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Obamacare, Even the Watered Down Version, Is Not the Answer |
Thursday, September 10, 2009 (22:30:00) |
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I’ve been holding off on writing about the health care issue for some time. Quite honestly, I didn’t want to get into it. But now that Congress is back in session and President Barrack Obama decided last night was a good time to address the nation and our lawmakers on health care reform, I can’t hold back anymore.
I’m not going to get into some tirade, rant, or whatever other negative description you would offer for what I am going to say. Instead, I am just going to point out why I don’t think the government should run health care, why Obama’s plan is ultimately an attempt at government takeover, and what we should do to start fixing the problem even though it’s really not all that bad.
Last night, President Obama addressed Congress. His speech was quite insightful. To the Average Joe, it may sound like he really has our best interest at heart.
However, his own explanation for his plan last night sounded a lot like the problems we have now. The added bonus we get is that the government will have the opportunity to screw up 1/7 of the US economy much in the same way they have several other programs including the two he cited last night. It’s just not a fix.
| Quote: |
| There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. |
Let’s do the math. The US Census estimated that in 2006, there were 300 million Americans. So, that means 10% of the population can’t get health care coverage.
The way Obama wants to fix this is to require Americans “to carry basic health insurance -- just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.” Since the health insurance will be required, Obama proposes creating a “new insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.”
| Quote: |
| Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we give ourselves. |
This won’t work. It won’t work because we’ll have to appoint a new office to oversee this exchange. We’ll have to appoint people to negotiate for this lower cost coverage.
It sounds good, but anytime the government gets involved in private sector, they screw it up. The government is not set up to run like a business. It never will.
The most recent failure was the Cash for Clunkers program. The money ran out in less than a week and more had to be infused so that it could run for the target time period. The Cars.gov site shut down on several occasions forcing many dealer employees submitting the rebates to start the 45 minute application process all over. Dealer applications were being turned down left and right for errors as simple as a cross missing on a ‘T’. Some dealers still haven’t even been paid and have been living off of money from the manufacturers until the government payments arrive. The federal government even admits the program was undermanned.
And now he’s asking us to trust the government with 1/7 of the US economy?
He also mentions that choice and competition are the driving forces that increase quality while reducing end consumer cost. This is very true. And he does point to some alarming statistics.
| Quote: |
| Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90 percent is controlled by just one company. |
But how does his proposed insurance cooperative promote that choice? Furthermore, how does his proposed not-for-profit public insurance option promote that choice? It’s just replacing one big company with another.
| Quote: |
| But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers and would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities. |
So now, we have an option that’s cheaper than the big bad insurance company option because the federal government is going to cut costs and forfeit profits? I’m not buying that. Those profits will be replaces by red-tape bureaucratic costs. Have you seen how much basic supplies cost the federal government and military?
Don’t worry though. He has no plan of putting insurance companies out of business. He even minimizes how many people will sign up for the plan saying, “In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up.”
That’s half of those 30 million uninsured. If 30 million is such a staggering number, then half that would be pretty significant? Don’t you think?
So, now the question of money.
| Quote: |
| …those of us with health insurance are paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it, about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care. |
Where is the money for Obama’s public option going to come from? He does dance around the idea that it will pay for itself with premiums collected from the insured. But the whole reason those people want insurance don’t have it is because they can’t afford it. He even says that 95% of all small businesses will be exempt from the requirement to provide health care to their workers. According to the Small Business Administration, that’s roughly 114 million people that could potentially be added to the 30 million that aren’t insured right now.
This coverage will be footed by the public. It won’t be through taxes, though. Don’t worry. He’s promised us that. Instead savings from wasteful programs like Medicaid and Medicare and the big bad profit driven insurance and drug companies will pay for it.
Oh, you mean the savings we got when the federal government cut 500 million for home health care, the only program that’s been proven to work. Or how about the promised savings we’ve been hearing about for years that we’ll get by cutting the red-tape and bureaucratic costs? And then there’s this idea that drug and insurance companies will gladly foot the bill.
