Comments on: Giving Moderation a Bad Name

By: I Guess That Concludes Negotiations « The Regimen

I Guess That Concludes Negotiations « The Regimen — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:08:08 +0000

[...] to put it mildly, a special case.) Not only that, but Frum himself dismissed the Baucus bill in an extraordinarily flippant posting on his website. Frum says he wants cost-control through increased competition, but that’s [...]

By: GAC

GAC — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:14:18 +0000

balconesfault:

You took the words right out of my mouth. Except that I was going to say that it’s like saying that cutting food stamps is rationing food.

By: balconesfault

balconesfault — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:44:21 +0000

The effect is: An indirect form of rationing.

By limiting the tax breaks for group insurance, this limits the incentive to provide generous “Cadillac” style health care plans, loaded with all kinds of benefits.

Interesting talk, from a purported fiscal conservative.

In essence – the claim being made here is that if the Federal Government does not subsidize something (and a tax break is certainly a subsidy) they are indirectly rationing the provision of that commodity.

So by that same logic – if the Federal Government does not provide for taxpayer funded universal healthcare – the Federal Government is therefore rationing healthcare.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:06:14 +0000

gac:

Baucus does it through the less elegant and less transparent means of imposing an excise tax on insurance companies rather than directly limiting the tax break for workers, but that’s a result of political necessity. The economic effects are roughly the same.

The effect is: An indirect form of rationing. By limiting the tax breaks for group insurance, this limits the incentive to provide generous "Cadillac" style health care plans, loaded with all kinds of benefits. That's why organized labor hates it. In recent years of collective bargaining, they agreed to wage cutbacks (to help American companies compete against foreign firms) in exchange for keeping their generous health care benefits. (Yes, paid health care beats wage raises.) Baucus would put an end to that.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:01:31 +0000

spartacusisnotdead:

There is also no evidence that the percentage profit margin of insurers is constantly increasing, year over year. It remains about 25%. It’s not like it was 5% thirty years ago and now it’s 100%.

So since health care costs are rising faster than inflation and faster than GDP growth, the cost drivers must lie elsewhere.

In fact, even in nations with single-payer systems, health care costs rise faster than inflation and faster than GDP growth.

You liberals’ populist attacks on insurers are misplaced. You could ZERO OUT their entire profit (with a single-payer system) and health care costs would just go on rising–

Until your other shoe dropped and you started instituting rationing.

You’re hoping to put that one past the American public so they won’t notice it.
But we don’t intend to let you get away with it.

If we must ration health care, let’s have a dialogue about it.
See, I stole your playbook about dialogues.

By: oldgal

oldgal — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:12:22 +0000

Will somebody explain for me why selling health insurance policies across state lines won’t end up like the credit card mess with all purveyors moving to the state(s) with the standards most beneficial to the purveyors, or end up causing massive federal regulation (omg, an expansion of big government)?

By: GAC

GAC — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:14:56 +0000

Though I consider myself a conservative Republican, I think David is dead wrong on the point about cost control. The Baucus plan actually contains the one thing that health economists across the political spectrum agree would far and away do the most to slow medical cost growth. That one thing is capping the currently open-ended tax subsidy for employer-provided insurance. Baucus does it through the less elegant and less transparent means of imposing an excise tax on insurance companies rather than directly limiting the tax break for workers, but that’s a result of political necessity. The economic effects are roughly the same. While there is much to dislike in Baucus’s bill, his is the only major proposal so far to address cost control head on — and he deserves credit for that.

By: gnunews

gnunews — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:29:04 +0000

I meant to say, “You’re right David.” I wish there was a preview button on this site or a way to edit posts.

By: gnunews

gnunews — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:27:59 +0000

Yep, you’re David. The Baucus plan is a pile of crap. Apparently Baucus forgot the point of health care reform which is to bring down the cost of health care. I’ve read his plan and I see nothing in it that will reduce the cost of health care as a whole. Some people may get it for less money because of tax credits, but as a nation there’s nothing in that will result in any less money going towards health care.

I think we’re reaching a point where we should just not do anything, particularly if all we end up with is mandated health insurance for everyone. The problem isn’t that people don’t have health insurance, the problem is that health care is eating up too much of our GDP.

By: ProfNickD

ProfNickD — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:58:12 +0000

Racist.