Why national health care is not the answer for America

[Mormon Red Death]

Here are my reasons why NHI (National Health Insurance) is not something Americans want

1. Its immoral.-

Would the government ever decide how much one can charge in any other business? What if the government decided the computer industry was essential to the rights of Americans and forced apple and microsoft to sell their products at the price the government demanded. Obviously people would never go for that but with Healthcare you have doctors and hospitals that would be forced by law to have prices what the government decided.

2. Its would perpetuate the inefficiencies that are already evident in the half government half market model we have today (Health care in america is not a free market its the most regulated industry in the USA) -

For example, Downtown detroit has been shrinking for years and the hospitals down there want to shift some of their business to the growing suburbs. To do this one must fill out a huge licensure process with the state that will take years to make the move (Certificate of Need). Can you imagine if a bank was in downtown detroit and did an analysis that they could get better customers in the suburbs but the state of michigan forced them to stay downtown because they thought the need was better down there?

3. Inefficiencies compounded cont -

Health care would become a game of favors and a "who has the best lobbyist"
not who is the most efficient and best run. This is good if you are John Haddow but terrible for everyone else You already see evidences of this . In detroit the Henry Ford Health system (HFHS) wanted to open a hospital and move beds to a rich suburb. so did St. Johns (SJHS) and so did the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). HFHS had the best lobbiest (must have been haddow)and was permitted to open up a 300 bed hospital right only 5 miles from Beaumont hospital which is a 1000 bed hospital (1000 bed hospitals are the biggest kind like the university systems). Beaumont then wanted to move some of its beds to another growing area but was denied (as was DMC) due to it not receiving authority from the state.

4. Rationing health care -
too blue can spin it all he wants but Canada rations health care. The government decides when it is appropriate for you to have surgery. What this does is cause a nice black market. People who can afford surgery but are on a list will just go to somewhere that will take their money. Poor people will be worse off. India right now has an emerging market of medical tourism. People from Europe go there for surgery because they are US trained doctors working in lavious suites. I know it was worth 4 million a year for windsor Canada patients to come over and self pay for surgeries at the hospital I used to work at. I can only imagine the windfall buffalo hospitals get from toronto.

5. Moral Hazard -

this is an insurance concept that if you have insurance you will use it. for example, everyone will go to the doctor for every little ailment. you think getting into the doctor is hard now... just wait

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

Here are my reasons why NHI (National Health Insurance) is not something Americans want

1. Its immoral.-

Would the government ever decide how much one can charge in any other business? What if the government decided the computer industry was essential to the rights of Americans and forced apple and microsoft to sell their products at the price the government demanded. Obviously people would never go for that but with Healthcare you have doctors and hospitals that would be forced by law to have prices what the government decided.

2. Its would perpetuate the inefficiencies that are already evident in the half government half market model we have today (Health care in america is not a free market its the most regulated industry in the USA) -

For example, Downtown detroit has been shrinking for years and the hospitals down there want to shift some of their business to the growing suburbs. To do this one must fill out a huge licensure process with the state that will take years to make the move (Certificate of Need). Can you imagine if a bank was in downtown detroit and did an analysis that they could get better customers in the suburbs but the state of michigan forced them to stay downtown because they thought the need was better down there?

3. Inefficiencies compounded cont -

Health care would become a game of favors and a "who has the best lobbyist"
not who is the most efficient and best run. This is good if you are John Haddow but terrible for everyone else You already see evidences of this . In detroit the Henry Ford Health system (HFHS) wanted to open a hospital and move beds to a rich suburb. so did St. Johns (SJHS) and so did the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). HFHS had the best lobbiest (must have been haddow)and was permitted to open up a 300 bed hospital right only 5 miles from Beaumont hospital which is a 1000 bed hospital (1000 bed hospitals are the biggest kind like the university systems). Beaumont then wanted to move some of its beds to another growing area but was denied (as was DMC) due to it not receiving authority from the state.

