In fact, because of the very large outcry from Republicans and the public at large at the costs of his healthcare proposal, he is now trying to make his healthcare proposal deficit neutral, meaning that it doesn’t add to the current cost but it also doesn’t reduce it in anyway.

But the Democrats cant even get that. As of today, they are trying to pass a bill that “only” adds 1 trillion or so to already high healthcare costs.

Perhaps he’s saying he expects short term cost increases due to the expanded coverage, but long term cost savings as the costs don’t go up 3x the rate of inflation as we have now. I mean, for crying out loud, we spend twice what France spends and they have the best care in the world. Seems any new plan would have to do better than what we currently have as far as costing.

So from that perspective, Obama healthcare critics are correct in criticizing his plan in comparison to a psuedo status quo free market healthcare system. After all, Obama does plan to make our healthcare system more socialist, more expensive, and overall inefficient.

Haha. Actually, there is a part of the Cuba argument that I find completely true: most of the benefits of healthcare are not in quality doctors, early check ups, or even advancements in technology, no, most of the benefits come from people living a healthy life.

Simple things like walking or biking to work, avoiding large amounts of meat, and staying within your weight limits add several years to your lifespan. Whereas medical care, even the best medical care, adds at most a couple years to your lifespan.

The article I linked to above stated it best:

The tiny effect of medicine found in large studies is in striking contrast to the large apparent effects we find even in small studies of other influences. For example, a 1998 Lantz, et al. study in the Journal of the American Medical Association of 3,600 adults over 7.5 years found large and significant lifespan effects: a three year loss for smoking, a six year gain for rural living, a ten year loss for being underweight, and about fifteen year losses each for low income and low physical activity (in addition to the usual effects of age and gender).

In other words, Cuba’s secret to decent healthcare is not in their doctors (how could it be, its economy is in shambles), no, its in the fact that Cuba is such a poor country. People have to ride their bike or walk to work. They are forced to keep their weight down (too poor to get fat), and overall they cant afford to do all of the things that make us unhealthy.

But that doesn’t mean Cuba is the model we should follow.

Jon,

I dont think any economist, left or right, would argue that the United States has a true “free market” healthcare system. Not with the HUGE third party payments going on. But that doesn’t mean that under a true free market healthcare system we wouldnt have the market failure of the poor not being able to pay for health insurance.

And which countries have a free market health care system?

The industry is simply to far gone and corrupt, with pharmaceutical corporations running the game. It’s just about money and who could make more money, while the rest of us are out there arguing how to pay them for what they are pretending to be doing.

Two examples, I know a family doctor who’s number one complaint was the lack of soap and basic materials at the clinic. Those running the show sure had nice things for themselves, would it had really bankrupt them to get a few basic materials?

My parents who have/had excellent insurance, as they got older the premiums became ridiculously high, and after a certain age you can’t even insure yourself, at that point you need to switch to medicare. Their regular doctor did a real 360 in attitude and level of service. When my parents offered to pay out of pocket, she was really annoyed that she couldn’t bill her regular $200 for a 10 minute doctors visit,of which she had become accustomed to.

Check out this article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/16/health/cbsdoc/main5166421.shtml

Perhaps another solution is to flood the market with doctors. But that’s too far fetched.

Warren Buffet?, at that point I think you can purchase a doctor and get the second one free.

I just pay my insurance, shut up, and be a good boy, I have it for piece of mind really like if a pipe bursts or something, other than that, there is no point on visiting the doctor. Even then I’m unsure if the bill will get covered after all, as long as they take me on the way in, I’ll figure it out later, so really it’s just my ticket in the door.

Back to the suggested article, my take is that the long term studies and statistics show that results over time are comparable to that of a can of Vick’s Vapor Rub.