Our healthcare mess

Remember how we solved our healthcare problems with the reform measures promoted by Barack Obama? Not true. Our politicians aren't being honest about the extent of the problem we face, and it threatens our entire economy, according to this detailed and thoughtful article from Wilson Quarterly. Here's an excerpt:

Last year, Medicare and Medicaid made up almost 22 percent of the federal budget, about $500 billion and $250 billion, respectively. By 2050, together with the additional costs of the new health care law, they will expand to 48 percent of the budget (excluding interest payments on the national debt). At about $4.8 trillion (in today’s dollars), that sum will dwarf that year’s projected spending on Social Security by a factor of more than two, even though the retirement program, at $680 billion, is currently much larger.

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Ayn Rand’s real world position regarding government benefits

I recently spotted this excerpt in Wikipedia (I left the footnote references so you can backtrack):

A heavy smoker, Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974. Although she had long opposed government assistance programs, she eventually accepted Social Security and Medicare payments for herself, under the name of "Ann O'Connor", and her husband as well.[87] A July 1998 interview with Ewa Joan Pryor, a New York state social worker, conducted in 1998 by the Ayn Rand Institute, revealed that Pryor assisted the two with filing. Federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information act request confirmed that between December 1974 and her death in March 1982, Rand collected a total of $11,002 in monthly Social Security payments.[88] O'Connor received $2,943 between December 1974 and his death in November 1979.[89]
Rand, is often cited today by conservatives touting extremely limited federal government, including many Tea Party advocates who are currently collecting social security payments and Medicare benefits. Here is the Wikipedia opening paragraph on Rand:
Rand's political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government. She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism,[3][4]

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The health care “free market”

Many American conservatives argue that we need to step back and allow the "free market" continue to offer the most efficient health care system in the world. The facts on the ground starkly conflict with this way of thinking. The International Federation of Health Plans recently released its 2010 Comparative Price Report detailing medical costs per unit. The study starkly illustrates that health care costs are much higher in some countries than others. The average U.S. prices for procedures are the highest of those in the 12 countries surveyed for nearly all of the 14 common services and procedures.

For example, total hospital and physician costs for delivering a baby are $2,147 in Germany, $2,667 in Canada, and an average of $8,435 in the United States. The survey shows that the cost for a hospital stay is $1,679 in Spain, $7,707 in Canada, but these costs can range from an average of $14,427 to $45,902 in the United States. The survey also found that the cost of a widely prescribed drug like Nexium can range from $30 in the United Kingdom to $186, the average cost in the United States. In addition to providing comparative cost data across the countries, the survey provides information about the wide range of costs being charged in the United States for common services, procedures and drugs. One example from the survey is hip replacement surgery which cost $12,737 in the Netherlands, but ranged from a low of $21,247 to a high of $75,369 in the United States. Five percent of U.S. prices are higher than $75,369. The differential between unit prices was greatest for surgery, according to the survey data. One of the highest differentials was for cataract surgery hospital and physician costs. The range for cataract surgery ran from $1,667 in Spain to an average of $14,764 in the United States.

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Putting health care into perspective when discussing the budget

Check out this short comment and the accompanying chart in this Mother Jones article by Kevin Drum. He has some good advice on how to get serious when discussing the budget. If you are not considering spiraling health care costs, you are are not being serious. Connecting the dots, Obama's health care "reform" was not serious. The Republican proposals are even less serious, amounting to government-implemented social darwinism. I would add that our immense military expenditures also deserve scrutiny and the budget axe.

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Proposition C in Missouri is Meaningless

Much hoopla and political punditry has been given over to the recent passage of “Proposition C” in Missouri. Proposition C, in effect, says Missouri law will not permit any tax to be levied by the federal government upon its citizens for failure to purchase health insurance. The issue was framed as a direct challenge to the health insurance mandate of the recently passed healthcare reforms. Many Republicans and their leadership laud the passage of Proposition C as a death knell for healthcare reform in America. Nothing could be further from the truth. Proposition C received 71.1 % of the votes cast statewide but, reports show that little opposition was mounted to oppose the ballot measure and that only 16.27% of eligible voters turned out and supported Proposition C (667,780 of the state’s 4,104,834 million registered voters). Voter turnout in normally large vote areas of Kansas City and St. Louis City were 12.78% and 13.56%, respectively. Clay County had 18.27%. Jackson County had 22.34 %. St. Louis County had 20.93%. These counties have 1,605,083 voters and make up 39.1% of Missouri’s eligible voters. Historically, the above counties have supported Democratic candidates and issues. The voter turnout in these counties has frequently provided the differences between victory and defeat in hotly contested state wide elections such as are expected in November 2010. It is simply not the case that the Proposition C vote indicates anything other than a well organized effort to get out the vote by its supporters in traditionally conservative areas of Missouri.

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