Well, Scott Brown is the new duly elected Senator to Congress representing the great state of Massachusetts, running as an independently minded Republican who vowed to be the 41st vote against the healthcare bill. This is a true blessing. I think it is clear that everyone wants healthcare reform, including Republican lawmakers, but the majority of people simply don’t like the wholly partisan manner in which the Democrats have gone about it, which includes cutting backroom deals behind closed doors with special interests, particularly when Obama promised the process would be open. In this regard, Democrats have affirmed that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. What is important to understand is that the healthcare bill as it stands now does not solve a single problem, but creates another hugely expensive Ponzi scheme akin to the soon to be bankrupt Social Security and Medicare programs (which at least had bipartisan support when crafted). The bill demonizes the entire insurance industry by regulating it as a public utility instead of as the free market offering that it is, forcing them to sell actuarially unsound policies that are no longer based on risk but on arbitrary rules created by bureaucrats. I am no shill for the insurance industry, and realize there have been some unsavory practices, but that’s what laws are for. If insurance companies violate laws, then they should be punished to the fullest extent, since healthcare is serious business that cannot stand any chicanery. It should be the most integral of businesses since lives hang in the balance.
The healthcare bill should first and foremost focus on bringing down costs by increasing competition, which is nowhere present in either the House or Senate bills. This is breathtaking in its inanity. Enormous taxing and spending without a single reasonable provision for bringing costs down other than forcing doctors to accept less or rationing of care. If they were serious about lowering costs, they would do the obvious things. This would first entail preventing states from restricting the sale of insurance across state lines. States, not the federal government, should mandate that people have health insurance in the same manner they mandate auto insurance, but should not be able to mandate what specifically must be in the coverage, which only raises costs. Instead, a consumer should be able to choose options that are right for their situation just as they do with auto and home insurance. Also, what is sorely needed is tort reform so doctors don’t have to pay exorbitant medical malpractice premiums, and won’t have to practice defensive medicine, both of which raise medical costs. Further, small groups and individuals should receive the same tax advantages as corporations. Finally, if people must buy their own coverage and must pay more due to their own individual lifestyle choices, then it will encourage them to live more healthful lifestyles. People who live unhealthy lifestyles should be held responsible for their actions. With this bill, the promise from the government is that you’re covered without having to accept responsibility for yourself.
I think the bottom line is that our society has become so dumbed down that people expect someone else to do the thinking for them and to confer on them as “rights” what are actually privileges. Once a good or service becomes a right, one doesn’t have any responsibility to provide it for themselves but to look to someone else to provide it for them. Unfortunately, liberals are more than happy to indulge these types by saying "we will take care of everything and you don’t have to think as long as you give us your vote." What people don’t realize is that they have given up their liberty in exchange for such determinism, which is a dangerous thing because though one may feel some sense of comfort, ultimately one is left with little in the way of liberty, and little concept of how to solve one’s own problems the old-fashioned way: through hard work and determination. One becomes a slave to the state. As a conservative, I have no desire to make decisions for capable adults, but am more than happy to educate them so they can make good decisions for themselves. If one chooses to make poor choices of their own volition with a command of the relevant facts, then one will have to accept the consequences of their actions. Life has always been that way, as ultimately, there is no way government can save people from themselves.
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Cheryl, thank you for your comment and I understand your point. Actuarial tables account for the risks you cited, and is ongoing work at all insurance companies as statistics change. That is precisely why it is wrong for an insurance company to cover someone and then drop them because they become ill (which is unlawful). When an insurance company offers a policy, it must live up to the agreement that it has made with the insured to continue to provide coverage as long as the insured is paying premiums. Clearly, as we get older, our premiums will go up in accord with increased risk. That should be expected.
Mostly I am in agreement with you article that there are improvements possible in America’s healthcare such as tort reform and portability, etc…,….save one point made in it and the above comment.
