Roy Blunt Wishes There Were No Medicare
It’s often frustrating to argue with conservatives who won’t admit that the logic of their position is that popular, uncontroversial, and long-established government programs never should have been created. So House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) did us all a favor yesterday by going on the radio and opining that we never should have started Medicare and Medicaid:
HOST MIKE FERGUSON: What is the proper role of government, and what are the potential impacts of the direction that we’re going right now?
BLUNT: Well, you could certainly argue that government should have never have gotten in the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all, to figure out how people could have had more access to a competitive marketplace.
Government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare, and later with Medicaid, and government already distorts the marketplace.
For the record, Medicare and Medicaid were passed at the exact same, both as part of the Social Security Act of 1965. And it’s crucial to understand that Medicare, in particular, didn’t just come about because of some random bleeding heart impulse. The reason there was political muscle to get Medicare passed even though it wasn’t possible to move to a true universal system is that private health insurers wanted nothing to do with the senior citizen client base. Insurance takes advantage of risk-pooling and risk-aversion to offer people security at a price that’s both profitable and attractive. When the whole pool is bad risks, as senior citizens are, there’s no real business opportunity.
32 Responses to “Roy Blunt Wishes There Were No Medicare”
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July 10th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
But keep in mind that prices were so much lower then for seniors- much less than the average senior pays today for supplemental insurance coverage for what Medicare doesn’t cover!
Prices for everything were raised once the government would pay for it. That’s where we get the healthcare inflation we see today.
Seniors would in fact have been better off if Medicare had not come into play. A doctor’s visit in the ’60s cost less than $5 total.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
You forgot the part about how Blunt is chairman of the GOP congressional Health Care Solutions Group.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Medicine was a lot less expensive during the 60s because the level of medical technology was so much lower.
Medicare did spur a lot of investment in medical research geared toward seniors, driving up costs, but that’s a good thing. Life expectancies and quality of life have improved greatly.
There’s no way to have a functional private insurance marketplace for a high risk, high cost group like seniors unless your idea of a functional marketplace is simply to let poor seniors die.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Hillary had a very good moment during the primaries, when she flat-out accused Republicans of opposing the existence of Social Security.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Libertarian Girl Says:
July 10th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Seniors would in fact have been better off if Medicare had not come into play. A doctor’s visit in the ’60s cost less than $5 total.
And to take the ferry cost a nickel! Now in those days, nickels had pictures of bumble bees on em…
July 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Matt, you are getting sloppy. 1) It is logically possible to argue that government should cover health costs for the elderly and poor, but go no further. 2) There’s nothing inherent about a pool of unhealthy people that destroys the insurance business model. Some unhealthy people in the pool end up being super expensive and others just mildly expensive. The rates are set so that the company extracts more than it pays out on net, even though some super unhealthy people “make money”, while the less unhealthy people “lose money”.
I think the point is that old people are very expensive to care for, and they don’t have enough money to pay for what it would actually cost if they were pooled together.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Prices were lower then for everyone. My dad tells me that it cost about $100 for my birth. That included a total anestesia for my mom (the way they did things back in 1967) and three day stay in the hospital. Fast forward to my daughter’s birth, which was natural using a midwife in a hospital and a single night stay…$4500. Alot less medical care for a whole lot more. Now explain to me how the cost of maternity care has gone up because the govt pays for it?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Seniors would in fact have been better off if Medicare had not come into play. A doctor’s visit in the ’60s cost less than $5 total.
They’d be better off… in that big, white doctor’s waiting room in the sky.
My folks bought a house for $45k in ‘73. Last I looked at the comps, it’s going for $600k. Does inflation not exist in libertarian economics?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Why waste limited blog space on the inane ramblings of morons like Roy Blunt?
Are we trying to be bi-partisan?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Now explain to me how the cost of maternity care has gone up because the govt pays for it?
Because shut up that’s why!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
How exactly is government coverage of two populations who were routinely denied health insurance coverage because they tended to be both sicker than average, and (people always forget this point) poorer than average (and thus unable to afford most premium rates) interfering with the market?
If anything, Medicare/Medicaid were clear examples of government responding to a market failure – people needed health care, but the private market wasn’t going to give it to them because it was too big a risk.
Ironically, if you actually study the history of private health care in the U.S (say, in Hacker’s Divided Welfare State), you’d learn that virtually no one had employer-based health care until the IRS gave it tax-free status and until the War Labor Board made it a required element of collective bargaining during an era of wage freezes.
