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EducateWorthington.org

The 912 Project - Glenn Beck

912 Group of Central Ohio

Please let me know if you'd like your link added

The Singapore Alternative

I pointed out on my show last week that health “reform” that gives people more health insurance will only raise health care costs. Insurance itself is the problem. When people don't spend their own money, they don't care what health care costs.

One solution is health saving accounts, or HSAs, in which people spend their own money for routine treatment (HSAs provide insurance for catastrophic health problems). Since Whole Foods adopted that policy in 2003, costs haven't risen -- and employees say they are happy with their coverage.

The country of Singapore is another success story. Singaporeans have universal healthcare, but their system is unique in that it runs on, essentially, the HSA model.

The WHO says that 64 percent of all medical spending in Singapore comes from individuals spending their own money at the doctor's office.  In the US it's 13 percent. In France, where the government pays for just about everything, it's 7 percent.

The result? Economist Scott Sumner says:

1.  Singapore health care costs only half as much as European health care.

2.  Singapore has universal coverage.

3.  Singaporeans live much longer than Europeans.

Some of that may be  because of differences in  culture and crime rates. But Singapore also beats its Asian neighbors that have government-run health care: Singaporeans spend half as much as Japanese, yet have virtually the same life span.

If we do want universal care, more HSAs would be better than Congress’ 2,000 pages of micromanagement.

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

How can you tell when 0bama is lying?  When his lips move!


Can Obama Open His Mouth Without Lying About Health Care?

Matt Welch

In an interview with the Washington Post today, the president challenged all of us to comb through his 2008 campaign promises on health care. Check it out:

    He don't play safe for you and mePresident Obama rejected in an interview Tuesday the criticism that he has compromised too much in order to secure health-care reform legislation, challenging his critics to identify any "gap" between what he campaigned on last year and what Congress is on the verge of passing. [...]

    "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill." [...]

    He said the Senate legislation accomplishes "95 percent" of what he called for during his 2008 presidential campaign and in his September speech to a joint session of Congress on the need for health-care reform. [...]

    Obama said the public option "has become a source of ideological contention between the left and right." But, he added, "I didn't campaign on the public option."

OK, kids, let's go look for what he said on the campaign about health care reform! Here's a good one:

    Unprecedented transparencyI'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.

http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/22/can-obama-open-his-mouth-witho

[But keep on fighting in the name of ideology]

It is dangerous to uncritically accept what is written without a good examination.  This is particularly true when one uses statistics.  In the previous post by VO "The Singapore Alternative" a comparison is made between medical expenditures and in Singapore and other places.  When comparing Singapore with Japan or France what is missing is the mean age of the population. 

Singapore 38.5 y.                       Health care   3.8% GDP       http://www.moh.gov.sg/mohcorp/hcsystem.aspx
Japan 42.4 y.                                                   8.1 
France 38 yrs.                                                 11.0 
US 35.4                                                           16

 mean age   www.indexmundi.com   %GDP data (except Singapore) http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/universal.htm#stat

From this it would appear that the US's "wonderful system" is the most expensive since the expenditure as a % of GDP is greater than for all the other countries even though the population is younger.  But than we must examine the GDP per capita


Singapore      51,600                     
Japan             34,100
France            33,300
US                  47,500   

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

So, if we do a per-capita calculation from these data we come up with:

                                        Life Expectancy (From CIA world fact book)
Singapore   $ 1960                        81.98
Japan          $ 2762                        82.12
France         $ 3664                        80.98
US               $ 7600                        78.11

This is the kind of thing that puts the US at a competitive disadvantage.  It looks like universal medical care pays off big time.  Spend less live longer.  There are other factors to consider but generally speaking this is the reality.

But keep on fighting in the name of ideology.  You will certainly pay more and maybe die earlier

The Shadow worked hard on this.

Shadow, if the cost of care is the issue, wouldn't it make sense to enact legislation to address that issue via tort reform and interstate competition, rather than taxes, fines and penalties?

