Diary Of A Mad Voter: Jessica Peck Corry
Diary: HillaryCare Not the Right Prescription
By Jessica Peck Corry, 9-27-07
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Health care in America is expensive. It’s a reality that hits home every month when I open the $1,500 bill from my family’s health insurance company. And this is just for our monthly premium - not any of the co-pays we must cover for each doctor’s visit.
For any family facing financial realities like mine, it’s tempting to buy into the idea of socialized medicine - or as Hillary Clinton puts it, “universal health care.”
Crisscrossing the nation this month, the Democratic presidential candidate and New York senator is unveiling a plan she says will ensure that every American who needs health care will get it.
But can her plan possibly work? And would it ultimately improve health care in America?
The answers are both a resounding no.
As far back as 2003, an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that more than six in 10 Americans supported universal coverage. Support dropped to just four in 10, however, once people were asked whether they’d be willing to suffer the consequences frequently associated with socialist health care, including limited choices when it comes to doctors or prolonged waits for non-emergency services.
The numbers make sense and have only risen in more recent polls. We all want to believe in a future where no one is denied access to health care, but unfortunately, the devil is in the details.
For someone like me, what exactly constitutes “non-emergency care?” As a young child two decades ago, I was diagnosed with a rare vascular condition that has resulted in more than 13 surgeries, temporary paralysis, and countless medical tests. I’m also a Type I Diabetic. The combination leads to increased risks for blood clots. In other words, I’m a health insurance company’s worst nightmare.
But my worst nightmare is life under HillaryCare. According to an Associated Press report detailing Clinton’s recent efforts to defend her plan on the nation’s Sunday morning talk show circuit, she “giggled her way through questions about whether the health care proposal she announced last week amounted to socialized medicine.”
I’m not giggling. Without a profit-driven system, I likely would be sitting in a wheelchair right now, possibly as an amputee. I benefit from the talents of an interventional radiologist who developed the surgical procedure that has allowed me to lead a normal life.
In a socialist system, where government would hold down his profits and impose significant regulatory barriers, would he be among the the vast majority of doctors would lose any incentive, along with the essential private capital, to be the most innovative in his field?
While Clinton’s plan is being heralded by the left, there is much we still don’t know about it. She says it would require businesses to provide insurance for employees, that every individual would be required to carry coverage, and that the wealthy would pay higher taxes to help fund coverage.
Under her plan, she tells us, every single one of America’s uninsured could get coverage - and all for only an additional $110 billion cost to taxpayers every year.
But the truth is that the cost of HillaryCare is far from certain, mostly because we have no accurate tally on how many Americans are actually uninsured.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Census Bureau admitted that it has overstated the number of uninsured residents since 1995. Officials say the mistake was due to a computer error-one that resulted in the Bureau revising its previous estimate of 46.6 million to a 2007 figure of 44.8 million. According to Clinton, we’ve got 47 million uninsured Americans.
In Colorado, the numbers swing even more wildly. Recent estimates have put the state’s uninsured population at just over 500,000, while the Bureau pegs the figure at over 700,000. A private foundation publicized its tally last week at well over a million.
Clinton’s plan is also vague at best when it comes to coverage of illegal immigrants. According to government estimates, one in 10 people now living in California resides there illegally. Will these people be guaranteed health care coverage at taxpayer expense? What about others who can afford coverage now but opt not to get it?
Economists laugh at the notion that Clinton can fund her program solely by raising taxes on America’s wealthiest families. They say she will only raise half of what she needs through a tax hike on the rich. Not only that, but with the average cost of health care per employee already rising to nearly $10,000 a year, one has to wonder whether her proposed mandate that would force businesses to provide coverage or pay into a larger pool wouldn’t just be enough to put them out of business.
What will happen to their employees then?
Editor’s note: This is part one in a two-part series from Jessica Peck Corry. Part 2 will be published Oct. 4. Corry’s weekly blogs are part of a new feature on NewWest.Net/Politics called “Diary of a Mad Voter,” a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. Check back this week at www.newwest.net/madvoter.
The drafters of the constitution never intended for the federal government to play the role of health care provider and must be turning over in their graves at the thought of such nonsense! When will the march towards a Marxist state end?
