 enbar says: GetReligion's MZ Hemingway on a recent NYT editorial in the Times by Peter Singer. In the op-ed, Singer discusses the idea of "rationing" health care, saying that it is basically inevitable, whether the rationing is done by the government or by insurance companies. Hemingway identifies this, somewhat bizarrely in my view, with a new vogue for "eugenics." I find the post (like all Hemingway's posts) to be little more than a conservative opinion piece, and I don't get how it jibes with GetReligion's mission. But it's worth thinking about. I think that what Hemingway (and many other critics of the current health-care reform discussions) finds objectionable is the idea that the rationing process will be made visible and intentional, instead of being left to impersonal (and basically invisible) market forces -- or, more to the point, instead of being left to the fictional "individual" who supposedly is now in charge of his or her own care.... 47 million Americans have healthcare rationing right now by not having health insurance. Millions more will have it - after paying in all their working lives - when they get seriously ill and quickly exceed their lifetime maximums. If you're rich, you're OK. If you're middle-class, you're likely to become uninsured as soon as your company finds you too costly. Introducing eugenics into this discussion, imo, is a red herring; as well as the GOP bringing up the red herring of falsely saying this would involve government funding of abortions. It's too expensive, is my main complaint. And waste and fraud and doctors doing things just to get the best or most payment are other problems. The one Republican idea I heard to cut cost is to cap the amount of malpractice claims. !? It struck me how this was like the great Republican plan for the banks: give the banks money and they will start to give out loans again. Which hasn't happened. In this case we're suppose to believe that if malpractice claims are capped than nice insurance companies will charge... |
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