The Capitol Fax Blog » Question of the day

Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008

* Congressional candidate Jim Oberweis has this on his website about the state of health insurance in America….

The problem is, the health care delivery system we’ve created for ourselves — a “third party payer” system, in which most Americans get their health insurance through their employer — creates perverse incentives, and, because the consumer of the health services is divorced from paying for those services, offers no incentives to manage health care costs better. Moreover, too many workers are left in a “job lock,” where they are afraid to move to a new job because they would lose their current health insurance coverage. That stifles economic growth and increased productivity, and is a further drain on our national economy.

Oberweis proposes abandoning employer health insurance and moving towards things like health savings accounts.

* Question: Do you agree or disagree with Oberweis? Explain fully.

- posted by Rich Miller

44 Comments

- bored now - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 7:45 am:
perhaps a good idea for the owner of a corporation, but a terrible idea for a politician. enriching insurance companies is not the answer to the complexities that are our health care crisis…

- Anonymous - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 7:54 am:
No. Health insurance, true universal health insurance, spreads the risk across all of the population, making insurance more affordable for everyone, regardless of their genetic pre-disposition to disease and sickness or just the flukes of life. Health Savings Accounts individualizes the cost of health care costs - the winners are those who wind up healthy, the losers are those who don’t. HSAs are the “every man is an island” approach to health care. Makes perfect sense for an Oberweis - wealthy business owner. A disaster for the working stiff or poor people (except for the healthiest among them).

- ZC - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:05 am:
What Anonymous said. Without looking at the plan, I admit, what is Oberweis’s position on someone born with type 1 diabetes?

- Mr. Ethics - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:05 am:
Insurance should not cover the doctor visit. Insurance is why a 10 minute visit is billed at $125 to $175. To make up for the uninsured. Just make everybody pay $50 to see a doctor. No cliam forms or billing required. This also creates a better cash flow for the clinic or office, no longer waiting 6 months for the state to pay up.

- soccermom - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:06 am:
Has Mr. Oberweis explained his strategy to avoid getting sick or injured before you have fully funded your Health Savings Account? Is he aware that not all Americans inherit great wealth?

- Ghost - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:17 am:
No. First, Oberweiss must have missed the whole peice of federal legisaltion known as HIPPA. One of the goals of HIPPA is to make transition from one employer to the next seemless by eliminating coverage gaps created when you leave one insurance program and enter another. Second, as mentioned by Anon, it is divorced from the risk spreading which occurs in pools. As many have commented, this is a great idea for a welaty buisness looking to stiff its employees, but a bad idea for employees. Further, every country with Govt provided health care which abandoned the third party payor idea had developed a two tiered health system. Their is the low quality govt run insurance system for the masses, and the high quality medical care system for the wealthy who purchase their own insurance to supplment or replace the govt controlled health insurance program.

The better solution is to require all employers to carry some form of health insurance. Small employers can band together through associations, Say restraunt or flower shops, to create a larger pool then just their individual business to get good rates. They then split the cost with the employee.

- Greg - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:17 am:
The perverse incentive point is a valid one. But then he proceeds to offer but one option to address it. Regardless of whether you support universal health care (as many here obviously do), or not (as I), we’ve got to understand that the consumer (and doctors…in short, everyone) responds to incentives. Small, flat fees for basic services remove any incentive to weigh a cost/benefit analysis. The concept of insurance is to protect oneself against catastrophic losses; the existence of insurance does not necessarily reduce overall cost. Don’t think for minute that the remarkable inflation in health care costs is unrelated to our approach of (over)billing every procedure to “someone else.”

- Truth - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:29 am:
I’m not an Oberweis supporter, but he is right about the third party system. If insurance is picking up the tab, you are more likely to use more services. Maybe even some unnecessary services.

If you are personally paying the tab, the decision making becomes a lot more thought out.

What if, for three months you went to the grocery store and your insurance was paying for it. You think your consumption of groceries might go up? I’ll bet you it would.

