Good Friday Snark

I'm gonna just quote Michael O'Hare's whole post here:

Someone is going to trot out this story of a man who killed his wife in despair over not being able to pay her medical bills to argue for universal health care, so let me clarify in advance: this tragedy resulted because the couple disrespected the wisdom of their elected leader. They should have just gone to the emergency room, and everything would have been fine.

Exactly.

Photo by Flickr user Paul Keleher used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Exactly since emergency rooms don't bill.

Posted by jg | August 17, 2007 12:50 PM

This wouldn't be as fun or easy for lefty pundits to do, but I'd be interested in hearing one of them explain how he thinks international investors would react to the establishment of "free" health care in the U.S. The dollar is already in decline because foreign bond investors doubt our ability to pay our entitlement bills in the near future (if we can't pay those bills without further devaluing our currency, we can't pay their interest payments either).

What effect might it have on the bond market if the U.S. government picks up the tab for the half of American medical expenses it doesn't already cover? What effect might the resulting higher interest rates and inflation have on our quality of life?

Just because the Democrats campaign as the Santa Claus party doesn't mean it's Christmas all year 'round; the reality is that there aren't enough toys for everyone, and the elves are starting to get restless.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 12:54 PM

Fred, investors would probably be less reticent about investing in or loaning money to companies that now have large health care obligations to their employees and pensioners.

Also, entrepeneurs would be glad that they no longer had to run a small insurance company in addition to the business they were actually interested in starting.

Posted by Tyro | August 17, 2007 1:08 PM

Just because the Democrats campaign as the Santa Claus party doesn't mean it's Christmas all year 'round; the reality is that there aren't enough toys for everyone, and the elves are starting to get restless.

Fred,

I've forgotten who ran up the federal fiscal debt between 2001 and 2006. Could you remind me?

Thanks.

Posted by SavageView | August 17, 2007 1:08 PM

It's Good Friday already?

Posted by too many steves | August 17, 2007 1:09 PM

Yeah Fred, because at times like this, faced with a calamity like this borne of a woman's medical desperation and her husband's stark hopelessness, it's important that we all remember the *international investors*.

Culture of life, baby. Compassionate conservatism.

Posted by Ryan | August 17, 2007 1:14 PM

"Just because the Democrats campaign as the Santa Claus party doesn't mean it's Christmas all year 'round; "

From the title of the post, I'd say Easter is on the way though.

Posted by Njorl | August 17, 2007 1:16 PM

International investors aren't buying U.S. debt. We are in massive hock to foreign central banks, as June TIC data notes.

Monthly net TIC flows were $58.8 billion. Of this, net foreign private flows were $0.7 billion, and net foreign official flows were $58.2 billion.

Posted by tequila | August 17, 2007 1:23 PM

Just because the Democrats campaign as the Santa Claus party doesn't mean it's Christmas all year 'round; the reality is that there aren't enough toys for everyone, and the elves are starting to get restless.

After the Republican deficit spending of the last six years, you have a lot of fucking nerve.

Tell me, did you stop to think for a moment what effect the Iraq war debt would have on our international credit rating? Did the cost of that war matter a hill of beans to you? Ah, but when it's something you dislike such as health care for people not named Fred, suddenly we must be fiscally responsible and make sure we can afford every penny!

Republican priorities, in a nutshell.

Posted by Steve | August 17, 2007 1:34 PM

"I've forgotten who ran up the federal fiscal debt between 2001 and 2006. Could you remind me?"

Sure. Your parents. And mine. And everyone else who benefited from Medicare, Social Security, or Medicare -- entitlement programs which together consume about 42% of our federal budget.

"it's important that we all remember the *international investors*."

It's important to remember that we are borrowing money from *international investors* to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlements now. 11% of our federal budget goes to pay the vig on our debt. It's also important to consider what will happen when they stop being such willing lenders. What percentage of our budget will we have to spend on interest payments when we can no longer borrow money at the world's lowest interest rates?

I am not suggesting we get rid of our current entitlement programs -- just that we stop borrowing money from future generations to pay for them. And that we be honest about the costs of our current entitlement programs before we add a massive new one.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 1:42 PM

What would the emergency room have done about her $900 per week medical bills?
They wouldnt have paid for their prescriptions...