Marc:

 The biggest issue is access.  Lack if access increases both morbidity and mortality as well as cost.  People with need but no easy access use the most expensive venues (emergency rooms)  and delay treatment as long as possible so that conditions are more serious and expensive to treat.  As far as tort reform is concerned there is a question as to what extent the fear of lawsuits drives extra testing rather than the need to pay for all the expensive equipment or the extra income generated for doctors.  Radiologists don't make any money unless x rays and all the other procedures that require radiation are requested.

Time to abandon ideology and look at reality.   Or perhaps it is good that life expectancy is shorter.  Fewer old people to take care of.  Better for the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

Shadow -- All Good points

MarcSchare "Shadow, if the cost of care is the issue, wouldn't it make sense to enact legislation to address that issue via tort reform and interstate competition, rather than taxes, fines and penalties?"

Tort Reform is a canard -- This country has a epidemic of medical malpractice and only about 3% of the victims receive any compensation for it.

We need tort reform but it needs to make it easier to get medical records and easier for victims to get justice.
The victims should be made whole -- not their attorneys.

Reference: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/036480.html

IS, there are all kinds of ramifications to the current litigious society that manifest themselves whether there is a lawsuit or not. Medical malpractice premiums are through the roof, defensive medicine is routinely practiced, potential doctors do not enter the profession because of the cost of insurance and on and on. Don't be so quick to minimize the benefits of tort reform.

Shadow, common sense tells me that if you provide 31 million people (demand) and don't increase supply, you have rationing. How is it to be avoided given the current system is already strained?

Tort reform (not only for in the medical area) would be useful but it is a small part of the problem of cost.

The greatest part of the problem is overcapacity (equipment and beds) that has to be paid for.  Note that primary physicians are not mentioned.


Marc said "Shadow, common sense tells me that if you provide 31 million people (demand) and don't increase supply, you have rationing. How is it to be avoided given the current system is already strained?"

the current system is strained at the primary level and rationing is already a fact for the uninsured.  The primary level is not paid sufficiently to take care of cost of doing business with more and more primary physicians becoming employees of hospitals clinics and urgent care facilities. 

 Market forces (better pay) should be used to entice younger physicians into primary areas (family, pediatrics, obgyn) so that problems are caught earlier thus preventing more expensive care later.

An example.  It is easier and less expensive to treat a pre-diabetic state (caught early) than to have to amputate legs.  Medicaid pays for the very poor and Medicare for the elderly.  Those who can't afford/get insurance at any price will not seek care until it is too late and care costs a lot more.  Somebody pays.

Dealing with this situation is what is common sense.  Other countries have dealt with it.  They do not sacrifice a part of their population and while neither do we, we are at a disadvantage because of ideology.  Manufacturers in other countries do not have to be concerned with health insurance for their workers either because they don't care or because a national system is in place.

We can continue to do things the way we do and pay the price we are paying or pay in another manner and become more competitive.

Ideology is expensive.

The Shadow
                       

MarcSchare

"Medical malpractice premiums are through the roof, defensive medicine is routinely practiced, potential doctors do not enter the profession because of the cost of insurance and on and on. Don't be so quick to minimize the benefits of tort reform."

Source for all this is The Medical Malpractice Myth
Tom Baker



Premiums through the roof -- yes, but not because of law suits -- rather because of bad investments.

Defensive medicine -- the studies say that doctors do not practice defensive medicine.
defensive medicine is notoriously difficult to study. First, researchers have to decide what constitutes defensive medicine. Then they have to tease out whether the effects of those actions were harmful or helpful. Given the fact that 100,000 people die per year because of medical error, some instances of defensive medicine will be helpful because they'll help reduce that number. Others will simply be unnecessary tests or more invasive procedures to ensure "certainty", leading to increased spending and even more risk.

The research that has been conducted indicates, for the most part, that defensive medicine has little effect overall and that states with tort reform have slightly lower rates of spending than those without. But one thing is clear -- malpractice fears aren't sending shock waves through the system.

