PLANK JULY 30, 2012
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Conservatives have spent a lot of time accusing President Obama of trying to bring socialized medicine to America. It’s a grossly misleading charge: For better or for worse, the Affordable Care Act relies heavily on private insurance and involves far laxer regulation than most universal coverage schemes.
No, if you want to see a system with truly socialistic characteristics, you have to look elsewhere. Israel, for example. And guess who just praised that system? Mitt Romney, while addressing a fundraiser in Jerusalem.
Via Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed, here’s what Romney said:
When our health care costs are completely out of control. Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs.
Miller notes that Israel has a truly universal health care system, in which the government guarantees every citizen not just insurance but insurance with a minimum set of benefits and full choice of provider. That’s all true. But there’s more to it than that. Israel also regulates the health care system aggressively, with what would, by any reasonable standard, qualify as price controls. Jack Zwanziger and Shuli Brammli-Greenberg wrote about this in Health Affairs:
The national government exerts direct operational control over a large proportion of total health care expenditures, through a range of mechanisms, including caps on hospital revenue and national contracts with salaried physicians. The Ministry of Finance has been able to persuade the national government to agree to relatively small increases in the health care budget because the system has performed well, with a very high level of public satisfaction.
The Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff, who dug up the Health Affairs article, adds that “Israel’s lower health care spending does not look to sacrifice the quality of care. It has made more improvements than the United States on numerous quality metrics, and the country continues to have a higher life expectancy.”
It’s true that Romney did not cite the Israeli system as a model for reform in the U.S. He merely praised its performance. He was merely commending its performance. But that tells us something. Like the better performing European and Asian health care systems, the Israelis get good health care while spending a whole lot less money than we do. And they do it with a lot of government involvement.
So was Romney simply clueless about the details of Israeli health care? Was he too busy trying to ingratiate himself with his hosts to pay attention? Or does he secretly think government-run health care has its virtues? I don't know—and I’m not sure Romney does either.
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10 comments
Definition of cushy job: writing ads for this year's Presidential campaign. Where do I sign on. All you have to do is quote this guy.
- Sophia
July 30, 2012 at 3:05pm
"clueless about the details of Israeli health care" Romney is clueless about the details because he is a "big idea" man. Cut taxes. That's the big idea. He only has one of those.
- Nusholtz
July 30, 2012 at 3:08pm
Has there ever been a candidate so without a soul?
- Mikelawyr22
July 30, 2012 at 4:32pm
Jackson had no sould but all that did was make him a total bad ass. Mitt Romney has a soul, it's just a very stupid and corrupt soul.
- ARealHero
July 30, 2012 at 5:42pm
Mitt is a human calculator. He will go with what works to achieve his goal. There is no morals button on a calculator. This is good and bad. He must secure the support of the GOP base, so he is against the ACA. But on the practical level of healthcare that works, there is no doubt that without political constraints his instinct/calculator tells him to go with what works. Look at his tenure as governor. His dangerous amorality aside, there is something elusive about him. Elusive because his statements do not reflect his personality. His statements are calculations that reflect his core--which is ambition. An ambition that is truly world class. An ambition worthy of Balzac. How would Mitt the calculator perform as President? The calculator would blow a fuse--precisely because there is no morals button. And then, for better or worse, we would find out who he really is. It is possible that beyond the ability to crunch numbers, he is truly stupid--stupid about morals, about people, and about history. Nothing he has said or done indicates otherwise.
- Vogelfam
July 30, 2012 at 6:45pm
It would be interesting to see how much Israeli physicians and medical professionals are paid compared to Americans. And yet, I bet Israeli moms are just as proud of their kids who become doctors as American moms are.
- GeoffG
July 30, 2012 at 7:17pm
Not so coincidentally, there appears to be a real battle within the GOP, with the far right attacking more moderate Republicans at the state level. Mitt having come to the obvious conclusion, that socialized medicine works, and yes that being a doctor is about so much more than making a lot of money - isn't able to say so over here for fear of igniting the fascists. That said, he didn't have to go the way of Ryan and Santorum. There must be more than a few Republicans who think the likes of those two, that such extremism - people like Perry, Bachmann, and their ilk are really too much - so why not work more toward the center? The fact that he hasn't says a lot about the man and his desire for power.
- Sophia
July 31, 2012 at 1:20am
The American care is 100% better. The cost is high in America because salaries are 3 - 4 times higher.
- sf4200
July 31, 2012 at 9:28am
Notice how not a single Israeli consumer is quoted. It is far from perfect, but it's the only one they know and have come to expect. And there is a fair amount of criticism in Israel about the health care system particularly in its treatment of the elderly. Yes there are price controls, but there are also doctors' strikes. The way we are going it is a matter of time before we experience this kind of health care delivery.
- NHRDS
July 31, 2012 at 12:00pm
"The American care is 100% better." Two things, sf4200: a) 100%? Seriously? b) However better American care is, if you are blocked from receiving that care, then it doesn't matter whether it's 0.1% or %100.
- ironyroad
July 31, 2012 at 3:35pm