Ugh, Part 2
So, it appears that the political Right is in a tizzy this morning about this Rasmussen poll. Apparently it shows that Americans overwhelmingly oppose Obamacare, and independents oppose it by a 3-1 margin. Or something. One problem*: whatever problems I may have with Obamacare (and I’ve made clear that I’ve got a lot), it is definitively not a single payer plan, which is not even remotely on the table at the moment.
Yeah, I know, slippery slopes and all of that – but this would just seem to be proof that the slope will not, in fact, slip. Which is pretty much exactly why I’m opposed to Obamacare – our existing system is bad enough as it is; that it doubles down on the combination that ensures our system represents the worst of socialism and capitalism with relatively few of the benefits of either is reason enough to oppose it without demagoging it as something that it is not. If there was a likelihood that the slope towards single-payer would, in fact, slip, I might even have a lot fewer problems with the legislation since at least then we would get some of the benefits of more socialized health care, which is more than I can say about the existing system. Of course, I’d vastly prefer something that removed existing market distortions, but I’m not so naive as to think that this is going to happen anytime soon.
*Another problem of course is that it’s Rasmussen, but that’s not going to make that much of a difference to the point.
Well put. Our dear leaders are about to put together the worst of all possibles. And the Loyal Opposition is fine with this because it is politically in their interest even though, if they found principle once again, they would realize that pushing for a better plan would be in the interest of the country.Report
I happily admit that there is a LOT I don’t understand about the healthcare proposals out there and as someone with great company-provided insurance I have been lazy in doing my homework. With that said, there are a couple factors I don’t understand:
When you take out those that are voluntarily uninsured and illegal aliens, account for S-Chip covering kids, are there really that many Americans left who don’t have health insurance? Is this really the huge problem it’s being made out to be?
The other thing that strikes me is that while the administration isn’t proposing a single-payer plan, how can private insurers possibly hope to compete with a government subsidized plan? Isn’t the end-goal going to be bankrupting these companies?
Waiting to be told how wrong I am,
MikeReport
Well industries already do compete in many areas with public options. Schools, college, hospitals, there are private insurance plans for old folk,etc
As i understand the current plan, everybody won’t be eligible. they are setting it up so if you have good insurance you won’t be able to get on the public plan.
Insurance companies will still want to make money so why would they dump customers, unless they try to dump people with health problems which they have already tried to do.
If the program works really poorly then congress can change it. If a plan is passed it is not a permanent fact that can never be changed. Opponents are throwing every single problem up to see what sticks. It will work to well and it wont’ work at all.
Illegal aliens don’t count in the number of uninsured. at least i have never seen it done that way. Leave out S-chip???? So the question is, if we leave out people who the government insures, then who needs government insurance??? 40-45 million people don’t have health insurance. People who are going w/o voluntarily are still backed up by either charities or the gov to pay their expenses if they get sick. They are running a risk and somebody else has to pick up the check. How many people have insurance but still go bankrupt from health care bills? Plenty.
No the end goal is not to bankrupt private insurance companies. O has coddled them to try and get their support. If they thought they were going bankrupt you would hear a hellava lot more out of them.
Slippery slope is logical fallacy, not reason to avoid something. It is an example of bad logic.
it’s early, is that enough for now?Report
I think if there is a public option, you’ll have more than a slippery slope — you’ll have companies dumping employees into the public option left and right, which will bankrupt private insurance companies. The adminsitration is signaling now that there might be an attempt to force a plan on us — Obama stated that the public will be glad the adminsistration acted on reform — this sounds like they are going to do what they think is best, then count on everyone liking it after the fact. This is all coming to a showdown between the adminsitration and the public. We’ll see how the representatives act — whether they support their constiuents or sell them out by allowing the president to call the shots.Report
Mike and, er, mike:
AFAIK, it’s just about inconceivable that any final plan – other than something similar to Wyden-Bennett – that has a public option (and the public option may well be DOA anyhow) is going to have to come with an employer mandate of some sort and will keep the employer tax incentives, which are a de facto subsidy. These two things make it unlikely that the existing system will change very much for most people. The public option would still hurt insurers, no doubt, but I don’t think there’s much reason to believe it would put them out of business.Report
Damn. That first sentence is a mess. Ignore the phrase “it’s just about inconceivable that”.Report
I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s my understanding that a fine will charged to companies for not providing healthcare coverage, but the fine will be a net savings, so why wouldn’t companies simply pay the fine?Report
Who wants to work for a company that says “We’d rather pay a fine to the government than pay a little more and provide you with health insurance,” that’s why. If it’s a matter of going out of business, however, there’s not much I can say to that.Report
If this is the way it’s set up, then companies will pay the fine (which is merely a tax) and dump the employees — so the government gets its way of controlling the system and running rpivate insurance out of business. If government was serious, they would set the fine above their healthcate coverage costs. Do you know if the fine will be less than the present cost for companies to cover employees? I heard that on one of the Sunday political shows. The problem is that no one knows what we are arguing about — there’s no telling what mixture will finally pass — this tells me they are busy at work designing something that appears helpful but still accomplishes the goal of government-run healthcare. If they had a plan that was actually better than the present system, they would be marketing it as the Grand Solution, and everybody would recognize it as such, and there would be rejoicing in the streets.Report
Careful or we’ll send the black helicopters after you.Report
Here’s something else to consider before the helicopters get me — http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-10-deficit_N.htmReport
Yup the deficit is bad. No doubt about it. But the reform plan as currently set up is paid for. Some tax increases and changes and it is paid for. Even if you don’t believe that or like it, our current rate of inflation on health care is unsustainable. Even if you don’t care about the uninsured, we are spending to much money as a country on health care and that is only getting worse. Health care premiums are going up approximately 5% per year: not sustainable. Total health care expenditures are going up 7%: not sustainable.
Whether the plan under discussion does enough to fix that is a good question. And the answer is probably not enough. But reform is desperately needed.Report
This “don’t worry; we’re not trying to create single-payer health care” line might be a bit more convincing if the left hadn’t been saying the exact opposite since health care reform became a serious issue again. I don’t know how many times I’ve read comments in lefty blogs to the effect that the “public option” will be, and is intended to be, a backdoor to single-payer. The idea is that the government will be able to use its resources to undercut private insurers, gradually forcing them out of the market until the public option eventually becomes the only real option. John Edwards said explicitly that the public option in his health care plan “may evolve toward a single-payer approach.” The other candidates weren’t as explicit, but even Obama said publicly that he thinks single-payer would be “the way to go” if we were starting from scratch. The idea that it is somehow unreasonable for people to conclude that the public option is a trojan horse to single-payer health simply isn’t going to fly.Report