The print edition this week talk about how workaday conservatism is rooted, in large part, in resentment of the poor. There are a lot of reasons for this; but one is a fear that in providing for the poor, the gub?mint will take from the ?deserving.?
A day after I write that piece, I see this from the WSJ, about how ?Obamacare? means those who now have health insurance and see a doctor regularly are going to have to endure huge wait times, indeed de facto rationing, as a result of the great unwashed suddenly having access to medical care. Indeed, writes John G. Goodman, we?ll be creating a two-tiered system of medicine, where the wealthy will have their needs attended to by ?concierge medicine,? while you and I wait in line:
Most provisions of the Obama health law kick in on Jan. 1, 2014. Within the decade after that, an additional 30 million people are expected to acquire health plans?and if the economic studies are correct, they will try to double their use of the health-care system. ?
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Here is the problem: The health-care system can?t possibly deliver on the huge increase in demand for primary-care services. The original ObamaCare bill actually had a line item for increased doctor training. But this provision was zeroed out before passage, probably to keep down the cost of health reform. The result will be gridlock. ?<snip>
Bottom line: To meet the promise of free preventive care nationwide, every family doctor in America would have to work full-time delivering it, leaving no time for all the other things they need to do?.
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As physicians increasingly have to allocate their time, patients in plans that pay below-market prices will likely wait longest. Those patients will be the elderly and the disabled on Medicare, low-income families on Medicaid, and (if the Massachusetts model is followed) people with subsidized insurance acquired in ObamaCare?s newly created health insurance exchanges.
Look, I have no quarrel with the basic premise that increased demand coupled with a relatively constrained supply of doctors could lead to these outcomes.
But what?s the alternative? I mean, really ? should the people currently without health care just pound sand?
Jobs are, obviously, hard to come by; and even those lucky enough to have jobs are seeing the cost of benefits rise. And don?t kid yourself, we?re on a trajectory where employer-provided benefits are going to be phased out completely.? You?ll get your vouchers or health-care coupons to provide you 70 percent off that $20,000 appendectomy. Good luck!
Bottom line, without health care reform, even fewer people will have access to health care on a normal basis in the future.
Goodman has written a book where he asserts that ? you guessed it ? ?the market? can solve all these problems. Make people buy their own health care, perhaps via health-savings accounts, and services will spring up to provide the care they can afford! Maybe! We hope!
You know, I absolutely accept that our current health care delivery system, if it can be called that, is the factor in the unsustainable rise in health-care costs. But while there are obviously millions of Americans who lack health care ? the whole reason for ?Obamacare? in the first place ? consider that Medicare and Medicaid have made health care accessible for millions who also would have gone without, without it.
And if ?the market? was such an efficient means of providing health care for all ? why did Medicare and Medicaid have to be passed in the first place?
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A 1985 graduate of Manheim Township High School and a 1989 graduate of La Roche College in surburban Pittsburgh, Gil Smart began his journalism career with Gateway Publications in Pittsburgh, and came to the Sunday News in 1994. He was named Sunday News Assistant News Editor in 1996, and Associate Editor in 2006. His column "Smart Remarks" has appeared in the Sunday News since 1998.Source: http://lancasteronline.com/blogs/smartremarks/2012/08/15/teh-market-will-cure-what-ails-you-maybe/
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