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Loading...Health Care Reform Protesters Have Their Heads in the Sand
Making sense of reform opposition (without the help of a brain scan)
Aggressive protests targeting health care forums scream “no” to governmental solutions to economic and social problems. Fueled by the belief that the stimulus spending, corporate bailouts and health care reform are all wrongheaded socialist approaches to America’s problems, these angry political participants oppose Demoratic proposals. Where Paul Krugman credits government financing for warding off a second Great Depression, these Americans fault Obama for misusing their tax dollars, adding to the national debt.
The stimulus spending and various bailouts will take years to access with certainty, but the health care reform debate is happening now.
Action is necessary
It is no solution to pretend that we can continue the way things are (“hands of my Medicare”). As the Baby-Boomer generation ages, the Government’s expenditures on medical care under the current publicly-financed program will skyrocket. This is not a result of insurance fraud, double billing or even illegal residents, which make up but a small percentage of program costs. The real cause – a demographic shift towards more older Americans — will require some significant change in the form of new taxes, user fees for Medicare, or cutting costs or services to deal with the corresponding rise in expenses. If not, the public health care committments in place long before President Obama started talking reform, let alone asserting presidential authority, will greatly expand future deficits and debt.
Protesters talk as though the government is what’s wrong with health care. Is the dismantling of a social safety net in health care what anti-Obama health care protesters really want? Scott P’s piece on refusing to receive socialized medicine raises the question, who don’t we want to help, ourselves?
Seniors, Veterans and some with low income receive most of their health care benefits through tax-payer funded programs. Without these benefits, those who have sufficient private insurance, income and savings would obtain care, but those who do not, would have to go without, make do with less, or be at the mercy of charitable care.
Either rejecting government programs or rejecting their responsible reform will endanger the health care of average seniors, Vets and Medicaid recipients.
Protection of employer-provided insurance
More specific concerns have been expressed about the fate of employer-provided insurance, presently relied on by most Americans. While their are Democrats calling for a public insurance model, President Obama has said that he will not alter the existing system. The current House and Senate legislative initiatives have incentives and penalties designed to continue and even increase the number of Americans covered by employment-related insurance.
Public insurance options or insurance cooperatives aims to improve efficiency of the insurance industry, not destroy it. As with other reform proposals, these programs must serve to cut costs and increase services in the long run. President Obama acknowledged that a public insurance entity cannot be tax-payer subsidized if it is going to demonstrate efficiency and competitiveness with private insurers.
Financial discipline and deficit reduction
While President Obama has spoken of seeking to control costs through Medicare and Medicaid reform, many Americans fear additional deficit spending will result. The fiscal reform of Medicare and Medicaid would be difficult enough; increasing the social safety net by covering the uninsured and achieving fiscal discipline is all the more difficult. Doubt that this is possible spurs further mistrust of reform.
It must be recognized that congressional spending increased annual deficits and the national debt during the Bush years, prior to the government’s fiscal response to the financial crisis. While crisis spending shocks those who don’t see it as necessary, it is separate from health care reform. In the health reform context, fiscal reform is a goal, and the President has insisted on offsetting budget cuts to balance new expenses.
Fiscal reform gets twisted into another issue — rationing. President Obama has insisted that rationing is not part of Democratic reforms. Thus, decisions on the provision of health services are still between the Doctor and patient. Obama critics claim that reforms will shift authority to the government, despite no facts to support this.
In fact, with costs increasing, rationing is one way that costs could be managed for the larger public good. But this is certainly not Mr. Obama’s plan nor that of Democratic leaders in Congress. Protesters against government financing of health care are advocating rationing under another name, ability-to-pay. Other nations find rationing by financial means immoral and have imposed medical standards designed by doctors, medical ethicists and the public as a way to allocate resources. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but should be acknowledged honestly as methods of allocating precious resources. (See Ann P.’s discussion of preexisting condition exclusions.)
What is unfortunate is that broad-brush and misleading attacks on government offer little by way of solutions. These claims may be fear-based or political calculus, but they do not begin to address the nation’s health care issues.
It is not impossible to provide health services or cut the deficit – other nations insure all their citizens and still maintain efficient, competitive capitalist systems, and many are far stricter in managing their deficits. This is a matter of priorities and good management of resources.
Far less drastic than looking at public systems abroad, promising research on our own system shows potential cost savings and improvements in care in many parts of the country using different models of providing and paying for medical services. As the debate on health care in America moves forward, what we need is careful analysis of what works. Not a political contest, but professional judgment and public feedfack.
Research shows that in some important ways capitalism distorts the provision of efficient high-quality medical care. Some decisions are driven by profit, rather than medical need and outcome. Patients lack the knowledge to be perfect consumers. Protesters putting their blind faith in the free market would do well to look at the impacts that money has on the health care system.
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Recent Comments from Causes
Awesome!!! Thank you! :-))
@Dennis -- while Jenny McCarthy's views aren't anywhere near as pernicious as those of Palin and Bachmann,…
Thanks for the info.
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+ add your ownNO to PUBLIC OPTION
YES to SINGLE PAYER
"WINDOW TREATMENT"
our windows are sick- just like us
they need HR676- just like us
Let's give them a LARGE dose. hang up a HUGE sign that says HR676, and on our car windows too if we can. "HEAL" our windows to HEAL US!!
If you have to make the signs for other people DO IT!!
