health care | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

John McCain on Health Care

I admit I’ve sort of been hiding from the health care debate because anything coming from John McCain would be infinitely better for me (and health care is a big part of my life) than what Hillary and Obama are selling, and I’m also sort of avoiding unpleasantries like worrying about how fast socialized health care will literally kill me.

McCain is saying all the right things with his health care agenda. Here’s his intro to it in the National Review.

What exactly is the problem with the American health-care system?

The problem is not that Americans don’t have fine doctors, medical technology, and treatments. American medicine is the envy of the world. The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance. The vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends many billions each year to provide even more.

The biggest problem with the American health-care system is one of cost and access, and as a result tens of millions of individuals have no insurance. For example, we currently spend for about 2.4 trillion dollars a year on health care. A decade from now that number, under current projections, will double to over four trillion dollars.

The Obama and Clinton response to these problems is to promise universal coverage, whatever its cost, and the massive tax increases, mandates, and government regulation that it imposes. But in the end this will accomplish one thing only. We will replace the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of the current system with the inefficiency, irrationality, and uncontrolled costs of a government monopoly. We’ll have all the problems, and more, of private health care — rigid rules, long waits, and lack of choices, and risk degrading its great strengths and advantages including the innovation and life-saving technology that make American medicine the most advanced in the world.

I have a different approach. I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health-care system to the patients themselves. To that end, my reforms are built on the pursuit of three goals: paying only for quality medical care, having insurance choices that are diverse and responsive to individual needs, and restoring our sense of personal responsibility.

Read the whole thing here, and then get more details at the Health Care section of his website.

McCain visited the Cleveland Clinic today, and the text of the speech on health care is here.

Be sure to also read what others in the media and punditocracy have had to say about his health care agenda.

This is why I’m not voting for Romney

UGH.

I’ll vote for (and campaign for) Romney in the general election should he be the nominee, but RomneyCare is another major reason I can’t vote for him in the primary. If he is elected, I’ll fight this to my dying breath.

There are many other reasons why I’m supporting John McCain, of course. What follows is McCain’s ad about RomneyCare, but it goes much deeper than a 30-second ad, of course.

Spending on the state’s landmark health insurance initiative would rise by more than $400 million next year, representing one of the largest increases in the $28.2 billion state budget the governor proposed yesterday. The biggest driver of the cost increase is projected growth in the number of people signing up for state-subsidized insurance, which now far exceeds earlier estimates. State and federal taxpayers are expected to bear nearly all of the additional cost. Although the price tag for the initiative is ballooning, the governor yesterday reaffirmed the state’s commitment to ensuring that nearly every resident is covered.

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