Bush admin claims Americans have "too much" health insurance

[Patiod]

From a brilliant article by Malcolm Gladwell in this week's New Yorker.

WARNING: If you're uninsured, you may not be able to afford the increase in blood pressure that will be brought on by the article.

The logic...was laid out in the 2004 Economic Report of the President. Americans, the report argues, have too much health insurance: typical plans cover things that they shouldn’t, creating the problem of overconsumption....

<snip>

In other words, those with health insurance are overinsured and their behavior is distorted by moral hazard. Those without health insurance use their own money to make decisions about insurance based on an assessment of their needs. The insured are wasteful. The uninsured are prudent. So what’s the solution? Make the insured a little bit more like the uninsured.

<snip>

In the rest of the industrialized world, it is assumed that the more equally and widely the burdens of illness are shared, the better off the population as a whole is likely to be. The reason the United States has forty-five million people without coverage is that its health-care policy is in the hands of people who disagree, and who regard health insurance not as the solution but as the problem.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact

[YOY]

1. and some of us don't have enough! n/t

[BlueJac]

2. If that is the case

We should remove all medical coverage and retirement pay for all congressman, presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members, CIA directors, FBI directors and so on!

They got the bucks they don't even need it.

[fortyfeetunder]

18. Aye Aye!

Was thinking the same thing....

[whatever4]

3. Funny considering how many typically normal tests we've paid for ourselves

Because the insurance doesn't cover them. Like $700 test, not $10.

Too much. Jesus. What a bunch of, oh, you know...greedy creeps.

[DBoon]

4. so it is "prudent" to avoid treating chronic conditions

like high blood pressure that have no obvious symptoms? Or early type II diabetes?

So it is prudent to allow a condition to fester until it becomes an emergency room case?

[liberal N proud]

5. Here is a good question from the article:

A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy—a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper—has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.

WHY?

[Bluerthanblue]

7. because it's all about money

the one with the most money is 'goodest'- The others are lazy slobs, who get what they deserve.

[Bluerthanblue]

6. I have no health

insurance, and because of pre-existing conditions have been told i never will be able to get any.
I'll die before i'm 65, so it doesn't much matter about medicare- it's an efficent system. Eliminate the poorer unhealthy members of society, by illness- those that can afford to survive, will insure that 'their own' survive as well.
Doesn't really piss me off for myself, as i don't expect anything more, but it does for the others like me- who through the fault of 'fate' cannot get health care that those born into wealth can.

Corporate welfare kings et al.

[wli]

8. class war by attrition? pretty blatant here he wants Democrats dead n/t

[bemildred]

9. There is a kernel of truth here.

We don't need insurance. We need a public health care system,
because it is in the public interest to have the public be
healthy. Duh.

[Demeter]

10. You Got It, BeMildred

Bullseye!

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. This is just disgusting. Republicans aren't fit to rule.

[freethought]

12. I almost thought this was some kind of joke!

I don't have health insurance either. One accident or sudden bout with illness and I am bankrupt. (Thank you to the Repukes and members of my own political party who voted for that predatory bankruptcy bill). I almost thought this was the New Yorker's official position on health care. Thankly I read it twice to make sure I was reading it correctly.

[teryang]

13. Let them eat cake n/t

[applegrove]

14. Yup - to hell to the people who cannot afford health care or are unlucky

& sick. To hell also to competitiveness for big industry as health care costs are a tax on them. To hell with small businesses who happen to have a sick employee.

Sometimes one should say "to hell" to people. If they have abused you, used you, attacked & baited you. But not when you are leading a country into the information age where health care will be at a premium. What could be stupider than not sharing the risk over generations and getting the kids involved in paying the taxes to help fund health care for the elderly. Why? Because Bush wants a generation of youngons to grow up thinking paying any tax at all is a crime.

[Patiod]

15. Bush doesn't think anything

Evil men like Grover Norquist are doing the thinking, and they are the ones that want the younger generation to grow up thinking they have the rights to great roads, great US jobs, a huge military, good strong police and fire protection, and virtually no taxes.

[bobbieinok]

16. where do roads, police, firemen, military come from without taxes????

the disconnect is not to be believed

[yellowcanine]

23. Let them take tylenol. That broken arm doesn't hurt so bad now does it?

Pigfuckers.

[tom_paine]

17. Disgusting. Orwellian.

[geckosfeet]

19. They have too much health too - A little hardship is good fo all

dem po people.

"When they are walking barefoot on dirt floors they will begging to work for $2.00 an hour.", GWB. - In my nightmare.

[texpatriot2004]

20. "Let them eat cake" said Marie Antoinette. This little piece

sounds like something she might have said were it applicable in her day. How sick and how sad but more importantly, how NOT Christian!

[belle]

21. DIE, MOTHERFUCKER.

Stupid fucking asshole fuck, the uninsured are "prudent?!?" No, asshat, they ("we," let's be honest) just. can't. AFFORD to go to the doctor. Including if it's a fucking life-threatening disease. Asshole, I hope he rots from the inside out and is given a $12,000 bandage and kicked out of his hospital bed.

[Usrename]

22. How perfectly succint. I couldn't agree more......n/t