Comments on: Open government: Obama health care team responds to citizen feedback

By: robironman

robironman — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:01:03 +0000

We do not want the government running heath care. WE DO NOT. Everything they do is over cost and over run. Please America, Wake up. Government does a lousy job of anything, let alone your heath care. We do not want government running health care.

By: Colin Waters

Colin Waters — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:19:44 +0000

Is this a dream? Or did the government actually listen to the people for once and come back to them with an answer. WOW!

By: Eric Eldon

Eric Eldon — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:58:50 +0000

Thanks, Mark. I can only respond by saying that you should tell them why they're wrong on Change.gov. Hopefully they'll continue developing a method for receiving feedback that gives your criticisms airtime. Such a back-and-forth process is what open government _should_ be about, after all. Not just preaching to the choir.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:30:12 +0000

With respect, the comments are directed to anyone who thinks the healthcare reform initiatives presented so far and the people that are being put in charge of the effort, will be effective. Not meaning to shoot the messenger, but I hardly give their team credit for using YouTube to talk about an insane health policy agenda.

By: Eric Eldon

Eric Eldon — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:01:26 +0000

Andrew, you're certainly right that the majority can be wrong. The point of democracy is that by having an open debate, the best ideas can be discovered, debated and ultimately implemented.

As the Churchill quote goes:

“Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

You may be right about some forms of preventative care being a waste of money. My personal form of preventative care — trying to exercise regularly, sleep a reasonable amount and eat at least somewhat healthy food — seems to work pretty good. That's probably not what you mean, though

By: Eric Eldon

Eric Eldon — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:56:20 +0000

Mark, um, not sure if you meant to direct that comment at me or at Tom Daschle. I didn't endorse the “health corp” program, I just said that Daschle and his team had mentioned it in the video.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:42:44 +0000

Unfortunately, popular grassroots consensus and “common sense” is frequently dead wrong on a number of issues, not that government policy is much better in most cases, so I am not sure that this will help much. A mob of ill-informed people does not lend authority to their argument by virtue of being a mob.

To use an example from up above, Americans already get more preventative healthcare than their European counterparts (per the medical literature on the subject), and in the healthcare economics literature it is widely considered to be one of the biggest sources of waste in the American systems since, counterintuitively to many people, most preventative healthcare costs a lot more money than it saves outside of a few diagnostic procedures and the usual array of vaccinations. People want more “preventative healthcare”, not realizing that they already get more than is useful and that it is a major source of healthcare spending waste.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:14:13 +0000

Just by your comments, you clearly don't understand the business aspect of healthcare. A “health corp” programme is so unrealistic, it's laughable to know that someone with zero real healthcare industry experience is now leading the government's efforts on reform.