Jump to content

Militarized American Healthcare


JasonJ

Recommended Posts

  • There is already a shortage of doctors in California, with long waiting periods for new appointments. Increasing their patient load by 8% (or more, since treatment would be "free") would exacerbate this problem. (8% of Californians are uninsured now.)
  • If doctors see their income decrease as a result of this state price negotiation, they might leave California, making the shortage worse. It might also discourage doctors from coming to California.

 

Or just plain retire, in the case of older docs. Resulting in an unintentional supply deficit, driving prices higher rather than lower.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 60
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

How Government Regulations Made Healthcare So Expensive

 

Since the early 1900s, medical special interests have been lobbying politicians to reduce competition. By the 1980s, the U.S. was restricting the supply of physicians, hospitals, insurance and pharmaceuticals, while subsidizing demand. Since then, the U.S. has been trying to control high costs by moving toward something perhaps best described by the House Budget Committee: “In too many areas of the economy — especially energy, housing, finance, and health care — free enterprise has given way to government control in “partnership” with a few large or politically well-connected companies” (Ryan 2012). The following are past major laws and other policies implemented by the Federal and state governments that have interfered with the health care marketplace (HHS 2013):

  • In 1910, the physician oligopoly was started during the Republican administration of William Taft after the American Medical Association lobbied the states to strengthen the regulation of medical licensure and allow their state AMA offices to oversee the closure or merger of nearly half of medical schools and also the reduction of class sizes. The states have been subsidizing the education of the number of doctors recommended by the AMA.
  • In 1925, prescription drug monopolies begun after the federal government led by Republican President Calvin Coolidge started allowing the patenting of drugs. (Drug monopolies have also been promoted by government research and development subsidies targeted to favored pharmaceutical companies.)
  • In 1945, buyer monopolization begun after the McCarran-Ferguson Act led by the Roosevelt Administration exempted the business of medical insurance from most federal regulation, including antitrust laws. (States have also more recently contributed to the monopolization by requiring health care plans to meet standards for coverage.)
  • In 1946, institutional provider monopolization begun after favored hospitals received federal subsidies (matching grants and loans) provided under the Hospital Survey and Construction Act passed during the Truman Administration. (States have also been exempting non-profit hospitals from antitrust laws.)
  • In 1951, employers started to become the dominant third-party insurance buyer during the Truman Administration after the Internal Revenue Service declared group premiums tax-deductible.
  • In 1965, nationalization was started with a government buyer monopoly after the Johnson Administration led passage of Medicare and Medicaid which provided health insurance for the elderly and poor, respectively.
  • In 1972, institutional provider monopolization was strengthened after the Nixon Administration started restricting the supply of hospitals by requiring federal certificate-of-need for the construction of medical facilities.
  • In 1974, buyer monopolization was strengthened during the Nixon Administration after the Employee Retirement Income Security Act exempted employee health benefit plans offered by large employers (e.g., HMOs) from state regulations and lawsuits (e.g., brought by people denied coverage).
  • In 1984, prescription drug monopolies were strengthened during the Reagan Administration after the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act permitted the extension of patents beyond 20 years. (The government has also allowed pharmaceuticals companies to bribe physicians to prescribe more expensive drugs.)
  • In 2003, prescription drug monopolies were strengthened during the Bush Administration after the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act provided subsidies to the elderly for drugs.
  • In 2014, nationalization will be strengthened after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“Obamacare”) provided mandates, subsidies and insurance exchanges, and the expansion of Medicaid.

    The history of medical cost inflation and government interference in health care markets appears to support the hypothesis that prices were set by the laws of supply and demand before 1980 and perhaps 1990. Even the degree of monopolization and nationalization promoted by politicians before 1965 was not enough to cause significant cost inflation and spending increases (Figure 2) until demands created by Medicare and Medicaid outstripped the restricted supply of physicians and hospitals.

Want medial costs in the US to go down? Dial back on the regulatory fabric.


More at the link.

Edited by rmgill
Link to comment
Share on other sites

IOW screw the poor, the elderly pensioners and others less fortunate than you are. Nobody will care if they expire, although there may be charities interested. That's the Republican way and that's why I abandoned the party c.1986.

 

Gag a Maggot! You trust Mises.com for this junk. Economics a la Ayn Rand. Medicare a 'nationalization' of medicine and so forth. Sheer pap.

Edited by Ken Estes
Link to comment
Share on other sites

IOW screw the poor, the elderly pensioners and others less fortunate than you are. Nobody will care if they expire, although there may be charities interested. That's the Republican way and that's why I abandoned the party c.1986.

 

Gag a Maggot! You trust Mises.com for this junk. Economics a la Ayn Rand. Medicare a 'nationalization' of medicine and so forth. Sheer pap.

