Saturday, June 26, 2010

Healthcare Horrors

Here comes the propaganda to try and slow the "Repeal Obamacare" locomotive by comparing the US healthcare system to single-payer and other government-run systems. The survey is by The Commonwealth Fund. Check them out...they are all about Obamacare. Instant red flag.

The survey indicates the US ranks last in getting "good value", "despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared with the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall". There is no indication what "good value" means, nor is their any indication whether or not government subsidy or controls are taken into account.

The U.S.'s rank in terms of access to health care could be improved if the healthcare reform bill, known as the Affordable Care Act, does indeed extend health insurance coverage to 32 million currently uninsured Americans, as has been estimated, the authors say.

Covering 32 million more people with existing resources will only make this problem worse. Further, everyone has access to healthcare, in spite of what they claim. Even so, what part of the Constitution guarantees access to healthcare?

Many of the issues cited here are exactly BECAUSE of the government. Underpayment for care under Medicare and Medicaid, incessant regulation and red tape, failure of government to reign in tort. In the interest of fairness, many of the problems are self-induced. In the United States, people fail to take care of themselves. People fail to correctly take their medications (antibiotics are the biggest problem). People engage in high-risk activities more than in many other countries to which the US is compared.

There is nothing in this report which will be solved by Obamacare. Bigger administrative costs, fewer resources (you can have all the people covered, but with no more providers, it won't matter), costs will necessarily be higher, mistakes will necessarily be greater due to the greater workload on providers.

I call BS.

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