From: lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov (Dr. Norman J. LaFave)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Sick to death
Date: 4 Sep 1992 14:20:19 GMT
Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co.

In article <1992Sep3.235658.21773@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
> 
> In article <1992Sep3.210155.5765@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov (Dr. Norman J. LaFave) writes:
> >As a scientist, I am particularly bothered by this kind of arguement because
> >it amounts to one huge speculation. During the depression Roosevelt admitted
> >that he had doubts about many of the programs he started to help the
> >situation. However, he felt that the only way to decide whether they would
> >work was to try them out. That is what I call proof by experiment.
> 
> As a scientist, I know that some experiments aren't going to tell me
> anything useful, while others may.  As a good scientist, I pick my
> experiments appropriately.

As a scientist, you should also know that there is a large amount of trial
and error, tweaking and false-starts in any complex experiment, no matter
how carefully you designed the original experiment.

> 
> >Example: A national health care plan will be a failure because of the
> >government bureaucracy.
> >
> >a.) How will it be any worse than the huge, uncoordinated bureacracy we have
> >already?  A bureaucracy being run by greed and corruption.
> 
> Wowsers!  Things can't get worse!  Wrong - they can get worse.

So what is your point. They can also get better. Are you willing to say
that things will definitely get better under that simple-minded (brain-dead)
program that Bush proposed in his state of the union address? That program
treats the symptoms (temporarily), but completely ignores the disease.

> >Despite statements to the contrary, there is little market competition in
> >health care.
> 
> Fine.  If one thinks competition would help, then advocating LESS competition
> is a strange move.

Again, not all systems are amenable to the free-market system (electricity,
sewer, water, fire, police,....). Health care is an example of this. If
police protection was run free-market, only the rich would have police
protection. Many cities would become war zones. Just as all Americans recieve
some form of police protection, all Americans deserve basic medical coverage.
We can pay for it now, or pay MUCH more later.

> 
> >Insurance companies charge outrageous premiums for malpractice insurance
> 
> If a moral person really believes that said insurance companies are
> either wasteful or making too much money, said moral has an OBLIGATION
> to start a malpractice insurance company that does things right and
> charges less.  Not only will said moral person get rich (allowing
> other good deeds), but health care costs will go down AND the evil
> insurance companies will be driven out of biz.
> 
> Either there aren't any moral people who believe that the insurance
> companies are "wrong" OR "moral" people aren't willing to risk their
> money on their beliefs.

OR it is so hard to get certification to start an insurance company (a
system built by the large insurance companies to keep out people like
you describe), it is not worth it.

> 
> >while ambulance-chasing lawyers bring ridiculous charges of
> >malpractice to our already over-burdened legal system. How much is this
> >costing us?
> 
> Everyone who's willing to give up/limit their right to sue an MD,
> raise your hand.  What?  No one wants to?  Oops.

Who said anything about giving up one's right to sue? I sure didn't.
How about limitations on awards for various types of suits?
How about the losing lawyer paying all court fees to keep flimsy cases out
of our already-overburdened legal system.

This issue is not as black-and-white as you suggest. Using some imagination,
there are many things we could do to bring down the malpractice premiums to
reasonable levels.

> 
> >Our high infant mortality rate is an attrocity. Studies have shown the
> >major cause of this to be due to low birth weight. Most doctors I have
> >talked to say that this could be circumvented by access to prenatal
> >care for all women.
> 
> An interesting experiment has been tried - access barriers (like cost)
> to pre-natal care were removed.  Surprising result - infant mortality
> rates didn't change much.  Explanation - the relevant population
> didn't want the care.  What should we try next?  Forcing them to go?
> Bribing them?  Both?

Reference please. Details please. Time period of the experiment please. This
is not at all convincing.

> 
> >Why not choose a state and try NHC out, fine tune it over a few years, expand
> >it to a whole region, fine tune it again, get the Canadians to consult.
> >Let's start it up and see why it don't run.
> 
> Go for it - that doesn't require the federal govt (and is being done).
> BTW - If it works in a given state, why expand it?  Why not just
> DUPLICATE it in other states.  Less overhead that way and further
> experiments can be tried.

Wow, you just described the Canadian system. It is the provinces which
administer the care. All the federal government does is coordinate care and
dole out the funds. Billing, records, etc are all handled on the province
and county level.

> 
> >Do we really want police protection to be free-market? If this happened,
> >rich areas would be heavily policed and poor areas would become war zones.
> 
> Interestingly enough, that's already happened, but there's one
> additional factor.  The folks in the rich areas control the police in
> the poor ones.  Said police are more interested in keeping the poor
> out of the rich areas than in doing much else.  If the people in the
> poor areas controlled their police, they wouldn't do that.

I agree. So what is your point?
> 
> However, money has strings, so as long as we insist on giving the
> appearance that police for poor areas are paid for by people in rich
> areas, people in poor areas won't control their police.  Since there
> actually isn't much cross-subsidy, perhaps we should abandon the
> illusion and give them that control.
> 
> >Dr. Norman J. LaFave
> >
> >Dr. Norman J. LaFave
> 
> Not only MUST he give his title, but he MUST give it twice.
> 
> Lockheed sure has strange policies.

This is a computer glitch in my mail system and I have already stated my companies
policies on my signature file on more than one occasion.

> 
> -andy
> 
> 
> 
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> 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton