Bush Disaster #316: Lack of Intelligence and Morality in Dealing with Healthcare for Children

[BaliBabyDoc]

One more time for the people that are reading challenged.

SCHIP is an insurance program funded 70% by the feds and 30% by the states. SCHIP does NOT provide health care. SCHIP covers allowable charges filed by PROVIDERS of health care services (and dental in some states) to eligible kids (and sometimes adults).

It does NOT have the issues of Medicare or Medicaid (although it is technically a part of CMS just like M&M). Healthcare is NOT just another commodity and people that NEED healthcare are NOT 'customers.'

Only morons consider the ER a regular point of entry into the healthcare system. Using the ER as a primary point of entry is a MAJOR problem . . . not something to be dealt with by a discount program with government assistance for charges.

The fact that expanded health COVERAGE through state/federal programs may curtail the profits of private entities should not be a concern. There are plenty of ways of making money in America. Feeding at the medical care trough is not a right.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: dyna

American healthcare isn't that bad, its just expensive.

American health care is quite good, if you have good insurance. As a whole, though, it's pretty bad - our infant mortality rate is among the highest in the Western world.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
I agree with the sentiment, as does anyone halfway sane, that Leavitt has a conflict of interest (I remember reading about this a whole ago, but let's just say for argument's sake that he really does own those stocks, especially at that value). Even with ethical issue at hand, I don't see how you can say that the Bush administration wanting non-gov't sponsored health-care is "lacking in intelligence and basic human decency". Look, it's been proven more or less throughout U.S. history that gov't-run institutions that offer large and complex services to populaces are usually either mediocre or, in most cases, sub-standard. Countless examples including but not limited to AmTrac and LAUSD. The very nature of gov't-run programs takes out essential ingredients of basic ideas of progress and improvement. You see this administration policy as playing to corporate/insurance company interests, when in reality there is very sound logic behind the idea of open market competition, and not just domestically but globally.

Canada is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Everyone is covered under gov't-sponsored universal health-care, it's law. Problem is that it's crappy, very crappy, as in only very basic coverage. In many cases you have situations where people have to wait 6 months just for an MRI and far far longer than that if they want any organs (much worse than the U.S.).

Additionally, I take issue with your $8000 family plan figure; you can routinely find plans for a one third to half that cost if you are in reasonably good health. Not bottom-of-the-barrel plans either but PPOs.

What are you talking about. The Med Plans start at $600.+ a month just for basic coverage.

 

[Siddhartha]

If you think the ideal government is the smallest possible, as long as it benefits you, your family, and friends, you will not have trouble with the suffering of poor people.