« Hoisted! | Main | Yikes »
July 19, 2007
When Insurers Go Dishonest
I admit it, they've got chutzpah:
One Blue Cross ad compared the health proposals to California's disastrous energy deregulation of the late 1990s, which resulted in soaring power prices and some outages. "Let's not go there again," it said.
Yes: Instituting a large government program to provide health care to the population is exactly like devolving a large government program into the hands of the private market.
July 19, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
The problem is that there are people - significant numbers of people, sadly - who will give zero thought to what this commercial is saying and believe the narrator's claim.
Posted by: Adam | Jul 19, 2007 7:52:05 PM
Adam hits the nail on the head. There's a difference between an argument making sense, and whether it has an emotional appeal to those who aren't very logical in the first place. Most our society isn't full of people who have spent years figuring out how to construct and deconstruct arguments.
Posted by: akaison | Jul 19, 2007 8:57:21 PM
It's unfortunate that they still leave it in the hands of greedy private insurers. They really should just use a straight payroll tax like Canada and put everyone under one government administrated plan that would be fair to all. Hopefully, with some rationing and waiting lists.
Posted by: Ian Random | Jul 20, 2007 12:29:01 AM
When Insurers Go Dishonest
I see a problem here. This headline implies they were honest to begin with.
Posted by: Seitz | Jul 20, 2007 12:31:24 AM
They need to get rid of the physician tax if they ever want it to fly. I've never seen anyone tax teachers extra to pay for textbooks. Good luck recruiting any new physicians if it passes. If you are a young doc why would you go to California to practice when it is the only state other than West Virginia that does this type of thing. The weather isn't worth that. If you are a physician in West Virginia you get to pay extra for the priviledge of taking care of the indigent.
Posted by: Dingo | Jul 20, 2007 12:42:01 AM
. Good luck recruiting any new physicians if it passes. If you are a young doc why would you go to California
Because it's California. Because property taxes are kept low. Because you have a certain assurance that you will actually get paid for performing a procedure, making up for the tax.
If people wanted to live in a place with the lowest possible costs of doing business, they could move to Kansas. Last I checked, professionals weren't exactly bashing down the door to go there. Truthfully, California can add this tax because they can. And people will still move there.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 20, 2007 12:48:29 AM
One Blue Cross ad compared the health proposals to California's disastrous energy deregulation of the late 1990s, which resulted in soaring power prices and some outages. "Let's not go there again," it said.
Mmm, that's some tasty autocoprophagy. Let's recap:
The Republicans used Enron to fill their war chests (by sucking a Democratic stronghold dry, natch) and recall a Democratic governor, and now they're pointing to it as a liberal boondoggle!
Posted by: scarshapedstar | Jul 20, 2007 1:11:53 AM
Blue Cross = Republicans?
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 20, 2007 1:43:26 AM
Someone needs to run a counter-ad that simply shows the Blue Cross ad in miniature, and the caption '$2 millon campaign? So that's where your premiums go'.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Jul 20, 2007 1:47:05 AM
That's an interesting marketing tactic - comparing yourself to Enron.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Jul 20, 2007 9:08:31 AM
They aren't beating down the door to practice in California, but they are in Texas. There is a one year wait for liscenses.
Posted by: Dingo | Jul 20, 2007 10:22:07 AM
Blue Cross = Republicans?
Damn straight.
Posted by: Jason G. | Jul 20, 2007 10:48:36 AM
Yes, but they have to live in Texas.
Joking aside, Texas has the lowest number of doctors per capita, at 182 per 100,000. California has 218, New York has 328. Massachusetts has 351.
California is behind the national average, but if there's such a long wait to get a license in Texas, it's obviously because they prefer having fewer doctors per person than most other states prefer. It strikes me that if you're using Texas as an example, then it's clear that doctors do, in fact, prefer California to Texas. Also, once again, because of Texas's problems with both poverty and lack of health care provisions for the poor, it stands to reason that a doctor would have a higher likelihood of performing uncompensated services than a doctor in California.
(source)
It's clear that people are, in fact, willing to pay taxes in the event that it results in better provision of services, and that people want to live in places where services are better. So enough with the phoney scaremongering about taxes to pay for CA's health care initiatives.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 20, 2007 11:12:59 AM
They aren't beating down the door to practice in California, but they are in Texas. There is a one year wait for liscenses.
I'm quite sure that has nothing to do with the way Texas has dismantled the services the state government provides.
As the current passport problems show, delays are not always caused by increased demand. People have predicted California's collapse many times. Somehow the state manages to muddle along.
