Comments Posted By PFarthing
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GOP UNVEILS HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN
Fairness? Not on either side from what I can tell. Mandating the purchase of insurance, like auto insurance, is bad. Only being able to choose from a bazar of bad policies is bad too.
The thing is, the markets aren't fair. Where does my premium money go anyway? It goes to pay for other peoples health care, duh? So, health care, and any insurance really, is socialistic by nature. I only get to choose what group I want to socialize with. I don't get why more people don't wake up to this.
If we were talking individuality here, like the GOP/Libritarians always go on about, I would only pay for myself. Then if I didn't get sick, I shouldn't have to pay anything. I should be refunded my premiums or have them roll over.
But when I do get sick, health care costs are outrageous. Same as when I get in an auto accident. Why? Because there are too many people between me and the person who I should be paying to do me a service and there is no transparancy of what part of my fees go to who. And almost no choice, the problem is systemic. So, we need to ditch the system completely.
If we accept that insurance, by its very nature, is a kind of socialism, then nobody should be put off by talking about socialized medicine. The only difference would be ...do we want small group socializm, where the groups compete for members? Or do we want large group socialism, where everyone is a member?
The conservatives don't like the "everyone" option because it gives them no choice and they believe, rightly so, that government will get fatter and everything will be less efficient. Like with the USPS, there will be no incentive to improve, no competition.
But with the small group socialism, unless there are a whole lot of groups competing and a lot of transparancy, there still will be little incentive to improve and compete (vis a vis car insurance, gas stations, grocery stores, etc.) Savings based on choice become marginal and the headache to make the right choice is agonizing. Also, small groups may not be able to cover all the members fairly considering that just a small portion of the group could bankrupt the insurer due to very high cost of actually paying for care.
So, what does one do? Well, if socialism is a problem, then we should stop thinking of how to tweak how insurance works and find another solution.
Consider the military. How do they make their money? From the tax payer. We pay, the do military stuff. Most folks don't have a problem with the military and don't consider it a socialist thing.
Couple that with the two real problem we are facing: higher insurance premiums and the uninsured. The problem is the same, no choice.
So, lets create a choice and fill the gap at the same time by creating a national health care branch of the military for the uninsured. An American Medical Corps.
I don't need insurance for the Army to fight for me. So, I don't need insurance for a Medical Corps to treat me.
This will allow all the folks that are happy with their insurance to keep it, it won't grow government (unless you consider the Army government, and I don't), and the people who pay for their own health care can feel good about getting perhaps some privileged treatment w/out health care itself being a privilege.
It's a win/win situation here. Will it cost? Sure. But we just take it out of the current military budget which is too high anyway and redirect/restrict a bit our "world policing" at the same time. That should make both liberals and conservative (real conservatives I mean) pretty happy as we won't have to spend any more than we already do, insurance companies can keep doing their thing, we can reduce our entanglement in foreign affairs, we can provide health care for everyone, we can create jobs (just enlist in the Medical Corps). Win/Win.
Comment Posted By PFarthing On 20.05.2009 @ 13:34