Posted by yep | August 17, 2007 1:47 PM

Fred, as the Carbetbagger link points out, our current healthcare system already has a sort of "universal coverage" policy - the emergency room. When someone can't pay for the care they recieve in the ER, society eats the costs by way of increased healthcare costs for those that can pay and higher interest rates for consumer credit (because unpaid medical bills are a frequent cause of bankruptcy).

Since emergency rooms are an extremely expensive way to treat minor ailments, the costs we bear under the current system are significantly higher than they would be if we provided the same care in some (almost any) other way.

Posted by Leo | August 17, 2007 1:48 PM

"Tell me, did you stop to think for a moment what effect the Iraq war debt would have on our international credit rating?"

The supplementals for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan run about $100 billion per year, and that spending will end at some point, most likely within the next few years. Our entitlement spending runs about $840 billion per year now, increases every year, and has no end point. If you thought about this rationally (as a bond investor would) and not emotionally, you would see why the entitlement spending would be a greater concern for the bond market, and why the addition of a massive new entitlement might concern them.

If you understood the extent to which the bond market's largess has been subsidizing our current quality of life, this might concern you too.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 1:52 PM

To complete my thought, and tie it back to Fred's comment:

International investors would love it if we were to reduce the massive economic drag this system creates.

Posted by Leo | August 17, 2007 1:54 PM

Smash and grab and crush vermin like Fred beneath your bootheels. Take what you need; let the international investors die of famine in cages like dogs. The revolution lives on as long as the hand can still make a fist-- though we may need some cheap arthritis or anti-inflammatory meds for that.

Posted by Gregorio | August 17, 2007 1:58 PM

Leo,

Emergency rooms are expensive places to provide primary health care, I agree. But I doubt universal 'free' health care would cost less than what the government now spends on reimbursements to emergency rooms for the treatment of the uninsured. There are less expensive, more targeted ways to close this gap . We could, for example, enforce our immigration laws more vigorously so we'd have fewer unskilled migrant workers filling our emergency rooms. We could also mandate that everyone buy private health insurance (just like every driver is supposed to buy car insurance) and then subsidize the small percentage who truly can't afford their health insurance.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 2:09 PM

Fred, do some cursory research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care

Posted by Gregorio | August 17, 2007 2:16 PM

The supplementals for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan run about $100 billion per year, and that spending will end at some point, most likely within the next few years. Our entitlement spending runs about $840 billion per year now, increases every year, and has no end point.

Our entitlement system also generates a revenue stream to pay for itself, also known as the payroll tax.

The $100 billion invoice for the war has no revenue stream whatsoever to pay for it. The added burden on our balance sheet is - surprise! - $100 billion per year. Whereas Social Security currently runs in the black, and over half of Medicare is paid for via payroll taxes. So the $840 billion number is a pure apples-to-oranges comparison.

Future entitlement payments are only a concern to investors if there's no revenue stream to address them. With Republicans in charge, fetishizing tax cuts at the expense of all else, I can see why they'd worry about that. But as long as we increase revenues to pay our debts as they come due, there's no concern whatsoever.

People like Fred enjoy talking about government-funded health care like it's some massive additional cost imposed on the taxpayers. This would be true if we all had free health insurance right now, but of course, we don't - we all pay for health care either on our own or through our employer. If we went to a single-payer system, with private health insurance left as an additional, optional benefit you could go out and purchase if you wanted, then we'd no longer have to make that massive monthly payment we currently make for health insurance.

Now, if we acted like the new government program was free, then yeah, we'd have a deficit to worry about. But so long as we actually finance the program - using the money we no longer have to spend on private insurance - there's no implication whatsoever for our creditworthiness. And it's the belief of single-payer advocates like myself that with the efficiency you'd gain through centralizing the system, we'd all be paying less on the whole than we are currently.

Posted by Steve | August 17, 2007 2:19 PM

Shorter Fred: threadjack, tangent, threadjack.

It's got nothing.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 17, 2007 2:27 PM

The entire "debate" over Universal Healthcare boils down to this: either you're with the HMOs and big Pharm, or you're against them. I refuse to play that way. I am with common sense: universal healthcare works, every other industrialized nation spends less and gets more. Look at the numbers, examine the facts, shut your mouth, and let's get people healthcare, not fucking insurance. If you don't believe me, read the wikipedia link, click on some of the footnotes. Don't buy into the breadlines fearmongering of the HMOpologists and pharmaphiles who tell you otherwise. They want sick babies to die.

