Whining Americans Choose Caviar Health Care
Al Hubbard, architect of the Bush-cum-McCain health plan, compares Americans' use of the health care system to shoppers who indiscriminately buy caviar while someone else foots the bill, just as Senator Phil Gramm exits as co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign after calling America a "nation of whiners" in a "mental recession."
Hubbard, former assistant to the president for economic policy, spoke at a Thursday event at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. He blamed patients for driving up health care costs because insurance insulated them from the real costs of treatment.
He suggested that American consumers would run similarly amok in a world where employers provided "food insurance" instead of health insurance. "Pretty soon you would start buying caviar, the most expensive steak, and you would start buying more than you needed," he said.
Hubbard crafted the health care plan unsuccessfully promoted by President Bush and subsequently embraced by GOP presumptive nominee Senator John McCain. It would eliminate incentives for employers to offer insurance, shifting the burden of health care costs onto individuals, who would be granted a tax break to buy insurance. Critics say the tax credits would be at an amount far below what would be required to purchase health insurance.
About eighty percent of health care costs are incurred by the sickest twenty percent of Americans, those whose doctors order expensive treatments for difficult diseases such as cancer. Hubbard is suggesting that Americans going through serious health challenges should be shoppers first and patients second.
This remarks comes at a poor time for Senator McCain, who was forced to jettison co-chairman Phil Gramm because his remarks made the GOP presumptive nominee seem insensitive to the Americans' economic difficulties. Do Hubbard's comments mean McCain is hoping to lower health care costs by forcing Americans to treat health care as a luxury as precious as caviar?
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AL HUBBARD SHOULD READ THE COMMONWEALTH FUND REPORT ON THE QQUALITY OF THE US HEALTH SYSTEM.
The rich are freakin' scared out of their wits they will have to pay for others health care.
NOTE TO THE RICHY RICH, We plan to spend our federal tax dollars on health care. We are going to spend your tax dollars at the Pentagon.
HAPPY now?
Terrorist watch list for you! And no soup!
"NOTE TO THE RICHY RICH, We plan to spend our federal tax dollars on health care. We are going to spend your tax dollars at the Pentagon."
Good for you. And where do you suggest the richy rich spend their tax dollars, since they pay more than you do? In fact, just guessing here, I am betting the richy rich are already supporting you in more ways than one.
You sound like someone itching for a people's republic. Too bad, even the chinese communists buy capitalism now.
I've looked at the comments on this post. So far I've not seen anyone compare the efficacy of government-run health care versus for-profit private insurance in terms of costs. Medicare/Medicaid operate with AROUND 2-3% ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS. Most private industry insurance companies are operating AT AROUND 30%. While those numbers may not be exact, they are in the "ball park."
Private insurance pays employees to deny coverage when possible. They care about INVESTORS OVER PATIENTS. The multiplicity of required paperwork creates additional layers of unneeded work for physicians and their staffs. In fact, the only good thing about our current system is the Bush Mantra of consumer choice. We have many, many choices to get screwed.
Rationing care for elective surgeries is a smart way to minimize costs. Emergency medicine could improve it's cost efficiencies by partnering with 24/7 on-site clinics for non-emergencies and by ending the running of medicine in a 9-to-5 model.
You mean triage patients and shunt them whichever way is best for them and the budget? Makes sense to me.
Does this dipstick think the patient asks for the tests and the high priced costs with them. I went thru a CT scan, countless blood tests, 3 MRI, 3 EMGs and it took about 5 yrs to get a diagnosis (one I happen to think is wrong, too). Yeah, it's all our fault. I'd like to stick my cane up this guy's rear.
This thinking comes from the same people who have made the system what it it; a money-making macine at the little-guy's expense.
Perhaps we need to revamp our medical system, and take away the power that has been given to the insurance companies. After all, it's the insurance companies (coupled with the pharmaceutical industry) that have made our medical system the sham that it is today!
The REAL COST FACTOR that "Murkans" refuse to acknowledge: PHYSICIANS' COMPENSATION (averaging well over $200,000!). Most doctors believe they are entitled to live a very UPPER MIDDLE CLASS "lifestyle
Bush and his administration have a healthcare coverage for you and its called dirt,.....
Free market health care makes as much sense as free market fire protection.
