Mittens: Nobody dies from not having health insurance

The VA in Maine sucks. My uncle had to use it and he was a parapelgic...he despised the place and his condition often got worse when they missed diagnosis. In fact he died a few years ago because they missed a cancer until it was too late.

Some of my fellow patients at dialysis have VA bennies too, and they have many complaints and the wait times can be horrible.

 

The VA is the consensus best medical system in the country. In particular, the VA leads the way in electronic record keeping, which has made a huge difference. Medical records don't get lost or forgotten. They don't have to be acquired from a doctor who died five years ago. They're just there. It means that rather than having a mistake in how prescriptions are filled the typical 5% of the time, the VA dispenses medications correctly 99.997% of the time.

 

People die from a lack of health care, not a lack of health insurance. There is a lack of health care because there is severe artificial scarcity, and the government is directly responsible for it in large part because of regulatory capture in the early 1900s, and a second wave in the 1970s. We have an outright shortage of medical care in this country and arguing over who foots the bill is not going to help one damn bit in terms of the numbers of people who get care. All it's going to do is change how it's rationed, taking it from price rationing to... well, who knows what? It'll be whatever the government decides is the most optimal. Maybe they'll decide by voting bloc. Maybe by race, disguised as by geography or personal habits, like in the war on drugs. Maybe it'll be strictly first-come first-served, but I seriously doubt it; the temptation to meddle, to "optimize" is too strong. We already see it with organ transplants.

It doesn't really matter what rationing scheme they pick. Once they get to that point, there will be no further incentives to bring down costs or increase supply. And more and more people will die waiting for care because whatever system the politicians decide on for rationing, it won't fix the shortage, no matter how much they pay. The doctors will work harder than ever, and they'll get rich, but where in a free market that would be a sign that more doctors and hospitals are needed, those price signals will fall on deaf ears. Just like they do now. And Republicans will blame bad Democratic policies (which the Republicans probably came up with), and Democrats will blame Republican obstructionism (no matter how much of a majority in each house they have), and nothing will change because no one in Washington understands or gives a damn about price signals, and they'll have all long since forgotten that it was the regulatory capture that got them into this mess in the first place. In any case, so long as the "right" people get care, who cares how many others die? They probably weren't voters.

With the supply constraints in place, price rationing is massively unfair to the poor. But if we keep price rationing in place then when the supply caps are lifted - all of them, as I've detailed in other threads - then enough doctors, hospitals, etc. can be supplied to actually meet the needs of the poor. Truly affordable health care (not insurance) is the result. Even if it fails to become affordable for the poor, it would still be an enormous decrease in burden for charities and governments at whatever level to pay for care for them.

If we don't keep price rationing in place then a) it's less likely that the badly needed massive deregulation will ever take place, and b) if by some miracle it occurred, prices would still remain high because politicians are willing to pay well above market rate for their voters to be healthy. And that's assuming that nothing more insidious is in place at the time, like the aforementioned race-based priority care.

Fix the supply problem first. Deregulate the supply side of the market (detailed in other threads) and then take a closer look at how it's paid for.

 

Most of the bad VA stories were about Walter Reed, or maybe a couple more places. I go to two VA outlets, a few miles apart but under the same local umbrella. Also the VA farms some services out. Either way, I've had better care there than here at Fort Gordon (a highly rated hospital in itself).

The doctors (in my experience) are about the same, but the nurses, technicians, admin staff, and general patient care are top notch.

 

You are wrong.

 

You are wrong.

 

I've seen these suggested "stats" and they look highly suspect.

For example, they ASSUME that a lack of health insurance is why people might for example die from complications of diabetes due to not being able to afford insulin.

One of the guys I worked for warned me about taking care of my diabetes because his brother had died of it relatively young.

But.

He then pointed out that his brother was also spending all of his money on drugs (illegal drugs).

So what really killed him?

 

I strongly agree that we need more thought about controlling the cost of healthcare itself.

 

Fine. Show me an autopsy with COD listed as "Lack Of Health Insurance." What's the pathology of Lack Of Health Insurance? Transmission vectors? Or is it more like an injury? Can you get it from falling down the stairs? If I was to come throw you out a window, would you suffer blunt force Lack Of Health Insurance?

 

Romney repeated that inane comment this week in a rally in Ohio and an interview on one of the big network affiliates there...and I'm sure he wonders now why Obama's regaining the lead in that crucial state, which may well mean the difference...

 

Isn't your stated view that there is no point having insurance because someone else will just have to pick up your bill anyway?

 

That's Mitt Romney's position as well: "...you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital."

Talk about moochers...

 

Somebody should take 'em outside and Lack Of Health Insurance 'em.