How to Fix Health Care Without Spending a Dime (Part 1 of 2)
Uploaded by shanedk on 13.03.2010
Transcript:
In this video, I'm going to do the impossible. I'm going to do what the socialists, the people
who insist that universal health care is the ONLY way, insist just can't be done: I'm going
to tell you how to fix the US health care system without spending a single dime.
Here's the first thing you have to understand, although just uttering this sentence will
make the dogmatists immediately close their ears and start flaming in the comments: We
don't have a health care problem in this country. No one complains about the quality or the
amount of health care, only how much it costs. That makes it an economic issue, not a health
care issue, and it needs to be attacked from that angle. Here are the solutions:
If you live in New York, and you find this really great insurance policy from a Wisconsin
company that has the coverage you want at a great price, you are prohibited by law from
buying it. Both state and Federal laws stop insurance companies from competing across
state lines.
We've got our President complaining that a lot of insurance policies aren't really insurance
policies because they don't cover doctor's visits. But that's like saying your car insurance
isn't car insurance because it doesn't cover oil changes! Insurance is there to cover uncommon,
major events that people can't afford to pay out of normal income and savings. REAL health
insurance is high deductible major medical. The plans the President is talking about are
really expensive pre-payment schemes, and they only exist because of corporate welfare
regulations. All of this is the reason why insurance is so expensive.
What your insurance policy covers should be up to you, not some politician who doesn't
care the first thing about you or your family. This is a clear violation of the Commerce
Clause--and I mean by what it REALLY says, not what the government has twisted it to
mean.
It's also insane. Why do single males need maternity coverage? Why mandate infertility
coverage for couples that don't want children? Why mandate alcohol rehab for non-drinkers
like me? All of the things that your insurance covers that you will never use drives up the
price of your policy.
Some of these even mandate the coverage of things like chiropractic and acupuncture.
Someone TRY and defend that!
A 2008 study done for the Department of Health and Human Services shows that allowing consumers
to bypass state-imposed corporate welfare mandates would make health insurance affordable
for more than 11 million Americans. And it wouldn't cost a DIME of taxpayer money!
Also, the Rand Health Insurance Experiment for the Department of Health and Human Services
showed that those same pre-payment plans President Obama prefers used substantially more healthcare
than those who had the kind of high-deductible plans the President dislikes--with little
to no difference in healthcare outcomes between the two groups.
Instead of being forced into a Cadillac Plan, you should be able to choose your own plan,
based on what you need, and eliminating what you don't need--saving money not only for
yourself, but for others as well.
This will increase choice and lower costs for the consumers. If the Republicans really
believe in the free market, like they claim, and if the Democrats really cared about your
health costs, like THEY claim, they would be working to allow companies to offer a range
of policies at a variety of prices, NOT dictating what companies can and cannot offer to consumers.
I want someone out there to give me a good, rational reason for NOT doing this.
A business can do this. Why not you? This would allow millions of Americans to afford
insurance who currently cannot. And while we're at it, repeal completely the cap on
health care deductions. Again, give me ONE GOOD REASON for not doing this.
Whenever you mention problems with the FDA, people become horrified--after all, doesn't
the FDA stop unsafe drugs from entering the market? But remember your Bastiat: consider
both the seen and the unseen. You see the dangerous drugs that make it to the market;
you don't see the lives lost by delaying the entry for the good drugs.
Propranolol, the first beta blocker, was available in Europe for three years before the FDA approved
it here. Propranolol ended up saving about 10,000 lives a year; according to a study
by Arthur D. Little, if it had been available here at the same time it had been in Europe,
an additional 30,000 lives would have been saved. That means that 30,000 people were
KILLED by FDA delays. That's probably a lot more than they've saved by keeping dangerous
drugs off the market! Just from this ONE drug!
And it doesn't end there: 22,000 were killed who would have been saved by streptokinase.
Over 8,000 lives were lost waiting for misoprostol. And the 5-year delay in approving Septra cost
over 80,000 lives.
Here's the silly thing: for most of this delay time, the drug has already been determined
to be safe. Most of the time is spent testing for efficacy, not safety. Yet the government
won't even let dying people take a drug that has already been tested to be safe, because
they don't know how effective it will be. But these patients and their doctors know
how effective their disease will be: it'll kill them. Withholding the drug at this point
is tantamount to murder.
Not only that, the FDA is the reason pharmaceuticals are so expensive. It can cost hundreds of
millions of dollars just to get a single drug approved. A lot of that goes directly to the
FDA itself, and comprises half its budget for drug evaluation. And the 10-15 year delay
not only means that lives are lost in the interim, it means that when they do get introduced
there's only a few years left on the patent, so the drug companies jack up the price, trying
to make back these fantastic costs before generics come on the market. Most drugs are
money-losers.
