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September 18, 2007
Trojan Horses spotted
Hillary! has announced HillaryCare v2.0*, a more nuanced plan to eventual nationalization of American healthcare.
WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system. [...]I won't argue that there are not serious problems with our how current health industry delivers its services and products; however, much of the imbalance is the direct result of governmental policies ...She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination"
... policies that Hillary! wants to expand and entrench.
As Rich Lowry* states
Because the private health-insurance market doesn’t function properly, the government is left to pick up the pieces. But it is government policies that distort the health-insurance market in the first place. Ideally, people would pay for their own health insurance, the way they do with, say, auto insurance. But the tax code favors insurance that people get through their employers.I would add that most people are over insured. When faced with our employer choices at open enrollment (and we are not allowed to shop outside of our employer) all of the plans cover even the most basic office visit with minimal co-pays. For most healthy people who won't visit the doctor more than a handful of times in five years, one is paying hundreds of dollars a month in order to pay a $10-20 co-pay for a $60 office visit. Where is the option to purchase a catastrophic insurance plan with less monthly premiums but higher out-of-pocket for the individual? Auto insurance is an excellent comparison, where beyond a certain minimum of liability/medical, people are allowed to choose higher or lower deductables or extended coverages based on their individual needs and budgets.This creates all sorts of problems. Because employers pay for their insurance, for most people the costs of health care are essentially hidden. They have no incentive to shop around for cost-effective plans. Meanwhile, when people lose their jobs, they tend to lose their insurance — exactly when they probably need it most.
This creates an expensive system that’s anxiety-inducing for people who worry about losing their insurance. The way the system is set up makes it difficult and expensive for individuals to buy insurance, which is one reason why 47 million Americans are uninsured.
Clinton’s plan would make this ramshackle system worse. She proposes more regulations on insurers and a mandate on large employers to provide insurance coverage or pay a tax. The regulations will make insurance even more expensive, while the employer mandate would only augment the current senseless system of people getting insurance through their jobs.
HillaryCare v2.0 sets up private healthcare to fail in order to allow government to "come to the rescue."
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' ~~Ronald Reagan
Amnesty for illegal aliens, this time on the installment plan, comes back as "the Dream Act."
Sessions argues in his letter to his Senate colleagues that the Dream Act and a separate immigration measure that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is pursuing ''would provide amnesty to approximately four million illegal aliens [roughly one third of the current illegal alien population].'' Feinstein's AgJOBS bill would allow agricultural workers to obtain legal status.The pro-illegals lobby are ignoring what most Americans want .... secure the border and enforce current immigration laws first, then talk to us about "earned" citizenship.Among Sessions' complaints: it would eliminate a federal provision that discourages states from providing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrant students.
The act, he says, would ``allow future illegal aliens to qualify for in-state tuition even when it is not offered to citizens and legal permanent resident students living just across state lines.''
And Sessions argues that the act ''is not just for children and young adults.'' It only requires that the immigrant's illegal entry occur before they were 16 years old and says nothing about their current age.
And, please, stop trying to give goodies - ie instate tuition - to illegal aliens that American citizens can't receive.
Technorati: Hillary Clinton, Health Care, Illegal Aliens, Amnesty
Posted by Darleen at September 18, 2007 10:42 AM
Comments
Who is human?
Apparently illegals are considered human; those who will do and are doing everything for them, to permit them to wreck the county are HUMANISTS.
Ultra-Humanists.
Posted by: King Pandeen at September 18, 2007 12:24 PM
We're required to buy auto insurance in order to register our cars. Why should a requirement for health insurance be any different? After all, why should hospitals have to eat their losses when they have to treat people who have no insurance.
Health insurance, public or private is a necessity these days.
Posted by: Carl W. Goss at September 19, 2007 01:46 AM
Carl
Is your employer required to provide you auto insurance? Does your auto insurance cover oil changes, tire rotations and tune ups? If you don't drive a car are you required to carry auto insurance?
Yes, I think health insurance is important, and those that voluntarily forgo it (ie young, healthy 20 somethings that just want to pay $60 out of pocket for an office visit maybe once a year) are flying without a net. But MORE government take-over will not make it better. Indeed, when people are further removed from personal responsibility..when they can get their personal "tune ups" and "tire rotations" ... for "free" [ahem], the system will be so overloaded it will be the government that will start rationing medical care.
see Canada and England.
Posted by: Darleen at September 19, 2007 06:30 AM
Indeed, when people are further removed from personal responsibility..when they can get their personal "tune ups" and "tire rotations" ... for "free" [ahem],
Yeah, cause you know how much people just love going to the doctor for a checkup.
