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Incentives are key when crafting laws
Published Thursday, August 20, 2009
Why are people so unhappy about the proposed health insurance reform bills in Congress, and they are not unhappy about the “cash for clunkers” program? The “cash for clunkers” plan is an incentive for people to trade in their old, inefficient cars for new ones, but it leaves the people in control. Yes, it does take money from taxpayers, but it helps put people to work and the people are in control.
Compare that to the health reform bills of Congress. This takes control from the people and puts it into the hands of Washington bureaucrats. They tell us what benefits we are going to have; they tell the employers what they have to provide; they tell the insurance companies what risks they must cover regardless of the type of lifestyles. They can be heavy smokers, drug addicts or very obese, and yet they must be covered for the same price as those who try to live healthy lifestyles.
Where are the incentives? It looks like Washington wants to take control of our lives.
Alan Arends
co-chairman
Freeborn County
Republican Party
Albert Lea
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Comments
Posted by NOGOP (anonymous) on August 20, 2009 at 9:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
That is what the insurance companies do now Al. They tell you what procedures you can and cannot have done. They tell you what meds you can and cannot take. They refuse to cover pre-existing conditions. The fact that over 1.1 million Minnesotans having been without Healthcare coverage at some point over the last two years shows that there is a real problem out there. Our own governor is taking 34,000 low income citizens off of their healthcare coverage. It's time to quit preaching the party line and start looking for answers to the real problem of finding ways to help our citizens to be able have some type of affordable public healthcare options.
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on August 20, 2009 at 10:16 a.m. (Suggest removal)
NOGOP please stop with the DFL talking points. You and I would be better off if we were in charge of our own health. Look at what the owner of Whole Foods has done for his employees. He pays 100% of their health care plus gives them $1800 a year to cover their deductable. If they do not use the $1800 they get to have it at the end of the year tax free. He has seen his health care cost go down. His employees take ownership. He pays for health club and preventative care. Yet the left has gone after him because he does not favor a government run plan. He understands incentives and his employees are better off because of it. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...
Posted by NOGOP (anonymous) on August 20, 2009 at 2:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
NoDFL it might be nice if you took your own advise and stop with the right wing games. Millions of hard working Americans foregoes healthcare coverage in this country because they just can't afford it.
Posted by Culture_Warrior (anonymous) on August 20, 2009 at 3:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
No DFL rocked you with that one NOGOP!
Posted by NoDFL (anonymous) on August 20, 2009 at 5:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
NOGOP,
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...
Posted by ErnieGann (anonymous) on August 22, 2009 at 12:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ask a lefty just HOW they propose to "save" money with government health care--they never answer. After all, Government has hardly been known for its efficiency!
I've never seen the logic in your paying for MY health care, and my paying for YOURS. How does THAT save money?
Liberals like the IDEA of "free" health care, but like so many of their "wants"--reality gets in the way. They have no explanation of how adding "47 million" people to the health care rolls would "save money." They have no idea how to come up with 470,000 doctors--plus other health care professionals--assuming the same ratio of doctors to patients--about 100 to 1.
That means that:
A. The existing doctors will spend LESS time with you--OR
B. Health care will be rationed, despite "promises" to the contrary--OR
C. Waiting times will go up.
All of these are common to every OTHER Socialized Medicine system in the world, it would be absurd to think it wouldn't happen here--but then, if liberals had rational thought, they wouldn't be libbies, would they?
Hillarycare was soundly defeated last time around after people found out what it REALLY cost. The OMB, with its estimate of $1 trillion (Senate version) and $1.6 Trillion (house) has put the lie to THIS Administration proposal.
Hillarycare dealt a near fatal blow to the Clinton Administration--resulting in both houses of Congress being lost to the Administration. With any luck, the failure of Obamacare will do the same.
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