Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
\nRepublicans in Congress are doing their usual job of chickening out from taking effective action, preferring half-assed deck-chair-arranging and cost-can-kicking instead of risking the chance someone might call them names.\u00a0 Fixing this mess requires understanding how we got into it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Before the Great Depression, doctors charged what the patient could afford, overcharging some to give free care to others. \u00a0Hospitals charged the patient directly.\u00a0 In the Roaring 20\u2019s, people could afford good medical care.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>During the Great Depression, people couldn\u2019t afford doctors so they substituted nurses and midwives or went without care.\u00a0 Private hospitals ran short of money.\u00a0 FDR spent federal money on medical care as a stop-gap measure.\u00a0 Hospitals associated with charities or religions provided reduced-fee medical care.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>When World War II loomed, FDR worried that federal contractors would gouge the government so the Office of Price Administration set wage and price controls.\u00a0 When men rushed to enlist after Pearl Harbor, employers scrambled to fill positions on the now-booming assembly line but were unable to offer higher wages to entice employees.\u00a0 Employers offered free health insurance to pad the offer and deducted the cost as a business expense.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>After the war, employers couldn\u2019t drop insurance because it would be seen as a pay cut.\u00a0 But as Baby Boomers aged and needed more expensive care and the economy slumped reducing profits, employers were forced to drop coverage.\u00a0 The clamor for free health insurance turned to government, resulting in Obamacare.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The health insurance problem is just like rent control in New York \u2013 it was a temporary war-time something-for-nothing measure that was continued too long and now the addicts are screaming because they won\u2019t get their special war-time subsidies.\u00a0 They shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 The war is over.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The first step is to end the deduction for employer-paid health care so that more employers drop coverage, and prohibit units of government and unions from paying for health insurance, which will level the playing field as everybody becomes a health insurance consumer, same way everybody is a car insurance consumer<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The second step is to let states decide what insurance policies are allowed to be sold.\u00a0 Minnesota coverage will cost a bundle because the legislature will require every policy to cover everything.\u00a0 That decision will cost us jobs as employees leave to get lower premiums elsewhere.\u00a0 The laboratory of democracy eventually will find its balance.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The third step is to means-test Social Security and Medicare.\u00a0 Seniors who can afford to pay, must pay, or the system goes broke.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The fourth step is to limit the use of welfare medical care.\u00a0 People who buy health insurance have deductibles and caps so they don\u2019t run to the doctor for every sniffle.\u00a0 People who don\u2019t buy insurance should have similar incentives to conserve resources. \u00a0Yes, this means some children will suffer and die.\u00a0 If the entire system collapses, all the children will suffer and die.\u00a0 We\u2019re trying prevent that.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The fifth step is to deregulate medicine.\u00a0 Allow more drugs to be sold without prescription.\u00a0 Allow non-doctors to prescribe medicine.\u00a0 Allow medical providers flexibility in meeting standards.\u00a0 The country doctor who had his office in the front room of his house could handle most of what came in the door, he didn\u2019t need admitting privileges at a Level 1 trauma hospital.\u00a0 That policy might also mean recruiting more health care professionals from other countries \u2013 we\u2019d rather have them than have unskilled laborers climbing The Wall.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>The sixth step is to limit medical malpractice lawsuits to reduce malpractice insurance premiums so doctors can afford to charge patients less.\u00a0 Doctors make diagnoses by using statistics to play the odds, there always will be mistakes, not every mistake is a lottery ticket.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>I know: Democrats will howl.\u00a0 The media will howl.\u00a0 College kids will howl.\u00a0 Seniors will howl.\u00a0 Everybody who wants Free Stuff will howl that they\u2019re not getting enough Free Stuff, fast enough.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t matter, clean up the mess anyway because (a) it\u2019s the right thing to do and (b) if we don\u2019t, the system will collapse and the howling will be even worse.\u00a0 Time for Republicans to man up and do the right thing, for a change.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>No, I\u2019m not holding my breath.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>Joe Doakes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Nor should you. \u00a0The cult of the government savior is ascendant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Republicans in Congress are doing their usual job of chickening out from taking effective action, preferring half-assed deck-chair-arranging and cost-can-kicking instead of risking the chance someone might call them names.\u00a0 Fixing this mess requires understanding how we got into it.\u00a0 Before the Great Depression, doctors charged what the patient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62491,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62490\/revisions\/62491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}