I’ll take a health care to go, and make it snappy
Very Awesome
The idea of making health care portable isn’t really what makes this video awesome, though the video is pretty funny. Rather this video’s part in the growing swell of reasonable alternatives to a purely market-based health care system, which has by all accounts been proven a failure, is what is truly awesome.
For a confluence of reasons that individually would not be damning, we now have a health care system that provides at best adequate care to people with insurance (which comes at a higher price than citizens of most other developed nations pay) and no systemic care to people without insurance. The steep basic costs of simple care are a contributing factor in Americans’ increasingly unhealthy lifestyles, which in turns fuels a greater demand for health care that more and more people cannot afford. We are in a bad place, charting a course for a worse place, and the influx of (often radically) different health care systems is welcome.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m reasonable sure this system is it’s death knells and I’d prefer we didn’t all die with it.
Tags: health care, health care you keep, stand tall for america
April 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
our current system is in no way “purely market-based”. Medicare, Medicaid, massive regulation, even HMO’s were encouraged by congress. it can be argued that we are where we are because of government intervention.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/health-care/
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/articles/54/free-market-medicine/
I dont pretend to know what the answer is either. I just am very apprehensive that MORE government is the answer. Remember, the soaring world food prices are much the fault of of a bunch of suits in a building in Washington mandating that burning food is better than burning gas…
April 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
World food prices have been on the rise for a while, and Washington’s decision wasn’t the determining factor. There were many causes, and where Washington was complicit it was in reaction to a fuel crisis beginning now to manifest.
You can read their article here.
HMOs were also the market’s supposed solution. When the government props a faulty market, I think we’d both agree bad things happen. But the bio-pharmaceutical industry is only propped by aggressive patent laws, and drug prices are a large factor in our spiraling health care cost. So the blame cannot purely be on HMOs (where are in theory great ideas).
Related: Bush said every American has health care access via emergency rooms. Another piece in the puzzle, given the exorbitant pricing in the ERs.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I’ve read that article (actually posted on it back in January), and what I read is clearly “free up the markets”, because the problem is government intervention. Subsidy, regulation or tariff leads to artificial price manipulation.
Back to the main point, this is why I don’t know if government is the answer. I watched sicko this past weekend, which I liked (apart from general Michael Moore ass-holery). It was cool to see how Canadians, Brits, French and even Cubans live. Part of me likes that system alot, and am curious if a similar stystem here would work. The other part of me knows that if there is no incentive for driving costs down, or for innovation, that the overall quality of care will decline over time, most likely swiftly. That is my greatest fear.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I’m beginning to reconsider the premise that government oversight is synonymous with indifferent control. The US government got us on the moon, which was an example of innovation, speed, cost and quality. I don’t see why we couldn’t achieve that in other places (though recognize we’ve failed to continue that success with even Nasa).
April 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
even with the moon landing, though, wasnt there sort of a government “market” there? There was a global perception of a race for reputation - leadership in technology innovation with undertones of power for the first countries to explore space.
Perhaps if it were somehow a race for the healthiest country…i dont know how to make that happen…
April 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
NPR is another good example without the competition.
Of course, the competition couldn’t account for it else we’d be doing at least a wee bit better in Iraq.