Mr. President, I Don’t Want Your Health Care Program!!!

© David Burton 2009

Some Facts

The cost

     ”In 1970 the U.S. spent 7 cents of every gross domestic dollar on health care. Now its 16 cents.”
     ”An increasing portion of Americans cannot afford or access adequate care. Within 20 years Medicare outlays, left unchecked, will crowd out all other federal budget items except defense. Employee-benefit spending makes U.S. companies uncompetitive in world markets. Almost any city or town would be bankrupt if it put on its balance sheet the commitment to provide health care for retired employees.
     ”The runaway factor here is the fee-for-service reimbursement system that predominates in private and public insurance plans. … When caregivers make more money by providing more care, supply creates its own demand. Half of all care consumed seems to be driven by physician and hospital supply, not patient need or demand.” (Ref. 1.)

     ”Absent fundamental reforms, over the next two decades the average American household’s health care spending, including the portion of its taxes that pays for Medicare and Medicaid, will go from 23 percent to 41 percent of average household income. (Ref. 2.)

Lack of Coverage

     ”ObamaCare is propelled by the oft-repeated Census Bureau statistic that 45.7 million Americans lack health insurance.” (Ref. 3.) Is this true? What are the realities of this statistic?
     Of the reported 45.7 million, 17.5 million “earn more than $50,000 annually. Though they can afford the coverage, they evidently have other priorities. Of the remaining 28.2 million uninsured, some 14 million are eligible for, yet have not enrolled in the Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs. Meanwhile 10 million uninsured may be illegal aliens.” The Pacific Research Institute “estimates that only about 8 million Americans are uninsured due to chronic illness or working-poor status. The latter have incomes too high for assistance and too low for insurance.
     ”There is no need for a gargantuan health plan that spends $1.5 trillion, nor the 29 new federal boards, panels and agencies that Senate Democrats envision.” (Ref. 3.)
     “Why not help these 8 million rather than overturn medicine for all 300 million of us?”

It's ObamaCare or No Health Care Reform

     Mr. President, stop repeating the lie that only you and your fellow traveler Democrats are in favor of health care reform! Republicans and nearly all Americans that are opposed to your health care program want health care reform and have suggested a number of meaningful reforms, e.g., cap medical malpractice awards, penalize frivolous medical malpractice suits, stop denial of medical insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions, make medical insurance transportable, support health care accounts, etc. Your plan throws out the baby with the bath water. Get with the desires of a majority of Americans - we don’t need another massive government program and bureaucracy with runaway costs, inefficiencies, and interference in the lives of citizens and businesses.

Stop Trying to Stampede the American People

     Mr. President, stop trying to ram you health care program down the throats of American citizens! No one yet knows what is in your program. There are reportedly close to 1,000 pages in the plan that is still being debated in Congress (Ref. 4.) and it is also reported that nearly 400 amendments have already been filed. It would seem that haste is uncalled for. Your rush to enactment appears to be solely for the purpose of putting the plan in effect before there can be any meaningful evaluation of the plan and to avoid having to face criticism for those parts of the program that are not in the best interests of the majority of Americans. “ … rushing to pass a slapdash package that costs Americans jobs, widens the budget deficit and still doesn’t achieve its stated goals is destructive. (Ref. 5.) There are health care reforms that make sense, that are supported by the majority of Americans. Put these reforms into effect now. Give up your grandiose scheme. Do what makes sense now and attack the overall problem one battle at a time.

Do We Want (Need) ObamaCare

     Do we want the government to design another product that they will make me buy? If we refuse it, that’s too bad because the government will decide what we want and what we will buy. If we can’t afford the product, the government will send in investigators to check and if they conclude that we cannot indeed afford it, they will tax our neighbors and make them subsidize us. More than likely, we will be the ones subsidizing our neighbors. If big brother discovers that we haven’t purchased the product, they will go to our employer and garnish our wages. Is that part of the health care program that we want? Do we really want an all-inclusive government mandated program in which “the government will regulate health care, define acceptable health insurance and force every American to buy a plan based on the government established standard”? ( Ref. 6.) I think not.

     ”In town hall meetings across the country, voters have blasted President Obama’s health overhaul as too expensive, too complicated, and likely to inject the government too deeply into the nation’s health care system.” (Ref. 7.) The more we get to know what is in the plan, the more odious it appears. ObamaCare is not only expensive, complicated and intrusive, it is a blatant attempt to lead America down the discredited road of socialism.