[quote] Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers.[quote]
That, my friends is socialism. It doesn’t get much more obvious than that. His plan is ultimately a government takeover.
He says it’s not his goal, but that’s what the end result will be.
Several of his statements, some of which I’ve quoted here, vilify private insurance. He also touts the cheaper higher quality government option. How can a government takeover not be the end goal?
If he really didn’t want government takeover, those statements would not exist in his rhetoric.
Is the problem really even that bad?
According to the statistics provided by the government 10% of the population is without coverage. That means one out of ten people you know don’t have coverage. How many of those are wealthy people who would rather pay for everything out of pocket? How many of those are young people who think they’re invincible?
According to Obama himself, only 5% of the population would select the public option. That means half of that 30 million, or one out of twenty people cannot afford insurance. Isn’t Medicare and Medicaid supposed to take care of those people that can’t afford coverage due to a handicap? How many of that 5% really can’t afford coverage because they cannot work and how many of that 5% choose not to get jobs?
I know people are losing jobs left and right in these trying times. I challenge the argument that it’s as bad as they say it is. I think it’s all scare tactics.
Those scare tactics also include these little anecdotal stories about some poor sap who lost his coverage mid chemo because he didn’t report gallstones he didn’t even know he had and then died when the big bad insurance company delayed his treatment. There’s got to me more to this story. It can’t be as simple as that.
Maybe there were complications with the chemo treatment while gallstones were present? Maybe the gallstones couldn’t be cleared while he was undergoing chemo? I seriously doubt that in today’s litigious society an insurance company would allow a man to die over something so simple.
I’ll agree that our health care system needs some repairs, but not a complete overhaul.
We need to put an end to frivolous lawsuits. We need to encourage preventative health care. Lastly, we need to allow competition across state lines.
The lawsuits are ridiculous. There’s a reason we call a doctor’s profession the practicing of medicine. They’re not going to get it right all the time. Humans make mistakes. We should hold our health care providers responsible for malice and flagrant disregard for sound practices. Anything above and beyond that is excessive. You bring a lawsuit for $5 million dollars on Dr Smith because he missed a heart murmur on your 90 year old grandmother and she died of a heart attack on the way home from her weekly doctor visit, you deserve the punishment.
Preventative care saves money. A car care analogy works well here. Let’s say you have an oil leak that you never notice. You also never change your oil. Eventually, your motor will run dry and seize up. Now, you have to replace the whole motor for several thousand dollars when a $30 oil change performed roughly every 2-3 months could’ve prevented the damage.
Our bodies work much in the same way.
Women live longer than men. Some data puts their lives at 15 years longer than their male counterparts. It’s partly due to stress and partly due to the fact that women visit a doctor more frequently.
Competition across state lines is a good thing. Remember how in Alabama one company controls almost 90% of the market. There are several factors that influence why that is the case. Many companies have decided that it wouldn’t be worth the effort to offer coverage in that area because of the restrictions against coverage across state lines. Remove those restrictions and you increase the competition.
There’s one more topic I would like to discuss before closing this out. A good friend of mine brought up a very valid point some time ago. He said that drug companies and health care providers in general are not rewarded for curing disease. Instead they generate the most profit from treating the disease. His solution is to limit the profit these drug companies and health care providers earn on treatment.
I don’t buy into that just yet. I will agree that a large part of our problem is high drug prices. People in Africa are getting the same drugs we are at a fraction of the cost and it’s because we pay it. But limiting profit isn’t the answer I want to come to.
If a drug company can afford to sell a drug at a fraction of the price overseas, then force them to sell it here for that much. The practice of selling necessity items at inflated prices as the market dictates is price gouging. We don’t allow home improvement stores to inflate prices on certain materials in the path of a hurricane and we shouldn’t allow drug companies to inflate prices of life saving drugs based on market need. |
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