- Princeville - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:32 am:
“because the consumer of the health services is divorced from paying for those services”

Don’t agree. Some insurance plans are better than others, but many consumers even with insurance end up paying some big bucks when a illness or a chronic disease strikes due to poor coverage and/or large out of pocket cost through deductibles and then 20/80 (30/70 whatever). I don’t think one can honestly discuss cost without looking at any given policy plan.

Mr Ethics, some people who currently have insurance now pay for an awful lot of items (drugs, office calls, test ect) out of pocket before their insurance ever kicks in and others can pay as much as $35 (one example I’m aware) even if HMO type insurance plans. An auto up front $50 payment which usually has to be paid at the time of service would likely keep some lower income people from seeing a doctor when their illness/disease is in a early treatable mode, and then cost much more because it was not traeted or caught early. As one sees at least three levels of people –the lowest income who have medical cards through the states, the middle class who have or have not insurance plans and some worse than other plans, and the higher income who most likely have coverage and plenty of cash to float up front.

- Dan Johnson-Weinberger - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:35 am:
He’s right on the problem: our employer-based system is broken. It came out of solid union organizing in the 1950s when industrial unions won the health insurance as a (tax-free) benefit from employers. And unfortunately, that restructured the health care industry in (as Oberweis notes) perverse ways.

One of the biggest problems is that is stifles entrepreneurial activity. It puts an extra cost to an entrepreneur because s/he has to pay for his or her own health insurance. For older people, that’s really a tax on entrepreneurship. (I like that term — a tax on entrepreneurship.)

However, as others have noted, Oberweis is wrong on the remedy to the problem. The point of insurance, is to spread risk. So the most pragmatic way of spreading risk is to spread it over everyone in the state or the nation with one government-administered plan. Just like Medicare.

The ideologues oppose it, because they hate government as a matter of faith, but extending Medicare for everyone, not just seniors, is the most pragmatic way to reduce business costs, eliminate the tax on entrepreneurship and make health care affordable.

And by the way, I’m calling a Foster upset now. I’m out on a limb a little bit, but if 2008 is going to be like a 1932 election, the wave could start in March.

- train111 - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:36 am:
Truth

I agree with your statement about healthcare consumption, but I also agree with what was stated above about Mr. Oberweis’ view being that of a corporate owner, and not that of the average citizen who has to deal with health issues.

BTW the Foster sign went up in my front yard on Monday.

train111

- RMW Stanford - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:38 am:
He is right on this one, third party payers push up the cost of health insurance be increasing demand since the insuree only see a portion of the cost and that leads them to “over use”. Then you have other factors on the supply side that artificial inflate cost, the AMA for example, and the way that the US health care industry is structured right now, not just on the demand side, but also on the supply, Government run Universal Health care wold probably just push up cost more or lead to heavy government rationing for those that sole rely on it.

- Greg B. - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:48 am:
HSA’s are just one solution among many. Another idea would be to stop discriminating against private insurance holders by allowing the business tax deduction for purchasing health insurance to apply to individual tax filers. Treating health insurance equally would solve the job lock problem.

The problem with HIPPA is that when you leave your job, that seamless transition means paying group insurance rates instead of individual rates which are less expensive.

As far as strategy goes for dealing with those first dollars before you fill your account, keep in mind you can fill your account monthly and pay a monthly bills to your provider and still reap the tax benefits of the above the line deduction in the event of catastrophic injury or illness.

And no, HSA’s don’t individualize insurance. You are still part of an actuarial risk pool, you are just responsible for routine medical needs up to your deductible.

The really odd thing in Jim’s position is the health exchange. These have been tried in California and Florida with no success. Romney has tried it with the connector but the results are hardly shouting about. Essentially, all exchanges do is place a level of bureaucracy that can meddle between insurers and consumers. That’s hardly consistent with HSA’s or ending the discrimination against the individual tax payer.

In fact, exchanges are key pieces of the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

- Pat collins - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 8:57 am:
t came out of solid union organizing in the 1950s when industrial unions won the health insurance as a (tax-free) benefit from employers.

No, it started in WWII as a way to avoid wage caps by war industries competing for workers.

Anyone who wants a single payer system needs to explains “how this wont’ be like Canada”.

A far better way would be to let insurance companies sell their policies nationwide and let them be deductible to the buyers.