Let’s Fix the Real Underlying Problems in America’s Health Care System

     “Our current discussion of healthcare reform can only be characterized as the product of gross ignorance processed by a mob of imbeciles.” (Ref. 8.)
     “Every day we hear news stories about the need to immediately reform our nation’s healthcare system, …. The justifications often presented to the public are these: too many people lack health insurance, healthcare costs are too high, and we spend too much on healthcare.
      “But maybe the ‘problem’ is not a lack of health insurance as much as it is a misunderstanding of what health insurance should be.
      “Maybe costs are too high precisely because of the manner in which health insurance disconnects our healthcare decisions from the costs associated with these decisions.” (Ref. 8.)
      “Is it any wonder that healthcare costs are out of control? It is as if you had ‘grocery insurance’ and whenever you went to the grocery store you just paid a $5 grocery co-pay and then could load your cart with whatever you wanted. Do you think this might lead to a national ‘grocery cost crisis’ and would need to have Obama and Congress mandate employer-paid grocery insurance for all?” (Ref. 8.)

     “Imagine if your car insurance covered oil changes and gasoline. You wouldn’t care how much gas you used, and you wouldn’t care what it cost. Mechanics would sell you $100 oil changes. Prices would skyrocket. That’s how it works in health care. Patients don’t ask how much a test or treatment will cost. We ask if our insurance covers it. We don’t compare prices from different doctors and hospitals. Why should we? We’re not paying. Although we do in hidden indirect ways. {slightly edited by me}
     “In the end, we all pay more because no one seems to pay anything. Its why health insurance is not a good idea for anything but serious illness and accidents that could bankrupt you. For the rest, we should pay out of our savings”. (Ref. 9.)

      “The ObamaCare solution consist of three strategies:
      “The first is to have government bureaucrats control payments for healthcare services …”
      “The second is to have the government as the controller and gatekeeper for all access to healthcare services.
      “Finally, Obama wants to pay for all this with taxes - initially from the wealthiest” few percent of the population,” i.e., rob the rich and give to the poor, “but over time from whomever he can get it from with the least political fallout.” (Ref. 8.)
      “What really needs reform is the current disconnect between a patient’s consumption decisions and the costs of those decisions. Equally important are the lifestyle decisions and their associated costs.
      “If you have ever tried to determine, in advance, the costs of various treatment options you know that it is nearly impossible to get the information needed to make a sensible cost/benefit decision.” (Ref. 8.)
      “The lack of cost-conscious consumption (i.e., wasteful consumption) by the consumer is a cause of even greater waste by the providers because they have little incentive to increase efficiency. If they reduce costs, they will not be rewarded with extra business, because their customers will not know or care. But they will be punished by the insurance carriers for their greater efficiencies, since their payments will be reduced. No good deed ever goes unpunished under socialism! {Emphasis mine}
     “The same perverse incentives are at work when it comes to lifestyle decisions. If individuals are shielded from the economic costs of irrational, irresponsible and reckless behavior when it comes to managing their personal health and lifestyle choices, will they be more or less likely to engage in such behavior? Will they be healthier and need fewer services, or will they be more sickly and be in need of more services at substantially higher costs?
     “What does our current health insurance system do? It shields us from the costs of health- related services while incentivizing doctors to over medicate and order uneconomic tests (often for legal protection). The current system takes away one of the key incentives for living a healthy lifestyle and it removes any incentive to consume medical services in a cost-effective manner. And it provides little incentive for providers to do so efficiently.” (Ref. 8.)
     ”Consider for a moment our homeowners insurance. “We all prefer to pay a few hundred dollars into a pool each year to be protected against those rare but catastrophic events that we diligently try to avoid. Note that our home insurance premiums are reduced IF we install fire extinguishers, or don’t build in flood zone, or take other steps to reduce risks.
      “So why isn’t it the same for health insurance? Shouldn’t health insurance merely provide protection against extraordinary risks? And shouldn’t our costs for that protection be a function of our risks?” (Ref. 8.)
      “If we pay for routine medical costs out of pocket, won’t we be much more cost conscious when we decide to consume medical services? Won’t providers respond by finding innovative ways to reduce costs to win our business? Won’t we be encouraged to live a healthier lifestyle to reduce those costs further? Won’t the lower insurance premiums offered for healthier lifestyles encourage us to make better choices?
      “Over the years, the government has waded into the healthcare market and has grossly distorted it.
      “Government has destroyed the incentive for consumers to be cost conscious. In the process, government has destroyed the incentive for providers to improve efficiency.” (Ref. 8.)
     “Government has also dramatically raised the administrative costs of medical care by burdening even the most mundane event, such as routine checkup, with unnecessary clerical costs … costs that will go even higher if ObamaCare is enacted.
      “All of these distortions of the healthcare market can be fixed with one simple change: GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE HEALTHCARE BUSINESS!
     “Eliminate all government regulation of health insurance (except fraud, of course).
      “Let individuals and insurance companies, through the free market, design insurance policies that reflect the true insurance needs (protection against random, catastrophic events), are price competitive, and reward healthy lifestyles.
     “Free doctors, nurses, hospitals, and other providers to compete for the business of cost conscious, quality-seeking consumers. Let those who succeed prosper and those that fail go out of business.
     “Never let the government interfere in your lifestyle choices, your healthcare choices, or your relationship with your doctor or other providers.
     ”ObamaCare is taking everything that is wrong with government’s meddling in healthcare and making it worse … much worse. This is not reform. {emphsis mine} It is idiocy … and it may eventually kill all of us.” (Ref. 8.)

