Apparently “some people” (and I mean people who work for “people of means”) believe there isn’t any value in giving health insurance to the poor. They believed that it would be a waste of money because poor people wouldn’t make use of available medical benefits and would be no better off than if no insurance was provided. Well, “surprise, surprise,” as they say. From the NY Times (h/t Balloon Juice):
When poor people are given medical insurance, they not only find regular doctors and see doctors more often but they also feel better, are less depressed and are better able to maintain financial stability, according to a new, large-scale study that provides the first rigorously controlled assessment of the impact of Medicaid.
While the findings may seem obvious, health economists and policy makers have long questioned whether it would make any difference to provide health insurance to poor people.
I know we are in a race to return to the golden age of Dickens’ Victorian England circa 1840 in order to insure most of us die earlier so rich people can more easily afford their personal planes and yachts, but when do supposedly highly educated “public policy makers” and economists exactly lose their souls? Before or after they get their degrees? Before or after they go to work for conservative think tanks and industry groups? And what is the going price for selling your soul to the highest bidder?
We (the US of A) provide the worst medical coverage to poor people (a subset of the population that is growing by the way) among developed nations. We have the highest infant mortality rates and the lowest age at death among our peers. We also have the highest rate of uninsured people among developed countries. Yet, with all that evidence that providing good health care to all people is a net benefit to society, these so-called economists and “policy makers” believed that giving health care to the poor was a bad idea?
By the way the study was only done back in 2008 because:
[T]he state [of Oregon]wanted to expand its Medicaid program to include more uninsured people but could afford to add only 10,000 to its rolls. Yet nearly 90,000 applied. Oregon decided to select the 10,000 by lottery.
Economists were electrified. Here was their chance to compare those who got insurance with those who were randomly assigned to go without it. No one had ever done anything like that before, in part because it would be considered unethical to devise a study that would explicitly deny some people coverage while giving it to others.
So it is unethical to devise a health care study that would explicitly deny health coverage to people while providing it to others. That made me laugh, but not in a good way. We are already conducting a scientific experiment on millions of people that explicitly denies health care coverage to millions of people while providing it to others on the basis of class, employment and socioeconomic status. It’s called the American Health Care System, and yes, it is unethical and immoral.
But you already knew that.
Ps. I found out who some of the people who would rather see us continue to wallow in our wasteful, unethical health care system rather than provide health care coverage for all. What a shocker to see that they work for The Cato Institute, a Conservative Libertarian think tank co-founded by Charles Koch. Yes, one of those “Koch brothers.” David Koch currently sits on CATO’s board. He’s the other brother. I know, it is hard to believe two wealthy bastards like these can buy people to get the opinions they want despite the array of facts that oppose their positions, but funny things happen when you allow your government to be bought and sold with relatively paltry campaign contributions (bribes) and investments in “think tanks” etc.
CATO has already released a “statement” (see link above) deriding the Oregon study and claiming it has no bearing whatsoever on the debate over expanding health care coverage to more Americans under the limited reforms passed by the Democrats in 2009 (the Affordable Care Act or ACA). Go and read it if you want. I’m not going to republish their hypocritical propaganda here.
I believe that one of the front-pagers on this site has a sig that tells exactly when that is. When it is the requirement of their continued advancement or employment.
And then there’re the ones who never had a soul to begin with.
As soon as they go to a “prestigious” university, and forever after.
Having been to a prestigious university and studied in one of the prestigious departments, I think your answer is incomplete. Maybe “graduating with honors from…” gets at it.
Attendance is not a sufficient corrupter.
Example: The university I attended in the late 1960s had a sterling reputation for its international relations department (still does in fact). But there was no, zero, zip, course looking at the Vietnam War. It was so bad that the professors who were providing the historical and political analysis (good analysis, by the way) of the war in teach-ins were from the biology and chemistry departments.
The chair of the international relations department’s qualifications were B.A. US Naval Academy, M.A., Ph.D., Naval War College. See any problem there? And used his power over the future of his students to enforce his view of the world.
He was out to make sure that there were no “peaceniks” who came out of his department.
A few of us “peaceniks” did manage to scrape through and found careers in something other than the foreign service. Attendance is necessary to corrupt, but not sufficient.
Some prestigious universities are permeated by an attitude of entitlement, but not all. And as is pointed out, not all departments or graduate schools, even within the same university, set the same tone and expectations.
Slightly off topic, but at the time of the last two SCOTUS appointments, it was shocking to me to see that the court is essentially populated by people who went to only a couple of universities and were all raised in the NYC metro area. Even with today’s mobility, all universities have their own flavor and all regions of the country their own perspectives. This diversity is sorely lacking on the court.
You mean there are other law schools than Harvard, Columbia, and Yale?
Yes indeedy.
Great closing argument there. Try to fix it and your fellow citizens turn into some kind of zombie fifth column for the Koch boys. You get tired of arguing with people who have no basic sense of decency.
Americans need to seriously think about another question: when do vastly overcompensated leeches like the Koches finance enough anti-Americans propaganda and actions to qualify for prosecution as subversives? They are attempting much more to destroy the USA as we’ve known it than any “Communist” ever did. They apparently make the bulk of their money as agents for foreign, and not necessarily friendly foreign powers.
The complete silence from our “elected representatives” demonstrates how completely they have taken over the country’s electoral and political machinery.
Never.
It’s not just the Koch Bros and their paid lackeys. There’s plenty of blame to go around, including to the vast majority of Democratic Party officeholders. That’s how we can have an effective unemployment rate of nearly 20% – a level that’s provoking riots in European countries – and virtually nobody, from either party, appears to care, let alone is treating it with the alarm that it merits.
This is the single biggest threat to Obama’s re-election: the popular perception that he took care of the banks, but not ordinary working people. Of course, the Republicans would have done far worse, but we have short memories (and it’s not like corporate media will remind anyone).
The sad truth is that even health care became a priority only because of its escalating cost to businesses and the economy. Our “superfluous” workforce has become a permanent fixture of the US economy because neither party really minds. And they don’t mind because the people who fund them – not necessarily people with the Koch Bros’ ideology, but definitely the folks who share their wealth – are delighted by it.
The riots in Europe don’t seem to be doing anything except giving the security forces overtime pay.
And in the US, too many people are job scared to even protest. Too many folks know the difficulties that Vietnam protesters had getting their first jobs. Too many folks are afraid to even be seen talking to a labor union member.
The energy in Wisconsin for the moment is being sucked off into a recall election that might wind up rigged.
So we are stuck and transfixed by the train wreck coming.
We better figure out what to do after the worst happens.
The fixation on Obama and the presidential election to exclusion of all other political discourse and action is going to kill the progressive movement in 2012. There is no thought to creating the political environment and culture that would drive Obama to adopt progressive policies. (See brooklynbadboys’s analysis of Obama at GOS; it’s got some good insigts).
A colleague, born and raised in NJ and working in IT at a state university in NC, just sent me this. He thinks it’s so accurate as to be funny. I think it’s more phony reasoning by analogy.
Notice the “Visit the online store today” chyron. Someone has made this an online business.
Oh, and the stereotypes just ooze.