Of course, you might get people buying policies that don’t have benefits that some politicians want (abortion coverage) to mandate.

- jerry 101 - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:03 am:
A lot of health plans require copays as high as $50 now, already.

The vast majority of health care costs are driven by two things - 25% margins for health insurance providers (while most hospitals run on razor thin margins) and catastrophic health care costs - cancer, heart disease, etc.

The best way to reduce health care costs over the long run is to eliminate the massive profit margins that the insurance companies ring up due to their cartel-like behavior, and to maximize, NOT minimize preventative care.

We need to incentivize going to the doctor at least twice a year. People need to go more often. Catching a potentially problematic condition well before it becomes a serious illness will go much further toward reducing costs than reducing the frequency of visits to primary care physicians, as people like oberweiss would like to see. It’s a perverse thought process that will drive costs up more quickly in the long run.

The other thing that we can do is incentivize good health. Employers should offer bonuses to people who go to the doctor at least twice a year, and maintain healthy lifestyles. Not smoking, being at a healthy weight, having good counts on cholesterol and sodium levels and the like. Nothing invasive, and it should be an opt-in system, where the doctor provides a HIPAA-compliant health report on the individual for the company’s HR department.

That, or just get on with single payor already. Maximize the risk pool (the entire population of the United States is the biggest possible risk pool), reduce costs across the board. It wouldn’t be that hard. The feds buy out the insurance companies and extend Medicare to the entire population.

- Gish - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:14 am:
I am not an economist but I was always under the impression that employer provided health care provided a benefit to employers in that their workforce remained healthy and viable for a greater period of time. I guess it is only a benefit if your workforce is highly trained or specialized but, isn’t it still a benefit? Do the costs far outweigh the increased productivity?

- Ghost - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:24 am:
Medicare for all, because we all know what great coverage seniors are getting, thats why there is a huge business selling medicare supplemental insurance.

The worse solution to any problem is to go with an extreme. Govt controlled health care is an extreme. It will be filled with waste, corruption, and will devalue the practice of medicine so that we will have fewer competent doctors and no new medical technoiology. The Untied States drives the field of medicine in innovation and cures. Apparently profitability helps to fund and drive research. We have the best health care in the United States because of this. The other extreme is completly privatizinginsruance, also an extreme and a bad idea. It allows for corruption, fraud etc. The ideal system is one which combines private insruance run as a business regulated by governemtn setting minimial standards. Within that framework we need a system that mandates health insurance for all. We already require everyone to have car insurance.

The ideal system ha a cafateria style sysstem where employees can select from many different plans, and pay part of the cost. My wifes company lets employees select from HMO, PPO and plans that provide coverage only for catastrophic illness. 1,500 deduciable, no coverage for minor services etc. These are designed for young people without families who might otherwise not have insurance at all, and are very cheap. As coverage gets better, and options like being able to select your own doc, the cost to the employee goes up.

- Anon - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:25 am:
I agree with Oberweis and others about the negative linkage between health care and employment.

The real solution is to eliminate insurance (as we know it) altogether. That won’t happen because it turns the entire medical services and insurance industries upside down. Citizens can’t envision a world without someone else being responsible for paying the medical bills (even if that doesn’t happen) and the providers have a pricing structure based on charging $100 for a band-aid, etc.

Is there a medical insurance version of Hurricane Katrina — something that wipes out everything so the world has to start over. (None of us is old enough to know, but there may be some comparison to when cars replaced horses.)

Individuals should buy their own insurance (just like for cars, homes, etc.). It would not stop people from going to the doctor anymore than it stops people from getting their cars and homes repaired. In fact, I think more people would see doctors more often because the medical profession would create new delivery systems that are priced to the market. (I already skip the medical tests that my doctor suggests because her supplier, Northwestern Hosp., charges five times what a third-party supplier does. Everyone uses the same testing equipment but the third party vendor is not saddled with the hospital overhead and thus, I get tested twice a year at a total cost that is a fraction of one trip to the hospital.)

