| Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan claims to be a takeoff of th Massachusetts plan. That plan requires every citizen to purchase health insurance. As I've written in the past, the individual mandate is not really a solution. It leaves the "insured" open to huge deductibles, and/or large premiums. Why can't we find good, affordable health insurance?
Why? Becuase health insurance sucks! It is a source of loss in the health care delivery system. Insurance companies are skimming ridiculous amounts of money off the top of our health care system. And Dr. Marcia Angell, a Harvard med school teacher and former editor of the New England Medical Journal, thinks there is a better system available now:
Private insurance companies offer little of value, yet skim off 15 to 25 percent of the health care dollar for profits and overhead. It would make much more sense to extend Medicare to everyone. That could be done gradually by dropping the eligibility age a decade at a time, while phasing out the insurance companies. The loss of insurance jobs would probably be more than offset by job gains in other industries no longer saddled with health costs.
Medicare is not perfect, but its problems are readily fixed. It is far more efficient than private insurance, with overhead of less than 4 percent, and since it is administered by a single public agency, controlling costs would be possible. Unlike private insurers, it cannot select whom to cover or deny care to those who need it most.(Boston Globe 1/29/07)
Governmental programs? Oh my golly golly gosh, it would send the conservatives into a tizzy. What is this? Yup, we have a single payer system for everybody over the age of 65. Why not for younger people? |
