hamburger wrote:walter wrote :
Quote:A question in between: why are hospitals that treat high numbers of Medicaid patients poorer than others? Doesn't Medicaid pay the bills as do other insurence companies?
(The bills for uninsured aren't paid by anyone, right?)
i'm not completely familiar with the detailed application of payments to hospitals in ontario (i should , shouldn't i ?) .
essentially , hospitals are given a budget to operate with and do not "bill" the health insurance administration for every procedure carried out .
so if they have a particularly heavy patient load , they have to go "cap in hand" and ask for more money .
our local teaching/university hospital is currently battling the "government" for more money since they claim that they have to continuously run a deficit and actually borrow money to keep operating - certainly NOT a very satisfactory situation !
personally , i believe that we need to pay more as individuals for our health care , either through increased taxation or much higher premiums , but there are not many of our friends that share my opinion !!!
as i'm getting older , i believe even MORE THAN EVER before that good health care FOR ALL is the backbone to a healthy and sustainable society . most people agree with me on that , but when it comes as to who should pay for it ... there is a parting of the minds
hbg
I believe Hamburger has provided us an apt illustratiion of the problem of economic rationing of health care services as it affects all government-managed systems. Free market systems ration as well- they do it based on ability and willingness to pay the economic cost of the services.
Free market systems provide intrinsic competition which generally promotes efficiency - even though much duplication occurs. In addition they provide the right feedback stimulus for the creation (and limitation) of needed resources. On the negative side, they yield significant inequality in the levels of care truly available to different segments of the population.
We already know beyond doubt that centrally-managed economic activity, whether it involves basic industry, agriculture, or fast-developing new sectors involving high levels of innovation and creativity such as IT, biotech, materials and other like sectors, tends to produce uniform mediocrity, poor allocation of resources, low output and poor quality.
Unbridled capitalism has its own excesses and defects, but the world has learned the restraints and limits needed to limit these defects and deliver consistently better results than can (or have been) achieved with socialist or centrally managed economies.
The worst horrors of the 20th century were brought about by people and movements which declared themselves to be the true protectors of the collective interests of mankind. They all found ways of rationalizing the worst horrors of that awful century as serving the public good. We should all be very suspicious of such Platonic formalisms and the willingness of their advocates to slaughter millions of individuals in the pursuit of their abstract concepts of public good.
The platitudes offered here about "universal" health care are reminiscent of these hard-learned lessons. The term (as it is actually used on this thread) is loosely defined in the extreme. The vague references to 'fairness' and 'decency' which appear to always be the bedrock of their arguments demonstrate this very well.
"... i believe even MORE THAN EVER before that good health care FOR ALL is the backbone to a healthy and sustainable society . most people agree with me on that ..."
What does this largely metaphorical statement really mean? History strongly suggests that "sustainable" (or long-lived) societies endure based on many factors quite unrelated to health care. Consider China.