We don’t Want a Socialized Health Care System

     ”Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape. (The system) is so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor. Canada isn’t the only country facing a government health care crisis. Britain’s system, once the postwar inspiration for many Western countries, is similarly plagued. Both countries trail the U.S. in five-year cancer survival rates, transplantation outcomes and other measures. (Ref. 10.)

     The socialized health care system in “Great Britain seem(s) good at making everyday care conveniently accessible, but budget limitations continue to result in long lines for specialty services and technologically advanced care. They, too, are turning to private insurance, which offers their citizens greater choice.” (Ref. 1.)

     ”Dialysis patients in 2002-04 … had to wait 62 days for access in Canada versus 16 days in the U.S. Waiting lists for elective surgery, such as hip replacement, are notoriously long in other countries. ‘… waiting for care has economic costs in terms of sick pay and lost productivity, as well as negative health consequences.’ “ (Ref. 15.)
     If American health care is so much worse than in countries with socialized medicine, why do foreigners who can afford it seek treatment in the U.S. rather than in countries with socialized health care? Maybe one reason is that when it comes to “effective treatment of major afflictions: The U.S. beats others hands down. Americans with diseases such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension all have better health care outcomes than do their counterparts in Europe. ‘U.S. women have a 63% chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56% for European women. Men in the U.S. have a five-year survival rate of 66%, compared with 47% for European men,’ “(Ref. 11.)

     ”Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its U.S. victims. In Great Britain … breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.
     ”Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its U.S. patients. … it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.
     ” … the U.K.’s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s.”
     ”In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment.” (Ref. 12.) Maybe our health care system isn't so bad after all. It may need tweaking and reform, but does it need to be thrown out and replaced with a massive social experiment?

Let’s Reduce Malpractice and Other Legal Costs to the Healthcare System

     Clever lawyers have any number of legal procedures in their bag of tricks with which to extract money from our healthcare system - and all of us pay for this legal extortion with higher healthcare costs. Malpractice suits are not the only way to suck money out of the healthcare system. In the Fall of 2003, “as evidence mounted that Vioxx could cause fatal heart attacks, (New Jersey) Local 68 of the International Union of Operating Engineers … sued the drug’s maker, Merck - for consumer fraud {emphsis mine} (for some $20 billion in damages). The claim: The Union’s health plan wouldn’t have paid for the drug had it known the side effects.” (Ref. 13.) Note that the suit was not for injury to a patient, was not for malpractice and did not claim to be on behalf of an injured party. We need to stop enriching the legal profession and reduce or eliminate the amount of money we pay for frivolous legal awards. Let’s put all of our health care money, not just some of it, to work providing better (and less expensive) health care.

