Obama '08?

Miller wrote:

Quote:

If people don't want to pay, how are we going to punish them, or get the money from them?

Follow the Massachusets Plan and fine them.

Easy pleasy!

If it were not already 2:00am where I live, I would love to continue this.

Later today then...

maporsche wrote:

If it were not already 2:00am where I live, I would love to continue this.

Later today then...

Cheers. At the end of the day, we will both win when a Dem is in the WH. During the heated primary time it's hard to keep that in the front of the mind.

Cycloptichorn

Hillary: And what I've concluded, when I was looking at this -- because I got the same kind of advice, which was, it's controversial, you'll run into all of this buzz saw, and I said, been there, done that. But if you don't
start by saying, you're going to achieve universal health care, you will be nibbled to death.

maporsche wrote:

They only get back-charged if they show up looking for free health care at the hospital or emergency room.

If they don't show up, they don't pay anything into the system and they take nothing out of it. If they show up and pay their own bills, they don't pay into the system and they take nothing out of it.

When you are mandated to pay, you pay every day of your life no matter what.

It is plainly obvious that there is a difference. Obama is right; people shouldn't expect something for nothing. But they have every right to expect nothing for nothing.

1) People who show up in emergency rooms uninsured get something for paying a lot more than what they get. In everything but name, that's a penalty enforcing a mandate! By misrepresenting the content of his actual plan in a public debate, Obama is trying to have it both ways: To make any universal health care plan work -- including his universal healthcare plan, it takes a mandate. To position yourself as a candidate who transcends partisanship, mandates are a hard sell. On the national level, Republican ideology is fiercely opposed to universal healthcare, so every effort to introduce it is inevitably partisan. Consequently, Obama has a healthcare plan without mandates, but claims in public debates that his going to impose mandates, except that he doesn't call them that. He doesn't say he changed his plan, he just sells it as something that it isn't. Kind of similar to the way Hillary Clinton sells her approach to Iraq. Not evil, but still cowardly and insincere.

2) How, in your opinion, will Obama handle people who don't show up in emergency rooms, but try to sign up for the system after their health deteriorates? Let's take a practical example. It's the year 2025. A diabetic signs up to the system, and within months it turns out he needs dialysis, which in 2008 costs about $70,000 a year. The diabetic could have signed up for the the National Healthcare Plan when it was first installed in 2015 He would have received $200 worth of medication for free, which would have prevented the dialysis. But he didn't. He was too stingy to even get a blood picture taken for $20 to find out if he had diabetes in the first place. Only now, when his symptoms are severe (but not yet severe enough for the emergency room), the patient decides he needs health insurance.

How do you think the Obama plan will handle this?

You can enroll them," Cutler replied, "and then forcibly collect the premiums. That's one way to solve the problem. But it's not necessary to do that."

"A better approach is to do everything possible to make it affordable and available. When it is, almost everyone will have it."

There are a couple of concerns about that approach. One is the problem of "adverse selection." Sicker people - or people with a greater likelihood of becoming sick - will enroll. That will drive plan costs up, making it prohibitively expensive.

"Let's look at the level of coverage you can get without a mandate. Our estimates, based on studies in the literature, is that we can get 98% or 99% coverage without a mandate for adults. There may be some small pockets of people who choose not to buy it."

What about those people?

"If there are free riders, Obama is open to mandates.Would mandates be considered at that point?

"He hasn't ruled anything out. It's a matter of priorities. The fact is, the policy differences on the mandate issue aren't that large at all. Sen. Obama believes they're an option down the road, if other approaches don't work."

Mr. Krugman raises some valid concerns here. But what he doesn't say is that this would only be a temporary problem under the Obama plan. If it failed to achieve enrollment rates high enough to offset this 'selection effort,' other measures would be used - including potentially mandates.

The main difference between Obama's plan and his rivals' is this: They would mandate health coverage first and fix cost problems later. Obama would do the opposite. While both approaches are problematic, there is a strong case to be made that Obama's plan is fairer - and much more politically progressive.

I'm currently looking up resources and stuff, but if we're talking that kind of long-term, doesn't Obama's plan include shifting over to mandates AFTER costs go down?

Obama: Lower costs, then see if people game the system. If they don't -- if once it's affordable, they buy it -- that's that. If too much gaming is happening, then have mandates, but after costs have been lowered.

How very Socialist International, anno 1973.

2) How, in your opinion, will Obama handle people who don't show up in emergency rooms, but try to sign up for the system after their health deteriorates? Let's take a practical example. It's the year 2025. A diabetic signs up to the system, and within months it turns out he needs dialysis, which in 2008 costs about $70,000 a year. The diabetic could have signed up for the the National Healthcare Plan when it was first installed in 2015 He would have received $200 worth of medication for free, which would have prevented the dialysis. But he didn't. He was too stingy to even get a blood picture taken for $20 to find out if he had diabetes in the first place. Only now, when his symptoms are severe (but not yet severe enough for the emergency room), the patient decides he needs health insurance.

But even that wouldn't save him. Let's suppose I was wrong, and that his plan does contain a "mandates later" provision. How do you explain then, that his campaign sends flyers out that attack Clinton's progam for its mandates? And, for style points, attack it with practically the same ad the health insurance lobby used to shoot down Bill Clinton's healthcare plan in 1994? This is bad!