27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Summary of What's Wrong with Public Health Care, November 15, 2009
This review is from: Why Obama's Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster (Encounter Broadsides) (Paperback)
Excellent short book on all that's wrong with ObamaCare. Dr. Gratzer is a former Canadian psychiatrist who has had exposure to both Canadian and US health care systems. He provides evidence that many health outcomes are significantly better in the US on average. The major tenets of Obama's health care reform are provided and critiqued. The book also provides a much needed reminder of how we got into our current situation. In the 1940s, as a result of wage and price controls, employers started offering health insurance when they couldn't offer higher salaries. Then the IRS made insurance premiums paid by employers non-taxable. Gradually, most services became covered by employment based health plans, thus separating the cost of the service from the consumer. This could only lead to rising costs, leaving those without employer based coverage unable to afford care. It has been government intervention, not the free market, which has lead to many of our current problems. The book offers a useful quick summary to anyone concerned about the current health care reform.
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28 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is this just a fantasy, or not?, December 15, 2009
This review is from: Why Obama's Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster (Encounter Broadsides) (Paperback)
David Gratzer (and I) would like for you to imagine a world where "health-care reform" is a non-issue. It is a non-issue because the government and the insurance companies play almost no part in health care (AKA "going to see the doctor.") In this world, you go to see the doctor in exactly the same way as you go to see an automobile mechanic: he fixes the problem, and you pay him cash.
Well, welcome to Disneyland, you may be muttering. But it's not Disneyland. It's the country I grew up in, the United States of America in the 1950's --- and it's also the country I live in right now. Both of these "Fantasyland" countries had no tolerance at all for frivolous malpractice lawsuits, and jury awards which amounted to "another way of winning the lottery." You could NOT sue your doctor for $150 million without getting laughed out of court.
Well, the malpractice plague struck America, and soon doctors were paying anywhere from $30,000 to $250,000 a year for malpractice insurance. That is to say, it became clear that somebody had to pay those absurd $150 million claims. And perhaps worse, the whole industry succumbed to the "insurance model."
The only way I can think of --- to convince you of the inherent problems in the insurance model --- would be the true story of my Dad and a female acquaintance. This woman was chattering on about what her doctor had said a week ago, versus what her doctor had said two weeks ago, and made it clear that she did not let a month go by without dropping in to see her doctor. In an idle moment, she asked my Dad how often he went to the doctor, and he honestly replied that he hadn't seen a doctor in twenty years. (Dad was a veterinarian, so he knew quite a bit about practicing medicine.)
To put it briefly, people with good health insurance are shopping with a giant credit card they never have to pay off. Do YOU want to pay the "doctor bills" of some middle-class housewife who simply MUST see a doctor every month?
Put the "insurance model" together with the "malpractice crisis," and you get enormously expanded health costs. First, a lot of people are consuming way too much of something that is "free," and, second, doctors are terrified into providing "defensive medicine," and worse --- they are obligated to spend huge amounts of time practicing "defense documentation." (If that malpractice suit ever appears, by gum, they'll need all the documentation they can get.)
David Gratzer's extremely illuminating broadside brings all these ideas into the public debate, and I urge you to read it.
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9 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short but not sweet on Obama reform, December 9, 2009
This review is from: Why Obama's Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster (Encounter Broadsides) (Paperback)
Gratzer manages to fill this short booklet with presumably all necessary info on major chapters in Obama's 'reform package'. Though some will find Gratzer too scant he will appeal to those who need an overview in the debate on the issue, a majority will appreciate his book BECAUSE the book takes only twenty minutes to read..
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