I’m going to do a left equivalent of a RWCJ* thing here, and link to another left wing blog and repeat what was said over there in hopes that others will do the same, in time producing a cacophony of voices each saying the same thing, thereby lending authority and importance to the insignificant.
But I came upon a sentence in a post about health care at Left in the West, and thought that it did so well what I do so poorly – saying a lot while saying a little.
Missoula doctor Tom Roberts: “Our profit-based system is fundamentally at odds with our valued-based system.”
*Right Wing Circle Jerk
Piece of Mindful 
What Dr. Roberts statement means to me, is regaurdless of your ability to pay, we will do everything in our power to treat your ailments or injuries.
Unfortunately, those pay challenged include illegals, prisioners wanting sex changes and liver transplants, drug addicts and alcoholics who refuse rehabilation, dead beat able body dads who don’t contribute impoversing spouses and their children.
But what Dr. Roberts can’t possibly infer is that quality health care can exist without profit. The system now charges the payers extra to cover the non payers, like the ones I mentioned above.
Sure, you can throw out the mega funded health ins cos which we both hate in unison. But to say a governmental substitution replacing insurance would a a “skimless” alternative is lunacy. The word “skimless”, root word being skim, can also be used for “profit”. When oil companies and Walmart skims its an evil transaction, when the government does it in the most inefficent manner, its a wonderful thing.
I’m sure skimming ability of being a doctor made no difference to a young Tom Roberts as he looked through college handbooks, or the extra “blood money” he makes now goes to the local free clinic.
Whatever Dr. Roberts does to relieve guilt, I hope is more that a few sentences written to some obscure blog.
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first a=be
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Anecdotals aside, you don’t make a strong case for for-profit medicine, as you ignore the one thing that it is centered around – private profit. You say it is to provide for illegals and do sex changes for prisoners. You’re wrong – it’s for profit. That’s why private insurance companies have 15-40% overhead – they want profit. And if there is anything that cuts into private profit, it is insuring sick people and paying claims. So private insurers do everything they can to avoid paying claims and insuring sick people.
Every other industrialized country has this figured out – they eliminate the extremes of private profit, take care of everybody, do it for far less money, and almost everyone is happier. That it works so well must drive you crazy – it reduces you to wild anecdotes.
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So I guess the response “take care of everybody, less money, and everone is happier”, is not anecdotal?
Seems to me, a driven straight A student when given the choice of being a Doctor, having his salary capped or dictated, would rather go into chemical enginering, geo-physics, than become a civil servant.
I hate insurance cos and the money they make so I shopped around (thank you internet) found the best deal (15% profit maybe) and bought. Same with stocks, I’m a happy trader with CS, 5 bucks a trade. Would I have the same option with Govt. Health Care, no. Do I have the same option with SS, no, and because of it, it returns 2%. Hillary knew that in order to have an all controlling health care system, she had to eliminate the most dangerous option available, choice. Fortunetaly for me I’ll be able to fly off to international waters to the hospital ship to get my hip replacement, you on the other hand, will be limping around for years.
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You simply don’t understand health care very well. The reason why the private sector solution doesn’t work is adverse selection – healthy people choose to avoid insurance leaving sick people to foot the bill. Since insurers don’t want to insure sick people, they refuse them coverage, meaning they end up in emergency rooms or on Medicare, Medicaid, SChip, and other government programs. In other words, insurers dump sick people on government, and carve out profitable ones for themselves. It’s what the guy said – Our profit-based system is fundamentally at odds with our valued-based system. Hence the thread.
Now, again, it is working fine in other countries – doctors are not underpaid, aren’t fleeing to work here, have time to do what they like to do, which is medicine, and avoid what they don’t like to do – red tape. Our system here is heavily bureaucratic, in case you didn’t notice. Not so with government-run systems.
Anyway, I wouldn’t want a doctor who was only in it for the money. We could be, should be training many more of them than we are, as the Cubans do, but the AMA won’t permit it, as it drives prices down.
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I knew in the dark crevices of my mind that health care was indeed a forgotten cause. But last night after watching the returns the good people of PA confirmed my belief. The exit polls asked leaving what was the most important issue, only 14% responded with health care. But the amazing factor is that PA has the secound oldest population in the states. If 14% of old farts don’t want it, what does that say about states with average age populations?
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Health care is a concern if you don’t have coverage, so 14% would be about right. Old people don’t worry about it, as they have an excellent government program in place called Medicare.
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Mark, 14% of registered Dems that actually voted, (or gave a Schumer). Translation, less than 10%, if that.
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I’m not following you. You’d be surprised at how little attention I pay to why people vote the way they do. I assume it’s the concern of the moment, right now, gas prices. And you look at how unpopular Bush/Cheney is, and then see how well McCain is doing in the polls, and you try to make sense of it.
Health care is a concern on many people’s minds, especially those who don’t have it, don’t have enough, and who are sick. That you can look at one little number and draw an opposite conclusion amuses me.
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