- Princeville - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:26 am:
Jerry 101 “Employers should offer bonuses to people who go to the doctor at least twice a year, and maintain healthy lifestyles. Not smoking, being at a healthy weight, having good counts on cholesterol and sodium levels and the like”

Not picking on you,as I agree with parts of what you wrote, but was curious if you had read the report summary of the Netherland’s National Institute for Public Health and the Environment that the Associated Press ran 4th Feb , 2008? It talked about smokers and obesity and how while they actually cost more in the short term, the healthy people end up costing the industry more over the long run, if for no other reason, they live longer and thus consume a longer running care.

- RMW Stanford - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:32 am:
Jerry 101,

The problem with just going to a single payer system is that even if it works total one hundred percent perfectly, which it wont, unless you also address the supply issues in the health care industry that help to drive up cost your going to have a situation were cost are still rising, just the government paying for it or where you have heavy rationing of non-emergency health care services. If you go after the supply side your going to have the AMA, doctors, ect pitching a unbelievable fit and consider that a single payer system would hard enough to pass on it one, some how I dont see that happening. In some areas, for example most cancer, the US is better at early detection than most countries with single payer systems.

- Justice - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:32 am:
When the employer pays for our health care, we do not see the bills, nor do we feel the sting of the cost itself. Hospitals, Clinics, and many Doctor’s offices continue to increase costs either to reap profits or to cover mismanaged operating expenses; and the Drug Companies reap obscene profits. We have let the medical profession run away with out-of-control costs with little or no accountability. I think what Oberweis intends is to make each individual more aware of the true cost of health care through these Health Savings Plans, and even out the costs to everyone, thus forcing us as individuals within the group to drive health care costs down. The one’s hurt most are the individuals who cannot afford reasonable health care premiums. By putting everyone in the same category, individualizing us as a huge buying group, it would help lower cost and improve the quality of service for everyone. I don’t know if his plan is “the plan” but it appears he is on to the basic concept. This is interesting for QOTD as it is timed to the March 3 issue of Business Week.

- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:33 am:
Lets pretend we are starting from scratch and believe that a one-size-fits-all approach to government is finally history.

Everyone is different. We are supposed to celebrate our diversity, not shove universal anything down one another’s throats, right? Mao suits, black Model Ts, VWs, all 20th Century, right?

Medicine is more about individual genetics and lifestyle choices - more individuality. In the old days you rolled up your sleeve and got a shot so the mosquitoes wouldn’t kill you, and regardless of how rich you were, mosquitoes found you and would kill you if they were infected. It didn’t matter your age. Smallpox killed regardless of class, race or gender. So naturally our government health care reflected this.

We are beyond that now. In the 21st Century, we are dealing with non-communicable diseases most of the time. And the diseases are due to individual lifestyle, age and genetics. The treatments are too. There is no way for a one-size-fits-all universal approach in today’s world.

Celebrate our diversity and create a health care plan that recognizes this. Individual health care accounts should reflect our individual health care needs. Those what need extra help should get help. But penalizing healthy people so that fatties can die with expensive diseases isn’t fair. That approach is SO 20th Century!

Government is NOT the solution for the majority of our health care needs anymore. It is time for a modern approach that reflects modern medicine. Government should ensure that communicable diseases are treated and prevented, but beyond that, government gums things up, not help.

Oberweis is right, but a majority of Americans still believe in the old days of universal health care approaches. The reality that universal health hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world will one day be realized - but not yet, it seems.

- Angry Chicagoan - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 9:34 am:
I think Oberweis displays a serious ignorance of history with the solution. The US health care system was in chaos in the 1920s before Blue Cross and other mutual programs came along and offered a solution. The main difference between the US and Europe is that the US got into the mutual insurance game just in time to prevent a sufficient political groundswell from building for universal health care. Roosevelt’s death shortly after he endorsed the idea; the AMA’s tooth and nail opposition to the plan; and the Republican victory in the 1946 midterms did the rest. But I think it is fairly safe to say that without the rise of private insurance in the 1930s, no amount of huffing and puffing from the AMA would have stopped universal health care.

So if Oberweis wants to ditch any kind of collectivity and go to HSAs, the irony is that he’s probably setting up much more favorable conditions for universal health care to get enacted.

