The Halfway Point

The difference between Obama and Clinton in the primaries was that he wanted to be sure every American has the chance to buy health insurance at an affordable price, and she wanted to force every American to buy health insurance whether they could afford it or not. Clinton wanted to fine employers who didn't provide insurance, and individuals who chose not to have it.

Clearly the Democrats favor the Clinton approach, and are intent on forcing another mandated lack of choice on the citizens, and if the cost of health care means you can't afford food or housing, at least you can get medical treatment.

The thing everyone seems to ignore is that even if you have insurance now, in many places you can't get health care! With great coverage and the means to pay cash if needed, an expensive trip to another part of the country may be needed to get care in a timely fashion. Any plan which doesn't include a means to increase the supply will only make thing worse. A plan must have funding to train doctors (not import them), stop closing hospitals in the name of cost control, and some incentive for people to participate in preventative care, like increased co-pay for those who don't.

The Halfway Point - Commentary on the World Today

	About When I was 46 I started writing essays on life, or the state of the human condition as I once called it. Because I was halfway between old enough to vote (21) and planned retirement (72) it was known as the "Halfway Point" series of essays. Later when I mentioned the essays in one context or another on USENET, I got requests for copies and eventually for future essays. Thus the mailing list was born, and it moved to the Internet when that became widely available. At that time I moved to writing on a schedule, the 1st, 11th, and 21st of the month. Now the trend is to "blogs," and read on demand. I am therefore making this available as a blog, and we shall see if people read it here, or by mail, or not at all. My other writing OddLinks - informal comments Subscribe Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS. Links These are a few of my favourite links. userfriendly toon xkcd toon	Fri, 09 Oct 2009 Democrats offer a Health Care plan filled with flaws (13:26) The difference between Obama and Clinton in the primaries was that he wanted to be sure every American has the chance to buy health insurance at an affordable price, and she wanted to force every American to buy health insurance whether they could afford it or not. Clinton wanted to fine employers who didn't provide insurance, and individuals who chose not to have it. Clearly the Democrats favor the Clinton approach, and are intent on forcing another mandated lack of choice on the citizens, and if the cost of health care means you can't afford food or housing, at least you can get medical treatment. The thing everyone seems to ignore is that even if you have insurance now, in many places you can't get health care! With great coverage and the means to pay cash if needed, an expensive trip to another part of the country may be needed to get care in a timely fashion. Any plan which doesn't include a means to increase the supply will only make thing worse. A plan must have funding to train doctors (not import them), stop closing hospitals in the name of cost control, and some incentive for people to participate in preventative care, like increased co-pay for those who don't. Comment [all posts this day] \| permanent link