H/t Contrairimairi
Showing posts with label national health insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national health insurance. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
A National Health Plan Will Manage Your Death
The coming four decades will see an increase in the number of elderly with a concomitant decline in national economic power. The misallocation of economic resources (huge investments in undesirable real estate and Wall Street) have already guaranteed the decline. Economic statistics may continue to register growth, but the question you will need to ask yourself is "Am I as well off as I was 10, 20 or 30 years ago?" The answer will be no. And it will get worse and worse.
As America is declining economically, Baby Boomers are reaching retirement. The health care system is already over-strained, absorbing 16% of the gross national product. A doubling of the elderly who can continue to demand the level of health care to which Americans are accustomed will lead to ever greater costs, 30 or 40 percent of the national economy does not seem unlikely. These costs have not been pre-funded or saved. The savings rate is nil or nearly so, and has been for decades. How can these costs be covered?
It seems to me that they cannot. In other words, in the absence of national health insurance there will be increasing prices and care will be allocated to those who can pay. If Medicaid, Medicare and private plans try to continue to cover health insurance, their costs will be staggering.
In order to limit the cost increases but achieve a rationing solution (rationing by price making Medicare unworkable), care would have to be reduced. The only way that can be done is for the government to take control of the health care system. By doing so, government edict rather than price allocation will determine who gets care and the kind of care that is given. Procedures that might cure someone but are deemed cost ineffective will be scotched. The government will manage your death, and for some the nationalization of health insurance will mean an early death. Health care does not dramatically affect life expectancy. The difference will show up in the overall statistics as maybe a few months' drop in life expectancy, if any. But obviously some people will see their lives shortened significantly.
But care will get worse, and I will bet that we will die at younger ages than our parents. Government is going into the business of deciding who lives and who dies.
As America is declining economically, Baby Boomers are reaching retirement. The health care system is already over-strained, absorbing 16% of the gross national product. A doubling of the elderly who can continue to demand the level of health care to which Americans are accustomed will lead to ever greater costs, 30 or 40 percent of the national economy does not seem unlikely. These costs have not been pre-funded or saved. The savings rate is nil or nearly so, and has been for decades. How can these costs be covered?
It seems to me that they cannot. In other words, in the absence of national health insurance there will be increasing prices and care will be allocated to those who can pay. If Medicaid, Medicare and private plans try to continue to cover health insurance, their costs will be staggering.
In order to limit the cost increases but achieve a rationing solution (rationing by price making Medicare unworkable), care would have to be reduced. The only way that can be done is for the government to take control of the health care system. By doing so, government edict rather than price allocation will determine who gets care and the kind of care that is given. Procedures that might cure someone but are deemed cost ineffective will be scotched. The government will manage your death, and for some the nationalization of health insurance will mean an early death. Health care does not dramatically affect life expectancy. The difference will show up in the overall statistics as maybe a few months' drop in life expectancy, if any. But obviously some people will see their lives shortened significantly.
But care will get worse, and I will bet that we will die at younger ages than our parents. Government is going into the business of deciding who lives and who dies.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Letter to Congressman Maurice Hinchey Requesting Impeachment of President Ocheeseball
Dear Congressman Hinchey:
President Barack Obama lied to Congress recently when he claimed that his health care proposal (a) excludes non-citizen immigrants, (b) would not involve rationing that would limit care to many elderly Americans and (c) will be a stable system that will not result in fascist control of the entire health system by an increasingly totalitarian American state.
I urge you to propose to impeach President Obama for lying to Congress. His irresponsible lying is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the American people.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
President Barack Obama lied to Congress recently when he claimed that his health care proposal (a) excludes non-citizen immigrants, (b) would not involve rationing that would limit care to many elderly Americans and (c) will be a stable system that will not result in fascist control of the entire health system by an increasingly totalitarian American state.
I urge you to propose to impeach President Obama for lying to Congress. His irresponsible lying is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the American people.
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Can Employee Benefits Rise Again?