Join your zipcode and go door to door
http://www.canhi-hr676.ning.com
Make a Ribbon that says single payer and wear it. the design is here http://madashelldoctors.com
Conduct a "sitout" (for HR676) explanation found here http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1181150058290#/group.php?gid=130262706488&ref=ts
Sign petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Bring-Obama-Back-To-Single-Payer
Bring Obama back to SINGLE PAYER petition. Still looking for an official letter writer to draft the letter that will accompany the petition
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
"If we're going to have a successful democratic society, we have to have a well educated and healthy citizenry".
- - Thomas Jefferson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2c1SYXyeAg&feature=email
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErUNv87L6B4
http://democracyforamerica.com/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/OPEN-BORDERS-CAMPAIGN
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/109/BRING-BACK-THE-EV1
Stevo, buddy! Good to have you back. God know we cannot hear the same govmint-suck-at-everthin diatribe too many times.
USPS delivers letter from door-to-door up to 3.5 ounces for under a buck. Name one private company that comes close.
MediCare. Name one private insurer that's more cost efficient
Public schools. Name a private one that's less per pupil and provides the same classroom hours and services.
In closing, and in response to your closing paragraph, show me one valid/verifiable document or Web-link that says you'll be forced out of insurance you have and want to keep.
Jim
Rank and file government workers are often really good people and dedicated professionals who want to get it right. They are not the problem. The problem IS at the top and mostly with highly corrupt members of Congress. They hear all the good advice and then ignore it to do whatever benefits their big campaign contributors or their districts even if it makes no sense at all. Good examples of this are Senator Ted Stevens' bridge to nowhere, Congressman Jack Murtha's fleet of Presidential helicopters that President Obama never requested and the fleet of Gulfstream private jets that Congress tried to sneak past us after crucifying corporate executives for using their private jets. It's the top of the government that has to be changed and I'm talking almost entirely about Congress.
The government DOES run things well. Of course we all have our horror stories but our CIVIL SERVANTS, those who SERVE the CIVILIANS, work very hard often without the proper funding, or enough personnel and often dip into their OWN pockets to get the jobs done.
If you think of how many license plates are processed, how many letters are mailed, how many students are educated,
I think they do a heroic job. The only thing needed is for the systems to start listening to the people who actually DO the work when they give suggestions on how to improve things, instead of everything always being a top down discussion.
The government runs many things smoothly...wow. The post office as I recall is running deeply in the red while UPS has been performing brilliantly for decades. I will grant you the prisons and the military though the military should run well given how much money we spend on it. Medicare is going bankrupt, ditto for social security, our K-12 education is the most expensive in the world but doesn't crack the top 10 in several categories. As for our courts, they are regularly ignoring highly pertinent facts and have violated the constitution and the separation of powers many times in the last 20 years. Our government runs so "efficiently" that many of the car dealerships, the ones that are still in buisness after the government "saved" the auto industry are now in danger of running out because the government has only come through on 2% of the money it owes them for cash for clunkers...
The life expectancy in America with our horrid diets, execrable exercise habits and our "failed" medical care system has recently hit 78 years! Do you trust this government with running our medical system? Do you REALLY???
Steve G. has been mislead by lies. The government runs many things smoothly, such as the post office which has enjoyed considerable profit margins and reliability, courts, prisons, the military... the list goes on. Granted the government works much better when the Democratic Party is running things. Of course Republicants have to get in there every so often and mess things up real good so that there will be more things wrong with the government for them to complain about.
I believe that greedy, dishonest special interest groups are opposing change. The millions of lobby dollars can be viewed as proof that this opposition is based upon money and not upon the help our fellow Americans need. It's a battle between the haves and have-nots. Problem is: the haves will have a lot less and spend more if change does not occur.
When did we lose our rights to question authority? I thought protest was the highest form of patriotism.. Many provisions in the healthcare bills being proposed are designed to make private care so expensive and unattractive that employers will stop offering it. If your health care provider screws up you can sue them, not so with the federal government also government institutions aren't going to have the same restrictions imposed on private care so the competition argument is a joke. This plan is designed to strangle private healthcare by burying it so deep in restrictions and red tape that public healthcare will become the only viable option.
Not to mention the tone that the politicians are using against critics is so toxic it borders on being unconstitutional! They aren't debating their critics they are demonizing and insulting them. Try addressing criticisms instead of using demagoguery,
lies and hate speech to silence them. I'm also pretty unimpressed with SEIU thugs throwing around and screaming at senior citizens. Is this the kind of "care" you have in store for them?
If you want to cover the uninsured fine! I'm there but don't you DARE tell us we don't have the right to protest against being forced out of acceptably good health care and into government care. Especially when you can't point to a single thing that the government runs smoothly or efficiently.
Again, GO ON FactCheck.ORG for the REAL DEAL...NO BS. All the facts on Healthcare...easy to understand and in PLAIN ENGLISH...for all ages to grasp. No BS... FactCheck.ORG
What a riot all this discussion is getting to be! LOL From what I have read/heard there are 3-5 "bills" being considered and the goal will be to take the best of each of them to combine into one on the health care issue. Bottomline is that other countries have millions of people that are happy with a government supported health care plan, and we have stats like 48,000 people who died in the last year or so due to INADEQUATE HEALTH CARE! When will everyone take a seat and listen to what is being discussed in rational terms? I'm embarrassed and ashamed of people who are shouting down speakers in town hall meetings - when did we lose our rights (that everyone screams about)to listen to a speaker and then come to a decision on our own about how we will vote for/against, support, be part of the proposed change or decide not to? I, for one, am tired of living with a daily "fearmongering" mentality from everyone. Let's return to some sort of civility as adults and treat each other with the respect we want from everyone else. Name calling, belittling, out-shouting is ridiculous from rational adults. And our children are watching - what are they learning?
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