The failure of America's consumer-driven marketplace has been the root cause of America's healthcare debacle.
Every national
healthcare system that functions reasonably well (and is also cost-effective) recognizes the need for government to play a central role. http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html
Furthermore, the Catholic Church - by far the world's largest Christian denomination, has a long history of advocacy for government-coordinated universal healthcare and defines healthcare as a human right.
In
the following article, Notre Dame's most revered theologian, Fr. Richard
O'Brien, describes the development of church teaching. http://ncronline.org/blogs/essays-theology/what-church-teaches-health-care-reform
***
Romney outlines plan to make health-care system like ‘consumer market’
ORLANDO – As the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care overhaul, Mitt Romney laid out an alternative on Tuesday that would make the health insurance system more like a “consumer market.”
Addressing supporters in Orlando, Romney fiercely attacked what he and other Republicans have labeled “Obamacare.” The presumptive GOP presidential nominee said that if the Supreme Court does not overturn the law in full, he would work to repeal whatever remains of it on his first day as president by granting a waiver to all 50 states to opt out of the law’s restrictions.
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Romney likened the health-care system under the Affordable Care Act to “a big government-managed utility” and argued that the law is casting a dark cloud over the nation’s anemic economic recovery.
“It’s not only bad policy and bad for middle-income families and bad for small business, it’s simply unaffordable,” Romney said. “And so, the right course for us is to make sure that the next president of the United States repeals Obamacare and replaces Obamacare.”
The Obama campaign hit back at Romney’s policy view in a statement Tuesday: “This morning, Mitt Romney promised that if he’s elected, insurance companies will be able to discriminate against Americans with pre-existing conditions, charge women higher premiums than they charge men for the same coverage, and kick young adults off their parents’ plans when they graduate high school or college. . . . For too long, American families have faced a choice between going bankrupt to afford the care they need or going without that care at all, and Mitt Romney wants to take us back to that time.”
Romney first laid out a plan to replace the health-care law in a speech in Michigan last spring before he formally launched his campaign. But he avoided detailed discussions of health care during the Republican primaries, partly because the Massachusetts law he championed and signed as governor is so similar to the federal law and drew sharp criticism from many conservatives in his party.
With Tuesday’s speech, delivered in a warehouse here, in front of a banner reading “Repeal & Replace Obamacare,” Romney for the first time since the Michigan speech detailed some of his health-care-policy positions.
Romney said his top priority is to care for the nation’s uninsured, but that he would make states responsible for providing that service. Romney said he would divert federal Medicaid dollars, as well as other funding, to state governments to help them cover uninsured residents.
“I believe that states have responsibility to care for people in the way they feel best,” Romney said. “It’s important for us, in my view, to make sure that every American has access to good health care.”
Romney said he wants to make the nation’s health-care system more like a consumer market, likening it to the tire, automobile and air-filter markets that he said keep costs down and quality up. To do so, he said, he would allow individuals and small businesses to buy insurance coverage with the same tax advantage that larger businesses enjoy and to purchase insurance across state lines or join organizations to give them bargaining power with insurers.
“We can get health care to act more like a consumer market, and if we do that and we stop making it like a big government-managed utility, we’re going to see better prices, lower costs and better care,” Romney said. “It’s happened everywhere we’ve applied consumer-market principles. Free enterprise is the way America works. We need to apply that to health care.”
Romney also said his plan would help cover people with preexisting conditions, one of the more popular components of Obama’s law.
“Let’s say someone has been continuously insured and they develop a serious condition, and let’s say they lose their job or they change jobs, they move and they go to a new place,” Romney said. “I don’t want them to be denied insurance because they’ve got some preexisting condition.”
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1:06 PM EDT
When I was a child, we were so poor we didn't have running water in our house until I was 12. There were no government assisted medical plans and we didn't have health insurance. My mother still managed to feed all of her children and we carried brown paper sacked lunches to school. We had a happy childhood and didn't depend on the government (tax payers). Why are tax payers now feeding nearly half of all school children two meals a day? Some are being fed 3 meals at school. The parents should be paying for that and have that responsibility. Why shoud tax payers be paying for totally or assisting the payment for medical care for millions of people and their children. That is their responsibility. Why are tax payers paying for free cell phones and minutes for millions of freeloaders? Congress should make it legal to buy insurance across state lines, then get out of the medical insurance business. (Alan here... Advocacy of "buying health insurance across state lines as a panacea for America's health woes is leading candidate for America's Most Witless Mantra - the apotheosis of "magical thinking.") The problem with our country now is the Democrats have made freeloaders out of nearly half the population. 49% do not pay a dime of federal income tax and most of them are yelling to "tax the rich" who already pay 71% of the federal income taxes now. We now have the same problems Greece has. Lazy people living on the public dole instead of earning their own way in life. Nearly all the poor people I grew up with became successful because we learned at an early age that knowledge and hard work are what it takes to be successful in life. Sitting around with your hand out while high on drugs or drunk doesn't entitle you to burden the rest of society. (Alan. 4.2% of the population is disabled by alcohol abuse. A little under 12% of the population is addicted to drugs. http://codi.buffalo.edu/graph_based/.demographics/.statistics.htm http://www.disabled-world.com/medical/pharmaceutical/addiction/ I only know a few addicts but, as it happens, they are all gainfully employed. Of the 16% of America's population who are addicted to alcohol and drugs, I imagine half pay their way in the world.) Making babies when you are in that shape doesn't entitle you to think other people should feed, clothe, or raise them either. The liberals, socialists, and free loaders have nearly ruined this country. (Alan... The most recent proponent of government-guaranteed minimum income was Richard Nixon. Founding Father Thomas Paine was the first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income) This may be the last chance we have to save it. Watch the responses to this post from the freeloaders. Their free ride is in jeopardy.
1:04 PM EDT
When we live in a 'free market' environment where it costs $480,000 for a CT scan in one facility and $5,000 in another, when people are forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills, when will we stop the hooey?
Government covers everybody.
Government pays all bills.
Government collects taxes from us all.
What's so bad about that?
Government covers everybody.
Government pays all bills.
Government collects taxes from us all.
What's so bad about that?
1:06 PM EDT
Government also fights our wars, protects our borders, fights crime, and puts out fires.
You got a problem with that?
You got a problem with that?