Posted by Gregorio | August 17, 2007 2:34 PM

Gregorio,

You're too young to be so lazy. If you have a point to make, make it and I'll be happy to address it.

Steve,

"Our entitlement system also generates a revenue stream to pay for itself, also known as the payroll tax."

As you acknowledge a few sentences later, this revenue stream is insufficient to pay the current costs of our largest entitlement program, Medicare.

"But as long as we increase revenues to pay our debts as they come due, there's no concern whatsoever."

The concern for bond investors is that our entitlement costs will increase faster than our ability or will to pay them and service the interest on our debt at the same time. Since we haven't increased the payroll tax to cover the true costs of our current entitlements, and instead are borrowing to pay for them, it would seem we are already lacking in will.

In theory, we could always raise taxes to pay the interest on the rising debt and our rising entitlement costs, as you suggest, but at some point these higher taxes become a drag on economic growth, which in turn will limit the revenues we can generate from higher taxes. We could, at that point, simply print more dollars to service our debt, but that would cause our currency to decline in value even faster, decreasing the real return to bond holders (among other negative consequences).

Bond investors aren't idiots -- they know all this. As the risk of the above scenario coming to pass increases, they will eventually demand increasingly higher interest rates to buy our bonds; these higher interest rates will slow our economy. This could lead to a vicious cycle of slower economic growth, higher taxes, higher inflation, higher interest rates, a greater percentage of our budget going to service the debt, etc. And that's all if we don't address our current entitlement problems -- imagine how adding a giant new entitlement of universal 'free' health care will effect this.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 3:11 PM

Since we haven't increased the payroll tax to cover the true costs of our current entitlements, and instead are borrowing to pay for them, it would seem we are already lacking in will.

What you call "lacking in will" I call the Republican Party. You want to demagogue the tax issue and promise people something for nothing, go nuts, but don't go on a borrowing binge and then try to use your own massive borrowing as a reason why we have to "rein in" health care spending.

In theory, we could always raise taxes to pay the interest on the rising debt and our rising entitlement costs, as you suggest, but at some point these higher taxes become a drag on economic growth, which in turn will limit the revenues we can generate from higher taxes.

In this case, the additional taxes won't be a drain on economic growth because they don't take extra money out of anyone's pocket. You're getting back the money you currently spend on health insurance, and you're sending 90% of it to the government to help finance a single-payer program. You actually end up with a little extra money to spend and stimulate the economy.

Posted by Steve | August 17, 2007 3:43 PM

Interesting that you all seem to treat this man as a rational man.

The man murdered his wife.

Where is the outrage that this man murdered his wife?? Where are (what passes for) the 'feminists' on this one?

Posted by The Traveler | August 17, 2007 3:51 PM

Dear Fred:

Universal Healthcare now.

Seacrest out!

Posted by Gregorio | August 17, 2007 4:42 PM

@ Traveler: Do you think this man killed his wife for all her insurance money, and by that I mean money she would have had to pay an HMO is she had had insurance, which would be in the many thousands? If so, I see a clear motive for the mirror. Greed is a definite factor-- on the part of the heartless, predatory medical establishments.

Keep fighting Euthanasia too, Christian Right, because God knows we'd rather have sick people die from outright neglect.

Hey Traveler- go travel off a fucking roof.

Posted by Gregorio | August 17, 2007 4:47 PM

"What you call "lacking in will" I call the Republican Party."

Has the Democratic Party proposed raising Medicare taxes commensurate with the program's current costs? I must have missed that. Even if we did raise the Medicare taxes, since money is fungible, Congress would use any surplus to pay for other programs, and then continue to borrow more. The prudent solution, which I don't recall any politician making, would be to both raise the Medicare tax and direct the monies into an asset-backed trust fund to pay Medicare costs. The tax should be raised high enough to create an initial surplus in this fund. By investing these assets in anything but U.S. Treasury bonds, Congress would be unable to tap this money to spend on other programs.

"In this case, the additional taxes won't be a drain on economic growth because they don't take extra money out of anyone's pocket."

