Reader comments
Bennett, Demo strive to shine light on health proposal

Sen. Bennett is on to something but their plan is still a bit deficient. The problem is much more than the incentives. The fact of the matter is both the patients and the doctors are insulated from market forces by health insurance. Patients demand too much and doctors provide too much.

Instead of this plan, all pre-paid health plans should be outlawed and real (i.e. catastrophic) health insurance policies permitted. Such policies could obviously be customized for the individual needs.

The result would be an immediate drop in the cost of pay as you go health services. Doctors would have to learn how to actually provide price sensitive, and needed, health care. And all Americans would be motivated to get healthy.

I hope the Senators use the time to carefully consider all the effects of their changes. Maybe the Bennetts could save something by not having to pay for maternity coverage, but most insurance companies will want them to pay an arm and a leg because of their advanced age and increased likelihood of heart disease and cancer.

I like the idea of not tying health insurance to employment, but in the article their plan seems to still rely on employers for funding. If you lose your job, it won't help much to have continued access to health coverage if it suddenly increases in cost from $200/month to $1000/month.

As you age, or if you have some pre-existing condition like diabetes or asthma, is your employer going to reimburse you at a higher amount for health insurance as your health insurance rate increases?

I'm still not sure how much this changes health insurance availability for people who currently do not work at jobs that provide health insurance. It will change for people who are already insured, but will it result in a higher percentage of people insured?

I think that I would rather support tax deductions for people who pay for their own insurance rather than remove everyone's employer-provided insurance. I also think that providing subsidized plans for college students, more clinics for lower-income people, and basic healthcare coverage for every low-income child under the age of 18 would be a good idea, but I definitely do not think that universal healthcare is a good idea. Access to the nations best healthcare is not a unalienable constitutional right, and I'm glad that this plan shies away from that.

The buggaboo of the whole issue is the insurance providers themselves. As long as they remain 'for-profit' entities beholden to stock holder and big-bonused management interests while the insured are considered tertiary in the formula, health care reform based on this hideous joke will not work.

At the other extreme is universal single pay systems both maligned and applauded at the same time. Fact is, as long as the rich in America get richer and the middle class get poorer, the inevitability of universal single pay will happen.

Interestingly, I hear a lot about the supposed horrors of Canada's or some European country's universal health care system. I reply "Well at least they're trying!" Followed up with, "Here in America, we're not even trying except for allowing corporate/rich interests to stonewall the issue. So who should be lauded for their efforts... those who at least try, or those who continue to let millions suffer from the lack or will to even try?"

Hey! This is America, the most innovative nation on Earth. We should be able to effectively solve this problem and get middle class American insurance covered without undue financial strain on their already strained budgets!

Having lived in a European Country with a National Health Care Plan I just want to say...I am glad I never had to use it!!!We did visit patients. It was a nightmare to get service and the facilities were very very poor. We took some friends to obtain emergency health care. Infected hand, and had to go to four clinics before one would treat her, (she was outside of her city, county where she had her health insurance, each local had different insurance company.. then the next day she was closer to her home but still had a wait at a hospital for 4 hours for care, then she had to return to her origional home county for approval for any other care. We were required to have the state health insurance in some cities where we lived and others said our health insurance company in America would be good enough and we did not need to pay local insurance companies. Making sure we had Health Insurance was part of the job description of the local police(who else will enforce it???). Do our police need another law to enforce??? Where do we get money to paid for enforcement???

The more government gets involved, the worse things get. The feds have many decades of proven inefficiency. Why would thier fix for health care be any different? One huge component not being discussed is the need to eliminate law suits for "malpractice." Bad outcomes are not necessarily malpractice. But law suits drive up the cost of health care. Ask any OB/GYN what his/her malpractice insurance premiums are this year. Try $100,000 per year or more. Does that lower the cost of health care? Nope!

Very few who have PERSONALLY lived with a national health care system want to have the USA adopt one. Government corruption will bleed over into the managment of the health care.
Our government as our HMO... very scary! I would rather have no insurance than government managed health insurance.

Does the government run or manage or produce ANYTHING better than private enterprise does? Can you name ONE thing?

For some strange reason, politicians conveniently ignore the core problem of health care today -- it's EXPENSIVE. Cut the costs, and the problems (real and perceived) go away.

Cut hospital overhead, including most non-medical staff. Stop Federal requirements for paperwork. Limit lawsuit awards. Stop the requirement for hospitals to treat those who cannot pay, except basic lifesaving. Cut out middlemen, including pharmaceutical reps. Stop requiring expensive, unnecessary tests. Et cetera.

It ain't rocket science. C'mon, Congress!