CDR: Re: why should it be trusted?

[James A.. Donald]

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At 09:07 PM 10/22/2000 -0700, Nathan Saper wrote:
 > OK, granted, the government needs to be kept on a tight leash.  Most
 > people will not want the government breaking into their homes.
 > However, I think most people would be willing to vote for a bill
 > that would guarantee insurance for people with genetic
 > abnormalities, even
 >  that does mean that some CEOs and stockholders will have less money
 > in their already-full pockets.

You cannot provide cheap insurance by punishing insurers, any more than you 
can provide cheap housing by punishing landlords.  It has been tried.  A 
law compelling insurance companies to insure the unhealthy will merely 
raise costs for the healthy, resulting in more people going uninsured.

If you want to guarantee insurance for the unhealthy without ill effects 
the TAXPAYER has to pay, and I suspect that if this proposition was put to 
the public, enthusiasm would be considerably less.  Indeed the Clintons did 
put something very like that proposition to the public, and there was 
little enthusiasm.

 > > We cannot provide all the medical care for everyone who might want
 > > it.  The question then is who decides who lives and who dies?

 > We could easily provide healthcare for every American citizen.  Just
 > raise taxes a bit, and cut out most of our military spending.


We can provide RATIONED health care for every american citizen.  And then 
who gets to do the rationing?

Rationing is popular in Canada, because the wealthy skip across the border 
to the US.   It would be considerably less popular in the US, because we 
have no unrationed health care conveniently nearby.

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          James A. Donald
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