President Obama's Extended Health Care Chat on ABC

Did anyone ask if the public option would need to pay state and federal taxes and they don't, did he consider that a subsidy making the market unfair toward the private industry?

 

I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here, but universal public healthcare came to Canada largely because of a man who happened to be a Baptist minister. He wasn’t one of the southern Baptist types, however. He was a social gospel Baptist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas#Medicare

This happened half a century ago so I’m not sure how much of it is relevant to your situation, but it was a heck of a fight and it was one of the most important events in Canadian history. Douglas, and later Woodrow Lloyd, were premiers of a small Canadian province of less than 1 million people, and they took on the North American medical establishment including the big insurance companies and even the American Medical Association, which was afraid of the precedent that might be set. All kinds of money was spent by these groups on fear mongering and red baiting. There was a doctors strike at one point. A little further on some doctors who were openly in favour of the program had their hospital privileges revoked. One high profile result of this was that a number of pregnant women decided to stick by their doctors and not switch doctors so they could have their babies in a hospital. “If the hospitals won’t let my doctor in to deliver my baby then I’ll have my doctor deliver my baby at home!” This is not that big of a deal today, but back in the early 60s it was almost unheard of not to give birth in the hospital. A lot of people were scared by the attack ads and threat of losing their doctors, but it was a very strong movement and the leaders did a very good job of communicating what was going on and what was at stake. It was a brutal fight, but the majority of the people lined up with the government, and they all went to war, and they won. A number of other provinces were in favour of what Saskatchewan was doing but they didn’t have the stomach for the fight. Once Saskatchewan won, however, the precedent was set and other provinces and then the federal government came on board over the next few years. That Saskatchewan government actually lost the next election a couple of years later largely due to the fallout from the healthcare fight, but the program was so popular by then that the next government didn’t dare take it out, and other programs were already being implemented across Canada by then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_Doctors'_Strike

So, buckle up your chinstraps my southern brothers! You can get this done. I believe the key for Saskatchewan crowd was communication, communication, and more communication. Seek to understand the concerns of the moderates, both the spoken and underlying concerns, and then respectfully and compassionately explain the program and the situation, and then do it again and again and again as many times as it takes for it to sink in and for them to be comfortable with it. I think that’s what needs to be done to build enough support and to make it strong enough to survive the battle.

 

I don't understand why being happy with his insurer, and not wanting his taxes raised makes him non-Christian. His parish probably doesn't ask him to pray for a government health insurance plan.

There is a lot disturbing about the big business that is Christianity, but a Pastor asking a question about the changes he will be subject to isn't one of them.

 

I may have dozed through it, but I can't recall any of these "tough" questioners asking why the unions are being exempted from any health care tax or whether people making less than $250K would be taxed on their health care.

I also don't recall any questions regarding illegal aliens and health care.

 

I don't see why you think it's horrifying. If my Priest asked the same question, I would consider it a reasonable thing to ask. My Priest has no idea if I am happy with my insurance or if I am worried about potentially paying extra taxes, so there is no way he could speak for me in that respect.

What was Obama's answer to his question?

 

Hey, wait a minute! According to some right-wingers, all Canadians hate their health care system. This does not compute.

 

Missed it. What were the highlights?

 

A public option would work like a non-profit, I assume. Non-profit health care providers, just like other non-profits, don't pay taxes right now.

 

I don't see how that could make for a fair competitive market.

 

It will make for a competitive market, which will force traditional insurance companies to reduce the 33% administrative bloat or go out of business. Either way, the consumer wins.

 

Why? There are non-profit health care providers out there right now. You only pay taxes on profits. If you don't make profits, you wouldn't pay any taxes. If a for-profit company made $0 in profits, they wouldn't pay any taxes either. Where is the problem?

This is the case in all industries. A non-profit co-op bookstore doesn't pay taxes while Barnes & Noble does too, for example.

 

co-op is a very small part of the market. Most of these companies make profits. If they don't they go out of business.

 

I am gonna go ahead and call BS on the 33% number.

 

A company that doesn't make profits won't go out of business - they just won't make any money. As long as you're not losing money, there's no reason to go out of business.

But beyond that, that's all true. But the reason the for-profit companies survive is that there is a profit-motive to do better and be more efficient to make money. We've been told over and over that a gov't provided system is not efficient and would be bloated. If that's the case, then the private insurers presumably can provider better, more competitive services anyway, right?

If people are choosing the public option in large volume, then that will suggest that the whole notion that gov't provided care is not as good as the private market gets blown up, no?

At the end of the day, health care costs have to be brought under control. Health care costs are going to *someone* - some of it to insurers, some of it to drug-makers, some of it to hospitals and doctors, etc. I'm not sure how people expect to get costs under control if they don't expect anyone to have their profits cut into.

 

yeah that is not true at all. If you go from hundreds of millions in net income to zero your stocks will plummet and you will die.

The whole idea is and has always been, the game will be fixed from the start.

 

Umm, no. Companies often make no profits - or take huge losses - for long periods of time and don't go away. The stock won't be worth much, certainly. But the company won't default on any payments and won't have any reason to file for bankruptcy. More likely, they'll dump their management and try to find new management that can make them profitable, or merge with another company to create efficiencies of scale there.

In what way?

 

The idea is supposed to be to offer more "sellers" of healthcare in order to create a closer to free market, from what the president said. My argument is if you allow the public option advantages of no taxes and the public taking the risk on investments, it is impossible to see which system is more efficient. Even more so when the public plans capital will not be added to its administrative costs.