Since the advent of "third-party" payer, health insurance, the lower (largest) portion of the free market disappeared. A "free market" MIGHT work but only if there were UNEMPLOYED physicians
The problem with health care is you are trying to apply a free-market model to a system where consumers have little to no information and encounter strong coercive forces. When your or your families health is threatened you are not going to be thinking rationally about economic decisions. Not to mention it is difficult if at all possible to put a monetary value on the health and well being of a loved one or yourself.
Yes, I can see us all going from doctor to doctor getting quotes for setting a broken femur.
.....but HOW MUCH of medical care is so time-contingent; how much of the aggregate price of MEDICAL CARE is paid to an EMERGENCY department? With worthwhile preventive care, most scrambles to the emergency department could be OBVIATED..
Of course, it would greatly help if patients themselves optimally took care of themselves. SEEK out that 20% who spend 80% (somebodyelse's figures...
More forward-thinking countries that have government run health care systems tend to focus more on preventative care and education because it costs MUCH less to prevent illness than to treat it. See France, Britain, Sweden, Norway and other for examples..
In relation to employers providing health insurance, Hubbard unforgivingly surmises that "food insurance" would lead to "buying caviar, the most expensive steak, and you would start buying more than you needed." Would members of Congress seek the best care and treatment available for cancer or heart ailments with their health plans? If so, would that make them greedy and spoiled? One must also wonder how many of those millions of elderly living in third-world conditions at low-level retirement homes would react to his assessment? Medicare did not kick in until all of their life savings were gone. The aides, making $7.35 an hour, mostly ignore their cries for help, general assistance, and pleas for dignity. Bed sores are treated as a nuisance from "whiners." And, the meals are served as "take it or leave it." Are they "run[ning] amok" in the lap of luxury? It's always so refreshing to hear what these "Bushies" think about all of us little people - suffering in Socially Darwinistic views, schemes, and preordained sentences.
SeaClearly: Your comment about the elderly is so true. Long ago, I was a nurse's aide in one of the most prestigious nursing homes in Ohio. I did make minimum wage.
However, I don't blame the nurse's aides completely for lack of care; I blame the homes/government and their policies dictated on what constitutes care. I was fired for spending too much time with each patient during my shift, trying daily to treat them with respect and care rather than cattle. I saw nurses abuse patients. I saw staff steal. I knew achingly well the difference between a Medicare/Medicaid patient and a private pay patient.
I was 17 at that time, now 43 and that was my first real lesson as a "new adult" about what our government was capable of. I will not soon forget.
The elderly in many other countries are treated like the royalty they are. We just throw ours away.
Thank you for writing your comment.
A drug I used was costing $32.00 a mouth the drug manufacture removed it from sale. Mouths latter returned it at $284.00 a months.
Our health care is not broken.
Health care has bin sliced and diced by business, government, providers and users.
Surgically and with lawyers in tow. Deliberate and with all the business skills needed to make money.
Without disease our GNP would plummet.
GNP future looks good with all the baby boomers lining up.
most health care dollars are spent in the last years of ones life.
GOT MONEY ?
PART II
Total cost to me out of pocket after the vaunted TX At-Risk coverage kicked in: well over $3,000. This is after I had paid out nearly $4,000 in premiums. Bottom line: it would have been cheaper if I'd stayed off of the TX At-Risk plan and just paid for this little stint on a slow day at the hospital out of pocket. Of course the hospital was prepared to charge me well over $4,000 for my visit if I hadn't had any insurance; stated so in black and white on my billing statement.
This situation was not economically sustainable for my family and I. Naturally I terminated the coverage; I am no fool to be fleeced by such a government sanctioned scam.
The system is egregiously broken. It would be obvious to *Ray Charles* (ie., a dead blind man). Caviar indeed... I personally will settle for *affordable* healthcare like my British inlaws receive; no frills, just ask where it hurts, get the job done, and don't leave me and mine destitute and homeless after the job is done.
"Capitalism has no place in medicine." - G.B. Shaw
Leland R. Erickson
Citizen
I happen to be one of the 47 million Americans and counting who have no affordable health care. Why? According to a Blue Shieled/Blue Cross broker I managed to get off the record seven years ago, I'm "...not profitable enough" due to being self-employed and suffering from degenerative arthritis.
