09 September 2009

Health care myths

An interesting article from the WaPo of a couple weeks back: 5 Myths about Health Care around the World. Here's a quote that caught my eye:
The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

The main problem with the article's proposals is that it would require a complete overhaul of our current medical insurance system. That's something the current administration is dead-set against doing. Strange: you'd think an administration that ran on the slogan of "CHANGE" would be interested in, well, change.

1 comboxers:

Amy said...

One hates to agree with an article from the Washington Post.

But this one pretty well mimics my thoughts on health care except it's better researched and written. ;)

We do have the worst aspects of a free-market and socialized medicine. Our health care is expensive *and* rationed.

(By the way - as somewhat "free-market" person that I am, it *never* crossed my mind that huge profits off of sick people was ethical. We avoided health and drug stocks for that very reason.)

Anyway, that's the bugger of the thing: if you get past the stupid Facebook status updates the Obama plan can be summarized as: more of the same, but we give access to the working poor and young unemployed and add it to the tax bill. (The proverty striken are already covered under Medicaid.)

The Obama plan does *not* address any of the core issues with our system but instead attempts to further establish what's there.

Is it any wonder that the "average" middle-class person looks at the reform with little enthusiasm? Personally, my thoughts are: yeah, it's expensive and messed up now, but who knows how much further this plan could mess it up. :(