But wait, what about those reports of ungodly profits by the pharmaceutical industry? If
you look closely, they say something like, an average of the "top" companies' profits.
In other words, they're cherry-picked. According to Fortune Magazine, the median profit for
a pharmaceutical company is just 18%. The broadcast media that loves to complain about
this enjoys profits of 46% or more!
But wait, isn't Canada's system better? Don't they pay less for drugs? This is more cherry-picking.
They pay less for SOME drugs because of price caps, but they pay MORE than we do for generics!
In fact, a lot of Canadians come to the US to buy drugs. TANSTAAFL.
So how would it work if it were private? Just look at UL: the Underwriters Laboratories.
Their seal of approval is on almost every electrical device you own, as well as many
other products. For over a century, they've been testing and certifying products as being
safe for consumers. Retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target insist on such a certification for
every such item they stock. Some local building codes even require approval by UL or an equivalent
organization for a lot of the materials used. UL has an excellent track record and they
get their testing done quickly. If they don't, the companies will just go with one of their
many competitors.
Some people say that privatization might make the FDA beholden to the pharmaceutical interests.
But that's already happened! According to a report in The Washington Post, the FDA acts
very carefully not to upset its "corporate sponsors," which again provide half its budget
for drug evaluation.
But UL doesn't have that problem. In fact, it's one of the least corrupt organizations
there has ever been! The corruption that people are so afraid of happens with government,
NOT the free market!
Here's another silly thing: people look at the deaths caused by the bad drugs, like Baycall
or Vioxx--which are rarely anywhere near as bad as the media makes them out to be--and
blames the pharmaceutical companies. But the FDA, who approved these drugs, gets none of
the blame whatsoever for letting them through. When the FDA screws up, it doesn't get sued,
it doesn't go out of business, and no one at the agency is held accountable. UL, on
the other hand, is accountable--you can sue them if a UL-certified product ends up hurting
you.
The benefits of doing this are enormous, and it's hard to see any drawbacks at all. And
not only would it not cost taxpayers a dime, it would actually SAVE them the $3.2 billion
operating budget of the FDA. Lower taxes, safer drugs, and more drugs available at lower
prices. It's win-win-win.
who insist that universal health care is the ONLY way, insist just can't be done: I'm going
to tell you how to fix the US health care system without spending a single dime.
Here's the first thing you have to understand, although just uttering this sentence will
make the dogmatists immediately close their ears and start flaming in the comments: We
don't have a health care problem in this country. No one complains about the quality or the
amount of health care, only how much it costs. That makes it an economic issue, not a health
care issue, and it needs to be attacked from that angle. Here are the solutions:
If you live in New York, and you find this really great insurance policy from a Wisconsin
company that has the coverage you want at a great price, you are prohibited by law from
buying it. Both state and Federal laws stop insurance companies from competing across
state lines.
We've got our President complaining that a lot of insurance policies aren't really insurance
policies because they don't cover doctor's visits. But that's like saying your car insurance
isn't car insurance because it doesn't cover oil changes! Insurance is there to cover uncommon,
major events that people can't afford to pay out of normal income and savings. REAL health
insurance is high deductible major medical. The plans the President is talking about are
really expensive pre-payment schemes, and they only exist because of corporate welfare
regulations. All of this is the reason why insurance is so expensive.
What your insurance policy covers should be up to you, not some politician who doesn't
care the first thing about you or your family. This is a clear violation of the Commerce
Clause--and I mean by what it REALLY says, not what the government has twisted it to
mean.
It's also insane. Why do single males need maternity coverage? Why mandate infertility
coverage for couples that don't want children? Why mandate alcohol rehab for non-drinkers
like me? All of the things that your insurance covers that you will never use drives up the
price of your policy.
Some of these even mandate the coverage of things like chiropractic and acupuncture.
Someone TRY and defend that!
A 2008 study done for the Department of Health and Human Services shows that allowing consumers
to bypass state-imposed corporate welfare mandates would make health insurance affordable
for more than 11 million Americans. And it wouldn't cost a DIME of taxpayer money!
Also, the Rand Health Insurance Experiment for the Department of Health and Human Services
showed that those same pre-payment plans President Obama prefers used substantially more healthcare
than those who had the kind of high-deductible plans the President dislikes--with little
to no difference in healthcare outcomes between the two groups.
