Apologies if this has been started in an earlier thread. I haven't been around in some time. I wish to hear the opposing arguments for Health care reform. But more than just the empty rhetoric, I want to see and understand the explanation behind the claim.
IE - if universal health care is going to "lose doctors," explain why. Otherwise, I could just counter that it's going to "increase" doctors, and nothing advances.
Links to fact check sites, news sources, etc. encouraged.
Now then, will a public option end up costing too much, reducing care, and destroying private competition? Or will it end up being a competitive industry, like the USPS model, which will ultimately provide health care to the majority of the uninsured, reign in costs, and improve care?
The Cleveland Clinic is an interesting model, in which doctors are not paid per procedure they perform, but by a fixed salary:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/...veland.clinic/
To me, legitimate concerns against a public option include:
1) While the government will not force anyone to choose a public option, thus you can keep your current health care should you like it, businesses may prefer the public option. So your company may switch health care, even if you had enjoyed your current plan and doctor. So while the government doesn't force you to switch to the public option, your job may anyways.
2) Hypothetically, the majority of businesses could go the public route, driving the private health care companies out of business. If this is because the public option is a superior method, then this is just essentially a similar consequence to a free market practice - the better business model prevails. The problem now is that the health care industry is too lucrative and rapacious an industry, and that's specifically causing the problems we have. These extortionate contributors are going to have to sacrifice to match a more efficient model, or they necessarily should lose out.
However, should this become the case where the public option is the major health care system, its safety and process falls precariously into the hands of law makers who might make a change to it any point down the line, which could (inadvertently or otherwise) damage the process, which seems like it could have catastrophic effects.
That being said, I still generally favor the public option plan. If it's done well enough, I think it can do exactly as it sets out to do, in adding coverage to millions of uninsured, while helping to keep costs down.
People panic about waiting times like Canada, country X, ad nausea. But having more health care patients will create a larger demand for health care staff to take care of them. Perhaps for some treatments, there will be longer lines, but I imagine that to be a temporary problem, until newer generation employees fill the gaps. That is to say: more patients? More doctors. It will balance.
Please share your thoughts on why a public option (note - this is not equivalent to the existing universal health care models of other countries) is a good or bad idea. And please tone down the rhetoric, unless appropriately supported.