Health care – On The 8 Spot

August 5, 2009

Love To Read :: Making Light: Pushing back

Pushing back
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:36 PM * 31 comments
I gather from the Interwebs that August is going to be a heavy month for health politics. The fight back against any change to the way that America deals with health care and health insurance is starting now, and it’s going to be intense.
They’re going to say it can’t be done, that health insurance and health care are inevitably expensive. They’re going to shriek about rationing, and ignore the fact that the US already rations health care on the basis of ability to pay—one of the most barbaric and obscene metrics conceivable.
And they’re going to say that health care in the rest of the world isn’t really that good. That the American system, for all its flaws, is the best there can be.
via Making Light: Pushing back.

April 27, 2009

Thought Provoking Post::Stumbling and Mumbling: The state and equality

: Image via Wikipedia

I’m a big West Wing Fan, and in someways it has shaped how I view things. I still remember a scene where Sam Seaborn‘s declarations, I pay a lot of taxes and I love it! I may have an unhealthy regard for my abilities but I have no doubt that in the crucial ways I am me because i was fortunated enough to be born to my parents. I was lucky, this was no fault/act of mine. Taxation is a transfer, I love paying taxes, just hope there was more ways to ensure that the transfer is not a transfer to the swiss bank acounts of government officials! .read the whole thing!

But of course, these are only a part of the link between the state and inequality. Tawneyite socialists claim that spending on (say) health and education are forces for equality.
But are they? Julian Le Grand famously argued in a book in 1982 that the rich actually got more than the poor from these services – a claim supported more recently by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
In the case of healthcare, the claim is also supported by this paper (pdf). One reason for this is that the poor under-estimate their ill-health and so are less likely to make claims on the health system. Another reason is that the rich live longer (pdf) than the poor, and the bulk of health spending on most individuals comes late in life.
via Stumbling and Mumbling: The state and equality.

April 14, 2009

rePost:Great News:GMANews.TV – Roxas proposes mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos – Nation – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA

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This is the reason why politicians especially elected officials need to have websites so people can interact with them , they can get input and explain their sides etc etc. hope I can find a copy of this online. Over all without seeing the plan , mandatory health coverage for all is a win, the question is were do we get the money (magbawas muna ng mga mistress and mga politicians) , and is their a more efficient way to administer it than that envisioned in the bill/plan.

Roxas proposes mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos
04/14/2009 | 01:55 PM
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MANILA, Philippines – A bill seeking mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos on state expense has been filed in the Senate.
Senator Manuel Roxas II proposes in Senate Bill 3154 that the government must pay for mandatory entitlement of every Filipino to healthcare benefits under the state’s health insurance program.
He said the immediate and automatic inclusion to Philippine Health Insurance coverage and membership is mandated by Republic Act 7875 (National Health Insurance Act of 1995).
The mandatory universal healthcare coverage shall be funded by the national government through premium payments to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC), which shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act, he added.
“The health of every Filipino is important. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that our citizens are healthy,” Roxas said.
He said that 48.4 percent of the total P181 billion expenditures for health in 2005 came from individual families’ pockets, and that only 28.7 percent came from government resources.
He said the social health insurance, on the other hand, account for only 11 percent and health expenditure from other sources, such as private health insurance or community-based financing represent only 11.9 percent.
He said that since 26.9 percent of Filipino families are below the poverty threshold, “it is unimaginable how Filipinos who are everyday grappling with the hardships of economic realities, will be able to afford a decent healthcare service for themselves and their families.”
Roxas is also the author of the Cheaper Medicines Act. – Amita O. Legaspi, GMANews.TV
via GMANews.TV – Roxas proposes mandatory health coverage for all Filipinos – Nation – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News – BETA.