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CARROLL: Polis' rationing plan

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 1, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Jared Polis

Jared Polis

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If you're as rich as Jared Polis, you'll enjoy the world's best health care for the rest of your life no matter what happens to the system on which the rest of us rely. You can afford to roll the dice with a "national single payer health care system," which is what the Democratic candidate for the 2nd District congressional seat has announced he favors.

After all, you'll never experience the rationing of treatment that a single-payer regime inevitably entails.

Rationing? That's for people without a dot.com fortune. The superrich like Polis will simply bypass the insurance system, paying whatever it takes - here or anywhere in the world - for the best treatment money can buy.

Polis says his single-payer plan will involve (a) universal coverage and (b) the "same or better benefits" at (c) a lower cost for "95 percent" of families. He doesn't mention (d), the role of magic spells or incantations to bring this all to pass, but he should have.

"To date, other Western countries have been more successful in covering all citizens at a lower per capita cost, but they have done so only by limiting the availability of high-technology medicine." So writes former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm and co-author Robert Blank in their recent book, Condition Critical, A New Moral Vision for Health Care. And these guys are on Polis' side of the single-payer debate!

"Every single-payer health system has at its core some form of health-care rationing, including strict limits on expensive care, such as organ transplants, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, and long waiting lines for elective surgeries," Lamm and Blank honestly acknowledge.

Do you suppose Polis will ever wait in line for elective surgery or forgo a chemo visit that the government refuses to cover?

Me neither. But he doesn't mind if you do.

Rigging the rules

At least Clean Energy Action is honest about its desire to hike your utility bills. The activist group intends to ask Colorado voters for permission to impose a utility surcharge to raise yet more money for projects promoting renewable energy and efficiency.

Although the plan itself is deeply flawed (for reasons I'll get to at a later date), the tactic of using the ballot is commendable. Green activists and their legislative allies usually prefer an indirect approach: Impose regulatory mandates that hike the price of energy for most ratepayers and subsidize a few while ignoring or denying the price impacts.

Consider House Bill 1164, currently before the Colorado General Assembly and modestly described as "an act concerning the advancement of new solar energy technologies." How should we advance these new technologies? Apparently by rigging the rules so that other energy sources appear much more costly than they actually are.

The bill mandates that the Public Utilities Commission "shall . . . give full consideration to the likelihood of the new environmental regulation and the risk of higher future costs associated with the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide when it considers utility proposals to acquire resources."

It so happens that no one has any idea what sort of carbon legislation, if any, Congress will eventually pass. Will it involve an outright tax per ton of carbon emissions - and if so, how much? Or, if Congress adopts a "cap and trade" system, what will be the details? A system allowing companies to buy and trade carbon credits could grant utilities an allowance based on current emissions - or it could be far more unforgiving.

Under HB 1164, state regulators could defend any one of a host of plausible estimates, ranging from high to low, for the "higher future costs" for fossil fuels. They could stack the deck however they liked in order to make "new solar technologies" ostensibly competitive with existing options.

That's precisely the point of HB 1164, of course - and the reason its innocuous title is so misleading.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Comments

  • February 1, 2008

    7:06 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    harrimar writes:

    We deserve care that covers all of us, period. That is what we don't have now and what France, England and Canada have. The rationing we have currently is that in which non medical representatives of insurance companies decide which of us will be covered at all, and then for those procedures they deem fit, and that are fiscally responsible for their company- is that not a more absurd rationing system? Once again, remind me how our current system, which does not cover 47 million people is so successful? Yes, there are waits in Canada for ELECTIVE SURGERY, but here you may not get the essential care you need, because your coverage provider decides it is not in your policy.. I fail to understand why folk like Carroll are so intent on keeping the current system intact when it is a clearly inferior system that benefits only those with a lot of money, and overall costs us more, per person than those national health care plans.

  • February 1, 2008

    7:07 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    katall writes:

    We have rationing now. Those with money or decent jobs get decent health care. Those without, don't.

    Health care is a moral choice. Unlike other things, we cannot deny a person health care. Want to watch a TV on high-def, if you have the money, go ahead. I don't feel that bad, even in an "emergency", denying that. But, get someone in the hospital in need of urgent care and I do think there is an obligation to care for that person.

    Assuming that, somehow, society must pay for everyone's health care, we have to determine the best way to do it. Not one Republican has come up with a solution. They seem to think that making health care a personal responsibility is the way to go. It would work if there were consequences to not having health care insurance, i.e., no insurance, no care. But there isn't.

    Rather than attack Polis, Mr. Carroll, why don't you come up with an idea that will 1) cover everyone; 2) not ration; and 3) not bankrupt the system? Can't do it? Thought so.

  • February 1, 2008

    8:16 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    BrianSchwartz writes:

    Re. what is categorized under "elective surgery," see the short post "What Is ‘Elective’ Surgery?" by David Hogberg. here: www.tinyurl.com/3a9wto. It addresses how governments define it and how people do die when not receiving it.

