I'm all for reform but based on the crap they've tried to pass thus far, they may end up making things worse rather than better. By no means am I advocating that healthcare is a human right. I believe that everyone, who is able, should be responsible for the choices they’ve made especially regarding their well-being. That being said I’m going to attempt to explain how health insurance works before tackling the Public and Private solutions (Took me all day to write this up. Missing quite a bit so far, but its worth a look/discussion. It is a bit long, so bear with me….):
We know the basics of what insurance is. Whether it is for your car/home/health/etc. it is coverage “in case” something bad happens. Obtaining coverage, you must go through a screening in order for the insurance investor (lets be real, they are investing that nothing will happen to you while you are paying them, that’s how businesses make money). Your rate is determined by “pre-existing” factors. For cars: your driving history, tickets, accidents, etc. For homes: environmental factors (flood, earthquakes, etc), condition of home, etc. For health: lifestyle habits (smoking, eating, drinking), family history, etc. Let’s be clear, you can be denied access to coverage for any type of insurance if you present that you will cost the investor. You can be denied auto insurance. You can be denied home insurance. You can be denied life insurance. You can be denied health insurance. That being said if you ARE covered, you are essentially in a pool with other individuals being covered. The cost you pay for covered is based on the information you’ve given plus the cost of the goods and services required for keeping you healthy. When someone in your pool becomes sick, the cost for covering that person is spread amongst the other members of the pool. There are ways to drive costs down, and all it takes is volunteering to adjust your lifestyle by living healthier. That means: exercise, eating habits, smoking, drinking, sexual habits, etc would have to lean towards improving your personal health. If we each take a little more care in how we take care of OURSELVES and instill those habits into our children, prices are more than likely to drop. There are other factors (prescription costs, inflation, etc), but I’ll try to cover them ahead.
We do have a public (Government) plan in place. Medicare and Medicaid. Medicaid and Medicare have its shortcomings. There are cases of the government rationing benefits in order to save money but at the cost of your health. It should not be that way. Imagine cases like this on a national scale and you can see why the opponents to the Healthcare Bill are worried. (Hint: it isn’t about color of the skin of our President) For this government system to work, EVERYONE who works and collects a paycheck has to pay into the system (which you already do for Medicaid, Medicare & Social Security by the way and are set to increase for everyone for the program to work. No taxes on the middle class my ass…). Similar to how the insurance system works, everyone is a part of the pool. This program should work as a “safety net” for the public. It should cover those people who could not be covered by the private system, which it does, but it LIMITS COVERAGE to keep costs down. The more people in the pool needing coverage, the more costly it is to cover them, which means the more money will be needed to cover the people needing help. A board looks at your case and determines if you should have that operation. They don’t care if you pay them back, but they care if this operation will affect the national deficit. Another credible reason why opposition to the Government plan fears it: increasing the deficit. Ways to keep the costs down are similar to the private option. Changing your personal lifestyle is the first step. The difference is, the Government can “force” you to change your habits by influencing you. The cigarette and sugar taxes aren’t just for revenue people. It is just the beginning of controlling lifestyle habits through taxation. Also, it is one of the ways that the middle and poor classes will be affected. The second, of which we covered earlier, is by limiting coverage. (You should wonder why some hospitals don’t accept Medicaid as a form of coverage: it doesn’t cover costly procedures)
The private plans are your “evil” insurance companies. Let’s get this straight; businesses are in it for making profit. Similar to the Government plan, the private companies are trying to save money anyway they can by rationing coverage (yes, we already have a system where coverage is rationed…lets be real Republicans). A board looks at your case and determines if you should have that operation. They look at the type of career you have and determine if you have the ability to pay them back if the procedure has been approved. (I’m going to get chewed out for this next one) The business has a right to deny coverage because they are investing in you NOT to get sick. The empathic part of me understands the anger towards the private market because a lot of the problems stem from greed, plain and simple. The bad kind. (There is such thing as good greed) This is where decisions are made to make the company profit, but at the cost the service it supplies to its customers. Companies should follow suit as we should as individuals, stated in our Bill of Rights and our Constitution: you have the freedom to do whatever you like, with the exception that it does not infringe upon the welfare of others.
Another negative aspect of the private system falls upon private practices run by doctors whose duty it is to help their patients, have been clouded by "bad greed". There are cases in which certain doctors will authorize unnecessary procedures/test because of the finacial gain it brings to the practice. The motives could range from personal debts, cost of supplies, malpractice insurance rates, etc. So how do we control this? The options are being floated around: lowering the inflated cost of the supplies, doing away with the no-limit malpractice suits, subsidizing/lowering the costs for medical school, etc. (Quick way: FairTax baby...) Of course there will be some that will seek to take advantage, even if these problems didn't exist, but we shouldn't need the Government to step in to find a solution on how to deal with criminals, or do we?
Washington has recently pulled the public option from their draft of the Healthcare Bill. The Democrats control all three branches of government and have removed the public option the day before our President said he’d sign what ever they bring him a week ago. The Republicans were not responsible for the defeat of the Healthcare Bill back in 1994, despite what the President said last night. The people in this country read the bill the Democrats (they ran ALL three branches of Government in 1994) attempted to pass during that time and called their representatives to demand that it doesn’t pass. the people then knew the danger and so should you here in 2009. Democratic Senators have said in the last few weeks that they don’t even know what’s in this bill because it’s too confusing. Do you feel safe that they AREN'T READING/COMPREHENDING THE BILLS THEY PASS?! You think this is about helping you? You aren’t worried of the future implications?
We need real discussion before passage of ANY bill of this magnitude. Plowing forward and making “bold” moves can shackle future generations to a possible mistake that we know NOTHING about because our leaders know less about it than we do.
