State-Run Health Care

Schwarzenegger Proposes Universal Health Coverage
California Plan Could Cost State $12 Billion
Where do you think this money is coming from? All the rich people, right? Not even close.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 8 -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Monday proposed a system of universal health insurance for Californians that would make the nation's most populous state the third to guarantee medical coverage for all its residents.

The only guarantee I see in this is higher taxes for every working stiff in the state, and a crappier health care system than the one we presently have.
If you think the lines are long in hospitals now, wait until this goes in to effect.

"Prices for health care and insurance are rising twice as fast as inflation, twice as fast as wages. That is a terrible drain on everyone, and it is a drain on our economy," Schwarzenegger said. "My solution is that everyone in California must have insurance. If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it, but you must be insured."

That isn't a solution, it is a bigger problem. Giving everyone health care insurance whether they pay for it, or I do, isn't solving anything. It is merely creating an environment conducive to more illegal immigration, and one in which I will begin looking into leaving this state. Sorry, but this state isn't the be all state. I refuse to pay for someone else's issues, I have my own.

Are Nurses Pushing State Run Health Care?

Read the whole thing, I merely inserted the statement below for my own reasons.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will veto a Senate bill establishing a state-run system to provide medical care to every resident. The CNA sponsored that bill, which is strongly opposed by the insurance industry.

Nice flip-flop. This is exactly why I did not vote for this Hollywood Shleprock.

New York Medicaid Fraud May Reach Into Billions

This is a prime example of what will happen when this state decides to add universal health care to its many socialist agendas.

It was created 40 years ago to provide health care for the poorest New Yorkers, offering a lifeline to those who could not afford to have a baby or a heart attack. But in the decades since, New York State's Medicaid program has also become a $44.5 billion target for the unscrupulous and the opportunistic.

Unscrupulous and opportunistic, eh? Sounds like politicians to me, but hey, I guess doctors and dentists can screw the state over just as easily.

It has drawn dentists like Dr. Dolly Rosen, who within 12 months somehow built the state's biggest Medicaid dental practice out of a Brooklyn storefront, where she claimed to have performed as many as 991 procedures a day in 2003. After The New York Times discovered her extraordinary billings through a computer analysis and questioned the state about them, Dr. Rosen and two associates were indicted on charges of stealing more than $1 million from the program.

Gov. seeks sweeping health system reforms

Didn't Hillary try proposing this crap on a national level?

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today proposed upending just about every portion of the healthcare industry in one of the country's most elaborate efforts at holding down medical costs and expanding insurance to those who don't have it.

Schwarzenegger's plan, which he publicly unveiled at noon, would require employers with 10 workers or more to buy insurance for their workers or pay a fee of 4% of their payroll into a program to help provide coverage for the uninsured.

Here's an idea! Let's have the employers that are still in the state pay for it! What a great way to add jobs! What a genius.

Schwarzenegger would tax doctors 2% of their gross revenue and place a 4% tax on hospitals. He campaigned for reelection on an anti-tax platform, but his administration argues that so many more people would have insurance that medical providers would make more money.

Wait! We can tax the doctors and hospitals that provide the services too! What a great idea! That will keep the doctors here in the state and get more hospitals to open up too!
How genius I am.

The governor also wants to ban insurers from refusing to offer coverage to some individuals because of their prior medical conditions. Insurers would also have to spend at least 85% of their premium revenues on patient care, a move that would limit the amount companies spend on administrative costs and profits.

Require them to cover everyone and they'll raise the rates on everyone that is already paying for their own insurance! Man this is going to be great!

The governor gives up on the market

Read this entire article, excellent piece.

His health-care plan would regulate, centralize, restrict choice and add taxes

Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan, which unbelievably promises to lower costs and increase coverage, is an exercise in Orwellian logic.

"Fixing health care requires changes from all of us," said Kim Belshe, the governor's Health and Human Services secretary. The key word is "requires," which is a concept anathema to the free market, but ever-present in government, which by nature restricts, rather than frees.

The governor's $12 billion plan would require every individual to have health insurance, whether he wants it or not, and every employer of 10 or more to provide it, or pay into a state insurance fund. After promising for months no new taxes to finance his scheme, Gov. Schwarzenegger revealed Monday what he really meant: a 4 percent payroll "fee" imposed on businesses with 10 or more employees who don't conform to the mandate to buy insurance, a 4 percent "fee" on hospital revenue and a 2 percent "fee" on doctors' income.

Does anyone really think that this is the way Americans want their health care? Does he really think I want to pay for everyone else's health care?
What doctor in their right mind would stay in this state knowing that the state will screw him out of more of his money?
What hospital would open in this environment?

I can envision a lot more hospitals closing their doors here because of this system.
The CNA will start wringing their hands when their nurses find out that this pipe dream of theirs causes them to lose jobs because the cost is prohibitive.

I think it is time for me to start looking for a job in another state.