One sixth of the American economy is spent healthcare costs. So reforming this industry seems important. We've gotten some extra time to talk it out with our representatives this month, so let me run down, in comprehensive form, how I see healthcare in America.
What seems to be at issue in this debate are a few things: cost, access, and quality of care.
So, for cost I’ve already cited the over 16% of our GDP spent for healthcare. Furthermore, we hear repeatedly that costs our “skyrocketing” and “out of control”. The sides of the debate see this dilemma very differently.
President Obama and his Democrat allies in the Congress say that costs are up due to the people’s irresponsibility and the insurance company’s price gouging and lust for profit.
The Democrat’s bills attempt to solve this problem using that methodology. They would institute a “public option” or a government run health plan for those who are uninsured. They contend that if the government, who doesn’t need to make a profit, is competing along with the profit driven providers, then it’ll force the private insurers to allow for more coverage and less cost.
There are many problems with this. The line by the left that we need more competition in the healthcare market is absurd. There are over 1,3oo insurance providers in the U.S. competing right now. However, this new competitor in the arena will change the game completely and forever. Let’s take a situation from sports to make the point…
Let’s say the Major League Baseball all of a sudden determined that there wasn’t enough parity or competition in the league. So they would create a 32nd team that would compete along side the other “winning driven” teams. The team would be named the MLB Umpires. What’s more, this new team will be allowed to officiate the very game they’re playing in and get to call the balls and strikes, out or safe, fair or foul in every game. Who would win the World Series under this scenario? It’s pretty obvious.
The same goes for the healthcare market. The Federal Government will make laws they don’t have to abide by, plus make zero money. Their competitors in the market will, though. So in short order the public plan will annually “win” in the market place due to their having an inherent tactical advantage over their free market counterparts. By the way, the market consequence for a provider “losing” is going out of business, forever. What remains will only be the public plan. That’s that single payer healthcare system many have talked about. Canada, Britain, Germany, and other European systems are identical.
So how does one keep cost down in a system where care is “free”? Well, insurance is free financially, but the cost must be paid somewhere. Our sacrifice will be quality and access. Like every government bureau in the country, there’s no incentive to be nice or polite. There’s no other alternative. Another pesky way to keep cost down is to isolate where the most cost comes from in one’s life and minimize it. The answer there is at the end of your life. The only way to minimize cost at the end of life is to simply deny it. “You’ve had a nice life, but your not cost effective anymore”. The President has already said folks should strongly consider hospice care over a life saving treatment. That would be a sure fire way to reduce cost.
Instead of the individual making this choice at the end of life, this plan states that that decision is made usually be a group or board of bureaucrats from the medical and government systems. They determine which treatments are cost effective and when. A horror story in Britain is regarding a disease of the eye called macular degeneration. Under Britain’s rationing body NICE, the drug to treat this condition was only allowed to be prescribed once you lost sight in one eye. Britain is also notorious for having a shortage of dentists. This would be true of most medical areas because the doctors pay would be set by the government and to minimize cost, it would almost always take a cut.
The results of a single payer plan would affect access as well, and not for the better. Assuming the number of doctors doesn’t drop off sharply when their pay is cut, how can we add the entire population of the United States and not add a single doctor or specialist to offset the increased demand? What happens then is you simply have to wait for them. Waiting lists are weeks, months, even years in Canada and Great Britain for simple procedures or a family doctor. That is just what happens when there’s a monopoly in the marketplace.
I didn’t even have to mention access and quality in separate sections because it’s all related to cost saving.
If this sounds barbaric and insane to you, you’re not alone. This is why conservatives have objections to the plans of President Obama and Congress. We’re not trying to scare you, we’re just telling you the future of America under his plan. To most it is scary.
We conservatives tend to believe that the health insurance marketplace is anything but. Our health insurance is unlike every other kind of insurance in two ways: One, it’s tied to one’s job, and two, it covers EVERYTHING, no matter the size.
If you had grocery insurance in the same fashion, you would never look for sales. You would never settle for a less expensive option. You would go big and spend big all the time because you’re not paying. On the same foot, the food producers would have no incentive to lower the price of products because no one knows the price anyway. If the consumer doesn’t care about the price, neither does the producer. That’s why cost is out of control. Nobody knows what they’re spending. And why should they, they’re not paying for it.
Maybe we should have the kind of insurance on our body like the insurance on our home or car. A totaled car or a flooded room is covered, but an oil change and a light bulb replacement is not. This would reveal the true price of the most common health needs. It would force one doctor’s price to be seen along with another’s. This new freedom would spawn consumer websites for health choices for those who aren’t familiar with the ins and outs. It puts the people in charge, not the insurer, and not the government. Offer better care at a lower price, and you’ll get more patients. Aren’t those two of the three problems we have now? They’re solved with this approach.
Another problem that is illuminated now that unemployment is growing near 10% is your insurance is tied to your job. Again, this might sound like a dumb way to do provide healthcare. That’s because it was never meant to be a permanent fixture. This was done under FDR to consolidate the unemployment problems. If you get a job, you get medical care too. It kills two birds with one stone. This was never meant to last, though.
A conservative alternative is to break the bond between the two. Let individuals buy plans for themselves, and let them be portable. If one is concerned about the exorbitant cost of an individual plan, that can be solved with tax credits and simply allowing insurers to offer plans across state lines, thus increasing the pool and driving down price.
Another key ingredient to talk about here is Malpractice reform. There’s an estimated $100 billion in defensive medicine being practiced by American doctors. This is due to the out of control number of junk lawsuits that cost nothing to file and millions to fight. A simple answer is to institute loser pays provisions. If there was really malpractice, then you should win the case, but if you’re out to make money for trial lawyers off the backs of doctors, it’ll be time to pay up.
To the dismay of Obama and Capital Hill Democrats, the GOP does have many plans in both houses of Congress. They all feature parts of this conservative plan, which would focus on the things I laid out here.
So that’s your look at healthcare, I know it’s long and complicated, but the more you know, the better you can convince our representatives to come around and represent our interests. We’ve got a month, lets do it.
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