The first sentence is answered via Medicare and Medicaid. Bellow all you want, but it does come down to who will pay for it. An honest realization that led me vote straight Republican beginning in 1986.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any one here thinks this was a good idea?


 

 

  • In 1972, institutional provider monopolization was strengthened after the Nixon Administration started restricting the supply of hospitals by requiring federal certificate-of-need for the construction of medical facilities.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The sentence by itself offers little to assess. The method of execution and results might be more helpful. Nixon also initiated revenue sharing.

 

Nowhere have we seen 'nationalization' of a US economic sector.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The sentence by itself offers little to assess. The method of execution and results might be more helpful. Nixon also initiated revenue sharing.

 

Nowhere have we seen 'nationalization' of a US economic sector.

 

Amtrak could be thought as some kind of nationalization, perhaps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every other industrialized country spends less on health care and delivers it to a larger percent of the population. So the question to me is, are we (the US) being too liberal, and not taking the gloves off and letting the cards fall where they may and saying if you can't afford health care, its because the feds have limited the market? Or is it because this is an industry, like fire fighting, police, and defense, that is better handled by the government? I tend to believe the latter. But it doesn't matter, I'm well off and I'll always have health care and I never want children. So this debate is academic to me. Is there anyone on this board from the US who DOESN'T have health care who wants to ring in?

I didn't have health care for several years at a time in my mis-spent 20s-early 30s, but that was just a stupid decision on my part (I was making a reasonable living as a freelancer but spending several hundred bucks a month would have been an issue, I was a pretty healthy guy, thought I was invincible, was too busy partying in Greenpoint -- shout-out to Josh -- etc.). It worked out ok in retrospect. If I had gotten hit by a truck or got cancer, I probably would have had a different opinion about that.

 

I think it basically boils down to whether you think health care is a basic human right or not. Most countries believe that it is, again on par with (even more important than) primary education. I guess we don't, because Socialism or something.

Edited by Brian Kennedy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a feeble attempt to get back to what I think? Was the main point of the subject thread, I don't actually think that our shit health care is actually a military issue. If you want to tie it to some "our new recruits are too fat" bs, getting into shape is pretty fun and easy. People have been complaining about recruits being too fat for the past 75 years or so, it's worked out ok.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The sentence by itself offers little to assess. The method of execution and results might be more helpful. Nixon also initiated revenue sharing.

 

Nowhere have we seen 'nationalization' of a US economic sector.

 

Amtrak could be thought as some kind of nationalization, perhaps.

 

When speaking of AMTRAK be sure to ALSO speak of CONRAIL and bear in mind that the federal government had a hand in manifesting the bankruptcy of Penn Central which is what AMTRAK and CONRAIL were created to replace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Single source healthcare could work in a largely mono-ethnic, cohesive environment like Scandinavia, with the caveat that you cut off people who manifest deliberate, antisocial deviant behavior. Taking care of the deliberately self destructive, ie druggies, homos, obscene fatties, criminals etc is what breaks the system. S/F....Ken M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of it is also 94-year-olds with dementia who get kept alive for a coupe more weeks even though they don't want to. (our elder care is great!) I'm firmly in the camp of settling up all your affairs and walking up a hill with a good book and a bottle of excellent bourbon and a shotgun, but it seems like most people don't actually do that when it comes down to it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Few 94 year-olds have dementia, and there are more than a few families that would like to have their elders hang around for a bit, while that is still possible.

 

I used to find it utterly hilarious that the right wing touted the ills of Canadian and UK health care as symbolic of the ills of natl health care. Nobody pays any attention to the programs of Scandinavia, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Spain, where no private health insurance has been outlawed.... I wonder why that is. Goebbels would have been proud. I no longer find this humorous.

 

The RW cried Socialism when Medicare was passed, but could not stop its inevitable improvements such that today, no RW politico dares argue against it, even though Paul Ryan schemes against it in his budgetary alchemy.

 

The current imbroglio in the US is clearly stated here:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/republican-health-care-bill-tax-cuts.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

 

 

BTW, AMTRAK hardly represents nationalization of passenger rail, since not all was taken over and the company itself is a private-public hybrid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pointing to scandanavia as a template blithely ignores the fact that it is a different and far more heterogeneous culture.

 

Why the social theory constructionist can't note gross differences in culture that stare them in the face is beyond me. They are also tiny. Again, if you want to make the case, fix the VA system and the run your little social welfare programs at the state level. Thats where they belong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VA is working fine. I know the bad apples in Arizona screwed things up and soiled VAs rep, but my experiences with the VA in Washington State have been superb, ditto for pals of mine in Virginia and N Carolina.

