Comments on: RealClearPolitics – Socialized Medicine? Bring It On

By: TheNewGuy

TheNewGuy — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:26:24 +0000

Bill Moyers?

Sorry… not interested.

By: WWWebb

WWWebb — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:55:42 +0000

link to diagrams got zapped:

http://ferretfancier.blogspot.com/2009/06/shambolic-and-unclear-kafkas-nhs.html

By: Greg P

Greg P — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:21:01 +0000

Correction: it’s Wendell Potter.

By: Greg P

Greg P — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:19:10 +0000

I would suggest that readers go to the Bill Moyers Journal site and watch or read his interview with Wendell Powell, a former top executive for Cigna who is now exposing the insurance industry’s tactics for stopping any change in the cash cow they call health insurance. Note how many of the terms now tossed around by politicians and doctors speaking against Obama’s plan originated and were fomented by the insurance companies.

By his own statements, note that the overhead for Medicare is about 3%. Insurance companies enjoy a profit of 20%.

By: WWWebb

WWWebb — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:23:37 +0000

They’re kind of pretty, but you can tell how dysfunctional the UK National Health Service is from these diagrams…

By: WWWebb

WWWebb — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:02:24 +0000

Thomas Sowell says that in response to any grandiose scheme to socially engineer something, the following three questions should be asked:

1. “Compared to what?”

2. “What is the cost?”

3. “What are the real facts?”

Read his “Vision of the Anointed (Self-congratulation as a basis for social policy)” to see him explain how things get implemented based on emotion as opposed to fact-based decision-making.

By: CHenry

CHenry — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:25:59 +0000

The single payer advocates are in the thrall of Canadian health insurance systems. Fine. Just realize that Canadians actually pay for that system. Americans will squeal like stuck pigs when they see how high their income taxes will go, when we start paying 15% VAT (and more) on all of our purchases, when their treasured home mortgage interest deductions disappear and and when their gasoline taxes raise the price of motor fuel to European levels. And “free” means rationing for all but dire needs, rationing by time more than anything, with long waits for things that most people who already have insurance would unaccustomed to wait for.

Karen:

The average of salaries of doctors is not $55K. That is bunk. In the UK, they earn about the equivalent of $200K as generalists and more as specialists.

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:53:39 +0000

Advocates are dropping the reference to Canada and UK style and putting France out there as the way to go. You know, the place where the average income of a doctor is $55,000/year.

You won’t be alone in underemployment, but you’ll still have to pay back your student loans and your house note will stay the same. There are tens of throusands of actuaries, underwriters, agents, and sales guys that will be in the same situation.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:48:53 +0000

“There is a reasonable call to make health care available for everyone, by some means.”

This is a nice, but not useful, sentiment. Even assuming such a call is “reasonable”, you have not defined what you mean by “health care”. What does that include?

By: WWWebb

WWWebb — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:09:07 +0000

Pertinent aphorism from thw world of Information Technology:

“The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.”