Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Bob Ackley:

 BA>> If the universal health care the
 BA>> politicos want is ever enacted, in order for it to be
 BA>> actuarially sound the premiums for it will have to be
 BA>> astronomical and most insurors if not all of them will

 BK>  Yet the US has the most expensive health care system of the
 BK>  industrialized world, with the poorest coverage. I do believe
 BK>  the US is the only industrialized nation where bankruptcy is a
 BK>  common result of medical expenses.

 BK>  And with all that, the US has a third world health care system
 BK>  in many ways. Infant mortality is way up there, and even worse
 BK>  if you look at poor Americans alone.

 BA>> abandon that market.  Bet on it.  In point of fact *many*
 BA>> insurors have already abandoned the health insurance market.

 BK>  This is under our current private payment system.

It won't get any better under what the politicos are promoting.  The government
cannot underwrite insurance that isn't available.

As was noted some years ago, we'll get the efficiency of the post
office and the bedside manner of an IRS agent.

 BA>> IMO if the government wants to provide health care for
 BA>> everybody, the government
 BA>> should build, staff and equip the facilities to do so and
 BA>> not *force* private entities to do it for them (at a loss).

 BK>  No industrialized country forces private medical care to provide 
 BK> care at a loss.

This one does.  That's why many hospitals are either closing whole departments
(like ERs in southern California) or closing completely, the government requires
them to provide services at a loss.  Only the government can continually operate
at a loss (deficit), businesses - including hospitals, public or private - can't do
that.

Note also that many if not most practicing physicians advise their children to
*NOT* go into health care; that has, BTW been true for years.  Likewise many
physicians are not accepting new patients (especially new *Medicare* patients).
When the politicos finally get what they want look for many practicing physicians
retire or decide to pursue other career paths (or the same career path in another
country, particularly if they're young enough to move) and enrollment in medical
and nursing schools to drop.

So this country will see a lot of foreign-born doctors.  Make that a lot
more foreign-
born doctors.  Of the two cardiologists I've seen here, one was born in
India and the 
other in either Lebanon, Syria or southern Turkey (I never asked, the area
is based on
his general appearance, his accent and his name, which is Akkad); both are
perfectly competent but neither was born in this country.


--- FleetStreet 1.19+