Under sharp questioning from SCC Commissioner Theodore Morrison, Braly declined to say that her company would pass on efficiency savings to customers by lowering health insurance premiums.
See? That’s a part of the reason why health insurance premiums are so high. The quote comes from this article, which appeared in The Virginian Pilot. It seems that as a part of its agreement to purchase Trigon, the SCC required that the purchaser, Wellpoint, Inc., keep certain services in Virginia. Now that company wants to move the operations out of state, or even overseas, in an effort to improve its bottom line.
Let me guess: Angela Braly, the president and chief executive of Wellpoint, gets a bonus based on the net bottom line.
“We have an obligation to fix the health care system. We have an obligation to provide better services at lower cost.”
Obligation to whom, Ms. Braly? That was a rhetorical question, by the way. I know who your obligation is to: the shareholders.
That’s right. Once these companies went thru the demutualization process, going from policyholder-owned to publicly traded, the focus shifted from the policyholders to the shareholders. The bigger question is who at these companies is looking out for the policyholders?
That would be no one.
As long as profits are driving the health care system, it can’t be fixed. We are beyond the time for needing some form of universal health care.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
“Student loans ARE government subsidized.”
Some are, some are not. On some student loans (needs-based Stafford loans) the interest during one’s time in school is paid by the government. On others (non-needs-based Stafford loans) the interest is NOT paid by the government.
http://www.colin.edu/financialaid/student_loans.htm
Olivia – No, I’m saying that some get treated, and some do not, and many are inadequately treated. You can predict how long someone will be in the hospital as much by their insurance as by their physical condition. Talk to any hospital social worker or discharge planner, or any Adult Protective Services worker, and they will have a slew of stories. Yes, emergency care is available. It isn’t adequate, and it isn’t the same, as non-emergency care. Often emergencies could be avoided if prior care was available. You story illustrates exactly why emergency departments are so overwhelmed – that’s where the uninsured go. I’m not saying the hospitals aren’t trying. They are trying very hard, and are getting little help given the way the payment system is structured. Hospitals are supposed to be for acute care, not the safety net for insurance problems. The program you’re talking about is probably state and local hospitalization. You need to understand its severe limits before you decide that it would have covered your visit – probably not.
Citizen Tom – There’s an expression from the Depression that applies to your observation: “If you can’t afford a cold, you’ll have to get pneumonia.”
One thing is for sure. If “universal” healthcare is run by the government does that mean that the medical community becomes a basically apart of the “state” like in France. There goes an individuals right to sue for mistreatment, poor care, malpractice and everything else. Seeing how you can’t sue agents of the government. If thats the case I wonder what the law community and their lobby groups are going to feel about “universal” care. I could be wrong on this for the rest of Europe but in Canada good luck trying to hold system accountable for malpractice.
VAB – I believe that expression, “if you can’t afford a cold, you’ll have to get pneumonia”, comes from excessive government control. In a free society, you can do anything that is not against the law. Within the context of a free enterprise economy, that allows the People the latitude they need to get things done.
However, there is a consequence to living in a free society. Each of us is stuck with the consequences of our bad decisions and bad luck.
The government of a free society has serious limitations put upon it. The government, cannot do anything unless it is so authorized by the Law. This inflexibility creates serious problems for socialists. In a free society, socialists cannot use government to eliminate the consequences of bad decisions and bad luck. Thus socialists constantly demand greater responsibility and authority for government. These demands only stop when a certain result is achieved. The People can only do what those in authority say they can do, and those in authority can do whatever they wish.
VAB – The health care horror story you described is something we all dread, and I don’t have a pat solution. No system we can devise will satisfy everyone. What I dread is that we will listen to a politician’s promise and devise a cure worse than the disease.
What we must remember is that government welfare programs do not represent true charity. These programs are funded by our taxes or via the manipulation of the tax system. Taxation is form of extortion. We can justify taxes only when tax monies provide resources absolutely necessary to protect our rights.
