Barack Obama

[The Conquistador]

Originally Posted by randolph

Until we get profit obsessed companies out of the health care system we will have nothing but endless escalation of health care costs.

The "Costs" of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high" — either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.


There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor's office and more in taxes — or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.


Costs are not reduced simply because you don't pay them. It would undoubtedly be cheaper for me to do without the medications that keep me alive and more vigorous in my old age than people of a similar age were in generations past.


Letting old people die would undoubtedly be cheaper than keeping them alive — but that does not mean that the costs have gone down. It just means that we refuse to pay the costs. Instead, we pay the consequences. There is no free lunch.


Providing free lunches to people who go to hospital emergency rooms is one of the reasons for the current high costs of medical care for others. Politicians mandating what insurance companies must cover is another free lunch that leads to higher premiums for medical insurance — and fewer people who can afford it.


Despite all the demonizing of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies or doctors for what they charge, the fundamental costs of goods and services are the costs of producing them.


If highly paid chief executives of insurance companies or pharmaceutical companies agreed to work free of charge, it would make very little difference in the cost of insurance or medications. If doctors' incomes were cut in half, that would not lower the cost of producing doctors through years of expensive training in medical schools and hospitals, nor the overhead costs of running doctors' offices.


What it would do is reduce the number of very able people who are willing to take on the high costs of a medical education when the return on that investment is greatly reduced and the aggravations of dealing with government bureaucrats are added to the burdens of the work.


Britain has had a government-run medical system for more than half a century and it has to import doctors, including some from Third World countries where the medical training may not be the best. In short, reducing doctors' income is not reducing the cost of medical care, it is refusing to pay those costs. Like other ways of refusing to pay costs, it has consequences.


Any one of us can reduce medical costs by refusing to pay them. In our own lives, we recognize the consequences. But when someone with a gift for rhetoric tells us that the government can reduce the costs without consequences, we are ready to believe in such political miracles.


There are some ways in which the real costs of medical care can be reduced but the people who are leading the charge for a government takeover of medical care are not the least bit interested in actually reducing those costs, as distinguished from shifting the costs around or just refusing to pay them.


The high costs of "defensive medicine" — expensive tests, medications and procedures required to protect doctors and hospitals from ruinous lawsuits, rather than to help the patients — could be reduced by not letting lawyers get away with filing frivolous lawsuits.


If a court of law determines that the claims made in such lawsuits are bogus, then those who filed those claims could be forced to reimburse those who have been sued for all their expenses, including their attorneys' fees and the lost time of people who have other things to do. But politicians who get huge campaign contributions from lawyers are not about to pass laws to do this.


Why should they, when it is so much easier just to start a political stampede with fiery rhetoric and glittering promises?


http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell110309.php3







Mr. Polar Bear. I am not saying you are wrong or anything, but the majority of Canadians I've met seem to dislike the system you guys have. Same with the majority of British I've met likewise. However, I think that your opinion is insightful and helps give a balanced view to this debate.

[local]

Originally Posted by TheAngryPostman

The "Costs" of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell

Mr. Polar Bear. I am not saying you are wrong or anything, but the majority of Canadians I've met seem to dislike the system you guys have. Same with the majority of British I've met likewise. However, I think that your opinion is insightful and helps give a balanced view to this debate.

Uh, then I don't think you've met many Canadians in Canada. In the last year I was in Emergency twice in downtown Toronto. The first one I was in and out within 90 minutes (stitches on badly gashed hand) and the second time. The second time I was checked out for a very serious issue requiring an MRI and was out within 6 hours after seeing 1 doctor and 1 specialist. No hassle, no phone call to the bank to mortgage my home to pay the bill! Yes, there are issues, but we all have easy access to high quality health care.

The rabid hyperbole is VERY similar to the rants and threats of strikes by the doctors in Saskatchewan where this was first introduced in the 50s. NOw you would be hard pressed to find a doctor who would want to go back to what you have in the US. The only difference with what we have in Canada and what there is in the US is that the government here pays the bill, not the user. We still have the freedom to chose who treats us, where and how.

[randolph]

The "Costs" of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell

All of these arguments sound reasonable, but the truth of the matter is that good health care in many other countries is better, covers everybody and costs the government a lot.
There is a difference however, in most countries health care is not viewed as a profit making business. Look at the attitude of the bankers in this country in this country. They think its their right to make obscene incomes at our expense. The drug companies and the medical profession seem to have the same attitude.

[The Conquistador]

Originally Posted by randolph

They think its their right to make obscene incomes at our expense.

So success should be punished rather than rewarded? If you don't like Company A, go buy from Company B. Vote with your dollar.

[local]

Originally Posted by TheAngryPostman

So success should be punished rather than rewarded? If you don't like Company A, go buy from Company B. Vote with your dollar.

Hmmm. If memory is correct, it was the ineptitude of Wall street that was rewarded while John Q Public was left holding the bag.

Free markets and have their limits. Success is often masked as guys in suits robbing the public they claim to serve -- including HMOs!

[The Conquistador]

Originally Posted by local

Hmmm. If memory is correct, it was the ineptitude of Wall street that was rewarded while John Q Public was left holding the bag.

Free markets and have their limits. Success is often masked as guys in suits robbing the public they claim to serve -- including HMOs!

But that does not pale in comparison to our benevolent Lord Zero and the multi TRILLION dollar bill that we are now stuck with. It ain't too hard to figure out the lesser of the two evils in this case. Private sector>Government.