So many thoughts run through my mind when I see her captured in this moment of delight. None of them pleasant.

 

Dean says Obamacare authors don’t want to challenge trial lawyers

Howard Dean, in his own words:

The reason tort reform is not in the [health care] bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on. And that’s the plain and simple truth,

via Dean says Obamacare authors don’t want to challenge trial lawyers | Washington Examiner.

 

Blue Cross Covers H1N1 Vaccinations – WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is going to pick up the tab for H1N1 vaccinations.

A spokesman says the insurer will cover the cost for its members regardless of their benefit coverage. The company hopes that will entice more people to get the vaccination.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is the state’s largest health insurer, covering about 180-thousand Vermonters.

via Blue Cross Covers H1N1 Vaccinations – WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-.

[sarcasm alert]

But insurance companies are evil!

Pop quiz: Why are they treating its customers to “free” H1N1 vaccine shots?

Answer A: This is just a nefarious plan by the evil insurance companies to gain sympathy for their case in defeating President Obama’s health care reform.

Answer B: This is just a dastardly plan by the evil insurance companies to inject its unsuspecting customers with a deadly vaccine.

Answer C: The actuaries at the insurance company believe that the cost of paying for the vaccines is less than the cost of paying for customers sick with the H1N1 flu.

 

White House Tries to Strike Down Insurance Industry Criticism Ahead of Key Vote

“This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform,” she said. “It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry’s profits. It is hard to take it seriously.”

via White House Tries to Strike Down Insurance Industry Criticism Ahead of Key Vote – Political News – FOXNews.com.

As a slightly above-casual observer of the health care reform debate raging in our nation this statement strikes me as laughable.  The White House cries, “self-serving,” as though they are just an impartial judge on the sidelines of the debate.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The White House has two things at stake in this debate.  First, is the simple desire, or need, to have a political victory in the form of a successful piece of legislation.  Second, is their insatiable (but cleverly disguised) desire for more power.  The people in power want more of it and reforming health care in the direction of a government-run system is one sure fire way of getting a great deal of power.  Power over our lives in almost every way.

Self-serving is exactly what the Obama administration is doing every time it plays upon the fears of the citizens by trying to transform health insurance into an inalienable right.  So, when the White House cries, “Self-serving,” I hope that the citizens of our great country will see through the word games being played by our dear leaders and press back against the assault on individual liberty.

 

Tort Reform Reduces Federal Deficit, Congressional Analysts Say

Many doctors pay $100,000 to $250,000 a year in malpractice insurance even if they’ve never had a judgment against them. Neurology leads the list of high-cost malpractice insurance. Obstetrics isn’t far behind.

via Tort Reform Reduces Federal Deficit, Congressional Analysts Say – Political News – FOXNews.com.

Would tort reform be of any value if there is a “public option”?

 

Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare

The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.

via Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare.

I am not the first to highlight this “secret plan” and I would be stretching the truth in telling you that I completely understand how this plan works on a logistical level.  However, Brian Darling makes a reasonable case that should at least raise the eyebrows of American citizens of every political stripe.

 

Healthcare Reform – The Real Experts | Conservative.FM

Healthcare Reform – The Real Experts | Conservative.FM

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Here is an excerpt from the article by my ‘colleague’, Peter Milovich, at Conservative.FM:

Unlike the one-trick-ponies in the Obama administration, Dr. Holtorf has alternative solutions to America’s healthcare “crisis.” For instance, he believes that if an employer pays $500 per month for an employee’s healthcare, it would be more cost effective to spend $100 per month for a catastrophic care policy, and then offer the extra $400 directly to the employee in a medical savings account. The $400 would be used to cover basic healthcare expenditures such as office visits. One of the key elements of a medical savings account is that the holder of the account gets to roll over the unused money at the end of the year, or even perhaps keep a percentage of it. This would entice people to “shop around” for the most cost-effective healthcare. When people are actually spending cash on healthcare that can eventually be theirs to keep, they’re much less likely to visit the doctor every time they have a runny nose. They’re also much more likely to try harder to remain healthy in the first place.

 

Safeway on Healthcare

On Friday there was an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Steven Burd, the CEO of Safeway.  In it he declares:

While comprehensive health-care reform needs to address a number of other key issues, we believe that personal responsibility and financial incentives are the path to a healthier America.

It is not only refreshing to see that some business leaders think outside the box on health-care issues but it is especially refreshing to see that Mr. Burd’s thinking outside the box involved a free-market approach to finding answers.  In a free market you can’t remain static for very long or your likely to lose money and Burd suggested:

As a self-insured employer, Safeway designed just such a plan in 2005 and has made continuous improvements each year.

I have pondered something like this for a while and I am sure I am not the only citizen of the United States to do so.  The comparison to, even the modeling after, the automobile insurance industry is also something that I discussed with my dentist father-in-law a few years ago.  What would it take to insure people in a manner that encouraged personal responsibility via healthy habits and rewarded that behavior accordingly?

Without having researched the obstacles to such reform, it seems to me that there is one big (generic) problem to implementing a health care reform like this plan (that has kept Safeway’s health insurance costs from rising over the last four years while the rest of the country has had an average of a 38% increase in costs): Government.

Government “meddling” in the health-care world via Medicare and Medicaid has distorted the ability of real reform-minded individuals and companies from making any inroads to meaningful changes.  When you insure a large group of the population free of charge (to the insured, at least) via Medicare and you artificially set reimbursement rates to providers that are below market value then you have a system that cannot sustain itself (where are my “sustainable lifestyle” peeps now?).  As more people join the rolls of the “no-cost-to-the-individual” insurance of Medicare, the health-care providers are either forced to accept those patients at lower reimbursement rates or dump them all because there is no financial incentive to provide care for them.

It has been my experience that government regulation, and not the “evil” insurance companies, are to blame for most of the problems and waste found in the health-care industry.  Insurance companies have a host of factors to look at when they insure an individual and his family, but it appears to this average consumer that it is the factor of government regulation that causes the most problems for the company.  Of course, the insurance company is left holding the ball when all is said and done so it usually appears to the insured that their insurance company is the one that raked them over the coals.

I may not have all the answers to a workable health-care solution, but I can at least identify the problem.  End government interference in health-care and let the power of the individuals operating in a free market begin to find a genuine solution.