We do not need Utopian welfare schemes; such programs jeopardize our rights. While private charities may not perform to the satisfaction of some, they nonetheless can and do provide for the assistance of the needy.
Moreover, private charitable giving come far closer to a true act of charity. Such acts are healthy and necessary to every society. We all need to learn how one gives charity to others and how one receives the charity of others gracefully.
Scrooge: Are there no poorhouses? No debtor’s prisons?
Yes, my Lord.
Scrooge: are they in operation?
Yes, regrettably, my lord. But many would rather die than go there.
Scrooge: Then why don’t they die already, and reduce the excess population!
Matthew 25:31-46
I think we need to get past the inaccurate idea that people get sick and are in this situation because of lack of planning, or savings, or personal responsibility. Nor is it bad luck — it’s inevitable that a certain percentage of people are going to become disabled in any year, or at some point in their lives. It may be bad luck that it falls on one or another, but it WILL fall on someone. Yes, some do contribute to their illness, but many others do not. As a civilized society, are we going to stand by and let them suffer? The problem is that we, as a society, have not adequately planned for that inevitability, and force many people, even those who had a job and health insurance, to lose everything just to get needed care when they become disabled. The whole idea of private insurance is a sharing or pooling of risk. Our present system doesn’t accomplish that goal, because it is available in health, but often not in sickness.
VAB – When someone disagrees with us, there is a natural tendency to assume the worse about them. This is something we each must guard against.
Please do confuse my opposition to socialized medicine with an opposition to charity or with a desire to blame the poor for their own condition. I object to the concept of government-run charity. I have no trouble with with concept of charity.
Look again at what I have written. I did not attack the poor. What I did is show why government-run “charity” presents us with more problems and dangers than it is worth. I see the welfare state is a cure more dangerous than the disease it purports to cure.
You referenced Matthew 25:31-46. Do you think because you pay taxes and your taxes support welfare Jesus Christ will recognize you as a charitable person? Would you bet your soul on that?
You suggest society has an obligation to the poor. What obligation does “civilized society” have for the poor? Frankly, I do not believe society has any obligations. Societies and governments do not have obligations and responsibilities; individual people do. Societies and governments cannot be charitable and loving. Only the individuals within a society can find the capacity within themselves.
The properties of societies and governments are more closely akin to machines than individual people. We write rules for our governments and institutions, and we try to make certain that the people who run them follow these rules. However, we must be realistic in our expectations. When we give too much power to government, that power will be abused.
There are some things that are just too important to be given over to government. Charity is one of those things.
Sorry about the typo.
/Please do confuse/ = /Please do NOT confuse/
Mouse, the *vast* majority of student loans benefit from government subsidy and guarantees. It’s not just the subsidized Stafford/Perkins loans. Its the guarantee on the unsubsidized versions, PLUS loans, etc. You want a sure thing? Get into the student loan business.
~
In the end, Citizen Tom’s fear (whether real or not) and need to demonize government is what appears to motivate most every position he takes. He’d rather have someone in need rely on his (or more likely, someone else’s) goodwill than support a system in which that person has a right to help. Nothing we do or say is really going to change that.
Thankfully, Tom’s in quite the tiny minority. Most people, when they’ve had a chance to sit down and think through what it means to live in a society, want to ensure that their fellow man’s “basic needs” are met. Now, that’s a phrase that invites much debate, but we need not explore that here. The important part is that there is wide and deep agreement that there are certain costs and obligations of living in society. We don’t leave national defense, roads and highways, or food safety monitoring to the private sector or charity. The needs they meet are too important to compete with a profit motive or someone’s religious preferences.* And so to it should be with healthcare.
Any UHC program, to be sure, should be constructed with strong checks and accountability as a core part of it. And if you want to see if government can come up with something like that, check out Medicare. It’s not perfect, but it’s doing a pretty damn good job.