4. Rationing health care -
too blue can spin it all he wants but Canada rations health care. The government decides when it is appropriate for you to have surgery. What this does is cause a nice black market. People who can afford surgery but are on a list will just go to somewhere that will take their money. Poor people will be worse off. India right now has an emerging market of medical tourism. People from Europe go there for surgery because they are US trained doctors working in lavious suites. I know it was worth 4 million a year for windsor Canada patients to come over and self pay for surgeries at the hospital I used to work at. I can only imagine the windfall buffalo hospitals get from toronto.

5. Moral Hazard -

this is an insurance concept that if you have insurance you will use it. for example, everyone will go to the doctor for every little ailment. you think getting into the doctor is hard now... just wait

Immoral? LOL ..... I'm going to laugh for weeks about that one ... lol! Comparing health care to a commodity such as computers and software lol!

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by tooblue

Immoral? LOL ..... I'm going to laugh for weeks about that one ... lol! Comparing health care to a commodity such as computers and software lol!

I find it immoral for the government to decide how much I may charge at my own business... maybe the canadian government can decide how much you should charge for consulting work

[Mormon Red Death]

btw here is a definition of Immoral from dictionary.com

im·mor·al /ɪˈmɔrəl, ɪˈmɒr-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-mawr-uhl, i-mor-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

btw here is a definition of Immoral from dictionary.com

im·mor·al /??m?r?l, ??m?r-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-mawr-uhl, i-mor-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. violating moral principles; not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics.

Mike, the Hippocratic oath be dammed, I’m jacking up the price on PsychMike version 2.0 due out this Spring!

Social ethics being key here!

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by tooblue

Mike, the Hippocratic oath be dammed, I’m jacking up the price on PsychMike version 2.0 due out this Spring!

Social ethics being key here!

Hey Mike... Wouldn't you be happy to start your own practice only to have the government decide how much you can charge? hey there is nothing about that... that is just a sacrifice you should be willing to make..

[non sequitur]

Originally Posted by Mormon Red Death

I find it immoral for the government to decide how much I may charge at my own business... maybe the canadian government can decide how much you should charge for consulting work

Where do you come down on price gouging? If I own a store and my town gets hit by a hurricane, what right does the government have to tell me that I can't sell toilet paper for $10 a roll and water for $20 a bottle? If I own an oil company, why does the government have the right to tell me I can't get together with the owners of all the other oil companies and agree that everyone should sell gas for $10 a gallon? Is the government acting immorally in those cases?

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

Where do you come down on price gouging? If I own a store and my town gets hit by a hurricane, what right does the government have to tell me that I can't sell rolls of toilet paper for $10 a piece and bottles of water for $20? If I own an oil company, why does the government have the right to tell me I can't get together with the owners of all the other oil companies and agree that everyone should sell gas for $10 a gallon? Is the government acting immorally in those cases?

I have your response tomorrow ... the wife and kid want to go to dinner..

[MikeWaters]

Becoming a doctor is hardly just two years of extra school.

It's basically a minimum of seven, and can go up easily past 12.

All for bright people that have friends who are making 6 figure incomes many years before they are making anything.

Now one legit issue is whether we should be importing so many doctors (from India, etc.).

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by non sequitur

Where do you come down on price gouging? If I own a store and my town gets hit by a hurricane, what right does the government have to tell me that I can't sell toilet paper for $10 a roll and water for $20 a bottle? If I own an oil company, why does the government have the right to tell me I can't get together with the owners of all the other oil companies and agree that everyone should sell gas for $10 a gallon? Is the government acting immorally in those cases?

My rule of thumb is that anytime the government gets involved things gets worse....

If a store chooses to raise their price due to catastrophe that is their choice. However, after a crisis would you ever go to a place that did that raised their prices like that?

In michigan after 9-11 the governor gave a whole bunch of speeches about how she was going to get all the price gougers.... Not one of them were tried (apparently its pretty hard to prove .

There was a gas station by my inlaws house that raised their gas prices to $10 a gallon. A couple weeks after 9-11 there were people protesting outside the gas station. That place soon went out of business.

I say let the market decide...


As for the oil companies getting together ... well wouldn't that just mean that the car companies would come up with more electric cars or steam cars or whatever... people would take more public transportation

I guess I could go on and on but I am going to bed...