On health insurance

Walter E. Williams on all the screaming about government-based health insurance.

http://townhall.com/Columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/07/25/health_care_government_vs_private

Special for the souls who yearn for Canadian-style health insurance administration:

Before we buy into single-payer health care systems like Canada's and the United Kingdom's, we might want to do a bit of research. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute annually publishes "Waiting Your Turn." Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person's referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks).

As reported in the June 28 National Center for Policy Analysis' "Daily Policy Digest," Britain's Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients waits more than a year for surgery. France's failed health care system resulted in the deaths of 13,000 people, mostly of dehydration, during the heat spell of 2003. Hospitals stopped answering the phones, and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.

Waiting 30 weeks for surgery?? Fuck that.

On a more personal note, I recently checked what would it take for me to buy Aetna out-of-pocket insurance if I were to quit a job that provides medical benefits. The answer is around $1000 a month. Why? Because New York (and NJ, and VT for that matter) have exactly those "guaranteed issue" laws on the books. Those laws hike my premiums through the roof. More specifically, Aetna only provides 2 plans in NYS - HMO and QPOS (click for rates and descriptions). That's it. If I lived in California, which does not practice this "guaranteed issue" idiocy, Aetna offers 12(!) varied plans for all kinds of budgets. You do the math.