“Medicare is a different story. Health-care costs now consume about 16 percent of GDP, but projections by the Department of Health and Human Services suggest that by 2016, that will have risen to almost 20 percent. Wise speculates that closing the Medicare budgetary gap would require a tax increase of something on the order of 8 to 12 percent of total payroll. That is a massive tax increase—$4,000 to $6,000 a year on a $50,000 income (again assuming the tax were spread evenly). Many economists and budget analysts have drawn up plans intended to fix Social Security, through some combination of benefit cuts, higher retirement ages, and tax increases. But almost no one claims to have any good ideas about Medicare”. –Megan McArdle, blogging in The Atlantic on the upcoming retirement of the baby boom generation
7 Responses to “Quote Of The Day”
- 1 Pingback on Jan 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am
- 2 Pingback on Jan 15th, 2008 at 5:50 am
This sounds like what Paul Krugman has been writing about the past 3 years.
HP, have you seen Michael Moore’s film Sicko? I saw it this weekend and it was eye opening. I’m a liberterian like you, so I don’t want socialized medicine, but I’ve wondered if perhaps a Canada style system would be better than what we have. We don’t have a free market system. We have a system where corporations have bought off the politicians, and politicians have regulated things such that we are super expensive. After watching his movie I’m starting to think that I have the answer to that question. His plans, while not as good as a free market system, are better than the system we have. According to the World Health Organization our health care ranks just below Sri Lanka as 37th best in the world. Cuba is 39. Yet Cuba pays $250/person/year whereas we pay $7500. I think we pay twice as much as our nearest rival, yet we’re not that great.
France is #1. Yes, they pay more in taxes, but it’s still a lot less than what we pay between the costs our employers pay and our premiums. Doctors make house calls. They send people to your home to make you dinner and do your laundry if you give birth. He didn’t list the cost, but I believe it’s less than what we pay. Plus here people are going bankrupt, people are not permitted to go to any doctor they choose. We might be slightly better in terms of wait times for non-emergency services, but when you consider what this is costing us I don’t think it’s worth it.
You give me many things to respond to in your post but instead of going back and forth on that now, I recommend you watch this 20/20 special on healthcare. It directly addresses much of what was in Moore’s Sicko and will atleast remove many of the false propaganda points from the film.
I did watch Stossel. I agree with pretty much everything he says. But the facts seem to remain. Free markets are the best option. I agree on that. But we do not have that. If everyone went to FSA’s I’d be all for it, but all I’m saying is that Canada may be better than what we have.
People suffer in Canada waiting. But people suffer in America because the insurance companies that make the decisions reject treatment. People suffer because of general poverty, which health care in the U.S. greatly contributes to. More people go bankrupt due to medical issues than for any other issue. Our system is a total disaster. Canada has problems, but watch Sicko and see if you don’t agree that our problems are worse.
A couple of comments:
1. People, yes even poor people, have more access to healthcare and especially high quality healthcare here in the United States than in Canada. Single-pay healthcare rations much more harshly. In fact, that is one of the selling points of single-pay and a significant reason why it is “cheaper” - though I wouldn’t say that makes it superior.
2. The United States healthcare system does have real advantages to single-pay. The most important of which is innovation both in pharmaceuticals and technological. You change to single-pay and you kiss these advantages goodbye. In fact, since the United States is one of the few remaining non-single pay countries (which, btw, is the reason pharmaceutical and technological breakthroughs are all primarily from the USA), converting the USA to single-pay would kill the last goose that lays the golden egg.
3. The difference between the “price” of what we have now and single-pay, assuming the healthcare use stays constant, would be about the same…the only difference is that with single-pay you would be shifting costs on to younger workers - causing a reduction in social justice, IMHO. See here and here.