Thanks to Scott Gesty for pointing me to this one, a Forbes write-up about the many problems with the former HB 932 (the Floyd McDowell "I'm going to saddle Delaware with this crap if I have to get it re-introduced three hundred times" bill), which Representatives Kowalko and Jacques have promised to bring back in January.
This article doesn't actually say anything that Libertarian critics like Jesse McVay and I didn't lay out in detail a few months back, but this is to a national audience, and the brevity of the article gives it punch.
Here's a snippet, but read the whole thing:
This article doesn't actually say anything that Libertarian critics like Jesse McVay and I didn't lay out in detail a few months back, but this is to a national audience, and the brevity of the article gives it punch.
Here's a snippet, but read the whole thing:
But worst of all, our healthcare will no longer be in our control. The Orwellian and non-elected “Authority” will dictate what kind of care Delawareans can and cannot have. Supplemental insurance, which we provide to our employees in other single-payer jurisdictions (i.e. Sweden and the UK), is outlawed by the bill.I'm betting that there are too many Democrats in the General Assembly to allow this crappy bill out of committee, but I'm not betting on that too heavily.
Comments
Exactly how would this have made me yearn for Medicare for all?
If you did not see a doctor then, you were nevertheless under a doctor's care, if only remotely, because a prescription had to have been issued by a doctor.
Imagine passing those stones without a pain Rx, a fate libertarian ideologues would consign to those without employer-provided health insurance or the independently wealthy. Unlike "single-payer in Delaware", that's a real nightmare.
That's all really cute, but irrelevant. Let's count the ways:
1. Libertarians did not create the current health care system. We don't get elected, recall?
2. It's all very well and good for you to set up your "libertarian ideologue" straw men, but let's not pretend that what you are attempting to do has any intellectual validity. I've repeatedly made the case that there are multiple things that can be done to give greater access to health care to everyone without creating massive government bureaucracies. You just like to posture.
3. Nobody has to pass kidney stones now without that four dollar prescription. Current law allows them to go to an emergency room, get diagnosed, and get that prescription. Find me a few cases of people suffering from kidney stones because they could not get a prescription for Percosett. Otherwise STFU.
As for single-payer in Delaware, you don't have to be a libertarian to understand that (a) the funding mechanism doesn't work; (b) the population in the state is too low to support a stand-alone system; and (c) there are far too many services not even provided in Delaware (at any price) for single-payer to work. That's aside from the idiocy of "the Authority" and a vapid nonsense of basing the entire fraud prevention section of the law on a single book written in 1997.
Oh, did I mention that HB 392 as written would make abortion illegal in Delaware?
Yep, great deal you've got there.
1. Libertarians did not create the current health care system. We don't get elected, recall?
True enough. I'll have more to say about this in reference to your point 3)
2. It's all very well and good for you to set up your "libertarian ideologue" straw men, but let's not pretend that what you are attempting to do has any intellectual validity. I've repeatedly made the case that there are multiple things that can be done to give greater access to health care to everyone without creating massive government bureaucracies. You just like to posture."
What would you rather have. One "[G]overnment bureaucracy" concerned with the public's health or the many corporate "Health" insurance bureaucracies concerned with CEO golden parachutes, political "contributions", lobbyist fees, sales commissions, profit objectives and dividends.
3. Nobody has to pass kidney stones now without that four dollar prescription. Current law allows them to go to an emergency room, get diagnosed, and get that prescription. Find me a few cases of people suffering from kidney stones because they could not get a prescription for Percosett. Otherwise STFU.
If you can get a prescription for a non-emergency condition without a visit to an emergency room and it's attendant hour(s) long wait in the examination stall, possibly with an hysterical gun-shot victim and the other side of the curtain, why not the rest of us?
Moreover, if it's not kidney stones, but a kidney boulder, requiring surgery or lithotripsy, well, the ER will just "stabilize" you and send you on your way to come up with the cash for adequate treatment. If you can't, you're Sh*t-out-of-luck.
Anyone dependent on the ER for health care knows the ER is a poor substitute for a comprehensive healthcare system.
I recall in previous posts your "case that there are multiple things that can be done to give greater access to health care for everyone". Many, if not all, I thought had merit. I do not recall, however, them as part of Gary Johnson's platform, as they apparently not worth advocating since the current system, such as it is, still serves the haves-and- have-mores well. Which may explain, in part, why Libertarians,
as you correctly say, "don't get elected".
As for single-payer in Delaware, you don't have to be a libertarian to understand that (a) the funding mechanism doesn't work;
If a funding mechanism that works to send the Delaware National Guard to whatever the 4th county is, in perpetuity, we can find one to ensure adequate health care for all Delawareans.
(b) the population in the state is too low to support a stand-alone system; and (c) there are far too many services not even provided in Delaware (at any price) for single-payer to work.
Vermont is of similar size and that's not deterring them and for-profit health insurance has ensured availability for every service within Delaware ?
That's aside from the idiocy of "the Authority" and a vapid nonsense of basing the entire fraud prevention section of the law on a single book written in 1997.
Fraud does not happen with for-profit health insurance ?
Oh, did I mention that HB 392 as written would make abortion illegal in Delaware?
That can be fixed with an amendment to HB 392. No need to throw baby out with bath water.
Yep, great deal you've got there.
Great for me, you, Delaware and even Libertarians too.