Upon arrival in Texas two years ago, I was offered a state-mandated coverage called the "At-Risk Health Pool" which is actually run by Blue Shield. For my payments of over $4,000 per year, I can have *catastrophic* coverage *only,* a $3,000 deductible, many other deductibles and exclusions, and *no preventative care covered by the plan whatsoever
Last year I developed hypertension, and had to go to the ER. I stayed for circa five hours, was given a single IV, medication to bring my BP down to normal levels. At no time was I apparently in any truly life-threatening condition, merely elevated BP that needed to be brought under control, which was done quickly and simply with a single medication dosage. Clearly my case wasn't rocket science...
END PART I
The GOP:
Putting Profits Before Human Life...Lik
Boboday555, how DARE you, sir! The GOP is THE party of Christian family values!! Why, just look how over seventy (70) members of the GOP's best and brightest have looked out for America's children:
http://www
"Party of Christian family values" as in the locals in DELIVERANCE or THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but that's about it.
Yeeeach.
Hypocrisy, thy name be GOP.
Leland R. Erickson
Citizen
I guess the bottom line for me is I don't a) want to pay for the socialized systme through my taxes, and b) think it's going to be a massive beuracracy that will drive quality of healthcare down. I want the doctor that drives a pourche taking care of me not the one in the dodge neon. I really believe you get what you pay for in medicine; take the profit out of it, and all those smart kids are going to grow and go to work where they can get rich.
Oh, the profit motive, what a wonderful idea.
It's Porsche, not pourche, and bureaucracy, not beuracracy. Learn to spell before you climb atop your soapbox, Bubba, or you weaken your argument.
Obviously you have not seen what the doctors in Western Europe drive. Their social health care system pays them enough to drive cars you associate with millionaires. No doctors driving Dodge Neons there.
Oh, and I would rather be paying my taxes to a healthcare system that works than paying my corporate taxes to some substandard piece of garbage company here in The United States. Health care coverage mandated by the state is a tax. After all, your local, state, and federal taxes are mandatory.
The health care industry and their lackeys in Congress and The Administration have you scared with propaganda. In America, we could do a single payer health care system bigger, better, and cheaper than other countries. Or don't you believe in American ingenuity anymore?
The problem would be the bureaucrats in Congress. Look at Social Security. They pay out 99% of what they take in. The other 1% covers administrative costs. Oh, and it is health care provided by Medicare and Medicaid that are bankrupting Social Security. You do want to save Social Security, don't you?
I ask you to consider that nearly 20% of the American population is not covered by health insurance, and a day could come when you are among them. Additionally, those uninsured have to somehow pay for their healthcare and we all know how financially ruinous that can be. It is not a good for the country to have citizens who are unproductive due to illness and moreover, those people end up costing the country a lot more in lost revenue in the form of taxes.
We need a serious detailed analysis of all aspects of this problem. We then need to devise a system that is fair to everyone, that takes care of everyone and that fosters better health and happier citizens.
Let us not take a fear-based approach to this problem. We need to face it head on, find the abuses at every level (patient, doctor, corporations and attorneys) and fix it to the best of our ability.
You are now paying for the education of other people’s children. You are now paying for the transportation infrastructure in this country, 90% of which you will never benefit from. You are now paying for libraries, and for subsidies of every kind. You are supporting the outlay through your taxes of $750 million dollars a day being spent in Iraq.
Contributing through taxes for Health Care is a sane way for people to pool their resources to take care of one of their most basic needs.
I have been pestered most of my life with swimmer's ear and now also have knee problems and have born a child and broken my ankly twice. I was a nurse and I can tell you that alternative medicine based on Perricone has resolved my swimmers ear and knee pain. So darn much cheaper than taking those drugs that the doctors are being pushed by big pharma to perscribe.
good luck with your doctors and their porsches
It's NOT about MORALITY ... It's about MONEY! ...
if you've got it ... you're denied your "right-to-DIE" (Terri Schiavo)
if you don't ... you're denied your "right-to-LIVE" (un- or under-insured americans)
Politicians don't have to worry about health care. They get the best there is, no waiting and I'll bet no claim forms to fill out, all at the taxpayers expense. They also get good preventive care with routine check ups and tests. Gee, talk about caviar, I'll bet that's even included on the hospital menu for pols and their family members. So why should they worry about themselves or a family member getting sick or having an accident? The taxpayer will pick up the tab, regardless of cost. What politicians do worry about are those big campaign donations and other gifts (graft) from Health Insurers, the AMA, big Pharma and the hospitals. They know you'll elect and re-elect them because you're easily scared and manipulated. They know all the key phrases and how to use them. It's all in the PR, universal health care, you mean SOCIALIZED medicine? And they lie, constantly. Do you want politician's choosing your doctor and what conditions are treated or do you want to choose your doctor and treatment? The fact is, even with paid insurance you often don't get to choose the doctor and the insurer routinely denies treatment. But American's are fools and easily manipulated. So we continue to suffer because of our ignorance.