*Of course, each one of those areas certainly has examples where the profit motive has certainly compromised the public good (i.e., it’s the almighty private sector free market that led to subpar personal armor in Iraq, failed tunnel projects in Boston, and pushback against adequate meat inspections in the US).
I think the indigent care at VCU HEALTH SYSTEMS, (formerly known as MCV) is paid for out a fund/Insurance set up by philanthropist and not by state tax dollars.
BM — I could not find data on what percentage (dollar wise) of student loans are subsidized, only that some are and some are not.
Still, not all are guaranteed, either. Such guaranteed loans do have a dollar limit: “The limit effective for loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2007 is as follows: is $3,500 per year for freshman undergraduate students, $4,500 for sophomore undergraduates, and $5,500 per year for junior and senior undergraduate students….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_States
Beyond those limits, we’re into private loans, which are neither guaranteed nor subsidized, nor is the interest rate capped.
MB – I have had student loans. I paid them back. I have a VA loan on my house. I am paying it back. I drive on government paved roads. I was in the military. I work as a beltway bandit. Government is pervasive, and it has been pervasive in my life. If the sheer size of government is the argument for more government, and if the fact we all take advantage of government programs is sufficient justification for UHC, then those in opposition to UHC have lost before they start. Fortunately, debates do not have to work that way.
Just like any other proposal, the advocates of UHC are obligated to justify this proposal on its own merits. Personal attacks and accusations of hypocrisy and extremism really have nothing to do with the matter. In fact, your efforts shame others into silence simply demonstrate an inability to effectively argue your case.
Consider your last two paragraphs. You argue that any UHC program “should be constructed with strong checks and accountability as a core part of it” and point to Medicare as an example. Then in your last paragraph you point to failures in the private sector. Yet each of your examples involves either a government acquisition program or a failure of government regulation. So much of strong checks and accountability.
Because I work for the government, I know something about how it works and how well it works. What I know suggests to me that we have more than enough government. That puts me in the minority?
Consider what should be obvious. This is suppose to be a republic. That means that the rights of the minority are protected, but the people we pick to lead us otherwise take heed of the desires of the Majority. Do they? Or are we are slowly losing control?
There is this old saw about putting a frog in pot and gradually turning up the heat. Thus boiling the frog before it hops out. If I think the heat is on, can you blame me? Consider these this quote.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
English economist & philosopher (1806 – 1873)
Bing! MB, Tom works for the government! So we should all ignore the people shafted by the current health insurance system and trust him that government is no good! And, by the way, he got where he is on his own.
MB, Please explain to me why Medicare is so great?
VAB – The only reason I talked about myself was to make the point that such personal data has little relevance. Given the fact we don’t really know anything about each other, why not talk about the merits of UHC instead?
When a patient has sufficient funds (or good insurance) our current health care system works well. In fact, for most people the current system works well. It appears that the people who are “shafted” by the current system have insufficient funds, bad insurance, or no insurance. If we follow the UHC logic, that indicates our government (i.e., the taxpayers) have to “fix” the problem by buying or forcing everyone to buy good insurance, UHC.
Have you seriously considered the skyrocketing cost of our existing health care boondoggles? This Utopian scheme requires that taxpayers buy something like 50 million people good insurance. Do any of you have any idea how much that would cost?
Our health care system currently involves about one seventh of the economy. UHC would require that we increase that share causing other priorities to suffer.
Do you think the efficiency of the current health care system would remain the same? Whenever you throw money at anything (increasing demand), efficiency declines and prices go up. That would result in rationing and long waits for everyone — except for those with sufficient money and influence.
UHC is advertised as being about “equality”. In reality, UHC is a demagogic scheme to make the rich pay. Such schemes never work. When the rascals sole us the income tax, they said only the top one percent would pay. How long did that last?
Instead of worrying about what the rich get, we need to worry about how much control we retain over our own lives.
“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
Judge Gideon J. Tucker