Sen Warner's unhelpful answers

I mentioned in the previous post that Sen Warner's office did respond to my email regarding his positions on the medical goods and services industries.

His office sent a canned response with a letter attached. The letter was from Sen Warner and eight other senators to Sen Baucus.

Let's look at the email first:

"I share your concerns about the need for comprehensive health care reform, especially during this challenging economic time. "

Somehow I doubt that my concerns with federally designed 'comprehensive health care reform' are quite the same as his. My concern is that they get away with it. The market for medical goods and services, particularly the health insurance market could use some reform, but the stuff the Democrats are trying to impose will not fix what's broke but will inevitably make what works even more broke. It seems like they want to pour cement into an engine block to fix a leaking tailpipe.

Heritage and Cato, among others, have made actual common-sense proposals that will improve the delivery of medical goods and services and does have a reasonable chance of controlling costs while maintaining consumer freedom.

"Although I do not support a government-run single-payer health care system, I believe we need comprehensive reform to achieve a competitive, cost-effective, and efficient system. This effort should be primarily focused on ensuring that all Americans can get adequate health coverage, and the coverage must be cost-effective and based upon data-driven medical standards. We must ensure that competition remains among health care providers because it is precisely that competition that drives innovation and cost reduction in the industry. Any final reform should also include measures to promote prevention and wellness, senior navigation through the health system, health information technology ("health IT") and telemedicine."

Let's see, Since the federal government is moving out on the 'comprehensive reform;' someone, presumably the federal government will establish the 'data-driven medical standards;' and enforce 'measures to promote prevention and wellness etc.;' Sen Warner is OK with the 'government-run' part. He appears to be open on the means by which the federal government forces 300M Americans to pay for all of the new bureaucrats who will be needed to suck the remaining life out of our medical industry.

"As evidence that there is room to compromise, several alternatives are being discussed ranging from non-profit regional co-operatives to a delayed public option."

Ah, there is room to compromise between the blatantly Socialist and the merely Statist positions: should the central government run the medical industry out-right or should it merely direct how it is run by its corporate donors? Where are the Republican alternatives? Never left the committee rooms. Sorta reminds me of the alternatives given to the Melians by the Athenians: surrender and die as slaves or just die now. When Obama and Pelosi gloated, "We won" back in January, they echoed the Athenian 'negotiators,' "The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they must accept."

"I also believe that a central focus of this effort should be cost containment. I recently led an effort by freshman Senators in which we expressed our concerns to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus about the importance of ensuring that we find ways to pay for health care reforms. I am attaching a copy of that letter in this mailing. "

And Chairman Baucus listened. His final submission trims almost 10% from the House version. So, instead of underestimating the costs with a nearly $1,000B bill, his proposal underestimates a nearly $900B bill. I'm thinking if we are already over $1,700B in debt, we can't afford $900B any more than we can $1,000B. If that's his idea of 'cost containment,' he needs to find himself another job as soon as possible, I don't want him applying that theory of 'cost containment' to the federal budget and the US economy. Let him apply it to his own private business in Virginia and see how long it lasts.

Sen Warner's unanswered questions

I took the opportunity to attend Sen Warner's town hall in Fredericksburg the other night. We were not picked to ask questions, so I emailed the questions I would have liked to ask to his office.

I received a canned email response a little over a week later. Here are the questions left unanswered by his reply:

1. Your web site and Pres Obama promise that the Democrat plans to nationalize medical services will
- insure more people
- provide better service
- reduce costs

I know of only one Person Who ever distributed more than He had collected and ended up with a surplus - when Christ fed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes.

Neither you nor Barack Obama are Him. So, how do you really intend to finance this? Either you are being disengenous about the cost, in which case higher taxes AND higher deficits are likely; or about the services, in which case shortages, degraded care and government decisions regarding who gets what care are inevitable.

I anticipate all of the above.

2. The federal government is already involved in providing somewhere around 60% of medical services in this country via MediCare, Medicaid, Military and Veterans health care and government employees health insurance. Your statistics indicate that the current system is unsustainable. So, if the current, mostly government, system is unsustainable, why don't you think that MORE government will result in LESS sustainability? Why won't the Democrats even consider consumer-based solutions?

3. You said, "We need to control compensation." Given that you are a US Senator, I assume that by "we" you mean the US Government. Control of a producer's compensation is effectively control of his production. Do you really favor government control of the production of medical goods and services?

4. You rightly point out that our current medical insurance system is unsustainable.
Our automobile insurance system is fine.
Our Life insurance system is fine.
Our property insurance system is fine.
Our federally managed flood insurance system is broken.

Why do you prefer to reinforce proven failure by favoring federally [sic] management rather than emulating the successes of those insurance markets that do work?

5. A school teacher asked you to cite the article and section of the US Constitution that empowers you to do this. You admitted, "there is no place in the Constitution that specifically says health care.” While I admire your honesty, I do question how you can so brazenly proceed to act beyond your constitutional authority.