I’m finding a lot of grumbling about the health care bill coming to the floor in the Senate. It seems there aren’t too many fans out there. For a while, liberals agreed that compromising on single-payer was the only way to get this process moving.
I’m not hearing that so much over the last few days. The left now seems to fear the law of unintended consequences. There’s a lot of talk saying that the plan might actually have negative consequences and should be abandoned.
This is pretty discouraging,, but still I come down on the side of ‘better than nothing.’ It may be that this bill actually doesn’t solve any of our problems. To me, however, the stronger argument is for ‘a foot in the door‘. Bills can be amended after the fact. But there has to be a real thing to amend. And if we don’t get that something now . . .
Today, at Balloon Juice Tim F isn’t liking it one bit.
“I hope that the rest of the health care bill is freaking awesome. I really do. Because without some major changes the public option is going to suck. What will stop insurers from dumping expensive undesirables into a public ghetto? A guilty conscience? An unprotected public option will do one of two things. Either it will make insurance unaffordable again for anyone who really needs it, or else public option managers will come back to Congress over and over to beg for more money. Either way Democrats will discredit public healthcare by implementing it in the worst way imaginable.
There really is no way around it. Either Democrats protect the public option from adverse selection or they will do themselves more harm than good. As it stands now we might as well let idiot moderates kill the public option and just require private plans to cover everyone who wants care.”
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
What you hope for is why Americans are against it.
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Hi jonolan. Long time no see. I get your point absolutely, however . . . if the Republicans in Congress (and elsewhere!) weren’t so dead set against ANY legislation, we’d maybe have something that would work and start us on the path we need to follow – which is toward single payer. If we don’t manage this thing we are well and truly f**ked.
And the ones who will be hurt hte most, as usual, will be the working people and small local businesses. Their opposition is a mystery to me. They’re being slaughtered right now.
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Moe,
The GOP tried multiples times to craft healthcare reform legislation that met the standards set forth for America by our founders. The Dems shut them out of the committees in question though – once literally by changing the locks on the doors.
As for healthcare being a human right – are you willing to hold a gun to doctor’s head and force him to provide care? If healthcare is to be a right, you have to accept that possibility.
Less extremely – do you have the right to take my wealth by force and give it to someone else of your choosing?
As for the abomination of single payer – you have some desire to destroy America and lower the standard of medical care and innovation for the whole world?
Healthcare makes up 1/6 of America’s GDP. Nationalize it and the economic collapse that will cause will be beyond even America’s capacity to survive.
Also, our largely private sector healthcare industry is what drives most of the medical research and innovation in the world. Nationalize it and that will cease to be – and there’s no country ready and able to take up the slack.
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Well, considering all the inanity being thrown out there I am surprised the bill is in the state its in.
The hysteria whipped up by the right/libertarian types have done much to scuttle what is a normal feature in industrialized societies across the world.
I hope that the incremental changes started by this bill will lead to a single payer, socialized version of health care that will apply to all Americans.
Access to healthcare should be a human right.
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You know, reading YOUR post reminds me of what I used to say (to anyone who would listen) about the catholic church. It’s really all about women. They hate women. They really really do.
And guys like this Stupak? Let him loose and he’d be the friggin’ Taliban.
When we hang ourselves for good and ever, perhaps you guys will take some enlightened refugees? Is there any where warm in Canada?
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Jonolan said: As for healthcare being a human right – are you willing to hold a gun to doctor’s head and force him to provide care? If healthcare is to be a right, you have to accept that possibility.
Perhaps if owning a gun is was not a right then perhaps we would not even consider this implausible scenario.
Less extremely – do you have the right to take my wealth by force and give it to someone else of your choosing?
Yes I do. Taxes are one of this prices we pay for civilization. I suggest you try feudalism if all this liberal nonsense about the common good and redistribution of wealth is making you uncomfortable.
As for the abomination of single payer – you have some desire to destroy America and lower the standard of medical care and innovation for the whole world?
Most of the innovation is state sponsored, only when it becomes profitable do companies jump in a get busy innovating and making money. One could cite the various male potency drugs as an example. Benefit to the whole world is negligible, but it sure is lucrative.
Healthcare makes up 1/6 of America’s GDP. Nationalize it and the economic collapse that will cause will be beyond even America’s capacity to survive.
My word, the socialist boogyman is out in full force today. The US healthcare system spends the most per capita and is saddled with an inequitable unjust morass that only adds to the economic disparity and social stratification that is endemic of your society. A single payer system would deliver better service to more people for less money.
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Arbourist,
In the totalitarian, socialist neo-state that your sort favors the police will still be armed.
