Short Quiz - Health Care/Insurance Reform

[johnkarls]

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Question 1

What is a “Quality-Adjusted Life Year” (or “QALY”) per the Wikipedia article posted on our web site?

Question 2

In determining what medical procedures will be authorized, how much per QALY does Britain’s National Health Service authorize?

Question 3

In determining what medical procedures will be authorized, how much per QALY do some so-called “gold plated” American employer-provided health-care plans cover?

Question 4

Is the QALY concept universally utilized by both employer-provided and individual health-insurance policies (as well as by foreign universal-health-care plans)?

Question 5

Under the various health-care bills percolating through Congress, would a Health Czar or a Health Panel make such determinations for a particular procedure as to the probability of various outcomes from the procedure and the “quality” rating for each additional “year” that would likely result under each of the various outcomes?

Question 6

Would a parent want a higher QALY for her/his child than s/he can afford? (Denzel Washington’s “John Q” directed by Nick Cassavetes (2002) took a hospital’s emergency room hostage until doctors agreed to perform a heart transplant that wasn’t covered by insurance and one wonders whether John Q thought he could afford to go to jail while his son grows up.)

Question 7

If a “panel” rather than a “Czar” makes the QALY determinations that are inherent in EVERY health plan, is it fair to call the panel a “death panel”?

Question 8

Have the Democrats and their media supporters been successful in pretending that the U.S. governmental panel that will make the QALY determinations on an on-going basis (as procedures develop – and their cost and success rates change) has nothing to do with the “death panel” issue and that it really relates to whether “end of life” counseling will be provided?

Question 9

Have seniors been vociferously opposed to the new proposals because they hear so much about “raiding” social security to “pay” for covering the 47 million uninsured? And do they correctly perceive all the talk about “Medicare savings” as nothing more than reducing Medicare QALY’s?

Question 10

Is a “mandate” the politician’s favorite method of financing a government program without appearing to raise “taxes”? For example, could state governments have accomplished the exact same result as mandating that all drivers carry liability insurance by imposing a tax on drivers that funds a state-provided liability-insurance policy that covers all drivers?

Question 11

If politicians refuse to permit insurance companies to take a factor such as age into account, isn’t a portion of a young person’s health-insurance premium really a “tax” that is used to subsidize older citizens?

Question 12

If politicians refuse to permit insurance companies to take into account such factors as smoking and obesity, isn’t a portion of the health-insurance premium for a person pursuing a healthy life style a “tax” that is used to subsidize smoking and obesity?

Question 13

Hasn’t President Obama been inept in turning over the development of health-care legislation to the Congressional Democratic-Party Leadership when he knows that all of the decisions will have to be made by the “Blue Dog” Democrats (as Democrats representing conservative normally-Republican states or Congressional districts call themselves)?

Question 14

Why have President Obama and the Congressional Democratic Leadership refused to do anything to control health-care costs (despite their rhetoric) as documented in the July 16th Report of the Non-Partisan Congressional Budget Office which touched off the war between the “Blue Dog” Democrats who have to face the wrath of their constituents and their Congressional Leaders?

Question 15

Wouldn’t it make sense for President Obama to endorse the Safeway Inc. method of controlling costs – Safeway Inc. (per the OpEd article of their CEO posted on our web site) charges employees the extra actuarial cost for smoking and obesity – providing a 38% savings? After all, why should this landmark legislation adopt as official U.S. policy (regardless of how “inadvertent” the politicians may claim their myopia is ex post facto) the forced subsidization of smoking and obesity by citizens who conscientiously pursue healthy life styles?????

Question 16

Is it “do or die” this fall for Healthcare legislation because President Obama has already guaranteed with his self-imposed deadline that come January, the national debate will shift to which states and Congressional districts will have to host the “hard core” terrorists from Guantanamo?

Question 17

Were we right to fret at our May meeting when we felt that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were “missing the boat” on a golden opportunity to transform the country’s SINGLE-DIGIT inner-city high school graduation rates? Fretting that the seemingly-permanent popularity of the Democratic Party is really only temporary and that we really should be setting priorities on what we would like to accomplish – prioritizing with one eye toward what we think is really important and the other eye toward what will survive the inevitable swing of the country back to a more conservative mood?

Question 18

Are we Democrats likely to lose California in the future? After all, isn’t it ominous that the 6 recent ballot propositions aimed at partially reducing the state-deficit chasm with various taxes were all resoundingly defeated by a 65% vote?
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