Health Care Tab Dump

by folkbum

I've been holding on to some things for a while now. Most of them I don't even remember where I found them. Here you go:

• "If the government ran a healthcare plan that offered major discounts, worked through existing providers, minimized the paperwork burden on consumers and paid every legitimate claim, would that be considered a failure? I guess it would depend on our expectations, which seem to be higher on government than on a private sector that routinely delays payments to consumers—without any controversy whatsoever."
  
  (Also see "Cash for Clunkers is a double economic stimulus that pays for itself in oil savings so CO2 savings are free.")
  
  
• "Because I am American, and those endless days and nights were spent in a maternity hospital in London, the week that followed has been very much on my mind as I listen to the recent attacks on the British National Health Service. It is a system that I found to be very different from the one currently being described as "evil" and "Orwellian" by politicians and commentators eager to use it as an example of the dark side of public medicine."
  
  
• "Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: 'Hallelujah!'"
  
  (See also: "So it should have been transparently obvious from the outset that the only response our glorious and wizened Senate could come up with, when facing a failed healthcare system that has been steadily bankrupting the country, its businesses and its citizens for decades, would be to invent a solution in which the companies most responsible for the problem would be given cash hand over fist.")
  
  
• "That she sees basic healthcare as a blessing, not as a right, speaks volumes about attitudes among the mass of the working poor."
  
  
• "In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really "foreign" to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we're Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we're Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we're Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we're Burundi or Burma: In the world's poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can't pay stay sick or die."