Friday, November 27, 2009
Pass Health, Then Move On (Energy)
So, the economic recovery (jobs) will be delayed 6 months for health, heh? I guess it's worth the respect for those trying to pass universal health for the past 25 years and I respect that. I actually am for that because it helps much and there is still time to colate an energy component to it. It's the internationalization of health (and fuel gets us to India/Thailand for major surgeries - for the poorer/cheaper). Primary care would still need to be given in the states. So, the focus should be on preventative/holistic care. The health plan can potentially also reduce it's price tag from the implicit health synergies from more productive workers who do receive primary care. However, no new jobs (or net cost) will be created by the health plan. The private administrators that invalidate health claims would be diverted to gov't bureaucrats to ensure compliance. So, new doctors would have to be trained but their sustenance would have to be compensated by the efficiency of the workers previously not getting health insurance (in an increasing taxed commodity market - higher oil prices, etc). Investing in a new energy infrastructure creates jobs that actually reduce the costs of commodities as they prices rise. More jobs = less needed to be subsidized by gov't incentives.
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Addendum: the fact that we have to tax the rich and forced the poor to appropriate some of their funds to fund health care shows that the efficiency of the uninsured does not exceed the price to provide health care. So, maybe in 10 tens, the balance will shift but the 30 million uninsured will have to provide a product to grow the US which is adversely taken from what the "other hundreds of millions" of insured americans can't do. Maintaining the populace of the US healthy as a whole is generally good; but that perhaps makes for a good # of soldiers only. Social stratified societies do succeed. The innovators design new technologies to grow the society. Think Romans (had slaves), India (caste system), China (peasant class). Were those societies not prominent? they grew from technological trade. So to take (by taxing) the rich to grow the US & growing all, is not a surety. It's good by morale and everything else but certainly not a certainty.
ReplyDeleteIf the health plan promotes more doctors but most of those are NOT in primary care, then in the future, it will be harder to see a doc just for a prescription. So, in that sense, health will be worse. If it does get serious, then a specialist will take care of you but more specialist won't decrease the price because energy will be that more expensive. *So, now the efficiency gains from giving 30 mil uninsured will additionally have to be offset by the deficiency of I say 15-20% of more difficulty in seeing a primary care physician.
ReplyDeleteThe economic/energy plan should have been done first before the health plan; still enough time before reelections in Nov 2010. If Obama did the economy first, then the goodwill it presented would have helped out. Seeing how the health plan will be subsidized by the middle and upper middle class (the rich tend to pay a tax rate of the poor - at least according to popular convention) and the middle classes are thinning out (taking a blow) by the recession, it appears prudent to take care of them first before the poor (health). The middle class or anyone else are willing to help the poor, so don't handicap them. Make a promise to Edward Kennedy to look at it in June 2010.
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