GOP Senate Candidate Blunt Attacks Government Health Care -- Like Medicare And Medicaid
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the likely Republican nominee in this swing state's top-tier 2010 Senate race, made a very interesting statement about health care reform: Suggesting that government should never have gotten involved in health care through Medicare and Medicaid back in the 1960s -- and possibly blaming those programs for the problems we have today.
"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," Blunt said during a radio interview. "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."
"A government competitor would drive all the other competitors away," he explained. "What we should be doing is creating more competition. One of the reasons the marketplace doesn't work the way it should work right now is we really don't have the competitive marketplace that I'd like to see put in place."
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Yes Roy we don't have a competitive marketplace because a very few for-profit corporations have monopolized the market and they don't want competition.
Idiot.
July 10, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the point here is here we have Blunt who is a federal employee, which means his very own health care provider is the federal government, telling us that the federal government should never have gotten into the health care business. He's a total hypocrite. He gladly allows tax payers to pay for his health care but doesn't want the same applied to other people. Plain as day. No other argument around this one.
July 10, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why assume he is an idiot when the more logical conclusion is that he is a corrupt tool of large corporations which pay him (in various subtle ways) very well.
July 13, 2009 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's absolutely right. Just like the USPS drove UPS and FedEx out of business.
July 10, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe he would like to bring back "Whites Only" lunch counters, and bee-hive hairdos too.
July 10, 2009 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Medicare has been such and obvious failure. If people had just been left to comparison-shop when they have a heart attack we'd be much better off.
July 10, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
So everything was hunky-dory before Medicare? We had uninsured people before Medicare too. In fact, a lot of them were elderly. If the private market could have fixed the problem, it had all the existence of health insurance companies to do so, but it didn't and that's why Medicare and Medicaid were needed, and why we need a public option now. If the insurance companies can't find a way to stay in business afterwards, too bad. Actually, not bad at all. Good riddance.
July 10, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I wonder if Roy checked in with his Private Health Care insurers to see if they are down with insuring geriatrics.
July 11, 2009 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep talking, Roy. We'd love to pick up another Senate seat in Missouri.
July 10, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
Last time I checked, Missouri has live, breathing people that may have to go to the doctor once or twice, or may get sick at one time or another.
July 10, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dumb words for dumb people. It's the Republicans political bread and butter.
July 10, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
All insurance companies, as well as all financial institutions in general, are in business for one reason: to make as much money as possible. The "competition" they have among themselves is carefully choreographed so that the state of equilibrium they've created is undisturbed.
The threat of a public option would pose real competition that would likely force some companies to suffer great discomfort, and others to cease to exist.
But why is this a bad thing? Changing a sellers' market into a buyers' market creates a new equilibrium paradigm that will force the heretofore avarice-driven insurance companies to reexamine their mission statements.
What we're seeing has parallels to what happened in the housing/mortgage market (although the government didn't get involved until after the back had already been broken).
They did it to themselves.
July 10, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think they could probably be competitive. They are, after all, pulling down monopoly and oligopoly rents. Perhaps some of those operations need those kinds of rents to survive. But the historical standard ROI for a firm is 5%. Any profit more than that is a rent.
The logic or high rents impels these firms to consolidate until they I earning oligopoly rents. Public option means that consolidation won't work anymore.
Blue Cross won't necessarily go out of business. But they won't be earning monopoly rents either. All the fun of an otherwise boring business will be gone.
July 11, 2009 12:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think they could probably be competitive. They are, after all, pulling down monopoly and oligopoly rents. Perhaps some of those operations need those kinds of rents to survive. But the historical standard ROI for a firm is 5%. Any profit more than that is a rent.
The logic or high rents impels these firms to consolidate until they I earning oligopoly rents. Public option means that consolidation won't work anymore.
Blue Cross won't necessarily go out of business. But they won't be earning monopoly rents either. All the fun of an otherwise boring business will be gone.
July 11, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans are betting on a loser with this one.
July 10, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's hope he decides to blast Social Security next...
July 10, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
There go Roy's elderly voters. Expect a rash of photo ops with them when election time approaches.
July 11, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stupid remarks can still highjack the debate, and, as we are witnessing daily, opponents of universal health care will lay out just about any kind of bait as diversion. The focus of discussion, and Obama has begun to roll this out, need to be honestly assessing the transition costs to a world-class health care system. 82% of Americans favor universal health care, but getting there means making some beneficiaries of the current regime unhappy.
Secondly, transition in times of transition can have unintended consequences if the government is in a weakened state. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, small-time thugs emerged in Eastern Europe and the FSU states to run massive mafia empires. Oligarchs took over huge chunks of public assets. Tiny cigarette-smuggling operators learned the real money was in human trafficking and arms-dealing. The recent economic meltdown exposed more than widespread fraud in US financial markets, it revealed incompetence in every aspect of prudential supervision from the SEC to state insurance regulators. Thus, it is not enough for Obama to say he will keep the profiteers and scam-artists in check, the system must really operate fairly from day one to build confidence.
Remember, Roy Blunt has built his career not so much as an enabler as an enfeebler.It may well be that US institutions are already so enfeebled that we cannot provide the discipline needed to make the transition.
July 12, 2009 3:52 AM | Reply | Permalink