When you start the slippery slope of picking winners and losers with activities such as smoking (legal cigarettes or cigars), then you begin the dive into salt, sugar, alcohol, weight, dna, family history, fair skinned people more likely to get skin cancers, blacks have a higher percentage risk of sickle cell anemia, etc. Insurance is a risk pool. If you wish to lower the risks, then you must accept all people have some proclivity to some disease or accident at some time in their lives and throw out anyone who may cause the pool to pay for their medical care. You could just throw everyone out because I doubt you can find a human being that is immune to all illness. Picking out one group of people because they do something that is currently unpopular may make you cheer…until you are the next one picked on.
Be careful what you wish for…..you might get it.
Dear Walter
This is an outstanding article, and one that ALL adult health consumers should have the opportunity to read and think about.
I don’t think that there exists, anywhere in the world, anything resembling a workable health system. Australia is supposed to have one, and every wage and salary earner has to pay a Medicare levy of one and half percent of their salary to the Federal Government. Waiting lists even for urgent surgery are years long, doctors are overworked, nurses work to rules, and wastage is rampant. Giant teaching hospitals just burn money and ‘health care’ is like social justice and equal opportunity – words that express worthy ideas, but have no actual meaning! Education is DEFINITELY part of the answer, and people do need to take responsibility for leading healthy, functional life-styles.
My daughter wrote an essay when she was in Junior High School, in which she suggested that one of the ways to curb and eventually stop people smoking was to make all people pay more towards Medicare – say 3%. A doctor could certify a patient as a non-smoker, and the levy that hey would pay would be scaled back to the usual 1 and a half%, which would be paid into a health-care superannuation fund, so that health costs for the aging would be subsidised.
Everyone who paid health insurance would be entitled to an income tax rebate, which they could elect to have paid to them annually, or paid into that same health superannuation, to further offset health care costs as the person ages.
Obviously a 14 year old isn’t as sophisticated as an adult with more experience and costing and infrastructure knowledge, but I hear no real suggestions for reform and/or original thinking coming from people who CAN make a difference LIKE our legislators!
The tort reform you suggested is also an imperative. Doctors ARE human; some of them do make MISTAKES that turn out to be fatal, and patients must have some kind of recourse in that eventuality. However, many people, encouraged by lawyers, are litigation-happy, and it almost appears that a loved one who has died from suspected malpractice suddenly becomes little more than a ‘business opportunity’!
As I said, Australia has a nominal Health Care System for which both Federal and State Governments provide a budget. People CAN get ‘free’ medical and hospital care, if they are prepared to take ‘pot luck’ with the doctor they are allocated, eschew personalised care, leave as soon as they are ambulatory and can be signed over into the care of friends/relatives, and are prepared to wait up to 30 months, with possible reschedules, if programs are running behind in either time or budget.
Each state has it’s own ‘take’ on what “Public Health Care’ should comprise, and that is subject to change when governments change. Socialists are more inclined to talk ‘ideas’ and micro-manage the system according to agenda (and perceived vote-winners), with Unions participating in driving up costs (salaries) and cutting back workloads (conditions). Conservatives are more ‘doctor-friendly’ and are usually pushing for people to play their role in programs aimed at preventative medicine. The bureaucrats don’t change (“we knew there’d be a Minister, Minister” to quote Sir Humphrey from “Yes, Minister!” and find new and different ways to justify their existence by burdening the medical practitioners with reams of largely unnecessary paperwork. The prevailing attitude is that doctors ‘cant be trusted’.
Private Health Care here, on the other hand, is run by doctors and private companies, and is outstanding. Private Health Insurance is not really expensive for what it provides, but is beyond the budget of ordinary families. I honestly do not think that non-doctors can effectively administer hospitals and health care. Certainly no politician, or no bureaucrat is up to the task.
It is the role of government to set up governing infrastructure and utilities – medically qualified professionals should set up and administer health systems that are needs- focussed.
To paraphrase an old adage: ” I’ve been a private patient and I’ve been a public patient, and private IS BETTER!”
I believe that a nation capable of putting a man on the moon is capable of ensuring that no person goes without the best chance of healing when they are sick and helpless. It is a moral imperative and new and better ways of achieving that goal need to see the light YESTERDAY!
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