You're dreaming if you think a single-payer/universal health care system in the U.S. would spend a similarly low percentage of GDP on health care as countries like Canada do. Insured Americans (particularly senior citizens) are too used their current levels of care, and they will not settle for the sort of rationing common in single payer systems. Cancer sufferers and their advocates will also demand generous funds for research. Remember, one of our top cancer research centers -- M.D. Anderson in Texas -- spends more on cancer research than all of Canada does. With no one paying out of pocket, and a minority of Americans in our highly progressive tax regime footing the tax bill for it, there would always be popular pressure to increase spending on the health care system.

Since you can only raise taxes on the productive parts of the economy so much before they become less productive, you're back to the spiral of borrowing, taxing, high interest rates, stagflation, etc.

Posted by Fred | August 17, 2007 5:00 PM

You're dreaming if you think a single-payer/universal health care system in the U.S. would spend a similarly low percentage of GDP on health care as countries like Canada do.

It's not necessary for us to drop down to a Canada-level of spending. We already spend far more on health care than any other nation on earth, while leaving huge numbers of people without insurance coverage. Simply spending what we already do, but in a decently-designed single payer system, ought to produce very nice levels of care, universal coverage, and an end to the large numbers of people being bankrupted my medical expenses.

You keep asserting, without any evidence, that single payer must somehow be more expensive and less efficient than what we have now. This is completely contradicted by the experience of other industrialized countries which use some flavor of universal coverage. All you seem to have to offer here is baseless fearmongering and anti-government theology.

Posted by jimBOB | August 17, 2007 7:59 PM

In other anecdotal news. A Canadian couple from Canadas wealthiest city, Calgary, had to travel 325 miles to Great Falls Montana becasue Canada doesn't have a single hospital that can handle 4 neonatal intensive care babies.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/story.html?id=41ccae74-8325-449a-b89f-e68957ca25ae&k=79546

Posted by Dave | August 17, 2007 8:43 PM

A Canadian couple from Canadas wealthiest city, Calgary, had to travel 325 miles to Great Falls Montana becasue Canada doesn't have a single hospital that can handle 4 neonatal intensive care babies.

I'll type slowly so you can understand: Canada spends half what we do per capita for health care while providing universal coverage. Did you catch the important bit in bold letters? If they spent more, they would easily be able to increase the number of neonatal ICU beds.

Further, Alberta is about the size of Texas with roughly 15% of the population. It is not uncommon, even here in the US, with a veritably Panglossian best of all possible health care systems, for people in large states with small populations to travel long distances for specialized care. I suspect that the number of hospitals within 325 miles of, say, South Dakota that could at any given time handle quadruplets needing ICU care is surprisingly small.

Also, the hospital in question had just had a number of unexpected pre-term births recently, so there is no reason to conclude that socialism is any more responsible than is bad luck for the situation. I'm reasonably confident that hospital administrators in Canada try to maintain services roughly in proportion to expected use, and seeing as how the most recent quadruplets born in Alberta were born in 1982, they can hardly be accused (on the basis of this anecdote) of failing to plan adequately or for underfunding critical services.

And finally, the real horrific part of the story is that the couple and babies in question were sent to the nearest appropriate hospital, regardless of international borders, at no expense to the family!

Whatever you do, don't throw me into that briar patch!

Posted by DMonteith | August 17, 2007 10:28 PM

When my friend emailed me that report of the guy throwing his wife overboard, I emailed him back to ask:

"Hasn't he ever heard of divorce? Newt Gingrich has."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 17, 2007 10:56 PM

Re: This wouldn't be as fun or easy for lefty pundits to do, but I'd be interested in hearing one of them explain how he thinks international investors would react to the establishment of "free" health care in the U.S.

Since it would be good for American business (assuming employers are not stuck with the tab) I assume foreign investors would reward the US for taking that step. Moreover the American healthcare bill is going to have to be paid regardless so presumably foreign investors are aware of that and have long ago priced it into their investment decisions.

re: The dollar is already in decline because foreign bond investors doubt our ability to pay our entitlement bills in the near future

??!!
This is not why the dollar is decline. Good grief. The dollar is in decline simply because the US government prints too many dollars (you know, that supply and demand stuff). And US will hav no trouble paying for its entitlements (unlike some Europeans and Asian countries). Don't believe the Far Right propaganda. It's a pack of lies, pure and simple.

