Bernanke: Recession Could End in 2009

Ironballs is right, free markets should be just that, free. most economists agree that the New Deal only succeeded in extending the Great Depression. Even FDR's own treasury secretary said that.

First and foremost, he should keep the hell away from healthcare. The HMO's have screwed this area enough. Socialization WILL NOT WORK. The problem with healthcare is one of mis-allocated resources, it can be fixed by applying free market principles effectively to existing resources; the solution is already available in the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSA's), a system which understands that most people between 20-60 are relatively healthy and rewards that without fattenning the wallets of Aetna, US Healthcare, Oxford, GHI executives. Another idea is not paying for the healthcare failures of other nations, i.e. Mexico (mexico basically has one solution for it's poverty problem; export it to America). And yet Mexico has the world's richest man Carlos Slim, that same guy who just bailed out the NYTimes temporarily with a 14% loan.

Healthcare makes up 17% of GDP and Obama wants to take on this issue next? Without even mentioning the very necessary and very important TORT reform that every single doctor you speak to will tell you is at the heart of many of the medical industry problems. Oh yeah, I forgot, Obama and his cronies are all lawyers. no wonder.

Anyway, the economy may come out of this by it's own momentum with some help from the stimulus package, but I suspect it will be in spite of the Washington efforts to govermentalize everything in site, not because of it.

Posted by: Legion at February 25, 2009 4:57 PM

thanks benson for further elucidating my point. I'll take on the second point about socialized medicine in order to school our mutual friend snarkslope.

"..really? It seems to work for every other wealthy nation."

NO, IT DEFINITELY DOES NOT.

Let's start with first things first. Europe has benefitted GREATLY from American taxpayer largesse, in that we have been providing blanket military protection for Europe for the past 50 years. With the burden of protecting themselves militarily off for 5 decades, they have been quite liberal with the social programs including medical coverage. The US unfortunately, in its role of counterweight to despotic, misguided ideological nutcases around the world (i.e. Stalin, Tito, Franco, Cheauchescu, Khomeni, Young Ill, Mau, Castro, Breshniv, Khadaffi, Kruschev, Pol Pot, Milosevic just to name a few) has had to assign a hefty portion of it's GDP to the military protection of the free world.

That being said,

The United States has 300 Million people. Not 10 or 20 million like some of these industrialized nations you speak of. Secondly, the United States takes on much of the world's immigration, including much of the sick and infirm as a matter of course.

That being said,

take the UK for example, a wealthy, industrialized nation. where you have to wait on average 12-24 months for a hip replacement. Want an organ transplant? good luck getting that through the National Health Care system where surgery is rationed. Meanwhile here in the the U.S. , you have the insurance, you have the procedure scheduled by the surgeon of your choice.

take Canada for another example, a wealthy, industrialized nation. Again, healthcare is rationed. The wait is so long that it is routine for Canadians who have the money to skip the national health system and take the drive into Michigan for the heart surgery, they need to have done without delay.

Surveys in both of these wealthy industrialized nations reveal a public deeply dissatisfied with the health care they receive. they are grateful to have healthcare, of course , but perceive the delivery of it to be subpar and the availability of it to be less than adequate.

As far as the doctors themselves. They feel that the practice of medicine, throughout history held in the highest societal regard, has been relegated, in many cases to a vocational pursuit.

As far as the "47" million uninsured, that are so frequently alluded to in political discussions. Independent studies of these uninsured americans has revealed the following:
-fully 1/3 of the 47 million included in the ranks of the uninusured are illegal immigrants to this nation. That is, their health is the purvue of the nation they are legal subjects of, not the United States of America.
-1/4 of the 47 million are healthy, adults who could afford to pay for healthcare but choose not to, for whatever personal reasons. They would be eligible for sliding scale programs, COBRA programs or simply major medical to cover catastrophic/emergency illness.
-another 1/4 of the 47 million are children who would qualify for either medicaid or one of the federally funded SHIP programs, if their parents took the time to enroll them.

Adding the numbers together and calculating the truly uninsured leaves something along the lines of 10 million uninsured Americans.
10 million uninsured Americans can be easily handled by federally issued medicare or medicaid cards as needed. Without resorting to a wholesale undermining of the entire US healthcare system which makes up about 1/5 of our yearly GDP. A socialized system would also take out the capitalist engine of innovation which has been the driving force of medicine for the past century and has given us such triumphs as the Polio vaccine, Chemotherapy, Antibiotics, Artificial limbs, Anti-depressants/anti-psychotics, Joint replacements, bone stimulators, Magnetic Resonance Imagery, Positron Electron Transmission scans, Gene therapy, etc, etc.

Once again, if the president wants to help US medicine, he will start with serious Tort law reform. Loser pay laws and an end to the ongoing lottery system of medical malpractice that drives up costs at the expense of society.

Posted by: Legion at February 25, 2009 10:54 PM

snark,
again,you are wrong.
regarding the hip replacement issue. The US system is a free market system with very genrous "social" programs added into the mix. Thus, those that actually need care and do not have the means, get the care. This does not deny the fact that you will not have to wait for a hip replacement in the USA as you do in Great Britain.
What you are comparing to Sweden is in fact a free market system combined with a generous societal safety net that has made the American medical system the envy of the world. As I stated, the medical innovations of the past 100 years have been largely funded/researched/developed here in the USA. Look it up.
What's more, we are dealing with a system servicing 300 MILLION lives. not 10 million or 20 million. So, of course, sweden or norway or belgium will have excellent systems, probably better than ours, because they only deal with a fraction of the people we see here in the USA. and again, they don't take on the bulk of the world's poverty problem or immigration. The WHO does not factor this in to their calculations of the "best" medical systems. Of course, these other nations benefit from American innovation, but we will never get the credit for that, just as we don't get credit for covering Europe for their military needs. And they do have many (i.e. Putin).
Stop playing socialist college sophmore and start dealing with the harsh realities at hand.

Posted by: Legion at February 26, 2009 10:04 AM