Pfotenhauer: We Can't Rush Through Health Care Reform

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Republican strategist Nancy Pfotenhauer, May 28, 2009

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News & Politics

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• pfotenhauer
• health
• care
• reform
• rush
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• help
• uninsured
• healthcare

[OlivierdeAthos]

Judging from your ignorant comments, I'd bet a year's salary that you've never lived in a developed country with a single-payer health care system. You'd be hard pressed to find ten europeans, Canadians, Japanese or even Brittons (who have a 2-tier system) who'd be in favor of trading their public health care system for a private one.

[EmperorAtahualpa]

OlivierdeAthos, actually I don't even know a single person over here who would be willing to give up the public health care system. :) Do you?

[wagonhead]

Your military is state run, your schools are state run, your police & judicial system is state run. Also libraries are state run. Does that make you a Socialist Republic? Why are you so squeamish about your healthcare system?

[freesk8]

Everything the government does it does via laws.  All laws are ultimately enforced at the point of an officer's gun. Gandhi, G. Washington and Jesus all knew that govt is force.

Doctors endorse it because doctors don't tend to run businesses, or study economics. They tend to be liberal.

But in the end, a govt monopoly on healthcare will mean it is illegal to get care the govt does not authorize.

And where will the Canadians go who are now refused or put in long wait lines? :)

[ambrosesams]

At governement force? Armed theft? That seems a little extreme to me, but hey you have the right to your opinions. I just believe that there will be greater access to healthcare, private and public services won't have to worry about clearing with an administrator to give people medical care, they can just do their job. That's why there are so many health practitioners calling for single payer.

[freesk8]

I would feel guilty knowing that my reduced premiums were lower only because some other taxpayer was subsidizing it at the threat of government force if he didn't pay. I'd be participating in an armed theft.

Accessibility to health care would be REDUCED by government monopoly heath care. Now, if your insurance doesn't cover it, you can mortgage your house and pay cash. But if the government controls everything, you WON'T be able to do that.

The government will decide when to pull your plug.

[ambrosesams]

But you have choice in your provider and wouldn't you want lower premiums if you were going with a private medical practitioner? I understand concerns about quality and efficiency, but I thinking more of access. There are a number of other things that can be helped by having accessibility for all to medical resources, one being that everyone would be happier! I know that is a superficial one, but I think that it is valid. Other knock on effects could balance the deficiencies.

[freesk8]

If the government creates a program it will be subsidized by income taxes. The premiums will be lower, and this unfair competition will put the private programs out of business in the long run.

I do not care if I would benefit financially from such a system. I think it is wrong for me to steal money from others to fund my own healthcare. I think quality and efficiency go down and waiting times go up when choice and competition are removed.

Choice is my right. Theft is not.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

so in your Yankeee system those with limited funds get the least care, in our system everyone gets the least care .... I don't see much of a difference in the end. One way sucks, the other sucks, and no one truly cares enough to fix the cracks in either system.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

the british system is as flawed as our Canadian system. You simply trade one set of inequalities for another set. Universal, single payer sucks because quality is impacted by costs more readily since everyone has equal access. Its the reason my friends who just had a baby in April are forced to wait until July to get their baby scanned with an MRI or whatever it is they use, because the kids doctors think he has a tumour. Wait times are just another inequality.

[Ansonidak]

Yep. War can't happen either - too expensive

[WinterHaven]

"Having the will to do so". All the will in the world isn't going to pay the bills. This is yet another unattainable pipe dream - you wait and see this national health care thing will never happen. It can't. It's TOO EXPENSIVE.