Carrick, I like your approach simple is sometimes better. I don’t agree 100% with you on forcing them to take on riskier clients, they already do that in the small and large group plans. They take on pre-existing conditions now. If everyone had insurance, even if the number that don’t have insurance is exaggerated, that would give them a bigger pool like the group insurance plans do. And keep in mind that the result should be decreased cost to the insurance company even though they are taking on riskier clients. I’m not picking on the insurance companies, I think they are getting a bad rapp. They are stuck in the middle between the the health care system and the customer (you and I) The little bit that I have seen the president comment on this issue, it seems he’s trying to fix this problem by fixing and blaming the insurance. That to me is like saying, I will fix an old car engine that’s getting slower by putting jet fuel in it. It cost’s more and performs better than gasoline, but it doesn’t fix the source of the problem.
As far as “forcing” the price of a market, it seems that’s exactly what the president is trying to do by going into the insurance business. When he stated, that there needs to be competition in the insurance industry, I didn’t think he meant the government should be the competition. I’m not picking on you either Carrick, I don’t think anyone has the solution to this issue 100%. Whether we like it or not, the president and Congress are going to steamboat something through and with their track record it ain’t goin to be pretty!

I would much rather see them do this in steps versus just a gunshot and we’re done. At least if you take small steps, you can ajust course as move forward.

You’re right, the census bureau doesn’t track whether or not a person is in the country legally or illegally.

However they do say in a 2007 report there are 9,737,000 non citizens in this country who do not have health insurance.

One would think that a major percentage of those are illegal aliens.

In actuality, there really isn’t much of a policy difference between legal and illegal aliens. They shouldn’t be here if they are a burden on the rest of us. Being uninsured makes them a potential burden.

If you simply move this care from the emergency room to ordinary acute care physicians then we will almost automatically see benefits in terms of improved patient care and reduced medical costs.

I’m a bit skeptical on the massive savings coming from changing from emergency room care to acute care. Certainly going to the emergency room is expensive, but not because of the care you get, but because of how many slackers you’re making up for.

(The waiting game at the emergency room is guessing how many people are paying their way and how many aren’t.)

Personally I think the way to handle the indigent is to have some charity clinics and do what you can for the people who can’t be bothered to pay their way without screwing up the system for people who are willing to pay their own way.

Don’t forget to count the 10 million illegal aliens that are included in the mythical 46 Million uninsured.

Whistler:

No, many more may be legal residents, but that 10,000,000 figure is probably a low number for the illegal aliens that are counted in the uninsured.

10,000,000 is a very big number. We humans throw numbers like that around when all we mean is “a really big number”.

Do you have any objective evidence that the “real number” is >= 10,000,000?

It’s actually self-reinforcement. They create a phony need, then exaggerate it to justify confiscating more of our earnings. Nice hustle!

By the way, I agree with Rob that this 46 million is probably inflated (if you don’t include illegal immigrants at least).

It illustrates the problems for the left:

They love to exaggerate the extent of problems because it makes it easier to sell their socialistic policies.

Trouble is, it also artificially inflates the estimate of how much those socialistic programs will cost.

This is a classic case of the left being hoisted with their own petards.

Dave I recommend the first step (taxing health care benefits) because it precisely this which is distorting the market so much.

If you make health care cheaper for some (oddly in an anti-progressive taxation scheme, those with higher incomes benefit more), then they over-subscribe to their needed amount of health care relative to those who don’t receive these tax breaks.

That in turn drives up medical costs because if you have more demand for (potentially unneeded) medical procedures, then more demand equals higher cost for a given amount of that resource.

Beyond that of course, the current plan discourages shopping around for the best price/product rate (unless you are really luck and your company has multiple plans available that allow you to tailor the insurance to your needs), it also penalizes you for leaving your company because you lose your insurance benefits with it (unless you are willing to pay the full amount it costs out of pocket of course).

This current setup really benefits your company and the insurance company, you not so much.

I’m all for a public health care insurance plan that addresses the fact that we have public health insurance plan right now of a sort via the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which of course requires the emergency room to provide care regardless of your ability to pay for it.

If you simply move this care from the emergency room to ordinary acute care physicians, then we will almost automatically see benefits in terms of improved patient care and reduced medical costs.

If we address where the current cost increases are being driven from and responsibly reform the health care bill to handle that, we have a chance of really benefiting from the program.

The problem right now, to borrow your example, is they’ve told you that you are all of a sudden driving a corvette, and everything that needs fixing (and there are a lot of them) is now going to cost $1000 each.

The problem they have is they have basically lied about the magnitude of the problem. That lying got people to pay attention, but now we are addressing fixing the problem as they have stipulated it to be, we find we can’t afford it.

Whistler: The census bureau put out the illegal alien number. I read it a year or so ago.
The census bureau does not collect this type of data, and as far as I know they’ve never published a report on it.

I did find a study that estimates there are currently 11 million illegals in this country as of July 2008. That number is down 1.5 million from the year before since the crackdown on illegal immigration and the downturn in the housing market.

I’m not saying it’s not a serious problem, just trying to keep it real.

The study in question was done by the Center for Immigration Studies.

They don’t take an entirely pro-illegal immigrant view as that URL link demonstrates.

You forgot illegal aliens. They include at least ten million of the so-called uninsured (and probably a lot more.)

Have them go home and the problem is a lot more manageable figure.

I also understand that a lot of the uninsured are college students. I say a special University employee tax should be used to provide coverage.

I heard very similar reports from other sources over the last couple of days, but haven’t had time to verify them for myself. If these numbers are true, it does as you say show just how far the administration and congress are willing to bend the truth to get to their desired goal. They keep throwing out these “poor children” stories in a lame attempt to put a guilt or sympathy trip on those of us that resist the thought of government controlled health care/insurance (they are really two aspects of the same dilemma). My question is, isn’t SChip supposed to pick up that slack. Wasn’t that what at least part of the huge tobacco tax hikes were supposed to cover? So what they’re saying by pointing to the number of “uninsured children” is the failure of yet another of their grand entitlement schemes and the necessity for the public to pony up for another serving of crap sandwich. Why doesn’t this make sense to me?

No, many more may be legal residents, but that 10,000,000 figure is probably a low number for the illegal aliens that are counted in the uninsured.

That’s an interesting point. One thing that should be required to stay here as a non-resident is paying your own insurance.

That’s part of the reason healthcare costs have gone up also, some people choose not to buy insurance. So, if it were required, you would think it would help to reduce the costs of the write offs at the hospitals and doctors.