Re: Obama XVI: Muslin curtains in the White House!!!
The only thing I heard they liked all weekend when this was discussed was the part about not being dropped, and not being denied for preexisting conditions.
I can see not being dropped... but not being denied? That one will always be fiscally infeasible without a high deductable or some other way that the person wanting the care pays through the nose.
Here's the thing... companies only exist if they make a profit or if the mechanism tolerates taking losses... but eventually it is still a company... either somebody has to push money into it or it goes bankrupt.
Equal and opposite, with the government, they could ensure all things, but if you want to get your medical condition paid for, good luck, you're running against the same tax payer who doesn't want to pay for it in their taxes. Further, the problem doesn't change, its always going to be finite resources. For that the government sets up mechanisms which dictate allowable care... for everybody. That to say, yes there will be some care they will not allow. The question will be "Can you operate outside of the system"... "if so what is the penalty"... those who advocate universal health care don't want people outside of the system because 1) it is about control, 2) deviations from the system creates uncontrollable events, 3) many of those who want universal health care see any outside mechanism which relates to profit is a default evil. In Britain, if you go outside their system you can never go back onto it... accept or else.
In the end, you're trading realities... medicine gets expensive because of bloat, profit taking, and the costs of operating and research (if profit does not exist then drugs do not exist, treatments do not exist, etc)... and there's only a finite mechanism for the betterment of man... your researcher isn't going to take $30K a year of the greater good... he/she is doing the greater good to get paid. The bottom line... the realities never go away because you've legally defined a more moral system.
The goal should be to find ways to make medicine more efficient. I think the gains by dismantling the private system will be meager... or else Dr. Berwick wouldn't be talking about the glories of not giving care to those in end-of-life cases... need to save money... and lets face it, they did implement that system without you noticing. The thing is, companies have no interest in efficiency or competition, it doesn't pay them... that's where the corruption originates... and in a lot of ways, that won't change by anything that's been proposed.
But back to the original point... "no pre-existing conditions" more or less means "no private health care" without some controls on that object... and that will mean the gov't will probably have to cushion some of the cost coverage. In a gov't set up, however, they will just deny the care outright... and maybe they'll let your doctor decide otherwise.
edit: the problem with health care is that we all want more and we don't want to pay for it... the great thing about government health care is we'll all want more and they'll tell us to stuff it... and there you go... prices level out. Don't expect business to be a charity.
