{"id":6634,"date":"2006-02-16T10:15:55","date_gmt":"2006-02-16T15:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6634"},"modified":"2006-02-16T10:15:55","modified_gmt":"2006-02-16T15:15:55","slug":"when-it-comes-to-your-medical-care-bush-wants-you-to-think-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-it-comes-to-your-medical-care-bush-wants-you-to-think-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to your medical care, Bush wants you to think twice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, in a speech<\/a> that almost no one paid a moment’s attention to, the president visited Wendy’s headquarters in Ohio to talk about health care. He’s still on his Health Savings Account kick, but he’s still having trouble selling it.<\/p>\n

“It means most Americans have no idea what their actual cost of treatment is. You show up, you got a traditional plan, you got your down payment, you pay a little co-pay, but you have no idea what the cost is. Somebody else pays it for you. And so there’s no reason at all to kind of worry about price. If somebody else is paying the bill, you just kind of — hey, it seems like a pretty good deal.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have a hard time believing that even Bush sees the process this way. And yet, it’s another example of the fact that the president believes “that the root cause of most problems with the nation’s healthcare system is that most Americans are over-insured<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Bush’s comments are really illustrative of his entire approach to the issue. I think I can summarize the president’s message in two words: Think Twice.<\/p>\n

Right now, a patient sees his or her doctor. Maybe the doctor recommends some tests. Think twice, Bush says — those tests and exams may be costly. Maybe the patient has a routine exam, as part of a normal approach to preventive care. Think twice, Bush says — you don’t know how much that exam costs. Maybe a patient has an ailment and the doctor recommends a specific treatment. Think twice, Bush says — you should, as he put it yesterday, “worry about price.”<\/p>\n

For reasons that I can’t understand, someone at the White House is convinced that this is a political winner for the president. I can only hope they keep trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, in a speech that almost no one paid a moment’s attention to, the president visited Wendy’s headquarters in Ohio to talk about health care. He’s still on his Health Savings Account kick, but he’s still having trouble selling it. “It means most Americans have no idea what their actual cost of treatment is. You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}