My article "Can Employee Benefits Rise Again?" appears in the August 20 AICPA Career Insider:
>Recent news has been discouraging. The Society for Human Resource Management has featured an article about Watson Wyatt’s study of Fortune 1000 firms that have frozen (i.e., eliminated benefit accruals) their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Watson-Wyatt found that out of 607 pension plan sponsors in the Fortune 1000 (a reduction from 20 years ago), 190 have frozen their benefit accruals, up from 169 last year. Freezes peaked in 2007 for firms in the Fortune 1000 for at least six years. Only 42 percent of Fortune 1000 firms accrue benefits in DB pension plans.
At the same time, some proponents of private plans are concerned about President Obama’s proposal for a national health plan. While the proposal that was reported out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee did not suggest supersession of employer-sponsored plans (see the The Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2009), some might construe it as a first step. In the workers’ compensation field, public plans like New York’s State Insurance Fund have long competed, often unsuccessfully, with private plans. Nevertheless, the establishment of a health plan of last resort would suggest at least partial failure of the private system.
Read the whole thing here.
>Recent news has been discouraging. The Society for Human Resource Management has featured an article about Watson Wyatt’s study of Fortune 1000 firms that have frozen (i.e., eliminated benefit accruals) their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Watson-Wyatt found that out of 607 pension plan sponsors in the Fortune 1000 (a reduction from 20 years ago), 190 have frozen their benefit accruals, up from 169 last year. Freezes peaked in 2007 for firms in the Fortune 1000 for at least six years. Only 42 percent of Fortune 1000 firms accrue benefits in DB pension plans.
At the same time, some proponents of private plans are concerned about President Obama’s proposal for a national health plan. While the proposal that was reported out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee did not suggest supersession of employer-sponsored plans (see the The Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2009), some might construe it as a first step. In the workers’ compensation field, public plans like New York’s State Insurance Fund have long competed, often unsuccessfully, with private plans. Nevertheless, the establishment of a health plan of last resort would suggest at least partial failure of the private system.
Read the whole thing here.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
National Health Insurance and Freedom
Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom argues that governmental control of economic resources eliminates personal freedom. In the Soviet Union, critics of the state could be deprived of work because the state controlled jobs. Friedman argues that economic freedom is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for personal freedom and civil liberties. Not all capitalist states, such as Chile and China, are liberal with respect to personal freedom, but no purely socialist state is liberal. Sweden is a good example even though it is not purely socialist. A good book on that subject is Roland Huntford's New Totalitarians, which documents a very lengthy list of ways that the socialist state in Sweden and Swedish society suppress individual liberty.
The effect of governmental power on freedom is easily seen in the expansion of government-supported universities, which exclude conservatives and libertarians from employment. One hundred percent of the institutions of higher learning in New York, public and private, are government supported, and all exclude from employment professors who disagree with state expansion. I frequently receive mail from professors and/or students that says "if you do not believe in government, then why do you work for a public university?" In other words, the state expands the scope of its power, and dissidents are to be excluded from its operations, ensuring that they are to remain unemployed. Only believers in state power are to be employed by state universities, according to this argument.That is, protest of the state's expansion is to be punished through unemployment.
Advocates of the "you work at CUNY so you should favor big government" position are in essence saying that in a purely socialist economy no disagreement with socialism will be permitted since all jobs would be controlled by the government. How can you work for the government if you disagree with government power? You will either work and survive or you will disagree with socialism. Not both.
There is much clear evidence of suppression of speech in universities, but none as clear as suggested in that argument, which has been made by readers of this blog several times. The advocates of socialism aim to silence and suppress all who disagree with them, and as the state gains power, they will economically punish anyone who disagrees, just as university professors have excluded liberals* from employment.
Now what should we fear from national health insurance? What kind of health care can dissidents in a socialized America expect when academics and officials of a socialist bureaucracy control access to health care? Will personal freedom exist? I think not. Will dissidents receive care in a socialist America? Or will they be compelled to undergo psychiatric treatment as they were in the Soviet Union?
A government-dominated health plan, national health insurance, is a threat to freedom and it should be feared. It should be feared because its advocates, the social democrats in the Democratic Party, are intolerant thugs.
