Bikewer
Penultimate Amazing
I tend to listen to the radio all day as I drive around in my squad car, mostly NPR. As a result, I get a lot of input on current affairs….Thus this rant:
While the president gallivants around the country pushing whatever Social Security agenda he’ll eventually decide on (by all accounts to little effect), the real looming crisis is in health care; Medicare/Medicaid.
Costs continue to spiral upwards, while the numbers of consumers grow as well, due not only to better medical care itself, but to the soon-to-enter-the-rolls Boomer generation, myself included.
The Federal response to date appears to be to throw more and more pressure back on to the states, which are increasingly more unable to meet the challenge. Here in Missouri, for instance, our newly-elected governor is proposing 600+million in cuts in related programs, denying or limiting care to a large segment of the population least able to care for themselves. Closing down state-run mental facilities, for instance, and throwing state-supported patients back into the arms of their families, who are unable to afford treatment to begin with.
I’m assuming that this is the case across the country, for the most part. Our state promises a new, leaner, more efficient health-care delivery system that will operate fairly and, of course, more cheaply. Knowing the effectiveness of our august legislature, I have some reservations…
Anyway, this seems like a general trend. As enormous deficits continue to accumulate, as health-care costs continue to rise, and as an increasingly-aging population continues to grow, we face a fiscal crisis that makes the sometime-in-the-future social security problem seem like small potatoes. I think it’s fair to say that I express the worry of many authorities in the field with this.
I know that the conservative view is that we should be taking care of all this ourselves. That we should be saving more, investing carefully, putting aside money for our future health-care, and so forth. This may well be the best option for that segment of our society that has the resources, but at some point conservatives are going to have to realize that a rather large percentage of our population simply has no discretionary income. We have 40+ million without any health insurance whatever. I don’t know what segment has inadequate or limited insurance. My wife’s gall-bladder operation a few years ago carried a final tally of about 40,000.00. We paid 124.00. Were she uninsured, a situation which existed until only a few years ago, we would have been bankrupted. A more serious or prolonged problem would have been far more expensive, of course.
The administration’s only response to this so far seems to be a large-scale push towards Tort Reform, which will somehow magically lower costs for the health-care industry.
Many skeptics have pointed out that the few questionable large-payout court cases make no difference whatever regarding overall costs for the industry, and most of these are reduced on appeal.
Perhaps the politicos are still reeling from the reception that greeted Hillary’s plan…
It seems to me that our bold, decisive leaders are going to have to make painful decisions at some point, and not worry about passing same on to the next administration. I am referring to the dreaded “T†option, of course.
As little as I understand the mechanics of high finance, it is apparent that we are, relative to most of the industrialized countries, the most under taxed nation. The European model of high taxes and socialized medicine (and other services) is, of course, highly controversial here. Even the mention of raising taxes is often political suicide. Here in Missouri, we have the Hancock amendment, which requires voter approval for anything other than the most routine adjustments.
Seems to me that our nation must make a decision. Do we want a country that may become more and more like our class-divided third-world? With the well-to-do enjoying the fruits of democracy and Laissez-Faire capitalism, while the underclass is left to fend for themselves? Oh, I know that the conservatives see things much differently, with an essentially Libertarian outlook solving all problems and “The Market†allowing private-sectors to run everything in the most efficient and inexpensive manner possible.
Excuse me for thinking that this is utter nonsense. One has only to read history and the daily paper to see how efficiently and inexpensively the private sector behaves. Enron nearly bankrupted the state of California, after all. Scandals, book-cooking, kickbacks, bribery, corruption, price-fixing, conspiracy….And all this with “growth-limiting†regulations in place.
What do you think? The GNP of our nation is enormous beyond most folk’s imagining. Can we sustain the social programs that we have come to expect? Is a social safety-net a necessity? A good idea in the first place?
While the president gallivants around the country pushing whatever Social Security agenda he’ll eventually decide on (by all accounts to little effect), the real looming crisis is in health care; Medicare/Medicaid.
Costs continue to spiral upwards, while the numbers of consumers grow as well, due not only to better medical care itself, but to the soon-to-enter-the-rolls Boomer generation, myself included.
The Federal response to date appears to be to throw more and more pressure back on to the states, which are increasingly more unable to meet the challenge. Here in Missouri, for instance, our newly-elected governor is proposing 600+million in cuts in related programs, denying or limiting care to a large segment of the population least able to care for themselves. Closing down state-run mental facilities, for instance, and throwing state-supported patients back into the arms of their families, who are unable to afford treatment to begin with.
I’m assuming that this is the case across the country, for the most part. Our state promises a new, leaner, more efficient health-care delivery system that will operate fairly and, of course, more cheaply. Knowing the effectiveness of our august legislature, I have some reservations…
Anyway, this seems like a general trend. As enormous deficits continue to accumulate, as health-care costs continue to rise, and as an increasingly-aging population continues to grow, we face a fiscal crisis that makes the sometime-in-the-future social security problem seem like small potatoes. I think it’s fair to say that I express the worry of many authorities in the field with this.
I know that the conservative view is that we should be taking care of all this ourselves. That we should be saving more, investing carefully, putting aside money for our future health-care, and so forth. This may well be the best option for that segment of our society that has the resources, but at some point conservatives are going to have to realize that a rather large percentage of our population simply has no discretionary income. We have 40+ million without any health insurance whatever. I don’t know what segment has inadequate or limited insurance. My wife’s gall-bladder operation a few years ago carried a final tally of about 40,000.00. We paid 124.00. Were she uninsured, a situation which existed until only a few years ago, we would have been bankrupted. A more serious or prolonged problem would have been far more expensive, of course.
The administration’s only response to this so far seems to be a large-scale push towards Tort Reform, which will somehow magically lower costs for the health-care industry.
Many skeptics have pointed out that the few questionable large-payout court cases make no difference whatever regarding overall costs for the industry, and most of these are reduced on appeal.
Perhaps the politicos are still reeling from the reception that greeted Hillary’s plan…
It seems to me that our bold, decisive leaders are going to have to make painful decisions at some point, and not worry about passing same on to the next administration. I am referring to the dreaded “T†option, of course.
As little as I understand the mechanics of high finance, it is apparent that we are, relative to most of the industrialized countries, the most under taxed nation. The European model of high taxes and socialized medicine (and other services) is, of course, highly controversial here. Even the mention of raising taxes is often political suicide. Here in Missouri, we have the Hancock amendment, which requires voter approval for anything other than the most routine adjustments.
Seems to me that our nation must make a decision. Do we want a country that may become more and more like our class-divided third-world? With the well-to-do enjoying the fruits of democracy and Laissez-Faire capitalism, while the underclass is left to fend for themselves? Oh, I know that the conservatives see things much differently, with an essentially Libertarian outlook solving all problems and “The Market†allowing private-sectors to run everything in the most efficient and inexpensive manner possible.
Excuse me for thinking that this is utter nonsense. One has only to read history and the daily paper to see how efficiently and inexpensively the private sector behaves. Enron nearly bankrupted the state of California, after all. Scandals, book-cooking, kickbacks, bribery, corruption, price-fixing, conspiracy….And all this with “growth-limiting†regulations in place.
What do you think? The GNP of our nation is enormous beyond most folk’s imagining. Can we sustain the social programs that we have come to expect? Is a social safety-net a necessity? A good idea in the first place?
