Althouse: "Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both proposing versions of RomneyCare on a national scale."

May 22, 2008

"Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both proposing versions of RomneyCare on a national scale."

So we'd better look at the results of the experiment in Massachusetts.

18 comments:

George M. Spencer said...: If you look at Karl Rove's predicted state results in Nov., Michigan is a total toss-up, whether Obama or Clinton heads the Dem. ticket.

Considering that it neighbors Ohio, which is also in play, Romney's got a great case for being on the GOP ticket.

(Plus, Wisconsin will be tight, too.); 5/22/08, 8:39 AM
Freder Frederson said...: The real problem in health care is the way the tax code and third-party payment system distort incentives.

This is what the WSJ says is the real problem. Of course this is presented without any supporting evidence.

Tinkering at the edges of a broken system is not going to fix it.; 5/22/08, 8:55 AM
KCFleming said...: "Tinkering at the edges of a broken system is not going to fix it."

Yeah; tinkering only wrecks things a little bit, and to the tune of a few hundred million dollars.

To really screw things up for decades to come (and spend billions in the process) will require a complete overhaul.; 5/22/08, 10:40 AM
Jake said...: The real problem is trial lawyers. Over 30% of our medical dollar goes for the cost of litigation, the cost of over testing and turning away of very sick patients because of the fear of lawsuits.

We could drastically reduce our medical bills overnight if federal tort reform was passed. That will not happen as trial lawyers give one third of all contributions to the Democrat Party.

In the meantime, there is a direct transfer of money from poor and working people to fat cat trial lawyers who are protected by the Democrat Party.; 5/22/08, 12:19 PM
Balfegor said...: Considering that it neighbors Ohio, which is also in play, Romney's got a great case for being on the GOP ticket.

Er . . . maybe. But he spent millions and millions of his own money and people still wouldn't vote for him. Republicans. In the primary. I think he'd do a competent job as a Minister-without-Portfolio kind of VP, and would be good on economic issues, but electorally, I have difficulty seeing him swing any states to McCain.; 5/22/08, 1:22 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Jake:

Do you have a link to support the "30%" figure? That sounds way way off to me.

What you are claiming is thirty cents of a healthcare dollar ends in a lawyer's pocket or was spent on an unnecessary test?; 5/22/08, 3:00 PM
TJ said...: "Over 30% of our medical dollar goes for the cost of litigation"

I'd love to see a citation for that. I've got one that says the costs of the suits, legal fees, payouts, and insurance costs account for about half of one percent of all health-care spending.; 5/22/08, 3:01 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Jake:

If there was that much money floating around, there would not be so many lawyers hanging around this blog.; 5/22/08, 3:01 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Trevor:

It's much less than 30% but higher than 0.5%! Slate may as well be a DEM party organ and the DEMS are bought and paid for by trial lawyers. So I'd view the Slate spin with some healthy skepticism.; 5/22/08, 3:05 PM
TJ said...: Here's another one that says the problem isn't frivolous suits, it's medical errors.

"(T)he claims that did not involve errors absorbed a relatively small piece of the costs of compensation. Eliminating those claims would decrease the system’s compensation and administrative costs by no more than 13% to 16%."; 5/22/08, 3:06 PM
blake said...: I'm pretty sure the results aren't important.

I mean, we can see the results, as pregnant Canadian women come here for ultrasounds that take a year to get in their own country.

We can see the rest of the world free-riding off Americans paying full price for drugs.

We can see the people in the UK who are too expensive to care for.

We can see the drag on the economy in France. A drag which no one is free from.

We can see the VA hospitals here in the US.

We can see the controlling nature of governments, as the guardians of health, they determine what people can eat, how they must exercise, and how they shouldn't be required to provide health care to people whose lifestyles they do not approve of.

No, I do not think results matter, or we would not even be having this discussion.; 5/22/08, 3:07 PM
spudchuker said...: Fortune Magazine analyzed the health care programs of all 3 remaining candidates and thought that McCain's was best, because it is only one with hope of containing costs.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/10/news/economy/tully_healthcare.fortune/; 5/22/08, 3:31 PM
Anonymous said...: What?! The government can't fix our lives from cradle to grave?; 5/22/08, 4:31 PM
Methadras said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/22/08, 4:53 PM
Methadras said...: When are we going to learn in this country that we are supposed to be responsible for ourselves and the government isn't there to hold our hands much less have people propose ways for the government to become our nursemaids? Why must people on the left think that government must be the answer to all of what ails us? In life there are winners and losers. That also includes your ability to care for yourself and how you proceed to acquire the care you need.

There is no plan that is worthy of support regarding health care where government becomes involved. I do not want government to be the arbiter of my health care. That is my responsibility, not theirs. It's bad enough that government regulations have shoved the intermediary need for insurance companies to insert themselves into businesses and arbitrate what my doctor and I thinks is proper and necessary for my health, but not these two leftist buffoons want to adopt a clearly socialist (yet cloaked as a middle-ground partisan solution) solution to doling out health care on the taxpayers dime.

Government wasn't set up for this type of nanny stateism and you can see it in how horribly it fails at planning, implementation, and execution. None of the forecasts for costs are met, they are incredibly higher, none of the expectations are met because government moves to slowly to meet those expectations. This is not the role of government and I wish there was a legitimate candidate who could say these things into the peoples faces to make them realize that the free ride needs to come to and end and to save ourselves from our selfish need to have government provide nearly everything for us. It's great though, government has one arm around your shoulder telling you how you are it's your mother and friend, while the other hand is reaching into your pocket to fleece you and make you feel really good about it. It has got to stop.; 5/22/08, 6:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Who could have predicted that mandating free or reduced costs for free that costs lots of money to provide is going to create problems?

Such a complex concept...; 5/23/08, 3:29 AM
Balfegor said...: "(T)he claims that did not involve errors absorbed a relatively small piece of the costs of compensation. Eliminating those claims would decrease the system’s compensation and administrative costs by no more than 13% to 16%."

That looks pretty significant to me. Think of that as a tax -- a 15% tax. Wouldn't that be huge?; 5/23/08, 9:07 AM
Methadras said...: Where the hell are all the proponents of Obamacare and Hillarycare via RomneyCare? I want to know how you retards can justify this crap.; 5/23/08, 7:40 PM