Tag Archives: Costs

News

Bobby Jindal explains the right way to lower health care costs

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Bobby and Supriya Jindal
Bobby and Supriya Jindal

Governor Bobby Jindal is a wizard with health care policy!

Here he is writing in the Wall Street Journal about how to cut health care costs without rationing care:

Consumer choice guided by transparency. We need a system where individuals choose an integrated plan that adopts the best disease-management practices, as opposed to fragmented care. Pricing and outcomes data for all tests, treatments and procedures should be posted on the Internet. Portable electronic health-care records can reduce paperwork, duplication and errors, while also empowering consumers to seek the provider that best meets their needs.

Aligned consumer interests. Consumers should be financially invested in better health decisions through health-savings accounts, lower premiums and reduced cost sharing. If they seek care in cost-effective settings, comply with medical regimens, preventative care, and lifestyles that reduce the likelihood of chronic disease, they should share in the savings.

Medical lawsuit reform. The practice of defensive medicine costs an estimated $100 billion-plus each year, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, which used a study by economists Daniel P. Kessler and Mark B. McClellan. No health reform is serious about reducing costs unless it reduces the costs of frivolous lawsuits.

Insurance reform. Congress should establish simple guidelines to make policies more portable, with more coverage for pre-existing conditions. Reinsurance, high-risk pools, and other mechanisms can reduce the dangers of adverse risk selection and the incentive to avoid covering the sick. Individuals should also be able to keep insurance as they change jobs or states.

Pooling for small businesses, the self-employed, and others. All consumers should have equal opportunity to buy the lowest-cost, highest-quality insurance available. Individuals should benefit from the economies of scale currently available to those working for large employers. They should be free to purchase their health coverage without tax penalty through their employer, church, union, etc.

Pay for performance, not activity. Roughly 75% of health-care spending is for the care of chronic conditions such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes—and there is little coordination of this care. We can save money and improve outcomes by using integrated networks of care with rigorous, transparent outcome measures emphasizing prevention and disease management.

Refundable tax credits. Low-income working Americans without health insurance should get help in buying private coverage through a refundable tax credit. This is preferable to building a separate, government-run health-care plan.

These are conservative solutions – they will preserve out liberty and prosperity.

Bobby Jindal is my pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services in 2012, if he isn’t elected President. So remember his name!

Commentary

Are coerced abortions and euthanasia part of Obama’s health care plan?

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The Heritage Foundation writes about it here. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Earlier this year, President Obama moved to overturn the “conscience clause” regulation issued by the Bush Administration. The regulation provides for the enforcement of federal conscience protections, including the Church Amendments, for health care workers.

New concerns also surround the President’s health care reform legislation making its way through Congress, which would allow mandatory taxpayer funding of abortion. During mark-up of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved provisions to require insurance plans to contract with organizations that perform abortions. In addition, several amendments were rejected that would have preserved states’ laws regulating abortion, prohibited federal funds from being used for abortions, and provided conscience protections for health care providers for not providing abortions.

Click here for a fact sheet assessing President Obama’s administrations’ impact on families.

The Maritime Sentry has the latest Michele Bachmann video on that topic:

That’s coerced abortion, at least in the sense that doctors and nurses would be coerced to perform them against their moral beliefs, as well as in the sense that pro-life taxpayers would be forced to fund what they regard as murder. But what about coerced euthanasia?

Ed Morrissey posted this video at Hot Air.

Consider this American Thinker article about how socialists cut costs by rationing health care to the elderly. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Consider what happens in the Netherlands to elderly people. The Netherlands legalized “assisted suicide” in 2002, no doubt in part for compassionate reasons. But also to save money. There is only one money kitty for medical care in the socialist Netherlands. When you get old, the question is asked, either explicitly or by implication:

Do you deserve to live another year compared to young refugees from Somalia, who can use the same euros to have many years of life?

There’s only so much money available. The Netherlands radio service had a quiz show at one time, designed to “raise public awareness” about precisely that question. Who deserves to live, and who to die?

But nobody debates any more about who has the power to make that decision. In socialist Europe the State does. It’s a done deal.

I think we can expect that this is just the beginning of Obama’s plans to make sure that the elderly don’t use more than their “fair share” of health care services. Remember, Obama recommended that the elderly take painkillers rather than pay for life-saving operations. And if his bill passes, he’ll be running the show – and he’ll have to cut an awful lot in order to pay for the nine trillion dollar cumulative deficit he’s supposed to rack up by 2019.

Commentary

Why fiscal conservatives should support marriage and family

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The Heritage Foundation has a post up about the social costs of the decline of marriage and family fore adults, children and society.

…nearly four of every ten babies is born out of wedlock and only half of all teenagers live in intact families. Cause for alarm is also found in a bevy of academic studies revealing the impact of the dissolution of the nuclear family on the life prospects and well-being of adults and their children. Research has clearly shown the physical, emotional, and fiscal benefits that married couples experience, as well as the devastating impact that the decline of the intact family has for the next generation. Compared with peers living with both biological parents, children and youth in other family structures fare worse in terms of academic achievement, mental and emotional health, and problem behavior. A father’s presence and involvement can make a lasting difference in a child’s prospects for life.

A married father is more likely to be involved with his children…while unmarried fathers are “soon out the door” when the demands of family life inevitably occur.

And then there is this troubling observation about the way the next generation destroys their ability to succeed in marriage, even though they would like to marry!

Surveys have indicated that American adolescents’ attitudes toward marriage tend to be hopeful (76 percent said that the institution of marriage and family life are “extremely important” and 81 percent said that they expected to marry), but trends in their favorable attitudes toward cohabitation and premarital sexual activity belie that hope. Research indicates that cohabiting couples are more likely to experience divorce in a subsequent marriage and premarital sex is likewise related to an increased likelihood of divorce.

When families break down, government must increase in order to deal with the fallout of divorce and of broken homes. That can mean more government control, more expensive social programs, more courts, more regulation, more police, etc. That is why fiscal conservatives need to stand up for social conservatism – and that means strong families raising well-adjusted children.

Marriage is a job. Certain skills and character traits are needed in order to succeed. The character traits have to be developed by studying in order to form a worldview that makes marriage rational. The worldview should rationally ground 1) moral obligations, and 2) self-sacrificial love. The rational grounding should not be based on self-interest- because marriage is tough.

People also need to study how marriage and parenting works. They need to study the effects of behaviors like pre-marital sex and co-habitation on their ability to have a successful marriage. They need to study the effects of focusing too much on education and career on parenting. The need to assess whether certain ideas (e.g. – feminism or promiscuity) help or hurt their ability to marry and raise children.

The vast majority of young people today have formed opinions and performed actions that make them incapable of commitment and parenting. If people really wanted marriage and children, they should have studied and acted differently. Attitudes can only change as people study these issues and understand the consequences of their decisions, before they make them.

When I think of a leftist, I think of someone who jettisons the wisdom of centuries of civilization, based on their emotions. These people are perpetually surprised by the consequences of their actions and public policies. They have no idea why moral rules are in place, and what consequences follow from disregarding these moral rules. They do not understand, they oversimplify, then they are surprised by failure.