Thoughts during a ten mile run.
-why do adults who are not engaging in athletic activities wear sporty digital watches?
-god, the mouth waters thinking of sushi nippon, for some reason not very popular with these yelp types in the link above
-ok, so I understand the libertarian position that ANY government involvement in a field results in less freedom. It's a simplistic position - as simplistic as the belief that any government intervention in an industry is a good thing - but let's take it as it's pitched. By the libertarian logic, then, universal health care is a government intrusion that will hamper the consumer driven health care market place, resulting in fewer options, more regulation, etc. However, isn't a society where people are reluctant to leave a job and start their own business, or become consultants, or even just move to a new job because they might not have the same health insurance plan or because their coverage might change - isn't that society a lot less free as a result of the lack of universal health care? Isn't this one of those cases where a government program actually makes individuals in a society more free to pursue their own dreams and livelihoods?
-and, to hit back to the other side, if pay-for-performance in health care reimbursement is a democratic initiative - isn't this applying to health care the same principles that democrats oppose so strongly when it comes to school vouchers? Non-performing hospitals or health providers are the ones who need the funding the most, and under this plan, they will be the first to lose funding.
-ugh, running uphill. Keep all joints lined up. Don't lean forward.
-there are too many people on the rock creek park trails.
2 comments:
Quick note: our current health care system is chock full of government intervention. The government provides tremendous subsidies to both consumers (Medicare) and insurance companies (through the HMO act of 1973). What we have is a system with misguided government intervention. What we call consumer driven health care now is really just cost sharing between provider and consumers.
But your perspective is 100% correct (or at least I think). There are some aspects of society that are incompatiable with a libertarian worldview... the most obvious being national defense, but health care and basic infrastructure being high on the list. Truly consumer driven health care won't be good for much beyond population control.
I spent a year managing the technology portion of a Medicare Part D program for a small insurance company, and got a lot of bizarre insights into how our health care system works. Universal Health Care may be the answer, but the whole system needs an overhaul.
And kudos on working up the endurance for 10 mile runs. I'm just getting back in exercising, and tend to collapse after running much more than a mile... it'll be a while before I'm back to junior high cross country form. :)
I just went to a couple of really good sessions on health policy at a conference - and my only quibble is that it just seems facile to keep drawing analogies between health and other industries. While Toyota probably knows that the average person will own, say, 8 cars in their lifespan, I highly doubt I will be needing 8 heart transplants - at least not at the rate I'm going right now...
The other issue with consumer-driven care is that so much care is emergent, or at least, not planned/elective.
And for the elective stuff, there's always cheap transplants in southeast asia!
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