“A Texas nurse said she lost her coverage, after she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, for failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for acne.

The sister of an Illinois man who died of lymphoma said his policy was rescinded for the failure to report a possible aneurysm and gallstones that his physician noted in his chart but did not discuss with him.

The committee’s investigation found that WellPoint’s Blue Cross targeted individuals with more than 1,400 conditions, including breast cancer, lymphoma, pregnancy and high blood pressure. And the committee obtained documents that showed Blue Cross supervisors praised employees in performance reviews for rescinding policies.

One employee, for instance, received a perfect 5 for “exceptional performance” on an evaluation that noted the employee’s role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.”

But it’s not a question of no government interference. A business might decided to defraud, for example, and nobody objects to the principle of government “coercing” a business to “make certain decisions” to avoid such behavior. The question is how much or little government interference, and in what respects and areas, is warranted. You want a “free” market with no government interference, head to the Third World… but caveat emptor!

Those incentives are ‘perverse’ if the goal is to ensure good health care for the broadest possible number.

Yes, I understand the viewpoint the author is expressing. That was point. That doesn’t change the fact that the article as it was written is absolutely calling private health insurance as a practice “perverse” – in fact, it exemplifies it. The goal of private insurance is not to provide healthcare to everyone – it is to pool resources so that risk can be spread and reduced, just like any type of insurance. Since that goal was, in the determination of the author, perverse, the private healthcare system that is based upon the goal is perverse. Remember, you insisted that, contrary to my claim, the article was not calling private insurance “perverse”. Now you are making exactly the opposite argument. I’m glad to see we’re on the same page now.

No market is a free market in that sense. Food safety laws, just as an example?

You are correct – American markets are far from free in any conceivable sense.

Um, yes. Since the “US system” the author is referring to in the context of his comments is the private health insurance industry in which insurance agencies decide who to cover and who not to cover based on risk without the interference of government, the meaning is exactly the same.

Those incentives are ‘perverse’ if the goal is to ensure good health care for the broadest possible number. Mickey G states, “Maybe it makes sense to pay for your own health care!” – except that when health fails disastrously, it can cost more than the vast majority of people can afford. Pooling risk makes a lot of sense in that respect.

A market where the government coerces private business to make certain decisions by force of law can’t properly be called a private market, and certainly not a free market. Since your formal background is, apparently, in linking to blogs about about atheism and natural science, perhaps you’re unclear on the precise meaning of those terms?

No market is a free market in that sense. Food safety laws, just as an example?

It may also be a charge leveled at other parts of health care as well, but that does not refute the fact that such language is almost always used to indict “big insurance” who are greedily making money off of peoples’ sickness.

Sounds similar to what someone else said, therefore it must be exactly the same? Right. By that standard, the people who denounce abortion in the strongest possible terms actually would be as guilty as Scott Roeder appears to be of killing George Tiller. (They’re not, BTW.)

Let’s try to address what’s actually written, okay?

In addition, an inefficient system does not implicitly suggest the broken window fallacy.

The point of the parable of the broken window is that just because the money is moving, it isn’t necessarily a net productive effect in an economy. If health care were overpriced, then even though the money that went into health care got spent, it wouldn’t necessarily be a net economic benefit. That’s why I explicitly compared it to auto industry bailouts – not a net economic benefit, even if it helps some areas in some ways.

Now it wants to rush in and “solve” the problem when there is absolutely no indication or history that suggests that it can be successful.

That’s why the Netherlands is an interesting case. What if it were such an indication?

There are some mechanical issues to consider, even if you can find a single payer system that actually works anywhere in the world. What you ask? Hmmm, lets start with the thought that models that are 10% of the size of a problem may or may not be reliable predictors of how the process will work. For example, Canada has about 10% the population of the USA and a less accessible border for people to walk across. Would the Canadian model scale up an order of magnitude? I suspect not since it is choking already. Most of the other systems in the world have the same issues coupled with the size scale up issue.

Maybe it makes sense to pay for your own health care!

No one proposing plans in the US has offered a substantial plan which overcomes the issues of scale and open access to needed treatment. Can’t wait to see medical care with the service level of DMVs nationwide. What country will we be able to go to when seeking to pay for good care?

This will create a state health care Czar and an entirely new department in a state that is going broke already. Liberals are concerned only with their ideology. Of course, we know that it is “idiotology.” We will try to fight this but Oregon seems to be a lost cause and will follow California into liberal oblivion.

They learned nothing from the failure of the Oregon Health Plan. But, liberals never learn anything from failure of their programs. It’s not about success or failure, but about the “cause”.

Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.

I apologize for my redundant use of the word “system” and for a poorly worded sentence. A government regulated system is by definition not free enterprise. I meant to say that the health care is delivered via a private system that is largely free enterprise with some government oversight. The system is regulated in the sense that government ensures that laws are not usurped and health insurance access is not denied. For those who can not afford it, the govenment subsidizes but does not povide insurance as in Medicaid or Medicare here. Of course, there is some role for government as a country without any government desolves into anarchy. However, a true free market system will self regulate.

Since that contention wasn’t, um, being advanced by the portion of text that you quoted immediately preceding the suggestion of the broken window fallacy, I, um, assumed you were, uh, referring to something that actually had to do with the quoted text. My mistake.

Um, no. Here’s what you appear to be referring to: “The incentives [in the Netherlands] are designed to provide excellent care to as many people as possible, cheaply and efficiently no matter what their health status, rather than the perverse US system in which the incentives are to deny care and only sign on the healthy.”

Um, yes. Since the “US system” the author is referring to in the context of his comments is the private health insurance industry in which insurance agencies decide who to cover and who not to cover based on risk without the interference of government, the meaning is exactly the same.

That’s, er, not the same thing as calling “private health insurance” itself perverse.

Actually, er, as I was just, um, pointing out, when the author’s meaning in saying “US system” is elucidated in the course of his writing to mean “unencumbered free market insurance agencies issuing policies based on risk without being coerced into covering certain people by the government”, it actually is the same thing.

Indeed, the author praises the system there by saying it “shows what a well-regulated private market can do”. He’s in favor of private health insurance, but with specific regulations.

A market where the government coerces private business to make certain decisions by force of law can’t properly be called a private market, and certainly not a free market. Since your formal background is, apparently, in linking to blogs about about atheism and natural science, perhaps you’re unclear on the precise meaning of those terms?

Therefore, “perverse US system” is for all practical purposes synonymous with “private health insurance,” regardless of where else such terminology might be employed elsewhere.

In addition, an inefficient system does not implicitly suggest the broken window fallacy. All systems are inefficient to one degree or another. These inefficiencies are not deliberate, and they are certainly not a matter for government to solve.

It is government intervention that has brought us to where we are in terms of health care. Like it always does when it intervenes in the private market, government has unbalanced and therefore corrupted the American health care delivery system. Now it wants to rush in and “solve” the problem when there is absolutely no indication or history that suggests that it can be successful.

After all, seniors are still having to choose between food and medicine, and the poverty rate has hovered around the 12% level for decades. But the prior blanket failures of government interventionism rarely dissuades the “true believers.” Government has yet to show us a single success in solving social problems. Why in the world would any sane person want to give government the health care industry?