Maggie's Farm

Re: Medicare for all

In yesterday's comments, I surmised that given the enmity Demonrats have for the medical insurance industry, it would be unlikely that Medicare supplemental insurance would be available should Medicare for all become law. I had read that that was part of the plan but I didn't have attribution so I didn't claim it as fact. Now I do. It's becoming clear that the goal is to force the the entire population into something similar to the VA system during the Obama administration.

I find it amazing, and sadly so, that a substantial portion of the population can see, and in some cases live through the failures of recent policy and embrace essentially the same policy a few years later. We have the recent example of Venezuela and the constant example of Cuba, to name just two that are close by, and supposedly educated people yearn for socialism.

Every day I fear more that lessons of the fall of Rome explained by historians of ancient Rome (see the second link for today) are being ignored and our future therefore known.

If you read the Senate bill, you see that it outlaws competition with the government in the insurance market and cost sharing.

I would have thought that my comments about Venezuela and Cuba vis a vis socialism would easily be interpreted as a parallel issue to Medicare for all but I guess I should have typed slower. So here goes: I'm not directly referring healthcare but to the fact that socialists in the Demonrat party and the Democratic Socialists of America have a substantial following even though socialism has been a consistently colossal failure. It's more amazing that socialists have any currency in Florida with the failure of Cuba just 90 miles away. Chavez was celebrated by many of the intelligentsia on the left and somehow the social, political, and economic wreckage that is Venezuela before us does not dampen the enthusiasm for socialism of a significant portion of the population.

With regard to your statement that markets are not effective for healthcare (I made no point or issue about that but ok. Here we go.), how would you know? With very rare exceptions, hospitals and doctors do not post the price list for services and there are no independent rating services for medical services. In fact efforts to do that are fought the medical establishment. In addition, most people are separated from the healthcare market by insurance policies. Most of which are paid for by an employer so most people don't even know how much their health insurance costs let alone care what the doctor charges because almost all of it will be paid by the insurance company.

Having said that, there are a very few places where the market is opened up. One place is the Surgery Center of Oklahoma which posts the cost of procedures on line and is well reviewed on Yelp and Facebook. The prices are also much less than most people pay for similar procedures. It seems to be working well for the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and their patients. I'd say it's worth experimenting with it.