Posted by: Josh at September 19, 2007 08:45 AM
Josh
My eldest is a paramedic and one of the main areas she rolls on is very rough. Everyone there knows that the ambulances are required by law to take them to the hospital and the hospital is required by law to treat them, regardless of what the ailment is or ability to pay.
Many times the ambulance is used as a friggin' TAXI for minor aliments. These people won't pay and they know there's nothing the ambulance company or the hospital can do about it.
Posted by: Darleen at September 19, 2007 08:59 AM
When I worked for a government agency processing disability claims, I often saw claims where the genius appeared in the ER with excruciating pain or weight loss. it had been going on for months, but had become so bad the poor guy finally had to see SOMEBODY. Invariably, it was cancer and the government paid them hundreds of dollars for months and the hospital was in the lurch for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of unpaid bills (before Medicaid could come and take over). But, you're right, Darleen, what we need is more of the broken, inefficient system we have now (with your Ronnie Reagan equivalent of welfare queens getting their taxi rides) and less of a system like the French have, i.e., universal, efficient, quick. Since this is America, we'll even let the plutocrats opt out and go to some third world country for their treatment (somewhere people know how to RESPECT rich folks).
Wow, now you've shown a poor grasp of the legal profession AND the medical profession! Combined with a monumental disdain for Muslims and their cultures and this newfound contempt for the poor and, hon, you are just a dream come true. I only wish we were single. The fireworks, oh Darleen, the fireworks...
Posted by: timb at September 19, 2007 10:38 AM
I'm afraid second-hand assertions about what "Everyone there knows" and the horrible fraud being perpetrated by "these people" aren't very convincing.
Posted by: Josh at September 19, 2007 10:50 AM
Josh
what, you don't read anything about ER's closing because they can no longer stay open because they are REQUIRED to treat everyone that comes in regardless?
timb
you have the same reading comprehension/ignorant of reality problems.... I acknowledge the system is limping...because GOVERNMENT POLICIES have skewed it. MORE government will make it worse.
Take away the AMA's government monopoly on med schools, allow people to save for out-of-pocket med expenses in taxfree med savings accounts. Let people take insurance premiums off their taxes and make businesses allow employees to find their own insurance instead of being required to buy into theirs, allow insurance companies to offer various coverages (like auto insurance does)
Is there a place for the government? Yes, as the safety net for those too poor/mentally ill/physically ill to afford their own insurance.
do NOT go where Canada and England have found is a failure.
Posted by: Darleen at September 19, 2007 11:50 AM
btw Josh
The area my daughter rolls on, the people don't believe their are committing fraud...they believe it is THEIR RIGHT.
If the company collects 40% of their billings, they feel it is a grand month.
Posted by: Darleen at September 19, 2007 11:52 AM
Except that surveys show that the English health care system is a good as ours and COSTS 40% less. Every country in the world with a developed economy, including Iraq, uses single payer or a variation of the same.
Hillary is not even for that sort of system, but you think she is. Is that because politics means more than facts in Darleen's world?
Posted by: timb at September 20, 2007 06:50 AM
Thing is, for all the so-called faults in the UK/Canadian system, you don't see people attempting to abolish it. That's because for most people it works pretty well.
No system is perfect, but there is something wrong, when the world's wealthiest society can't find some system capable of providing people with a basic level of care.
Mrs Clinton's system of mandatory private health insurance with the government as payor of last resort seems to be one most Americans can live with.
Posted by: Carl W. Goss at September 23, 2007 11:49 AM
Carl
Hillary!Care won't be private for very long.
You understand, don't you, it took a hell of a lot of underground clinics and up-in-yer-face-go-ahead-and-arrest-us stuff in Canada before its court system said private health care is not illegal??
That's like outlawing private auto mechanics.
And Hillary!Care will probably mandate private insurance to cover every hangnail, headache, argument-with-teen stuff so that it becomes SO expensive to be over-insured that people will opt for the government care (see public schools which parents have very little control over).
This is no accident by Hillary!Care ... it is the fat thumb on the butcher's scale to tip us further down the path to nationalized medicine.
How many people will be denied even basic care (save for a broken ankle) because they are smokers? Or weigh outside the mandated BMI? Or skipped their annual 'checkup'? Or have reached some arbitrary advanced age where the government decides it would be in the best interests of society for you to die?
And WHO decided that those who go into the medical profession are to have no control over their own labor?
Posted by: Darleen at September 23, 2007 01:01 PM