timely words on socialized medicine

Comments (3)

1. Socialized services are kind of like freedoms. There are no absolutes. (You can’t run around slandering, for example). Insurance (any kind) is especially unique because it defies normal economic supply/demand principles. The principle of “adverse selection” says that the risk spreading mechanism itself is damaged by low-risk people who opt out. In essence, young healthy people say “I’m young and healthy….I’d rather just NOT participate and keep my money, but thanks anyway.”

   Now I pose the question: Should anyone be able to opt out of paying for roadways? (highly socialized….except in Orlando where there is a tole booth every 50 feet. Last time I traversed the city I wanted to shoot myself. Thanks so much, Mickey Mouse).

   Should anyone be able to opt out of paying for police, fire, or military? (much like health insurance, risk spreading mechanisms. All incredibly socialized).

   Lastly, do you want to pay 25% of GDP for healthcare? (Now at 17% up from around 6% a decade ago and ascending faster than Chuck Yager in a test rocket).

   Health care insurance is an important risk spreading mechanism. Costs should be actively managed. People with families should NOT have to work for large companies (groups) to attain low cost coverage. That effectively dampens job liquidity and hinders broader economic markets. (What happens when GM closes down a plant and 800 workers find themselves constrained to working for another big company to find health care comparable to what they had before for their family.

   ….Research “Adverse Selection” and understand the underlying economics involved.

2. I have been a reader of your blog and website for some time and am thankful for your godly encouragement. I used to live in Issaquah fairly near you and your family 🙂 Usually I don’t post comments or participate in online conversations much, but in this case I must make an exception.
   Looking at things in black and white can be appropriate in some areas of life, but I don’t believe that it is true in such complicated political/business matters. Calling Obama’s proposed healthcare reform “socialized medicine” is a scare tactic and an over-simplification of what it is. I have seen this recording of Reagan posted a number of places on the web as a support to arguments against healthcare reform and what worries me is that people are simply seeing a face they know and trust and assuming that they can apply his opinions against socialized medicine to what is going on today without really listening to the message and applying it to thorough knowledge of the currently proposed reform.
   In Reagan’s speech he is talking about COMPULSORY public healthcare plans. The reform that is being proposed right now is NOT the same thing. It is NOT COMPULSORY it is the possibility of a public OPTION, but it is just that, an option. As I understand it it also includes making some laws that would prevent insurance companies from continuing some corrupt yet currently common practices such as canceling the insurance of someone who has been paying for that insurance for years, because they get seriously sick, from refusing to insure those who are sick and from imposing lifetime limits on insurance. All things that put good, hardworking families into bankruptcy and worse.
   The reason our medical care costs so much is because of the insurance industry, so I think that putting some parameters around that industry and creating an public option that would compete with private options in our fee market is needed and just.
   My overall hope is that whatever judgments each of us makes on this issue, that we do it with real knowledge under our belt.

3. Thank God he’s dead huh??!!!! Oh wait, you’re FOR this. Well certainly you can understand my confusion. Oops.