64% Want Guaranteed Healthcare
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in News
But more importantly, “Eighty-four percent of Americans favor expanding government programs in order to give health insurance to all uninsured children.” More on the political ramifications of that soon.
First we have this from CBS:
Health care promises to be a crucial issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. In a CBS News poll conducted last month, health care tied with jobs and the economy as the second-most important issue facing the country, following the war in Iraq. It was even more important to Democratic primary voters, ranking ahead of the economy and jobs.In the new poll, the public gives the Democrats a big edge over the Republicans on handling health care issues. Asked which party they believe will best improve the health care system, 62 percent said the Democrats, while just 19 percent said the Republicans.
If we really want universal health care I say we start with the kids, then fold in the elderly and then try and see if we can make it work for everybody else. Essentially, create a tiered approach that phases segments in slowly over a period of a decade or so.
However, what’s apparent from this poll is insuring kids is a big political winner for both sides in 2008. And if a guy like Giuliani or Romney could get out in front of this issue and say, “Let’s insure the kids, because it’s the most morally and fiscally responsible thing to do right now,” they can make the Dems look as if they’re trying to give away the farm with a larger program. Romney has already done something similar in Massachusetts, so he has credibility on the issue.
I also think they’ll have an especially good case for just going with the kids after reading the latest report from U.S. Comptroller General David Walker:
“The prescription drug bill is probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,” says Walker, “because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”He argues that the federal government would need to have $8 trillion today, invested at treasury rates, to cover the gap between what the program is expected to take in and what it is expected to cost in the next 75 years â€â€? and that is in addition to more than $20 trillion that will be needed to pay for other parts of Medicare.
“The most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.” If that isn’t an indictment of Bush’s giveaway to the drug companies, I don’t know what is. And whoever the Republican nominee is going to be, they’ll have to refocus the debate with new ideas that make fiscal sense.
Only insuring kids is one way to do that, but will the spend-thirft shadow of W loom too large for Republican candidates to even bring up the subject?
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March 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Big problem with universal healthcare:
It separates the demand from the costs of delivering the service. If the service is deemed free, there’s inherent overuse.
It’s like pricing Porsches for $10 — everyone will want to get one, and thus will become scarce.
And then that will lead to healthcare rationing, because the bills for the government will be too high.
This is a good idea?
By the way, since all levels of government are inherently incompetent, why do people think that government takeover of markets think it’s a good thing? All you need to do is come by San Francisco where I live and see how great everything is when government tries to do too much. It’ll take a while, even in this small city, because the buses suck. Don’t forget to bring shoes you can throw away, because the streets are filthy and nasty, and come with lots of change because you’ll be hit up a bunch by the homeless.
Gee what a great idea. I wish some people would just take some basic economics courses.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
My bother lives in England and was recently state-side and we discussed the English healthcare program. Not a big fan. Say you need an MRI, sign up and be prepared to wait 6 months to a year. That is the real-life application of what you speak SaneInSF. There will be those that discredit what you say as a bunch of economic nonsence, but you are absolutely correct — Logic and Intelligence often don’t have much to do with politically popularly ideas.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
It doesn’t have to. Leaving issues of morality aside, lack of universal healthcare is clearly a case of being penny wise and pound foolish. Consider the case of that kid that died of a dental infection that travelled to his brain. He didn’t get an $80 tooth extraction because his mom had no insurance and no money. He wound up hospitalized for two weeks, his brain operated on twice, died anyway and the bill will come to as much as $250,000–that’s $250,000 the hospital will be passing on to the rest of us one way or another. I’d rather have paid for the $80, and I’m sure that most people who give any thought to the issue would agree.
March 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Yeah, that’s what I think too rachel. Ultimately it’s going to cost us more in the long run. Not only in the apparent costs, but the hidden costs like increased crime. When you’re poor, you self medicate instead of going to the doctor, and the cycle is vicious and leads to crime. If more people had access to health care, they could get the help they need and actually be more likely to lift themselves up financially.
In essence, if we ever want an ownership society, universal healthcare is a key component. And I reject that our system MUST be like Britain’s or Canada’s, etc. Even Dems have proposed mandatory health care that’s mixed with tax cuts. Hardly a socialist system. We need to try something, so let’s work toward solutions instead of pointing elsewhere and talking horror stories.
