How To Screw Health Care

MSNBC: Is Arnold's 'Doctor Tax' Unfair?

It levies "fees" on doctors and proposes to provide universal health care coverage in California. Yes, that includes illegal residents.

A few points:

1. Life is tough for doctors. They have to spend enormous amounts of time and money to earn their degrees. After many years of learning and accumulating debt, they enter the workplace where they face a convoluted bureaucracy and an ungrateful public. Now, on top of that, they will soon have to pay 2 or 4% of their revenues towards "free" health care. Instead of making the profession seem lucrative, this will send a negative message to present students: don't plan on working in California!
2. Illegal residents are, by definition, criminals. In addition, they do not pay taxes. Ergo, Arnold is proposing income redistribution from hard-working Americans to free-loading outlaws.
   
3. What happened to the Arnold who offered praise for Milton Friedman in the 10-part series Free to Choose? Just how many more free-market principles will Arnold sell for political profit?

Link via Sepia Mutiny.

Comments

[Matt]

I'm as against illegal immigration and pro legal immigration as anyone you can find, so I do agree that this is crazy. However, might it be said that illegals do pay sales tax and any with fake SSNs do pay into Social Security so they're not all complete free-loaders. Of course your other point is completely valid--by being illegal they have broken the law by entering the country the way they have. Therefore why should they be getting these services?

I would argue that emergency room care if free to some should be free to all--but anything beyond that should not be. Save someone's life when the need is desperate--but why help and release them beyond that point? A hospital wouldn't take in a murder on the run and then release him without telling the police. Sure, most illegals haven't murdered anyone, but they have broken the law and shown their disrespect for the rule of American law.

[Bob]

My biggest problem with Arnold's new plan, and most politicians health care ideas in the US, is that it focuses on providing 'insurance'.

Insurance providers, both government and private, are just a middle man redistributing money. Another layer of bureaucracy.

The real problem with health care in the US is the initial costs. Doctors and hospitals have to increase their fees to cover their insurance costs, lawsuits, staff to collect from patient's insurance and non-paying customers.

If our politicians want to address healthcare they should go after things like limiting medical practicioner liabilities in civil courts and changing patent laws to limit abuses by pharmaceutical companies. Instead they want to address the problem with the popular topic of 'insurance'.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

Matt: I think that's the main problem with health care in general. It covers every single case.

Americans are the richest people on Earth. They can pay out of pocket for regular care (cold, eye test, dentist, yearly checkup). Their "free" health care should cover catastrophic emergencies only.

Bob: Yes, tort reform is definitely a must for "unscrewing" US health care.