If people wanted to live in a place with the lowest possible costs of doing business, they could move to Kansas. Last I checked, professionals weren't exactly bashing down the door to go there.
Hey, our Democratic Governor has actually done some good work in this area, getting businesses to relocate here - and it's not only from huge tax giveaways.
Posted by: Stephen | Jul 20, 2007 11:16:06 AM
pseudonymous in nc: Ha! That's a BRILLIANT ad idea. Unfortunately, those pushing for reform might rather spend $2 mil on, you know, covering the uninsured than on fighting a company willing to spend anything to keep the status quo. Seriously, though, my world would be so much better if I saw that on a billboard. Anyone here independently wealthy?
Posted by: *e | Jul 20, 2007 12:27:05 PM
The question Dingo wants to ask is, "If people like me who practice medicine only for the money start having to give back to make sure everyone has health coverage, will our health industry collapse?"
It is a good question. What percentage of our nation's physicians give a rat's ass about the Hippocratic oath and what percentage pray to the almighty dollar. We know where Dingo stands. Would he bill his patients or the insurance company for the time spent reciting the oath?
Posted by: Ricky | Jul 20, 2007 1:46:35 PM
Blue Cross = Republicans?
Damn straight.
Um, no.
Ricky, you apparently haven't been reading Dingo's posts. Nowhere does he say he does medicine only for the money, and some of what he says appears to imply otherwise. But very few people, including you, I'll wager, don't care about money.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 20, 2007 2:09:36 PM
Actually, the funny thing is, Ricky, that Dingo is quick to tell you how many pro-bono, uncompensated procedures he's done. However, when it comes to paying an extra tax which goes back into the system to help cover more patients which would pay for patients' health care (which would in part pay doctors for procedures that normally go uncompensated), he gets indignant.
It's not that Dingo is "all about money." It's that he's "all about control." Because darn it, if he's going to go without money, it's going to be because he decided to and will let everyone know about it. Yes, they'd rather want to be able to tell you how many times they saved a patient's life and then found out he couldn't pay rather than help create a system where they would have been paid for their time after saving said patient. When doctors get older, it's my experience that they're more secure in their egos and more aware of what the best interests of doctors and patients and the health care system are, in general.
I don't hold it against him. Dingo's good at what he does (doctoring). Ezra's good at what he does (punditing). Policymakers are good at what they do (policymaking). Let's just not forget what their core competencies are.
Posted by: Tyro | Jul 20, 2007 2:19:29 PM
I don't think we should scapegoat doctors for the health care problem.
Going into medicine is one of the few avenues available for smart members of the working or middle class to enter the upper middle class (low to mid six-figure incomes). Doctors do work that is very socially valuable, and I don't begrudge them that money; neither do most other Americans. (Of course they should pay higher progressive taxes on their earnings, but so should everyone in that income bracket.) Also, you have to take into account that many current doctors accrued six-figure student loans on the reasonable assumption that they would be able to pay them back under current compensation levels. It would be grossly unfair to yank the rug out from under them.
Doctors provide a valuable service and deserve to be well paid for it. Insurance companies do not. All they do is play middleman and get paid money to cause trouble and deny people care. Insurance companies are the enemy, and we should be focusing on forming an alliance between doctors and patients against the parasitic insurance industry.
Posted by: Josh G. | Jul 20, 2007 4:42:59 PM
Also, you have to take into account that many current doctors accrued six-figure student loans on the reasonable assumption that they would be able to pay them back under current compensation levels. It would be grossly unfair to yank the rug out from under them.
Well, I think a loan forgiveness or reduction scheme is an obvious carrot that ought to be offered in return for signing on to single-payer. In strictly political terms, it's a way to distinguish between doctors and insurers, and show just who's part of the solution, as opposed to part of the problem.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Jul 21, 2007 1:10:12 AM
Also, you have to take into account that many current doctors accrued six-figure student loans on the reasonable assumption that they would be able to pay them back under current compensation levels. It would be grossly unfair to yank the rug out from under them.
You hear this too often when the numbers provide an obvious solution.
18,000 medical school students per year
$200,000 in education costs
Total cost for education per year= $3.6 billion
Physician costs per year = $400 billion
A 1% wage reduction would allow for the government to fully subsidize all medical education (i.e. medical school). Clearly, a field that offered free education and a salary that was ~75-99% of today's salaries would not have problems attacting college graduates.
Posted by: wisewon | Jul 21, 2007 11:54:37 AM
Think physicians would support that, wisewon?
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 21, 2007 10:26:25 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