"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Hammond, 1821. ME 15:332
And what have you been smoking Bob? The framers and debaters of the Constitution didn't even have a concept of "healthcare" at the time. Funny... I never read an opinion about that in the Federalist/Anti-Federalist papers. And you are probably one of those "original intent" believers too? How could they have an opinion about something they did not even have a concept of at the time? Also, did you read the part where the Constitution states that rights to the people include those yet to be enumerated... meaning they did not stop with those already listed. Dude... you need to do some serious reading.
As for "Marxist state", you've obviously never been in a country where they have national health care, and suffer from some simple misconceptions much like the author. In Canada, for example, you are required by law to pay for national health insurance annually and receive an insurance card. One can walk into any doctor's office anywhere, present the card, and either receive point-of-service or schedule medical care. These doctors are not state employees but simply private practicioners who take any patients. And everyone is insured.
Much of the waits the author speaks of are for specialists. Ever had to schedule for a medical specialist in the USA from an approved "in-network" list? It may take a few weeks or even months. You are just as surely rationed by the private for-profit healthcare entity as any national plan. The difference is that in the national one you actually have a 'right' to healthcare and can go anywhere for it without paying extra for such coverage. The for-profit guys have an incentive to ration your access for increased profits. Or just wait until you become old and require a nursing home where for-profit longterm care companies cut the staff below ethical minimums to increase margins and your care suffers.
I lived in Canada for some years and knew diabetics and many chronic sufferers who had excellent healthcare. Your implied wonderful "private" healthcare system has left about 1/5 to 1/4 of the population without any constant access and the US ranks just about the lowest in quality-of-life health issues in the Western world consequently. How shameful! Surely we in the US can do better.
Looks like you’ve bought-in hook, line, and sinker Everyman!
Now get back to reading your "Communist Manifesto!"
lol
Bob, you've bought the neo-con-job about universal health care, so it probably isn't wise of you to throw stones at those of us in favor of universal health care.
Look at the stats, man: countries with national health insurance have fewer babies die and longer life expectancies than here in the U.S.. They also spend far less of their GNP on health care than we do here. The stories about horribly long waits are from those who don't have to sit in waiting rooms hours, sit in exam rooms, waiting, for anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, schedule weeks ahead of time for tests, and such "free market" delights. It's time for research, Bob, not ideology.
Seems to me most of the meat heads in Washington use socialized medical care. The government VA system. Excluding the last scandal,
the have some of the best care in the country. Digital record keeping, cheapest drugs, etc. The problems the VA system has would be cured if our leaders but its citizens priorities over corporate interest.
If the private sector wasn't so greedy, they could have a far cheaper system. That's not going to happen so I say, let the VA style system take over the whole ball of wax.
The author takes the usual reactionary neocon approach of hyperbolic attacks and misinformation, rather than putting forth constructive allternatives. Our healthcare systems should not be run by profiteers. We spend far more for far less than any other developed nation. It's a national disgrace. How about some decent ideas put forward, other than "everybody's on their own"?
Comment By Gisele, 10-04-07You're paying $1,500 a month for family coverage, without co-pays, and you're thinking this is the best our country can do? Just keep repeating the word "socialism," I guess that will fix everything!
Comment By Ted, 10-07-07When did the word "universal" and "socialized" come to have the same meaning? And when did "universal" health care lead to a communist government? I would not be happy paying $1500 a month to an insurance company. Most self employed, the back bone of this country, do not have health care because of the expense. Health insurance companies are for profit and are dictating America's health care system. Health insurance CEOs are making multi-million dollar salaries at the expence of the sick. Health insurance companies should be non-profit and the control over health care should be put back in the hands of the medical community. Doctors should be making medical decisions not health insurance companies.
Comment By Peter Webster, 10-07-07I think the confusion of the terms "universal" and "socialized" is a reflection of the all-too-common quest for simple answers to big problems.
The insurance companies, like the oil companies, like the huge government-subsidized industries like Boeing, Lockheed, Bechtel, Haliburton, and—yup—Blackwater give millions to the Ruling Party. By giving all that money, they get certain perks in return: making policy for the government and receiving humungous contracts.