So private health care as we have ever known it inherently relied on government subsidies and mandates.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
“Prices for everything were raised once the government would pay for it.”
Okay, so the government pays less for a procedure than private insurance does. But the government is driving prices up, and the private insurers are the ones holding the line on costs by paying more? That makes no sense. The private insurers are actually the ones with the incentive to drive costs up. What an insurance company does is move money through the health care system and take a cut along the way. The more money that goes through the system, the bigger their cut. Given that the insured are essentially captive consumers, they can raise premiums by whatever amount needed to still make money. Medicare does not have that advantage. They get a fixed percentage of income regardless of price increases. They have an incentive to pay less, and they do.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
You hear Blunt say this kind of thing and then you think of Bush and Kennedy and the Prescription Drug Benefit they added to Medicare, which was popular whatever its flaws. Either Republicans must have raging cognitive dissonance or one wonders how they keep track of the lies.
“Seniors would in fact have been better off if Medicare had not come into play. A doctor’s visit in the ’60s cost less than $5 total.”
And to take the ferry cost a nickel! Now in those days, nickels had pictures of bumble bees on em…
And mustachioed men would engage in bare-knuckle boxing! Back then doctors didn’t know anything. I think of the poor doctor on Deadwood who would always have to amputate people’s legs or offer them whiskey to help with the pain.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
In Sarah Palin’s closing remarks in the VP debate, she quoted Reagan, something about how government was slowly growing to the point where someday we’d have to tell our children what it meant to be free. Sounds like a good turn of phrase until you learn he said it in the 1960s, about Medicare. Ca-rayzy guy.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I think of the poor doctor on Deadwood who would always have to amputate people’s legs or offer them whiskey to help with the pain.
They used to have something called laudanum, which was basically morphine dissolved in brandy (IIRC).
I’m sure oxycontin is more expensive than laudanum. But it might perhaps be a *little* less prone to abuse. (Although, ironically, one of the free market’s innovative attempts to improve on morphine produced… heroin. I am not making this up. In all fairness, it did turn out to be a product that some people really wanted.)
July 10th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
”
And to take the ferry cost a nickel! Now in those days, nickels had pictures of bumble bees on em…”
Ahh, yes, Bumblebees/Hamilton ‘04. Those were the days.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
“one of the free market’s innovative attempts to improve on morphine produced… heroin. I am not making this up”
No you aren’t. Heroin was prescribed for headaches. I bet it worked well. But I’m guessing a lot of people seemed to have headaches every day. Heroin is the perfect product. It works really well and leads to addiction. Plus the withdrawal is painful, requiring the use of a painkiller like heroin. It’s the kind of product which guarantees repeat customers.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
It really amazes me that some people regularly convince themselves that everything was fine before programs like Medicare just sprang up for no reason, only after which point those programs caused the very problems they were designed to address. Even if you are generally skeptical about the efficacy of government, that sort of story really doesn’t make sense.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
The best system would be one system. It would split health care into:
1) Medical services that consumers can shop
2) Those that they can’t
For 2, the govt would provide everyone with Catastrophic/ Not Capable of being shopped health care, and paid by taxes. The savings would come from the govt having the resources to drive down prices.
For 1, a deductible based on income. The deductible would apply to a list of procedures and drugs that can be easily compared and shopped by consumers. Private insurance would have to accommodate its plans to these ground-rules. I don’t even care if the govt itself competed.
This plan would cover everyone, be based on income, and use the market in an effective manner, which is the best way to lower costs.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Erm, yes? How does inflation exist without governments creating a monopoly in money and printing the hell out of it?
Who are these people.? It regularly amazes me how you make up shit to suit your own interest.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
If you don’t know you really don’t have any business talking about economics. Seriously.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Re: But keep in mind that prices were so much lower then for seniors- much less than the average senior pays today for supplemental insurance coverage for what Medicare doesn’t cover!
But also keep in mind that there are plnety of healthcare tests, procedures and drugs that didn’t exist in 1965. If the only healthcare we had was what was available back in 1965, then yes, we would still be paying 1965 levels (relative to general inflation that is).
Re: virtually no one had employer-based health care until the IRS gave it tax-free status and until the War Labor Board made it a required element of collective bargaining during an era of wage freezes.
