| All good points you make... and I was aware of them even as I made the blanket statements... I just still argue that they are ameliorating factors, not the predominant ones..
although you are exceptionally correct especially when it comes to being able to save a hell of a lotof money were an individual or family trying to live nowadays as myparents did. ( still bumble around in the dark at night rather than turn on a light as I go from room to room---I'm sure my electric bill is half the average on the block! I still chck my gas mileage every time I fill up and try to out-do the previous score by driving easily and coasting up to lights... my brakes last twice as long becaus Im a smooth, aware, tactical, forward-looking driver. a little "post-depression mentality" in more of us and we wouldnt need global warming theocrats like Al Gore)
As far as the doctor housecalls, the point I was trying to make was that a direct payer system is far more efficient and provides better care at an affordable price.
And yes... I'm old, to be sure, but please don't lump me into the "being kept alive with modern technology and drugs" category at age 46 just yet!
Muchof our healthcare probs began with Nixon. The unions were very united and were able to threaten strikes and slowdowns and stoppage of goods etc in the early 70s---and demanded and were getting wages triple what the average worker was.
Nixon, seeing the unfairness and the inflationary potential (not to mention probably attempting to head-off further expansion of unionism) decided to compromise with the unions by changing tax policy instead of encouraging higher wages
Health benefits were traditionally taxed as part of overall income at their monetary value if purchased independently.
He removed this, effectively granting the unions their net income increase without inciting dissatisfaction in the workforce at large who avoided seeing their unionized neighbors' hourly rate skyrocket further with which they already had issues.
From then on, (for a long time, anyway) it became obligatory for all employers to provide healthcare benefits as part of income.
This increased healthcare costs in all the familiar ways:
administrative inefficiency
redundancy
simple human nature of abusing a system when its readily available and cost is paid by someone else
entitlement mentality since it is considered part of "earned income" for their labor
hospitals overcharging because costs are dissipated and individual payers dont notice increases
Gradually after this time, there was an increase in immigration combined with "mandatory treatment" laws which further permitted hospitals to inflate costs in efforts to absorb unpaid bills
Add to the mix increased letigiousness and the tendency for doctors to order increasingly available expensive tests from new technologies in order to cover themselves against liability and the vicious cycle of increased malpractice insurance being factored into the fees for treatment in general--and on and on...
Back to the country doctor:
A single payer system prevents greed on the part of the dr and medical establishment and provides better care at a reasonable price.
Ohhh.. as for the premise of your book...
The overriding reason people feel unhappy and on the brink of economic , societal and environmental woe despite gains in all these areas is the "henny penny the sky is falling" mantra of Gore-ites and other International Socialists who can only secure their power through spreading doom and gloom through collusion with their willing psycophantic partners in the newsmedia |