Instead of being forced into a Cadillac Plan, you should be able to choose your own plan,
based on what you need, and eliminating what you don't need--saving money not only for
yourself, but for others as well.
This will increase choice and lower costs for the consumers. If the Republicans really
believe in the free market, like they claim, and if the Democrats really cared about your
health costs, like THEY claim, they would be working to allow companies to offer a range
of policies at a variety of prices, NOT dictating what companies can and cannot offer to consumers.
I want someone out there to give me a good, rational reason for NOT doing this.
A business can do this. Why not you? This would allow millions of Americans to afford
insurance who currently cannot. And while we're at it, repeal completely the cap on
health care deductions. Again, give me ONE GOOD REASON for not doing this.
Whenever you mention problems with the FDA, people become horrified--after all, doesn't
the FDA stop unsafe drugs from entering the market? But remember your Bastiat: consider
both the seen and the unseen. You see the dangerous drugs that make it to the market;
you don't see the lives lost by delaying the entry for the good drugs.
Propranolol, the first beta blocker, was available in Europe for three years before the FDA approved
it here. Propranolol ended up saving about 10,000 lives a year; according to a study
by Arthur D. Little, if it had been available here at the same time it had been in Europe,
an additional 30,000 lives would have been saved. That means that 30,000 people were
KILLED by FDA delays. That's probably a lot more than they've saved by keeping dangerous
drugs off the market! Just from this ONE drug!
And it doesn't end there: 22,000 were killed who would have been saved by streptokinase.
Over 8,000 lives were lost waiting for misoprostol. And the 5-year delay in approving Septra cost
over 80,000 lives.
Here's the silly thing: for most of this delay time, the drug has already been determined
to be safe. Most of the time is spent testing for efficacy, not safety. Yet the government
won't even let dying people take a drug that has already been tested to be safe, because
they don't know how effective it will be. But these patients and their doctors know
how effective their disease will be: it'll kill them. Withholding the drug at this point
is tantamount to murder.
Not only that, the FDA is the reason pharmaceuticals are so expensive. It can cost hundreds of
millions of dollars just to get a single drug approved. A lot of that goes directly to the
FDA itself, and comprises half its budget for drug evaluation. And the 10-15 year delay
not only means that lives are lost in the interim, it means that when they do get introduced
there's only a few years left on the patent, so the drug companies jack up the price, trying
to make back these fantastic costs before generics come on the market. Most drugs are
money-losers.
But wait, what about those reports of ungodly profits by the pharmaceutical industry? If
you look closely, they say something like, an average of the "top" companies' profits.
In other words, they're cherry-picked. According to Fortune Magazine, the median profit for
a pharmaceutical company is just 18%. The broadcast media that loves to complain about
this enjoys profits of 46% or more!
But wait, isn't Canada's system better? Don't they pay less for drugs? This is more cherry-picking.
They pay less for SOME drugs because of price caps, but they pay MORE than we do for generics!
In fact, a lot of Canadians come to the US to buy drugs. TANSTAAFL.
So how would it work if it were private? Just look at UL: the Underwriters Laboratories.
Their seal of approval is on almost every electrical device you own, as well as many
other products. For over a century, they've been testing and certifying products as being
safe for consumers. Retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target insist on such a certification for
every such item they stock. Some local building codes even require approval by UL or an equivalent
organization for a lot of the materials used. UL has an excellent track record and they
get their testing done quickly. If they don't, the companies will just go with one of their
many competitors.
Some people say that privatization might make the FDA beholden to the pharmaceutical interests.
But that's already happened! According to a report in The Washington Post, the FDA acts
very carefully not to upset its "corporate sponsors," which again provide half its budget
for drug evaluation.
But UL doesn't have that problem. In fact, it's one of the least corrupt organizations
there has ever been! The corruption that people are so afraid of happens with government,
NOT the free market!
Here's another silly thing: people look at the deaths caused by the bad drugs, like Baycall
or Vioxx--which are rarely anywhere near as bad as the media makes them out to be--and
blames the pharmaceutical companies. But the FDA, who approved these drugs, gets none of
the blame whatsoever for letting them through. When the FDA screws up, it doesn't get sued,
it doesn't go out of business, and no one at the agency is held accountable. UL, on
the other hand, is accountable--you can sue them if a UL-certified product ends up hurting
you.
The benefits of doing this are enormous, and it's hard to see any drawbacks at all. And
not only would it not cost taxpayers a dime, it would actually SAVE them the $3.2 billion
operating budget of the FDA. Lower taxes, safer drugs, and more drugs available at lower
prices. It's win-win-win.