Healthcare--how this will play out

[MikeWaters]

First off, an important point: the most critical issue is that healthcare is too expensive, and only getting more expensive. We see this in the rise of % GDP. We are on an unsustainable path. And this healthcare bill essentially does nothing to halt this. Because that would involve hard choices.

So let's talk about money first:
1. Expansion in medicaid will lead to huge state budget increases (i.e. taxes).
2. The medicare savings are a fiction (Obamacare assumes a 21% cut in medicare payouts to providers. If you have medicare, good luck finding a doctor.)
3. The overall costs will far surpass projections.

Now, let's talk about what events will occur:
1. Premiums and costs will rise. The subsidies provided by the govt. will not be enough for many families to buy insurance.
2. The government will try to force down premiums by enacting laws that further decrease the administrative cushion of the insurance companies. For example, for every dollar they take in, they might be required to pay out 95 cents. Leaving 5 cents for everything else. There will be limitations on how high premiums can be. There will be special boards that have power to limit rates.
3. Insurance companies will go bankrupt. But never fear, the same great lender that saved GM will be near. The government will "loan" money to the insurance companies in exchange for ownership. We will suddenly find that the government owns all major insurance companies.
4. We will be told that in order for these insurance companies to be more efficient, they need to be combined. They will be billed as corporate mergers. But in fact they are the formation of a single payer. And thus we will have what liberals have wanted all along--single payer.

However, we will have a private health economy that operates on the side. We will have entities that function equivalently to insurance companies. We will have also a large cash-based medical economy. Just like you pay the vet, or the plumber, or the electrician cash for services, you will pay cash for medical services.

Just like today, where some people pay taxes towards public schools, but don't send their kids to them, you will have people who pay taxes towards "free" medical care, but don't use it.

In some ways, we will end up where we started. Regular folks getting medical care that is less fancy and nice than rich folks. Won't that be ironic.

Well, either that, or we will have become a full blown communist country by then. With state-mandated healthcare and education and jobs. As soft and weak as Americans have become, even I'm not convinced that they are ready to embrace slavery. But history tells me that all democracies fail. So it would not surprise me.

[ute4ever]

If only Jesus were a Republican....

[MikeWaters]

I hate to feel the indifference of Libertarian Jesus.