     And the beat goes on - and on - and on. “With one ruling this week, the state’s highest court has put an added burden on doctors that will increase costs even as it strikes at the heart of doctor-patient relationship.
     ”A deeply divided Supreme Judicial Court found a doctor could be held liable for harm done by his patient if the doctor had not adequately warned the patient of his medication’s side effects.” The case was brought by the parents of a victim struck by a car when the driver, who was being treated with 8 medications, lost consciousness while driving. (Ref. 14.)
     As stated in a dissenting opinion, the majority opinion ‘would interfere with, and distort the highly personal confidential physician-patient relationship, recognized since the time of Hippocrates … It would alter a physician’s affirmative duty to care for his patient by introducing a new audience to which the physician must attend - everyone who might {emphasis mine} come in contact with the patient.’ The dissenting Chief Justice wrote, ‘The Physician would be forever looking over his shoulder.’ (Ref. 14.)
     The dissenting Justices both raised the issue of a potential flood of litigation that would “increase significantly the costs of health care.” “In the end, not just doctors but all of us will be paying for that.”(Ref. 14.)

     ”The U. S. Supreme Court recently rendered a decision that is harshly hostile to medical innovation …” “The plaintiff alleged that a … drug … was improperly injected, with the result that {the patient} lost an arm to gangrene. {The patient} understandably sued the hospital - a physician’s assistant did indeed inject the drug directly into a vein, despite a clear warning on the lable that read: ‘INADVERTENT INTRA-ARTERIAL INJECTION CAN RESULT IN GANGRENE OF THE AFFECTED EXTREMITY.” The patient also sued the drug company. “After all, why not go after a deeper pocket for some real money?” {emphsis mine}
     The drug maker’s “label had been specifically approved by the FDA.” “ … despite the warning label and despite the fact that this particular product was inappropriately administered by a third party,” the court ruled that the drug maker “could still be held liable for harm.” “This will sharply raise the cost of bringing new medicines to market by substantially increasing the risk of doing so.” Bizarre. And highly destructive.” (Ref. 15.)

     In addition to the cost of malpractice awards, there is the reported much higher cost of defensive medicine. ”Most costly is the individual doctor’s perceived threat of a career-ending malpractice award and his or her incentive, therefore to practice defensive medicine.” “A Massachusetts Medical Society study discovered that in one year Massachusetts wasted $1.4 billion on defensive medicine.” “Another study cited by the Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons puts the cost of defensive medicine much higher - $100 billion to $178 billion per year.” (Ref. 16.)

Do We Want to (Can We Afford to) Pay for ObamaCare?

     The first estimate of the Senate Finance Committee’s version of ObamaCare came in at a staggering “$1.6 trillion over 10 years, according to the {nonpartisan} Congressional Budget Office {CBO}.” In fact, it was so staggering that “the committee immediately set about revising its plan. Included in the CBO report that, out of the estimated 50 million Americans that are currently uninsured, this $1.6 trillion monstrosity “will still leave 37 million uninsured.”
     Is this $1.6 trillion real? The ABC New research department “found that in 1965 the estimated cost of the then-new Medicare program was $12 billion for 20 years. The actual cost turned out to be $107 billion.” - a nearly nine-fold increase. (Ref. 17.)

     ” … major health care reform proposals have generally always cost more - sometimes significantly more - then the highest cost estimates published while legislation was pending.”
     ” … in 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee calculated that Part A {of Medicare} would cost taxpayers $9 billion in 1990. In fact that year’s outlay was $67 billion.
     ”In 1967, Ways and Means predicted that the entire Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990. Actual cost: $110 billion.” (Ref. 18.) Based on real life experience, does anyone truly believe that ObamaCare cost could be kept at the already outrageous $1.6 trillion level?

     The CBO estimate fatally exposes the central contradiction of ObamaCare. President Obama has insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy - yet the Democrats’ plans would make the problem worse.” {emphasis mine} (Ref. 19.)

     Can we and our children afford a projected $1 trillion (0ver 10 years) health care program? Are the costs worth the benefits? If the projected 10 year costs are $1 trillion, does anyone doubt that the real costs will escalate well beyond this estimate? What major government program has not seen real costs far exceed initial cost estimates. The “Big Dig” in Boston was initially projected to cost $5 billion - its final cost is on the order of $15 billion.
     Massachusetts was the first (and to date, the only) state to mandate a universal health care program. Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Care, launched in 2006, … was supposed to costs $472 million in fiscal year 2008. That year’s real tally was $628 million.” (Ref. 18.)

