We hold these truths…
March 21, 2008 | General
For the past 15 or so years, politicians have campaigned and debated about healthcare reform. They talk of the 45+ million people in this country that do not have health insurance and that they have a plan to “fix” it so that everyone can have it. The numbers sound astonishing until you realize that it represents approximately 15% of the total population. The good news is that 85% of the residents in this country do have health insurance coverage!
My father worked for a small business that did not supply health insurance coverage while my mother stayed at home to raise seven children. They purchased family plan coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield without government assistance. We were all relatively healthy as children and, accept for the occasional broken bone or sprained ankle, did not frequent the hospital emergency room. The population of the United States was much less back then but the percentage of uninsured people was probably much higher than today. The lack of health insurance coverage was never a topic of political campaigns.
As to the 15% that are not covered, are they all minors or unemployed adults? If some of them are working for companies that do not provide health insurance coverage, there are options that do not require government intervention-medical savings accounts, flexible spending accounts and high deductible health plans. For many it comes down to a matter of priorities, LCD TV versus Plasma TV; fast food or home-cooked food. If they took the savings and put it into one of these accounts they would be surprised at how quickly it grows.
Our constitution grants all citizens certain inalienable rights, however, I do not recall health insurance being one of them!!
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Comment by Nathan March 21, 2008
Surprised that there are people who are totally ignorant of the current system. This system simply can not survive with a projected expense of $13000 per person per year by 2017.
Besides, there is absolutely ‘no transparency’ in the system. Do you know how much a hospital will charge for any given service before you receive the service, if you are uninsured or under-insured? You will not know beforehand; when you receive the bill, it will be 1000-2000% more than what Medicare pays. Is it reasonable?
Another point: Govt provides coverage for about 100 million people in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, VA, etc. It means the remaining 200 million people need ‘private coverage’ of which 50 million are uninsured and another 50 million are under-insured. it means, only about 50% have reasonable coverage.
Basically 50% of the people are left out in the current system. You must be in your dreams to say that it works.
Comment by Lynn March 21, 2008
Does the constitution provide bail-out facility for Bear Stearns when it was going belly-up because of their poor business decisions? Remember that the Government provided $30 billion of tax payer money ….unbelievable.
Private insurance can not be the solution for healthcare. Stop it ASAP.
Comment by Andy March 21, 2008
The author of this original message seems to suggest that you should sell all your belongings including your home, cars, Plasma TV, etc…….and throw the money out the window(if you still have one) for HEALTH INSURANCE…it is a complete non-sense.
Every other developed country spends only half of what we spend…yet they all have access to healthcare. They do not forgo their TVs, cars, etc for health insurance. Fundamental difference is we have private health insurance companies and other countries do not.
Trash the health-plans first.
Comment by Biker March 23, 2008
Hello!!
Just use common sense, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist.
Just compare our healthcare system with other developed countries.
1) US healthcare is in CRISIS and others are not.
2) We spend twice the money per person compared to others.
3) We have private health-insurance and others do not.
Does it require any further analysis of the system? Absolutely not . Just get rid of private health insurance and our healthcare system will be the best in the world. We have the best doctors and medical facilities.
Comment by PJ March 24, 2008
Kudos to Biker.
Other developed countries do not have corporate controlled healthcare but we do here in US. This is the only reason for the current crisis here.
Let the Govt provide an alternative and then health-plans will die on their own. These health plans are the most inefficient companies in the world.
Comment by Bear March 24, 2008
Yeah, our health care system has lots of problems but there’s blame enough to go around. Insurance companies make the process unnecessarily complex or at least, fail to try to make it simpler. Part of this is due to state regulations that require them to do certain things in certain ways — but not the same ways in all 50 states. However, any business other than the semi-monopolies in the communications/cable TV/Satellite TV could not survive with as little corporate attention paid to pleasing their customers as the Health Insurance companies.
That said, costs are also driven up by numerous other factors such as extremely expensive top-end care which is not easily or quickly available in most other countries but which American people have come to expect as their due whether they can individually afford it or not. This attitude extends to unreasonable expectations of medicine in general resulting in expensive lawsuits and high liability insurance costs for doctors and hospitals even when they’re in the right. Guess who they pass those costs on to?
The pharmaceutical giants and medical equipment firms use the big profits they make here to compensate for the minimal profit margins they’re permitted in most other countries. Perhaps that is only fair though since American lawyers (and juries) are most likely to create outrageous awards for sometimes ridiculous claims simply because someone is suffering and such companies have the deep pockets to pay them. Never mind that many reasonable medical advances have been given up due to awards based on pseudo-science given credence in the courtrooms. (Breast implants weren’t the only medical devices using silicon — which was Not a danger).
I wish I had a real solution, but ending greed on all sides is highly unlikely. Nationalizing health care may solve some problems but it will replace them with others and we’ll all pay the price with either increased taxes or inflation and probably with a loss of efficiency too.
Comment by Pagers March 31, 2008
First, we have to understand and accept one fundamental principle; what is more precious? Human life or Money?
There is a clear conflict in the current system. On one hand, we say that life is more precious than money; thats why doctors/hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care irrespective of the patient’s financial/insurance status.
On the other hand, we let for-profit corporations/health-plans control the entire system. For corporations, money/profit is everything and no one should expect them to provide care at the cost of their profit. It means, money is more precious than life.
There is a clear conflict of fundamental principle on which our system is built. Money or life? Without accepting one and only one, the system can not be fixed. Just talking is not going to solve the crisis.
In every other developed country, the system is built on ‘life is more precious than money’.