And ultimately, what’s more horrific? Somebody waiting a few months for an MRI or somebody dying because they never had access to the MRI in the first place? If we’re going to compare, then let’s really compare. But you and I both know that our government would never let the healthcare system get to the point where people who could afford care would be waiting that long. It’s as if we’re saying, “Well, if these poor people can suddenly afford health care, there will be fewer resources for the people who can afford it now.” So is this truly a matter of pure economic theory then? And isn’t it morally reprehensible to be condemning people to a life of ill health because of economic theory?
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I don’t mean to be harsh, but everyone always trots out these anecdotal stories when we start discussing universal healthcare. I can tell a good story too.
Give me some hard numbers here please. Is this a huge problem or are these rare cases? I don’t know — and I bet you don’t know either.
And by the way, bringing in morality is a slippery slope. Who determines what’s moral and what’s not? To a large part of the population before the Civil War, slavery was morally just to a large part of the population.
Sorry — I don’t want my government making moral judgements for me. And you probably don’t want that either.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
“It’s like pricing Porsches for $10 â€â€? everyone will want to get one, and thus will become scarce.”
That analogy is so misguided I can’t even begin to respond. Comparing a necessity like healthcare to a luxury like a Porsche?
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I don’t mind the comparison in theory, but it’s exactly these kinds of comparisons (goods to human lives) that keep us from getting program that would prevent people from dying every year due to lack of health care.
Sane, I understand your point, but you’re operating under what ifs. And while you fear that the government will be making healthcare decisions for you, you don’t know. What we DO know is that people are dying or getting into such bad healthcare debt as to never be able to get out from under it. That’s the reality, regardless of your suspected future loss of freedom. I’m sorry, but I can’t respect that argument.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Believe it or not dj, healthcare is a consumed good — just like luxury vehicles. Whether or not you decide to attach any sort of moral weight to it is a personal decision. A service is a service is a good. They all have a utility, price and a cost.
Justin, you may not like my argument, but there’s evidence everyday in all of our lives that show how government mismanages for what it is responsible. FEMA did a great job on Louisiana and Mississippi. It took over 15 years to decide what to do with the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.
Want other examples?
How about this — all those advocates who want government run universal healthcare, please live in Canada or the UK for a while and report back. Let us know how great it is. Then maybe I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I’m going to go back and think about my sister’s mother-in-law who couldn’t get the preventive care she supposedly would get under universal healthcare and consequently died from undetected cancer.
In Canada.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Justin, sometimes I just want to hug you like a misguided little brother. The Market, not the Government, would never “let” the healthcare system get to the point where people who could afford care would be waiting that long. However, that is a big “maybe”, depending on how intrusive the Government was into the Market. Whether you like it our not SaneInSF is 100% correct: A PRICE CEILING LEADS TO SHORTAGE. It is a basic economic fact. It is confirmed in the experience of every country that mandates universal healthcare.
Now, lets talk about “realism” Justin. A child dies of a tooth infection which goes to his brain. This is horrible. Who is responsible? Obviously the evil American system of healthcare, right. Except his mother could have taken him to an emergency room or any one of a billion non-for-profit public health clinics. But by all means, lets lay the responsiblity at the door step of the free market. Mom and Pops get a pass on ensuring their children receive care. I’m not saying there aren’t horrible situations out there, but from a utilitarian position of serving the greatest good to the greatest number of people — absolutely without a doubt, our system works 10X better than the Europeans, a bloated federal system of universal healthcare that doesn’t work.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:47 am
I’d vote for universal healthcare, where universal coverage will ultimately lead, if I knew that movie stars, billionaires and government officials where going to be getting the exact coverage I get, wait in the same offices and wait (months and years) for the same procedures. They won’t even send their kids to public school, do you think they will send themselves into a public healthcare system cue? Hardly. The so-called disparity between the haves and have-nots will actually begin to exist.
One 24 year-old I was recently talking to lamented his lack of health insurance. He had cable and NetFlix, combined cost of these two necessities greater than a basic health insurance plan. In Los Angeles! He said, “really?”