     It was reported in the August 22, 2009 issue of the Boston Globe that Massachusetts has the highest health care costs in the nation. Is it a coincidence that Massachusetts is the only state in the nation to currently have a mandatory health care program encompassing all its citizens?

     ”The Joint Tax Committee reports that the bottom 60% of taxpayers with incomes below $50,000 paid less than 1% of the federal income tax in 2006, while the 3.3% with incomes above $200,000 paid more than 58%.
     ”Mr. Obama has offered no clue as to how he intends to pay for his health-insurance plans … Although he may hope to collect an even larger share of loot from the top of the heap, the harsh reality is that this Democratic quest for hundreds of billions more revenue each year would have to reach deep into the pockets of the people much lower on the economic ladder. Even then, he’d come up short.” (Ref. 20.)

     Whenever then President-elect Obama was “asked how he’ll pay for his ambitious health care reform plans, he invariably talks about the $80 billion in annual savings he’ll get from bringing computerized recordkeeping to doctors’ offices and hospitals.
     ”If only that were true. While there are benefits that might be had from using computers more widely in medicine, doing so won’t save us any money and, in fact, will likely make things more expensive.” (Ref. 21.)

     ” … the heart of the problem is the U.S. fee-for-service system, in which doctors get paid to do things to people. The more technical and invasive the procedure, the more money they make. Doctors have responded in the expected Pavlovian manner, collectively shifting away from basic primary care toward expensive specializations that run up the costs without necessarily improving medical outcomes.” (Ref. 6.)

      Our costs of drugs is another issue. President Obama will have to choose between more diversity in the number of drugs available or lower drug prices. Under ObamaCare, he has said he wants both, “but he’s going to get only one or the other - more drugs … or lower drug prices negotiated by the federal government.”
     ”Along with many influential Democrats in Congress, the President … also favors having the federal government ‘negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available prices on drugs.’ That means only one thing - weakening the patents involved in the expensive front end of this dance. Placing a single huge buyer between a patented drug and the disease it treats will indeed lower the cost of treating it - so long as someone else has already paid to get the drug to market.” It’s been reported that the cost of getting a new drug to market is some $1 billion.
     ”The rest of the world counts on the U.S. to be the someone else. New drugs are introduced here, affluent Americans {and/or their health care insurers} pay premium prices while the patents last, and less affluent Americans, along with the rest of the developed world, get a sharply discounted ride on their coattals. While the patent lasts, however, some of the free riders don’t get the drug at all. The 6,000 British victims of kidney cancer don’t get Pfizer’s Sutent, because the government sets a $23,000 cap on what it will pay for a drug expected to prolong life by six months. Most other countries are openly or tacitly doing the same. The {Obama administration} wants {that} to happen {here} on the double.” When we import drugs more cheaply than we can buy them here in the U.S., are we simply getting the drugs at a lower cost or are we also causing drug companies to cut back on the expensive process of developing new drugs because they won’t be able to recoup their development costs? “Once the U.S. joins the big-government buyer’s club, … (m)any smaller-market drugs will never make it through the economic gate at all.
     ”It is dreadfully ironic that affluent countries have chosen this moment to throttle the {new drug development} research engine.” (Ref. 22.)

     ”ObamaCare promises to pay for itself. It can’t possibly - if Democrats come through with all the side deals they’ve made in order to get a reform bill . . While the President hit the road to drum up public support for his plans, the White House and Capitol and Dems have been serving up closed-door promises to keep various groups happy.
     ”All the key groups have been bought off” reports Health Policy & Strategy Associates of Alexandria, VA. “Worse, he says, it’s undermining potential cost savings - perhaps preventing a new system that would pay for itself.” (Ref. 23.) Among the groups reportedly being bought off are: doctors (through the American Medial Association), old people (through the American Association of Retired Persons), hospitals (through the American Hospital Association), private insurers, Conservative Democrats, and the middle class.
     ”Contentious as reform has become, the Administration is pushing hard for passage of a bill. With all the requisite giveaways, what will it look like - and how will we be able to afford it?” (Ref. 23.)

Instead of ObamaCare, Let’s have Real Health Care Reform

     ”Mr. President, “… if we want cheaper and more creatively delivered health care we need less, not more government.” In 1960, about 50% of health care expenditures were directly controlled by consumers. Today it’s about 15%. “Over the same period in which consumers have relinquished control, per capita health care spending has quintupled.” (Ref. 6.)

