Question for my conservative friends about a national health system

[bobhawg]

I assume most conservatives oppose any type of national health program on general principles and understand that viewpoint.

However, in light of the "aging" of America I see a problem of large size down the road. Specifically as American companies convert to the new reality of most production facilities now being abroad and our companies maturing, the world is changing.

For instance Kodak, a great old American company is downsizing as the camera and film are now obsolete and as a result 52,000 retirees have just lost their medical benefits from Kodak.

So,the question is: as America "matures" and companies grow old and the number of old people greatly increases, how do we provide generally for the population to have medical treatment and how do we pay for it? Soon,they say, we will have like 100 million Americans 70+ in age and if they do not have employer provided insurance, what to they and we do? How can we provide medical services to a large aging population as well as the younger ones?

It is easy to say let them provide it themselves, but the basic reality is our wages in the US are slipping compared to the rest of the world and we no longer have a highly paid production type economy. And the cost of medical treatment is going up at a fast rate.

One approach to the problem I believe in fact is as national health service but I do not think Americans in general are ready for that and if not, then, what do we do to provide needed services for those who really cannot afford it?

I think in the next 15 years or so this will be a gigantic problem.

 

[PeteJC]

As a conservative, I am not opposed to healthcare reform. There are many positive aspects to what was passed in Obama's first term. However I do wish that the plan was not built upon tactics that will harm providers, medical device manufacturers and insurance companies and force our health care system towards a single government payer type of environment. There are also not enough regulations that actually help to control costs other than price fixing and the limitation of services. I believe our goal should be to take the best of the socialist models in other countries and principles of competition and capitalism and create a much better system than we have set up today and better than what other countries have.

Those eligible for Medicare have a gov run system. I believe we can do better for them and for the rest of us.

 

[bobhawg]

I concur and I do think the main problem with Obama's first effort was it was too much too soon and should have been separated into attacking the things you mentioned one at a time.

Maybe both parties can get together and do just that, fix things. But first, the extreme sides must close the gap.