Dr. Doofus

Howard Dean, M.D. That is what his campaign loves to play up, the fact that Howard Dean is a doctor. And it's obvious why. A doctor should know what to do about healthcare when problems arise.

Dean even goes so far as to tout his record as Governor at controlling out of pocket costs and keeping people insured. According to his campaign, he cites 96% of children have health insurance, and 90% of the total population have health coverage. The dirty lie is that it wasn't really a problem when he took over.

When Dr. Dean took over as Governor the number of uninsured was about 9.5%, and about 9.6% when he left office, but due to massive regulation that number nearly doubled during his term. Due to the legislature's passage of guaranteed issue and cost ratings on rates due to age and not health status, premiums rose and health insurers left the state in record numbers.

To combat the problem he initiated massive price controls on insurance companies, set control on budgets of hospitals, and form a massive new government agency to do it all.

Again, it had the reverse effect, costs rose, profit margins fell, and insurance companies lost money had over fist, prompting more and more companies to flee the state.

His idea was simple, expand Medicaid, the medical assistance company for the poor. (Whereas Medicare is medical care for the elderly). To do this all he took bags full of money from the federal government. He doubled the rolls of Medicaid to about 20% of the population. This did indeed bring down the number of uninsured to the exact numbers that existed before any government regulation. But instead of free market prices, high costs lead to the programs costing more than if they were freely available though a free enterprise market.

Furthermore, the whole mess was paid for partly with huge tax increases, but mostly through federal subsidies. This in effect lead to non Vermont residences paying the bill for the healthcare of Vermonters.

He has the same plans for The United States if he is elected. Though he won't have a larger cash stream (the Federal Government) to pay for his ideas. He will be the Federal Government.

Though this may indeed increase the number of those who have insurance, it will far be outweighed by the huge tax increases and regulation that will be needed.

It will also serve to make the healthcare industry less profitable leading to less innovation, research, and fewer jobs.

Again, I ask. Do you see any similarities between these two fools?

Posted by psugrad98 at January 7, 2004 02:50 PM