Health Care Follies

The new plan rolled out by the Republicans has an uncertain future since it doesn't have support by progressives and the fiscal conservatives don't like it.

The issue is that in the spectrum between no Government involvement and a single payer, everything else will have opponents.

Some want the whole thing eliminated as they don't believe Government should play any role.  This view goes against the concept of Government in every other civilized society and is promoted by selfish rich people.  Oh they may give money to charity, but they don't like having the Government decide who needs help.  Maybe greedy is a better descriptor since they want to keep control over all their money.  The fact that some people would die is no concern of theirs, guess they just picked the wrong parents.

Single payer is a system that actually works in most of the world but we can't do it since it would reduce profits to many businesses.  They would still have a role to play in administering the system and selling supplemental insurance, but the idea of Government health insurance with basic costs paid by taxpayer dollars is a step too far, or maybe it isn't.  It would be a step in increasing our competitive position since business would get out from under the health care cost that burdens them.  It is by far potentially the cheapest and best way to provide health care tot he greatest number of people but is still considered by many a Government takeover.

The Affordable Care Act was an attempt at a compromise that failed because the republicans at the time rejected any such attempt.  It actually includes many things that were included in republican proposals previously but which they immediately attacked.  of course they also attacked things that were never part of it, such as death panels and made claims that have been proven false but there is plenty of information about the ACA for anyone interested.  It wasn't a disaster and by most measures was quite successful in reducing the number of uninsured. 

The current republican proposal is now forced to include the successful popular elements of the ACA while convincing the more strident members of their party they have gutted it.  Throw on top of this a president who seems unable to absorb reality or actual facts although it has come to his attention that health care is complex.  Apparently he believed in a simple solution, cover everybody cheaper.  Hard to argue with that really, just like its hard to dislike Santa Claus if you don't come from Philadelphia.

In fact, one of the things that the president is used to from his construction background is inflated estimates.  So maybe he should go around telling people in the health care industry to just charge less.  It would at least keep him busy.