     Mr President, let’s put the ObamaCare healthcare proposal away and instead focus on making meaningful and realistic changes to the underlying causes of our current health care system problems. “Because of government intervention in the marketplace, there’s a vast gap between the demand for health care and its supply.

     “Increasing government intervention only exacerbates the gap: Prices rise, supplies shrink further and eventually government is forced to close the gap by restricting demand through rationing.” {emphasis mine} (Ref. 24.)

     ”Our health care ills are symptomatic of our social ills. And our social ills reflect a society where the link between personal responsibility and costs and personal rights and benefits has been largely severed.”(Ref. 6.) Simply stated, ObamaCare will, at best, perpetuate these disconnects and, more likely increase them, as does all socialistic actions.
     ”More individual freedom, choice, and responsibility in both the delivery and purchase of health care is our only hope.” (Ref. 5.)

     ”The problem with health care … is the disconnect between providers and consumers - that is, our third party payment systems. … The current system hurts productivity; it is geared toward a cost-plus way of doing things that is hostile to new ways of doing things.
     ”Remove barriers to Health Savings Accounts and to people buying health insurance across state lines … and {provide} refundable tax credit(s) that would give more power to individuals and less to employers.”(Ref. 25.)

     ”The problem with health care is that patients don’t control the resources - third parties do. Thus, there is no marketplace pressure for productivity or innovative ways of improving delivery. In those areas in which the patients write the checks for medical care, productivity proliferates. Cosmetic surgery is a prime example. Unless the need for a procedure is a result of a disease or an accident, such procedures are paid for by the patient, not an insurer. ‘The real price of cosmetic surgery has declined over the past 15 years, despite substantial technological progress and a sixfold increase in demand.’” (Ref. 26.)
      Mr. President, a major step toward meaningful health care reform would be to move away from socialistic concepts and back to the capitalistic notion of having each individual responsible for his actions and allowing the individual the right and obligation to make his own decisions about his health care options. More of big brother is not the real solution. Get the government and its bureaucrats less, not more, involved in our health care decisions. “Health Savings Accounts, properly implemented, would go a long way toward bringing about an entrepreneurial revolution in health care, one in which Americans would get more and better medicines for less.”(Ref. 26.)

     Republicans have proposed a Patients’ Choice Act that reflects the thinking that “health care costs are out of control, and as a result, not affordable for many, because of too much government. It {the Patients’ Choice Act} allows Americans to take direct control of their health care expenditures by giving families and individuals cash in the form of a tax credit ($5,700 and $2,300 respectively) to buy insurance and to set up a Health Savings Account.”
     Democrats {and President Obama} … take things in the opposite direction. Rather than controlling costs and access through more competition and consumer control, they see it coming from more government and {more} regulation.” They prefer “mandates on employers to provide insurance, fines if they don’t, and using those funds to finance a new subsidized government plan.
     ”And central to cost control are {more} government bureaucrats defining what procedures may be used and determining what physicians will be compensated.”
     Medicaid already works this way. Under Medicaid, “bureaucrats define what is covered and how much physicians will be paid.” “On average, 40 percent of physicians won’t accept Medicaid patients. They are paid less than what it costs them to provide the care.” Is it a coincidence that a recent study has shown that “Medicaid patients (are) 50 percent more likely to die after heart surgery than patients with private coverage or Medicare”?
     ”Move the whole nation onto a new government health care plantation?
     ”No thanks. I’ll take freedom and personal responsibility.” (Ref. 17.)

     ”Private-sector competition produces efficiencies that government can seldom keep up with. As Democrats scamper to reduce the projected costs of health care, the rest of us might want to keep that in mind.” (Ref. 27.)

     ”Let every American own and control an individual insurance policy that can be transported among jobs, self-employment, graduate school, and life’s other twists and turns.” What Americans need is a thriving market in individually owned and controlled health insurance plans.
     ”Health care reform should give Americans the option of using money tax-free to purchase whatever kinds of health insurance make them happy. If employers offer such plans, lovely. If not, individuals should be encouraged, through tax-free Health Savings Accounts, to buy and maintain their own policies.” (Ref. 3.)

---------------------------------------------
References: