Socialism

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Bond

On the surface, your argument seems to be plausible. But I believe you're operating under a faulty assumption.

Why must one assume that increased government control is necessary for health care reform? As I have clearly showed in previous threads (using actual numbers as part of my evidence) it is very likely that increased government control is in large part to blame for the increased price of health care goods.

Remember, in the 60s, when there was much less government control and regulation of the health care industry, the majority of health care payments were made out of pocket, ie. they were affordable.

You also forget that the federal government created today's PPOs and HMOs that have become much maligned by those in favor of the public option. How do you defend against those two points?

I won't defend against those points. What happend happend.. The focus now is on correcting the problem as it exists today. I'm sure once upon a time they had their own issues that needed addressing at that time, which caused them to alter the system as they did. Now we're faced with a new problem which may require a different solution.

And right now, from the solutions that have been offered to us by our current leadership (the democrats and republicans), that address all of our healthcare issues seem to either:

1) Toss a large amount of money directly into the private healthcare industry (through tax credits directly to people or incentives to the companies)
2) Force the private healthcare insurance to change their prices/coverage by law
3) Makes private insurers want to drop their prices because of competition (aka the public option)
4) and/or calls for the creation of a new program like medicare or medicaid (alongside one of the 3 above mentioned things) that covers people that privat einsurance won't.

-EDIT-I guess I should toss in a #5 to this list.. making some alteration to current laws and hoping/trusting that private health insurance companies fix the problems themselves, which I've only seen mentioned by John Mccain.. who also mentioned that he wants to do #1, giving everyone a $5,000 tax credit to buy their own insurance-EDIT-

But I'll keep an open mind on this, maybe I haven't read deep enough into what the republican's or conservative democrats have offered instead for reform.. If you know of a senator, or house member, or anyone who has any real say in washington offering up a healthcare reform plan that doesn't include what I have mentioned above and addresses the issues of price, quality, and coverage, feel free to post it.

If you can't find someone who has offered something outside of my narrow box of options... then yeah, no matter what prepare for more government control, or no real healthcare reform.