AM
Obviously, we would need to know the frequency, wavelength, the duration, etc. A viral cell wall is thinner than the walls of cells that make up our body. There are a number of other differences as well. The goal is to break the viral cell wall but stop short of rupturing a human cell wall. The bottom line is that a virus has a very specific natural frequency that does not match anything else in any organism. This method is being pursued indirectly in a number of independent projects. See the following:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4236607.html?page=10
One large Manhattan Project to cure HIV/AIDS would be a better expenditure of money by our gov. If successful health care would become less expensive because we focus on cures.
First project to cure all viral/ bacterial infections. Save up for another project to grow a human heart from a stem cell. Or go broke trying to manage health problems.
William at January 6, 2008 9:01 AM
William -
All possible propagation vectors for HIV are known. If people would contain their behaviors and stop spreading HIV, then when the present population of those infected die, the disease is no longer a threat.
People are, however, entirely too selfish to do that.
brian at January 6, 2008 9:08 AM
HIV has already been cured. Not releasing the cure is wrong. Your comment starts with a logical fallacy (Fallacy of Allness - The assumption that one knows everything there is to know about a subject)
William at January 6, 2008 10:10 AM
William - you are not worth talking to. You are clearly insane. Please have yourself committed to a mental health facility.
brian at January 6, 2008 10:11 AM
FYI, on the Scientology entry, William says David Miscavige should be president of the USA.
William, go back to drinking your Kool-Aid!
Amy Alkon at January 6, 2008 10:20 AM
The problem with healthcare in the US is that an anesthesiologist makes more money than the president. Paul Harvey once said, "How can a man who makes five dollars an hour buy a car built by a man who makes twenty five dollars an hour?" The medical industry has a vice grip on our collective nuts. The medical billing industry is a monster in itself. As insurance companies get more and more powerful, they get closer to the point where they can charge as much as they want and pay out as little as they can get away with. That doesn't bode well for the customer, especially when someone makes is mandatory to have it. The best way to lower insurance costs is to get into a group rate, which has been why most people used to get it through their job. The company could negotiate a better rate and had the health of their employees as a concern so they had reason to keep emplyees healthy as cheap as possible. When you buy health insurance individually, you don't have that power.
There has been a concentrated effort of companies to rid themselves of paying for healthcare and shift the burden to the government, even the very large rich ones. When the move from private to federal healthcare is complete, I don't think we're going to like what we're left with.
I give Starbucks credit for providing healthcare for their people but I don't think it will last. When the recession kicks into high gear, which it will, people are going to drop that 150 dollar a month coffee habit like a hot rock. I don't care for it anyway, it's too bitter.
Bikerken at January 6, 2008 10:37 AM
That is good advice Amy, but do you really prefer Hillbilly or Huckleberry Hound to David Miscavige?
William at January 6, 2008 10:39 AM
I prefer any of the yahoos running to a guy parting fools and their money in the name of religion. The question is, why don't you? And why are you a Scientologist (which is the likely reason you're recommending this guy)? You really believe the story about all the powdered aliens? Are you stupid or did they squeeze your sex secrets out of you and are you just unable to leave?
Amy Alkon at January 6, 2008 10:59 AM
No one who believes in Armageddon should ever have their finger on the button.
Bikerken at January 6, 2008 12:34 PM
Two weeks ago my boy brought home a virus from school. My wife got it, then I got it. All 3 of us had to go see the doctor ($170.00 a pop, mostly billed to insurance) and $59.00 each (after insurance co-payment)for a Z-Pac antibiotic treatment. We all knew we would get a Z-Pac, because that is what the doctor always gives us. (Total time seeing the doctor- maybe 15 minutes for all 3 of us.)
So roughly $800.00 total to me and Blue Cross.
It's bullshit.
eric at January 6, 2008 1:50 PM
Eric -
Especially since antibiotics are completely useless against viruses.
The proper thing for you to do was not go to the doctor at all.
Thanks for costing the rest of Blue Cross' customers $800.
brian at January 6, 2008 1:54 PM
Fine Brian. We had a bacterial infection in our sinuses and lungs. The Z-Pacs worked. My point was simply that the costs are out of line with the rest of society, and though we can afford it, there are many who can not afford health care, even with insurance. And also that you are a flatuous dick.
eric at January 6, 2008 2:39 PM
The same thing happens to me every spring, Eric. Despite handwashing, flu shots and other sensible precautions, I always get something--strep, tonsillitis, influenza, bronchitis. Both my doctor and I know all she's going to do is spend less than ten minutes with me, give me a prescription for Zithromax, and I'll be fine within a week or so, but even with insurance I'm still out $100.
And I think you meant fatuous, but flatulent works just as well.
Rebecca at January 6, 2008 3:34 PM
Flatuous = windy. Someone who is a blowhard, talks just to hear himself.
eric at January 6, 2008 4:45 PM
Then those who are mad should note, again, that clinics exist which do not use insurance at all, and who have reasonable price schedules. So you are calling BS on the existing system - but use it? Are you doing anything but complain? If so, I hope that you're lobbying for a local "cash" clinic. If not, then there is more than one poster merely venting, even as the initial presentation of a bacterial infection was not mentioned.
Radwaste at January 6, 2008 5:27 PM
I go to the cheapest private clinic in town, Radwaste. They accept cash, they accept patients without insurance, they have payment schedules for lower-income folks. Even with all that, basic health care can get expensive.
Eric: see what happens when I try to be a smartypants?
Rebecca at January 6, 2008 5:42 PM
Eric - You should learn to bitch more precisely. If you say that your child brought home a "virus", and then talk about $800 worth of appointments and antibiotics, I'm gonna call you a schmuck.
If you had said "infection" or "bacterial infection" I wouldn't have even bothered putting finger to keyboard.
However for you, I have a special finger on the keyboard.
brian at January 6, 2008 6:22 PM
You guys are snappier with one another than the Repubs up in NH on Saturday night!!
Gretchen at January 7, 2008 5:51 AM
A lot of these plans sound like what many states do with their auto insurance. There's an assigned-risk pool that provides some minimum coverage to drivers with poor driving records, and it's covered by some amount of surcharge on every policy. Everyone else is free to shop for the deal that suits them best. And auto insurance is a pretty competitive field these days. It's not perfect, but it works very well compared to the health insurance situation.
Cousin Dave at January 7, 2008 7:11 AM
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