Government-run healthcare not justified by NPR report
I woke up this morning to NPR doing a report on how some health insurance companies deny coverage to people once they file a claim. They went a step further and said that some of these people were denied present and future coverage even though they abided by all of the rules. NPR was trying to vilify this action, as they should since it is shady, but they are on a streak of trying to make the current health care system look so horrible that we the population will be clamouring for government-run healthcare. Nice try NPR, but you’ll have to try harder than that.
NPR even cited the number of people who this happens to and it’s just under 10,000 people in the entire country. Let’s do some math. There is an estimated 310,000,000 people in the country. If we take very conservative numbers and say that half of those people are adults who currently work, and then subtract 40,000,000 for the “uninsured,” we get 105,000,000 insured working adults. If we take 10,000 and divide that by 105,000,000, we get 0.000095238, or 0.0095% of the working population. NPR wants reform for 105,000,000 people based on shady practices to 0.0095%! There are more people that die from the common flu each year and yet we don’t talk about throwing out the current healthcare system so that 20,000 flu victims don’t die. Life is full of risks and the government is worse at eliminating risks than are a free and prosperous people independent of the government. This is why I call it idiocracy, NPR is no better than Fox News for sensationalism.
For all of you who think that universal healthcare is a utopia, don’t come crying to me when you can’t get the immediate care that you need because there are too many other people in line ahead of you. Economics is about the rationing of scarce goods in the most fair and balanced way. Politicians are not better at this than a market system where people, not politicians, place the value of goods and services like scarce healthcare resources. To anyone that thinks otherwise, I invite you to start a debate in the comments to this post.
On a related subject of government run healthcare, I submit this article as some more food for thought. The moral of the article, how are we going to afford government-run healthcare when we already have a national debt of $11 trillion and up to $50 trillion of unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Medicaid. How exactly is government-run healthcare more cost effective?
You can sue your insurance company or switch to competitor (employer if it’s a group policy) under our private system. You will not be able to sue or switch to competitor (there won’t be any) if the government runs health care. Look at the recent VA medical scandals.
Your point about rationing is right.
Another point might be that lets actually try a free market system. The health care system we have is realyy as much socialist as free market.
States limit who may own and how many hospital beds there are.
State licensing of doctors artificially restricts the number of doctors.
States require a full physician’s medical license for the most primary of primary care, which could be done much cheaper by someone with a 4-year degree.
Out from under all the various special interest group, the government could establish the rules and requirements of a free market in medical care, medical insurance, pharmaceutical development, malpractice lawsuits.
Many doctors do not accept new Medicare or Medicaid patients because reimbursements do not cover their costs. A single payer system will basically be Medicare and Medicaid extended to the entire medical insurance market. One definition of insanity is expecting a different result from the same actions.
Buehler? Buehler?
I completely agree with Steve, obviously. Anybody else reading this blog that would care to weigh in on the conversation?