Ken's Comments

First step, Repeal Obamacare.  As discussed in the previous article, it has accomplished two things - get more people covered and eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions but it failed in just about every other goal. Why did Obamacare fail?  It is too complicated.  The law tries to micromanage every part of the industry.  Need more competition, we'll artificially create it.  Benefits?  The law says what will be covered.  Pricing - the Federal Government adds multiple layers of bureaucracy to the State layers that already existed.  Selling insurance - we'll "supplement" the current sales methods with an Exchange.  And on and on... The Three Stooges had a bit where they were plumbers and Curly goes into the bathroom to fix a leaky pipe.  At the end of it, he's surrounded by a maze of pipes from floor to ceiling and the leak is still there.  Obamacare reminded me of that.  Everything that someone thought was wrong they adde...

Part 1 of a multi-article post.  This is looking back.  The next will look at alternatives for the future. What went right 1. About 20 Million more people have coverage thanks to Obamacare 2. No more preexisting exclusions What is debatable or uncertain 3. More young people have coverage on their parents policy President Obama touted this during his re-election The counter-argument is that proponents of the law were counting on young people buying individual coverage to offset the cost of older or sicker people entering the market.  How do you reconcile that goal with giving young people coverage for free under their parents' policy?  Is it any surprise that people are complaining now that rates are going up because not enough healthy people bought coverage?  And who are the healthiest people you know?  Those aged 18 to 26 who can now stay on their parents' coverage. 4. Obamacare will make people healthier - on this point the NY Times s...

I don't have a philosophical argument against single payer health care, I have a practical one. I don't see it working in other countries and I have not seen Government health programs work in the US. England - They have National Health Service (NHS) that covers everything.  However, there is also a strong private care sector in England where people with sufficient money or health insurance can get care.   Canada - They have a version of national health coverage and for a while even banned the sale of health insurance.  Nevertheless, to avoid having to wait for services or to obtain better care, Canadians would travel to the U.S. for health care.  Also, someone challenged the law banning health insurance and their Courts overturned that so they now have a growing health insurance market place. Australia - They have a version of government health coverage where the local governments cover preventive service and the national government provides coverage of inpati...

Hillary Clinton's criticism of Bernie Sanders is that his ideas are pie in the sky while she knows how to get things done.  Let's consider their records on the subject of health insurance. Bernie Sanders advocates a single payer system.  That's a real bad idea but we'll save that for another time.  Hillary Clinton derides this saying it is a proposal that sounds good but won't every get passed. What's Hillary's record on health insurance reform?  Oh yeah, in the early 1990's she gathered together a group of really smart people, held meetings behind closed doors, would not share details with anyone and what did she come up with?  A proposal that started out with bi-partisan support but when people were able to understand how it would work, they realized Hillary's proposal was a really bad idea and it got shot down in Congress. Therefore the choice seems to be Bernie Sanders who Hillary says has a nice idea that can't pass or Hillary Clinton ...

So I've listed what the problems are - cost, quality, extending coverage - and addressed each. There are still some random items I'd like to talk about and I'll do that here. Can the health care system handle 47 million new customers? The following story says no: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090807/hl_hsn/expandinghealthcoveragemaynotimproveaccess The story says that our health care infrastructure - the number of doctors and hospitals - would be swamped if 47 million new customers entered the market. The experience in Massachusetts, where the state made health care universal confirms this to be true. You cannot just walk into an office and see a doctor in Massachusetts, you have to schedule a visit far in advance. Traditional means by which Government controls costs will make this worse - Okay, Massachusetts has a shortage of physicians and rising costs. So what does Massachusetts do? They talk about lowering how much they will pay doctors. So if you are a doctor...

In previous posts, I have defined what I think the problems are - cost, quality, coverage. I have discussed what I think can and is being done about it. Now, I'll talk about the so-called Government health plan and, equally important, the health insurance exchange and why I think these are a bad idea. The Government Plan is a precursor to a government take over of the health care industry - at least the financing of it -- One night, there was a clip of President Obama denying this. The President said "No one is talking about a government takeover of health care." The very next film clip was of U.S. Representative Barney Frank saying that he supports the Government Plan idea because he wants to use it to push for a single payer system. So President Obama is misinformed, someone IS talking about a government takeover of health care (at least health care financing) and that someone is a very powerful member of his own party. And I think there are many others besides R...