Your appearance on Bill Moyers' Journal was terrific--extremely informative. But while you said that you are a capitalist, you did not clearly say that the healthcare insurance industry is anti-capitalist. As you stated, they are anti-competition and monopolism is not capitalism. Competition is the heart of capitalism, and they openly reject it.
Potter states that Will suggests we should leave well enough alone. That is not true, Potter has, seemingly intentionally, misstated what Will said.
Will's column analyzed many aspects of the costs of health care, and the impending crisis caused by massive deficits, and the massive costs of health reform, and specifically said:
"The public, its attention riveted by the fiscal train wreck of trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future, may be coming to the conclusion that we should leave bad enough alone".
Notice, Will did not say to leave well enough alone. He specifically used different terminology, which Potter ignored.
Will also cited polls and surveys on what Americans are willing to pay for health care. Potter's column is utterly misleading as to what Will said.
I think we need health care changes, but Potter's analysis of the Will column is so incomplete and misleading, that Potter hurts the chances for health care reform.
Potter comes across more and more as a man who made a lot of money in the insurance business, as an executive, and now sees he can make a lot more as a whistle blower.
Let's have a real analysis of what critics of health care reform as proposed by many Democrats, not a misstatement of what these critics say.
Potter's analysis of what Will says, versus what Will actually says, is tantamount to lies by Potter.
the worlds greatest health care? Based on what?
You are either not a provider of health care, or have not required significant health care.
In any event, the design and implementation of a system would determine its utility,
efficiency and value.
The so-called "rush' is that chronic disease is preventable or can be attenuated by early intervention .Lose a single Mom, and you now have a cost multiplier.
What liberties are preserved by restricting procedures and payments by for profit insurance companies?
health care is provided by providers: Doc, nurses, technicians, counselors, etc. and
everyone needs some form, so there is no such thing as health "insurance".
got the feeling you support the military: Single payer.
you use the internet, which came from the government's Arpanet.
there is a lot of lip service to sanctity of life, here is an opportunity to put it into action.
As for veterans, we surely didn't serve to benefit insurance companies,
nor have family members disallowed, rejected, bankrupt or die prematurely.
I have seen several samples of issue-advocacy software used to generate letters to a publication.
The software is designed to obtain an endorsement from the person who reads a motivational cover message, usually sent by email. The message entices the reader to initiate the process by clicking on a hyperlink in the message text to "learn more" or some equally non-committal motive.
After reading the cover letter and starting the hyperlink, the reader is led to a page where he "composes" a letter to his congressman and/or senator from a one of three or four prepared bodies of text. To the assembled "letter" is attached the reader's name, postal address and email address. Sometimes, along with phone number.
In some variations of this software, there is a box in which the reader actually composes his own free-form response.
At some point, the reader who expects his message will be sent to the appropriate parties already named is asked to name his local newspaper of record. Here is where the software has been deliberately deceptive-- the early versions, at least, never explicitly state the reader's "letter" also will be sent to the local newspaper.
That is to say, many of those readers said to have sent a message to an editor never knew they sent the message!
First of all, nobody is proposing "government-run health care," but "government-run insurance." So you're misleading from the start.
On what basis do you contend that government-run health insurance won't work? Millions of Americans receive care through Medicare, and most of them are quite happy with it. If they're not, they're free to choose private medical insurance, but most opt for Medicare. And back in the Clinton Administration, when we had people in the government who actually believed in government, the VA ran a very good health care system before the Bush ideologues undermined the system.
There is a fundamental problem with private medical insurance: Insurers make money by NOT paying claims, and incentives for innovation are to find ways to minimize those payouts, rather than in providing better, more cost-effective care. Thus they cherry-pick customers, raise premiums, deny for pre-existing conditions, etc.. And for all the talk of "bureaucrats" getting between patients and doctors, now we have insurance company bureaucrats doing so.
I don't even claim private insurance firms are evil; they're simply rational. I support a single-payer system because then that single payer might have an incentive to spend money on public health and preventive care ("you can pay me now...or pay me later"), which many insurers have no incentive to pay now since the savings might accrue to a different insurer. If a private firm can do this, great, but I suspect only the federal government has the ability to create a single risk pool that would make this possible.
And for those of you who claim government can run things: you probably trust government to fight our wars, so why don't you think they can run health insurance?
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