This is one heck of a promise to be making
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Delaware | Government-run health care | Health care | Policy — Comments (28) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Listen to this amazing claim about Delaware SB 177, known as the "Single-Payer Health Security Act":
This Act will provide every Delaware citizen comprehensive health care coverage from conception until ones last breath is taken without a cent from out-of-pocket expense for extra health insurance, co-payments or deductibles.
Wow. That is quite a claim to be making, indeed. The quote above comes from an information sheet on the bill, written by a Dr. Floyd McDowell, who is apparently the "Act's contact resource Issue Area Facilitator.
Read on.
Unfortunately, such a claim is fallacious at best. Now, I could go on and on here about how and why that's simply not possible; however, rather than spending time explaining why, I'm happy to send you over to the Delaware Libertarian, who has dug up some pretty good (well, not to proponents of SB 177) data on the topic, which demonstrate that "single-payer health plans DO NOT eliminate the need for out-of-pocket expenditures."
The Delaware Libertarian has done -- and, according to the above-linked post, will be doing -- a good deal of work to lay out the case "that the costs of this program will spiral out of control from the outset, while the quality of medical care available to our citizens takes a nose-dive." Click on over and check it out.
Oh, and while you're there, check out this post on how the "no money out of your pocket ever!" meme is made possible by the fact that money will instead be taken out of every Delawar(ian? ite?)'s paycheck to the tune of 2.5% to pay for the program.
The state government is probably banking on nobody noticing new taxes taken out before the great unwashed receive their paychecks. Sadly, they may be right.
The Supreme Court disagrees that this is constitutional.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
"Delaware citizen... from conception." Though the health plan is scary, that admission is beautiful.
Amazing. Little Jimmy will probably be happy to know the government will finally recognize his God given right to a "free" flu shot. Unless of course his mommy and I change our minds about having him.
Really? Democrats are pushing for health care from conception now? Because I can't imagine that having your skull ripped open and brains drained out is exactly a proper health care practice, yet is exactly what would have to be done to jive with their eugenicist base.
....a state that obviously cannot afford to plow its main roads, the Delaware Turnpike, during a snowstorm.
Last March 16th, each travel lane was slush covered, with an eight to fifteen inch high windrow of slush on either side making it nearly impossible to change lanes. Immediately after the Delaware Toll station, Maryland provided a phalanx of plows, one for each travel lane and each breakdown lane on either side.
Joe Biden must be wishfully thinking "Hmmmmm! If I can get them to think I can provide cradle to the grave medical care out of the Public Treasury for nothing, maybe they'll vote for me as President."
The Democrats, after having years ago forgotten one of the primary rules of Social Engineering; If you want more of something, Subsidize it: If you want less of something, Tax it: are now about to conveniently forget one of the primary rules of economics; If demand becomes inexhaustable, the price becomes infinite.
Not too many years ago, before prescription drug insurance became readily available, and price was based on out of pocket affordability, one hundred brand name Lanoxin .25mg was $.99. That's ninety nine as in cents, not dollars. A month of Wyeth's Ovral birth control was $1.49. A hundred brand name Valium 5mg was just $7.49. One hundred of Lilly's Keflex 500 was around $15.69. Twenty cephalexin 500mg capsules,generic, could run you thirty bucks today.
Meanwhile a pair of married doctors, having just finished medical school, their internships and residencies, looking for their first, starter house, the asking prices of the ones they are looking at: One Million Dollars!
And these buffoons want to add more fuel to the fires. It's your pocket and mine that are going to be emptied as a result, the rampaging inflation that is sure to follow will spare no one.
Is the fact that these morons have no inhibition about writing these stupid bills, whether it be at the state house, or Capitol Hill, and have untold number of whining advocates who can't spew enough nonsense about the moral correctness of this crap. I've noticed lately, our radio and TV's have been taken over by the "woe is us" crowd; seems like we're inundated with one sob story after another. Too bad we don't ban that nonsense, like they did cig and liquor ads because going down this yellow brick road will absolutely be dangerous to our collective health.
I deal with it every day.
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First State Politics
It'll present an obvious opportunity to show the rest of the country exactly why single-payer plans are a bad idea, without having to put the whole country through it.
I'm curious about a few things. Since this program is to be funded with a state income tax, aren't there a lot of marginal cases where people with jobs today would be better off if they stop working?
After all, the tax is a flat 2.5% but the benefit is (appears to be?) all-you-can-eat. At a certain level of income, it may pay not to work.
Another interesting social experiment comes from the fact that so many people stay in jobs they hate because they can't afford not to have the benefits. Let's see what they all decide to do instead.
The bottom-line with any kind of non-market healthcare delivery system (be it HillaryCare, mandated-premium, single-payer, or the third-party system we currently have), is that they all allocate healthcare by rationing.
The point of all this is to make healthcare more fair, not better. We have majority rule in America. If that's what the people want, that's what we'll get. And in Mencken's phrase, we'll get it good and hard.
NOT to fix a health system. Unfortunately, the real horrors of the program will take a few years to work their way into the system. By the time the even the Libs see how bad the program is, the other states will have used the "Delaware Model" to build their own plans. Just the pessimist in me leaking out....
