However, I would like to take on the issue of health care "rationing" and address it head on.
People throw around this term "rationing" as if it is some sort of evil demonic concept. Let me explain something. Every system rations, every system has to ration because no system has infinite resources, and that includes the current system. Even a true free market rations services through a system called "price rationing." One of the fundamental questions for healthcare is whether price rationing is a rational and just means of rationing that particular service, just as one might wonder whether price rationing fire protective services, or police services, or for that matter basic educational services, is rational, just and in the best interests of our society.
The current free market price rationing aspect for healthcare price rations millions of people out of the health insurance market. Without insurance they receive health care effectively by that cost being shifted either to our taxes or our own health insurance premiums. The problem with that is that it often affords poor care and creates economic inefficiencies that greatly raise the overall costs of our healthcare system for all of us.
But even for the insured, rationing most definitely occurs. Right now the closest thing to "death panels" in this nation are the bureacrats in insurance companies who decide what services they will not cover. For some reason these private sector "death panels" aren't talked about by people like you at all. You don't talk about the cubicle troll in Mega-Insurance Inc., that decides little 8 year old Amy's potentially life saving cutting edge procedure to treat that rare cancer is just too expensive and "experimental" to cover. Or the cubicle troll at Mega-Insurance who decides to just terminate Amy's coverage because she has become too costly a cost center.
Indeed, "death panel" style rationing like this occurs thousands of times on a daily basis under our current system. And it occurs not within a government that is at least ultimately accountable to the people it serves, but within the sprawling bureacracy of a profit driven insurance company accountable only to the bottom line of its shareholders. But Palin won't talk about that.
There is nothing approaching "death panels", within the healthcare reform legislation similar to those that already exist in private insurance. Instead, a few demagogic politicians and pundits have pounced on provisions actually expanding Medicare coverage to include advanced care planning to flat out lie in suggesting it is a curtailment services. It is not mere exageration of the bill's effects. It is low life and irresponsible fear mongering at its worst.
Palin, and others pushing this "death panel" BS are simply being dishonest. And that is the bottom line. It's all about dishonesty and using lies rather than the truth to address this issue.
"A man never drinks anything that a plant lives in" --DBone (A Real Man).
http://vimeo.com/4938173
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Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 13 2009, 6:20 AM
The way it stands now we have a choice. We can select from many different private insurance plans. Once the government becomes involved that choice will sooner or later be eliminated.
Tell you what. If the US government, including the Senators and Congressmen will MANDATE that they must go on the program they pass for the rest of us citizens and it will be the ONLY plan they can have in perpetuity then I will aquiesce to the idea that government run health care is a good idea. Until then all the words and claims in the world that this is a good thing are a waste on me because the health insurance for congress is through PRIVATE firms and they have a plethora of choices of plans to select from.
De Oppresso Liber
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KeithDB (Premier Login KeithDB) Forum Owner 24.244.189.77
Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 13 2009, 10:19 AM
C'mon Rob, as a practical matter the only choice in insurance plans that most Americans have is whatever insurance plan their employer offers. Those with preexisting conditions don't even have that choice.
"A man never drinks anything that a plant lives in" --DBone (A Real Man).
http://vimeo.com/4938173
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Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 13 2009, 10:40 AM
At the trucking company I work for I have a choice of THREE plans including HMO or Point of Service options. All with selections of different levels of deductable, pharmacy, and preventive medicine services. At my Families company, Mofab Inc. which employes about 50 people and which my wife works for they have virtually same number and type of options.
And of course one must consider that such plans are a major factor in determining where a person will be seek employment and remain employed in the first place which is ANOTHER choice. Thus based on MY families personal experiance your premise is false.
Further, it is quite obvious even to some of the least informed that when there becomes a "government option" businesses will opt out of providing private insurance benifits enmass in order to get out from under the costs of providing health care insurance even if they only pay for half of it. For purley financial and sound business reasons they will HAVE TOO even if they don't want to as soon as even one of their major competitors do it.
Like I said, when what they are trying to cram down the throats of us animals on the farm becomes good enough for pigs that walk upright in DC (the farmers house) then I will go along with it. Until then it is more of do as I say and not as I do.
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KeithDB (Premier Login KeithDB) Forum Owner 24.244.189.77
Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 14 2009, 4:50 AM
Rob, that your employer offers three is above what most do. But it sounds like most of the differences in the three plans are in deductibles and preventative/routine care options. That's not of much relevance to the coverage of care decisions we are talking about for this issue of "death panels."
Once again, the closest thing to "death panels" in this nation are those making decisions on behalf of profit driven insurance companies on whether to cover a leading edge procedure for someone with a terminal illness. I really doubt that you have much of an ability to choose insurance based on whether it will cover a procedure you have never heard of, for you or a member of your family, for a condition or illness that you have never heard of.
And once you or a member of your family have that condition, and need that procedure, there sure as Hell is no way that you can just change your insurance options to get that covered.
"A man never drinks anything that a plant lives in" --DBone (A Real Man).
http://vimeo.com/4938173
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Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 14 2009, 7:34 AM
The simple fact is that under a government plan a Government bureucrat board will be making the decisions instead of a private insurance company board. The government board will have every bit as much motivation to deny coverage as the private one will because of things like insolvent SS, and other costs associated with keeping old retired people alive.
And as for the Death boards?
When the president in one of his oh so many preaching news conferences/speeches tells us that maybe it would be better to take a pill instead of try to definatively treat a disease or condition for an old person.
When the brother of the presidents Chief of staff, Ezeikal Emanuel is an important advisor to the White Howse on health care and has published in one work after another in Medical Journals and talking about euthanasia for thirty years.
When one report after another that the VA is denying needed healtcare to not only old retirees but the more recently disabled fron Iraq and Afghanistan and the current administration raised a trial balloon about charging vets for VA care only three months after the innaugeration.
It doesn't take much imagination to hear and believe there is a "death board" provided for in this massive bill that our representatives didn't want to read.
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Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 14 2009, 8:51 AM
And yes those plans offer a range of great options. HMO vr. Point of Service is significant, perhaps more significant than out of pocket/deductable for me. And as I noted Mofab, a much smaller company with which naturally, I am intimatly familiar, offers virtually the same options.
The government plans proposed seem pretty much to be focused "one size fits all" and that most certainly is a reduction of choice. Of course, the President/White House has spoken more words about this issue of national health care insurance reform (formally national health care reform) on national media than ANY other politician but doesn't say anything. The White House, though this is their initiative, REFUSES to present their own plan. All they present is a man with NO PLAN! And they are changing the semantics on every issue in this as they go along when you know damn well they KNOW what they want and did from the first. So even the dullest blade must see that the KEY to their plan of getting what they want is to deceive us as to what exactly they want.
And the American people are seeing right through this. The outrage is being expressed by average Americans where ever the supporters of the reform go and actually come in contact with a crowd that is not part of a Kabuki theater as Obama's "town hall" meeting was last week. People are raising hell because their politicans will not LEVEL with them either about what is in the bill or what that particular politican supports.
And so the Administration has called out it's Union thugs. People, every day citizens, at these meetings are being physically attacked PAID UNION Obama supporters. THAT is the tactic of a despot being caught trying to implement a despotic policy.
So when all else fails I fall to the acid test. If it is good enough for them to force me to use it then it HAS TO BE good enough for them also.
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Re: Palin, "death panels" and health care "rationing."
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August 14 2009, 12:38 PM
Man this thing is getting very big. It makes the outcry over anmesty a while back look like a tempest in a tea pot. I gotta wonder just how badley this may hurt the Democrats. They are dodging their constituents all over the country and when they don't...........