If healthcare is a right, then those police would have the duty to use what force was deemed necessary to ensure that everyone got healthcare.
No. Most medical innovation – especially pharma-based advances – is driven by the private sector.
You actually – albeit wrong-headedly as is to be expected – bring up Viagra. Millions and millions were spent researching that drug as a cardiac medicine, which it is actually useful as since it helps blood flow through occluded or constricted blood vessels in the heart muscle. The ED use was fortuitous side-effect.
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[No. Most medical innovation – especially pharma-based advances – is driven by the private sector. ]
This is one of the most vile of lies. It is absolutely not true! NIH, private tech companies, academia and other non-profit research orgs (mostly funded by govt’ grants and paid by YOUR tax dollars) develop most of the new drugs and procedures. In fact, because these labs are paid from your taxes, and drug companies also claim the expense – you are pretty much paying twice for the same value. Cool.
A good article on the whole thing can be found at
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
From that link:
” . . . the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The great majority of “new” drugs are not new at all but merely variations of older drugs already on the market. These are called “me-too” drugs. The idea is to grab a share of an established, lucrative market by producing something very similar to a top-selling drug. For instance, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, and the newest, Crestor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first.”
Also:
“Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Most of its marketing efforts are focused on influencing doctors, since they must write the prescriptions.)”
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This is one of the most vile of lies. It is absolutely not true! NIH, private tech companies, academia and other non-profit research orgs (mostly funded by govt’ grants and paid by YOUR tax dollars) develop most of the new drugs and procedures.
I was alluding to this relationship in my post, thank you Moe for clearly illustrating the and doing the necessary legwork to fully legitimize the relationship between state and private industry in this matter.
What I am concerned about is will it penetrate the conservative-libertarian private industry good / government – bad filters? It is hard to let go of free-market mythology that has been expressly perpetuated to promote agreement with elite business consensus.
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Moe, nice book review. Sadly for proponents of nationalized healthcare it doesn’t approach the truth very closely insofar as research funding is concerned.
According to the Journal of American Medical Association the NIH funds somewhat less (now) than 30% of medical research. Source
Now, if you want to only talk of “research project grants,” which ignores all the “for hire” work done in the private sector, you’re beliefs are closer to accurate. Source
Now…You also bring Pharma’s general behavior into the mix as part of your rebuttal. That’s a whole different kettle of rotting fish…
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There are indeed many different ways of measuring this stuff. But talk about Pharma being the big innovator and financier of research makes me batty. They spend more on TV commercials than they do on advancing medical care.
By the way, my link wasn’t a book review. It was a reported article. NY Review of Books is weird that way – half their pages are regular original writing. Not all book reviews. I’ve never figured out why, but what the hell. they publish good stuff.
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Moe said: it’s really all about women. They hate women. They really really do.
It is constant battle just to maintain the rights of women. Then we get little draconian gems of patriarchal goodness dropped on our heads by so called liberal politicians. It is frustrating at times.
When we hang ourselves for good and ever, perhaps you guys will take some enlightened refugees? Is there any where warm in Canada?
Of course. We have Vancouver on the coast which as similar weather to that of Seattle. Or if you prefer Eastern Canada the Toronto area is usually hospitable most of the year.
We may have to reconcile our definition of warm though. It’s hovering around -7 to +4 for lows and highs, there isn’t any significant snow cover as of yet, which means it is still sandal weather. 🙂
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“If healthcare is a right, then those police would have the duty to use what force was deemed necessary to ensure that everyone got healthcare.”
Good heavens. Where in the developed world (where universal care is the norm) has anything as absurd as this ever happened???? (China’s one child policy doesn’t count.)
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Moe,
If healthcare is a right then it must be provided, by force if needs be. Yes, my question was based upon an extremity. But such extreme cases do happen, even in the US.
What if a doctor had wanted to evacuate during Katrina and go elsewhere? Would you have him or her forced to stay and treat people – by force of the National Guard’s arms if needs be?
Remember, you said it was a right. Rights are inalienable and it is the duty of society to ensure that they aren’t abrogated – by force as a last resort.
What if the doctors an/or nurses went on strike? What then?
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Actually Jonolan, I never said health care itself was a ‘right’. Nevertheless, I do believe in equal and universal ACCESS TO health care (and affordable access at that).
In our country, our rights aren’t enforced by police. They are protected by the courts – that’s where we hash it all out.
Doctors don’t belong to unions, do they? Aren’t they largely in business for themselves? Nurses? Probably 50-50 union or not. So if they were on strike I guess it would mean we were operating in a vastly different world.
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