Even though Joe Biden has embraced a very left-wing agenda, I suspect many of the items on his wish list are designed to placate Bernie-type activists who have considerable influence in the Democratic Party.
As such, I don’t think Biden will push “Medicare for All” if he’s elected. But I fear he may support a “public option” that is less radical but still misguided.
The strongest argument in the video is that a government-created competitor to private insurance companies will be much more expensive than politicians are promising.
This is what always happens with government programs (see Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare) because politicians have a never-ending incentive to buy votes with other people’s money. And it will happen with any new program.
But I think the video overlooks an argument that would be even more politically effective, which is the fact that a public option would slowly but surely begin to strangle employer-based health insurance.
Simply stated, vote-buying politicians will deliberately under-price the cost of the public option. And the presence of a subsidized and under-priced government health plan will make employer-based policies less attractive over time – especially since the subsidies almost certainly will expand.
However, people generally like their employer-based health plans and presumably will be skeptical of any plan that threatens that system (and it’s probably safe to assume that health insurance companies will have an incentive to educate people about that likely outcome).
By the way, it’s not my intention to defend the employer-based system, which largely exists because of a foolish loophole in the tax code. As far as I’m concerned, that system is a convoluted and inefficient mess that has contributed to the health care system’s third-party payer crisis.
What we need is a restoration of free markets in health care.
But with the public option, the best-case scenario is that many people over time will get pushed from the top line of this image to the bottom line.
And that’s also the worst-case scenario since no problems will be fixed, but overall costs will be even higher thanks to greater government involvement.
For what it’s worth, some advocates of the public option claim it can actually save money by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. That could happen in theory, but exploding costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare show that it doesn’t happen in reality.
The bottom line is that more government intervention in health care won’t solve the problems caused by existing levels of government intervention in health care (a tragic example of Mitchell’s Law). Which is why I fear that the public option ultimately would be a slow-motion version of Medicare for All.
[…] (on the rich) will be left when the left want to push their “green new deal“? Or the “public option” for Medicare? Or any of the other spending schemes circulating in […]
[…] (on the rich) will be left when the left want to push their “green new deal“? Or the “public option” for Medicare? Or any of the other spending schemes circulating in […]
[…] the rich) will be left when the left want to push their “green new deal“? Or the “public option” for Medicare? Or any of the other spending schemes circulating in […]
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[…] Republicans, etc, all join together to fight some of Biden’s awful ideas (the “public option” threat to private health insurance, class-warfare taxes, gun control, a blue-state bailout, […]
[…] two months ago, I shared this video which explains why the so-called public option will wind up being an expensive […]
There is a third option no one has tried (there have been similar religious programs): Group Self-Insurance.
Like “insurance” there is a pool of funds and members contribute to the pool. However, members contribute 150% of “normal insurance” premiums, but they retain ownership of the funds. First, they pay their own costs immediately (eliminating third party payer). Second, if anyone has medical expenses that exceed their contributions, they run a sharing deficit, members contribute shared equity, which they can use in the future, if needed. If the sharing deficit is not paid off in one year from contributions, it is forgiven. So the maximum expense is 12 x monthly contribution.
In one month, a patient might have no monthly medical costs, a small administrative fee of $50, and only a shared equity payment of $400, which he can use for future medical problems.
Therefore, members pay only a small management fee, their own medical bills, shared equity (that they can use in the future if they have a medical emergency that exceeds their monthly contribution). Each month they roll over any surplus to reduce their monthly contribution.
If a medical expense will exceed their monthly premium, a “medical mentor” will advise what doctor and what procedure is best, and how much it should cost. If the member decides to go another route, the dollar amount is contributed to the member who pays any overage.
The “medical mentor” is always available (for a fee) to make recommendations or dispute billing amounts, and to steer patients toward best doctors and practices.
The advantage to the doctor is that he is paid immediately, he doesn’t need CYA (Cover Your A..) treatments or tests, and quality serving of the patient at a reasonable price will get him additional referrals. He can dispense with billing overhead, normally costing 25% of the bill (including his own bill preparation time).
Every member’s monthly contribution is set based on age and sex, as long as s/he had no pre-existing condition, before s/he became a member (pre-existing conditions disappear, if a member at birth). Pre-existing conditions will be assessed on joining, and will add to the contribution amount. Members may elect to have a higher contribution amount, to lower the sharing amount (since they are lowering risk to the membership).
“This is what always happens with government programs (see Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare) because politicians have a never-ending incentive to buy votes with other people’s money. And it will happen with any new program.”
It finally struck me what has always bothered me about your analyses: You have a blind spot when it comes to the QUALITATIVE moral difference between what in America is called the “Left” and the “Right.”
The “Right” is subject to the normal incentive of a normal person to buy votes. Such a person could be persuaded with QUANTITATIVE numbers that they are endangering society by paying too much to too many people in order to purchase these votes.
But, on the other hand, in complete and diametric and dialectic contrast, the “Left” knows that they are harming society and the poor, but they do it because they can’t have the communism of their dreams without destroying the functioning society that already exists.
If you don’t believe me when I explain it this way, then, you explain to me how the Cloward-Piven Strategy is not a thing.
You can argue the numbers with a normal person because they have the same goal as you, to cause the most good and the least harm to as many people as possible.
You can’t argue the numbers with demon infested Cloward-Piven strategists who will use your charts and numbers in order to do the opposite of what you intend.
This is what I wrote today on Front Page Mag:
People need very badly to get everything they vote for, in spades, good and
hard, until it convinces them to vote different next time, if they live to see a next
time, not that the voters deserve a next time.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/defund-government-daniel-greenfield/
Taxpayers are on the hook for funding governments that no longer provide basic services, like security and education, but expect even more money to fund a bureaucracy and welfare state. The unpleasant, worthless, and destructive elements of municipal, county and state governments used to be a sidebar to the core services that taxpayers actually wanted.
Every tax increase was justified as being necessary for the schools and the cops. Now there are no functioning schools and the cops are keeping their heads down and making few arrests.
Taxpayers are paying more taxes, but getting next to nothing for the money they pay..
Cloward-Piven:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cloward-Piven_strategy
Cloward and Piven had determined that many people in the U.S. were eligible for welfare, but were not receiving it. They believed that if all these people were to apply for welfare all at once, the local welfare offices would be overwhelmed and the states would be threatened with bankruptcy.
In advocating such disruptions, Cloward and Piven were making a deliberate attempt to incite racial, ethnic, and class tensions, setting whites against racial minorities and middle class liberals against working class immigrant groups. This would weaken the already fragile New Deal liberal coalition and threaten the Democratic Party politically, which would cause the Democrats to institute a new welfare scheme in an attempt to maintain the cohesiveness of their coalition (and thus remain in power).
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/clowardpiven-strategy-cps/
In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system. The authors also asserted that: (a) the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the country; (b) poor people would rise in revolt; and (c) only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.
Reblogged this on Boudica BPI Weblog.
Government does NOT produce profit; therefore, all government spending is a drag on the economy.
Daniel, you’re not paying attention. Biden if, God forbid, is elected is not capable of making any decisions. He will be run by the politburo of democrats or abdicate very early in his term . . .