- Snidely Whiplash - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 10:17 am:
Those only work if one has the “disposable” income to do it. Will employers raise the amount of a worker’s pay to equal (after taxes) the cost of insurance? Doubtful. When one is faced with paying the rent or mortgage and putting food on the table, versus paying for health insurance, guess which wins?

Obie, can one of your rich relatives put ME in his will, so that I, too, can be an inheritor of great wealth?

- The Curmudgeon - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 10:28 am:
Oberweis is correct on the perverse incentives angle — but I don’t know that MSA’s are a panacea.

Frankly, we are addicted to health insurance in this country — doctors have to hire people just to “code” bills — “uninsured” rates are unimaginably high so that hospitals can negotiate “discounts” with Blue Cross, et al. — I once represented a woman who was charged $17,000 for an overnight hospital stay — she was a Medicaid recipient — her home state (not Illinois) paid something like $59 for treatment (after a medpay auto coverage paid $2,500). Eyes glazing over yet?

The problem with addiction is the only way out is detox — and that’ll never fly politically. So we’re doomed to have “universal health.”

And Big Business can hardly wait: Sure, it’ll be only for those whose employers don’t provide coverage at first — but, one by one, the employers will drop their coverage. You don’t think the automakers — who complain that they are being crushed by health care costs — won’t jump at the chance to opt for universal health?

- Vole - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 10:31 am:
Personal observations of HSAs:

1. The primary reason I am in one is that I am self employed and need a private plan. Before I enrolled in the HSA my high deductible plan’s premiums were skyrocketing. They would probably be about $15,000 per year now had I stayed in it. With the HSA, I was able to enroll in a different high deductible plan, but my premiums were reduced by about two thirds! Figure that…

The money I have saved on premiums has allowed me to fund the HSA. I now have enough in it to fully meet the high deductible should I need to do so in one year.

2. I have had to use my portion, the deductible in one year, before I had the HSA. The deductible was over $10,000. Once I was on the insurance company’s dime, I decided to use it for some elective stuff that was no emergency or I probably could have done without. So, HSAs are no guarantee of thrifty rationing of health care.

3. The year I went over my deductible I encountered a problem that was fixed by seeing a nurse practitioner plus a dose of antibiotics. Total cost was probably a hundred bucks. But… in the process, she found a potentially severe problem and referred me to a specialist in the same clinic. After a few high tech tests of a few thousand bucks each, I was found to be free of the potentially bad problem. But I was out of pocket of about $10,000 bucks in the process.

4. The problem I now have with all the above is that I am more averse to going to see a doctor for any reason. There is a foundation of trust in our health care system that has been shaken by my experiences and stories from others. I am putting more faith in my own ability to keep myself fit and healthy than I am in our medical system. And, I guess I am becoming a bit fatalistic about all of it. The medical system is in a way destroying itself.

- anon - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 10:33 am:
It’s about which column the payer gets put into. Business owners use, or used to use, paid health care as a benefit to attract employees. They should be under no obligation to offer any benefits. To remain competitive and therefore make a profit, the cost of offering the benefit has to be weighed against cost of not offering the benefit. Would a higher wage/salary be as effective as paying for health care? Would a business still attract employees that would help the business make a profit? Big questions. If every employer, every business and a every governmental body, stopped paying for employees’ health care what would happen? What if they gave each employee a raise equal to the cost of the premium that the employer is paying for the health care and let the employee choose how to spend that money, what would be the result? It would change the face of who provides health care and the cost of providing it in response to the market demand.

- Prairie Sage - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 10:40 am:
DJW, you need to go a bit further back in your labor history. Major unions originally opposed company-provided health care and pensions because 1) it put workers’ future security in the hands of the company owners, whom they didn’t trust; and 2) undermined solidarity with workers who were not fortunate enough to work for a large company.

So Obie is agreeing with Walter Reuther.

From the New Yorker:

In 1947, when Ford offered its workers a pension, the union voted it down. The labor movement believed that the safest and most efficient way to provide insurance against ill health or old age was to spread the costs and risks of benefits over the biggest and most diverse group possible. Walter Reuther, as Nelson Lichtenstein argues in his definitive biography, believed that risk ought to be broadly collectivized. Charlie Wilson, on the other hand, felt the way the business leaders of Toledo did: that collectivization was a threat to the free market and to the autonomy of business owners. In his view, companies themselves ought to assume the risks of providing insurance.

- Trafficmatt - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 11:35 am:
Like the illustrious Mr. Perot used to say “the devil is in the detail”. However, I think Mr. Oberweis could be on to something.

He is absolutely right that part of the problem with the medical industry is that too many people look at it like they do the little candy jar at the front receptionist’s desk. You don’t have to pay for it, it doesn’t matter how much something costs, it’s just there for the taking.

I’m not proposing at all that necessary treatments go uncovered. However, we have all known people that will take their kid in to the doctor’s office for every single cold they get just because it is “free”.

I am guessing that it couldn’t be all that difficult to set up a “pool”, so that people with severe medical problems aren’t singled out and have to pay a ton more, but at the same time, not penalize those that are keeping up with their health and staying illness free. The Medical Savings Accounts are generally set up for that, but there are flaws with the system. When I looked into them for my family, I wouldn’t be able to get ahead. If you are very young and healthy, then it is a great program to get started on.

It would be oh-so-nice to have a free-market alternative to the rush to nationalized Hillary-care. You can say a lot of things about Oberweis, but he is a smart business man.

- Reading on Walden - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 12:11 pm:
I am an advocated of “single-payer” health coverage and am against the Oberweis proposal that I would call “you’re on your own, good luck” health coverage. I believe major corporations will one day jump on the “single-payer” bandwagon and I believe that will be sooner rather than later. It would save them money.

- bluedog demo - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 12:17 pm:
Trafficmat and other posters raise many valid points. For those like Trafficmat the health savings account is unworkable, it just enables the wealthy or near wealthy to continue on with health care. Even the well intentioned can’t afford such a plan as the Oberwies one since they are cash strapped. Do recognize the ” cookie jar ” mentality and how it would affect a one payer system. It is happening right now with Medicare. Patient ” imangines ” a ” hang nail ” , recognizes ” health care is free ” , doctors and hospitals ” can’t refuse ” because of the ” ambulance chasing lawyers ” so the system is ” gamed ” all around. Current system is a mess and rip-off. This is were the ” big brain ” people need to drop the partianship and get about solving the problem !

- Princeville - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 12:21 pm:
Trafficmatt–”I’m not proposing at all that necessary treatments go uncovered. However, we have all known people that will take their kid in to the doctor’s office for every single cold they get just because it is “free”.

I would assume you’d have to put part of the blame on the rush to the dr’s office on schools and the lower paying workplace. Many schools want proof of a dr’s visit and/or order after a three day absense, as does a nmuner of workplaces. The kid has to go back sick or go into the dr to justify the continued absense, the worker has to bring in the dr’s visit/order or risk being fired. People can’t win here in this situation.

- Bruno - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 12:33 pm:
Oberweis is correct as to the incentives re: third payer, and those incentives become even more perverse under “single payer” for many of the same reasons.

Further, most critques of HSAs (and other “Consumer Directed Health Care” ideas) are only valid inside a short time window, or inside narrow scenarios that ignore transitioning to a better system.

We have it within our grasp to KEEP the most advanced health system in the world without making the monumental errors made by Canada and UK (both of which are moving away from pure single payer)

With what this nation spends on health care, we can move to a better system that provides subsidies and access for the poor, and better care for everyone.

3rd and single payer divorce the consumers from the providers, and will therefore always suffer from perverse incentives.

- Bruno - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 12:44 pm:
BTW all,

Oberweis may be reading up on Wyden-Bennett, which is a rational bipartisan approach that deserves a look.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articl
e=health_cares_odd_couple

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/tal
k/2008/02/sens-ron-wyden-and-bob-bennett.php

http://www.extremewisdom.c
om/?p=632

- Anon - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:11 pm:
http://foster08.com/memo.pdf

His approach isn’t helping him in the polls.

- Carl Nyberg - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:27 pm:
Questions for Oberweis: how much should responsible parents have in their medical savings account before having a child? If a child has a malady that costs more than the parents have in their medical savings accounts, should the parents be forced to give up the equity in their home before qualifying for financial assistance?