True, but back then many people bought individual policies which were a lot easier to purchase because A) as per the above, healthcare was a lot more limited and therefore less expensive so insurance was a lot cheaper and B) insurance companies almost universally practiced community rating so that older or sicker people were not priced out of the market.
Re: How does inflation exist without governments creating a monopoly in money and printing the hell out of it?
Governments have been in control of the money supply since King Kroisos minted his first drachma. I realize there’s some nostalgia for the 19th century among libertarians, but I didn’t know they are secretly hankering for a return to the age of Homer and Elijah.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Hey LibertariCons….bet you would love the alternative universe where Medicare is gone, and you would have to drop 400k to save one of your elderly parent’s lives. Or watch your inheritance go “poof” when your parents have to save grandma. Ah, the free market for nontradeable goods….so nice.
Oh, sure, your parents would save a fraction of that by not having to pay in over the years up to the date services were needed, but hey, it would feel GREAT to not be a ward of the state!!!!! Who cares if you lose money when you get to claim victory?
July 10th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
JonF:
Not really. Health insurance rates pre-1945 were really low – most people went uninsured, in part because the availability of quality health care was pretty low.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Both my Mom and my Dad would either be dead by now or living under a trestle if it weren’t for Medicare. Dead is more likely, considering their advanced ages -undertrestle living is for the young.
So, extrapolating, Roy Blunt wants to kill my Mom and Dad. What an asshole.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I like the fact that the Republican grassroots activists, if their response here is any indication of their feelings, is 100 percent behind the Blunt idea. It will make it easier to wipe the GOP out of its last stronghold, Dixie. Finally, we will have a principled, conservative party, based on aggression and small government, and it will have one representative, probably from Texas. n
Keep up the work. If the Democrats do not make use of Blunt’s threat to end Medicare and Medicaid in every commercial they put out in 2010, they will have only themselves to blame.
Watching republicans shoot themselves in the head is good fun, and healthy, too.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Re: Health insurance rates pre-1945 were really low – most people went uninsured, in part because the availability of quality health care was pretty low.
I believe I mentioned the fact that healthcare was pretty limited in what it could do back then. So most policies were either accident policies or hospitalization policies. Comprehensive policies were very rare (though occasionally found among benevolent societies like the Elks). Paying out of pocket for doctor visits was not difficult for all but the truly impoverished. And prescription drugs, of which rather few existed (mainly basic antibiotics and painkillers), were also not particularly costly.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
He’s pretty good on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, though.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
“I believe I mentioned the fact that healthcare was pretty limited in what it could do back then.”
Healthcare was only slightly beyond the Dark Ages back then. What they did back then was truly appalling. Granted, twenty years from now, I’m sure I’ll be shocked at the medical products I’ve designed. But in my lifetime, things have become much more advanced. When I was seven, I broke my C-4 vertebra and my skull. X-rays were still not used regularly back then, so I didn’t get one. My neck never got set because nobody knew it was broken. As a result, I am permanently deformed. And nobody will give me insurance because I have a ten year old X-ray that was admitted into court in a car accident case. A brief scan of court records is enough to make any insurance company run away from me. And they do. I don’t blame them, that X-ray is really scary.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
So I just had this vision of the all powerful Uninsurable Man, a superhero who can make mighty Insurance Companies cower in fear. Sadly, Uninsurable Man is no match for a band of Corporate Lawyers who can isolate him to the Land of Paying Three Times as Much. But wait! Maybe Big Government can help. Unfortunately, he’s a drunken fat guy whose only skill is to pass out and puke on your shoes. Our only hope is to take him to Maxwell House to have him re-caffeinated. Will it work? Find out in the next episode of Uninsurable Man!
July 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
The point is not that Blunt thinks government should do this or that, it’s that Blunt is a federal employee who enjoys the finest health care this nation has to offer, all paid in full by tax payer dollars. How can he possibly say government should never have gotten into the health care business? His entire personal history is one of socialized employment and health care. If he’s so against government health benefits he can write his medicare/medicaid checks to me every month.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
To be fair, some people (like me) just think Medicare was poorly designed. Incentives should have been in place so that a fraction of money that a person does not use toward health care costs could go to his or her social security (or health savings) accounts. This doesn’t require a quota for people who need to use the money for health care, but it would encourage people who don’t need the money for health care not to waste it. It would separate the really sick from the people who think that having someone pay for certain medical expenses is better than never having access to that money at all. It would also cause people to constantly ask their doctors: “Do I really need this test? Why?”