    Also, the Commission rejected my free-market proposal, which addresses how government policies have caused the problems with insurance and health care. See WhoOwnsYou.org.

    I also recommend WeStandFirm.org.

  • February 1, 2008

    8:54 a.m.

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    Spencer writes:

    So now vince is demonizing a rich person? How dare he care about people without insurance when he is rich. Of course vince offers no solution to our healthcare issues. We pay more for less than anybody else. Maybe vince owns a lot of stock in insurance companies.

  • February 1, 2008

    9:16 a.m.

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    JB writes:

    I'm not going to get drawn into this debate...

    HOWEVER, Vince -- look how many times you reffer to Polis' money. You are snide in your remarks and insinuate that Polis being rich is bad...

    Jared Polis started a successful company at the right time, was a shrewd business man, and sold at the right time...just want any red-blooded capitalist would do. BUT -- you act like it's a bad thing.

  • February 1, 2008

    10:32 a.m.

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    Elwood writes:

    Maybe if the insurance companies didn't have to cover lifestyle enahncement prescriptions such as Viagra, or lasik eye procedures they could cover the essential ailments that every one needs.

  • February 1, 2008

    12:53 p.m.

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    jay writes:

    if only that was the reason for our subpar healthcare system elwood.

    if republicans like vince are unwilling to enact the will of the people in regards to healthcare, i'm sure the dems would be happy to oblige

  • February 1, 2008

    1:18 p.m.

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    Sheldon writes:

    "After all, you'll never experience the rationing of treatment that a single-payer regime inevitably entails."

    Well I already experience the rationing that our private free market health insurance system entails. I am educated, employed, and have no disposable income to purchase insurance. I already buy private insurance for my 4 year old child, and I make too much for CHP+, but I have no income left over to pay for my own insurance. And no, I don't drive a nice car and own a house I can't afford.

    I tell you, I am sick of this rhetoric that attacks the rich politicians like Polis, (or Edwards)for being rich, but who propose policies to benefit poor and working class Americans. While on the other hand it is taboo according to (right-wing) political incorrectness to attack the wealthy elite who obviously are not paying decent wages and providing health-care benefits to the people who make them rich.

    I will take the enlightened bourgousie like Polis or Edwards over the parasitic greedy robber barons that people like Carrol are apologists for.

  • February 1, 2008

    3:05 p.m.

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    peterpi writes:

    Vincent Carroll sits high in the pyramid of the Rocky Mountain News hierarchy. I'll bet his healtch care plan is way better than that of the people the Denver Newspaper Agency pays to clean the building. But that's not rationing, noooo.

  • February 2, 2008

    5:06 p.m.

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    pak writes:

    For a view of existing socialized healthcare systems simply look at Canada, EU and England. What do they all have in common? High taxes, rationed healthcare, foreigners for doctors,substandard care, rundown facilities and no money for new technology. No thanks.

    Regarding a subsidy for renewables the dirty secret is that they work only 33% of the time. 66% of the time there has to be switchable peaking power (ie. gas at a high cost) or cheap baseload coal. Every MW of renewables requires a MW of backup power!

    Why do you think the renewable industry is scrambling to find every subsidy possible... to make it more competitive with baseload coal. A national energy policy based on intermittent and expensive renewables is bad policy. Colorado needs 4000 MW of baseload power by 2025 and it should come from cheap Colorado coal.

  • February 4, 2008

    12:56 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    kathyM writes:

    Rationing requires a centralized, monopolistic control over a resource. The U.S. healthcare system does not ration because it is neither centrally controlled nor a monopoly.

    I believe healthcare coverage can be made more affordable if it were not tied to one's employer. In the years after WWII, when price controls governed pay scales, health insurance was a perk "allowed" as part of a compensation package.

    But those days are long gone. Insurance regs should be revised so individuals or non-employer groups can buy the SAME level of health insurance at the SAME rates as employer groups. Sure, the insurers will squawk, but in the end, the risk will be spread more broadly as people will have more options.

  • February 4, 2008

    9:39 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jay writes:

    "U.S. healthcare system does not ration"

    really?

  • February 4, 2008

    2:48 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    pak writes:

    Check the medicare reimbursements. They reimburse only 60 cents on the dollar. Otherwise known as rationing dollars. Under a single payer system, the rationing system is already in place!

  • February 4, 2008

    3:17 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    anderson writes:

    How disingenuous for Vincent Carroll, and some posters here to argue that govt's ration (i.e., restrict) healthcare, and (implicitly) private health care does not--and with that claim to cite specific things that insurance cos. often do not pay for at all like bone-marrow transplants. Has anyone looked at their health plan's policy lately or do we just take it on ideological faith that they would not restrict coverage, for say, medical necessity?

  • February 13, 2008

    10:41 a.m.

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    jestbill writes:

    The Republicans and other Right wingers would have us believe that the only medically necessary treatment is last ditch, emergency room treatment. Not so.

    Coverage for medical necessity is already restricted. Anyone who has to have a foot amputated because they didn't get early treatment for their diabetes has had "medically necessary" treatment restricted.