Re: Our entitlement spending runs about $840 billion per year now, increases every year, and has no end point.

Um, the federal government and its taxing power also has no end point, so where's the problem? And while Iraq may end, I fully expect us to have ludicrously high defense spending for the indefinite future too.

re: you would see why the entitlement spending would be a greater concern for the bond market, and why the addition of a massive new entitlement might concern them.

It's not a "new" entitlement. It simply pays for aleady existing expenses by a different means. A shift in how healthcare is financed, not new spending. Why is that so hard to understand?

Re: If you understood the extent to which the bond market's largess has been subsidizing our current quality of life, this might concern you too.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts and we tell the foreign bond market to kiss our collective ass. Besides which we do owe them a lot of money already and that means they need to be VERY nice to us since there is no way to haul a whole country into court.

Posted by Jonf | August 18, 2007 1:24 AM

There is equal protection to all citizens under the laws of the United States unless you are sick. Access to medical care in the United States is a privilege of the wealthy, the employed, the elderly, and the incarcerated. God help you get sick if you a low paid worker or a child living with working poor parents. There is no room or money in the health care system for these hard working souls.

These downtrodden are shunned by all who are privileged. Why should they have medicine or access to doctors if they only cut our grass, clean our dishes or mop the floors in our offices? Why should their children have pediatric care? The nerve of them! If they get sick and can’t pay, they should pray. Pray to recover before they lose their job and their car. But they could always commit a crime and end up in prison.

Logic dictates the only solution would be to eliminate these people from our society. Make poverty a crime and put them in prison therefore granting them free healthcare. The problem would be solved. No more health care crisis.

Tell that to the people who remained behind in New Orleans. The good life the affluent lived in the Big Easy was assisted by these wonderful hard working people. They did the things that no one else wanted to do. They served at restaurants, the hauled away the trash, and they manicured the lawns in addition to their fingernails. They simply make our lives richer. It is a symbiotic relationship. Take out these people who are the foundation of society and our lives would not be as comfortable. Make health accessible to everyone now.

Posted by Dr. Michael Esposito M.D.
Radiologist and Author of “Locked In,” a new medical thriller.
www.mikeespositomd.com

Posted by Dr Mike Esposito | August 18, 2007 1:59 AM

I know this is going to sound crazy, Mr. Fred, but I want you to imagine, for a second, that you don't understand enough about health care policy to even have an opinion about the supposed side effects of a universal health care system. I want you to imagine even further that the people who have kindly supplied you your opinions regarding this issue are too profoundly biased to even bother with the kind of number crunching analyses that would be necessary to make such a determination, and that they don't really care about attempting to objectively compare and contrast potential health care policies, because Ronald Reagan told them that universal health care would lead inevitably to the fall of capitalist democracy, and evil Trotskyites would dance on Thomas Jefferson's grave while torching copies of the Constitution of the United States. You worry about increases in entitlement spending, because that sounds like people are going to get something for free that they don't deserve or haven't earned. This is a naive attitude that doesn't stand under real scrutiny. It is simply the case that even a mediocre national health system will benefit more people at a lower premium than the current profit mongering mess does. It is also simply the case that thousands of people in this country are suffering, either in quiet anguish of ailments they cannot afford to have treated, or under financial burdens too great for them to bear, for medical conditions they could not have anticipated and, even if they had, could not have saved up enough to avoid large debts. The same economic principles that ensure a competitively priced loaf of bread only work to push medical costs through the roof, and the intellectual property rights that are supposed to provide researchers with economic incentives to find cures are used ruthlessly by drug companies to monopolize the medicines that people have no choice but to buy because they are sick. All your mock concern over the size of government amounts to a profound disgust over the notion that your money might be put to use helping a class of individuals that you instinctively loathe. Ever has it been, and ever shall it be with members of the Republican Party.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 18, 2007 3:08 PM

"Shorter Fred: threadjack, tangent, threadjack.

It's got nothing."

Posted by pseudonymous in nc

When a solitary, lying, utterly predictable wh*reson like Fred (or Steve Sailer) can totally disrupt a thread, you've got problems.

Tell him to f*ck off, and then ignore him.

Posted by Barry | August 19, 2007 3:15 PM