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
I'm with Fred!
thus solving the financial burden of the health care system, especially capital investment.
If the 2.5% income tax increase is, in fact, across the board, then folks in the lowest income tax bracket would see their state income tax burden more than double -- from 2.2% to 5.5% -- should this measure pass.
For the bottom of that bottom bracket, that's got to be a pretty stiff penalty to pay for actually working and making a taxable income.
Oh. I keep forgetting. Anyone with money not given to them by the government is "rich".
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One of my past bosses once drew a triangle on a piece of paper, and labeled the three points "cost," "fast," and "quality." Underneath the triangle he wrote "you can only have 2!"
It's a basic tradeoff model. If you want something fast and cheap, your quality is probably going to be poor. If you want something fast and of high quality, you're going to pay a high price. And if you want quality at a low price, you're going to have to wait.
Same thing applies to health care, just replace "fast" with "access." You want high quality, inexepensive health care? Done! You're just going to have to wait a few months for that cancer treatment, or a few years for that hip replacement. Doesn't sound appealing? OK, let's try high quality health care with easy access to it. Oh, by the way, we're going to need to move a decimal point one place to the right, you remember that 2.5% income tax don't you?
Finally, of course, there's inexpensive and widely available care, sacrificing just a smidgen of quality. Most Americans have to travel to exotic locales like Zimbabwe or Cuba or Burma to get third world health care, but you lucky folks in Delaware will get to experience it without leaving the state!
And, btw, it typically isn't a good idea to try to pull this sort of stunt in a state where roughly two-thirds of the populace lives within a half hour drive of another state. Kind of hard to enforce "solidarity" when everybody's driving out of state to pay cash for the treatment that can't get (or aren't willing to subject themselves to) in their own state.
yep. That's why the flaws won't become obvious in Delaware for years. Otherwise I'd agree with blackhedd and think it might be a useful case study in what not to do. But if they haven't figured out Canada's lower priced prescription drugs are a result of the free market for said drugs here in the states... well I think Lincoln covered that in his "some of the people all of the time" statement.
It won't last long if it passes. First the free loaders will move in, the homeless (aka the bums). The the cost will sky rocket, Delware goes bankrupt, the system ends.
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American First, Conservative Second, Republican Third
Hillary loses her bid for the WH, gives up her NY seat, relocates to Delaware and runs for Governor to lead them thru the maze created by this stupidity. We can only pray for this outcome, it would be so delicious to watch her wallow in the muck of bankruptcy.
Heh. The only way that will happen--barring death, and I think she has a team of psychics working on that--is if she gets a plum UN position with more power and no pesky elections or accountability. She's on a John Kerry arc, but she's more ambitious, so she may even try to parachute into Brussels if she loses in '08.
No matter what the reality, the Ds will declare it to be a great success, tout how many "of the most vulnerable among us" were saved by it, the media will swear to it all, and that will make it immutable truth.
In Vino Veritas
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
This is really depressing. If you think this thing will ever be rescinded once it passes, think again. The Europeans are being crushed by their own social programs and they still refuse to limit them or scale them back.
The MSM is too stupid to understand budgeting and the politicians in both parties are too cowardly to demand payment for the services they hand out. Between this one and the one in California that dingbat Arnold is pushing, we're quickly sliding down the slope of bankruptcy.
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Well yes, there is that. It is essentially impossible to get rid of any liberal spending program, no matter how miserably and obviously it fails. The more certain people get rich and powerful by taking all our money (which is what liberal spending programs are all about, after all) the more able they are to stop any reform no matter how things go -- Consider the problem of the teachers unions. What's failed worse than the public schools, and yet we still can't even think of getting vouchers past them. They're just too damn big.
On the other hand, I don't think it will take all that long for the DE plan to obviously and catastrophically fail. Here's hoping they get it underway without a lot of delay. It couldn't happen to a better state, unless it was, say, VT.
make unreasonable campaign promises. Not because we know they won't keep them, but because the masses are not smart enough to realize a snake oil salesman when they see one. We, the sophisticated, understand that cradle to grave government nanny state can't and won't work, but the average person is easily had by such promises.
That is why Hillary Clinton's brand of politics is so dangerous. It isn't merely that it is the political version of a snake oil salesman, but that she can pull the fast one on plenty of people who aren't bright enough to see her for what she is worth.
There are probably plenty of folks in Delaware that see this as the politicians finally caring about them. Hillary has been doing this her whole career... Here is how I wrote about it.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor
everyone to move to Sweden?
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
If they actually provide this, certain things will happen.
1. Sick people (particularly those with long term illnesses)will move there. This will raise costs.
2. Healthy people will leave, to avoid the extra taxes.
3. Doctors will get paid less, as the state attempts cost controls. They will leave for better pay in other states.
4. Hospital companies will leave, and will not invest in new facilities, as they run into payment delays.
5. Corporations will begin an exodus as they can't find enough qualified healthy workers.
6. Lawyers will find a way to sue the state over shoddy healthcare, as well as malpractice.
I could go on, but the ultimate end point is this:
THE STATE BECOMES BANKRUPT AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO BAIL THEM OUT.
hmmm. hmmm. possibilities.