 

The dumping of 'medical retirements' by the armed forces on to an underfunded VA, as well as numerous untreated and discharged military personnel placed the VA instantly into an instant six/twelve-month backlog, that has been exaggerated beyond reason [vets die while awaiting appointments? No, vets just die sometimes, and so on]. The lack of automated records interfacing DOD and VA has not helped a bit and accounts for severe delays. Congress was of little assistance over the years, and GW Bush and Co. tried to cut VA just as it was trumpeting 'Mission Accomplished' in 2003. That's two blunders for the price of one. We now have new VA cuts proposed by the Clown in Chief.

 

"Culture" may account for the US being the only rich and great power unable to create national health care, but not in the sense that Gill puts it. There is no compelling reason to copy UK and Canadian systems. State governments? They are too busy sending junketing parties to Hawaii to study fire departments and still trying to figure out how to fund education.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VA is working fine. I know the bad apples in Arizona screwed things up and soiled VAs rep,

Were the bad apples punished?

 

How's the VA on cleaning endoscopes?

 

The dumping of 'medical retirements' by the armed forces on to an underfunded VA, as well as numerous untreated and discharged military personnel placed the VA instantly into an instant six/twelve-month backlog.

Why is this not going to happen with a larger single payer system run like the Post office or the DMV or the IRS or the BATFE? The Obama Admin weaponized a bunch of agencies to go after political opponents. How will things work if a politician can have the right people nudge someone down a list because they're too noisy?

 

Noone still has been arrested for leaks of IRS information that is supposed to be confidential. Why is HIPPA going to protect someone under a federal system that has access to everything because it's the single payer? IRS regulations didn't.

 

"Culture" may account for the US being the only rich and great power unable to create national health care

Look at the thread on that fire in London. Note the apparent lack of concern for basic fire safety practices. It's a council house, it's a captive market. As long as government is able to be both player and referee, you're never going to have a useful system that actually polices itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The likely low efficiency of a future single payer system is not meaningless.

 

It's also not meaningless that you're of a mind that small business ought to be utterly fucked by such programs.

 

It's also not meaningless that you parrot concern for the elderly while at the same time panning those same elderly who happen to be vets dying while waiting for treatment and the delays in said treatment are diddled to make the agency heads in question look good.

 

This is what I've come to expect from the modern left. Feels over substance and actual effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nobody has opined what should happen to small businesses.

 

The 'future single payer system' has yet to be defined.

 

'Vets dying while awaiting treatment' remains hyperbole.

 

'Feels over substance and actual effect' - WTF is that? What you expect from the modern left is not something I await breathlessly.

 

So, yes, utterly meaningless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Nobody has opined what should happen to small businesses."

No becaues we already got to SEE what happens to small business Ken. Under Obamacare. First hand. Single payer will be more of the same. More taxes, more regulations. More requirements.


"'Vets dying while awaiting treatment' remains hyperbole."

Yet somehow you can trot out the elderly dying because of the GOP argument yourself. How is that?

"
'Feels over substance and actual effect' - WTF is that? What you expect from the modern left is not something I await breathlessly. "

Exactly what it sounds like. Your side is concerned with appearances and feelings. The feeling that someone cares. Not that they actually care. Not that they can actually fix the problem. But ONLY that they can appear to empathize and understand. *Cue sad music sung by Hollywood starlet who narrates gushing commercials for that save the animals fund*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/06/30/former-navy-seal-who-reportedly-shot-bin-laden-lashes-out-at-san/23010878/

The former Navy SEAL, who is said to have shot and killed Osama bin Laden, has criticized White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for claiming the Trump administration's "success at the Veterans Affairs," reports Fox News.

Robert O'Neill posted a series of tweets Wednesday, noting, "I just heard @SarahHuckabee talk about 'successes' at the VA. PLEASE explain and I would LOVE to debate you. VA is a damn insult to vets!!"

O'Neill continued, "Following up to @SarahHuckabee on the VA [Veterans Affairs]... I'm a combat vet... killed UBL.. and I PAY FOR PRIVATE healthcare ..most vets CANT afford it! "

 

He then said, "insulted by @SarahHuckabee for praising the VA today. I bet you've never had your wallet stolen by STAFF while getting a CAT scan.I have!"

Sanders made the remark on Tuesday while slamming the media for not covering more positive stories about the current administration.

"We've been going on this Russia-Trump hoax for the better part of a year now with no evidence of anything," said Sanders. "Things like the success at the VA barely get covered."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One's personals are liable to get nicked at almost any hospital if not guarded or held by another person. Individual gripes of VA do not a record make.

 

Moreover, even though it got little fanfare a notable DoVA reform was passed recently and Mrs. Huckabee Sanders was just doing normal Press Secretary praise for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One's personals are liable to get nicked at almost any hospital if not guarded or held by another person. Individual gripes of VA do not a record make.

 

I had a Marine who's gear was stolen at the fucking CSH in Bagdad. Vermin tend to frequent areas that have weakened and helpless targets. S/F....Ken M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...