Right on, Matt!! Couldn't have phrased it any better myself. If you run for president in 2012, you've got my vote sewn up.
Tnaks RT - That makes 2 votes for Talbot in '12.
I'd be curious what you thought of this idea of mine as an alternative to single-payer healthcare. Also curious if you think this would help solve the income-based neighborhood problem. And, if you're not too bored or busy yet, I'm also curious what you think of this, since it relates to some of what you said.
In a word, no. As someone who gets food stamps, let me tell you it doesn't come anywhere near covering the real costs of food each month. A few months ago my wife & I had total monthly income of about $1200 per month and we received a whopping (drum roll please) $146 on our EBT card.
That comes to a little more than $35 per week. Who can eat on so little money?
And what about the people at the upper end of the maximum threshold? Under a food stamp-like system, they'd receive a meager amount of support and still be unable to pay the rest out of pocket. So, just like it is now, they'd have to go without.
Rambling Taoist,
My family is on food stamps, too. The amount we are getting has been enough for us; sometimes I'd like just a little bit more, but it gets us by ok.
Getting all the various numbers right - the maximums available, the income limits, exactly how the amount scales with income, # persons, and other factors is very important to making any of these kinds of programs work right. But that doesn't seem to me to say that they can't work.
If the top income limit is set at a truly appropriate figure, then people who are just under it will receive a meager amount of support, but they will be earning enough to make up the difference with their income. If they can't afford to, then the income limits are too low and need to be raised.
Anna - I see what you're saying, but I don't really think it is workable. If anything, I'm much more inclined to like a "social insurance" model - everyone pays the same "premium" and receives the same benefit (say, and amount equal to the median rent in an area)...but that still does not control costs. I have nothing against people earning a comfortable living and being rewarded for hard work and effort; I think it is unseemly and immoral for some folks to get fabulously rich from providing essential services for society (health care.)
One of the big reasons to involve the central government more heavily is to control costs: the bargaining power of the Only Game in Town is bound to bring costs down.
Matt,
Why do you think it immoral for people to get wealthy from doing something useful? I would think it is more justified than when people get wealthy from providing, say, violent video games to people.
I see the problem not as doctors and such getting wealthy, per se, but rather that they get wealthy by taking money from the poor that the poor can't afford. If the poor are all getting their health care money from the state (that is, from taxes, and especially progressive taxes on wealth), then that isn't a problem; there is no exploitation of the poor going on.
As for cutting costs, most people are lucky if they have even one option for health care, these days; way too few have the luxury of being able to pick and choose between insurance companies or have the option of paying doctors directly. I suspect this reduces competition between insurance companies and gives the health market as a whole little to no incentive to keep costs down (or to provide patient-oriented care). Flooding the market with poor people who suddenly can afford to pick the insurance company or doctor who offers them the best care for the best rate could help to bring cost-cutting incentives to the industry.
Why do you think it immoral for people to get wealthy from doing something useful?
Nothing in principle against that, Anna: what I do have a problem with is people getting wealthy by making obscene profits on services that people absolutely need. Or more exactly, on denying people services (through weeding out the sick from the insurance pool, and thus increasing profits).
If we're talking about executives of car companies or cell phone makers getting obscene paychecks, fine; people can take the bus or buy an answering machine. Not so with health care.
What do you think would happen if insurance companies were not legally allowed to refuse coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions? Would that be workable?
What do you think would happen if people with pre-existing conditions were eligible to receive federal aid equal to the average cost of treatment of that condition? Would that be workable?
If they were not allowed to cater to the healthy and throw sick people of their rolls, then everyones premiums would go up (very slightly) and no one would be denied coverage.
Anna, of all the health care systems in the industrialized world, we have the only one that regularly bankrupts the sick.
Virtually anything is better than that.
What is your objection to single-payer, by the way, Anna?
Matt,
I don't know if I object, per se, to a single-payer system. Mostly I just don't understand how a single-payer system would work well enough to evaluate the benefits or problems of having one.
I am under the admittedly vague impression that conservatives object to the single-payer system because they think it is too socialist, that it gets rid of the competition of the free market, or something like that, and say that it involves too much decision on the part of the government over what medical care people receive. I don't know how much truth there is to those claims when it comes to a single-payer system, but I tried to keep them in mind when thinking about my alternative, to minimize those objections as much as possible.
I think it's important to try to come up with a system that will outlast any future changes in which party has a majority in congress.
I think it's important to try to come up with a system that will outlast any future changes in which party has a majority in congress.
The reason conservatives oppose healthcare reform, and especially a single-payer system, is they are popular in places where they exist - let single payer put down roots in America, and no one will want to go back.
Health insurance also has a subtler effect on the work force - fear of losing health insurance is what keeps lots of people in their jobs, especially people with families. The loss of this fear is bound to cause people to be a little braver with their demands for better work rules, hours, benefits and so on - more of a "sellers' market" for labor.
Health Care and the Employee Free Coice Act have the potential to transform how workers relate to bosses. I'm looking forward to the coming changes: I imagine managers, HR and retention folks, somewhat less so.
Commenting by HaloScan