• In a clinic scenario survey by the Office of Technology Assessment, where doctors were given a situation and asked how they would proceed, researchers calculated that 95% of doctors did nothing but order a test or diagnostic procedure. The principle reason doctors gave for ordering the procedure "almost all of the time" was medical indications. "Malpractice concerns" were given as a reason in less than one half of one percent of the cases. OTA researchers concluded defensive medicine is "not likely to explain very much of the huge growth in health-care expenses over the last century".


More money because of lawsuits:

"juries just aren't awarding any more money (adjusting for inflation and the cost of injury) than they did 40 years ago. One of the largest studies of this kind, by RAND, found this:

    Our results are striking. Not only do we show that real average awards have grown by less than real income over the 40 years in our sample, we also find that essentially all of this growth can be explained by changes in observable case characteristics and cliamed economic losses (especially claimed medical costs)."

No doubt you can find studies on either side of the issue, but tort reform, in addition to opening competition across state lines are two obvious steps to take that won't cost us a cent. Here is some interesting, all be it dated, reading on the subject.

http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?id=226&imID=3&parentID=59

Last evening on the PBS news there was a segment on Americans going to Mexico for cheaper (much) medical treatment.  In the segment the cost of malpractice insurance was mentioned.  Also mentioned was the fact that some people who retire to Mexico (and don't get Medicare coverage) can sign up for Mexico's social security health care.  Puerto Vallarta is looking to cater to the health needs of Americans young and old.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec09/mexico_12-28.html

The Shadow gets his news from PBS

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

Dems against democracy

As DC Democrats slink behind closed doors to craft a final health-care bill -- thousands of pages long and sure to sap the nation's economic future -- Americans need to ask: Just what are Dems so ashamed of?

"We will do what is necessary to pass the bill," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted, as she and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to forgo a panel to finalize legislation.

Instead, they'll build their Frankenstein's monster of a bill in secret, mocking democratic principles all the way.

So much for President Obama's vows of transparency -- and bipartisanship.

Nancy Pelosi

"We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN," Candidate Obama vowed back in 2008, "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents . . . That approach, I think, is what is going to allow people to stay involved."

That is, until Pelosi, Reid & Co. hide in the back rooms buying votes -- more Cornhusker Kickbacks, anyone? -- and doing all manner of secret violence to an industry that comprises one-sixth of the US economy.

"My Republican colleagues and the American people have been largely shut out . . . as Democrat leaders packaged their health-care bills behind closed doors and layered them with billions of dollars in sweetheart deals," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

C-SPAN itself called on Congress to open talks: "President Obama, Senate and House leaders . . . have all talked about the value of transparent discussions," Chief Executive Brian Lamb wrote.


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/dems_against_democracy_JKes82U6fhZqIGPvvL75CL

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/L4yFiPQZlF8&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/L4yFiPQZlF8&rel=0</a>

All was predicated on cooperation and bipartisanship.  What is the use of bringing people in when you already know the answer.  No! NO!! NO!!!
NO!!!! Simply a waste if time and much aggravation .

The Shadow

[We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald ReaganAl Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warmingThe welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - CamusThe person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek]

Stunner: Scared Mass. Dems Plot to Delay GOP Victory In Teddy Seat Until ObamaCare Passes
By Tim Graham

As Republican Scott Brown’s campaign warms up to take Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Frank Quaratiello of the Boston Herald is reporting something shocking: if Brown wins, Massachusetts Democrats may drag out his certification as the victor to enable appointed Sen. Paul Kirk (the former DNC chairman) to put ObamaCare over the top.

    "We want to get this resolved before President Obama’s State of the Union address in early to mid-February," Kirk told reporters at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast...

    "Absolutely," Kirk said, when asked if he’d vote for the bill, even if Brown captures the seat. "It would be my responsibility as United States senator, representing the people and understanding Senator Kennedy’s agenda. . . . I think you’re asking me a hypothetical question but I’d be pleased to vote for the bill."


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2010/01/09/stunner-scared-mass-dems-plot-delay-gop-victory-teddy-seat-until-obamaca#ixzz0c93TISIl