Aint it great, just follow the money. Those that have get more those that don't get less. The longer they are in office, the more they get and then they have the nerve to take more from us. We are fools not to vote every last incumbant out of office when their terms are up and continue to do it until we get a congress that realizes what "we the people" deserve.
My wife developed a kidney stone. We have no health insurance. I'm not blaming anyone for that we just don't seem to make enough money to have what has now sort of become a luxury. We live modestly, don't get carried away on consumer stuff. Heck the computer I use is 10 years old. I keep it running myself. Anyway that little kidney stone adventure was put on a credit card. $ 12,000.00 right there on a visa card. It's the only card we have and no use now for any other emergencies if they arise. Have a nice day ya all. Term limits everyone it's our only salvation.
http://www
Term-limits means that the politician will never be there long enough to oppose the power of special interests - be they business or labor, or other. This is a known fact and it is why the most powerful special interests love term limits - they almost guarantee power control. If term-limits gives you what you want, then it merely means that your interest holds the upper hand financially or politically. If it doesn't, woe to you, and good luck.
We do need term limits. What we really need is to declassify businesses as a state of personhood with all the attendant rights of a real, biological person. After all, if a corporation kills 150,000 people by knowingly giving them medication caused their deaths, you don't put the corporation in jail. No, the corporation pays out a few hundred million on the billions they have already reaped in profit.
Limiting the power of corporations by denying personhood, you could then outlaw corporate donations. Money is a form of free speech and if corporations do not have that right... you get the picture?
Now, if you really want to remove the temptation of corporate re-election cash, the taxpayers could foot the bill for campaigns. Not only that, but limit the campaign season to ninety days prior to the election. There are other measures. However, Americans are too afraid to demand sensible restraints on corporate power and the politicians.
ROFLMAO!!!
Are you serious? Or was this satire?
Well, that 12,000 dollars you will have to pay back will come out of your local economy directly. That 12,000 dollars is probably going to cost someone their job if not several people.
I am not sure that term limits would work because it is all so complicated. But I REALLY hate the idea that 500,000 people are going bankrupt each year because of healthcare costs!
This while big bidness is collecting state sales taxes and keeping these as profits (instead of remitting them to the state so the state can also help out with Medicaid.
It really is a clusterxxxx that we cannot provide child care and care for drug resistant bacterial infections to protect ALL of society. I would sure hate it if Bill Gates had to have gall bladder surgery and ended up with some drug resistant infection.
McCain and Hubbard are from the same party that tells us supply side economics is as effective in the Health Care system as it is in the lawnmower market. That's why (according to them) America has the most cutting edge Health Care. As long as we treat Health Care in the same way that we treat other commodities, people are not going to get coverage. As long as American's agree that it's in our best interest to take this approach, 50 million of us will not be able to afford the coverage.
We are paying obscene prices for technologies that are then sold in other countries for pennies on the dollar. American's bear the brunt of the research and development costs of pharmaceutical and medical technology companies. As it is currently structured, the system will never work better than it is now. We will continue to be the country that produces the innovation, but at a huge cost to our people.
In the case of McCain and Hubbard, they don't care because their personal coverage is excellent and they benefit from the system at the expense of 50 million uninsured. The sane approach is a national healthcare system that precludes the fleecing of American patients. Along with that, we can maintain high levels of innovation by working with other countries to establish funding for R & D that is paid for by every human being on the planet according to their ability.
That quote sums up the GOP attitude about health care. Rich people are covered, and you poor people are on your own (oh yeh - and stop whining).
We will all stop whining come Nov. Like the French Revolution when the Queen said she didn't care let the people eat cake. Well we see what happen to them. Enough blame the people. People end up at the emergency room when its to late because they can't afford going to the doctors office. These people that have excellent health don't have to worry. Heck now they can even get VIP treatment when the doctor will see you any time and you don't have to wait. Even come to your home. It is sad because everyone should get the help. It is a right not a privilege.
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