- Carl Nyberg - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:30 pm:
The United States has the most privatized health care system in the developed world. Yet, the annual cost increases are the greatest in the developed world.

Given that other countries have the “third party” problem and do better at controlling costs, why does Oberweis believe the “third party” problem is the main contributor to out-of-control health care costs in the United States?

- Moderate REpub - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:36 pm:
bored now - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 7:45 am:

perhaps a good idea for the owner of a corporation, but a terrible idea for a politician. enriching insurance companies is not the answer to the complexities that are our health care crisis…

Insurance companies work on a 3% to 5% profit magin. Thats why they are regulated state to state. Health Savings accounts are not going to change the profit margins for insurance companies. Your comment is as rediculous, as it is unfounded. Hospitals, Docs, trial lawyers and our own govt are just as much, if not more to blame then insurance companies for the problems we face with health care. I am for savings accounts, and PPOs (well the new form of them). Lets not forget that HMOS and most systems of coverage were created by Doctors.

- Sock Puppet Express - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:47 pm:
This could a little delayed and off point, but it relates to ChopperJim’s newest mentor, Speaker Hastert.

It looks like the Daily Herald sent someone out from the circulation dept to check his subscription and they came away with a frothy interview and some “new media” video:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/print/?id=139531

The Speaker compares the Mark Foley coverup and losing the GOP majority to lineup changes in high school sports. Pretty good yucks if it was missed.

- Bruno - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 1:58 pm:
Carl,

HMOs make their profits by restricting care. Single Payer countries “spend less” than the US by rationing/restricting care.

The US spends more than the rest of the world because we have the both the freedom and the money to pay for the care that the market demands.

I would agree with you that we have “equity” issues, as well as waste & fraud in both the public & private bureaucracy. These can be addressed with out going to a single payer system.

RE: money in the HSA and babies…

HSAs are not the only arrow in the health care quiver. Obviously, there will be an insurance component, as is addressed in virtually every CDHC (Consumer Directed Health Care) proposal I’ve seen.

- RAI - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 2:36 pm:
Snidley whiplash
Class warfare is ugly, especially if you use incorrect facts to spread the lies. Jim Oberweis DID NOT inherit Oberweis Dairy or his investment business. Oberweis Dairy was owned by his brother until he had a stroke and Jim Oberweis bought it. The Dairy was going out of business when he took over, home delivery was said to be over and glass bottles were not cost effective. Jim Oberweis had to go to the Teamsters union and renegotiate their contract. He had to ask them to change their compensation system instead of hourly they were asked to get paid based on the amount of deliveries they made. The first time the vote was against him but he went back and pointed out that nobody makes money from a company that is out of business. The Teamsters now are some of the best paid drivers in the state some are making well over $60.000 (it is easy to check)

So not only are you wrong about his rich relatives giving him anything there are Farmers (who only sell to Oberweis and are paid top dollar for their milk and their kids get a scholarship yearly from the dairy to help with college), Drivers, store workers and people who now invest in a franchise’s who are helped because he took the risk to keep the company going.

I do not work for Oberweis this timebut I have in the past

- Trafficmatt - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 3:27 pm:
Princeville,

You bring up a good point about schools and work requiring proof of a doctor’s visit. Good point.

What I was specifically thinking about is a secretary at one of my old companies. Her husband had a job at a very large company that provided excellent benefits with a very low co-pay. She would take her children to the doctor about once a week for some cold or other malady. Even though it would probably be better to just go to Walgreens to pick up some cold medicine (yes, I know there are reports about how that is bad now), she would go to the doctor’s office because a) she was a worry-wart, and b) it was cheaper to go this route.

I like the idea of bringing in more personal responsibility into health care.

- Carl Nyberg - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 3:33 pm:
How much does Oberweis think MSAs will reduce health care costs?

- downhereforyears - Tuesday, Feb 26, 08 @ 5:06 pm:
I don’t necesarily agree with the notion of government funded health care coverage for all….but Oberweiss’ solution shows his arrogance and ignorance.

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