*In case you're not used to this use of "liberal", the true meaning of the word liberal is "libertarian". The concept of "state activist liberalism" is an Orwellian corruption of language. Liberals believe in freedom, in liberalis, in liberalism. They do not believe in big government. That is the ideology of fascism, communism, socialism and authoritarianism and, of course, social democracy.
The effect of governmental power on freedom is easily seen in the expansion of government-supported universities, which exclude conservatives and libertarians from employment. One hundred percent of the institutions of higher learning in New York, public and private, are government supported, and all exclude from employment professors who disagree with state expansion. I frequently receive mail from professors and/or students that says "if you do not believe in government, then why do you work for a public university?" In other words, the state expands the scope of its power, and dissidents are to be excluded from its operations, ensuring that they are to remain unemployed. Only believers in state power are to be employed by state universities, according to this argument.That is, protest of the state's expansion is to be punished through unemployment.
Advocates of the "you work at CUNY so you should favor big government" position are in essence saying that in a purely socialist economy no disagreement with socialism will be permitted since all jobs would be controlled by the government. How can you work for the government if you disagree with government power? You will either work and survive or you will disagree with socialism. Not both.
There is much clear evidence of suppression of speech in universities, but none as clear as suggested in that argument, which has been made by readers of this blog several times. The advocates of socialism aim to silence and suppress all who disagree with them, and as the state gains power, they will economically punish anyone who disagrees, just as university professors have excluded liberals* from employment.
Now what should we fear from national health insurance? What kind of health care can dissidents in a socialized America expect when academics and officials of a socialist bureaucracy control access to health care? Will personal freedom exist? I think not. Will dissidents receive care in a socialist America? Or will they be compelled to undergo psychiatric treatment as they were in the Soviet Union?
A government-dominated health plan, national health insurance, is a threat to freedom and it should be feared. It should be feared because its advocates, the social democrats in the Democratic Party, are intolerant thugs.
*In case you're not used to this use of "liberal", the true meaning of the word liberal is "libertarian". The concept of "state activist liberalism" is an Orwellian corruption of language. Liberals believe in freedom, in liberalis, in liberalism. They do not believe in big government. That is the ideology of fascism, communism, socialism and authoritarianism and, of course, social democracy.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Why Not Socialized Medicine?
Anonymous said...
Dear Dr. Langbert:
Why should we be afraid of "socialized medicine"? The government runs health care for our service men and service women. The health care for our military is first rate. You get health care from CUNY. Under their plan you are covered even for dental care. The Senators and Congressmen get their health care from the government. They, too, have excellent coverage.
So the military, the Congress, and you are part of the "socialized" medicine system in this country. I have not heard you complain about the quality of care that you receive.
Mitchell Langbert said...
We should not be afraid of socialized medicine. We should recognize it as another potentially mismanaged government program that will reduce standards and intensify the 30-year decline in the real hourly wage. Take a trip on the New York City subway. The service irregularities, filth, often rats scurrying around. Now, project the same incompetence to health care. A few years ago there was a major scandal about the Veterans Administration hospitals, where the veterans were being kept in filth. Do you wish to treated in a hospital run by the same people? Have you visited a DMV office lately?
Now, you mention CUNY. CUNY does not provide me with care. They pay for the care I receive. The care is provided by an independent hospital that makes its own decisions and has to compete with other hospitals. That is not what is being proposed now. That is to be eliminated.
As far as the CUNY dental insurance, the benefits were repeatedly reduced between 2000 and now to virtually nothing. We no longer have meaningful dental insurance. What is to stop Washington from similarly reducing health benefits?
That is their plan. I do not deny that the current system has resulted in waste. The reasons are complex and many of them would be resolved by a single payer system. But that system would result in government controlled rationing and an elimination of medical innovation.
The problem with socialized health care (which is NOT the current proposal) is that it causes stagnation. There is one country that has been responsible for the majority of pharmaceutical and health care advance: the United States. There is also one country with a non-state-dominated financing system: the United States. Proponents of national health insurance aim to manage the cost of health care by REDUCING TREATMENT (and eliminating innovation). The reason that national health insurance is cheaper in Canada is that the Canadians limit treatment. Much of this is for unnecessary care, which is an advantage. But also, they will reduce innovative or new treatment.
