首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Let’s Not Hide Health Costs We are awash in health-care proposals. President Bush has one. So does California Gov. Arnold Sc
Let’s Not Hide Health Costs We are awash in health-care proposals. President Bush has one. So does California Gov. Arnold Sc
admin
2013-05-20
40
问题
Let’s Not Hide Health Costs
We are awash in health-care proposals. President Bush has one. So does California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has a plan, as does a coalition led by Families USA (a liberal advocacy group) and America’s Health Insurance Plans (a trade group). To some extent, all these plans and others aim to provide insurance to the estimated 47 million Americans who lack it—a situation widely deplored as a national disgrace. But the real significance of all these proposals, I submit, lies elsewhere. For decades, Americans have treated health care as if it exists in a separate economic and political world: when people need care, they should get it; costs should remain out of sight. About 60 percent of Americans receive insurance through their employers; to most workers, the full costs are unknown. The 65-and-older population and many poor people receive government insurance. Except for modest Medicare premiums and payroll taxes, costs are largely buried in federal and state budgets.
It is this segregation of health care from everything else that is now crumbling—and the various health proposals are just one sign. We see others all the time. For example, even with employer-provided insurance, workers’ monthly premiums (which cover only part of the costs) have skyrocketed. From 1999 to 2006, they doubled from $129 to $248.
Look at Massachusetts. Last year the then Gov. Mitt Romney made headlines by signing legislation to cover all the state’s uninsured. The law required that everyone with incomes three times the federal poverty line buy "affordable" insurance (people with incomes below that threshold would be subsidized on a sliding scale). Romney suggested annual premiums for a single worker might total $2,400. But when insurance companies recently provided real estimates, the cost was much higher: $4,560. Is it a sensible policy to force workers with a $30,000 income—about triple the poverty line— to spend nearly a sixth of their budget on health insurance, as opposed to food, rent or transportation? Good question.
The hard questions won’t sit still, because health care (now a sixth of the economy, up from an 11th in 1980) is too big to be hidden. Myths abound. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the doubling of premiums for employer-provided coverage doesn’t mean companies shifted a greater share of costs to workers. In both 1999 and 2006, premiums covered 27 percent of costs, says Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. It’s simply the rapid rise in total health spending that’s depressed workers’ take-home pay.
One myth about the uninsured is that, because they’re heavy users of emergency-room services, providing them with insurance (and regular care) would actually lower their costs. This may be true for some—but not most. The trouble is that the uninsured don’t really use emergency rooms heavily. A study on the journal Health Affairs finds that their use is similar to that of people with private insurance—and half that of people with Medicaid. The upshot is that extending insurance to all the uninsured would be costly, because they would get more and (presumably) better care. John Sheils of the Lewin Group estimates the annual cost of their care would rise 75 percent to $145 billion.
Our health-care system will inevitably combine government regulation and private enterprise. But what should the mix be? Which patients, providers and technologies should be subsidized and why? How important is health care compared with other public and private goals? Will an expanding health-care sector spur the economy—or, through high taxes and insurance premiums, retard it? We have refused to have this debate for obvious reasons. A friend of mine recently had a near-death experience; he survived only because he had superb medical care. Debating health care makes us queasy, because it pits moral imperatives (including the right to live) against coldhearted economics.
I don’t intend to examine—at least now—all the new proposals. Some would do better at some goals (say, protecting the poor) than at others (say, controlling costs). But the Bush proposal does have one huge virtue: it exposes health-care costs to the broad public. By not taxing employer-paid insurance, the government now provides a huge invisible subsidy to workers. Bush wouldn’t end the subsidy, but by modifying it with specific deductions for insurance ($15,000 for families, $7,500 for singles), he would force most workers to see the costs. By contrast, some other proposals disguise their costs. Schwarzenegger’s plan shifts costs to the federal government, doctors and hospitals. It’s clever, but it perpetuates the illusion that health care is cheap—or even free.
However our health system evolves—with more government control or more market influence—Americans need to come to a more realistic understanding of its limits. Underestimating its costs and exaggerating its benefits guarantees disappointment. If the present outpouring of proposals signals a start of our needed debate, then it is long overdue.
The word "upshot" in paragraph six means ______.
选项
A、myth
B、effect
C、outcome
D、misunderstanding
答案
C
解析
第六段讲人们对未投保人的误区,认为未投保人大量使用急诊室服务,那么该误区的结果是给未投保人保险的代价是昂贵的。故C为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/TP4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Fewpeoplerealizethatgettingpregnantcanmeanlosingyourjob.Imagineawomanwho,sevenmonthsintoherpregnancy,isfir
Fewpeoplerealizethatgettingpregnantcanmeanlosingyourjob.Imagineawomanwho,sevenmonthsintoherpregnancy,isfir
FiveyearsafterCaliforniastartedcrackingdownonjunkfoodinschoolcafeterias,anewreportshowsthathighschoolstudent
HealthregulatorsonFridaydetainednineshipmentsoforangejuicefromBrazilandCanadathatcontainedtracesofanillegalf
HealthregulatorsonFridaydetainednineshipmentsoforangejuicefromBrazilandCanadathatcontainedtracesofanillegalf
ScientistssaidThursdaythatanewAIDSvaccine,thefirsteverdeclaredtoprotectasignificantminorityofhumansagainstth
IntheUS,pollafterpollhasshownamajorityinfavourofanimalexperimentation,evenwithoutstatementsaboutitsvalue.Wh
London’sleisureindustryhopesforabonanzainJulyandAugust,thankstotheOlympics.Tolurehordesofvisitors,acampaign
A、5or6months.B、9or10months.C、Oneyear.D、Oneyearandahalf.B
A、ItisnotsurewhethertheDoharoundcanbefinalizedinseveralmonths.B、148nationsareinvolvedinthisround.C、Thesena
随机试题
Ⅱ型呼吸衰竭吸氧浓度是
A、停经后先出现少量阴道流血,量比月经少,伴有轻微下腹痛。妇科检查发现子-宫大小与停经周数相符,宫颈口未开,胎膜未破,妊娠产物未排出,HCG(+)B、停经后阴道流血量增多,阵发性腹痛加重。妇科检查发现子宫大小与停经周数相符或略小,宫颈口已扩张,见
桃核承气汤属于左金丸属于
对于以线源为主的城市道路等项目,大气环境影响评价范围可设定为线源中心两侧各()的范围。
施工现场围挡高度在市区主要路段不宜低于()m,在一般路段不低于()m。
下列属于比尔.盖茨关于“十大”优秀员工准则的是()。
老人摔倒在地,众人围观不前。初闻乍听,这似乎又是一道人性与现实的道德考题:扶吧,顾虑重重担心被讹;看吧,又怕事后良心谴责。事实上,媒体报道了发生在衡阳街头的这一幕后,网络之上、跟帖之中,同样折射了这种耳熟能详的内心纠结。但这次真的不必如此解读,细观此事,“
2018年年末,全国卫生人员总数达1230.0万人,比上年年末增加55.1万人。从卫生技术人员学历结构来看,本科及以上占34.6%,大专占37.8%,中专占22.3%,高中及以下占5.4%;从技术职务(聘)结构看,高级(主任及副主任级)占8.0%,中级(主
Inasense,thenewprotectionismisnotprotectionismatall,atleastnotinthetraditionalsenseoftheterm.Theoldprotec
A、Theydon’thavetheirowncarstodrivetowork.B、Manyofthemareromanticbytemperament.C、Mostofthemenjoythedrinkso
最新回复
(
0
)