Update: I also have to congratulate Dennis Kucinich for the courage he has shown regarding the House health care reform bill. Check out his interview with Amy Goodman:
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think it’s better than what we have now?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: No. Actually, it’s not, because it locks us into a for-profit system that the government subsidizes... This bill doesn’t effectively moderate what they can charge for premiums or co-pays or deductibles. It just says people have to have insurance. Well, insurance doesn’t necessarily equate to care, and care comes at a cost.
2 comments:
I read quite a bit of the original bill, gave up; nothing of this latest 2K version, which in any case is not final.
The heart of the proposal is loosely based on the Swiss system (exchanges between Swiss insurers/officials/academics with the US on this matter have been heavy.)
In CH, employers pay nothing, each individual has private insurance. All health insurers must offer a package called BASIC, which has a co-pay of 700 dollars (about) in one year, plus a deductible one can pick from 300 to 2.5K. It basically covers everything except dental / elective surgery / spas / psychoanalysis/ few ‘other’ that aren’t really health. Insurees are free to choose their insurer; but the BASIC package is so tightly controlled by the Gvmt. (and negotiations between the different parties - docs, patients, pharma, etc.) the differences aren’t consequent, and ppl hardly ever change their insurance. There are no pre existing conditions clauses and I have never heard of an insurance refusing a bill except when said bill was fraudulent, or a double bill, etc.
The differences with the prop are:
Doctors / hospitals are paid by the ‘act’ and the price is fixed. Med. pers. are thus either micro-entrepreneurs (who can choose to work more or less, perform high costs stuff or not...) or salaried workers, all thus pretty much on Fixed Pay. (And none are rich, except the small number who operates on Saudi princes or French movie stars.)
Insurers can’t make big money from the BASIC: if they do (by lucky accident or whatever) they must keep reserves for bad years or bail out other cos. who did poorly. (I’m simplifying wildly to get the spirit across.) They make money by complementary insurance.
There are no fines for the uninsured. If caught uninsured (and nobody is going around looking for them), the State insures you automatically in the cheapest plan, and you then get bills from them...if you don’t pay it goes eventually to the BK courts, like for any other long unpaid debt... if you are young, uninsured, and get sick, you get insurance right away.
Those who can’t afford the premiums (which are high!) can, and do, apply to Social Services, which is an entity separate from health care. They may then be paid a subsidy (whole or partial) for these costs they cannot bear. (Or may get help with rent, a free wheel chair, etc.)
In this way (and others too long to go into) the tax payer (state) pays about 30% of the overall costs. This is much less than in the US, which in fact has very strongly ‘socialized’ medecine, in the shape of emergency room, *military* and VET care, prisoner care, Indian care, indigent care, Medicare, Medicaid, Disability, and other programs. Generally, here, judged to account for 50% of the cost...this a thorny topic so I won’t link, it all gets hyper complicated, and the distinction between private/public is not the most germane one.
I don’t think the Swiss system is good, but the Swiss ppl have voted many times to maintain it.
Ana
Colleen Rowley, and Dennis Kucinich are heros to me as well. I would add Scott Ritter to the list.
Would like to read Joseph's opinion on Scott's arrest one day as to weather or not it was just an effort to discredit him.
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