Thus, a national system will enjoy economies of scale and possibly better management in some ways, but it would eliminate innovation. It would enable government officials to pull the plug on treatments that they deem inappropriate. Obama proposes this by requiring counseling to the elderly not to receive treatment but to die on narcotics. That is the crux of the reason why costs are lower in Canada and in Europe. Is that what you want, to be told to die when you are old?
Since the bureaucratic approach to government management has been an abject failure elsewhere in our society, why do you believe it to be an effective method when applied to health care? Veterans DO NOT receive "first rate" care. The standards at the veterans hospitals have been an ongoing scandal. Like everything else government touches, the veterans hospitals have been turned into sh*tholes.
The potential for break through cures that significantly extend life will be staunched by national health insurance. A decentralized system can support innovation much better and will facilitate the application of new and different treatments.
National health insurance is failure of the American dream. The Declaration of Independence states that all of us are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Socialized medicine attacks liberty; it circumscribes and attacks the right to life; and it limits the pursuit of happiness.
Dear Dr. Langbert:
Why should we be afraid of "socialized medicine"? The government runs health care for our service men and service women. The health care for our military is first rate. You get health care from CUNY. Under their plan you are covered even for dental care. The Senators and Congressmen get their health care from the government. They, too, have excellent coverage.
So the military, the Congress, and you are part of the "socialized" medicine system in this country. I have not heard you complain about the quality of care that you receive.
Mitchell Langbert said...
We should not be afraid of socialized medicine. We should recognize it as another potentially mismanaged government program that will reduce standards and intensify the 30-year decline in the real hourly wage. Take a trip on the New York City subway. The service irregularities, filth, often rats scurrying around. Now, project the same incompetence to health care. A few years ago there was a major scandal about the Veterans Administration hospitals, where the veterans were being kept in filth. Do you wish to treated in a hospital run by the same people? Have you visited a DMV office lately?
Now, you mention CUNY. CUNY does not provide me with care. They pay for the care I receive. The care is provided by an independent hospital that makes its own decisions and has to compete with other hospitals. That is not what is being proposed now. That is to be eliminated.
As far as the CUNY dental insurance, the benefits were repeatedly reduced between 2000 and now to virtually nothing. We no longer have meaningful dental insurance. What is to stop Washington from similarly reducing health benefits?
That is their plan. I do not deny that the current system has resulted in waste. The reasons are complex and many of them would be resolved by a single payer system. But that system would result in government controlled rationing and an elimination of medical innovation.
The problem with socialized health care (which is NOT the current proposal) is that it causes stagnation. There is one country that has been responsible for the majority of pharmaceutical and health care advance: the United States. There is also one country with a non-state-dominated financing system: the United States. Proponents of national health insurance aim to manage the cost of health care by REDUCING TREATMENT (and eliminating innovation). The reason that national health insurance is cheaper in Canada is that the Canadians limit treatment. Much of this is for unnecessary care, which is an advantage. But also, they will reduce innovative or new treatment.
Thus, a national system will enjoy economies of scale and possibly better management in some ways, but it would eliminate innovation. It would enable government officials to pull the plug on treatments that they deem inappropriate. Obama proposes this by requiring counseling to the elderly not to receive treatment but to die on narcotics. That is the crux of the reason why costs are lower in Canada and in Europe. Is that what you want, to be told to die when you are old?
Since the bureaucratic approach to government management has been an abject failure elsewhere in our society, why do you believe it to be an effective method when applied to health care? Veterans DO NOT receive "first rate" care. The standards at the veterans hospitals have been an ongoing scandal. Like everything else government touches, the veterans hospitals have been turned into sh*tholes.
The potential for break through cures that significantly extend life will be staunched by national health insurance. A decentralized system can support innovation much better and will facilitate the application of new and different treatments.
National health insurance is failure of the American dream. The Declaration of Independence states that all of us are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Socialized medicine attacks liberty; it circumscribes and attacks the right to life; and it limits the pursuit of happiness.
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