An Insta-Hoglets Healthcare Special

With a fanfare, Insta-hoglets - punchposts with a sometimes snarky bent - return!

My two posts from February on the Private vs Public healthcare debate have consistently been my two best read posts since they were published, with most of the readers coming via search engines and coming from universities, hospitals, medical specialists and think-tanks and so I've been following with some interest the recent resurgence in interest in the topic of universal healthcare from various liberal pundits. I think healthcare is going to be one of the biggest talking points of the 2006 and 2008 elections and it may be a good idea for the Left to get its act together and start to agree the shape of the kind of policy it would like. With that in mind, here's some of the best items I've been reading as a stimulant to that debate.

Scott Shields at MyDDthinks healthcare is one of the big issues too:

when it comes to debating Republican healthcare proposals versus Democratic solutions, I think we've got a good chance of getting our agenda passed. After all, universal healthcare has been a Democratic cause for well over fifty years. The failings of the private market in this area are now obvious to everyone paying attention -- even to much of the market itself.

And has some great links to back up his argument.

Certainly the opinion poll numbers look good:

Medicare (health insurance for the elderly and disabled). Fully 96 percent of adults support Medicare, including 92 percent or more of all religious categories.

Medicaid (health insurance for people with very low incomes) is supported by 91 percent of all adults, including 88 percent of all religious categories.

Universal health insurance is favored by 75 percent of all adults, including 63 percent or more of all religious groups.

Brad Plummer asks "why doesn't the current patent system—which allows drug companies to sell their little pills for 300-400 percent above the competitive market price in order to recoup their "research" investment—work very well?" and calls for the gradual socialization of drug research. This would involve getting the pharma corps to open up their books, break their hold on the FDA and making the approval of new drugs contingent on improvements over existing drugs (right now, new drugs merely need to be better than placebos to be approved). At the same time, more government money could be directed into the development and testing of new drugs.

Kate at epiphanies blog has charts illustrating the remarkable difference in administrative costs between Medicare and Private administrative costs. Private costs (11.5%) are more than 3 times those of Medicare (3.6%). It's not only due to the lower administrative costs, but to the huge bargaining power of the government, and the efficacy of government regulation. She says:

The real question, however, is why are we using the failed private market to reign in costs when the government is obviously doing a superior job? And as the system prices more and more people out of their employer sponsored (or lack of) insurance, why are we pretending that the same ineffectual system is a magic antidote?

Up in Michigan Democratic lawmakers think some large companies are not paying enough for their employees' health care costs and leaving taxpayers with a higher Medicaid bill.

State Senate Democrats on Monday will promote a plan that would require businesses with 10,000 or more workers to devote at least 8 percent of their payroll to health insurance or reimburse the state for the difference.

Of course, WalMart and the Republicans are wailing about the plan making businesses uncompetitive. What they haven't realised yet is that combining employers' payments with employees' own healthcare premiums and government healthcare costs the US spends more than 15% of its GDP on healthcare and still not everyone is covered while a universal system would cover everyone for an estimated 11.5% to 15% of GDP. If the US moved to a universal system no-one would pay more, everyone would get coverage and businesses would be more competitive on the international market.

Kevin at Lean Left draws some of these posts together with other information, including some excellent work from Ezra Klien, and concludes:

That’s right, not only does this mess of a system lose in the marketplace to our next door neighbor’s, not only does it over-charge US taxpayers for drugs those taxpayers largely paid to develop, not only does it not cover everyone in the country, not only does it produce results worse than most industrialized nations, it guts our economic competitiveness in the process.

What a wonderful system we have here.

I would also like to throw my own thoughts from February into the mix so please, have a read at those posts too. Public vs. Private Healthcare. Part One - Getting to the Facts and Part Two - Counting the Costs (and Savings). Please give them a read - and there's a lot more informative links referenced at the bottom of each post. I think I conclusively show that a move to a universal healthcare system would be cheaper, deliver at least as good levels of care and would be welcomed by almost every sector of industry as increasing their international competitiveness.

Its time and past time to debate this amongst ourselves and get a consensus plan - a detailed plan - for universal healthcare which can be a major part of a real liberal policy platform. What's the easiest way to fund it? Would it just be medicare/medicaid extended to cover everyone or would other areas need coverage? Whats the best way to manage a changeover? What possible blocking points will we have to answer and what are the best answers in terms of a clear and strong message? Let's get our thinking caps on, folks. Drop a comment, link your own post or send me a mail at newshog [AT] gmal [DOT] com. I'm hoping to gather together everything, take the best of the best and produce an American Solidarity 'position paper' for further discussion sometime soon.