'America Has Without a Doubt Become More European'

[Draggingtree]

spiegel.de/international:

 

 

 

 

'America Has Without a Doubt Become More European'

 

The news on Thursday that the US Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's healthcare reform took many by surprise. Editorialists in Germany, which is home to universal healthcare, remain baffled by the American debate.

 

In a 5 to 4 vote, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the controversial provision requiring Americans to purchase health insurance was not unconstitutional, as its opponents had hoped, but amounted to a levy which Congress can issue based on its constitutional right to collect taxes. In a surprise move, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, long seen as a staunch conservative, backed the ruling and delivered the verdict.

German healthcare experts have long had difficulty understanding the debate in the United States because mandatory healthcare insurance has been required for decades in Germany, just as it is in many other European countries. People living in Germany cannot be excluded from health insurance because of previous conditions and, for those who are convered under the public-private national healthcare scheme, their premiums are based on how much income they earn.

Opponents in the US argued that requiring Americans to buy insurance is an intolerable intrusion into an individual's right to purchase what he or she feels is necessary and amounts to a move to Socialism, which they reject.

But the court argued that the constitutionality of the law is not based on Congress' right to regulate commerce, as liberals on the court had argued, but on its power to tax citizens.

Proponents argued that health insurance only works if everyone -- sick as well as healthy individuals -- are part of the system. Large health insurers backed this, fearing they would experience big financial losses if required coverage were removed but a mandate requiring them to insure people regardless of their pre-conditions was kept.

On Friday, German commentators examine the significance the Supreme Court decision could have on the Obama presidency, his chances for re-election and the likelihood that the United States will no longer be the only industrialized nation that allows millions and millions of its citizens to go without healthcare.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"It is a scandal that the biggest industrial nation in the world allows 50 million of its citizens -- nearly one-sixth of the population -- to go without Read More http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-press-review-on-supreme-court-decision-on-us-healthcare-reform-a-841701.html

[Draggingtree]

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Government Medical "Insurance"

 

 

Mises Daily:Friday, June 29, 2012 by Murray N. Rothbard

 

 

 

One of Ludwig von Mises's keenest insights was on the cumulative tendency of government intervention. The government, in its wisdom, perceives a problem (and Lord knows, there are always problems!). The government then intervenes to "solve" that problem. But lo and behold! instead of solving the initial problem, the intervention creates two or three further problems, which the government feels it must intervene to heal, and so on toward socialism.

 

No industry provides a more dramatic illustration of this malignant process than medical care. We stand at the seemingly inexorable brink of fully socialized medicine, or what is euphemistically called "national health insurance." Physician and hospital prices are high and are always rising rapidly, far beyond general inflation. As a result, the medically uninsured can scarcely pay at all, so that those who are not certifiable claimants for charity or Medicaid are bereft. Hence, the call for national health insurance.

But why are rates high and increasing rapidly? The answer is the very existence Read More

http://mises.org/daily/6099/Government-Medical-Insurance

[saveliberty]

It's a two tier system in Germany also. The rich and politically important get better care than the regular folk who are obligated to follow the rules.