Don’t get too used to an unregurgitated Marxist like me saying this, but you should listen to a radio station called 960The Patriot this weekend, as Eric Novack has Alain Enthoven on his show on Sunday from 3-4pm Arizona time. This may be the first time that Eric’s had anyone on who disagrees with him, and I’m looking forward to hearing it. It’ll be in the archives section on Eric’s site later.
Here’s what I wrote about Enthoven and his quarrel with the CDHP crowd.
(I wrote longer wittier stuff in an earlier version of this but Typepad ate it, so I’m giving up for the afternoon. See you Monday!)
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I’d love to find the Enthoven interview, but it does not appear to have been posted.
I didn’t even get COBRA, because I didn’t know how long I would have to stretch out my undemployment checks. Since it’s been over two years, I made the right choice in terms of conserving rent money. It’s a toss up, though, in terms of my health: no routine medical treatment for my health problems without COBRA, but being homeless would probably exacerbate my health problems.
It is sad that Kaiser has had tens of thousands of employees get fired or quit. Even Kaiser’s own employees that are too sick to work because of cancer, or problems like you have Gadfly, are herded onto a short over-priced COBRA for insurance termination. I think like you Gadfly that this is murder. It’s simply an elitist thing that Liberal Democrats demand to help Dan the Man from Michigan the CEO of Blue Cross, what a schumck. He is bragging about raising money for Senator Stabenow (D-MI).
Referring back to your original post, I’m unhappy with the idea that the main problem is the individual’s consciousness of the real cost of services. This implies that such consciousness will lead to behavioral change that will cost less (people most concerned about their pocket book) rather than quality of health care (people may be willing to trade health for pocket book advantage, with effects on productivity of society).
I keep waiting for someone who won’t sound paranoid to say, “You’re all trying to kill me! I contribute less to this society than I could have! That’s the moral issue!” Allow me to point out the recent Kaiser article that connects heart disease to socioeconomic status: http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1129969442549B243
Once more, I get to be a good example of this. I have a genetic condition that leads to premature arteriosclerosis and early heart attacks/and strokes. My relatives in this line die around 50, and given my socioeconomic status and the stresses I face, I seriously doubt I will last that long. Because of my condition, I already have trouble walking distances, and the pain can put me in quite a bad mood, which is a social problem (I’m not going to advertise the details to people) as well as a productivity one. While there’s no way to undo the arterial problem, I do get some relief from medication for blood pressure and cholesterol. If anyone cared about my life, it would also be good to just occasionally monitor my bp and cholesterol. I haven’t had any treatment for this condition since I’ve been unemployed. Before that I only had access to medical care for a few months (I actually rationed the medication I got then), and before that another couple years without insurance. During the uninsured period, my condition deteriorates to the point of making it harder to recover from when I do get to be insured.
There is nothing I find more ironic than Kaiser issuing this study. Kaiser is a mainstay employer in my area: they hold the socioeconomic status of tens of thousands of employees in their hands – and these employees are treated as disposible chaff by Kaiser leadership. What I’d like to see is how many heart-related deaths Kaiser is responsible *for*. There’s no question they’ve shortened my logevity: through the stress of how they treated me, through being deprived of a livelihood to take care of myself, through being deprived of insurance. And some day I hope at least one person will wonder what kind of contributions I *could* have made to society. What a stupid waste.
Right now pundits and policy-makers seemed to be nattering on about how to make people adopt certain economic behaviors. When will people start worrying on moral and religious grounds whether they may in fact be responsible for murder. Or whether they are responsible for robbing society of potentially productive (and profit-making!) members by shrugging off the people at the bottom of their statistical chart. Sure it’s important to work out who pays for health care, but it’s more important in terms of the spirit of our civilization to come to the grips that we’ve consciously made individual lives less important than how the money works.
Matthew:
What is John Pluenneke’s email address? He’s a cousin.
Thanks!
Ricks Pluenneke