High-Priced Medicines? Not High Enough, Yank!

Were touching on this last week on the Katic Couric thread that died . . .

Now, on the front page of today's Gray Lady, above the fold:


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/us/14drug.html?ex=1365825600&en=a6c98f51

While Lieberman and Hil dance around the maypole . . .

 

Yep, our health care system is just fine. :

We're the only country in the "Western" world that treats health care like it's a privelige and not a basic human right.

 

In a democratic society, rights can be removed. Privileges are earned and can be lost.

Too often we presume that the cost of health care equals the price of health care. In other western countries, the decision to control cost often leads to rationing. Ultimately, there will be a group that suffers. However, if the collective suffers uniformly, that becomes acceptable.

In the US, the price of health care, that amount which you pay is not reflective of the cost of providing that service. because Medicare and Medicaid payments often do not cover the cost of the service, the excess is redistributed to the price paid by others. There is no doubt that collusion and price fixing, as well as liability insurance and excessive administrative costs add to the price that is charged.

In a society that values individual choice, it is difficult to understand why the cost of rehabilitation from a motorcycle accident where the rider wasn't wearing a helmet, should be assumed by the collective. Similarly, the cost of smoking is paid by the whole.

The decision to insure all is different that insuring access to health care for all. More importsntly, the goal perhaps should be access to prevention and wellness for all and a reasonably priced insurance policy for illness and injury. Using an auto insurance model, there are plenty of places to get oil, lube and filters at reasonable cost,yet insurance companies do not pay for these maintenance items. INstead, the price of insurance is based upon risk. Auto insurance is mandatory and government programs exist for the "uninsurable".

Whether health care is a right or a privilege is less important than deciding whether the US should aim for a healthy population and work towards prevention instead of palliation.

 

Health care has always been a privilege. If you're rich, no worries. If you're poor, go die in a gutter. -- U.S. government

 

Huh, I wonder why so many people come across the border to get treated for free at U.S. hospitals...

 

“This is an erosion of the traditional concept of insurance,” Mr. Mendelson said. “Those beneficiaries who bear the burden of illness are also bearing the burden of cost.”

I just loathe these bend-over-and-take-it remarks.


Having said that, unless you're Canadian and told you have to wait a year for a surgery you can get here in a week, don't jump to conclusions about our health care. Our problems are in the corporate sector, where they are beginning to view any employee working for less than $12 an hour as a slave who doesn't deserve health care.

 

Mike Huckabee said it best: The health care issue can be solved instantly if Congress allows Americans to have the same insurance they have.

 

When does turning a problem over to the federal government ever produce a satisfactory solution?

 

I don't know of a Congressman that's struggling to pay health care bills.

 

The problem of course is that people paying these prices for "Tier 4" or 5 prescriptions have no choice, that is, unless they want to risk their lives.

My problem is that pharmaceutical companies seem to have the attitude that prescriptions are luxury items, but they're not. No one should be able to claim that the market is simply pricing the prescriptions at what people are willing to pay for them, considering they really have no choice. Believe me, I don't have such a flippant attitude that I think everything should be "free," but I have a problem when the average working American can't afford health insurance.

 

That was never the case in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, even 60s or 70s.

It wasn't EVER the case until employer-paid insurance became part of the game.

 

Setting the bar pretty low, huh?