Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP—all three are inefficient and unsuccessful government-run healthcare programs created for providing proper care to the underprivileged and elderly. The suggested remedy to our "failing system" is to place full control of America’s healthcare into the already inefficient and unqualified hands of the federal government.
If 60% of the healthcare economy is already run by the government, then placing the other 40% of our system into the hands of the feds is ludicrous!
Take a look at these facts:
· Medicare wastes$1 out of every $3 while rationing care & denying medical claims at twice the rate of private insurers. It will take a 6.4% payroll tax to keep the program afloat by 2017. If someone makes a modest $30,000 per year, that's an additional $1920 in taxes per year!
· Because of low reimbursement costs for doctors and hospitals, 1 in 3 seniors are struggling to find a new doctor. In California, $45 billion was shifted to private payers & hospitals to compensate for unpaid Medicare costs while $738 million in charges were paid by the private sector in Washington state to make up for underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid in 2004.
· For veterans, claims take between 127 and 177 days to process—well above private industry average: 89.5%.
Are these federally mandated programs running efficiently? I’ll leave the answer up to you.
Would a single payer (the government) be able to effectively negotiate prices?
Pipes, in her book The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide, presents an example from a previous attempt, and failure, by our government to do exactly this by eliminating the middle-man:
During World War II, price controls were placed on a wide range of goods and services. As a result, a lucrative black market emerged for everything from cars to underwear, and businesses that didn’t go underground cut their costs by lowering their quality. Consumer Reports, in a 1943 study, tested 20 candy bars and found the 19 had shrunk in size compared to the previous year.
There is only one area in which price controls prove effective: limiting innovation. By cutting costs, research will most certainly be cut too resulting in detrimental effects for health care. All we have to do is take a look at the state of our European counterparts. Here are a few simple facts on cancer patients that Pipes provides:
· For 13 of the 16 most common cancers, Americans have a higher survival rate across the board.
· Among men, an American has a 20% better chance of living 5 years after diagnosis.
· American women have a 7.2% better chance of living 5 years after cancer diagnosis.
Maybe these statistics are why tens of thousands of Europeans flee to America for advanced or sophisticated procedures unavailable, or rather rationed, in their own country.
Health care is like food, shelter and clothing: They are each critical to our survival but are not to be guaranteed by government. The problem is that many Americans have created a false reality in which they place their “inalienable rights.”
If government health care is the answer, why don’t we put the feds in charge of providing a house for every homeless American too?
True: The American health care system is in need of reform.
False: Government provided health care will prove most efficient reform.
True or False: Government Health Care is more efficient.
False.
Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP—all three are inefficient and unsuccessful government-run healthcare programs created for providing proper care to the underprivileged and elderly. The suggested remedy to our "failing system" is to place full control of America’s healthcare into the already inefficient and unqualified hands of the federal government.
If 60% of the healthcare economy is already run by the government, then placing the other 40% of our system into the hands of the feds is ludicrous!
Take a look at these facts:
· Medicare wastes$1 out of every $3 while rationing care & denying medical claims at twice the rate of private insurers. It will take a 6.4% payroll tax to keep the program afloat by 2017. If someone makes a modest $30,000 per year, that's an additional $1920 in taxes per year!
· Because of low reimbursement costs for doctors and hospitals, 1 in 3 seniors are struggling to find a new doctor. In California, $45 billion was shifted to private payers & hospitals to compensate for unpaid Medicare costs while $738 million in charges were paid by the private sector in Washington state to make up for underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid in 2004.
· For veterans, claims take between 127 and 177 days to process—well above private industry average: 89.5%.
Are these federally mandated programs running efficiently? I’ll leave the answer up to you.
Would a single payer (the government) be able to effectively negotiate prices?
Pipes, in her book The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide, presents an example from a previous attempt, and failure, by our government to do exactly this by eliminating the middle-man:
During World War II, price controls were placed on a wide range of goods and services. As a result, a lucrative black market emerged for everything from cars to underwear, and businesses that didn’t go underground cut their costs by lowering their quality. Consumer Reports, in a 1943 study, tested 20 candy bars and found the 19 had shrunk in size compared to the previous year.
There is only one area in which price controls prove effective: limiting innovation. By cutting costs, research will most certainly be cut too resulting in detrimental effects for health care. All we have to do is take a look at the state of our European counterparts. Here are a few simple facts on cancer patients that Pipes provides:
· For 13 of the 16 most common cancers, Americans have a higher survival rate across the board.
· Among men, an American has a 20% better chance of living 5 years after diagnosis.
· American women have a 7.2% better chance of living 5 years after cancer diagnosis.
Maybe these statistics are why tens of thousands of Europeans flee to America for advanced or sophisticated procedures unavailable, or rather rationed, in their own country.
Health care is like food, shelter and clothing: They are each critical to our survival but are not to be guaranteed by government. The problem is that many Americans have created a false reality in which they place their “inalienable rights.”
If government health care is the answer, why don’t we put the feds in charge of providing a house for every homeless American too?
True: The American health care system is in need of reform.
False: Government provided health care will prove most efficient reform.
