a couple of scary halloween cartoons...

[acroyear]

And I have to give this one credit in that its one of the few cases where I *really* don't like Kerry's approach.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Kerry's approach provides the option for non-federal employees to get the same health benefits that federal workers get. There is no requirement for people to join his system, they can keep what they currently have. It's also not a free system. It doesn't force a particular health care provider on someone. It is a subsidization plan to make health care affordable, socializing the costs, not the medicine.

Potential negatives are that the subsidies would come from tax payer money, and that some businesses might see it as licence to not provide health care.

I'm curious to hear (i.e., read) your comments.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

1) when a subsequent President decides to cut costs in order to justify cutting taxes (yet again), this will be a very easy program to trim, screwing over a LOT of people.

At a time when one of the two socialized systems we have (public education) is being considered to be a majorly innefficient waste of money, and the other (social security) is showing signs of becoming a MAJOR drain on the public treasury due to the baby boomers hitting that retirement age, spending yet more money in any socialized system doesn't seem all that logical at this point. Use the money and time to try to clean up what we have already.

2) part of making is cheap is reducing costs to the true insurers by reducing prescription drug costs. this (so far) seems to only incorporate the idea of importation from Canada, which as I've posted before, means that Canadian taxpayers with their socialized system will be paying even more for Americans and that's now how its supposed to be.

What *should* be done?

Put more emphasis and subsidies on prevention as opposed to treatment. Immunizations should be 100% paid for. Vaccine research should be subsidized heavily.

We should NEVER have been so dependent on one factory (that's not even in the United States), for the Flu Vaccine. If in and of itself, flu vaccination isn't a profitable business to be in, then the government should subsidize THAT. The alternative, having so many uninsured people sick with something that could have been prevented, taking up time and space in hospitals (that either put the hospitals in extreme debt and eventually out of business, OR get themselves subsidized by the taxpayers anyways), should be unthinkable to any civilized society.

The "HMO" approach to treatment for serious diseases simply doesn't work. So nationalizing the HMO system that nobody likes will make things worse in the long run.

Finally, the whole paying-for-it issue comes along. I realize straight out that the whole point of the Republican party policies of running up rediculous national debt is to create an environment where the Democratic party can't afford to enact a single policy they want because too much of their budget has to go to paying the debts back off again, but tragically they've succeeded in a MAJOR way.

Quite simply, way too much of Kerry's potential budget HAS to go to paying Bush's madness off, and between that, restoring some of the original programs cut by Bush (particularly in subsidizing the states' own systems), and paying for Iraq (which Bush's OWN budget didn't even officially account for), I don't see a dime being leftover for actually paying for the program.

However, I do still believe in Checks and Balances, and I know that if Congress actually did its god damn job for once, they would actually put the idea through committee and come up with a hybred approach that might actually work.

I do know that thanks to the god-awful Medicare Prescription plan, its *highly* unlikely that any future President will ever get a medical plan through unchallenged like that one was pushed through.

But in my opinion, Congress has utterly failed to do the job it was elected for since Uncle Newt's revolution of 1994. They've only succeeded in 1) passing themselves a pay raise, 2) spend the better part of 3 years arguing over Clinton's sex life and not do a damn thing for the country, and 3) pass the buck of their own constitutional responsibility to declare war over the the President, giving him carte blanche to utterly ruin a country and destablize the entire region, while taking NONE of the blame for it (since they never really "declared war" like they should have done).

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

I really like your comments. I'll respond to one, though:
"Put more emphasis and subsidies on prevention as opposed to treatment. Immunizations should be 100% paid for. Vaccine research should be subsidized heavily."

One of the most important reasons for having health insurance is regular checkups, to catch things before they become irreversible and really expensive. Without insurance, many people ignore their doctors until it hurts too much to ignore. Insurance is important for prevention. And I certainly agree that vaccines could use a healthy shot of federal funding.

The cynical side of my little brain argues that If we remove funding for health related issues, the social security thing will fix itself as a result! (Just don't let Bush know it, or he'll try to get it passed before leaving office)